VOL VII, No 4 [Spring 1981]

English as she is spoke: The new guide of the conversation in Portuguese and English in two parts, by Pedro Caroline (Jose da Fonseca)

Michael Gorman, University of Illinois

We expect then, who the little book (for the care what we wrote him, and for her typographical correction) that may be worth the expectation of the studious persons, and especially of the Youth, at which we dedicate him particularly.”With these words, Jose da Fonseca closed his introduction to the most famous and enduring of fractured English phrase-books. It was first published in Paris in 1855 and has been republished many times under its original title and, more commonly, under the title English as she is spoke. The first American edition of the book (“reprinted verbatim and literatim” in Boston in 1883) contained an introduction by Mark Twain, who wrote that “this celebrated little phrase-book will never die while the English language lasts … it is perfect … its immortality is secure.” Fonseca’s sublime ridiculousness is not much read now, yet I am as sure as was Twain that its season will come again and that other generations will rejoice in its unique humor.

There is a great difference between the humor that arises from the simple misuse of language and that which arises from the kind of naive, serious-minded, and, ultimately, inspired assault on its richness typified by Fonseca’s phrase-book. I once stayed in a Grenoble hotel room which was decorated with the alarming instruction “In case FIRE, avert the boots.” I soon realized that it was not my footwear that had to be warded off, but that the message stemmed from a combination of the belief that avertir translated as ‘avert’ and the use of a French-English dictionary dating back to the time of the lowly hotel servant known as “the boots.” I recalled then my first acquaintance with English as she is spoke and, not for the first time, relished the incredible variety of our language and the unconsciously hilarious results caused by its use by less than fluent speakers and writers.

There are classic phrases from other European phrasebooks. My favorites are the familiar “Stop, the postilion has been struck by lightning!” and the less familiar, but richer in social nuance, “Unhand me Sir, for my husband, who is an Australian, awaits without.” Even these gems are single lines from otherwise ordinary works. In the case of Fonseca’s book, every page has its memorable lines. He seems to have been incapable of phrasing even the most simple idea without some happy misconjunction of words. The peculiar felicity of his lists, phrases, and conversations came from his rooted belief that he was a master of the English language and had a mission to spread the advantages of that mastery to others.

The book has two main parts. The first consists of lists of words and phrases in Portuguese and English accompanied by their English pronunciations. These lists are found under such headings as “Of the man,” “Some wines,” and “Drinkings.” The second consists of “Familiar dialogues” in English and Portuguese under such headings as “For embarking one’s self,” “With the gardener,” and “With a eating-house keeper.” The book is rounded out by various small appendices, of which my very favorite (and the most sublimely Fonsecaian) is the section headed ‘Idiotisms and proverbs.” Any one of these idiotisms is perfect in itself, but they can be divided into the hilariously loony and the cryptic. Examples of the first are

The walls have hearsay
According to thy purse rule thy mouth
Big head, little sens
He is beggar as a church rat

The wisdom of these last phrases is not obscured by the peculiarity of their expression. On the other hand, it takes a very wise head to tease the meaning out of:

Nothing some money, nothing of Swiss
He steep as a marmot
Take the moon with the teeth
Cat scalded fear the cold water
Which like Bertram, love hir dog
He turns as a weath turcocl

However, before one can move on to a mastery of English idiotisms, it is necessary to learn more basic words and phrases. For example, consider the “Properties of the body,” among which one finds:

Drowsiness, Yawn, Contortion, Lustiness, Sneesing,
Belch, Watching

Armed with these basic concepts, one can then proceed to the “Defects of the body,” such as;

A blind, A hump, A left handed, A squint-eyed,
The scurf

Knowing the body, its properties and defects, one can begin to think about more concrete matters, such as food and drink. For this one needs “For the table”:

Some plates, The bottle, Some knifes, Some groceries,
Some crumb

and “Eatings,” such as:

Some boiled meat, Some fritters, A stewed fruit, Some
jelly broth, Some wigs, A chitterling sausages, Some
dainty dishes, A litl mine, Hog fat

With such a repast one would have such “Drinkings” as:

Some brandy, Some orgeat, Champaign wine, Some
paltry wine

I should pause here to note that Fonseca had a number of singular theories about English. These theories were more or less what one would expect of a man who thought that Chinaman was a trade; they included the ideas that a and an were masculine and feminine articles, respectively, and that some was a plural article, as in “Some garlics.” He also appears to have believed it to be the masculine third person singular pronoun.

To return to his lists, we find the “Quadruped’s beasts” such as:

Shi ass, Dragon, Young rabbit, A mule
and “Fishes and shell fishes,” such as:

Bleak, Calamary, Muscles, Hedge-hog, A sorte of fish,
Torpedo

If one were fortunate enough to catch any of these quadruped’s beasts or fishes, one would no doubt cook them with “Seasonings”:

Some wing, Some pinions, Some hog’slard
or “Pot-herbs,” such as:

Some succory, Some cabbages, Some corianders

When one’s appetite and thirst are satisfied, there are such games to play as:

Gleek, The billiard table, Carousal, Pile, Even or non even.

One of the most useful features of Fonseca’s phrasebook is the phonetic transcription of English pronunciation given next to the English words and phrases. It is my private conviction that these pronunciations formed the basis for the unique accent used by the late Peter Sellers in his characterization of Inspector Clouseau in the Pink Panther series of films. Take, for example, Fonseca’s pronunciation for one of his most creative Englishisms-the eatable Some wigs. The phonetic equivalent is “Seume uigues.” In those letters one can read the very essence of Clouseau, as one can in the phonetic transcription of Gun-powder (Guenepau’-der).

The “studious Portuguese and brazilian Youth” to whom Fonseca addressed his great work will, no doubt, have spent many studious hours learning the words and phrases in the first part before approaching the second part with understandable trepidation, for the second part was to build on their acquaintance with the English conversation. Understandably, the author introduced them gently. The first dialogue “For to wish the good morning” contains such staples of conversation as:

—Good morning, sir, how do you do today?
—Very well, I thank you
—To much oblige to you
—He is very well
—I am very delight of it. Were is it?
—He is in country
—Give a seat to the gentilman
—It is not necessary, it must go to make a visit hard by
—You are too in haste

Perhaps one wishes to make a morning visit:

—Is your master at home? Is it up?
—No sir, he sleep yet
—I go make that he get up
—How is it, you are in bed yet?
—Yesterday at evening, I was to bed so late that I may not rising me soon that morning
—Well! what have you done after the supper?
—We have sung, danced, laugh, and played
—What game?
—To the picket
—I am no astonished if you get up so late
—Adieu, my deer, I leave you. If can to see you at six clock to the hotel from ***, we swill dine together

A strong personality emerges from these dialogues. It is that of an inquisitive, fussy, but congenial and clubbable soul, a sort of Portuguese Pepys delighting in gossip and food and wine and company. For instance, “With a hair dresser”:

—Master hair dresser, you are very lazy. If you not come sooner, I shall leave you to —Shave-me
—Your razors are them well?
—Comb-me quickly; don’t put me so much pomatum.
—What tell me? all hairs dresser are newsmonger

One can see all his qualities in “For to ask some news”:

—Is it true what is told of master M***?
—I have heard that he hurt mortally
—I shall be sowow of it, because he is a honestman
—Which have wounden him?
—Two knaves who have attacked him
—Do know it why?
—The noise run that is by to have given a box on the ear to a of them —I believe it not
—Are you too many amused to the ball last night?
—Plenty much, and Madame L*** has call for me your news

and in “For to dine”:

—Sit down here by me. Do you like soup?
—Gentilman, will you some beans?
—Peter, uncork a Porto wine bottle
—Sir, what will you to?
—A pullet’s wing
—I trouble you to give me a pear
—This seems me mellow
—Taste us rather that liquor, it is good for the stomach
—I am too much obliged to you, is done

Fonseca’s studious youth were not to be contented with a mastery of English. Other European languages were of concern to them:

—How is the french? Are you too learned now?
—No too much, I know almost nothing
—They tell howeuver that you speak very well
—These which tell it they mistake one’s
—Not apprehend you, the french language is not difficult

No matter how difficult these languages might be to acquire, a man with a command of foreign tongues was a man to be envied:

—How is that gentilman who you did speak by and by?
—Is a German
—I did not think him Englishman
—He is of the Saxony side speak the french very well —Tough he is German, he speak so much well italyan, Spanish and english, that among the Italyans they think him Italyan, he speak the french as the Frenches himselves. The Spanishesmen believe him Spanishing, and the Englises, Englisman.
—It is difficult to enjoy well so much several languages

Even the linguistic paragon discussed in the previous dialogue could well be at a loss for words when presented with an unsatisfactory horse by a rascally servant. Not so the Fonseca of “For to ride a horse”:

Here is a horse who have a bad looks. Give me another; I will not that. He not sall know to march, he is pursy, he is foundered. Don’t you are ashamed to give me a jade as like? he is undshoed, he is with nails up, it want lead to the farrier. He go limp, he is disable, he is blind. That saddle shall hurt me. The stirrups are too long, very shorts. Stretch out the stirrups, shorten the stirrups. The saddles girths are roted, what bat bridle? Give me my whip. Fasten the cloak-bag and my cloak.

Having disposed of the thoroughly chastened servant and the blind horse, one could journey forth into the country to do “The fishing”:

—That pond it seems me many multiplied of fishes. Let us amuse rather to the fishing —Here, there is a wand and some hooks
—Silence! there is a superb perch! Give me quick the rod. Ah! there is, it is a lamprey
—You mistake you, it is a frog! dip again it in the water
—Perhaps I will do better to fish with the leap
—Try it! I desire that you may be more happy and more skilful who acertain fisher, what have fished all day without to can take nothing.

If the disappointments of the fishing are too much to take or if one were unfortunate enough to fall in the water while dipping a frog, it could become necessary “For to swim”:

—Sir, do you row well?
—He swim as a fish
—I swim on the cork. It is dangerous to row with bladders, becauses its put to break
—I row upon the belly on the back and between two waters: I know also to plunge
—I am not so dexterous that you
—Nothing is more easy than to swim; it do not what don’t to be afraid of
—Tel undress us
—The weather it is cloudy it lighten, I think we go to have storm
—Go out of the water quickly

But life cannot be entirely devoted to pleasure. The sordid realities of life can impel even this devotee of food and fun to have dealings “With a banker”:

—I have the honour to present you a ex-change letter draw on you and endorsed to my order
—I can’t to accept it seeng that I have not nor the advice neither funds of the drawer
—It is not yet happened it is at usance
—I know again the signature and the flourish of my correspondent; I will accept him to the day of the falling comprehend there the days of grace, if at there to that occasion I shall received theirs orders

No doubt baffled by this reply, the client resorts to a simpler monetary request:

—Would you have so good as to give me some England money by they louis?
—With too much pleasure

There are many other examples of how to manage the commerce and pleasures of the world and, if, by any remote chance, these should fail the aspiring English speaker, he or she can reflect on higher matters expressed so well in familiar idiotisms. For example, who could fail to find solace and wisdom in the saying “After the paunch comes the dance”?

Fonseca’s book ends, with perfect appropriateness, with an absolutely useless index. However, it would do him an injustice to close on such a negative note. Much more suitable as an epitome of his friendly philosophy and love of language and learning is this passage from “With a bookseller”:

—But why, you and another book seller, you does not to imprint some good works?
—Ther is a reason for that, it is that you cannot sell its. The actual liking of the public is depraved they does not read who for to amuse one’s self ant but to instruct one’s
—But the letter’s men who cultivate the arts and sciences they can’t to pass without the books
—A little learneds are happies enough for to may to satisfy their fancies on the literature

Amen to that, speaking as one happy learned whose fancies have been satisfied often by this marvelous book.

SIC! SIC! SIC!

“The defendant, Mrs. —, sat straight and stiff in her chair awaiting the verdict of the jury. When it came, her face belied no emotion.” [from a news broadcast on Radio Station WSYR, Syracuse, New York, at 3:30 p.m. on December 8, 1980. Submitted by John R. Vogt, of that city.]

SIC! SIC! SIC!

“After the death of her father as a young child, her mother moved the family to Durban, South Africa, to be near relatives.” [from a biographical note about Juliet Prowse in TV Week, Chicago Tribune, June 15, 1980. Submitted by I. Taubenfligel, Chicago.]

SIC! SIC! SIC!

“Police report that a robber jumped up on the counter of a bar in East Los Angeles the other day and shouted, This is a holdup,' in both English and Spanish.” [From The Los Angeles Times, April 28, 1981. Submitted by Egdon T. Margo, Reseda, California. And there are some who would question the benefits of the teaching of foreign languages in America!]

Antipodean English: New Australian

G. W. Turner

Among the very early settlers in South Australia were groups of Old Lutheran refugees from Eastern Germany. Notable among these were the settlers in the wine-growing Barossa Valley, where for a long time the German language was current in a form gradually becoming distinctive enough to warrant the name Barossadeutsch. Time and two wars, with the accompanying hostility to German settlers, have left little but a few relics to give local color to tourists (“Wir machen die alte German Mettwurst die best in der Welt” proclaimed a notice seen outside a shop in Truro, just north of the Barossa Valley, in 1975).

A number of German words have become current in general South Australian English (mettwurst, leberwurst or liverwurst, and the ubiquitous fritz, for example, all describing types of sausage), but spelling, especially in words containing -ie-, is often so uncertain that a correspondent in the local newspaper felt obliged to point out that a Wiener Schnitzel has nothing to do with wine and a Liedertafel need not be sorrowful. The writer went on to express relief that an annual gymkhana in Hahndorf, near Adelaide, called the Schuetzenfest, had not, as it might have been, been called a Schiessenfest!

The reference to Truro reminds us that not all immigrants, even in the Barossa region, were German. Cornishmen were prominent, especially in South Australian mining districts. Early migration was, however, predominantly British, even though there were enough exceptions to provide material for a book Non-Britishers in Australia (Melbourne, 1927), by a Scandinavian, J. Lyng.

It is since World War II that migration has become a flood, and the earlier predominance of North European migrants has been less evident. Italians and Greeks are prominent among these new Australians. Only two cities in the world, Athens and Salonika, have more speakers of Greek than Melbourne, and none, not even Valletta, has more speakers of Maltese. Australia’s linguistic resources have rapidly become greatly enriched, though the monolingual habit remains unshaken in most English-speaking Australians.

These new languages, particularly Italian, have not failed to influence Australian English, especially in food terms. Though the words cannot be said to have entered English, Australians are at least now familiar with signs on shops reading pasticceria or macelleria. More firmly established as English words are lasagna (always in my experience used in the singular in Australia) and gelato or gelati, and even, though less frequently, gnocchi or tortellino. Now the Australian may buy bratwurst, cevapcini, halva, or moussaka in the take-away shop on the way home.

Linguists (notably Michael Clyne of Monash University, especially for German) have not failed to exploit the infinite variety of sociolinguistic material now available. Not only is English enriched by new words, but the transplanted languages themselves also undergo changes, so that such new variants as “Australitalian” enter the linguist’s social laboratory. These new varieties might themselves produce subvarieties. Thus German speakers might call a eucalyptus gum-tree, gum, Gumbaum or Gummibaum, the differences being determined mainly by the locality of the speaker. Add to all this the kind of German a Latvian might use to communicate with a Hungarian and the Kinds of English used when one or both participants in a conversation have little experience in English, and the range of data available to the linguist becomes clear.

