VOL XVI, No 1 [Summer, 1989]
Word Law
Dennis Baron, University of Illinois
I saw an ad once in the back of a magazine promising that if I sent in some money, I could have a star in the firmament named after me. For the same low price I would receive a certificate and a photograph of the galaxy where my star was located. I might even be able to see that star if I possessed suitable magnifying equipment. I was not tempted by the offer, but it did occur to me that while I would not like to have a star, as a wordsmith I might like to own my own word.
Is it possible to own your very own word? The English language may belong to all of us, but some of its words are the property of individuals or, in most cases of lexical ownership, of corporations. I am referring to the registered trademarks and service marks protected under federal law from the infringement of unscrupulous competitors. Now, I am a language professional, not a manufacturer or a lawyer, so if you want competent advice in the latter areas you should supplement the summary of the complex trademark picture that follows.
The law of trademarks, which fills more than two volumes of the Annotated U.S. Code in the local law library—the source of the following information—gives us some guidance as to what words can and cannot be staked out as private property and what that notion of privacy really means when it comes to the use of language.
For one thing, you cannot simply coin a word and lay claim to it. You must also sell the goods named by your trademark or perform services named by your service mark. In law, a trademark is a name, logotype, design, or any combination thereof adopted and used by a manufacturer to identify its goods and distinguish them from articles sold by others. A service mark identifies you as a provider of specific services rather than of vendable articles. For example, Kodak is a trademark, Fotomat, a service mark. Your trademark or service mark may be registered, but you may have rights to the mark even if you have not registered it, The symbol you choose for your mark may be pictorial, as the bearded representation of the Smith Brothers of cough-drop fame, who, as some would have it, are named, respectively, Trade and Mark. But a trademark may also be a word or a group of words.
Sounds simple, really. You come up with a no-nonsense product designed to remove widgets, patent it, and market it under the straightforward name Widget Terminator. Maybe the Widget Terminator does its job well, finds a niche in the market, and over the years even makes a little money for you. Only now your brother-in-law decides he is going to get into the act and beat your price. Of course he calls his knock-off the WidgetBuster, a much snappier moniker, and he packages the product behind a picture of a widget inside a barred red circle. Since his product works differently from yours, you cannot get him for violating patent law, so you haul him into court and sue the pants off him for infringing on the implied trademark you have established with your Widget Terminator.
Keeping it all in the family, you get your cousin Benny, fresh out of law school and eager for work, to argue that the public has come to love and trust the Widget Terminator and that people will be confused and deceived by the similarity of the name of the rival WidgetBuster. As a result of this confusion of products, your reputation will be damaged and your sales hurt. You ask that the WidgetBuster be withdrawn from the market and that your brother-in-law pay you treble damages and that he pay your cousin Benny, as well.
Do you think you will win? That depends on how well Benny did in his Intellectual Property Law course. The law recognizes two basic kinds of trademark, though it allows for a measure of degree in their definition: a “strong trademark” is one used only in a fictitious or fanciful manner, while a “weak trademark” is a meaningful word in common usage that doubles as a suggestive or descriptive trademark. Weak trademarks are more difficult to establish, and they are entitled to narrower protection than strong ones. Your brother-in-law’s counsel will argue that you may have an invention, but its name is not a trademark, because a trademark cannot be an ordinary word, particularly a descriptive one, if that word is used in its ordinary sense. Both widget and terminator are common English words—a widget is a ‘gadget, or gizmo,’ in case you did not know—and they literally describe the function of the product, which is to remove pesky widgets, so you cannot claim them as your own or prevent others from using them.
Of course, if you have ever talked to a lawyer you know that things are never what they appear when it comes to the law. There have been trademarks that were fairly literal, for example, Coca-Cola. Coca-Cola, which is a trademark of long standing, originally contained both cocaine and an extract from the cola nut. The cocaine went out when it was declared a controlled substance early in this century. Interestingly, the makers of Coke (which is also a registered mark) once sought to prohibit the marketing of something called Tacola-Cola, as well as any other drink with the word cola in its name. But the courts ruled that because cola was a common word describing what was in the beverage, any soda containing cola derivatives could be called a cola. Coke’s trademark was upheld against Chero-Cola, Clio-Cola, Coca and Cola, and El-Cola; ruled to be non-infringing were Koke, Dope, Cherry-Cola, Roxa-Cola, and Dixie-Cola. As for other sodas, Moxie won its case against Noxie, but Pepsi-Cola lost against Pep, as did Seven-Up against Cheer Up.
On the other hand, if the name of your product is a common word which is applied in an arbitrary or fanciful sense, you should be able to claim it as a trademark. The courts have ruled that Cyclone, when naming a fence, and Innocent, as a brand of hair coloring (suggesting, as the ruling noted, “the very antithesis of innocence”) are legitimate trademarks; but while Yellow Pages was found to be a trademark although it is clearly descriptive, raisin bran and spearmint were not granted exclusive status.
Manufacturers are fond of deforming the spelling of an ordinary word to make it distinctive, for example NU for new, KWIK for quick, or Bonz for bones (unfortunately, this last, a dog food lacking the so-called silent e, is frequently mispronounced). But a clever or phonetic spelling of a common descriptive word does not entitle you to own it as a trademark. Rather, a common word can become a trademark only if it acquires a “secondary meaning,” if, in other words, it is used so long and so exclusively by one producer that it has come to signal to the general public that the product in question is made by that producer, and that producer alone. (The courts have insisted repeatedly that to be a trademark, a word or symbol must call up not the product or service but its source, the producer or provider.)
If your brother-in-law can afford to wait, time may be on his side in the battle against widgets. If you stop selling a product for two or more years, you may lose the right to its trademark. The courts frown on manufacturers who pretend to sell a few samples of a product each year just to hold on to the name for future use. But you may be able to withhold the product from the market while you experiment with ways to improve it, and you can change the product significantly and still retain possession of its name, as the makers of Tabasco did when they altered the formula of their hot sauce but successfully defended their right to exclusive use of the trademark.
Under the former trademark law, shredded wheat was considered a generic term and, hence, not registrable. But because the process for making it was patented, no other company could produce it, hence the patent holder had exclusive rights to the name of a unique product. When the patent expired, new manufacturers simply used shredded wheat as a descriptive term. And although dictionary maker Noah Webster was instrumental in passing our first federal copyright laws to protect an author’s intellectual property, the name Webster ceased to function as an exclusive trademark when the original Webster’s copyright ran out. As early as 1904, G. & C. Merriam, of Springfield, Massachusetts, who claimed to be the literal publishing descendants of Noah Webster’s lexicographical projects, attempted to restrain the sale of other dictionaries with Webster in the title. In a series of decisions—Merriam v. Ogilvie (170 F 167), Merriam V. Saalfield (190 F 927; 198 F 369)—the U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals ruled partly for Merriam, partly for the competition: Merriam lost its right to the exclusive use of the name Webster, but since that company had become known to the public as the publisher of Noah Webster’s dictionaries, would-be Websters were ordered to disclaim on their title pages any connection with the original word book. In the early 1940s, World Publishing Company, producer of Webster’s New World dictionaries, obtained a ruling to quash the disclaimer requirement. In a more recent action, initiated by Merriam in 1981, the Court of Appeals again affirmed the right of other publishers to use Webster in dictionary titles and enjoined the defendants from using any variation or combination of the words world-famous, authentic, original, genuine, or renowned to suggest a connection between their product and the Merriam-Webster line of dictionaries (Merriam v. Webster Dictionary Co. 639 F 2d 29). It is clear that for many, Webster’s has become a generic word. Despite the fact that this synonymy is one that the courts have repeatedly upheld, no dictionary is willing to define Webster’s simply as ‘dictionary.’
Normally, a title cannot function as a trademark, which is why different books can have the same title, as long as their contents are different and there is no intent to deceive the public. Two manufacturers may be allowed access to the same trademark if their products are so different that their markets will not overlap and if there is no indication that the public will be confused by the names. Thus Condé-Nast, the publishers of the magazine Vogue, which is a trademark, were unsuccessful in a suit to force the owners of the Vogue School of Fashion Modeling to change its name. And VERBATIM, the language quarterly, registered as a trademark in 1974, failed in its suit against the manufacturer of Verbatim floppy disks, introduced in 1977, though the Verbatim (disk) company agreed never to produce anything but blank recording media, while VERBATIM is enjoined only from producing blank media. The owners of the popular 1984 movie title Ghostbusters have extended the range of their trademark with a television show, toys, and other licensed products bearing its name and distinctive logo, and VERBATIM, the language quarterly, is free to do likewise.
Ironically, success can sometimes weaken your right to a trademark, particularly if your product name has become a generic term. Cellophane failed to protect itself in an infringement suit when the defense attorney asked the Cellophane representative for the generic name of the product. Unable to come up with a synonym for cellophane, the manufacturer lost its trademark. Celluloid remained a trademark much longer, though it too has now become a generic term.
Thermos and Zipper were both originally trademarks. But both products became so popular that their names began to function as generics in the public mind, and because of that the courts have ruled that other companies could use these words, uncapitalized, so long as they did not attempt to confuse or deceive the public. However, a design or distinctive style of typography can be a trademark, and the distinctive manner of printing Thermos as a symbol remains protected.
Federal law regulates only in the broadest sense what words can or cannot serve as trademarks. Prior decisions have little value in trademark claims, and each case must be argued on its own merits. As a result, trademark rulings may seem idiosyncratic or contradictory. The law clearly specifies, though, that a trademark cannot be immoral, deceptive, scandalous, or disparaging. Glass Wax, a glass cleaner which contains no wax, successfully defended its trademark against a charge that the name was deceptive, but in the early 1900s the courts refused to recognize Madonna as a trademark for wine because it was ruled scandalous. (The soft drink Old Monk, which was not perceived to threaten public morality, was permitted.) Tastes change of course, in wines as well as scandals, and though Old Monk is gone from the shelves, today’s courts seem not to be offended by the brand of wine known as Blue Nun.
Foreign words can serve as trademarks in the United States, but their legal status is determined the same way as that of English words. Thus Selchow & Righter, makers of the game Parcheesi, could not prohibit other manufacturers from selling games under such names as Pachisi, Parchisi, or Parchesi, variant spellings of the common Hindi word for the old Indian pastime. Similarly, Duncan was unable to retain exclusive rights to the name yo-yo because the toy is called that in the Philippines, where it originated, and because it has no synonyms. On the other hand, both Scrabble and Monopoly are trademarks for games. Despite the fact that both are ordinary English words, they meet the secondary meaning test, being easily recognized as exclusive product names, although the court also upheld the trademark rights of a game called Anti-Monopoly over the objection of Monopoly- owner, Parker Brothers. That decision remains confused.
A trademark can be longer than a word, or even a pair of words. You can lay claim to an entire slogan if it has become widely enough identified with your product, but the courts do not let you monopolize the language. They will limit your power to control sentences similar to yours, just as they stymied Anheuser-Busch, the owners of the slogan, “Where there’s life, there’s Bud,” who failed in their attempt to prevent use of all slogans beginning, “Where there’s life…” including, as far as I know, the age-old proverb, “Where there’s life, there’s hope.”
At any rate, it seems that where there’s a trademark, there’s hope for a lawsuit. The Xerox Corporation, recognizing the potential danger of success, has in the past gone out of its way to protect its right to the words it owns. Though I have found no reference to any trademark suits brought by Xerox against other manufacturers, the company has tried to regulate the use of its trademark in ordinary English. For example, some years ago the xerography pioneer took out half-page ads in the New York Times to remind us that Xerox is a trademark to be used only as a proper noun, as in Xerox machine, or a proper adjective, as in Xerox copy. In either case, warned the ad, we must capitalize Xerox. Despite such entreaties, the word xerox seems to have become generic, if not according to the courts, then at least according to current American usage, where it occurs freely as noun, adjective, and even verb, with or without capitalization. Xerox persists because unregulated use by others may cause a trademark to be deemed abandoned.
