VOL XI, No 4 [Spring, 1984]
All Present—and Unaccounted for
Virginia M. Prichard, Raleigh, North Carolina
When most Americans first read the name Sirhan Sirhan in the newspaper, I’ll bet they thought it was a typographical error. No teacher of English to foreign students would have thought this. We know all about the Arabic proclivity for repetition as far as names are concerned. I have taught a Shamoun Shamoun, a Hussein Hussein, and a Mohamed Mohamed. At present, there is an Ali Ali in my conversation class. The repetition has a fine ring to it, and I’ve often wondered why other languages don’t take it up. Furthermore, it would eliminate having to explain to students that they must write their last names first and their first names last on forms that are going to be alphabetized.
Back in the early 1970s, when OPEC was riding high and Arab students were arriving in the United States by the jumbo jetload, my classes were full of Mohameds. I was beginning to suspect that every third masculine child in the Arab World was given the Prophet’s name. I imagined an Arab mother coming to the front door of her home to call her son in to dinner on any street in Cairo or Amman or Ridyah. “Mohamed, dinner is ready!” And, then, the street would be full of boys running in all directions to get home in time to eat. The only comparable situation would be a mother in Dallas or Houston or Corpus Christi going to the front door and yelling, “Tex, come home …dinner is served!”
The Arab insouciance about names is something that used to drive me wild. Many appear to be utterly indifferent as to which name they will use on a given day. This led me to suspect that Shakespeare was probably an Arab (marvelous topic for a doctoral dissertation). Note his insouciance: “A rose by any name would smell as sweet.” How Middle Eastern! Let me try to explain…
One summer we had a student from Jordan named Mustafa Ali Al-Salem. All summer we referred to him either as “Mr. Al-Salem” or, as we got to know him better, as “Mustafa.” Sometimes he wrote “Ali” on his compositions. We were able to deal with this. When fall came, the university to which he transferred wrote and asked for the records of a Mr. Shobaki. I wrote back and told them that no Mr. Shobaki had attended our program. Within a week I got an irate telephone call from Mr. Al-Salem asking me why I would not send a recommendation for him. I explained that no one had asked for one. He said that he was now Mr. Shobaki…this being a version of the name of his hometown. In order to be sure of just who he really was, I asked him for the name written on his passport, and he said that it was “Mohamed.”
After several similar incidents, I began to make what seemed (to non-Arabs) to be strange announcements on the first day of class. Announcements such as: “Please pick out one name and stick to it.” “It is preferable that you go by the name written in your passport.” “The computer will not understand that Husseini and Shabani are one and the same person.” Students from other language backgrounds smiled and nodded, indicating that they did not understand what on earth I was talking about.
Think of the ramifications of going by any name you wish on any given day of the week! Someday I’m going to pick a week and do it. On Monday, I will be Virginia, cool and elegant and unflappable. On Tuesday, I will be Ginny, mischievous and without a care in the world. I think I would like to be Greta on Wednesday… mysterious, withdrawn, and exciting to know. Thursday it will be Gina, warm and laughing and sensual. And, Friday’s girl will be Patricia, very upper class and Eastern establishment…or would that be Millicent? How marvelous to answer the phone in the office and say. “Miss Prichard? She’s not in today. This is Miss Meade. Would you like to leave a message?” If everyone engaged in this practice, governments would topple. No one would have to be in any office at any time. Forms and bureaucratic procedures would go by the board. Banks would fold. I can think of no faster way of creating chaos.
Among certain tribal people, there is no such thing as a family name that is passed down from one generation to another. I began to get a glimmering of this when I first taught some Afghanis who told me that they all came from the same family but had names that did not faintly resemble one another. (Incidentally, they all settled in Raleigh and established the Afghani Roofing Company. I passed a building under construction recently, and every man on the roof sported a mustache and flashing white teeth. They all waved and yelled at me in accented English.) According to tribal custom, the first name is the person’s given name (as it is in English); the second name is his father’s name; and the third name is his grandfather’s name. Thus, in each succeeding generation, the first two names move back one slot each and, so, the son of Akbar Walid Farouk becomes Ahmed Akbar Walid. I believe that the Scandinavians also followed this practice until their governments, wishing to tax them or take census counts of them, made them light on one name and stick to it. Scandinavian immigrant families entering the United States together but under entirely different names blew the minds of immigration officials, who frequently gave up all efforts to unscramble the situation and assigned them all the name of their hometown. Maybe Mr. “Shobaki” was just following this old procedure when he did the same thing for himself!
One final comment about Arab names before moving on to names in other cultures. One tends to think of Arab culture as being the ultimate in male chauvinism, but Arab wives, at least the professional women I’ve met, keep their own names and do not lose their identity as American women do when they marry.
I can always tell when I have a Brazilian student in my class because the national origin of his first name never matches the national origin of his first name. Thus, a Silvio MacDonald, an Edison Bittencourt, a Pedro Tanaka, or a Woodrow Wilson da Silva is indisputably a Brazilian. It’s as though the parents had said to themselves as they went to register the birth of their child, “Our last name is Portuguese (or Japanese or whatever) and, so, to be democratic or to promote the principle of fair play, the first name should be something completely incongruous in order to represent the potpourri that is Brazil.” Where else in the world can you find a person with a Serbo-Croatian first name and a Welsh last name? This practice seems in keeping with the Brazilian love of the unexpected, of inconsistency and contradiction. There is a happy carelessness about it that I love.
When the names of Spanish-speaking Latins crop up, there are other difficulties and delights. First of all, any woman who has the least interest in equal rights for women will salute the Latin habit of giving equal importance to the names of both parents. In Spanish-speaking countries, a person carries the names, as well as the genes, of both parents. How logical and fair! (In Virginia we do this by giving the mother’s family name as a first name, but this causes great confusion about who is a man and who is a woman. Shirley Godwin can be a boy and Bland Tucker a girl.)
Let’s take the student named Fernando López-Rodriguez. López is the name of Fernando’s father, and Rodriguez is the name of his mother. Unfortunately, university computers in the U.S. tend to light on the final name when giving out grade reports or, else, to divide up the grades and assign half to a person named López and half to a person named Rodriguez. This has led me to make other strange announcements on the first day of class, announcements such as: “Don’t forget your mothers but forget your mothers' names while you’re here.” “The computer will think that López and Rodriguez are two different students and will act accordingly.” The non-Latin students nod and smile to indicate that they do not understand what is being said.
When a Latin American married woman appears, things get really complicated. Let’s take the case of Carmen Consuelo Hernández-Martinez de Alvarado. This incredible (to a North American) list of names represents one person but gives credit to the following people: the person herself, her father, her mother, and her husband, in that order. The computer usually breaks down completely at this point.
When the first Jesus appeared in my class, he came as rather a shock. But, one can cope when one realizes that it is pronounced “Hey-sus.” The Mohameds out-number the Jesuses about three to one, if that signifies anything. In one semester, there were three Angels taking grammar with me. But, it is Spain itself that sends out people with the most religious names of all. I vividly remember Immaculada de Dios Ortiz-Gonzalez. She called herself “Lala.”
Over the years I have learned to call the rolls of my classes with aplomb and a fair amount of accuracy (to the astonishment of my students who are accustomed to hearing their names mispronounced on American lips). For sheer length, I nominate Thai names as undisputed champions. There is seldom space for anything but an initial of the given name after the family name is written down. For tongue-twisting difficulty I nominate Polish names. For deceptive simplicity I nominate Chinese names.
I challenge anyone to call the following roll aloud: Chongrungreong, Vaidyanathan, Naichienmai, Szalkowicz, Bamroon-grugsa, Kioumourtzogglou, and Tychkowski. I can do it without batting an eye. But, I was stumped by the name of Mr. Ng. I asked him to pronounce it for me. You can pronounce it too if you follow the directions I provide here. Pinch your nose with your thumb and forefinger, close your mouth, and make the sound you would make if you were swallowing loudly. That’s it …Mr. Ng.
I enjoy trilling and rolling Spanish “r’s” and clearing the phlegm from my throat to make Farsee and Arabic guttural sounds. I’m still waiting in anticipation for an African student with a click sound in his name. The variety is endless, and it makes calling class rolls an exercise in showmanship.
The easiest names seem to be the Korean ones. Evidently, there are three great families in Korea: the Lees, the Parks, and the Kims. Representatives from the first two made me wonder if, somehow, a couple of Virginians had strayed into the class. But, the Kims far and away outnumber all the Lees and the Parks combined. My rough estimate is that the Kims constitute 86.4 percent of the population of Korea, and I would dearly love to see a telephone directory of the city of Seoul. I wonder how one finds a particular Kim in it. Maybe they list people by their occupations as is done in Denmark.
I suppose that I’ve saved Chinese names for last because I met my Waterloo with them. The problem is that the letters in our alphabet cannot hope to represent accurately the subtle distinctions of Chinese. If one reads Chinese names the way they are written in English, they will not resemble the sounds the students make when they say them. For example, Shi, Hsieh, and Hsu have nearly the same sound. I’ve often wondered in near despair if they choose representations that are purposely off the mark or if there is simply no way to represent the sounds correctly. Now that we are getting students from the People’s Republic of China, there is an entirely different system of representation to deal with, one that I find easier, more logical, and closer to the real thing. (Beijing is closer to the mark than “Peiping.”) The representations take some getting used to. If a student from the Republic of China, Taiwan, writes his name as Shi, a student with the same name from the PRC will write it Xie.
The roll of a conversation class a few years ago contained the following names: Chan, Chang, Chen, Cheng, Chien, Chin, and Chung. I made these distinctions rather well, I thought, until I began to call on a specific student to answer a question. When I said, “Please answer, Mr. Cheng,” seven voices spoke up. (The same thing happens with a class of Huangs, Hwangs, and Wangs.) For convenience and to the great amusement of the Chinese, I referred to them thereafter as Mister One, Mister Two, Mister Three, and so on. But, I felt defeated and unhappy until I learned that they have similar problems unscrambling the English names Joe, Joan, Joann, Jan, Jim, Jean, and John. Still, if I required them to pronounce all the ls and rs in Harrelson Hall correctly, I should be able to make recognizable distinctions between Chinese names.
Certain individual Chinese names are a joy in themselves. When I call on Cheng-Chung Chan, I think of far-away temple bells tinkling in the wind. I could never make it clear to Mr. Chu-Tren Lee why I thought that he should say his first name twice. But, my all-time favorite name was Chi-Fu Johnson Sit: we really had to work on the pronunciation of his last name because of the Chinese difficulty with the difference between the “s” and “sh” sounds.
Ordinarily, the Chinese write their names in reverse order. That is, the family name comes first and the given name comes last. Imagine getting up in front of a class in which half the people write their names in the usual order and the other half write them in reverse order and telling them to reverse the order of their names on the class cards for alphabetical purposes. This has led me to make still other strange announcements on the first day of class. Announcements such as: “Write your names in regular Chinese order.” “Do not reverse your names so that they will be reversed.” This is the time that the European students begin to wonder about me, but the Chinese understand.
Now a rather delicate aspect of the whole business of names must be dealt with. This concerns names that are perfectly all right and even beautiful in the original languages but that are taboo words in English. When I glance down the roll and see such a name, I inwardly thank God that there are no native speakers of English in the class. There was an older student with a four-letter-word name in one of the first classes I ever taught. I deliberately mispronounced it, giving it two syllables and “cleaning it up” so to speak. He always shot back the correct pronunciation in a loud voice, jolting me and setting my teeth on edge. There were no snickers in the class because no students knew the word in English at that early stage of their stay—Thank heavens!
Vietnamese names can knock out the novice teacher who does not know how they are pronounced in Vietnamese. In the original Vietnamese, they are quite innocuous-sounding. Since the airlift in 1975, the class rolls have been sprinkled with such names as: Hoa, Phuoc, Dong, and Bich. I am accustomed to them now, but, at first, I went into a kind of culture shock. Once there was a man named Mr. Phucfoam in my grammar class. As soon as I could catch him alone, I told him that the first syllable of his name was always silent in English. I had to telephone the foreign student adviser about him, and I referred to him as “Mr. Delfen.” (For male readers, Delfen is the brand name of a well-known contraceptive cream.) He said, “We have no such student.” I said, “Think about it for a minute.” He did, and his laugh was so loud that I could have put down the phone and opened the window and heard it.
Sometimes certain class rolls have pizazz and appeal and stick in my memory. I have three favorites. One was the football game roll which always made me feel like a cheerleader because it contained the names Yah, Rey, and Bravo. Next was the revolutionary roll of the class that contained Castro, Guevara, and DeBray. And, my favorite of all time was the bell-like Chinese roll mentioned before. When I called it out, I thought to myself, “Eat your heart out, Edgar Allan Poe.”
Crank This Sucker Up!
David Minugh, University of Stockholm
I am looking at a cartoon from Bloom County: the main characters have been lying in a wheelchair improving their tans and are now about to start back home, and so a few friends from the animal world climb on aboard for a free ride. It is at this point that one of them (a porcupine, to be exact) leans forward into the coming slipstream and commands, “Crank this sucker up!” Suddenly we are at a crossroads in lexical history: while I immediately link to crank something up with men in leather hats and goggles, spoked tires and Model T Fords, what am I to do with sucker? All-day suckers and jawbreakers of my penny-candy youth? Some obscure sexual rite involving wheelchairs, porcupines and bears? Associations to fish mouths and insect footpads, or to strawberry runners or tobacco plants?
A casual search through my various dictionaries revealed numerous possible meanings for sucker, but none of them supported the obvious interpretation: ‘thing, object.’ Yet I soon realized that other examples were not hard to find, even in the limited material available here in Sweden:
…the Bloom County quote (Berke Breathed, Washington Post, 1983), reprinted in Profiles (a computer magazine), Jan./Feb. 84, p. 34.
In the comic strip B.C., the “Fat Broad” is apparently particularly enamoured of the word: on (release date) Sept. 16 she discovers a bottle on the beach and says, “Beach litter!… I HATE litter ! I think I’ll bust this sucker into a million pieces.” On (release date) Oct. 28, when she is soliciting signatures for the ERA, her message is “Sign this sucker (i.e., the petition) or I’ll ram the clipboard down your throat.”
Newsweek’s Election Special (Nov./Dec. 1984, pp. 56, 57) “quotes” Mondale campaign staffer Joe Trippi on his fears about the Iowa primaries: “We could lose this sucker, he thought. We’re taking on water. We could lose,” and again, “We could lose this sucker, he thought.”
