VOL IX, No 1 [Summer, 1982]

Holy Water, Jeans, and Trade Unionists

Laurence Urdang, Editor, VERBATIM

One becomes accustomed to the slang of his own language; yet, unless he is virtually bilingual or at least on intimate terms with the goings-on in a foreign language, his exposure to the slang of other languages is generally quite limited. Some of us have picked up a few taboo words or phrases from German (scheissen) or from French (merde; je m’en fou)—at least the terms that have a taboo translation in English—but for the most part we are unfamiliar with such terms in another language.

It was interesting to read Lexical Innovation: A Study of Slang, Colloquialisms and Casual Speech, by Karl Sornig (John Benjamins North America, 1981), because it contains many words and phrases from several Indo-European languages that are unlikely to be met with by most of us. In the following paragraphs, I have drawn freely from materials in Sornig’s book—but for my own purposes in this article: the book itself uses the examples to illustrate a variety of sources of slang in accordance with the author’s analysis of the “nether” reaches of the language, an analysis I shall only touch on here and there.

One interesting source of slang in (apparently) many languages is in borrowings. This, in Austrian jemandem eine Pantschen ‘[give] someone a blow,’ Pantschen can be traced to English punch. German Schickse ‘girl, prostitute’ comes from Yiddish schickse ‘gentile girl.’ Austrian tschinkwe ‘valueless, worthless’ is from Italian cinque ‘five,’ while Italian kitsh ‘trash’ was borrowed from German Kitsch, with the same meaning. Turkish iskarta ‘refuse, rubbish’ is from Italian scartare ‘to discard, secrete,’ and French je m’en fou, a mild translation of which is ‘I don’t give a damn,’ ended up in Austrian as schmafu ‘mean, stingy.’

Not all borrowings ended up as corruptions of the original word or phrase: some were translated, as Italian erba ‘herb’ (which probably originated as a translated version of English grass ‘marijuana’) and Italian cavallo ‘horse,’ a “literal” translation of the English slang word for ‘heroin.’

Slang has always been with us. Historically, French tête ‘head’ is traced to Latin testa ‘(ceramic) pot.’

A German slang term for ‘money’ is Marie, a loanword from Gypsy maro where it means ‘bread,’ a metaphoric extension familiar to speakers of contemporary English. Theater people know the expression Break a leg! meaning ‘Good luck!,’ but how many know its origin in German jemandem (Hals- und) Beinbruch wünschen ‘wish someone would break his (neck and) leg’? In Hebrew and Yiddish, broche means ‘benediction’ and hazloche means ‘luck’; whether the expression is the result of an error or a pun is not clear. Another expression resulting from a loanword distortion is British English (That’s) another pair of shoes, with shoes a corruption of French chose ‘thing,’ pair of having been added as a joke. Turkish sakal döken ‘those who dropped their beards’ derived from French Cercle d’Orient, a club of pro-European, clean-shaven intellectuals in Istanbul in the 19th century. Nor is the phenomenon of distorting loanwords a modern one; in fact, there are indications that the process has diminished considerably since the advent of printing and literacy. Latin lapathum became French patience (the plant) by false analogy of la- with the French article. Latin mandragora ‘mandrake’ became French main de gloire.

False analysis created French candel-arbre literally ‘candletree,’ from candelabre from Latin candelabrum in which -abrum is merely a neuter suffix. And noble, a coin of France and, later, of England, originated because of association with Latin nobilis, whereas its true origin was in Greek obolos, rendered as un obol(os). (This latter kind of false analysis also gave rise to English (an) apron and (an) adder, from a napron and a nadder.)

Slang loanwords in Italian from English include tiltato ‘tired’ and flippato ‘excited’ from English slang tilted (as in pinball machine lingo) and flipped (out).

It is not always easy to tell whether a slang coinage has arisen because speakers are being playful, secretive, or discreet. Certainly much of criminal slang may be the result of deliberate secretiveness, and the creation of neologisms for narcotics seems to lag only slightly behind the adoption by the unhip of terms that have been around for a while: dope, snow, smack, and their synonyms are quickly replaced by dealers who trade in language as readily as in drugs. Discretion in avoiding taboo words is evidenced by some expressions in British rhyming slang: Bristol Cities for titties, for instance. (For many more samples, see A Dictionary of Rhyming Slang, by J. Franklyn, Routledge & Kegan Paul, 1960.) On the other hand, titfer, short for tit for tat, which is rhyming slang for hat, can hardly be more than mere playfulness, likewise trouble and strife for wife—unless she is within earshot. Discretion was also at work in Austrian Das ist für Friedrich, literally ‘It is for Frederick’ but really meaning ‘It is worthless.’ This is a reduction of Das ist für Arsch und Friedrich in which Arsch ‘arse’ has been suppressed: für Arsch und Friedrich ‘good-for-nothing.’

English (the) blues is traced to a shortening of (the) blue devils, which had its association with delirium tremens and its hallucinations. The Austrian 1000-Schilling banknote was dubbed ein Blauer ‘a blue one,’ but that designation has given way to Jeans—yes, in Austrian slang—on the obvious association with something everyone recognizes as being blue. (For the most interesting treatment of blue see William Gass’s book On Being Blue, Godine Press.) Other metaphoric reflexes can be seen in Italian autostrada, ‘a skinny girl’ (lit. ‘highway’) (because she has no curves), Italian ossigeno, ‘money’ (lit. ‘oxygen’ because you can’t live without it), Austrian and German Mühle, ‘bicycle’ (lit. ‘mill’ because one has to grind away at pedaling), Austrian Hebamme, ‘corkscrew’ (lit. ‘midwife’ by obvious analogy). Not worth a bean appears in German as nicht die Bohne, where it has also acquired the meaning ‘certainly not.’

Slang is sometimes characterized by understatement— litotes, if you want the literary term for the device. In English we see lift, liberate, and other euphemistic words for ‘steal.’ The normally harmless (though seemingly infinitely productive) word take appears in this context, too, as in the old song:

Mamie took the measles, Mamie took to bed,
Mamie took a doctor, and this is what he said:
“Take a little something, till you’re feeling prime.”
Mamie has been taking something—something all the time.
Once she took a notion in a dry-goods store—
She would be a lady, that if nothing more—
But the bold floorwalker made her put it back:
Mamie was a klepto-Mamie…klepto-Mamiac.

In French, prendre (lit. ‘take’) means ‘steal,’ and, for other examples of understatement one need look no further than Turkish kaşimak (lit. ‘scratch’) ‘beat someone up’; Latin infirmitas (lit. ‘weakness’) ‘disease’; Turkish genel ev (lit. ‘open house’) ‘brothel’; French poison (lit. ‘poison’) from Latin potionem ‘drink’; French enceinte (lit. ‘girded’) ‘pregnant.’ This device is so familiar in English that we scarcely pay much attention to it: lady of the evening, call girl, working girl are well-known euphemisms for prostitute; (a) story for (a) lie; second-story man for sneak-thief; cosa nostra (lit., in Italian, ‘our thing’) borrowed into English for (the) Mafia, etc.

On the other side, we have euphemism and overstatement: Latin mentiri (lit. ‘to mention’) ‘to lie,’ comparable to Italian trovare (lit. ‘to find, locate’) with the same meaning; Spanish ester pelado (lit. ‘to be skinned’) ‘to be robbed’ (compare English skin or fleece (someone), etc.); Slovenian sveta vodica (lit. ‘holy water’) ‘brandy’ (compare Gaelic uisgebeatha, lit. ‘water of life,’ now whiskey); Italian bottega (lit. ‘shop’) ‘prison,’ cadavere (lit. ‘carcass’) ‘ugly person’; Turkish temizlemek (lit. ‘clean up’) ‘kill’ and sari kiz (lit. ‘blonde girl’) ‘hashish’; Arabic abu jahja (lit. ‘father of life’) ‘angel of death’; Italian il benedetto (lit. ‘the blessed one’) ‘epilepsy’; Slovenian sindicalista (lit. ‘trade unionist, syndicalist’) ‘prostitute’; German Emaille (lit. ‘enamel’) ‘make-up’; Turkish isci (lit. ‘worker’) ‘thief,’ esnaf (lit. ‘craftsman’) ‘prostitute,’ and toz (lit. ‘dust’) ‘heroin’; English bracelets ‘handcuffs’; Turkish okşamak (lit. ‘caress’) ‘beat someone up.’ The examples seem endless, and, indeed, this area is extremely productive of new applications of existing words. It would seem, though, that, in addition to playfulness, sardonicism creeps into the naming process. (Indeed, the word sardonic itself is traced to the name given to a Sardinian plant, which, when eaten, was said to produce convulsive laughter ending in death.)

We have seen that French tête ‘head’ came from the Latin slang word for ‘head,’ testa (lit. ‘pot’); the expected form, from standard Latin caput ‘head’ would have been chef or chief, surviving mainly in the metaphoric sense ‘chief.’ It remains, though in, kerchief (from Middle English kerchef from Old French cuevrechef ‘cover-head’), which appears also as Modern English handkerchief (from the time when kerchiefs were carried about in the hand for uses other than covering the head), and in pocket handkerchief (‘a headcovering carried in the hand and kept in the pocket’). But I digress. In English slang we have seen bad meaning ‘good’ (He’s real bad on the alto sax), though I think that sense may now be fading. It may or may not be comforting to know that speakers of other languages engage in the same practice of “opposites”: Italian bestiale (lit. ‘brutish, bestial; atrocious’) ‘great, marvelous, good’ and bestia (lit. ‘beast’) ‘friendly’; German Strick (lit. ‘rope’) ‘necktie’; Turkish gavurca (lit. ‘language of the unbelievers’) ‘any foreign language’ (compare the origin of barbarian).

As I commented earlier, it is not always easy to determine what motivates speakers to coin slang paraphrases: Is it sometimes merely the desire to avoid the old clichés (and create new ones)? Can it be reflective of an effort to avoid calling a spade a spade? These and other factors are surely at work in expressions that avoid the use of crazy and insane, especially when those terms are not meant literally. But here, again, we get into trouble with crazy, which survives in its original, etymological and literal senses only in crazy (‘irregularly patterned’) quilt and in describing ceramic objects as crazed, the latter possibly bringing us full circle to Latin testa ‘(ceramic) pot’ and, almost literally, to cracked (in the head). In Austrian we have hin bei der Marilln (lit. ‘defect in the apricot’), in French sauterelle dans la guitare (lit. ‘grasshopper in the guitar’) and hanneton dans le plafond (lit. ‘cockchafer in the ceiling’). English resorts to a screw loose, screwy, batty (from bats in the belfry), nutty, off one’s rocker, off one’s trolley, dotty, (British) barmy (in the crumpet), a slate missing, and just plain nuts. Speakers also avoid talking about dying and death (as has been documented thoroughly elsewhere), resorting to the grim reaper, (gathered to) Abraham’s bosom, pass away, kick the bucket, buy the farm, meet one’s maker, and, for the bankrupt whose backer predeceased him, to meet one’s comaker.

Finally, we come to the unanalyzable, to those expressions that Sornig describes as “downright absurdities”: Russian odin kak spička ‘alone like a match’; German dumm wie Bohnenstroh (lit. ‘stupid as bean straw’) ‘extremely stupid’; Turkish çeviz kirmak (lit. ‘crack the walnut’) and findik kirmak (lit. ‘crack the hazelnut’) ‘be a favorite with the ladies’; German Anno Tabak (lit. ‘in the year of tobacco’) ‘in olden times’; Italian Zucche! (lit. ‘pumpkin’) ‘Certainly not!’

Some slang is fleeting, particularly in these times when newly minted coinages rapidly acquire the staleness of age through overexposure on television, radio, and in the press: there is nothing more tiresome than a freshly created cliché. Some slang acquires respectability (e.g., French tête, English jazz). Some remains vulgar, taboo, or just “slang.” Some is crude, some colorful, some insightful, some absurd. Yet most of it is poetic—at least in the sense that it makes greater than ordinary use of poetical devices like litotes, hyperbole, and, above all, metaphor. Of the two most productive sources of new language, technology, which yields terms like telephone, transistor, and betalipoproteinemia, and slang, which yields climb the wall, horse, and swell, which do you consider to be real neat?

The Christening

Ray Russell, Beverly Hills, California

When I’m asked, as I am on occasion, what my name was before I changed it, I reply that, incredible as it may seem, the name I use is the same one I received in baptism at Resurrection Church in Chicago when I was a baby. I know it sounds like the kind of cosmetic name people change to, but I can’t help that; nor can I help the fact that I’m not the least bit Anglo-Saxon or Celtic, as my name implies. My mother’s forebears came from Austria and Germany; my father—a foundling who never knew his real father’s name—got his surname from his adoptive father, a man who, thanks to one of those ironic quirks in which Fate delights, was ethnically far removed from whatever Basque or Gypsy or Sicilian loins whence issued my sire (whose early photos show a youth as darkly handsome as Rudolph Valentino or those portraits of the young, slim, not yet balding King Farouk or Sadruddin Aga Khan). His exotic features and large brown eyes have always given the lie to his WASP name.

My own WASP name—my first name, at any rate—was, by another of Fate’s quirks, very nearly not bestowed upon me at all. I came just that close to receiving a first name that would have made a piquant contrast with my last; a monicker with the tang of strong wine, redolent of goat cheese, steeped in olive oil, wrapped in grape leaves.