Many publishers, either fearing litigation or simply because they are sensitive to questions of ownership of the printed word, prefer to take a cautions approach to trademarks, capitalizing words like Xerox, Coke, and Formica in print, though at least one major dictionary recognizes the uncapitalized form of xerox, and allows it to function as a verb. But no contemporary lexicon, either desk-sized or unabridged, records for Webster’s the commonly-found meaning ‘an English dictionary, even one not actually attributable to the lexicographer Noah Webster.’
But back to the hypothetical case of Widget Remover Mfg. Co. of North America v. WidgetBuster, S.A. While you may not be able to restrain your brother-in-law’s trade, you can hope that his market share will become so large as to draw the attention of the owners of the Ghostbusters trademark and that their battery of high-priced studio lawyers might be able to get the injunction that your cousin could not.
Clearly, owning a trademark can be worth so much that a manufacturer will object willy-nilly to any and every use of it by another. In one case the court told a manufacturer that there can be no monopoly on love: “No one may preempt the field with respect to marks having ‘love’ as a portion thereof and thus exclude all others from the use of any mark composed in part of such word.” But owning a word can do little for a writer like me, except perhaps in the ego department, since according to the law, a word can be a trademark only if such status does not deprive others of their right to the normal use of the English language. So if you were planning to give someone a word for his birthday, think again. Words that do not fit cannot be returned. And owning a word is not like owning a ball: even if the game is not going the way you planned, you cannot just pick up your word and go home.
SIC! SIC! SIC!
“The family said they would try to bury him again tomorrow.” [Dan Rather, CBS Evening News, 7 April 1987. Submitted by Dorothy Branson, Kansas City, Missouri.]
SIC! SIC! SIC!
At 7:35 a.m., Ron Steelman of National Public Radio said: “For the second time in two weeks a Galena Park school teacher was found murdered.” At 8:26 a.m., Sam Saucedo of Channel 11 News said, “For the second time in two weeks a Galena Park school teacher has been murdered.” [Submitted by Graciela S. Daichman, Rice University.]
THE STRANGE CASE OF DOCTOR ROTCOD
Richard Lederer, St. Paul’s School
Some people are destined for greatness, some for mediocrity. Otto Rotcod was born to become the palindrome made flesh.
The date of Rotcod’s nativity was September 3, 1939—9/3/39, an arrangement of figures that read the same left to right and right to left—in Danbury, New Hampshire, the only area of the state with a self-reflecting zip code—03230. His palindromic dad, Bob, and palindromic mom, Ava, named their tot Otto.
When Rotcod was a student in junior high school, he wrote a history paper on the career of George W. Goethals, the U.S. engineer who masterminded the building of the Panama Canal. At the end of his report, young Otto summarized Goethals' achievement by writing: A man! A plan! A canal! Panama! Rotcod surveyed his sentence with considerable pride, and discovered that the statement was a palindrome, causing him to exclaim: “ ‘A man! A plan! A canal! Panama!’ sides reversed is ‘A man! A plan! A canal! Panama!”' On a hunch, Rotcod wrote down that exclamation and saw that it too was palindromic. At that epiphanous moment of fearful symmetry, Rotcod became a lifelong cainamaniac—a ciloholic who spoke and wrote only in palindromes. “Ah ha!” he yelled. Years later, Rotcod became a doctor to realize the unfulfilled potential of his surname. Naturally he married a woman called Hannah, and from their marriage issued five well-balanced daughters—Ada, Anna, Eve, Lil, and Nan.
Having heard about this strange case of linguistic behavior, I visited the good doctor in his office and conducted an interview.
LEDERER: Dr. Rotcod, I’ll begin by asking you about your preferences in life? Whom do you prefer, your father Bob, or your mother, Ava?
ROTCOD: Pa’s a sap.
L: So you like your mother better?
R: Ma is as selfless as I am.
L: What about your choice between Coke and Pepsi?
R: Pepsi is pep.
L: Between Japanese and American cars?
R: A Toyota.
L: And your second choice?
R: Civic.
L: Is golf your favorite sport?
R: Golf? No sir! Prefer prison-flog.
L: Which do you like better, math or science?
R: I prefer pi.
L: Odd or even numbers?
R: Never odd or even.
L: Would you rather go to a movie or stay home and watch TV?
R: Same nice cinemas.
L: I’d like to explore your political preferences. What did you do this past November?
R: Rise to vote, sir.
L: And whom did you want to be president?
R: Name now one man.
L: All right. Michael Dukakis.
R: Tut-tut. Star comedy by Democrats. Tut-tut.
L: Then you voted for George Bush?
R: Hey, yeh.
L: Let’s move on to your career in medicine. What would you do first for a student who came to you with inflammed gums?
R: Draw pupil’s lip upward.
L: And what tranquilizer would you recommend?
R: Xanax.
L: And what do you tell patients who are sexually worn out?
R: Sex at noon taxes.
L: Is it true that you apply straw to warts?
R: Straw? No. Too stupid a fad. I put soot on warts.
L: I understand that you were recently visited by a hermit with stomach problems.
R: Recluse’s ulcer?
L: Yes, what kind of diet did you recommend?
R: Stressed desserts.
L: You emphasized desserts in that diet?
R: I saw desserts; I’d no lemons, alas, no melon; distressed was I.
L: And it is true that you encouraged the patient to consume alcoholic beverages?
R: Yo! Bottoms up—U.S. motto. Boy!
L: Did you recommend lager or red rum?
R: Peel’s lager, red rum did murder regal sleep.
L: I understand that, when none of these ideas worked, you recommended that the patient try to lose weight by fasting. What did he say?
R: “Doc, note, I dissent. A fast never prevents a fatness. I diet on cod.”
L: Doctor Rotcod, in addition to your fame in medical circles, you are well-known for your passionate hatred of evil.
R: Evil is a name of foeman, as I live.
L: Then what is your advice to those who seek the good life?
R: Live not on evil.
L: How can one do that?
R: Repel evil as a live leper.
L: Do you then wish to stamp out all lies?
R: Live on evasions? No! I save no evil.
L: How should one treat a liar?
R: Rail at a liar.
L: Can good and evil exist together in this world?
R: No, it is opposition.
L: Did evil always exist?
R: O, stone me! Not so!
L: Then where did evil begin?
R: Eve.
L: And Adam, too?
R: Mad Adam.
L: What did Adam say when he met Eve?
R: Madam in Eden, I’m Adam.
L: And what did Eve say?
R: Eve, maiden name. Both sad in Eden? I dash to be manned. I am Eve.
L: What happened when Eve saw that jewel of a forbidden fruit?
R: Eve saw diamond, erred. No maid was Eve.
L: And what happened when Eve offered the fruit to Adam?
R: Won’t lovers revolt now?
L: So they sinned together?
R: Named under a ban—a bared, nude man.
L: And the result was…?
R: Eve damned Eden, mad Eve.
L: Can we ever escape the influence of that act?
R: Her Eve’s noose we soon sever, eh?
L: Well, can we?
R: No, evils live on.
L: Did you yourself ever sin, Doctor?
R: Lived as a devil.
L: How so?
R: Evil did I dwell, lewd I did live.
L: And what was the result of that life?
R: Reviled did I live; evil I did deliver.
L: Apparently, you began to despair of ever overcoming evil. What did you think?
R: Do good’s deeds live on? No, evil’s deeds do, O God.
L: I imagine that this state of affairs made you quite miserable.
R: Egad, a base life defiles a bad age.
L: Did you ever despair that evil could be conquered?
R: No, it can—action!
L: So you dedicated your life to fighting evil?
R: Now do I repay a period won.
L: And you have fought evil with good?
R: Did I do, O God, did I as I said I’d do? Good, I did!
L: Have you finally won your battle against sin?
R: Now, sir, a war is won.
L: Do you feel good about all this?
R: Revered now I live on. O, did I do no evil, I wonder, ever?
L: I understand that your colleagues in virtue have no doubts that they will have their reward in heaven.
R: Nor I, fool, ah no! We won halo—of iron!
L: And what will happen to you few who have seen the light?
R: Are we not drawn onward, we few, drawn onward to new era?
L: Doctor Rotcod, I thank you for this two-way interview. But how do you do it? How are you able to speak in palindromes so skillfully?
R: Because if I didn’t, I’d sound something like this: “sihte kilg niht emos dnuos ditn didifie suaceb.”
Another Grammatical Game: The Foregone Conclusion
Douglas Greenwood, Barrie, Ontario
The Foregone Conclusion—I claim the capital letters because I invented it, having beaten Fowler to it—is one of the trickiest little imps of social intercourse. Sometimes it is the sneakiest, too. Its legerdemain can come close to infiltrating sexual intercourse as well, you might say, as in the following tricky, sneaky example:
Do you think a girl should go to his or to her apartment on a first date? Not many girls, liberated or not, would fail to see through that Foregone Conclusion, I am sure; who said she should go to any apartment with a man?
There are far more ingratiating Foregone Conclusions than in such transparent ploys. How often have we heard or read statements to the effect that:
It is quicker and cheaper to ride the city transit system so why do you drive your car in the city?
If you start explaining that you are going somewhere other than home after work or…then you have fallen into the trap. To say that it is quicker or cheaper…may or may not be true. You should just be sure that you recognize the Foregone Conclusion.
Note well, though, that a Foregone Conclusion is not the same as a false premise. They are indeed quite similar but the difference is that a false premise can stand on its own: “It is essential that the government run the Post Office.” “All men are the same!” “All women are the same!” (We must give Judy and the colonel equal time.) And the parenthetical comment is not intended to be an example of a false premise! You see it is the element of persuasion that distinguishes the Foregone Conclusion from the false premise.
Foregone Conclusions are easy to spot once you know they may be lurking out there in the verbal jungle. Let us go hunting. Look out—here’s one!
Our brand has double the pain killer of brand X.
Conclude carefully here: medically a double dose of pain killer does not always kill any more pain than does a posological dose.
Which dress do you think you prefer then, madam …?
In the trade I believe they call this a “trial closing” and it can be a powerful FC—who said she would prefer any of the dresses?
It is only right that companies making excess profits should be….
Don’t the little (italicized) blighters slip in smoothly?
All men are created equal….
And women? Equal? To one another? They are born equally strong? Or of the same color? Of course, silly of me, equal under law is what it means. But laws differ from place to place, nation to nation.
I am not trying to make contentious points here but merely showing how ubiquitous our persuasive Foregone Conclusions can be. How persuasive is the Declaration of Independence!
Watch for more Favorite Grammatical Games in following issues of VERBATIM.
Word Droppings
Garland Cannon, Texas A&M University
Cannon[^a1] tabulated an attrition rate of 1.5% for new meanings and new items originally admitted to the Merriam Addenda Sections which were cumulatively included in reprints of Webster’s Third New International Dictionary of the English Language (1961) at five-year intervals in the 1966-81 period, but then were excluded from Merriam’s 9,000 Words (1983). Thus a surprisingly high 98.5% of the main entries were retained in the four Addenda Sections in question. These evidently possessed whatever qualities of viability are required for an item to survive in at least written English once it has experienced adequate quantity and variety of printed occurrence to justify initial listing in the first place. Of the 111 items that were dropped, 61 vanished in just two to five years, suggesting that the early years of a word’s temporary admission to the English lexicon are the most critical.
During this period, two hardcover versions of the Addenda Sections were published—6,000 Words (1976) and 9,000 Words. Now the hardcover version of the 7873-main-entry 1986 Addenda Section, appearing simultaneously as 12,000 Words (1986), permits an updating of the statistics. Only 164 previously listed main entries did not appear in the 1986 Addenda Section, some of which had first been listed as long ago as 1966, but a high 39 of which were first listed in 1981 and so continue to indicate the critical quality of a new word’s first five years in the lexicon. If we compare these 164 deletions to the retained 7873 entries, we find that the updated 2% attrition rate only trivially raises the earlier 1.5% rate. With the thought that word lovers will be interested in these 164 apparently unviable words, we will list them below. Since the word-formation process by which they came into the vocabulary may provide crucial information, the list is organized according to that process. Thus, we can see at a glance that, for example, the highest mortality again appeared in the new noun compounds, where 28% of the deletions were noun compounds, whereas the only variant form was tabbouli. The deletions consisted of 134 nouns, 16 adjectives, 12 verbs, and 2 affixes. The taxonomy is that determined by the 13,683-item corpus described in Cannon (1987).
