Vol I, No 4

Family Words in English ¹

Allen Walker Read, Emeritus Professor of English, Columbia University

Students of language have long been aware that every speaker participates in a number of overlapping speech communities. The broadest speech community is that using “the language” itself. In the case of English, this is the body of speakers not only in the home area of the British Isles but in the farflung regions where English has been carried. Then there are speech communities of descending size, on the basis of geography, social class, education, occupation, ceremonial activities, recreational interests, and so on, until one reaches the fundamental speech community, the family.

In this article I present examples of words that have had their currency within family limits. Here we can see to good advantage the effervescing of language creation. My material is drawn from a variety of sources: oral reports from friends and students, autobiographies and reminiscences, and in some cases fictional accounts that report family situations with an attempt at verisimilitude.

Let us first take up some expressions that involve figurative speech, chiefly metaphorical leaps in the naming of things. In a New York family, according to a student, parsnips are known as white carrots and pepper as black salt.² In the family of Henry Beckett, a New York journalist, an airplane was called a bird-bus, from the coinage of his daughter Martha, and the American Museum of Natural History was the bone house.³ In another New York family, that of Frederic Fredman, pooh-pooh-head, coined by a daughter, is a term of derogation used about adults. William Holt, an English broadcaster, has reported an animal known as a Yukon, invented by his daughter:

She had invented fanciful animals which were suggested to her by new words and names which she had heard or come across when reading. Animals such as ‘Yukons.’ She really believed at one time that there was such an animal. The word ‘fetlock’ provided her with a useful collective noun for associating with Yukons—‘a fetlock of Yukons.’ When I probed her with questions as to where her idea of a ‘Yukon’ had come from she told me she had seen a book being loaded on to one of my motor libraries, called The Call of the Yukon, and I have no doubt that she distinctly heard its peculiar cry. ⁴

Let us turn next to instances in which devices of word coinage are illustrated. The verb to gramp, a back formation meaning ‘to blow like a grampus,’ can be given. W.E. Collinson has said of it: “This is a good instance of an individual’s creation becoming a family word.” ⁵ The process of analogy accounts for drinkative. As a writer of 1942 has recounted: “A family I know has invented a word (I think) which always pleases me—‘drinkative’—less objectionable than ‘drunken.’ It is probably based upon ‘talkative.'”⁶

The change from one part of speech to another was reported by a New Englander in 1908:

There is hardly a family but has some expressive improvised word. In my own family ‘humbly’ reigns supreme. This is not the adverb of current usage, but an adjective, and a cross between ‘humble’ and ‘homely’; and it was first used to describe our washwoman, who takes such pride in her humbleness, and is of such a superlative weatherbeaten homeliness, that she needed something special to express her personality…. ‘Humbly’ she is, and as ‘humbly Mrs. Wheeler’ she will be known in our family, while the brother who invented the word quite puffs himself up about it.⁷

Blending, or the formation of portmanteau words, is found in other families. Herbert Quick, the Iowa novelist, in Vandemark’s Folly of 1922, put into the fictional narration of an old Iowa pioneer the following sentence: “I remembered, though, how she had skithered back to the carriage.”⁸ Then he added a footnote to skithered, attributed to an educated granddaughter of the pioneer:

A family word, to the study of which one would like to direct the attention of the philologists, since traces of it are found in the conversation of folk of unsophisticated vocabulary outside the Clan van de Marck. Doubtless it is of Yankee origin, and hence old English. It may, of course, be derived according to Alice-in-Wonderland principles from skip and hither or thither or all three; but the claim is here made that it comes, like monkeys and men, from a common linguistic ancestor.⁹

The cleverest of all the family words that have come to my attention is one from Scotland: a celebration of Burns’s birthday, at which haggis was served, was known by the “sandwich” formation Walp-haggisnicht !¹⁰

Fairly mysterious is the word hoosh-mi, from the royal family of England. As the Queen’s former nanny, Marion Crawford, has chronicled:

The pram…remained in purdah for some years together with…the hoosh-mi dish. ‘Hoosh-mi’ is a pleasant word made up by [Princess] Margaret for the nursery mixture of chopped meat, potato and gravy, all ‘hoosh-mied’ up together and spoon-fed to its victim. Later the word was to become part of the schoolroom vocabulary, and a mix of any kind was always known as a hoosh-mi. ¹¹

Its use is illustrated in a later passage by the nanny: “Margaret…has a large round table on which can always be found a lavish clutter. Letters, invitations, dance programs, greeting telegrams—in short, a hooshmi.”¹²

Another favorite type of family expression is the alphabetical abbreviation or acronym. One immediately thinks of F.H.B., for Family Hold Back as a warning when an article of food is low but guests are not supposed to know it. Quite probably this arose as a family expression, but it broke into general usage many generations ago. I remember it from my boyhood as a subject of joking, and Partridge has marked it as from the mid-nineteenth century.¹³