What apparently has happened is that sucker has developed a new meaning (which is actually only a potential meaning): like thing, or object, or whatchamacallit, it can now refer to any context-determined inanimate object. It also seems to have a wider range of reference than many other possible substitutes, such as gadget, which would work only for the wheelchair example, or doodad, which does not even seem to be appropriate there. The object referred to is clearly identified by the context, and in my examples is consistently used with the demonstrative this. (It would, however, surely be acceptable to be searching for your theater tickets and mutter, “I bet I left those suckers at home!”)
The above examples all indicate a fairly high state of emotional involvement about the issue or action involved, rather than about the specific object itself. If used about a person, however, sucker would inevitably get entangled with the primary meaning it has about people: ‘someone easily fooled,’ which implies disparagement. Saying “That sucker doesn’t know enough to come in out of the rain” would thus seem to be distinctly possible, but I am dubious about “*Joe should be first trumpeter—that sucker really knows how to blow that horn!”
One of the major problems with lexical extension, or for that matter, any innovation in language, is determining when it was first used (and when a nonce usage becomes an established usage?). Scholars may well be able to document earlier occurrences, whether written or spoken, but that simply pushes the problem a bit further into the past. (Rare exceptions do, of course, occur, as with yesteryear, which the OED unequivocally credits to D. G. Rossetti.) In cases like the present one, the extension in meaning almost certainly first occurred in spoken English, which makes matters even more difficult.
Additionally, there is the problem of observing the evidence that actually exists, since we often begin using an item without consciously perceiving that it is new. In the specific case at hand, I now realize that I twice translated sucker into Swedish (the B.C. texts) before even noticing that the sense in which it was used was actually an extension in meaning. Once the observer has become “sensitized” to a given item, however, it seems to pop up everywhere! (This problem of “convenient” evidence—evidence that shows up on demand, as it were—has also been noted by novelists, and in fact forms one of the major themes of Thomas Pynchon’s The Crying of Lot 49.)
While it thus may be difficult or impossible to establish the exact date when this use of sucker first surfaced, it does not seem nearly as difficult to understand why it occurred: sucker happens to rhyme with a relatively potent swear-word, fucker and strongly resembles yet another, cocksucker, both of which are “strong” swear-words that are not restricted in reference, as they can be used about both people and objects: *I didn’t do anything; the fucker/son-of-a-bitch/bastard/*etc. just broke/hit me—although middle-class children of my generation would probably have said The darn thing just broke/That darn kid just hit me. Since my examples of sucker all come from writing areas where strong swear-words are still taboo (the same issue of Newsweek is replete with quotes like Bob Beckel’s comment on page 60, “Y' all don’t have a bleeping idea what politics is all about,” where a [sic] is surely appropriate after bleeping), that might in itself seem a sufficient explanation. A more appropriate definition of this sense of sucker would then be ‘darn/damn thing’ (which would also explain why, e.g., gadget is not as appropriate for such situations).
Yet sucker is not merely another swear-word: first of all, although obviously reminiscent of fucker and the equally taboo cocksucker, it has for centuries successfully retained important nonobscene (although negative) meanings about people, most recently that of ‘a person easily fooled.’ (The OED cites an American example from as early as 1844.) It is probably this which makes it considerably more “respectable” than consistently taboo words like fucker. Second (and probably as a consequence), sucker does not seem to be as clearly negative as obvious swear-words that might fit in the same contexts: Crank this fucker/cocksucker/bastard up! On the other hand, the “Fat Broad” clearly uses it in an aggressive manner that suggests a covert prestige situation reminiscent of phrases like He’s bad, man! or *This fucker * [i.e., my car] can really fly!
Rather than assuming that sucker will achieve the neutrality of other nonspecific reference words in English (thing) and other Western European languages (e.g., French chose, truc, German Sache, Ding), we should remember that its subterranean links to two of our most potent swear-words instead suggest that it may well lead a perilous existence in any future that reintroduces more rigid concepts of decorum.
Having only recently become aware of this item, I have not investigated it in any detail, so I’d like to toss the ball over to you, the readers, and ask how you react to this use of sucker, whether you know of previous documentation (it is conspicuously absent from, e.g., Partridge) and whether you have other candidates of a similar nature, perhaps from other languages. …After all, it’s not every day that a new such (non-)word appears.
As a closing note, I might add an anecdote from my early days in Sweden. Swedish has several nonspecific standard words for ‘thing’—sak (etymologically connected with our sake, forsake), ting or tingest (cf. our thing)—and several informal equivalents, grej and pryl. While learning Swedish, I had of course acquired them rather early. When I subsequently went into a hardware store to buy an awl (a spur-of-the-moment purchase), I had no idea of the Swedish word I needed, so I happily used the nonspecific word pryl, and to my amazement the store clerk immediately produced a selection of awls. Little did I know that the basic sense of pryl was precisely that—an awl!
OBITER DICTA
We have had fun with Menu Barbarisms in VERBATIM in the past—“smothered onions,” “roast beef with au jus sauce on the side,” etc.—and I thought that as a pleasant diversion and a tribute, we would reprint a menu prepared for me some years ago by a friend, the poet Sylvia Spencer, who died last September. [She credited Muriel Pelton for “special assistance.”]
Appetizers
Little Thrimp Red Herring
Strained Muscles
Soups
Du Four Duck Soup
es
Tongue in Cheek A Turkey Ham Actor
Addled BrainsFish
Sole Survivor Flounder Around
Shippery Eels Kettle of Fish
Salads
Salad Days Storm TossedVegetables
Beats Everything Pure Corn
Fourteen Carrots Two Peas in a Pod
Hot Potato Wild OatsBreads, etc.
Honey Bun Piano Rolls Butter Fingers
Frightful JamSauces
For the Goose For the Gander
The Sauce (alcoholic)
Eggs
Good Eggs Egg on Face
Chef’s Specials
pes de Chine
A Loaf of Bread and Jug of Wine (for two)Desserts
es Cute Cookies Sweetie Pie
me Cake Walk
Fruits, etc.
Top Banana Plum Crazy Big Apple
Nuts! The Berries Blind DatesBeverages
Tea Total Coffee Break
Hop Scotch Cotton Gin Small Beer
Molotov Cocktail Bourbon (House of)
Yo-Ho-Ho and a Bottle of RumDigestils
Bitter Pills
SIC! SIC! SIC!
“Have several very old dresses from grandmother in beautiful condition.” [From the swop section, Yankee, December 1984. Submitted by Cynthia King, Morgan Hill, California.]
SIC! SIC! SIC!
“The carcass of a pregnant cow was found at a residence near Plain City with the unborn calf laying alongside.” [From an article in The Columbia Citizen-Journal, December 29, 1984. Submitted by Joseph B. Grigsby, Marysville, Ohio.]
SIC! SIC! SIC!
“Every Little Breeze Seems to Whisper Lues.” [Popular song during French epidemic of English disease. Or was it the English epidemic of the French disease?]
SIC! SIC! SIC!
“The company will release its first how-to videos, which will give step-by-step instructions for making a desk draw.” [From The Boston Globe, 16 November 1984. Submitted by Judi Chamberlin, Somerville, Massachusetts.]
Of Spooner, Spoonerisms and Other Matters
John Ferguson, Selly Oak Colleges, Birmingham
The Rev. Dr. Spooner (1844-1930), Warden of New College, Oxford (1903-24), has been immortalized in the word spoonerism. This is curious, for it seems, on the evidence of those who knew him best, that the spoonerism was a verbal felicity which he did not perpetrate. The only spoonerism which is possibly authentic comes in his announcement of a hymn as “Kinkering kongs.” This surely must be authentic; otherwise, how could his name have ever been affixed to such transpositions? It is the more plausible in that it does not form a classic spoonerism in which, as Norman Ward suggests [XI,1], the transposition creates real but incongruous words. The best of all spoonerisms, pace Mr. Ward, do not produce “words without meaning in the context where they appeared,” but words with a surprising significance.
To return first to the historical Dr. Spooner. Two reminiscences recall the real man. One comes from Aldous Huxley, who recalled him preaching at a village church outside Oxford. After the ascription at the sermon’s end he was descending the steps of the pulpit, when a thoughtful look came over his face and he turned round and said, “I feel that I should explain that in my recent remarks every time I mentioned Aristotle I intended the Apostle Paul.” One wonders what the honest villagers made of the sermon! Another story comes from Lionel Casson. He had just been elected a Fellow of New, and happened to meet the Warden in the Quad. Spooner said to him, “Ah, my dear chap, you must come along at four o’clock. We’re inducting Casson, our new fellow.” “But, Warden, I am Casson.” “Well, never mind, my dear chap, come along just the same.”
Of the apocryphal spoonerisms two are particularly ingenious. One consists of words allegedly spoken to an erring undergraduate: “You have hissed all my mystery lectures, you have tasted two whole worms, and now you must leave Oxford by the town drain.” The other relates to a compulsory examination at Oxford in divinity, known as Divvers. (This was a typical piece of Oxford slang, some of which has passed into wider usage, as brekker for breakfast, rugger and soccer for two forms of football. A wastepaper basket became a wagger pagger bagger, and the prince of Wales the Pragger Wagger.) The examination involved an oral, and Spooner was taking a candidate through the New Testament version of the Lord’s Prayer. The candidate’s efforts were halting. “Come on, come on,” said Spooner impatiently. “Forgive us our debts as we also forget our divvers.” Leading worship in a Presbyterian church in St. Paul, Minnesota, where the usual form of the Lord’s Prayer involves “debts” rather than “trespasses” (as is normal in England), I always had to let my voice drop after “Forgive us our debts,” for fear that I should say the wrong thing!
There was a richly loved minister at Emmanuel Congregational Church in Cambridge, the Rev. Henry Child Carter, whose ministry extended from 1910 to 1942. He was a great pastor. When you were with him you absorbed his whole attention; it is not surprising that he then put you from his mind. He met a Girtonian [a student at Girton College, one of the two women’s colleges at Cambridge] in the streets of Cambridge and said, “You must come and have tea with us some time.” She replied, “I’ve just been having lunch with you.” That was not a spoonerism, but it was something of a spoonerism. From the pulpit he produced an exquisite spoonerism when he began a sermon “Our subject today is Youth with a capital double-U.” He also managed an amiable spoonerism in the notice “Those who wish to join this expedition must please shine the seat in the lobby.”
It has not always been noticed how a spoonerism is simply a device used in many children’s riddles: “What is the difference between a thunderstorm and a lion with a thorn in its paw?” “One pours with rain, the other roars with pain.” “What is the difference between a careful man and a verger?” “One minds his Ps and Qs, the other minds his keys and pews.” Such conundrums certainly go back to the beginning of the present century, since in the Hon. Hugh Rowley’s Puniana (1902), which contains some of the most ghastly puns ever perpetrated, we find “What’s the difference between an old maid and a girl fond of a red-haired Irishman?” “One loves a cat and parrots, the other a Pat and carrots!” and “What is the difference between a light dragoon and a lady with her head shaved?” “One is careless and happy, the other hairless and cappy” and “What’s the difference between a mouse and a young lady?” “One wishes to harm the cheese, the other to charm the he’s” and “What’s the difference between a calf and a lady who lets her dress draggle in the mud?” “One sucks milk and the other mucks silk” and “What’s the difference between your last will and testament and a man who has eaten as much as he can?” “One is signed and dated, the other dined and sated.” But in some 2000 riddles only these five represent true spoonerisms. It is certain that they are not based on any real or alleged verbal slips by Dr. Spooner, partly on chronological grounds, partly because they are not dissimilar from similar quips which are not true spoonerisms, such as, “What’s the difference between a fish dinner and a racing establishment?” “At the one a man finds his sauces for his table, and in the other he finds his stable for his horses.” That is a double pun, not a spoonerism at all. But it fulfills a principle of the spoonerism; it is formed of two words (or phrases) which fit together in the old context and which must, in their new form, fit together to make new sense.
It may be useful to bring in alongside the spoonerism other forms of verbal gaffe. The malapropism, of course, comes from Sheridan’s Mrs. Malaprop. Such are “Illiterate him, I say, quite from your memory,” “A progeny of learning,” “It gives me the hydrostatics to such a degree,” “a nice derangement of epitaphs,” “She’s as headstrong as an allegory on the banks of the Nile,” “I own the soft impeachment.” (Slightly different is “You are not like Cerberus, three gentlemen at once, are you?”) There was an excellent malapropism in the Punch cartoon of the portly lady trying to catch a train, who “splintered up the platform.”
The term Bunnyism has not passed into general currency, but could usefully do so. It is, according to Charlie Rice, “an oddball remark, a sort of glancing blow at logic that seems to make sense until you start unraveling it.” The word derives from Bunny, wife of Hollywood director Norman McLeod. There is an affectionate account of her in Corey Ford’s The Time of Laughter. She was liable to say such things as, “You can’t blame me for making a mistake now and then. After all, nobody’s human,” or “Norm is always telling me a thing one day and out the other,” or “It was so dark that you couldn’t see your face in front of you.” She complimented a hostess “This is the best salad I ever put in my whole mouth.” She remarked to a noisy party, “Sssh! Remember this isn’t the only house you’re in.” Seeing a starlet worse for drink she whispered, “Look at her! And she’s old enough to be my daughter!”
Charlie Rice claims his own mother as an outstanding Bunnyist. She would say to the children when they asked awkward questions “Never ask questions about things you don’t understand.” Her daughter was going out with a bit of petticoat showing. As she adjusted it for her Mrs. Rice said, “Remember, dear, a lady should never hint to a gentleman that she has anything on under her dress.” On hearing that an escaped convict had been caught locally, she cried, “Good heavens, we could all have been murdered in our graves!” To the fourth wrong number she snapped, “My dear sir, if that is the wrong number, will you kindly tell me what is the right number?” Charlie Rice’s favorite was a note pinned to the door: “Charles. I had to go to the dentist. If you get home before I do, I hid the key under the doormat. Love, Mother.” Mrs. Rice had a standard saying “It’s only fair to turn a deaf ear to all opinions.” Charlie Rice quotes one or two more Bunnyisms, such as the advice he received from a professor: “Don’t worry—never burn your bridges before you come to them,” or the button motto “Help Stamp Out Mental Health,” or the simple “I’m always getting the horse before the cart.”
William Deedes, UK Minister without Portfolio, and later editor of The Daily Telegraph, is a Bunnyist. His employees speak of Deedesisms: “Don’t burn your boots” he said to a reporter leaving for another paper. He said of Lord Carrington that “he weighs a lot of ice.” Other gems include “You’ve got to keep all your feathers in the air,” “You can’t make an omelette without frying eggs,” and “You can’t have your pound of flesh and eat it.”