So we find the Italian writing home “è longo tempo che non ti scrivo” where standard Italian would require “è da molto tempo,” or a German speaker might say “Ich kann es nicht remembern.” In Australitalian, a boy or girl might be called bòi or ghèlla rather than ragazzo or ragazza. Such borrowed words might be naturalized enough to be inflected as native Italian words; the Italian bòi might say faitavo ‘I was fighting.’

There is a price for multilingualism. Many people, especially Southern European women or newcomers, such as Vietnamese, are cut off from society by a lack of English. Australia must now, at a time of educational cutbacks, find the resources to develop courses in English as a Second Language, so that our linguistic enrichment is not gained at the price of loneliness and despair for the linguistically isolated.

S? Yes!

Barbara R. DuBois, Los Alamos, New Mexico

My husband doesn’t like to be consulted as a plastic man, though he is an expert. Mild mannered he is, patient he is, good with glue he is, but not malleable. One colleague who unintentionally offends him calls himself a member of an electronic group, which makes us think of loud guitars rather than transistors. A memo arrived at my office from an explosive expert, who sounds too irascible for me to deal with, but perhaps my serene spouse will be able to handle him.

An explosive expert doesn’t frighten me as much, however, as an “Explosive Truck Route.” Ever since seeing that sign, I have taken the alternate road. Friends that I’ve warned assure me that it isn’t the whole route that is hazardous; a later sign makes it clear: “Explosive Truck Inspection Yard.” Only the trucks may explode. Or only the yard? Well, at least not the whole highway.

Town is safer, but still confusing: the drugstore boasts a new cosmetic salesperson. Is she more beautiful than her predecessor? Or is he more handsome? A shop advertises instruction in stripping for antique lovers. I guess senior citizens can take lessons in anything these days. A want ad calls for an antique judge; it takes one to know one?

At school we have an athletic director; good, I hate to see flabby coaches setting a bad example for the youngsters. Fortunately, the teaching of Latin and Greek is fading, and I won’t have to hear students refer to the classic professor much longer-as it he were a Thunderbird. But our son just broke the news that he is studying to become an invertebrate expert. Why can’t he be like his father?

SIC! SIC! SIC!

“A Gross Durham Budget Of $3,887,323 Readied” [Headline in The Middletown (Conn.) Press, May 1, 1981, p. 17. Submitted by John D. Thomas, Middletown, Connecticut. No editorializing, please!]

Fringe Benefits

W. Dark Hendley, University of Missouri, K.C.

Everyone knows that teachers teach and professors profess for something other than the money involved. Readers of VERBATIM would not be surprised to learn that some members of our brotherhood have discovered a fringe benefit of the profession—one not included in the usual benefit packages put together by academic institutions. This fringe benefit, believe it or not, is theme grading. Allow me to explain.

Theme grading in and of itself is, of course, often considered one of the drawbacks of teaching. The work is slow, tedious, and often repetitious. While grading, however, the earnest searcher after solecisms, malapropisms, barbarisms, and the like often discovers that hobby and job coincide, and the result is a fringe benefit not even dreamed of in the personnel office.

I have been collecting such fringe benefits for several years, and this seems a good time to share some of my collection with readers who are equally entertained by grammatical and linguistic absurdities. First, however, a few words of explanation are appropriate. All of my examples are taken from papers written outside of class; thus, they presumably contain well-thought-out ideas and are carefully worded to achieve the maximum effect. All represent the lucubrations of upperclassmen, advanced students of literature. Like gemstones found in a slagheap, they come rough and unpolished, in all their native glory.

The reach for the sublime is one of the greatest pitfalls for the tyro writer. Reaching for new heights can yield greater depths, as in this example; “For hundreds of years, the world dreamed of landing on the moon, and Jules Verne wrote many a story about the possibility. The idea so intrigued man that in 1969, man walked onto the moon for the first time. Death rays in literature become lasers in real life, which are useful at this time.” Ordinarily, one might wish that the death ray would have put a merciful end to that final sentence. However, from the perspective of the weary paper grader, that sentence is a fringe benefit, giving new energy to carry on. Another route to the sublime chosen by the novice is through mastery of polysyllabic diction: “Coleridge in his reverie captures briefly unrestricted and spontaneous imagery, and it seems to proliferate flowingly as he progresses.”

The opposing tendency is the desire for pithiness, the search for the epigrammatic statement or bon mot. The student finds this especially tempting after reading eighteenth-century poetry. “If a man does not bear false fronts, neither should a woman,” writes one student. Another student sums up the situation of one of Wordsworth’s characters quite succinctly: “Luke decaded morally while away.”

Some students accept the challenge to think of their papers as an argument, and they attempt to prove their points through logic and sound reason: “The Wife of Bath is a liberated woman,” writes one observer of the social scene in literature. “She rides her horse straddle—another point in her liberateness.” With the knowledge that the best poetry usually employs imagery to relate the reader to the sensory experience of the poem, the beginning prose stylist seeks the pictorial and the concrete: “The hero . . . must also be able to suffer and feel pain throughout the plots and crevices of the story he is involved in.” Another would-be critic attempts to explain Hamlet’s complex feelings toward his mother: “We see that Hamlet loves his mother dearly but is very disappointed in her because she jumps into incestuous sheets so soon after her husband’s death.”

The most common poetic device applied to expository writing is the use of figurative language. “During the middle parts of the seventeenth century the Parliament of England stood out like a sore thumb on the hand of journalism,” expounds one student. Another student employs similar pathological imagery. “It was a sore spot on the body of the government, and speculation exists that this branch may eventually evolve away as useless.”

Sometimes it is hard to know what effect the writer is hoping to achieve. I assume that the following sentence is aimed at metaphorical expression, and yet the result leaves me somewhat puzzled: “Politics was just beginning to blossom in England and the whole land was on the rhetorical bandwagon.” And occasionally the writer achieves an effect not intended. For example, in writing about Good Queen Bess, one student concludes: “Elizabeth, though victorious in war, was growing old and weakened by internal unrest.” Actually, this idea might be more nearly true than its author ever dreamed.

Poets choose words in part for their sounds, a technique that students often attempt in their own writing. A young Swinburnian writes: “The final section of the poem ends with a proliferation of alliteration,” and another contributes, “This weed of self greed is outgrowing his compassionate senses.”

The mechanics of sentence construction is the downfall of many an earnest writer. It is difficult to pay attention to such minutiae as dangling modifiers when you are writing about august subjects: “Lambasted by some critics as the most tainting aspect of his literary repertoire, it is my opinion that these poems are his most violent outburst of his characteristic loathing of hypocrisy and foolishness.” Another writer seeks to avoid a cliché by use of the word “proverbial,” an approach often used; but he, too, ends up dangling precariously: “Like the proverbial glass house, in those days no one wanted to be the first to start the name calling.”

The inadvertent misuse of a word has been a staple of comedy ever since Mrs. Malaprop popularized the technique. “It was the strength of their love that made Luke’s leaving bareable,” writes one student of the same Luke who decaded away above. “I doubt anyone would vie he wrote these poems strictly in jest,” writes another. My files also yield “it was her destination that made her so affectionate” and “next he uses the same approach with the woman which concretes his sexual suggestions.”

The redemptive fringe benefit of a dull paper need not be anything as large as a word: a single letter mistakenly added or changed may be enough to translate the grader’s boredom to sheer joy. For example, the correct (and very undomestic) Jane Austen is summed up in these words: “Austen also deals with the concept of breading and ill-breading in her work,” a startling idea which conjures up an image of the great satirist directing her attention to the proper way to prepare a veal cutlet. A misplaced letter may be a Freudian slip or the result of hasty typing, but for the weary reader it really doesn’t matter, for the result is the same. Perhaps, for example, this student is making an editorial comment even greater than he planned when he states, “Defoe wrote simply and sometimes crudly.” And Freud would surely have enjoyed this sentence: “The first scene I would like to analize occurs in Heart of Darkness.” Fielding, we learn, “drove home the correspondence between his work and the classics . . . through parodies of Homeric smiles.” Given that Fielding once suggested that satire was a mirror which the reader held up to his face in the privacy of his own closet, it is wonderful to think of Fielding himself leering into his own looking glass as he attempted to achieve the perfect Homeric grin.

One writer is quite frank in highlighting punctuation as a source of his difficulties: “The work definately needs close reading to be understood. It would be possible to read quickly through the passage, I suppose, but definately difficult. The first line alone contains two semi colons and an exclamation point.”

Once solecisms are seen as one of the important fringe benefits of this business, there is an unavoidable tendency to begin recording the most significant examples. It is my own informal observation that many English professors have their own private collections stashed away in a desk drawer where they are always accessible. Herewith a few of my favorites:

As with any controversy, one person’s meat is another one’s poison.

The impeccable strength of both characters is unquestionable as well.

Her concerns for God are somewhat warped for her own beneficial meaning.

Shakespeare develops a parallel of images.

The Wife of Bath (Bath is dead) …

He deftly shakes up the reader when Gulliver journeys to the land of the Brobdingnagians and looks up the great chain of being.

Lear perceives his mistake in obstracizing Cordelia and showering Goneril and Regan with filial devotion and favor.

The second image that Othello visualizes himself in is in the role of being slightly above human. He pictures himself in a prerogative manner.

He thunders, that before he crys and give in to his despicable disdainful daughters, and give them the satisfaction of knowing that they have broken the pride of a king and brought him to his knoble knees and made him plead, and wail, and beseech them that his mind would shatter into a countless number of subconsciousness: and I will go mad; and in fact, King Lear does go mad.

Finally, the plot everges.

And so, perhaps, does the reason teachers teach. As the eager student struggles to express himself, the theme grader discovers a hidden prize—the fringe benefits not written into any contract.

SIC! SIC! SIC!

“4-Hour Service: In by 8 Out by 2. [From the window of a dry-cleaner’s in San Francisco. Tempus fugit.]

SIC! SIC! SIC!

“Original Joe’s #2.” [Name of a well-known restaurant in San Francisco. This and the preceding submitted by Dr. William K. Redican, San Francisco.]

SIC! SIC! SIC!

“However, several witnesses testified that Hudson was alone in his office that night at various times with one or more of the three women.” [From The (Charleston, S.C.) News and Courier, February 26, 1981. Submitted by McColl Pringle, Charleston. It seems increasingly difficult to find any privacy at all these days.]

Pleonasties

Harold J. Ellner, M.D., Richland, Washington

“It was minus twenty degrees below zero,” tautologically reported the ham operator from Minnesota. Shall we accept this as merely a pleonasm (unnecessary repetition) or nitpickingly consider it a double negative and record the temperature at plus 20?

Pleonasms pervade every aspect of communication. At times they are intentionally used for emphasis, at times for verbosity, and on other occasions are just honest mistakes. In that the author is a urologist and a sports fan, note of many of these pleonasm has been made in these areas. They are, however, everywhere.

It is time to institute the Pleonastic Putdown (“Pleonasty”) to rebel, as would Edwin Newman and John Simon, against verbosity. It will not earn the putter-down (pleonasticist) much cordiality, but it may help defend the language.

W. C. Fields, who objected to almost everyone, was reputed to have set the style when he refused to work for a studio he thought to be Jewish-run. “No,” he was told, “the president is Roman Catholic.” “That’s the worst kind,” rejoined Fields. Prejudicial, yes, but a decisive pleonasty.

Washington’s new Governor, John Spellman, not above an occasional pleonasm, issued certificates of gratitude to his supporters, “. . .in appreciation and recognition of your significant contribution to my successful election. …” One wonders what constitutes an unsuccessful election. Shakespeare’s Falstaff, in Henry IV, referred to “an ‘Ebrew Jew,” undoubtedly for emphasis.

Here, then, are some pleonasms heard, recorded, and furnished with a suggested pleonasty for each:

Medical

This room costs $200 to the patient. To whom else?

A positive culture was obtained for Strep. If Strep was there, it was positive.

Scrotal masses in the male Yes, they predominate in the male.

These tests, when performed, gave normal results. More so than if they were not performed.

The urodynamics of urology That’s the nicest kind in the whole specialty.

Then, appropriate treatment was instituted. Better than inappropriate any time.

Many white cells, too numerous to count Glad you said it was many; it helped.

A diagnostic x-ray film Are any otherwise?

The patient had a complicated clinical course. It would have been worse if nonclinical.

Clinically, the pain diminished. That’s the best way for it to happen.

He’d undergone a previous prostatectomy. Most are.

It has been shown in the past by Paulsen et al. …
A large number of his findings were in the past …

Ureteral reduplication Don’t you mean duplication?

An admixture Mixture?

Foreshortening Shortening?

A prior surgeon did it. Certainly not a future one . . .

He claimed marked subjective improvement. If he claimed it, it had to be subjective.

Under appropriate anesthesia We have no inappropriate anesthesiologist.

This is the first drug of choice. How does this differ from the drug of choice?

There was still persistent disease. Still disease? Persistent disease? Take your choice.

He gained 14 pounds in weight. Certainly not in height or in British currency.

It was a totally complete excision. That’s how I want my total (or complete) one.

Skin rash Bad place for one.

Dr. James Kildare, M. D. Which shall we drop, the Dr. or the M. D.?

The male prostate gland Needless to say . . .

Absolutely no blood loss at all That clears a lingering doubt.

Past history Ah, yes, much history is found there.

Yellow jaundice Of all hues, the most ominous.

His motor movements weren’t good. But wait until you see his sensory ones.

Liver cirrhosis The worst kind!

Some few specimens Which shall we drop, some or few?

Abdominal ascites. In that ascites means free fluid in the abdomen, abdominal is superfluous.

Mentally insane Far worse than physically . . .

Sports

He made 20 in a row without a miss. Twenty in a row would be hard to swing with one or two misses.

(Cosell): Why do you persist in keeping on playing?
Well, Howard, I persist in playing because I want to keep on playing.

In good field position Are there any non-field positions in this game?

Face mask I’m glad you explained that; I was thinking “elbow mask.”

He’ll try a 44-yard field-goal attempt. What’s wrong with the reverse? Can he attempt a try?

This is their first offensive possession [also, first offensive play from scrimmage.] The defensive team does not possess. Nor does it run any plays from scrimmage.

They got a whole full minute time out. There are full minutes and full minutes. Give me a whole full minute any time.

Five seconds on the clock Anywhere else?

Deflected away Where else can it be deflected?

He was awarded the game ball. As distinguished from the ungame ball?

General

To recoil back It’s the forward recoiling that’s dangerous.

The ethnic background of the people Could it be of anyone else?

Past experience has shown . . . That’s the most enriching kind.

Just merely Reminiscent of “Just Merely a Song at Twilight.

The end result How final can you get?

The sight was pleasing to the eye. And to none of the other senses.

Mental anguish That’s anguish in the extreme.

Last and final curtain call Superseding the first and final?

Affix the necessary postage. The Post Office will not deliver letters faster with the unnecessary postage.

The basic fundamentals That’s really fundamental.

A justice court Some dispense other services.

He’s a human person. Clad to know!

Positive affirmative action The negative type never worked.

(Kissinger): A hypothetical situation that doesn’t exist . . . Give me one that exists every time.

An unexpected surprise And how do you like your surprises?

A quick minute Is that a sub-60 second one?

To successfully pass an exam Only our best students pass them that way.