Let us turn now to expressions that have their origin in chance incidents that have taken place in a family. Thus, You ought to see my aunt had currency in an American family, as recorded in 1924 by Harry G. Paul:

In another home a dull servant once said, ‘If you think I am foolish, you ought to see my aunt’; from this grew a custom of the various members of the family censuring themselves for any unwise act by repeating ‘You ought to see my aunt,’ an expression which sometimes astonished and puzzled any stranger who happened to hear it.¹⁴

From an Irish family is recorded the idiomatic phrase, to sing the hundredth psalm. As R. A. Stewart Macalister, the Irish archeologist, explained it in 1937:

How could any non-initiate guess that ‘to sing the hundredth psalm’ meant ‘to fetch a glass of water’— as it does in a family known to me? If he be admitted to the domestic arcana so far as to learn the phrase and its meaning, how could he guess the nexus between the two ideas—a chance remark made upon a midsummer day, that to allow the heated water to run off from the cold-water tap took about as long a time as it would take to perform the act of piety specified?¹⁵

Another fruitful source of family words is the naming of various rooms of a house. Robert Haven Schauffler in 1925 recorded the following: “Children, too, have a sure instinct at times for word coining. I know some who christened their play-room ‘The Squealery.’ ”¹⁶ In a family in Essex, the water closet was called the Euphemism. This arose from the time when a party of visitors came and one delicate-minded lady asked in a whisper, “May we, to use a euphemism, wash our hands?” Thereafter, the lavatory was always referred to as the Euphemism.¹⁷

The terms such as I have been citing are of small use to the lexicographer. He would not wish to include them in his inventory, unless they could be shown to have broken into wider currency. Nevertheless, such material should be watched by the lexicologist for its value in showing tendencies in the language. The family is the matrix in which we see the bubbling up of linguistic experimentation. One of the greatest gifts that can come to a speaker of a language is the sense of freedom to move about among the possible patterns that the language provides for him. This feeling of “at-home-ness” develops and flowers in the family circle.

INTER ALIA I.4.1

□ [The following is reprinted in its entirety from the Public Notices section of The New York Times.]

Having left my bed & board, I, Robert W. Schruhl of 20 Muriel St., Freeport, N.Y. 11520, will not be responsible for any debts incurred by my wife Tanya J. Schruhl.

INTER ALIA I.4.2: Stoke Your Own Poges

Wordmongers can hardly fail to be roused to shire ecstasy in browsing through any guidebook to Merrie England. In fact, it may be their names alone that keep some places merry. Here are assembled in two shameless strophes —by a deservedly nameless compiler—some onomastic gems. They are apparently set to the rhythm of William Allingham’s famous tribute to the Little People, which may have fascinated us in childhood but can indicate that one is heading for that destination the second time, if the attraction persists (Up the airy mountain,/Down the rushy glen,/ We daren’t go a-hunting/For fear of little men;/Wee folk, good folk,/Trooping all together;/Green jacket, red cap,/ And white owl’s feather).

The selection of the meter is evidently based on the accidental circumstance that Ascott-under-Wychwood was chosen as the first line of this geopoetical gibberish.

There is, however, no rhyme and only occasional reason—for example, the painful predicament implied in the assonance of line one, or the moral decline lispingly suggested in line two. Other lines may breathe of athletic triumphs (I.3), perhaps at the price of injury (I.4), with more than a hint of foul play (I.5-6), but with subsequent riotous celebration of victory (I.8). Yet how much Wenlock, holy or profane, can a Pucklechurch pre-screen? (II.7) Whether the flaming Saint of the ultimate verse kept the wise bird imprisoned or was himself a wielder of the quill is difficult to say.

Some interpreters, eschewing punemic analysis, would doubtless insist on a Freudian explanation; others (Tredington-On-the-Swilgate !) may prefer one founded on dialectal (sic) materialism. Honey’s wacky; Molly pants!

I Ascott-under-Wychwood, Wotton under Edge, The Cokers Down Ampney Cold Ashton Lower Swell; Bewdley, Stewkley, Birdlip Upper Slaughter; Leatherhead, Mow Cop Great Gidding Puncknowle!

II Meysey Hampton Horspath, Ashby-de-la-Zouch, Great Missenden Woking Much Wenlock Crickhope Linn; Thrapston, Bawtry, Fencot Murcot Firkins; Pucklechurch Preesgweene St. Blazeys Owl Pen! [Robert A. Fowkes, New York University]

Reviews: THE LANGUAGE OF OPPRESSION

_Haig A. Bosmajian, Public Affairs Press, 1974

One gets the impression from reading Professor Bosmajian’s book that its title carries in it an ambiguity, but it is unclear whether the ambiguity is intentional or not. Is the “language” of the title the kind of language referred to throughout the book, or is it, specifically, the English language? The author doesn’t discriminate in so many words, though his description of the uses of language as propaganda treats either English alone or, when treating the propaganda of Nazi Germany, the technique rather than the language. The argument is a little uneven, for here it delivers a polemic against name-calling, there against grammar. A collection of essays that could have been better edited for publication in a single work, the book would have been more usefully organized had the distinction been made between those elements of language that fall under the command of the speaker (e.g., usage, name-calling, style, etc.) and those that are inherent requisites in the language (e.g., grammar, syntax, etc.).

