VOL XX, No 1 [Summer 1991]

The Titled Proletariat

John Ayto, London

In these utilitarian days, when the poetry of job titles does not run to anything more uplifting than the likes of “Business Performance Manager (Financial Plan)” and “Assessment Coordinator (Corporate Management Development Personnel Directorate),” it must be strange to be in a post with a name like, “Gold Stick” or “Harbinger.” Yet such posts do exist. The Household of the Queen of England is a piece of royal amber in which are preserved all manner of antique curiosities that would baffle even the most experienced personnel officer—some of them dating back in unbroken descent to the Middle Ages, many (as with much British royal fallalery) reinvented along medieval lines in the 19th century. Some have withered away: the “Keeper of the Fire Buckets” is no more (an unwise economy in the light of the recent conflagration at Windsor Castle), and the cryptically named “Keeper of the Orchard Gate” has disappeared; but many oddities remain.

The most celebrated and publicized of these posts is “Poet Laureate.” The term, which is suggestive of a coronation with classical laurels for outstanding merit in poetry, dates back in English to the Middle Ages; but it was not until the early 17th century that it came to be applied specifically to a particular poet. The first Poet Laureate in this sense was Ben Jonson, and he was followed by William D’Avenant (reputed bastard son of Shakespeare), who established the tradition that poetic genius is not a prerequisite for the post. Both of them were paid a pension by the Crown as a sign of royal favor; but it was John Dryden who in 1668 was appointed the first official Poet Laureate. His duty, and that (latterly less rigorously enforced) of his successors, has been to write poems for the Royal Court. In modern times this has generally manifested itself in the form of a rather embarrassing effusion on the occasion of some notable royal event. Some poets of great stature have held the position (Wordsworth, Tennyson), but there have been some lesser lights too—Henry Pye, for instance, incumbent from 1790 to 1813, and the drunkard Laurence Eusden (1718-30). The most notable laughingstock of modern times was the much (and who shall say unjustly?) maligned Alfred Austin (1896-1913), remembered now mainly for the McGonagallesque lines on the illness of Edward VII attributed to him: “Across the wires the electric message came: ‘He is no better, he is much the same.’ ” (The United States has a Poet Laureate too, appointed each year to a twelvemonth tenure by the Librarian of Congress. The incumbent at the time of writing is Mona Van Duyn.)

The musical equivalent of the Poet Laureate is the “Master of the Queen’s Music,” a post held by an eminent British composer who is expected occasionally to come up with a ceremonial fanfare. The post dates back to the time of Charles II, who appointed a “Master of the King’s Musick” to conduct the band that played for him at meal times and on special occasions (ye olde spelling ‘musick’ has only recently been abandoned). Its most celebrated incumbent was Elgar (1924-34).

Curiously, in the area of the visual arts, the sovereign retains the services of an expert practitioner only in her or his capacity as monarch of Scotland. And here there are not one, but two: a “Painter and Limner” (limner, old word for ‘painter,’ often additionally implies ‘portraitist’), and a “Sculptor in Ordinary,” a post currently held by the distinguished artist Sir Eduardo Paolozzi (in ordinary denoting ‘officially employed by the monarch’). (When Her Majesty is in Scotland she also enjoys the services of the “Hereditary Carver,” whose activities with the knife have, we trust, always been limited to attacking large roasts.)

Of more practical relevance to the sovereign’s person are the royal doctors. The British royal-watching public has become familiar over the past four decades with terms like “royal physician” and “royal dentist,” but these are mere shorthand. The real titles of these medical practitioners by appointment are much more grandisonant: the royal eye doctor, for example, is the “Surgeon Oculist,” and the gentleman entrusted with the care of the royal reproductive organs is (with a nice mixture of the ancient and the modern) the “Surgeon Gynaecologist.”

The Queen’s spiritual welfare is looked after by her ecclesiastical household. This consists of a small army of chaplains (thirty-six at the latest count, plus five “Extra Chaplains”), whose titular head is the confidential-sounding “Clerk of the Closet.” This post dates back at least to the 16th century, but the modern use of the term is revival. No backdoor allusion to “closet queens” is intended; its original application was to a cleric who attended the sovereign in his or her “closet,” or private chamber. The present holder is the Bishop of Chelmsford.

In former centuries, “Master” was a title commonly bestowed on those in charge of a particular duty the royal household. Those charged with responsibility for royal animals, for instance, were so designated. Once upon a time there was a “Master of the Hawks,” a “Master of the Cocks,” and a “Master of the Game” (whose job was to preserve game in the royal forests). Over the centuries they became merely ceremonial posts, and the only one of this sort which survives, “Master of the Horse,” has little practical connection with horses: he is the third highest official in the royal household, ranking below the Lord Chamberlain and the Lord Steward, and his main duty is to attend on the sovereign on state occasions; similarly sinecural was the now discontinued “Master of the Buckhounds,” who once ranked next below the Master of the Horse. In modern times, there is no corresponding Master of the Corgis. And indeed the only royal functionary now with direct responsibility for animals is the more modestly titled “Keeper of the Swans,” whose job is to look after those swans on the River Thames that belong to the Crown. He presides over the annual ceremony of swan-upping, which, despite its suggestive name, involves nothing more exciting than marking cygnets' beaks to indicate ownership. The “Hereditary Grand Falconer” and the “Queen’s Raven Master” now have limited opportunities to exercise their skills. (The Queen’s ravens, in the Tower of London, are all that remain of the former royal menagerie; legend has it that when the British Empire comes to an end, the ravens will die out, which must give the present survivors some sleepless nights.)

The “Master of the Household” has charge of the sovereign’s practical domestic requirements. Amongst the functionaries under him are the “Royal Flower Arranger” and the “Royal Chef.” (A more elevated post connected with the royal table is “Clerk of the Royal Kitchens,” an ancient dignity revived in 1953 and held until recently by the late hotelier Sir Hugh Wontner.) His department goes under the curious and anachronistic name of the “Board of Green Cloth,” a reference to the greenbaize-covered table at which its business was originally transacted.

The “Mistress of the Robes” is historically the keeper of the Queen’s wearing apparel, but she will not often be found at the royal ironing board. Below her in order of precedence come the “Ladies of the Bedchamber,” with their supernumeraries, the “Extra Ladies of the Bedchamber,” and then the more humble “Women of the Bedchamber” and “Extra Women of the Bedchamber.” A more intimate official still, whose services have now been dispensed with, was the ‘Groom of the Stole.” His original duties appear to have been connected with the sovereign’s “close stool,” or lavatory. Queen Victoria did not see fit to appoint one, and the post has not been revived.

Since at least the 16th century, the sovereign has had an official specifically responsible for overseeing royal charitable donations. These were once known as alms, whence the official’s title of “Almoner.” There is a “Hereditary Grand Almoner,” a post filled by the Marquess of Exeter, and a more lowly “High Almoner,” who is customarily a bishop.

The Queen’s official bodyguards are the members of the Honourable Corps of Gentlemen-at-Arms, a squad of about 35 retired senior army officers who escort Her Majesty on state occasions. Amongst the officials of the Corps are the “Clerk of the Cheque and Adjutant” (the cheque was in former centuries a stoppage of the wages of servants in the royal household as a punishment for not performing their duties properly) and the “Harbinger,” whose original duty was to travel in advance of the royal party and secure accommodation for it.

But when it comes to bizarre job titles, little can compare with being named after a stick. “Black Rod” (in full the “Gentleman Usher of the Black Rod”) has the duty of summoning the Commons to the House of Lords for the opening of Parliament. In discharging it, he has to knock on the door of the Commons with his black staff of office. “Gold Stick” is the colonel of the Life Guards, who carries a gilt rod before the sovereign on ceremonial occasions. He is the senior army officer in the royal household.

SIC! SIC! SIC!

“Can’t tell who from whom? …Help is available from the Purdue University grammar hotline…. ‘We get a lot of business writing calls and how to deal with a salutation when you don’t know who you’re writing to,’ [Bob] Child [Assistant to the writing lab director] said.” [From the New Haven Register, November 9, 1986, AP syndicated story by Diane M. Balk. Submitted by Dennis G. Jarry, New Haven, Connecticut.]

Roundabout East Anglia

Bel Bailey, Clacton on Sea, Essex

The inbuilt tendency of the oldest inhabitants of Essex, Suffolk, and Norfolk is reluctance to commit themselves. Linked to this is the frequent use of the word fare. This comes from the Old English faran ‘to go.’ In East Anglia it is often used to tone down a statement as in “I fare (or incline) to think you’ve made a mistake, bor” or “I don’t fare to hev any luck with the weather.” The traditional old Norfolk or Suffolk farm workers disliked answering direct questions, so would typically answer in a roundabout way “I don’t wholly (completely) fare to recollect that, maybe afore my time.” This cautious attitude was inbred in old East Anglians and still appears even today—that semblance of minding one’s own business—probably rooted in small village life, when one could not afford to upset one’s neighbors!

Linked to this is a typical Norfolk injunction, Keep it squat! ‘secret.’ Even the elements are often treated with this native caution. Asked if rain was likely, a reply could well be the guarded, “I don’t know as it ‘ont. It maay an it mayn’t. I don’t know but it will” —a joy of paraphrase!

Again in Norfolk the weather provided many old dialect words. Thongy meant ‘oppressive and thundery heat.’ Misky or mullicky was the Essex term for ‘foggy weather.’ Waterfrost always meant ‘ice’ in East Anglia; billows of snow were ‘snowdrifts,’ and a ‘shower of rain’ was praised as “a dagg [dew] for the turnips” (a vegetable much grown in Norfolk). Mizzle meant ‘mist or fine rain.’ Rafty describes a raw, cold day as when “Thass a nasty roke [‘mist’] com oova ta maashes.” Water eynd was the curious name for ‘thick sea mist.’ Unsettled weather was described as thredigal, and Sir Roger’s Blast was the interesting name given to a ‘sudden gust on a perfect summer’s day.’ “Thar goo Sir Roger across ta fild!” Sir Roger Asham was credited with this phenomenon due to his famous mood changes….

Many old East Anglian expressions are sadly fading away. These include the strange terms used to describe pains to the doctor like cogs of the wheel meaning the ‘stomach,’ pin of the throat for the ‘uvula,’ huckle for the ‘hip,’ and stroop for the ‘windpipe.’ A downpin described a ‘depressed or ill person’ and to be gaggy was to be ‘sick to the stomach,’ while dozzy meant ‘giddy.’ A raw young doctor newly arrived in East Anglia during the last century must have been completely bewildered!

The village blacksmith in those days still pulled the teeth of humans as well as of horses and would say (with a rare directness) “Come yew in the travise [‘open shed of the smithy’] and set on this pail.” After the deed he might say, “Yew fare tew look quare, bor, git yareself some rum. That’ll put yew tew rights.” Bor is used in Norfolk and Suffolk to males, mawther for teenage girls. Old sayings were often directed at the latter, like, “She’s crab atoom and apple away,” said about girls awkward at home but charming in company. Boasters of either sex in Suffolk were warned “Whin yew lay a gowden egg don’t cackle.” Drunkards would hear the familiar refrain. “Money what go down the red lane is lorst forever.” Drinking was a waste of spondooliks, they said sagely in old Suffolk. Farm labourers kept a sharp eye out for the new moon which gave rise to strange expressions, “Saturday new, Sunday full, never was good and never wool,” while a crescent moon in a certain position meant “ta mune lays waterchutin” threatening rain, and once past the full the moon in Suffolk was said to dreep.

Shakespeare’s word,kecksies, is still used by elderly folk near the Essex/Suffolk border to refer to the lovely frothy cow parsley with white flowers. Paigles is the East Anglian term for ‘cowslips’ and ‘homemade wine’ is referred to as sich in Suffolk.

It has often been said that many Essex words can be found in Uncle Remus and in the United States generally. This would be worth a treatise in itself. Certainly some strange natural history terms can be found in the old Essex dialect. Botsy means a ‘rabbit,’ bullimong a ‘mixture of coats, peas, and vetches,’ a cold arse bird is the ‘missle thrush,’ whose song heralds chilly weather, Hedge Betty for the ‘sparrow,’ Yellow Yank a ‘yellowhammer bird,’ and Bishop “Barnaby” is the old East Anglian name for a ‘ladybird,’ Old Will is the rather Shakesperean name for any ‘owl,’ nine eyes was the ‘lamprey.’