Bunnyisms have some affinities with Irish bulls. These must involve an element of inconsequence. One of the most famous is attributed to Sir Boyle Roche (1743-1807): “Mr. Speaker, I smell a rat. I see him forming in the air and darkening the sky; but I’ll nip him in the bud.” That has not been authenticated firmly, but he certainly asked in the Irish Parliament in 1780, “What has posterity done for us?” Another, told by Lady W. Russell, appears in G. W. E. Russell’s Fragments from Many Tables: “Single misfortunes never come alone, and the greatest is generally accompanied by a still greater.” I never believed that the Irish were really like that until the Rev. Harry Lamb, the only Irishman at a conference, said in my presence how sorry his friends were to have missed the conference—“and if they’d been here, they’d have said so for themselves.” I can also guarantee the report in Cork Evening Echo in April, 1970, “Whilst snow is unprecedented at this time of year, especially in the south of Ireland, it is certainly not unusual.” Also authentic is the interjection of an Irish MP, Mr. O’Conor Power, last century, who cried, “Mr. Speaker, sir, since the government has let the cat out of the bag, let us take the bull by the horns.”
Sir Boyle Roche reminds us of the mixed metaphor. We should not altogether scorn the mixed metaphor. Nigel Strangeways, in one of the detective-stories which Cecil Day Lewis wrote under the pen-name of Nicholas Blake, declares it the sign of “a vivid and proleptic imagination.” Does not Hamlet have “to take arms against a sea of troubles”—not perhaps the happiest of phrases, but one which passes currency? My own favorite perpetrator of mixed metaphors is a Nigerian friend, Tai Solarin, headmaster, educationalist, social critic, writer. In his column in December 1961 he produced: “Our government is a hydra-headed octopus that veers and backs depending on the prevailing planetary winds, and that oscillates and flounders and hopes, whatever happens, for the best. It is not purposive; it is not logical; it is not disciplined.” Four years later in October 1965 came this: “Tomorrow, Nigeria is going to become India and Pakistan. The snowball is becoming fatter and tumbling faster on its sharp, deadly gradient to catastrophe—unless we arrest the glowing embers now and completely extinguish it and save ourselves from the inevitable conflagration.” Beat those if you can!
SIC! SIC! SIC!
“Stouffer’s—as good as can be.” [From a TV commercial, November 1984.]
SIC! SIC! SIC!
“Ladies of the North Park Presbyterian church held their annual luncheon and fashion show at the Park Lane Restaurant last week, and members of the church showed off some extraordinary hats, dresses and purses from a more gentile era.” [From The Buffalo Rocket, 23 May 1984. Submitted by Joan Murray, Buffalo, New York.]
SIC! SIC! SIC!
“Outside, cats can fight, catch diseased rodents or birds, lose their lives at the wheels of an automobile, or be picked up…” [From Cat Care, a pamphlet of the American Humane Education Society. Submitted by Dennis Wepman, Bronx, New York, who isn’t worried about his own cat because it doesn’t have a driver’s license.]
SIC! SIC! SIC!
“Curt was born originally in Oklahoma.” [From a CBS sports cast. Submitted by Ed Dell, Peterborough, New Hampshire.]
Antipodean English: Our Birthstain
Australia had its beginnings some twelve years after the American Declaration of Independence. The two events were not unconnected, for with the loss of the American colonies Britain lost a place to send convicts sentenced to transportation. Joseph Banks, however, came to the rescue, describing Australia, which he had visited with Captain Cook, as an ideal repository for these unwanted citizens.
Not all convicts were what we would now call bad men. Some were political agitators, some had shown too much ingenuity in coping with desperate poverty; the worst criminals did not survive the gallows. Nevertheless for a long time Sydney people were reticent about origins and as late as 1899 Earl Beauchamp gave great offense when on his way to become Governor of New South Wales he greeted colonists by adapting Kipling’s “Song of the Cities,” beginning “Your birthstain have you turned to good.” Now our origins have the glamour of history and people are proud to trace their lineage to the unfortunates who tangled with the law.
Linguists too have remembered the convicts, acknowledging their contribution to the formation of our idiom. For one thing, we have in the prison records an unusually complete, detailed account of the regional and social origins of the first European inhabitants of Australia. It can be said in general that convicts were urban people (the most likely to resort to crime and to get caught) from the south of England. This would account for the generally southern and urban, even Cockney, flavor of Australian pronunciation. Some mingling of dialects must already have taken place in cities, and a further smoothing out of differences and oddities has taken place.
Some words, now historical, related directly to the convict experience. Assignment ‘allocation of convicts to free settlers as unpaid servants,’ expiree ‘a convict whose sentence had expired,’ and emancipist ‘an ex-convict or member of a party representing the interests of ex-convicts’ were once common terms, though forgotten now.
The convicts brought with them a rich prison slang which left Australian English with a color it has never entirely lost. In 1812, James Hardy Vaux recorded the “flash language” in a glossary of prison slang that is a distinctive component of early Australian English. We still talk of old hands ‘experts at anything, people who know their way round’ or new chums ‘greenhorns,’ words originally used in a prison context. The swag was ‘a thief’s loot’ before it became ‘the bundle of belongings of a swagger’ (‘tramp’). Up-to-date youth in the 1960s called policemen pigs, but Vaux recorded the convicts so using the term long before them.
People from time to time regret that English rural terms seem to have slipped out of Australian idiom. No one here talks of a copse or coppice or glen or grove. Wordsworth’s “meadow, grove and stream” are not the “language actually used by men” in Australia. It is tempting to think that a contributing reason for this is the urban background of the convict settlers, who perhaps had little acquaintance with woods and coppices before they came. But perhaps the very different appearance of the new land is enough to explain a change in topographical terms. A scattering of eucalyptus trees in grassy terrain must have seemed to be something other than a wood; the new term bush, perhaps already known by people who had known South Africa, might have seemed more appropriate. Creeks (as in America) became longer as they were explored upstream from the inlets (or ‘creeks’ in the English sense) at their source. Perhaps the first land fenced was too small to be called a field; the word paddock was extended in reference as more land was fenced and field is seldom heard as a topographical term in Australia.
Whatever the rural knowledge of the first settlers, one now associates Australia with vast stations (as we call ranches) where mobs of cattle and sheep are mustered ‘rounded up’ in the outback. Australian dictionaries are full of shearing terms (though dairying terms don’t seem to have the same appeal). Actually most Australians live in cities and wouldn’t know which end of a shearing machine to use; but we treasure our pastoral legend. It comes as a shock to those Australians who study the origins of their idiom to realize that the fine outback terms are yet another legacy of our birthstain. The original “station” was a military station, specifically for convicts. The new settlement in Sydney was far from conventional sources of supply. It was necessary to develop agriculture and the obvious workforce was at hand. The city men knew mobs of people better than flocks of sheep; the gathering of animals for counting or shearing must have recalled the military muster or ‘showing up for inspection’; the station grew, and as settlement moved “out” and “back” from urban Sydney (into the out-back), the words took on rural associations and a tinge of romance comparable with that of America’s Wild West.
BIBLIOGRAPHIA: The Random House Thesaurus
Jess Stein and Stuart Berg Flexner, eds., (Random House, 1984), 812 pp.
As the copyright page states that the Thesaurus is “Based upon the Reader’s Digest Family Word Finder, Copyright 1975,” we investigated the similarities and differences and discovered that the two books are essentially the same. The chief differences lie in the absence, in the Random House edition, of the anecdotal and other “Reader’s Digest-type” vignettes, the addition of some entries to fill in the gaps thus created, and the updating of some of the example sentences. Stuart Berg Flexner was the editor of the Family Word Finder, so that is not a particularly startling revelation. But one is given to wonder if the Random House edition shouldn’t have retained the word family in its title, for not only was the redoubtable Jess Stein involved in this book but, as the front matter reveals, his wife, son, and daughter also got into the act.
The word thesaurus, as we are continually told in the prefaces to books dealing with synonyms, comes from the Greek word meaning ‘treasury.’ In my mind, it is so strongly associated with Roget and his work that I expect an arrangement similar to his when I see thesaurus in the title of a book. Perhaps I am the only person with such a bias, for Collins recently published a (rather poor) synonym book in the U.K. bearing thesaurus in its title, and that and the present work are both in alphabetical order. The entry for thesaurus in this book generally equates it with dictionary, and I shall probably have to give up my prejudices. But connotations die hard.
In the structure of this book a sample sentence is listed at the beginning of a string of synonyms, presumably in order to set the context of meaning for the words that follow. These sometimes do fit into the context, but as one reads on down through the list, the words become less and less substitutable.
For example,
gulf n. 1 A hurricane is forming in the Gulf of Mexico: large bay, estuary, arm of the sea, firth, fjord, inlet, cove, lagoon.
Except for ‘large bay,’ which is a descriptive defining phrase and not, properly, a synonym, none of the other words in the list is a synonym of gulf. That is quite all right with me: there probably is no synonym for gulf in English (nor is there any reason why one would be needed). I bring it up only to illustrate the fact that not all of the entries in this or any other synonym dictionary (or thesaurus) list synonyms; some of them are best considered catalogues listing types of items of which the entry is a token. Thus, under gun, we find:
1 The policeman drew his gun from its holster: firearm; (variously) revolver, pistol, automatic, .45, .38, .22, six shooter,…
…and so on for a few lines. For those who need a synonym for gun, firearm is provided. Note the semicolon following it. The “variously” introduces the cataloguing part of the entry. As one proceeds further down the list, blunderbuss and machine gun appear, which are likely to be drawn from a policeman’s holster only in more unusual circumstances.
Going back to gulf, definition 2:
2 The earthquake left a gulf in the field. The gulf between the two friends widened: chasm, abyss, crevasse, canyon, gully, opening, rent, cleft; rift, split, separation.
Here, apparently, the semicolon serves a different function—to create a parallel between the first set of words and the first sample sentence and between the second set and the second sample. The second sample and its synonyms are fine; but I find the first unnatural: Is that a sentence that anyone is likely to utter (or write)? I doubt it. Besides, a divider somewhere in the first string of words is needed after chasm, even if one can accept the sample sentence.
The preceding discussion illustrates some of the problems encountered in trying to compile a synonym dictionary: because true synonyms are rare in the language, the best one can do (and the best a user of such a work can expect) is to find a list of words “reasonably” close to one another in meaning—words that belong to the same, broad semantic category.
The picture changes somewhat in the treatment of words for abstract ideas, though the problems, which become more connotative and metaphoric, do not go away. The main advantages in dealing with such words is that there are available more “synonyms”—words and phrases that are not quite as remote in meaning because their meanings are somewhat vaguer or less distinct. Thus, although the sample sentence is not especially good, the synonyms for lecherous seem much closer to the mark than do those for an ostensive noun (like gun):
His lecherous behavior scandalized the whole town: lustful, lewd, libidinous, oversexed, lascivious, salacious, prurient, satyrlike, randy, erotic, licentious, carnal, lubricious, ruttish, goatish.
Not everyone would agree with the order in which these words appear, and there are those who could add enough to double the list. But the latter criticism is unfair, for the size of the book determines the extent of each of its entries.
Synonym dictionaries (regardless of their structure) are probably used more often to help a user find a word he is searching for that is in the same semantic category as one he can think of than it is to find a synonym for an over-used word in his writing. Were the latter the more usual case, it is unlikely that a person would require listings for words of relatively low frequency. At $14.95, The Random House Thesaurus contains 11,000 main entries and (at a guess, made by counting only the synonyms on one entire page) just under 240,000 synonyms. The Synonym Finder (Rodale), which is offered in the VERBATIM Book Club at $16.00 (bookshop price, $19.95), contains about 20,000 main entries and more than 1,000,000 synonyms. Both books contain antonym lists as well, which have not been counted in these estimates.
You takes your choice and you pays your money. [Note: The Synonym Finder is also available in a British edition. The Random House Thesaurus is an American book, but its source, the Reader’s Digest synonym dictionary, is available in both British and Australian editions.]
Laurence Urdang
BIBLIOGRAPHIA: The Great Song Thesaurus
Roger Lax and Frederick Smith, (Oxford University Press, 1984), 665pp.
[A VERBATIM Book Club Selection]
With entries that date from c.1226 to 1979, this impressive catalogue of songs in English covers “more than 10,000 song titles with lyricists, composers, dates of popularity and pertinent facts” (from the dust jacket blurb). The book is divided into nine sections, to wit:
I The Greatest Songs
II The Award Winners
III Themes, Trademarks, and Signatures
IV Elegant Plagiarisms
V Song Titles
VI British Song Titles
VII Lyricists and Composers
VIII American and British Theatre, Film, Radio, and Television
IX Thesaurus of Song Titles by Subject, Key Word, and Category
There isn’t one section that I haven’t found useful, interesting, and provocative—provocative of my singing (to myself, of course) the lyrics of some half-forgotten melody of which I was reminded.
The “c.1226” refers to Summer Is Icumen In. Would you believe that Auprès de Ma Blonde dates from 1580? or that the “earliest words and music” for Three Blind Mice appeared in published form in 1609? I wonder whether Gypsy Rose Lee knew that c.1700 was the date for Air for the G String. Section I is filled with such fascinating information.
Section II is undoubtedly useful.
Section III lists theme songs of performers and entertainers (e.g., Jack Benny Love in Bloom, The Ink Spots If I Didn’t Care), school songs, advertising jingles, political campaign songs, church chimes and carillons, and American bugle calls.
Of particular interest is Section IV, Elegant Plagiarisms. My own favorite is the entry for America:
America (My Country Tis of Thee) (1832) Based on the music of “God Save the King” from England, 1744; and that, in turn, based on a melody composed by H. Harris for the King of Denmark; later, Herr G. B. Schumacher wrote the German words and it became “Heil Dir im Siegeskranz,” onetime official Prussian national anthem.
Goebbels could have created some telling propaganda around that, had he only known!
Section V, Song Titles, is the longest section in the book, covering 241 pages. For each title are given its date, lyricist and composer, media source (Musical Theatre, Musical Film, etc.), stars of the original and of subsequent productions, and some concise additional data. For instance, about Abdulla Bulbul Ameer (Abdul Abulbul Amir):
Based on a traditional English song, from the time of the Crimean War. This song was originally written for a smoking concert at Trinity College, Dublin. This song was popularly revived in 1928.
