VOL VI, No 2 [Autumn 1979]

“Inward Seethings”: On Euphemism

Jeff Miller, Toronto, Canada

“Indeed,” Hamlet tells his mother of Polonius, whom he has just stabbed to death, “this counsellor/Is now most still, most secret and most grave,/Who was in life a foolish prating knave.” It is the suggestive, sometimes prurient, power of euphemism that lends itself so serviceably to the poet on one hand, and to the busybody, huckster, or sniggerer on the other. Where in one instance euphemism can be more evocative than plain speaking, in another it is made mercenary, provocative, the stock-in-trade of “diplomacy.” And as with cake, too much of having it either way, of saying what you mean by not saying it, can be inimical:

KING: Now, Hamlet, where’s Polonius?
HAM.: At supper.
KING: At supper! Where?
HAM.: Not where he eats, but where he is eaten: a certain convocation of politic worms are e’en at him….

Many of us feel ridiculous to equivocate about ourselves as a fact of nature, about our bodies and their functions, afflictions, and stirrings, yet this is where most euphemistic energy is expended. When euphemism seems most absurd— over-delicate, or naive, or mincing—we sometimes overcompensate or become glib: Polonius is personified literally as The Diet of Worms; and—to follow the trend generically— according to an ad transcribed by Coleridge in his notebooks, a variety of nineteenth-century “patent” worm medicine (useless to poor Polonius, even if it had been available to him) relieves the son of “The Lord Chief Baron [of] a Load, which cannot without impropriety be described, but which appeared the Nest of these pernicious animals.” As euphemism, these clearly outdo themselves to the opposite extreme (“dysphemism,” as also in “greasy spoon” or “cancer stick”). It’s a pity, anyway, the Lord Chief Baron’s son doesn’t give his personal endorsement in the ad, if only in the interests of nobler metaphor.

Queasiness in a similar vein, speaking at least of propriety and metaphor, finds its way even into Biblical scholarship, where euphemism is often at its most artful. In Marvin Pope’s exhaustive scholarly study of The Song of Songs, the Bride’s vivid description of her passion for the Bridegroom as “my bowels were moved for him”—striking in its proprietous King James context (5:4)—is rendered “my inwards seethed for him.” Lest a reader think Mr. Pope, himself, squeamish by comparison, he explains that the Hebrew word for “seethe,” hmy,

denotes commotion and stir, with particular reference to noises, growling of dogs or bears, murmur of doves, groans of distress, murmuring in prayer, the sounds of lyre or flute, the roar of the sea, the noise of the city streets, the boisterous behavior of an inebriated man or woman. As applied to the insides, the guts, or bowels, as the seat of the emotions, biblical expression is literally very near to the current locution “to get or have one’s bowels in a uproar.”

By contrast, more euphemistic versions than either Mr. Pope’s or the King James pale, to put it mildly. The American Translation (1931), Revised Standard Version (1946, 1952), New American Bible (1970), and Jewish Publication Society Version (1969) all take a stab at “boweldlerizing” the offending organ into a heart that yearns, thrills, trembles, and stirs, respectively. This kind of redaction often provokes the snigger it deserves but is meant to discourage—as in the Othello edited by the perhaps aptly named Mr. Gentleman, a contemporary of Coleridge’s and Dr. Bowdler’s who italicized rather than excised the “obscenities,” thereby allowing scholars to study but ladies (presumably ones with blood of the steeliest blue) to skip them:

IAGO: Zounds, sir, y’are robbed! For shame, put on your gown!

Your heart is burst; you have lost half your soul.

Even now, now, very now, an old black ram
Is tupping your white ewe. Arise, arise!

But in these readings at least the metaphorical sense is not obliterated for the careful reader.¹ And as Mr. Pope reminds us, even though the King James uses the same “earthy language” for Isaiah’s fear of God’s anger (“Wherefor my bowels shall sound like an harp for Moab, and mine inward parts for Kir-haresh”) and even to suggest the depth of God’s love as it does here to suggest the Bride’s (“Is Ephraim My dear son?… I cherish his memory still. Therefore My guts stir for him; I will surely pity him”), this “would not now be considered felicitous, although the Rev. Dr. Sibs in 1648, for his sermons on chas. 4-6 of the Canticle, took his title from this passage: Bowels Opened.”

For what literal-minded context in which “bowels” or “guts” would be “felicitous” today, we need only turn to Plate VI in Pope’s book, where we find a facsimile of the title page of Reverend Dr. Sibs’s sermon (“BOWELS OPENED, or, A

Discovery of the Neere and Deere Love, Union, and Communion betwixt Christ and the Church, and consequently betwixt Him and every beleeving soule”), from a copy in the “Medical Library of Yale University classified as ‘historical,’ apparently on the assumption that the concern is relief of constipation.”

The language of much modern advertising is, of course, a more self-conscious extension of the kind Coleridge recorded in his notebooks. Government and skepticism (“the chastity of the intellect,” says Santayana) bred of more widely available education and information simply require that advertisers be more euphemistically inventive: Marian, the tactfully perspicacious and no-nonsense librarian, removes her glasses and assures us that “Lots of folks need help now and then”—even you and me, Elmo. But this approaches nudging and winking again. Euphemism in advertising, like its creators, has for its survival evolved on a subtler level—into the euphemism of implication. Drinking a certain beer or soda associates us with a whole panoply of gods and goddesses—all manner of he-men, good-lookers, and nymphs whose only unhappiness is a temporary dearth of the advertiser’s product. Certain cars associate us with these people, too, but also imply a more encompassing happiness and success. The trend is most fully and subtly expressed in ads for a particular scotch which profile “successful” middle and upper-middle class people who profess to drink the brand—the implication being the old medicine-show one, however prettied up, that the scotch can somehow figure in one’s good fortune. A recent installment features an award-winning “energetic and extraordinarily capable” psychologist whose “enviable combination of enthusiasm and intellectual ability makes him a classic ‘accomplisher,’ ” presumably not only in his profession (where evidently he makes Freud look like a peanut farmer), but at his hobbies of “photography, poetry, jogging,” too. How explain, then, the observation here attributed to this world-beater that “The integration of all sciences should facilitate the potential that one day man will ‘know thyself’ ”? How trust an 86.8 proof elixir that does nothing for even award-winning psychologists' thydentity crises?

Another even subtler form of euphemism has become pervasive in modern American literature, as in modern life: euphemism by attitude. I suppose this is in part what Northrop Frye means by “the ironic mode” of thought, and William Empson by “ambiguity of feeling”; it has something to do, at least, with the eiron or “self-deprecating” (Frye’s word) figure as hero, and, as well, an inclination to treat seriously of things all the while harboring a vague fear or ambivalence that such treatment will prove facile or dull-visioned when made public. I notice this ambivalence quite often (perhaps because I read them quite often) in John Updike, Peter De Vries, and Nabokov. These authors, in writing of matters that are evidently quite close to their hearts, often equivocate through clowning or—in Nabokov’s case, at least—willful obscurity. (Perhaps Pynchon is an even better example of this latter tendency.) Mr. Updike’s most recent novel, for instance, a wonderful piece of writing called The Coup, puts forward very passionate arguments against the kind of materialism that suppresses anything transcendental and fundamentally passionate about life; but the “hero” who pens these arguments is, if not a buffoon, at least a “material fool” whose sensitivity is at every turn mocked. The overall sense given in this type of literature is that of reticence, a crying lack of any commonly held certainty or belief (compare, for example, to irony in Dickens), an increased and painful awareness of contingency in a world about which “advanced thought” continues to imply we can never make flat, definitive statements.

Or, as De Vries puts it: “Anyone informed that the universe is expanding and contracting in pulsations of eighty billion years has a right to ask, ‘What’s in it for me?’ ” That De Vries is an extreme case—pushes irony almost to slapstick— perhaps explains why he isn’t accorded “major author” status. This is the paradox of this kind of euphemism: if you push it too far, people will take you at your word, at your inclination not to be thought serious. But often, in the most hilarious contexts, you can almost hear De Vries pounding his writing table. There is in Mrs. Wallop, for example, a spoof on “intellectual gatherings” (at which among the topics of discussion is a “novel of the more-multilevel-than-thou school”) where springs up an almost passionate obloquy against television in favor of literature—certainly something much on the mind of one, De Vries himself, who gets his living by the latter. Television, we are told,

cannot make us see Jeeves entering the drawing room, ‘a procession of one.’ It cannot make us see the woman in Dorian Gray whose dresses always looked as though they had been designed in a rage and put on in a tempest…or the woman in Henry James who appeared to have developed her character as she had her figure, by riding cross-country…. Never, never can television make us see the character in Ring Lardner who served ‘what he thought was good scotch, though he may have been deceived by some flavor lurking in his beard.’…

and so on for over a page. In The Mackerel Plaza, a wild comic flailing at, among other moden sophistries, “liberalized” religion, there is another passage that stands out as almost a cry and attacks a type of equivocation approaching that of De Vries’s own literary style. “ ‘Let us not congratulate ourselves,’ ” the Reverend Andrew Mackerel admonishes his parishoners, who are scandalized by his rumored sexual behavior (“The instant I entered the church I saw how far my reputation had fallen. The place was jammed.”),

on the reasonable mind that sees both sides of every question. Civilized flexibility is a fine thing, and in a sense the aim of education, but there is a point here, as everywhere, where the law of diminishing returns sets in. Tepid liberalism that never lashes out at anything, intellects too stocked with information to draw conclusions, educations scrimped and saved for, that one may dawdle in the green bowers of non-commitment—these lack something possessed by the honest bigot. That there is a time to throw stones is a principle I try to follow in my daily life, occasionally to my peril.

More and more, we all seem to feel this sense of peril in contingency, in “knowing too much but not enough,” in taking a stand amid the continual progression-but-progression-to-what? of the world, and our literature reflects it. Where there is comedy in Mackerel’s self-righteous use of a sermon in defense of his purported behavior, there is also the quite serious problem that he can’t reconcile his Christian calling with his mixed love and outrage for the sensual world. His “peril” in this instance, he subsequently explains to the congregation, touching his vividly blackened eye, has been that while out “ ‘strolling the streets of Chickenfoot’ ” (in profound sexual frustration)

I saw one of those open-air revivalists who always rub me the wrong way (and)…stopped to give him a piece of my mind. A not altogether sober bystander intervened, a fist fight followed, and then a policeman appeared who carted us both off to the local clink. You may imagine that your overheated Saul of Tarsus cooled off pretty fast at this point.

Then, lest we take all this anti-liberalism too seriously, pin De Vries down to something resolute—even in a context that seems to beg for it—we are set up for the kill:

In fact, it was worse than that. I felt a perfect ass.

And then,

Here Mackerel paused and gazed down at the floor below the pulpit, as though his thinking had stalled. Somewhere some mechanism seemed to have jammed. He smiled abstractedly and added: “Like the Englishman who reached down the lady’s back for her pearls.”

Is Is Is

Norman R. Shapiro, Wesleyan University

I recall being taught, as a child, never to say The reason is because…but rather The reason is that…; and it always grates on my nerves to hear, as we all often do, the traditionally incorrect construction. Recently, however, I have become aware of a widespread anomaly in even the correct usage, and one that grates no less. I refer to the expression The reason is, is that…, with a gratuitous repetition of the verb, always with an emphasis on the first is and a slight pause before the second. It is no regional or cultural idiosyncracy. I hear it everywhere—radio, television, daily conversation, sophisticated academic discourse—and in the mouths of speakers from every stratum of the linguistic community. Apparently this seemingly meaningless little stammer has ingrained itself into our speech patterns. I am even aware of several variations: The thing is, is that…, The problem is, is that…, etc. But clearly it cannot be explained away as a mere inadvertence. I even heard it used recently on a radio talk show in a past tense, where its bizarre illogicality struck me with full force: the reason was, is that…. Happily, I have yet to see it in print.

