The 23rd Psalm and Me, or Has the Nightingale Become a Crow?
The Lord is my shepherd; I shall not want
He maketh me to lie down in green pastures: He
leadeth me beside the still waters.
He restoreth my soul: He leadeth me in the paths
of righteousness for His name's sake.
Yea though I walk through the valley of the
shadow of death, I will fear no evil: for Thou
art with me: Thy rod and Thy staff they
comfort me.
Thou preparest a table before me in the presence
of mine enemies: Thou anointest my head with
oil; my cup runneth over.
Surely goodness and mercy shall follow me all the
days of my life: And I will dwell in the house of
the Lord forever.
-- King James Version , 1611.
The Lord is my shepherd; I shall want nothing.
He makes me lie down in green pastures, and leads
me beside the waters of peace;
He renews life within me, and for His name's sake
guides me in the right path.
Even though I walk through a valley dark as
death, I fear no evil, for Thou art with me, Thy
staff and Thy crook are my comfort.
Thou spreadest a table for me in the sight of my
enemies. Thou hast richly bathed my head with
oil, and my cup runs over.
Goodness and love unfailing, these will follow me
all the days of my life: and I shall dwell in the
house of the Lord my whole life long.
-- New English Bible , Drover, G., (Sir) W.D.
Hardy, Oxford University Press, 1970.
Stupid me! I always thought that there was only
one translation of the 23rd Psalm until the other
day when I happened on the New English Bible (1970)
and saw that “my head was richly bathed in oil,”
“Bathed in oil”? Odd! I remembered “anointed.” Is
anointing `bathing'? I couldn't find such a definition in
the thesaurus. I looked up the Hebrew word, dishanta .
Found no `bathed.' It bothered me, this image of a
man having his head bathed in oil in a very French
barber shop (where men have their heads massaged in
oil to prevent baldness) instead of the image of the
making of a king, like David, who was the anointed of
God. Why did this translator feel he had to change
“anoint his head” to “bathe his head”? Perhaps the
translation comes from some very important commentator
but it hardly creates a “sublime” image and
surely does not achieve the quiver mentioned in John
Brough's translation of the Sanskrit poem:
Of what use is the poet's poem,
Of what use is the bowman's dart,
Unless another's senses reel
When it sticks quivering in the heart?
Nor does the psalm sing as Henry Ward Beecher
put it in “Life Thoughts,” “like a nightingale...of
small homely feather singing shyly out of obscurity”
filling...“the air of the whole world with melodious
joy greater than the heart can conceive.”
What were the translators of the New English
Bible thinking? The editors tell us, “The translators
have endeavored to avoid anachronisms and expressions
reminiscent of foreign idioms. They have tried to
keep their language as close to current usage as possible
while avoiding words and phrases likely soon to
become obsolete”; a most ambitious and delicate program
to attempt for the entire Bible. And how does it
apply to the 23rd Psalm? Isn't the metaphoric shepherd
an anachronism to a television generation? And
what of “anoint his head”? No one does that anymore--not
even in England where there are still occasional
coronation ceremonies. Are “waters of peace,”
“valley dark as death,” “thy staff and thy crook,” current
usage? I miss the translator's search for the quiver
and the nightingale!
That started my own search. What had other
translators done with this “sunny little psalm” that
“has dried many tears and supplied the mould into
which many hearts have poured their peaceful faith”?
(Maclaren in A. Cohen, The Psalms , 1945)
In From One Language to Another (1986) Jan de
Waard and Eugene A. Nida decry the “clinging to old-fashioned
language even though the meaning has radically
changed” and as a deplorable example points to
the retaining of “The Lord is my shepherd, I shall not
want” even though want no longer means to `lack' but
rather `desire' and continues with, “Thus many persons
understand this traditional rendering to mean, `The
Lord is my shepherd whom I shall not want.' Can you
believe it? Can it be that these experts are wanting in
judgment?
Perhaps it is because I am just one of the “ordinary
readers with no special knowledge of the ancient East”
[New English Bible, 1970] that I want more than anything
else “a quiver in my heart” when I read the 23rd
Psalm and confess to being rather shocked to find that
“the Lord” is no longer my shepherd. Writes the translator
[ The Psalms , 1976]: “I abolished `the Lord' but
felt unwilling to call God, Yahweh. I know no one who
actually prays in English to that name.” I know many
who pray to the name “my Lord” and some who are
“willing” to pray to their Father, to the Almighty, to
the Eternal One. God's ineffable name as told to Moses
is unutterable [Exodus 6:3] so why make an issue of it?
Why not choose the one that is closest to the nightingale?
The King James Version chose “The Lord is my
shepherd” and it sings! That liquid “L” sounded with
that almost awe-full “-ord”, “LLL-AWE-RD” followed
by the soft “sh” in shepherd and its “rd” alliteration
with the “rd” in lord entwine this twosome in my soul.
Isn't that what “the Lord is my shepherd” is all
about--entwining my soul?
