VOL VI, No 1 [Summer, 1979]

Colorful Language

Sterling Eisiminger, Clemson University

In 1969, Brent Berlin and Paul Kay, two linguistic anthropologists, published an important study entitled Basic Color Terms: Their Universality and Evolution. After surveying color terms in ninety-eight of the world’s approximately three thousand languages, Berlin and Kay concluded that there was a strong unanimity among the world’s languages. “Although different languages encode in their vocabularies different numbers of basic color categories, a total universal inventory of exactly eleven basic color categories exists from which the eleven or fewer basic color terms of any given language are always drawn.”¹ Two exceptions may exist in Hungarian and Russian, both of which may be developing a twelfth basic color term, but it remains to be seen if these new colors are true basic terms.² Of course there are many more than eleven color terms in English. Maerz and Paul’s Dictionary of Color, 1930, cites over three thousand color names, and the Optical Society of America estimates that the human eye can discriminate between seven and a half and ten million colors. There are, in fact, many technical applications of color, but they are beyond our present concern which is to take a cultural-linguistic approach to the subject of color associations.

In addition to a fixed maximum number of color terms, Berlin and Kay observed that the order in which a language acquires colors is partially fixed. For example, since Jalé, spoken in the highlands of New Guinea, has only two basic color terms, these colors must be black and white. A language with three basic color terms will have acquired black, white, and red; one with four terms will have black, white, red, and either green or yellow; one with five will have black, white, red, green, and yellow; one with six will add blue to the preceding five; and one with seven will include brown. If a language has eight, nine, ten, or eleven basic terms it will have acquired purple, pink, orange, or gray, but not in any particular sequence.³

Despite this fixed partial order and the apparent universality of eleven as the maximum number of basic color terms, when color associations in different languages are compared a notable lack of order and universality is the usual result. In the following paragraphs, Berlin and Kay’s eleven basic color terms and their associations are examined in a dozen mostly Indo-European languages in order to learn what different cultures associate with colors. No attempt has been made to be exhaustive or to deal with purely descriptive color phrases or with color symbolism. Cited below are usages typical among the many.

Though there are unconfirmed reports of white devils in Africa, white generally connotes fairness (that’s white of you), harmlessness (white magic), professionalism (white collar), surrender or peace (white flag), and the white race (white slavery). With a few exceptions (whitewash and white feather, for example), white has positive connotations in American English. Though the English speak of tuberculosis as the white death, most Indo-European languages regard white positively, probably because of its association with the heavenly bodies and the white race. In Russian, for example, beloe zoloto ‘white gold’ is cotton; beloe ugol ‘white coal’ is water power, and belye nochi ‘white nights’ are those of the midnight sun. In Spanish hijo de la gallina blanca ‘son of a white chicken’ is for some reason a lucky fellow. And in French mariage blanc ‘white marriage’ is an unconsummated one. An unconsummated war, or a cold one, is guerre blanche ‘white war,’ while an English greenhorn is a French blanc-bec ‘white mouth.’

Black, on the other hand, in most languages has generally negative connotations probably because of its association with night, the underworld, and death. Among speakers of Hindi, though, it is white that is the color of funeral attire and widows' dresses. In English there are exceptions too (black belt and in the black, for example), but words and phrases like blacklist, blackmail, black market, black mass, Black Death, black-hearted, blackguard, black deeds, black magic, blackball, black book, and black humor are overwhelmingly in the majority and may be a factor in the widespread prejudice against the Negro. Many Negroes, however, perhaps to spite this prejudice, prefer to be called black. Some miscellaneous phrases from other Indo-European languages show the generally negative associations of black. In Russian, chelovek ‘black person’ is a commoner, and his chërnaia rabota ‘black work’ is heavy, unskilled labor, while in German the same phrase, Schwartzarbeit, means ‘illegal, non-union work.’ When a Frenchman is noir ‘black’ he is ‘suffering from the English blues’ or he is drunk. A French remedy for either condition might be un roman noir ‘a black novel,’ which is a literary thriller, or a Gothic novel.

Richer sources of color expressions than white and black are the primary colors: blue, red, and yellow. Green, a secondary color, that is, one made by combining two primaries, is the only hue outside of the primaries to rival them in frequency of color phrase. Among the primaries, however, blue is by far the most popular with phrase makers as William Gass has abundantly shown in his grand, sensual celebration of the color in On Being Blue, 1976. English phrases include to blue ‘to squander,’ hence to blow, a bluebeard ‘a man who marries in order to kill his wife,’ taken from Charles Perrault’s 1703 story), blue ruin ‘gin,’ bluenose ‘a resident of Nova Scotia or a puritan,’ the blues (shortened from an attack of the blue devils, who could depress anything), blue blood (borrowed from the Spanish sangre azul, aristocrats who wished to distinguish themselves from “dark-blooded” Jews and Moors), bluestocking (from a fifteenth-century Venetian intellectual society whose members wore blue stockings to distinguish themselves), blue movie (possibly from the use of blue lights in striptease shows), and blue laws (from the color chosen by the Covenanters, later the Puritans, to distinguish themselves from the Royalist’s red. Blue was probably chosen because of its heavenly associations and the rhyming association with true).

In other languages, the associations with blue are just as varied as they are in English. A Dutchman staan blauwbekken ‘standing in a blue bowl’ has been left to cool his heels. An Italian singing with voce azzurra ‘blue voice’ is crooning softly. But blue is not always gentle. Rage, for example, takes a variety of colors in English including red and purple, but in Swedish and French anger is blue. A Frenchman who is blue may also be inexperienced or politically conservative; if he tells a conte bleu ‘a blue story’ he is telling a fairy tale, and if he is in a resie bleu ‘blue rest’ he is flabbergasted. The Germans, it seems, are also fond of blue as an element in their color idioms. A German who is blau, ‘blue’ is slightly drunk, a state many find themselves in on blauer Montag, ‘blue Monday’ a day on which little is done. If a German takes eine Fahrt ins Blaue ‘a blue trip’ he is wandering perhaps in search of die blaue Blume, ‘the blue flower’ which is any mystic object of a romantic quest. If he tells blaue Geschichten ‘blue tales’ he is lying, which might provoke someone to give him ein blaues Auge ‘a blue eye’ or worse, fire eine blaue Bohne ‘a blue bean’ or bullet at him.

Only slightly less popular than blue, red’s popularity is due to the universal color of blood and fire. Examples from English include: see red ‘be enraged,’ red-faced ‘flushed with embarrassment,’ red-handed ‘with the blood of one’s victim still on one’s hands,’ hence, ‘in the act,’ paint the town red ‘have a wild time,’ and red-hot ‘burning,’ or ‘full of scandal.’ From the folk belief that red objects enrage bulls comes red rag, which is ‘anything that incites anger.’ From the reddish tint of copper comes red cent. From the passionate associations of red, derived mainly from anatomical coloration, comes red-hot mamma and red-light district, an area where prostitution is common. Among writers, red has long been a popular color because of its sharp contrast with the usual blue or black inks. To redline an aircraft, thus, is ‘to ground’ it; to red-pencil is ‘to censor or correct,’ and to be in the red is to be ‘in debt,’ derived from an old bookkeeping practice. A redletter day is a holiday marked in red on the calendar or, by extension, any significant day. In other languages, the amorousness of red is common. Cuento colorado ‘red tale’ in Spanish is an indelicate one; in Turkish kizilbas ‘red woman’ is ‘scarlet woman’ in English. Other associations are more difficult to explain: in German a novel’s roter Zwirn ‘red thread’ is ‘an unbroken, clear chain of events.’ In Italian the yolk of the egg is rosso d’uovo, ‘red of the egg.’ But the language in which many would expect to find an abundance of red is Russian since it is Russia’s national color, and popularly a red is a communist or a political radical. Consequently Russian expressions which feature red are generally positive in their overtones. Something said skazat' dlia krasnogo slovtsa ‘in a red way,’ for example, is amusing; krasny\?\ orator ‘red speaker’ is an eloquent one, and anything which is red is beautiful or valuable. It is not surprising that red and beautiful in Russian come from the same Slavic root.

Like the other primary colors, yellow has long been a popular basic color term. During the Middle Ages in England, for example, the gift of a yellow flower meant the recipient was a cuckold. More recently, because of yellow’s associations with disease and the western bias against Orientals, Yellow has continued to have negative associations in English. Yellow journalism, for example, is sensational in nature though it derives innocently from “The Yellow Kid,” an early American comic strip which was printed in yellow. Other examples include the yellow peril which was the feared immigration of the Oriental people into the West, and out of this bias and fear probably came the terms yellow and yellow-bellied meaning cowardly.

Outside of English, yellow retains its negative associations in the European languages. Though envy is green in English, it is yellow in French, Italian, and German. Furthermore, wylać swa żólcić, ‘to have a yellow quarrel’ in Polish is to vent one’s spleen. Sharshe phul dekha, ‘to see yellow’ is to lapse into unconsciousness in Bengali. A Turk who is saricizmeli ‘yellow’ is a nobody, but a Russian worker who is zheltoroty\?\, is ‘yellow’ or ‘inexperienced.’ If he is confined to zhëlty\?\ dom ‘a yellow place,’ he is a lunatic. A Frenchman who is un jaune ‘a yellow’ is a traitor or a strikebreaker, and his ris jaune ‘yellow smile’ is a wry or maudlin one. An Italian who reads a giallo ‘yellow’ is enjoying a mystery novel or what a Frenchman might call a black novel.

Like yellow, phrases which include green are among the oldest in English. Shakespeare’s green-eyed monster, which may derive from Ovid, has given us green-eyed and perhaps green with envy. Green gown, a term for ‘illicit lovemaking,’ green winter ‘a temperate one,’ and to green ‘to yearn,’ are as old as the Shakespearean monster. More recent are the English expressions green thumb ‘skill with plants,’ greenroom ‘the actors’ waiting room painted green to soothe eyes strained by harsh stage lights,' and greenhorn ‘an immigrant or inexperienced person.’ Thanks to the German author Karl May, greenhorn has been introduced into German though a German is more likely to refer to a tyro as a Grünschnabel ‘green beak.’