From a strictly linguistic point of view, the author’s purposes would have been better served had he presented the evidence in a purely descriptive manner throughout, preserving opinion for his Conclusion. The chapter on “The Language of Anti-semitism” is, indeed, handled in this way; even though it is a more deadly issue than those treated under “The Language of White Racism,” “The Language of Indian Derision,” and “The Language of Sexism,” its very remoteness in time appears to have qualified it for treatment with a somewhat cooler detachment than that accorded the latter subjects. (That is not to say that Anti-semitism is dead, only that the expression of it is focused on Nazi Germany.) Or perhaps it is because Professor Bosmajian has spent a score of years investigating Anti-semitism and has turned only recently to the others.

While we cannot deny that the plethora of legal citations in the chapters “White Racism,” “Indian Derision,” and “Sexism” makes for interesting reading (as well as providing useful documentation on Archie-Bunkerism), it cannot be said to deal precisely with the “language of oppression,” unless we are to include in the “Language” of the title a third rubric, namely, “anything that is couched in language is language.” Rather, these legal citations reflect the mores of the people that framed them and not the use of language in their implementation. Deplorable though prejudice may be, its deplorableness is a moral, not a linguistic issue, and the author’s proselytizing in behalf of liberty, freedom, and a number of other desirable features of life, though expressive, is inappropriate in a work purporting to deal with language. The problem for the reviewer, consequently, arises when he is inclined toward a comment about the author’s treatment of his supposed subject, lest that comment, if adverse, be construed as a judgment of what is being said rather than of how it is being said.

Returning to the question of the various aspects of language and their uses in engendering prejudice and bigotry, it is interesting to note that the chapter dealing with Anti-semitism, notwithstanding its dealing with Nazi propaganda, makes no mention of the fact that the propaganda was conducted, of course, in German. Now, German has grammatical gender, not sex gender. That is, one says, for example, das Mädchen ‘the young lady or woman,’ in which the gender of the word is neuter, without any reflection on the sexual (or asexual) proclivities of the ostensive object referred to. French, with only two genders, also has grammatical gender, there being nothing more feminine about la table or masculine about le papier ‘the paper’ than even the French might allow. English, on the other hand, except for some lingering archaisms like she as a referent for ship, refers to females as she, to males as he, and to inanimate objects and (some classes of) animals as it. Thus, interestingly enough, the argument against English sexist “prejudice,” as described in the chapter on sexism, would carry no weight if applied in German or French, and the author, though he has no justifiable reason for raising the issue when discussing German propaganda, sees no justification for defending sex gender in English when discussing its pronouns of reference under “Sexism.” In short, if we hold no brief for prejudice of any kind against women, the arguments in favor of changing the grammar of English because it is thought to reflect and perpetuate sexism (or any kind of -ism) are on flimsy foundation, indeed.

The use and avoidance of specific words are another matter entirely, even though the coinages chairperson, mailperson, etc., might appear to be as ludicrous as reference to the Ten Compersondments, woperson, etc., which, it is hoped, would not become persondatory. We haven’t seen any active campaign being waged for garbageperson, (telephone) lineperson, lumberperson (for “lumberjane”?), and groundperson (for “groundsow,” ‘a woman who works in tunnels’?). But then, such campaigns always tend to be self-serving. As far as Neanderthal Man, Java Man, and Cro-Magnon Man (cited by the author) are concerned, the Anthropology Department of the American Museum of Natural History reports that their fossils are actually male and female, but that the man in the title is used to indicate, generically, human (“huperson”?) and not male or female. The reductio ad absurdum of the feminine linguistic argument may be the word man in “Man wants but little here below,” which, if given a literal, feminist interpretation, leads to all sorts of amusing possibilities for connotations of wants as well as for below.

The fact of the matter is that mores, politics, and sentiment change; language changes, too, and it usually changes to reflect the culture of its users. We know of no rigidly matriarchal or matrilineal society that has a language reflecting its culture precisely, though the languages of many peoples do reflect kinship relationships quite different from the ones we are accustomed to or satisfied with. For instance, where English uncle may refer, willy nilly, to the brother or brother-in-law of one’s mother or father—that’s four people—there are languages in which each of those relationships can or must be expressed with lexical accuracy (as distinguished, say, from a descriptive phrase like “my father’s brother-in-law”). Similarly, pronouns of reference in certain languages differ; more important, they change (or can change) though, to the best of our knowledge, the grammar of no language has ever been changed by decree. Lexicon, however, is another matter.