I wish I had received it, because the name I wound up with is feeble, flaccid, forgettable, and (in view of the fact that my unused middle name is Robert) as dully alliterative as the foregoing trio of words. It has no hook to stick in the memory, and slides out of recall like a buttered noodle off a fork. Before settling down to the simple two-piece first-and-last-name to which I’m now resigned, I tried a variety of other combinations. All three names: first, middle, and last. First name, middle initial, and last name. Two initials, followed by last name. First name represented only by its initial, middle name, and last name (à la W. Somerset Maugham). First name incorrectly inflated to Raymond (which, according to my birth certificate, it isn’t). Inspired by the example of Tennessee Williams, I considered calling myself Illinois, but this left much to be desired. Taking a leaf from Budd Schulberg, another leaf from the now forgotten novelist Speed Lamkin, and several more leaves from certain comic strip characters, I toyed with such sobriquets as Buck, Flash, Butch, Spike, Slug, Buzz, Lefty, and the like. I was rather partial to Lefty (it had an Odetsian touch), but the plain truth was, and is, that I’m right-handed. I carefully weighed the possibility of Boze, short for Bozo, which has always been my father’s nickname for me, but thought better of it.

Back to the christening. The way my father tells it, the day of my baptism had dawned and everything was all set, or almost all set: the church, the priest, a good woman to “stand up” for me as my godmother, all these had been lined up… but no godfather. I don’t know why. The man originally cast in the part got sick, perhaps, or drunk; but for whatever reason, my father was deputized by my mother to go forth at the last minute and dig up a replacement and show up at the church with him at the appointed time. In his entire career as paterfamilias, my father never once failed to bring home the bacon, even in the deepest abyss of the Depression, and he was determined not to come up empty-handed this time. He phoned here, went there, buttonholed this man, begged that man, all to no avail, and zero hour was fast approaching.

In those days, and for long after, he worked as a conductor on the “L.” He used to wear a dark blue, almost black, uniform with shiny buttons and a visored cap with a badge on it. The cap was worn at a dapper tilt. The neighborhood kids, until corrected, thought he was a cop. He walked with a spring in his step, and he often whistled or hummed in time to the swing of his stride. But that morning, after failing to find a godfather for me, he wasn’t whistling. His step had lost its spring. He sat, glum, over a cup of untasted coffee in Sam’s Sandwich Shop, a hangout of “L” men and their passengers, at the Laramie Avenue terminal station.

Sam, the proprietor—I think his last name was Contos— asked, in his heavily accented English, what was wrong. My father told him. On the spot, Sam volunteered to be my godfather. He whipped off his apron, hung the “Closed” sign on his door, and the two men were soon in a taxi, en route to the church.

During the ride, my father undoubtedly asked Sam if he was a Catholic, and Sam must have replied either that he was or that the Greek Orthodox faith was close enough to the Roman to make no difference. Then he added that, among his people, it was a custom to name the godson after his godfather. He was adamant about the custom being honored that morning.

“Well, as a matter of fact,” said my father, beginning to see trouble ahead, “we really hadn’t planned on calling the boy Samuel.”

In a tone of reassurance, Sam revealed that his name wasn’t Samuel, and that “Sam” was merely an approximation hung on him by ignorant Americans. “My name is Stamatos,” he announced proudly. My father, uncomforted by this disclosure, felt his fears increase tenfold, but the taxi had screeched to a stop at the curb outside the church, and there was no turning back now.

Being possessed of an inventive and somewhat crafty mind that may have been a legacy from his Corsican or Armenian or Semite ancestors, my father collared the priest for a moment of private consultation. He may have slipped him an extra fiver for the poor box as he explained the nature of the dilemma, emphatically vowed that he had no intention of christening his son Stamatos, and asked if the baptism might not be conducted in such a blur of ritual and muttered Latin that Mr. Contos would only think the baby was receiving the godfather’s name. “Leave everything to me,” said the clever cleric.

The ceremony went smoothly and everybody was happy, particularly Sam. I think he was a childless man who had always yearned for a son, and he probably felt that, although it had pleased God to deny him true fatherhood, a kind of minor miracle had come to pass that had given him a boy who would bear his name.

He was, of course, deceived in this, but, because he never knew of the deception, it may be said that he wasn’t deceived, after all. As soon as I was old enough to understand, my father told me the story of my christening. He made clear to me how important it was to my godfather to believe that my name was his, and how hurt he would be to learn otherwise. It made sense to me and I accepted it as a game to be played strictly according to the rules: a bit of play-acting to be performed seriously, sincerely, without giggling or winking at the audience. An element of deviousness in my character, a love of hoaxes and pseudonyms, may be rooted in that early masquerade.

In any case, whenever Sam and I would meet in his shop and he would pat me on the head and offer me a free ice cream cone—or later, when I had grown up and was about to be conscripted into the wartime Army, and a manly handshake was in order, and manly tears, and a fierce hug—he would always, until he went to join Plato and Aristotle and his other kinsmen, call me “Sam,” and I would never bat an eye.

Who Needs Enemies…?

Harry Cohen, Brussels, Belgium

Some time ago I was employed in an office where letters were written in either French or English, depending on the addressee. About half the secretaries were French, and the others English. However, all were skilled in both languages, so the letters could be dictated to any secretary. The instructions about the number of copies to be typed were given in the typist’s mother tongue. So you would say to an English speaker: “Six copies, please,” and you would get six letters. On the other hand, if you requested “Six copies, s’il vous plaît” from a French employee, chances are your letter would be typed sevenfold. In the French office, copies is understood to mean ‘carbon copies,’ not counting the original. A copy too many does little harm, but the effects of this confusion were quite irritating for my French colleagues, who often received a copy too few. And, although everybody knew about the catch, misunderstandings kept popping up, because each tended to stick to his or her own linguistic habits.

This situation is by no means unique. Many English speakers now and again come across a French word that at first sight seems to be the equivalent of an English one: the spelling is similar or even identical, and both occur in the same sort of context. There appears to be every reason to believe that the two have the same meaning. But they don’t. Almost, but not quite; or sometimes, but not usually. For instance, French éventuel ought not to be translated ‘eventual,’ but rather by ‘possible,’ whereas the French counterparts of eventual are words like ‘final’ and ‘ultime.’ In the same way, actuel is ‘present’ or ‘current,’ rather than ‘actual,’ and the latter is best rendered in French by réel, or concret, or effectif, or indeed présent. To make things even more confusing, there are also instances where the meanings of actuel and ‘actual’ do in fact overlap.

These examples are classics, but it is not too difficult to find more of the same kind. In fact, that’s exactly what the Frenchmen Koessler and Derocquigny did more than half a century ago in their little book Les Faux Amis (False Friends). One large category of their finds can be traced back to French words adopted in England during Norman rule, whose meanings subsequently evolved along different lines in each country. For instance, procés and ‘process’ are false friends, because the former nowadays means ‘trial,’ and the latter should be translated by processus. To express the present meaning of ‘to control,’ you have to use words like maîtriser, dominer or diriger, while contrôler has stuck to its original meaning of ‘to verify.’ To complicate the situation even more, the English sense is admitted in modern French in certain cases, especially in loan translations, such as contrôle des naissances ‘birth control.’ (Conversely, what about an English expression like ‘passport control’?) Another example is ‘female.’ The English term is applicable to all species, but the French femelle is no longer in use in respect of the human race—not in nice speech, at least. (I have been told that Canadian French has diverged less from its origins on this point.)

Faux amis have not sprung only from French words that migrated to England to lead a life of their own. Another category is made up of words both languages borrowed directly from Latin, especially during the Roman occupation or as ecclesiastical terms. A striking example of the latter is ‘curate,’ a function which corresponds to vicaire on the other side of the Channel. A French curé is a parish priest; so, in a Church of England context, the correct translation would be ‘vicar’—a perfect cross-cousin marriage. Less intricate examples are ‘library’ bibliothéque \neq\ librairie ‘bookshop,’ ‘infant’ bébé or enfant en bas âge \neq\ enfant ‘child,’ ‘sane’ sain d’esprit \neq\ sain ‘healthy,’ and ‘salary’ traiteman \neq\ salaire ‘wages.’

Obviously, French and English also have words in common that are drawn from other languages. Examples of ensuing faux amis are sparse, but I could perhaps point out couque and ‘cookie,’ both derived from Dutch koek ‘cake.’ The two varieties of pastry are quite different.

A relatively new category consists of “second degree faux amis,” English words whose specifically American meaning differs from that of their French cognates. For example, how much is a billion? In France, where such issues are officially decided upon, it is a thousand times more than in the United States. Before World War II, the British leaned toward the French system (US ‘billion’ = milliard), but an increasing number of their financial institutions conform with American usage. Some try to avoid the problem with an uncommitting “1,000 million,” but they get into trouble with trillion.

Not all faux amis have their roots in the distant past. A relatively young pair are ‘brassiere’ and soutien-gorge \neq\ brassiére. The latter word is nowadays used only for certain children’s gear, expecially leading-strings (‘reins’ in Britain). Again a garment: ‘slip’ combinaison \neq\ slip ‘briefs.’ This demonstrates that faux amis can originate on the English side of the Channel. One more of this kind, from the world of motor cars: ‘starter’ démarreur \neq\ starter ‘choke.’

The last two examples really result from the advent of Franglais, a recent phenomenon Les Faux Amis does not, of course, deal with. However, the modest booklet has grown into a weighty volume with a long, learned introduction in its sixth edition, published by Vuibert, Paris 1975. It is all very thorough, but hunting for faux amis can be just a hobby, free from scientific pretensions. If you would like to build a faux amis collection of your own, the material abounds. Few of the examples used in this article, for example, appear in the book.

True false friends derive from the same root. So don’t pair ‘core’ with coeur ‘heart,’ because the two words have, in spite of a certain similarity in spelling and a semblance of semantic kinship, no common forebear (unless you go back to Sanskrit, perhaps, but remember: it is an amateur game). Secondly, even genuinely false friends do not always show an all-round difference of meaning. In other words, you often have to settle for a partial overlap of meaning. Let us therefore agree that a difference between the most frequently used meanings suffices. For instance, ‘talon’ serre \neq\ talon ‘heel’ make an almost pure couple, but ‘to chant’ psalmodier \neq\ chanter ‘to sing’ show some overlapping, because ‘to chant’ sometimes stands for ‘to sing.’ Partial candidates are ‘to assist’ aider \neq\ assister ‘to attend,’ ‘chamber’ salle \neq\ chambre ‘room,’ ‘parole’ parole d’honneur \neq\ parole ‘word,’ ‘gallant’ vaillant \neq\ galant ‘courtly,’ ‘psychic’ surnaturel \neq\ psychique ‘psychological.’ When a man plans to entertain a French lady, he had better not speak of entretenir her. The most benevolent interpretation of his words would be that he proposes to converse with her.

It follows that you will have to apply standards for the meaning of ‘meaning,’ or rather of ‘difference of meaning.’ In a case like éditeur ‘publisher’ \neq\ ‘editor’ rédacteur, the difference is clear enough, but what about ‘versatile’ and versatile? I would indeed classify these two as faux amis, on the grounds that the former expresses a positive quality and the French counterpart is anything but complimentary, perhaps best translated by ‘time-serving.’ Others may not wish to take such differences in moral content into account. A case more difficult to define is ‘sympathetic’ \neq\ sympathique (the closest ‘English’ equivalent of the latter seems to be ‘simpatico’). You may also choose to include word pairs of which one member is used exclusively in the figurative sense, whereas the other has kept its literal meaning (‘meager’ \neq\ maigre ‘lean’). In some pairs, one member has an archaic or literary flavor, but the other belongs to everyday language (‘felon’ \neq\ felon). Even lesser differences in style could do: ‘soup’ potage \neq\ soupe (colloquial), while potage \neq\ pottage.

Remember also that French is not the only possible partner to English for this game; Germanic languages serve just as well. Some research in this direction has already been done. Perusing dictionaries can be rewarding, but the most endearing finds stem from real-life situations, like the carbon copy case recounted above. By the way, we eventually decided to say just ‘One plus five, please.’

Philip Howard on English English

Philip Howard

Commercials are the poetry of the television generation. You can see this for yourself by going to a Christmas pantomime or a summer variety show at the end of the pier at a seaside resort. A generation ago the jokes were about politicians, film stars, characters out of books, and, maybe just starting, well-known performers on the radio, or, as we used to call it then, the wireless. Today they are about the telly, and the audience chant the commercial jingles about washing powders and brands of instant coffee as familiarly as their grandparents quoted the Authorized Version.

It is a natural process for names to come into the language as proper words. From Amelia Jenks Bloomer, with her bicycling knickerbockers, to Venetian blinds to Harris tweed, names are continually becoming words. But I think that this generation of mass advertising is the first one to turn trade names into words at such a rate. Pace Laszlo Biro, a biro today is any ballpoint pen; we hoover the carpet with any old vacuum cleaner, much to me rage of the Hoover company, founded by William Henry Hoover. There is demotic poetry as well as a great deal of interest in these trade names that are so big a part of the language in a society that spends so much of its time and effort on consuming.

We have just had published over here the first systematic examination of trade names: Dictionary of Trade Name Origins, by Adrian Room (Routledge & Kegan Paul, £7.95). Room is senior lecturer in Russian at the Ministry of Defence, a hardened and shameless word-man. His dictionary is a well of curious information and speculation.