He kicked his feet. In contrast to other appendages?

A crooked racketeer Give me the honest kind.

A visual sight Like an auditory hearing? Add on As opposed to subtract off?

From whence Whence is enough!

You may purchase the property from the seller.
He’d be the logical choice.

A perverted sex-offender The nonperverted type is not quite as dangerous.

I took it with my own hands. [Saw it with my own eyes. Knew it in my own mind.] And nobody else’s!

Punctured a hole in The work, obviously, of a crude puncturer.

Orbited around Drop around any time.

A new innovation Enough of those old ones!

A new recruit Veteran recruits are in short supply.

Foot pedal Is that like a hand handle?

A short three-letter word The long kind will never do.

Cancel it out Anyway, don’t include it in.

A photographic picture Does this differ from a photograph?

G.I. Issue Is it Government Issue issue you mean?

Therapy treatments What’s wrong with plain old therapy? Or treatments?

First introduction Does this differ from an introduction?

Just Plain Bad English

The average age was 29 years old.

Removed out

Thank you for joining with us

Killed him dead

Blood loss was two units of blood.

There is little question that an undercurrent of sarcasm exists (a current that “runs” is a pleonasm) in pleonasties. They should be uttered smilingly and jocularly in the “spoonful of sugar” spirit. Although imperfect, pleonasties constitute a mechanism of reaction unavailable to recipients of the meaningless “Have a nice day” or of discourses heavily laced with “y’know” and “hopefully.“

Found in VERBATIM

Boris Randolph, Los Angeles, California

The one hundred and one English words defined below can all be made up from the letters contained in the word VERBATIM. You may use the letters only as often as they occur in VERBATIM itself, namely, once in a word. After you find the one hundred and one, you may wish to see how many others you can find on your own. There are quite a few.

1. Lincoln’s “Honest” nickname _ _ _
2. Fish lure _ _ _ _
3. Hearing tool _ _ _
4. Gershwin the lyricist _ _ _
5. Coffin-holder _ _ _ _
6. Actress Murray’s first name _ _ _
7. Male sheep _ _ _
8. Actress Le Gallienne’s first name _ _ _
9. Body bone _ _ _
10. Column of light _ _ _ _
11. Encourage _ _ _ _
12. Circumference _ _ _ _ _
13. Marie Wilson’s famous role _ _ _ _
14. Naked _ _ _ _
15. Vitality _ _ _
16. Purpose _ _ _
17. Streetcar _ _ _ _
18. Husband or wife _ _ _ _
19. Small movie part _ _ _
20. Edge _ _ _
21. Take in as food _ _ _
22. Ceremony _ _ _ _
23. Compete _ _ _
24. Atmosphere _ _ _
25. French master _ _ _ _ _ _
26. Beverage _ _ _
27. Drinking place _ _ _
28. Small contribution _ _ _ _
29. Paper measure _ _ _ _
30. Bad boy _ _ _ _
31. Deep mud _ _ _ _
32. Wheel covering _ _ _ _
33. Precious resin _ _ _ _ _
34. Mother _ _ _ _ _
35. Degree of speed _ _ _ _
36. Baseball tool _ _ _
37. Dinner check _ _ _
38. Anger _ _ _
39. Kind of word _ _ _ _
40. French boy friend _ _ _
41. Let out _ _ _ _
42. Female horse _ _ _ _
43. Took in as food _ _ _
44. Bolt or pin _ _ _ _ _
45. Very courageous _ _ _ _ _
46. Italian river _ _ _ _ _
47. Heavy spar _ _ _ _ _ _
48. Beef, pork or such _ _ _ _
49. Move rapidly _ _ _ _ _ _ _
50. Talk like a madman _ _ _ _
51. Thing _ _ _ _
52. Another edge _ _ _ _
53. Rodent _ _ _
54. 100 square meters _ _ _
55. Italian street _ _ _
56. Turkish inn _ _ _ _ _ _
57. Turkish title _ _ _ _
58. Game playing group _ _ _ _
59. Antoinette’s first name _ _ _ _ _
60. Reduce _ _ _ _
61. Hail! _ _ _
62. Animal domesticator _ _ _ _ _
63. Deserve _ _ _ _ _
64. French girl friend _ _ _ _
65. Polar animals _ _ _ _
66. Spoil _ _ _ _
67. Breast-holder _ _ _
68. Scotch cap _ _ _
69. A variant of 13 above _ _ _ _
70. Market _ _ _ _ _
71. Hoarfrost _ _ _ _
72. Cravat _ _ _
73. Body limb _ _ _
74. What a clock measures _ _ _ _
75. Famous Irish queen _ _ _
76. Soft French cheese _ _ _ _
77. Black sticky stuff _ _ _
78. Fresh-water fish _ _ _ _ _
79. Eye drop _ _ _ _
80. Beautiful work _ _ _
81. Floor covering _ _ _
82. Pope’s headdress _ _ _ _ _
83. Musical rhythm _ _ _ _
84. Send _ _ _ _ _
85. Period of time _ _ _
86. Make neat _ _ _ _
87. Metrical poetical foot _ _ _ _
88. Declare as true _ _ _ _
89. Sink teeth into _ _ _ _ _
90. Biblical weed _ _ _ _
91. Entertainer Parks, first name _ _ _ _
92. Ward off _ _ _ _ _ _
93. Angry _ _ _ _ _
94. Comedian Conway’s first name _ _ _
95. Indian group _ _ _ _ _
96. Greek letter _ _ _ _
97. Large tank _ _ _
98. Another Greek letter _ _ _
99. Bandleader Shaw’s first name _ _ _ _ _
100. Wager _ _ _
101. Encountered _ _ _

SIC! SIC! SIC!

“CORRECTIONS: An article in The Living Section on Wednesday about decorative cooking incorrectly described a presentation of Muscovy duck by Michel Fitoussi, a New York chef. In preparing it, Mr. Fitoussi uses a duck that has been killed.” [From The New York Times, April 25, 1981, p. 25. Submitted by James J. Storrow, Jr., New York City. Now they tell me! Here, I’d tried a ruptured duck, left over from World War II, a lame duck, left over from the Carter administration, a Wild Duck, supplied by my butcher, Henrik Ibsen, a Peking duck, which just kept looking at me, somewhat reproachfully, as I tried to decorate it, and a cold duck, which persisted in trying to get back into its bottle.]

OBITER DICTA

Kathleen Mollohan, Helena, Montana

Soon I am going to quit my job in state government and become a full-time artist. One of the reasons I’m going to do this is so that my entire daily vocabulary will consist of words like weft and indigo. My goal in life is never again to suggest that a community maximize its resources. What can I possibly mean? If I mean the city should recycle old newspapers, why don’t I say so?

The watchdogs of the English language are trying to help us tighten up our thoughts and hence our utterances. The trouble is, we in government and education (I am in both, alas!) sincerely think we understand each other. I’ll give you an example. I recently asked several of my colleagues to send me a list of topics on which they could speak or give workshops. The responses I got can be divided into three categories. Perfectly Clear contains Pruning Ornamental Trees, the Fitting and Care of Hearing Aids, and Furniture Refinishing. Wonderful. The second category, Ambiguous, includes Parent Involvement, Human Potential, Process Consultation, Results Management Techniques and, my favorite, Multi-cultural Education at the Community Level. People are going to sign up for workshops with these titles. What do they think they are going to get? Will they be disappointed if parent involvement doesn’t mean ‘involvement with each other,’ but rather ‘helping the first-grade teacher design bulletin boards’? The third category isn’t terribly offensive, just incomplete. I call it Need More Information. The topics in this group are a peculiar form of professional shorthand, rich in meaning to those whose salaries come from a common funding source but a mystery to the rest of us. Some examples are Prevention Education, Accessibility, Token Economies, and Community Action. I found out that prevention means ‘prevention of delinquency and/or drug and alcohol abuse.’ Accessibility is ‘the ease with which physically handicapped people can get into buildings.’ Token economies are not the economic systems of the third-world countries: incredible as it seems, token economies refers to ‘the modification of people’s behavior by rewarding desirable actions with tokens which can later be exchanged for junk food or whatever.’ Community action, it turns out, has a special meaning to a host of people. There are community action programs and CAP agencies, but they aren’t called that any more (probably because community action program agencies sounds silly). They are now called human resource development councils; they still do community action. If you pin these folks down, they admit theirs is a ‘social service program for low income.’ (I am not a low income now, but I will be soon.) It was only by the most dogged persistence that I discovered that one of the things they can do is tell poor people how they can get their homes weatherized-maximize, in fact, their community resources.

I would like to make all these people carry a pocket dictionary and look up the definition of every word they use. I think I’ll start with the Human Potential Specialist in my office. She helps people understand that women should get the same job training as men.

Indian File

Norman Ward, University of Saskatchewan

A person who lives in Saskatoon, Saskatchewan, in a country named Canada, whose capital is Ottawa, can hardly be unaware of the importance of Indian words as a source of place names in North America. After inquiring into the originals of those names, one will also know that their pronunciation may have suffered in translation. The saskatoon, for example, a delicious fruit that looks like a reddish blueberry, was named by the Cree, and in the English alphabet its Indian source comes out as misaskwatomin. A Cree not only would be unlikely to say misaskwatomin so that it rhymed with saskatoon, but might pronounce saskatoon itself differently from anybody whose mother tongue is English.

That is perhaps one reason why, apart from hundreds of place names (what is the longest distance one can travel on this continent without encountering an Indian place name?), remarkably few Indian words have entered North American vernacular. There may be many local or regional exceptions, such as saskatoon itself: if it were not also the name of a city, it is doubtful whether the word would be often heard outside the berry’s prairie habitat. But more important than difficult pronunciations may be the simple historical fact that Europeans arrived in North America already equipped with the words they needed to describe what they found. They were familiar with the native peoples' weaponry and modes of transportation and had their own terms for a considerable variety of geographical phenomena. Few of them were interested in native religious beliefs beyond, perhaps, knowing what should be suppressed. What they did not have were names for places, tribes, and languages, and for those they drew on both their own history and on Indian words, frequently (judging from the comments of authorities on place names) with no clear idea of precisely what they meant. They also relied on the natives for the words for North American artifacts, flora, and fauna with which they were unfamiliar.

Not all words that sound like adaptations from a native tongue or for some reason or other have particularly North American, connotations are necessarily of Indian origin. Lacrosse is widely regarded as a game played first by Indians, but its name is French, and so is the name of one tribe that played it, the Hurons. That ubiquitous denizen of the Great Plains, the gopher, honeycombs the earth, and the French word for ‘honeycomb’ is gaufre. Shaman comes from Russian sources, among others, and palaver is from the Portuguese; junco, mesa, palomino, pueblo, and sierra are Spanish. We are also indebted to Europeans for several words which, while probably of a native origin in this hemisphere, nonetheless seem to have entered North American English with indirect assistance from abroad: French— particularly Canadian French—imported toboggan, rubaboo ‘an unappetizing soup made from pemmican,’ babiche ‘rawhide thongs,’ and togue a regional name for ‘lake trout.’ A longer list of more familiar words, generally with Caribbean beginnings, has come down from the Spanish: canoe, guano, hammock, maize, tobacco, papaya (or papaw), poncho, puma, quetzal. (Some of those words, incidentally, have made their way into French with identical spellings, while others have done so slightly disguised: canoë, hamac, maïs, tabac.)

No claim is made that the list is complete: consider the ill-tempered piranha, or that indispensable source of chicle, the sapodilla, not to mention its fellow tree, the guaiacum. All of the words cited so far are readily categorized as animal, vegetable, or artifact, offering few hints of abstract ideas. With occasional exceptions, that generalization holds true of words that have entered North American English directly from the native languages. From the far north have come igloo, kayak, parka, and oomiak. Canadian English, naturally enough, contains a few, familiarity with which varies greatly even among Canadians; komatik, kudlik, mukluk, muktuk, and ooloo, all of them man-made, unlike that curious upheaval of Arctic ice called a pingo.

More southerly peoples than the Innuit (Eskimo is not of native origin) have produced or contributed to a substantially longer list of words in general North American use. Some of these are so solidly identified with particular areas that their Indian origin is almost forgotten. Of food, there are hominy (with its strikingly up-to-date root rockahomonie), pemmican, persimmon, pone, quahog, and succotash; a feast including some of those on the West coast would be a potlatch, a festival particularly associated with the Chinook tribe, which gave its name to an unseasonably warm winter wind that on short notice sweeps eastwards down the mountains and across the central plains. Untouched by a chinook is the muskeg, which lies between agricultural and forest lands and the Arctic.

Some of the wild creatures with Indian names are also food: the edible mammals include caribou, moose, and in some places opossum, the fishes cisco and muskellunge and the less familiar oolichan ‘smelt’ and sauger ‘pike.’ Less generally thought of as food, but doubtless eaten, are chipmunk, raccoon, skunk, and massasauga ‘a small venomous snake of the Great Lakes region.’ Two types of horse are identifiably Indian: the appaloosa, historically identified with the Palouse River in Washington, and the cayuse. (Pinto, which sounds as if it ought to be Indian, is Spanish.) Recognizable artifacts that would be employed in and around all these creatures include moccasin, tomahawk, wigwam, and, for trade or perhaps ornamentation, wampum. All of them, of course, could be discussed at powwows.

Native-language words that are specifically associated with human beings are even rarer in North American English than are those related to animals. Squaw and papoose are still with us, and still capable to titillating audiences at TV sitcoms when applied to non-Indians; but the best-known designation for a male warrior, brave, is of English and French extraction. The greenhorn is seen in a rarely heard word of Chinook ancestry, cheechako, and an Algonquian term, sometimes used for cayuse, recognizes friendship in nitchie, also rare. Tammany Hall took into English sachem ‘a chief,’ by using the term for its own political purposes, and two other Algonquian words, totem and manito, which represent, respectively, a clan or family emblem and the Great Spirit.

Manito stands almost alone as a word of native origin in the contemporary North American vocabulary which does not deal with a live or concrete object, but it shares with most of the others a capacity to be spelled and pronounced in more than one way. For that reason, there is sometimes room for doubt about the etymology of an Indian word, for if (as George R. Stewart records in Names on the Land) the magnificent Merrimack can also be rendered as Monumac and Molumac, each with a different meaning, there is no reason for surprise if one dictionary says the origin of chipmunk is uncertain, while another, equally reputable, says it is Algonquian. Since what was sought for this article were Indian words in use in English, at first only concise dictionaries were consulted, and whole new visitas were opened up by the Oxford English Dictionary. That opus supplemented one thing the others agreed on, the spelling of chipmunk, with chipmunck, chipmonk, chipmuk, and chipmiuck. Owing to a fault in the paper in my copy, the last version is unclear and may even be chipminck. It is obscurely comforting to think that it may not matter.

“The unlearned or foolish phantasticall, that smelles but of learnyng (such felowes as have been learned men in their daies) will to Latine their tongues, that the simple cannot but wonder at their talke, and thynke surely thei speake by some Revelacion. I knowe them that thynke Rhetorique, to stande wholy upon darke woordes, and he that can catche an ynke home terme by the taile, him thei compt to bee a fine Englishe man, and a good Rhetotician [sic]. And the rather to set out this folie, I will add here suche a letter, as William Sommer himself, could not make a better for that purpose….