(Nonsmokers please copy.) The variant title doesn’t make much sense, notwithstanding the prosody of the lyrics, for Persian bulbul is usually taken to mean ‘nightingale,’ which fits in neatly with the story line. I could not resist marking off some of the songs I know—45 out of the first 289 in this section. I thought that was a lot, but then I am not contestant fodder for “Name That Tune.” Here are Come On-A-My House, by Ross Bagdasarian and William Saroyan, Aloha Oe, by Queen Liliuokalani, and Summer, by Sylvester Allen, Harold Ray Brown, Morris D. Dickerson, Gerald Goldstein, Leroy Jordan, Lee Oscar Levitin, Charles Miller, and Howard E. Scott, which must say something about work performed successfully by a committee. Some of the variants seem to conceal what might prove to be interesting stories: the school song of the University of Pennsylvania was taken from Iwas Off the Blue Canaries, or, My Last Cigar; and the Harold Rome song Military Life, was also called The Jerk Song; and then there is Some Little Bug Is Going to Find You (Some Day), which “celebrates the influenza epidemic of [1915].”
Section VI, British Song Titles, lists only those songs, written in Britain, that did not achieve much popularity in America. From some of the titles, small wonder: I Wouldn’t Leave My Little Wooden Hut for You; Ginger You’re Barmy; Where Do Flies Go in the Winter Time?; The Flies Crawled Up the Window; I’ve Never Seen a Straight Banana; When I’m Cleaning Windows.
Section VII, Lyricists and Composers, is impressive. At one extreme are those composers or lyricists who wrote only one or two songs; but if they were songs like Pack Up Your Troubles in Your Old Kit Bag and Smile, Smile, Smile (Asaf and Powell), The Music Goes ‘Round and’ Round (Hodgson, Farley, and Riley), C’est Si Bon (Hornez, Seelen, and Betti), and Waltzing Matilda (Paterson, Cowan, and Lee), that was no mean accomplishment. This book does not reveal other, less popular songs that might have been written by these (and many other) composers of single hits, but one has the vision of their authors living like royalty off royalties. There are other humdinger hits like Schaefer Is the One Beer (Jordan, Hornsby, and German), which might be familiar to more people than Ave Maria (in either version, Schubert’s or Gounod’s).
At the other end of the scale are Hammerstein, Berlin, Rodgers, Hart, George and Ira Gershwin, Kern, Mercer, Porter, Harry Warren (At Last; Boulevard of Broken Dreams; Chattanooga Choo Choo, etc.), and Joe Young (Dinah; Five Foot Two, Eyes of Blue; How Ya Gonna Keep' Em Down on the Farm (After They’ve Seen Paree), etc.
Section VIII lists Musical Theatre, Musical Films, and other categories, with the songs associated with them that became popular enough to appear in Section V. Interesting are not so much the long-running shows (South Pacific—1925 performances; Oklahoma—2248 performances) that yielded popular songs, but others, like Right This Way (15 performances), from which came I Can Dream Can’t I and I’ll Be Seeing You; Through the Years (20 performances), which gave us Drums in My Heart; and The Great Magoo (11 performances), whence It’s Only a Paper Moon. The Threepenny Opera is listed with only 12 performances, in 1933, but that was only the original production; it ran for years at the Theatre de Lys, in New York City. Thus, one must be careful to read the authors' “program notes.”
As if that isn’t enough, Section IX offers a “Thesaurus of Song Titles by Subject, Key Word, and Category.” Space does not permit a thorough analysis: suffice it to say, it is very useful if you have “lost” the title of a song or can recall only a bit of the lyric.
Why all this space devoted to a song book in a periodical that deals with language? Because, like good poetry, lyrical language informs, amuses, entertains, gives pleasures of manifold manifestations, and remains evocative of episodes and events in our lives in a manner not equaled by other forms of human creativity. “They’re playing our song” has no parallel in “They’re reciting our poem” or “They’re exhibiting our painting.” The sentiments associated with Begin the Beguine, Dancing in the Dark, and, perhaps for a younger generation, Blue Bayou or maybe even She’s Actin' Single and I’m Drinkin' Double recall places, people, situations that often have otherwise faded into the obscurity of our forgeteries. In other moods, songs inspire the less cynical amongst us, whether they are martial airs like The Caissons Go Rolling Along, or Over There; patriotic melodies like God Save the Queen, or You’re a Grand Old Flag. Hard Hearted Hannah (The Vamp of Savannah) and The Girl Friend of the Whirling Dervish make us laugh; Let’s Do It and Bidin' My Time (because of the rhyme …time/…I’m) delight us with their clever use of words; we understand the poignancy of Just a Gigolo and Somebody Loves Me; the pulse quickens and the toes begin an involuntary tattoo to the strains of Bill Bailey Won’t You Please Come Home and Charleston. It is well documented that Love For Sale was forbidden on the radio as too risqué; it is only a rumor that when Gloomy Sunday was broadcast, it resulted in so many suicides that it was banned. Popular music is an integral part of our culture, pervading our lives. Little of it may have the majestic quality of Beethoven or draw from us the admiration merited by a Bach fugue; but the same elements are there, from the grandeur of You’ll Never Walk Alone to the delicious counterpoints in Adiós and Mine. From a purely semantic or semiotic point of view, music combines more emotional and psychological reactions than any other medium of expression. And that is what “language” is all about, isn’t it?
If you like music—old-time songs or modern—you will enjoy this book, which will afford you many hours of delight in reminiscing, showing off all the songs and lyrics you can remember, and amazing yourself with the genius of those whose works are documented within its pages. I could hardly put it down long enough to write this review.
Laurence Urdang
BIBLIOGRAPHIA: No Uncertain Terms
Mark Dittrick and Diane Kender Dittrick, (Facts on File, 1984), 109pp.
One of the (many) shortcomings of (most) dictionaries is their failure to resolve confusions between (or among) terms that have meanings that are nearly the same and may be confused. There are two ways out of this dilemma for the ordinary dictionary: (1) define contrastively and (2) cross refer to similar words by a “See also” reference. The first of these, without the second, is of use only if one knows the other term or terms. The second is rarely resorted to in dictionaries because a thorough system of such references would occupy space that is usually considered more economically devoted to other kinds of information. Contrastive defining is difficult unless the dictionary is compiled with the aid of a computer, enabling definitions dealing with similar semantic areas to be drawn together for simultaneous consideration; otherwise, the memory of the editor must be relied on, and that is fallible.
To some extent, the more common words of the language are treated by some dictionaries in “synonym studies,” brief paragraphs at the ends of certain entries where the sense discriminations among words of similar meanings are discussed. For example, the Random House Unabridged (which happens to be at hand at all times) shows a synonym study for information, knowledge, and wisdom at the end of the entry for information. However, only selected entries are so dealt with in dictionaries.
Thus, one would welcome a book like the one at hand, namely, one that makes useful, meaningful distinctions between meteorite and meteoroid, among bog, fen, swamp, etc., elk and moose, and so on. Alas, neither the structure nor the attitude of the book under review always fulfills this need. The authors have felt it incumbent on them to add some pizzazz, though I cannot imagine why: the book and its purpose would be perfectly valid had the job been done in a straightforward way. The first entry, to distinguish between spire and steeple, begins with that child’s rhyme, “Here’s the church,/Here’s the steeple…,” but to what avail it is hard to say. The style of writing is archly cute. Judge for yourself:
A SPIRE: The tall, pointed roof of a church tower; an architectural outgrowth of the Middle Ages, steep roofs frequently terminated the towers of nonreligious buildings in Northern Europe. A spire is only a part of a church tower, not the whole blessed thing.
A small spire atop a pinnacle or turret is called a spirelet. A small window in a spire, usually put there more to be illuminating to the eye on the outside than to illuminate what the eye might see on the inside, is called a spire light.
As inspiring as the thought might be, the word “spire” was not inspired by the word “inspire.” “Spire” has its roots in words that refer to plant shoots and blades of grass that taper to a point, while “inspire” comes from the Latin spirer, to breathe or take a breath. A nice coincidence, though, since so many spires are so breathtaking.
A STEEPLE: The tower plus the spire. Or even a tall church tower that isn’t supporting a spire. A steeple was originally so called simply due to its steepness, but the word “steeplechase” does trace its way back to “steeple,” being at one time a cross-country horse race whose finish line was at the base of some distant but visible steeple. Now, isn’t that inspiring?
My response is a flat No. The verbiage interferes with the information, and the introduction of extraneous terms confuses rather than clarifies the nature of the distinction between spire and steeple, which was, I thought, the purpose of the discussion.
Meteor, meteorite, and meteoroid fare no better. I hope the authors were responsible for the precious rhymes that introduce some of the entries: it would be horrifying to consider the prospect that they had been preserved elsewhere, except in some anthology of doggerel. It is difficult enough to distinguish the senses of the words without being faced by:
A METEOROID: Any small particle still traveling through space, just waiting for the opportunity to shed its old “-oid” in a blaze of glory and maybe even replace it with a brand new “-ite.”
If you like that sort of thing, then buy this book.
But it seems to me that such a book, if played straight, could be very useful and interesting. As presented here, it rubs me the wrong way. Some of the “confusions” (or should that be “confusibles,” as in Adrian Room?) would never occur to me. Do people really have a problem distinguishing tortoni from spumoni? a storm surge (which I’ve never even heard of) from a tidal wave from a tsunami (which, though adapted from Japanese to distinguish a seismic sea wave from a tidal wave, for which it was a misnomer, actually means ‘tidal wave’ in Japanese)? clairvoyance from precognition from telepathy?
But most of the terms selected are good: speed/velocity; calculator/computer; optician/optometrist/ophthalmologist (where is oculist?), and so on are useful and important, and many people do confuse them. Although the confusion can usually be resolved by a dictionary, it is convenient to have at them in a specialized work. It is a pity that an irritatingly cute style, which interferes with the expository promulgation of denotative data, has been affected; a more succinct treatment, allowing for the inclusion of many more problems than those covered, would have been more suitable.
Which reminds me—where are affect and effect?
Confounding the issue (but further bulking up the book) are crudely redundant illustrations, presumably for people who either cannot read or are unaware that confusions exist. There is a Foreword by Stuart B. Flexner, head of the Reference Department at Random House and, I assume, the Dittricks' boss, as they are identified as “contributors to the upcoming revision” of the Unabridged Edition of the RHD. As this reviewer has seen only the typescript for the book, without the Foreword, no comment can be offered on it, though it can scarcely be expected to be anything but complimentary.
Why do people write such books?
Laurence Urdang
The Trivial Pursuit of Grammar
Michael Gorman, University of Illinois at Champaign-Urbana
Last Christmas I played, for the first and probably the last time, the enormously popular board/quiz game called Trivial Pursuit. Three things about it caused me to be glad that it is my friend and not I who owns the set. The first is that the quiz element is, when played by fanatics at least, subordinated to the board element. An unconscionable time is taken up with dice-rolling and the planning and execution of strategies to get one side or the other’s counter to advantageous squares on the board. This is all a frightful bore and takes up time that could be spent in posing and answering questions. The second problem lies in the questions themselves. In the set with which we were playing—the “Genus” edition—a large proportion of the questions are either cretinously simple or simply cretinous. The third and most irritating of the game’s defects lies in the wincingly poor use of the English language in both questions and answers. To anyone with sensitivity to the language, Trivial Pursuit is the linguistic equivalent of a dentist’s drill.
The most pervasive linguistic irritant is the perpetual use of what for which, as in “What rotund cook wrote a book on bread and a cook’s catalogue?” and “What movie Tarzan won the 400-meter freestyle at the 1932 Olympics?” Less frequent, but equally annoying, are such things as obscure use of tenses (as in “What Mormon leader was said to have 27 wives?” —here the hapless player does not know if he or she is to think of someone who once was thought to have been so blessed or afflicted or, if is were meant for was, someone who is still believed to have been in that state) and crass misplacement of prepositions (as in “What hymn did John Steinbeck get his title The Grapes of Wrath from?” and “Who was the capital of Ohio named for?”).
Chatty semi-literacies abound. “What river is Pocahontas buried along?” is, presumably, supposed to sound demotic. The fact that sense and grammar are violated is unimportant to the compilers. “What color bottles do good Rhine wines come in?” must sound O.K. to some tin-ear somewhere, but it makes me cringe (leaving aside the question of whether there are any good Rhine wines). My (least) favorite breeziness is “What did Moses do for a living before he was called by God?” Boatman? Expedition leader? Double-glazing salesman?
Then there is the Strange Case of the Inapt Article. Presented with “What is the Diamond Anniversary?” one immediately thinks of Queen Victoria or some other person of extreme longevity and eminence. The answer— “The sixtieth”— indicates that the compilers meant a for the. The very next card (in our game) gave us a question in which impurity of utterance is matched by fuzziness of thought—“What is considered the sister language of English?” The answer—“German”— did not clear up any of the questions raised. What is a sister language? How does it compare with a brother/father/mother/ niece language? Is it the daughter of a mother tongue? This way lies madness.
The question “What movie teacher’s students were la crème de la crème?” would surely have raised the hackles of Miss Jean Brodie. Leaving aside the pervasive what for which, the fact that the question, as posed, summons up a vision of an Assistant Professor of Film at East Cupcake U. would certainly have offended that completely British lady. Moving to an entirely different, though equally gifted character, we find “What nationality is tennis spoilsport Ilie Nastase?” I think that they mean “bad sport,” though even that would be a slur on that immensely talented player. A spoilsport is “one who acts to spoil the plans of others,' not one who disagrees vociferously with the decisions of referees or umpires. (At least they spelled Romanian correctly.) While on foreign topics, we should consider the question “What do the French call La Manche?” Here the muddled expression is hidden by the seeming simplicity of the question. However, there is no doubt that the answer to the question, as posed, is “La Manche.” The answer to the intended question (“What is the English name of the stretch of water which the French call La Manche?”) is given on the back of the card— “The English Channel.”