Curiously, green has amorous connotations in several languages: vert histoire ‘green story’ in French is ‘an off-color tale’; yesillenmek, ‘to be green’ in Turkish is ‘to be sexually aroused’; a green goose is English ‘harlot,’ and viejo verde ‘old green man’ in Spanish is ‘a lascivious one.’ In German, green suggests youth, growth, and hope,' and these associations are generally true in most Indo-European languages because of green’s obvious connections with nature. Nevertheless, a person who is looking green has ‘a sickly appearance’ perhaps because of the color of putrifying flesh. Other expressions, however, which make use of green are harder to classify. To be essere al verde ‘in the green’ in Italian is ‘to be in the [English] red,’ that is ‘in debt’; prendre sans vert ‘to catch someone without green’ in French is ‘to catch someone napping’; ‘to be scared green,’ in Chinese is ‘to be very scared,’ or rage nil ‘scared blue’ as a Bengali speaker would say; göra sig gron för ‘to green up to someone’ in Swedish is ‘to play up to someone’; and darse un verde ‘to give oneself a green’ in Spanish is ‘to amuse oneself.’ Finally, the French regard slang as langue vert ‘green language’ and any tart response as a green one.

Probably because of their relative scarcity in nature, the other secondaries, purple and orange, are notably lacking in color expressions. An exception to this generalization is the use of purple in English. Examples include purple patch or passage ‘highly rhetorical, undistinguished writing derived from Horace’s Art of Poetry,’ purple language ‘pungent or profane language,’ born in or to the purple ‘born to an aristocratic family,’ purple testimony ‘erotic or lurid testimony,’ purple time ‘a happy affair,’ and purple passion ‘a violent passion.’ With the exception of purple’s suggestion of royalty (because originally only the wealthiest could afford the purple dye which was made from the Purpura shellfish), purple is very seldom used in color idioms outside of English. Similarly, orange is rarely used except in occasional references to the House of Orange in Northern Ireland. In Spanish, however, naranjada ‘orange drink’ is a rude saying or deed, and naranjo ‘orange tree’ is an ignoramus.

One of the most curious aspects of color phraseology is the compound color phrase. Black and blue (preserved also in black and blue Monday) is perhaps the most common of these phrases in English. In German, however, one is beaten grün und gelb (or grün und blau) ‘green and yellow’ (or ‘green and blue’), and a black eye is blue. If a German sees grün und gelb, he feels dizzy, but if he is grün und gelb, he is angry. Similarly, a Bengali speaker is enraged if he is rage lal ‘yellow and red.’ The Spanish, though, have the most curious compound color phrase: if a Spaniard darse un verde ‘gives himself a green,’ he is ‘amused’; if he darse un verde con dos azules ‘gives himself one green and two blues,’ he is ‘highly entertained.’ Why blue should provide an extra measure of amusement is unknown.

As with the secondaries, there is one tertiary color, a color resulting from the mixture of two secondaries, that has been very popular with phrase makers: gray. In English there are graybeard for an old man, gray matter for intellect, and gray eminence, a translation of the French eminence grise, for one who exercises power behind the scenes. A Frenchman who is gray may be old and fuddled but may also be slightly drunk or as the Germans would say, blue. If he en voir de grises ‘makes someone see gray,’ he is ‘giving his opponent a rough time’; if he faire grise mine á ‘gives someone a gray look,’ he is giving his rival ‘a cold shoulder.’ To the Germans, der kleine graue Mann ‘the little gray man’ is ‘the devil’; ein graues Elend ‘a gray misery’ is ‘a hangover,’ and graue Vergangenheit ‘gray antiquity’ is ‘the remote past.’ Gray also suggests the past and dreamy meditations in Italian probably because of their association with the elderly. An Italian suffering pensieri grigi ‘gray thoughts,’ therefore, is ‘in a brown study.’

The English expression brown study may have originated from the supposed inherent thoughtfulness and repose of brown, or it may derive from the expression to do up brown which originally meant ‘to put someone thoroughly in the dark, or to deceive.’ Do up brown came to mean, however, ‘to do anything thoroughly,’ and it thus may be the origin of the phrase browned-off, meaning ‘thoroughly disgruntled.’ More common, however, than any of these brown phrases is brown-nose ‘a toady who wins favor by paying very close attention to his superior’s bottom.’

Perhaps the reason for the scarcity of phrases which make use of brown is that different languages arbitrarily and unscientifically mark off the color scale without precise limits. Thus German Braunkohle ‘brown cabbage’ is American ‘broccoli’ which to Americans is very green whether cooked or not. Furthermore, the German Rosenkohl, ‘rosy cabbage’ is the English ‘Brussels sprouts,’ but even more baffling is that English red cabbage is blue or red in German and black in Italian.

Pink, the third of the tertiaries, is very scarce indeed. Because of its closeness to red, pink and pinko often are used to refer to a Communist. And because of its association with blood and health, the English expression in the pink means the highest degree of health or excellence in general. Beyond these expressions, pink is used primarily in descriptive phrases, but even in these expressions its use is limited. The expression pink eye, for example, is not a description of the eye’s color but is a reference to a small European flower which the eye resembles when it is swollen shut with conjunctivitis.

The fact that blue in German may mean ‘drunk’ while in English it may mean ‘depressed’ is hardly a refutation of Berlin and Kay’s pioneering research. But the curious and usually inconsistent color associations in the twelve languages researched here are strong indications of linguistic relativism. Why two cultures associate different colors with a similar idea, feeling or attitude is a perplexing cultural question that needs further study by students of psychology, sociology, anthropology, and language.

22 March 1979: ABC-TV morning news: Steve Bell announced that Mary Leakey’s recent archaeological find: “the 3.6-million-year-old footprints of the direct descendant of modern man.” [Robert J. Powers, Shreveport, Louisiana]

“Rowdy control techniques for libraries including special games and stories for difficult children,” listed among the “aids” to be found in The Elementary School Library in Action, Parker Publishing. [Joan C. Sanders, Bardonia, New York]

In the event that anyone may be laboring under the delusion that divine retribution (surrogate division) has gone the way of secularism, let him be warned: American savings banks now threaten punishment for onanism by cautioning that those who buy certain kinds of savings certificates shall be subject to severe penalties for “premature withdrawal.” At last they are wreaking vengeance on those who are trying to get out of the act.

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Body English

Jay Siwek, M.D., Middletown, Connecticut

The early anatomists must have enjoyed their work, for, at least, they seemed to have brightened the tedious task of dissecting as shown by the wit they used in naming the myriad parts of the body.

The food we eat passes down the esophagus ‘food carrier’ and into the stomach. From there it travels through the pyloric ‘gatekeeper’ valve into the duodenum, so named for its length of ‘twelve’ fingerbreadths. Next is the jejunum which, during dissection, was most often found empty or ‘fasting.’ The vagus nerve ‘wanders’ extensively throughout the body, innervating most of the gastro-intestinal tract. And as if one ‘belly’ wasn’t enough, the anatomists describe several ventricles, both in the heart and brain.

The nomenclature of the genitourinary tract is further embellished. Many people know that a vagina is a ‘sheath’ that can envelop a “sword,” and that our word for the surgical removal of the uterus, hysterectomy, and hysteria stem from the same root because hysteria was formerly attributed to uterine disturbances. Naming the fleshy prominence over the pubic bone in women the mons veneris ‘mountain of love’ indicates a certain romantic disposition among anatomists, but this is in contradistinction to the name for the nerve that transmits sensation from the genital region, the pudendal ‘to be ashamed.’ Only grown-ups have pubic ‘adult’ hair; and although a woman has a clitoris ‘little hill,’ men have orchids (the lesser known term for the ‘testicles’ based on their resemblance to orchid bulbs and more familiar to us in the term denoting ‘inflammation of the testes,’ orchitis). Testes (cognate with testify) bear ‘witness’ to manhood and virility, and reside in a literal, etymologically speaking, ‘sack,’ the scrotum. Babies come from little seeds, we’re told, but who would think the seed was an ‘acorn’? Both the clitoris and penis have one: glans.

If someone says you have rocks in your head, he may not be far off from the truth. The brain contains, among things other than dreams, ‘sea monsters’ (hippocampus), ‘bridal chambers’ (thalamus), ‘almonds’ (amygdala), ‘olives,’ a ‘pine cone’ pineal gland, and ‘fruit stones’ (putamen), all enclosed in a fibrous covering, the dura mater ‘tough mother,’ as the longshoremen would say. The sagittal suture line, which runs brow to occiput in the skull, appears as though sliced through by an ‘arrow.’ (Was this named by an anatomist related to William Tell?) And infants, whose minds aren’t constricted by paradigms of abstract thinking, have ‘fountains’ fontanelles on the tops of their heads. Those of you with ‘breasts’ on the brain will be glad to know there are two additional mammary bodies inside of everyone’s head, and mastoid processes on either side externally.

Certain appellations show a particularly clever mind behind them. The colored irises of the eye are named after the goddess of the rainbow, and the word pupil ‘little girl, doll’ originated from the children’s name for the tiny reflection of oneself seen when looking closely at another’s eyes. The sartorius muscle is found in the thigh and is used in sitting cross-legged ‘like a tailor’ at work. The popliteal ‘ham’ area is behind the knee, and this association is found in our colloquial use of the term hamstrings. The strong cheek muscles which enable us to blow horns are called buccinators ‘trumpeters.’ And, my favorite, the midline indentation in the upper lip, is termed the philtrum ‘love potion.’

Other epithets indicate a more abstract association. The hyoid bone in the neck is ‘U-shaped’ (that is, like upsilon), the sigmoid colon is ‘S-shaped’ (like sigma) and the deltoid muscle in the shoulder is ‘triangular’ (like delta) in form. There are several ‘crescents’ in our hands (lunate bones) and knees (menisci).

