VOL VI, No 4 [Spring 1980]

The “Wicked” Bibles or, Let Him Who is Without Sin Among You Cast the First Line of Type

Ray Russell, Beverly Hills, California

Does the Bible condone adultery, or urge us to hate our wives? Did Adam and Eve wear pants? As I discovered while doing research for my latest novel, it depends on which Bible you read.

There was an edition that seemed not only to condone adultery but to command it. That Bible, the handiwork of a pair of printers named Barker and Lucas, was published in England in 1631. It was a handsome volume, as well it should have been, for Messrs. B&L were the King’s printers.

But it had one little flaw: a three-letter word, not, was missing from the Seventh Commandment, making it read “Thou shalt commit adultery.” The careless printers of the book that became famous as “The Wicked Bible” were fined 300 pounds, which effectively put them out of business.

Ten times that amount was the fine imposed on another firm of printers, during the reign of Charles I, for perpetrating what has come to be known as “The Fool Bible.” Their slip-of-the-typestick occurred in Psalm XIV, which came out reading, “The fool hath said in his heart there is a God”—instead of “there is no God.”

At Cambridge in 1653 was printed the justly nicknamed “Unrighteous Bible.” It was marred by two bloopers, both concerning righteousness. In I Corinthians, it asked the question, “Know ye not that the unrighteous shall inherit the Kingdom of God?” Obviously a not is missing from between shall and inherit—probably dropped on the floor by the same gremlins who lost the Barker and Lucas not 22 years before. As if that weren’t bad enough, in this edition’s version of Romans may be seen, “Neither yield ye your members as instruments of righteousness unto sin.” Of course, unrighteousness is the correct word. This proves, perhaps, that the power of positive thinking can be carried too far.

Absent negatives appear to be the single most prevalent kind of error, and they always succeed in completely reversing the Scriptural meaning. “And there was no more sea,” we are told in Revelation—except in a certain 1641 edition which has, “And there was more sea.”

It wasn’t Jesus who, in the garden of Gethsemane, told His disciples to “Sit ye here, while I go and pray yonder.” It was Judas—at least according to an edition of 1611.

Eight thousand copies of one Bible were printed and bound in Ireland in 1716 before it was discovered that the command, in John, to “sin no more,” had come out as “sin on more,” a directive with somewhat more appeal to chronic sinners.

“The Parable of the Vinegar” (instead of “Vineyard”) appears in a chapter heading of Luke in a 1717 Oxford printing. Philip, rather than Peter, is singled out as the apostle who will deny Jesus, in Luke of the 1792 “Denial Bible.” Poor Luke again gets its lumps in “The Forgotten Sins Bible” of 1638, where “Her sins, which are many, are forgotten” may be seen, rather than the correct “forgiven.” “If any man come to me, and hate not his father and mother … yea, and his own wife also….” So begins another passage in the long-suffering Luke, as given in the so-called “Wife-Hater Bible” of 1810. Here, one letter is the culprit—w. It should be I, and the phrase should read “and his own life also….”

“The Murderers' Bible” of 1801 slips in murderers for murmurers in a line from Jude: “These are murmurers, complainers.” “Who hath ears to ear, let him hear” is the way a line in Matthew is misrendered in “The Ears to Ear Bible” of 1810. “The Discharge Bible” of 1806 reads, in Timothy, not “I charge thee before God” but (you guessed it) “I discharge thee….”

Sexual identity has been in question more than once. He is substituted for the correct she in what today some might call “The Male Chauvinist Bible,” but which is more commonly and more simply known as “The He Bible.” This was the first of the two editions of the Authorized Version, 1611, and its sin was to say, in Ruth, “And he went into the city” instead of she. Another mix-up of gender happened in a much more recent edition of 1923 which contained a table of affinity with the stern admonition, “A man may not marry his grandmother’s wife,” a feat which The New Yorker might call Neatest Trick of the Week.

An edition organized by Anglican Archbishop Matthew Parker, and therefore known affectionately as “The Bishops' Bible,” made its first appearance in 1568 and was gratifyingly popular. Its third edition, however, published in 1572, didn’t fare so well. Nothing was wrong with the words, but the decorations left a lot to be desired. The printer used highly ornamental initial letters at the beginnings of several books of this Bible, which would have been a splendid idea if the letters hadn’t been left over from printings of Ovid’s Metamorphoses and other classics of pagan literature. The greatest offender was the graphically pictorial letter that met the eye at the beginning of Hebrews—a vivid depiction of the god Zeus, disguised as a swan, offering his amorous attentions to the lady known as Leda.

Depending upon your point of view, these howlers might be considered either the work of the Devil, or Freudian slips—the printer’s unconscious advocacy of adultery, wife-hating, Leda-chasing, or what-have-you.

But by no means all such mistakes result in “wicked” texts. Many are simply amusing. Take “The Camel’s Bible,” for instance. In Genesis of this 1823 edition, “Rebekah arose, and her camels”—in place of damsels. Or “The Standing Fishes Bible” of 1806, which tells us, in Ezekiel, “And it shall come to pass that the fishes shall stand upon it.” As much as one hates to dispel that lively image of our finny friends standing upright on their tails, it must be disclosed that the right word is fishers.

The second edition of The Geneva Bible, 1562, is known as “The Placemaker’s Bible,” for good reason. In Matthew, it converts a great utterance into “Blessed are the placemakers, for they shall be called the children of God.” Again, one letter is the villain—a mischievous I which replaced the first e of peacemakers.

The largest number of typos crops up in “The Lions Bible” of 1804, so named because, in I Kings, it speaks of “thy son that shall come forth out of thy lions,” instead of loins. But there are other disaster areas, as well: “The murderer shall surely be put together,” rather than put to death (from Numbers); and “For the flesh lusteth after the Spirit,” instead of against the Spirit (from Galatians). And there are many more.

Eccentric translations, rather than printing errors, make armfuls of other Bibles worthy of note. There are, for example, two “Bug Bibles.” Miles Coverdale’s Bible of 1535 has earned that creepy sobriquet; and so has the Bible printed in Antwerp two years later as the translation of a certain Thomas Matthews, which was probably a pen name for one John Rogers. In both editions, a passage in Psalm XCI is presented as “Thou shalt not nede to be afrayed for eny bugges by night.” In most other English language Bibles, it’s terror by night.

Today, the thought of Adam and Eve wearing breeches may provoke us to laughter, because the word conjures up images of trousers or pants, complete with pockets and zippers, cuffs optional. But in The Geneva Bible, mentioned above, the appropriate passage in Genesis is given as: “And they sowed figge-tree leaves together, and made themselves breeches.” The same word is used in other early Bibles; and in all of them, it was almost certainly meant in the sense of ‘aprons’ or ‘loin cloths’ (or, possibly, ‘lion cloths’).

Translations have played havoc with the well-known balm in Gilead, too. The phrase, which occurs in Jeremiah, is rendered in the 1609 Douai Bible as “Is there noe rosin in Galaad?” Perhaps you prefer treacle over rosin? Take your pick: both The Bishops' Bible and Coverdale’s Bible offer treacle in place of the more generally accepted balm.

Those Bibles are legion which tell us that a rich man will have more trouble entering Heaven than a camel passing through a needle’s eye. Considering, however, that the Greek for camel (kamēlon) bears a striking resemblance to the Greek for rope (kamilon), isn’t it likely that the latter, earthier, better, more realistic, less outlandish image was lost in translation?

But printers, more often than translators, have been to blame for bloopers in the Bible, so it’s only fair that they pointed the accusing finger at themselves in an edition published about 1702. In this version’s Psalm CXIX, David, instead of complaining that “Princes have persecuted me without a cause,” says, “Printers have persecuted me….” That edition is now known as (what else?) “The Printer’s Bible.”

SIC! SIC! SIC!

Mystifying announcement (without explanation) heard each morning on New York City radio stations in April: “Alternate-side-of-the-street parking has been suspended because of the tugboat strike.” [Darrilyn Desser letter to N.Y. Times, May 6, 1979—sent by Simon Nathan, New York City]

SIC! SIC! SIC!

“Fire hit the old gashouse back in April, destroyed the roof, and more than 100,000 volumes. And now there is a move under way by the Waterford Historical Commission …to restore the damage.” [Barney Fowler in the (Albany, N.Y.) Times-Union, May 30, 1979, p. 16. Submitted by Norman F. Gallman, Schroon Lake, New York]

SIC! SIC! SIC!

Harper’s (August 1979) was moved to comment on the obscurity of the language used in a report published by the Carnegie Commission for Public Broadcasting. The report reads, in part, “The institution we now call public broadcasting has reached an unprecedented intersection of the dynamics of American democracy with advanced communications technology as we are drawn inexorably toward the configurations of the 21st century…. Public broadcasting, by involving itself more deeply in the evolving telecommunications opportunities, could reflect the people’s need for an information context that will not only enhance their lives but their citizenship as well.” [Submitted by Edward Coffey, Huntsville, Alabama]

The Beginning in a Word

Patricia Bralley, Atlanta, Georgia

The origins of language lie buried in some pre-Neanderthal mist. For centuries, Christians assumed that Adam spoke Hebrew and that language was a gift from God. It’s only relatively recently that scholars advanced a whole array of more “logical” theories, among others, the whistle and grunt, the bow-wow, and pooh-pooh, and the ding-dong. Now we see our English roots growing from and fertilized by the likes of Greek, Latin, Anglo-Saxon; warping and changing with each passing day, each new child, and each slightly deaf Great-Aunt Matilda.

The Vedic tradition of Sanskrit traces the origin of language to the cognitions of seers. It is believed that Sanskrit was not invented or inherited, its grammar and roots constructed not by committee, but cognized as part of the manifestation of Nature. In meditation, as seers cognized different forms and processes, words describing and explaining were simultaneously heard. Thus, language and form, language and process, became two sides of the same coin.

Sanskrit claims to be a “natural” language in which the structure of speech reflects the structure of the universe, in which phonology meshes with the physics of creation. Word and form are so intimately connected that they may be called equivalent. Each word becomes the epitome of onomatopoeia. In English, even the most careful study of roots and etymology fails to reveal such total correspondence. We may discover that “Matilda” comes from the Teutonic meaning “Mighty in Battle,” but somehow the name bears little resemblance to the toothless form propped in the rocker.

The Sanskrit correlation between language and form allows a great deal of information to be encapsulated into a word. Grammatical analysis can tease this information out. For example, Agni, the first word of the Rig Veda, usually translates as ‘fire god.’ But sequential analysis of the sounds of the word allows a deeper understanding to emerge.

