Cantankerous commentary on what we speak and why we speak it, from Bill Brohaugh
As one who instructs in the craft of writing, I aspire to having something educational or informational or opinionational in each post—and lacking any of that, I try to make up new words, like opinionational.
Since I’m lacking the educational and informational today, I simply offer this little gem, “The Onion: Congress Debates Merits Of New Catchphrase.”
The Comics Curmudgeon blog—pointed commentary on inane daily comics—recently highlighted a Family Circle installment in which dimly precocious young Billy is reading a generic Dictionary and declaring, “That’s weird. ‘VERB’ is a noun.”
To which blog host Uncle Lumpy retorts, “Yes, Billy, and ‘LAME’ is an adjective.”
Interestingly, ‘ADJECTIVE’ is an adjective—or at least it was when it first began, as part of the phrase “noun adjective” (accent the middle syllable, as in objective). But then adjective got nouned into its present-day use.
In which case, look at your almost-dictionary, Billy! “‘NOUN’ is a verb!”
(Non-Inane Comics Alert: Methinks Billy might actually be reading a Calvin and Hobbes retrospective, as it was young Calvin who declared the classic “Verbing weirds language.” End Non-Inane Comics Alert.)
I recall, in slightly fictionalized fashion, a book reviewer chastising a particular anal book of prescriptivistic grammar (”Split that infinitive and die, mongrel dog!”—though that’s perhaps being unfair in the mildness of my paraphrase). The reviewer’s complaint was that said prescriptivist had failed at his own stated level of prescriptivism in using an unaccented E in cliche. The dullard! Without the accent, we’d all be pronouncing it “clitch!” Or some such nonsense that I’m exaggerating. Maybe. This incident seemed to me to be something of the wits chucking nits at each other in wit-nitted battle.
In general, English is strongly accepting of original spelling of its adopted loanwords: rendezvous is my typical example. English isn’t so quick to retain unusual characters like the cedilla (in françois, literally and by way of illustration), the tilde (not your great aunt’s middle name, but the swoopy symbol in mañana and the target of a Nike swoop-infringement suit), or the umlaut (the two dots orbiting the proper name Schröder like Deimos and Phobos, but not like Deimös and Phöbös).
Abandoning such non-English conventions is just fine with me, as I’m a strong believer in the fact that we don’t speak non-English when speaking English—and that applies to the written version, as well. So when the persnickitors (including the automated persnickitor in Microsoft Word) start harrumphing that cliche is a misspelling, I return the harrumph. Is that naive of me?, I ask as I see the persnickitors twitch. You’re not naive! You’re naïve!
Well, maybe I’m both, but I’m also aware of not only the lack of necessity but also the problems of trying to cling to what is for us unusual character sets. Quick, run to your typewriter and find the two-dots-above-the-I key. Not right in front of you? Not in front of me, and in fact I had to turn to a special text-editing program to get access to ANSI character 239(EF). Intuitive, eh?
And then there’s this I spotted on the web:
Depending on HTML code and web browsers to properly interpret some of these character sets is neither naive nor naïve—it is ny-eeeee! I find juvenile pleasure in knowing that the symbol signals “phonological diaeresis.”
Equally quickly, without looking, which way do the accents go on the noun resume: résumè, rèsumé, rësumê, rèçumæ?
I’m certainly not the first writer to campaign for dispensing with foreign characters. Here’s Woody Allen, tongue-in-cheek, of course, in a piece called “Lovborg’s Women Considered” in Without Feathers:
Born in Stockholm in 1836, Lovborg (originally Lövborg, until, in later years, he removed the two dots from above the o and placed them over his eyebrows) began writing plays at the age of fourteen.
There are other good uses for such now-obsolute typographical gymnastics. Here’s Steve Martin, following the lead of the fictional Mr. Lovborg, writing about a supposed shortage of typographical periods in the font style known as Times Roman:
“Most vulnerable are writers who work in short, choppy sentences,” said a spokesperson for Times Roman, who continued, “We are trying to remedy the situation and have suggested alternatives, like umlauts, since we have plenty of umlauts—and, in fact, have more umlauts than we could possibly use in a lifetime! Don’t forget, umlauts can really spice up a page with their delicate symmetry—resting often midway in a word, letters spilling on either side—and not only indicate the pronunciation of a word but also contribute to a writer’s greater glory because they’re fancy, not to mention that they even look like periods, indeed, are indistinguishable from periods, and will lead casual readers to believe that the article actually contains periods!”