Lest it be thought that these adjoining three counties lack humor here are some examples of dry Anglian wit. A pudd’n spoiler was the old term for a ‘long-winded sermon,’ while a ‘noisy talker given to explosions of laughter’ was a clashmadang (haven’t we all met one of those?). A ‘flatterer’ was described a licker over, but a ‘complainer’ was Peter grievous. A ‘flighty girl’ was a scaddle who deserved a good tongue pie or scolding.’ Rumgumshus meant ‘argumentative.’ “Take your Daniel away" was the old Anglian version of ‘be off,’ but a polite farewell was a seal of the day, surely a delightful phrase on which to end.

Vestiges

Mary M. Tius, Portland, Maine

…at a site on the northern coast of Peru called Huaca Prieta… a number of mounds excavated in the late 1940’s yielded… four extremely significant samplings… Sample No. 321: wood associated with agricultural products, “(dated by C14 method)” 1016±300 B.C. On this level… appeared…a) twined fabrics…of an Asiatic cotton, b) two small bottle-gourds…the bottle-gourd being a plant not native to America. In addition, bits of bark cloth (tapa…) were found…

Joseph Campbell,

The Masks of God: Primitive Mythology,

Penguin, 1976, pp. 205-206.

Over and over again in ancient times, as in our own, people have left their native lands singly and in groups, driven by climatic changes, hunger, overpopulation, restlessness or merely by a need to trade. Often, they have been driven out by wandering groups. But for whatever reasons, it appears to have been (and still to be) a given that people will seek their own or others’ fortunes in foreign parts.

Sometimes wanderers were able to take material possessions with them—plants, seeds, utensils; and, just as these material goods were carried from one place to another, so, too, were the skills and techniques they represented, as well as, of course, the languages that named them. Whether the migrants overwhelmed the foreign culture or were themselves absorbed into it, some of the old baggage must surely have survived. This may explain the similarities between words that are found in widely separated cultures. For instance:

Takelma bãp', bāb-i- ‘seeds’

Vietnam băp ‘maize’

Tag bató, Malay batu ‘stone’

PPN¹ fatu ‘stone’

Takelma bãm ‘tree(s), stick’

OE băam ‘tree, beam’

OHG boum ‘tree’

Vietnam bôt ‘powder, flour’

Choctaw bota ‘flour, powder’

Chin (Pek) ch’ai 2 ‘wood’

Quiché che ‘tree, wood’

chah ‘resinous pine, fat-pine sticks’

Maya cum ‘vase, pot; celestial vase containing rains’

Skt kumbha ‘pot; Aquarius’

PPN kumete ‘bowl’

PPN, Haw ipu ‘bottle-gourd’

Tag úpo ‘bottle-gourd’

Yaqui yooba ‘calabash’

Maya kan ‘maize’

PNP² kano ‘seed, kernel’

Chin (Pek) lu 2 ‘stove’

Choctaw lua ‘fire’

Vietnam l\?\a ‘fire’

Turk mas ‘imbibling’

Korean masi ‘drink’ (verb)

Chin (Pek) mi 3 ‘seeds’

Jap mi ‘fruit, berry’

Ojibwa mim ‘grain, seed’

Skt osati ‘he burns’

Dak ośota ‘smoky’

Quiché pa ‘mountain’

Dak pahá ‘hills’

Hindi pahár ‘mountain(s)’

Takelma *p! ah(a)*n ‘to be ripe, done’

PEP³ paka ‘cooked, burnt, parched’

Skt pakva ‘cooked, ripe, solid’

Chukchee pin ‘hearth’ (stem word)

Lao pi:ng 5 ‘to roast’

Hopi salavi ‘spruce tree’

Turk selvi, servi ‘fir, cypress’

Ir Gael sú ‘juice’

Turk su ‘water, liquid, juice, sap, essence’

Turk tunç ‘bronze’

Chin (Pek) t’ung 2 ‘copper’

Takelma yãl ‘pine’

Russ yalovets ‘juniper’

Turkish tandir, tandur ‘brazier,’ Arabic tannūr ‘oven,’ and Kurdish (Yezidi) tonir ‘earth oven’ are direct descendants of Aramaic tannūra ‘oven’ and Akkadian tinūru ‘health, oven.’ Is it unreasonable to suspect that PPN (Proto Polynesian reconstruction, ca. 600-200 B.C.) tungi ‘to burn’ and PPN tunu ‘to broil on coals’ may also be related to the Akkadian and Aramaic words?

Consider the following groups of words for foods, plants and seeds:

Ar bān ‘ben seed’

ON baun ‘bean’

Malay bëne ‘grain, seed’

Bambara běne ‘sensame’

Wolof, Mandingo bene ‘sesame’

Tag binhî ‘seed’

Hindi dane ‘bends’

Lao dto:n 5 ‘grain, seed, tree’

Chin (Pek) tan 4 ‘egg’

Jap tane ‘seed, (Bot.) semen’

Turk tane, dane ‘grain, berry, seed’

PEP kumala ‘sweet potato’

Inca kumar ‘sweet potato’

Maori kumara ‘sweet potato’

Chin (Pek) mai 4 ya 2 ‘malt’

Turk maya ‘yeast’

Korean mandou ‘stuffed dough-pocket, fried

Turk manti or boiled’

Chin (Pek) man 2 t’ou 0 ‘Chinese bread’

Haw, PEP mole ‘taproot’

OE more, moru ‘carrot, parsnip’

ME more ‘root, stump’

Russ morkov' ‘carrot’

Korean mu ‘turnip’

Skt mūla ‘root’

Hindi mūlī ‘radishes’

Turk so\?\an ‘onion’

Chin (Pek) suan 4 ‘garlic’

Choctaw tobi, tubi ‘bean(s)’

Kanarese togari ‘tur (pigeon pea)’

Lao (malk 6) tua 2 ([Prefix for] fruit) ‘bean’

Hindi tuar ‘tur’

Skt tubarī ‘tur’

Tamil tuvarai ‘tur’

Consider, too, the following groups of words for fire, tree, and wood:

Passamaquoddy äbân ‘baked’

Choctaw abani ‘to barbecue’

PPN afi ‘fire’

Del äpãn ‘baked’

Choctaw api ‘tree, trunk, stalk, vine’

Mala api ‘fire’

Tag apóy ‘flame, fire’

On ofn ‘oven’

Catawba yop ‘tree, shrub’

Cherokee ata ‘log, wood’

Turk ateş ‘fire’

Fon atin ‘tree’

Chukchee etti'- ‘tree-’

Malay hutan ‘forest, wild’

OW idho ‘yew’

Sum isu ‘wood’

Choctaw iti ‘tree, wood(s), timber’

ito ‘fire’

Creek íto ‘tree’

obs. Turk od, ot ‘grass, poison, tree, wood, fire’

Turk odun ‘wood’

W odyn ‘kiln’

Choctaw oti ‘to kindle, burn; kindling wood’

Ar '\?\ūd, ut ‘wood’

Sum udun ‘fireplace’

Turk ut, ud ‘aloes(-wood)’

Koryak u’tti- ‘wooden-’ u’ttuut ‘wood’

Chukchee u’ttuut ‘wood, stick’ (obj. case)

Akk utûnu ‘fireplace’

Maya ik ‘fire’

Turk ikad ‘igniting’

Esk ik’nek ‘fire, lightning’

Choctaw iksita ‘hearth’

Cree iskotao ‘fire’

Finn tammi ‘oak’

Maori tanekaha ‘celery-topped pine’

Mohave taneta ‘tree’

Tag tanim ‘plant, tree’

Hopi tenyam ‘hard wood’

OW tinne ‘holly’

Gaul, OBret tinne ‘oak’

Shoshoni tono- ‘greasewood’

ON tundr ‘tinder’

Lao (dto:n 5) son:n 4 chiń ‘cedar (tree)’

Koryak Okhotsk so\?\k ‘into the wood’

Jap sugi ‘Japanese cedar’

Koryak Kamchadal sün ‘wood’ (stem word)

Turk suna ‘cypress’

Chin (Pek) sunǵ' (shu 4) ‘pine’ (tree)

Koryak Kamchadal sünk ‘in the wood’

Sedanka Koryak zönk ‘into the wood’

ON vithr ‘wood, tree’

OHG witu ‘wood’

Takelma woo- ‘go for wood’ (non-aorist stem word)

wõul\?\ ‘she went for wood’

OE wudu, widu ‘wood, forest’

W wydd ‘tree’

Abnaki wytopi, wydobi ‘alder’

Jap yakeru ‘to burn’

yaki ‘roast’

Turk yaki ‘cautery, plaster, blister’

yakit ‘fuel’

yakmak ‘to kindle, burn’

Jap yaku ‘to bake, burn, roast’

Lao yang 5 ‘to smoke-cure, grill’

Chin (Pek) yang 2 huo 3 ‘match, lighter’

Turk yangin ‘fire, conflagration’

Choctaw yanha ‘fever’

Turk yanmak ‘to burn’

Chin (Pek) yeń ‘smoke; opium, tobacco’

Yaqui yene-, yen- ‘(to) smoke tobacco’

Chukchee yen- ‘fire (stem word)

Wik Munkan yukk- ‘(prefix for) trees, stick, wood’

While we may and sometimes should dismiss such similarities as coincidence or obscure but recent borrowings. Thor Heyerdahl and present-day Polynesians, using only the materials and skills available to seafarers of ancient times, have demonstrated that Atlantic and Pacific crossings were possible for prehistoric peoples. The finds at Huaca Prieta indicate that such crossings are more than probable. For, as Carl O. Sauer has pointed out (quoted by Joseph Campbell, op. cit., p. 207), the bottle-gourd is a cultivated plant, not a wild one. Its preservation depends on the care of man: any theory of its accidental dissemination requires that the gourd cross an ocean without being damaged in transist and that it be found by a waiting agriculturalist who recognizes it and then carries it from the seashore to a place suitable for its cultivation.

Now that would be a coincidence!

---

SIC! SIC! SIC!

“There are no national temperatures today due to transmission difficulties.” [From the St. Petersburg Evening Independent.]

OBITER DICTA: The abominable versatility of -ize

J.A. Davidson, Victoria, British Columbia

The Gage Canadian Dictionary gives this simple definition for womanize: “1. of man, indulge frequently in casual sexual relationships with women. 2. make effeminate.” “Manize” is not given in Gage or in any of the other dictionaries I consulted, including the big Oxford and the big Webster. Not that I would acclaim wormanizing—but it does seem unfair, in this age of the repudiation of sexist language, that we, both women and men, should not be able to say that some women are “manizers.” It is just as well, however, that we do not have the word “personizer”: any definition for that would be heavy with ambiguity.

The suffix -ize (British English uses both -ize and -ise), with its supplements, -izing and -ization, is remarkably adaptable. Words using it have been in our language for many centuries the big Oxford is helpful on this. Scandalize turned up in literature in 1566, and apologize shortly after that. Criticize was used in Shakespeare’s time, and he used monarchize. Burglarize has been with us since around 1870.

Wordsworth described another poet as “One that would peep and botanize / Upon his mother’s grave.” And this from Tennyson’s Maud: “Gorgonised me from head to foot / With a stony British stare.” Peter De Vries, that master of tongue-in-cheek manipulations of our language, has given us this: “The language is already cacophonized enough.”

A friend of mine says that he would like to write a short story in which he can use this sentence: “She had to be hospitalized eight months after she had been pregnantized.”

Laurence Urdang, in the Winter 1991 isue of this journal, wrote this: “People often think that—at least by now—all the words have been successfully and accurately etymologized.” If he did not have his tongue in his cheek when he used that word he should apologize to his many admirers.

The big Webster has hooverize, which it defines as “to economize especially in the use of food.” The term comes from Herbert Hoover’s policy as US food administrator, 1917-19. If I hadn’t stumbled on that when looking for something else I probably would have gone through life thinking that hooverizing was simply what my mother used to do to rugs.

Here is a dreadful word I came across in a British theological journal in 1979: euthanatizing. Euthanatize, I learned from the big Oxford has been around since 1873 and means “To subject to ‘euthanasia.’ ” Euthanasia was first used in 1646.