For example, take lavatory paper, or, in the genteel euphemism of Adspeak, toilet tissue. I don’t know about you over there, but over here we have two main brands, one soft, called Andrex, and the other hard and abrasive, used in government departments because it is cheaper, called Bronco. I suppose I had imagined that Andrex had echoes of the Greek word for ‘soft’ and that Bronco had connexions with the Spanish word for ‘rough.’ Nothing so etymologically satisfying, dammit. Andrex took its name from St Andrew’s Road, Walthamstow, where it was originally manufactured. There is an onomatopoeic theory that Bronco represents the sound made when a sheet of hard lav paper is detached sharply from its roll; the more likely origin is that the British Patent Perforated Paper Company originally made two types of paper called British No 1 and British No 2; the Bronco is a boring old contraction.

With scholary passion for categorization, Adrian Room distinguishes among name names (Woolworth, Marks & Spencer), word names (Fine Fare, Mothers Pride, Tuf Shoes), and arbitrary names (Omo, Kodak). I find it enchanting that the St Michael brand name of Marks & Spencer, where all sensible Brits buy their knickers and shirts, represents not the Archangel Michael with a flaming sword, but Michael Marks, a Polish Jewish refugee who set up his stall on the open market at Leeds in 1884.

Trade names are powerful and dangerous magic in these days of multinational companies. Your name must be able to cross frontiers without causing difficulties of pronunciation or double entendre. A few years ago Rolls Royce were looking for a suitable name to follow their successful series of ethereal car names, Silver Ghost, Silver Wraith, and Silver Phantom. Their public relations department come up with Silver Mist. However, it was pointed out that in Germany this would mean ‘Silver Shit.’ The car has been called the Silver Shadow. Ford’s Corsair car was originally to be called the Ford Copreta, until somebody noticed that this would sound equally defecatory in Greece. The Cona Coffee Machine Company calls its Cona Acolon in Portugal and other Portuguese-speaking countries, where Cona is slang for the female pudenda. The Foden truck manufacturing company has the same trouble in Portugal that the German Fokker aircraft company has in English-speaking countries.

There is much food for thought in the origins of trade names. I meditate a learned monograph on the popularity of such names as Oxford, Cambridge, Crown, King, Jupiter, and Hercules as classy and snobbish labels. I am staggered about Marlboro Country. This cigarette is advertised with a picture of your President, Hopalong Cassidy, surrounded by cattle and tumbleweed and Arizona sunset, looking as if he is about to rope a steer or tear off a strip of bronco. In fact, Philip Morris originally named its fags after the Duke and public school Marlborough; they were originally promoted as a cigarette for ladies (they had red filter tips: ‘a cherry tip for your ruby lips’).

There is mystery about naming things for the first time, as Adam discovered in the Garden of Eden. It is not surprising that many of the firms did not reply to Adrian Room’s questionnaires. They were either embarrassed or had forgotten how they came to call the product Blotto. Some years ago, The Times of London decided to have a Diary or Gossip column for the first time. Our formidable editor, Sir William Haley, the only man in London with two glass eyes, summoned his editorial staff and offered a prize of £10 to the person who came up with the best name for the column. In those days, £10 was a lot of money for underpaid cub reporters, and we tried hard. Two weeks later, Sir William summoned us again to announce the winner. It was Sir William himself with the name From All Quarters. I have been wary of name-droppers ever since.

Negative Words

Norman W. Schur, Weston, Connecticut

An interesting phenomenon of language, especially English, is the prevalence of words, particularly adjectives, whose negative forms are much more frequently met with than the positive ones on which they are based, as in the case, for example, of illicit/licit or inscrutable/scrutable. It often happens that a word, though negative in form, imparts a quite positive quality to the word it modifies. This is not surprising in words like unforgettable (to forget is to fail to remember), or unmitigated (to mitigate is to lessen—a negative operation), or unflagging (to flag is to fall off in vigor—likewise a negative act), or untrammeled (to trammel is to restrain—an action negative in effect); and there are undoubtedly (there’s another one for you!) many more in this category. As in mathematics, the negative of a negative is a positive, but remember: two wrongs don’t make a right.

A man of unimpeachable character, of unassailable integrity, of unquestioned probity, of undisputed honesty, who always speaks the unvarnished truth with uncompromising adherence to the straight and narrow and incalculable energy is, you will admit, a far from negative chap.

And one is being quite affirmative in singing the praises of a face of irresistible, nay ineffable beauty, in gazing with unalloyed pleasure at the immutable mountains and the immemorial elms and the wonders of the changeless progress of the seasons, in facing an implacable foe or a relentless adversary, in deploring the indescribable damage wrought by a hurricane, in predicting ineluctable progress, inescapable achievement, and inevitable success, in denouncing an unconscionable rascal, admiring unbounded enthusiasm, exclaiming about the vastness of the untrod wastes, and extolling the virtues of a pure, unadulterated product, untouched by human hands.

There are, of course, those well-known adjectives, negative in meaning as well as form, whose positives, though (to the surprise of many) they do exist, are practically never seen: uncouth, unkempt and disgruntled (sounds like a law firm). There is a group without positive forms at all: disheveled, from Old French descheveler ‘to mess up (someone’s) hair’; ineluctable; inordinate (ordinate is a noun, a term in mathematics); intransigent; intrepid; inviolate (violate exists, but only as a verb); nondescript; nonpareil; and a very common, if hidden, negative with a very positive meaning: immense, from Latin prefix im- plus mensus, past participle of metiri ‘to measure’; and here, too, there must be many more. An exhausting effort is not always exhaustive.

There is also a class of negative/positive pairs, involving various parts of speech, that, in current usage, are not opposite in meaning. In the following examples, the true antonym appears in parentheses: disaffection/affection (loyalty); dissimulate/simulate (act openly); immemorial/memorial (within memory); nonentity/entity (V.I.P.); disinterested/interested (biased)—(uninterested and interested are true antonyms); nonobjective/objective—as applied to art—(representational); nonsectarian/sectarian—as applied to schools—(denomi-national).

The negative forms fall into a number of classes: those introduced by the prefixes a-, taken from the classical Greek alpha privative (amoral, apolitical); dis- (disingenuous, disinterested); in- (incongruous, inescapable), which sometimes takes the form il- (illiberal, illicit), im- (impossible, improbable) or ir-(irresistible, irresponsible, irrational); mis- (mislike, mistrust); non- (nonexistent, nonobjective); and most commonly, un(unbelievable, unquestionable); and those ending with the suffix -less (merciless, reckless). Mis- is rare as a negative prefix; its normal use is rather to indicate error or impropriety. Thus, a misbegotten son of man is nonetheless begotten; misbehavior is still behavior, if the wrong kind; a mistrial is still a trial, though terminated without conclusion; a misprint is not usually a blank; and a misdeed is indeed a deed, though a wrongful one. Mistrust is an example of the small group where the mis- spells negation.

There is at least one case where the negative form is almost never used while the positive is in everyone’s vocabulary: misknow, believe it or not, is a valid, if ignored English word. But to get back to our original point, here are some samples of adjectives whose negative forms are in much greater use than their positives:

illicit
immutable
imperturbable
impervious
implacable
imponderable
incalculable
inclement
incongruous
incontrovertible ineffable
inescapable
inevitable
inexplicable
inextricable
innocuous
innumerable
inscrutable
insuperable
nonexistent
unassuming
unbeknown(st)
unblinking
unbounded
unbridled
uncalled-for
unceremonious
uncompromising

But here we must stop, inviting the reader to ramble through the unabridged to find hundreds more to add to the list. Perhaps you might also enjoy the exercise of changing the negative words in the following silly sentence to their positive forms and see what you come up with.

The ungainly fellow, despite his unheard-of unnerving and unsettling experience, managed in some unfathomable way to behave unimpeachably in his uncompromising, unswerving, dauntless determination to put an unceremonious end to the indescribably unconscionable, nay unmentionable misdeeds of his implacable antagonist. I wish him luck.

To end on a positive note, I trust that this inimitable, incomparable piece of deathless prose will prove to be a peerless, priceless gem of inestimable value, and of incalculable assistance to you in the endless days ahead.

English: The Lagoon of Nations

Richard Lederer, Concord, New Hampshire

English is unique among languages in the number and variety of its borrowed words. Throughout the centuries, English has become the most cosmopolitan and the most democratic of all languages by cheerfully welcoming representatives from tens of other tongues and assimilating them completely.

Joseph Bellafiore has described the English language as “the lagoon of nations” because “in it there are hundreds of miscellaneous words floating like ships from foreign ports freighted with messages for us.” To appreciate fully the range and richness of these imports from all over the globe, examine the following list of fairly common English words, along with their original nationalities:

Abenaki: skunk; Afrikaans: apartheid; Amoy: tea; Anglo-Saxon: lord; Angolan: chimpanzee; Arabic: alcohol; Araucanian: poncho; Australian: boomerang; Baltí: polo; Basque: bizarre; Boer: trek;

Cantonese: typhoon; Carib: hurricane; Chaldean: mazuma; Choctaw: bayou; Congolese: zebra; Cree: Eskimo; Croation: cravat; Dahomey: voodoo; Dakota: teepee; Dutch: boss;

Egyptian: oasis; Eskimo: kayak; Finnish: sauna; French: garage; Gaelic: whiskey; German: kindergarten; Greek: drama; Guarani: jaguar; Gujarati: bungalow; Haitian: canoe; Hawaiian: ukelele; Hebrew: camel;

Irish: banshee; Japanese: tycoon; Javanese: batik; Lapp: tundra; Latin: circus; Magyar: vampire; Malagasy: bantam; Malayalam: teak; Mandingo: mumbo jumbo; Marathi: mongoose; Mexican Indian: coyote; Micmac: toboggan;

Nahuatl: tomato; Narragansett: moose; Old Norse: skill; Ojibwa: wigwam; Persian: bazaar; Polish: mazurka; Portuguese: molasses; Powhatan: raccoon; Quichua: quinine; Romany: pal; Russian: vodka;

Sechwana: tsetse; Singhalese: beriberi; Spanish: rodeo; Swedish: sm&phgr;rgasbord;

Tagalog: boondocks; Tahitian: tattoo; Tamil: pariah; Taino: hammock; Tibetan: yak; Tongan: taboo; Tungus: shaman; Tupi: tapioca; Turkish: jackal; Welsh: flannel; Yiddish: kibitzer.

No wonder that Dorothy Thompson once referred to “that glorious and imperial mongrel, the English language” and that the poet Carl Sandburg once proclaimed: “The English language hasn’t got where it is by being pure.”

If I stopped here, I would be telling only half the story of English as a universal language. For it turns out that many of those word-laden galleons that visit American shores also return home with their hulls stuffed with American exports: the traffic is two-way. Through our contributions to other languages, we are beginning to repay many of our debts and establish a linguistic balance of trade.

Our word automobile, for example, has been exported without spelling change into French and Italian and with minor alterations into Spanish (automovil) and Swedish (automobil). Baseball and aspirin turn up in French as baseball and aspirine, in Spanish as beisbol and aspirina, in German as Baseball and Aspirin, and in Swedish as baseball and aspirin.

As Time magazine has pointed out, Germans have translated some American expressions almost literally, such as im gleichen Boot sitzen ‘to be in the same boat,’ Germanized others, like the verbs parken, twisten, and hitchhiken, and adopted others totally, like scoop, paperback, and blue jeans. French has imported such English terms as baby, bridge club, and film, while Spanish has embraced romance, motor, and gas. Many a Japanese businessman has a kakuteiru (‘cocktail’) with his fantazikku garu-furendo (‘fantastic girl friend’). And American words have even infiltrated Russian stores, with products like miksers, tosters, komputers, and antifriz.

Doubtless, if our descendants make contact with thinking beings on other planets and in other solar systems, we shall start adding words from Martian, Saturnian, and Alpha Centaurian and exporting our vocabulary across outer space. Then English will become a truly universal language.

SIC! SIC! SIC!

“MEN UNIQUE IN HABIT—Men are the only animals that make a habit of taking their own lives.” [From the Hartford Courant, n.d. Submitted by Grace Grant Snyder. That is a habit that is very easily broken.]

The Misplaced Stop

Herman Doh, Plattsburgh State University College

Lawrence Casler’s nicely devised demonstration that alternative punctuation will result in different, even contrary, meaning [VIII, 3] is essentially an example of the misplaced stop, in writing indicated (or not) with a mark of punctuation. He asks about “something [he] read or heard as a high school student” that may be the prototype for his “reconstruction.”

The classic example of the misplaced stop as a comic device is in Ralph Roister Doister, a play by Nicholas Udall. The only early copy of the play is usually dated 1566—67. A mischievous rascal, Matthew Merrygreek, reads aloud to Dame Christian Custance a letter from Ralph designed to “win a woman.” He reads as follows (the punctuation is by Baskerville, et al., Elizabethan and Stuart Plays, 1934):

Sweet mistress, whereas I love you nothing at all,
Regarding your substance and richesse chief of all,
For your personage, beauty, demeanor, and wit,
I commend me unto you never a whit;
Sorry to hear report of your good welfare,
For, as I hear say, such your conditions are,
That ye be worthy favor of no living man;
To be abhorred of every honest man;
To be taken for a woman inclined to vice;
Nothing at all to virtue giving her due price.