NEW MEANINGS
(25)
analyst
bob
butter pat
delocalize, v.
derrick, v.
digger
fat
gate
immune, adj.
laggard
lagger
meson
microelectrode
mu-meson
paging
plasma
poach, v.
muonon, suffix
receptor
reduplicate, n.
spinner
standoff
station
zoneVARIANT FORM
tabbouliFUNTIONAL SHIFT (6)
decorative
diplotene, adj.
dirty
dustoff
punch-up
skimBORROWINGS (6)
beef Bourguignon
dynapolis
incendive, adj.
macchinetta
periselenium
screeABBREVIATIONS (4) ADP
BAL
EEC
IDDDACRONYM
KWOCUNABBREVIATED SHORTENINGS (6)
detox, v.
gox
hydro
immuno-,
comb.
form
jetavator
youthcultSHORTENING + BOUND FORM (7)
ambidextrous, adj.
autodrome
birdyback
colorcaster
gravisphere
moonfall
parakite
resistojetBLENDS (2)
gayola
plenchBOUND-MORPHEME ITEMS (7)
Afrophile
aposelene
aposelenium
biotron
quadriphony
reticulosis
technopolisINITIAL AFFIXATIONS (20)
antienvironment
antimissile
antirheumatic, adj.
antisexist, adj.
audiotypist
bioelectrogenesis
cryochemistry
cytoecology
dehydrotestosterone
geoprobe
heliborne, adj.
helilift, v.
helispot
hexamethylenetetramine
megnetofluidmechanic, adj.
neurokinin
parapolitical, adj.
protocontinent
telelecture
xenobiologyTERMINAL AFFIXATIONS (18)
Africanity
audiophile
channery, adj.
computerite
Dolbyized, adj.
ductibility
electrohydraulics
fluidonics
fluoridizer
incapacitator
Mosleyite
mysterium
oceanologic, adj.
projectual
psychedelicize, adj.
quadriphonics
quantized, adj.
restartable, adj.MIXED AFFIXATIONS
antinatalistNOUN COMPOUNDS (46)
ABC art
adenosine 3’, 5' monophosphate
Age of Aquarius
air battery
Aquarian Age
arcjet
arc-jet engine
Berring time
bitch box
bodyclothes
broken home
Colourpoint Longhair
aerial tomography
core city
cyclic group
death control
dunk shot
eye doctor
fly-cruise
fractional orbital bombardment system
gamma decay
heat pollution
hemoglobin S
imitation milk
ionic propulsion
isolated camera
juice man
kill ratio
lepton number
lip-gloss
media mix
memory trace
new issues
offtract betting
pump jockey
rap session
slack-fill
special situation
speed freak
surfer’s knot
teaching machine
T-time
up quark
wake surfing
water toothpick
xenic acidADJ. COMPOUND
air-cusionVERB COMPOUNDS (5)
clock in
clock off
clock on
clock out
fuck around
“Knowing the Fervor with Which You Speak…”
Robert R. Rasmussen, Arcadia, California
—Senator Warren Rudman, July 13, 1987
The Iran-contra hearings drenched us in a stunning array of colorful words. For several weeks an august group of intelligent men and women met in the Senate Caucus Room on the third floor of the Capitol’s Office Building. During those several weeks of early summer the world could listen to articulate speakers of English who have the ability to manipulate our minds and twist our emotions with word-images. Through the clever and sometimes masterful use of language, the same activity or event was made to sound logical, or patriotic, or it could appear to be sordid and bordering on treason. For example, consider this clever exchange between Senate committee counsel Arthur Liman and Lieutenant Colonel North:
Liman: And, you therefore were told to get rid of the memoranda that reflected that?
North: I was told to clean up the files.
One statement suggests concealing or hiding something; the other implies good sound bookkeeping, running a tidy ship. The participants wanted to convey the notion that they were not concerned with language. Rather, they were only concerned with getting at the facts. They wished to bring the message of what actually happened and show a concerned world that truth and justice would triumph. Still, for this to happen, all participants recognized that language was important to ensure that the public would understand acts and events as the speakers wished them to be understood.
During the hearings, we watched unfold before us a variety of words and phrases to indicate the concept of not telling the truth. Seldom did anyone admit to lying, but statements were often couched in terms colorfully indicating that the speaker had abandoned verity. For example, John Nields, Jr., the House committee’s majority counsel, asked, “…Are you saying that he told you to write down a different version of the facts?” And moments later he continued, “Are you saying that you decided it was appropriate to put out a false version of the facts?” In Lieutenant Colonel North’s response he used the words a version of the chronology that was inaccurate. Later, Nields used the phrase the chronology with the false version in it. He then followed with a question, staying with this stronger phrase false version. North’s response contained the clause this version of the document was wrong, intentionally misleading. Earlier he had used this version was incorrect. Once Nields had used false version, he stayed with that for a while. Then he used false story. This word story presents interesting possibilities. Used in a straight forward positive sentence, it carries a favorable connotation: “We want to get out the whole story,” or “Col. North will tell his story to the committee.” But used with words with unfavorable connotations, it assumes a pernicious meaning of make-believe, for example, “Is that still his story?” or “What is his story now?”
Other euphemisms for lying that were used included excessive statements, outright misrepresentation, dissembled, prudent to change those chronologies, and radically different from the facts. The concept of “plausible deniability” is a variation on the theme of avoiding the recognition or the admission of lying. Implicit in the term is the idea that one has chosen to do something that one may want to deny later. One must then consider if such a denial is reasonable, that is, believable. If one denies something, is it possible that the denial, that is, the lie, could be exposed? It might be possible to establish an equation to determine the Plausible Deniability Factor (PDF) of any statement. Psychologists and social scientists could do a lot with that.
The deleteriously loaded term elaborate scheme popped into the hearings with Representative Jack Brooks' words, “…this elaborate scheme was to carry out these activities…” In American English scheme strongly implies ‘craftiness, secret intent’; while not as strong as plot, it certainly lacks the neutral qualities of plan and conveys a meaning far beyond its dictionary definition.
Near the close of the session Wednesday, July 8th, there arose a clever word game after Mr. Nields characterized some of Col. North’s responses as several speeches. Mr. Brendan Sullivan, Jr., Col. North’s counsel, objected to the term, declaring it to be pejorative. Chairman Senator Daniel Inouye said, “…some people consider lengthy statements to be speeches.” Mr. Nields replied, “I’m perfectly happy to use the expression ‘lengthy statements.”’ And Mr. Sullivan came back with, “How about using lengthy answer…?” Speeches in this context carries with it too much of the idea of pontificating, which Mr. Sullivan did not want. While statement is better, answer gives the mental picture of completion. Someone who knows can give an answer; we are left with a positive image. Response would have been a good neutral word, but neither side was thinking neturality that late in the afternoon.
Another classic example of a loaded word jumped up several days later when Mr. Liman asked a question that began, “And after you became involved, linked with…” This word linked is a sneaky little devil. While it means simply to ‘couple or connect,’ the connotation is always negative. No one is linked to the American Red Cross or the Humane Society, but people may be linked to the Communist Party or the Mafia. When we hear that someone is linked to an organization or cause of which we have never heard, we feel ominously that this must be bad.
Early in the proceedings we saw a cat-and-mouse game develop over what to call ‘money that is excess over expenses in a business transaction.’ Mr. Nields asked, “…what did the President know about the diversion of the proceeds of the Iranian arms sale to the Contras?” North responded, “I never personally discussed the use of the residuals or profits from the sale….” This was one of the few times Col. North used profit, choosing to stay with the more charming residuals, as used here, meaning ‘remainder.’
When Mr. Nields used diversion again, Col. North responded with “Well, you insist on referring to it as ‘diversion.’… my use of Webster…leads me to believe that those were ‘residuals’ and not diverted—the only thing we did was divert money out…and put it to better use….” Nields countered with “I’m not asking about words, now, Colonel. I’m asking you whether you didn’t continue to send memoranda seeking approval of diversions or residuals, whatever the word….” While Nields seemed uninterested in words, he, nevertheless, stayed with diversion throughout the questioning, and North continued with residuals. Divert means to ‘change from one course or use to another or to turn aside.’ In some contexts the word can connote ‘secrecy and deception,’ a diversion tactic, for example. Used in another context, it is perfectly harmless: waters of a river, for instance, may be diverted to prevent flooding.
The words profit and proceeds are almost equal in meaning. When Nields used proceeds, he was passing up a chance to irritate or challenge North, for the connotations are completely different. It is much better to refer to the proceeds of a raffle rather than the profits. Profit is deeply rooted in the world of business and too often associated with money-grubbing and greed. Later, Representative Jenkins referred to a profit-making business, which sounds harsher than if he had chosen to say profit-making enterprise. But “proceed-producing enterprise” would have sounded even more innocuous. Shortly after this, North used the terms revenue producers and deserving of fair just reasonable compensation. These phrases are two more synonyms for profit that alter our perception a little.
As with the myriad words surrounding profit, there was a plethora of words surrounding the Boland Amendment. Col. North used the phrases complying with those Boland Proscriptions, the constraints and proscriptions of Boland, and working around the problem that Boland would have created. Mr. Liman responded to this last phrase with, “Well, another word for working around, for people who have had some Latin, is ‘circumvent.”’ Circumvent does mean to ‘work around’ and implies ingenuity and strategy. Circumvent is much more precise than the term work around and suggests a planned detour to avoid the law. North’s statement that he “sought a means of complying with…Boland” and his work around remark mean essentially the same, but complying sounds much nicer, conveying the idea of adhering to regulations. On the other hand, circumvent suggests avoiding what is mandatory and at the same time returns a more formal, legalistic atmosphere to the questioning.
Two terms that surfaced during Mr. Liman’s questioning were fall guy and scapegoat, both terms introduced by him and not Col. North. Webster’s Ninth Collegiate Dictionary tells us that a fall guy is ‘one who is easily duped.’ A second definition reveals it to be synonymous with scapegoat. But fall guy is a less formal term and suggests ignorance. Many of us recall the old gangster movies of Humphrey Bogart and James Cagney. Either Bogart or Cagney must have said, “You ain’t gonna pin this rap on me! I ain’t no fall guy!” Scapegoat, on the other hand, means ‘one who bears the blame for others’; it is a political word that carries with it a certain nobility and martyrdom that fall guy doesn’t imply.
The rich and rewarding, and often necessary, sport of quibbling over words arose early in the questioning when Col. North, responding to a question from Mr. Nields, replied, “…the word ‘investigation’ wasn’t used… Mr. Meese had been asked to do a fact-finding inquiry….” Later during the attorney general’s appearance before the committee, those two words came up often. Those who tended to be favorable to the colonel used inquiry while those distrustful of him were inclined to use investigation. Meese contended that his actions took just a few days, and investigation implies a thoroughness that is missing in inquiry. While some were prone to use the phrase extensive or complete investigation, others used brief or informal inquiry.
Somewhere, sometime, speakers of English must bestow upon Representative Brooks a special commendation for his creation of a description of a planned government agency that would be “a more or less off-the-shelf independent, stand-alone, self-supporting operation for covert operations.” He used a noun, two prepositional phrases and a string of adjectives that would make anyone proud.
So the hearings have come and gone, but the repercussions will remain for some time. Our judgments may hinge on a well-turned phrase, a beautifully nuanced sentence, a word-image that flashes across our gray matter reminding us of childhood. A position that seemed logical a while ago now becomes irrational. A strong conviction is suddenly an indefensible belief. Some of us will hold to an idea or concept regardless of the evidence; others will change positions. Still others will simply marvel at the use of language and wonder just where our analytical side ends and our emotional side begins. We may never know for sure if our conclusions are based on cold, hard logic or pure sentiment.