Relevant to all this are mediocratization, used in Esquire in 1970, and its back-formation, mediocratize, used in The New York Times Magazine in 1972.

In one of the little pieces he wrote for The New Yorker, E.B. White said that someone had sent him a book on writing in which he found this admonition: “Wherever possible, personalize your writing by directing it to the reader.” His comment on that has becomes famous: “As for us, we would as lief Simonize our grandmother as personalize our writing.” (White did not like using the editorial “we,” but the editors insisted on it for anonymous front-of-the-book pieces. I mention this for the benefit of some of the younger readers of this journal.)

White re-wrote the helpful little manual, The Elements of Style, written in 1919 by Professor William Strunk, Jr.: Strunk had taught him composition at Cornell. In the revised versions (1959 and later) this admonition is given: “Personalize. A pretentious word, often carrying bad advice. Do not personalize your prose; simply make it good and keep it clean.”

The Oxford English Dictionary reports that the verb personalize was first used during the 18th century. Personalization has been in use since 1880, when it was used by an English theologian. Another theologian wrote this in 1888: “Luther was the personalization of tendencies that threatened the very life of the papacy.” And as recently as 1977 another theologian commented on “The man Jesus Christ as the personalized instrument…of the self-expressive activity of God.” (My background in theology has been helpful to me in my frolics in linguistics.) But the word got away from the theologians and during recent decades has been taken up by business people. Everyone has received those utterly impersonal personalized letters which magazines and financial firms and merchants dump on us through our mail-slots. Their computers use your name, in some cases three or four times, in their beautiful produced sales letters—apparently assuming that this will make you love them. Occasionally they get the name wrong: recently I have been addressed as “Dawson” and “Damidson.”

My bankers assure me that they are happy to provide their clients with more personalized service. I wonder about that: I do most of my actual banking at machines without dealing face-to-face with bank persons. For several years, though, I have refused to do any depositing through them. Even when I have to stand in line for several minutes, I look forward to the smile of a live teller. At the same time I can meditate on the ghastliness of the unnecessary use of the suffix -ize.

SIC! SIC! SIC!

“Tongue Tied by Lost for Words out of Verbatim.” [A horse with his lineage, listed on a racing program at Belmont Race Track, Elmont, New York. Submitted by L. Phillips, New York City.]

Future Difficulties

Sharon Ingleson, Löberöd, Sweden

The statement, “Sven won’t come to the lesson today,” can still take me aback after six years of teaching English abroad. Ask any foreigner about the English “future” and the word will invariably comes back to you. The same would be said by many native English speakers. As a teacher, I am aware that a refusal is not intended by the example quoted above, but that is the impression given.

Does it matter? Yes, it probably does if one wants to get off on the right foot with a business associate or next-door neighbor. It matters even more if the speaker does not sound obviously foreign and has an otherwise good control of English: he speaks English well so he means what he is saying. Right? Unfortunately, not always.

The problem with English is that, unlike other European languages, it does not have a future form. It has ways of expressing the future and, certainly, the use of will is one of them, but any foreign speaker of English must be aware that the word is loaded. To begin with, it has uses which have little to do with the future, as in, “He will leave that door open” and, “The court will rise.”

As regards the future, it is used for formal declarations (The Queen will arrive at ten o’clock and will be driven straight to the town hall), for forecasts (There will be snow on higher ground), and for predictions (You will meet a tall, dark, handsome stranger). In everyday speech we can use it to make arrangements (I’ll see you this evening), promises (I’ll love you forever), and threats (I’ll kill you) and remain on perfectly safe ground.

However, consider, Will you help me? Of course, it is directed towards the future since most of our everyday life is, but the most important feature here is its use as a request and conversely, I’ll help you, as an offer. The importance of understanding this can be seen quite clearly when comparing the following pair of sentences:

Will you bring Susan to the party?

Will you be bringing Susan to the party?

These sentences have little in common semantically. In most situations the first would clearly be a request and the tone of voice would confirm this; the second simply asks for information.

To a native speaker the distinction is as plain as the correct choice of der, die, or das to a German, but the foreign speaker is in treacherous waters here, particularly if he has little experience of speaking English. Knowing one’s grammar well enough to fill in the space in the exercise is one thing; converting thought simultaneously into speech is quite another, especially if the situation is fraught with difficulties for other reasons.

An anxiety not to over-use will produces sentences like, I’m doing it for you in a minute. The meaning is quite clear, the form quite wrong. This sort of thing is the stuff of sniggers and jests, particularly if accompanied by a heavy foreign accent. If more native speakers had the experience of learning other languages, there might be more sensitivity to the problems and an awareness that what is said is not always what was meant. A study of the workings of English could also be helpful in this respect.

For instance, why is it all right to say, I’m going on holiday at the weekend but not I’m watching television at the weekend? Taking further examples, we can add, I’m visiting my cousin on Sunday or, I’m going to university in the autumn but not, I’m brushing the dog on Saturday morning. All refer to future events but some of them require prior arrangements before the time of speaking. This would hardly be true of the television or the dog unless we intend to watch the World Cup Final or groom as aspiring Crufts’ Champion. So, in these cases we say, I’m going to watch television at the weekend. What differences is made by going to? Consider, I’m going to visit my aunt tonight and I’m going to buy a new car next month. Does the aunt know about my visit? Have I put a down payment on the Mercedes? Perhaps, but perhaps not. We are speaking here about my intentions. There is a distinction then between, I’m doing it, and I’m going to do it. Going back to the examples of the aunt and the cousin, we can say that arrangements have already been made with the cousin but about the aunt we cannot be sure.

It should be clear by now that when we talk about future happenings in English, the form we choose to express ourselves tells the listener a lot more about the situation than the lexical meaning of the words. To the native speaker, this is a matter of instinct. The foreign speaker, on the other hand, must not only attempt to communicate using the right form himself, but also to interpret what is said to him.

Consider the following said by one employee to another:

1. I’m seeing the boss tomorrow.

2. I’m going to see the boss tomorrow.

3. I will see the boss tomorrow.

4. I’ll be seeing the boss tomorrow.

5. I see the boss tomorrow.

6. I’m to see the boss tomorrow.

The respective forms alter the meaning of the actual words in some way. One, two, and four, for instance, are very close in meaning, while three, five, and six quite different. Three and six are, in fact, opposites; the former depends on my volition (with stress on will), the latter has been arranged by my boss and possibly against my volition. Number five poses a few questions. Foreign students of English do not like it. It seems wrong because it contradicts what they have learnt about the future “tense” in English. It may be unusual as used here, but is it possible?

Can we not say, for example, “The plan leaves at five on Friday”? You could argue that is different because it is based on a timetable: the plane leaves at five every Friday. That is certainly true, but it does not alter the fact that the plane leaves at five this Friday too. I see the boss tomorrow, I leave for Paris the day after, and I meet the Chairman on Sunday, are all references to my diary—or, in other words, to my personal timetable.

The future in English is a minefield of potential misunderstandings and false impressions, where the best of speakers make mistakes. The differences in meaning between the forms are sometimes subtle but are there nonetheless. To allow foreign learners to think that will represents the English “future” is therefore unfair.

Finally, a plea to native speakers. The next time someone “won’t” come to your meeting, lesson or party, please keep an open mind!

What’s in an Article?

Louis Jay Herman, New York City

The White House, followed closely by the media, has yielded to Ukrainian sensibilities and purged the traditional article the from the name of the newly independent Ukraine as comporting better with geographical regions than with sovereign states. One wonders what the Ukrainians, whose language denies them the heady pleasures of definite and indefinite articles, could possibly know about such things and why they are more sensitive on the subject than the Sudanese, who have peacefully coexisted with a definite article for many years.

Beyond that, however, there is the larger question of whether one country is entitled to take umbrage at the manner in which another country has traditionally rendered its name. The Germans, whose national name Deutchland resonates with an ancient Germanic word for ‘people,’ could easily feel slighted because English Germany and French Allemagne do no more than perpetuate the memory of individual tribes. The Greeks still rejoice in the ancient name Hellas for their country, but everyone else perversely insists on using the Illyrian name (Greece) of a single tribe. Other such oddities abound: the Magyars have long suffered the indignity of hearing their country called Hungary—a misnomer, since they are not related to the barbaric Huns. The Finns refer to Germany as Saksa (i.e., ‘Saxony’) and to Russia as Venäjä (after the name of a western Slavic tribe), while the Poles have dubbed Germany Niemcy (literally, ‘land of the mute,’ because of its quaint custom of speaking a non-Slavic language) and Italy Wlochy (related to ‘Wales’).

In any case, the Ukrainians seem to have forgotten a stylistic quirk in their own language which can easily be construed as demeaning to their national dignity. In referring to all other countries, they use the preposition v ‘in’ (v Anglii ‘in England’), while for their own country the preposition of choice is na ‘on’ (na Ukraini ‘on the Ukraine’) just as in the case of a region like the Caucasus (na Kavkazi ‘on the Caucasus’). Suppose they keep their preposition and we keep our article. In a world in which old landmarks vanish every day, a bit of tradition is not a bad thing.

EPISTOLA {John R. Cassidy}

I salute Mr. Emilio Bernal Lebrada [EPISTOLAE, XIX,3,35] as a fellow lover of words and as one who is obviously well grounded in Spanish; but I believe that in disputing my thesis about there not being words for certain things, he has in fact proved my point.

My teasing did not mean to imply that Spanish can never express some of the things that English can say, but simply that the exact meanings of some words have no precise counterpart in a single Spanish word. By pointing to several words that may be used to translate the meaning of schedule (calendario, planear, agenda) it seems to me that Mr. Bernal is confirming the fact that one cannot find one single word in Spanish to do the work of schedule in English but must search among several words, each of which expresses one aspect of the English word.

His exegesis on the word wait and hope grants the point I was making by saying that one can clarify the meaning by placing the verb esperar in a phrase that shows its meaning to be ‘wait’ rather than ‘hope.’

I am sure that Mr. Bernal will agree with me that exercises such as this one are amusing but essentially trivial, and I hope that he has noted in my little essay examples of words in Spanish that cannot be duplicated precisely in English: the treachery of translation works both ways. Shakespeare loses a certain power and beauty when rendered in Spanish, and nobody can really know that towering, comical, tragic caballera de la triste figura, Don Quijote de la Mancha, who cannot read him in Spanish.

Of course I was using a bit of hyperbole when I suggested that mueran los demócristianos meant ‘kill the Christian Democrats,’ although one could argue that shouting “Death to Somoza” is not many steps removed from exhorting somebody to kill him. In any event, these cries are quite obviously not to be taken literally.

\?\Salud! Mr. Bernal: I have to say that in Spanish because there is not word for it in English.

[John R. Cassidy, Fairfax, Virginia]

EPISTOLA {Joseph K. Slap}

In “There Just Isn’t a Word for It” [XVIII,2], John R. Cassidy contrasts Spanish with English, pointing out that certain words in Spanish have no equivalents in English and that English often requires a series of words to convey the meanings of certain Spanish words, but even in those cases, the full subtleties of the Spanish words are not achieved.

The same sort of article could be written in comparing virtually any languages.

One becomes aware, however, of one-word gaps in English, some of which are rather surprising. Consider a situation in which one has guests at one’s home: to give them something to eat, one feeds them; but to give them something to drink, one does not water them, milk them, or punch them.

*[Joseph K. Slap, Rolling Hills Estates, California] *

EPISTOLA {Murray C. Zimmerman}

My favorite pun, ever since I saw it in Punch many years ago, was their comment on the newspaper headline “John Longbottom, Age 6 Weeks, Dies”: Ars longa, vita brevis.

An unappreciated puns (of my own), which make me feel like Napoleon on a desert island, came about when a lady friend drove up in her new Lotus, which her husband had had repainted to match the color of her eyes (which were violet): the result was so smashing that I was moved to say,“Ohmane padme hum,” which was completely lost on anyone who didn’t know that it meant ‘The jewel is in the heart of the lotus.’

In a similar (unappreciated) category, I was chairing a medical meeting one night when the projector light went out. While the technician fiddled with it, the audience fidgeted impatiently. Finally, when I could see that all was about in readiness, I asked everyone to raise both hands, whereupon the projector flashed on and I was able to point out to them,“Many hands make light work!”