My only immediate explanation for this curious aberration is (,is) that the speaker has, buried in the recesses of his mind, the grammatically correct pattern “What the reason is, is that…,” and that even with the elimination of the what the rest of the pattern remains.

Preposition Pollution

Barbara R. DuBois, Los Alamos, New Mexico

Foreigners trying to learn English often have more trouble with our prepositions than with any other feature. But I see and hear so many awkward uses of prepositions lately that I think we all have more trouble with them than with any other feature—and more trouble than we used to. All kinds of new anomalies appear: sometimes merely the idiomatically awkward preposition is used, such as “comply to”; sometimes a preposition is used where none is needed, as in “This program affords for employee self-improvement”; and sometimes a preposition is used with a word when an entirely different word without preposition would be better: “Manufacturers consider styling paramount to safety” should end with “paramount” or should change to “consider styling more important than safety.” Some writers don’t appreciate the power of a preposition: allow for does not mean ‘allow.’ If we allow an applicant’s tardiness, we are more permissive than when we allow for tardiness, meaning that we take it into account, probably resentfully.

Misunderstood clichés are responsible for much preposition awkwardness. “We must not dwell over the past” is almost as funny as “We took them into tow.” I heard a politician say that he wanted to be able to “look at people in the eye.” My favorite example is from an administrator who wrote, “By in large, students should be able to live with the new policy.”

The shortest prepositions cause the most trouble. Here are some examples collected from television, newspapers, textbooks, and business letters using for awkwardly: “All generals are advocates for military aid.” “We will forward the manual upon receipt for your check.” “What is your concern for the project?” means ‘What is your worry about the project?’ when the writer more likely means ‘What is your concern with the project?’ that is, ‘What do you have to do with it?’ “Friends sympathize for you in your troubles” needs with; for goes with sympathy. Affinity does not use for but with, since affinity means ‘kinship’ not affection or inclination. “Such a threat is an invitation for rejection” needs to. “They agree in principle for creating a new program” needs on or an infinitive. “Cutting the police budget will leave the citizens open for more crime” needs to. “Pretend that you are an employee for the company,” says a textbook writing assignment; of is idiomatic.

Another short preposition used awkwardly is of: “We must alert citizens of the danger.” We may warn them of the danger, but we alert them to it. “We have set a limit of new proposals” needs on or to. “We are not as grateful of our health as we should be” needs for, although appreciative takes of. “They charged them of negligence” needs with, although accused uses of. “Sincere interest is needed of the student” needs from, although required takes of. “He cannot disguise his antipathy of the military junta in that country” needs toward, although dislike or hatred takes of. I suspect that the writer or speaker has both words in mind and carelessly combines one word with the preposition belonging to the other.

A third short but troublesome preposition is to: “The students demonstrated in protest to the decision”; against is idiomatic and even logical. “The constituents held a banquet in honor to the senator”; in homage takes to, but in honor needs of. “Pessimism is popular to many people today” needs with as does “More is not necessarily synonymous to better.” “Their remarks gave evidence to their intelligence” needs of. “The weather may delay your arrival to your destination” needs at. A startling discovery is an awkward to that is not a preposition but an infinitive marker where a preposition is needed: “They insist to go along” should be “They insist on going along,” and “The annual clinic is aimed to aid horticulturists” should use “aimed at helping.”

Some words give difficulty because they use different prepositions for different meanings. Immune, for example, is a troublemaker since it has become popular in figurative use. It takes to when we discuss disease, and so we can talk about “immunity to jet lag.” But when we discuss taxes or fines, we use from: “Kings and queens are immune from taxation” and “diplomats are immune from prosecution.” “Non-Indians Immune to Tribal Court” makes the headline say that the court is like a disease.

Many words cause trouble because they use different prepositions in different constructions. “They made a mistake in [or by] turning right” changes if the article changes: “They made the mistake of turning right.” We may have a craving for affection, but we do not crave for affection: we omit the preposition when we change part of speech. “The decision to split the family temporarily was a matter for professional survival and challenge,” said a professor of English. It could be a matter for discussion, but it’s a matter of professional survival.

Purpose gives much trouble: “What is your purpose for communicating?” asks one textbook preface. For goes with reason, but in goes with purpose: reason for communicating and purpose in communicating. In another construction, purpose uses of: “What is the purpose of the communication?”

Opposite is one of the most bothersome preposition users. We may omit a preposition altogether in “Your view is opposite mine” or we may use to, but if we add the, we must change to “Your view is the opposite of mine.” If we have more complication, we may use from: “Your room is in the opposite wing of the building from mine.” People who try the unidiomatic than might rearrange as follows: “Our rooms are in opposite wings of the building.”

The most troublesome word of all, because it’s so popular, is fascination. Fascinated doesn’t cause much trouble, because with or by works, but some writers do choose in, which belongs rather with interested: we are fascinated by antiques or interested in them. But fascination leads to catastrophe. I keep hearing and reading that people have a fascination for antiques, meaning that ‘antiques are crazy about people.’

If you share my pique, fight preposition pollution. Don’t let people express a predilection with; don’t let them look upon you for advice; don’t let them have an attitude over the project or unpack the contents on this package. Complain when the sports reporter asks the famous athlete whether he is a target by the police. Above all, don’t let rising costs stand in your way from achieving your goal, even if life does reek with politics and even if the earth does become barren from vegetation.

Notes Found in Bottles

Deborah Wing

Location of find: The North Atlantic
Inscription: “Take the cash and let the credit go….

—Samuel Insull”

Theological Bafflegab or How to Unsay It

Rev. Walter Niebrzydowski, Cathedral Preparatory Seminary, New York City

“Multiphasic Jabs Against Bafflegab”²: is the title of an article recently carried by The N.Y. Times. Its author, Fred M. Hechinger, documents the “fog of obfuscation” caused by the “Jargonization of America.” He cites examples of current gobbledygook as used in the professions of medicine, social sciences, and linguistics. Since he failed, however, to include theology in his list, permit me to add this supplement to his catalogue.

As an overture to my “Verbal Cacophony in B-flat Major,” here is a brief history of sophisticated crutch words of recent vintage. (A crutch, by the way, is a word that is frequently misspelled, often mispronounced, and invariably misused because it is usually misunderstood.) “Quintessential” was able to dislodge “archetype” as King of the Crutch. Although “Quintessential” is still being used (and, therefore, abused), it has become quite “relevant” to discern “paradigm” on the “horizon.” Since it is the mark of intelligent discourse to define the area under discussion, “paradigm” entered into illicit union with “perimeter” to produce “parameter.” “Parameter” has soared to the top of the charts as the currently-reigning hit on the “Crutch Parade.”

Crutch words are solitary chimneys belching smoke into the semantic sky. “Jargon,” however, refers to whole sentences and paragraphs which marshal even simple words into its relentless enterprise of polluting the verbal atmosphere. The “quintessential paradigm” of jargon in the field of theology has recently appeared in America’s most illustrious theological journal. From the title alone the reader is warned about the impending onslaught gathering on the horizon.

The article is called “Christian Apophatic and Kataphatic Mysticisms.”³ To be fair, I admit that apophatic and kataphatic are not crutch words, but legitimate members of a specific terminology that any science needs as tools of the trade. Nor do I have any quibble with using foreign phrases which are also bona fide members of scientific terminology. So, I am not too disturbed by this sample: The Exercises tacitly presuppose, therefore, the metaphysical dynamics of the act of faith, wherein the fides quae is tasted and reveals its meaning because of the fides qua in whose light it is seen.”⁴ This sentence from the article, however, is a mere hors d’oeuvre compared to the pièce de résistance, which immediately follows:

Just as a person examining a psychological illustration of Figure/Ground perceives a changing Figure/ Ground before his eyes, during the consolation without previous cause the specific Christian mystery becomes Ground or horizon through transparency, and what was previously Ground or horizon (supernaturally-elevated and Christ-anointed transcendence) becomes Figure by directly dominating consciousness in a quasi-intuitional felt-knowledge in which the exercitant becomes pure openness and receptivity to his homeward-tending love.

I challenge any philological Rube Goldberg to diagram that sentence! I am sure that the author’s meaning would have been clearer in German, although that language doesn’t even bother to use such humble device as slashes, hyphens, and spaces to produce verbal juggernauts.

The article I have quoted deals partially with the classic The Cloud of Unknowing. The author has succeeded in showing how the smokescreen of jargon can wrap the “Cloud of Unknowing” with a “fog of unsaying.”

I have engaged in the text-producing generation (writing) of this article, so that you, the text-processing analyst (reader), may protect yourself against the multiphasic bafflegab of cirumlocutory obfuscation.

How Do You DARE?

The Dictionary of American Regional English (DARE), a continuous project of the American Dialect Society for many years, is devoted to the documentation of words and expressions used in American English. Although the project has employed (and continues to employ) many field workers, there are occasional gaps in the evidence collected for attested usage and occurrence of the thousands of lexical and grammatical citations. VERBATIM readers can help by answering the queries we plan to publish from time to time. You can also help by sending contributions of financial support.

All correspondence regarding DARE should be sent directly to:

Professor Frederick G. Cassidy

Director—Editor D.A.R.E.

6125 Helen C. White Hall

University of Wisconsin

Madison, WI 53706

Please mention VERBATIM when you write. Any information you can contribute will be acknowledged in DARE.

In providing the requested information, please document (1) where the word was or is in use, (2) when, (3) by what kind of persons, (4) in what circumstances, and (5) the meaning.

From farm publications in the upper Midwest we find that the long-established silage (winter feed stored in a silo) has produced analogical progeny: haylage, oatlage, cornlage. No doubt there are others we have not harvested. Are these actually farmers' words, or something invented by the farm journalists, the silo salesmen, or somebody else? Also, they’re expectable in the dairy belt. Are they used anywhere else?

What words do you have for a very hot day? One of our favorites hails from central-western Tennessee: it’s a corntwister. And if this kind of weather continues for quite a spell, corn-twister may mean a drought. Also, from southeastern Wisconsin, “It’s a day for a carp roast.” (No similes, please—they are innumerable.)

Some things from the past ought, on their merits, to continue in use—for example (from 1912) to corple out a piece of pie, which means to take it out clumsily, breaking and messing it up in the process. Is this still in use, or remembered anywhere? It strikes us as the kind of word in which the sound suits the action perfectly.

In the high old times when Bourbon County, Ky., was being surveyed (around 1800) the surveyors took conveniently placed trees as “corners” from which to make their measurements. The greatest favorite was the “sugar tree” (maple), next to that buckeye, then hickory, various kinds of ash, honey locust, oak, hackberry, walnut, and so on. Bettywood is recorded thirteen times between 1798 and 1817, but in no case is an alternative name or other identification given. This has been one of our most teasing problems. Our botanical consultants are baffled. Is any reader interested in the history of surveying—or the history of botany, for that matter? Or Bourbon County, Kentucky? Who is Bettywood; what is she?

A formula for politely refusing more food at dinner, in these casual days no longer practiced, was reported as used by elderly people in northern Alabama, southern Wisconsin, and New Brunswick, Canada. The hostess asks, “Will you have some more—?' And the guest replies, “No thank you, my sufficiency is fully serancified. Any more would be súperflúous.” Other spellings are cironchified, surronchified, and suffoncified, which does not make it any easier to work out the etymology! There is some evidence pointing to Britain— perhaps specifically to Scotland—but I have found nothing in dictionaries to attach it to. Also, the Alabama correspondent insists that it was quite serious in actual use, even though it may have been humorized in the memory of younger people.

We want evidence on staying at a party or other meeting till the last dog is hung. That means till the very end, of course, but why hang the dogs? We have a theory but won’t tip our hand at this time. Any reader with something like hard evidence, please offer it.