‘Ponderyng, erpēdyng, and revolutying with my self your ingent affabilitee, and ingenious capacitee, for mundane affaires: I cannot but celebrate and extolle your magnificall dexteritee, above all other. For how could you have adepted suche illustrate prerogative, and dominicall superioritee, if the fecunditee of your ingenie had not been so fertile, and woūderfull pregnaunt. Now therfore beeyng accersited, to suche splendent renoume, and dignitee splendidious: I doubt not but you will adiuuate such poor adnichilate orphanes, as whilome ware cōdisciples with you, and of antique familiaritie in Lincolne shire. Among whom I beeyng a Scholasticall panion, obtestate your sublimitee to extoll myne infirmitee. There is a sacerdotall dignitee in my native countrey, contiguate to me, where I now contemplate: whiche your worshipfull benignitee, could sone impetrate for me, if it would like you to extend your scedules, and collaude me in them to the right honorable lord Chauncellor, or rather Archigramatian of Englande. You knowe my literature, you knowe the pastorall promocion, I obtestate your clemencie, to inuigilate thus muche for me accordyng to my confidence, and as you know my condigne merites, for suche a compendious liuing. Rut now I reliquishe to fatigate your intelligence with any more frivolous verbositie, and therfore he that rules the climates be euermore your beautreux, your fortresse, and your bulwarke. Amen' “What wise mā readyng this letter, will not take him for a very Caulfe, that made it in good earnest, and thought by his ynkepot termes, to get good personage . . . . Do we not speake, because we would have other to understande us, or is not the tongue geuē [given] for this ende, that one might know what another meaneth? And what unlearned man can tell, what half this letter signifieth? Therfore, either we must make a difference of Englishe, and saie some is learned Englishe, and other some is rude Englishe, or the one is courte talke, the other is coūtrey speache, or els we must of necessitee, banishe al suche affected Rhetorique, and use altogether one maner of lāguage.”

— The Arte of Rhetorique (1553), Thomas Wilson

Jade for the Jaded

Mary M. Tius, Kavala, Greece

As all punsters know, hag, jade, and nag are words with more than one meaning. So is harrow, and when we look up one of its meanings, we find a few entries away the word haras, defined as a ‘stud farm or harras,’ derived from Old French haraz, from Arabic hara ‘stud, stable.’ This is the same word as Turkish hara and probably also Latin hara ‘pen or coop for domestic animals; piggery.’ Next, looking up harry (from Old English here ‘army,’ akin to Gothic harjis ‘host,’ Greek koiranos ‘commander,’ and Old Persian kāra ‘army’), we recall that horde comes from Turkish ordu ‘army, host’; that Latin armentum means ‘herd’; that army and order are not unconnected notions.

Ambling off to jade, we rein in sharply at Panjabi jathā an ‘armed band,’ and then again at jaud, Scots for ‘jade’-whether the stone or the animal is not stated, though Scots yad, yade, and yaud mean ‘mare’ (from Old Norse jalda ‘mare,’ of Finno-Ugric origin). Heigh-ho! Turkish at means ‘horse.’ Galloping on to mare, we are brought up short at Chinese (Peking) ma\?\3 ‘horse’ before arriving at the mare of nightmare (akin to Croatian mora, Old High German and Old Norse mara ‘incubus,’ and reminiscent-at least to us-of French mère and Greek mègaera). Turkish cadi means ‘vampire, hag, witch’; Greek tzadogria means ‘hag, witch’; both sound like Hindi jadoo or jadu ‘magic.’ Then there is Turkish harm, used only of horses, which means ‘jaded, vicious, worn-out’-a fairly good description of French haridelle. English harridan has lost its French equine connotation but keeps the ‘strumpethag-jade’ sense. Somewhere along the way to becoming an utter hag-harpy, a harridan-nag is a harlot-houri-whore the incubus kind of mare.

And what of jadestone? While hastening from yaud, we stumbled upon Chinese (Peking) yu\?\4 ‘jadestone.’ Turkish hara ‘stud farm’ also means ‘stone, marble of mottled blue or brown.’ Though jade is usually green, it may be whitish, and a glance at purple or any other color shows how nomadic and unstable color words are. Jasper, for instance, can be brown, gray, green, pepper-and-salt, red, or yellow. So that Turkish hara may well refer to ‘jadestone’-especially since the Turkish word for ‘jade, yeshim, means ‘jasper’ and ‘porphyry’ as well. Yeshim probably derives from yeshil ‘green’ and yash ‘verdant.’ Another Turkish word, toy, means not just ‘green’ but also the ‘greater bustard, bittern, night heron.’ Toygan means ‘falcon, hawk’; toynak ‘hoof’; tirnak ‘claw’; tirmiklamak ‘to rake, harrow’; tay ‘colt’- which trots us off to English hagdon, haggard, haglet, harrier, and hawk.

What we seem to be looking at here is a hostile horde of herdsmen-horsemen who hunt with hawks when they’re not hacking at and harassing their neighbors. These harsh harriers are roving reavers, haiduks who appear as suddenly as nightmares, wreak their havoc and then vanish as if by magic. Though nothing like as harrowed and hag-ridden as the pedestrian peoples in their path, both nags and riders, what with all that raiking and roaming, do become jaded-the riders especially, since, however hardy a jaunting marauder may be, jouncing about on jades is harmful to the health. For the resulting kidney disorders-among them, renal colic-there is, we are happy to report, a specific: the wearing of nephrite, either alone or in combination with a hagstone which, because of its unevenness, may, even more than the yellowish-bluish-grayish-whitish-green jade, resemble and, therefore, protect against kidney stone.

BIBLIOGRAPHIA: Tenderfeet and Ladyfingers

Susan Kelz Sperling, (Viking, 1981), vii + 150 pp., illustrated.

Mrs. Sperling’s earlier effort in this genre, Poplollies and Bellibones: A Celebration of Lost Words, was well received by the word-buff crowd, but I have some apprehension about this one, which consists of a series of brief, essay-style explanations and anecdotes about a few hundred expressions of English like one foot in the grave, Achilles heel, a bird in the hand is worth two in the bush, learn by heart, and others. If the subject seems to cleave to the anatomical, the subtitle explains: “A visceral approach to words and their origins.”

I can say only that I wish the subject had been broader, for Mrs. Sperling has included a number of metaphors whose sense and origin are so obvious as to make reading about them quite redundant. Those expressions that do not yield readily to analysis-break a leg!, thumbs down, lick one’s chops, and others-are treated well, but they are scattered here and there among the obvious. Why should anyone need an explanation of the walls have ears or a hair-raising experience? And some of these have been in the language for so long that providing a single source in certain cases can invite only contumely from those who can readily find earlier citations. An attractive book with neatly done illustrations by Michael C. Witte, Tenderfeet would make a fine gift. [L.U.]

Arabic Loanwords

Robert Devereux, Falls Church, Virginia

A is well known, English is basically a Germanic language, deriving its principal grammatical and syntactical characteristics, as well as a large part of its vocabulary, from its Germanic forerunners. But it has also borrowed words lavishly from non-Germanic languages, as is evidenced by the inclusion of such words in standard English dictionaries. Although a large percentage of these loanwords derives from Greek, Latin, and the various Romance languages, many lesser known and, to Americans, rather exotic languages are also well represented.

One such fertile source has been Arabic. I frankly have no idea of the total number of Arabic loanwords that have found their way into English, but it must be very substantial indeed. In only a short time, I turned up 400 Arabic loan-words by leafing through the pages of the Random House Dictionary of the English Language, Webster’s Third New International Dictionary, and the Shorter Oxford English Dictionary. The words range from ones like candy, guitar, and syrup, which are so common that they are known to every English speaker, even the most uneducated, to the avowedly exotic, like fiqh, khanjar, maksoorah, which are likely to be known only by orientalists and/or xenologophiliacs. Between these two ends of the spectrum are the moderately familiar (e.g., caliph, mosque, talisman), which should certainly be in the recognition vocabulary of any educated English speaker, and the slightly unusual (e.g., dhow, jennet, wadi), with which at least crossword-puzzle fans should be familiar.

Arabic loanwords have entered the lexicon, of English by various paths, including the following:

1. Directly from Arabic. This route accounts for 222 (55.5%) of my 400 examples. Included in this number are 37 that reached Modern English through the filter of Middle English.

2. From other languages, which had earlier borrowed them from Arabic. About half of these passed through only one other language before reaching English; the remainder passed through as many as five or six. The immediate donor languages include Spanish (43), French (43), Latin (28), Hindi (18), Turkish (17), Italian (9), Urdu (5), Persian (4), Portuguese (4), and seven others that contributed one each (Hebrew, Provencal, Swahili, Javanese, Hungarian, Catalan, and Yiddish).

Both categories, it should be noted, include some words that are not true Arabic loanwords, that is, they passed through Arabic en route to English, but their origins are elsewhere. My 400 examples include 34 such words, of which 12 derive ultimately from Persian, 8 from Greek, 4 from Latin, 3 from Sanskrit, 2 each from Turkish and Coptic, and one each from Spanish, Aramaic, and Syriac.

3. As hybrids that incorporate elements both from Arabic and from another language. Zinjanthropus, for example, combines the Arabic zinj (East Africa) and a Latinized form of Creek anthropos (man), while musaceous is constructed from the Arabic mawzah ‘banana,’ the Latin scientific particle -aceae, and the English adjectival suffixous. Safflower can be traced back through the Dutch saffloer to the Middle French saffleur to the original saffiore, which combines the Arabic asf(ar) ‘yellow’ and the Italian fiore ‘flower.’ My 400 examples include five other such hybrids.

Many Arabic loanwords, especially those connected with Islam (e.g., hadith, mihrab, waqf), are simply transliterations of the Arabic originals. But since different individuals have different ideas about how the Arabic alphabet should be transliterated, in many cases there is no single “correct” way to spell an Arabic loanword and, instead, dictionaries offer several-sometimes as many as five-accepted variant spellings. To cite a few examples: ameer, amir, emeer, emir; cadi, kadhi, kadi, qadi, qazi; chamsinie, khamseen, khamsin; fakir, faqir, faquir; gasal, gazel, ghasel, ghazal, ghazel; hadj, haj, hajj; hegira, hejira, hijra, hijrah; kasida, qasida; kibia, kiblah, qibia, qiblah; and shaikh, shaykh, sheik, sheikh, sheykh. As an 1846 Punch cartoon caption observed, “You pays your money and you takes your choice.”

Many loanwords have been altered beyond recognition. Few individuals, I hazard, would be likely, upon seeing the Arabic terms qar’ah yabisah and samt, to discern therein the English calabash and zenith. It is, of course, not surprising that this is so, for the phonetic demands of a particular language often do strange things to words taken in from other languages. Many Arabic loanwords have changed not only their forms but also their meanings. Alcohol, for example, derives from al-kuhl ‘the powdered antimony’ and algebra from al-jabr ‘the bone-setting.’ Mummy derives from mumiyah ‘asphalt,’ and salep, as unlikely as it may seem, from khasyu’th tha’lab ‘fox’s testicles.’ Rahah ‘palm of the hand’ has somehow evolved into racket (or racquet) as well as into the anatomical term rasceta.

A special kind of deformation has occurred in the case of Arabic loanwords beginning with at, which represents the Arabic word for ‘the.’ Alcazar, for example, derives from al-qasr ‘the castle’; so when we say “the alcazar,” we are, in a sense, really saying “the the castle (or fortress).” This deformation is usually associated in people’s minds with loanwords that have entered English through Spanish. That belief is justified in many cases but not all. My 400 examples include 55 with initial al, of which only 22 entered English from Spanish. Of the remainder, 9 entered from Latin, 8 directly from Arabic, 6 each from French and Middle English, 2 from Portuguese, and one from Hebrew. It must be noted in all fairness, however, that 14 of these 32 had first passed through Spanish, where the al was added to the basic Arabic word. The 55th word, alconde, is one of those hybrids discussed above, being a combination of the Arabic al and the Spanish conde.

The incorporation of the Arabic al does not occur only in loanwords having an initial al. Azimuth, for example, derives from al-sumut ‘the directions,’ and azoth from al-za’uq ‘the quicksilver.’ The explanation lies in a peculiarity of Arabic: in pronunciation, Arabic words beginning with one of the so-called “Sun Letters” (t, th, d, dh, r, z, s, sh, \?\, \?\, \?\, and n) assimilate the I of a preceding al. Thus, the aforesaid words are written as shown but are pronounced as-sumut and az-za’uq. Lute, which derives from al-‘ud ‘the wood,’ is a special case, i.e., only the I of al was adjoined. Another special case is aubergine, which derives from al-badhinjan ‘the eggplant.’ The latter has also provided the English brinjal.

There are, in fact, numerous examples of two or more Arabic loanwords which, in their English versions, differ considerably from one another but derive from the same Arabic word. Zero and cipher both derive from sifr ‘empty,’ for example; wazir has given us not only the transliterated wazir but also vizier and alguacil; carob, algarroba, and algarrobilla all derive from kharruba; jubbah, jibba, and jupe from jubbah; henna, alkanna, and alkanet from hinna; and crimson, carmine, alkermes, and kermes from qirmiz. The list could be extended at length.

As should be clear from the examples already cited in this article, the Arabic loanwords in English relate to a wide variety of subjects. Of my 400 examples, roughly 50 do not readily lend themselves to categorization and can most conveniently be lumped together under the rubric “miscellaneous.” As for the remaining 350, the largest group consists of words which relate to Islam (itself a loanword) and have meaning only in an Islamic context, for example, fatiha and muezzin. A smaller but closely related group includes words that have meaning in the context of Islamic history as distinct from Islam as a religion (e.g., jahiliya, kharijite). Another large group consists of words related to government and administration, many of them being titles of one sort or another (e.g., amir, nizam) and names of governmental or administrative bodies or functions (e.g., majlis, tariff).

As for the rest, the fields covered are indeed numerous and include the following (for each I will cite two examples, although in all cases more are available):

animals (jerboa, mehari)
architecture (alcove, minaret)
astronomy (almucantar, nadir)
beverages (coffee,* julep*)
birds (*albatross*, *bulbul*)
chemistry (*alkali*, *realgar*)
clothing (*sash*, *tarboosh*)
coins (*dinar*, *dirhem*)
color (*azure*,*saffron*)
fish (*albacore*, *tuna*)
flora (*jasmine*, *spinach*)
folklore (*ghoul*, *roc*)
general science (*alembic*, *aludel*)
literature (*almanac*, *ruba’i*)
maritime (*felucca*, *xebec*)
medicine (*kef*, *zedoary*)
meteorology (*haboob*, *shamal*)
military (*admiral*, *jemadar*)
music (*rebec*, *timbal*)
sports (*jereed*, *safari*)
topography (*bled*, *djebel*)

In the field of astronomy, the greatest Arabic contribution has not been general loanwords but rather star names. VERBATIM readers should refer to the article by E.E. Rehmus, “The Arabic Star-Names” [V, 3], which listed more than 50 such names. Rehmus’s list, however, was not nearly complete. In The Story of the English Language (New York, 1967), Mario Pei states (p. 225) that a precise count of 183 star names showed 125 to be Arabic and another 9 to be Arabic-Latin.