*[Murray C. Zimmerman, Whittier, California] *

Developing Dictionaries

Daniel Balado-Lopez, Hoddesdon, Hertfordshire

We rarely give thought to the ways in which Charles Darwin’s evolutionary theory of Natural Selection (the “Survival of the fittest”) becomes a potent analogy for so many aspects of our lives. An automobile, for example, fitted with an anti-lock brake system and side impact bars is immeasurably better equipped for survival on today’s roads than Ford’s Model T of 1908, despite the model T’s having been perfectly adequate in its day (it sold upwards of 15 million in twenty years). The latest dictionary model, as exemplified by the Oxford English Dictionary, Second Edition, can similarly boast many additional features over its extinct predecessors and is consequently preferred for use by all. As well as definitions, it offers variant spellings, pronunciation guidelines, grammatical identification, inflectional forms (plurals, irregular past tenses, superlatives, etc.), illustrative quotations, information on usagen (registers), etymology, derivatives, phrases and idioms including, in some editions, pictorial representations, and appendices that carry a wide range of material that would be more at home in an encyclopedia or an almanac. How has this system evolved?

The first work to take the form of a dictionary for the English languages was Edmund Coote’s The English School-Maister [sic] (1597). A modestly endowed ancestor, it defined approximately 1500 words, basing itself on the format of early English/ Latin dictionaries such as the Promptorium Parvulorum (c. 1440, an elaboration itself on the older idea of simple interlinear glossing of French and Latin manuscripts). The Promptorium was intended solely for the use of scholars in universities, and dictionaries such as this and the Catholican Anglicum (c. 1483) were the natural forerunners of the bilingual dictionaries we have today. (They were particularly popular in Elizabethan times: Shakespeare was found of dipping into John Florio’s Italian-English dictionary Worlde of Wordes for exotic words with which to embellish his Italian comedies.) In those early English/Latin dictionaries, it is possible to trace the genesis of the monolingual dictionary. The editors of the Promptorium thought it necessary at times to give a brief explanation of the English word to be translated; thus the Latin translation of the word deprive is preceded by the explanation “put awey a thyng or taken awey ffrom anoder."

It was no coincidence that Coote acted on this need for an English dictionary when he did. England’s self-esteem had never been higher than it was during the reign of Elizabeth I, and this engendered a national pride that led one man, Richard Sherry, to link the enjoyment of “the plentyfulnes of our mother tongue” with a man’s patriotic duty. William Caxton had brought printing to England a few decades earlier, and the time was ripe to encourage and develop the vernacular. Richard Mulcaster proclaimed the need for the gathering together of “…all the words we use in our English tong, whether naturall or incorporate …into one dictionarie”; Coote’s effort was minimal but nevertheless representative of this desire.

Robert Cawdrey, like Mulcaster and Coote a schoolmaster, pilfered unashamedly from Coote’s work and published his A Table Alphabeticall in 1604. Though far from original, his work was twice the size of Coote’s effort, and it cleared the way for John Bullokar’s An English Expositor of 1616 (the year of Shakespeare’s death), which in turn doubled the size of Cawdrey’s contribution. In the Expositor, definitions became more detailed with the occasional citation of an ancient authority (such as Avicenna, Galen, or Pliny) to lend extra credence. Bullokar was also the first compiler to identify the domain of a particular term: the word decoction he described as “a boyling or seething; in Phisicke it signifieth commonly any liquor in which medicinable roots, herbas, seedes, flowers or any other thyng hath beene boyled.” This was an important development, for it fulfilled Mulcaster’s ideal by enabling people to learn the meanings of words “out of all professions, as well learned as not.” Bullokar had also to clean up an aspect which we today take for granted: the alphabetization of the entries. In the early English-Latin dictionaries it had been lax, and Coote’s Schoole-Maister had alphabetized words only to the fourth letter.

As competition widened the scope of the dictionary, lexicographers persisted in limiting themselves to explaining only “harde” or difficult words. Thomas Blount’s Glossographia (1656) showed that compilers were still sacrificing the basic needs of a dictionary of the language in the interests of commercial success. They took to emblazoning their edition’s merits in big, bold letters on their title-pages: Henry Cockeram vaunted his magnificent encyclopedic feature Gods and Goddesses (The English Dictionarie, 1623), and the Glossographia boasted of its definitive etymologies and historical observations. Blount plagiarized Francis Holyoke’s Dictionarium Etymologicum in order to vindicate his advertising bluster to the extent that (as DeWitt Starnes tells us in his book The English Dictionary from Cawdrey to Johnson) 68% of the 924 entries under the letter “A” were from Holyoke.

A New English Dictionary (1702), by the mysterious “J.K.,” constituted a turning-point in defining the function of the dictionary by including many words that were not considered difficult to understand. The labor involved in this extra work seems to have impaired the quality of the text, for the definitions were certainly extremely lax in places. (He defined an elephant as ‘a beast.’ By the time Nathan Bailey’s influential and successful An Universal Etymological English Dictionary came out (the first to attempt to list all the words in the language), the number of words adequately defined was about 40,000. Bailey’s dictionary flaunted its proverbs and its unparalled information on etymology, and its subsequent history makes impressive reading: thirty editions were published to 1802 (the 1783 edition reached 50,000 words), clearing to the wayside competition from the likes of Thomas Dyche and William Pardon (who nevertheless did great work in giving prominence to aspects of grammer and pronunciation). In the eighteenth century, only Dr. Johnson’s famous attempt at lexicography in 1755 (complete with self-opinionated definitions and not a few jokes) rivaled the popularity of Bailey’s work.

It is possible to extract from this commercial ratrace a number of ideals that were unnecessarily struggling with one another. Those with a pedagogical bias (particularly the early schoolmasters like Mulcaster) believed a dictionary should be for the purposes of aiding pronunciation, grammer, and spelling above all else. This tradition received a lot of attention in the latter part of the eighteenth century when Dr. William Kendrick included in his A New Dictionary exhaustic tables designed to demonstrate the correct way to pronounce words. (Another edition took to placing stress marks in such a way as to indicate the termination of syllables, e.g., art’ful.) There were also those who believed that a dictionary’s function was only to explain difficult, foreign, and technical terms, and those who believed that the future for dictionaries lay in their value as reference books with plenty of encyclopedic material. Finally, there were those, like Bailey, who believed that the most valuable service of a dictionary was in the imparting of etymological details. Thereafter, dictionaries tended to become a scholarly fusion of all these aspects, resulting in the present OED2e whose attributes are listed at the beginning of this article.

Revised editions of the dictionaries of Johnson and Bailey continued in their popularity throughout the first decades of the nineteenth century, despite the challenge proffered by Noah Webster’s An American Dictionary of the English Language, which put forth some twelve thousand more words than Johnson and which distinguished between American and English usage for the first time. Webster’s work received adverse publicity for its etymological inaccuracies and American variant spellings (favor/ favour), but he can be credited with intiating the idea of compiling independent national dictionaries in order to stay abreast of the development of the English Language in different parts of the world (a task we now recognize to be indispensable).

It was not until 1836 (the year before Victoria’s accession to the throne of England) that lexicography finally molded itself into the form we recognize today. A man called Charles Richardson asserted that Dr. Johnson had failed to define words chronologically, ignoring their root meanings and the development of their sense throughout the ages. To correct this, he introduced the historical principle, which is the basis on which the current OED operates. The OED was begun in 1842 as a project funded and directed by the Philological Society of Great Britain. The bulk of the work was placed in the hands of two committees with separate jurisdictions: one for literary and historical aspects, the other for etymological aspects. Publication of the fruits of these committees began in 1884, and by 1928 all the volumes were out on the market. In order to accommodate an ever-changing language, a Supplement was published in 1933; then a four-volume Supplement was added between 1972 and 1986 (including the matter in the earlier Supplement); that was integrated with the original dictionary in new 1989 edition, referred to as OED2e. If one wants an idea of how “fit” the modern dictionary is in terms of survival in this world’s book market, it is estimated that 91 percent of all households in the English-speaking world have a dictionary of the English Language of one form or another, as opposed to 79 percent having a Bible, 77 percent an atlas and 52 percent a first-aid book. [source: Hutchinson Factfinder]

Derogatory Epithets for Foreigners in Chinese

Weiju Zhu, Harbin University of Science & Technology

Languages are the expressions of their native speakers' culture, and cultures exert great influence on language, as well. Chinese has fewer ethnic and racial slurs than does American English, which makes far more precise discriminations, such as in coon, polak, mick, kike, and chink. Derogatory epithets can be understood in Chinese as in American English by paralleling the term with historical events that reflect great or complex social changes. The terms function as one of the best indexes to the long history of big, old China; they can be classified into and traced historically from three groups in four historic periods.

The Hu period, a long interval ending roughly before the Opium War of 1840, includes the feudal societies; the word Hu is considered and indicator of narrow-minded patriotism, Han national centrism, or chauvinism. The word China in Chinese is phonetically spelled as Zhong Guo, wherein Zhong means ‘centre’ or ‘central’ and Guo means ‘state’ or ‘nation,’ for China was assumed to be the center of the nations and the core of the universe. The traditional Chinese house pattern is called Si he yuan ‘quadrangle,’ a compound with houses surrounding a courtyard on four sides. The architectural design of Si he yuan and the Great Wall are exemplary of the Chinese mentality to maintain privacy and isolation.

During this period of almost two hundred years, all dynasties adopted closed-door policies. Probably from Han Dynasty (200 B.C.), all the non-Han nationalities or countries were called hu. In many poems, there were phrases like hu chen, chen meaning ‘dust’; hu ma, ma meaning ‘horses’; hu tian, tian meaning ‘sky.’ Various objects from other countries, especially from the southwest, were modified with hu: hu gua, gua meaning ‘squash’; hu luopu, luopu meaning ‘carrot’; hu qin, qin meaning ‘two-stringed bowed musical instrument’; hu jiao. jiao meaning ‘black pepper’; and hu tao, tao meaning ‘walnut.’ Hu began to be used as an adjective, meaning ‘reckless,’ or as an adverb, meaning ‘outrageously’: hu bian ‘recklessly concocted’; hu chui ‘boast outrageously.’ In northern China, huzi denoted ‘highwayman’ or ‘bandit.’ Since the speech of people of the non-Han nationalities or countries was not understood, their speech or words were called hu shuo or hu hua, shuo meaning ‘speech,’ hu shuo meaning ‘nonsense’; hua meaning ‘talk,’ hu hua meaning ‘wild or unreasonable talk.’ This is similar to the etymology of barbarian, the Greeks considering the speech of non-Greeks as mere bleating, like “Baa-baa.”

During the Hu period, there were other terms such as fan, which means ‘foreign’; it has a derogatory connotation in fan qie ‘tomato’ and fan shu ‘sweet potato.’ The foreign countries were called fan yi zhi bang ‘the state of fan and yi,’ yi meaning ‘outsiders.’ Man ‘rough, savage, brutal’was also enlisted into this group: the expressions man heng, ‘be rude,'man gan ‘act recklessly,‘and manzi, used to refer to any uncultivated or uncivilized foreigners or countries.

Da often denotes Mongolians, especially during the Yuan Dynasty, when Mongolians conquered and ruled China. Mongolian rulers were called dazi. One of the traditional festivals, the Mooncake Harvest on the 15th of the eighth month of the lunar calendar, is said to be in memory of the uprising against dazi. Therefore, da stands for the foreigners or imperialists in modern times. In Mr. Sun Yatsen’s famous political slogan “Driving Da Lu out; Reconstruct Zhonghua,” da lu means ‘the foreign invaders’ and Zhonghua means ‘China.’ Here the phrase da lu must be grouped in the Guizi period.