The surrealistic quality of “What’s the only mammal that can’t fly that can fly?” is, no doubt, partially intended. Its grammatical and linguistic horror can only be appreciated when one tries to render it into decent English. (I was almost tempted there to say the “decent obscurity of a learned tongue”—which is what standard English has become.) The answer, incidentally, is “Man”—ho, ho, ho! Still in the Carrollian twilight zone of language, we find “What water is it better to steam or boil lobsters in?” Let us leap lightly over the question “better than what?” and consider the possible answers. Boiling water? Steam? Heavy water? Perrier water? None of the preceding; the answer is “sea water,” an answer which is, I suppose, as good as any other. As the philosopher A. Hall would say, la-di-da. Then there are “What do Las Vegas blackjack dealers stand on?” and the grotesque “What bird’s feathers does superstition say should never be in a house as decoration?” (Parse that, grand-dad.) Those with a philosophico-mathematical tendency will love “How many zeros are there in a billion?” The true answer is either “an infinity” or “none” depending on one’s taste. The answer given—“nine”— clearly relates to the question “How many zeros are there in the mathematical expression for an American billion?” However, that was not the question posed. I do hope the fanatical liking for Trivial Pursuit does not lead to litigation, because, in that event, lawyers will have a field day with such ambiguity of expression.
I will desist now, lest I be accused of breaking a butterfly on a wheel. Sadly, though, it is true that Trivial Pursuit is regarded as the thinking person’s alternative to television—the sport, if not of kings, of yuppies and yumpies. The slovenliness of expression that it contains and the slovenliness of thought which it encourages compare unfavorably with such earlier parlor diversions as contract bridge and cryptic crosswords. The former encouraged clear thought, albeit at a low level, and the latter increased vocabulary and sensitivity to the language. Perhaps a Slighty-Less-Trivial Pursuit with more intelligent questions posed grammatically would not sweep the world, but it might be worth attempting. Meanwhile, let us brood upon “What two colors is a magpie?” and wonder what the hell has happened to our language.
“ Good Grief, Maude! It’s an Oxymoron! ”
Timothy D. Hayes, Phoenix, Arizona
Announce, as I do at the start of some speeches, that you are “a collector of oxymorons.” You’ll face a sea of bemused faces, with here and there an island reflecting a knowing smile. Offer a handful of samples, as I shall do in just a paragraph or two, and an interesting phenomenon develops over the following several days. The mail brings you additions to the growing list you’ve fashioned. Some meet the mark; the majority sadly miss. After the audience’s initial reaction, I present a definition of the term: “An oxymoron is a two-word phrase containing contradictory elements.” Mostly, more bemusement. Then, an example:
“Jumbo shrimp.” It takes a few seconds, then a wave of understanding begins to flow through the room.
“Negative growth.”
“Airline food.” (They’re not all literal, after all.)
“Congressional leadership.” (In conservative quarters, that one can generate applause.)
“Military intelligence.”
“Postal service.” (Cruel, perhaps, but universally accepted.) The understanding has widened, the anticipation grown.
“From a golfing friend,” I tell them, “metal woods.”
From a banker who attends a lot of wine-tasting parties: “Plastic glasses.”
From the president of a seniors' club: “Social Security.”
Oxymorons have lately risen from academic obscurity thanks in large measure to a pair of contemporary nonfiction writers. But they may not have the sources I’ve developed.
It’s really fun to open the mail generated by one of my frequent speeches as Vice President for Community Relations for a Phoenix television station. Everyone, clear about the concept or not, wants to contribute.
“Unemployment benefits” is in this week’s mail.
“Recorded live” comes from a broadcast associate. (Television creates another, more subtle oxymoron: “New season.”)
“Limited warranty.”
“Juvenile justice” reflects a more serious contradiction.
An Arizona rancher, fed up with dudes, offers “Fashion jeans.” A waitress in one of the hotel dining rooms where I made a speech sends me “Non-dairy creamer.” (The hyphen saves it from violating the two-word-only rule, which most of my contributors do break.)
There are others I’ve come across unaided. At the risk of offending someone, somewhere, I propose that “Divorced Catholic” constitutes an oxymoron.
“Numb feeling.”
“Living end.”
“Black light.”
Sometimes a proper name qualifies: “Cheryl Ladd.” (Say it, don’t read it!)
The world of business produces oxymorons, too, along with its widgets: “Original copy.”
From politics: “Republican feminist.” “Conservative Democrat.” “Political science.”
From government itself: “Federal Reserve.” (Think about it….) “Federal aid.”
Some are highly localized: Arizona maps locate a site with an oxymoronic name—“Dome Valley.” And in this desert community of mine, where little or no provision is made for carrying away heavy rainwater, we have a recurring problem: melted winter snow sometimes fills the ordinarily empty Salt River bed with raging flood waters, wiping out many river crossings. So “Phoenix bridges” will be instantly accepted by a local audience as a valid example of the genre.
It has reached a point now where I “vamp” a little before starting a speech—surreptitiously scanning the audience before deciding whether it is “fresh” enough to try my list. Even if I spot a few faces I know have been in earlier groups, I still offer a selective sprinkling, just to generate that flow of mail I know will follow.
I just cannot pass up the chance of collecting a great new oxymoron. Whenever I suggest abandoning my speech-opener, my wife says to me, using what I consider to be the quintessential oxymoron: “Good grief!”
EPISTOLA {John S. Hogg}
Referring to Eric Partridge’s discovery of dover as a waiter’s slang for a reheated dish, and Mr. Partridge’s admittedly somewhat strained guess at its origin, it seems unlikely that the answer can be derived from even more strained Chaucerian scholarship. I would suppose that “warmed over,” in English as in American, is a commoner and more colloquial term for rechauffé than either “reheated” or “done over.”
It hardly boggles the linguistic imagination to conceive of the possibility that a waiter, somewhat unlettered and possibly either unacquainted with English or far from introspective, might well hear this term as “warm dover.” Since its warmth is self-evident, what more natural than that the dish should come to be characterized as merely “dover”?
[John S. Hogg, Hamilton, New York]
Double Trouble
Robert A. Fowkes, New York University
Hearing a discussion on the radio recently on the topic of applications for college, I heard one panel member speak of the “prudent student.” Whether intentional or not, the expression would qualify for membership in a category called by me Double Trouble, or less euphonically designated as Stinky Pinky, not to mention still more unsavory terms. At any rate, the modest rhyme pair set off a chain reaction in my echoing skull, producing about seventy disgraceful specimens, which I present here. In the first list are given the “definitions,” in the second list are the “solutions”; following the “solutions” are the number combinations that reflect the correct matchings.
| DOUBLE TROUBLE DEFINITIONS | DOUBLE TROUBLE |
|---|---|
| 1. Unreliable dill. | 1. Ablution dilution. |
| 2. Jesuit in fighting mood. | 2. Ancillary cassowary. |
| 3. Fit of Pharaoh’s cat. | 3. Asp grasp. |
| 4. Flaw in Flanders. | 4. Benign divine. |
| 5. Stolen sailboat. | 5. Bloc rock. |
| 6. Reference to bruise. | 6. Church lurch. |
| 7. Grip of Cleo’s snake. | 7. Computer disputer. |
| 8. Relentless porridge. | 8. Constellation altercation. |
| 9. Grits for the tragic muse. | 9. Contingent astringent. |
| 10. Attorney’s pooch. | 10. Contusion allusion. |
| 11. Leaner horn. | 11. Craven maven. |
| 12. Kindly dominie. | 12. Cruel gruel. |
| 13. Dagger job. | 13. Culture vulture. |
| 14. Spire folk. | 14. Deadly medley. |
| 15. Start of Love Boat affair. | 15. Dirk work. |
| 16. Titled world traveler. | 16. Diversion aversion. |
| 17. Fear of mistakes. | 17. Effervescent convalescent. |
| 18. Skinny bird. | 18. Egyptian conniption. |
| 19. High headgear for city. | 19. Equatorial editorial. |
| 20. Bubbling patient. | 20. Error terror. |
| 21. Star war. | 21. Extra-mighty arbor vitae. |
| 22. Recall the fall. | 22. Facile hassle. |
| 23. Herder of spotted cats. | 23. Fickle pickle. |
| 24. Healthfood frenzy. | 24. Flemish blemish. |
| 25. Weakening of ritual water. | 25. Foreign warren. |
| 26. Latin opponent. | 26. Fragrant vagrant. |
| 27. Greedy odist. | 27. Frugal bugle. |
| 28. Undemocratic national bird. | 28. German sermon. |
| 29. Shack spade. | 29. Global noble. |
| 30. Hatred of Amusement. | 30. Heart dart. |
| 31. Lye-by. | 31. Hot yacht. |
| 32. Monk’s credit card. | 32. Hovel shovel. |
| 33. Smaller baggage carrier. | 33. Imperfection collection. |
| 34. Rowboat salesman, gentle, too. | 34. Lazy daisy. |
| 35. Cupid’s arrow. | 35. Legal beagle. |
| 36. Beating a beating. | 36. Leopard shepherd |
| 37. Slow-growing cousin of Susan. | 37. Liquor bicker. |
| 38. Soundness of cetacean mind. | 38. Litter sitter. |
| 39. Uninspired tile pattern. | 39. Maize craze. |
| 40. Bag of errors. | 40. Manatee sanity. |
| 41. Poor-spirited expert. | 41. Melpomene hominy. |
| 42. Mind-set on fake kingdom. | 42. Monastic plastic. |
| 43. Fastener of pages of bull. | 43. Narrow sparrow. |
| 44. Corny fad. | 44. Nile guile. |
| 45. Condiment toter. | 45. Norse horse. |
| 46. Intrigue at Khartoum. | 46. Ocean emotion. |
| 47. Deafening chant. | 47. Octogenarian antidisestablishmentarian. |
| 48. Celtic seer craft. | 48. Oracle coracle. |
| 49. More direct critic. | 49. Organic panic. |
| 50. Thief of polish. | 50. Papal staple. |
| 51. Father Time’s twist? | 51. Pepper shlepper. |
| 52. Tedious group of songs. | 52. Porpoise corpus. |
| 53. Tender of garbage or of puppies. | 53. Prosaic mosaic. |
| 54. Alcohol wrangle. | 54. Pugnacious Ignatius. |
| 55. Contester of software. | 55. Rapacious Horatius. |
| 56. Chapel shift in earthquake. | 56. Regal eagle. |
| 57. Super conifer, outsize evergreen. | 57. Remember November. |
| 58. Sounds of Eastern group. | 58. Reversal dispersal. |
| 59. Lead article in Quito. | 59. Roman foeman. |
| 60. Luther’s preaching. | 60. Ruritania mania. |
| 61. Easy fight. | 61. Scythe writhe. |
| 62. Text of a Delphinid. | 62. Shorter porter. |
| 63. On the second team of ratites. | 63. Steeple people. |
| 64. Odorous tramp. | 64. Stentorian Gregorian. |
| 65. Alien rabbit quarters. | 65. Straighter berater. |
| 66. Viking steed. | 66. Tender vendor. |
| 67. Change of sorceress. | 67. Urban turban. |
| 68. Old gaffer against secularization of Church. | 68. VERBATIM seriatim. |
| 69. Quarterly in sequence. | 69. Witch switch. |
ANSWERS TO DOUBLE TROUBLE
1-23
2-54
3-18
4-24
5-31
6-10
7-3
8-12
9-41
10-35
11-27
12-4
13-15
14-63
15-46
16-29
17-20
18-43
19-67
20-17
21-8
22-57
23-36
24-49
25-1
26-59
27-55
28-56
29-32
30-16
31-9
32-42
33-62
34-66
35-30
36-58
37-34
38-40
39-53
40-33
41-11
42-60
43-50
44-39
45-51
46-44
47-64
48-48
49-65
50-13
51-61
52-14
53-38
54-37
55-7
56-6
57-21
58-5
59-19
60-28
61-22
62-52
63-2
64-26
65-25
66-45
67-69
68-47
69-68
CORRIGENDA
The wee beasties have been at work again:
1. In Virginia Howard’s article, “The Pearl of Hex” [XI,3], there somehow appeared a sentence that was not written by the author and has no business there: “Was it a new dish concocted from the British Erector Set, Leggo?”
2. The notice of the VERBATIM Competition Prize ($250) that accompanied the article “Cannibalism, Caves, and Amulets: Lexicography in the Scottish Highlands and Islands,” by Philip Riley, was in the wrong place: it should have appeared with the article, “The Viking Linguistic Legacy,” by S.B. Godinez. Our apologies to Messrs. Riley and Godinez.
Try It Again, Please
Lillian Mermin Feinsilver, Easton, Pennsylvania
What does Ronald Reagan have in common with Clare Boothe Luce? Not just a political affiliation. The use of a Greek or Latin plural with a singular verb has shown up in the speech of each. The President remarked at a press conference on Nov. 5, 1983:
Sara, I have to say that there is only one criteria…;
and the author-playwright, former U.S. Representative and former Ambassador to Italy, commented in an earlier interview with Dick Cavett (PBS-TV, rerun July 20, 1981):
The media being what it is,…
To be sure, agenda in the singular has achieved universal acceptance. But not even singular data has yet been accorded the same status. Criteria with a singular verb is still beyond the pale. Witness the warnings in the Oxford American Dictionary (1980): “Do not use criteria as a singular noun” and the American Heritage Dictionary (2d College Ed., 1982): “Criteria is a plural form only. It should not be substituted for the singular criterion.” And media as a singular is viewed no more tolerantly. Indeed, a sample sentence submitted to the Harper usage panel (William and Mary Morris, Harper Dictionary of Contemporary Usage, 1975)—“The news media is to be commended”—elicited emotional responses ranging from “Awful!” and “…infuriates me” to “Never Never Never Never Never!” and “Good God!” (the last from two critics, one of whom used two exclamation points). At the time, the American public had already been exposed to President Lyndon B. Johnson’s singular criteria:
…to act independently … with only one criteria, … (Harper Dictionary, p. 160)
and was about to become familiar with President Richard M. Nixon’s singular media:
The media has abdicated its fact-gathering… (Chicago Sun-Times, Nov. 18, 1975).
Certainly if the disparaged forms march on, they will abet the plurals criterias and medias, parallels to Bernard Meltzer’s phenomenas (“…one of the strange phenomenas of life…” [What’s Your Problem?, WOR Radio, N.Y., July 11, 1982]). Ironically, a converse confusion comes from innocent efforts at correctness, which are creating such oddities as a plural alumna (“…two Annie alumna…” [Martin Charnin, director and song writer, on Jack O’Brian’s The Critic’s Circle, WOR, Sept. 27, 1979]) and a plural antenna (“…two radio antenna were reported stolen…” [The Express, Dec. 8, 1980, p. 16]).
Mr. Reagan shares other kinds of syntactical freedom with figures in national government. “We would have liked to have had this whole thing move faster,” he told a news conference on Jan. 5, 1982, stimulating memories of the First Lady who had been prone to the redundant perfect infinitive:
I doubt if it would have been possible to have had Mr. Woolcott as one’s guest very long in any ordinary household… (Eleanor Roosevelt, This I Remember, 1949, p. 250).