Thus, lexicon has been shaped by mores, grammar has not been. Though modern feminists seem reluctant to acknowledge it, there have been times in history when women required protection and when they were regarded as chattel. Our modern condemnation of this practice cannot change history, and it is history that is reflected in the language. History is scarcely something for which we can be held to account unless we perpetuate its evils, but the language, per se, can scarcely be held accountable for that perpetuation. Unfortunate though it may be, prejudice that is blind is also deaf: if people are bigoted against niggers, kikes, wops, and women, changing their names to Negroes (or Blacks), Jews, Italians, and “persons” is not going to eliminate that prejudice: rather, it may clothe it with a respectability that ill befits it.

Bosmajian’s argument, had it been solely linguistic, would have carried more weight with us, but this can be only a minor criticism of a book that contains a great deal of valuable information for the observer of Modern English.

Phonatics (sic[k])

_Robert A. Fowkes, Professor of Linguistics, New York University

It is possible that of the most significant works in linguistics of this century two may have escaped the attention of some readers of VERBATIM. One is: Mots d’Heures: Gousses, Rames, by Luis d’Antin van Rooten, Grossman, 1967. In that slender volume the author regaled a still slenderer audience with his fanatical phonetical rendition of children’s rhymes, and worse, and it was merely necessary to read the contents aloud in one’s second-year French to have an ear-opening experience and to enjoy a feast of nonsensical proportions.

I am sure that readers will recognize in tous et contes, or two seconds, that the title is “Mother Goose Rhymes.” Having grasped that much, they are ready for the following: “Raia qu’écorce/turban beret crosse /toussez afin laide y/a peau ne ouate torse/,” which is obviously, “Ride a cock horse to Banbury Cross,” etc. In the same (jocular) vein, but in reverse disorder, I unashamedly attempt a mad English version of the following:

Alonzo fondled up a tree-oh, Insure the car, get Art away. Count your noodles hot, we can eat-oh, Eight hundred songs got on T.V. '' '' '' '' '' '' Uptown in view, round Lincoln Center, Music is fair, oh say, sold out? It's Wednesday, she's got on no bra, Ricochet, no fish, eh! no cabaña. Oh someone, sit by Anne, For me no better one. March on, march on, canned sanka's poor, Oh brew another one!

If you failed to recognize the “Marshy Haze,” you are undoubtedly a good French scholar.

On an equally low plane, if not lower, is the brash volume Anguish Language by Howard L. Chase, Prentice-Hall, 1956. This, unlike van Rooten’s crime, confines itself to a monolingual view, which is at once more restricted and more demanding. There is less phonetic exactitude but somehow greater play of phonetic fancy; if there is parody, it is largely incidental, save in some grandiose overall fashion. Two well-known song titles emerge as “Freeze a Jolly Good Furlough” and “Hormone Derange” and convey some idea of the possibilities for metrical mayhem. I submit without fear of praise the following effort of my own in that direction:

My body lice suffer devotion, My body lice suffer deceit, My body lice suffer devotion, Oh, dingbat my botany beat!

And, as a warning of the vile possibilities, I cite, from reams of ruinous efforts, the following titles (or first lines) of other works mangled by me:

_Allergy-Ridden and a Gum-Tree Perjured_. _Trick to Begonia, Victimize._ _José Sans Souci, Bide a Tonsured Delight._

And, returning to a bilingual relationship, I close with the beginning of the Aeneid, that resounding hexed ammeter: “Armed with a rum cake and dough; crows like he creamed us as tories.” The effectiveness of this depends upon standard American public high-school Latin pronunciation, obviously that employed by P. Wear-Gillious Marrow himself. Qu’ouate un oeuf!

ETYMOLOGICA OBSCURA: Folk Etymology

_Graham S. Mitchell, Scott, Foresman and Company

A recent collegiate dictionary defines a folk etymology this way: “modification of a linguistic form according to a falsely assumed etymology, as Welsh rarebit from Welsh rabbit.” The key word here is assumed. What apparently operates in this phenomenon of language is that speakers hear a form that vaguely reminds them of something similar, to which they refer it. Historically, some examples include mushroom, from the French mousseron; crayfish, from the French crevis; and Cape Despair, from Cape d’espoir (Cape Hope). It can easily be noted from these examples that unfamiliar forms have been reshaped into forms that are more familiar in the host language, English.

The process continues, apparently. Recently, in the glut of four- and twelve-letter words that appear routinely in print these days, the term ballbuster shows up. It is a graphic, forceful expletive, typically applied to a domineering female. At first glance, the formation seems obvious enough, a compound of noun + verb + agential suffix, as in stickhandler, linebacker, bottlewasher, and so on.

Consider, however, the Yiddish form baleboosteh, also spelled ballabusta, or balebosta. The similarity to the above English form of this Yiddish word is remarkable, but what we have here is just a feminine equivalent of baleboss, ‘the head of the household, manager, one who assumes authority.’ Hence the baleboosteh is the wife of any of the above, or female homemaker, or manager. By a slight extension of meaning, the term assumes the meaning ‘bossy woman.’ The semantic leap as well as the shift in sound value to ballbuster is thus quite understandable.