Since 1840, the year when the Opium Wars began, China was invaded by many imperialist powers and became semi-colonial and semi-feudal. This interval, which lasted roughly till the end of WWII, in 1945, may be called the Guizi Period. To express their indignation against the foreign invaders, Chinese people called foreigners Yang Guizi ‘foreign devils,’ a metaphor, or Da Bizi ‘big-nosed,’ in reference to the foreigners physical characteristic. Dutch invaders of Taiwan were called hong mao guizi, hong mao meaning ‘red-haired.’ The Japanese were called Xiao Bizi ‘small-nosed.’ ‘American devils’ were called mei guo guizi, a term which continued to be used during the Korean War in mainland China. During the war against the Japanese invaders (1937-1945) the Japanese were called Dongyang guizi, dongyang meaning ‘East Ocean.’ Whenever the villagers heard Guizi-coming, they immediately retreated underground and the mothers threatened their children by saying “The Japanese devils are coming.” There was a popular song with the first line, “Swords are to cut devils’ heads.”

The third, or Xiu Period, begins in 1960, when the Communist Party of China was in conflict with the USSR. In the 1950s, China considered the USSR to be its “elder brother,” and the people coming from the USSR were called “Soviet elder brothers.” But in the early 1960s, discord developed between the two Communist powers as a result of philosophical differences in political doctrine. The leaders of the USSR were called “revisionists,” and their theories “revisionism,” for the Communist Party of China viewed the USSR as a betrayer of Marxism-Leninism. From then on, any Communist parties in the world not in line with the CPC were degraded to be “revisionist.” The word revisionist was shortened to xiu in Chinese. The Communist Party of North Korea was called chao xiu, chao meaning ‘Korea.’ In the 1970s, the Vietnamese were called yue ziu, yue meaning ‘Vietnam.’ There were too many xius in the Chinese vocabulary: yin xiu for India; luo xiu for Romania; nan xiu for Yugoslavia; meng xiu for Outer Mongolia. In China, the soft-liners, like Deng Xiaoping and Liu Shaoqi, were also called xiu, for they were thought of as capitalists by Mao. In 1978, with the end of the cultural revolution, xiu began to be used less and less.

Since 1978, with the end of the destructive Cultural Revolution, and with the door open wider for all foreign countries, China’s government and the Chinese people have been on better terms with foreign countries. The term Yang Guizi is heard less and less (only appearing sometimes in novels or films); xiu has dropped out; and hu, man, yi, fan, and da, the common Chinese words or word compounding elements, are gradually losing their negative connotations. We enter the Laowai Period. Chinese people have begun more often to refer to foreigners as waiguo penyou or keren ‘foreign friends or guests’; laowai ‘foreigners’ is often heard: wai means ‘outsider’ and lao is a particle with only a mild derogatory sense. Laowai is also a pun with implication of ‘layman,’ commonly used among Chinese people. Exported goods are modified with wai instead of yang; for example, Marlboro and Kent cigarettes, popular in the market, are called wai yan here yan meaning ‘cigarettes.’

In modern China sometimes one or two derogatory terms showing racial discrimination may be heard, but there are not so many as in the US. For example, in northeast China, one hears gaoli bangzi, an offensive term against Koreans. Gaoli is the former name of Korea and might be used as the name of a unified country of the two parts of the Korea peninsula. Bangzi means ‘bars’ with connotation of roughness and rudeness. The reason there are not as many derogatory racial terms in China as in the US. does not suggest that the Chinese language is less rich than English, merely that racial tension in China is not so prevalent, even though China is a country of 55 minorities in addition to Han nationality.

In summary, we may observe that terms like hu, yi, man, da, and fan, which denote ideas of ethnocentrism, chauvinism, or narrowmindedness and have negative implications have become and will become less and less frequent. Some terms, like guizi or da bizi, which expressed Chinese indignation against invaders in history, are disappearing with the decline of political polarization and with the resulting global economic cooperation. The term xiu was abused during the Cultural Revolution. The Chinese people are more aware of the disasters of that period and have consequently discontinued to use words and terms associated with it. Laowai, a slang term, might exist forever, but it will lose its negative meaning over a period of time.

Although this small subgroup of derogatory terms is not so important in the Chinese language, the long history of China is of much importance. These terms emerged from that history, and the study of them may be helpful in understanding the relationship of language and culture.

Whatever Happened to Frank Beriberi?

Hubert Pritchard, Matawan, New Jersey

The power of medical perils to menace us by name alone has been rendered nugatory by the power of reclassification. Gone is the Madura foot, a nasty infection that obliged some 19th-century travelers to be carried dockside in a palanquin, the shuttered litter that hung from poles between bearers. The pen stroke transforming Madura Foot into maduromycosis diverted attention from the exotic land that spawned it to the pathology of the affliction. When Barbados leg became filariasis, pirate lore lost out to nematode worms, and the romantic past faded.

Ablution of body and clothes were the principal measures taken to prevent those badges of expedition abroad known as Aleppo boil, Baghdad sore, or Biskra button. They were all the same lesion and all due to the parasitic infestation that Sir William Leishman later lent his name to. The eponymous term leishmaniasis replaced them all, as well as chiclero ulcer and kala-azar or dumdum fever, the last from the town of Dumdum, near Calcutta, where the infamous bullets were made.

Eponomy is part of medical tradition honoring the person prominently connected with a disease while ignoring the sufferer’s objections to being referred to as a case of Schimmelbusch (a cystic disease, not a lager) or an Osler-Weber-Rendu (hemorrhagic telangiectasia). The eponyms persist as shorthand for medical students struggling with scientific terminology. Stevens-Johnson syndrome is much easier to remember than ectodermosis erosiva pluriorificialis. For patients such as humorist Sidney J. Perelman, eponymous immortals were fair game: “I have Parkinson’s disease, and he has mine.”

If you were headed east from Africa after World War II, curried food was recommended to stave off the Malay wasteaway, purportedly a cachexia or even marasmus (Gr. marasmos ‘dying away’). It was assumed to be a traveler’s version of the widespread tropical deficiency disease called kwashiorkor, from a Gold Coast term meaning “displaced child.” The agreeable part of the wasteaway—the prandial prophylaxis—has been relegated to folklore by modern travelers, alas.

Gone too are Hong Kong ear and Singapore ear, which were upgraded to otomycoses, and Cochin-China dysentery, a prostrating purgation for which the POSH crowd carried a supply of Tellichery bark as preventative. The latter disease is not even in the medical lexicon any more, having been superseded by the geographically neutral diagnosis of infectious dysentery. Cochin China is still there, now a province of Vietnam.

Some of the perils of the very old days were truly baffling. Even well-girded loins might fall to the terrible “fleugme and choller” of the mountain sickness of the Indies, or to the English sweat of Henry VII’s day, a sudoretic effort that undid some folks within hours. There was also the intriguing disease of the virgins, an anemia that led the women afflicted to consume chalk or soil. It is now called pica after the magpies, or Picae, whose diet includes everything eaten by anything or anyone. Thiamine deficiency was beriberi, which in Sinhalese refers to the weakness associated with the disorder; it means ‘I cannot.’ Frank beriberi has not been seen hereabouts for some time.

BIBLIOGRAPHIA: The Australian National Dictionary: a Dictionary of Australianisms on Historical Principles

W.S. Ramson, ed., (Oxford University Press (Melbourne), 1988), xvi + 814 pp.

In January 1892 Edward E. Morris, addressing a section of the Australasian Association for the Advancement of Science, looked forward to a time when “it might even be possible… to produce an Australian dictionary on the same lines as the New English Dictionary by way of supplement to it.” Just within the century this ideal was realized: in 1988 The Australian National Dictionary appeared.

Links with the OED, as we now more often name it, have long been close. Morris’s interest arose from his work as a reporter of Australian words and uses to send to Dr. Murray, and Morris’s own dictionary, Austral English (1898), was based on a corpus beginning with these collections.

After Morris’s excellent beginning, reinforced by Joshua Lake’s list of Australianisms in Webster’s International Dictionary in the same year, the idea of a historical dictionary languished, though the realization that there is such a thing as Australian English gradually increased. Sidney Baker’s The Australian Language (1945 and 1966) departed from strictly historical principles but uncovered a rich amount of contemporary usage, much of it informal. In 1966 W. S. Ramson’s Australian English: an Historical study of the Vocabulary 1788-1898 restored the historical emphasis, an emphasis continued with authenticating quotations from the colloquial part of the language in G.A. Wilkes’s Dictionary of Australian Colloquialisms (1978 and 1985), the monographs published by the Australian Language Research Centre in Sydney University, and the four volumes of supplements to the OED.

It was in 1988, the bicentenary of European settlement in New South Wales, that Morris’s ideal dictionary became fact. Funding was provided by the Australian National University for support including staffing, by the Australian Research Grants Scheme, and by Oxford University Press, Melbourne, which advanced four years of royalties. The funding allowed the employment of trained readers directed by the editor in the preliminary reading program rather than a reliance on voluntary readers, which would have made publication by the target date unlikely.

The aim of the dictionary is to record, authenticate and illustrate Australianisms, an Australianism being defined for the purposes of the dictionary as “one of those words and meanings of words which have originated in Australia, which have a greater currency here than elsewhere, or which have a special significance in Australia because of their connection with an aspect of the history of the country.” This seems to cast a wider net than Mathews’ Dictionary of Americanisms, which is strictly confined to terms that originated in the United States, omitting items surviving in the United States after having become obsolete in Britain. It is in any case not always possible to establish origin, which might not coincide with the oldest available citation. To round up (cattle) is first recorded in Australia, but this would hardly justify calling it an Australianism rather than an Americanism. Sorting out priorities between Australia and New Zealand tends to be particularly difficult.

The dictionary was edited in the traditional way, using cards rather than a computerized data base. This was partly to save costs as more than half the collected citations would not be used in the printed dictionary. The dictionary has about six thousand main entries. Usage labels (slang, vulgar, and the like) are not provided, as the citations are considered enough to show restrictions of register. As the editor points out, there is an easy movement between formal and informal usage in Australia.

Abbreviations (apart from the inevitable acronym Anzac, documented with over a page of detail) are not pursued, because, I am told, a full form is usually to be found in the context. Certainly if a start was made with BHP ‘Broken Hill Proprietary’ (also called the big Australian) or WMC ‘Western Mining Company,’ it would be difficult to know when to stop. So with proprietary names such as Vegemite (a breakfast spread said to put Americans off their tucker). These omissions do however leave unrecorded a substantial block of local language.

Pronunciation is shown for words from Aboriginal languages and other words where there may be doubt. Perhaps the phrase of approval Good on you should have had its pronunciation (with emphasis on on) indicated, as other English speakers are apt to give it the end stress of their own “Good for you.”

Eight hundred and fourteen large pages each containing three columns of small print might seem to be the last word on written Australian English, but in fact one of the functions of a new dictionary is to serve as a checklist. Since the policy was to record “standard” Australianisms, those accessible to the majority of Australians, regionalisms within Australia tend to escape the net. Some indeed are included, for instance lawn sale for garage sale, which seems to be confined to the Alice Springs area, or the southern Western Australian doctor ‘a refreshing wind’ (though not Adelaide’s gully wind); but it is only now, when the master dictionary is completed and published, that a systematic reading of regional newspapers, particularly those associated with local industries such as apple-growing in Tasmania or the sugar industry in Queensland, is being undertaken by the Australian National Dictionary Centre, the research team set up to produce the National Dictionary. This new project is described in detail by Dr. Ramson, the Head of the Centre, in The Australian Journal of Linguistics for June 1989.

It is hardly necessary to assess the usefulness of a major dictionary for a readership distinguished by a love of words, but its usefulness will extend far beyond the linguistic or even the technicalities of scientific description of flora and fauna. For one thing, as Australia moves towards becoming a republic, with the changes in self-assessment that this implies, identifying that part of world English that is particularly associated with Australia helps to define what it is to be an Australian. Historians working towards the same end will be helped by documented, dated evidence of what words have meant to historical figures and eras. Addressing the Australian Academy of the Humanities in 1990, Dr. Ramson used National Dictionary evidence to trace changing Australian perceptions of an environment which, though it provided some parallels with the American experience, was very different from the environment that formed the early development of the English language.

[G.W. Turner, Rostrevor, South Australia]

BIBLIOGRAPHIA: Dictionary of Science and Technology

Christopher Morris ed., (Academic Press, 1992), xxxii + 2432 pp.

It is sad to find fault with a book which contains articles, albeit brief, by such luminaries as Stephen Jay Golud, Jonas Salk, Arno Penzias, Linus Pauling and a number of others of similar repute. Unfortunately, though, there is fault to be found with this dictionary.