After twenty-five more lines of similar sentiment, Dame Custance is insulted, and Ralph, standing near, is utterly confused by the effect of the letter he hoped would “win a woman.” We learn shortly what he intended when the Scrivener reads the letter aloud, with appropriate attention to the pointing (punctuation):

Sweet mistress, whereas I love you—nothing at all
Regarding your richesse and substance, chief of all
For your personage, beauty, demeanor, and wit—
I commend me unto you; never a whit
Sorry to hear report of your good welfare.
For, as I hear say, such your conditions are
That ye be worthy favor; of no living man
To be abhorred; of every honest man
To be taken for a woman inclined to vice
Nothing at all; to virtue giving her due price.

Merrygreek’s mischief is thereby exposed, and the Serivener explains:

Then the fault was in the reading, and not in the writing;

No, nor I dare say in the form of the inditing.

Here inditing means the ‘penning’ or ‘inscribing’ (OED indite,

1. and may be understood to argue that the pointing was appropriate.

Clear rules—or more accurately, conventions—to guide punctuation practice were not established in the 16th century, so writers and editors and printers muddled along with whatever marks caught their fancy. Nevertheless, there was a consciousness of pointing (certainly to indicate a full stop) so that ambiguity of the sort illustrated outrageously in Ralph Roister Doister could be avoided.

Shakespeare makes use of the misplaced stop device in A Midsummer Night’s Dream (V.i.). To introduce the Pyramis and Thisbe scene, Quince, evidently reading, serves as Prologue (First Folio punctuation):

If we offend, it is with our good will. That you should think, we come not to offend, But with good will. To show our simple skill, That is the true beginning of our end.

Consider the following (my punctuation):

If we offend, it is with our good will That you should think we come not to offend, But with good will to show our simple skill. That is the true beginning of our end.

After a few more lines, also misread, the onlookers comment:

THESEUS: This fellow doth not stand upon points.

LYSANDER: He hath rid his prologue like a rough colt; he knows not the stop. A good moral, my lord: it is not enough to speak, but to speak true.

Misplaced stops in these examples from the Elizabethan stage of course illustrate wrong delivery of the lines and are not, strictly speaking, demonstration of faulty pointing, which we do not really know about. Only rarely can we see what an Elizabethan playwright actually set down, and even then the pointing is likely to be slapdash and inconsistent. We can nevertheless turn Theseus' moral to the crux of Casler’s illustration: it is not enough to punctuate, but to punctuate true.

OBITER DICTA: (I) could care less

Eric P. Hamp, University of Chicago

The Second Barnhart Dictionary of New English (1980), an excellently documented gain to our resources, carries a first-class entry for this troublesome collocution of care. The absence of the expected -n’t has been credited to ellipsis, phonetic assimilation or masking, lack of contrastive function (a semantic neutralization which has failed to delete otiose negatives in hosts of situations and languages), usurpation of the negative function by less as if it were the suffix -less (which seems prosodically unlikely and inexact), and shortening by frequency. To the last I would object that shortening seems to arise through allegro discourse, with its own motivations, or from predictable compressed semantics of institutionalized speech situations (g’bye), but not from mere frequency. I wonder whether the source here is not to be found in contexts of irony, as with I should live so long. Could this be a Yiddishism?

NOTA BENE

The problem with the publication of certain continuing features in a periodical is that the editor can go along blithely for years running items that few readers may want. It is silly to produce a quarterly without occasionally asking its 50,000 readers what it is they would like to see added or discountinued. VERBATIM needs some feedback. Please drop us a line—a card will do if you are in North America—letting us have your responses to the questions below by merely listing the numbers and writing “Yes,” “No,” or “Don’t Care.” You need not feel inhibited or restricted to the card if you wish to expand your comments.

1. Philip Howard on English English.
2. George W. Turner on Antipodean English.
3. Paring Pairs.
4. More EPISTOLAE.
5. Ango-American Crossword Puzzle, by Jack Luzzatto.
6. More BIBLIOGRAPHIA.
7. Longer articles.

698 Japanese Loanwords in English

Garland Cannon, Texas A&M University

Histories of the English language and other scholarship on that subject credit Japanese with having supplied very few loanwords to English, an erroneous view which was corrected in my “Japanese Borrowings in English,” American Speech, LVI (Fall 1981), 190—206. Now it may be useful to publish the complete body of work used for that study, adding the items that turned up later, such as the 39 items that Robert Burchfield kindly supplied me from Volume III of the ongoing OED Supplements. Of the several dictionaries used in the collection of the corpus, the following provided the largest number of items, with some overlapping: Webster’s Third 363 items, Volumes I—III of the OED Supplements 205, Random House Dictionary of the English Language 202, OED and the 1933 Supplement 79, Barnhart Dictionary of New English since 1963 34, Second Barnhart Dictionary of New English 33, and Merriam-Webster’s 6,000 Words 26. The only social variation marked in the corpus is the slang Nip; there are no regional variations such as Hawaiian or American English vs. British English.

The list which follows will not be marked as to source, since the great majority of the items occur in at least one of the sources listed above, if not in several other standard dictionaries. In the interest of economy, meanings will not be given, though there are a few homonyms with identical spellings. Arbitrarily, the few items with English elements are included as loanwords, though they could be alternatively analyzed as original Japanese borrowings that were anglicized into the language and then underwent the usual process of derivation or compounding, as in soyate and yenbound. All items are main entries, with the few run-on and run-in derivations omitted. Where there are variant spellings or long and short forms (as in Zen vs. Zen Buddhism), no effort has been made to choose a preferred form, since dictionaries frequently disagree. Finally, all items may be assumed to be nouns unless marked otherwise. Indeed, forty-four of the adjectives are functional shifts from noun place-names as defined in Webster’s Third by the formula for all such place-names listed there: “of or from the city of X, Y country: of the kind or style prevalent in X.”

abukumalite
aburachan seed
aburagiri
adsuki bean
adzuki bean
aikido
aikuchi
Aino
Ainu
akamatsu
akamushi mite
akebi
Akebia
akeki
akenobeite
Akita
Akita, adj.
ama
amado
Amagasaki, adj.
amanori
Amaterasu
Amidism
Amidist
Amidist, adj.
andon
ansu
arakawaite
arigato, interj.
Arita ware
Aucuba
awabi
ayu
bai-u, adj.
baka bomb
bancha (tea)
bandaite
banzai
banzai attack
banzai, adj.
Banzai, interj.
baren
basho
beddo
bekko
bekko-ware
betto
biwa
Bizen ware
black mist
Bon
bon-seki
bonsai
bonze
bu
bu
Bugaku
Bunraku
buraku
burakumin
bushido
Butsu
butsudan
chadai
chanoyu
chashitshu
Chiba, adj.
cho
chonin
chorogi
Chosenese, adj.
chrysanthemum
chu
Dai Nippon
dai-sho
dai-sho-no-soroimono
Daibutsu
daikon
daimiate
daimio
daimyo
dairi
dan
daruma
disease
do
dojo
dotaku
emakimono
Eta
fuchi
fugu
fuji
Fukuoka, adj.
fun
funori
furoshiki
fusuma
futon
gagaku
gaijin
geisha
genro
geta
gi
gingko
ginkgo
ginkgo nut
giri
go-moku
gobang
gobo
gomokuzogan
goumi
gumi
gun
guri bori
habatsu
habu
habutai
hagi
haikai
haiku
hakama
Hakodate, adj.
Hamamatsu, adj.
hanami
hanamichi
hanashika
haniwa
haori
happi-coat
hara-kiri
harai goshi
hashigakari
Hashimoto’s
hatamoto
hayashi
hechima
Heian, adj.
heimin
hiba arborvitae
hibachi
hibakusha
Himeji, adj.
hinin
hinoki
Hirado
Hirado ware
hiragana
Hiroshima, adj.
Hizen
Hizen porcelain
hokku
honcho
hooch
hootch
I-go
iaido
ikebana
ikunolite
Imari
inlayo
inro
ippon
irofa
iroha
Ishihara test
ishikawaite
ishime
issei
itai-itai
Ito sukashi
itzebu
jaburan
janken
jigotai
jimigaki
jingu
jinja
jinkai senjitsu
jinricksha
jinrikisha
jinriksha
jito
jiu-jitsu
Jodo
jomon, adj.
joro
joruri
judo
judoist
judoka
jujitsu
junshi
kabane
Kabuki
kabuto gane
kabuzuchi
kadsura
kago
kagoshima, adj
kagura
kakemono
kaki
Kakiemon
kakke
Kamakura, adj.
kamashimo zashi
kambara earth
kami
kamikaze
kamikaze, adj.
kana
kana-majiri
kanamono
kanazawa, adj.
kanji
kanten
karate
karate-chop
karate, vb.
karateka
Karatsu ware
kashira
kata
katakana
katana
Katayama
katsu
katsuo
katsura
katsura (tree)
katsuramono
Katsuwonidae
kawaguchi, adj.
kaya
kegon, adj.
Kempeitai
kendo
kesa-gatame
keyaki
ki-mon
kiaki
kibei
kiku
Kikuchi
kikumon
kikyo
kimono
kimono sleeve
kin
kiri
kirigami
kirimon
kirin
ko-katana
koan
kobang
kobe, adj.
kobeite
kobu
kochi, adj.
kodogu
kofu, adj.
koi
koi-cha
koji
kojic acid
kojiri
kokeshi
Kokka, adj.
koku
kokura, adj.
kombu
koniak
konjak
Korin
koro
kotatsu
koto
kotoite
koza
kozo
kozuka
Kubo
kudzu
Kuge
kumamoto, adj.
kumaso
kumite
kura
kure, adj.
kurikata
kuromaku
Kuroshio
kuroshio extension
kuroshio system
kuroshiwo
kuruma
Kurume
Kurume azalea
Kutani
Kutani ware
kuzushi
kwaiken
kwazoku
kyogen
kyoto, adj.
kyu
kyudo
linked verse
mai
maiko
makimono
mama-san
mamushi
mana
matsu
matsuri
matsuyama, adj.
mebos
medaka
Meiji
menuki
metake
miai
mikado
mikan
Mikimoto
Minamata disease
mingei
miso
mitsukurina
mitsumata
Miyagawanella
mochi
moji, adj.
mokko
mokum
momme
mompei
mon
mondo
moose
mousmee
moxa
mume
mura
muraji
Nabeshima ware
Nabeshimayaka
nagami kumquat
nagasaki, adj.
nagatelite
Nagoya, adj.
nakodo
namban
nanako
Nandina
Nanga
Nara, adj.
narikin
Nashiji
nematode
Nembutsu
netsuke
Nichiren
Nihon
Niigata, adj.
nikko
nikko fir
niku-bori
ningyoite
Nip
Nippon
Nippon
Nipponese
Nipponese, adj
Nipponian, adj
Nipponism
nipponize, vb.
Nippostrongylus
nisei
No
nogaku
noh
nori
norimon
norito noshi
notan
nunchakus
o-goshi
O-soto-gari
oban
obang
obe
obi
odori
ofuro
oiran
ojime
Okayama, adj.
Okazaki
Okazaki fragment
okimono
omi
Omuta, adj.
on
onnagata
onson
origami
orihon
osaekomi waza
Osaka, adj.
oshibori (towel)
Otaru, adj.
oyama
ozeki
pachinko
Rōjū
raku
raku ware
ramanas rose
randori
randori, vb.
red tai
renga
ri
ricksha
rickshaw
rikisha
rikka
rin
riobitsu
rioyo
ritsu
Romaji
Romazi
ronin
Roshi
rumaki
ryo
Ryobu (Shinto)
ryokan
Ryukyu
Ryukyuan
sabi
sakai, adj.
sakaki
sake
sakura
samisen
samsien
samurai
san
Sanda ware
sanpaku, adj.
Sanron
sansei
Sapporo, adj.
sasanqua (or Sasankwa)
Sasebo, adj.
sashimi
satori
satsuma
satsuma ware
sawara cypress
sayonara
sayonara, interj.
sen
Sendai virus
sendai, adj.
sentoku
seppa
seppa dai
seppuku
sesshin
Seto ware
shaku
shakudo
shakuhachi
shiatsu
shibuichi
shibuichi-doshi
Shiga bacillus
shigella
shigellosis
shikii
Shikimi
shikimic acid
shikken
shimonoseki, adj.
shimose (powder)
Shin
Shin-shu
Shingen tsuba
Shingon
shinkansen
shintai
Shinto
shinto, adj.
shintoism
shintoist, adj.
shintoistic, adj.
shippo (ware)
shirakashi
shitogi tsuba
shizoku
Shizuoka, adj.
shogaol
shogi
shogoin turnip
shogun
shogunate
shoji
shomio
Showa
shoya
shoyu
shubunkin
Shuha, adj.
sika
Siomio
skibby
skimmia
soba
sodoku
Soka Gakkai
soy
soy flour
soy frame
soya
soya bean
soyate
soybean
soybean cyst
soybean lecithin
soybean milk
soybean oil
soybean oil meal
soymilk
sub
sub
sub
sub
sub
sub
sugi
suiseki
sukiyaki
sumi
sumi-e
sumo
sumotori
sushi
tabi
tachi
Tago-Sato-Kosaka
tai
Taisho
Taka-Diastase
Takamatsu, adj.
Takaoka, adj.
tamo
tan
tanka
tanto
tatami
tempo
tempura
Tendai
tenno
teriyaki
tobira
tofu
tokonoma
Tokushima, adj.
tokyo, adj.
torii
Toyama, adj.
toyo
Toyohashi, adj.
tsuba
tsubo
Tsuga
tsugaresinol
tsunami
tsurugi
tsutsugamushi
tsutsugamushi mite
tsutsumu
tycoon
udo
uji
ukiyo-e
ume
urushi
urushic acid
urushiol
urushiye
wacadash
waka
Wakayama, adj.
wakizashi
warabi
wasabi
yagi
yakitori
yakuza
Yamaguchigumi
yamamai
Yamato-e
yamoto
Yawata, adj.
yayoi, adj.
yeddo hawthorn
Yeddo spruce
yen
yenbond
Yokkaichi, adj.
Yokohama bean
Yokohama fowl
Yokohama, adj.
Yokosuka, adj.
yokozuna
Yoshino paper
yusho
zaibatsu
zaikai
zazen
Zen
Zen Buddhism
zendo
ziogoon
zogan
zori

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A new quarterly, Letters from Limerick, has appeared on the scene, published by the Limerick League, Inc., J. Beauregard Pepys, Chairman and Editor. If you are an addict—or even merely a devote—of the five-liner, write to the League at 1212 Ellsworth Street, Philadelphia, PA 19147, USA, for information. Prudes need not apply.