BIBLIOGRAPHIA: Does Accent Matter?: The Pygmalion Factor
John Honey, (Faber and Faber, 1989), xii + 208pp.
This interesting, readable book is probably the most sensible work on the pronunciation of English ever published. Professor Honey, an English linguist now on assignment in Bophuthatswana, one of the less easily pronounceable places in the world, writes in a straightforward, simple, casual, friendly style totally devoid of the off-putting symbols and technical jargon that usually mark writing on pronunciation. That is not to say that the book’s theme is casual, for Honey comes to grips with social aspects of language that are seldom treated, even in a clinical manner, by linguists. A notable exception in the United States is William Labov; but, despite his open, readable style, Labov’s work is known mainly to academics because it appears in scholarly journals and in books distributed largely to the academic market. For all that, Does Accent Matter? is not a whit less scholarly, and Faber must be congratulated for perceiving it as a work that deserves a wider readership. The biggest concessions to make the presentation more palatable for the general reader is the elimination of footnote references within the text: even superior numbers do not appear in the text, and those who demand footnotes must refer to a brief Appendix where they are arranged, chapter by chapter, with clear page references. As one who understands the importance of footnotes but loathes them because of their continual, unsightly interruption of normal reading, I applaud this treatment: they are there if you want them, but they do not intrude. The index is quite thin on the ground: after reading such a book, one naturally puts it aside till it is wanted for reference to certain points, and the paucity of the index will make the location of information something of a chore at a later date. I have always felt that every book on language should include, either in its index or in a separate listing, all of the words and word elements discussed in the text, for they often provide the point of reference for a researcher.
Honey explains the distinction between dialiect and accent:
If a regional speaker also uses the grammer, vocabularly, and idiom that are distinctive of his region, then we say he is speaking dialect. But if he uses the grammer, vocabularly, and idiom of the standard English found in newspapers, books, magazines, and news bulletins, then all we notice about his speech is his accent—and possibly his intonation.
Most of this book is understandably concerned with accent in the United Kingdom, though other varieties of English are discussed. To better understand attitudes toward the English spoken in the UK one must be familiar with the term Received Pronunciation (RP), which the author describes as:
The accent most obviously associated with the standard English dialect…, [RP] echoes the rather old-fashioned sense of ‘received’ as meaning ‘generally accepted’ as in the terms ‘received opinion’ and ‘received wisdom,’ especially by those who are qualified to know.
Among speakers of English worldwide, either as a native or an acquired language, RP is the most highly regarded accent—indeed, some might well regard RP as standing for ‘Revealed Pronunciation’—so it behooves one to pay attention to Professor Honey’s comments about it, favorable and adverse. The chapter titles give a good indication of the subject matter covered:
ONE What is ‘an accent’?
TWO Where did RP come from?
THREE Talking proper and talking posh
FOUR Are some accents better than others?
FIVE What is happening to RP?
SIX Accent variety and the mass media
SEVEN The accents of politics
EIGHT Changing patterns
NINE Accents and the future
In the course of his treatment of these topics, the author provides a wealth of information that answers numerous questions (and confronts many of the prejudices) that many people have about language:
Increasing literacy and pressures towards ‘correctness’ led in England to spelling-pronunciations which caused speakers to restore a whole range of sounds which earlier generations had dropped, like the l in fault, vault, and soldier; the second w in awkward and the sole w in Edward; the t at the end of pageant, respect, and strict; and the d in the middle of the word London and at the end of husband. Over the same period speakers of the standard English accent learned to drop the final d 0which for centuries had been attached when ordinary folk talked of a scholard and his gownd.
We all know about language prejudice, but it is nonetheless interesting to read that:
…an RP accent was one of the foremost criteria for being an officer in the First World War. In Birmingham in 1918 it was possible to buy a manual designed to enable local speakers to correct their accents, since, as its author claimed, “to no one is the absence of local dialect more important than to the young officer in the army”. Carnage at the front forced that specification to be relaxed in many cases, and men had to be commissioned whose voices betrayed their promotion from the ranks. When one such officer inspected the cadets at a public school (Lancing) in 1919, the sixteen-year-old Evelyn Waugh helped to organize the dropping of rifles as a demonstration against the man’s accent….
[In the Second World War] the public-school-educated actor Dirk Bogarde (born in 1921) claims that in that war the sole reason for his promotion from the ranks to officer status was his accent.
And we know that Professor Honey has it right when he writes about
…the tendency, which now pervades the whole of our society, for us to attach to particular accents certain generalized assumptions about the values and attributes considered typical of certain social groups. In other words, we judge accents by stereotypes which we already have about their speakers…. One US observer has claimed that non-standard features (grammer and vocabulary as well as accent) have the power to close off a conversation among strangers, bring job interviews to an abrupt end and, when used on the telephone, to render a flat advertised as vacant that morning suddenly to be declared “already let”.
A curious aspect of RP was (or is) its continual shifting: as soon as some of its characteristics are adopted by speakers of a different social or educational class, RP speakers, by consent that could scarcely be tacit, change the rules of the game, coming up with shootin' and huntin'. For example, American readers of S.S. Van Dine’s detective novels of the 1930s might have been mystified by the insertion into the dialogue of its lordly hero expressions like don’tcher know and the anathematized ain’t.
Americans may be pleased (or relieved) to learn that
The American accent—any American accent—can expect a favourable reception in Britain, for three reasons. First, its speaker is perceived as standing outside the social-class hierarchy which partly explains the scale of evaluation of our own British accents. Secondly, we are not able to judge, on accent alone, the features of ‘educatedness’ which might be apparent to native American listeners, so we give the speaker the benefit of the doubt. Thirdly, the American accent is to some extent glamorized by the film industry and by the number of American programmes shown on British television. Canadian English accents, which in Britain cannot normally be distinguished from American, share the same generally favourable evaluation…. If the greatest single influence on the current evolution of English RP and of many non-standard accents in Britain today is the ‘popular’ London accent, it is also true that the greatest single influence on the grammar, vocabulary, and idiom of English as spoken and written in Britain is American English.
Those who are not intimately familiar, from listening to them on radio and television, with how specific British politicians and entertainers of the decades since WWII sound may find themselves at sea in the rather detailed descriptions (chapters six and seven) of their pronunciations and their effects, good and bad, on the British public. Despite that, Honey’s treatment is virtually self-explanatory, and anyone contemplating a work on American accents would do well to be guided by the principles he has established.
Inevitably, there are some slips regarding American pronunciation and accent, most if not all of which can be charged to the failure to identify specific dialects or the absence of a restrictive modifier like most or many to precede American speakers. For example,
American English removes the y- from the yu- sound when it turns new and duke into noo and dook…
That is a pattern characteristic of only certain American dialects (as a check in any good modern dictionary would reveal). The same is true for Honey’s assumptions about Buddha, which he implies is universally pronounced in AE with the vowel of boot; about Moscow, the second syllable of which is not always rhymed in AE with cow; about Nepal, which is pronounced identically to the British (RP) way by many AE speakers; and about Vietnam, the -nam of which, contrary to the author’s information, is pronounced by many AE speakers to rhyme with dam, not palm. As for Pakistan, Americans tend to give both a sounds the same quality, whether they rhyme them with that in father or in man. On the other hand, the pronunciation of Afghanistan in Britain follows either the pattern of Pakistan, which has the a of man in the first syllable and that of father in the last, or, as in America, is heard with the a of man in both positions.
Again:
Americans pronounce a strong r in card, port, and similar contexts…,
an observation that does not apply to New Yorkers or New Englanders. And the author has been misled to infer that all Americans say deTAIL, baTON, INquiry adverTISEment, haRASS, and REsearch: both occur. I, for one, say deTAIL, baTON, inQUIry or INquiry (depending on the day), adVERtisement, HARass, and reSEARCH, which leads me to think that these stress patterns are not necessarily distributed along dialectal lines.
…Britons get the impression that large numbers of Americans go through their whole lives unable to make confident distinction between a positive and a negative statement of possibility, between ‘I can do it’ and ‘I can’t do it’.
It may not come as much of a revelation to Professor Honey to learn that even I, a native speaker of AE, often have to ask whether an American speaker meant to say can or can’t when the word receives any emphasis; but in normal, unstressed speech the former is usually reduced to ‘k’n’ while the latter is of longer duration, even, than that of the noun can. To be sure, the RP practice of rhyming can with man and the a of can’t with that of father does neaten things up a bit.
Does Accent Matter? has a sprinkling of amusing anecdotes, this being one of my favorities:
Around 1980 a senior French political figure was made the subject of a BBC radio profile. The programme was the more interesting because of the politician’s admirable fluency in English. Listeners were diverted to hear him explain, in answer to a question about his personal life, that his pastimes included “middle-aged antics,” and they must have wondered what innocent japes—or perhaps amorous frolics—the old boy got up to, until they worked out that middle-aged was his very reasonable attempt at translating du moyen age (medieval), and that antics was his Gallic stress pattern for ‘antiques’.
As a speaker of AE sojourning for several months each year in Britain during the past twenty years, I have been struck by the creeping changes I have perceived in the RP pronunciation of some ordinary words (controversy, disciplinary) and of proper names: news-readers on BBC Radio 4 and World Service tend to stress Afghanistan and Khomeini on the last syllable where formerly one heard it stressed on the sound.
I had best curb my temptation to reproduce the entire book here by stopping now, leaving readers with a great deal to look forward to. In the unlikely event that my message has not come across, allow me to repeat that VERBATIM readers are sure to find it as engaging as I did.
Laurence Urdang
BIBLIOGRAPHIA: The Longman Register of New Words
John Ayto, (Longman Group, 1989), 425pp.
John Ayto has drawn on a world of English-language newspapers and magazines for the citations in this interesting and useful book. Most of the 130-odd sources are, quite naturally, UK in origin and persuasion, with a fair sprinkling of US periodicals; others looked at include Australia, Canada, Malaysia, Turkey, Hong Kong, and France (for The International Herald Tribune). Ayto writes well, and his Introduction (actually, to get fussy about it, Foreword or Preface) sets forth clearly the aims and purposes of this collection of neologisms. The selection of 1200 entries for inclusion seems a bit esoteric, but the general structure of the work—entry word, part of speech, definition, citation(s), and, in many cases, an explanatory comment on the origin of the term, its etymology, and other information—is straightforward.
Rather than skip through, picking up “showcase” entries throughout the book, I chose to read thoroughly the first quarter (A-C) and remark on specific entries. I have not commented on entries that are either entirely satisfactory or out of my ken.
advance man The definition given, ‘someone who makes arrangements for visits and appearances by an eminent person, and goes in advance to ensure that they proceed smoothly…A word of US origin.’
This seems too specific to American English [AE] speakers who associate the designation with the circus and other entertainments.
amicus brief ‘American a legal submission by someone who is not party to a case but has an interest in its outcome…Amicus is Latin for “friend.” '
This shortened form may be rare in British English [BE], but the term amicus curiae, literally ‘friend of the court,’ is well established in Britain, and the etymological note could be misunderstood.
appeal ‘noun an act of appealing against something The U.S. Ski Association board Sunday rejected Mike Brown’s appeal of his exclusion from the U.S. Ski Team. USA Today The..verb appeal..is very well established in AE…Not so widely recorded is the consequence of this..with the preposition of.. where in BE one would expect against.’