Indeed, Mr. Johnson showed even greater inaccuracy of tense (accompanied by a superfluous that) in
I am sure that if there had been any laws violated that the matter will be presented to the proper authorities. (Associated Press, Oct. 26, 1964).
On Dec. 20, 1983, President Reagan used the indicative in a contrary-to-fact clause, for which the subjunctive is still generally recommended
…what life would be like if the multinational force was [were] not there.
Similar rhetoric was produced by various predecessors:
How I wish I wasn’t a reformer, oh, Senator! But I suppose I must… (Theodore Roosevelt, to Chauncey Depew, in Richard Hofstadter, The American Political Tradition, 1948, p. 203); I’d be a pretty pathetic nominee if I wasn’t able to get rid of Strauss as national chairman. (Jimmy Carter, New York, July 5, 1976).
In his inauguration on Jan. 20, 1981, Mr. Reagan gave impetus to an inexact form of address for the clergy when he turned to the officiating minister and said, “Reverend Moomaw,…” He further used that form on Jan. 4, 1983, in commenting on the action of another churchman
Reverend Jackson’s mission was a personal mission of mercy…
Similar usage appeared in a statement of former Vice President Walter Mondale on April 13, 1984:
They should be repudiated by myself, Gary Hart, and Reverend Jackson.
Although the clerical title with surname goes back to the 17th century, most of the dictionaries and etiquette manuals declare that for speaking to a clergyman, the model is Mr. (or Dr., if applicable) Doe, and that for referring to a clergyman, the standard is Mr. Doe or the Reverend Mr. Doe. For introducing him, we are told to use the full name with article and title: the Reverend John Doe or the Reverend Mr. Doe. Never, they admonish, should we say Reverend Doe or even the Reverend Doe. Interestingly enough, the last form occurred in the Reagan inauguration when Senator Mark O. Hatfield of Oregon introduced the minister as “the Reverend Moomaw.” And it has been used for general reference, interchangeably with the style of the President, by Senator Gary Hart of Colorado:
This was a humanitarian action of the Reverend Jackson. (Jan. 3, 1983);
Reverend Jackson and I disagree on the defense budget (March 28, 1984).
Mr. Reagan has also added force to the trend toward a plural pronoun after an antecedent singular pronoun; for example, someone followed by they, as in:
And all that we were asking was that the Constitution be interpreted, as I believe it really reads, to say that if someone wants to have prayer in school, they can have prayer in school. (Interview in Family Weekly, June 10, 1984, p. 4.)
One recalls with a start the statement of President John F. Kennedy:
If somebody is going to kill me, they are going to kill me. (Quoted in New Leader, Nov. 6, 1978.)
Such grammatical construction has been classified as “Adolescent they” by an otherwise liberal observer, because “This misuse reflects an immature style.” (Roy H. Copperud, American Usage and Style; the Consensus, 1980, p. 9.)
An even more striking illustration of this rhetorical failing was a statement by President Dwight D. Eisenhower in which a person was followed by changing number in both pronouns and verbs:
I really believe if a person turns their mind to something else and quits pitying themselves about it, they won’t find it nearly as hard to quit smoking as they think it is.” (Time, Aug. 12, 1957, p. 17.)
Eisenhower was also capable of using me as subject:
…if I were caught in one falsehood, and what I stand for in people’s eyes got tarnished, then not just me but the whole Republican gang would be finished. (Emmet John Hughes, The Ordeal of Power, 1963, pp. 194-195.)
Kennedy as presidential candidate used the same pronoun after than, treating the latter as a preposition rather than a conjunction:
There may be thousands of Americans more qualified to be president than me… (1960).
Oddly, the less-educated Harry S. Truman expressed more precisely a somewhat similar observation in reviewing his record of service:
There are probably a million people who could have done the job better than I did it,… (Time, April 28, 1952, p. 19.),
though Truman uttered some unruly lines too:
…these fellows who are always saying wha oughta been done… (Time, Sept. 22, 1961, p. 20.)
More recently, Senator Daniel Ken Inouye of Hawaii employed them in place of they in a manner similar to that of Kennedy’s use of me for I:
We had to demonstrate to our fellow Americans that we were just as good as them. (Real People, NBC-TV, rerun July 22, 1981.)
And again some converse confusion: Senator Lowell Weicker of Connecticut used I after a preposition, in a 1983 fund-raising letter in behalf of Senator Rudy Boschwitz of Minnesota:
Now it is time for you and I to remember Rudy—
which brought to mind John Simon’s offering of an inevitable paraphrase of John Donne’s advice about the one for whom the bell tolls: “It rings for you and I.” (Paradigms Lost, 1980, p. 214.)
It was Senator Ernest Fritz Hollings of South Carolina, early aspirant for the 1984 Democratic nomination for the presidency, who remarked on The Larry King Show (WCBS Radio Network, Dec. 10, 1982):
If we did in local government, and if we did in state government like we do in Washington,…;
and I silently concluded: We might, like, not know any better.
SIC! SIC! SIC!
“Much of Smokenders' business comes from corporate accounts with an interest in getting as many of their employees as possible to quit.” [From The Citizen, San Dieguito, California. Submitted by Lynn Garland.]
SIC! SIC! SIC!
“The infiltration of the wretched croissant (among other things) is largely to blame for the rapid deterioration in our moral behaviour.” [From a letter to the editor of The Sunday Telegraph, London, England, 21 October 1984. Submitted by Reginald Dunstan, New Mexico.]
SIC! SIC! SIC!
“It’s a perfect gift for someone who loves to entertain (and who doesn’t).” [From a grocery advertisement, Finast stores, 2 December 1984.]
The Violent English Language
Richard Lederer, Concord, New Hampshire
Everyone deplores violence these days. Many articles and books, radio and television programs, and self-help and encounter groups are designed to help us curb our tempers. And, with the specter of nuclear warfare haunting our horizons, it may be that the future of the human race depends upon our ability to channel our violent impulses and to discover solutions based on cooperation rather than aggression.
When we tackle, wrestle, and grapple with the problem of violence, we are bound to be struck by an idea. If our view of reality is shaped and defined by the words and phrases we use, then violence lies deep in our thoughts, frozen in the clichés and expressions of everyday life.
“I’ll be hanged,” we are likely to mumble as this insight hits us with a vengeance.
Let’s take a stab at the issue of violence in our language with a crash course on the metaphors we use to describe disagreements. First, we rack our brains assembling our arsenal of arguments. Then we attempt to demolish the opposition’s points with a barrage of criticism, attack their positions by nailing them dead to rights, let them have it with both barrels by shooting down their contentions, break their concentration by puncturing their assumptions, shake their confidence by hammering away at their weaknesses, torpedo their efforts with barbed criticism, and—when push comes to shove—assault their integrity with character assassination. If all else fails, we try to twist their arms and kill them with kindness.
Now we can understand the full meaning of the expression to have a violent disagreement.
The world of business is a veritable jungle of cutthroat competition, a school of hard knocks, and a dog-eat-dog world of backbiting, backstabbing, and hatchet jobs. Some companies spearhead a trend of price gouging. Other firms beat the competition to the punch and gain a stranglehold on the market by fighting tooth and nail to slash prices in a knock-down, dragout, no-holds-barred price war.
Still other companies put the squeeze on their competitors with raids, takeovers, and shakeups. Then the other side gets up in arms and screams bloody murder about such a low blow.
No wonder that business executives are often recruited by headhunters. No wonder that bleeding hearts who can’t fight their own battles are likely to get axed, fired, discharged, booted, kicked out, sacked, or canned.
One would hope that sports would provide an escape from life’s daily grind. But once again we find mayhem and havoc embedded in the adversarial expressions of athletics.
These days we may not be able to get within striking distance of a sporting contest without running into or bumping into some ticket scalper, who is out to rip us off and get away with murder. Once inside the stadium, we witness two teams trying to battle, beat, clobber, crush, dominate, maul, pulverize, rout, slaughter, steamroll, thrash, throttle, whip, make mincemeat of, wreak havoc on, and stick it to each other with suicide squeezes, grand slams, blitzes, aerial bombs, and punishing ground attacks. Naturally, both sides hope that they won’t choke in sudden death overtime.
Caveat Viator
David L. Miles, Charlevoix, Michigan
Traveler beware. When on the Grand Tour of Europe, forget what over-enthusiastic travel mavens have told you of the comparative ease with which you can expect to cope with the languages you’ll encounter. Certain words long cooking in the linguistic awareness pot will be assimilated with ease, of course, but many that look like English or another tongue can turn on you with embarrassing results. Jet lag is easily corrected. Language lag might never be resolved. Go from France to Spain to Italy to France, or vice versa, and even to Germany from any of the three, and find that your mind may stay one country behind, if not at home. Carrying a little learning can be a dangerous thing, for hauling linguistic baggage over borders results in encounters with customs not of the bureaucratic kind. Many a Doppelganger haunts the major European tongues. Diacritics trigger the hunch that not all is as it appears to be (bée, crâne, goût, haïr, hâte, râpe, soûl, thé—to name a few in French). But best expunge all preconceptions, and travel with an open mind and a closed mouth if your language skills progressed little beyond amo, amas, amat. Menus, signs, schedules, and the news will contain gibberish if too hastily scanned and accepted as they stand. Turn your thoughts around for a moment to filter meaning through another sensibility. A Frenchman seeing “… as Mets fade” will not think of a baseball team’s drop in the standings, but will puzzle over ‘ace food tasteless.’ “Marines seize protester” will become ‘Navies sixteen to protest.’ “Supplier pays bribes” equals ‘to supplicate country scraps’ for him. In France, ‘mine’ can be mien and ‘mien’ is mine; a coin is a ‘corner’ and corner means ‘to toot a trumpet.’ Homographs do not homophones do not homonyms do not heteronyms make. Speak and, especially, write your ideas, needs, and wishes with caution.
Ask for burro in Italy, and your waiter will serve you butter; but ask for it in Spain and he may bring you a jackass. Ask for baba in Italy and France, and savor a rich cake; but demand baba in Spain, and receive a plate of spittle. Request cane in France and you will be served duck; but in Italy you might be forced to eat dog. Request pie and you will get a French magpie, but someone’s foot in Spain. Do not expect to find loin or capon on a French menu; together they mean ‘distant coward.’ You may find prunes or raisin, however: order the first and get plums; do not hesitate to order only one raisin, for it is not a desiccated grape but a bunch of juicy ones. Also tell your French waiter you love pain; he will not think you a raving masochist, only a lover of good bread. Ask “How’s the sole today?” in France and be told the fish is delicious; inquire in Italy and be informed the sun has been shining since dawn. But forget Sole in Germany, unless you like brine. Hungry in Germany but on a tight budget? Ask for the nearest automat, and be steered to the closest robot. And no German will comprehend how you can enjoy Tang for breakfast: seaweed is best left underwater. Tell a Spanish waiter you’d like more sauce: he’ll cut down a willow tree for you, should one be handy. Ask for a tuna sandwich in Spain, and receive one filled with prickly pear. Go to a Spanish cocktail party, compliment your hostess on her delectable canapés, and she’ll think you’ve been nibbling on her sofas. Bite into an Italian pera, a ‘pear’; risk rabies with a perra, a ‘bitch dog,’ in Spain.
Never declare to a Frenchman you are a pet lover. He will think you quite kinky, since a pet is, no other word for it, a ‘fart.’ Get to know a Frenchman a little, ask if he would like to have a chat, and he might be put off at your immediate offer of a feline whose fur he might be deathly allergic to. Put on airs in France and expect to be called fat, not overweight, but ‘conceited.’ Beware of asking a betrothed Frenchman what he sees in his future, for you will be questioning his judgment in selecting his intended wife. After he’s wed, under no circumstances inquire how he’s adjusting to life with his bride. That’s a ‘bridle.’
If you’re in the money, never ask your Italian hotel desk to obtain a limo for your touring pleasure: why on earth would you want to obtain some mud? At an Italian beach, if you think all that exposed skin is really cute, say so. All Italian skin is cute. It really is. Ambitious and desire recognition? Don’t go to Italy should you hunger for fame, because fame is ‘hunger’ there. Should you be the he-man type, or regard yourself as such, never tell an Italian you’re a one hundred per cent red-blooded American male: he will recoil in horror at your admission of your own evil. Be pestered by an Italian demanding to sell or mooch something, but never, ever, answer with a knowing, exasperated “Ah, no!” He might interpret it to mean you are dubbing him an ano, an ‘anus,’ and the reaction could be swift. Likewise avoid using After in Germany—it signifies the same part of the anatomy. (Forget you ever heard of aftershave.)
Don’t try to find sable in France or Spain; neither has devised the means of making coats of ‘sand’ or ‘sabers,’ respectively. A Spanish saber means only ‘to know.’ Ask a sporting Frenchman for a game of catch, and he will think you want to wrestle. Tell a winning Frenchman he’s a real champ; he will wonder why you’re calling him a ‘field.’ Eye some desired objects in a French emporium; ask for four of them, and get an ‘oven.’ Or say you need a pin to hold a tear temporarily, and get a ‘pine tree.’ A gaze is not a look of wonder in France or Germany, merely ‘gauze.’ Write down for a French doctor that you have swollen glands: he will reply that acorns don’t do that. Complain of a twitch in your groin, and he will tell you he’s not a veterinarian who could treat a ‘hog’s snout.’ Or your legs are lame (your ‘legacy’ is a ‘blade’?). Or you think you have lice on your head (a ‘mongrel bitch’?). Agree with a French official your government ought to put a rein on interest rates, and he will wonder how a ‘kidney’ can affect the economy. Try to insult an obnoxiously loquacious Frenchman with the epithet “jackass,” but he will only agree that he truly is a jacasse, a ‘chatterer.’
Tell a German you enjoyed the plage, the ‘beach,’ in France, and he’ll know you’re a hopeless hypochondriac for liking the ‘plague.’ Learn Auge is ‘eye’ in Germany, but don’t expect a Spaniard to comprehend it: to him the word means a ‘boom’ or ‘boost in prices.’ An Italian regards it as a ‘summit.’ Elle, so common in France for ‘she,’ crooks into the Italian letter L, then flattens out to the measure of a yard in Germany. French dur is ‘hard,’ but ‘musical major’ to a German; a gangster’s Moll can be hard, too, but is German ‘musical minor.’ Germans sing a Sang, but that’s ‘blood’ to a Frenchman. Both agree about smoking, however—not the health aspect, but as a ‘dinner jacket.’ No smoking to them means ‘informal dress is acceptable.’ Feisty kids consider baths to be bad news; to German kids a ‘bath’ is always Bad.