Witcraft, or The Growth of English

Leonard Cochran, O.P., Priory of St. Thomas Aquinas, Providence

I’ll accept your saywhat, but not your foresaye; therefore, I don’t draw the endsaye.

In London, in 1573, there appeared a book destined to take its place among the more peculiar of a genus of objects peculiar in its own right: logic texts. Its title is The Arte of Reason, rightly termed Witcraft, and its author was Ralph Lever, Doctor of Divinity and Master of Sherburn Hospital.

According to the Dictionary of National Biography, Lever was a native of Lancaster. There is no indication of his birthdate, but he is recorded as having died in 1585. He attended St. John’s College, Cambridge, receiving the B.A. in 1547—48. At different times in his life, he was reader or tutor to Walter Devereux (later first Earl of Essex, to whom Lever dedicated, in a somewhat plaintive preface, his book on logic), archdeacon of Northumberland, and canon of Durham. In 1577, he was appointed to the mastership of Sherburn Hospital and one year later made Doctor of Divinity at Cambridge.

Witcraft is the second complete logic to appear in English, having been preceded by Thomas Wilson’s Rule of Reason, published in London in 1551. Lever’s work is interesting not for its profundity or for any original contribution to the discipline of logic, but for the curious characteristics of its nomenclature, an outgrowth of the author’s purpose, as expressed in the “Forespeache”:

Then, as English men can compasse this Arte by wit: so can they also declare and sette it forth by speache. Nowe whereas a number of men soe suppose, that our language hath no words fitte to expresse the rules of this Arte: and where as some men do argue, that it must needs be so, bycause they that speake or write thereof at large, use termes and wordes, that no mere English man can understande: it is playn, that neyther their supposition is true: nor yet their reason good. For as time doth invent a newe forme of building, a straunge fashin of apparell, and a newe kinde of artillerie, and munitions: so doe men by consent of speache, frame and devise new names, fit to make known their strange devises.

Lever’s ire had been roused by those who urged that the English language was not suited to certain disciplines. He rejected “inkhorn” terms, arguing that “…for devising of newe termes, and compounding of wordes, our tongue hath a speciall grace, wherein it excelleth many other, and is comparable with the best.” And he sets out to present the “witcraft” of which he speaks, and to present it in plain English.

Ralph Lever knew the manner in which vocabulary grows. Conscious of the necessity of borrowing, he was equally cognizant of the tendency among some languages to form new words by a process of compounding. He protests that he does not intend to invent new words just for the sake of novelty. At the same time, he avers that “… olde names will not serve to make new devises knowne.” Thus, contrary to his expressed view that old words will not serve to name new things, he makes use of two principles of language growth: (1) compounding and (2) the use of an already existing word to stand for something new.

Anticipating the confusion his new terminology might well produce, Lever placed at the end of the work a kind of combination index and dictionary, wherein the bulk of his vocabulary either is defined or has its occurrence in the text cited. Before we look at a selection of some of the terms most necessary to a study of logic, we should pause for a moment to see Ralph Lever in action. The following definition appears on page eighty-four of his book: “every simple shewsay, whether it be of the first order or of the second order, is eyther a yeasay, or a naysay.” This is Dr. Lever’s way of saying that a proposition, whether it is concerned with a nature or what belongs to a nature, is either affirmative or negative.

Of those terms which are obvious examples of old words given new meanings, we find the following: backset, foreset, foresaye, inholder, plainmeaning, yeasaye, and storehouse. In the terminology of today’s logic, they are, in order: predicate, subject, premise, substance, univocal, affirmative, and predicament. For the most part, the borrowed terms are anything but common to us today. Nevertheless, in all but one instance, the OED indicates a usage either prevalent at the time of Lever’s book, or earlier. (In defining plainmeaning it cites Wilkinson (1579): “Playn meaning men walk openly at noone.” Did Wilkinson borrow it from Lever?)

Examples of original words are witcraft ‘logic,’ starcraft ‘astronomy, speachcraft ‘science of speech,’ all cited in the OED as appearing in Lever. There are others, both new and old, in Lever’s little excursion into the realm of the eccentric.

Lever’s failure to reach the presses before his rival, Thomas Wilson, may have resulted not only in the frustration of having been beaten into print, but also of having lost a great opportunity for more than a footnote in history: that of setting the style of the language of logic in English. This, at least, is the suggestion of W.S. Howell, writing in Logic and Rhetoric in England 1500-1700:

In view of Lever’s theory of the proper terminology for English logic, he might have changed the whole vocabulary of this science in the English-speaking world, had his Witcraft preceded Wilson’s more conservative work and gained for itself the authority that any original effort usually commands.

—p. 57

Of course, by now you have mastered Lever sufficiently to know that the epigraph of this little paper is rendered into modern English as “I’ll accept your definition, but not your premise: therefore, I don’t draw the conclusion.”

SIC! SIC! SIC!

“The reference form included with the application must be filled out by a person within the University whom you feel knows you best academically…” [From the Student’s Instruction Sheet for Harvard/Radcliffe Financial Aid Application1981-82. Submitted by Pane Pascal, University of Washington, Seattle.]

SIC! SIC! SIC!

Froidian Slip: “Saturday—Clearing, in 40s; Sunday—Partly cloudy, 40s.” [From the weather ear in the Boston Globe, November 15, 1980, reporting a sudden drop in temperature from the 60s to the 40s. Submitted by R. Merrill Ely, Chicago.]

Antipodean English: The Flight of the Kiwi

George W. Turner

Some words die out of a language as the last speakers to use them pass away, but others don’t wait for that and disappear from the memory as occasion to use them becomes less and less frequent. I was reminded of this and of a forgotten name when I read the other day that on Cape Barren Island, off the north coast of Tasmania, a local form of English preserves the term morning wood for ‘kindling.’ It brought back a world of an iron range and wood fires lit first thing in the morning on a New Zealand farm half a century ago. We used morning wood. Cape Barren Islanders also go out on the rangtang (‘out on a spree,’ though where they find one on that tiny island I don’t know), and this too recalls New Zealand idiom, where out on the rantan survives (or did when I left the country seventeen years ago) along with other old-fashioned colloquialisms like go to market or kick up bobsie-die (etymologically ‘bob’s a-dying’), both meaning ‘make a fuss.’

These are old-fashioned in that they have elsewhere died out of the common language, and they are old-fashioned to me because of their association with bygone days. Sometimes such words survive on the periphery of an innovative area: New Zealand (at least formerly) and Queensland retain duchesse for a ‘dressing table with a swing mirror’; the same two areas use Hooray as a farewell greeting. But perhaps to readers abroad the faintly rustic New Zealand popular idiom will have a freshness; the kiwi’s attempt to fly might to them seem less stumbling. It may amuse some to find thingummy replaced by doodackie, to hear a sausage called a snarler or to hear he did his bun for ‘he was angry’.

There is an arbitrariness in slang just as in more formal language. Just as what some call a cattlegrid is to others (in parts of Australia) a cattleramp or cattlepit or (in the U.S.) a cattleguard or (in New Zealand) a cattlestop, so what Americans call a derby (hat) and the British call a bowler hat used to be slangily a boxer in Australia and a bun hat or hardhitter in New Zealand, and a minor ailment going around is a wog in Australia and a bot in New Zealand. New Zealand adds the facetious greeting ‘How are the bots biting?’

The recently published Macquarie Dictionary, though claiming to be primarily a dictionary of Australian English, is also rich in New Zealandisms. For me it brings back many familiar expressions, in the dogbox ‘in disfavor,’ to be in donkey deep ‘to be thoroughly involved,’ jack up ‘arrange, organize’ (not, as in Australia, ‘break down’), the keg’s cut ‘the beer has run out’ (I don’t know whether ‘s means is or has), rafferty ‘rough, ragged,’ hokonui ‘illicit whiskey’ (from the remote Hokonui Hills), fair do an appeal for fair play equivalent to the Australian’s fair go, and make a do of (something) ‘make a success of’ it. As in any slang there are (or were) numerous words meaning ‘excellent’: snitcher, rube (short for rubydazzler), or corker. (I used corker as an adjective in a childhood diary in 1933, antedating the OED by four years.) Maori provided a number of words, taihoa ‘wait a bit,’ waipiro ‘alcoholic drink’ (literally ‘stinking water’), puku ‘belly,’ and puckeroo ‘break, damage’ (Maori pakaru). To break or damage in a grinding sort of way is to graunch, a word tending to replace puckeroo, I think.

New Zealand speech seems to be changing rapidly (even to me now in the pronunciation of the young New Zealander learn sounds like loon and loon is heading towards lean), so that it is not surprising that I am unfamiliar with some items noted as New Zealandisms in the Macquarie Dictionary. I remember the railway station luggage trolley with a short wheel fore and aft but did not call it a noddy (the name suggests Enid Blyton’s character, mercifully created ‘after my time’), and while I remember Maori PT (i.e., ‘Physical Training’) as a way of describing lying down and doing nothing, I did not encounter m.d.o. ‘Maori day off’ for a ‘day off work,’ the Australian sickie with even more of a hint of leadswinging. I knew dag for a ‘hard case’ or ‘amusingly eccentric person’ and also dag for the ‘wool impacted with excreta on the back end of a sheep,’ but when a very eminent lexicographer recently heard his New Zealand niece say, “Well I must rattle my dags and be off,” he was not more surprised and amused than I would be.

I have not heard a lamb’s testicles called mountain oysters (also U.S.) nor an unpleasant person called a drop kick nor a mental hopital called a rat factory—there is a tendency to crudity in some of the New Zealand idiom—nor a sweetbriar called missionary (but lawyer for an equally engaging briar was quite familiar), nor have I encountered hairy meaning ‘dilapidated.’ These expressions may then be new or were less than universal a couple of decades ago. In some cases, changed conditions have brought change. Opossums are recent imports from Australia but now prolific, so that the word joey (in Australia a ‘baby kangaroo’) for an opossum is likely to be recent. Pottle, which I knew as a ‘container for strawberries,’ is now used for a ‘carton of hot chips’ (french-fried potatoes), a result no doubt of the growth of the fast-foods industry. Birdcage boy a ‘used-car dealer’ is another mark of this sort of progress. The reference is to a wire-fenced display yard.

In many cases I can’t be certain now whether I knew an expression or not. I knew Pongo as a rather derogatory word for an Englishman (Australian Pom) and would certainly have understood Pongolia ‘England,’ but did I know it live or learn it, as I would learn Old Norse, from professional literature? I more or less knew a huntaway was a ‘dog trained to drive sheep forward’ but when did I first know Nelson huntaway a ‘boulder rolled down a hill to start sheep’? (The slur on Nelson province is no more justified than the slur on Taranaki province in Taranaki gate, a movable bit of a wire fence.)

There seems to be an increasing use of diminutives in New Zealand, either shortened forms or forms in -ie (not in -o as in Australia). A ‘semi-trailer,’ called an articulated lorry in Britain and New Zealand, is briefly an artic; a ‘donnybrook’ is a donny; a ‘locomotive’ a loci; a ‘milkman’ a milkie; a ‘nappy’ a nap; a ‘differential’ a diffy. All of these are new to me. A number relate to occupations: a slabby handles slabs; a crosscutter uses a crosscut saw; a gummy digs for kauri gum (if he is not an old toothless sheep); and a farmer talks of his chow ‘chou moellier.’ Chow in the sense of ‘food’ is known, as are many Americanisms through films, books, and television programs, but is not used much. The local word is tucker.

All this is, of course, only a random selection from the treasures of New Zealand’s colloquial vocabulary, but it is time to say Hooray.

SIC! SIC! SIC!

“It also permits a flight steward to dash down to the onboard freezers for a special steak for the President or a change of clothing for the First Lady.” —*The Flying White-house

• The Story of Airforce One*, by J. terHorst and R. Albertazzie, page 253. [Submitted by B.D. Leitch, Regina, Saskatchewan, who writes that he was not aware that First Ladies kept their wardrobes in the freezer: Was that hamburger patties you wanted or hamburger panties?]

BIBLIOGRAPHIA: The Languages of Australia and Australian Aboriginal Languages

R.M.W. Dixon, (Cambridge, University Press, 1980). and Barry J. Blake, (Angus and Robertson, 1981).

For a long time Australians showed tragically little interest in the rich linguistic resources represented by Aboriginal languages. This was tragic not only because much valuable linguistic information was lost forever but also because the lack of intelligent interest in Aboriginal languages was part of—and part cause of—a wider failure to understand a very different culture. Europeans have invaded sacred sites in Aboriginal land with the same failure to understand different values that led early Aboriginals to shoot privately owned cattle as they might have shot a kangaroo when no concept of ownership over living animals existed.