One would expect against in AE also for this sense, and the of can be attributed to journalese or some other aberrant style. Appeal of is used in standard AE in: ‘The appeal of children and kittens is universal.’
arrestee ‘American a person who has been arrested’
The citation is from the Roanoke Times and World-News, undoubtedly a redoubtable newspaper but scarcely one I should have selected as typifying AE. It sounded like a nonce usage to me till I found it in The Random House Unabridged, Second Edition [RHDII] with a date of 1840-50. Notwithstanding, I should not think it common enough to warrant occupying space in this book.
autocondimentation ‘seasoning one’s own food with pepper and salt at table’
Very likely a facetious coinage, this appeared in quotation marks (attributing an AE source) in New Scientist, a British journal. Like many of the entries, both AE and BE—autohagiography, awfulize, babushkaphobia, babynap, bimbette, etc.—this strikes me as a nonce word, not likely to be found around the house.
boffo The only speculation about its etymology cited is Merriam-Webster’s 12,000 Words: “from boffola, a ‘belly-laugh,’ which in turn comes from boff, a ‘belly-laugh,’ ‘gag,’ ‘hit,’ perhaps based on ‘box office.'”
I prefer the suggestion in RHDII that it might come from Italian buffo, French bouffe ‘comic.’
bump ‘(of an airline) to exclude (a passenger with a booking) from an overbooked flight’
This might be new to BE but this sense of bump and, alas, the practice have been common in AE for years and ought to have been so indicated.
cherry pick ‘verb, informal to cream off the choicest items .. The metaphor of “cherries” as the most desirable elements of something may be reminiscent of the “bowl of cherries” which life is proverbially not.’
Close, but no cigar. In America as well as in England, a sweet (like ice cream) is often topped with whipped cream on which is placed a maraschino cherry. Some (younger) people often save the cherry to eat last; people more advanced in age may be seen to eat the cherry first, presumably on the theory that they might not last long enough to finish the sweet. To many, the cherry is, indeed, the choicest part. But the image is colored, too, by the existence, in both AE and BE, of a type of light, mobile hydraulic crane provided with a basket or platform enabling one to approach a tall structure (like an American ice-cream sundae) from above to pluck the cherry from the top.
coconut or coconut head ‘noun, derogatory slang a black person who adopts white cultural characteristics .. The metaphor is based on the coconut’s brown exterior and white interior.’
This is an interesting one: the term in AE is oreo, after the tradename of a dark double chocolate cookie with white cream between, a confection not encountered (by me) in Britain.
creative ‘adjective, euphemistic going beyond conventional scope or legal limits .. This new meaning of creative, with its implication of imaginative rule-bending for possibly disreputable purposes, appears to have been coined in the field of accountancy .. , but has since widened its area of application considerably.’
I should have thought that ‘innovative’ might have been a better gloss, and one must take account, too, that it was originally (and still is for those who have any sensitivity for the word) cynically facetious.
Aside from these comments, which are intended to be helpful, there is a great deal of interest to be found in this book, considerably enhanced by Ayto’s comments. For example,
-cred combining form, slang popular acceptance among the stated group
This form started its career in the mid 1980s in street-cred, an abbreviation of street credibility —popular approval in urban working class culture—but now is beginning to show signs of developing into a buzz-suffix in its own right:
force-cred
All these qualities make him [Peter Imbert, Metropolitan Police Commissioner] a copper’s copper. He has force-cred, and therefore is as well placed as anyone could be to make the Newman structural reforms actually work in practice.
Guardian 18 Mar 1988
Ayto’s style is lively: in his comment on cathart he offers:
This curiously curt coinage, based on cathartic, at least has the merit of getting out of the usual humdrum -ize rut.
There are (other) entries whose validity seems questionable on the grounds that they, like some I have mentioned, are not likely to have sufficient frequency in the language to merit inclusion—aestheticienne, affluenza, agitpop [sic], to mention a few. The citations are shown to add explanatory information to the definitions as well as context, not, as in the OED, as attempts at establishing earliest recorded evidence. Compilers (and publishers) of such works would be well advised to have any AE material thoroughly checked by those in the know, for it is almost impossible to derive accurate information about a given dialect save from those who are steeped in it.
Laurence Urdang
Fascinating Toponymics—Geographical Names and the Stories They Tell
Don Nilsen, Alleen Nilsen, and Jean Multer, Arizona State University
Settlement was much more rapid in the United States than it had been in Europe, and this has affected the place-naming patterns. In Europe people had time to contemplate the area before settling on an appropriate name; in the United States, where settlement was more rapid, names often had to be chosen without delay. This haste has quickened the creative juices, and has sometimes resulted in innovative and intriguing place names. As George Stewart wrote,
In a period of rapid expansion, towns and counties were being established every day…the demand for names outran the supply, and the result was both monotony and confusion.
The problem of having to create a large number of place names in a relatively short period is illustrated in a true story told by Mark Wexler:
A store owner [in Missouri] applied for a postal listing under the name Excelsior, but was turned down because the title was already claimed in Missouri. In response, he wrote back saying that any name would do, as long as it was “different and peculiar.” A few weeks later, federal officials notified him that he was the postmaster of Peculiar, Missouri.
In the confusion of finding a name quickly, practical problems sometimes emerged. Morrow, Kansas, was first named after a state senator, but this name had to be changed to Morrowville “because of semantic confusion when juxtaposed with a common preposition. The railroad claimed that its ticket sellers were becoming confused when passengers requested tickets “to Morrow.”
At the December, 1987, meeting of the American Names Society in San Francisco, Lewis McArthur recited a poem about another Moro, in Sherman County, Oregon. The passenger agent for the Union Pacific Railroad in that particular town was named Mr. Bassinger, and an often recited poem in the town was:
Oh! Mr. Bassinger
I want to be a passenger
I want to go to Moro
And I want to go today.
Well, the train that goes to Moro
Is now upon its way
And you cannot go to Moro
Any more today.
Frank Remington indicates that on the official form for post office name selection there is a blank for “Name of Town” and the directions, “Please write in ink.” The residents of a particular town in Arkansas took this information literally as they were voting for the town name, and so many of them wrote in “Ink,” that Ink became the name of the town.
Railroads preceded settlers into many parts of the United States, and every few miles a siding had to be built so that trains could pull off the track and wait for others to pass. Each siding was given a name. Francis Stupey of Amarillo, Texas, a lifelong employee of the Santa Fe Railway, has collected stories which he shares in a slide-show about the railroad sidings. Names were used because they were easier to remember than numbers. Frequently a name was chosen on the basis of a topographical feature, resulting in such names as Bluffdale (dale near a bluff), Clifton (town near a cliff), Shopton near a repair shop, and Coalinga near a coal shed. Meridian was on the 98th meridian, Justin was “just inside” the county line, and Haswel was at a place in Colorado that had dry wells. Stupey points out that there were so many sidings needing names that the railroaders were forced to be creative. Spanish and Indian names were precedents to other non-English-sounding names. For example, casual observers probably think such words as Calgro, Rioca, and Mopeco are Spanish. Actually, in an early example of shrewd public relations, the names were taken from the names of shippers. Naming a siding after a company flattered the company and increased its loyalty to the particular railroad. Calgro was named for “California Growers,” Rioco for the “Richfield Oil Company,” Mopeco for the “Mobile Petroleum Company,” Hepoco for the “Hercules Powder Company,” Stoil for “Standard Oil,” Biola for the “Bible Institute of Los Angeles,” and Calwa for the “California Wine Association.”
Because Indians had lived in the areas first and given names to certain places that were fairly well known, it is to be expected that some of their names would be used: Cucamonga means ‘many waters,’ Supai ‘blue water,’ Navasota ‘muddy water,’ and Wichita ‘many lodges.’ A siding named O’Keene began as the Indian word Cheyenne but an Irishman working for the railroad decided to make it look Irish and so he changed it and added an apostrophe.
Twenty-seven of the fifty states have names taken from the 300 different Indian languages that were spoken on this continent when the first European settlers arrived. Sometimes a place or state name was borrowed directly as was Asingsing, which became Sing Sing, and Messatossec which became Massachusetts. Quemessourit became Missouri, Ookannasa Arkansas, Uneaukara Niagara, Machihaganing Michigan, and Potawanmeac Potomac. English speakers changed the pronunciations because the sound patterns in the Indian languages were so different from those of English that they could not hear, much less imitate, the exact words the Indians were using.
Some of the names have interesting stories behind them. Kalamazoo, Michigan, is supposed to have got its name from the Potawatomi tribe in which Ke-ke-kala-kala-mazoo means something like ‘where the water boils (or steams) in the pot.’ Supposedly a man bet his friends that he could run to the river and back before they could get a pot of water to boil. Ten Sleep, Wyoming, got its name because it was ten days’ travel by foot from Yellowstone. Chugwater, Wyoming, is at the bottom of a high bluff over which the Indians would stampede buffalo to kill them. When the bodies of the buffalo his into the stream, they would make a “chug”-like noise, hence the name. Thunderbolt, Georgia, got its name hundreds of years ago when a bolt of lightning hit near the village. When the people ran to see what had happened, they found a mineral spring. Believing that the lightning had created the spring, they named the area after the miraculous event.
American English, by Albert H. Marckwardt, contains the information that Chicago comes from an Algonquian word meaning ‘garlic field.’ It is further pointed out that words coming from Indian languages frequently undergo semantic change:
Mackinaw, the name of the island at the junction of Lakes Huron and Michigan, according to one explanation at least, was a shortening of Michili-mackinac, meaning ‘great turtle.’ The reason for this application is clear enough to anyone who has suddenly come upon the pine-wooded hills of the island projecting from the water.
Mistranslations from the American Indian languages were also common. In his Illustrated Dictionary of Place Names: United States and Canada, Kelsie Harder points out that when the explorers asked the Indians what a place was called, they responded “Canada.” The Indians meant ‘village.’ but the whites took it to mean the name of the area.
Often a name which appears to be Indian is something very different. According to George R. Stewart, in American Place Names, Wewanta, West Virginia is derived from the persistent plea in English of “We want a post office.” Stewart also reports that Itasca, Minnesota is a manufactured name: “Coined in 1832 by W.T. Boutwell and H.R. Schoolcraft, who believed it to be the ‘true source’ of the Mississippi. Boutwell rendered this in crude Latin as Veritas Caput; Schoolcraft joined the tail of the first word with the head of the second.”
A different type of mistranslation can result in a strange kind of doublet. Mahoning/Licking came to us partly as a transliteration, and partly as a translation. According to Jean L. Mutter, Arizona State University (Tempe),
Upon learning that mahon-meant ‘salt-lick,’ the name was partially translated into English as Lick-ing, the -ing being added by phonetic transfer and probably some morphological influence, as well.
Sometimes the borrowing of Indian words was complicated by going through a middle language, often French. For example, the Sioux Indians (they spoke Omaha) called a river in the central part of the United States Niboapka. Thomas Gasque, editor of Names points out that this word comes from ni ‘water’ and bthaska ‘flat (like a board), spreading out.’ When French explorers came upon the name, they knew enough Sioux to know the name meant ‘board,’ so they used a translated version of the Indian name and called it la Riviére Platte. English speakers adopted the French name and talked about the Platte River. They named one of the towns on its banks North Platte. But when the state applied for admission to the Union in 1867, it was under the original Indian name which they spelled Nebraska.
In addition to Indian sources, United States place names have come from fifty different languages, but as with the Indian names, most of the pronunciations have been anglicized and many of the words have been translated. The stress pattern of a place-name expression can sometimes differentiate between two meanings, but this clue can be lost if names alternate between languages. In a 1977 article in Onoma, Henri Dorion gives an example from French. The name Grande Riviére de la Baleine became anglicized into Great Whale River, but this is ambiguous in English since the Great can modify either Whale or River. When it was translated back into French, the wrong sense was used, and it became Riviére de la Grande Baleine rather than the original Grande Riviére de la Baleine.
Another often-mistaken etymology is the name Ajo in Arizona. This is thought by many people to be the Spanish word for ‘garlic,’ but Jean Multer points out that an indigenous language has a similar-sounding word meaning ‘paint,’ and this might be the correct origin of the town’s name:
The first documented source of the name was almost certainly not written Papago. Formerly, more importance was placed on written sources than on the oral ones. The surroundings supported both derivations; the ores from the mines supplied red paint, and a type of onion, akin to garlic, grew there.
Multer adds that these conflicting bits of evidence make the etymology of Ajo difficult to confirm.