The anatomists saw a variety of animal likenesses in a diverse collection of bodily parts. We bear ‘goose feet’ pes anserinus in a group of web-like muscles of the thigh. The base of the spine is curved like a ‘cuckoo’s bill’ coccyx. Just above the coccyx is the sacrum, a ‘sacred’ bone because of its use in sacrifice. In this vicinity are the slender strands of nerves at the end of the spinal cord, the cauda equina ‘horse’s tail.’ There are ‘earthworm-like’ muscles in the hands lumbricales and a ‘worm’ in the brain (vermis). ‘Goats’ had their ears pierced for identification, and the corresponding cartilaginous portion of our ears is designated the tragus. The tiny hairs which grow from the ear canal are also called tragi.

Foods are plentiful. ‘Sesame seed-like’ bones in the hands and feet (sesamoids), ‘lentils’ in the eyes (lens), ‘beans’ in the knees (fabella), and ‘a small grape,’ that fleshy hanging-drop in the back of the throat (uvula) join the other edibles already mentioned.

Kitchen items abound. We’re walking collections of ‘forks’ (clavicles), ‘funnels’ (choana, nasal passageways), ‘sieves’ (ethmoid bones in the nose), ‘flasks’ (ampulla, part of the intestines), ‘a small pan’ (patella, the kneecap), and even ‘vinegar cruets’ (acetabulum, the hip-joint sockets).

Other household objects are scattered about the body. We have ‘drawers’ in the intestines (haustra), ‘staircases’ in the ears (scala), and ‘frames for wicker-work’ in the feet (the tarsal bone). Personal artifacts decorate our nooks and crannies. There are ‘brooches’ (fibula, a leg bone), two kinds of ‘combs’ (crista in the skullbones, and pecten in the intestines), and many ‘purses’ (bursa; cf. bursitis).

When there’s work to be done, we come furnished with the tools of various trades: ‘hammers’ (malleus, an ear bone), ‘little hammers’ (malleolus, an ankle bone), ‘anvils’ (incus, an ear bone), ‘a handle’ (manubrium, part of the breastbone), ‘pulleys’ (trochlea, in several places), ‘hooks’ (uncus, in the brain), ‘sickles’ (falx in the brain), and ‘a plowshare’ (vomer, a nose bone). But all work and no play certainly wouldn’t be right, so we have a child’s ‘top’ (turbinates, in the nose), ‘bubbles’ (bulla, in the nose), ‘horns’ (cornu, in several places), and ‘a pale ball’ (globus pallidus in the brain) to play with.

For outdoor recreation, we may go horseback riding with ‘stirrups’ (stapes, an ear bone) and ‘bridle’ (frenulum in the mouth) in hand, or go sailing a ‘boat’ (scaphoid, a wrist bone) on ‘a lake’ (lacuna, in several places) under ‘a bridge’ (pons in the brain), confident in the sturdiness of our ‘keel’ (carina, in the lungs). We might also look for ‘shells’ (concha in the nose, cochlea in the ears) along the way.

And if we must go forth into combat, we’re equipped with ‘helmet’ (galea, part of the skullbone) and ‘sword’ (xiphoid, at the end of the breastbone), ‘trumpet’ (salpinx, the Fallopian tubes) and ‘shield’ (thyroid).

And when the anatomists ran out of images and names for the numerous bones or arteries, for example, they would simply call one the Innominate ‘unnamed,’ and still have the last word.

ERRATUM [I before E department]

As a large number of readers have pointed out, John Gummere’s column appears regularly in The [Philadelphia] Inquirer, not, as reported earlier, The “Enquirer.”

Antipodean English: Infinite Variety

G. W. Turner

How big is a dialect? For some people it is coextensive with a language—there is only one form of English or French or Japanese that merits serious attention, and that is the standard or correct form, the one taught to foreign learners. But should a Japanese learner learn British or American English? Or might he even learn Australian English? Australian English, after all, is a language with about as many speakers as Dutch, Czech, or Hungarian, that is, perhaps twice as many as the number of speakers of its direct ancestor, the English of Shakespeare’s time.

Australian English itself is noted for its uniformity, but it is not absolutely uniform. The argument that establishes its own right to separate existence can be extended to its subvarieties. Queensland English or South Australian English also have a right to exist, and New South Wales English is accordingly seen to be but one variety, even if a seminal and still influential one. Admittedly, differences within Australia are small, mainly a matter of a few items of vocabulary, and they are becoming smaller still as government exercises its wellrecognized standardizing influence.

Modern linguistic varieties differ from medieval trade and regional dialects in the extent to which they are subjected to standardizing pressures from government and commerce. Government encourages standardized names for trees, fruit, or fish to protect buyers, while sellers themselves regulate names to encourage trade. New Zealand growers adopted the name tamarillo for ‘tree tomato’ expressly to recommend it with a nice-sounding name, and ‘Chinese gooseberries’ grown in New Zealand were renamed kiwi fruit to promote sales in the U.S.A. Similarly Australian fishermen found that redfish sold better than nannygai though the difference is entirely linguistic.

Commercial and official names are subject to standardization, but this does not prevent colloquial names from lingering on in speech and informal use. Although a fish called callop in South Australia has been officially named golden perch throughout Australia, it continues to be called callop among South Australian fishermen, even in a television program for fishermen run by the Australian Broadcasting Commission, and in the official South Australian Yearbook it is entered as “golden perch (callop).”

Other regional colloquialisms survive because they are not of interest or concern to commerce or government. A ‘swimming costume’ is called variously bathers in South Australia and Western Australia, cozzie in New South Wales and swimmers in Queensland. What are sandshoes in South Australia may be called runners in Victoria.

Slang is particularly subject to regional variations of this kind. A Western Australian writer, Stuart Gore, has noticed that “the connie, the ronnie, or the yonnie, which the youth of other states bish, biff, or peg at a target becomes for the West Australian boy a boondie or a brick, which he may either lob or heave.” Probably to most Australians connie is more likely to suggest a bus or tram conductor than a stone to be thrown, but the general point is valid; juvenile stone throwing, though not entirely beyond the interest and concern of administrators, is hardly likely to have its special vocabulary effectively controlled by the recognized arbiters of usage, and the economies of standardization have little relevance in the colorful world of slang.

Local life may have its peculiarites with peculiarities of vocabulary to match. Because Adelaide was laid out with a green belt or park surrounding the city, newcomers soon learn the term the parklands as one of special significance. Because some of the early settlers in South Australia were from Germany and retained national ways in food and entertainment, mettwurst ‘a kind of sausage’ or schuetzenfest ‘an annual rifleman’s contest and public picnic’ (with nowadays a fair amount of beer to drink, a component perhaps reinforced by association with Oktoberfest) are words generally known to South Australians. Deli is not an abbreviation confined to South Australia of course, but its age is reflected in its deviation in meaning from the longer delicatessen. The deli is ‘a small shop open for long hours selling perishable goods and newspapers.’ Even the patriotic Kitchener bun suggests a replaced German name, apparently Berliner, though the Berliner is now available as a slightly different bun.

A telegraph pole, designed by J.C. Stobie in 1924, made from two steel rails with concrete between them to resist white ants is called a stobie pole in Adelaide. The word is so established that it is sometimes difficult to convince Adelaide students that it is not the name for a telegraph pole wherever English is spoken. Sometimes no particular reason for a local term is obvious. When a headline announces that pushers are to be allowed on Adelaide buses, the permission extends not to ‘peddlers of drugs’ but to ‘a child’s pushchair.’ Other terms used in Adelaide and perhaps nowhere else are floater ‘a meat pie immersed in pea soup,’ fritz ‘a luncheon sausage’ (called Vienna sausage in Melbourne, Devon in Sydney, and German sausage or Belgian sausage in New Zealand), salt damp ‘rising damp,’ and spoon drain ‘a shallow drain across a street.’

In its language as in other ways, farming in Australia shows a mixture of independence and regulation. Owners of small fruit farms (locally called blocks) along the Murray River are called blockers in South Australia but blockies in Western Victoria. If they grow dried fruits, they refer to ‘the removal of the stems of raisins (or sultanas) in the process of packing’ as titting if they are in South Australia or capping in Victoria. In Western Australia the same process is called pinning. In Queensland a wheat crop is headed, in Victoria stripped, and in South Australia harvested, but lucerne is reaped. In South Australia a farmer seeds, in Victoria he sows, and in Queensland he plants. In South Australia farmers take wheat to silos, in Western Australia to bins. Though weeds have their standard Latin names (and farmers are likely to know them), popular names persist and are often local. The Bathurst burr (Xanthium spinosum) is called three-corner jack in South Australia and double-gee or devil-jee in Western Australia. This last name seems to be connected with the South African devil’s thorn, a similar weed, and its name in Afrikaans, dubbeltjie or duwweltjie.

All of the information in the preceding paragraph has been gleaned from students (the source of much academic lore). My own farming experience was in New Zealand, where a great deal of further variation could be recorded. The variant names of weeds alone would furnish material for several articles. Such records have their usefulness and it is to be hoped that national dictionaries will someday record them. In the meantime the sporadic jottings above will serve to hint by implication at the infinite variety of language.

—University of Adelaide

SIC! SIC! SIC!

“OFFICE OF EMERGENCY PREPAREDNESS NOT YET READY,” headline in Dallas Morning News, n.d. [Javan Kienzle, Dallas, Texas]

ETYMOLOGICA OBSCURA: GI for the IG

Sgt. Maj. Dan Cragg, Arlington, Virginia

GI for the IG ‘cause that’s the thing to do.

GI for the IG ‘til you’re black and blue.

Oh, GI for the IG so when the Man comes through

He’ll see that you’ve GI’d for the IG and won’t gig you.

—From The Dark Other, by J. B. Post, Verdun, France, 1963. Quoted with the permission of the author.