The first letter, A (pronounced as in “ah”), is spoken with the full opening of the mouth. It presents the concept of fullness, a transcendental and as yet unmanifest potential for Creation. The following three letters: G (as in “guh”), N (as in “not”), and I (as in “ease”) explain the mechanics of the unfolding of that potential. Immediately after A comes G, a full stop in the flow of sound. This represents the placing of a boundary, a limit, on the previously unbounded fullness. The third letter, N, negates this stoppage. It clears away the boundary and allows A to continue forward under the pull of I. I leads, bringing progress and growth. Thus in the interplay of the four qualities of Agni, scholars locate the basic mechanics of Creation in three principal areas: first, a state of unbounded, unmanifest potential; second, a state of expressed specifics; and third, the means of linkage between the two.

This Vedic understanding is paralleled by quantum physics. Quantum theory shows that all the diverse aspects of physical creation, all different states of matter and energy (the G of Agni) arise from something called the vacuum state. The vacuum state is an all-pervading state of the quantum field without boundaries in time and space. It does not possess any particles of energy or matter, but contains “virtual” particles which represent all possible states in unmanifest form. It is the perfect parallel to the A of Agni. Any change of state in a particle involves destruction of the old via an annihilation operator (the N), followed by creation of a new state from the vacuum via a creator operator (the I).

Through similar combining of language and form, each of the 64 letters of the Sanskrit alphabet encodes a wealth of information. The Rig Veda becomes an encyclopedia where information originally recorded in the “seed form” of Agni is elaborated by each successive letter, word, hymn, section, and chapter. Actually, this seems Nature’s chosen method for the language of life, the genetic code.

The DNA molecule contains all the information for our growth and evolution through the coupling of language and molecular form. The 64 codons, or “letters,” of the genetic code are generated through the combining of four nucleotides into groups of three. Translation of genetic information into structural proteins and enzymes is achieved through the sequential reading of the codons. This reading produces a linear assembly which automatically folds into a biologically active, three-dimensional protein. In biology, language and form are as intertwined as any Vedic seer’s “natural language.”

The Rig Veda, just as any particular DNA sequence, is the written record of only a small portion of what could be said. Veda, which translates as ‘knowledge,’ is described as “the self illuminate effulgence of life” lying at the juncture of manifest and unmanifest Creation, and, we may assume, at the source of language. Thus when I chanced upon veda in Mario Pei’s The Families of Words, I couldn’t resist seeing what traditional western etymology brought out. The Sanskrit veda is the earliest attested derivative of the hypothetical Indo-European root *w(e) di ‘to see.’

In Greek, *w(e) di became ideia; in Latin, video and visus; in Anglo-Saxon, witan and wise; in Old High German, wisen and witan. It may also appear in the Celtic druid, if the word is taken as dru uid ‘strong knowledge.’ Descending directly through these roots and in some cases indirectly through the Old French and Italian, we have today a whole family of English words with ties to veda. It includes: idea, idol, kaleidoscope, idyll, history, video, providence, prudence, envy, clairvoyant, view, visage, devise, visible, visionary, vista, wit, twit, wisdom, wisecrack, wizard, and wiseguy.

The Exception That Proves the Rule

Steve Coughlan, Toronto, Ontario

The most mystifying (and annoying) of the many invalid arguments that crop up now and then is that of “the exception that proves the rule.” The argument is complete nonsense, but, if we ignore that for the moment, it is at the same time brilliant. Examples in favour of a rule of course offer it support; by this argument, exceptions also offer support. Thus, absolutely everything counts as evidence for any proposition whatsoever that one cares to put forward (“All Mexicans speak Serbo-Croatian,” for example), and so any claim is irrefutable. The argument is illogical, but inspired.

This is what is mystifying: surely anyone willing to use such an argument could not have had the wit to invent it. Conversely, surely anyone capable of creating the argument would have had the good sense, or at least good taste, not to employ it. Where, then, did the expression come from?

What seems most likely to be the explanation is a theory offered by Richard Grant White in Words and Their Uses (1870) and supported by the OED. It suggests that the argument is misused today because of mistranslation from the Latin original, exceptio probat regulam. The error arises when, in translating exceptio, we take it to refer to the thing that is excepted, when, in fact, it refers to the act of making an exception. Thus, the expression is properly understood to claim that excepting, not “exceptions,” proves the rule. Since there must be rules for there to be exceptions to them, the existence of the latter demonstrates the existence of the former.

In this form, the argument is more readily acceptable. If a quality is specifically attributed to one individual, we naturally assume that that is because the individual is noteworthy in that regard. If a sergeant announces to his platoon “MacTavish failed the physical,” it would be reasonable for the other soldiers to assume that they had passed. If one said “I think this politician is trustworthy,” listeners would understand that the speaker did not have a generally high regard for politicians. Normal states of affairs are not pointed out: thus, if someone or something is singled out, it must be because it is singular, and a departure from the norm.

Of course, even this use of the expression is not entirely logical. One politician’s rectitude may be particularly noteworthy, but it cannot show that no politicians are honest. He may be the only exception to the rule, but he is an exception nonetheless. Thus, an exception can point to, but still cannot prove, a rule.

Even this shortcoming, however, can be to some extent avoided. There is a longer version of the Latin original, variously quoted as exceptio probat regulam de rebus non exceptis or exceptio probat regulam in casibus non exceptis: in either case, ‘the exception proves the rule in the cases not excepted.’ Thus, “MacTavish failed the physical” points not to the simple rule “Everyone passed the physical” (obviously false), but to the complex rule “Everyone but MacTavish passed the physical” (probably true). In other words, except for the cases explicitly enumerated, the rule holds.

Of course, that is still not a strict rule of logic, and indeed still leaves itself open to triviality in some instances. (White Knight to Alice: “Everybody that hears me sing it —either it brings tears to their eyes, or else—”; “Or else what?”; “Or else it doesn’t.”) However, it does now have a loose sort of intuitive validity and has at least some value. Further, the mystery of its origin is solved: the expression might never actually be used rationally, but at least it is possible to do so.

How’s That Again?

J. D. Sadler, Sherman, Texas

Our topic for today is statements that can be taken two ways. There is nothing whatever wrong with them, but somebody is bound to find the other meaning. We begin with the apology that goes wrong: “Because of difficulties beyond our control, Johnny Carson will be with you in just one minute.” Similar is “Due to a mistake, we bring you Don Rickles.”

The newspaper can also get into the act: “It is with sincere regret that we learn of Mr. Smith’s recovery from an auto accident.” Another in the same vein: “We reported Mr. Blank as absent from last week’s meeting. He was present and we’re sorry.” A different kind of apology is contained in “We regret that Senator Tower’s speech could not be heard by everyone because the speaker had a screw loose.”

Announcements of cancellations include that of the Couples Club meeting “because of the many conflicts.” This one appeals to me even more: “Due to unforeseen circumstances, the Fortune-telling Club will not meet this week.”

The forecast of things to come can also strike a sour note: “Due to the illness of the owner, Sam’s TV Service will be run by a competent repairman for the next two weeks.” Things get worse when we come to the local clubs and their activities: “Miss Jones will sing a few solos for us, after which music will be enjoyed.” The Voter’s League rejoices that it has “thirty odd legislators scheduled for our program.” And the literary group makes its contribution: “Mr. Sadler is our only speaker for today; the rest of our program is entertainment.”

The boast gone wrong is seen in this report by the police chief of a Texas city: “The vice situation here is the best we’ve had in a long time.” A similar misfire is: “Our policemen are fully able to compete with all the criminals in town.” The press records the fact that “This is Miss —’s first appearance in Dallas in twenty years, and everyone should be happy.” And this bouquet that missed: “Our choir participated yesterday in a radio program in New Orleans. It was good to hear them and to realize that they were over five hundred miles away.”

“Watch out for the chili supper at the Methodist Church” is an example of an ad that can be misunderstood. Another brags of roof repairing with “Leaks Guaranteed.” Can a department store be prophetic in running a sale on men’s suits that “won’t last an hour”?

Auto repair shops play a major role here; one promises to do a “bang-up job” and another offers a “complete grease job, including floor mats and seat covers.” One puts it this way: “No matter how small your problem is, you can count on our mechanics to do a major repair job.” The dealer invites me to visit him and “see how little you need to own a new car.” And the friendly loan company asks, “Why go elsewhere to be cheated? You can depend on us to do the job!”

The business concern that suffers most from the dirty deals of language is the laundry. The ad that seems to have been with us as long as laundries is “Don’t kill your wife. Let us do your dirty work.” Another comments that “When you get your laundry back from us, you will see how little there is left to iron.”

The matter of leaving the clothes at the laundry is variously handled; here are three versions. “I. Ladies, leave your clothes here and enjoy the afternoon.” “II. Ladies who drop off their clothes will receive prompt and individual attention.” “III. Our courteous attendant will be happy to remove your clothes while you shop.” Even for those who must depend on the delivery truck there is good advice: “Arrange your clothes for easy pickup.”

The restaurant and night club also come in for their full share of misunderstanding. A highway cafe proclaims proudly, EAT HERE AND GET GAS. A complaint is answered in advance with this: “Patrons who think our waiters impolite ought to see the manager.” One place runs its ad: “Wanted —man to wash dishes and two waitresses.” Another has an intriguing menu: “Catfish $4.00, Shrimp $4.50, Children under 12 $2.75.”

An obviously high-class club features “Clean and Decent Dancing Every Night Except Sunday.” A competitor has “Ladies Free with Escorts on Monday Nights.” A third tries to pack them in with “Girlie Floor Show—No Cover.” When crime strikes the event is headlined ROBBERS EAT THEN HOLD UP CASHIER.

In the same vein, I hope that you will say of this essay, “I can’t praise this too highly.”

Breaking the Law of Averages

Warren Tupper Way, Wayzata, Minnesota

When someone is described as “just an average person,” you have a pretty good idea of what that means. There’s no great need to know the precise meaning of average. But much of the time there is a need for definition.

For instance, if the creek is described as having an average depth of 4 feet—and you can’t swim—you’d better ask what they mean by average before you start to wade across. The creek might be 10 feet deep toward the middle.

An amusing use of the word average was recently reported in The Reader’s Digest (and attributed to Robert P. Levoy in The Toastmaster):

The first time I stayed at a fancy hotel in Miami Beach, I wanted to make sure I tipped the bellman properly. So as he was taking me to my room, I asked, “What is the average tip here in Miami Beach?” And he said, “Five dollars.” Not wanting to look cheap, I gave him five bucks. Then I said, “If five dollars is the average tip around here, you must be getting rich,” “No sir,” the bellman said. “In all the time I’ve worked here, this is the first average tip I’ve ever received.”

The loose use of the term often misleads us, sometimes gets us into trouble, may make us look silly or suspect.

When someone says, “The law of averages will catch up to you,” probably he’s suggesting “you won’t always be this lucky.” Yet he probably doesn’t know what the Law of Averages is. It’s Bernoulli’s theorem—according to Webster—which says: “When the number of trials n of an event of probability p is increased indefinitely, the probability of any assigned deviation from the expected value of np approaches zero.” Because I’m just an average person, my unmathematical mind boggles at this definition. What approaches zero is my understanding of it. The American Heritage Dictionary also has a definition that doesn’t help me much: “average 1. Mathematics a. A number that typifies a set of numbers of which it is a function.” Well, so much for formal definitions. Let’s swing the pendulum and try some over-simplication.