The two most unlikely Arabic contributions to the English lexicon are the expressions ballyhoo and so long. In The Story of Language (London, 1952), Pei asserts (p. 156) that ballyhoo derives from the Arabic b-Allah hu ‘by Allah it is’ and that so long was adapted by British colonial troops from the Malay salang, which, in turn, was a corruption of the Arabic salaam ‘peace.’ However, Pei’s eminence in the field of linguistics notwithstanding, the Arabic origins of these two expressions have not, in fact, been established. Pei’s attribution is not reflected in any of the dictionaries I consulted, while in one of their works. The Dictionary of Word and Phrase Origins (New York, 1967, Vol. II, pp. 255-56), William and Mary Morris note that, although some people ascribe the ultimate source of so long to salaam, they themselves consider this etymology to be “wildly far of the mark.” I do not pretend to know the truth of the matter.

BIBLIOGRAPHIA: American Tongue in Cheek

Jim Quinn, (Pantheon Books, 1980), xviii + 219 pp.

“If this book doesn’t make you angry, it wasn’t worth writing.” [first line of author’s Preface]

As any logician can tell you, the corollary of the above quotation is not necessarily true, that is, if the book does make you angry, it does not necessarily follow that it was worth writing. I must confess that I found the book irritating, chiefly because it makes the assumption that everything written (or said) by Edwin Newman, Bill Safire, John Simon, Ted Bernstein, and other outspoken (but seldom out-written) critics of modern English usage is wrong, but also, largely, because it is the author who seems to be angry; that seems to be his reason for believing that the book was worth writing. Besides, the book is riddled with misinformation, errors, and misconstruals, either inadvertent or deliberate. For example:

First of all, gift is often used as a verb. We use the past participle of that verb, as an adjective, whenever we say a gifted writer, a gifted painter. [p. 16]

According to the OED, the word rhetoric has been applied to false or empty phrases since 1562, [p. 23] Inoperative was first used in 1631, and by John Donne: “A dead faith, as all faith that is inoperative.” . . . The OED lists the word as current, adding that in legal language it means “without standing force, invalid,” which is where Ziegler probably came across it-though who knows? Donne may be one of his favorite poets-and at any rate, whatever else Ziegler is guilty of, he is not guilty of bad language when he imitates John Donne, [pp. 26-27]

Newman complains that guilty culprit is redundant- culprit all by itself means guilty. Any historical dictionary would have told him different. At first, culprit was formal legal language that meant “the prisoner waiting before the bar for trial.” It meant that in 1678, when it was first cited in the OED, and it means exactly that today. Strictly speaking, of course. But gradually . . . the word began to take on associations of guilt-in uninformed use. [p. 27]

In the first quotation, Quinn shows his utter ignorance of the uses of the -ed suffix in certain formations with nouns (tender-hearted certainly does not come from the verb “to tender-heart”), and would be well advised to look matters up in dictionaries and grammars before accusing others of their failure to do so. The second and other examples illustrate not only Quinn’s inability to cope with semantic change but his complete insensitivity to language: his obsession to discredit critics like Newman blinds him to the facts that are before him in the very works he cites as Gospel. The objection to inoperative is not to the word itself (which is standard in inoperative cures, for instance, and non-standard for inoperable in inoperative cancer) but to its use as jargon representative of the kind of duplicity associated with statements emanating from Ziegler and others who uttered pronouncements on the Watergate events. As for culprit, which we use today-notwithstanding the 17th-century meaning of the word-to mean ‘the guilty one,’ Quinn dismisses it as “uninformed” merely because he has found evidence for an archaic sense that provides him with ammunition to attack Newman.

And so on, throughout this book, the author selects from various sources the evidence he desires, regardless of its validity or age-as long as it is in print somewhere, he quotes it-to confute comments by the critics whom he punishes on every page. (As for regardless, he has this to say: “A language conservative like myself resists change-for example, I still use the word irregardless. I grew up using it.” [p. 18])

Quinn is a journalist, and his writing is incisive, direct, fluid, and exciting. It is also ungrammatical and non-standard. I cannot help feeling that this book is a tour de force, attempting to capitalize on the successes of the works published by those he attacks. It can scarcely be deemed controversial, because there is little or no controversy about most of the matters on usage discussed by Quinn. If you react violently to this sort of book (and suffer from hypotension), you can easily raise your blood pressure by reading a few pages of this spurious, unscholarly nonsense. It is sad to note that the author, a professional writer, has such an iconoclastic attitude toward style in language and that his book confirms, on every page, his inability to comprehend the merest notion of what it is that the targets of his vituperative hostility rail at. I certainly hold no brief for the “You-won’t-go-to-heaven-if-you-don’t-speak-proper-English” school of usage criticism as exemplified by Newman, Simon, et al.; neither do I subscribe to Quinn’s tenet that you’ll go to hell if you conform to a consensus of good usage, tempered, of course, by your own style and taste.

[L.U.]

BIBLIOGRAPHIA: Brave New Words

Bill Sherk, (Double-day, 1979), xiv + 174 pp.

For as long as I have worked as a lexicographer-more that one quarter of a century-people have written to me urging that the next edition of whatever dictionary I was working on include a “new word” that they had coined for (or on) a particular occasion. Since I started publishing VERBATIM, these and other word-coiners have been sending their creations to me, pressing for recognition. (I cannot properly call them neologists, for that name should be reserved for those who study neologisms, which are new words that have been accepted into the language, not ones still in the proposal stage.)

Professional lexicographers, always on the lookout for new words and meanings, have generally established as a standard for recording neologisms in their dictionaries the repeated appearance of the word or meaning in media of sufficiently large exposure to indicate acceptance by English speakers. Those who attempt to persuade lexicographers to list novel concoctions are unaware of our function, which is to describe the lexicon of a language, and that means its word stock; the lexicon of English does not include the fancies of people who have discovered the technique of putting morphological elements together.

Some of the coinages in this book are jocular; though I enjoy a (good) joke as much as the next fellow, I fail to see anything funny about words like volnic (‘an imaginary part of a carburetor’) and gafahvitz (‘the tool used to adjust a volnic’). Some coinages are simply awful because they are hybrids, that is, made up of Germanic and Greek or Latin parts: baldephobia (‘fear of going bald’) is an example. If such a word is needed, it ought to be alopeciaphobia or calvophobia, both hybrids but at least with parts of the same vintage; but the real question is whether the word has any use in the language (except for the vain fellow who coined it). Other coinages can be attributed to those who are unaware that a word with the needed meaning already exists. Why coin spork when runcible spoon, from runcible, itself coined by Edward Lear, already exists? The foon referred to under spork in this book is a utensil with a fork at one end and a spoon at the other, reminiscent of the odd gadgets once popular with the manufacturers of novelties for the premium market. I recall a comb with a shoehorn as a handle; made of plastic, it was a giveaway at the Times Square Hotel in New York in the 1940s. Such combinations can make the imagination take flights of fancy: how about a toothbrush with a blackhead squeezer at the other end? or a combination of eyecup and eyelash curler? or a nail file with a toothpick?

This book is full of similar strange combinations-of words, that is, not gadgets. The language is difficult enough to deal with as it is, and I lose my sense of humor with items like lexiconia, fuzztache, willectomy, and the rest. Those who are willing to spork out $12.95 (about 13¢ each) for this sort of nonsense are welcome to it. Two more points: I am not averse to coining words myself and am responsible for thimblewit. Second, Sherk lists Norsex as the logical companion (in the north of England) to Wessex, (in the West), Sussex, (in the south), Essex, (in the east), and Middlesex, (in the middle): as for what the English up north did for their sex, I’m surprised he hasn’t heard of Norfolk. The latest news, good or bad, depending on your viewpoint, is that a second version is on the way.

[L.U.]

Philip Howard on English English: Pronunciation

Not merely de gustibus: De pronuntiationibus non disputandum. But, by Hermes, God of mispronunciation, in Britain we enjoy arguing about pronunciation more than about politics. Perhaps this is not surprising in a country where one’s pronunciation is a badge of class and where we still doubtfully believe in a correct form of pronouncing the Queens English, called Standard or Received or Southern English, defined as the dialect of the educated all over England. It has also been defined polemically as ‘not the accent of a class, but the accent of the class-conscious, the dialect of an effete social clique, half aware of its own etiolation, capitalizing linguistic affectations to convert them to caste-marks.’

The notion of a correct way of pronouncing British English has been undermined over the past twenty years by the vogue for regional and ‘uneducated’ British accents on radio and television, though, interestingly, not on the Overseas Service of the BBC. It is still thought proper that foreigners should hear mainly Standard English.

Whenever some news reader or other influential personality ‘mispronounces’ a word, conservative folk feel the standards of civilization threatened and do the only thing a chap or chapess can do in the circumstances: write a fulminatory letter to The Times.

Take a recent, controversial example. The Standard English pronunciation of controversy puts the primary stress on the first syllable and a secondary stress on the third syllable. It has suddenly become fashionable among the media or uneducated classes to put the stress on the second syllable. My sources indicate that this shift has not happened in the States.

The new pronunciation upsets British purists catastrophically. They write complaining that it is ugly, uneducated, and wrong. Ugliness in pronunciation is not a quality that can be judged objectively. Uneducated? It is true that until recently dictionaries, grammars, and teachers of English told us that it was correct to stress the first and third syllables of controversy. But they merely record the way that most of the “best” speakers pronounce the word. The new Collins English Dictionary recognizes the new pronunciation of controversy as an alternative in British English.

But is it wrong? I am not sure that it is helpful to talk about correct and incorrect pronunciations. Of course one can invent examples of pronunciations that are clearly wrong. If somebody always said it “controvarsity,” at the very least we should say that he or she had an amusing eccentricity in his or her speech when it came to controversy.

Recessive accent took the stress to the first syllable of controversy in British English. Progressive accent seems to be taking it forward again. It happens. Commendable was clearly once stressed on its first syllable: ‘Tis sweet and commendable in thy nature. Hamlet.’ That will only scan if you stress the first syllable. Today the correct pronunciation of commendable stresses the second syllable. It is possible that the same shift of stress forward to the second syllable is happening in formidable.

I have correspondents who argue vehemently that the Standard English pronunciation of controversy with the stress on the first and third syllables must be correct because it retains the Latin pronunciation of the root word. There are three things to say to that. First, we do not completely understand the Latin stress system, but it was different from English. Second, the o in the second syllable in Latin was a long vowel, not the short o that most of us make it in English. And third, we are not bound in English to maintain the pronunciation of words we steal from other languages. Look what we have done to the Frog formidable.

There is no rhyme or reason, but a healthy variety in much English pronunciation. The BBC announces programmes about a Don it now calls ‘Kee-hohtie,’ but it pronounces Sancho Panza as in English. Why this keehohtic quixotic confusion?

When you come on to British pronunciation of Latin words, the controversy is complicated because sectarian prejudice is added to the brew of class snobbery and linguistic purism. For instance, there are four current pronunciations of Caesar in Britain:

1. Seezar: the traditional English.
2. Kaiser: the modern reformed.
3. Sayzar: the European, and medieval English.
4. Chayzar: the Italian.

We have recently been having a controversy between Roman Catholics and others about whether the new pronunciation of deity to rhyme with laity is closer to the original Latin, as if that mattered. Since the Latin deitas has a short e, the new pronunciation seems not so much “correct” as an Italianate pronunciation. Should we start pronouncing the English word genius ‘jaynius’? If the cry is that we must revert to the Latin pronunciations of our Roman forefathers, perhaps we can escape from the disagreeable sounds made by the ‘misuse’ of the words ego and libido. By extension to Greek, we might hear Eros, Thetis, and economic pronounced with their original values. The truth is:

1. There is no necessary connexion between the British pronunciation of a word and its pronunciation in the language from which it is taken.

2. There is a tendency to pronounce words as they are written, and to pronounce foreign words with a foreign pronunciation, often with ludicrous results.

3. The use of pronunciation as a class shibboleth to separate the sheep from the ruling class survives, but looks increasingly silly.

Phreddy Is a Phynque: Two Graphs for One Sound

Robert A. Fowkes, Yonkers, New York

The graffito, PHreddy Is a PHynque, in childish writing, was seen on the walls of Chester some time in 1966 by the writer, who was mildly surprised that fink had “ made the British scene.” The facetiousness of the orthography was a parody of English spelling caprices, smartly perceived by the probably juvenile inscriber.

A large portion of the intriguing complexity of our orthography may be traced to transcription practices, many of them involving digraphs with the strangely useful symbol h. For example, ph-superficially regarded as a cumbersome way of indicating one sound by two symbols, perhaps-owes its presence in our writing system to a long historical process. When Romans first wrote in their language Greek words containing phi (φ), they chose ph to indicate what was in early times an aspirated p (more or less a p followed by h). There was a precedent for this in Greek itself, for an ancient way of writing phi was IIH. But phi underwent a change in pronunciation, and around the second century B.C. it was probably an f, although not the labio-dental f of English and, possibly, of Latin, which involves the lower lip and the upper teeth, but rather a bilabial f, which involves both lips but not the teeth. Maybe phew has this sound “marginally” in English. At any rate, the Romans evidently found ph a convenient way of marking a sound that differed from their f. Perhaps many Romans could not distinguish the two sounds, but some of them studied in Greece and mastered the language. Such people possibly made a point of preserving the distinction between ph and f. In time, the two sounds became identical. In later centuries, medieval Latin and then the Romance languages adopted the practice of writing f for what had previously been ph. The following brief list in Italian illustrates the point:

farmacia — pharmacy
fase — phase
frase — phrase
fenomeno — phenomenon
fonetico — phonetic
fotografia — photograph (y)
sfera — sphere

French has re-acquired many phs.

In Old and Middle English, a similar move was made to write f instead of ph in such words. But learned tampering set in, and people who knew that there had once been a ph in the words restored the old writing. John Gower is said to have been especially vigorous in ph-restoration, but others-Mandeville, Langland, and many more-show the same trend. Thus, what had temporarily been filosofie and fisique, for example, were rewritten with ph.

Not all new phs were really restorations. Some were introduced into words not of Greek origin which had never had ph at all (like our facetious forms Phreddy and Phynque). Examples (which have not survived) include: phang (fang), phan (fan), phlip (flip), phanatic (fanatic is from Latin), even philome (film). The process of replacing f by ph in words that historically “justify” it has not been thorough. Hence we have fantom phantom, fantasy/phantasy, fantastic / phantastic, fantast/phantast, frenzy I phremy, frenetic / phrenetic. Frantic was possibly aided and abetted by the unrelated fanatic.

Forms with apparently uncontested ph include pharmacy, pharynx, pheasant, phenomenon, Philadelphia, physics, etc. Philter / philtre ‘potion’ is unrelated to filter, which is from Medieval Latin feltrum ‘felt’-used as a filter-itself from Germanic.

In modern words of Greek origin, ph seems to predominate, without monopolizing, however. Sulfur, sulfuric, and sulfate are competing forms for sulphur, sulphuric, and sulphate. And f is apparently winning in sulfa drugs, sulfanilamide, etc. Some scientists have told me that they consider f “more up to date” in such words.

Another source of ph is the rich mine of Old Testament names, mostly of Hebrew origin, but also from Aramaic, Egyptian, and other languages. Conceivably, even these made their way into English via Greek and Latin. But theological scholarship has also looked to the original sources again. English seems to use no f in these Old Testament names; Ephraim, Joseph, Naphtali, Tophel, Ophrah, Pharez, Pharaoh, Philistines, Potiphar, Phinehas, Shepham (looks like an English town name!), etc. The ph in Hebrew or Aramaic words reflects Semitic phonological conditions; it is phe (sans dagesh) as opposed to pe (with dagesh) and may involve syntactic considerations. Some of the initial phs may be hard to account for. Transmission via Greek phi may have added to the confusion. (In some Bible translations based on recent research, many phs are replaced by p. The Icelandic Bible, e.g., which has no qualms about writing ph- [actually as f-] in Greek names like Philippians, has Perez, Púra, Palti, Pallú, Púva, as opposed to English Pharez, Phurah, Phaiti, Phallu, Phuvah.)