Having “GI’d for the IG” more times than my permanently scabbed knees and elbows prematurely creaky from overwork care to remember, tracing the etymology of this and other examples of U. S. Army slang and jargon is a very personal and nostalgic endeavor.

GI as we have used the word since World War II comes from the abbreviation for ‘government issue’ or ‘general issue.’ It was originally applied in adjectival form to almost everything used or issued by the Army, such as GI cans, GI shoes, GI haircuts, GI soap, GI brushes. The acronym became so popular that it soon replaced the full form for soldier and was applied in such insipid monstrosities of the nonce as GI Joe, GI Jane, and (horrors!) GI Kraut. But the root of GI is galvanized iron.

Since World War II the GIs has become synonymous with ‘the trots,’ and as soldiers are most susceptible to this inconvenience, it is linked in many minds with the Army word and not gastrointestinal diarrhea, from which the expression originated. Its association with the military was further reinforced during the years of the Vietnam War, when most soldiers deployed in Southeast Asia suffered from gastrointestinal diseases at one time or another.

Used with certain unprintable modifiers, GI, as in “He’s real GI,” was once very common for a martinet or military pettifogger. But this application is being replaced by gung ho and hard-core (a Vietnam War word).

Wentworth and Flexner (Dictionary of American Slang) state that GI can, meaning ‘any large metal can used to hold refuse’ (or peeled potatoes or iced cans of beer, but not necessarily in that order) traces back to the 1920s. These cans were called GI because there were made of galvanized iron. That GI in this sense was widely used in the Army before World War II is a fact beyond dispute. But in the May 1948 issue of the Infantry Journal the editors took Mr. Mencken to task over the etymology of GI in The American Language: Supplement II, accusing him of having “strayed from the path of accuracy and scholarship” and advising him, “If you want to think that GI came to mean general issue only after the outbreak of World War II, we can only sorrowfully conclude that your research among master sergeants of twenty years’ service is totally inadequate.”

Mencken acknowledged the ancient lineage of GI, citing Colby (Colonel Elbridge Colby, Army Talk, 1942; this book, a classic, was dedicated to Mr. Mencken) as an authority for its use in the Army, from galvanized iron, even before the First World War. I have traced it in this sense to 1907, when A. W. Whitehead, in the Cavalry Journal for April 1907 (“Handling a Wagon Train”) wrote, “The following is the equipment of Wagon trains sent from this post [Fort Leaven-worth] to the Ft. Riley maneuvers in 1906:

Bucket, G.I. on strap near axle under body.”

Its later application, whether that was before or during the early years of World War II, was reinforced by the much older meaning.

Mr. Post, in the verses quoted at the beginning of this piece, uses GI in shortened form in the sense of ‘GI party,’ or a general cleaning and scrubbing prior to an inspection. GI parties used to be held in Army garrisons every Friday night to prepare for the traditional Saturday morning inspection of quarters conducted by gimlet-eyed company commanders’ first sergeants. Nevertheless, the effort expended getting ready for the inspector general’s (IG) annual walk-through was something to behold. I believe that if some of those “parties” in which I have participated had been filmed and the film shown in certain countries overseas, our most truculent enemies today would long since have turned to growing cabbages.

Some of today’s master sergeants with twenty years' service note that among soldiers the use of GI is beginning to wane. GI parties have become unfashionable and today’s soldier can afford to buy the things that were once issued to him, while regulations have been relaxed to the point where GI haircuts are the exception.

With the end of the draft the perpetuation of military slang and jargon in the general language should begin to decline as a generation of Americans with no military service grows up. It may not be too long before words like GI will sound strange on the tongue and those who use them will thereby reveal their years.

BIBLIOGRAPHIA: Room’s Dictionary Of Confusibles and The Dictionary Of Diseased English

Adrian Room, (Routledge & Kegan Paul, London, Henley, 1979), 153pp., 2 appendices. and Kenneth Hudson, Macmillan, (London and Basingstoke, 1977), xxviii + 267pp.

There are a number of books on the market giving a commentary on the language we use. Room’s Confusibles is one of those books that one thinks might be useful, and so purchases, and probably does in fact use on occasions. A confusible is, according to Room, ‘a word that not only resembles another in spelling and pronunciation, but one that additionally has a similar or associated meaning’ (p. 2). As such, they occur in pairs, and Room lists about 800 in short articles, arranged alphabetically, on pairs or groups of words. They include the it’s/its pair (‘possibly two of the commonest confusibles in the language’), imply/infer, even stalactite/stalagmite, with a handy mnemonic working on the inclusion of one letter, ‘C for ceiling, G for ground.’ More technical words are also discussed—Oxford Group/Oxford movement, umlaut/ ablaut, poplin/Crimplene/Terylene and obscure pairs such as sinecure/cynosure. Room’s style is informal and the articles are brief, his main concern being to be clear. Cross references are good. The book also has an appendix of prefixes and suffixes with details of the meaning, language of origin, examples, and variant spellings.

The book is clearly designed for the native speaker of English who never can remember the difference between x and y, rather than the foreign learner. It fills a gap well. One could obviously list omissions: some that come to mind are oriented/orientated, due to/owing to, upstream/downstream, and the inclusion of theatricals with hysterics/histrionics.

Hudson’s book is more a commentary on the language than notes on distinguishing confusibles. His starting point is that English is a diseased language, by which he means that English ‘either deliberately or unconsciously, is used with so serious a lack of precision that it ceases to be an effective means of communication and serves only to confuse or mislead’ (p. xix). Clearly, much redundant jargon is criticized: here are the statements in alphabetically arranged entries on being aware (of nothing, just ‘aware’), providing back-up, having charisma, with consequent grass-root support, and of course hopefully having an on-going, meaningful, but nevertheless low-key relationship at the interface in a particular situation.

Hudson illustrates his statements with quotations from a wide variety of sources (taken over the ten years 1966-76), from menus to broadcast news bulletins, but mainly from newspapers. U.S. and Australian usage is reflected as well as British English. One annoying feature is the occurrence of a few entries with headwords such as ‘definite article’ (referring then to its omission, as in Prime Minister Callaghan, instead of the Prime Minister, Mr. Callaghan). These occur in the same form as the headwords for particular words which make up the rest of the book.

Hudson goes a definite step further than Room: Room offers a descriptive rather than prescriptive book; Hudson explicitly writes that he is not culturally neutral: and he is at pains to issue a call to arms to stop the spread of the disease affecting the language. If one can accept Hudson’s self-confessed prejudices (e.g., against social scientists, and in favor of the wine-correspondent of the London Times), one can find this book entertaining.

Both books reflect current works on the changing English language. Both are useful alongside Philip Howard’s New Words for Old (Hamish Hamilton, London, 1977), and Words (1975) and More Words (1977) both published by BBC, London, in providing reflections on current English. Room’s is the more permanent, but Hudson’s the more significant in critically looking at the present condition of the language.

[Martin Manser, Aylesbury, England]

OBITER DICTA: Plus is ‘in addition,’ plus it means something more

Dwight Bolinger, Palo Alto, California

Caldwell Titcomb [V, 2] finds “no excuse for misusing plus to duplicate what can properly be expressed by also, too, moreover, besides, furthermore, as well, to boot, and in addition—not to mention and.”

There is indeed a surplus of plussage in all those other terms, but plus is one of those rare increases among function words—a new relative. It signifies not just ‘in addition,’ but ‘in addition to which'—the other words add to what has gone before; plus holds it in view and enlarges on it. Plus is semantically a new member of the set of relatives starting with where, for example, whereupon, and it bears the same relation to in addition that whereupon bears to then:

The lecture began, whereupon I got up to leave = at which point I got up to leave.

The lecture began; then I got up to leave.

A 20% discount, plus we pay all postage and handling costs = in addition to which we pay etc.

A 20% discount; in addition we pay etc.

One may not like this upstart, but it will not do to appeal to logic or to close one’s mind and dismiss it as the product of linguistic barbarians. It performs a function that is not shared by any of its near-synonyms and is more ingenious than barbaric. Let’s not deny the creative impulse when it is put to work by ordinary speakers.

EPISTOLA {(Capt.) Ronald A. Wells}

Leafing through Mainliner (no hidden symbolism, there, I hope) Magazine for November 1978 on a recent flight on United, I came across a reference on the expression “Face!” Apparently, it is an abbreviation of “In your face, Ace!”

To emphasize their dunking achievements, basketball players have even been known to follow up their performances with such barbed remarks as “In your face, Ace,” or “Olé, José.”

I’ve played a fair amount of basketball in my day (when they were using peach baskets), but never have heard the expression used.

[(Capt.) Ronald A. Wells, U.S.C.G. Academy New London, Connecticut]

ETYMOLOGICA OBSCURA: “My name is Hanes”

Gerald Cohen, University of Missouri-Rolla

One of the tasks of etymologists is to spot etymological treatments that have lain unnoticed in obscure places and to bring them to the attention of other scholars. Presented below is one such item that I noticed last summer in the course of my research on slang. It appears in the N. Y. newspaper The Subterranean, Nov. 15, 1845, p. 4, col. 1, where it was reprinted from the Evening Star (exact date:?). A check of the Dictionary of American English and Mathews’ Americanisms …shows no mention of My name is Hanes, and this expression has therefore apparently been overlooked by scholars of American English.

There are thousands of people in this country who make use of the common expression “My name is Hanes” when they are about leaving a place or party suddenly, yet few know from whence the expression is derived. A more common saying, or one in more general use, has never been got up. We hear it in Maine, in Georgia, in Maryland, and in Arkansas—it is in the mouth of the old and the young, the grave and the gay—in short, “My name is Hanes” enjoys a popularity which no other cant phrase does—be it our next care to give its origin.