There were a few early observers of Aboriginal languages, and their notes, however unprofessional, are often all we can know of languages now extinct. In recent years, much more has been done to record surviving or disappearing languages, but it has been something of a race against time, often a matter of finding a few elderly people who still use or partially remember a disappearing language. The general public and even linguists who are not specialists in Aboriginal studies have long lacked an overview of what is going on, and while it has been necessary to be patient while scarce trained manpower was directed to the most urgent tasks, it is very good now to welcome two books to fill the gap, a very full and technical account by Professor Dixon and a more popular one by Barry Blake.

The study of Aboriginal languages is of current practical interest in understanding problems in Aboriginal education. Since many Aboriginal languages distinguish only three vowels and distinctions between voiced and unvoiced consonants are not significant, Aboriginal children learning English might pronounce piggy, Vicky, and Peggy or Fanny, Penny, and Benny alike and not be able to hear a difference, just as we might fail to hear differences among up to four phonemically distinct pronunciations of what to us is in each case n. One result of such phonetic differences is that English words appear in Aboriginal languages in strange disguise: mityityi ‘white woman’ (from missus), putyikata ‘cat’ (pussycat), or tyupu ‘soap’ for instance. The differences in the Aboriginal and European conceptual worlds are sometimes just as great.

It is accepted that no language can be meaningfully described as “primitive.” Some communities are more technologically developed than others, and their vocabulary will reflect that difference. The native Australians, who had not yet mastered the art of boiling water (having no pottery), seemed backward to a conquering age of steam. They had no word for locomotive, but then their conquerors had no simple word for ‘hit by throwing a boomerang,’ or ‘the hole left by a goanna when it has broken the surface after hibernation,’ or ‘a hole in a spear where the hook of a woomera [i.e., a throwing stick for launching a spear] is inserted,’ concepts as important to Aboriginal life as centrifugal force or gunpowder to their new neighbors.

An age that valued arithmetic was impressed by the absence of numerals higher than four in Aboriginal languages, easily concluding that the lack reflected mental inferiority. In fact, Aboriginals quickly adopt European counting if employed as stockmen, just as European medical researchers can cope with the intricacies of Aboriginal kinship terms if it is useful for tracing the history of hereditary conditions.

Most Australians know little about Aboriginal languages. Their ideas about them are often naive, that they are “simple,” “have no grammar,” or are “primitive.” Even the better informed might have little idea how many Aboriginal languages there are or what their relationship is. We now have an informed discussion of such questions. For the reader interested in exotic languages or wanting to acquire a brief but reliable outline of the languages of Australia and their (rather small) contribution to English, Barry Blake’s book will be an enjoyable discovery; for the scholar wanting to go more deeply into the details of Australian Aboriginal linguistics, Dixon’s book will be a standard work.

[G.W. Turner, University of Adelaide]

BIBLIOGRAPHIA: Dictionary of Word Origins and Roots: Family Histories of Familiar Words

Joseph T. Shipley, (Philosophical Library, 1945), x + 430pp and Peter Davies, (McGraw-Hill, 1981), vii + 216pp.

The old and the tired and the revived Shipley’s Dictionary of Word Origins (1945) has been reissued. Why? It is a ragbag of uninformation (aard-vark contains Dutch ‘pig,’ unexplained), misinformation (grammar from a root gra-; total ignorance of laws of phonetic change, e.g., for four, seven, eight, ten, and the fictitious Latin pinque under the headword number; sneeze from fnese is a misprint!), jumbled information (e.g., college and grave, which read like free-association transcripts,)¹ garbled information (havoc ‘plunder’ < Old French havot < German Haft to Latin capt-, somehow bringing in hawk), and the goddamnedest information (yellow…gelb…chloros… fool …love…German women of pleasure…lust…gooseberry fool…custard—what next?). I mustn’t take more of your time. Quick! To your most indispensable entry: Harpocrates “The Gr. god of silence.” And then the epigraph to this book: “his cult is forgotten today.”

Peter Davies’s Roots (1981) is an entirely different kettle of trout (see 4, 144, and below). I will have some adverse things to say, but we must welcome this as a real step in the modern world on our slow climb back up to a state of literacy and decently exact knowledge. If enough copies of such books (suitably revised) were distributed, we might even end up with a high school that taught something, and a better than accidental crop of literate college graduates.

Roots is really a rather old-style book, rewarmed, rearranged, and cosmeticized. It is inspired by the same instincts as Otto Schrader’s Die Indogermanen (Leipzig, 1911; revised by H. Krahe, 1935), and they are good instincts—to distill the truth about Indo-European and the Indo-Europeans and to disseminate it broadly—and this aim has been leveled at the lexicon of English. Davies has been bitten by the Indo-European bug (1—7). If I carp, it must be clearly understood that I applaud his enthusiasm, his perception of important things, his energy in carrying out a plan, his very real respect for the use of 2 learning and technical knowledge. It is therefore a bit disappointing to find that half of his argument on pp. 2—3 and 6—7 regrinds the flour of Bloomfield, Language (1933) 319-20 § 18.14. 3 But, although Davies wants us to glory in our Indo-European heritage (dictionary or no), the main lesson of his book is that our language has two principal sources, the inherited IE and the borrowed-ultimately IE. The big theoretical point, of course, is that this dichotomy is a fallacy: The borrowed component comes in, and speakers are unaware whether it was born branded IE or not. Even more, if we had started growing our learned stock in Avicenna, we would probably now be cheerfully expanding productively among Arabic broken plurals and participles, but the chances of history simply decreed otherwise. So we have little Old Latin and Greek and Indo-European.

Davies revels (3—4) in hound and canine, in naked and nude. This is old news, but it is good news. He calls (4) this duality “a significant and little-noticed theme.” I wasn’t aware of that. I thought it was one of the most noticed and most misstated items in our culture and in our books.

I say, let us accept the platitude Mr. Davies discovers for us, let us refine and sift his formulations, let us overcome our soporific publishers, let us drown the scummy crap in our public schools and their texts, let us annex the élan of Peter Davies.

Davies’s method is a simple bipartite one: For about 100 IE etyma, the discursive history and diagramed family tree are given on facing pages to show the modern outcomes of a given inherited IE form and of its cousin forms inherited by other IE branches (Latin, Greek, Sanskrit, etc.), then borrowed from them by English. Thus you see in diagrams and words the twin histories from the same IE source (e.g,. *bhrāter) of native English brother and borrowed (Latin) fraternal, fraternity, (Old French) friar, and (Gypsy) pal. This is interesting stuff, and it deserves publicizing, but there is a distortion here, which pal well illustrates. Romany is indeed IE and it is true that *bhrāter- > pral > pal > English argot, but Romany is no less exotic and no more a natural relative and source than Eastern New England Algonquian, which contributed skunk.

Moreover, there is a technical difficulty here. These etymologies must be absolutely accurate. I do not mean to be harsh on Davies; they need not be exhaustive, but they lose their point without exactitude. The Germanic descent must be correct (*apoter- will not give *aftar- directly). Even small, nondamaging detail should be observed: The Germanic ancestor of corn, etc., should not be given with -m (*kurnam), as if identical with Latin (grānum). In Classical philology and linguistics, the derivation of the Latin cognates sometimes imposes difficulties of a major order: the deviant vocalism of Latin magnus, 4 maximus or of frangere under the roots *meg-and *bhreg-, or the problematic s- of Latin super to the root *uper. Numerous points of detail could be raised.5 Not all of these are trivial, but it is not my purpose here to grade the effect or damage resulting from errors of different magnitudes. My point is that we can be accurate and principled; etymology is no less orderly, as a subject, than chemistry, though sadly it is often practised as an amateurish and less serious discipline. In etymology we can and do get results, and the world should know this. Roots has too many errors, great or small, and so do its sources, nostra culpa.

There is a grave flaw in the principles of the stemma diagrams: Branches for separate etyma of a single dialectgroup, usually Germanic (e.g., *af ‘off’ and *after- ‘after’) are twigged improperly off the same node as other, quite different dialect-groups (e.g., Latin ab and Greek apo). This is a gross genetic error in this form of representation.6

Now to the sermon. What is all this useful for, and why should we be deadly accurate? I say, because it can make a better world and, with good will, could clean up our high schools mightily. There is a natural curiosity about language, one’s own language. Let us exploit it. Etymology is precise and gets results—when done with an engineer’s or logician’s precision. They say we Americans can’t market automobiles and machinery; our products are slovenly, our controls lax. I shouldn’t be surprised when one considers how little of accurate knowledge (e.g., in geography or composition) our schools impart today and how low the demand on students’ skill really is. I say in all earnestness that historical linguistics and etymology, rightly practised, have a vital lesson to teach.

[Eric P. Hamp, University of Chicago]

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SIC! SIC! SIC!

“The [Texas 36th Division] Association is now looking for the former men that served this Division. Purpose Annual Reunion and Convention… —San Antonio Light, April 28, 1980, page 9-A. [Submitted by Dean Duncan, San Antonio, Texas, who reports, I was a member [sic], but I haven’t had the operation making me eligible to attend the reunion.]

SIC! SIC! SIC!

“The staple of Bowman’s business was picture cards, such as the one below of two ornately costumed girls that cost $3 per dozen.” [From a photo caption in the Chicago Tribune, January 20, 1981. Submitted by Leslie L. Lewis, Rockford, Illinois. Those were the good old days.]

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“Our investors are profiteering from… way above average results, and many of their investment problems were solved by us.”—From an advertisement of Explora Oil Corporation N.V., in The International Herald Tribune, Paris, 11 April 1980. [Submitted by Kurt Opitz, Hamburg, Federal Republic of Germany, who wonders how reputable such an organization can be.]

SIC! SIC! SIC!

“LOST & FOUND—Found vicinity of 24th—28th & South, male brindle Boxer, wearing choke chain with broken lease.” [From the Sunday Journal and Star, Lincoln, Nebraska, January 4, 1981. Submitted by Doris Cole, Lincoln. Landlord Problems?]

SIC! SIC! SIC!

“Even some agents of the I.R.S.’s criminal investigation division concede privately that the agency has badly skewered its priorities by virtually ignoring major tax cheaters in favor of making ‘easy’ cases against middle-class taxpayers.” [From “The I.R.S. Muscles the Middle Class,” by Ernest Volkman, in Family Weekly, April 19, 1981. Submitted by Dr. and Mrs. W.P. Scheel, Mount Berry, Georgia. It’s the middle class that feels badly skewered.]

SIC! SIC! SIC!

“Please Smoke in Grand Foyer.” [Sign at the Opera House entrance doors, Kennedy Center, Washington, D.C. Submitted by Eric Ostergaard, who observes, “… as a nonsmoking supporter of the opera,…in order to comply with their latest request, I must now participate in the smoking habit.”]

Deadline

Dale Roberts, Chattanooga, Tennessee

I had just returned from Nostalgia Night at the Bijou where I had covered the between-double-features Barton MacLane and Shirley Temple Look-Alike Contest. Thanks to a write-in vote I came in fifth and third, respectively. By the time I got back to the paper I was beat. I shucked my coat, plucked off the snap-brim with the press card stuck in the band, and sent the hat sailing like a fedora discus across the City Room toward the hat stand.

This newspaper had been my home since I started in the business. In those early days I was too young to be a cub reporter or even a copy boy. Spunk and enthusiasm won out, though, and I managed to talk my way into a job as an apprentice cuspidor. Now, after years of laboring with the newspaperman’s eight Ws (Who, What, Where, When, Why, Wine, Women, and Wsong), I was known throughout the city. My wire stories were legendary, especially my famous feature piece about copper wire. My byline—Ace Capades, star reporter (a monicker I picked up during my stint as astrology editor)—was a household name. I had printer’s ink in my blood, which meant that I would have a hell of a time if I ever needed a transfusion. But my career was in trouble. My job was on the line. The dread affliction that attacks so many wordsmiths had finally caught up with me. Unless I could kick it I would be all washed up.

I decided to drown my sorrows in sweat. Work, that was the answer. I pounced on the old Underwood with a vengeance. After a brief scuffle with Miss Underwood at the switchboard I hurried to my desk and sat down before my trusty helpmate, my ancient typewriter, my embattled Royal. I began to type. The words were flowing through the old digits pretty well until I noticed that I had neglected to put any paper into the machine. My newsman’s instincts told me that this could make for some problems in the composing room, so I began to riffle through the compost on my desk, hoping to find some copy paper.

As I searched for platen fodder I noticed a scrap of paper impaled on a quill on the back of the hedgehog which I keep on my desk for spiking inter-office communiques. It was a note from the boss.

Muttonhead:
Be at the Hotel Albergo by 5:00 to cover the funeral director’s convention. If there is even one of your lousy puns in your copy I’ll see to it that you are fired from this paper and excommunicated from the English language. This is your last chance.

Ed.

That was my boss, all right, the crusty old city desk pilot who had stayed on when the old Sun was bought by Reverend Moon and renamed the Daily Eclipse. I could see him across the City Room typing in that unique closed-fist-hunt-and-peck style of his as he chomped on the cigars stuck into each corner of his mouth.

So this was it, huh. The curse had finally caught up with me. Just one more pun and I was through. Fall off the word wagon once more and that’s all he wrote. I began to break out in a cold sweat.