From the second half of the nineteenth century come two meanings of dollar store: one, a store where relatively inexpensive goods are sold, and two, some kind of illegal business—gambling, prostitution—what? We’d like very much to track this one down. The area of use is not clear.

We have chiefly from the Southeast, and chiefly from Blacks, the phrase “there’s a dead cat on the line,” meaning exactly the same as Marcellus’s “Something is rotten in the state of Denmark.” But our metaphor is not clear. Are we to visualize a cat, a catfish, or something else? And on what kind of line? The possibilities are numerous. Evidence from the past, if obtainable, may solve this.

Children have a way of grasping another’s arm with both hands, then twisting in opposite directions. It hurts! This is known in southern California as giving an Indian burn; in eastern Wisconsin and Utah it’s a snake bite. Where else are these terms used, and what others are there for this form of torture?

The night before Halloween is mischief night when teenagers (mostly) go about performing acts of mild vandalism. It is also called cabbage night (CT, NJ, NY, WI), gate night (OH, PA), goosie night (neNJ), tick-tack night (wcNJ), and less often (also in NJ as mapped by R. F. Foster) mystery night and picket night. Is this “celebration” kept up elsewhere, and if so, under what name? A census from readers of VERBATIM could make an interesting nationwide map. Explanation of the names would also be welcome.

A letter from home, we find, is something, often something edible, sent to a person who has moved away. For example, a Chicago Black receives a watermelon and exclaims, “That’s a letter from home!” What other objects or situations elicit this phrase?

One of our sources says that burr clover (Medicago hispida) is also called in the Southwest jackass clover. We have our doubts; jackass clover is normally applied to Wislizenia refracta, quite a different plant. But people do confuse or transfer plant names. What’s the evidence on this one?

EPISTOLA {Robert Devereux}

I was most interested in Sterling Eisiminger’s “Colorful Language” [VI, 1], for the simple reason that he cited several examples from Turkish. It is seldom indeed that I come across any English-language writer who cites linguistic examples taken from Turkish, which seems to be largely an unknown language except in certain academic circles. I think that a few comments on his Turkish examples are not inappropriate and might be of some interest to VERBATIM readers.

His first example is kizilbas, which he defines as ‘red woman.’ That could conceivably be a valid definition, albeit a rather forced one. Kizilbas (lit: ‘red head’) is a term originally used for a member of a certain Shiite dervish sect or a member of a specific military class in the army of Shah Ismail (d. 1524) of Persia. In both cases, the term was purely descriptive and derived from the red turbans worn by the people concerned. Because of the dissolute habits of the Kizilbaslar, the term eventually became applicable to any person of loose moral habits, male or female. Thus, by no stretch of the imagination can the use of kizil in kizilbas be construed to mean that kizil has any inherent meaning of amorousness in Turkish, as Eisiminger asserts. This is not to say that kizil does not have non-color connotations. To cite only two examples: kizil deli (lit: red madman), meaning ‘raving maniac,’ and kizil kiyamet (lit: ‘red uproar’), meaning ‘fearful uproar’ or ‘terrible tumult.’

Eisiminger’s second example is saricizmeli, which he defines as ‘yellow.’ Actually it means ‘yellow-booted’ or ‘someone wearing yellow boots.’ The word is encountered, almost without excepton, in the phrase saricizmeli Mehmed Aĝa (lit: ‘yellow-booted Mehmed Agha’). [Mehmed Agha used to be the Turkish equivalent of the British Tommy Atkins and the American G.I. Joe.] In Turkish it is used as a term of derision applied to an utterly unknown character or, as Eisiminger puts it, a ‘nobody.’

Eisiminger’s third example is yeşillenmek, which he defines as ‘to be green.’ Actually it means ‘to become green’; ‘to be green’ is yeşil olmak. He correctly gives its extended meaning as ‘to be sexually aroused.’

Eisiminger comments in his article that in most languages white generally has positive connotations and black negative ones. This is true also in Turkish. For example, yüz aki (lit: ‘white of face’) and yüz karasi (lit: ‘black of face’) mean, respectively, ‘honor’ and ‘dishonor.’ The terms can also be used adjectively: akyüzlü ‘honorable’ and karayüzlü ‘dishonorable,’ ‘disgraceful.’ The use of kara ‘black’ in Turkish idioms to convey a negative connotation is especially common, for example: kara haber ‘black news’ meaning news of disaster or death; kara kiş (lit: ‘black winter’), meaning severe winter or depth of winter; kara yazi (lit: ‘black writing’), meaning evil fate or ill luck. Some Turkish verbs also reflect this usage, for example, aklatmak (lit: ‘to make white’) and aklanmak ‘to be whitened’ are used to mean, respectively, ‘to acquit’ or ‘rehabilitate’ and ‘to be acquitted.’ As another example: akla karayi seçmek (lit: ‘to separate the white from the black’) is used to mean ‘to distinguish between good and evil’ or ‘to distinguish between the easy and the difficult.’

To return to Eisiminger’s article, I would like to make one final comment. He writes: “To be essere al verde ‘in the green’ in Italian is ‘to be in the (English) red,’ that is, in debt.” I must dispute that definition and, on the basis of eight years' residence in Italy, assert that the phrase actually means “to be broke, to be penniless or to be at the end of one’s resources.” The Cambridge Italian Dictionary (Cambridge, 1962), p. 856, supports me in that contention.

[Robert Devereux, Falls Church, Virginia]

EPISTOLA {P.K. Saha}

Sterling Eisiminger’s “Colorful Language” [VI, 1] contains fascinating information, but the translations/interpretations of the Bengali phrases cited are not accurate enough. As a native speaker of Bengali, I would suggest changes as indicated below:

Sharshe phul dekha means (literally) ‘to see mustard flowers.’ Mustard flowers are, of course, yellow; so Mr. Eisiminger’s ‘to see yellow’ is not misleading. However, his interpretation (that the idiom means “to lapse into unconsciousness”) is questionable. Sharshe phul dekha is the equivalent of English to see stars. One may “see stars” upon being stunned by a blow without necessarily lapsing into unconsciousness.
rage nil is definitely not ‘scared blue.’ Rag means anger in Bengali, not fear. The -e is a suffix that is roughly the equivalent of the English preposition “in” (or “with”). So “enraged blue” or “blue with anger” would be the appropriate translation.
rage lal is not ‘yellow and red’ as claimed by Mr. Eisiminger. Since lal means red in Bengali, the logic of (2) indicates that the phrase should be translated as “enraged red” or “red with anger.” Curiously enough, in this second use of rage Mr. Eisiminger does note that rag means anger. In the earlier example he took it to mean fear. The other important point is that since there is no reference to the color yellow in this phrase (and red is the only color involved), one cannot use rage lal as an example of compound colors. The paragraph in which Mr. Eisiminger uses this phrase happens to be devoted to compound colors and so this example simply does not belong with the examples of compound colors.

[P.K. Saha, Case Western Reserve University Cleveland, Ohio]

EPISTOLA {Alison Finch}

I believe the runic futharc contained a letter having the sound ‘th’ which lingered in medieval manuscript for some centuries after the otherwise total conquest by the Mediterranean alphabet. This very useful letter was similar in appearance to the y of the alphabet, and it remains with us in England to this day in the legend “Ye Olde Englisshe Tea Shoppe.”

Tea drinking was, of course, only introduced into this country in 1645, by the crafty Dutch, who probably already had a premonition of the loss of New Amsterdam and hoped to cause us a spot of bother, eventually, at Boston.

By the way, I notice that Sir John Suckling (1609-42) spells again ‘agen’ but rhymes it with ‘in.’ How awkward can you get! However, this pronunciation seems to remain in such expressions as “agin (meaning ‘against’) the Government”— which is what a great many of us seem to be at the moment.

[Alison Finch, Woodford Green, Essex]

Namesakes

Elaine von Bruns, Cambridge, Massachusetts

Namesakes pay tribute to their inventors and muses by carrying on their names. In this game, some of the subjects have assumed the names of people to whom they have no relation. Can you tell the true namesakes from the pretenders?

Examples:

SUBJECT PARENT TRUE FALSE

A) sachertorte Frau Sacher x —

This delectable offspring of a Viennese innkeeper was raised to pleasure the nobility.

B) cruller Lady Hildegard Crulle — x

Cruller’s playing the court lady; she gets a rise out of being frosted and powdered.

SUBJECT	PARENT	TRUE	FALSE
graham cracker	Sylvester Graham	—	—
saxophone	Antoine J. (also known as Adolph) Sax	—	—
trombone	Gerda Trumba	—	—
davenport	M.G. Davenport	—	—
hammock	Hammock R. Schlemmer	—	—
hansom	Joseph A. Hansom	—	—
victoria	Queen Victoria	—	—
schooner	Captain Nathaniel P. Schoon	—	—
watt	James Watt	—	—
macadam	John L. MacAdam	—	—
macadamia nut	John Macadam	—	—
filbert	Saint Philibert	—	—
bacon	Francis Bacon, Viscount St. Albans	—	—
silhouette	Etienne de Silhouette	—	—
daguerreo-type	M. Daguerre	—	—
duplex	Marie Duplessis, “Lady of the Camellias”	—	—
Listerine	Baron Joseph Lister of Lyme Regis	—	—
belladonna	A Beauteous Lady	—	—
boycott	Captain Charles C. Boycott	—	—
cardigan	James Thomas Brudennell	—	—
raglan	Fitzroy J.G. Somerset, Baron Raglan	—	—
mackintosh	Charles Mackintosh	—	—
abbey	Edward Austin Abbey	—	—
derby	Edward Stanley, 12th Earl of Derby	—	—
derrick	Derrick the Hangman	—	—
guillotine	Dr. Joseph Guillotin	—	—
frankfurter	Felix Frankfurter	—	—
sandwich	John Montagu, 4th Earl of Sandwich	—	—
marzipan	Giacomo Marzipani Marquess of Fondi	—	—
zeppelin	Count Ferdinand Von Zeppelin	—	—
calliope	Goddess Kalliope	—	—
juke box	Barnard K. Juke	—	—
poinsettia	Ambassador Joel Poinsett	—	—
zinnia	Johann G. Zinn	—	—
aster	Mary Astor	—	—
begonia	Michel Begon	—	—
gardenia	Alexander Garden	—	—
sweet william	William Taft	—	—
crapper	Thomas Crapper	—	—
martinet	Saint Martin	—	—
marionette	The Virgin Mary	—	—
simonize	Baron Von Simolin	—	—
jelly roll	Jelly Roll Morton	—	—
pumper-nickel	Nicholas Pumper or Nicholas the Blockhead	—	—
anadama (bread)	Anna’s damning husband	—	—
spackle	Count Spacula	—	—

Scoring: Perfect score = 100. Deduct 2 points for each incorrect answer. Answers will be found on pp. 857-60.