Some forty-five years since, a gentleman by the name of Hanes was travelling on horseback in the vicinity of Mr. Jefferson’s residence in Virginia. Party spirit was running extremely high in those days. Mr. Jefferson was president, and Mr. Hanes was a rank federalist, and as a matter of course, a bitter opponent to the then existing administration and its head. He was not acquainted with Mr. Jefferson, and accidentally coming up with that gentleman, also travelling on horseback, his party zeal soon led him into a conversation upon the all-absorbing topic. In the course of the conversation, Hanes took particular pains to abuse Mr. Jefferson, calling him all sorts of hard names, run(ning) down every measure of his administration, poked the non-intercourse act at him as most outrageous and ruinous, ridiculing his gun-boat system as preposterous and nonsensical, opposed his purchase of Louisiana as a wild scheme—in short, took every leading feature of the day, descanted on them and their originator with the greatest bitterness. Mr. Jefferson all the while said little. There was no such thing as getting away from his very particular friend, and he did not exactly feel at liberty to combat his argument.

They finally arrived in front of Mr. Jefferson’s residence, Hanes of course, not acquainted with the fact. Notwithstanding he had been vilified and abused “like a pickpocket,” to use the old saying, Mr. Jefferson still, with the true Virginia hospitality and politeness, invited his travelling companion to alight and partake of some refreshments. Hanes was about getting from his horse, when it occurred to him that he should ask his companion’s name.

“Jefferson,” said the President blandly.

“What! Thomas Jefferson?”

“Yes, Sir: Thomas Jefferson.”

“President Thomas Jefferson?” continued the astounded Federalist.

“The same,” rejoined Mr. Jefferson.

“Well, my name is Hanes!” and putting spurs to his horse, he was out of hearing instantly.

This, we are informed, was the origin of the phrase.”

EPISTOLA {Meg Casey}

Nominations for the “Unconsciously Appropriate and Inappropriate Metaphor Hall of Fame”:

1. “After a prolonged dry period the first flush of storm water run-off is equivalent to raw sewage.” [from a handout (March 1978) for an environmental science class.]

2. “There continue to be disagreements and lack of trust in regard to the way in which student complaints to the Associate Dean are handled. This area is most sensitive, and there are occasionally charges of racism associated with actions taken in this area. Some faculty members perceive that Black students complain to a Black Dean and are given carte blanche.” [from an internal memorandum distributed to members of a certain department. Both from Miami Dade Community College, Miami, Florida.]

[Meg Casey, Miami Dade Community College]

Epenthetically Speaking

Jack Luzzatto, Bronx, New York

I have been collecting examples of epenthesis for some time and would like to share my findings with VERBATIM readers.

Epenthesis is the insertion of an extra consonant or vowel in the pronunciation of a word. The extra vowel use has a word for itself, anaptyxis. Thus saying “scrapegoat” for scapegoat is epenthesis, but saying “mischievious” for mischievous is vowel epenthesis.

The epenthetical word can gain legitimacy by widespread use. The original word was plenitude, but “plentitude” is easier to say and understand. Sobriquet is the French form yet “soubriquet” has made the dictionary as a variant. And I suppose “deviltry” developed from the old devilry.

The epenthetical quirks of the average person are the most amusing. I have heard someone say that he was going to buy “a cartoon of cigarettes.” And, of course, everybody knows the one who said, “My arthuritis is killing me.” This is of serious import to an “athaletic” type. These are the same people who enjoy a good “fillum.” These are also the people who warn you to look out for the “poison ivory.”

This may make so-called educated people smile, but they themselves are not free of committing epenthesis. I have heard a Carter aide on the radio mention “the sovereigntry of the Panama Canal,” and it was no slip of the tongue because he repeated the mispronunciation. Supposedly better informed speakers have uttered “grievious” for grievous.

In the area of sex, the most popular word that is garbled is the “prostrate” gland, and on sober thought its malfunction could well do that to a man. When Dr. Conton, an 18th-century Englishman, invented his contraceptive device, the name soon became condom, but many purchasers of this article request “condrums.” I feel that the existence of the word conundrum is responsible for this. Incidentally, Webster 8 says of condom “origin unknown” but the etymology in the Webster’s New World Dictionary refers to the aforementioned doctor with a question mark. One more sex note. I asked a neighbor what the new photography shop was, as it called itself “Picture Shop.” He informed me that it was a “pornio place.”

Humorous epenthesis is deliberate, but I can think of only one, offhand. That’s the word “bazoom.” Inadvertent humor is solemnly expressed by the housewife at the fruit and vegetable store (or greengrocer’s) who asks for “sparrow grass” or “asparagrass.” Children especially are addicted to saying “chiminey” for chimney. Customers in record shops have asked for “monaurial records.” In all seriousness, pool players say the ball “caroomed off the side.” The doubling of the o does have a funny, or perhaps a more important sound, as when ponton became “pontoon.”

I would very much like to learn more of these from the readers. They are elusive things to keep in mind. But isn’t everything? I must leave you now. A police car is racing down my street, its “sireen” screaming.

EPISTOLA {Helen L. Linn}

In re review of Remarkable Names of Real People or How to Name Your Baby [V, 1].

I remember (Miss, I always assumed?) Silence Bellows' comments in the former “Queries and Answers” pages of the New York Times Book Review — also that it always appeared as Silence Buck Bellows and I always felt the middle name added panache!

Thought you’d be interested in a list of names I compiled when I was doing Travelers Aid work, volunteer, at the desks of that organization in Pennsylvania and Grand Central Stations. These were all real people whose names I wrote down on the file-card, as instructed. They intrigued me then, and they do now, as I go over the list again: Corday Debshells; Venus Scott; Pearl Bramble; Caserine Deadwyler; Cazetta Anderson; Pearlie Mae Boyd; Queen Esther Williams; Dovalyne Mattingly; Novella Boyd; Dozier Gardner; Vaughn Payton; Kizzie Royster; Exodus Burrows. The last four were men.

Tucked into that same part of the little notebook I used for my TA work, I found a yellowed newspaper clipping, undated, headed FANCIFUL NAMES ON CHAPLAIN’S LIST, and telling of the names the hospital chaplain, Reverend Joseph Toth, had collected while serving at City Hospital in Cleveland. Here are some of the names: Ozavenus Notre Dame Farley; Iva Incision; Seymour Avenue Jeeter; Ladies Home Journal Jones; Vaseline Malaria; and Soda Waters. Twin boys were named Edward and Re-Edward. The Green family named the children Bee, Ivy, Lettuce, Myrtle, Olive, Sage, and Paris, Father Toth reported.

[Helen L. Linn, Westfield, New Jersey]

Philip Howard on English English

Philip Howard, Legalese

Those who think that civilization as we know it is coming to an end and that the Dark Ages are about to descend again sometimes cite the “decay” of English as a symptom of the supposed general decline of civilization. Myself, I doubt whether decay is an apt metaphor for the way that a language constantly evolves to meet the new needs of those who use it. If you believed in vegetable metaphors, you could, I suppose, say that Latin decayed after the fall of the Roman Empire. That was because different and barbarian chaps were speaking and writing the stuff. Political and social change produced the change in language. And as Helen Waddell showed unforgettably, the “decayed” Latin of the Dark Ages was a vigorous, poetic, and eloquent language for the ecclesiastical and other purposes for which it was needed.

In a lecture to a society of sages at the Athenaeum recently, the learned and witty George Steiner argued that English was in a poor way in the United Kingdom. All the best poetry and fiction, he said, were being written in the United States. Well, yes, up to a point, Lord Copper. There are some Brits from Graham Greene and Iris Murdoch to Ted Hughes who still manage to turn out good stuff. And in certain branches of English, from biography and academic writing to television, British writers and talkers are in the first division; indeed, near the top of it. But in general it is not surprising that a country as big, rich, and diverse as the United States should produce more good writers than a comparatively small, run-down, and at present introspective island.

The only two British politicians who speak with the clarity and eloquence of previous generations (leaving on one side the wisdom or folly of what they say) are Lord Hailsham and Enoch Powell. Most of our politicians use language designed to conceal the poverty of their thought and to mislead the public or appeal to their baser instincts. But then most politicians since the time of Cleon have done that. Many academics use pretentious jargon that is not clear even to those inside their discipline. The churches were once the repository of good English. Pick up any book of seventeenth-century sermons, not by an acknowledged master of language such as John Donne but by an otherwise obscure parson, and you will find the English language used to the service of God in a living and beautiful way. How long is it since we heard a bishop say something interesting? But leaving that aside, how long is it since you heard a bishop say something in language that is lively and clear?

One place, at any rate, where even pessimists about the language acknowledge that good English survives is on the Bench. Judges still talk conspicuously good English, and do it extemporarily. Of course, it is part of their training. Since all judges were once barristers themselves, they are used to speaking and making themselves understood. A barrister who pleads before a judge has to make his meaning clear. He has to cite the proper references. He has to explain what he means by a particular example, even more so when he has a jury to persuade. It is harder to persuade a jury than to gull a television audience. A politician can get away with weasel words and slippery argument because he has nobody except the hecklers to contend with. A lawyer who is obfuscating language has to contend with the judge, who will often pull him up if he starts twisting the language.

One of our learned and purist Circuit Judges has sent me some new words that he has noticed emerging in his courts over the past few months. The first is adamance, as in (from a report by a social worker in Southwark): “He has expressed his adamance that he will become a responsible member of the community.” The Oxford lexicographers cannot determine when the substantive adamant, meaning ‘a fabulous hard metal or rock,’ became an adjective meaning ‘inflexible,’ particularly in to be adamant, meaning ‘stubbornly to refuse compliance with requests.’ As an adjective, adamant usually means ‘a negative determination not to do something’ rather than a positive determination, for instance to turn over a new leaf and become a responsible member of the community. In spite of its barbarously bastard birth, adamance is an attractive new word, as fits a substance that was for centuries confused with lodestone and credited with magnetic powers.

The Judge’s second new word, abscondition, as in “bail was refused because of the likelihood of abscondition” is less attractive and seems otiose. We already have absconding and abscondment in the vocabulary as nouns. In the Judge’s exemplary sentence, “because he was likely to abscond” would be less abstract and more vigorous. Like the rest of us, social workers sometimes want to soften the sharp truth with abstractitis.