English, then, has several ways of indicating the sound of f, in addition to f itself. One is ff (cuff), another, ph (Philadelphia); also gh (laugh, tough); pf (in names like Pfeiffer as pronounced in the U.S.) is another. English lieutenant (left-) has an unusual way of marking [f]; the corresponding title in the British Navy is pronounced as it is in the U.S. If [f] is thus denoted cumbersomely in several ways, ph can in turn represent, in addition to [f]: [v] in Stephen and nephew; [p] in Clapham; possibly bilabial voiceless fricative in phew; and zero in phthisic. It would be cheating a bit to point to ph as p + h in uphill. (Is anyone ever tempted to read it as euphyll?)

th

Parallel to ph is th. Romans transcribed Greek θ (8) as th. Early Greek inscriptions had th, representing aspirated t (once more, parallel to ph), although there were other writings too. The Romans had no such sound but transcribed theta mechanically by th (Thisbe, Thetis, Thēsēus, theātrum, thema, thōrax).Th was adopted in English to represent two native sounds: the voiceless thorn (\?\) as in thorn) and the voiced edh (\?\ as in these). Caxton is said to have introduced th, for, having brought from the Continent a form of type having no thorn, he used th for both sounds. (In Scotland, however, a form of \?\ that looked like Y was long retained-in manuscripts in England too. This led to ye for ‘the’ and to “Ye Olde Tea Shoppe” and similar blunders. In Anglo-Saxon times, when there were separate characters for th as in thorn and for th as in then, the signs were, amazingly enough, used inter-changeably. In Icelandic, better sense prevailed, and there were separate signs (usually) carefully distinguishing the voiced and voiceless sounds.

The adoption of th was, despite the confusion, advantageous in native words. Ph was, in a way, superfluous from the start, since f was available. But th occurs in some of our most frequent words: the, this, that, they, them, their, than, with, other, etc. We shall resist the temptation to discuss the history of some of these. But something else happened too. Words like theatre, theory, theme, throne, thermal are now pronounced with the voiceless th-sound, as they would have been in Greek, although most of them entered English through Latin or French, where no th existed. But learned restoration occurred again, and English speakers finally pronounced a th simply because it was written.

Yet the name Thomas seems to have had, the sound of t in all periods of English (cf. Tom, Tommy), as have the related names Thompson and Thomson, also (with a different vowel sound) Thomite, Thomistic, Thomism. Thames [temz] has no reason for a th-spelling, being a Celtic river name (Tamēsa, probably). But there is a Thames river in Connecticut that rhymes with James and has the initial sound of thorn!

Thailand has the t-sound, as does Tha¨s when referring to the novel by Anatole France or the opera by Massenet; but as the name of the mistress of Alexander the Great and Ptolemy I (consecutively) it has th as in thorn.

The Thaler of German coinage, with spurious th to begin with, supposedly has t- if and when pronounced in English. The spelling th in German was a fad of long duration created by printers, who considered the added h “ elegant.” When names of German origin came into English, interesting but not unexpected things happened. All the names ending in -thal (contemporary spelling Tal ‘valley’)-Rosenthal, Lilienthal, Blumenthal, and the other flowery dales-acquired a final element thawl. And Roth (contemporary German -spelling rot ‘red’) became wroth. In the name of the Rothschild family (rot ‘red’ + Schild ‘shield, coat-of-arms’) an illegitimate Wroth’s Child sneaks in. If the Rathskeller (or Ratskeller in more modern form) seems to have preserved its t-sound intact, it may be because most frequenters of such places know enough German. But a friend named Rath (ultimately of the same origin as the first part of Ratskeller) was called Professor Wrath exclusively.

Thug is a Hindi word, with an alveolar t plus aspiration, a sound not too unlike that of t in tug. But the spelling th has put a thorn in the side of the thug, and he’s stuck with it. Waltham, Massachusetts, should have -ham as its final element, and there should be no th-sound; but there is.

The use of th to represent the theta sound is by no means an English monopoly. Welsh uses it for the voiceless sound of th (in thin). But quite early in Old High German, when such sounds still existed in German, spellings th-, dh- are found for thorn and edh, sometimes indiscriminately. Such matters are not necessarily independent repetitions of similar processes but may be connected with the calling of the scribe and the interrelated practices of scriptoria. Scribes probably moved from country to country, mostly under the aegis of the Church, to begin with. Later, printers became decisive, and they had international connections.

ch

Since ph and th correspond, in a way, to phi and theta, we might expect English orthography to have a digraph to match chi. There is one, although it is out of step, inasmuch as it does not correspond to sounds in English in quite the same way as phi and theta do. It is ch. But Greek chi has not the same relationship to English phonetics as it would were it completely parallel to ph and th. It is true that Old English had the sound, but it was written h-sometimes g. Norman scribes then introduced the digraph gh (right, night, etc.), but the sound vanished in a few centuries, leaving the spelling.

Latin used ch to represent Greek chi (* X* ) although the sound was not present in Latin. (We encounter a problem in Latin *pulcher*. Old Latin *polcher* ‘beautiful,’ which is not a word taken from Greek. Why does it have *ch*?) Latin words from Greek with *ch* include: *charta*, *chorus*, *chorda*, *Christus*, etc. The Romance languages usually got rid of the h, cf. Italian *carta*, *coro*, *corda*, *Cristo*. If Italian *Chimera* (Latin *Chimaera*, from Greek *Chimaira*) seems to retain *ch*, the semblance deceives: this is a special Italian use of *ch* to denote the k-sound before t or e.

In Old French the digraph ch was often used to represent the sound of ch in cheese, choke, etc. With the Norman Conquest ch was therefore introduced into French words newly acquired in English (like chafe, chain, chair, chance, charity, chase) but simultaneously into native English words (like cheek, chew, child, chin, choose, churn). In noninitial position the sound was often designated by -tch- (witch, batch, wretch, itch).

Ch has been overworked in English orthography, partly because it is from so many different sources. In addition to denoting the sounds mentioned above, it represents [?] in words of later French origin: chef, chic, chassis, chiffon, machine, chauvinism, chauffeur, etc. It is [k] in words ultimately from Greek: chaos, chasm, character, cholera, choral, chrism, chrysanthemum, psyche, tachograph, hydrochloride, synecdoche.

Purists will try to pronounce the German ach-sound in Bach or the ich-sound in Richard Wagner; some will succeed.

gh

We have mentioned that gh became the writing for [X] in Middle English, but that the sound itself was lost. Ironically enough, when the front fricative [f] was substituted for the back sound of gh in laugh, tough, rough, enough, etc., the digraph continued (most inappropriately) to represent a sound far removed from the original. That gh represents an Indic sound in a few words like ghat is due to a convention for transcribing Sanskrit and its descendants and is quite separate from the other gh use.

All digraphs mentioned have had h as their second member. Most have proved useful, one or two less than useful. Another one is of dubious value in English: rh. The Greek sound system did not “tolerate” an initial r. Whenever one threatened to occur, an h- was made to precede it, indicated by the so-called rough breathing. Hence, hr- is the actual initial. But the Romans transcribed it as rh-, possibly because that combination did occur in Latin-although never initially-whereas the sequence hr was completely strange: perhibeo, perhūmānus, etc. At any rate, Latin adopted Greek words like hrinókerōs and hrythmikós as rhīnocerōs, rhythmicus. Once the style was adopted, rh- was used where even hr- would have feared to tread, e.g., in the Celtic river name Rhenus (the h has remained in German Rhein and English Rhine); also in Rhēmi (for Rēmi) the name of a Gaulish tribe giving its name (perhaps voluntarily) to Reims (with variant Rheims). It happens, coincidentally, that one Celtic language, Welsh, has turned all initial rs into rh- (in that sequence, not *hr-). Hence Welsh words “legitimately” begin with rh-, and Rhein is not an imitation of German.

The h of rh plays an otiose role in a number of words ultimately from Greek: rhapsody, rheostat, rheumatism, rhododendron, rhubarb, rhythm. The practice is reminiscent of the English spelling wh-, which, in those brands of English where the h is pronounced, has the phonetic sequence hw-. There is no sense to the rh in rhyme (or to the -y-, either); the spelling seems to result from imitation of rhythm, to which it is not related.

The rh-factor is obviously something different in Singman Rhee, certainly in Ernest Rhys and Rhondda Valley. And rhatany, a leguminous shrub of South America, shows tampering with what must have been a Kechua word. French has a few words with rh-, including rhum, where it does not belong but possibly adds an exotic touch. French also reveals conflicts in pairs like rapsodie/Irhapsodic and rythme/rhythme.

sh

Unlike the digraphs discussed up to now, sh corresponds to nothing in Greek or Latin. No such sound as [s], was in their inventories, nor was it known in early French. Old English used sc for a while. A variety of other spellings followed, the most durable (12th-14th centuries) being sch. (It is hard to believe that this is unconnected with sch in German or Dutch.) Sh seems to be a simplification of that sch. Sh- occurs in a host of native English words (shoe, shadow, shiver, shine, ship, etc.) and in many borrowings (shampoo, shamrock, sheik, sherry, shibboleth, Shogun), but not many from French, at least not in initial position. In medial and final position, it is commoner in French borrowings, but it was usually some other sound in French itself (rush,* push*, *flush*, *abash*, *leash*, *bushel*, *fashion*, *hash*).

A few other digraphs with h are traceable to other origins and are more or less out of the system. Gh has been mentioned above in its character of transcription of an Indic sound. Dh is similar to it, occurring in words like dharma. Cf. also bh in Bhagavad Gīta, Mahābhārata, etc.

Kh represents a number of origins (Khan, Khartoum, Khanukah, etc.). In all of these the same exploitation of the availability of h is noted. H is in a way a diacritic par excellence that removes the need for diacritics. It has demonstrated its usefulness in a wide variety of languages-bungling though the practice often may be. It is really ghapsignaphthing (‘fascinating’: gh as in tough, ti as in nation, gn as in gnaw, phth as in phthisic) to me.

SIC! SIC! SIC!

“Attitude Adjustment Hour-11:00 A.M. to 7:00 P.M.” [From an advertisement in After Dark, March 1981, for Past Time Lounge, Winter Haven, Florida. Submitted by Jerome Rhodes, Delray Beach, Florida, who marks the novel euphemism for drinking as well as the new sense of how.]

SIC! SIC! SIC!

“ He said that although the island can be seen in just about three hours, it boasted of several achievements which China would like to borrow. He did not specify.” [From an (undated March) piece in the Advocate News (Barbados), submitted by John McClellan, Woodstock, New York.]

Louisiana’s German Cajuns, or, From Kissinger to Quisingre

M. M. Kreeger, Metairie, Louisiana

Millions of Americans bear surnames different from those that they or their forebears brought from the old country. In most cases, the names have been shortened or simplified to make them more manageable in an English-speaking society. The revision that has received the most widespread notice in recent years was from Anagnastopoulos (I think that’s about right) to Agnew. The alteration didn’t help the Vice President to stay out of trouble, but it sure was a boon to headline writers.

My grandfather made a more modest modification in his name, from Krieger to Kreeger, because people kept pronouncing it to rhyme with “tiger.”

The pattern of mutations on Louisiana’s Côte des Allemands, or German Coast, was very unusual, if not unique. The spellings of the surnames were Gallicized instead of Anglicized, but most fit easily into English speech. Changes were applied to a whole community and were imposed by authority, not chosen by the name-bearers themselves. The object was not to revise the names but to render their sounds as closely as possible to the originals in forms that the French speakers could spell and pronounce.

In the early eighteenth century, when France was trying to develop its American possessions, it was almost impossible to induce Frenchmen to settle in Louisiana. Some second and subsequent sons of aristocratic families were attracted through large grants of land around New Orleans, upon which they established plantations with slave labor. But small farmers, needed to give the colony a substantial European population, were reluctant to leave home. If they did move, they preferred the much shorter move to Canada.

Recruiters had considerable success, however, in the Roman Catholic regions of the German states, and, shortly after the founding of New Orleans, in 1718, a number of German peasant families were settled along a stretch of the Mississippi River from about 20 to 50 miles above the town. French clerks had difficulty recording land titles under the strange names, and priests encountered problems in registering births, marriages, and other sacraments. They applied Gallic phonetics as best they could to Teutonic sounds. Many of the peasants were illiterate, and the Frenchmen wrote the names as they heard them. The most drastic changes were occasioned by the application of French values to the German spelling, when the spelling was known.

Original pronunciations were preserved rather well by rendering Wichner as Vicknair, Weber as Webre, Foltz as False, Lesch as Leche or Laiche, and Kissinger as Quisingre (How about that!). But as an initial h is silent in French, Huber became Oubre, Heifer became Elfer; and as au in French is like long o, Hauser was transmuted into Oser. The [ks] sound of x tripped heavily over the Gallic tongue, and Troxler was written Trosclair. But an x seemed to help with the jawbreaker Scheckschneider, which was resolved into Schexnayder and a dozen or more variants.

Zweig was a really tough one: no Frenchman could pronounce that, no matter how it might be spelled. There is a legend that the head of the Zweig family, apparently believing a Frenchman could handle the name if he understood its meaning, broke a branch from a tree and held it up, exclaiming; “Zweig! Zweig!”

“Ah,” said the French clerk, “La Branche.” Whether the story is true or not, Zweig has a sizable progeny yclept Lebrawhe or some form thereof.

Other changes included Edelmeier to Delmaire, Schaf to Chauffe, Vogel to Fauquel, Mayer to Mayeux, Dubs to Toups, Steileder to Estilet, Steiger to Estaidre, Kleinpeter to Clampetre, Kamper to Cambre, Katzenberger to Casbergue, Wagensbach to Waguespack, Trischi to Triche, Traeger to Tregre, Zehringer to Zeringue, Himmel to Hymel, Roder to Auder, and Schaefer to Chevre.

The Germans eventually lost their language and their separate identity. Some 50 years after the German influx, they intermarried freely with the Acadians, who began arriving in large numbers after their expulsion from Canada by their British conquerors. Many thousands of the Germans’ descendants speak Cajun French and speak English with a Cajun accent.

The memory of the early settlers' origin is preserved, however, in the distinctive names. The area is still known unofficially as the “German Coast”; and the map of Louisiana officially shows a town, a bayou, and a marshy lake named Des Allemands.

The Unfairness of Articles

Martin A. Zeidner, New Orleans, Louisiana

During the past 16 years, I have lived and worked in the oil fields of 11 countries, in addition to the U.S. I have mastered a number of foreign languages to the point where I am no longer afraid of having to starve to death, and I can usually understand directions well enough to find my way to the field and back, eventually.