Namesakes

Answers to the quiz on pp. 855-56.

graham cracker: Sylvester Graham — True
Reverend Sylvester Graham was an ascetic who advocated a diet devoid of sweets; his cracker namesake rebels by supporting jam sessions.
saxophone: Antoine J. (also known as — True
Adolph) Sax Saxophone was born when Antoine J. decided to blow his own horn.
trombone: Gerda Trumba — False
Trombone plays himself down by taking the name of a nobody.
davenport: M.G. Davenport — True
Davenport’s creator built him up just to let us down.
hammock: Hammock R. Schlemmer — False
Just because he’s a swinger, hammock thinks he can pass himself off as a child of this trendy New York store.
hansom: Joseph A. Hansom — True
Hansom owes its elegance of carriage to its architectinventor.
victoria: Queen Victoria — True
The Queen passed many happy hours with Albert in her canopied carriage namesake.
schooner: Capt. Nathaniel P. Schoon — False
Schooner’s name comes from scoon or ‘skim upon water,’ but he thinks he sounds racier as the son of a skipper.
watt: James Watt — True
Watt’s just one measure of his papa’s achievement.
macadam: John L. MacAdam — True
Macadam is the son of John who pulverized pebbles into roads and paved the way for the world’s first easy riders.
macadamia nut: John Macadam — True
These classy nuts were bred by another John Macadam, this one an Australian chemist with good taste.
filbert: Saint Philibert — True
Filbert is named for Abbot Philibert whose feast day, August 22, falls when the nuts do.
bacon: Francis Bacon, Viscount St. Albans — False
Bacon likes to ham it up as a philosopher’s son, but there’s no relationship between fatty and the lord who believed in bare-boned facts.
silhouette: Etienne de Silhouette — True
Silhouette was named after this finance minister because it’s as stingy with decoration as the minister was with expenditure.
daguerreotype: M. Daguerre — True
Another artful namesake, daguerreotype was the legitimate offspring of this 19th-century Parisian painter, but he could have been taken for just about anybody.
duplex: Marie Duplessis, “Lady of the Camellias” — False
Duplex wants to play Camille, but she’s more accommodating to Dicks and Harrys than to poets and princes.
Listerine: Baron Joseph Lister of Lyme Regis — True
Listerine’s the brainchild of a surgeon, but despite his antiseptic upbringing, people seldom brag of having him in their homes.
belladonna: A Beauteous Lady — True
The poisonous belladonna is named for an anonymous Italian beauty—perhaps the lethal Lucretia?
boycott: Captain Charles C. Boycott — True
Boycott is named for the landlord who was the first vic- tim of this strategy begun by the Irish Land League.
Cardigan: James Thomas Brudenell, — True
7th Earl of Cardigan Cardigan provided both a cover and an easy out when his Dad commanded in the Light Brigade.
raglan: Fitzroy J. H. Somerset, Baron Raglan — True
The Baron, another Light Brigader, gave his name to the raglans which protected his arms.
mackintosh: Charles Mackintosh — True
It took a Scotsman to keep the English as dry as their gin.
abbey: Edward Austin Abbey — False
Abbey, whose life is cloistered, wishes he were a part of the bohemian life, such as led by this expatriot American artist.
derby: Edward Stanley, 12th Earl of Derby — True
Derby considers it no handicap to be a thoroughbred race founded by sporty Earl Stanley.
derrick: Derrick the Hangman — True
Derrick kept his Dad’s name but took up a more constructive line of work.
guillotine: Dr. Joseph Guillotin — True
Less uplifting is guillotine, which followed the profession of his patron by becoming a specialist in amputation.
frankfurter: Felix Frankfurter — False
A dogged attempt to raise his station by claiming relation to a supreme court judge.
sandwich: John Montagu, 4th Earl — True
of Sandwich The Earl invented sandwiches so he could eat without leaving the whist table and so he could continue to con- centrate on his hand instead of on his knife and fork.
marzipan: Giacomo Marzipani, — False
Marquess of Fondi Marzipan’s really not so far off when he calls himself noble; his name originally meant “sitting king.”
zeppelin: Count Ferdinand Von Zeppelin — True
Zeppelin may have bombed out, but he still floats on air when he remembers his patrician papa.
calliope: Goddess Kalliope — True
Calliope lets out all stops in praise of her mother, the Muse of Eloquence.
juke box: Bernard K. Juke — False
Juke box’s name means ‘horrible noises’; how outrageous of him to pretend to human parentage!
poinsettia: Ambassador Joel Poinsett — True
This Carmen of shrubs so charmed the U.S. Ambassador to Mexico that he bestowed his name upon her.
zinnia: Johann G. Zinn — True
Zinnia, which blooms in many beds, is the flowerchild of botanist Zinn.
aster: Mary Astor — False
Aster’s got a Mayflower pedigree but would rather be known as the daughter of a star.
begonia: Michel Begon — True
“Be gone!” cried Begonia, when crossed, but once in bloom she was glad to acknowledge her creator, a French botanist and governor of Santo Domingo.
gardenia: Alexander Garden — True
Gardenia’s a snob; she’s sure her father founded flowerland.
sweet william: William Taft — False
Sweet William would rather be in the limelight as a president’s son than stuck away in some provincial garden.
crapper: Thomas Crapper — True
A humble fellow, crapper’s glad his Dad raised him to seat humanity.
martinet: Saint Martin — False
Sure he’d rather call himself after a saint; his father, General Martinet, one of Louis XIV’s drillmasters, was a dastardly disciplinarian.
marionette: The Virgin Mary — True
Marionette pulled strings to begin her career in the role of a diminutive Madonna.
simonize: Baron Von Simolin — True
Simonize waxes lyric about his baronial pater.
jelly roll: Jelly Roll Morton — False
This curvy sweety wants a jazzy daddy.
pumpernickel: Nicholas Pumper or — True
Nicholas the Blockhead People called Baker Pumper a dolt till his namesake made it big on the deli circuit.
anadama (bread): Anna’s damning husband — True
“Anna! Damn her!” swore her husband, when he found the bread box bare; his improvisation, however, deserves our blessing.
spackle: Count Spacula — False
Spackle fills holes while Dracula drills them; no wonder he pretends to be counted as highly.

EPISTOLA {Robert W. Wilkerson}

E. J. Moncada, in “Traduttore Traditore” [V,4], shows the first intelligent definitions of medical terms that I have ever seen, but he also shows a certain lack of knowledge of poker.

Phoresis he defines as ‘not as good as a full house.’ Phoresis is better than a full house though not as good as a straight flush.

[Robert W. Wilkerson, Chester, Connecticut]

[Similarly from G. J. Grieshaber, Cincinnati, Ohio, and Gerardo Joffe, San Francisco, California.]

Philip Howard on English English

Philip Howard

It must be a sign of the times. We seem to have stopped believing in Utopia and to need a word for its exact opposite. At any rate, in British political discourse there has recently been discovered a Disunited Nations of Dystopias and Cacotopias, meaning places or systems of government where everything is for the worst in the worst of all possible worlds: Nasty Nowheres, in fact, or possibly Democratic Kampucheas. Beware of governments that feel it necessary to describe themselves formally as democratic in their titles: they protest too much. Perhaps on this side of the diluted oil-pond we are becoming more pessimistic or even more realistic. An example of the new use is: “The modern classics—Aldous Huxley’s Brave New World and George Orwell’s Nineteen Eighty Four—are Dystopias. They describe not a world we should like to live in, but one we must be sure to avoid.” A Dystopia or Cacotopia is applied to visions of hell on earth like 1984 and Anthony Burgess’s Tucland.

These new vogue terms of rhetoric are politically interesting because of the need we evidently feel for such words in the tool-box of British English. They are linguistically interesting because of their charmingly eccentric derivation. Dystopia and Cacotopia are evidently children of Utopia, derived from the misapprehension that Sir Thomas More’s imaginary island republic was Eu-topia (Everything-in-the-garden-is-lovely-place) rather than Ou-topia (No-place, that is Nowhere or Never Never Land). Until now etymologists have judged that it was the latter. For one thing Ou-topia is impeccably derived from its Greek parent. Eu-topia is a barbarism, because it uses the adverb eu ‘well’ to qualify a noun, topos ‘place.’ The correct Greek for such a place would be Agathotopia or Kalotopia. In the same way the correct Greek for its opposite is Cacotopia, not Dystopia, since dys- is an inseparable prefix meaning the opposite of eu, and chiefly used adverbially. Dys- is like our un- or mis-, and always has the notion of ‘hard, bad, or unlucky,’ destroying the good sense of a word and increasing the bad. If an Ancient Greek wanted to qualify the noun topos he would have used the adjectival (Cacotopia) rather than the adverbial prefix (Dystopia).

However, we English-speakers have never felt bound to follow the semantic or grammatical rules of the languages from which we borrow. We breed barbarous Centaur words such as quadraphonics from Latin sires out of Greek dams— and perfectly good words they are. The “correct” alternatives—tessaraphonics or quadrivocals—are unattractive. We rear hybrids, such as the ragingly fashionable dysfunction, which is mere pretentious varium lectum for malfunction. And we abuse Greek adverbs to qualify nouns, as in euphoria; though I suspect that this may be correctly derived from the older English word euphory, in which eu is properly used to qualify a verb.

In fact both Dystopia and Cacotopia are quite respectably elderly arrivals into British English. Since the nineteenth century, they have been intermittently used by English writers for imaginary places or conditions in which everything is as as bad as possible. Dystopia is rather the more common; Cacotopia is the older. As you might have guessed, each seems to have been introduced into the language by a political philosopher. Jeremy Bentham wrote as early as 1818: “As a match for Utopia (or the imagined seat of the best government), suppose a Cacotopia (or the imagined seat of the worst government) discovered and described.” John Stuart Mill declaimed in a speech to the House of Commons in 1868: “It is, perhaps, too complimentary to call them Utopians, they ought rather to be called Dystopians, or Cacotopians. What is commonly called Utopian is something too good to be practicable; but what they appear to favour is too bad to be practicable.”

The interestingly faecal variant Cacatopia for Cacotopia appeared in almost the last issue of The Times. (May Lord Thomson’s vanished organ reappear soon—civilized life is unviable, as we trendies say these days, without it). Cacatopia with three *a'*s has no connexion with the Greek kakos. Its derivation is obviously from the French caca (whose meaning can be found in any decent French dictionary) and the Greek topos. Broadly and loosely this macaronic (or is it mock ironic?) hybrid means ‘a place that is in a ghastly mess, or Shitland.’ At times during the past year hardened and shameless pessimists have been driven to thinking of modern Britain as Cacatopia made real.

German sages seem especially inclined to think of Utopia as a Eu rather than an Ou place. A memorial notice to the late Ernst Bloch in The late Times pointed out that according to Bloch “Utopia is not ‘nowhere.’ It is that indispensable tomorrow, the practicable ideal at which we aim.” The German theologian Jurgen Moltmann has written of the necessity of devising “concrete Utopias,” i.e., plans for the reform of society.

The ambiguity between Ou and Eu (Nowhere and Lovelywhere) is actually useful and pretty, rather than a mere misunderstanding of More’s Utopia, where Communism is the general law, a national system of education is extended to men and women alike, and the freest toleration of religion is recognized. How different, how very different from life under Henry VIII!

The pun has long been recognized. An author of 1610 wrote in a dedication to a translation of St. Augustine’s City of God: “Then of a devised country scarce on earth, now of a desired City sure in heaven; then of Utopia, now of Eutopia.” It can be argued that Thomas Mre himself gives authority for the coinages Dystopia and Cacotopia, since he represents the island of Utopia as saying: “The ancients called me Utopia or Nowhere because of my isolation. At present, however, I am a rival of Plato’s Republic, perhaps even a victor over it. The reason is that what he has delineated in words I alone have exhibited in men and resources and laws of surpassing excellence. Deservedly ought I to be called by the name of Eutopia or Happy Land.” Welcome aboard the good ship British English, Dystopia and Cacotopia. We need you.

OBITER DICTA: Ad Lib

In the old days, being a good conversationalist was an asset that ensured frequent invitations to vernissages, soirées, thés dansants, levées, and other sophisticated-sounding social events. With the departure of yore and the advent of radio, television, hi-fi, and other canned, frozen, and otherwise packaged “entertainment,” it is not difficult to understand how the art of conversation may have become obsolete. Notwithstanding, Madison Avenue has recently embarked on an approach in television commercials that pretends to simulate “real life” by the staging of “dramatizations.” The trouble is that a few years ago, probably in response to some FCC ruling, certain “situations” (I don’t know what else to call them) had to be labeled “A DRAMATIZATION” on the screen. Perhaps that requirement was restricted to showing men in white coats with stethoscopes, pretending to be doctors.