Lost your traveler’s checks? Tell a German you’re in a Funk; he’ll wonder why you’re insisting you’re inside a radio. Tell him you don’t want to make a Fuss, but… How would you go about making a ‘foot,’ anyhow? Always look a German Gift horse in the mouth. It might contain ‘poison.’ Some Gift. On a health kick? Tell a German you want to find a Gymnasium. He will wonder what you’re expecting to find in a ‘grammar school’ at your age. Mention of the New York Knicks will make him think less of basketball than a Big Apple ‘curtsy.’ Compliment him on the beautiful Mantel over his fireplace. What ‘overcoat’? You may agree with a German film buff that in some old B-westerns the Posse really is a ‘farce.’ Ask him if he’d like to invest in a piece of the Rock, and he’ll be damned if he can figure out what’s so lucrative about a ‘section of a coat.’ Tell him he makes no Sense; he will agree he’s never made a ‘scythe’ in his life. A German bank might give you a Teller as a bonus for a substantial deposit, never let one handle your money, for how could a ‘plate’ cash a check? And the German links has nothing to do with chains, cuffs, or a golf course; just keep to your ‘left.’
A Spaniard will consider you daft if you ask about the influence of the media in his country. The only influence a ‘stocking’ has there is to make wearing a shoe more comfortable. An Italian will wonder why you consider something ‘average’ to have any influence at all. Put on saintly airs in Spain, say you always try to do unto others, etc., and your incredulous audience will ponder a Golden Rule that advises pouring ‘grease’ on your fellow man. Meditate, but never go into a trance in Spain; that’s a ‘dangerous situation.’ Say there that you want something done only once; expect it to be repeated ‘eleven’ times. Ask for more caldo in Spain, and get more ‘broth’; ask in Italy, they’ll turn up the ‘heat’. Croon cara to an Italian female, she might think you’re very ‘dear’ also; croon cara to a señora, she’ll wonder why you insist on mentioning only her ‘face.’ Find wildlife in a Spanish estero, a ‘salt marsh;’ tell what you discovered to an Italian, and he’ll know you’re acquainted with ‘swingers’ in foreign countries. Be not frightened of rape in Spain. It’s a very fine ‘fish.’ Nudo is ‘naked’ in Italy, only a Spanish ‘knot.’ Never use Italian loro, ‘they,’ in Spain: you’ll only be talking of a ‘parrot.’ Should you see the word polittico in an Italian museum, look not for a portrait of a Machiavellian ward heeler, merely a ‘polyptych panel.’ An Italian musician can blow a mean tromba, a ‘trumpet,’ but his Spanish counterpart could never get his lips on a ‘waterspout.’
So it goes. Scores of puzzlers abound. Stick to English, and be thrown by Abort, Angel, Art, Bake, bald, Beet, blank, Boot, Brief, Dose, fast, fatal, First, fix, Fund, Hang, Happen, Hose, Hut, Kind, kitten, Lack, Lake, List, Lunge, mitten, nun, Plunder, Quote, Rat, Regress, rings, rot, Same, Span, stark, Tag, Trunk, Wade, Wand in Germany; by Spanish ajar, can, flux, fray, liar, lid, mar, meter, mote, pan, quite, red, ruin, taller, tan, tender; by ail, an, bail, bond, but, cap, case, chair, choir, chose, dam, dot, fin, fine, fond, fret, gale, infect, laid, lie, lit, main, mare, miser, or, ours, pour, probe, rapt, rate, rave, regain, relent, report, ride, rogue, sale, short, singe, son, stance, store, tape, ton in France; and by Italian abate, acre, ago, alone, ape, brace, camera, china, dare, data, dice, dote, dove, due, estate, fare, fate, lasso, lode, mare, mite, pace, pane, pure, reduce, regale, rise, rose, sale, sparse, stare, state, tale, terse, and truce. None, but none, of these words will do you one bit of good should you try to apply them as you know them. Cast a skeptical eye on all you see; take extra care with those you speak; think twice about what you hear; carry an eraser. Take nothing at face value, or you stand to lose face. That’s not Italian for ‘torch.’ Caveat viator.
SIC! SIC! SIC!
“The round, black cylinder that the type hits (on a typewriter) needs to be replaced. It’s called the platinum… can cost $50.” [From Antique Answers, The Sunday Boston Herald, November 4, 1984. Submitted by Mary Louise Gilman, Hanover, Massachusetts.]
BIBLIOGRAPHIA: Kind Words: A Thesaurus of Euphemisms
Judith S. Neaman and Carole G. Silver, (Facts on File, 1984), xii + 320pp. + a 51-page index unnumbered.
This book is divided into nine parts with titles like “Parts of the Body: Forbidden Territory,” “Parts of the Body: Neutral Territory,” “Blood, Sweat & Tears: Secretions, Excretions & Bathrooms,” “Sex: Amateur & Professional,” and so forth. Within each are a number of sections, each given a heading of a euphemism; the text discusses not only the headword or phrase but several related terms. Judging from the index, almost 6000 terms are treated, some quite fully, some cursorily. The writing is good and it is interesting; there is little original scholarship here, for the authors, rather than succumb to the temptations of speculation, are usually satisfied to report the assumptions and speculations of others. Thus, loo is traced to bourdalon, a portable chamberpot, “concealed in a ladies' muff [sic!],” according to Honour and Fleming’s Dictionary of Decorative Arts; bourdalon was named after an 18th-century French preacher who so captivated his audiences that they “assembled hours in advance.” The (traditional) origin, here ascribed to the OED, is the cry Gardyloo!, shouted (I trust with sufficient energy) to warn passers-by that a chamberpot or slops basin was about to be emptied into the street from an upstairs window. (Those were sad days, indeed, for the hard of hearing.)
The book is fun to read. In the section “Crime and Punishment” descriptions of the drug subculture are revealing and interesting, but although Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds (=LSD) is described as having been made famous by Lennon and McCartney’s 1967 song, no mention of Sammy Davis, Jr.’s Candy Man hit is made under that entry. (That just about exhausts my knowledge of drug slang.)
Though an amateur, I nonetheless offer some comments on “Sex: Amateur & Professional.” The authors refer to service ‘copulate with’ as a “more cynical American expression,” which it may well be. But it is the customary euphemism employed on the farm, where its meaning is closer to ‘impregnate,’ since it is assumed that animals do not engage in copulation for fun. The transference of the term to people is certainly cynical, but the authors, perhaps for the sake of brevity, do not explain it that way. Many of the expressions are colorful: boondocking, PDS (public display of affection), the town bike, get off at Redfern, etc.
I find euphemisms as a class difficult to assess. Those that become familiar enough to be clichés are not only dull but have lost whatever euphemistic qualities they might once have had. Thus, the “euphemisms” knockers, boobs, and tits are scarcely that for breasts. Is pussy a euphemism? If so, then we need euphemisms for euphemisms. It is only the unfamiliar ones that seem to hold any interest, possibly because some are humorous and others mysterious. To take a popular category in which euphemisms abound, die, some are obvious (in context) to anyone encountering them for the first time: gone to a better place, go to one’s last reward, take the big jump, be present at the last roll call, and so on. Others, when heard for the first time, strike one as facetious (if cynical) metaphors: cash in one’s chips, buy the farm, push up daisies, and so on. In another few years, join the majority will be meaningless (it is already somewhat old-fashioned), for there will be more people alive on this planet than ever died. Others are mysterious: kick the bucket, go for one’s tea, rider on a pale horse, and go west. The first is, pure and simple, an idiom; proof that bucket comes from bouchet, some sort of a crossbar from which hogs were suspended before slaughter (which they kicked in their death agonies) is lacking. The second, though British, is unknown to me and, at any rate, seems harmless enough. To understand the third, one would have to be familiar with Revelation 6:8. And the fourth is usually described as a metaphoric reference to the setting of the sun, the end of one’s day on earth.
Euphemisms are so much a part of our language that they are often very difficult to identify, and I am not entirely sure that it is correct to call every metaphor for something unpleasant a euphemism. Moreover, as the euphemisms acquire a life of their own, it is hard to see anything “eu-” about croak for die and pull the plug for mercy killing: they seem to me more like cynical, vulgar paraphrases. The authors discuss this problem, albeit briefly, in About This Book, and conclude with a classification, “vulgar euphemism,” which they call “a contradiction in terms of logic, but not of social usage,” a conundrum I have been unable to solve.
Two years ago [IX,2], two books dealing with the same subject, A Dictionary of Euphemisms & Other Doubletalk, by Hugh Rawson, and Slang and Euphemism, by Richard A. Spears, were reviewed by Dr. Reinhold Aman, better known as an authority on dysphemisms, being the editor/publisher of Maledicta. He saw much that he liked in those books; I see much that I like in this one. The authors relate how Rawson’s book appeared when they were halfway through their compilation of Kind Words. They must have been sorely disappointed at seeing it, and I sympathize with them. Putting on as brave a face as possible, they are satisfied to regard themselves as “part of a new lexicographical tradition in the making.” That is something like giving the name “annual” to the first occurrence of an event only planned as yearly (as in, “The First Annual Darktown Strutters' Ball”). After all, who knows what may happen?
Laurence Urdang
BIBLIOGRAPHIA: The Oxford Guide to Word Games
Tony Augarde, (Oxford University Press, 1984), 240pp.
Here is advice from a verse of mine called Diet for Word Players:
When out of afflatus, the way you recoup Is, order a bowl of hot Alphabet Soup. Just stir the SOUP briskly; you’ll spoon down your throat As tasty an OPUS as poet e’er wrote.
But I have come to realize that my analogy, anagram included, is unfair to words; their kinship is more with deity than with soup. “In the beginning,” said the Apostle, “was the Word… and the Word was God.” This being so, we are required to worship words. The difference between us players of word games and you more serious writers is simply that we laugh as we worship.
What we have lacked so far is a good Book of Common Prayer, a set of rituals for our particular Church. That is what Tony Augarde has set out to supply in The Oxford Guide to Word Games. It describes games to suit every taste—26 categories and innumerable subcategories, each with a history and prime examples. The main categories are, in order of appearance:
•Riddles, as old as ancient Babylon. (Who becomes pregnant without conceiving, who becomes fat without eating? A rain cloud.)
• Enigmas—riddles in rhyme.
• Acrostics—hidden letter patterns in verse that convey a message.
• Word squares—sets of words of equal length, one word under the other, generally reading the same down as across.
• Crosswords—a 1913 invention which no more needs explaining than does
• Scrabble, scarcely half a century old. For insight into the soul of this game, Mr. Augarde turns to Clement Wood’s mournfully impish Death of a Scrabble Master:
This was the greatest of the game’s great players: If you played BRAS, he’d make it HUDIBRASTIC. He ruled a world 15 by 15 squares, Peopled by 100 letters, wood or plastic…
• Anagrams, words formed by rearranging the letters of other words. (Sweetheart = there we sat.)
• Rebuses, which draw indiscriminately on pictures, symbols, numbers, and letters to tell you a secret. Myles na Gopaleen uses only two symbols and the regular alphabet here:
My grasp of what he wrote and meant Was only five or six %. The rest was only words and sound My reference is to Ezra £.
• Chronograms scatter Roman numerals through words to register a date. The numerals in “LorD HaVe MerCIe Vpon Vs,” says Mr. Augarde, memorialize 1666, the year of the great London fire; I am too uncertain of my Roman arithmetic to confirm this.
• Palindromes, which read the same backward as forward. (Live not on evil.)
• Pangrams, which crowd all 26 letters of the alphabet into a cryptic remark; the perfect palindrome would be only 26 letters long. The nearest approach cited here is a 27-letter marvel that repeats only the i: Brick quiz whangs jumpy veldt fox.
• Lipograms—compositions that pretend one letter of the alphabet does not exist. A 50,000-word novel was written without e.
• Univocalics, which make do with but one of the five vowels: Persevere, ye perfect men.
• Letter games. These sometimes change one word to another by adding or subtracting the first or last letter (rough, trough; caress, cares,) or by adding or subtracting one letter at a time and juggling the others (spread, praised, Paradise.) Or words may hide in sentences: The lamb is one of my pets yields bison.
• Alphabet games. Perhaps the most familiar of these are Alphabet Verse, which begins its first line with A, its second with B, and so on, and the English Comic Alphabet, which puns on its opening letters (A for ‘orses = hay for horses; B for mutton = beef or mutton; C for yourself = see for yourself, etc.)
• Poetry play. In Bouts Rimés, the player builds a poem around a given set of rhymes, or creates a new, frivolous line to rhyme with a familiar one. (I think that I shall never see / My contact lens fell in my tea.) In Centos, lines from famous poems are joined in a new verse. Chain and Echo verses repeat the last sound of each line in the first sound of the next. Equivoques reverse their sense if the order of the lines is altered. Macaronics mix foreign and English words: In tempus old a hero lived / Qui loved puella deux… .le
Besides subcategories of the foregoing, the book provides Lapsus Linguae, Twenty Questions, Hangman, Puns, and The Longest Word (hippopotomonstrosesquipedalian is an oddity that might be thrown in here), not to mention Lewis Carroll’s Word Games. All in all, it seems fair to predict that The Oxford Guide to Word Games will be rated as the most comprehensive and useful work yet in its field.
This word player, for one, would like to see Mr. Augarde some day examine a still neglected extension of word play— rhetoric. The author mentions that puns and metaphors are often at the core of the games he lists, but not that most other rhetorical devices are equally playful. Tmesis splits a word in two and tucks another in between; synecdoche turns a sail into a ship, a foot into a foot soldier, a stomach into the fleshly appetites; paradox contradicts itself without lying; ellipsis tells without saying.
Indeed, the same imperative need to play applies to all verbal communication. Mr. Augarde reminds us that the 26 letters of the alphabet can be combined in 403,290,-000,000,000,000,000,000,000 ways. Long before humankind has mastered all these, I suspect that we shall have evolved into translucent glimmers inhabiting galaxies still unborn. In the intervening billennia, players of word games will likely offer up many a fervent prayer to the Word in accordance with the rituals laid down by St. Augarde in The Oxford Guide.
Willard R. Espy
Reflections on Indian Words, Among Others
Norman Ward, University of Saskatchewan
Robert Devereux’s admirable “More Than Just Manitou,” [X,3] a critical commentary on my “Indian File” [VII,4], not only arouses no argument at this end but encourages me to add comment on the different premises from which two persons, both writing in English and on the same subject but from two separate countries, can start when considering words. Mr. Devereux, to cite one difference, refers several times to Webster’s Third New International Dictionary; I did not refer to it once, and indeed in my main profession, teaching and writing about Canadian politics and government, I find Webster less helpful than other works.