Is it a better translation for me because each word
is perhaps a trifle closer to the original Hebrew or to
the original Ugaritic stem? When I read the psalm
what I want is that quiver in my heart. Do I get it
when “I shall not want,” four simple one-syllable
words, swaying in iambic rhythm, with the shall sliding
irresistibly into the breathy w of want calling up
the memory of God's “breathing the breath of life”
[Genesis 2:7] and man becoming a “living soul” is “improved”
to “I shall lack nothing” with its jagged k
sound, its materialistic, vacuous nothing , or changed
to “I have everything I need” to which “Well, whad-daya
know!” can be the only response?
Recognizing that the King James translation is
“The noblest monument to English prose” [Oxford Annotated
Bible, 1962], many translators, in prefaces to
their “new,” “modern” versions have written apologetics
explaining why they felt they had to retranslate and
how they proposed doing it.
In The Psalms , the translator writes in his preface,
“I have tried not to substitute without necessity
new English phrases for what was old and well-loved,
but unity and modernization of language as well as the
true meaning of Hebrew have often made changes inevitable.”
Is “He will bring me into meadows of young
grass” really any closer to the Hebrew than “He maketh
me to lie down in green pastures”? Is not “He maketh
me to lie down in green pastures” old and well-loved?
Does the modern reader really lack the great “erudition”
necessary to be able to understand a few old
English words and forms--What about “My country
'tis of thee”? -- and is it indeed true that, in the rather
awkward phraseology of the translator, “the language
is not altered with doing without thou and thee”? Not
altered? For my quiver I prefer doing with thou and
thee! The loving yet formal thee and thou and the
closing -eth syllable create a melody, a rhythm, a
smooth cadence truly reflecting our beloved shepherd's
care, and ignite a feeling of intimacy with him, a
mutuality of feeling that the -s ending completely
wants--Excuse me! --lacks.
Just compare the overtones and associations of the
psalm with the -th and the -s endings:
-s ENDING OVERTONE -th ENDING OVERTONE
He makes `forces me' He maketh `persuades
me me me'
He leads `holds a He leadeth `I follow
me, tight rein' me willingly'
My cup runs `a coffee cup My cup run- `fulfillment:
over in a dirty neth over a goblet,
saucer' maybe a
grail'
To my ears, restores my soul with its - z sound in
the middle of the alliteration is irritating and divisive,
while the -th in restoreth my soul smoothly slides
along, bringing the alliterative - s 's together, etherealizing
the restoring and uniting it with my soul. Besides
the acoustically melodious vibrations of restoreth my
soul , its imagery holds that transcendental ingredient,
the soul, while refresh my being [1966], revive my
drooping spirit [1969], gives me new strength [1970],
renews life within me [1970], or renews my life [1979]
are all soulless images arousing only mundane connotations.
“Keeping abreast of the times and translating into
the language we use today are two slogans wisely
adopted.” [ Old Testament of the Jerusalem Bible ,
1966]. What is so “wise” about it? The worshipers of
the Golden Calf were keeping abreast of the times,
and the language we use today is a Tower of Babel
from which elegance and sublimity seem to be deliberately
omitted. This translator has replaced “He leadeth
me beside the still waters” by “To the waters of repose
he leads me.” What are “waters of repose”? Are they
abreast of the times? or are they the “language of
today”? Since the translator may not “substitute his
own modern images for the old ones” how can the
shepherd metaphor retain its old-fashioned pastoral
simplicity when its sense and the reader's senses are
jarred out of the authentic Bible-time setting and are
forced into a frame of the “language we use today”?
Seen any shepherds on Broadway lately or even mentioned
in The New York Times?
Are not visual images-made-modern pedestrian,
colorless substitutions? “Though I pass through a
gloomy valley, I fear no harm” is like “Though I pass
through Wichita on a rainy day on the way to California,
I won't have an accident in my automobile”; “Yea,
though I walk through the valley of the shadow of
death, I will fear no evil” is no casual passing by but
step-by-step pacing through life with death constantly
threatening and the devil's evil lure contemned, reminding
us of Adam and Eve who, tempted by the
devil, were enticed and ate from the tree of Good and
Evil (not harm!) [Genesis 2:9].
Most of our modern translators seem to be allergic
to or very much afraid of death or else have little real
faith in the shepherd's taking care of them as they walk
through life to ultimate death. In the following outline
of thirteen psalms translated since 1937, the preoccupation
with darkness and the elimination of any
reference to death is conspicuous. The Hebrew word
circumvented and about which there is some commentary
discussion is zalmaveth, zal meaning `shadow'
and maveth meaning `death,' the combination translated
in the King James Version as “the shadow of
death,” a quivering image.