Today, however, the “situations” are not so labeled, and every other commercial is structured as a dramatic encounter. They are patently so inane (I hope) that we are not supposed to believe them, but I worry about the more gullible among us. Typically, “conversations” are held in supermarkets, taxicabs, bathrooms, laundries, boudoirs, gym lockers, and other places that real people frequent or visit now and then. Women, sometimes men, and occasionally children are in the dramatis personae. The astonishing thing is that Mad Ave would have us believe that a cross-section of our population stands about discussing (and often arguing over) detergents, cat and dog foods, hair colorings, shampoos, deodorants, paper towels, toilet paper, sanitary napkins, and other merchandise. Some oaf is always squeezing the Charmin; an abrasive mother insists that Aim does contain fluoride and that Billy is brushing longer because he likes the taste; a rather demure young thing confides in another d.y.t. that Stay-Free Maxi Pads are what she needs (in front of millions of viewers—What does her mother think!); families are interviewed about their laundry and (inevitably) decide that they prefer it clean; wives offer (usually wrong) opinions about whether their husbands would express a preference for soft “bathroom tissue” (who needs sandpapery toilet paper?) or for Stove Top Stuffing over potatoes, and so on.

If all that isn’t enough, we are told that we ought to drink Harvey’s Bristol Cream Sherry because it’s “respectable” (“It’s downright upright” say the ads, but you won’t be if you drink too much of it). “Chevy Citation has room for 30 bags of groceries and two adults”: any adult who would buy 30 bags of groceries at once must be quite adolescent, very wealthy, or awfully hungry. One that is a misnomer is the Potscrubber dishwasher, since scrub means to ‘rub hard’ with or against something while washing, and everyone knows that no such activity is going on inside a dishwasher even if one can’t see inside when the door is closed. “Dash outcleans all leading liquids”: the key word is, of course, leading, leading us to understand that many off-brands, probably cheaper, outclean Dash.

But my favorite is Omega. About 30 years ago, The New Yorker, in “Talk of the Town,” ran a piece by someone who complained about advertisers' enunciation. One example I recall was of Piels beer, in which the writer had great difficulty understanding the penultimate line. For him it sounded like, “Nasty bandit that’s my name. /Piel’s light beer of Broadway fame.” Omega (the car, not the watch) is currently using a slogan that sounds to me like, “The small car just threw up.”

Concerning Aspersions

Russell DaSilva, The Harvard Law School

In the romance of the English language, the shortest episode by far will be devoted to aspersions. Aspersion is a pitiful word. It is of undistinguished melody; it noticeably lacks grace; and it suffers from a paucity of uses. Aspersions, in fact, may be the most useless of all verbal weapons. You cannot think an aspersion. You cannot make one, inflame one, or trigger one. Indeed, there is virtually nothing that one can ever do with an aspersion except cast it.

Consider the doubt, that noblest of all human faculties. In addition to being cast, a doubt may be had, harbored, cultivated, voiced, and eventually even dispelled. The careful speaker will notice that he can remove all doubt, let there be no doubt, or simply go without a doubt. A Thomas can even append doubt to his name. But the aspersion can do nothing but be cast.

The underutilization of the aspersion is an unjust and invidious discrimination, for its brethren exhibit a multiplicity of virtuous and imaginative uses. A grudge, for example, may be borne, but one never bears an aspersion. An inference may be drawn, but an aspersion never can be. Unlike an innuendo, an aspersion cannot be dropped; unlike an insult, an aspersion cannot be hurled. No, an aspersion must be cast, or be nothing at all.

It is every person’s prerogative, yea duty, to invent new uses for this much-neglected species of disaffection. A few suggestions follow:

I have an aspersion to big dogs.

Take two aspersions and go to bed.

This vacuum-cleaner is broken; it has no aspersion.

I enjoy such aspersions as swimming and tennis.

Her aspersion is to be a clinical psychologist.

In the hall was aspersion rug.

Mantic Mania

Robert Devereux, Falls Church, Virginia

Since the dawn of recorded history, and probably even before then, man has been curious about the future and has explored countless ways to penetrate its mysteries. Most frequently he has looked to the heavens and the movement of the heavenly bodies, thus giving rise to the “science” of astrology (as well as to its lesser known sister “science,” genethlialogy). Despite its preeminence and antiquity, however, astrology has never had a monopoly on man’s mantic efforts. Other paths of inquiry have led to the practice of, for example, cleromancy, sciomancy, crystallomancy, alphitomancy, and spodomancy, to name only a few.

Investigation reveals, in fact, that at one time or another, man has indulged in a great variety of different types of divination that involved an equal number of objects, or methods, or both. The objects and methods used seem most impractical to the modern pragmatic and scientific-oriented mind as a means of forecasting the future. Yet, each has been used as a basis for a pythonic system practiced sufficiently in time or geographic area that some anthropologist, historian, or lexicographer has felt obliged to confer on it a distinctive name or, perhaps more accurately, to record the distinctive term used for such system.

The names of divination systems comprise in English a relatively large and distinctive group of words ending in -mancy, a combining form meaning ‘divination.’ But since nothing in the English language is ever without exceptions, two cautionary observations are in order. First, not all words ending in -mancy are names of divination systems; aldermancy and psychomancy are good examples. Secondly, there are a number of divination systems whose names end in something other than -mancy. Astrology and genethlialogy have already been mentioned. Others include, for example, chirognomy, chiroscopy, haruspicy (or haruspication), hieroscopy, horoscopy, keraunoscopy, omoplatoscopy, orniscopy and palmistry.

Another aspect of mantic terminology that perhaps merits mentioning is that it includes a considerable number of synonyms. For example, chiromancy, chirognomy, chirosophy, and palmistry are all words to describe the same mantic system. Other sets of synonyms include, in addition to the aforementioned haruspicy and haruspication: caloptromancy and enoptromancy; spodomancy and tephramancy (or tephromancy); alectryomancy and alectoromancy; astromancy and sideromancy; crystallomancy and gastromancy; hieromancy and hieroscopy; necromancy and sciomancy; ornithomancy and orniscopy; and scapulimancy and omoplatoscopy. The other side of the coin is represented by gastromancy, which is not only a synonym for crystallomancy but also the term for divination by ventriloquism.

Since readers of VERBATIM can reasonably be assumed to have more than ordinary interest in words, they are invited to test their knowledge of mantic terminology by matching up the following list of names of 20 mantic systems with the companion list of the objects/methods used therefor. Answers will be found below.

NAME OF SYSTEM	THING ANALYZED/OBSERVED OR MODE OF DIVINATION
alectryomancy	livers of sacrificial animals
anthropomancy	arrows drawn at random from a quiver or other holder
axinomancy	clouds
belomancy	rooster selecting grains of food placed on letters of the alphabet
capnomancy	dreams
halomancy	entrails of sacrificed victims
haruspicy	feces
hepatoscopy	fingernails or claws
lecanomancy	fire or forms appearing in fire
myomancy	flight or other characteristics of birds
nephelomancy	human entrails
oneiromancy	lines or passages of a book
onychomancy	movement supposedly toward a guilty person or piece of agate or jet placed upon a heated ax-head
ornithomancy	movements of mice
pedomancy	salt
pyromancy	shoulder blades, usually blotched or cracked by fire
scapulimancy	smoke, when victims sacrificed by fire
scatomancy	soles of the feet
sideromancy	straws burning on hot iron
stichomancy	water in a basin

1.(4)
2.(11)
3.(13)
4.(2)
5.(17)
6.(15)
7.(6)
8.(1)
9.(20)
10.(14)
11.(3) 12.(5)
13.(8)
14.(10)
15.(18)
16.(9)
17.(16)
18.(7)
19.(19)
20.(12)

EPISTOLA {David Gallop}

Noel Perrin [V,2] explains the absence of a verb ‘to greenlight’ by saying that verbs created in the twentieth century, without exception, conjugate regularly, whereas ‘light’ still conjugates in its original form: ‘Subconsciously we know that if we make “greenlight” a verb, we are going to wind up with a past tense of either greenlighted or greenlit, and both sound wrong.’

Can this explanation be correct?

(1) ‘Light’ has alternative past tenses ‘lighted’ or ‘lit.’ So why should we not form a past tense ‘greenlighted’ conforming with the supposed rule for new verbs? Compare the past tenses of ‘to moonlight,’ ‘to highlight’ and ‘to spotlight.’

(2) It is untrue that all verbs created in the twentieth century ‘without exception’ conjugate regularly. ‘Baby-sit’ makes ‘baby-sat.’ Thirty years ago that would probably have sounded wrong, but a subconscious aversion to it did not prevent ‘baby-sit’ from being created.

[David Gallop, Peterborough, Ontario]

EPISTOLA {Arthur A. Hale}

You refer [V, 4] to Napoleon Hill as having referred to a non-sizzling steak. It is entirely possible that he had indeed made such a reference since a positive thinking contemporary of his made the phrase famous. It was “Sell the sizzle, not the steak” and the man that originally popularized it was Elmer Wheeler. One of Mr. Wheeler’s books (published by Prentice-Hall) is How to Make Your Sales Sizzle In 17 Days, and it may very well have been the one that initially popularized the phrase.

Thanks for your interesting mental “chin-ups”—VERBATIM is certainly a pleasure to receive.

[Arthur A. Hale, Encyclopaedia Britannica]

Juncture: Where It Sat

Robert A. Fowkes, New York University

Many linguists have, with or without a surgeon’s license, operated in the past with the term juncture; at present such linguists appear to have a dim future. Nevertheless, whether the name of the phenomenon makes any great sense or not, its existence can hardly be denied. In English it helps make possible the distinction between

my keys and Mikey’s
John and Pete’s mother and John and Pete smother
the candlesticks and the candle sticks
trumpet and trump it
Riley and wrily
giant size and giant’s eyes

and (the favorite stock-in-trade) nitrate and night rate.

The actual phonetic nature of juncture can consist of several minor features. In night rate the first t is clearly different from the first t in nitrate, for example. In Riley and wrily the vowel sounds (actually diphthongs) of the first syllables are different from each other. There are also concomitant variations in pitch, in stress, in intonation, and perhaps in tension. Very old-fashioned linguists spoke of “open juncture” (my + keys) versus “close juncture” (Mikey’s). Professor C. F. Hockett used “sharp transition” and “muddy transition” for open and close juncture respectively.

The following examples come to mind, most of them actually having been heard, although one or two are the product of a wild imagination:

Michael row the boat ashore (he will?)
I’ll leave ‘n’ say goodbye (I’ll even…)
She’s now in the low weighties(low 80’s)
He’s a relic of the dock cages (Dark Ages)
The arrival of a rival in the Middle Least
The cost of futilities is too high these days
Miss Steak of 1976 (the hypothetical local
queen of the Butcher’s Union answered to that title)

A neighbor of mine went to a performance of The Omen of the God. Other disjunctured titles that come to mind are:

Hawk’ll Bury Finn
Allover Twist
Venue Come to the Andover Perfect Day
Back an alien revelry (Bacchanalian…)
Bar dye (barred i)
Bone ash/Beau Nash/bow gnash
A lot of ice/a lotta vice
He enjoyed a sport snooze during the sports news.
Day is Dying in the West. (Dey is?)
These speeches/peaches kill me.
My life’s tory
My life’s pan
My life’s candle
Avoid Tudor wise
How are you? Dantesque! (Don’t ask!)
Don Q! (You’re welcome—a rum reply.)
The proposition that tall men are created equal.
The malicious militias on both sides.
Boilers re-cored. (and Beatles record?)
On Brotherhood Day we welcome a brother hood.
A broad in America
Monica Vauley Sir Veighs (Monarch of all…)

Herb Oscar Anderson (on radio station WOR, New York City) is called by his colleagues several times a day, “Her Bosker Anderson.” Finally, one cannot resist imparting an unabashed transglottal monstrosity overheard in Washington Square Park: Ombra your own foo!—apparently as a reply to Handel’s Largo: Ombra mai fu.