It had all started so innocently. I had never been one of those people who pun indiscriminately in conversation. It had seemed such a harmless prank that day I slipped my first pun past the copy desk. That pun led to another, and another, and yet another, and the first thing I knew I was sweating to put at least one pun into the paper every day. I lived for the days when I could sneak one into a headline or kicker. I was hooked, but good. And it had all started so innocently, just like the career of Johnny “Two-Nose” Scarlatti, the Mafia don who controls the penny candy scam and empty milk bottle racket in Jersey: he got his start in crime as a kid of six when he bumped off Al “Horsebreath” Stallone by forcing him to drink a case of industrial strength Listerine. You see how these things begin. The threats and abuse of my readers and my fellow scriveners—not to mention the boss—hadn’t swayed me from my course. But now my job was on the line. Now it was go straight or get canned.

By the time I got to the hotel my photographer, Frank Stopp, was already there. He was standing in an alcove with his mouth open, a thin spiral of smoke curling up from the charred tip of his tongue.

“I told you, Stopp, you’re supposed to lick the base of the bulb, not stick your tongue into the flashbulb socket.”

“Oh, yeah. I’ll get the hang of it, Mr. Capades.”

“Let’s get in here and get the story, kid. We’ve got a deadline to meet.”

I walked to the nearest bellboy and asked him where I could find the mortician’s convention.

“It’s over there in the Palindrome Room, sir, but it won’t be starting until the Philosopher’s Club luncheon is finished.”

“Putting Descartes before the hearse, eh?”

I bit my tongue. Already it was starting. The philosophers adjourned and as they left the meeting room two of them, a visibly lovestruck couple, strolled hand in hand toward the registration desk. Stopp elbowed me in the ribs and winked lewdly.

“Don’t be crude,” I said, “I’m sure the relationship is Platonic.”

I wanted to rip my tongue out. Was there no stopping me?

As the morticians began to move into the hall my palms began to sweat. I took a seat in the rear of the room and took out my notebook. I could feel the first hot flush of fear; another attack on the way, I knew it. I felt the beginnings of a tic in that muscle that runs from beneath the left eye to just behind the right kneecap.

The meeting was gaveled to order. As the membership considered the first item on the agenda, a motion to change the name of the profession to “necro-engineers,” I dutifully recorded the events in a straightforward fashion, determined to maintain the pristine purity of punless prose (the boss hadn’t said anything about alliteration). Then one of the members began to speak of an important funeral he had handled, a military affair at which the guest of honor had been an Army officer who died just before he was to have been promoted to lieutenant colonel. As he spoke I felt an icy wind on the back of my neck. I looked down at my notebook in horror. I had written:

“Possible sidebar—Mortician recounts Major undertaking.”

That did it. As the business changed from old to new I began to scribble madly, out of control, a muffled high-pitched giggle accompanying the torrent of words that gushed onto my pad.

“Move to Houston, for only two things are certain: death and Texas…. Styx and stones may break my bones…. If half of the famous dictionary team died would they then be ‘Defunct and Wagnall’s’?… Obituary writers work a dead beat…. Inter at your own risk…. At Twin Cities funerals do they have St. Paulbearers?… In nature, vultures are carrion on the role of undertakers…. A chauffeur’s epitaph: When the Rolls is called up yonder I’ll be there.”

I filed the story.

A few hours later I was out on the street, broke and without a job. I felt a strange sense of relief, though, as if a burden had been lifted from me. I mean a burden other than the oak desk which the boss had placed on my chest after he read my last story. I knew in my heart that my demon had at long last been exorcised. My life was beginning anew. Of course, word would get around and I could never work on an English language newspaper again. But there were lots of other jobs. At least now I was free. Even as I walked the streets of Skid Row I was happy in the knowledge that I was my own man once again, no longer a slave to demon pun.

As I walked past the entrance to an alley a man in rags staggered out, looked me up and down, and shoved his paper-bag-wrapped bottle into my face.

“Buddy, you look like you could use a little drink,” he said, “Wanna buy a shot of this wine?”

I sniffed at the neck of the bottle.

“Aha!” I cried, “Second hand rosé!”

Then he hit me and that’s the last thing I remember.

EPISTOLA {Carmine Verna}

The comments following W.M. Woods’s letter may not have been “very much to the point of pleonasms,” but they must have excited every language-loving reader of VERBATIM. I, for one, would rather enjoy more diffusion of information about the nuances of the English syntax. I would like, therefore, to relate a ‘discovery’ about this syntax.

Someone had chid a friend of mine for writing, “The tapes we maintain are…,” as, so the argument went, correct written English does not allow the omission of the relative pronoun in a relative clause. When asked to judge the argument, I recalled that when I learned English (my native language is Italian), I encountered a rule whereby, in a relative clause, the relative pronoun could be omitted as long as it was not the subject. Therefore, I corroborated the correctness of my friend’s writing.

Later, however, spurred by uncertainty, I consulted Fowler, and there I read that, according to Onions, the pronoun’s “omission is often felt to be undignified” in the written language. “But this feeling,” Fowler added, “is not so strong now as it may have been.”

This simple laissez-faire attitude left me unsatisfied; so I decided to consult my ultimate source: Curme. And there I was pleasantly surprised to find that the asyndetic relative clause (the name of the clause in question) is not only an “old primitive construction” (not simply a clause with an omitted pronoun), but that it is a “good natural English expression… performing its function with elegant simplicity” (Curme’s Syntax, p. 234).

To those of us who like to follow a “more careful, deliberate adherence to…syntax,” the use of the asyndetic relative clause affords a degree of satisfaction.

[Carmine Verna, Issaquah, Washington]

EPISTOLA {Lester Saferstein, M.D.}

The article by Bryan Garner on “Meretricious Words” is one of the most interesting you have ever published.

I don’t know how many other meretricious appellations are missing from his well-researched list, but at least one designation, round-heels, came to my attention when, in a recent Time magazine article, appeared, “the round-heeled bar girl.”

A definition for round-heel can be found in the Supplement of Partridge’s Dictionary of Slang and Unconventional English, 5th Edition, 1961: “sexually compliant; a girl with heels so round that the least push will put her on her back.”

Wentworth and Flexner’s Dictionary of American Slang, 2nd Edition, 1965, indicates that round-heel was first used in 1920 to mean a ‘prize fighter who either developed round heels from spending so much time on his back, or was an easy pushover because he had round-heeled shoes.’ According to these authorities, the definition ‘a woman of easy virtue’ appeared in 1943. They note that Raymond Chandler’s Lady in Lake, 1951, contains the following, “I’ve just sort of been resenting your idea I would be an easy conquest. I’m not a round-heel like Livy.”

[Lester Saferstein, M.D., Prairie Village, Kansas]

EPISTOLA {John R. Boyce}

Mr. Jay Ames of Toronto did not explain why he had been nicknamed “Stuka” by his German captors during World War II, because his POW dogtag number was 88. [VIII, 3]

The reason might interest your readers. The Junkers Ju 88 was one of the most effective divebombers used by the Luftwaffe during the late unpleasantness in Europe. As everyone—or nearly everyone—of my generation knows, German divebombers were called Stukas, a contraction of the word describing their modus operandi: Sturzkampfflugzeug. An approximate translation would be ‘Dive- (as in the stoop of a hawk) fight aircraft.’ In like manner, German aircraft used the first two letters of the manufacturer’s or designer’s name in their identification. Other examples would be Me, as in Messerschmidt; He, as in Heinkel; and Do, as in Dornier.

While the Stuka the Western Allies best knew was the Ju 87, to the Germans, the much more effective Ju 88 was probably even better-known, since the 87 didn’t remain in active service much past 1941, except on the Eastern front. The Ju 87 was never very successful in a theater of war where there was any significant aerial opposition, being very slow, short-ranged, and inadequately armed. It was used very effectively on the Russian front, where it usually operated from unprepared surfaces very close to the front lines. Typical missions lasted less than thirty minutes. It was a single-engined aircraft and had limited carrying capacity.

The 88, on the other hand, was a very fast, well-armed, and versatile aircraft. It served also as a medium-altitude level bomber and radar-equipped night fighter, being particularly effective against the night bombing missions of the Royal Air Force. It was a formidable and much respected opponent.

[John R. Boyce, Bethany, Connecticut]

SIC! SIC! SIC!

“The [Northwest Power Planning] Council is required under the 1980 Northwest Power Act to develop a program to ‘protect, mitigate, and enhance’ the salmon and steelhead runs along the Columbia and its tributaries along with developing a 20-year master energy plan. The fish program is aimed at making up for some of the loses [sic] caused by the dams along the river.” [From Northwest Energy News, March (?) 1982, p. 3. Submitted by Sandra Kirschenbaum, San Francisco. We are at a lose to know how one protects, mitigates, and enhances all at once.]

SIC! SIC! SIC!

“ ‘We are a little angry,’ Moss said. ‘We were never able to have a discussion, but that’s all water over the damn. I think it’s important that there not be a lot of negativity between Fernando and the Dodgers.’ ‘Has this thing left scars?’ ” [From the Los Angeles Times, 24 March 1982. Submitted by Jean MacAllister, Beverly Hills, California. “Scars” may not be the right word, but we’re damn sure that “damn” isn’t!]

SIC! SIC! SIC!

“Place Your Order and Get Out of the Way.” [Sign in Mexican restaurant in Chicago.]

SIC! SIC! SIC!

“All Peoples Welcome for the Gifts.” [Sign in Turkish shop next door. Both submitted by Jerry B. Jenkins, Deerfield, Illinois.]

EPISTOLA {John Brunner}

This is a battle I shall never win… “Big Bertha” was not a “huge railway gun used by the Germans in WWI,” as Eric Hamp makes out [VIII, 4, 4].

Big Bertha was a siege howitzer named after Frau Krupp— who apparently had an ample waistline—because of its enormous calibre: about 18 inches, as far as I can establish. It was short and squat and delivered shells with a relatively low muzzle-velocity over a short range. I think Americans might call this type of gun a siege mortar.

The rail-mounted guns, on the other hand, were generally converted naval guns, with extremely long barrels. Specifically, the guns that shelled Paris in 1917 (often also erroneously referred to as “Big Bertha”) were tubed-down naval guns of the type nicknamed “Long Max.” I wonder why it is that one never sees that name mentioned in a list like the present one.

See for details Henry W. Miller: The Paris Gun (George G. Harrap & Co. Ltd., London, 1930). I note he used the term mortar, rather than howitzer, but the implication is certainly the same.

[John Brunner, South Petherton, Somerset]

EPISTOLA {Richard Stooker}

In “Meretricious Words, or the Quean’s English” [VIII, 3] Bryan Garner implies that there’s no connection between punk used in place of prostitute and punk-rocker. This is not necessarily true, although they certainly aren’t synonyms.

Around the turn of the century, punk was American prison slang for ‘young man used by an older and stronger convict as an exclusive sexual outlet.’ A really tough man could have a “harem” of punks. (See, unless I misremember, Mezz Mezzrow’s Really the Blues.)

Punk left the prisons but continued to be a term of approbation applied to young men and usually had subtle homosexual overtones. In the fifties, sneering “hoods” with duck-ass haircuts, who modeled themselves on James Dean and Marlon Brando, were called punks.

When the Beatles invaded America in 1964, they inspired countless youngsters—who had listened to (but had never been moved to imitate) Frankie Avalon and others of his clan then dominating radio—to start playing guitars and forming bands themselves. Often these were restless and dissatisfied working-class men expressing their anger. Some of them were beginning to grow their hair long by the standards of that time. All of them knew that adult—and some segments of youth—society considered them punks. The Standells’ “Why Pick on Me?” was one of their biggest hits.

They played school dances and bars; some of them attained a degree of skill and made recordings. Around 1966-1967, the dedicated musicians among them evolved into playing acid rock. Most of them have disbanded.

In the early 1970s, Greg Shaw began referring to the music of this period in his rock fanzine, Who Put the Bomp, as punk rock. Several years later, when a new generation rebelled against lifeless commercial music and found yet new ways to shock their elders, someone in the media lifted punk from 1966 and applied it to the Ramones in the U.S. and to the Sex Pistols in England. I don’t know whether or not Greg Shaw accepts this new usage for his label, Bomp Records.

It’s logical to assume that punk as a sexually dominated man in prison came from punk ‘prostitute,’ a woman sexually dominated (usually by a pimp) and subject to her clients' demands. If this is the case, punk-rocker also descended from the latter usage.

[Richard Stooker, St. Louis, Missouri]

EPISTOLA {Frank E. Day}

I enjoyed Bryan Garner’s article, “Meretricious Words,” and hasten to add a footnote or two. Mr. Garner overlooked two appellations which instantly come to mind:

Bimbo, the exact derivation of which I do not know, but which I can remember having heard from the 1930s until the present, from time to time.

Blister, I know from memory and not from research. I believe this was of English usage, probably from the late 19th to the early 20th century.

I was surprised to read his explanation of hooker. It’s possible that, someplace in the United States during the 20th century, hooker had a connotation other than the one he assigns to it, but I have never run into that in my lifetime. We are told that when the Army of the Potomac was camped at Falmouth, following the removal of Burnside as its commander after the fiasco at Fredericksburg, it was placed under the command of General Hooker, who issued passes to “ladies of the evening,” passed through the lines by sentries to his quarters. The sentries referred to them as “Hooker’s women” and this later devolved into hookers. This, I believe, is the true story of the origin.