Ö!
I recently found myself at an older blog post about creating names. I first thought I had simply surfed there, but now I’m thinking that some kind of karma illuminated my path to said post, The Name Inspector blog’s “10 tips for naming your company, product, or service”:
9. Forget etymology
Maybe it’s shocking for The Name Inspector to say this, but the etymologies of words or word parts that you use in your name don’t matter. What do matter are the associations people make. Sometimes there’s an overlap between the two, though. For example, many people recognize that -lumin- relates to light, and it in fact comes from the Latin word for light. However, most people don’t make the association to light because of their knowledge of Latin or etymology. They make it because they know words like luminous and illuminate and recognize the word part. In general, etymological meaning connections only come through when they’re also part of the living language.
Hmm, says this word maven. My Unfortunate English is devoted to etymology. My Write Tight advises writers to immerse themselves in dictionaries to learn not only vocabulary but also the nuances of word and even syllable origins. “Forget etymology”? “Forget etymology”? Especially in the light (no pun intended) of my undergraduate degree from the University of Wisconsin, whose motto is “Numen Lumen”? “Forget etymology”?
Yup. In this context, the Name Inspector is dead on. Words mean what they mean today, not what they meant once. New names and other neologisms depend on association and resonance with related, living words, as well as with similarity of sonic resonance and even typographical look.
Is it important to understand a word’s history? Yes!, so buy Unfortunate English or you may contract dandruff of the hand! Or to be more a touch more realistic . . . etymology is fascinating, and edifying, and so often surprising. (I’m wondering how many wedding shops would reconsider using the word bridal in their business names if they were to allow original meanings of words to scare them away. Bridal the adjective is a modification of the noun bride-ale, a wedding celebration that involved lots and lots of the final syllable.)
Etymology is also at times confounding and in some situations outright distracting. Which brings us back to the karma that illuminated my path to this post: No one seems to know exactly what the hell “Numen Lumen” means, a mystery so deep that a 1912 issue of Wisconsin Alumni magazine published the winner of a contest asking who could explain it best (the explanation is so esoteric that the first place entry also won second place). I always thought “Numen Lumen” meant something on the order of “knowledge illuminates,” but, obviously, sometimes knowledge just obfuscates. That revelation is an undergraduate education in itself.
Therefore, when bringing new words to the language—for business and product names, to describe new processes or trends, or just for the fun of it—rely on the now as your guiding lumin.
My 6/23/08 tribute to George Carlin was one of several billion tributes posted almost instantly after news of his death began to spread. Likely all but a handful of those gabillion posts mentioned Carlin’s classic “Seven Words You Can Never Say on Television” routine. I, too, mentioned that particular monologue, though within the context of time frame (my meeting him was three years after the arrest for live performance of said monologue) and, more importantly, as contrast with his perceptive analysis of something as specific as a single number—inconsequentional in relation to the world at large, but vastly significant in relation to the comedy of Mr. Carlin.
The googolzillion oh-so-facile references to the Seven Words, the Supreme Court ruling, the etc. etc. etc., particularly from the traditional media perhaps in earnest homage to Carlin but more likely in attempt to give us a touch point to make sure we knew who the heck they were talking about, were not unjustified. Yet, such references distract us from Carlin’s powerful inspection of the microscopy of our lives, the detailed moments that define us as humans, and the fact that we created this world and are not simply victims of it. As I said, a single number, and why we think a hundred and faahve is funny. Extend that back to his lightning-rod routine: Who banned the Seven Words? Not “they.” We did. Carlin showed that we must understand ourselves, and rise above ourselves. And, sometimes, we must simply be happy with ourselves. Multiple messages? No, just perceptive observation of multiple humanly self-conflicted traits. And that’s where his genius resided.
Most commentators note that Carlin eloquently and perceptively observed words. More important, Carlin used eloquent words to reveal perception. Yeah, the Seven Words are a definite moment in his career, but they are not a defining moment. Don’t insult him by seeing him through only that filter.
Amongst the billions of tributes out on the web right now, I particularly like this to-the-point musing, from one Thom363:
George Carlin is dead.
I had the honor of meeting Carlin in 1975, as part of a small group of student journalists interviewing him after a show in Madison, Wisconsin—physical miles and philosophical eons away from Milwaukee, where he was arrested after a 1972 show. The charge: disturbing the peace, because he had uttered the seven words you can’t say on television.