OBITER DICTA: An Herd or A Nerd?

It would appear that Americans have lately been afflicted by a touch of Cockneyitis. Otherwise, how can we explain the increasing affectation of an before words that begin with an h (or should that be “a h”?). In recent years, we have recorded such examples as an hospital, an hotel, an harmonious chord, etc. However, combinations like *an hotplate, *an house, and *an whore are noticeably absent. Could you imagine “An House is Not an Home”?

Since the “rules” of an specify that it is used before words whose pronunciation begins with anything but a consonant (including h, l, r, w, y), the appearance of it preceding h must be chalked up to affectation. There are some words, like herb, in which the h is pronounced in British English but not in American (where it is almost a mark of illiteracy, as a spelling pronunciation—a neat contradiction), but they are rare.

Comments from readers are welcome.

Say, You Have a Point There, I Guess

Donald R. Morris, The Houston Post

I’ve just finished reviewing a novel by an Englishman, who will remain nameless. It wasn’t a bad novel, except for the two Americans in it. You could tell they were Americans, because they began just about every sentence with “Say,” or “I guess.”

We all know, of course, that there are enormous differences in vocabulary, spelling, idiom, accent, and grammar between American and British English, and equally great regional and class variations within both, but there is a dearth of material on the misconceptions reasonably intelligent and literate Englishmen and Americans hold about how others speak their language.

The number of American writers given to indicating British origins by having their characters use “I say!” is far exceeded by the number of Englishmen who seem to think all Americans start the majority of their sentences with “Say,” or “I guess.” This is, at least partially, a simple literary convention, but it is a device that has been worked to death by authors from Percival Christopher Wren to Nevil Shute, who was not noted for his tin ear.

Americans do indeed use these expressions to open sentences, but they have extraordinarily precise nuances.

As an opener, Say, is a mild apology. It may be used for opening a conversation with a total stranger, as in “Say, have you got a light?” In this case it is more often than not slurred and serves almost as a prefix for the following word. In the course of a going conversation it apologizes for an abrupt but necessary change of subject—“Say, what time is it, anyway?” It is, in short, a bridging device. As an intensifier—“Say! that was some game!”—it would appear to have lost most of whatever currency it may once have had, except in English fiction.

I guess has even a more limited use. It indicates grudging acquiescence, in effect saying “I don’t really agree or approve, but will go along for the moment even though I am not prepared to give a precise reason.” A child wanting to visit a neighbor shortly before dinner might be told “I guess it’s all right.” A person being talked into or out of something by a logical chain of steps would answer “Right?” with “I guess so,” indicating both concession of the point but resistance to the overall argument. Although it would be understood, the meaning of “I have casually decided” for “I guess” (“I guess I’ll have dinner now,” “I guess I’ll be going”) never really had much currency in colloquial American English. It was, in fact, a literary convention even in written English, indicating the speaker was a hick or rube. In that context it can be found as “I reckon” or even “I calculate,” a form invariably associated with shrewd Yankee farmers. It is doubtful if these variations ever had colloquial currency; they sound like literary clichés. (There was, in fact, an entire world of American humor which depended initially on urban-rural stereotypes, then switched to a stereotype in which the rural type was actually shrewder than the urban type, and then finally died out.)

Another overworked English literary device is the use of sure for certainly, as in “I’d sure like to meet him” (or even more deliberately, “I sure would like to meet him”). Sure is, indeed, an American colloquialism (it sure is), but it is not used to the extent or in exactly the fashion in which it appears in English fiction. The sure would combination, in fact, rarely appears even colloquially, but does appear in American fiction as a regionalism, to indicate “Western” speech!

American writers, of course, have their own conventions to indicate nationality, some more valid than others. German nationality is signaled by Ach for an opener, and “th” rendered as “d,” as in “Ach! Dis is de place!” French origins are indicated by substituting “z” for “th” — “Zis is ze place.” This is reasonably accurate, because “th” does not exist in either German or French, phonetically, and for some odd reason Germans do render it “d” and Frenchmen “z” when they encounter it in foreign words. I say odd, because a number of words do start with the th combination in both languages, but in all cases both languages pronounce it with a simple aspirated “t”: one would consequently expect both to render the or this as “tuh” or “tiss.” Some of the more hilarious passages in philological literature appear in French and German texts on how to pronounce English th. Most recommend imagining one has a small bit of thread adhering to the upper side of the tip of the tongue, and attempting to blow it off.

American (and English) convention also indicates Chinese origin by substituting “l” for “r” (“velly solly”) and Japanese by substituting “r” for “l” (“Ritter Sir Echo, How do you do, Haro, Haro, Haro-o”). This was not particularly accurate to begin with, and has almost disappeared due to recent revulsion at the notion of unnecessary ethnic indications. (Heaven help an American writer who either denies the validity of Black Standard English or dares render it phonetically in fiction.) The problem with the Oriental languages stems from the fact that “l” and “r” are both liquids and more closely related phonetically than English speakers realize. Chinese does not really have a proper “r,” while in Japanese the two verge on (but do not reach) interchangeability. Japanese, in fact, have much more difficulty with English “ch” in certain positions and with English “f,” since what passes for “f” in Japanese is really an explosively aspirated “h!” Japanese will go to extraordinary lengths to avoid having to introduce people with names like “Ralph Cheif” to others.

Other conventions are used besides phonetic ones. American writers will frequently change word order to indicate a foreigner is speaking, but this usually gets out of hand unless the writer has good control of the language involved. Foreigners do make mistakes in idiom and word order, almost invariably because they are translating verbatim from their native languages. A number of French adjectives have different meanings depending on whether they appear before or after the nouns they modify; Germans tend to put the verb last and to make heavy use of verbal phrase modifiers. (Mark Twain, in an essay on the German language, tells of a reporter who called his editor to report a fire and finds the paper has the story set in type before he gets to the verb; his example of verbal modifiers is along the lines of an “across the street walking, to me known, fur-coat wearing, to the Burgomeister married, to her friend talking woman.”)

In an otherwise superior novel, Andersonville, MacKinlay Kantor portrays the hapless camp commander Wirz, a German-speaking Swiss, as using broken English, but neither the phonetics, the vocabulary nor the word order correspond to the patterns to be expected, nor is Kantor’s use consistent. This flaw, apparently, only bothered readers with a knowledge of German. Further national stereotypes can be found in exclamations. There is a tendency to assign “hunh?”, “eh?”, “hein?” and “ja?” to Americans, English, French, and Germans respectively, although all four spellings represent almost precisely the same phonetic value!

A remarkable example of stereotyping appears in the motion picture, “The Desert Fox,” in which James Mason portrays the German general Erwin Rommel. At that period (1951, and a sequel in 1953), it was customary to show German officers speaking English to each other, with a slight accent, except that universally recognized phrases would be left in German, such as the snappy, “Jawohl, Herr General!” that accompanied the heel-clicking salutes. It was my great good fortune to see “The Desert Fox” in Bremen, with a German soundtrack dubbed in. The audience accepted the show with good grace—a few snickers were justified now and again. The English officers, however, now spoke accented German until they saluted each other, when I was astonished to discover that what they said to each other was “Yasoup!” (There was also a John Ford Western with a German soundtrack in which an Indian enters a parley, raises his hand and in a deep monotone intones “Wie geht’s.”)

Beyond the thickets of national stereotypes lies the quagmire of social gradations. This can be muddy even when a writer stays within his own culture, and turns into quicksand when he shifts to another. The spread of such concepts as universal equality and classlessness has led to acute discomfort over the dichotomy between the way things are and the way we would like to think they are, and writers avoid what was once a plot staple of coupling extreme wealth and poverty in a love match.

England, even to this day, has retained somewhat more rigid class lines, although they no longer depend on wealth. They are marked by linguistic usage—accent, vocabulary, and idiom as much as subject matter—and English writers are more at home in sorting out such nuances. Nevil Shute, for example, based perhaps a dozen novels on what Americans would regard as very slight class distinctions. His middle-class women were forever betraying their origins to upper-middle-class men by describing something as “ever so nice.” Another Shute convention to indicate middle-class origins was a desire to see a motion picture about which nothing is known except that it is “the new Bette Davis movie.” Shute, in fact, went so far as to introduce an American super-star of lower-middle-class origins into a novel (No Highway) which—except for the jarring presence of the super-star—is a small masterpiece of English class distinctions being played off against each other. The novel, retitled No. Highway in the Sky, was turned into an equally successful film, although Shute’s reactions to finding his absent-minded, ineffably British, protagonist portrayed by Jimmie Stewart and his American super-star by Marlene Dietrich can only be imagined. Shute was nothing if not bold: he once got away with putting an English protagonist not only into a small Western American town but right into an American family, and a number of his better novels were set in Australia.

Australians suffer horribly from English literary attentions. There is indeed an Australian accent (which most Americans can’t distinguish from what they think is a “British” accent), and it drives the English straight up the walls. Australians can usually live with Shute’s Australians, however, if only because he obviously admired them greatly and they are all sympathetic characters. He limits his administrations to a few exclamations— “Oh my word” for everything from surprise to sarcasm—and to such slang as crook, dinky-die, cobber, and the like. He leaves the accent alone, which is probably just as well.

John Masters, in Bhowani Junction, brings off a tour de force. He tells a story in the first person as seen by four people of radically different ethnic, social, and educational back-grounds—one of them a woman. Two of the men, an upper-class Indian and an English Colonel, share a British university education, and they have a private joke of using pip-pip!, I say, and stiff upper lip expressions to each other. A third character, an Anglo-Indian, has never seen England and is not university-educated. He has, however, been raised in a culture that desperately wishes to distance itself from the indigenous Indian culture and slavishly apes what it regards as authentic English dress, behavior, usages, and speech. The pip-pip! business is actually his natural mode of speech, and for the life of him he can’t understand why the other two use it and find it humorous. Even more impressive is the manner in which this character is developed; he starts as a pathetic and decidedly unsympathic figure and is gradually turned into an admirable and heroic protagonist; the subtle play with the speech forms plays as great a role in this process as the plot structure. But Masters, despite his finely attuned ear and years of residence in America, makes a spectacular failure in a later novel trying to portray an excruciatingly unreal slangy American racketeer. Ne sutor supra crepidam.

One of the best English ears belongs to Nicholas Monsarrat. The Cruel Sea presents a ship’s company drawn from all manner of social backgrounds—there is even a convincing (although not sympathetic) Australian. This lot is transferred to the Brooklyn Navy Yard while their corvette is overhauled, and Monsarrat bounces his characters off a number of Americans in a hilarious and flawless series of anecdotes. These score not only linguistic usages but national characters and values as well.

At the other end of the scale must be placed the nameless scripter who attempted to insert a couple of Americans into the otherwise superb television series based on The Forsyte Saga. The exquisite horror of the dialogue was compounded by the casting director, who assigned the parts to a brace of unutterably English actors.

America is slowly improving, although only a foreigner born and bred can tell us how far we have gotten out of the woods. The worst of the Hollywood stereotypes are fading, although the Never-Never Lands of British India and African jungle live on, thanks to the late show, in millions of minds.

But Americans and English working in English are not the only offenders, as anyone who has ever seen as Italian Western can testify. Some such works, by resolutely ignoring reality, rise above their origins—as Brecht did in Die Dreigroschen Roman, which (in German) was a novel before it was an opera. This is one German’s invincibly Teutonic notion of what lower-class Victorian London was really like, and those interested in cultural goulash might try tracing back what the English-version “Mack the Knife” owes to Victorian England, to Germany—and to John Gay’s world.