DATE REFERENCE TO dark REFERENCE TO death
1937 the darkest valley eliminated
1964 valley of dense darkness eliminated
1966 a gloomy valley eliminated
1966 in total darkness eliminated
1969 a valley of deepest darkness eliminated
1969 Nothing lurking in the dark ravine eliminated
1969 the valley of darkness eliminated
1970 a valley dark as death
1970 dark valley eliminated
1971 valley of deep darkness eliminated
1976 valley of the darkness of death
1976 a valley overshadowed by death
1977 the valley of death
1982 the valley of deepest darkness eliminated
Is it at all possible “to balance the lofty beauty of
the heavily nuanced text with an easily understood
English”? [ Siddur Kol Yaakov , 1984] Is “I shall not
lack” any easier than “I shall not want”? “tranquil
waters” easier than “still waters”? a “valley overshadowed
by death” simpler than the “valley of the shadow
of death”? “tormentors” easier than “enemies,” and
“long days” easier than “forever”? Just what is easily
understood English?
Some translators have set themselves an almost
transcendental goal -- to answer the question, “What
thought did the person who first recorded these words
really intend to express?” [ Jewish Publication Society ,
1979] That is a thought to conjure with. What did
David (or was it someone else?) intend when he wrote
or sang the 23rd Psalm? How can we ever know exactly
what he intended? And does it really matter? Whatever
the original intention, however literally exact the
translation, it misses, unless it sticks quivering in the
heart.
“Major Ronald Ferguson, father of the Duchess of York,
has told the staff at his polo club that his daughter would not
enter a private London hospital where she will give birth
until Thursday.” [From the Detroit Free Press , . Submitted by ]
“A woman gave birth to two of her triplets a month after
delivering the third, a rare occurrence, physicians said
Thursday.” [From The Philadelphia Inquirer ,
Submitted by ]
The Ineffable F -- r-letter Word
In an essay published recently in a history journal,
the editor substituted “foul ups” for the correct
term I had used in referring to certain incidents witnessed
during army days. For quoting a Vietnam-era
line of graffiti, “Fighting for peace is like fxxxing (my
cryptic spelling throughout) for chastity,” the witty
columnist Molly Ivins was blasted in a long letter to
the editor of The Progressive . In contrast, we have the
story about the ten-year-old who, caving in to the
nagging of his ever-suspicious grandmother, admits
that his grandfather did indeed let slip a “dirty” word
( shmuck ) on their fishing trip, but won't quote it:
“What I can tell you is that it rhymes with fxxx.” And
there is the story of the touching letter in a shaky script
from a ninety-year-old in the nursing home, thanking
the community service people for the gift of the transistor
radio with ear-piece that freed her from having
to share the radio of her roommate, Mrs. Hamady, and
now she can tell Mrs. Hamady “to go fxxx herself.”
My interest in the life and times of the word stems
directly from a recollected bit of army business during
World War II. In early 1942, a bizarre directive came
down from on high, one of a kind in the memory of
army “lifers,” or regulars. Issued by Lt. General
MacNair, commander of all U. S. ground troops, it
stated that less authoritarianism and greater courtesy
must thenceforth characterize all orders to enlisted
men, and it closed with “the day of the shouting sergeant
is over.” It was to be read to all formations. Our
regimental commander used the opportunity to append
an order of his own to all company-grade officers
to make special efforts “forthwith” to eliminate the use
of obscene language in their commands.
As a junior officer in charge of an infantry medical
detachment, this assignment was mine. On a
muggy morning in Camp Livingston, Louisiana, the
regular business of reveille completed by 6:30, I read
out General MacNair's directive.
“Any questions?”
“Question, sir!”
“Yes, Sergeant Willard.” This was an “old” national
guardsman of 30, a barker, heart and soul of the
outfit.
“May I say, sir,” shouting, “that when the day of
the shouting sergeant is over, on that day the army will
have died, sir!” preceded and followed by the snappiest
salute in that man's army.
“Thank you, Sergeant Willard. Now -- any questions?”
Nothing but grinning faces. “I will now read the
order of the regimental commanding officer. Subject:
obscene language. To: All regimental personnel.”
There followed a paragraph linking decent language
and decent conduct. I wound up with, “You know
what that means. From now on, the fxxx word is taboo
! Dismissed!” No questions solicited.
Perhaps three seconds of perfect silence. Then the
dam burst.
“Taboo you, Thorp!”
“Where's Taboo-up Metcalf?”
“You're asking for it, Taboo-face!”
“Delgado, get this tabooing morning report to
regimental!”
It became a party.
Nearly three years later, in January 1945, I arrived
as a P.O.W. at Stalag IV B, in Muhleberg, East Germany,
part of a battered lot of several hundred American
soldiers trapped and finally taken prisoner in the
Battle of the Bulge. Stalag IV B housed mostly British
enlisted men, about seven thousand at the time, and
though the camp never attained the notoriety of some
other grim stalags, it entered the literature unnamed
in Slaughterhouse-Five , the novel by Kurt Vonnegut.
The portrayal of the camp and the reception by the
British P.O.W.s, camouflaged though it is, is so vivid
that on reading it when it appeared in 1969--and
since--I have found myself transported back there,
frozen feet and all.
...out marched 50 middle-aged Englishmen.