Quite often I work with native field hands. Point to an object and assign it a name-dragline, retrieving tool, electric log, crown block-and, particularly if there is no corresponding word in their own vocabularies (there seldom is), they usually remember it-sometimes. To add an a or the would be like polishing sandpaper. But when these hands talk among themselves, articles are absolutely essential. In fact, most of the foreign languages I am familiar with demand something that will ascribe a masculine, feminine, or sometimes neuter nature to the “thing.” The French seem to take the easy way out by poking an indiscriminate le or les, depending upon plurality, in front of any intruding non-French noun. Spanish and Portuguese tend to be ambivalent. Germans have three choices. Although I have definite feelings about the gender of certain English words, I am not permitted to express them in my own language because of the all-encompassing a and the. When my buddies in the field cannibalize these same words into their own languages, they feel no such constraints. The ultimate decision on the proper article to use depends entirely upon the sexual preferences of the cannibal: une manole, le female thread, la bull plug, and, most dehumanizing of all, das stud.

There is no way I can even the score, because, no matter the foreign noun I try to incorporate into English, I am still stuck with a and the.

Rivals the brilliance of genuine diamonds!

I know that a 32-page, 4-color catalogue cannot possibly be produced just for me, but I wonder who else in the world is so fanatical about reading such rubbish as to make it worth while to print them in any economical quantity. “You’d be surprised,” I can hear my friend, the mail-order advertising man, saying; and I suppose I would. I read such nonsense carefully, wondering, too, whether there is anyone who believes the text and then orders the goods. There must be someone, I keep telling myself, though as I leaf through the catalogue, I find it increasingly hard to believe.

Here, for instance, is a catalogue that has on its front cover “The Fabulous Fashion Carry-all,” featuring “20 Special COMPARTMENTS” to “Get You Organized Fast!” Seems to be just what I need. (You should see the top of my desk!)-Sorry, I’m not supposed to use exclamation points; they are reserved for mail-order “clinchers.” Only $14.97 (each); FREE INITIALS. Among such convenient organizers on the back of the bag are a Postage Stamp Pocket, Telephone-Address Index, Credit Card Holders, 2 Checkbook Holders (one, presumably, for the bank on which one writes those checks that are returned for insufficient funds), Pen & Pencil Holders, Change Purse, and See-Thru “Portable Desk.” It’s that last item that I probably need to get myself organized fast (!), but I can’t somehow see myself carrying a See-Thru version.

Moving right along, in a well-organized fashion, I am drawn by the “clinchers”-those lines of copy ending with an exclamation point. I have always read such lines as if they were followed by a Wow!, Colly Gee!, or Think of That! On page 2 appears the “Amazing Slicer Does It All-with 3 STAINLESS STEEL Blades and SAFETY HOLDER!” (Wow!) Then, “the Vanderbilt Jewel-Rivals the brilliance of genuine diamonds!” (Colly!) It is interesting/useful to note that the tiny type under the illustration reveals “… carats refer to size not weight.” That’s a bit odd, as any dictionary definition of carat will show. “NEVER BUY SOCKS AGAIN!” is the headline of an offering of “Incredible Super Nylon Socks.” I’m not sure I don’t want to buy socks again: wearing the same socks 10, 15, or 25 years from now might be quite boring. (Now, “Never wash socks again” might be more tempting.) Here are some more Gee-whiz clinchers from the same catalogue:

WAIST REDUCER BELT SLIM DOWN Waist and Hip Area
WITHOUT STRENUOUS EXERCISE! … PERFECT FOR
MEN AND WOMEN!

Grind Everything From Meat To Nuts! Suction-Grip
VACUUM BASE Stays Put!

… Automatic Screwdriver and Push Drill YOU PUSH
… IT TURNS AUTOMATICALLY!

Get “ZIP UP” Protection For all your valuables! (This is a man’s pocket wallet with some plastic credit card sleeves: it affords little protection from someone who steals the entire thing.)

Never Clean Toilets Again! (Does this mean you’ll never have to clean them again or that they’ll never be clean again?)

Have everything you’ll need with our COMPLETE 20 Piece Kitchen Towel Set! (This may be an over-statement for some people. Man does not live by kitchen towel sets alone.)

Deluxe DINING TABLE…Recessed holder for glass or cup! (From the scale of the picture, this would seem to be about 8" × 16" with four 16" legs. “To store, simply slide legs underneath.” That, to some, may constitute a “Deluxe DINING TABLE,” but in the Affluent Society of the 1980s it might seem a trifle overstated.)

Fill Your Boom with a rainbow of MOVING LIGHTS! …You’ll be reminded of the era of marathon dances as you enjoy the exciting movement of color and light!

INSTANT PERSONAL MASSAGE…Anywhere, Anytime! [Cordless, personal vibrator] slips into purse or briefcase for on-the-spot relief anywhere!

NEVER IRON AGAIN!

Have A “Hardware Store” IN YOUR OWN HOME! (Must I?)

NEVER WAX YOUR CAR AGAIN! (N.B.: This doesn’t say you won’t have to wax your car again, only that you should use this “New Miracle Polymer Sealant” instead of wax.)

Lest anyone think that the people who run this outfit are maladroit nincompoops when it comes to language, note that the see-through panel in the mailing envelope showed the following: “One of the persons listed below has won $50,000.00 . . . M. Arvay, Toledo, OH.; L. Urdang, Essex, CT.; L. Gloyd, Ft. Lee, VA.” A careful reading of the small print reveals that “Ms. Marjorie Arvay of Toledo [was] the 1980 Giant Jackpot winner!” And you probably thought that the first line meant that Arvay, Urdang, or Gloyd had already been selected to win a prize that was yet to be claimed. A check with information revealed that there is, indeed, an Arvay in Toledo (with an unlisted number); but a similar check could not turn up anyone with the named L. Gloyd in Ft. Lee, VA. That, of course, may mean only that L. Gloyd doesn’t have a phone; perhaps he (or she) ordered a “COMPLETE 20 Piece Kitchen Towel Setl” and has everything he (or she) will need. [L.U.]

Found in Verbatim-Answers

1. ABE
2. BAIT
3. EAR
4. IRA
5. BIER
6. MAE
7. RAM
8. EVA
9. RIB
10. BEAM
11. ABET
12. AMBIT
13. IRMA
14. BARE
15. VIM
16. AIM
17. TRAM
18. MATE
19. BIT
20. RIM
21. EAT
22. RITE
23. VIE
24. AIR
25. MAITRE
26. TEA
27. BAR
28. MITE
29. REAM
30. BRAT
31. MIRE
32. TIRE
33. AMBER
34. MATER
35. RATE
36. BAT
37. TAB
38. IRE
39. VERB
40. AMI
41. EMIT
42. MARE
43. ATE
44. RIVET
45. BRAVE
46. TIBER
47. BARITE
48. MEAT
49. VIBRATE
50. RAVE
51. ITEM
52. BRIM
53. RAT
54. ARE
55. VIA
56. IMARET
57. EMIR
58. TEAM
59. MARIE
60. BATE
61. AVE
62. TAMER
63. MERIT
64. AMIE
65. BEAR
66. MAR
67. BRA
68. TAM
69. ERMA
70. MART
71. RIME
72. TIE
73. ARM
74. TIME
75. MAB
76. BRIE
77. TAR
78. BREAM
79. TEAR
80. ART
81. MAT
82. MITER
83. BEAT
84. REMIT
85. ERA
86. TRIM
87. IAMB
88. AVER
89. BITE
90. TARE
91. BERT
92. AVERT
93. IRATE
94. TIM
95. TRIBE
96. BETA
97. VAT
98. ETA
99. ARTIE
100. BET
101. MET.

Some of the others

AM, AI, AT, BE, BIM, BARI, BARM, BEMA, BRAE, EM, ER, EMBAR, IT, IVAR, ME, MA, MI, MIB, MEA, MAPI, MITRE, RA, RAE, REB, RET, REI, REBA, RIVE, RAMIE, TAI, TAV, TAME, TARIM, VET, VAIR, VITA, VIET.

Crossword Puzzle

Across

1. Dashing cravat for a gay dog. (5,3) 2. Bad writing not worth reading. (6) 3. Sounds like money to buy hot goods will lead to ultimate punishment. (7,8) 4. I arm the USA? In a way, I once did. (7) 5. Loose enough to follow one’s bent. (7) 6. I only cop welfare in continuation of insured income program. (7,2,6) 7. This might be the editors! (5,2,3,5) 8. Like the lithe and slender damsels of Ole Miss. (7) 9. L.A. turns tough, making the final score. (4,3) 10. Joining the drag race? (8,7) 11. They always include the alternative in such a postulate. (6) 12. Copy the Indians follow, of the laws of the land. (8)

Down

1. Plaintiff in court accrues it all wrongly. (7) 2. Newspaper writer in bad company. (7) 3. Musical coach? (5) 4. Cause of bitterness among the heirs. (3,4) 6. When the bouillon clears up there’s nothing in it. (5,4) 7. Original point of African tribal conflict. (7) 8. What must be done to enjoy New Year’s eve. (4,3) 10. Make a boo-boo? It’s a mere nothing! (5) 14. Go warn’em of this disturber of the peace … (9) 15. … and find a place to hold the skunk! (7) 16. We surround a deer, bent on destruction. (7) 17. Refrigerant to cool main part of the inferno. (5) 18. Call the spitfire a harpy. (7) 19. Being in range of what people say can make one s ears burn … (7) 20. … like intimate passages of immoral customs. (7) 23. The brew must end, even for the first in, last out. (5)

The answer to Puzzle No. 14 appears on page 21.

How DARE You? Part 2

In VERBATIM VI, 2 was printed a list of queries from the Dictionary of American Regional English to which many readers made useful replies. DARE gratefully returns with another list. Please give us, as appropriate, the time, place, occasion, or circumstances and the type of person who used or uses the word or phrase. If you know the origin or have a reasonable surmise about it, please include that. Many thanks! Send replies to Prof. F. G. Cassidy, DARE, 6125 Helen White Hall, University of Wisconsin, Madison, WI 53706.

alibi verb, in the sense of ‘malinger.’ We already have the senses of excusing oneself speciously and of hedging or avoiding an issue.

backed up constipated. We have examples from Tennessee and southwestern Arkansas. Where else is it used?

blink a very thin coating of ice on a pond or the like. We have one record from southeast Missouri.

cheese cutter Dialect Notes reported this in 1924 from New Mexico for ‘bicycle.’ From Wisconsin in 1950 came the same word, but this time meaning ‘Protestant.’ These must be independent developments, but the second metaphor escapes us.

chill a very peculiar word: ‘a new cane or shoot of the salmonberry bush.’ Reported from Washington state. Where else is it known?

Chinese school a children’s outdoor game reported from Massachusetts, Mississippi, and West Virginia. Is it played elsewhere? What are the rules in your neighborhood?

chinker from Connecticut we have one record of this for ‘rough, wild, or dangerous horse.’ Other evidence of use, and explanation of source are needed.

chipper We have one report each for three different senses: ‘kiss’ (Wisconsin), ‘small child’ (Ohio), and ‘doughnut’ (Michigan). Do you know any of these?

cho-cho A small child, a boy. Two informants from Oregon say it is a Basque word. Can others testify to its use, where and when. (Presumably it’s from Spanish muchacho.)

cold-bird a ‘brown bird (otherwise unidentified) whose singing is thought to predict cold weather.’ One report from South Carolina, 1938. Is the term otherwise known, and what bird is it?

cold duck not the drink, but a dance. Reported by Blacks from Virginia and West Virginia. How is it done? Why the name?

the same old six and seven a reply to the question, “How are things?” Reported from Illinois and Oklahoma from past use. Where else was or is it used? What is its origin? (At sixes and sevens is standard; this is different.)

Crossword Puzzle Answers

Across

1. C-leave-D;
5. Mini-mal;
9. OUT(r)AGES;
10. Ad-verse;
11. D-il-AT-o-RY;
12. Scot;
15. Distressed goods;
16. Baggage handlers;
20. U-FO-s;
21. STIF-F.-arm;
24. Big time;
25. TROT-sky;
26. ROYAL-ty;
27. DRE-aded.

Down

1. Crowded;
2. EX-tolls;
3. VEG-eta-RIAN;
4. DisTRESSED;
5. MOAT;
6. Navy;
7. Morocco;
8. LAERTES;
13. De-VAST-ated;
14. A go-d of lo-v-e-;
16. Blubber;
17. Good guy;
18. ELAPSED;
19. S-a-MO-y-E-d;
22. Will;
23. De-N.Y.

SIC! SIC! SIC!

“Hundreds of millions of broccoli heads are devoured annually by Americans in every calendar month.” [From Horticulture, March 1981, p. 25. Submitted by Jesse Roth Rockville, Maryland. Is that the Julian or the Gregorian calendar month?]

Paring Pairs No. 3

The clues are given in items lettered (a-z); the answers are given in numbered items which must be matched with each other to solve the clues. In some cases, a numbered word may be used more than once, but after all matchings have been completed, one numbered word will remain, and that is the correct answer. Our answer is the only correct one. The solution will be published in the next VERBATIM along with the names of the winners. Winners will receive either a copy of the Collector’s Edition of Thomas Middleton’s Light Refractions (retail value $30) or a copy of English English, by Norman W. Schur (retail value $24.95). Those living in the U.K., Europe, the Middle East, or North Africa should send their answers (on a post card, please) to VERBATIM, 2 Market Square, Aylesbury, Bucks., England. All others should send them to VERBATIM, Box 668, Essex, CT 06426, U.S.A.

To allow for the sloth of the various postal systems on which we depend for the delivery of VERBATIM and to make it fairer for those who live far from either one of our offices, we shall arrange to collect all correct answers for 21 days, starting with the day we receive the first correct answer, and to draw one name in Aylesbury and one name in Essex, with a prize awarded from each office. Please indicate on your answer card which book you would like to receive.

(a). More than a discussion on sex.
(b). Damager of toupees.
(c). Surf ‘n’ Ski acrobatically.
(d). Church singer.
(e). Bashful helper’s visor.
(f). Treacly church rituals.
(g). Queue for liquid refreshment.
(h). Miner’s serendipitous strike.
(i). Basic ursine datum.
(j). Complaint merchant.
(k). Inclined tree source.
(1). Ironing work force.
(m). In favor of tiny particles.
(n). Cattle trading.
(o). Familiar with homosexual aroma.
(p). Shriek for my just desserts.
(q). Rodent heap.
(r). Depart.
(s). Low visibility.
(t). Swag.
(u). Waiting.
(v). Pigeon x 2.
(w). Site of moustache.
(x). Source of congenital sadness.
(y). Money maniac.
(z). But thorn usually causes this.

(1). Beater.
(2). Line.
(3). Cellar.
(4). Scream.
(5). Dirt.
(6). Gang.
(7). Masses.
(8). Zero.
(9). Passenger.
(10). Gay.
(11). Matilda.
(12). Lip.
(13). Press.
(14). Fact.
(15). Nut.
(16). Punch.
(17). Buoy.
(18). Motes.
(19). Hip.
(20). Conversation.
(21). Anchor.
(22). Rose.
(23). Genes.
(24). Wheels.
(25). Twig.
(26). Dog.
(27). Exchange.
(28). Sealing.
(29). Criminal.
(30). Wine.
(31). Low.
(32). Pay.
(33). I.
(34). Pro.
(35). Tower.
(36). Hot.
(37). Way.
(38). Spinning.
(39). Bear.
(40). Bent.
(41). Quire.
(42). Aide.
(43). Bug.
(44). Waltz.
(45). Hare.
(46). Dough.
(47). Blue.
(48). Pouter.
(49). Stock.
(50). Service.
(51). Mouse.
(52). Shy.
(53). Knows.