There are three basic kinds of average: mean, median, and mode. Mean (sometimes arithmetical mean) is the one most people have in mind when they say average. But mean and average are not synonymous—mean is one kind of average. Suppose there are five children in your family, and you want to know their average age. You simply add their ages and divide by five. The average you get is the mean. In gym class your son Steve lines up with 21 of his schoolmates, and they line up in order of their height. Steve turns out to be the 11th in line, the man in the middle. His height is the average, the median. Sister Sue sells 67 homecoming buttons, but most of the other pom-pom girls sell only their allotted 50. Fifty is the average, the most-frequent number, the mode.

The world of sports is intensely interested in—perhaps preoccupied with—averages: yards carried, free throws made, goals allowed, pins, ringers, etc. The mean seems to be involved in most. For example, Earned Run Averages are figured by multiplying earned runs by 9 and dividing by innings pitched.

In his book about college football, Good Clean Violence, Ivan N. Kaye writes: “Blanchard enjoyed a remarkable 7-yard average gain every time he carried the ball.” The average Ivan uses here is the mean; but he doesn’t really mean “every time he carried the ball,” does he? How about “averaged 7 yards a carry”? (If your team averaged 3 yards a play, it would be in trouble. But if it could make 3 yards every time, it wouldn’t have to give up the ball.)

Bowling is one of the few sports that has an absolute measure of perfection—you can’t roll better than 300. When you bowl in handicap competition, rolling way above your established average causes comment. Theoretically, par is perfect golf; but neither pros nor hackers believe par is average.

When I was in the business of selling electronic components, we had a customer to whom we were supposed to ship 10,000 capacitors twice a week. One Thursday our factory delivered 140 pieces, on Friday delivered 20,100. The 140-piece shipment patently was absurd; but if we’d dared to, we could have suggested that the 10,120-piece average wasn’t bad!

A mode is used by some communities in establishing speed limits. They check traffic; and if they find—for example—that over a period of time most drivers travel a route at about 35 miles per hour, that’s the speed limit they set.

I wonder what kind of average—and method—was used to determine that “the average rate of growth of hair is about ½ inch a month”? Some years ago Harold Helfer also reported in The New York Times Magazine that “the average American man shaves two miles of face during his lifetime, felling over 250,000,000 whiskers.” You can tell that this was written many years ago (1966), because another of the items in his column says, “The average salary of a Federal employee is $559 a month.” And… “Federal, state, and local government spending in this country averages $2,800 a year for each family.”

Speaking of government, here’s what Edwin Radford wrote in Unusual Words:

Average is another word distorted in our language. It comes from the Latin habere ‘to have.’ The havings, or possessions, of a farmer were his cattle; and he was compelled, when called upon, to place his cattle at the disposal of his feudal lord’s retainers for carrying their armour in times of strife. It was incumbent upon him to keep a stipulated number, say a hundred “loads,” and this was proclaimed as his “average.”

In modern times, a critic has complained, “If a man stands with his right foot on a hot stove and his left foot in a freezer—some statisticians would have us believe that, on the average, he is comfortable.”

The weather in Minnesota is (to use a Weather Bureau euphemism) “variable.” In January 1977 the mean temperature was 11.2 degrees, but one day the thermometer plummeted to minus 41. In July the mean was 71, the high was 108. With those kinds of ranges, means don’t mean much. In contrast, the weather on the Caribbean island of Aruba is so constant—averaging in the mid-80s year-round—that the local language, Papiamento, has no words for the four seasons.

Cathy (in the cartoon strip by a gal of the same name, Cathy Guisewite) says to her mom, “I’m so tired of being average. I look average… I live in an average house… I make average money… I’m just average, average, average !” (You’ll note that Cathy is using—I think—all three kinds of “our” average.) Anyway, her mom replies, “Don’t be silly, Cathy. It isn’t so bad. Everyone feels that way.”

In In Memoriam Sam Walter Foss wrote:

The plain man is the basic clod
From which we grow the demigod;
And in the average man is curled
The hero stuff that rules the world.

It’s probably a good thing that the “average” person is unusual.

SIC! SIC! SIC!

“Under Mayor Koch’s proposal, anyone caught without a registered handgun would be sentenced to a year in jail.” [Good Morning, America, ABC, February 22, 1980; submitted by Tony Castagno, Rocky Hill, Connecticut.] Does that make Koch a funfighter in gun city?

SIC! SIC! SIC!

The Most Promising Book to win the 1980 S/M Award; How to Beat a Bad Back, Shirley Linde, Rawson Wade.

SIC! SIC! SIC!

The answer is Hispanic. What’s the question? Bureaucrats invented Hispanic for a noun a few years (too late to make the 1966 edition of The Random House Unabridged), and they are now in trouble. A Dept. of Commerce press release for Nov. 7, 1979, reports, “A central problem is the inability of the census data to reflect a clear, unambiguous, and objective defintion of exactly who is a member of the Hispanic population.” They will never find out if they persist in referring to “the Hispanic population” once they have acknowledged that they don’t know what it means. Maybe bureaucrats will learn to use the language descriptively and to stop trying to find shortcuts.

SIC! SIC! SIC!

“Women in China Forcibly Sterilized by Thousands.” [Headline, Los Angeles Times, March 17, 1980, Part 1, p.1; submitted by Dennis James Izzi, Los Angeles, California.]

Take a Left on Sore Finger Road

Kay Haugaard, Pasadena, California

Not all of Arizona’s color is in its landscape. I discovered this recently during a trip to Phoenix from Los Angeles.

As my husband and I drove through desert scenes of peachy beige, sand, grey-violet mountains, dusty mustard bushes sprinkled about with brilliant yellow flowers beneath the clear, blue April sky, I could hardly take my eyes off the colors of the landscape; but then I started noticing the names of the places we either passed through or saw signs for.

Talk about colorful! These were hearty, direct names speaking of an uncomplicated, practical outlook with little patience for “pretty” words. Here was the vigor of the western frontier. There were a lot of Roads: Chuckwalla, Red Cloud, Eagle Mountain, Sore Finger, and Jack Rabbit, to name just a few.

Then we drove up to Flagstaff from Phoenix working our way up from stately saguaros, chollas, and ocatillo in the desert sand to prickly pear then juniper shrubs and grassy expanses. And as we passed the cut banks of mountains we would see colorful, striated murals of iridescent purple, orange, peach, gold, and any number of tans from gold to rosy. Then, gradually, leaving the desert and its hot colors behind we came out in pine and juniper forests of blue and green set with brown log cabins amid mountains still frosted with winter snow and trickling with sparkling spring snow melt.

To match this color the signs read, Skunk Creek, Dead Man’s Wash, Dog Track Road, Table Mesa (a handy redundancy by way of translation for us gringos) and Horse Thief Basin. Nothing wishy-washy or ladylike about these names —no Wisteria or Lilac or Wordsworth or Elm—just no-nonsense, masculine names put there by unwitting rustic poets.

But later on, mixed in with such plain talk names as Bumble Bee Road and Badger Springs we found that a different strain of more self-conscious romanticism was creeping in with Paradise Valley, Green Valley, Hillside Bagdad, Pleasant Mountain, Sunset Point, and Lookout Point. But interspersed with these more ordinary and “pretty” names would come one every now and then to jolt us right back to bedrock with its salty and uncompromising realism. Such were People’s Valley, Bloody Basin, and Rock Springs which, as far as I could see, referred to rocks springing out of the ground, although there may have been some water hiding somewhere.

Another vein of color was found in the names harking back to the Spanish, names that roll mellifluously off the tongue with a romantic ripple: Agua Fria River and Verde Valley. With Montezuma’s Castle and Montezuma’s Lake we got a little more of the south-of-the-border heritage.

Then, as we came down from Williams after having been to Flagstaff, we noticed the Indian influence in names striking strangely on the ear. Yavapai and Hassayampa: challenging mouthfuls to those used to such tamed and mass produced names as Larch and Lincoln, Fifth and Main.

Nothing timid about these names, they have tang. Some even conjure up whole hair-raising, spine-chilling, roistering, rollicking stories; Sun Dog Road, Devil Dog Ranch Road and Skull Valley. Even if the saguaros weren’t so stately and the spring desert flowers so bright and bold and the sunsets so flaming I would still have enjoyed my trip to Arizona for the names alone.

ADDENDA

W.G. Waters, Editor, Pacific Horticulture

I share Mr. Zettler’s concern [V, 3] for the manner in which publishers foist European books on American gardeners, but believe he errs in choosing as an example, A Gardener’s Dictionary of Plant Names by J.W. Smith and W.T. Steam.

Mr. Zettler criticizes the book’s list of “3000 vernacular names and botanical counterparts” claiming that, because the original author, J.W. Smith, was an Englishman and W.T. Steam, who revised and added to Smith’s work, is English, the vernacular names listed are “almost exclusively British.” The fault, he says, is “probably Stearn’s; as a professional botanist, he cannot be expected to be at home with vernacular nomenclature.”

Stearn’s reputation—and it is an international one—is in the field of botanical bibliography, and he may therefore be expected to be very much “at home” with vernacular plant names. Readers of A Gardener’s Dictionary may confirm this (as apparently Mr. Zettler has not) by referring to Steam’s essay on the subject beginning on Page 339. It is an outstanding explanation of the origins, uses and limitations of vernacular plant names.

In support of his claim that the list “is almost exclusively British” Mr. Zettler offers nothing but his own reputation, with which, I regret, I am unfamiliar. Dr. Stearn, on the other hand, gives four authorities for his list, three of which are U.S. publications.

Not content with his dismissal of the list for U.S. gardeners, Mr. Zettler contends that it is “not entirely useful even for British common names.” He takes the example of Impatiens, a vernacular name for which is balsam. Balsam, Mr. Zettler says, is not listed by Stearn, but careful readers will find on Page 356 that balsam is given as a vernacular for Impatiens.

The need to be selective in compiling a list of vernacular plant names—and thus omitting many favorites—is stressed in Stearn’s essay. He gives from many that might be used, the example of marshmarigold (Caltha palustris) which has over eighty local names in Britain, about sixty in France and over one hundred and forty in Germany. It is usual, Stearn points out, to “select from among the many, one or two vernacular names as equivalents of the scientific names of conspicuous, interesting and important species.” His references for the list to which Mr. Zettler takes exception, include Bailey’s Manual of Cultivated Plants, Fernald’s Gray’s Manual of Botany (both U.S. publications) and Correll and Johnston’s Manual of the Vascular Plants of Texas. In the list of sources of further information there are also several U.S. publications.