It would seem that the ancient process of borrowing into English and reshaping where it is necessary to fit English sound patterns is still at work in this quite modern case. The crayfish isn’t a fish, a mushroom has neither mush nor room, there is hope, rather than despair in Cape d’espoir, and a ballbuster just gets things done, like any good manager.

Ameritalian

Donald A. Sears, Professor of English, California State University/Fullerton

For years French culture has had its effects upon the Italian language of Tuscany from the café to the toilette. But the last few years have seen a linguistic shift, paralleling the cultural and economic shift, from France to America. As the north of Italy has become rapidly industrialized, urbanized, and mechanized in the late 1960’s, it is American loan words that have been adopted, sometimes raw, more often digested into an Italianized form.

If one approaches Florence on the new toll-free autostrada from Poggibonsi, he finds the road is distinguished from its toll-gated counterparts by the name of Superstrada, a combination of American and Italian. Pervasively super- as a prefix is also found in super-mercato (supermarket) and a superbox manufacturing company. Equally useful is the attribute sexy: Milan-published monthly ABC advertises Biancheria sexy (sexy lingerie) and sexy occhiali (sexy eyeglasses). Mini-, too, has swept in with such combinations as mini-market. (Note market instead of mercato in this instance.)

Back on the superstrada, on which one is urged to relax a 160km all ora in his new DAF 55, one may stop at an Autogrill Pavesi, the equivalent of a Howard Johnson’s. There he will be served a manzo amburghese, American hamburger translated into Italian. If he forgoes vino, he may drink gingerino (ginger ale) or bitter (bitter lemon), cold from the frigo (short for refrigerator). At night one may stay at an Agip motel and be refreshed at the bar (shortened from the American bars of post World War I days in France and Italy). In the bar one may watch the tivu (TV), the American truncated form that replaces televizione, both in conversation and in the popular novels of the newsstands. The bill may be settled by a credit carta.

As one drives away next morning, he soon discovers that he is turing (touring). His gas is purchased by the discount coupons he got at the border from the Automobile Club Italiana. And he will pass signs advertising Club Dancing. The special parks for those who tent out are marked Camping. For one to stop and enjoy the view, the road provides frequent parcheggio (parking) spots.

For some time now, words of sports have been creeping into Italian: tennis, golf, sport itself. One now also sees new combinations: Sala giochi—bowling (game room—bowling). And garden is ubiquitous in such phrases as Garden Ristorante (American and French loan words).

Some trade names have long had an international standing; e.g., Gillette (for razor) and Kodak (for camera). But new Americanisms are now apparent. A hot-air furnace advertises under the name of Blowtherm; an automatic laundry calls itself a Washiomat. Premium saltines, now manufactured in Milan, claim to be il nuovissimo cracker (the newest cracker). A café in Viareggio concocts a sundae called Knickerbocker Glories, while nearby vending machines sell chewing gum called Brooklyn. At the same café one eats a tost[os] ‘toast,’ the Italian version of a toasted ham and cheese sandwich, while listening to il stereo.

Opening the pages of the latest editions of the popular Italian magazines Epoca and L’Europeo, one is greeted by a plethora of Americanisms in the pages of advertising. One is prepared for international trade names like “La Johnson Wax” and “Close-Up” toothpaste, although this latter is pronounced on Italian TV as “Close-OOP.” What is more revealing of the penetration of English into Italian is the larding of advertising copy with prestige words and catch phrases. For many years that fine export of Scotland has been known in Italy as whiskey and appears today in such a trade slogan as “Whiskey e Libertá.” But trade names go on and on: a new candy by Ferrero is called “Pocket Coffee”; an electric drill by an Italian manufacturer is called “Baby Drill”; Longo pens introduces its new “Fineliner.”

Also generic terms like after shave and deodorant appear in otherwise Italian copy. In advertising a line of masculine clothes one company lists “Camicie, pullovers, calze.” Strega tells how it may be used in “gelati, caffee, long drinks, cocktails.” This lacing of the native language with foreign words and phrases seems aimed at the Italian’s love of owning American products. Even products of Italy, therefore, are praised with American words as a kind of snob appeal: outsized tires by Kléber are called “il gigantesco Jumbo”; Certina claims that its new quartz watch achieves “il nuovo standard di precisione”; Voxson lists itself as a “leader internazionale in ellettronica.” But the fullest exploitation of macaronic copy is found in the full page ad of Castelli, a furniture manufacturer of Bologna: Showing an airport lounge set up with its chairs, the copy read “Quando arrivate al ‘transit’ prendetevi un attimo di relax…” (‘when arriving in the transit lounge take a moment to “relax”…').

A reserve brandy is marketed as “you and me” and San Remo men’s clothes proclaim a “stile Italian Day.” But dry offers the most amusement for a word-watcher. A waterproof watch by Vetta is called Vetta Dry, and the aperitif Kambusa, available in regular and dry, is presented as “Kambusa Dry dal gusto secco.” In avoiding the international word sec, the writer has to explain his use of dry: Kambusa Dry with the sec taste. O brave bilingual redundancy!