According to Stupey, similar but less commercial names include Chanesa named after the three children of a railroad man, Charlie, Nellie, and Sarah; and Edruvera, also named after three children, Edwin, Ruth, and Vera. Three adult sisters, Daisy, Cora, and Nora, were honored at Dacono. Anna S. Wilson was honored at Anness and Ellen Woods at Lenwood, Glendora and Evadale were named to honour early husband-and-wife settlers, Glen and Dora and Eva and Dale.
Sometimes names were reversed. Yewed is Dewey, and Corum is Muroc backwards. Enon is none, Saxet is Texas, and Reklaw is Walker: there was already a siding named Walker and so when the same name was again suggested, the clerk in the office just reversed it. The main reason for the reversals was that they allowed a man to name a siding after himself without appearing to be egocentric. One man was too humble to have a siding named after him. He was a popular rancher in California. When he declined the offer, the workers said he was “mucho modesto,” and they decided to honor him indirectly by naming the siding Modesto, now the name of a good-sized city.
Tenino was named for the number “1090,” but there is disagreement on its significance. One story is that locomotive Number 1090 was wrecked nearby. Another is that the elevation is 1,090 feet, and still another is that 1,090 people lived there when the siding was built. There is an unconfirmed story that Laredo, Texas, was named for the sounds made by the chimes in the Catholic church: la, re, and do. Another folk etymology has it that the Snake River was so named because it coiled back and forth so much. The truth is, however, that it was named after the Snake Indians of that area; and it is further true that the Snake Indians got their name from their habit of eating snakes: that part of the United States was very poor, and snakes were often the only food available. Some names do not tell false stories; they tell no stories at all. Azusa for example is euphonious, but it does not immediately suggest its own history. In fact, Azusa was made from the first and last letters of the alphabet, followed by “USA.” Ding Dong was chosen as the whimsical name for a siding in Bell County, Texas.
Wish fulfillment is seen in the midst of California’s Death Valley, where sidings were given such coolsounding names as Klondike and Siberia. These exotic names also provided opportunities for playful statements like, “We’re really sailing today. We’ve come from Cuba to Alaska in fifteen minutes.”
The story is told that six railroad men met near San Bernardino, California. The last item on the agenda was to find a name for a new siding. They had each been instructed to bring a suggestion—perhaps a Spanish-sounding name, but one that was short and easy to say. Each man’s suggestion was rejected by the others, hence they were surprised when the supervisor ended the meeting saying they had made a unanimous decision. When questioned, he replied, “Well, you all said, ‘On, no!’ so Ono is what we’ll use.”
The most common way for settlers to honor their native lands and languages as they spread out over the continent was to bring old names from home to their new towns. Moscow, Idaho, was called Paradise until its Russian postmaster decided to change it. This is especially interesting in view of recent place-name changes in Russia, whereby Tsaritsyn was changed to Stalingrad, then again to Volgograd. Likewise St. Petersburg became Petrograd and later Leningrad. Even in America, politics change, and people go in and out of favor. In “From Hero to Celebrity,” Daniel Boorstin points out that soon after Charles Lindbergh acquired a reputation as a pro-Nazi and accepted a decoration from Hitler, the Lindbergh Beacon atop a Chicago skyscraper was renamed the Palmolive Beacon, and high in the Colorado Rockies Lindbergh Peak was given the more obscure name of Lone Eagle Peak.
Many names were brought over from the Old World, including Holland, Michigan; Shamrock, Texas; Lebanon, Indiana; Toledo, Ohio; Waterloo, Iowa; Amsterdam, Ohio; Paris, Texas; Copenhagen, New York; Rome, Georgia, and Mexico, New York. There is a Gulf Service Station in the city of Mexico, New York, so this is called, “the Gulf of Mexico.” Staten Island, New York was named after the legislative governing body of the Netherlands, the Staten-General, perhaps because a meeting was held there in 1776 in which American and British representatives tried unsuccessfully to negotiate a peaceful end to the American Revolution.
Picturesque images are often captured in names, as in Bridal Veil Falls in Utah, or Teapot Dome in Wyoming. In addition to these there is Shiprock, a rock resembling a ship in New Mexico, the Finger Lakes in New York, and the Sawtooth Mountain Range in Idaho. The “sawtooth” metaphor occurs also in Spanish, since Sierra Nevada in Spanish means “Snowcovered Saw.” In Utah, the Big Rock Candy Mountain looks good enough to eat, and the nearby Lemonade Springs makes a person thirsty. The Chocolate Mountains of California are brown; the Painted Desert in Arizona and Flaming Gorge in Wyoming are multicolored.
Some American cities are named after animals. There is Wolf Lake and White Pigeon in Michigan, Deer Isle in Maine, Elk Run Heights in Iowa, and Deerfield and Raven in Virginia. One city that had a unique animal name decided that the uniqueness was not worth the bother. The town was Ptarmigan, Alaska, named after a wild bird common to the area. However, people had such a hard time remembering how to spell Ptarmigan that they just began calling the town Chicken, Alaska.
Many city names express hope, as in New Hope, and New Freedom, Pennsylvania, New Era, Michigan, and the dozens of cities named Paradise. Once in a while, however, a place gets a dysphemistic name, such as the Badlands in South Dakota, or Great Dismal Swamp, which is a 1500-square-mile section of Virginia and North Carolina.
It is just for amusement that the residents of Ann Arbor, Michigan write “A²” instead of Ann Arbor in their return addresses; or people in New Hampshire joke about the towns named Orange, Lebanon, and Lyme; or a motel owner in Comfort, Texas, which happens to be near two towns named Alice and Louise, puts up a billboard saying, “Sleep here in Comfort between Alice and Louise.”
Arizonans are amused at how Showlow and Why were named. Showlow started out as a cattle ranch and got its name when it was won by a gambler who showed the low card in a game of seven-up. Why was a winter campground in the desert where people would bring their mobile homes and campers and stay during the cold months. When friends would arrive, many of them would ask, “Why here?” The residents decided to take the words right out of their friends’ mouths by naming the town Why, Arizona. Truth or Consequences, New Mexico, used to be named Hot Springs, but in 1950 the residents voted to change its name when the host of a popular radio show promised free publicity to any town that would do such a thing. Some names sound more appealing than they are. Lovers Retreat, Texas has a violent rather than a romantic history. It is a rocky area where a rancher named Lover hid among the boulders from people intent on killing him.
It is not always possible to document the naming of particular places. The town of Intercourse, Pennsylvania, gets so many questions about the origin of its name that the city has printed a brochure offering several explanations. The name has been traced back as far as 1814, and one theory is that it was the local term for a junction of two roads. Another theory is that there used to be a race track in the area and Intercourse was the spot where the horses entered onto the course. Calistoga, California, is supposed to have been accidentally named when a real estate developer from Sarasota, Florida, rose before a crowd to give a sales pitch for the new property he was promoting. He was nervous and instead of saying that it was going to be the Sarasota of California, he said it was going to be the Calistoga of Sarifornia. People were so amused that the name stuck. Eleva, Wisconsin, is said to have been named by the whim of a snowstorm. It was in the fall, and a sign painter was perched high on the side of a newly completed grain elevator where he was to paint the name of the grain company. He started with the word Elevator, but by the time he had finished the first five letters, he was forced down by the snowstorm. Winter had come and it was nine months before the weather was good enough and the cement dry enough to finish the painting. But by then, the name was so firmly established that the painter did not bother to climb up and finish the job.
Ironic names are often given in hopes of achieving a commercial advantage. This is easily demonstrated in the real estate business where developers work hard to create names that will “sell” their town. Someone developing a town on what used to be a swamp might put a word like Heights in the name to counteract negative feelings or fears people might have about leaking basements. Someone cutting up a farm into small lots will try to communicate a feeling of spaciousness with such words as Ranch, Estate, Manor, or Garden. Sometimes the onomastic irony merely resulted in two viable perceptions of the same place. Talking about some original Indian naming patterns, Kelsie Harder said that “At the Grassy Meadow” might be one person’s perception of a place, while “At the Chigger-Infested Patch” might be another’s.
Some of the original place names were rather crude and had to be changed to appeal to more genteel tastes, but such amelioration was sporadic. Whore-house Meadows, Oregon was changed to Naughty Girls Meadows by the federal mapmakers, and Bullshit Springs, Oregon was changed to Bullshirt Springs. Interestingly, the local residents were very upset about the first change, but not about the second. Titus Canyon is also a concealed obscenity. The original name was “Tight Ass Canyon,” named because of the narrowness of the pass. Robert Rennick has noted that many local citizens were indignant that civilization had chosen to modify the name.
Some names, although they may be objectionable, are not changed. Paul Eschholz, Alfred Rosa, and Virginia Clark quote an article which appeared in the December 11, 1972 issue of Time.
Some American place names have a unique resonance about them—places like Maggie’s Nipples, Wyoming, or Greasy Creek, Arkansas, Lickskillet, Kentucky, or Scroungeout, Alabama. Collectors of Americana also savor Braggadocio, Missouri, the Humptulips River in Washington, Hen Scratch, Florida, Dead Bastard Peak, Wyoming, Two Teats, California, or Aswaguschwadic, Maine.
A few years ago we were volunteer readers for Frederic G. Cassidy’s Dictionary of American Regional English. In going through an early explorer’s journal we found frequent references to some mountains called The Teats. After investigating we found that in the 1800s this was the common name for what we now use French for so that we can genteelly talk about The Grand Tetons.
Through selective editing, names can be chosen to illustrate a desirable quality of a location. Cassidy also found Mud Lake transformed into Silver Lake for purposes of promotion. An the other hand, the people of Iceland gave their own island the unappealing name of Iceland in hopes of discouraging immigrants from coming to what is actually a relatively warm and comfortable place to live, since it is heated by geothermal activity. Then they named the neighboring country which is actually covered with ice—over 10,000 feet deep in places—Greenland. It might have been Eric the Red who bestowed the verdant name “Greenland” upon the usually snow-and-ice covered country.
This is a strange flip-flop, because in those days, just as today, more people were interested in attracting rather than repelling visitors and settlers. We see this in the way that postmasters increased their fame by naming post offices after their businesses. The first U.S. mail service began in conjunction with stagecoach runs. The stops were at inns or country stores. The person who ran the business received a little extra money to serve as postmaster and in this role could decide on the name of the post office. At first, little attention was paid to the post office name, but as mail became increasingly important, it was the post office name which often won out as the town name. This is how towns got such names as Brown Store, Virginia; Yellow House, Pennsylvania; Big Cabin, Oklahoma; Willey House, New Hampshire; and Macks Inn, Idaho. Mail for other communities was left at crossroads or waterways, yielding the names of Moores Bridge, Alabama; Paris Crossing, Indiana; Tracys Landing, Maryland; Wells Bridge, New York; Galivants Ferry, South Carolina; and Harpers Ferry, West Virginia.
Let us conclude with an insightful statement made by Isaac Taylor in Words and Places:
The words of a nation’s speech are continually clipped and worn down by constant currency, until, like ancient coins, the legend which they bore at first becomes effaced.
Unlike the ancient coins, however, the legends in place names can sometimes be recovered.
OBITER DICTA
The Franklin Language Master, a £199.95, hand-held, electronic dictionary, offered in a mail-order catalogue accompanying The Sunday Times [London] of 8 January 1989, is illustrated by a photograph of the device with the following display:
- 1. dic.tio.nary
- (noun) dic.tio.nar.ies
- reference book of words with information about their meaning
Shouldn’t that be “meaning?” The centered dots mark hyphenation points; the standard calls for a dot between the n and the a, not the o and the n. Little confidence is inspired by the presence of three errors (one appearing twice) in only 12 words of information. As the contrivance is American, it is sold in the UK with a card that shows the “correct Queen’s English” where spellings differ. No comment is made about differences in hyphenation that result from differences or variants in pronunciation. For instance, if a Brit pronounces the word (as many do) conTROVersy, then the hyphen ought to come after the v, not, as in standard US pronunciation, before the v. At rates of exchange in early January, £200 is equivalent to $355, which seems a lot to spend, in pounds or dollars, to get it wrong.