BIBLIOGRAPHIA: Ellison’s Spanish Menu Reader

Al Ellison, (Ellison Enterprises, 1977), 104pp.

If you think that tarta normanda is a French street-walker or that sopa de gambas is made from stewed violas, you should either avoid eating in Spanish restaurants or acquire a copy of the Spanish Menu Reader, one of a series of Menu Readers prepared and published by Al Ellison. Others in the series provide guides to French, Italian, German, Mexican, and Latin American menus. Except for the French one, which has (in the edition I have) 163 pages and costs $3.95, each of the others is priced at $2.95. I have had recourse to the French edition and have found it quite useful, though it must be pointed out that at about 33 dishes per page, such a work can scarcely exhaust all of the dishes in any national cuisine (except, perhaps, that of the United States). “Ellison takes the fear out of foreign restaurants” goes the blurb, evoking images of Milquetoasts quaking in terror before intimidating maîtres d’hôtel and scornful waiters.

All the basic dishes are here, each given an English equivalent or translation: you can easily avoid inadvertently ordering cabeza de ternasco asado (roast baby lamb’s head) or cabeza de ternera (roast boned veal head poached in broth)-unless, of course, they strike your fancy. If you are a gourmet, you may not be satisfied by a mere identification and should then go to a more comprehensive work that lists ingredients and recipes. But for the casual gourmand, the Menu Readers should be sufficient and could be made more useful only by printing them on gravy-proof paper. [Orders, enclosing payment in full and 30(1; additional for postage for each book, should be sent to Ellison Enterprises, 2951 S. Bayshore Drive, Miami, FL 33133: Florida residents add sales tax.]

Paring Pairs No. 2

(a). Change the locals. (28,4) Alter Natives.
(b). Person in charge of those occupying lavatories. (35,8) Lieutenant Commander.
(c). Three-card monte. (32,10) Thimble Rig.
(d). Hat. (44,18) Head Gear.
(e). Trouble. (45,13) Hot Water.
(f). Not Oxbridge. (40,1) Red Brick.
(g). Tired horseman. (36,11) Rider Haggard.
(h). Peter x 2. (38,19) Pumpkin Eater.
(i). Trap. (41,2) Dead Fall.
(j). High-grade meat. (37,12) Upper Cut.
(k). Low-grade meat. (53,23) Bum Steer.
(l). Trajan. (33,14) Arch Fiend.
(m). Wardrobe mister. (27,21) Closet Queen.
(n). Time drags behind him. (39,3) Watch tower.
(o). Lord Tom Thumb’s wife? (29,22) Lady Finger.
(p). Duke always took it. (34,49) Eh? Train.
(q). Out-of-town comedian. (17,5) Visiting Card.
(r). Counterfeiter. (43,6) Paper Hanger.
(s). Lollipop. (51,20) Good Ship.
(t). Paris hotel. (42,25) George Sank.
(u). Financial gains from origami. (30,7) Paper Prophets.
(v). Oxbridge teams in Missouri? (50,9) St. Louis Blues.
(w). A washout next to real bear. (31,15) Sham Pooh.
(x). Slow writing. (48,24) Pen Dragon.
(y). To easily solve. (47,26) Split Infinitive.
(z). More than eight containers for wood defects. (52,16) Nine Pots.

The winners of Paring Pairs No. 2 (Answer: 46. Real) are Jolaine Munck, Albany, California, U.S. (received in Essex) and Sean Devine, Dublin, Ireland (received in Aylesbury).

BIBLIOGRAPHIA: Alpha to Omega

Alexander and Nicholas Humez, (David R. Godine, Inc., Boston, 1981), xiii + 194 pp.

This pleasantly rambling book presents a fascinating and annoying series of anecdotes, discussions, ancient chestnuts, and chunks of familiar and unfamiliar lore, using the letters of the Greek alphabet as twenty-four headings, plus one extra chapter called “Dead Letters.” The misleading subtitle, “The Life and Times of the Greek Alphabet,” does not mean that we get a treatment of that alphabet’s history in any detail. We do not see, for instance, what Semitic sign was the source of a given Greek one, in most cases, although one must admit that the story is far more complicated than was once thought. At any rate, we learn more cheerful facts about the square on the hypotenuse. They are found, logically enough, in the twenty-third chapter, Psi. Ps´llein ‘to twang,’ is connected with psaltery, which “comes from psallein,” as the book surprisingly puts it. Since Pythagoras was a pioneer in investigating the acoustical property of strings, we are treated to a few speculations on his life and less speculative remarks about his renowned theorem. This leads to a delightfully inexcusable shaggy dog story-bad enough to be in my own repertory (the one with the “squaw on the hippopotamus”; if you want the whole story, get the book). I wish the authors had digressed still more and had explained why the Greeks seemingly called the: hippo a “horse-river” instead of a “river-horse.”

Under Alpha some account is given of the route allegedly taken by the “raw materials for the Greek alphabet” from the Near East, including the tradition of Cadmus, who supposedly make a down payment of (only) sixteen letters to the Greeks. As the authors point out, legends usually contain cracks, as well as a few grains of truth.

Infelicity of expression may lead the unwary reader to conclude that the Greeks invented the procedure of using letters for numbers. The authors seem to believe it themselves, or almost, for they do say once (under their breath) that the Semites did similar things.

“Beta is for Boustrophedon” brings quite a lot of bull; for instance: “The last aurochs on record died an elderly cow [!] in Poland in 1627.” Bucolic is said to come “directly from” Greek boukolikós. Boondocks, we are told, with a sign, does not, “alas,” derive from Gk. bous, but there is scant cause for grief. English kindergarten is not inherited from Germanic, as the verbiage devoted to it seems to imply, but was acquired in a different way.

“Delta for Diagnosis” brings discussion of many words, including some on medicine. A quotation from Dr. Benjamin Lee Gordon redeems many a sin: “The Persians resorted more frequently to spells than drugs, on the grounds that although spells might not cure the disease, they at least would not kill the patient.” We are told more about Aesculapius and Pythagoras than we need to know, perhaps (and less about Galen). Avicenna is said to have been born in Russia (I) and is also called an Arabian (!).

Epsilon leads to Eureka, which, as the authors point out, needed to start with h- anyway. We encounter once more the story of Archimedes, that ancient flasher. One account, stemming from the medieval historian Efsher Apokryfiliak, has it that the king responded to Archimedes' faulty Greek and brilliant physics with, “Ikh hob dir in bod.”

Since pi is, among other things, jumbled type, we are regaled under that heading with a jumble of partly interesting matters, ranging from palindromes to a mnemonic device for remembering (what else?) the value of pi to 15 places. The Japanese are said to be masters of the palindrome, but the addendum, “though neither of the two writing systems that the Japanese employ is alphabetic,” is curiously irrelevant. So is a remark of Isaac Asimov quoted here; it is worth repeating, if only as a piece of pi: “One can always [?] have half a cup of coffee but never half a piece of chalk.”

“Rho is for Rhetoric,” and many questions, none of them rhetorical, are treated. Contemporary abuse of the term is not mentioned. Nor is it pointed out that rho is really hro. And there is neither rhyme nor reason to deriving rhyme from rhythmos. There are countless matters to discuss, but space seems finite. “Our” word camel, said by the authors to be from Phoenician gimel, probably is not. The name of the letter does not seem to have been the same word. (Many Semitic letter names do have fairly certain meanings: beth ‘house’ or imem ‘water’ or yod ‘hand’; but gimel is a disputed one.)

The authors do deserve commendation for reminding us that Copernicus was not the first to give a heliocentric explanation of the solar system, Greeks having preceded him by almost two millennia. Despite lots of talk about the Trojans, however, the authors fail to tell us who they were, ethnically, or to say what their language was, a failing they share with many others. They seem not to recognize the fact that the so-called “Arabic” numerals are really Indian, hence they are wide of the mark in seeing something in the Arabic number one that resembles the way Greeks wrote their number one at times.

A bibliography of about ninety books and articles lists only one in a language other than English. That does not result from consideration for the monoglot reader, for the works used by the authors are included. A strange absence is that of any mention of a Greek etymological dictionary, although the famous Ernout-Meillet for Latin is given. I am well aware that this is not intended to be a treatise on historical or comparative linguistics. And the book does live up to some of the promises in the “Prologue.” We are afforded a series of “glimpses of the Greek world” and are positively assailed by countless views of Greek culture, scenery which we could have enjoyed without the distraction of all the old chestnuts (even the priceless ones from Dorothy Parker). In a way, the book is a potent corrective of many notions about Roman language and culture, all too often given credit for what was really Greek. Authors cannot be omniscient, except in fiction, perhaps. Ours acknowledge the aid of many qualified individuals. But they seem to have needed more aid in some areas, including Semitic, Indic, Iranic, elementary phonetics, and etymology. Despite the liability of a blurblet by the dour Edwin Newman praising the volume, it is eminently readable.

[Robert A. Fowkes, New York University]

SIC! SIC! SIC!

“Warren M. Christopher left the State Department on in uncharacteristically flamboyant note. His face flushed, his eyes glistening and waving to welcomers, the normally low-keyed diplomat …” [From a report in New York Times, January 22, 1981. Those waving eyes get you every time….Both of the preceding from Elizabeth Copper, New York City]

A Saga

Janet Krueger, Long Beach, California

When I first came to the big city, just a plug-ugly hillbilly suddenly out hobnobbing with the hoi-polloi, I was amazed at all the hustle and bustle. Everywhere I went, I saw people dashing hither and thither, waving their pooper-scoopers and chasing pell-mell after their dogs, with man and beast alike running through traffic lights and instigating numerous killer-diller fender-benders. Believe me, there was quite a hubbub and to-do as pets ran helter-skelter with, willy-nilly, their masters or mistresses following, huffing and puffing. A man sitting under a banyan (or was it a hackmatack?) tree in the park, who said he was a pet vet, told me that all the hurry-scurry was caused by a new law passed by the duly elected rinky-dink city officials, all of whom, he claimed, were certified nitwits, not to say dead-heads.

“Jeepers creepers!” the people shouted. “We’re not going to listen to all that claptrap and folderol or kowtow to those crumb-bums!” And “Boo-hoo!” the rich little old ladies cried, “What harm can one itsy-bitsy bowwow do?” There was many an angry powwow and much whoop-de-do, but in the end, of course, the bigwigs won.

After that, things seemed kind of humdrum and, when I wasn’t having paydays by working as a crackerjack handy-andy, I would watch the boob tube for a while every morning and then go down to the Piggly-Wiggly for some mammie-jammie or maybe some tutti-frutti ice cream, and mingle with the lunch bunch. One afternoon someone called out, “Yoo-hoo!” and here came this really hotsy-totsy-looking girl, wearing a fancy-schmancy smock-frock and frangipani perfume. She asked me, with a tee-hee and a boop-boop-a-doop, if I wanted to go to a honky-tonk in Hackensack with her and boogie-woogie. “Okey-dokey,” I said, and thus I began a life full of razzmatazz, even though Polly (Wollydoodle, in full) turned out to be a real ding-a-ling. We had many a wingding together, however, and even a little hugger-mugger hanky-panky. We never made it to the wed-bed, though, because one night my lovey-dovey told me she had to get down to the nitty-gritty and that the truth was, I was too much of a namby-pamby for her, besides being somewhat of a phony-baloney and also a fuddy-duddy. In fact, I was beginning to give her the heebie-jeebies, she said, and she no longer cared for me even a teeny-weeny bit.

“Holy Moley,” I sobbed. “I thought you were true blue! You were my harum-scarum honey bunny, and I was your roly-poly silly Billy! If you leave me I’ll commit hari-kiri! Or worse, I’ll put a hex on you with voodoo hocus-pocus!”

“Hell’s bells!” she exclaimed. “Don’t give me that abracadabra and mumbo-jumbo. You just haven’t any razzle-dazzle any more, and from now on it’s no go.”

She was right. She was hoity-toity no-show after that, and the last I heard she was working for a jelly-bellied fat cat as a hootchy-kootchy dancer in Hong Kong, although the only foreign language she knows is Tex-Mex. May she get paid in funny money and lose it all at fantan, say I.

As for me, I have become one of the ragtag band of hobos and lost souls of the city as I wander here and there with my hurdy-gurdy, playing my hemidemisemiquavers from an empty bandstand in the park while the panhandlers and rum-bums dance the villa-nella or raise their herky-jerky voices in a sing-a-ling.

Oblivious of the hurly-burly and hubble-bubble around me, my lodgings a hodgepodge and my few ragbag possessions strewn about higgledy-piggledy, I find that my life has turned to nada. My dreams are full of hobgoblins and I’m all broken up, just like Humpty Dumpty. If only I had some self-pelf I could get away from it all and go hunt kudus with the Zulus, or fish for cohos, or climb the Changabang. But I know I’m no hotshot any more-if ever I was one.

In short, my heyday is over. Likewise, my saga.

EPISTOLA {Harry R. Houle}

I was pleased to read “Take a Left at Sore Finger Road,” by Kay Haugaard [VI, 4] concerning place names in Arizona. Pity that Mrs. Haugaard did not have a copy of Arizona Place Names (University of Arizona Press) with her.

Bloody Basin, Yavapai County, is “said to have been so called because of the many battles with Indians that took place in this region.” Dead Man’s Wash, at Deadmans Flat, about 20 miles north of Flagstaff, in Coconino County, is so named, according to C.J. Babbit (in the 1935 edition), because an “old prospector who had been hanging around Flagstaff for some days started for his camp. Navajo Indians found him dead several days later lying under a cedar tree. A clear case of suicide.” Horse Thief Basin, Yavapai County, is a “small open area on east side of Lane Mountain about five miles southeast of Crown King. . . . Many years ago it was called Horse Thief Ranch because several noted characters made it a ‘hide-out’ for traffic in stolen horses.”

Skull Valley, Yavapai County, is at an elevation of 4112 feet, nearly due west of Prescott. There are various explanations as to the origin of this name; however,* Arizona Place Names* cites one as “doubtless the true story”; “There was a fight here in 1864, between a bunch of soldiers under Lieut. Monteith and some Mohave and Tonto Apaches. They left without burying the dead Indians. Later on. Major Willis sent a scouting party out, which found and buried the dead, whose bones and skulls were lying around everywhere. Major Willis named it Skull Valley.”

While on her trek through Yavapai County, it’s a shame Mrs. Haugaard missed such places as Skeleton Ridge and Wagon Tire Flat, Swilling Gulch and Mule Shoe Bend. She refers to People’s Valley, which is probably a misnomer for People’s Valley, named after Abraham Harlow Peoples.

Mrs. Haugaard is likewise delighted with road names. At this juncture, I wish to put in a bid for my favorite, located in Paradise Valley, a few blocks from this school. The Phoenix Metropolitan Telephone Directory lists nineteen streets, the names of which begin with the Spanish Camino. The anonymous award of honor goes to Camino sin nombre.

[Harry R. Houle, Phoenix Country Day School Phoenix, Arizona]

SIC! SIC! SIC!

“The Army’s Strolling Strings, Grand Marnier souffle and Schramsberg blanc de noirs champagne were served simultaneously for dessert.” [From a report in The New York Times, February 26, 1981, of a White House state dinner honoring Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher. That struck just the right cord!]

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