Everywhere the French influence ebbs as it becomes a matter of snobbism to lace one’s Italian with the new Americanisms. And if sometimes a Briticism is confused with an Americanism, it is no great moment: WC is in and toilette is out as Anglo-American pervades and prevails.

Homonymous Antonyms

_Harvey Minkoff, Hunter College of CUNY New York

A note in VERBATIM [Vol. I, No. 3] reminds us of the existence of homonyms that are simultaneously antonyms, for example clip ‘cut off’ vs. clip ‘hold together,’ and suggests that such pairs may be homographs with different etymologies. While this may certainly be true in some cases, in other cases what is at work is that most fascinating and unpredictable linguistic phenomenon—semantic shift.

Thus, fast ‘moving rapidly’ vs. ‘firmly in place’ is apparently the descendant of an intensifier still functioning as such in the German and Yiddish cognate fest, whence Yiddish fest mešuga ‘crazy as hell.’ Presumably the present meanings of fest arose from a similar usage in English: “He runs fast(!)” “It’s stuck fast(!)”

Since, of course, semantic shift is not unique to English, homonymous antonyms are found in other languages also. To my mind among the most interesting are a rather common group in Hebrew that combine the sublime and the ridiculous, the holy and the profane, in the same root.

All Semitic languages form words by inserting vowels between the consonants—usually three—of the roots. The four roots SRS, HRM, ZBL, and KDŠ will serve as illustrations. The word SaRiS means both ‘eunuch’ and ‘governmental official,’ the semantic shift being obvious to anyone familiar with the social structure of the ancient East. A similar process affected the root HRM, the Arabic cognate of which is the source of English harem. Originally meaning ‘consecrate,’ the verb HaRaM eventually took on the meanings ‘excommunicate’ and ‘forfeit’ in a semantic development that is transparent.

Quite a different type of semantic shift is demonstrated in the root ZBL, from which arise both ZeBuL ‘exalted’ and ZeBeL ‘manure.’ Here, neither reflex seems to represent the original meaning of the root, and, though there is still considerable scholarly disagreement, a possible explanation is that the core meaning is ‘piled up.’ If this hypothesis is correct, then the two divergent meanings simply reflect what was piled up. And this type of divergence is exactly what occurred within the root KDŠ, resulting in the contrast between KoDeŠ ‘holy’ and KeDeŠah ‘prostitute.’ In all likelihood, the original meaning of KDŠ was ‘taboo,’ and the two descendants represent different taboos. Moreover, it is interesting to note in this regard that Latin meretrix ‘harlot’ is built on the ethically neutral base mer(e)- ‘earn,’ which in Classical Latin meant both ‘merit’ and ‘demerit.’

And while we are on the subject of multilingual homonymous antonyms, perhaps it is well to conclude with an example from Chinese: the currently omnipresent kungfu, with identical tones and identical characters, actually translates as ‘task; accomplishment’ and as ‘leisure’!

EX CATHEDRA: 1984 in 1975?

Do you worry about being brain-washed? Do you even think about it? Do you think you’re immune to it?

These are questions that all intelligent people should be considering if they are going to maintain a proper attitude of skepticism about the propaganda that would immerse them. Newspaper and magazine advertising, for some reason, is less insidious, less invidious, than television commercials, which are both visual and auditory. Radio no longer plays an important role in selling.

Observing the TV commercial can be illuminating: it doesn’t require a visitor from another planet—one from another country, even another county, would do—to be shocked at Americans’ apparent psychopathic preoccupation with dirt, bad odors, and disease. Whether advertising is to be regarded as a social phenomenon, an exercise in mass psychology, a necessary (ugh!) part of our commercial economy, or all three, there is an inescapable fact: it uses (and misuses) language to effectuate its message. The misuse is often just plain lying.

For example, the tag line in the Crest commercial, after one actor has protested, “But this toothpaste has fluoride!” is “But you can’t beat Crest [their emphasis] fluoride for fighting cavities.” Fluoride is fluoride. Neither can you beat Crest fluoride nor can Crest fluoride beat Brand X fluoride, though the latter part of the argument is, naturally, omitted by Crest. (Crest is owned by the University of Indiana, which ought to know better.) Anacin offers “a higher level of relief… strong medicine for the miseries of….” What does that mean? Nothing. Regulatory agencies like the FCC forbid claims of outright cures, so advertisers support copywriters at exorbitant salaries to devise alternative ways of saying the same thing without running afoul of a Cease and Desist Order.