In that ‘75 group interview, Carlin was relaxed and reflective, talking the craft of comedy . . . and the craft of words. He said something in that interview that I’ve quoted dozens of times in the near dozens of years since that interview: “The funniest number of all is 105.” Then he repeated it, stretching it: “A hundred and faahve.” He paused. Perfect timing. “It takes a long time to go through all the others to prove it to you.”
I wrote up that quote as a humorous brief that I submitted as part of my 1976 job interview with Writer’s Digest magazine. I didn’t get that specific job, but I did well enough to be recommended for another spot at the company, and years later became the editor of the Digest. I like to believe that my love of words was instrumental in landing that position; I suspect that relying on Carlin’s wit and perspective communicated that love better than I did myself. Thanks for speaking so well, George.
I find it sadly ironic that the web page displaying the story that told me of his death had two “Related Video” links. One was headlined in words Carlin would have cheered: “Comedian George Carlin dead at age 71.” Right below it, a second link labeled “Comedian George Carlin Passes Away at 71.” Carlin railed against such empty, soft language as “passes away,” and the headline writer has insulted Carlin’s work by using not only the sort of dodge words but also specific dodge words Carlin attacked. Enjoy one of his tart diatribes against euphemisms—including, yes, “pass away”—at YouTube.
I doubt that I’ll be the only person to say this, or even the first. But when I heard this morning that Carlin had died, I uttered a couple of those words you can’t say on television.
Recent interesting words about words:
The English language is a growing concern. Every year, Collins gets a pile of free publicity by publicly announcing new additions to its dictionary . . .
My potshots before shooing you off to Lingua Techna: I’m almost certainly overreacting, but am I supposed to infer that dictionary publisher Collins is adding words for the publicity alone? Let’s then also take to task that cynical Encyclopedia Britannica, which keeps adding facts in new editions, the mercenaries! Besides, doesn’t the wealth of publicity bestowed on the announcement indicate that others are interested in said new words, perhaps more so than certain writers? Finally, the Write Tight editor in me must resort to persnickitation and grumble about the redundant “new additions.” Knee-jerk reaction and all that.
Spotted in a blog:
To atone if your’e a jargoneer: Pick a page (or a paragraph) on your website full of buzzwords and industry jargon. If you can’t be an objective judge, have your husband/wife/teenager/friend read it for you. Cross out all the offensive words. . . .
your’e has a certain bit of French panache to it, doesn’t it? Perhaps the symbol is really a slightly miscentered accent over the E. I’m particularly amused by “Cross out all the offensive words.” Like your’e, perhaps? Granted, this is a typo and not pure misuse, but what the hell, sometimes you gotta swing at the softballs tossed at you. For more graphic illustration of true misuse in everyday life, check out the Apostrophism and Apostrophe Abuse blogs. And mull the, shall we say, understated attitude of GrammarBlog: “Do you think people who don’t know the difference between ‘your’ and ‘you’re’ should be strung up by their gonads? You do? Welcome to GrammarBlog.”
Speaking of French panache, let’s talk about some French pan-ass:
At Dennis Baron’s The Web of Language: More on the Académie Française insisting on wearing “Donnez- un coup de pied moi!” (”Kick me!”) signs on its collective back: Not only does this institution continue to demand purging all non-French words (“One recent example is the Académie’s recommendation of the use of the word ‘courriel’ instead of the English ‘e-mail’”), but now the institution and the people who belong in one demand (no s’il vous plais! involved) that France refuse to recognize even the languages native within its own borders, such as Occitan. Baron writes, “on Monday [June 16, 2008] the Académie Française rejected any attempt to constitutionalize local languages as ‘an attack on French national identity.’” My favorite quote from the post:
France has always been a linguistically-diverse country—the nation is even named after the Franks, a medieval Germanic tribe . . .
Plus, ya gotta like a writer who uses Monty Python to illustrate his points.
Today’s Unfortunate English moment, reflecting back on “unfortunate” word histories:
It’s every lecher’s dream that buxom wenches are buxom.
That statement seems ridiculously redundant until we return to the original meaning of buxom. The modern meaning, showing up by 1600, is “attractive, healthy” . . . and the usual sense today is “healthy” in a particular area of the body that sounds a lot like buxom: the bosom. The buxom wenches that our lechers are likely leering at are, in modern euphemism, well-endowed.
But the word buxom is based on the word bow—not the long-O bow that one might wear on one’s buxom bosom, by the “rhymes-with-wow” bow that one does in deference to another. In the original meaning, someone compliant, obedient, and inclined to bow was bow-some, or, in eventual spelling, buxom.