On January 12th, 1989, Carole Leonard, who compiles a chatty column for The Times of items picked up on the Rialto in The City, reported that a “reader in Surrey” (not, for a change, “Disgusted,” Tunbridge Wells) received a tax form with the instruction “Send the cheque and payslip unfolded to the Collector in the envelope provided,” “I looked inside,” wrote the mystified reader, “but couldn’t find him.” A few pages on, the Scots Law Report carried the headline, “Causing death by reckless driving of person unborn at time of accident.”
wide boy
“With his sharp suits and gold chains, good looks and quick tongue, [Bernard Tapie, French millionaire] brought the skills of the wide boy into the world of business.” [Sunday Times, 5 Feb. 1989, p.A16] Cain was disabled.
Daniel Barenboim was disconcerted.
The Phantom of the Opera was discountenanced.
Bouncers see that obstreperous customers are disjointed.
After years of use, Hushpuppies are dissuaded.
Evangelists are distracted.
SIC! SIC! SIC!
“Our special tunic lets you breastfeel discreetly any-where….” [From The Right Start Catalogue, June 1988. Submitted by Ruth Riedel, Palm Beach Gardens, Florida.]
The Bound and Gagged Morpheme
Roger Smith, Fairleigh Dickinson University
For about the last century, American English has been openly kidnapping bits of words and putting them to work as new bound morphemes without the least regard for their original meanings—or, rather, lack of meanings. A morpheme is the smallest unit of meaning in a language; a bound morpheme is one that appears only in combination with another morpheme, such as the suffixes and prefixes of English. The American propensity for lexical shanghaiing has produced a new type of morpheme, the bound and gagged morpheme. It is a series of sounds impressed into a kind of semantic slavery, for urltil recently the collocations could do no semantic work on their own in their present form.
Admittedly I have given in to temptation in coining the term “bound and gagged morpheme”—the temptation of wit. Many of these new morphemes have not been gagged at all, since no part of them meant anything in thefirst place. Still, let the term stand. It describes in spirit, at least, how neomorphemes like -athon, -tigue, -burger, -(a)teria, -alator, -ercize/-icize, -ician, -aholic, -on, -capade, -cade, -alyzer, -gate, heli-, docu- have become affixes.
The news and advertising media have introduced most such morphemes into common usage, a spinoff of their tiieless search for novel, titillating ways to attract public attention. The pattern for coinage is simple and uniform. A familiar noun provides the model for variation, usually because it contains a memorable ending. Everything except this memorable portion of the word is then dropped, and a new morpheme is substituted in an innovation; once the innovation is generally known, it suggests a pattern for further combinations with the neomorpheme, whose meaning generalizes upon the model’s salient contemporary import. Because the model behind the original innovation must be easily recognizable to provide material for a new morpheme, most models are either placenames or common words for locations and activities.
-Athon is the classic example, although not the first.1 Marathon provided the model after it was reintroduced into English from Greek with the First Olympic Games at Athens in 1896, according to the OED. The long-distance running event honored the warrior who in 490 B.C. ran to Athens in order to announce the Greek victory over the Persians on the plains of Marathon. The grueling twenty-six-mile Olympic run has become one of the games' most popular events, emblematic of the endurance and strength an Olympian must have.
But marathon soon escaped the arena of Olympic competition and sport. In 1908 the Daily Chronicle used it figuratively to characterize a potato-peeling contest. “The Murphy Marathon,” and in the 1920s endurance dances were regularly called marathons (the earliest such reference, surprisingly, comes from dour Scotland’s Glasgow Herald in 1923). But even in these extensions of the word, -athon was only part of a placename, even though now regularly applied to physical activities, and had no meaning on its own in either English or the original Greek. Then in 1949 the San Francisco Examiner reported on a telethon, cautiously enclosing the word in quotation marks to show it was a neologism. It is the first citation in the OED Supplement, Volume 4 (1986), which defines the word as a “TV program lasting several hours, especially to solicit contributions,” coined by analogy from marathon. What had apparently happened was that a false analysis had divided the Olympic event into two specious morphemes, as if mar(a) meant ‘running’ and -(a)thon meant ‘long’ as a suffix.
In any case, telethon took hold quickly. By 1952 the Baltimore Sun could use it without the quotation marks, and so it has become an ineradicable part of viewing terminology, admitted into Webster’s Third New International Dictionary in 1963. The OED insists telethon is “orig. and chiefly U.S.,” but Australia had taken it up by 1968, and there was no more appropriate word at hand in 1982 when a journalist for England’s Listener wrote, “Perhaps we have all been corrupted by the telethons of Vietnam television reporting.” Perhaps we have.
Telethon seems here to stay, sanctioned by dictionaries, but no dictionary records the next innovation with -athon, and I can only guess that the new suffix began attaching to other base elements in the 1950s and ’60s. As it is, the last twenty years have seen a bewildering array of applications, all in the sense of a ‘long-lasting, demanding activity,’ a ‘test of endurance,’ or an ‘indication of enormous capacity.’ It has appeared in such unlikely combinations as talkathon, walkathon, aquathon, ski-a-thon, bike-athon, birdathon, sell-athon, sale-athon, curl-a-thon (a ‘hairstyling extravaganza’), and even the seemingly unnecessary jogathon and runathon (denoting more leisurely or shorter races than a marathon). Most usages are self-explanatory, but not all. Toolathon is a store in Bergen County, New Jersey, rather than a construction contest, and roofathon was an odd sales promotion in 1984 involving bicyclists atop a 7-11 store in Reno, Nevada. That forms like sale-athon retain the a even after the base element’s e demonstrates that the -athon of marathon, rather than the -ethon of telethon, is perceived as the primary form of the suffix, but the matter has not been completely settled: consider alcothon (which I hope was a test of abstinence rather than indulgence).
It will not do to heap scorn on -athon and denounce athoninators as licentious with language. A new morpheme survives the novelty of its first innovation (like telethon for -athon) because it turns out to be useful, almost as if by accident, and brings something new into the idiom. -Athon clearly serves a purpose when a business person or public relations representative wants to advertise a lot of some activity with a single, handy, distinctive term. But utility alone has not kept -athon current. It is easy to reuse, and more important, each new usage reflects an attempt at creativity, however feeble. What is easy and witty is bound to become popular. The hyphens that separate -athon from the base morpheme is most new usages surely are self-conscious attempts to call attention to the wit invested in the coinage, like parsley atop a casserole of leftovers. It is half-facetious showmanship.
Even though the American taste for plundering placenames has provided words like telethon to other nations, some have commited semantic thefts of their own. The European peace movement, for example, has taken -shima from Hiroshima to denote a site of nuclear devastation. “Nein Euroshima” the astonished visitor is likely to find on tee shirts and sidewalks wherever anti-nuclear sentiments run strong. I would like to contribute “No Amerishima” as well.
A second class of bound and gagged morphemes comprises innovations based upon a portion of a common term that is either not a morpheme or an incorrect form of a morpheme used in a new sense. My favorite is -ercise/-icise because of the notable diffidence of its applications. America’s obsession with physical fitness has brought us specialty group calisthenics, which we designate jazzercise, aerobicise, or dancercise on the model exercise, depending on what type of music is playing or degree of enthusiasm. But -ercise/-icise cannot mean simply ‘group dance exercises,’ because there is also sexercise, which almost certainly involves neither large groups or dancing.
These are only representative examples of the bound and gagged morpheme. More neomorphemes and their consequent neologisms exist than can be sumupercised, spawned daily by ingenuity and the desire to put some flash into news copy, advertising drives, or the names of businesses. Most will disappear as quickly as they were created. That is the way of all flash.
The bound and gagged morpheme is in fact the stepchild of the pun and initially is meant to be recombined only as long as it seems clever to do so. It can thrive because the temptation arises, so often too powerful to resist, as was the case with this essay’s title, to throw in a little wit for good measure, even if without much accuracy. Like the puns above, most word forms with newly created morphemes are incidental and almost always dismissible, but not functionless. They make us pause to groan the groan that is nearly laughter. Even when we scorn yet another neologism with -athon, or ridicule a new -gate (as in Irangate), or wince at alcoholic becoming chocoholic, it has already made us concentrate on language and refreshed our interest by whetting our humor. That is a function, that is precious.
And for all our groans to the contrary, bound and gagged morphemes are a feature of our national disposition, our lighthearted lack of regard for linguistic tradition. We can dismiss them no more than we can dismiss our euphemisms, jargons, and gobbledygook without frustrating our sensibility. The neomorphemes show that in public life we are in a hurry and do not want to slow down long enough to devise an explanatory phrase if we can pack enough of our intention into a single word. We can get by with a coinage like laughorama because we know -orama’s affiliation with panorama will tell our listeners enough for the moment, even though the innovation’s -orama does not clearly mean ‘view,’ as it does in the model.
Here lies the most engaging feature of the lay American attitude toward language: meaning is an advisor, but not a dictator, in usage. The people who establish and preserve innovations are unlikely to have the philologist’s taste for etymological fidelity, but that hardly means they are uneducated or uninterested in language. On the contrary, their attention to meaning must be acute, even if purists pale at the inelegance of the many neologisms, because bound and gagged morphemes succeed in communicating with marvelous ease and utility. No one could scorn them if they were meaningless; then they would simply be empty oddities. It is the emphasis of neologists, the nature of their interest in language, that is intriguing—an interest in playfulness over etymology, an emphasis upon the wit of brevity, and an ear finely tuned for useful novelty.
Teachers and other professionals are usually credited with setting the standard for usage; but in America, at least, theirs is not the only standard. There is rather a double standard, first the so-called American Standard that textbooks try to inculcate, the dignified parlance of discourse, and then the related but divergent American Wit, the standard of ingenuity, which trafficks freely in analogy, pun, and portmanteau. At its best it can enrich the American idiom with phrases, words, and even bound morphemes.
SIC! SIC! SIC!
“More than 2,900 dogs to flood Ryon Park during competition.” [Headline in the Lompoc (California) Record, 27 July 1988. Submitted by Arthur G. Heinrich, Lompoc.]
SIC! SIC! SIC!
“Grilled in foil or alongside a ham, turkey or chicken, those who shied away from onions before will delight in their new found vegetable.” [From a Waldbaums Foodmart circular. Submitted by Mrs. Robert Ensher, Westport, Connecticut.]
SIC! SIC! SIC!
“It’s turned out to be one of those red herrings around our necks.” [Quote from Bob Porter, director of Maintenance and Engineering Services in Fontana, California, in the San Bernardino Sun, 26 April 1988. Submitted by J.B. Lawrence, San Bernardino.]
SIC! SIC! SIC!
“Hidden in the dining room breakfront, in a blue-enameled box bedecked with handpainted flowers, Molly Darrah keeps the keys to 18 neighbors' houses.” [From the San Francisco Chronicle, 10 February 1986.]
EPISTOLA {Donald R. Morris}
Regarding the review of Family Words [XV,3], some 30 years ago an article appeared in The Atlantic Monthly under the title “Lady Mondagreen.” It concerned what you refer to as “family words” or “Penn Stations”—childhood confusions of overheard phrases. The author opened with an account of her favorite childhood dramatic heroine, the Lady Monda-green—who died with her lover, the bonny Earl of Murray: “They ha' slain the Earl of Murray, and laid him on the green.” She went on to report a number of other hilarious examples from her own experience.
At age 6, my daughter Margaret was overheard pointing out her favorite constellation to a friend —“O’Brien’s Belt.” She was in a French school in Paris that year, learning to read; the city was plastered with campaign posters for Tixier-Vignancourt, whom she thereafter referred to as “Monsieur Ticks-in-Vinegar.”
Incidentally, F.H.B. is known in Germany as F.Z.H. ‘Familie zurück halten!’