How dishonest can you get? Very. How about the Contac commercial that compared other cold remedies by describing one as containing an “antitussive” and another an “analgesic, not present in Contac.” From the tone and construction of the line, one is led to believe that antitussives and analgesics are virtually carcinogenic! What about an anti-perspirant that is “anti-sticky” and “antistain”? Untrue! It may be non-sticky and non-stain (ing), but not “anti-.” Have you “let Country Morning take you back again”? Back where? How can a chiefly urban population, however eagerly it may yearn for the green hills of a “home” it never knew, be taken “back” somewhere where it has never been? Euell Gibbons, “traveling the countryside for Grape Nuts” (whatever that means), tells us that the cereal “reminds [him] of the flavor of wild hickory nuts.” How many of you have ever seen a wild hickory nut, much less tasted one? And if you have tasted one, are they any good?

On the dirty, smelly front, we are besieged, night and day, by commercials about detergents: housewives meet at a “laundry testing center”—Have you ever seen or heard of such a place?—to write “greasy,” “oily,” “dirty,” and (horrors!) “greasy oil!” on a glass partition with what I assume are their lipsticks, all the while reading off the words with such excited revulsion that they seem ready to gag on them. Popped into the washer (with the appropriate detergent, but I never seem able to remember which one it is), the clothes emerge not only dazzlingly clean but pressed and folded! In another version, a mother and her mother almost come to blows over the merits of a liquid detergent, after which the (goody-goody) daughter/granddaughter saves the day by proudly taking credit for cleaning her “Robin’s” uniform (a featherless outfit that had somehow got salad oil on it), when we all know that it was the detergent and the clothes washer that deserve the credit. (What’s a “Robin”?)

It is unlikely, if we continue to live in America, that we shall escape the gurglings from Di-Gel, Alka-Seltzer, and Drāno (who has glass plumbing?), the admonitions about saving money by throwing away the solid airfreshener and using Lysol instead (I’d rather have a house that smelled from roast beef or roast turkey or fresh-baked bread than from Lysol), the miasmic exudations we are heir to as humid, human beings unless camouflaged by mouthwashes, toothpastes, anti-perspirants (is it bad to perspire?), deodorants, vaginal sprays, shampoos, air fresheners, and other scented chemicals, the unspeakable filth of the mudhole, the biological stain, the ring around the collar, and the other horrors of life in this most imperfect world. Maybe we ought to keep quiet, control ourselves, and not squeeze the Charmin. Perhaps we can be consoled in the knowledge that our children won’t grow up thinking that the “quicker picker-upper” is the roué at the local bar.

Several years ago, TV was anticipating financial doldrums (if not disaster) when cigarette commercials were forbidden, but the detergent, pet food, toothpaste, patent medicine (What’s a “nasograph”?), and deodorant manufacturers have appeared to fill the gap to overflowing. Writing to the FCC, to local and network TV stations, to our congressmen, and to our senators ought to have some effect. The problem is really our problem, and it will continue as long as we allow it to. With a few exceptions, the programs are still better than the commercials, but it won’t be long before the commercials start crowding the programs off the air. Weigh it for yourself, honey!

EPISTOLAE {Arnold M. Zwicky}

The discussion of -oon words (VERBATIM Vol. I, No. 3) reminded me of a family word game that began years ago when a teacher of my wife’s, Olive Cahoon, married a man named Cahoon and became Olive Cahoon Cahoon, a name so melodious we have set about constructing an entire rhyming Cahoon family. The culmination of this is a fine family tree drawn up by a friend, Mary Lycan. It shows the stock beginning with Baboon Cahoon, properly separated from his modern descendants by a long dotted line. These start with Patroon Cahoon, the New Amsterdam colonist, and his four sons, Tycoon Cahoon (the New York banker), Walloon Cahoon (the Brussels merchant), Dragoon Cahoon (militiaman, grandfather of Quadroon Cahoon, and great-grandfather of Octoroon Cahoon), and Triune Cahoon (the Trinitarian divine).

As you can see, we are not afraid to stoop to rhyme. Lycan’s family tree, as a matter of fact, includes ringers like High Noon Cahoon (a sheriff), Clair de Lune Cahoon (the interpreter of Debussy), and my favorite, the child of love, Too Soon Cahoon.

Although it is perhaps wicked to inflict word games on your readers, some might be able to bear two others. The first is Conjugated Nouns, on the models

I steal the keel. I stole the coal. I have stolen the colon.

They choose the hues. They chose the hose. They have chosen the hosen.

They mow the banks of the row. They mowed the banks of the road. They have mown the banks of the Rhone.

I do it with the buoys. I did it with the biddies. I have done it with the bunnies.

The second is, strictly speaking, more like collecting bizarre sorts of rocks than like playing a game; it involves finding examples of phrases that are bilingually redundant, like Mount Fujiyama (literally, ‘Mount Fuji-mount’). Roast beef with au jus (literally, ‘with with juice’) is offered by many restaurants these days, but the ultimate was attained by a waitress in a local steak house who asked a friend of mine if he wanted his prime rib with au jus sauce (‘with with juice sauce’). My favorite, however, is the California tourist attraction, the La Brea tar pits (‘the the tar tar pits’). Anglo-Saxon/Norman French couplings like without let or hindrance do not count.