Mr. Zettler also takes a shot at the scientific list in A Gardener’s Dictionary and again his aim is poor. It is not a list of plant names, but of generic names and Latinized adjectives from which specific epithets are derived. This arrangement is economical because many plants have similar specific epithets and repetition of these is avoided. Mr. Zettler fails to realize this and complains, “It does not mention the second and third species either botanically or vernacularly despite their very strong popularity on both sides of the Atlantic. Ditto for Schlumbergera truncata, Plectranthus australis, Senecio mikanioides, etc.” All three of these generic names are in fact listed and explained, and the adjectives from which all three specific epithets are derived are listed and explained. Mr. Zettler’s favorite vernacular names for these plants are missing from the book and this omission he is clearly not prepared to forgive.

[See page 973.]

Naming the Flora and the Fauna

Barbara Hunt Lazerson, Illinois State University (Normal)

Why has man bestowed upon the plants and animals within his environment the particular names that he has given them? Since the naming process does not occur in vacuo, it seems reasonable to conclude that the names that homo loquens has given to the flora and the fauna that share his living space were not plucked from nowhere. Names such as sunflower, bleeding-heart, bluebell, evergreen, woodpecker, grasshopper, goldfish, and roadrunner suggest that man probably has tended to focus upon salient physical and behavioral characteristics when naming the life around him. However, centuries of phonological and/or semantic change have served to conceal from the speaker of contemporary English the meanings that many plant and animal names had for the original name-givers. It is interesting to examine the etymologies of the names of certain plants and animals and thereby understand what our linguistic forefathers had in mind when they named some of the flora and fauna as they did.

Names based on color

bear, beaver < *IE root bher- ‘bright, brown’

carnation < Latin caro ‘flesh’

chrysanthemum < Greek chrysos ‘gold’ + anthemon ‘flower’

edelweiss < German edel ‘noble’ + weiss ‘white’

elm, elk < IE root *el- ‘red, brown’

iris < Greek iris ‘rainbow’

lilac < Persian *nī*l ‘indigo blue’

opossum < Algonquian aposoum ‘white beast’

oriole < Medieval Latin oriolus ‘golden (bird)’

penguin < Welsh pen ‘head’ + gwyn ‘white’

Names based on size and/or shape

cabbage < Old French caboce ‘head’

carrot, ginger < IE root *ker- ‘horn’

cauliflower < Latin caulis ‘cabbage’ + flōris ‘flower’

dandelion < Old French dent de lion ‘tooth of the lion’ (because of its jagged leaves)

date < Greek daktulos ‘finger’

dolphin < Greek delphus ‘womb’ (because of its womblike appearance)

gladiolus < Latin gladius ‘sword’ (because of its swordshaped leaves)

orchid < Green orchis originally ‘testicle’ (because of its double roots)

porpoise < Latin porcus ‘pig’ + piscis ‘fish’

rutabaga < Old Norse rōt ‘root’ + baggi ‘bag’

tadpole < Middle English tadde ‘toad’ + pol ‘head’

tulip < Turkish tul(i)bend ‘turban’ (because of the shape of its flower)

vanilla < Spanish vainilla ‘little sheath’ (because of its sheathlike pods)

Names based on movement

bat < Old Norse -blaka in ledhrblaka ‘leather flapper’

dromedary < Greek dromas ‘runner’

duck < Old English dūcan ‘to dive’

frog < IE root *preu- ‘to hop’

polliwog < Middle English polwygle: pol ‘head’ + wiglen ‘to wiggle’

reptile < IE root *rēp- ‘to creep, slink’

snail, snake < IE root *sneg- ‘to creep, creeping thing’

spider < Old English spīthra ‘the spinner’

stork < IE root *ster- ‘stiff (probably because of the stiff manner in which it walks)

weevil < IE root *webh- ‘to weave’

worm < IE root *wer- ‘to turn, bend’

Names based on sounds

crane, grackle, crow < IE root *get- ‘to cry hoarsely’

cricket < Old French criquet < criquer ‘to click, creak’

drone < IE root *dher- ‘to drone, murmur, buzz’

owl < imitative IE root *ul- ‘to howl,’ of. ululate

swan < Germanic root *swanon ‘singer’

Names based on protrusions and appendages

hawk < IE root *kap- ‘to grasp’ (because of its grasping talons)

octopus < Greek octō, ‘eight’ + pous, ‘foot’

phalanger < Latin phalanx ‘toe bone’ (because of the peculiar structure of the second and third toes on its hind feet)

porcupine < Latin porcus ‘pig’ + spīna ‘thorn, prickle, spine’

rhinoceros < Greek rhin- ‘nose’ + keras ‘horn’

shrew < IE root *skeru- ‘to cut, cutting tool’ (because of its snout)

squirrel < Greek skiouros ‘shadow tail’

Names based on behavioral characteristics

amoeba < Greek amoibē ‘change’ (because of its changeableness)

caribou < Algonguian mekālixpowa ‘snow shoveler’

Crab, crayfish < IE root *gerebh- ‘to scratch’

crocodile < Greek krokā ‘pebbles’ + drilos ‘worm’ (because it basks in the sun on a gravel beach, giving it the appearance of a legless worm)

hippopotamus < Greek hippos ‘horse + potamos ‘river’

moose < Algonquian mooswa ‘he who eats off bark’

raccoon < Algonquian arathkone ‘scratcher’

Names based on sundry factors

apricot < Latin (Prūnum) praecoquum ‘early ripening (plum)’

azalea < the feminine of Greek azaleos ‘dry’ (because it grows in dry, sandy soil)

daisy < Old English æges ‘day’s’ + ēage ‘eye’ (because it opens in the morning to reveal a yellow disk and then closes in the evening)

grape < Germanic root *krāppon ‘a hook’ (named for the crooked hook used in harvesting it)

grapefruit < Modern English grape + fruit (because it grows in clusters as grapes do)

lettuce < Latin lac ‘milk’ (because of its milky juice)

moss < IE root *meu- ‘moist’ (because it grows in damp places)

nasturtium < Latin nāsus ‘nose’ + tort- stem of past of torquēre ‘to twist, torture’ (because its pungent odor causes the nose to twist in pain)

pansy < French pensée ‘thought’ (because of the “thoughtful expression” on its “face”)

pumpkin < Greek pepōn ‘ripe’

Philip Howard on English English: Byzantine

Philip Howard

I notice that we hacks on this side of the Atlantic have picked up Byzantine recently as a vogue epithet to mean ridiculously complicated and boring. For example, in a recent news story: “Only in the Byzantine world of Mine-workers’ politics would a wage claim knocking on 65 per cent be labelled a victory for moderation.” It has become a fashionable put-down for political and other activities of which one disapproves. I find it useful. It is also an oversimplification, and possibly unhistorical. There was a great deal more to Byzantium than the complexity of its politics.

Our one-eyed modern British use of Byzantine obscures the fact that Byzantium is the umbilical cord to our classical mothers of the ancient world. It was the guardian of our Western civilization and culture for ten centuries. So we undervalue history when we grumble about the Byzantinism of academic criticism or sneer at the opacity of Byzantine prose.

I think that the European Economic Community, with its green pounds, and snakes, and the rest of the boring jargon of Eurobabel, which are indeed as complex as any of the actions of John Cantacuzene, has been a stimulus to the metaphorical abuse of Byzantium. When the United Kingdom was negotiating to join the EEC, and Edward Heath’s detailed reports to the House of Commons about such minutiae as tariffs on kangaroo-tail soup were earning him the sobriquet of Grocer, it became a commonplace of political journalism to refer to the Government’s Byzantine approach. Byzantine is still a favourite adjective in British journalism for putting down the obscure activities and obscurer jargon of the Eurocrats in Brussels, who so far seem duller men than the rulers of an older empire established by a Treaty of Rome.

Richard Nixon’s presidency also provided us with frequent opportunities for this new use of Byzantine: “The CIA empire grows, Byzantine in its complexity.” In fact a better analogy was with the secrecies of Istanbul. Over the years the White House came to resemble the Yildiz Kiosk, where the Ottoman emperor, Abdul the Damned, made a virtual prisoner of himself. Locked in the seclusion of the Yildiz, the Ottoman got rid of reformers, reduced his ministers, whom he rarely saw, to executive officers, transmitted orders to them through the Mabeyn, his intimate secretaries, and left the Chief Eunuch to deal with other matters. In Nixon’s Yildiz Erlichman and Haldeman were the Mabeyn, and Dean was the Chief Eunuch. Nixon as Abdul the Damned is a much more persuasive metaphor than Nixon Paleologus.

As we should expect from a man who handles most European languages as easily as the rest of us handle our spoons, George Steiner found a historically exact hierarchical connotation for Byzantium when he wrote: “It was precisely on this occasion that Stalin struck the new ominous note of the cult of personality, of the Byzantine homage to the leader.”

The evidence indicates that Byzantine became popular as a derogatory epithet in British journalism in the 1960s and 1970s. The Byzantines would have been offended by our narrow view of them. They considered themselves an eastern and superior breed of Romans, and claimed to be inheritors carrying on the Roman Empire in the East after Rome itself had sunk. They preserved the literary and artistic treasures of the Hellenic world for a thousand years: these treasures are the unique legacy of the Byzantines to Western Europe, far more important and interesting than the devious politics. But yes, the politics were on occasions devious. The curious reader has to keep his wits about him to distinguish between his Comneni and his Palaeologi, the family whose imperial line stretched out across the early middle ages to the crack of doom made by the Turkish cannon. There are, alas, no Byzantines around to protest at the slur on their civilization. And even if there were, they would have as little effect on popular usage as Jesuits protesting that they are not jesuitical, or the Welsh insisting that they always pay their gambling debts, or the Jews pointing out that their commercial morality is better than that of gentiles.

Incidentally, we are in confusion about how to pronounce the words. American academics I have met seem to favour Bizzanteen or Bizzantin. There are various acceptable British pronunciations. One favoured by the learned seems to be with a long first syllable, stress on the second syllable, and the third syllable rhyming with “wine”— Buy-ZAN-tine. Byzantium sounds more magical to me in poetry with a long “y”:

And therefore I have sailed the seas and come
To the holy city of Byzantium.

Modern Greeks begin the words with “Viz,” which is bold, but no use to us.

Shortcuts

David Galef, Scarsdale, New York

Several years ago, long before anyone was bemoaning the existence of fuel at a dollar a gallon, The New York Times warned of rising ‘gas’ prices. The word gas was hemmed in by single quotation marks because, in the views of the editors, gas was still, after the trammeling of usage had almost obliterated the distinction, a short way of spelling gasoline. Similarly, in English novels of that vintage era which producted Dorothy Sayers, among others, one will often find references to ‘phones and ‘buses. One school of thought clung to omnibus and telephone, while others presumably scattered their prose with the new shortcuts. Caught in the middle were those bent on preserving what at times seemed an artificial distinction, avoiding ‘cello but drawing the line at calling a baby grand a piano forte.