The Judge’s third new word is orality, as in “the English criminal trial is moving away from its character of extreme orality”; that is, it is ‘not now so insistent upon solely oral evidence.’ This appeared in a recent article in the lawyers' trade magazine Justice of the Peace.

In fact, orality, meaning ‘the quality of being oral or orally communicated,’ is already in the British vocabulary as a rare and supposed to be obsolescent word. Evidently our need for it is reviving. In any event, it has a respectable pedigree going back to the seventeenth century, as well as its new legal function.

The Judge’s final contribution was not a new word but an example of the old linguistic vice of jargon, circumlocution, and beating around the bush. It comes from a recent report from a Remand Centre. The subject of the report was said to be “unlikely to make attitudinal changes until the maturation process has been completed.” I suppose that it was felt to be unduly blunt to say that the subject of the report was unlikely to change his attitude until he had grown up. British English is protected from the decay supposed to be nibbling away at it by the vigilance of, among others, those precise and witty purists, the Judges.

OBITER DICTA: Parameter of Parameters

Gerardus Wynkoop, Little Silver, New Jersey

Back in the 1960s the academic password was dichotomy. This was succeeded in the early 1970s by parameter, usually found in the plural, and that is now giving way to simplistic. The curious thing about the parameter craze was that practically none of the users could explain the mathematical meaning of the word, though that was the discipline from which it was borrowed.

The word was probably first used by Apollonius of Perga (“The Great Geometer”) in his master treatise on conics, of which the first four books in the original Greek survive. Three more survive in an Arabic translation and the eighth book has perished in the ruins of time.

A simpler illustration for a parameter can be found in the Cartesian equation for a straight line: y = ax + b. This is a typical parametric equation, the parameters being a and b. They determine the slope and intercept of the straight line (where and how it is to be drawn on the graph). Their most important characteristic, however, is that they are constants which may be given any value the mathematician wishes. When he does assign definite values, say y = 2x + 3, then it ceases to be a parametric equation; it then becomes only a particular straight line.

Going back to Apollonius and his conics we can now use the ellipse to illustrate the meaning of the metaphor “the parameters of life.” I won’t bother you with the equation for the ellipse; all you need know is that it has two parameters. These determine the shape of the ellipse, whether it is almost a circle (Plato’s symbol for perfection) or squashed down to the shape of a blimp or cigar.

The metaphor then is rightly understood as focusing, not on limitations beyond the control of human beings, but on the few factors which can to some extent be manipulated by the actors in the drama. When one includes among the parameters of life elements such as cultural background, genetic structure, or temperament, it’s not a good metaphor. Life’s problem (which the young confuse with what they consider a search for identity) is to locate the true parameters, things that can be changed (education might be one) and might lead to a more rounded life. Parameters are not fixed limits but dimensions which can be changed by the perpetrator.

For whatso’er we perpetrate,

We do but row, we’re steered by fate.

—Samuel Butler, Hudibras

EPISTOLA {Eva Edmands}

Using the dictionary for aid in translation from a foreign language to English or vice versa can have its pitfalls especially if one picks the first definition.

A German acquaintance of ours found himself in a drafty hotel room in England. Not trusting his English conversational skill in order to ask for a blanket, he decided to write a note to the manager. Using his German-English dictionary, he looked up the words he was unsure of: DRAFT (in German Zug) and found the English equivalent: TRAIN. Next, he looked up BLANKET (Decke) and found CEILING and finally TO MOVE OUT (ausziehen) UNDRESS.

Some time later, the startled hotel manager found a note which read: THERE IS A TERRIBLE TRAIN IN MY ROOM AND IF YOU DON’T GIVE ME ANOTHER CEILING, I’LL UNDRESS.

[Eva Edmands, Bronx, New York]

EPISTOLA {Kathryn A. Wright}

In re Clair Schulz’s piece on names of musical groups [IV, 2] Taj Mahal is (in this instance)— a person. It has never been the name of a group, Mr. Schulz’s protests to the contrary. Taj took that name for himself (for the sound of it more than for any other reason) when he first began working as a musician in college in the early 1960s. The groups he has worked with have always been known by another name, e.g., Taj Mahal and the Electras (in college); Taj Mahal and the Pelham Hill Logjammers (on the folk circuit, early 1960s); Taj Mahal and the International Rhythm Band (currently); etc. Rather like (from Mr. Schulz’s list) Booker T. and the M. G.s (which, by the way, stands for ‘Memphis Group’ and has nothing to do with the automobile), or Country Joe and the Fish, or Gerry and the Pacemakers.

[Kathryn A. Wright, Vernon, Connecticut]

EPISTOLA {Ray M. Peterson}

Anent G. Bocca’s observations re public signs, here are two items that have amused me and, I hope, will find risible readers of VERBATIM.

As a veteran Long Island R.R. commuter, I was long intrigued by an admonition in the car reading: “No spitting. It’s against the law.”

Expectoration abstinence illegal?

At a drive-in food store in town with two service driveways, one in front and one in back, the customer, upon approaching by the entry road, is faced by a sign reading: “PLEASE. Use both driveways.”

Literal compliance envisages a splitting image—a cartoonist’s delight—of the left wheel up the front driveway and the right wheel up the back driveway (like Chas. Addams’s ski tracks straddling a tree!).

[Ray M. Peterson, Port Washington, New York]

OBITER DICTA: Plus ca change, plus ca change

As regular readers of VERBATIM are aware, comment is made from time to time in these pages regarding the ineluctable fact that language changes and that many of today’s prejudices against such changes prove hollow tomorrow, just as yesterday’s seem odd today.

An old book has come my way, 12,000 Words Often Mispronounced, W. H. P. Phyfe, G. P. Putnam’s Sons. (I know it must be old: first, it is dated 1908; second, it’s a 760-page book, albeit small in format, that costs $1.25.) It is interesting because it demonstrates that changes in pronunciation of common words have taken place during the same period in which many changes of usage have occurred, yet people have paid them scant attention. Many of the words listed are proper names and obscure items, but a large number—too large to list here completely—are very ordinary. Here is a sampling: [The pronunciation system has been simplified for convenience.]

ab-d\?\-men not a\?\-dō-men

ab-stryōōs not ab-strōōs

ac-cl\?\-māt not a\?\-clim-āt

ā-kurn or ā-kern (for acorn)

A-dō\?\-nis not A-do\?\-is

ā-\?\-re-al (for aerial)

\?\-er-ō-nôt or ā-rō-nôt (included just to show it isn’t a new word—1908!)

a\?\-ri-cult-yōōr

a\?\-kē-mist

a\?\-cove or al-cōv\?\

a\?\-jē-br\?\…and so on.

The book is sprinkled through with comments, admon tions, and the results of a composite survey of Webster’s International, Century, Standard, and Worcester’s dictionaries.

alkali—a\?\-k\?\-l\?\ or aĺ-k\?\-l\?\: Lexicographers generally

say-l\?\, and most people say -l\?\.

allegro—\?\l-l\?\-grō: Most dictionaries have anglicized this word, and pronounce it \?\l-l\?\-gro. Webster, however, gives both pronunciations.

almond—\?\-mŭnd: The pronunciation ă\?\-ŭnd, though without dictionary authority, is almost universal.

Do not say ă\?\-mŭnd.

and—ănd: This word is generally slurred over in rapid speech, and degenerates into &\ubreve;n.

any—ěn-&\?\: Formerly pronounced \?\-n\?\.

apron—\?\-pŭrn or \?\-prŭn: Lexicographers generally prefer the first pronunciation; popular usage favors the second.

Arab—ă\?\-ăb: Worcester gives \?\-răb as a secondary pronunciation.

asparagus—ăs-pă\?\-a-gŭs: “This word was formerly pronounced sparrow-grass; but this pronunciation is now confined exclusively to uneducated people.”— Webster.

asphalt—ăs-făl\?\ not ă\?\-falt: This is an abbreviation of the word asphaltum (ăs-fă\?\-tŭm), and retains the accent of the full form.

beneath—bē-nēt\?\ (as in thy) or bē-nēth (as in thigh):

The first pronunciation is preferred by careful speakers.

…and so on.

How quaint!, you may say. Yet, \?\-r˘b is surely considered today, as it was during WWII, a denigrating pronunciation.

To those die-hards, who insist that “No one spoke English the way my father did,” we can reply only, “You are so right!”

EPISTOLA {Thomas L. Bernard}

The item in Kay Haugaard’s article about her son’s mistaken deduction of the meaning of the word treasure [V,2] reminded me of a conversation with my younger son, when he was about six. We were discussing the word weary, and it turned out that he thought the meaning of the word was “short.” This deduction came from his familiarity with the show Man of La Mancha, and the line from the song, “to try, though your arms be too weary, to reach the unreachable star.”

[Michael I. Sobel, Rockville Centre, New York]

[We are particularly interested in more examples of this kind— words whose meanings have been misconstrued from completely regular contexts that could not be considered ambiguous.

— L.U.]

EPISTOLA {Alan J. Glossner}

My family and I enjoyed your word game that appeared in VERBATIM [V,3]. We offer the following:

1. mystics
2. accountants
3. actors
4. gardeners
5. tailors
6. politicians
7. professors
8. chefs
9. criminals
10. philosophers 11. musicians 12. detectives 13. sailors 14. mountain climbers 15. telephone operators 16. teachers 17. writers 18. meditators

1. disenhanted
2. divested
3. departed
4. uprooted
5. defrayed
6. disclaimed
7. declassified
8. degreased
9. demeaned
10. distracted 11. denoted 12. dissolved 13. deported 14. detached 15. disconnected 16. degraded 17. disspelled 18. disturbed

Thank you for hours of fun.

[Alan J. Glossner, Fairport, New York]

EPISTOLA {Eleanor Bell}

…so that you may enjoy mine as I did yours.