I am eager to see the other letters you may receive concerning this article; I am almost certain that no one could compile a complete list with absolute accuracy, for it is probably a subject which all mankind, from the beginning of time, have at one time or another addressed.

[Frank E. Day, Portland, Oregon]

EPISTOLA {G.S. Harman}

How curious that Bryan Garner should have listed the obscure Cantonese mui-tsai while omitting the well-known Suzie Wong.

[G.S. Harman, Hollywood, California]

Paring Pairs No. 8

The clues are given in items lettered (a-z); the answers are given in the numbered items, which must be matched with each other to solve the clues. In some cases, a numbered item may be used more than once, and some clues may require more than two answer items; but after all of the matchings have been completed, one numbered item will remain unmatched, and that is the correct answer. Our answer is the only correct one. The solution will be published in the next issue of VERBATIM.

(a). No specific truck inspired Scottish song.
(b). Was spring drink kept in composer’s catafalque?
(c). WW II (U.S.) agency dimly sited.
(d). Where secrecy reigns.
(e). Bilabial flowers.
(f). Male mythological bird.
(g). Uneven member of society or on third wheel?
(h). Celtic power from the wind.
(i). Giant steps evoke emotionless look.
(j). A suitcase or influenza in California?
(k). From the horse’s mouth? Negative!
(l). Carthusian potato cooker.
(m). Top-ranking a.d.c.
(n). Change the acolyte—he gets a lift from church.
(o). Scapegoat ruins the picnic.
(p). Musicians form a circle at forbidden nuptials.
(q). Damage from entering the wrong accommodation in the Pullman.
(r). Kiss your relatives, or give them the boot?
(s). Rules made by the R.C. bigshots.
(t). Major L’Enfant had it.
(u). Shoemaker takes final opportunity to intone incantations over his models.
(v). Tick off the playwright.
(w). Saudi Arabian elegance (U.S.).
(x). Exploit the soda fountain beverage (Br.).
(y). What the Trojans should have done before the Greeks entered.
(z). Tudor car used by cowards.

1. Aide. 2. Altar. 3. Ant. 4. Any. 5. Arab. 6. Bach. 7. Banned. 8. Berth. 9.\ Bier. 10. Bull. 11. Buoy. 12. Buss. 13. Cannon. 14. Capital. 15. Chants. 16. Check 17. Chic. 18. Chicken. 19. City. 20. Close. 21. Coop. 22. Felloe. 23. Finch. 24. First. 25. Force. 26. French. 27. Friar. 28. Gael. 29. Grippe. 30. Hoarse. 31. Idea. 32. Kin. 33. L.A. 34. Last. 35. Law. 36. Lips. 37. Lorry. 38. Mark. 39. Milk. 40. Nay. 41. Odd. 42. Off. 43. O.P.A. 44. Queue. 45. Sally. 46. Say. 47. Sheik. 48. Stair. 49. Stony. 50. Tea. 51. Thrown. 52. Two. 53. Wedding.

Winners will receive one of the following: the Collector’s Edition of Thomas H. Middleton’s Light Refractions (retail value, $30 or £15); English English by Norman W. Schur (retail value, $24.95 or £12.50); three copies of Wordsmanship, by Claurène duGran (retail value, $29.85 or £14.85); twelve copies of Definitive Quotations, by John Ferguson (retail value, $35.40 or 18); Word for Word, by Edward C. Pinkerton (retail value, $39.95 or £20); four one-year subscriptions to VERBATIM (retail value, $30 or £15); any two of the following: Verbatim Volumes I & II, Verbatim Volumes III & IV, Verbatim Volumes V & VI, Verbatim Index: Volumes I-VI; or a credit of $25 or £12.50 towards the purchase of any other title or titles offered in the VERBATIM Book Club Catalogue.

Those living in the U.K., Europe, the Middle East, or North Africa should send their answers to VERBATIM, 2 Market Square, Aylesbury, Bucks, England. All others should send them to VERBATIM, Essex, CT 06426, U.S.A.

You need send only the correct solution, not the answers to all of the clues. Please indicate your choice of prize along with your answer.

N.B.: To allow for the sloth of the various postal systems and to make it fairer for those residing far from either office, we shall arrange to collect correct answers for 21 days, starting with the day the first correct answer is received, and to draw one winner from each office.

Paring Pairs No. 7

(a). Difficult upwind sailing with this in your stomach. (26, 43) Hard Tack.
(b). Arrest at English boys' school? (20, 12) Eton Collar.
(c). Sounds, littorally, like a palm. (5, 48) Beech Tree.
(d). Heavy traffic in hybridized flora? (32, 16) Plant Crossing.
(e). Golgotha irritated him. (15, 31) Cross Patch.
(f). Jivaro trick cyclist. (27, 38) Head Shrinker.
(g). Dull spouse yields nonconclusion. (41, 29) Stale Mate.
(h). Shipshape. (53, 25) Wine Glass.
(i). Barely destroyed paper, then went on the cheep. (35, 33) Ruined Quires.
(j). Staff reduction: hair today, gone tomorrow. (12, 17) Crew Cut.
(k). Filthy fellow, now immaculate, wins it all. (11, 42) Clean Sweep.
(l). Felne in speakeasy. (6, 44) Blind Tiger (no eye).
(m). Lower than low to string us along. (4, 50) Base Vile.
(n). That one card is worth 2000 or 2200! (39, 46) Single Ton.
(o). Lawn game, played with grenades instead of balls, yields food for thought. (10, 14) Chicken Croquet.
(p). Such a person does not have green hair! (9, 47) Carrot Top.
(q). Priestly individual. (1, 19) Altar Ego.
(r). Source for Thatcher. (34, 23) Roof Garden.
(s). Oh my! No honor to be observed in Jugoslavian breeches! (40, 49) Split Trousers.
(t). Raise one for Cockney intelligentsia. (21, 8) Eye Brow.
(u). Profitless test for bootlegger. (18, 36) Dry Run.
(v). Nonagenarian homosexuals. (24, 30) Gay Nineties.
(w). Sounds as if Cronos and his cronies dispatched prostitutes. (37, 52) Sent Whores.
(x). All that is left of fashion after paying the mohel. (7, 45) Bris Toll.
(y). Bungay’s colleague backward in using saucepan. (3, 22) Bacon Frier.
(z). Catch a crab in a one-horse town? (2, 51) Back Water.

The correct answer is (28) Limb. The solutions are given below. The winners of No. 7 were Edward T. McHugh, Fitchburg, Massachusetts, and Thomas Lillis, Kilkee, County Clare, Ireland, Catching up: the winner in Europe of No. 4 was Anne Cutler, Brighton, Sussex; of No. 5, G. Williams, Sinfin, Derby; of No. 6, Jared Weinberger, Bologna, Italy.

Neither “God” Nor “Aleichem” Is a Last Name

Zellig Bach, Lakehurst, New Jersey

A pastor of a congregation of the Church of God denomination, in Long Island, New York, recently received a letter soliciting funds for the Republican National Committee. The letter was signed by President Reagan. The salutation read: “Dear Mr. God.”

While it may be true—and possibly foreboding—that the Republican Party badly needs God’s help, one wonders whether this is really the best approach. There are older and possibly better ways of conveying supplications to God, and in these modern times a silent prayer by way of wireless telegraphy might have been more appropriate and up-to-date than a form-letter printed by photo-offset. Besides, to address God as “Mr.” is bound to antagonize many women, particularly those of the women’s liberation movement.

The reason for this curious salutation is that a computer does not know the meaning of words, and when it is programmed to use the last word of the first line of an address as the last name, it “deduces” that God in Church of God is the last name of the addressee. In this respect, you cannot blame the computer.

But when a theater critic (Stefan Kanfer) of a national magazine (Time, February 22, 1982, p. 70) uses Aleichem as a last name, erroneously derived from the pseudonym Sholem Aleichem, that is a totally different story. In his short review of the Broadway play The World of Sholem Aleichem, he used Aleichem as a last name twice, and the caption under the main actor’s picture read: “Gilford as a Russian [sic] peasant in Aleichem.”

Sholem Aleichem is a compound expression of greeting, usually accompanied by a handshake, and literally means ‘Peace be unto you.’ It was a common greeting among Jews in Lithuania, Poland, and Russia before World War II. Sholem—in this case—is not a first name, nor is Aleichem a last name. (If a writer chose to publish his works under the byline “Peace Be Unto You,” no one would address him as “Mr. Unto You.”) To truncate the name Sholem Aleichem to Aleichem, as if it were his last name, betrays a deep misunderstanding, if not ignorance, of the meaning and nuances of Sholem Aleichem’s pen name.

Sholem Aleichem was a famous writer in Yiddish who depicted Jewish life in the shtetl with great humanity and humor. Fiddler on the Roof, which won world-wide acclaim from New York to Tokyo, was based on his works. It was often said that he was the Jewish Mark Twain. His real name was Sholem Rabinovitz, and the choice of Sholem Aleichem as his pen name carried a singular emotional meaning—a genuine fellowship with people, regardless of his fame and stature as a writer, an ever-present warm-hearted reaching-out, and a symbolic gesture of a strong and friendly handshake.

The Jewish masses all over the world responded with a joyous sense of Aleichem Sholem ‘Peace be unto you, too,’ the traditional answer to the greeting Sholem Aleichem, and embraced him with unbounded love and respect. When he died in New York in 1916, at the age of 57, he was mourned by all as if he were a beloved member of one’s family.

While God very likely smiles benevolently at the fact that the Republican Party elected to send its plea for help through the mails, Sholem Aleichem must be laughing himself “to death” in his grave in the Workmen’s Circle section of Mt. Carmel cemetery in Brooklyn.

(Ed. Note: It is interesting that the pseudonym of the “Gentile Sholem Aleichem” is almost invariably treated as an ordinary name when alphabetized or shortened with the title “Mr. The AHD gives “Aleichem, Sholem. See Sholem Aleichem.” But: “Twain (twāin), Mark. Pen name of Samuel Langhorne Clemens (see). [From the expression mark twain, ‘by the mark two fathoms,’ used by Mississippi riverboat pilots in sounding shallows for minimum navigable depths.]” Apparently “Mr. Two Fathoms” is deemed appropriate.

CORRIGENDA

“When Paragons Nod” by Lillian Mermin Feinsilver [VIII, 4]:

Page 3, column 2, paragraph 3, line 7: comma after parenthesis; same paragraph, line 16: delete asterisk.

Page 4, paragraph 2, line 2: for “Associated Professor” read “Associate Professor.”

“Paring Pairs No. 6” [VIII, 3]:

Page 19: (ff) Hopalong Cassidy was William Boyd and not, as given in (28, 27), William (S.) Hart.

The 3W (= Wicked Witch of the West) has been at it again. In Philip Howard’s review of The Dictionary of Anagrams [VIII, 4], for “Je n’en vois pas le nécessité de ce livre,” please read, “Je ne vois pas la nécessité de ce livre.”

Crossword Puzzle

Across

1. House blasted away by a blowgun. (8)
5. Are we the ones to copy for the rank and file? (6)
9. Crucial trial of subject by arbitrary dictates… (4, 4)
10. …or, as much pressure as the wig can apply. (6)
12. Point near Pike’s Peak. (9)
13. Ill at ease among nudes out of habit. (6, 2)
15. Quite manifest about a tired move showing poor economic planning. (9, 6)
17. Pushovers, so inept as no peer ought to be. (6, 9)
20. Destroyer of vain dreams to force one out of bed. (8)
22. Snake dance? (5)
24. Tartlet. (6)
25. Double-checker with something to say? (8)
26. Salary split to hold hot car? What a farce! (6)
27. Pretty as an asterisk. (4, 4)

Down

1. “Fireman” who fed old flames to Dracula? (4, 6)
2. When in session uproar is so distracting. (9)
3. How the millionaire felt when all his paintings were stolen. (7)
4. Dark deeds, or forgotten books. (7, 5)
6. Subject the UN brought up about food. (3, 4)
7. Like that little island with all the Scotch… (5)
8. … ever hear mention of the place? (4)
11. Leave the Orient unspoiled… (5, 7)
14. …especially if interest proves costly. (2, 4, 4)
16. Drink for a rummy party? (3, 6)
18. Crowed over one’s tea with deluxe backing. (7)
19. Clouded train of thought for the unjust. (3, 4)
21. When the old general returned he became a fisherman. (5)
23. Make waves? (4)

Crossword Puzzle Answers

Across

1. Compact.
5. F-urn-ISH.
9. INTERESTED PARTY.
10. RE (t) RUNS.
11. Bedmate.
12. I do.
13. Last man.
14. Omar.
16. Dot.
19. ECRU.
20. EMBAR-go.
23. Lid.
24. Feedbag.
26. Re-pair.
28. Order in the court.
29. Tweedle.
30. E-ssa-YED.

Down

1. Coin roll.
2. M-att-R-es-S.
3. ACRONYMI-c.
4. Task.
5. Freebooted.
6. Rapid.
7. INROAD.
8. HOYDEN.
12. Indulgence.
15. AM-bien-ces.
17. Treasury.
18. Top-rated.
21. Effort.
22. Peddle.
25. Bored.
27. Shoe.

Internet Archive copy of this issue

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1. In the footnotes to his review, Professor Hamp has provided a detailed analysis of many of the matters with which he takes issue in the Shipley and Davies books. Because of its complexity, we have not published it in VERBATIM, but anyone wishing to have a (typeset) copy need only send a request and enclose a self-addressed, stamped envelope. ↩︎