Nowadays, no one demurs when the shorter form of a word supplants the original. Delicatessen becomes deli, aero- or airplane becomes plain plane, automobile becomes auto (to give way, in its turn, to car), and even the British have for years called their own source of fuel petrol instead of petroleum. Petrol’ would look downright silly, if not confusing, as well.

A psycholinguist will say that this phenomenon is working proof of Zipf’s Law, which states loosely that one can generally determine the relative age of a particular word or phrase by how short it has become—how many syllables it has shed in its course of existence, how slurred or simplified the pronunciation has become, and so on. Nicknames, such as Richard to Ricky or Rich, are good examples, but the erosion occurs with myriads of other words. Hence, going to becomes gonna, and supposed becomes ‘sposed. In his column, “On Language,” Safire cites ongona for I’m going to. Tho, ‘cause or cuz, thru, and ‘kay are other noxious forms. The humorous writer Peter De Vries has his characters bludgeon probably into probly or prolly, and a few are content with the monosyllabic pry, which I had to test before being content that that is indeed how some people pronounce it: “He’s pry not here now”; it works.

Nonetheless, some foreshortened forms gain acceptance, while others remain branded with the stamp of coll., slang, or Amer, dial. Being somewhat interested in the purity, or at least euphony, of the English language, I do not welcome the random slurrings and imprecisions that serve to drop consonants and whole syllables from speech. They are mostly oral solecisms, such as Whudja get for “What did you get.” People exchange whole dialogues in this vein:

“Hey, lemme do it, tho.”
“Uh uh.”
“C’mon, whyntcha lemme aleas try?”
“Cause yer only semi-literate.”

The possibilities are as varied as individuals, though many forms are in common parlance. Moreover, they depend on regional peculiarities and other factors … and they are so numerous that one is forever beleaguered trying to classify them or even compile a modest collection.

The other type of shortened form, however, the one which evolves through the years honestly and thus can be found on the printed page as well as the streets, makes for a more interesting search. I have compiled a short list of examples heretofore unmentioned, though some are inexact cut-offs or may be termed borderline cases.

ampere — amp
bicycle — bike or cycle
brassiere — bra
camera obscura — camera
debutante — deb
detective — tec
discotheque — disco
disk jockey — deejay
flat iron — iron
forecastle — fo’c’sle
frankfurter — frank
gymnasium — gym
hamburger — burger
headshrinker (psychiatrist) — shrink
high fidelity — hi-fi
introduction — intro
jockey — jock
kilogram — kilo
luncheon — lunch
master of ceremonies — emcee
moving pictures — movies (early slang:moom pitchers)
newspaper — news or paper
nuclear bomb — nuke
parachute — chute
perambulator — pram
perquisite — perk
postal card — postcard
potato — tater
preparatory school — prep school
psychopath — psycho
public house — pub
quadrangle — quad
recreation room — rec room
rock and roll — rock
sacrifice — sac (in chess, principally)
schizophrenic — schizo
science fiction — s.f. (sci-fi denotes bad s.f.)
situation comedy — sitcom
soda pop — soda or pop
spectacles — specs
stereophonic — stereo
television — T.V. (telly in Britain)
very important person — V.I.P.
zipper — zip

There are, of course, occasional disappointments: cheque, or its American variant check, is not short for ex-chequer, for instance. True, there may be hundreds of words that have undergone changes of one kind or another, to be found if one follows them far back enough, but the forms for which I search—not actively, mind you, but I do keep my ears open—must be of relatively recent vintage. Zounds for His wounds, Goodby for God be with you, or, in a similar vein, ‘strewth or ods bodkins would not qualify.

It is therefore more of an amateur philologist’s hunt, which suits those of that ruminative nature. Oleomargarine and refrigerator are my two latest finds, though purists might object to fridge. I, for one, do not entirely accept percolate with its diminutive perk. There are also quite a few phrases whose original endings often trail off nowadays, but, well, de gustibus…

Why “Butterfly”?

Axel Hornos, Pittsford, New York

Some areas in the uncertain realm of comparative linguistics rest on reasonably solid ground. Thus it can be safely said that, as a rule, English words of Latin ancestry bear a close resemblance to their equivalents in Romance languages.

Here are a few examples:

Latin	English	French
saccharum	sugar	sucre
sol	sun	soleil
hora	hour	heure
tres	three	trois
machina	machine	machine
flos	flower	fleur

Spanish	Italian	Portuguese	Rumanian
azúcar	zucchero	açucar	zahar
sol	sole	sol	soare
hora	ora	hora	ora
tres	tre	tres	trei
máquina	macchina	máquina	maşina
flor	fiore	flor	floare

Yet other words make a mockery of this rule. Consider our winged, flitting friend of the title. In ancient Rome it was known as papilio; it has become butterfly in English.

Why consign to oblivion the rightful papilio? Did the coiner of butterfly do so in revolt against what he may have regarded a constrictive tradition? Did butterfly convey better, in his view, the insect’s playfulness? Or did he want to emphasize what is perhaps the least significant color in lepidoptera?

I, for one, resent butterfly. The oleaginous first part, combined with the offensive ending, dishonors one of Nature’s loveliest ornaments. And to add insult to injury, the same regrettable disregard for convention occurs in four of the other languages. Butterfly is mariposa in Spanish, farfalla in Italian, borboleta in Portuguese, fluture in Rumanian. It is papillon in French—the exception within the exception.

There ought to be a law preventing tradition-honored Latin words from being dumped in favor of upstarts, often nothing more than the product of unbridled fancy.

(On second through, I like mariposa, farfalla, borboleta and fluture—one almost hears the rustle of fluttering wings—even better than papilio. Breaking entrenched rules isn’t a bad idea sometimes. But why, oh why butterfly?).

READERS’ QUERIES

In January of 1979, a news story out of Davenport, Iowa, reported that some one hundred motorists refused to accept auto licence plates bearing the randomly assigned prefix “G-A-Y.” One indignant driver was quoted as saying, “Everybody knows the connotation of that word.” (Emphasis mine.) “I cannot be a single teacher and sport those plates around.”

Other evidence of the existence of a kind of “Gresham’s Law of Linguistics,” which seems to mandate that a sexual or a scatological connotation of any word drive all other connotations out of circulation, abounds in the English language. No doubt there are many coffee drinkers who would swiftly switch to saccharine, cancer scare notwithstanding, if they knew that defecation is a part of the process of sugar refining. And I cannot believe that many persons are aware that the word prophylactic, defined as ‘preventive of disease,’ may just as properly be used to describe the kind of rubbers your mother made you wear in the rain as the devices the army used to distribute for the protection of promiscuous privates.

Almost anyone can come up with numerous words that are thus being lost from our verbal pannier. I can find only one word that has gone the other way. Occupy, as respectable a term as there is today, was, some three centuries ago, on a par with the dreaded jape and swive as a sexual dysphemism.

I would like to know of any suggestions other readers of VERBATIM might have regarding a way of preventing further depletion of our linguistic larder. Does anyone know of additional examples of semantic change of the kind described in this letter? And does any similar phenomenon occur in any language besides English?

Gary R. Shroat, 212 N. 44 #5, Belleville, IL 62223

The Zimbabwe Constitution: On Negotiations

Albert P. Blaustein, Rutgers University, Camden

[Albert P. Blaustein, Professor of Law at Rutgers University School of Law, was the official adviser on the drafting of the constitutions for Bangladesh, Cambodia, and Peru and co-author of Constitutions of the Countries of the World. Recently, he was appointed adviser to Bishop Abel T. Muzorewa, prime minister of Zimbabwe Rhodesia, and he participated in the meetings held in London this past autumn to write a new constitution for that country.]

Constitutional negotiations on the preparations of a new national charter for Zimbabwe were conducted solely in the English language. But that does not mean that it was good English, and it does not mean that it always conformed to the principles of good American English.

I had the unusual privilege of participating in the constitutional negotiations and drafting in my capacity as special counsel to the Zimbabwe Rhodesia Prime Minister, Bishop Abel Muzorewa. And one of my notable failures was the failure to secure the deletion of the phrase “that is to say” from the document. For example, Article 11 begins like this: “Whereas every person in Zimbabwe is entitled to the fundamental rights and freedoms of the individual, that is to say, the right, whatever his race, tribe, …”

But what was most troublesome (at least in the beginning) was the word tabling. When the British table a document, it means they ‘place it on the table for action’—unlike the American practice of using the term table to indicate ‘delay.’ Americans pick something up from the table when they are ready to discuss and act upon it.

Like Americans, both British and Africans are obsessed by that trendy colloquialism, at this point in time. One came to wonder whether any provision of any constitution could be discussed without such reference. I was gratified by being spared the trendy Americanism of the bottom line to indicate finality and results. But my fellows at the various conference tables had an equally overused trendy substitute: at the end of the day.

Jarring to the ear was the African/British failure to recognize that some nouns are collective. One does a doubletake when so eloquent a spokesman as Lord Carrington says, “the British Government have a full understanding …” and “the Patriotic Front have criticized….” And, although the word judgment is impeccably pronounced, the various conference documents spelled the word as judgement.

Also strange to the American ear are all of those British and African sentences beginning with the word whilst. Nor, unlike their African and British counterparts, could any American describe himself as keen on special tribal representation or keen on the power of the Prime Minister to appoint as Chief Justice a lawyer not recommended by the Judicial Service Commission.

But the words which came to be most dreaded are those which are innocent indeed to the American ear. When an African or Englishman begins his statement with the words, with respect, you know very well that he disagrees with you entirely and is prepared to demolish your position.

Epenthetical Follow-up

Jack Luzzatto, Bronx, New York

Looks like I’ve struck a gusher in the short piece on epenthesis [VI, 1]. I had intended to list both “ashphalt” and “restauranteur” but failed to do so. Restauranteur washed in on the flood of responses. Richard J. Roberts of Toronto sent it, along with “reforestration.” It must be mentioned that “restauranteur” is so widespread a usage that lexicographers now recognize it. Originally, it was an error.

Realator and realitor (for realtor) came in, the first from Mrs. Jerome Gluck of Elberon, N.J., the second from Jean Ferris of Portland, Ore. Mrs. Gluck also offers the popular “nucular,” but that is a mispronunciation, and not epenthesis. Benjamin Keller of Harbor City, Calif., contributes “preventative” (which Webster lists as acceptable), “frust-r-um,” “burg-u-lar,” “ab-o-lutions” (for washing) and “Texian” for Texan. This last is a bit hard to take but it must be so because a report has come from Florida recording the word “Cubians” for Cubans. Helen Lamont of Shelter Island Heights, N.Y., contributes the widely used “sherbert,” a dubious “vermillion” (perhaps an original misspelling but so universal that Webster lists it alongside the one L spelling), and a complaint about ‘til for till or until. Wright Bennett of Cos Cob, Conn., sends in “decath-a-lon,” which he heard on a TV commercial, and “aper-a-ture.”