Now the lechers are catching on. If only that buxom wench was bowsome!
The simplified flow of the word’s meaning changes over the years was something like this, with admittedly some of my musing thrown in*: If one was compliant and obedient (the first sense, now obsolete, in use by 1200), one could in turn be gracious, affable and obliging (an obsolete sense in use by the late 1300s); being gracious, one could be in turn be cheerful, good-natured and jolly (in use by the late 1500s); being the cheery, jolly sort, one in turn could be interpreted to be healthy and possibly observed to be plump (also by the late 1500s).
On the other hand, maybe the lecher isn’t so eager that the wench declare herself to be “buxom at bed and at board,” in that this, until the phrase was removed in the 1500s, was part of the ancient ’til-death-do-us-part wedding vows we speak yet today.
Now, for the wench side of things, ladies might very well dream that handsome men are handsome.
Among the surviving modern meanings of handsome is “physically attractive, good looking” (a perception that is often enhanced if the handsome person takes home a handsome—or considerable and respectable—salary), in a sense in use by the late 1500s. But handsome, by the mid 1400s, was originally “easily handled or manipulated” (though the term was used in reference to things, like axes). This sense of physical grace was applied to figurative grace, and then back again to the physical grace of the handsome lechers dreaming of buxom wenches.
(* This brief historification is performed by a nonprofessional on an open course; do try this at home. And nowhere else.)
One of the points I stress in Write Tight is avoiding stating what the reader already understands, from their experience, pure fact, or what words and language imply. Case in point, from the 6/18/2008 Cincinnati Enquirer:
This is as opposed to all the somber ventriloquists on stage these days—you know, the ones who use wooden dummies to explain the theory of relativity, cardiovascular circulation, and transcendental philosophy. How many ventriloquists aren’t comedic, so why the need to identify Dunham as such?
So at its heart, “comedic ventriloquist” is redundant—and yet I’ll argue with myself now that this is very likely a needed redundancy (how’s that for an oxymoron—in essence, the “needed unnecessary”?) given a general newspaper audience. If one doesn’t know Dunham’s work, simply describing him as a ventriloquist is not as strong an introduction as is appropriate; simply calling him a comedian doesn’t distinguish his style of comedy.
So, the comedic jury is out on this one, and I’ll further waffle by pointing out that fewer words are good, but when considering redundancies and what words imply, always consider what might be lost in meaning, nuance and rhythm when you begin trimming.
By the by, speaking of transcendental: Presidential campaign buzzword alert from Stephen Colbert.
“You put your right foot in, you take your right foot out . . .” Now everybody! It’s etymological “Hokey Pokey” time, so shake it all about. You put your right etymology in, you take the wrong etymology out. You define hocus pocus as a corruption of “hoc est corpus” and I’ll shake you all about.
The wrong etymology of “hocus pocus”—the magician’s incantation—is that it comes from either a misinterpretation or a parody of words in the Latin Mass. I bring this up because a friend recently, with all earnestness, filled me in on this “interesting history.” Wikipedia (sometimes known as “wackypedia” or, in homage to friend Fozzy Bear, “wokkawokkapedia”) helps spread the nonsense:
a distortion of hoc enim est corpus meum—”this is my body”—the words of consecration accompanying the elevation of the host at Eucharist . . . mocked by Puritans and others as a form of “magic words”. The Anglican Canon Matthew Damon, Provost of Wakefield Cathedral, West Yorkshire, says that the dance as well comes from the Catholic Latin mass. The priest would perform his movements with his back to the congregation, who could not hear well the Latin words nor see clearly his movements.
This notymology, says the OED, seems to result from a conjecture by one John Tillotson in a seemingly grumpy sermon from the 1690s: “In all probability those common juggling words of hocus pocus are nothing else but a corruption of hoc est corpus, by way of ridiculous imitation of the priests of the Church of Rome in their trick of Transubstantiation.”
Well, in all improbability, actually. Hocus pocus likely originated as nothing more than part of a series of nonsense syllables used by a stage conjurer (who apparently actually called himself Hocus Pocus) around the 1620s to embellish his act. Later, hocus pocus may have been used in punning reference to words in the Eucharist, but those words are not the source.
So, with all respect to my earnest friend, if you continue to spread the false etymology of hocus pocus . . . You put your wrong foot in, you take your wrong foot out, you put your wrong foot in and you keep it in your mouth.
Bill Brohaugh is the author of Everything You Know About English Is Wrong