The book’s bulk is certainly impressive: over 2,400 pages and about 4.5 kg. weight. However, at a price of $115.00 plus tax, totaling $124.49 here in southern California, one expects more than sheer bulk.

It seems that the editorial staff was uncertain as to the target audience, resulting in an uneven quality of content and level of sophistication. For example, included are definitions of chemist, physicist, physiologist, and biologist as persons who, respectively, “specialize in chemistry, physics, physiology, and biology.” Although the book does equivalent honors of inclusion for petrologist, it omits, among others, paleontologist, so that Professor Gould cannot learn from this volume that his paleontologist friends are engaged in paleontology.

At a comparable level of profundity, this dictionary defines many terms which are equally well defined in any good nontechnical dictionary. The great many such items are typified by red fox, defrost, houseboat, naval, and marketing. One would surely have preferred the space to have been used for expanded explanations of some of the more esoteric words.

The inclusion of red fox and of pewee, penguin, phalarope, and phalanger raises the interesting question of how the editorial staff decided which faunal names to include. Phainopepla among others, is omitted for no obvious reason. Anyone interested in bird identification would do well to own one or more of the birder field guides published by The National Audubon Society, The National Geographic Society, Houghton Mifflin, or their equivalents in other countries.

A bothersome flaw is the occasional circular definition. For instance, polymer is essentially defined as a grouping of monomers; and monomer is essentially defined as something which combines to form a polymer. There are also conflicting definitions; i.e., ones which are mutually inconsistent. Monkey is defined not in terms of its own characteristics, but primarily by exclusion. That is, it is specified as a primate which is not, among other things, an ape, a gibbon, an orangutan, or a chimpanzee. The total entry for ape, however, includes gibbon, orangutan and chimpanzee ! Of course, better definitions of the fauna are to be found in such books as the thirteen volumes of Grzimek’s Animal Life Encyclopedia, published by Van Nostrand Reinhold. In reviewing the present book, though, one must be fair in recognizing that it is a dictionary and not an encyclopedia. Should it be compared to a general dictionary? Even that would not be quite fair, for it would suggest that it be criticized for not including such words as he, she, me, and thee; and even the top general dictionaries would not compare favorably with this one in the highly technical definitions involving chemical formulae (e.g., hexanitrodiphenylamine), biological diagrams (e.g., oocyte), mathematical equations (e.g., Fejér kernel), and others aimed at specialists and advanced students of a particular branch of science.

While some of the above examples suggest that the dictionary is targeted at the high school sophomore market, other examples suggest otherwise. Walter Bothe is identified as a winner of a Nobel Prize for his work on the coincidence method; but the reader is expected to know what the coincidence method is, for it is not to be found among the entries. One would think that if a reader knew the coincidence method (the use of Geiger-Müller counters in coincidence so that their measurements would together lead to the conclusion that many of the impacting cosmic rays were charged particles), he would also know that this method was co-developed by Bothe and W. Kolhorster and that Bothe received the 1954 Nobel prize in Physics (shared with Max Born) for his development and sucessful application of the method.

Other words and terms in various sciences, such as the mathematical natural transformation, KrullSchmidt theorem, quotient space, Raabe’s convergence test, etc., are defined in highly technical (even arcane, to the nonspecialist) language, and those definitions are therefore of use only to a person conversant with that language.

As a final negative criticism, one should mention that this dictionary unfortunately does contain a number of unnecessarily incomplete definitions. Blue whale is described as having a length as great as 100 feet, and is thus larger than any other animal that ever lived on our planet. No mention is made of Seismosaurus, nor is there an entry for it, a dinosaur whose fossil parts imply a length of about 150 feet and a weight that might well have rivaled the specified 150 tons of the blue whale. Readers of VERBATIM might be particularly frustrated by the entry for mole (the skin blemish), which states that it derives from a word in Old English, but neglects to say that the Old English word is māl.

On the positive side, there are indeed many excellent definitions, plus the short essays by eminent scientists in different disciplines. There are also several sections of supplementary information, some of which might be of interest to people who are not involved daily with those particular fields. A periodic table of the elements, a table of fundamental physical constants, a rather skeletal geological timetable, and a table of solar system data are among these sections; but most or all of these can be found in larger general dictionaries. A five-kingdom classification of organisms is sure to arouse some controversy among readers.

The best strategy in reaching a decision about buying this book would be to visit a local bookshop or library, browse through it, and then decide.

[Joseph K. Slap, Rolling Hills Estates, California]

ETYMOLOGICA OBSCURA: Cashew Nut: A Folk-etymological Tale in Malayalam

K. Narayana Chandran, Hyderabad

Reading Mr. Craig M. Carver’s “Etymology as Educated Guess” [XIX,1] I could not help thinking that non-English peoples may have practised “Etymology as folk guess” with regard to at least some English words brought to them by their colonizers. It is well known that languages in contact with each other for a considerable period in history generate interesting etymological puzzles and speculations in the folk mind. In such cases the roots of words lie where folk imagination finds them and not in etymological dictionaries.

Such, I guess, is the case of cashew nut, whose etymology for the Malayalis of Kerala—Malayalam being one of the four major languages in South India—is not what OED2e or Hobson-Jobson tells us. The story goes that the Malayalam kaśuvanti became cashew nut in the market when an Englishman asked a vendor the price of the nuts in his basket. The vendor replied, “Kāśinettu,” ‘eigth for a farthing’ in rough translation. The Englishman, the story insists, who knew no word for the nut until then, mistook the quoted price for the Malayalam word for it. (Note that it is not the Malayalam kaśuvanti, but its price that is believed to have given the English cashew nut!)

I cannot recall any other etymological tale involving a Malayalam-English quirk of incomprehension of this kind. The cashew-nut tale itself is probably as recent as the 19th century, although facts of recorded history in both English and Malayalam tell us different stories. The Malayalam kaśuvanti probably derived from the Portuguese word for it since Hobson-Jobson observes that cashew, “the tree, fruit or nut of Anacardium occidentale,” must have been introduced to the Indians by the Portuguese. Vasco da Gama and his fellow navigators first landed in Calicut in Kerala (and India) in 1498. As for the English word, OED2e records its root as French acajou and its first use as early as 1703.

BIBLIOGRAPHIA: The Way We Word: Musing on the Meaning of Everyday English

Robertson Cochrane, (Fifth House Publishers, 1993), xi + 195pp.

In the back cover blurb of this book appears the tagline, “He lives in Toronto with his wife of 31 years, Jeanette, and their aging cat Yo-yo," which makes one wonder why Cochrane’s wife’s age should be mentioned when his has been kept a secret. That comment is offered as being in keeping with the spirit of Cochrane’s writings, which were first brought to my attention by VERBATIM readers of the (Toronto) Globe and Mail. I am delighted to report that Cochrane has been recruited as a contributor to VERBATIM, as attentive readers of VERBUM SAP undoubtedly noticed in the Spring issue [page 11]; another appears in the issue in hand.

Cochrane writes with an easy, readable style about subjects that engage those interested in language. This preserve of his columns will be welcomed by those who are regular fans—much less messy than keeping newspaper cuttings—and VERBATIM readers who have not been faithful readers of the Globe and Mail should buy the book to catch up on some of the best writing on the subject today.

There is an Index, I am happy to report, and a list of works “for Reading, Reference, or Riffling,” amongst which one cannot find VERBATIM, nor has this wretch Cochrane (knowingly) included a single book of my own. However, a book I commissioned and originally owned, The Private Lives of English Words, by Louis G.Heller, Alexander Humez, and Malcah (not “Malach”) Dror, Wynwood Press, 1991, is listed. (It deals with the kinds of changes that some older words have undergone in their longish histories.)

This is good stuff, and readers may look forward to more of it in these pages.

Laurence Urdang

BIBLIOGRAPHIA: La Fontaine’s Bawdy: Of Libertines, Louts, and Lechers

Norman R. Shapiro, trans., David Schorr, illust., (Princeton University Press, 1992), xxii + 273pp.

Advanced readers of VERBATIM will be familiar with Professor Shapiro’s name as the writer of frequent EPISTOLAE; though it is not our practice to identify contributors except by locale or affiliation (in an effort to avoid intimidating our readers), it may now be revealed to those not already aware that the translator of the present work is Professor of Romance Languages and Literatures at Wesleyan University, an institution one might describe as being up the river (the Connecticut) from Old Lyme. Shapiro is not only a well-known French scholar and translator but an authority on the fabliau, an old French art form in what some might regard the traditional sense of French art, the descent of which may be measured down to the French postcard. For if the French can be regarded affectionately for anything it is their liberal—for which some have read “libertine”—attitude toward sex and things sexy: the very connotation of French evokes Ooh-la-la images of naughty goings-on. These comments might evoke protests from devotees of the genre (if not the gens), which will doubtless arrive in the form of épistles—for which read EPISTOLAE and not “French letter.”

La Fontaine (1621-95), associated in a quadrumvirate with Boileau, Moliére, and Racine, published his best writing in his Contes (1664), described as contes pour rire (‘humorous tales’); his Fables (1668), based on the fables of Aesop and others, are considered less worthy, though the second edition (1678) was described as “divine” by Mme. de Sévigné, no mean critic. The substance of the Contes was drawn mainly from Boccaccio’s Decameron (1353), which also inspired Chaucer’s Canterbury Tales.

It is curious how some words become ineluctably associated with certain names, almost as though they were trade marks of one another. Such, to my mind, are the associations between Boccaccio’s Decameron, La Fontaine’s Contes, Rabelais’ Gargantua and Pantagruel and the words bawdy, ribald, licentious. Somehow, words in a similar semantic vein, like lusty and risqué, do not fit as readily into the cliché as those first cited. To be sure, the line drawings by David Schorr in the present work have a classic quality: though modern in execution and appeal, they carry a Daumier-like flavor back to a 17th century populated (largely) by libidinous monks and abbesses.

The blurb writer refers to the translation as “rendered with the spirit of [La Fontaine’s] style,” with which I would entirely agree. But to suggest that La Fontaine’s “subtle rhythms, cadences, rhymes, and delectable wit [are] left intact” is to detract from the unique art of the translator: a good translator does not merely translate the words; he must create a new work of art in another language, one appropriate to the medium, one that wrings from each reference the connotations and references of a culture different from that of the original. To do that, it is not sufficient for him to be intimately familiar with both languages: he must be thoroughly steeped in both cultures, as well. One who reads the Contes in French today must naturally contend with French archaisms (and spellings), and it is only fitting to select for English speakers language reminiscent of a bygone day, words like sire, cuckold, and boon, syntax like waste not your attention, and expressions like O rakes in zealots’ clothing! Fie, messieurs! Retaining archaic English spelling would be going too far, and one may be tempted to criticize the translator who goes too far afield from the original, for, after all, we must be aware that we are reading a translation of something worth translating and not a wholly original work, albeit along similar lines, of a translator. Thus, classical images must be retained, for they function in much the same way for readers in contiguous cultures. Many parallel passages in Shapiro’s book could have been selected, but the following illustrate quite well what I mean:

Celuy-lá parle une langue Barbare

Qui l’or en main n’explique ses desirs.

Le jeu, la jupe, et l’Amour des plaisirs,

Sont les ressorts que Cupidon employe:

De leur boutique il sort chez les Francois

Plus de Cocus que du cheval de Troye

Il sortit de Heros austresfois.

Meaningless tongue: vain babble voiced for nought.

For money it is that talks; love must be bought.

Gaming, philandering, gay merriment—

Such are the strings to Cupid’s bow. With these

He makes more cuckolds of our French, perforce,

Than there poured heroes from that Trojan Horse!…

—from “A femme avare galant escroc” (‘The Greedy Woman Gallantly Deceived,')

pp. 91-93]

The reader can easily see that it would be difficult to match up the “subtle rhythms, cadences, and rhymes,” while the spirit of the original and, as far as one can take it, La Fontaine’s “delectable wit” are left intact.

Thus, La Fontaine’s Bawdy emerges essentially as a thoughtful translation of selections from a French classic. Owing to its attempt to reproduce the spirit of the original, it might not be easy to read, but there is no rule that good literature (and other things worthwhile) need be easy. Besides, it is a great deal easier than reading it in the original, especially if one does not know any French.