Arnold M. Zwicky, The Ohio State University, Columbus, Ohio

EPISTOLAE {Norman R. Shapiro}

□ As a postscript to the late Professor Hughes' note on the English suffix -oon [VERBATIM Vol. I, No. 3], it should be pointed out that, insofar as the corresponding Romance suffixes are concerned, while the Spanish -ón and the Italian -one are, indeed, generally used with augmentative meaning, as he says, the French equivalent -on is much more often used as a diminutive. W.D. Elcock, in The Romance Languages (London, 1959, p. 160), cites the example of vallon, a small val (‘valley’). To this may be added peloton, a small pelote (‘ball of string,’ etc.), dindon ‘turkey,’ originally the diminutive of dinde (though now its masculine), and doubtless many more, both common and not-so-common. It is hard to say why this linguistic turnabout took place, much as one might be tempted to see it as an example of ornery Gallic contrariness, even ‘way back then.

_Norman R. Shapiro, Wesleyan University, Middletown, Connecticut

EPISTOLAE {Eric P. Hamp}

The additional examples supplied in the Editor’s comment appended to John Hughes’s note on -oon teach us a little lesson in brief scope. We are of course familiar with the fact that in language an element, e.g., a suffix, may productively spread beyond its original range both in distribution and in value or function. Here, however, we may observe how narrow the surviving base may be and how tenuous the connections become.

Of the formations mentioned, the source of only one seems to be unclear—gadroon; here the French origins are ambiguous, but Provençal < Latin guttus seems less than likely. Setting this one aside, the remaining sources seem reasonable and agreed.

Now of all these only buffon (-e), marron(-e), feston (-e), maccaron-e, poltron-e, carton-e, vinagrón, and cuarterón seem to qualify as Romance items with the suffix and value mentioned by Hughes. Dragoon < French dragon has superficially the same phonetics, but really involves the old underived stem form with a changed meaning, and hence strictly not this suffix. Presumably, cocon, harpon, peloton, and rigaudon contain a diminutive and therefore do not show the same original value. The rhyming of laguna < lacūna is simply accidental, and the semantics is really inverse in origin. And patrōnus contains a somewhat similar but totally separate suffix.

We may now turn to the sheer chance convergences, where folk etymology (contamination) may have worked in part: lampons (if a verb form), babouin (what relation to babiller?), Japanese taikun, Chinese tai fung, Arabic semūm, the Algonquian original of raccoon. The case of Pantal(e)one is particularly interesting. Not only is the suffix fortuitous, but the semantics would be virtually untraceable without a long history of proper name documentation: the costume from the comic character from a type of person from the term for a Venetian from a saint’s name. Consider then the difference in meaning between Britain and the US for a pair of pants! And, finally, observe the quaint grammatical peculiarity of the modern plurale tantum pants.

Eric P. Hamp, University of Chicago

EPISTOLAE {Richard J. Williams}

I enjoyed my first issue of VERBATIM, especially “An Intolerant View of Intolerance.” I have become totally impatient with the smug—if not bitchy—prescriptiveness of a number of recent crabs who are wholly ignorant of the dynamics of language and unable to distinguish between imaginative usage and illiterate aberration.

Richard J. Williams, Fresno, Calif.

EPISTOLAE {Jean Stafford}

We received a critical letter from Miss Jean Stafford in response to our article, “An Intolerant View of Intolerance,” but she declined permission to publish it. —Editor

Internet Archive copy of this issue

Abridged from “Family Words in English,” by Allen Walker Read, AMERICAN SPEECH, February 1962, © copyright Columbia University Press. ↩︎
From a report written by Catherine White. ↩︎
New York Post, March 5, 1950, p. 32/I. ↩︎
I Still Haven’t Unpacked (London, 1953), p. 227. ↩︎
Contemporary English: a Personal Speech Record (Leipzig, 1927), p. ↩︎
Notes & Queries, CLXXXII (1942), 77. ↩︎
“Improvised Words,” Atlantic Monthly, CII (1908), 714. ↩︎
Vandemark’s Folly (Indianapolis, 1922), p. 143. ↩︎
Ibid. Cf. the discussion by A. G. Kennedy in American Speech, II (1926), 155. ↩︎
Collinson, op. cit., p. 118, footnote. For the category “sandwich word,” see Harold Wentworth, “ ‘Sandwich’ Words and Rime-caused Nonce Words,” West Virginia University Bulletin: Philological Studies, III (1939), 65-71. ↩︎
The Little Princesses (New York, 1950), p. 34. ↩︎
Ibid., p. 237. ↩︎
A Dictionary of Slang and Unconventional English (London, 1937), p. 261. ↩︎
Better Everyday English (Chicago, 1924), p. 79. ↩︎
The Secret Languages of Ireland (Cambridge, England, 1937), p. 92. ↩︎
Peter Pantheism (New York, 1925), p. 60. ↩︎
Ethelind Fearon, The Fig and Fishbone (London, 1959), p. 110. ↩︎

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