They were singing, “Hail, Hail the Gang's all Here”
...These lusty ruddy vocalists were among the
first English-speaking prisoners to be taken in the
Second World War. Now they were singing to
nearly the last...The Englishmen were clean
and enthusiastic and decent and strong...They
were adored by the Germans, who thought they
were exactly what Englishmen ought to be.
The Englishmen had never had guests before and
they went to work like darling elves, sweeping,
mopping, cooking, baking...
There was silence now, as the Englishmen looked
in astonishment at the frowzy creatures they had so
lustily waltzed inside...“My God, what have
they done to you, lad? This isn't a man. It's a broken
kite!
-- Slaughterhouse-Five or The Children's Crusade,
Delta Book, Dell Publishing Co., 1969,
pp. 80-84.
The take-charge British prisoners dazzled us, as
they had Vonnegut's Billy Pilgrim. Bedraggled, starving
and exhausted after a final four days crushed in
box cars, we were, I learned later, the most disheartening
lot of ragmen they had seen in their more than
three years of imprisonment. Responding in the tradition
of trained British “ranks,” they radiated full responsibility,
herding us to plank tables, scurrying
about like a choreographed swarm of caterers. Their
boots were polished and their worn tunics had all their
buttons. These were the remnants of the defenders of
Tobruk, Tobruk in the North African desert, in the
year 1941, when the Allies were losing the war! To me,
they were creatures from a lost planet, another world.
They served us tea in “Klim” tins, and a cracker each.
They indulged our incoherent questions and smiled
reassurances. They returned us to life.
An impeccable, moustachioed Sergeant Major
MacMahan, gaunt like all the others, wearing the beret
and polished insignia of a Scots regiment, stood
erect as a flagpole at one end of the barrack hut surveying
it all, the angel in charge. To his deputy, carefully
doling hot water from a canteen cup into a row of
small tins, he snapped, “Mind the measuring now,
there's twenty-fxxxing-four to serve 'ere!”
I heard it. Whatever my state till then, I knew I
was not now hallucinating. That was the first I had
ever heard the word used as a “bridge.” It was snapped
out loud and clear, after the fashion of the proper
British soldier, with none of the slurring so characteristic
of the American using it as an adjective. (Compare
“y'r fxn well told” with “you're fxxxing well told, ole
boy!”) I was in no condition to be charmed. But impressed--I
was forever impressed.
After a few days, befriended and coached by these
veterans of a different time and a different kind of war,
most of us revived enough to make do behind the
barbed wire in the blighted landscape. Assigned after
some weeks to a few hours per week in the makeshift
dental clinic in the prison revier or hospital, I took to
busying myself during the great gaps of empty time by
searching out and putting on paper British army-language
specials, like mucker `partner,' scoff `overeat,'
fluff `girl,' skilly `meal,' griff `rumor,' duff `dessert.'
Most numerous and engaging by far were the novel (to
me) uses of the ubiquitous, all purpose Anglo-American
word fxxx .
Hearing of my hobby, the prison “editor” paid a
visit. With a willing little group of helpers he periodically
put out the prison “newspaper.” This was a wall
poster containing innocuous camp news items, all
painstakingly penned by hand. A new issue was unveiled
to a hungry readership about once every six
months. The suggestion by the editor, Eric Hurst, that
I work up my lexicon on fxxx for the forthcoming issue
was a great boost. I felt a sense of real purpose in
mining for new specimens in conversations with these
old “kriegies” (P.W.s) from almost everywhere in the
world where the King's and everyone else's English and
American were spoken. I was also the beneficiary of
special contributions from numbers of users and listeners
who had never previously felt the pull of scholarship.
Reviewing our completed lexicon, Hurst and his
colleagues pronounced it a respectable body of work,
acceptable for publication in the newspaper. It never
made it, however. Just one week later, elements
of Marshal Konev's 1st Ukranian Army liberated the
camp and to our great joy, the world of the prison
newspaper ceased to exist for us.
Though the manuscript remained out of sight yellowing
in a footlocker for 43 years, the work was never
completely out of mind, recalled on occasions when
some special item caught ear or eye. For example,
there was the title of the popular British film of the
1970s, with Dirk Bogarde, I'm Allright, Jack (see Fuji-yama ,
Lexicon), and the name borne by a boutique in
downtown Philadelphia, “Sweet Fanny Adams” (see
Sweet Fxxx-all , Lexicon). Special mention should be
made of the fact that there are some items in this
lexicon similar to those in the classic Dictionary of
Slang and Unconventional English , by Eric Partridge
(8th Edition, 1984), which first appeared in 1937.
Luckily for the lofty sense of purpose which infused
and inspired us, none of us knew of its existence then.
Except for the elimination of several redundant items,
this is the lexicon produced in 1945.
Lexicon
Fxxx [ Anglo-American ]
Noun. 1. A lesser individual, usually male, undistinguished.
Patronizing or pejorative: He's just a
simple (dumb) fxxx . Hello, little fxxx! (in response
to “What do you say to a little fxxx?” ,
anecdotal.)
2. The sex act.
3. An item or transaction of little worth: a poor fxxx
of an alibi.