On the esoteric side there is an unbelievable “dysplexia” (for dyslexia), sent in by Janet Smuga of Red Bank, N.J., who not only heard it from, but had it spelled out by, a sufferer of same. Her two-year-old child likes going to the “li-a-bary,” and as a youngster herself she used to say “ell-a-bow.”

Carolyn Sobel of Queens College, N.Y.C., complains that “caroom” and my other double O words are not epenthetical but mispronunciations. I claim they fit the Webster definition of epenthesis (which Ms. Sobel says is correct): “The insertion of an extra consonant or vowel in the pronunciation of a word.” Some will agree with me and some with my critic, but that’s what it’s all about.

If I’ve overlooked any correspondents I apologize for not being organized and efficient.

P.S. No less an excellent writer and stylist than George V. Higgins either committed an epenthesis or had poor proof-reading do it in his name. In a beautifully written book called “A Year or So with Edgar,” about some improper Bostonians, the word “depiliate” (for depilate) appears. Mr. Higgins is not necessarily responsible for this, but the appearance of such a word in print may linger in another writer’s mind and show up later and elsewhere because of this.

ADDENDA

Howard G. Zettler, New Britain, Connecticut

I am grateful to Mr. Waters for noting my carelessness in overlooking the balsam entry, but I am essentially uneasy about the validity of the rest of his critique. Apparently he made having fun with his essay a stronger objective than developing a totally accurate argument, for he indulges in unbecoming techniques to achieve his ends. He fails entirely to see that a reference book must be judged in terms of its utility, finds delight in the frequently fallacious ploy of criticizing a critique by criticizing the critic, confuses (in his last paragraph) the vast difference between an etymology and a definition (whether gloss or explanation), and because of this confusion commits the almost unforgivable sin of cutting a quotation and ignoring its context so as to obscure its original point. Above all, overlooking my first sentence, he maneuvers (like Shaw’s Bannal) by making an appeal to the authority of Dr. Stearn (which I should be the last to deny), fails to note that even authorities sometimes goof, and therefore fails to meet my intended point: that St. Martin’s is to be faulted for issuing, without revision for a vastly different audience, a book for British gardeners. American gardeners, by and large, are still unused to naming in botanical terms, and a book released for them should not only list American species but also, to be truly useful, must be more thorough in its common-to-botanical section. The Stearn book was written, not for professionals like horticulturists, botanists, or learned editors, but for gardeners. My thesis still holds: it is not truly helpful to American gardeners.

Writer’s Blindness

Philip Haldeman, Seattle, Washington

After helping to write and edit a comprehensive international travel guide “describing 3000 adventure trips on land, sea, air, and underwater,” I have come to the conclusion that writer’s blindness can be far more interesting than writer’s block.

Writer’s blindness might be defined as the inability to perceive other than the intended meaning of a newly composed word, phrase, or sentence. My preoccupation with the phenomenon began during my first day as an editor of the travel guide when, after editing three or four trip descriptions, I was confronted by the following sentence:

The Klamath River trip is for individuals who wish
to paddle themselves in one-person inflatable canoes.

I blinked. Now that was a kinky trip, I thought to myself. I went to the writer who had composed the sentence and got what became the most common reaction: “You’re kidding. I really wrote that?!” Complete unawareness is the main feature of the disease.

Seeing a priceless opportunity, I began to collect examples from the thousands of 150- to 200-word trip descriptions contributed to the travel guide by the writing staff (including my own). The trip descriptions were rewritten from advertising and trip operator brochures sent to our magazine office. Ideally, each writer was to turn in ten descriptions per day based on brochure material. Although speed was important, writers were instructed to reread and rewrite where necessary. In other words, they had every opportunity to revise and correct mistakes immediately after typing a first draft. After I drew attention to several funny sentences, the other editors started helping me, and the resulting collection became known as “The Zinger List.” At first it was slightly embarrassing to everyone, but it was finally accepted as some sort of occupational disease. I concluded that the frequency of “zinger” sentences was primarily a function of the ability of an individual writer. No one, however, was entirely immune, and it seemed that out of 15,000 to 20,000 sentences, a few really amusing constructions were inevitable. Initially, mere chance and the tricky nature of the English language could be blamed; but the fact was, writers often missed these errors even after a revision or two. We at once realized how easily some of those sentences might have found their way onto the printed page, given a tired editor at five o’clock in the afternoon. The following are selections from a collected list of 57 sentences that were weeded out of the travel guide before it was too late.

1. Individuals, though accompanied by professional river guides, embark on the journey alone.

2. The group takes a ferry to South Island, where it splits into two parts, according to the interests of group members.

3. Meals and accommodations at the inn are within walking distance.

4. Birders and naturalists can wing south with the only existing flock of whooping cranes to winter along the salt flats and marshes of Arkansas.

5. Participants may visit islands fringed by coral reefs, an orangutan sanctuary, tropical forests from sea level to 6000 feet and several national parks.

6. A licensed captain and dive guide accompany each trip during which divers can also snorkel, photograph, and engage in shelling.

7. Participants fly from Juneau to be dropped at a remote stream.

8. While lunching on the banks of the Hanalei River, adventurers see egrets and perch.

9. After the backpacking adventure, hikers become rafters and float down the Alatna River during never-ending days and very short nights.

10. A cemetery for the many mountaineers who have been killed while climbing the peak is passed on the trail of the relatively safe and easy 11-day hike.

11. Certified individuals may rent equipment without instruction.

12. At the lower elevations, participants are likely to see moose, black bear, or grizzly bear as they return to Anchorage.

13. Participants proceed through the inaccessible canyons of the Chama River.

14. The tropical rain forests of Ecuador are a rich, natural laboratory for a 2-week study of the ecological problems of frogs and lizards.

15. Depending on river conditions, participants may have the opportunity to handle the oars on trips with more than 16 participants, while the more adventurous are provided with U-boats.

16. Each morning is spent in the tidal zone, making observations and conducting experiments with some of the finest representatives of plants and animals on the West Coast.

17. Hot dinners and beds await participants at the end of each day.

18. Participants supply their own food and personal fear.

19. After crossing a beautiful lagoon, the guide introduces travelers to the Indians.

20. Exotic plants and wildlife typical of the Amazon Basin waterways include the hallucinogenic yaje vine, the wild boar, fruit-eating bats, the 30-ft.-long anaconda serpent, 1300 species of birds, and the expert Ecuador explorers who guide the trip.

21. Students study the feeding behavior of anemones as they stretch their tentacles out to passing fish, help deliver baby dogfish and induce fertilization of sea urchin eggs to observe their development.

Various categories of pitfall can be found. One of the problems specific to the travel guide was having to work from material used for advertising. The ever-present temptation to use the brochure vocabulary to save time often got a writer into trouble. Advertisers always wanted to add drama to the traveled terrain, so they would routinely describe “vast” wilderness, “wild” mountain country, and in one case “inaccessible” canyons. These adjectives would sometimes automatically end up in the descriptions, as the latter did in sentence 13. Rarely, the writer would simply condense several sentences of ad hype into one, as in 9. Example 17 amusingly demonstrates how leaving out an adjective (could it have been “warm” beds?) got the writer into trouble.

The most common errors were sentences in which a single word might have more than one meaning. During writer’s blindness, only the intended meaning is perceived. Therefore, a writer could read a sentence like 8 over and over again without discovering a problem. Several double meanings arose because of sport or hobby usage, as in sentence 6.

The most inevitable and comical source of writer’s blindness was the oft-cited agreement/referent problem. In the collected examples pronouns were the main culprit. My favorite is 21. Other sentences simply took it for granted that they referred to a previous sentence or sentences. In 4 the airline was mentioned in the previous sentence. In 11 a reference to U.S. Coast Guard certification of scuba divers appeared in an earlier paragraph. Item 3 assumes knowledge that hikers are coming to the inn from elsewhere.

Oddly enough, the easiest errors for a writer to discover upon re-reading were typing mistakes. 15 was corrected before it got to the editors, but 18 was not. In the first one, U-boats should have been U-row boats. In the second, fear was meant to be gear.

A significant number of the “zingers” were very strange indeed. Perhaps the reader would like to try to locate and classify them. 10 contains no grammatical errors at all, but was included for its thought-provoking juxtaposition of clauses.

In the course of our sentence-gathering experiment we found two aids for writer’s blindness. One was experience. The more one writes, the more one’s prose awareness grows. The second was delay in revising. Those of us who both wrote and edited the travel guide found that we could easily edit our own trip descriptions when those descriptions had been written earlier during the project: the level of objectivity is directly related to the amount of time between the writing and the editing of a particular piece of work. It is to be hoped that experience decreases the amount of time necessary until little or no waiting time is needed. In the meantime, simple awareness of the problem and of its sometimes amusing consequences can be a great help.

SIC! SIC! SIC!

“Over 90% of homeowners plan to insulate themselves better.” [Caption, advt. for Diamond International, Business Week, August 20, 1979, p.87; submitted by Elizabeth Christiansen, Lompoc, California.)

SIC! SIC! SIC!

Headline, N.Y. Times, January 15, 1980, p. B2: “Carey Meets a Father of Retarded Son, 16, After 9-month Delay.”

SIC! SIC! SIC!

Sign at dry-cleaning shop on Dixwell Avenue, New Haven, Connecticut: “Sweaters Blocked to Sighs.”

BIBLIOGRAPHIA: Trade Names Dictionary and Trade Names Dictionary: Company Index

Ellen T.Crowley, ed., Second Edition, 2 vols. 900pp. and Ellen T. Crowley, ed., Second Edition, 899pp.

Both from: Gale Research Company, Book Tower, Detroit, Michigan 48226.

Since it was first issued in 1975, some 24,000 new trade names have been added to the second edition of the Trade Names Dictionary (TND), which brings the present total listing to some 130,000 names for products known to the consumer-public.

The Second Edition offers a bonus for the trademark owners whose marks are listed: each trademark is accompanied by the generic description of the goods. This is a very welcome coupling since it allows a writer to use either the trademark in the proper manner (with an initial capital letter) or only the description for the goods. This is one of the ten trademark commandments for the press. With the new additions, it can be assumed the book may continue to grow. There are almost one half million marks registered in the United States Patent & Trademark Office (PTO), thousands more registered in the states or not registered at all …plus marks used worldwide. This impressive number of products bearing trademarks proves a heady challenge to anyone offering a new product for which a new name is needed.

The guidelines for a “good” mark dictate that it be arbitrary (if possible), that it not duplicate a mark already in use, that it be easy to spell and to speak, and that it be attractive and catchy enough to make new friends. Trademark lists are important for research because they help to eliminate obvious or frequently used words at the outset of the selection process.