There is also Sartre’s awesomely bad effort to portray class and race relationships in a small town in the American South. This isn’t a French version of Uncle Tom’s Cabin—Sartre was writing about contemporary America in 1946. Do not, ever attempt to explain to a Frenchman that La Putain Respectueuse is anything less than a clinically accurate portrayal of The Way It Really Is, to this very day. It can’t be done.

Pip pip, ta, or ciao, y’all.

Notes Found in Bottles

Deborah Wing

Location of find: The Bermuda Triangle

Inscription: “Same old story; the word gets out and they flock!

—Judge Crater”

BIBLIOGRAPHIA: Dictionary Of Business And Management

Jerry M. Rosenberg, (John Wiley & Sons, 1978), xii + 564pp.

The easiest challenge to any dictionary is to point out what has been left out; and it is dubious praise to indicate what has been put in. Experienced compilers know the agony attached to headword selection and to comment on the ins and outs seems ungentlemanly. But Professor Rosenberg states in his preface that this reference book is intended for “the experienced person who demands precise information …and the newcomer, support member, teacher, or student who seeks general explanations.” Having so defined his target his book becomes fair game for measuring the results against the criteria.

Titled Dictionary of Business and Management—I wonder if it shouldn’t have been either Dictionary for Business and Management or Dictionary of Business and Management Terms—it contains words like experiment and fad, which have here been defined in understandably general terms because of their remote business connotations and should have relinquished their space to terms like distribution curve, microfiche, and nationalization: all are missing and each has greater relevance to business. The possible retort that “you can’t include everything” would be reasonable had the unnecessary been excluded.

There is a great deal of useful information derived from a wide range of business activities. No attempt has been made to provide all-encompassing definitions and quite right, too, since the content is intended for business reference only. Professor Rosenberg has wisely not limited entries to single words but has included two- and three-word phrases that have established themselves in commercial language. He has also incorporated in the alphabetic body an occasional short encyclopedic entry for agencies or legislative acts that have interest for the business community. For instance, there are brief statements, descriptive rather than narrowly defining, on such subjects as the Advertising Council, Equal Pay Act of 1963, Railroad Retirement Act of 1935, Lloyds, and National Mediation Board. But then, inexplicably, there is a chronological Appendix M at the back of the book of “Major Business and Economic Events in the U.S. 1776-1978,” which offers the same kind of information about entirely different acts and events, but with no indication of the content unless the reader scans the entire Appendix to learn what has there been included. Having already included encyclopedic matter in the main part of the book, why could not the author have incorporated this Appendix into the A-Z section?

The various other appendices are for the most part well selected and useful. They cover equivalent measures, metric and English conversions, numerals, simple and compound interest tables, foreign currencies (mistitled “Foreign Exchange”), and schools having Graduate Business Study programs. Appendix L, a listing of quotations in one way or another concerned with businessmen, business activities, or business philosophy, is a bit of a curiosity. It is arranged alphabetically according to author with a helpful cross-reference by subject. But what is it doing in a dictionary? While much of it is delicious reading, why would someone looking for information or definitions regard it as useful? Moreover, the publishers must have been so distracted by the charm of these quotations that they failed to notice the running heads disappearing midway through this section and then reappearing as “Appendix M” instead of “L.”

The type selected for setting the book is unnecessarily large, resulting in a deplorable waste of space that might otherwise have allowed for a reduced number of pages (with a commensurate reduction in consumer cost) or an increase in content (with greater justification for the price). At $24.95 the book just doesn’t seem to be a good value. That’s a pity, because the opportunity to provide a truly worthwhile reference book appears to have been missed by a margin slight enough to provoke regrets.

The subject, however, merits attention, and for that reason alone I hope that this dictionary finds enough of a market to carry it to a second edition. The publisher might then be well advised to take steps to eliminate the shortcomings.

Gerald J. Morse

New York, New York

BIBLIOGRAPHIA: Linguistics And Bilingual Dictionaries

Ali M. Al-Kasimi, (E.J. Brill, Leiden, 1977), 131pp

The Bureau of Arabization in Morocco deals with urgent linguistic problems of a kind that most speakers of English are unacquainted with. The introduction of new technologies into the Arab world raises many questions about terminology.

Simultaneous introduction of a piece of machinery into Algeria and Egypt, for example, can mean that two quite different Arabic expressions (one derived from French, the other from English) can come into use having identical reference. Indeed, the same English or French original can itself give rise to more than one Arabic expression, some coined by direct borrowing of the original English or French expression, others by translation of its parts, and so on. If Arabic is to maintain its role as a major vehicle of international communication, there is clearly a need for some person or organization to give a lead in selecting certain expressions for preferred use throughout the Arab world and rejecting others. It is a need for a much more prescriptive attitude to language than is fashionable among English-speaking lexicographers and linguists. This is one of the functions of the Bureau of Arabization, one of whose leading scholars is Dr. Ali Al-Kasimi.

Dr. Al-Kasimi himself studied with Professor Archibald A. Hill at the University of Texas. He has thus been exposed to one of the classical schools of American linguistics. The range of his scholarship and reading on the subject of lexicography is particularly impressive. He is well placed to assess the relevance of linguistics to bilingual dictionaries, which he has done here in a carefully researched, thoughtful, and readable work. His views, as a speaker of Arabic, bring a particularly interesting perspective to bear on matters which many of us have previously considered only from the point of view of European languages. He makes us aware that English (and French to an even greater degree) is homogeneous when compared with a language such as Arabic, with its classical literary dialect and its wealth of vernacular versions.

The first principle of a lexicographer setting out to compile a new dictionary must be to consider the people for whom he is writing. Who is going to use the dictionary and for what purpose? All other theoretical considerations are secondary to this one. It is a practical principle that is to the forefront throughout Dr. Al-Kasimi’s evaluation of the relevance of linguistics to bilingual lexicography. He reminds us, for example, that a sizable bilingual dictionary should help its users to weed out improper usage and avoid translationisms. It is not enough for a dictionary to tell us that English year is French an or année; ideally, the dictionary should also indicate the French contexts in which an is more appropriate, those in which année would be preferred by a French speaker, and those in which they are interchangeable.

Dealing with problems of giving a guide to pronunciation, Dr. Al-Kasimi’s comment on a formula proposed by one of his former teachers is a model of reasonableness in considering the practical implications of academic thinking. Professor James Sledd has suggested that dictionaries should offer “one highly abstract underlying form from which all other dialectal pronunciations can be derived by applying the ordered phonetic rules of a transformational grammar.” “If Sledd’s doctrine is possible,” says Dr. Al-Kasimi, “Then… the dictionary should cite the pronunciation of a selected dialect from which other dialectal variations can be derived by applying the phonetic rules….” (My italics). Elsewhere, he says,“A lexicographer should do his best to spare the learner of the foreign language from any unnecessary difficulty.”

I would not like to give the impression that Dr. Al-Kasimi’s book is of use only to lexicographers and intending lexicographers. There is a section on typological classification of dictionaries which will be of considerable interest to librarians; scholars will find a wealth of useful and interesting examples of vocabulary, semantic, and grammatical differences from many languages; above all, Dr. Al-Kasimi’s sound common sense will be of use to language teachers everywhere in considering the roles that a dictionary can play in language learning. I cannot do better than to close by citing Dr. Al-Kasimi’s own closing words:

In short, the selection of a good dictionary is not sufficient in itself; the user should have the necessary lexicographical education which enables him to get the most out of that dictionary. And it is the duty of the language teacher to provide his students with that education.

P.W. Hanks

Aylesbury, Bucks., England

EPISTOLA {J.D. Sadler}

In the article “Verbifying in America” [V,2], the statement was made that “no American verb ends in a.”

One might cite baa, huzza, henna, halloa, conga, polka, samba, and cha-cha, all of which are listed as verbs by the American Heritage Dictionary. There are others.

[J.D. Sadler, Sherman, Texas]

A Hodd Hanthology

A. Adrian Allen, London SE

A Linguistic Curiosity Remembered

Some of Robert A. Fowkes’s “Missile any of Shots” [V,2,9] called vividly to mind an extraordinary series perpetrated in all innocence, without a suspicion of contrivance, by an old retainer who used to be cook, nurse, etc., on my mother’s side of the family, in which she became (small wonder!) something of an institution. This personage out-Malapropped Sheridan’s famous character—of whom she surely cannot have known—in both quantity and quality; the latter being enhanced by quirks of pronunciation partly personal and partly, perhaps, derived from the dialect of Bristol, whence she came. (Indeed, some of the items are purely phonetic, but of such richness that I cannot bring myself to omit them.) Dignified of bearing, and a shade formidable, she was not given to jocularity or deliberate witticisms of any sort.

Though some exquisite specimens must have sunk forever into oblivion, I feel bound to rescue for posterity as fair a sample of these verbal gems as memory permits. A large majority of Vinnyisms (as they were known, from her pet-name, with affectionate amusement) were uttered not once but often, and in my hearing; however, tradition has it that a few of the most delectable were indeed hapax legomena. One or two apocrypha may possibly have crept in, but if so, they are faithful in spirit and flavour to the originals.

Here they are, then, with no attempt at order or analysis, in all their exuberance of whimsical but unconscious creativity. Where an explanatory word seems called for, it is added in parentheses.

wholly and toley (totally)
the hargin and the ‘orp (organ, harp)
a good light don’t need no
bushel
Great Hexpectorations (the Dickens novel, not strenuous coughing)
a skillington in the hattic
in the horms of Murphy (arms of Morpheus)
them wicked hinsinuendos
pealin’ wid lawfcheer
Delilah Trimmings (delirium tremens)
donjuan (dungeon)
halbany (ebony)
you cotches the homilybust at
a halterangement (of plans, etc.)
the Red Loin
the Divine Hinflatus
“The camels are coming…” (first line of Scots ballad)
graphophone ricards
serve his right, I says
Good King Winslow
hortichucks (artichokes)
St. Pancreas
of hall the London shrubs
grawsp the nettle by the ‘arns
Sydenham is the most
pantyshinikin (pantechnicon)
‘orriblest
pawls and furl (of a cat)
*them haliblawster harnaments is broke-
the Great High Ham knows best
gestulating and preposterarting-
margaged up to the tilt (of a house)
Hall my heye and Betty
go it, you cripples, wooden legs is cheap
Garter (apropos of nothing particular)
she swep’ out in ‘igh gudgeon-
nor brick nor brack nor one
haperient (aperitif)
high hotum (iota)
you bin a’ idin’ of your
*more worser than Sodom and Begorrah
wine hunder a bush (on sudden revelation of talent)
strike while the hoin’s ‘ot

These (with others unrecorded) one might presume to constitute the entire corpus; but he would be wrong. Happily, history has preserved for us a posthumous example—a parting shot, as it were, almost from the grave. For among the effects of this latter-day Mrs. Malaprop was found a piece of paper inscribed with the message: “No flowers, by my kind request.” Finis coronat opus! Further comment would be anticlimactic.

EPISTOLA {Kirkham P. Ford}

Robert A. Fowkes in his observations on out [V, 4] commented on filling out a form. In England, one fills a form up.

In Ohio I used to put in a garden but in Tennessee, one puts out his garden. I remarked to my neighbor that a garden is planted in the ground. He countered that it is put out, because you don’t leave it in the house.

I have noticed also that out of is gratuitously added to leave in the Negro vernacular, north and south: “I lef’ out of there about two o’clock.”

[Kirkham P. Ford, Paris, Tennessee]

Is Latin Briefer Than English

Frederick C. Dyer, Washington, D.C.