Verb. 1. To betray, cheat, destroy, reject, ruin, sabotage,
stymie, swindle, terminate, wreck: Churchill
tried to fxxx the deal on the second front.
2. To engage in the sex act.
Derivatives:
Fxxx her, --him, --it, --them. [ Anglo-American. ]
Declaration. Command or suggestion to defy,
disobey, disregard, reject the claims of--.
Dismissive, rather than condemnatory of--:
Fxxx'm!
What can a foul ball like that do to
you? ” Fxxx 'em all, fxxx 'em all,/The long and
the short and the tall [Opening lines of a familiar
song.]
See also final example cited under Fxxxin', 1.
Fxxx! [ Anglo-American ] Expletive, oath, or exclamation
expressing anger, disappointment, disgust, dismay,
rage, as “damn!”, with emphasis: Fxxx!
I forgot
the password!
Fxxxin', Fxxx'n [ American ], Fxxxing [ British ]. Pres.
participle of fxxx .
Adjective, adverb. 1. Contemptible, downright,
great, notable/notably, outrageous/outrageously,
treasured, vexatious: A fxxx'n terrible [American],
fxxxing dreadful [British], crime! You're
fxxx'n well told, Jackson! The sun came out in all
its fxxxing glory. Went no place without his fxxx'n
walkin' stick. “Fxxx the fxxxing torpedoes, full
fxxxing speed ahead,” as your bloody commodore
once said.
2. Used as bridge or connector; new part of speech,
to add power or point, enhance tonal quality.
Also, damned, bloody:
Twenty-fxxxing-four
faces to feed. Blame it on your anti-fxxx'n-air-craft
units, mate.
3. Participating in the sex act: If the Lord invented
anything better than fxxx'n, He kept it for His-self.
[Army aphorism. American.]
Noun . A crushing (humiliating) defeat, a drubbing,
a fleecing, a loss, usually viewed from the receiving
end: We took a right regular fxxxing at
Tobruk.
Derivatives:
F'n, F'ing. pronounced “effin,” “effing.” Affected or
effete form of fxxxin', etc.
NFG. [ American ] Abbrev. for no fxxx'n good.
Phrase. Noun. An individual, situation or state
without any redeeming features; hopeless, incompetent,
utterly worthless: I'm NFG before
my coffee in the morning.
Royal -- [ Anglo-American ] Also, Double--, Double--
in spades. [ American .] Nouns. Embellished
or emphatic forms of fxxxing .
Fxxx-all [ British ]
Compound noun.
Nought, empty, state of utter bankruptcy, total
disappointment, zero: The desert is nothing
but miles and miles of fxxx-all.
Derivatives: [ British ]
Fanny Adams, Sweet Fanny Adams.
Noun. Euphemisms
for fxxx-all.
F.A., Sweet F.A.
Abbrevs. for
fxxx-all: We had
Sweet F.A. for air cover at Dunkirk.
Go for fxxx-all.
Phrase. To be done for, finished,
obliterated: Berlin will go for fxxx-all.
Fxxxer [ Anglo-American ]
Noun. 1. A male individual; one with some minimal
identity; a bloke; a joe; faintly noticeable:
The savvy little fxxxer managed to con the medics
into a Section 8. [`unfitness disharge']
2. A frustrating object; a sticky or vexatious problem:
The fxxxer in most P.W. escape plans is the
calories.
Fxxxface [ American ]
Compound word.
Noun.
1. A fool, a joker, one not held in high regard
or likeable: You can bet ole fxxxface won't
be on time. [`won't accomplish--'; `will fail']
2. Greeting; form of address, semi-humorously or
strongly contemptuous: What alibi now, Fxxxface?
Fxxxhead [ American ]
Compound noun.
A cheese head; an easily confused or misled individual;
one “short on the dollar”; scatterbrained;
[pejorative, not hostile, implication]: He'd be
just fxxxhead enough to buy that line of who-shot
john.
Fxxx me! [ British ]
Phrase.
Expletive. Announcement of confusion, perplexity,
ignorance, as “Damme!” [ British ], “Search me!”
[ American ]: Fxxx me if I know where we're at!
Fxxx-off! [ Anglo-American ]
Noun (rare). A dodger, evader, shirker, one who is
undependable: That full-time fxxx-off is geared
to fly backward.
Verb. To escape, evade, fade, run, slink away, vanish,
when needed: First incoming shell burst,
that clown will fxxx off!
Fxxxup. [ American. ]
Compound noun. A botcher; bungler; disrupter;
failure; one who is ill-coordinated; incapable, or
ineffectual; an inept individual; a loser; a
spoiler: That fxxxup is the boil on this outfit's
ass.
Section 8 discharge is ordered for this incorrigible
company fxxxup. [From a division surgeon's
formal report.]
Verb. To confuse; deface; disfigure; disorganize; entangle;
make a mess of; snarl; tie up; ruin: To
fxxx up the detail. [classic, American army]
Derivatives:
General fxxx up [ American ] Noun . G.F.U. (Abbrev.)
An individual with a consistent or outstanding
record as a fxxxup .