To guess at the monumental task facing the publishers, it should be noted also that trademark applications filed in the PTO increased from 33,300 in 1970 to 49,000 in 1978, and current reports indicate this pace will be maintained. International trade continues to expand every day and a complete book of active trademarks defies even the most conscientious publisher. However, the TND is surely a step in the right direction, and in this computer age we may look to such a complete reference tome in days to come.

On the other hand, the process of selection of the marks listed in the TND is interesting since it emphasizes the marks known to the consumer as opposed to those of an industrial nature. In addition to product marks, they include service marks (Stouffer’s hotel and motel chain) and certification marks (Wear-Dated for apparel). No effort has been made to report registered or unregistered marks and since use of a mark is the underlying concept of trademark law, it would appear to serve the purpose of a researcher in its present form. There are other books devoted to marks that are registered.

The advantage of the TND is the form of presentation, which is easy to use. In addition to the trade name itself, each reference listing is cross-indexed with the owner-manufacturer, whose addresses are given. There is room for additions: as a person who has spent a good deal of time in the trademark field, I find that some trademarks well known to the consuming public are missing and I hope future volumes will correct these omissions.

Because the trademark field is made up of purist lawyers, it would be an oversight not to point out that the use of “Trade Name” for this dictionary is a misnomer. It should properly be a “Trademark” book. The editors acknowledge this misuse of “Trade Name” as being more comprehensive and widely understood by the general public. To the purist, a trade name is a ‘corporate name.’

A recent companion volume is “Trade Names Dictionary: Company Index, which reverses the process and lists the trademark-owning companies with the marks for their various products. Dorothy Fey

[Executive Director, The United States Trademark Association]

BIBLIOGRAPHIA: Doublespeak Dictionary

William Lambdin, (Pinnacle Books, Los Angeles, 1979), xv. + 330pp.

If you like sardonic, cynical “humor” in dictionary form, then this is the book for you. A bit of this goes a long way for me, especially since alphabetical order has never appealed to me, particularly, as a suitable framework for humor. When the author—one could scarcely call him a lexicographer just because he titled his work a “dictionary” —encroaches on the world of fact, he comes up with silly

fictions, like “…the number of words in English has grown from 50,000 in Old English to over 650,000 at present….” which is patently so inaccurate as not to merit confutation.

Doublespeak has acquired a very specific sense, which the author defines in the Preface as, “the nonsense spoken by politicians, bureaucrats and other public figures.” He goes on to say that he has used the term “to describe distorted language because it recalls the doublethink and Newspeak that George Orwell said are employed to make lies sound truthful and to give an appearance of solidarity to pure wind.” Lambdin does not define doublespeak in the dictionary itself, but he does have an entry on the Double-speak Committee of the National Council of Teachers of English.

The problem with the book is that its definitions are contorted with cynicism in the author’s efforts to wring the last drop of humor from them: his humor (and the points made in a serious vein in the Preface) would have been funnier and his point more telling had he chosen to play it straight. It is not at all helpful to the uninformed, for instance, to have to cope with his definition of do your own thing:

Used by people who “thing” for themselves. The full meaning of the phrase is “Do your own thing before someone else does unto it.”

No matter how the meaning of the entry can be twisted, it doesn’t mean that at all, and anyone trying to understand the meaning could expect no help from this definition. Another entry, drive-in funeral, is, on the face of it, an idea in such execrably gross taste that even Lambdin should not have had to tamper with it. But he did.

This book achieves neither of two possible goals: it does not provide the reader to whom an expression is unfamiliar with an undistorted definition that he can understand; nor does it offer humor in its unsubtle presentation of information.

Laurence Urdang

BIBLIOGRAPHIA: Place-Name Changes Since 1900, A World Gazetteer

Comp. Adrian Room, (Scarecrow Press, 1979), 224pp.

When an individual changes his name from Joseph Klinckowierczoremski to William Klinckowierczoremski, no one is particuarly surprised: we recognize his impatience at being asked, “Whaddya know, Joe?” And when Stalingrad is changed to Volgograd, aware of the volatile nature of Soviet political favor, we are not astonished—after all, even the Russians aren’t eager to back a loser. Even Spassky Zaton was changed to Kuybyshevsky Zaton—though one shouldn’t be deceived: that took place in 1935, not as a result of Spassky’s defeat by Bobby Fischer, Rhodesia became Zimbabwe too late for inclusion in this book, which very conveniently documents the place-name changes of the past eight decades. It is bound to be of great use to editors of dictionaries and of other reference books; though, recalling my experience with the problems of name changes when working on dictionaries, I should have wished for a complete listing, going back as far as possible. So Istanbul was Constantinople (from the song of the same name), but Byzantium is missing entirely.

The time when a complete listing comes in handy is when one is dealing with biographies of people born in the 19th century or earlier: it is hard to know in which country they were born if the city changed hands often (as, say, between Germany and Poland). Also, someone born in Randolph, California, in 1909, was born in the same city as someone born in Brea, California in 1912, which must be a bit confusing for parents, children, and grandchildren.

There can be no doubt that more tourists would go to Hog Island once it has been renamed Paradise Island; and I can understand why the people living in Akow changed its name in 1920—but why to Pinktung?; for ten years (1939-48) Marechal Floriano in Brazil was graced by that euphonious name: it is now carnivorously known as Piranhas. Where have all the flowers gone?

Adrian Room knows, and he has set them all down in this volume, a very useful one for any public or school library and an important adjunct to the gazetteer in many private libraries. Can you imagine changing the name of your town to Uglegorsk, regardless of what it was? Incredible!

Laurence Urdang

SIC! SIC! SIC!

“We want to extend our sympathies to the Stock family. Mrs. Stock (Valerie) died suddenly last year and the same happened to her husband (Michael) who was buried this week from St. Anselm.” [Submitted by Javan Kienzle, Detroit, Michigan] Obviously, they wanted to keep him in stock as long as possible.

BIBLIOGRAPHIA:

Understanding English Place-Names and How Place-Names Began

William Addison, (Futura), 192pp. and C.M. Matthews, (Hamlyn Publishing Group), 176pp.

In 1944 George R. Stewart completed his Names on the Land. The book could have become just another discursive work about place names, but as place-name enthusiasts know; it was soon apparent that it was far more than that. It set a standard for all such books, showing that they might be written in superb prose, occasionally bordering on poetry, while remaining soundly based on first class scholarship and research.

Professor Stewart was perhaps fortunate in that he had to deal with American rather than British place names. The study of American names, especially minor ones, often involves looking into fairly recent social history. There are people still alive who—if their memories are stirred—can explain how and why certain township names came into being. The researcher is thus dealing in a kind of human archaeology. As for the earlier, major names, they and the documents that refer to them are accessible and mostly easy to read. Even the names that do pose serious problems, deriving from Indian tribal languages, take the scholar into a youthful, thriving area of scholarship, linguistics rather than philology. It is therefore easy to understand the widespread appeal that American place names have for many young academics.

British place names pose a very different set of problems to an investigator. Very early forms of the names must be found, then a combination of philological, archaeological, historical, and topographical information must be weighed in an effort to arrive at explanations. The stories behind British place names are often of more interest as technical explanations—meaningful to other specialists— than they are to a layman.

Two recently published paperbacks nevertheless attempt to interpret British place names to non-specialist readers. Understanding English Place-names, by William Addison (192pp., Futura, £1.25), sets about its task in a quietly dignified way. Its tone is that of a professor addressing his academic colleagues in a series of informal, common-room lectures. It assumes, in other words, that highly literate, thinking readers will give the book the attention it deserves. Such readers will undoubtedly enjoy it very much, for it avoids both the scholarly intensity of P.H. Reaney’s The Origin of English Place Names and the stylistic barrenness of Kenneth Cameron’s English Place Names. But one wonders just how many such ideal readers still exist. Even bookish people have become accustomed to the highly imaginative and varied presentation of information in good television documentaries. Had any chapter of this book become the commentary for such a film, it would have been brought to life visually in countless ways. There is little doubt in my mind that generous and imaginative illustration would have made the book of interest to a great many more readers. As it is, it makes a pleasant bedtime companion, to be read—and thought about—in small doses.

C. M. Matthews has previously written several discursive works about both place names and surnames, though Sir William chooses to ignore them in his Bibliography. Mrs. Matthews’ latest work appears under the Beaver Book imprint, a series of paperbacks meant for children, as How Place-names Began (176pp., Hamlyn Publishing Group, 65 pence).

A bright cover and some rather abstract line drawings have been provided in an effort to turn a solid text into something more tempting and readable. These may be moves in the right direction, but children need far more. I tried the book on my own offspring, Stephen (15) and Catherine (13). They simply couldn’t get into it. Looking at it in detail, I think I know why. It deals with its difficult subject matter in traditional, stolid prose. There is no dialogue with the youthful reader, no questions to challenge him, no jokes to share with him, no real sense of discovery or excitement, not even any real enthusiasm displayed for the subject. Communicating with young people in their own terms is a highly specialized skill, and on the evidence of this book, Mrs. Matthews does not possess it.

[Leslie Dunking. Thames Ditton, England]

BIBLIOGRAPHIA: Collins Dictionary Of The English Language: An extensive coverage of contemporary international and Australian English.

Patrick Hanks, ed., Thomas Hill Long, managing ed., Laurence Urdang, ed. dir., G.A. Wilkes, Special Australian Consultant, (Sydney, Auckland, Glasgow, Collins, 1979).

[By special arrangement with the publisher, VERBATIM is able to offer the Regular Edition, in the United States only, at $20.00 postpaid.]

In the last few years there has been a flood of new dictionaries depending, one imagines, on the realization by many buyers that to ask “Which dictionary shall I buy?” is not entirely unlike asking “Which novel shall I buy?” Just as one may have a set of screwdrivers for different jobs, it is possible to have and use a collection of special and general dictionaries of various sizes.

Having decided on size and specialty, a dictionary-maker is faced with a series of further decisions. Lexicography is not simply adding one good point to another to make an ideal dictionary, but balancing the saving of space against fullness of information, the amount of information against cost, a more exact pronunciation guide against added difficulty for some users, the addition of extra information (pronunciation or syllabification) in the headword at the expense of its clean appearance. An assessor can always therefore find something to praise or blame; the fair thing is to judge how well on balance all variables have been managed.

The new Collins is a comprehensive general dictionary at a very competitive price. Its editorial staff drew on consultants in regional varieties of English and pronunciation. Names such as A.C. Gimson (pronunciation), Harold Orton (British regional English), and G. A. Wilkes (Australian English) will indicate to those knowing the field the high standard of expertise called upon. In addition numerous special contributors and a large specialized editorial staff attended to special and technical subjects and technical departments of lexicography such as etymology.