[Donald R. Morris, The Houston Post]
OBITER DICTA
One of the issues discussed at a BBC-sponsored seminar attended by more than 100 people, including many writers, was bad language (on radio and TV), which, as American visitors become quickly aware, seems to be used with far less inhibition in Britain than in North America. The situation in the U.S. is “improving”—if that is the correct word—in that some TV films I have seen there recently have not had the naughty bits bleeped out. In the view of David Hatch, managing director of BBC Radio, a rude word on the radio is not a rude word if it is sworn in context and broadcast at the right time. A rude word is, of course, always a rude word, and the “right time” is somewhat arbitrary: it is not as though everyone is not familiar with the rude words; indeed, those who object to them the most are not likely to be in bed by nine o’clock. The feeling, one assumes, is that broadcasting them, regardless of context, at times when children are listening, lends rude words a patina of approval that inures them to the corrosive atmosphere of taboo. Thus, when uttered by an actor whose thumb has just been struck by a hammer or who has suffered some frustration or other outrage, any of several four-letter words seem as natural as in real life. When uttered in circumstances where taboo language would seem either gratuitous or otherwise inappropriate, rude words are not only equally out of place in the world of make-believe as in the real world but, worse, they interfere (in both) with the message.
British comedians, though not quite as outspoken as Lenny Bruce, show less restraint in their choice of words than their American counterparts, but the better (funnier) ones (like the Two Ronnies) are typically more subtle than the rest. Benny Hill, whose shows have often been seen (too often, some might be inclined to say) in the U.S., rarely resorts to rude language, focusing rather on what is viewed as a revival of old burlesque routines in which there is much rolling of the eyes, winking, and the sly aside to the audience, all of which add up to the rudeness being in the mind of the beholder. As many of the British comedians either speak with thick North or West Country accents, mumble, talk too fast, or all three, it is sometimes difficult to understand what they (and their audiences) are on about. They appear to revel in the delivery of punch lines that are totally unintelligible—not, I hasten to say, because of a culture gap or a diminution of (this viewer’s) auditory acuity but because of essential lack of clarity of expression.
As Alan Hamilton’s item in The Times [15 June 1988, 3] reminds us, the BBC guidelines of the 1940s, since abandoned, were quite specific: “There is an absolute ban upon the following: jokes about lavatories, effeminacy in men, immorality of any kind, suggestive references to honeymoon couples, chambermaids, fig leaves, ladies' underwear, lodgers and commercial travellers.” Observation reveals that we have been spared the last two, but the rest are retained as mainstays of British humor, especially knickers (American English: panties), the mere mention of which seems to send everyone in the U.K. in paroxysms of uncontrollable laughter. The same reaction is guaranteed by references to poofs (‘homosexuals’), (big), boobs, lavatories, Y-fronts (‘Jockey shorts’), and, especially, incontinence. It is not suggested that these subjects be interdicted, merely that it is difficult, even after some twenty years of acculturation, for an outlander to discern much that is funny about them. To me, the funniest comedians by far, chiefly because much of their humor is linguistic in nature, are the Two Ronnies (Ronnie Barker and Ronnie Corbett), whose TV appearances came to an end early in 1988 with Barker’s announced retirement to run a business in antiques, for which he doubtlessly acquired a taste from Benny Hill’s jokes. Another form of humor that enjoys great popularity in Britain is that of transvestites like Barrie Humphreys (“Dame Edna Everage”), whom I find hilarious, and Danny LaRue, whom I have never seen. They do not seem to appeal to insecure men who have a defensive macho image of themselves (even in Britain), hence are likely to have less allure in the U.S.
Getting back to strong language, the writer of two U.K. soap operas, Grange Hill and Brookside, defended its use on the grounds of realism, though it was pointed out that the audience for the latter had fallen from 4.5 million to 500,000 because of its language. In the U.K. that would seem an over-reaction, and I should venture to suggest that the quality of the show is more to blame. On the other hand, as David Wade reports, “More people, it appears, ring or write in [to BBC Radio] about all the effing and blinding or the taking of the name of God in vain than about any other single subject.” [The Times, 20 June 1988] There is probably something to be said in favour of the occasional use of rude language in drama for the sake of realism; on the other hand, in the real world rude language is often the resort of those who are unable to articulate their thoughts and emotions, and the presence of characters so afflicted is certainly dispensable in drama. In the words of Howard Baker, a playwright, “The dramatist has a responsibility to a higher truth than mere authenticity.”
Paring Pairs No. 34
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 acceptable one. The solution will be published in the next issue of VERBATIM.
(a). Drama of canceled tie-breaker.
(b). Catacombs where Mafiosi hide?
(c). Imp =—4; angel = +4.
(d). Menial canine corpse.
(e). Lassie? You sound serious!
(f). Disgusting seer predicts gain.
(g). Kazachok of the prairie?
(h). Lovable, conservative member of American Medical Association.
(i). Site of Aussie feather source.
(j). Where to look for loser in the encyclopedia.
(k). The ultimate cause of insufficient prevarication.
(l). Acknowledgment by string section of applause as ship proceeds?
(m). Audited textile course.
(n). Creative rota for principled person.
(o). Emile’s cheesy wife, Medusa?
(p). Not a strike with poker.
(q). Diamond Jack requires sterilized trull for pinochle.
(r). Exorbitant leasing fee for engine of torture.
(s). Entertaining result from cutting a rug.
(t). Vessel wooed by kings and queens.
(u). Recruiters of compositors, stonemen, etc.
(v). Upset at pass-through when upset.
(w). Employ completely and practically.
(x). Moll known for feminist activities.
(y). Saw detective with British dessert.
(z). Choreography for nude Russian entertainment.
(1). A.M.A.
(2). Ball.
(3). Bare.
(4). Body.
(5). Bow.
(6). Court.
(7). Dancing.
(8). Dick.
(9). Dog.
(10). Dog’s.
(11). Down.
(12). Floor.
(13). Fully.
(14). Gang.
(15). Gorgon.
(16). Gross.
(17). Ground.
(18). Hood.
(19). Idea.
(20). In.
(21). Italian.
(22). List.
(23). Low.
(24). Lying.
(25). Number.
(26). Off.
(27). Opposite.
(28). Over.
(29). Play.
(30). Press.
(31). Prophet.
(32). Quean.
(33). Rack.
(34). Rent.
(35). Running.
(36). Russian;
(37). Sat.
(38). Ship.
(39). Show.
(40). Spayed.
(41). Spotted.
(42). Star.
(43). Steppe.
(44). Tory.
(45). Turn.
(46). Under.
(47). Use.
(48). Wave.
(49). Woman.
(50). Zola.
SIC! SIC! SIC!
“Through the use of ultrasound, University of Washington researcher…studies women who develop high blood pressure during pregnancy with the assistance of AHA-WA funds.” [From Heartlines, a Washington affiliate newsletter of the American Heart Association, Vol. VI, No. 2, 1988.]
SIC! SIC! SIC!
“No detail is too small to overlook.” [From an advertisement for a lawn product on KCMO-TV, Kansas City, Missouri, 20 April 1988. Submitted by Dorothy Branson, Kansas City.]
Answers to Paring Pairs No. 33
(a). Lassie-shaped bacteria? (8,17) Collie Form.
(b). Pirate pollutes the environment. (7,1) Coarse Air.
(c). Parents, etc., of Ursa Major, Ursa Minor, Teddy, and Yogi. (18,2) Four Bears.
(d). We hear it’s a Hindu god’s film technique. (6,33) Cine Rama.
(e). Sounds like a creepy reactionary orthodonist. (14,11) Eerie Dentist.
(f). Transport via pneumatic elevator. (1,23) Air Lift.
(g). Nagging engine noise. (4,31) Car Ping.
(h). Embrace attacker and create mischief. (20,27) Hugger Mugger.
(i). Conservative under the volcano turns into the ladies' known as Lou. (22,44) Lava Tory.
(j). Bowling champion zigzags down the edge. (30,21) Pin King.
(k). Walesa’s jumpy about place where union funds are kept. (32,45) Pole Vault.
(l). In charge of making really good eyeshade. (43,46) Super Visor.
(m). Professional sportsman sacrifices his life for another. (10,37) Dead Ringer.
(n). Lilliputian film. (39,42) Short Subject.
(o). A man’s pronouncement media. (26,12) Male Dicta.
(p). Psammead into earl—or vice versa. (38-50) Sand Witch.
(q). Men are important element among miscreants. (26,15) Male Factor.
(r). Use reamer for one-armed bandit? (41,25) Slot Machine.
(s). Ghostly cadre. (40,9) Skeleton crew.
(t). He tells toupee jokes in semaphore. (49,47) Wig Wag.
(u). Sets your sights on new stove. (34,16) Range Finder.
(v). Associate gangster joines the fraternity. (3,19) Brother Hood.
(w). Criticism of actors proves emasculating. (5,35) Cast Rating.
(x). Aware of den of iniquity into which you plunge headlong. (29,13) Nose Dive.
(y). Kinky curt greeting via radio. (39,48) Short Wave.
(z). Played at son et lumiére? (24,28) Light Music.
The correct answer is (36) Rays.
Crossword Puzzle
Across
1. Drinking song on both sides of America (8)
5. Torrid Zone—subject gets restricted rating (6)
10. Run in circles maybe, orig- inally getting chair part (7)
11. Navy man’s mad about Ira re (7)
12. Celebrity taking one part of a flight (5)
13. Step around parlor’s leaves (4,5)
14. Entangled me beside lean- to (6)
15. Prisoner put label in stock ings (7)
18. Cardinal invested in prosperous period, getting lack of interest (7)
21. Asian country shack captured by outlaw (6)
24. Rascal stopping in store (9)
26. Swell houses I abandon
27. Stern pilot’s frown (7)
28. Go yachting in ocean, returning with false indentities (7)
29. Stop Lucy’s co-star by road (6)
30. Chartreuse ballpoint used to frame accord (3,5)
Down
1. Reportedly scratches part of a contract (6)
2. Run into errand boy in reckless display (7)
3. Excavated in Peru near the dam (9) broadcast (7)
4. Drink with bishop before a dance (5) ade featured by sky-scrapers on avenue (7)
5. Pine products, including piece of lumber, with fragrances (8)
6. Begins a filling meal (6)
7. Begin a filling meal (6)
8. Wife of Indian ruler complaining loudly (9)
9. Shortened commercial featuring card game (8)
10. Congressman makes public corrections (7)
11. Fellows have to help damsel (6)
12. Famous batter beming (3-4)
13. A flimsy paper in dispute (2,5)
14. Said to decline instruction
15. Approaches front of nave, hearing organs (5)
SIC! SIC! SIC!
“The podium erected in front of building A was surrounded by a semicircle of spectators on wooden chairs.” [From Doctors by Erich Segal, p. 316. Submitted by Eugene P. Healy, Madison, Connecticut.]
Crossword Puzzle Answers
Across
1. AT-(TEN)-DANCE.
6. RAYS (homophone).
10. P(LAST)ER.
11. BAT-TIER.
12. NEEDS (anag.).
13. PER SE-CUTE.
14. S(IMP)LY.
16. TREASON (anag.).
19. CO.-STING.
21. B(ILL)OW.
23. ENT-ANGLES (TEN anag.).
25. T-WEAK.
26. M(AGENT)A.
27. MAN-DATE.
28. DASH (hidden).
29. CH(ANGEL)ESS.
Down
1. AL(PIN)E.
2. TR(AGED)IES.
3. NOTES (SET ON rev.).
4. A-TROPHY.
5. CA(BARE)T.
7. A(DIE)U.
8. S(URGE)ONS.
9. ETHEREAL (hidden).
15. POI(GNA)NT (NAG anag.).
17. STO(NEW-A)RE.
18. SCREAMED (anag.).
20. GO(LIAT)H (rev.).
21. B-A-SEMAN (rev.).
22. SKIE(R)S.
24. TO-GAS.
25. TENSE (2 meanings).
Internet Archive copy of this issue
-
Both -acute (execute to electrocute) and -alysis (analysis to urinalysis) and later breathalyzer, started earlier. ↩︎