1. fatties
2. people with spring fever
3. milliners
4. poker players
5. sheep
6. baseball players
7. fishermen
8. mattress testers
9. students
10. game show contestants 11. official scorers
12. ranchers
13. Ronald McDonald 14. nymphomaniacs 15. purse snatchers 16. ship captains 17. auto mechanics 18. librarians 19. Superman 20. gunmen 21. priests 22. attorneys 23. feminists 24. private eyes 25. members of the Light Brigade 26. constipated people

1. detonated
2. dismayed
3. decapitated*
4. *discarded*
5. *distended*
6. *debased*
7. *debated*
8. *debunked*
9. *degraded*
10. *displayed*
11. *demarcated*
12. *deranged*
13. *disenfranchised*
14. *demanded* 15. *dispersed* 16. *deported* 17. *departed* 18. *Dewey decimated* 19. *dismantled* 20. *demolished* 21. *decreed* 22. *distorted* 23. *deliberated* 24. *detailed* 25. *discharged* 26. *deterred*

[Eleanor Bell, Topeka, Kansas]

EPISTOLA {Thomas L. Bernard}

I thoroughly enjoyed Geoffrey Bocca’s article “If It Isn’t In Writing….” Over the years I have come across a number of such examples which have left me either amused or confused or both.

Two examples to illustrate Mr. Bocca’s point are to be found in a recent copy of Reader’s Digest [July, 1978] where one can read:

Notice in students' cafeteria:

“Lunch will be served from 11:30 until the middle of October.”

On a door in an automobile plant:

“Emergency exit only— not to be used under any circumstances.”

A hilarious instance quoted in Modern-Maturity [May, 1977] refers to the sign on the University Bulletin Board which read: “Shoes are required to eat in the cafeteria.” Some wit had penciled in underneath: “Socks may eat anywhere they want to.”

Bob Kinney, the humorist, has pointed out [Parade, Sept. 3, 1978] that those banks that finance houses, etc., which advertise “Auto loans” won’t loan cars to anyone, and even deny being in the business of loaning autos. He also objects to the fact that “No Turns” signs are common on turnpikes; why, he asks, did they bother to call it a turnpike?

In this same vein is the announcement put up on the prison bulletin board which read “Illiterate? Sign up now for free help.” I wonder if the sponsors managed to figure out why there was so little reaction to their well-intentioned effort. A European friend of mine was arrested once for passing vehicles and changing lanes while going through a New York City tunnel; he claimed this was absolutely necessary in order for him to obey the sign that read “Maintain 35 m.p.h.” Other foreign drivers I have known have, in bewilderment, brought their cars to a halt in front of the “Do Not Pass” signs.

A notice that has caught my eye in the past is the arresting piece of information one finds written in certain hotels to the effect that “Your day ends at noon.” Recently, I came across the fact that in the wards of a hospital in Florida one may read the clear admonition that “Patients are not to attempt to get into bed without the attending nurse.” To my mind, however, the classic case which most impresses (and astonishes) foreign visitors is the wording on tags of pillows, cushions, seat covers, etc., which sternly cautions: “Under penalty of law this tag is not to be removed.” Most recently, I’ve noticed this wording has been extended to include “…except by the consumer.”

[Thomas L. Bernard, Springfield, Massachusetts]

EPISTOLA {James J. Kilpatrick}

I was positively enchanted to note in your Winter issue [V, 3] the comment from Philip Howard that the United States are the linguistic melting-pot of our age. Hooray for the third person plural!

Some years ago, as a Southern editor fueled on the juices of John C. Calhoun, I once sought to establish the plural construction in the editorial columns of the Richmond News Leader. I argued with some eloquence that the Constitution itself makes it clear beyond peradventure that the United States are. In Article I, Section 9, we find that no title of nobility shall be granted by the United States, and no person holding any office of profit or trust “under them” shall accept any present, etc. In Article III, Section 3, we see that treason against the United States shall consist only in levying war “against them,” or in adhering to “their” enemies.

The plural construction is consistent with the Constitution’s treatment of the houses of Congress. The House of Representatives shall choose “their” Speaker. In the Senate, the Vice President shall have no vote “unless they be equally divided.” A census is to be ordered by Congress “in such manner as they shall by law direct.”

Our friends abroad have it right. In Italy, the Stati Uniti sono; in France les Etats-Unis sont; in Spain los Estados Unidos están, and in Germany die Vereinigten Staaten sind. It took our own American genius to neuterize the House, the Senate, and the Congress, and to convert the plural States to a singular noun. I doubt that Mr. Howard’s felicitous usage will catch on, but it’s nice to see it all the same.

[James J. Kilpatrick, Woodville, Virginia]

EPISTOLA {Sue Hyde}

If I have read his contribution carefully, Andrew E. Norman [V, 1] has, surprisingly, omitted one of the most colorful and expressive “tosspots” of all, viz. rotgut ‘an adulterated or unwholesome liquor,’ and a phenomenon which your real-world tosspot is just as likely to encounter as its physiological and etymological corollary (in colloquial British English at least): gutrot ‘bellyache.’ Another item which may interest Mr. Norman is cut-glass used attributively as in “cut-glass accent” to mean ‘impeccably and imperiously upper-class, posh, “conspicuously RP,” ' the underlying idea being that of the piercing, strident voice with a cutting edge to it. Dylan Thomas has a character called Lord Cut-Glass in Under Milk Wood.

A second point while I have your ear (or eye) concerns Martin H. Slobodkin’s letter [IV, 2] and J. Gombinski’s reply thereto [IV, 4]. No German (or German dictionary) of my acquaintance says Treppenwörter. The German term is Treppenwitz, which is probably a loan-translation of the French term, which, pace both contributors, is l’esprit de l’escalier, coined by Diderot in that form. Both terms refer to the faculty of ‘staircase wit’ rather than to concrete instances of its operation. The latter are designated in Yiddish by the form trepverter which may be more current in America than its German parent and hence the source of Mr. Slobodkin’s misinformation. Saul Bellow’s Herzog uses the Yiddish word (and also the French phrase) to describe the status of the notes he writes while he is delivering his adult-education lectures in a New York night school (see Penguin edition, pp. 9 and 332).

Finally, I wonder if you, or other readers, have any thoughts or even hard information on the following. It has always struck me as self-evident that the English word syllabub (also spelt sillabub) ‘a drink or dish made of milk or cream, curdled by the admixture of wine, cider, or other acid, and often sweetened or flavored’ is a corruption (involving metathesis) of the Italian zabaglione, which is after all a pretty similar concoction. Both the OED and Webster, however, declare the origin of the English word to be unknown.

[Peter H. Marsden, University of Aachen]

[In our family, we call ‘bellyache’ tummyrot. —Ed.]

EPISTOLA {Sue Hyde}

In reference to “Defile Your Records” [V, 3]: An electrician may be discharged, as well as delighted. And I discounted your mathematician at first glance. Some more are obvious: the horseman who is derided, the tree surgeon who debarked, the foundation digger who is debased, the podiatrist who is defeated. A poster painter can be designed, a sports star displayed, an orchestra conductor disconcerted, an archer deranged, and an air-conditioning repairman deducted.

A girl in pigtails can easily be depleted, a single woman dismissed. But how unfortunate when Rover is detailed, or the breeder’s top stud desired. A late sleeper should be debunked, that incompetent waiter deserved, and weathermen predicting heavy winds disgusted. Also joining the unemployment ranks are the dissuaded leatherworker, the devoted politician, and many despised CIA employees.

The local judge caused quite a stir when he defined a traffic violator, distorted a lawyer, described the court clerk, and deliberated a free man. A halted battle leaves soldiers defrayed. Ladies in mink can be deferred. An orphan left on his own, then adopted, has been defended; a certain Ontario Indian tribe, losing its identity, is decreed.

The optometrist called on to remove a beam from a patient’s eye was demoted when he failed. The Olympic diver upon whom we depended jumped into the shallow end instead; when he justified the jump later, he was deified (“if I’d”). A rescued item at a garage sale is disjunct.

Anyone now in a bad mood from overexposure to puns needs to be defunct.

[Sue Hyde, Jacksonville, Florida]

EPISTOLA {Patrick H. Hodgkin}

I trust I will not be accused of displaying your game if I point out that ball players can be debased, choral directors can be disconcerted, leather workers dissuaded, motel operators dislodged, big time spenders dispersed, nominees disappointed, evangelists distracted, and politicians devoted— especially if the voters have been discounted. Indeed some people can be dealt with in several ways. Not only can a lawyer be debriefed, he can also be distorted; and a hospital patient can be distended by being discommoded. A publican can be disclosed or disbarred, or even dispirited or disjointed.

You might have pointed out, however, that many of the characters you draw attention to can be reinstated. It undoubtedly occurred to many of your readers, for example, that if a prostitute could be delayed, she could and probably would just as certainly be relayed; and similarly, of course, a deposed model could be reposed, and we hope that meanwhile she had not been denuded. The delighted electrician could be revolted, the mourner engraved, and the choral director whom I mentioned above could be enchanted or required. If the deflowering of the florist caused him to sell out, he could be restored.

[Patrick H. Hodgkin, Culver, Indiana]

EPISTOLA {C.V.S. Roosevelt}

VERBATIM [V, 3] brought back fond memories of the game we used to play many years ago while waiting for one’s Scrabble opponent to make a move. Our game had no name, and all I can offer to supplement your list follows:

1. sufferers
2. chiropodists
3. actors
4. bridgeplayers
5. cesspool cleaners
6. club men
7. bellringers
8. choir singers
9. Mae West
10. conductor
11. writers
12. baseball players
13. bank presidents
14. school teachers
15. lumberjacks
16. steeplejacks
17. tailors
18. Al Capone
19. ranch hands
20. song writers
21. alcoholics
22. alcoholic parrots
23. lexicographers
24. mailmen
25. Victor Borge
26. hurricane hunters
27. wheelwrights
28. hog callers
29. politicians
30. prospectors
31. psychiatrists
32. Viennese bakers
33. nudists
34. chefs or cowboys

1. unpiled
2. defeated
3. displayed
4. discarded
5. deterred
6. dismembered
7. extolled
8. disenchanted
9. disfigured
10. disconcerted
11. described
12. debased
13. discredited
14. outclassed
15. debarked
16. expired
17. unstitched
18. demobilized
19. debunked
20. decomposed
21. unsaturated
22. polyunsaturated
23. dispelled
24. unzipped
25. disdained
26. disgusted
27. unspoken
28. disgruntled
29. devoted
30. exclaimed
31. uncouched
32. distorted
33. recovered
34. deranged

Finally you have the secretary who swallowed her salary. She was, of course, expatiated.