Janfu [ American ] Noun . Abbrev. for `joint army-navy
fxxx up.' A failed amphibious military
operation considered badly planned and/or executed.
Snafu [ American ]
Noun. Abbrev. for `situation normal, all fxxxed
up.' An obviously ineffectual operation or dire
predicament, cynically anticipated because
typical; perfect opposite of OK.
Fxxx you! [ Anglo-American ] Interjection. Emphatic
negative retort expressing condemnation, defiance,
hostility, opposition, refusal, rejection: As civilians
we'll have to get used to using “No thanks!” in place
of “Fxxx you!”
Derivatives:
40! Affected or effete form of fxxx you.
402! Anticipated response to 40 .
Fujiyama [ British ] Phrase.
Acronym for `Fxxx you, Jack, I'm all right.'
Expression of sole concern for self at expense of
partner or ally; abandonment, betrayal.
I'm all right Jack. Alternate form of Fujiyama.
“We consider pornography to be a public problem, and
we feel it is an issue that demands a second look.” [From a
speech by President Ronald Reagan on . Submitted
by ]
The origin of the name Viêt/Yuéh [XV,2] is similar
to that of Saxon. The name of this nation, first seen in
the Shang dynasty oracle bones (2nd millennium B.C.),
the earliest complete Chinese script known, is a pictograph
of the yuéh `axe,' which may be symmetrical or
asymmetric, stone or bronze. As with many place
names, the pictograph was later arbitrarily ornamented
with various radicals--ì `a city' or tz\?\ `walking,
migrating.' The form ornamenting yuèh with tz\?\
became accepted. The word thus formed coincidentally
also means `to exceed, to pass, large, more, or
O!,' but I simply can't figure out why anybody would
translate it as `extreme.'
How did Měi-Kúo become Me Gook? I suggest
some tin-eared grunt heard the Viêt Namese pronunciation
of Mêi-Kúo, “M\?\-Quôć,” and that's what he
thought he heard.
Recent communications by Henn [XIV,3], Cragg
[XV,1], and Powers [XV,2] on the origins of `Gook' have
led me to research the matter. While I agree with
Cragg that “the word is extraordinarily derogatory”
and can understand Powers' confusion with Henn's explanation,
I still believe Henn has the best explanation
for the origin of the word.
To begin with, Mr. Henn's Mee Gook apparently is
both Cantonese and Korean! As Powers correctly observes,
the modern Chinese as spoken on the mainland
and Taiwan has `Meikuo' (pronounced Mā-gwō) as the
word for the United States and that the two characters
taken individually mean `beautiful country.' However,
Stimson and others have pointed out that Chinese phonology
does change with time and that the Old Mandarin
pronunciation for `country' had a final “k” sound
unlike modern Chinese as now spoken on Taiwan and
the mainland.
The languages of the East Asian countries of Japan,
Korea, and Vietnam were greatly influenced by
the language of the Chinese. Also the “dialects” of
China, such as Southern Min (Taiwanese) and Cantonese,
to name just two, show varying relationships
with the dominate tongue. It is by studying these various
phonological relationships that Sinologists have
come to better understand the ancient forms of Chinese;
this is analogous to our studies of Indo-European.
If we chart some of the pronunciations of the
two characters the relationships become more apparent.
(I give three versions of Modern Chinese though
there are at least four or five transliterations currently
in use.)
DICTIONARY LANGUAGE MEANING MEANING
OR SOURCE OR DIALECT `beautiful' `country'
Chen Cantonese mei gwok
Nelson Japanese bi koku
Tan Taiwanese bi kok
Stimson Middle mj<###> ku<###>k
Chinese
Stimson Old Mandarin m<###> kuiiq
Stimson Modern m<###> (mei) kue (gwo)
(Chen) Chinese [mei] [kuo]
Cragg Korean my guk
Nguyen & Vietnamese quoc
Durand
I have no Korean or Vietnamese dictionaries, but
it seems clear to me that the guk of the Korean Myguk
(Cragg) and the Vietnamese quoc are all derived from
an earlier form of Chinese. (I have ignored all notations
of tone since they would not affect the analysis.
The Vietnamese example is from the word quoc-ngu
which I understand to be the same as the Chinese
Kuoyu = `National Language')
It is at this point that another problem arises.
Nelson gives no entry for bi-koku `beautiful country'
(`The United States of America'). In fact the Japanese
for `The United States of America' is beikoku = `rice-country.'
This brings Amerigo Vespucci into the
picture.
Consulting my Tz'u Hai (tz'u `word or phrase' +
hai `sea' = “a sea of words/phrases”), I discover that
the Chinese meikuo is actually short for mei-li chienho-chung-kuo.
The mei from mei-li = `American' and
the kuo from chien-ho-chung-kuo = `firm(ly)-enclosing-all-nations'
= `United States.' In Nelson, a few
entries after beikoku, I read that Meriken means
`American,' that the character for `rice' in this case is
pronounced “Me” not “bei.” Backtracking to the Chinese
dictionary I find that mei-li comes from ya-mei-lichia.