The dictionary sets out to record international English and an excellent set of brief introductory essays includes accounts of Australian English and the development of English as a world language. In practice British English appears to be the basis used in main entries, as it must, since it is the nearest thing we have to an agreed standard. Thus secretary is recorded only with a pronunciation (given in IPA symbols) recognizably neither American nor Australian and through colo(u)r is recorded in both spellings, the “see” reference is to the British spelling.

Alongside the purely lexical tradition in dictionaries, which has been dominant in England, is an encyclopaedic tradition. The Collins comes somewhere between with a predominantly lexical approach but with the addition of proper names, so that the dictionary also serves as a gazetteer and a dictionary of biography. I tested it with five names of South Australian towns, finding only the largest (Whyalla) included, but on testing a group of remembered towns in a favourite part of France, I found that all (Besancon, Arles, Avignon, Nîmes, Aix-en-Provence) were there. Recent population statistics are given in all cases. For New Zealand I found the Waikato (the longest river) included but not the Wairoa (mentioned in a poem by Robert Browning). Stamp collectors will be helped by the inclusion of some foreign forms of names (Danmark, Helvetia, Bayern). For biographies I checked three names of Australian prime ministers (Hughes, Menzies, and Whitlam) and found all were there.

Some dictionaries save space by collapsing entries in paragraphs, listing compounds under a headword. This one makes separate entries so that on-line, for instance, is not simply part of the entry for on and onshore and on stream will be found in their alphabetical sequence after onomatopoeia, etc. Within each entry the several senses of a word are numbered. Set, for example, is given 49 different senses (along with 12 see references to set-off, set-up and so on, these two themselves having respectively 11 and 16 separate senses).

Abbreviations are included in the same sequence with other entries, so that OPEC comes between ope and open. Contractions (e.g., Mr., Dr.) are not distinguished from other abbreviations, and are given a full stop, but symbols (e.g., chemical symbols) are separately labelled. An interesting inclusion is the international car-registration symbols (GB, CH, ZA, MAL, etc.).

Headwords in entries are marked with small crosses or raised dots to show syllabification as a guide to hyphenation. This is an extra service but at the cost of “clean” typography.

Etymologies are careful and show scholarship by recording honest ignorance when there is otherwise only conjecture. (This even extends to the Australianism ocker for which Professor Wilkes himself suggests a plausible definition in his Dictionary of Australian Colloquialisms.) On the other hand posh is given an etymology “supposedly” from ‘port out, starboard home’ which is by no means universally accepted.

Taboo words are included, as generally in modern dictionaries, and are marked Taboo slang. Other registers are marked Slang or Informal and technicalities are labelled Pathol., Insurance, Ballet, etc.

No dictionary is ever quite up-to-date. While dictionaries are in press Ayatollahs and boat people get into the news, Avgas becomes short and people begin to plan jojoba. It is, anyway, easy to overlook, or not know, terms like the jogger’s positive addiction, or even the wider positive discrimination, or wall art, or workaholic, or fast foods, or tenosynovitis (a painful affliction of manual workers doing repetitive routine jobs). On the other hand this dictionary has caught up with chip (in its computer sense), yellowcake (labelled Canadian informal but used in Australia now), cot death, aggro, bionic, dieback and podiatrist (as chiropodists now like to be called).

Australian coverage is good, for a general dictionary. I checked with a list of test words used to assess dictionaries claiming Australian coverage and found the main items included (e.g., backblocks, banksia, barrack, barramundi under ba-). Some omissions were dawn parade, fireban and firerisk (bushfire prevention terms), welcome swallow (a bird mentioned in a poem by Judith Wright), green bans (trade-union environmentalist action), or gelato; and among the 39 recorded senses of block, the common Australian sense of ‘a building plot or lot’ (or, in New Zealand, section) is not included. Incidentally, I did not manage to remove my antipodean ignorance of the correct terms for a building parcel of land in the U.S. and U.K. by using this dictionary. As is usual, and forgivable, in dictionaries, regionalisms within Australia are poorly represented. Traditional ones like quokka get an airing, but the quokka is a rare animal now, found only on a few offshore islands in Western Australia, and so the word must be much less often used than an everyday Adelaide word like stobie pole (‘utility pole’), for instance. Similarly with New Zealand items; a tree unknown to me (forty years a New Zealander), mako, is included while the ubiquitous macrocarpa (an introduced cypress) and important Maori social terms such as marae (‘courtyard of a meeting-house’) and Maoritanga ‘Maori traditions generally’ are omitted. Ultimately these problems can be solved by general dictionaries only when adequate regional dictionaries are available to back them up.

To assess the reliability of the dictionary in its technical coverage, I sampled the one science I know anything about, linguistics, and found the dictionary very satisfactory. Definitions of spelling pronunciation, speech = parole, phoneme, and tagmemics, were good, though tagmeme, a difficult word to define briefly, did not seem quite to meet either Bloomfield’s or Pike’s use of the term. A dictionary of international English might have remembered TESL and TEFL ‘teaching of English as a Second (or Foreign) Language,’ however.

The real difficulties are the traditional terms, noun, verb or sentence; no dictionary quite pleases everyone with definitions of these words. Collins does very well with sentence (and since C.C. Fries complained that there were over 200 definitions of a sentence, none satisfactory, and did not really provide one himself, this is no mean praise). For verb, Collins gives a choice of two definitions, one old-fashioned and one structural, and remains a big vague, in a traditional way, about noun.

To sum up, this new large dictionary, convenient to use, up-to-date and reliable, is, even in the highly active and competitive area of modern dictionary-making, something of an event. All collectors of good dictionaries must add it to their collections, and the buyer of a first dictionary must give it very serious consideration.

[George Turner, University of Adelaide]

OBITER DICTA

The following letter, which we reprint in careful detail, provides, we think, an excellent example of how genuine a sincerity of feeling and a sense of poetry are conveyed in this first letter in English by a Nigerian. It was sent to us by Barbara Marsh, of San Diego. How many young native speakers, whose blunders in English are more axiomatic than idiomatic, could match the eloquence of these words? It was written on October 7, 1954.

Dear Sir,

I have the pleasure of writing you. Perhaps you may be astonished, if not amused, to realize this letter the first of its kind. Afford me with the opportunity to make a fair little introduction. Im, as indicated in the above address, a brother to E—, who is now there under your care. Right enough he could introduce me in detail.

However, I am compelled to tell you I appreciate fully your help. I want to pay my compliments to you and your wife, and tell you how much I appreciate all that you are doing for my dear brother, E—, Without being told I know, through your kindness to my brother, that you are a good man.

On the other hand, words cann’t express my tremendous enjoyment the day I received the message of E’s safe arrival in the United States. In fact, it is our great desire for a long time to send him overseas for a good mission and achievement, which will benefit the world and this great country of Nigeria. Indeed time failed to facilitate us with the opportunity to accomplish this intention. Nevertheless, we have not failed to ask God’s help to brighten the star of E’s, as the promising son in our family.

However, at last, he is in California, wholly and entirely under your care—your pet (laughter). I also stress that God has made it possible through your hand, and we trust you will receive a blessing. Today, considering the great degree of modesty you and your wife have taken E— as a son, may he be able to win a name in the vast world, and also help his people in due course of time.

Without minding all the trouble you are helping the poor. Once again I immensely thank you and your wife. Actually words fail me to greet you all. I know God will reward you His best. I shall always remember you in my prayers. Then, your kindness is quite appreciated and welcomed here by my people and all lovers of the progress of youth. In view of your help to E—, it is understood that people in California are nice people. Of course there is no doubt of this, hence seeing is believing. High above all, it is left to you now, as E’s father there, to develop, train and bring him up to be very useful to the world and Nigeria in particular. Whatever you feel best about him, please render it to him.

J—is a township in the Northern Region of Nigeria. It is in the Plateau Province. It is one of the best townships in this country. It is a cold place. You may be interested to know that for the past three months, J— has been as miserable as it seems the summer in England has been. Local opinion is that not for many years has it been so cold and wet as this year. However, October so far promises some sunshine.

Accept my sincere compliments for the season. Give my regards to your lovely wife. Remember me to her. My love to E—, and I wish you God’s rewards and the best of the season. So long until then. Would you be kind enough to reply.

With kindest regards, Yours affectionately,

SIC! SIC! SIC!

“To some extent, this is the kind of political dilemma incumbents always face. They have to deal with the real world as it is while their opponents can indulge themselves in the subjunctive.” [Germond-Witcover in The San Diego Union, November 13, 1979, p. B-7; submitted by Thomas S. Terrill, Carlsbad, California.] … Which ought to put them in the right mood.

Crossword Puzzle

Across

1. Rebels taken by surprise. (8)
5. Worker in a hack is a college man. (6)
10. Raised hell and wiped out about half a dozen. (7)
11. Pays out to cover probe into cause of death. (7)
12. Conservative bent, but not beyond reason. (15)
13. Briefly, an old remedy, hard to grasp. (7)
14. Article leading to doctrine of belief. (6)
17. High price of manors? (6)
20. Would this voter break the bill about Equal Rights Amendment? (7)
23. It gives me chance in impasse to gain freedom. (6, 9)
25. Original thinker in a maiden appearance. (4, 3)
26. Sins for the thrill of it. (7)
27. The most teetotal get the DTs about rye. (6)
28. The grandest systems for catching criminals. (8)

Down

1. Fighter with slim chance to win could be grounded. (8)
2. Despoliations of the savager kind. (7)
3. Relay races not reported in all editions of the paper. (5, 4)
4. Russian port? (3, 4)
6. Cadet took steps out of order. (5)
7. Making a clean breast of things …(7)
8. … unless, of course, more or less flat-chested. (6)
9. Still a robber, despite being forbidden it at the hearing. (6)
15. Answering a call to arms? (9)
16. Meal in tins to provide nutritious foods. (8)
18. Cupid’s game. (7)
19. Second in importance. (6)
20. A match for the Devil. (7)
21. Concerning natural offspring, or just a clone? (7)
22. Unfulfilled indeed! (6)
24. Hearts and flowers? (5)

Crossword Puzzle Answers

Across

1. UPRISERS;
5. C-ant-AB;
10. DE-vi-LED;
11. A-utoPSY;
12. Rightmindedness;
13. Obs.-cure;
14. The-ISM;
17. RANSOM;
20. Lib-ERA-1;
23. ESCAPE; MECHANISM (me + chance (in) impasse);
25. IDEA M-a-N;
26. FR-issO-n;
27. D-rye-ST;
28. DRAGNETS.

Down

1. UNDERDOG;
2. RAVAGES;
3. Split runs;
4. Red wine;
6. ACTED;
7. Topless;
8. Boyish;
9. Ban(ne)d-it;
15. Embracing;
16. AL-i-ME-nts;
18. Archery;
19. Moment;
20. Lucifer;
21. Re-issue;
22. DENIED;
24. Pumps.

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