[C.V.S. Roosevelt, Washington, D.C.]

EPISTOLA {André F. Rhoads}

Have been having a ball with your “defrocked” and “disbarred” types and their ilk. How about these:

1. feudal barons
2. lab technicians
3. house wreckers
4. vampires
5. wine dealers
6. peeping Toms
7. slave owners
8. pot smokers
9. saxophonists
10. white bears
11. artists’ models
12. U.S. Senators

1. demoted
2. detested
3. deballed
4. deveined
5. deported
6. defenestrated
7. denigrated
8. disjointed
9. dehorned
10. depolarized
11. denuded
12. decapitalized

[André F. Rhoads, United Dairy Industry Assn. Rosemont, Illinois]

SIC! SIC! SIC!

At the next table in a restaurant at breakfast: “May I have a croissant [kroi s\?\nt]?

EPISTOLA {Peter Tauber}

Geoffrey Bocca’s [“If It Isn’t In Writing…” [V, 1] probably could not have flushed more correspondents out of the closet if he had written an ad in an underground journal saying “Adventurous young woman seeks grammarian interested in….” Fortunately, though the I-Spy fetish he wrote of also appeals to a plentiful and letter-writing beast, our obsession is, while not without its joys, entirely legal.

Indeed, signs of advice from established authority often present the most delicious delights. (An insight into this mechanism comes, obliquely, from essayist and New Yorker editor Roger Angell who wrote, of Richard Nixon’s earliest autobiographical efforts, that there was a vast joy and untapped comic resource to be found in the wholly literal mind.)

Surely, many have snickered at the “Quiet—School Zone” traffic sign on New York’s East 23rd Street, which creates a space of stern silence for… the New York School for the Deaf, then felt remorse at so doing; similarly, “Slow Children, at Play” always gave a guilty giggle to those so prone.

My own taste runs to those signs which, with great particularity, inform one of the various illegalities one must refrain from committing, many of which even the most conscientious criminal might have overlooked. My favorite hangs over the service window of my Post Office. Bullet-proof glass and iron bars speak of a well-merited defensiveness, but this sign’s paranoia is intriguingly specific and suggestive: “It is a Federal Crime to assault a U.S. Postal employee.”

Which is to say, to paraphrase an old milk company slogan, “You can lick our stamps but you can’t beat our postmen.”

[Peter Tauber, Los Angeles, California]

EPISTOLA {Mrs. E.F. von Wettberg}

I believe readers will share my enjoyment of a “Thankyou” note I received from a friend, for whom I recently entered a subscription to VERBATIM: “Looking forward to getting our Words-worth.”

[Mrs. E.F. von Wettberg, Jr., Wilmington, Delaware]

EPISTOLA {Michael C. Shapiro}

Jag Mohan’s otherwise interesting article “Hindi Filmi English is Coming” [V, 4], contains a glaring error that cannot be allowed to stand uncorrected. Mr. Mohan asserts that “…all Indian languages are related to the English language for they all belong to the Indo-European family of languages.” This is simply untrue. The languages of India, leaving aside a small number of tongues whose genetic origins are uncertain, are of four basic types: (1) the Indo-Aryan, languages historically descended from Sanskrit, and including Hindi, Bengali, Urdu, Gujarati, Punjabi, among others; (2) the Dravidian, a group of languages widely spoken in South India and including Tamil, Tleugu, Malayalam, and Kannada; (3) the Munda, tribal languages spoken in central and eastern India; and (4) the Tibeto-Burman, a large group of languages spoken across a vast area of the Himalayas. Mr. Mohan’s statement is thus true only of the Indo-Aryan languages, most certainly not of all Indian languages.

[Michael C. Shapiro, University of Washington]

[Similarly from L.J. McCaulley, Gainesville, Florida.]

EPISTOLA {Gordon Williams}

To follow up on Mr. Edward’s article “Again and Ageyn and Agane” [V, 3], I suppose that someone besides me has noticed that Isaac Watts, in writing hymn numbered 542 in the 1940 Episcopal hymn book, must have been influenced by some good ol' boy from Southern Georgia to have rhymed head with made.

[Gordon Williams, Washington, D.C.]

EPISTOLA {George P. Brockway}

In re Richard Toeman’s contribution [V, 3], which I first heard in the 1920s, along with “A B, C D Goldfish?” In Yugoslavia there is a breakfast dish called emendeks. You can’t order “em” or “eks” separately, at least by those names, but emendeks is just what you’d expect it to be.

And in re Laurence Urdang’s contribution [ibid.], my favorite French song is “Où, O ou, est mon petit chien allé?”

Which reminds me of a joke I made up in my first day in French class: What does a Frenchman say on being hit in the stomach with an egg? I’ll let you supply the answer.

[George P. Brockway, W.W. Norton & Company]

EPISTOLA {Julio Fernández Paredes}

This is my contribution to “Menu Barbarisms.”

A restaurant in Tegucigalpa, the capital city of Honduras, serves tiboom steck ‘T-bone steak’ and pis Melba ‘peach Melba.’

Please let me say how much I enjoy each issue of VERBATIM. [Julio Fernández Paredes, San Pedro Sula, Honduras]

Crossword Puzzle

Across

1. Good money makes the French doll affectionate. (5, 6)
11. Close as the race for food and drink. (3, 3, 4)
12. Nothing but cold. (4)
14. The saucy rub the wrong way and cause disorder. (7)
15. From lyric to epic. (6)
18. Buy right. The choice is yours. (6)
10. Uganda not in line with East or West? Maybe! (9, 6)
20. A whirling dervish? (7)
24. Jog the wrong way. (4)
25. Gone bald and in the pits about it? (10)
27. Bring gruel in to the deprived. (15)
28. Nature pulls, by permutation, toward perfection. (2, 4, 5)

Down

2. Once plump, for instance, not now. (7)
3. Hear a foreign country takes an unfriendly stand. (10)
4. Building toward the last tale of The Decameron? (3, 5)
5. It’s futile to figure on something in code. (2, 4)
6. Feel a new spirit being spread around. (4)
7. Fun city? It’s enough to make you laugh! (5)
8. Take it off, in a cheap joint down the street. (6)
9. Singing loud and clear when getting the bill. (7)
13. Good score over all when Christmas comes around? A diversion without equal. (2, 8)
16. Outline of a shady travel agent deal. (7)
17. Lays devious plans in covens. (8)
19. Read it as a spate of invective. (6)
21. Big role for a nice guy. (7)
22. The horse Leo’s backing around Roosevelt Raceway. (6)
23. A poem of electrifying power? (5)
26. Delivered without charge. (4)

Crossword Puzzle

Answers

Across

1. Le-gal tender
10. UNALIGNED NATION (anagram of UGANDA NOT IN LINE)
11. Nip and tuck
12. Zero
14. PERT-urb
15. P-o-E-t-IC
18. Option
20. Rotator
24. TORT
25. Down-fallen
27. UNDERPRIVILEGED (anagram of GRUEL IN to the DEPRIVED)
28. NE PLUS ULTRA (anagram of NATURE PULLS)

Down

2. Ex-ample
3. Alien(n)ation
4. Ten-story
5. NO DICE
6. fe-EL A N-ew spirit
7. Fun-N.Y.
8. DIVE-st
9. In-voice
13. NO-par-all-EL
16. Con-tour
17. CON-ni-VES
29. TI-rade
21. O-b-L-ig-ER
22. So-RR-eL
23. An-ode
26. Free

READERS' QUERIES

Readers are invited to respond directly to those who have sent in questions.

I collect housestaff slang. This includes words or phrases used by hospital staff (usually medical and surgical house officers) to describe types of patients, drugs, diseases, events, etc. I’d appreciate receiving lists or individual items, and I’d like to know of any articles on the subject. [Matthew Schneiderman, M.D./3445 Colville Place/Encino, CA 91436.]

For an article on solecisms, gaffes, spoonerisms, “perles,” peculiar excuses, mistakes in translation and spelling, and other inadvertent puns by students of French at all levels (with a brief description of circumstances if possible), as well as tongue twisters, humorous rhymes and sayings, word games, puzzles, and “contrepeteries” for more advanced students of French, I would welcome contributions. Acknowledgment will, of course, be made. [Prof. Lillian Bulwa/Northeastern University/360 Huntington Avenue/ Boston, M A 02115]

Does any reader know the origin of TIMEHRI, the name of the semiannual publication of the Royal Agricultural & Commercial Society of British Guiana? Reply to: Stowell Rounds, 4849 North Via Entrada, Tucson, Arizona 85718.

In some parts of the U.S., an informal sale of personal property is called a yard sale, in other parts, a garage sale or a tag sale. We would be grateful to readers who send us [VERBATIM, Box 668, Essex, CT 06426] any other names they have encountered in English, giving the area where the terms have been heard.

(We are not considering rummage sale or jumble sale if those are descriptive of fund raising activities for churches or other organizations by sales of donated merchandise.)

Internet Archive copy of this issue

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1. Brent Berlin and Paul Kay, Basic Color Terms: Their Universality and Evolution (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1969), p.2. ↩︎

2. Ibid., pp. 35-36. ↩︎

3. Ibid., pp. 2-4. ↩︎