Laurence Urdang

BIBLIOGRAPHIA: Timenglish: The Words of Time

George Thomas Kurian, comp., (Word Almanac, 1993), 123pp.

The 1920s and ’30s marked the beginning of the modern fashion of innovative word coinage. Contemporary commentators on the English of the 18th and 19th centuries were quite conservative, often condemning coinages—especially those that combined Latin and Greek roots—at worst as “barbaric” and at best as “to be avoided.” Lexicographers like Samuel Johnson tended to ignore words they disapproved of and omitted them from their dictionaries in the curious belief that ignoring them, however useful and frequent they might have become, would make them go away. We know better, of course: people rarely, if ever, look up a word in a dictionary only to see if it is there and, if it is not, they seldom, if ever, stop using it “because it isn’t in the dictionary.” (On the other hand, one shudders to contemplate the countless number of times that “It’s in the dictionary” has been invoked as a justification to use ain’t.) The two decades mentioned saw articles and books by H.L. Mencken, who reflected a modern, mature view of language (and who coined the word ecdysiast for ‘strip-tease artist’), the publication of Time magazine (1923), and, mainly in the 1930s, the writings of the columnist Walter Winchell, who gave us Reno-vation and other colorful, descriptive, slick blends. These last were given even greater currency through Winchell’s Sunday-night broadcasts, which always began, “Good evening, Mr. and Mrs. North America and all the ships at sea, let’s go to press….”

The writers on Time, though, stood out for their neologistic skills, which George Kurian classifies into seven groups: foreign or esoteric words; archaic and dialectal words; blends; puns; compounds; back formations; and syntax. In his interesting Introduction to Timenglish (not listed, hence, I suppose, a Kurianism), the author offers some formidable statistics:

…Time’s chief claim to fame rests on the new words and blends that it coined over its first 40 years [1923-63]. During this period Time’s editors generated over 10,000 new words, some of which have found a firm place in the lexicon. They have made Time one of the richest quarries in the English-speaking world for neologisms and portmanteau words.

Among the terms singled out for comment in the Introduction are op art, McCarthyism, socialite, and tycoon. As for the last, for which Kurian cities an editorial comment from a 1928 issue, the word itself (according to OED2e) first appeared in Time in 1926, referring to Fred W. Fitch as “rich hair-tonic tycoon.” The OED2e also reveals citations (in the business, not the Eastern potentate sense) going back to the mid 19th century, which makes one wonder whence Kurian’s claim for Time’s ingenuity.

Although Time’s editors were not in every instance necessarily responsible for the logodaedaly ascribed to them: the magazine served as the medium through which these coinages became known to millions. As Kurian properly points out, many of the reflexes of Timestyle appeared, characteristically, in the pages of the magazine but seldom elsewhere, as for example, the string of cine(ma)- blends cited: cinemaddict, cinecomedian, cinemactress (first applied to Gloria Swanson), cinemactor (first applied to Lon Chaney), cinemadaptation, cinemadman (Harpo Marx), cinemanimator (Walt Disney), and a dozen others. Many—if not most—of these portmanteaux appeared nowhere but in the pages of Time (though a few might have made it to the fanzines). Other details of Time’s style, including strung-out attributive adjectives (bahuvrihi, to linguists), puns (paronomasia), and inverted word order (anastrophe) are also described in the Introduction, which one could only wish were more detailed.

The Glossary itself covers only the period from 1958 through 1969, and it is disappointing that Kurian fails to give a reason for not covering the entire gamut, let alone why he has focused on this particular interval. Each entry is accompanied by its documented citation, which provides sufficient context to make a definition unnecessary; that is just as well, for explaining puns is sheer torture. On the other hand, some younger readers might need help interpreting obscure older references.

The Glossary serves well as a source for documentation, but, as might be imagined, one has to search hard amidst the dross to find felicitous examples and bright passages and puns: abominable noman (reference to West Germany); blah-relief; can’tcan’t [girls: ‘girls who can’t do the can-can’]; coupette [a minor political skirmish]; crook’s tour; entreporneur, etc. Time might have contributed to the popularization of bodacious, but the blend (of bold and audacious) has been traced back to SW English dialect of the early 19th century and was used regularly by the American cartoon-strip character, hillbilly Snuffy Smith. It is hard to believe that Time had anything to do with popularizing chockablock, a common enough word of nautical origin. Gorbellied certainly has little or nothing to do with Time. One is mystified by callypgian (twice), perhaps a misprint for callipygian. Occasionally, an idiom is warped beyond recognition in its natural habitat, as in the entry,

benefit of clout Hearst society scribe Suzy often gives Zsa Zsa the benefit of a clout.

Does clout mean a ‘blow’ (that is, a ‘dig’), ‘power, influence’ (the more common modern sense), or is it some contemporary slang (Timenglish) term for a ‘burst of publicity’? The expressions of which it is reminiscent are benefit of the doubt and benefit of clergy, so the a seems oddly unidiomatic and out of place.

There are many other examples of the sorts of things any of us might say off the cuff, including the habitual business of turning nouns into verbs (architect, blind-alley). For many, a little in the genre of sexploit goes a long way, (though Time is, accurately, not “credited” with sexploitation); but it must be remembered that Timenglish is a deliberate attempt to collect such matter, and having so much of it in one place, while cloying to read through, must be looked upon as useful documentation, a research convenience, especially for the citations on individual neologisms. Timenglish is not a browsable source of verbal artifices, for most of the phrases and expressions are too clever by half; and while we might appreciate them for that, no speaker or writer with any taste would be likely to want to be caught dead repeating them.

Laurence Urdang

EPISTOLA {Michael A. Cardwell}

I am writing with reference to the comments about voksal in EPISTOLAE [XIX,2,18].

My brother-in-law used to work for a company whose lorries traversed the country. He told me that one day Head Office had had a phone call from one of the company’s drivers who had been stranded, miles from anywhere, with a broken-down lorry. The driver had managed to park the stricken vehicle in a lay-by (so designated by a small sign), the sole facility of which was a telephone box. He had only enough change for a brief call, and would the company please send help immediately? “Where are you?" asked Head Office. Back came the reply, “Lay By,” whereupon the phone went dead. Hours later, an irate driver returned to base, indignantly demanding to know why assistance had not been forthcoming.

[Michael A. Cardwell, Wolverhampton]

EPISTOLA {Malcolm Penny}

Congratulations on your Diamond Jubilee issue: not only for achieving it, but for its content of richly stimulating articles. With all your readers, I look forward to as many as may be permitted of the next seventy-five issues.

David Galef’s piece on slipping clichés [XIX,3] was an admirable beginning, full of pertinent observation; but I should like to put his mind to rest over a couple of examples. Walking out of the door is the common usage here in the UK, where door is often used as an abbreviation of doorway. In Fitzgerald’s Omar Khayyam, “Strange, is it not? that of the myriads who/Before us pass’d the door of Darkness through…” does not for us conjure up an image of cartoon characters leaving their outlines in the woodwork.

“It’s never to late to mend” is an ancient saw, suggesting that one may gain forgiveness by reforming one’s behavior after no matter how long a time. I suspect that Professor Galef’s “It’s never too late to learn” is a later variant of it. (Gilbert and Sullivan, in Iolanthe, put together a set of these sayings: I suppose they might be termed musical saws.)

There is one saying which is correctly quoted but widely misunderstood, with potential ill effect. “Feed a cold and starve a fever” is often taken to mean that someone suffering from a cold should be well fed, while another patient, with a high fever, should be deprived of food. In fact it is the fever itself which will die [OE steorfan ‘die’ > ModE starve ‘go hungry; die from hunger’] or fail to develop from the cold if the sufferer from the cold keeps up his strength by eating well.

With good wishes for many more issues of your excellent quarterly.

[Malcolm Penny, Dilham, Norfolk]

EPISTOLA {Peter Bates}

I am mightily puzzled by Reinhold Aman’s article, “Verbal Aggression in The Wizard of Oz” [XIX,3]. If the language of a film from the 1930s is different from that of a book from the 1990s, it can hardly be a shock to anyone. But what am I to make of the extracts of “verbal aggression” from the film? The article seems to take it for granted, first, that they are all aggressive and, second, that it is worthy of comment or censure. Have I missed something?

Take “The wicked old witch at last is dead!” as an example of Dr. Aman’s quotations. In the context of the film, this is surely a statement of fact—even with the exclamation mark. What is the problem here? Is it the avoidance of euphemism? moral superiority or triumphalism on the part of the speaker? or just rampant ageism?

Perhaps “the differently motivated senior citizen with allegedly paranormal abilities appears, regrettably, to be in a non-viable state” would go down better in California today—but it would certainly empty the cinema.

[Peter Bates, Wirral, Merseyside]

EPISTOLA {William H. Dougherty}

Bernard Witlieb’s EPISTOLA [XIX,1] about the euphemism blanquillos for heuvos on a Mexican menu brings to mind a joke told me by a local Hispano who was on a jury panel with me in Santa Fe. Some of the humor of the joke was owing to the teller’s accent, which I can’t duplicate here, but anyhow:

There were these two Gringos who went to a Mexican city on their vacation, see? They wanted to take in the bullfights, so they put up in a little hotel near the bullring. With a phrase book in hand, they went to the hotel restaurant for breakfast and, seeing huevos fritos on the menu, ordered those. When the order came, it was a bit different from what the Americans were used to, but the eggs were so big and juicy and tasty that the Gringos ordered them again for their second day’s breakfast. And the third day, too. But the third time the huevos were about a third the size of those served the first two days, and there was only one for each of them. So one of them called over the waiter and complained, “Say, how come you bring us these dried-up little eggs and only one for each of us when we’ve been getting big, juicy ones about five times this size?” The waiter shrugged and said, “Hey, man, the bulls can’t lose all the time, you know.”

There is a grisly variation on this joke in the movie Salvador.

I don’t know whether blanquillos has replaced huevos for eggs in colloquial Mexican and New Mexican Spanish simply because when huevos came to mean primarily ‘testicles,’ both eggs and testicles being culinary items, a new word was needed for eggs, as demonstrated by the joke, or whether the substitution arose from prudery. If prudery is the cause, the substitution is analogous to the American replacement of cock by rooster, and it’s as if Europeans, both English- and Spanish-speaking, became oddly prudish about poultry when they came to America.

As far as I know, blanquillo is not in common use in the Spanish of the Mother Country, nor, I believe, is rooster in Britain, where a male chicken is still called a cock. Huevos for ‘testicles,’ however is usual in Iberian Spanish. An American friend of a famous Spanish bullfighter once told me that the matador had complained that when a bull lowers its head to charge, its horns are at about the height of a man’s huevos. “I don’t know how many times I’ve had mine sewn back on,” the bullfighter said.

[William H. Dougherty, Santa Fe]

EPISTOLA {W.F.H. Nicolaisen}

The urinal/arsenal story which Jeannette Allsopp includes in her discussion of “Humor Caribbean Style” [XIX,3] seems to be one of those migratory legends that claim veracity by being told about a particular place while also attaching themselves to several others. I heard the same story several years ago in connection with the provost of Oban, a fishing port and seaside resort on the Scottish west coast, and have enjoyed telling it ever since (to the appropriate audiences, of course). When I told it to a lady a couple of years ago, she said to me, “You’d better be careful: my father was the provost of Oban!”

[W.F.H. Nicolaisen, University of Aberdeen]

EPISTOLA {Frieda Arkin}

David Galef has certainly opened up a can of sauerkraut. You must be deluged with examples of clashing clichés in response to his “What a Cliché!” [XIX,3]. Yet, I cannot forbear sending you some examples from the limitless supply in my mother-in-law’s normal daily usage. With regard to people she dislikes, she wouldn’t go near them carrying a tenfoot pole. She admits to loving TV soap operas because they are so heart-rendering. With regard to someone she hasn’t met in a long time, she hasn’t seen them in a pig’s eye.

But may I take issue with Mr. Galef’s use of “when the shit hits the fan” as an example of idiom change from “when the smoke hits the fan”? The latter I have never heard, but I do know that the first one is the punch line of a joke I heard at least thirty years ago. As it is widely known, the Editor suggest that he will send a copy of it to those requesting one.

[Frieda Arkin, Essex, Massachusetts]

SIC! SIC! SIC!