Fundamental to Canadian English is the fact that it is only one of two languages that have official sanction in the country. When Canada was created in 1867 the relevant document (now called The Constitution Act) specified areas where English or French may or must be used, and after 1867 these areas were extended in directions which still cause rowdy controversy. The constitution now decrees that “English and French are the official languages of Canada and have equality of status…”
The use of two languages has meant that, quite apart from the fascinations of meaning and etymology, words have taken on other roles in which, to quote a well-known historian, “language is power.” When one considers, for example, that large numbers of English-speaking Canadians are Protestants while their French-speaking compatriots are Roman Catholic; that Protestants and Catholics have differing views of what constitutes a proper educational system; that any school has to use some language as a medium of instruction; and that schools generally come under governmental jurisdiction; some of the problems attached to using two official languages instead of one may be at once apparent. (That preceding sentence, admittedly complicated, suggests a greatly simplified outline of the reality.)
Another major role for words in Canada is created by the use of two languages: if two, why not three or four or more? None of the relevant legal provisions about English and French says anything about the genetic origins of those using them, an observation that may seem nonsensical until one adds that The Constitution Act assigns to the national Parliament jurisdiction over “Indians, and Lands reserved for Indians.” It also assigns what is generally meant by “education” to the separate provinces. The questions raised by such requirements are legion, and a sample will indicate their scope: Are Indians to be governed in English or French, and if so what of those who speak neither? Which level of government, national or provincial, is to educate Indians, and in what language? If Indian tongues are to be used, which ones? Are Inuit, who were not named in the original Constitution Act, to be counted as Indians? What of people who are half or less of Indian blood?
Questions like the samples do receive answers, and Canadian history is marked by the conflicting answers often given to the same question. Some of the by-products have unusual implications for words: I, for example, am a native of Canada, but there are situations where the assertion “I am a native” would lead listeners to conclude that I was an Indian (or possibly a liar). That I may not look like an Indian is not proof of anything: an Indian can be a person who qualifies as an Indian under certain legislation; but a full-blooded “native” may not qualify. The constitution currently guarantees “the existing aboriginal and treaty rights of the aboriginal peoples,” and declares that “aboriginal peoples” includes “the Indian, Inuit and Métis peoples”; but none of the key words is defined.
These reflections on Indian and other words have urgent political implications in Canada today because “natives” are with increasing persuasiveness asserting claims to ancestral lands or compensation therefor and most recently have been arguing for more native self-government. One cannot listen to or read about the discussions accompanying these developments without being struck by the disadvantages under which native spokesmen suffer when they have to make their cases, about which they feel deeply, in two European languages which are not their mother tongues. Self-government, responsible government (a term with a peculiarly Canadian meaning), constitution, and elections, all refer to real institutions, but they also denote abstract ideas. Improbable though it may seem to a reader of “Indian File” and Mr. Devereux’s stimulating response, it was wondering about the shortage of native words in common English usage and speculating about the possible reasons for it, that started all this.
Answers to Paring Pairs No. 16
(a). C for condom? (16,32) French Letter.
(b). Imitation of weeping Bohemian. (38,12) Mimi Cry.
(c). Here, Pussy! Boo! Hiss! (8,7) Cat Call.
(d). See the horologist. (53,37) Watch Man.
(e). Vain addict from Paoli. (36,34) Main Liner.
(f). Sturdy hooligan known for his persistence. (20,22) Hardy Hood.
(g). Elfin loans are sacrilegious. (25,24) Imp I.O.U.s.
(h). Nasty argument in Hyde Park bridle path. (48,49) Rotten Row.
(i). Strange chap is fifth wheel. (40,14) Odd Felloe.
(j). Legends of pixies beg the question. (25,35) Imp Lore.
(k). Lech Walesa is the cynosure. (44,51) Pole Star.
(l). Explosive sticker. (15,43) Firing Pin.
(m). Pawnee takes it all back. (27,17) Indian Giver.
(n). Crafty shoeshine boy. (50,6) Sly Boots.
(o). Quixotic illumination. (30,33) Knight Light.
(p). Has it rung for Esau’s brother? (28,31) Jacob’s Ladder.
(q). Henry IV and VIII furious in London street. (29,11) Kings Cross.
(r). Not wearing even a teddy in the railway station. (41,4) Paddington Bare.
(s). Plan to accelerate disasters. (9,45) Crash Program.
(t). Results of sex exposé. (46,47) Public Relations.
(u). Collyrium for my ablutions? (23,52) I Wash.
(v). Where we once owned a pier, there is now a fish! (18,13) Had Dock.
(w). He inherits the smog. (21,3) Heir Apparent.
(x). Operating the thumbscrew has her in stitches. (10,54) Crewel Work.
(y). Confirm how old she is (just to be mean). (2,1) Aver Age.
(z). A titter ran up to the squaw. (39,19) Mini Haha.
(zz). Gymnasts work out side-by-side in saloons. (42,5) Parallel Bars.
The correct answer is (27) Iron. The solutions are given below. The winner of No. 16 was Jean C. Thomas, Morris Township, New Jersey. The winner of No. 15 was Rita Stein, New York, New York.
Paring Pairs No. 17
The clues are given in items lettered (a-z); the answers are given in the numbered items, which must be matched with each other to solve the clues. In some cases, a numbered item may be used more than once, and some clues may require more than two answer items; but after all of the matchings have been completed, one numbered item will remain unmatched, and that is the correct answer. Our answer is the only correct one. The solution will be published in the next issue of VERBATIM.
(a). Crying nun who writes a sentimental human-interest column.
(b). What a union marriage broker effects.
(c). No one talks on the radio about the deceased inheritor.
(d). Someone who makes pointed punches is okay.
(e). Prop for Keystone Kop?
(f). Unnecessary if you roll up your sleeves.
(g). Confined at home for Sudanese repose.
(h). Sudden recoil of the cat.
(i). Does the mitey hunter return to his sordid hotel with this?
(j). Dance for church bigshots on the express train?
(k). Good grief! Are they the houris in Hades?
(l). Two cheers for No. 2 — most unusual!
(m). Sad seraph is in a nightclub with a Navy flyboy?
(n). Ennuyé alongside car in the marathon?
(o). Descend low enough to spank.
(p). English dental work, now in Arizona.
(q). An unjustified spanking.
(r). A horse that follows a scorched-earth policy.
(s). An incidental method for purchasing milk serum.
(t). He who irritates Gautama is strictly from Hungary.
(u). It takes 13 tricks, a 4 (loaded) base hit, or…
(v). Italian with the knowledge and good scents.
(w). Moldy ass is overrepresented in Parliament.
(x). What the owner needs to support his corporation.
(y). Where to keep the ribbed fabric?
(z). What to expect from an honest greens grocer.
(1). Angel.
(2). Arch.
(3). Arms.
(4). Avis.
(5). Awl.
(6). Back.
(7). Bag.
(8). Ball.
(9). Basket.
(10). Bear.
(11). Belles.
(12). Blue.
(13). Bored.
(14). Bottom.
(15). Bridge.
(16). Buddha.
(17). Bum.
(18). Burner.
(19). Burro.
(20). Buy.
(21). Cannon.
(22). Contract.
(23). Dead.
(24). Drawer.
(25). Faille.
(26). Fair.
(27). Flea.
(28). Grand.
(29). Hausa.
(30). Hay.
(31). Heir.
(32). Hell’s.
(33). Hit.
(34). Lash.
(35). London.
(36). Nose.
(37). Pest.
(38). Rah! Rah!
(39). Rap.
(40). Rest.
(41). Roman.
(42). Rotten.
(43). Running.
(44). Sister.
(45). Slam.
(46). Sob.
(47). Support.
(48). Sweetheart.
(49). Waist.
(50). Weigh.
(51). Whey.
(52). Whipping.
(53). Wright.
OBITER DICTA: Our Own Malaprop Dictionary
analgesic, pain that was spared the Dead End Kids.
caitiff, head of a Muslim country.
canon, a bigshot in the church.
columbarium, a pigeon-cote.
crematory, a Roman dairy.
defalcation, a bowel movement.
desuetude, the state of being not fat.
embracery, affection (and its display)
euthanasia, Mongolian adolescents.
expertise, an experienced coquette.
frambesia, a tropical plant with a huge pink flower.
hardware, a stiff corset. Cf. software.
macaroon, Taboo. a black Irish baby.
malfeasance, exorbitant charges for professional services.
misprision, false arrest.
Mongolism, political beliefs of the people in Siberia.
niggard, Taboo. a black person.
nosography, 1. the art of writing using a pen or pencil stuck up one’s nose. 2. the writing done by a nasograph.
orogenous zone, area of sexual sensitivity, somewhere near the San Andreas fault.
peculator, a roué.
penology, study of male sexuality.
picaroon, Taboo. 1. a black baby. 2. a select macaroon.
phylactery, a condom.
pismire, a urine-filled bog.
poacher, a short-order cook in an omelet restaurant.
poltroon, a wealthy landowner of Dutch descent who settled in the lower Hudson river valley.
programmer, a person who, though in favor of the structure of a language, is usually incapable of doing anything about it.
prophylactic, a person who favors birth control.
racketeer, a tennis pro.
software, a body stocking. Cf. hardware.
titlist, a sportsman who keeps a register of large-breasted women.
OBITER DICTA: Sociologists Spot “The Woozle”
Richard Bauerle, Ohio Wesleyan University
Readers of VERBATIM with fond memories of Winnie-the-Pooh, Christopher Robin, and their gentle friends will be surprised (or perhaps saddened) to learn that A.A. Milne’s elusive beast, “the Woozle,” has been located in a new habitat, recent publications of sociologists. Just as Pooh and Piglet created the imaginary Woozle by failing to notice that the paw prints in the snow were actually their own and not the tracks of a strange beast, so several sociologists are finding that their fellows are creating “Woozles” by failing to record accurately and fully materials they borrow and use in their own publications. Hence the term woozle effect.
Sociology’s first woozle seems to have appeared in 1979 in a lecture by Beverly Houghton before the American Society of Criminology. The term was then borrowed (with acknowledgment) for an article on the family by R.J. Gelles in 1980, and it then became part of the title for an article by Walter Schumm and others in 1982 (Journal of Family Issues, Sept., pp. 319-40). Schumm warns that the woozle effect with its oversimplified interpretations of previous research may silently creep in and actually “set policy in the prevention and treatment of family violence” (p. 335).
Perhaps Pooh was too harsh on himself when, on discovering his error, he declared he was “a bear of no brain at all.” He was simply looking for “the Woozle” in the wrong part of the forest.
SIC! SIC! SIC!
“I knew what my goal was when I saw Lauren Bacall touring in a play in Buffalo. To be an actress like that—well, to me that was the penultimate!” [Actress Christine Baranski (Tony Award winner) interviewed by Jack O’Brian on Critic’s Circle, WOR, May 29, 1984. Submitted by Alma Denny, New York City.]
SIC! SIC! SIC!
“Carney says goodbye to two employees. Edith Clark, delinquent account clerk of fiscal services who has served Carney for 16 years…” [From the house organ of Carney Hospital, Boston, Massachusetts. Submitted by Adam G.N. Moore, M.D., Squantum, Massachusetts.]
Paring Pairs Prize Information
Winners receive a credit of $25.00 or the equivalent in sterling towards the purchase of any title or titles offered in the VERBATIM Book Club Catalogue.
Two winners will be drawn from among the correct answers, one from those received in Aylesbury, the other from those received in Essex. Those living in the U.K., Europe, the Middle East, or North Africa should send their answers to VERBATIM, Box 199, Aylesbury, Bucks., HP20 1TQ, England; all others should send their answers to VERBATIM, Box 668, Essex, CT, 06426, U.S.A. You need send only the correct solution, not the answers to all of the clues. Please use a postcard.
Crossword Puzzle
Across
1. Derided doctor swallows Coke concoction (6)
4. TV tuna Charlie—or Pisces (8)
10. Does such a team shine best in night games? (3-4)
11. Goes back on one’s word, for example, in a twisted sneer. (7)
12. Wodin’s will interpretation leaves part of house (10)
13. Nothing, Darling (4)
15. Knots and ties? Rather! (7)
17. Get “Enraged” perfume (7)
19. Campus soldiers return after Lee upset ‘84 college member (7)
21. Hanger-on that is after combo (7)
23. Mineral springs back in drains (4)
24. Let down in post-paid mixup (10)
27. Ornament could make you a ringer (7)
28. City fashionable in the past (7)
29. Introduction for one obliged to go back in car (8)
30. Poor speller left out, drives off (6)
Down
1. Main wheel rolls during this time (9)
4. UC linesmen for Roman time (7)
3. Outgoing ones have fitful rest under whirling vortex (10)
5. Throbbing, has a thing about Brook (9)
6. Torn by turning tern (4)
7. In tavern, produce painful toenail type (7)
8. Proverbial wastemaker is chaster at heart (5)
9. Rich earths produce hybrid rose (4)
14. Partner in crime account has cops confused about mob leader (10)
16. The German lookalike has a small arm (9)
18. Efforts incorporate sex, not ire (9)
20. Caesar is in Rome, per arrangement (7)
22. Personal chatter about “The Sign of the Four” (7)
23. The girl left field for a plank (5)
25. Cunning architectural feature!(4)
26. We rise after six to watch (4)
SIC! SIC! SIC!
“Stop when flashing.” [A sign at 14th and Castro Streets in San Francisco. Submitted by Hildegarde Braun, San Francisco.]
Crossword Puzzle Answers
Across
1. Characters.
6. Cur-l.
10. An Anglo-American.
11. GUTHRIE.
12. (s)Lashed.
14. L-OSER.
16. Last issue.
18. Seascapes.
21. Stand(rews Place).
22. Gallic.
24. INTEGER.
27. Crossword Puzzle.
28. IcELANd.
29. Good sports/Goods ports.
Down
1. Changeless.
2. ANAST-asia.
3. ANGER.
4. (Not wisely, but) Too well.
5. Rumbles.
7. Uncle(ar).
8. L-one.
9. Brassie(re)s.
13. TENDERNESS.
15. (w)reckless.
17. STARGAZER.
19. Piccolo.
20. Ski-dd-ed.
23. A-Roma.
25. T-hump.
26. SierrA CREsts.