In other words:
Amerigo (Italian) = Americus (Latin) thus to
America [the New World] = Ya-Mei-Li-Chia (Chinese)
= “A-Me-Ri-Ka” (one possible Sino-Japanese
pronunciation) = “A-Bei-Ri-Ka” (Japanese). The
first, third and fourth characters are the same in
both Japanese and Chinese. The second characters
differ. In Chinese it is the character for `beautiful,'
in Japanese for `rice or grain.' The phonetic nature
of Chinese (and Sino-Japanese) is demonstrated
again! [See my letter in XV,2.]
Based on the above I believe that Mr. Henn is
probably correct in attributing Gook to an East Asian
Mee Gook, for all of the area by the time of the T'ang
was culturally if not politically under the sway of the
Central Kingdom (Chungkuo).
As a Dutchman living in Salt Lake City, I could
not agree more that “English Is a Crazy Language”
[XV,4]. I was born in Holland in 1923 and received my
education there, including senior high school. Learning
English grammar and building up a vocabulary
was not the hardest part for me in school, but it was
difficult to learn to speak English without a heavy
Dutch accent.
In the city of Haarlem an English teacher by the
name of G. Nolst Trenité, who also wrote articles
under the pen name Charivarius, published a little
booklet entitled Drop Your Foreign Accent. In it was
printed a poem called “The Chaos,” which as students,
we had to learn by heart for recitation in front of the
class. That was a tough assignment, but very helpful.
Mr. Trenité has passed away, but I believe that his
book is still used in Holland.
The Chaos
Dearest creature in creation
Studying English pronunciation,
I will teach you in my verse
Sounds like corpse, corps, horse and worse
I will keep you, Susy, busy,
Make your head with heat grow dizzy.
Tear in eye your dress you'll tear,
So shall I! Oh, hear my prayer,
Pray, console your loving poet,
Make my coat look new, dear, sew it!
Just compare heart, beard and heard,
Dies and diet, lord and word,
Sword and sward, retain and Britain.
(Mind the latter, how it's written).
Made has not the sound of bade,
Say said, pay-paid, laid, but plaid.
Now I surely will not plague you
With such words as vague and ague,
But be careful how you speak,
Say break, steak, but bleak and streak.
Previous, precious, fuchsia, via,
Pipe, snipe, recipe and choir,
Cloven, oven, how and low,
Script, receipt, shoe, poem, toe.
Hear me say, devoid of trickery:
Daughter, laughter and Terpsichore,
Typhoid, measles, topsails, aisles.
Exiles, similes, reviles.
Wholly, holly, signal, signing.
Thames, examining, combining
Scholar, vicar, and cigar,
Solar, mica, war, and far.
From “desire”: desirable--admirable from “admire.”
Lumber, plumber, bier, but brier.
Chatham, brougham, renown, but known.
Knowledge, done, but gone and tone,
One, anemone. Balmoral.
Kitchen, lichen, laundry, laurel,
Gertrude, German, wind, and mind.
Scene, Melpomene, mankind,
Tortoise, turquoise, chamois-leather,
Reading, reading, heathen, heather.
This phonetic labyrinth
Gives moss, gross, brook, brooch, ninth, plinth.
Bouquet, wallet, mallet, chalet.
Blood and flood are not like food,
Nor is mould like should and would.
Banquet is not nearly parquet,
Which is said to rime with “darky.”
Viscous, Viscount, load, and broad.
Toward, to forward, to reward.
And your pronunciation's O.K.,
When you say correctly: croquet.
Rounded, wounded, grieve, and sieve,
Friend and fiend, alive, and live,
Liberty, library, heave, and heaven,
Rachel, ache, moustache, eleven,
We say hallowed, but allowed,
People, leopard, towed, but vowed.
Mark the difference, moreover,
Between mover, plover, Dover,
Leeches, breeches, wise, precise,
Chalice, but police, and lice.
Camel, constable, unstable,
Principle, disciple, label,
Petal, penal, and canal,
Wait, surmise, plait, promise, pal.
Suit, suite, ruin, circuit, conduit,
Rime with “shirk it” and “beyond it.”
But it is not hard to tell,
Why it's pall, mall, but Pall Mall.
Muscle, muscular, gaol, iron,
Timber, climber, bullion, lion,
Worm and storm, chaise, chaos, and chair,
Senator, spectator, mayor,
Ivy, privy, famous, clamour
And enamour rime with hammer.
Pussy, hussy, and possess,
Desert, but dessert, address.
Golf, wolf, countenance, lieutenants.
Hoist, in lieu of flags, left pennants.
River, rival, tomb, bomb, comb,
Doll and roll and some and home.
Stranger does not rime with anger.
Neither does devour with clangour.
Soul, but foul and gaunt but aunt.
Font, front, won't, want, grand, and grant.
Shoes, goes, does. Now first say: finger.
And then: singer, ginger, linger,
Real, zeal, mauve, gauze, and gauge,
Marriage, foliage, mirage, age.