Years ago I read somewhere the remark that Latin was not briefer than English if one counted syllables instead of words. I’d forgotten that until two of my favorite books After Babel (George Steiner: OUP, 1975, p. 306, 436) and Samuel Johnson (W. Jackson Bates: HBJ, 1977, p. 65, 173) repeated the assumption that Latin is more concise, more compressed than English. I counted the words and syllables in the examples they presented and found that the English versions had fewer syllables—by far.

Since then I’ve done the same for Latin terms, phrases, and quotations that have crossed my desk and the English has had the fewer syllables every time. In church one Sunday I counted in the Pater Noster 103 Latin syllables, 77 English syllables, though on the page the Latin looks shorter.

For 40 years I have accepted the conventional wisdom that Latin was the briefer language. Now that my doubts are aroused, I even wonder about German, Hawaiian, or any other language that piles the syllables into words. Won’t they win the brevity sweepstakes?

It’s true that may translations from Latin take more words in English; but then, as Steiner and many more have pointed out, all translations take more words because the reader of the second language doesn’t have the background of the reader of the original language. To translate from modern English into the Latin of Cicero’s time could take many extra words and paraphrases for terms like Watergate and SALT II.

My purpose here is not to convince but to show a prima facie case for asking:

(1) Who first raised the point that one should count the syllables and not the words? (My source may have been a journal of education in the fifties or early sixties.)

(2) Does anyone have hard evidence or irrefutable logic —not just opinion—in the matter?

BIBLIOGRAPHIA: Speaking Of Chinese

Chang, Raymond, and Chang, Margaret Scrogin, (W.W. Norton, New York, and George J. McLeod, Toronto, 1978), x + 197pp., 3 appendices, bibliography, no index.

Translation: “… for whatsoever a man soweth, that shall he also reap.”—Galatians 6:7

The above is not the beginning of an attempt to prove that the Chinese wrote the Bible. A literal translation of the Chinese would be, “Plant melon, gain melon”; in (Pīnyīn) transcription, it would be zhōng guā dé guā, a Chinese proverb. If your familiarity with languages is limited to exposure to those of the Indo-European family, and your knowledge of, say, Chinese is about as extensive as your mastery of Swahili or Kechua, you may be interested in learning more about Chinese from a book I have been reading with great interest, Speaking of Chinese.* I must say at once that it is not the purpose of this book to serve either as a grammar or as a textbook of the Chinese language: it is *about* Chinese and provides an eye-opening introduction to the study of that language in an easy-going style. Its chapters give a clue to the informality of the treatment: Written Chinese; Spoken Chinese; It All Started with Dragon Bones: A Short History of the Chinese Language; Domestic Chinese; Old Wisdom, New Technology, and the Chinese Language; Chinese Calligraphy. Appendix 1 gives a Chronological Chart of Chinese Dynasties, Appendix 3 Birth Years and Characteristics of the Twelve Annual Signs. Appendix 2 lists some common radicals —that is, frequently encountered language roots, not vulgar revolutionaries.

Although the treatment is informal and easy to read, it is well-organized and informative. It also provides the reader with some insight not only into the way the Chinese language works but into some of the thought processes that speakers of such a language must engage in to use it. Also, it reveals that the writing system of Chinese is quite remote from the language itself (in the sense that it relies on several different classes of pictographic, ideographic, and metaphoric symbols, unlike alphabetic systems or syllabaries), so that learning the rudiments of writing Chinese requires, even for the native speaker, at least a year of daily practice and exercise. Much of the symbolism in the language is culturally allusive, so that certain combinations of words or symbols may convey a meaning that no non-native student of the language could guess at without a thorough knowledge of the culture.

This situation can be illustrated by the following proverb: frontier old man lose horse, which can be translated as ‘The old man living at the frontier lost his horse.’ But its import is unclear without the following tale:

When an old man lost his horse, his friends came to grieve with him. “Don’t pity me,” he told them, “for this may not be bad fortune.” A few days later, the horse returned to its stable, followed by several wild horses. This time, neighbors came to congratulate him, but he told them, “Don’t be overjoyed; this good fortune may bring calamity.” Soon afterwards, his only son fell off one of the wild horses, broke his leg, and became a cripple. The old man accepted the disaster calmly, knowing it could be a blessing in disguise. After several years, a war broke out. All able young men were drafted and sent to their deaths on the battlefield. The old man’s son, because of his lame leg, remained at home to care for his father until death took the old man. [p.97]

Well-written and interesting, Speaking of Chinese is a good introduction to the language and thought of 800 million Chinese and helps make them a bit more scrutable.

BIBLIOGRAPHIA: 17th Edition, The World’s Languages, Catalog 1977: General and Special Dictionaries and Grammars

(Stechert Macmillan, Inc., 1977), xi + 180pp. 10-7/8” × 8-1/4”

[from the publisher, at 866 Third Avenue, New York, N.Y. 10022].

The World’s Languages, lists 3,961 dictionaries and grammars, which can be ordered from (or through) the publisher. The main listing is arranged by language, with subheadings for languages below. Thus, under “English/Dictionaries,” the first listing is for Altenglisches etymologisches Woerterbuch, the second for American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language and so on, though Webster’s New World Dictionary, the Random House Dictionary, and many others are missing. The AMS Press reprint of Johnson’s Dictionary is there, as are Dixon’s English Idioms, the Oxford Classical Dictionary, and, all told, 58 works of some diversity. Therefore, as can be seen, the list is far from complete. The next category is “English/Grammars.” Here are listed such items as Kenyon’s American Pronunciation and AMS Press’s reprint of George Philip Krapp’s Pronunciation of Standard English in America, with a number of grammars of Old, Middle, and Modern English, some relatively new, some quite old, between. There follow subsections bearing language designations (Arabic, Burmese, Chinese, etc.) under which are listed one or more books—grammars, mostly—for the teaching of English to speakers of the subject language. Under Arabic, for instance, is listed Learning English, a Review Grammar for Speakers of Arabic.

Sufficient bibliographic information, including ISBN numbers, is given to identify the books, and prices are given as well. Each book has a Stechert Macmillan catalog number. An alphabetical title index of the dictionaries and grammars —but not of the encyclopedias and periodicals—covers about 40 pages.

Although no evaluative information is given at all—this is not a Winchell or Kister—the listing can be put to very good use by bookshops, libraries, and individuals who are seeking data not readily available elsewhere. Also, one may assume that only books that are in print are listed, for order forms are provided in the last pages of the catalog. Although I am fully aware of the costs of producing the catalog, I still believe that it would be fair of Stechert Macmillan to offer credit for the purchase price against a certain size of order; for, after all, it is a merchandise catalog, notwithstanding its usefulness.

EPISTOLA

Hear me out. Robert A. Fowkes [V,4] just out-and-out failed to point out some of the more subtle outs in usage today, particularly when it comes to the difference between I can’t make it out and I can’t make out. And how about the lyrical connotation of freak out, or the unfortunate player who grounds out and the meat grinder that is grounding out. All this could perhaps lead to one of the biggest people hunts in history. Who is “Out”?

Crossword Puzzle

Across

1. Madly pursued, overtaken and taken over. (7)
5. Oracle I switched to gave food for thought. (7)
9. Shots from under cover, but it’s all in the family. (10, 5)
10. Threatened a thrashing, so the heavy sugar was produced. (6, 4)
11. Incredible hero? Sounds that way! (4)
13. Birds at the discotheque, no doubt. (9)
15. Chances taken by reckless skiers out of the East. (5)
16. Find me in bed with a heavenly body? What a sight! (5)
18. No stopper, just a procrastinator. (9)
21. Obvious drawback on the political scene. (4)
22. Strange tie, oddly enough, makes a more perfect union. (10)
25. Safe motoring, rarely heard, or just the opposite… (8, 7)
26. … if the latter, how the stubborn go West. (7)
27. Ulterior motifs? (7)

Down

1. Impure’s the word they receive, during strikes. (7)
2. In a pout, despite being perfect. (7)
3. An inclination for being bent. (10)
4. Big porno sale. (4, 5)
5. Mafia chief goes North, not exactly the cock o' the walk. (5)
6. The weight is up front. (4)
7. They can multiply and add but can they subtract? (7)
8. I make her mine, swathed in furs…(7)
12. … with worldly goods, and the right connections. (10)
14. Sour puss, finished, and barred from the field. (9)
16. Hear what the coward did? (7)
17. Claimer to be a prodigy. (7)
19. … (7)
20. Opts for egress, thus sacrificing ingress. (7)
23. Made up to play Cyrano. (5)
24. Kind of old bag that should turn over a new leaf. (4)

“Aristotle wondered whether a falling tree makes a sound if nobody is there to see it.” Martin Gottfried, “Theater” column in Saturday Review, 25 November 1978. [Benjamin A. Cohen, Niles, Illinois]

“Should more hunters be allowed on state land or maintain the 1977 quota? ( ) Yes ( ) No.”—Wildlife Unit, Department of Environmental Protection, State of Connecticut. [Daniel James, Ivoryton, Connecticut]

I had some sleeping pills prescribed for me recently. On the prescription bottle was pasted a standardized sticker of warning: MAY CAUSE DROWSINESS. [John Stanley, Merced, California]

Crossword Puzzle Answers

Across

1. USURPED
5. Calor-I-e
9. Photograph album
10. Raised cane
11. Lion (lyin')
13. Songsters
15. RISKS (ski-E-rs)
16. Co-ME-t
18. POSTPONER
21. WARD
22. INTEGRATES (anagram of strange tie)
25. (W)Reckless driving
26. Die-hard
27. Designs

Down

1. UMPIRES
2. UTOPIAN (anagram of in a pout)
3. Propensity
4. Dirt cheap
5. Capo-N
6. Lead
7. Rabbits
8. (h)ER MINE S(wathed)
12. Proper-ties
14. SUSP-ended
16. Cowered
17. MIRACLE
19. Nothing
20. RESIGNS
23. Nosed
24. FLEA

EPISTOLA {Adrian Room}

It’s a brave man who sticks his neck out as far as Noel Perrin does in “Verbifying in America” [V,2]. So no American verb ends in -a? There is no verb to greenlight? No verb ending in unstressed -ing?

Things may be rather different over here—we have the Atlantic between us, after all—but in British English it is possible to polka in the parlour and conga round the concourse, and a student who fails to appear to be viva’d (given his viva voce, or oral examination) is in danger of being subpoenaed (served as subpoena, or writ commanding his attendance at a lawcourt). (Fowler recommends ‘d for both these, in fact, as he does for all verbs with unusual vowel terminations.)

To greenlight? Read Frederic Mullally’s Munich Involvement (1968) and you will read of a young lady whose “smile green-lighted the innuendo” of her invitation (“ ‘Anything else I can do for you?'”). This quote comes from the OED Supplement which acknowledges green-light as a valid verb.

As for unstressed verbs in -ing, well, the Shorter Oxford English Dictionary gives the not uncommon verb to hamstring, which may be cheating but is an unstressed verb ending in -ing! Not that hamstringing is as pleasant a pastime as polkaing. And though Americans may never be viva’d, I bet they sometimes get subpoena’d and engage in a little celebratory congaing.

I hope Noel Perrin now feels greenlighted to use these verbs.

[Adrian Room, Stamford, Lincolnshire]

Internet Archive copy of this issue

At least there are no theological canards, in this regard, like the one about Dr. Bowdler’s own editorial difficulties over Othello. The story goes that he was so completely at a loss to render the play “unmixed with anything that could raise a blush on the cheek of modesty,” he was driven to pure inspiration. When he came upon “Desdemona plays the strumpet in bed” (where he is supposed to have found this line, I don’t know), he simply dropped the “s” from the offending word, disposing of sexual allusion not only for the moment, but establishing an entirely new, less embarrassing, but equally stirring motivation for the play’s entire action. ↩︎
N.Y. Times*, December 26, 1978, p. C5. ↩︎
Theological Studies, December, 1978. ↩︎
Ibid., p. 421. ↩︎