“…EXTERMINATING: We are trained to kill all pets…” [From an ad in TV Hi-Lites (Flushing, New York), December 27-Jan 2, 1988. Submitted by Dennis Wepman, Bronx.]

Of Eating Rubber and Sno-cones

Gerald Eskenazi, Roslyn, New York

I guess I had been hanging around locker rooms too long. Some years ago, I was sitting quietly with my son Michael at a World Series game. Suddenly, I jumped up when one of the Mets hit a line drive. I yelled, “It’s a tweener!” My boy thought that was hysterical. Tweener does sound silly, I’ll admit. Almost risqué, in fact. But I explained that a tweener is a line-drive hit between the outfielders. It is part of the rich lexicon of inside-sports expressions—that is, those used by the athletes themselves, and of which “civilians” are rarely aware.

The world of sports abounds with these descriptive, and often clever and funny, words and phrases. In more than thirty years of covering sports, from the frozen ropes of football to the shake-and-bakes of basketball, I have delighted in a well-turned phrase by athletes. They employ a sense of humor in describing what they do and the perils and joys of their job.

Hockey brought me my first inside look—or listen. I learned of a snow-thrower. No, it is not something one hauls out of the garage after a winter storm. A snow-thrower is a ‘sissy,’ a ‘skater who throws snow when he screeches to a halt and the ice shavings fly.’ Presumably, he has stopped short of having contact, of mucking it up. Some might call it prudent, but not hard-nosed hockey players.

To a fan, a goalie on the receiving end is being bombarded with a flurry of shots, but to the hockey player, the goalie is eating rubber. Actually, it is an expression that made sense at one time. The goalie’s mask came to prominence only in the 1970s. Before then, a barefaced goalie literally “ate rubber.” He lost a few teeth, and the referee would hold up the game while the goalie went to the trainer’s room and “took 20”—the number of stitches he needed to repair his face. Even the face mask, which is mandated by the rules these days, was looked at as de-masculinizing the game. When Jacques (Jake the Snake) Plante, the great—and safety-conscious—Montreal Canadiens’ goalie of the 1960s, donned one the first time, a fan yelled, “Hey, Plante, Halloween’s over!”

Athletes generally laugh at danger or pressure, and their language reflects that approach. When a pitcher is taken out of the game, he is miffed because the manager took the rock out of my hands. That is an unusually insensitive description of a ball—rock, as if it were nothing more than something one might pick up in field of dreams.

A lovelier phrase, I think, is painting the black. This also harkens to a time when the grass was green and the beveled edge of home plate was black. The black portion served to offset the white plate, making it easier for an umpire to call a runner out or determine balls and strikes: it was not supposed to be part of the plate. But umpires allowed pitchers that outer limit. The black these days is virtually buried in the home-plate dirt, not visible to the fans. Indeed, the pitcher cannot even see it. Yet a pitcher who is painting the black is getting his ball on the edge, nipping the corners, so to speak. His control is impeccable.

My favorite baseball expression is a sno-cone, because it is the most aptly descriptive. When a fielder leaps or dives for a ball—just barely gets it to stay in his glove, but most of it is sticking out—that is a sno-cone.

Other expressions need no translation for a ballplayer, although they certainly are arcane to the fan in the stands. When a spectator sees a mischievous curve ball, the player sees an Uncle Charlie, a yellow hammer, or a yakker. There is probably an African-American slang component to some of the newer expressions: certainly, Uncle Charlie seems to be a takeoff on Mr. Charlie, ‘the man, or boss, or someone or something to be respected.’ While the TV announcer is getting excited about the home-run the hitter has just stroked out of the park, the batter is probably thinking, “I took the pitcher downtown.” Downtown likely is another word with a black source, suggesting a good time or at least some movement as a baseball.

Carl Yastrzemski, the Hall of Famer with the Red Sox, never boasted. But in a book we collaborated on he told me he was proud of his ability to avoid being frightened by chin music, a ‘pitch aimed at the head.’

And there certainly are some fellows with a strong arm—a good hose, they would say—who can bring it and create harmonics with their fast ball rippling the air. Of course, their fast balls are heaters. The trickier pitchers, though, turn the ball over: their pitches reach the batter with a slight reverse curve, something known to the public as a screwball.

I am sure there are other crossover words, but tweener is one that is good enough to play two sports. In football a tweener is a ‘person whose size complicates life for the coach’: Is the player big enough for the defensive line or is he outsized for linebacker? He is a tweener.

This year’s trendy football expression in the coaches' meeting rooms is red zone, referring not to the off-limits hot-spot these big fellows seek out in the wee hours but to the area between the opponents' 20-yard line and the goal-line—the zone one should be able to score from. A good quarterback can get one in. Some do it by throwing a frozen rope—a ‘tight spiral that zips toward the receiver on a straight line.’ And when that goal-line is finally crossed, the scorer might even celebrate by trying to roll 6—‘spin the ball on end, like a top, in the end zone.’

Unlike athletes in other sports, boxers do not have time to stage a demonstration after a good move. They have to wait until the match is over. Their workmanlike approach to the so-called “sweet science” is indicated by the phrase riding the elevator, meaning that a fighter is multi-dimensional and doing a classic job: he is attacking the body as well as the head.

Amateur boxers wear tank shirts, the pros do not. So when a fighter turns pro, his manager proudly says, He took off the vest. And if the fighter becomes good, cuffing around an opponent, stinging him and raising purple welts and a bloody nose, he will have performed a paint job.

Basketball, the newest sport, has many expressions only a few years old. The record book may list the top rebounder with a banal number, but to his peers he is climbing glass. A fan marvels at a clever guard’s ability to dribble: He’s got a good handle is the way his teammates describe it. An announcer might describe someone’s “playing time,” but when the game is over players talk about their minutes: the more, the better. If one shoots a brick too often, though, he will have fewer minutes. Shooting a brick is ‘bouncing the ball off the backboard’ rather than swirling it right into the net.

I have whimsical creations of my own. I have often wondered if in Montreal, where the Expos play, they say, “Oú sont les sno-cones d’antan?”

BIBLIOGRAPHIA: Copy-editing: The Cambridge Handbook for Editors, Authors and Publishers

Judith Butcher, (Third Ed. Cambridge University Press, 1992), xii + 471pp.

In the compass of a review of normal length, it is virtually impossible to do justice to a work of such complexity; as this is a British book being marketed in the US, one is drawn to the entries that might offer difficulty, so it would behoove (Brit. sp. behove, not listed among spelling variants) us to go straight to the heart.

A list of five pairs of distinguishables includes forbear/forebear, forgo/forego, principal/principle, prophecy/prophesy, and, unfortunately, dependant/ dependent, suggesting that the former is the spelling used for the noun, the latter for the verb. That is not borne out by the entry for dependant in The Random House Unabridged (Third Edition), which lists it as a mere spelling variant. The OED2e treats it in the same way. One is left to wonder whether the distinction is genuine or not.

Under the heading American (US) Spelling, reference is made to the Random House Dictionary of the American Language, not a viable title as far as I am aware. That listing offers information that I would find quite confusing; for instance, although the comment is made that “Americans may use the ‘British’ spelling of some of these words,” it is anybody’s guess which are the variable ones: Americans almost never write gramme, programme for gram, program, tyre for tire, sceptical for skeptical, or anaemia for anemia, but they often—more often than not—write archaeology and aesthetic for archeology and esthetic, theatre for theater, gray for grey; while there are “true”—that is, 50/50—free variants in American English: catalog/catalogue, toward/to-wards, undefinable/indefinable, againg/ageing, eying/ eyeing, etc., the only place one encounters honour for honor in American English is in wedding invitations that are trying to be chi-chi. To put shipped/ shipping together with worshiped/worshiping is confusing because of the stressed/unstressed syllable rule in American English, but one must contend with the fact that many Americans are poor spellers, which accounts for the persistence of the local television cable company in spelling pursuant as “persuant” and their incredible reply to a note that they must do so at the behest of the Federal Communications Commission.

I have a few pet copy-editing peeves, among which is the failure of many writers to omit commas from restrictive clauses and include them in nonrestrictive clauses. Also, I deplore the use of that in non-nonrestrictive clauses, though condone the occasional use of which in restrictive clauses where the sense is clear. Butcher agrees with me on these points. She is less stringent than I—suggesting that the application should be consistent—in the use of the comma before the final and or or in lists of three or more items: training as a lexicographer taught me to use commas in such places in order to obviate ambiguity.

Generally, I think this book provides clear, useful information, but one must be cautious to keep a dictionary handy to check for preferred spellings and usages. It must be emphasized that dictionaries differ (even within a country) as to the preferred form, for it must be understood that “preferred” is not what the editor of the dictionary thinks is pretty or fun or less offensive but what his research has indicated as preferred by the greater number of influential writings of the time. There are a number of books like Copy-editing, usually called “style manuals” in the trade. The Chicago Manual of Style is probably the best known in the US, and it is very good; but there are others, like Words into Type, that are also very good. Copy-editing, which could do with a more detailed index, earns high marks for the simplicity of its approach and the clarity and practicality of its suggestions.

Laurence Urdang

Crossword Puzzle

Across

1. Coming back in with gifts, I foment brawl (9)

6. Singer Boone’s taking high trails (5)

9. Flipped over new recording—became excited (4,3)

10. European country’s courts taking custody of us (7)

11. Small, cordial host (5)

12. Best prize, poker winnings returned (3-6)

13. Large amounts of water damaged canoes (6)

14. Throwing down the gauntlet, get rid of a would-be husband? (8)

17. Tree expert in favor of assorted trees (8)

19. Sensual, right in the middle of waterway (6)

22. English actress Goddard’s uniform decoration (9)

24. Horse around set at California going the wrong way (3,2)

26. Hard feeding monkey around philosopher (7)

27. Occupy shortly, getting high (7)

28. In anger, I destroyed bicycles (5)

29. Hamper: fellow’s laundry need (9)

Down

1. Young deer is servile (5)

2. Worker penetrating guarded city of the Southwest (5,2)

3. Feds going through college organisation’s scraps (9)

4. Company estimate takes time (6)

5. Vagabond was the first run over (8)

6. Tough knot in tangled ropes (5)

7. Add narrow clothes line (5,2)

8. Writes all about places to take flights (9)

13. Crooked proposal to pick up a little money (3-6)

15. Criminal at hermitage getting upset (2,1,6)

16. Miss Midler, blushing, made improvements (8)

18. Prepared study involving end (7)

20. Out of the question to hold off celebrity (7)

21. To make a stand is to cut into sleep (6)

23. Tall stories about $1000 prizes (5)

25. Canary, for example—it’s small (5)

SIC! SIC! SIC!

“Nationally reknown literary counsultant…There Is No Substitute for Excellence.” [From Children, Naturally, Spring 1985, front page, Submitted by Alexandra Urdang, New York City.]

Crossword Puzzle

Across

1. LEGUMES (hidden).

5. AS(CENT)S.

9. T(IT)AN.

10. IDIO-(MA)TIC.

11. HARD (COP)Y.

12. P-ARSON.

14. STUN (rev.).

15. SNA(RE DRUM)S (rev.).

18. REHEARS-AL’S.

19. SPAR(rev.).

22. LIMP-I.D.

24. REST ARE-A.

26. TO-SCAN-IN-I.

27. ADO-BE.

28. DISCERN (anag.).

29. S(WE)ATED.

Down

1. LATCHES (anag.).

2. GO T-H-ROUGH.

3. MUN (I)CH.

4. SKIM(PINES)S.

5. A(V)ID.

6. C(UM) LAUDE.

7. NOTES (rev.).

8. SE(CO.)NDS.

13. D(ROLLER)IES.

16. UPPERMOST (anag.).

17. TAXI FARE (rev. hidden).

18. RELA(T)ED (DEALER rev.).

20. RE(AR E)ND.

21. A-T EASE.

23. MES(A)S.

25. F-INN.

Internet Archive copy of this issue

---

1. Proto-Polynesian reconstruction (600-200 B.C.) ↩︎

2. †Proto-Nuclear Polynesian reconstruction (200 B.C.-A.D. 200) ↩︎

3. ‡Poto-Eastern Polynesian reconstruction (A.D. 200-800) ↩︎