Query does not rime with very,
Nor does fury sound like bury.
Dost, lost, post, and doth, cloth, loth,
Job, job, blossom, bosom, oath.
Though the difference seems little,
We say actual, but victual.
Seat, sweat, chaste, caste.
(Leigh, eight, height,)
Put, nut, granite, and unite.
Reefer does not rime with deafer,
Feoffer does, and zephyr, heifer.
Dull, bull, Geoffrey, George, ate, late,
Hint, pint, Senate, but sedate.
Scenic, Arabic, Pacific,
Science, conscience, scientific,
Tour, but our and succour, four,
Gas, alas, and Arkansas.
Sea, idea, guinea, area,
Psalm, Maria, but malaria,
Youth, south, southern, cleanse and clean,
Doctrine, turpentine, marine.
Compare alien with Italian,
Dandelion with battalion.
Sally with ally, yea, ye,
Eye, I, ay, aye, whey, key, quay.
Say aver, but ever, fever.
Neither, leisure, skein, receiver.
Never guess--it is not safe:
We say calves, valves, half, but Ralph.
Heron, granary, canary,
Crevice and device, and eyrie,
Face but preface, but efface,
Phlegm, phlegmatic, ass, glass, bass.
Large, but target, gin, give, verging,
Ought, out, joust, and scour, but scourging,
Ear but earn, and wear and bear
Do not rime with here, but ere.
Seven is right, but so is even,
Hyphen, roughen, nephew, Stephen,
Monkey, donkey, clerk, and jerk,
Asp, grasp, wasp, and cork and work.
Pronunciation--think of psyche-- !
Is a paling, stout and spikey,
Won't it make you lose your wits,
Writing “groats” and saying “grits”?
It's a dark abyss or tunnel,
Strewn with stones, like rowlock, gunwale,
Islington and Isle of Wight,
Housewife, verdict, and indict!
Don't you think so, reader, rather,
Saying lather, bather, father?
Finally: which rimes with “enough”
Though, through, plough, cough, hough, or tough?
Hiccough has the sound of “cup.”
My advice is--give it up!
Richard Albert Wilson: The Canadian Scholar on Whom Bernard Shaw Tried to Grind His Alphabet Axe
More than half-a-century ago a book written by
the Canadian scholar, Richard Albert Wilson
(1874-1949), stimulated Bernard Shaw to write what
was probably his major sally into alphabet reform.
Wilson was head of the English department at the
University of Saskatchewan, and during the thirties he
gave a course on the origin and development of language.
Following good professorial custom, he worked
his lecture notes into a book which was published in
London in 1937 by Dent, under the title, The Birth of
Language , with a subtitle, Its Place in World Evolution
and Its Structure in Relation to Space and Time . I
was in Wilson's class during the autumn of 1937.
Wilson sent a copy of the book to Shaw as “an
instalment of interest on an old debt.” Shaw read it
and responded enthusiastically: “I urged as strongly as
I could the reprinting of Professor Wilson's treatise in a
modestly priced edition baited for the British book
market with a preface by myself: an overrated attraction
commercially, but one which still imposes on London
publishers.” In 1941 Dent re-issued the book as a
Guild paperback at one shilling. This edition, of
50,000, baited with a 31-page preface by Shaw and a
souped-up title, The Miraculous Birth of Language ,
sold out rather quickly.
In 1942 Dent issued a hardcover edition of the
paperback, and that autumn I, a soldier in the Canadian
Army, saw it displayed in a number of London
bookshops. A bookseller in Charing Cross Road told
me that he was amazed that such a dry book sold so
well, especially in wartime. I reported this in a letter
to Dr. Wilson: it seemed to amuse him, and he sent me
a small fruitcake that Christmas. The new edition was
widely reviewed in Britain. J.B.S. Haldane, the eminent
biologist who was then in his heyday as a Marxist
intellectual, was provoked by the word miraculous in
the title to flex his dialectic muscles at it in a lengthy
review in The Rationalist Press Annual for 1943: as I
remember, he dismissed it as a nefarious supernaturalist
plot. In 1946 the Guild paperback was re-issued,
and in 1948 the Philosophical Library, New York, provided
an American edition, with the Shaw effusion,
and under the Miraculous title.
The preface begins with this characteristically
Shavian sentence: “This book by Professor Wilson is
one in which I should like everyone to be examined
before certified as educated or eligible for the franchise
or for any scientific, religious, legal, or civil employment.”
(Over the years that has assured me that I was
splendidly qualified--Wilson gave me a “B”--for my
religious employment after my ordination in 1949 to
the ministry in the United Church of Canada.) In the
preface Shaw said that Wilson was not known to him
when he received the book. He commented: “I learned
that it (Wilson's professorial chair) was at Saskatoon, a
place of which I had never heard, and that his university
was that of Saskatchewan, which was connected in
my imagination with ochred and feathered Indians
rather than with a university apparently half a century
ahead of Cambridge in science and of Oxford in common
sense.” (In 1914 Shaw had written that “high civilization
is not compatible with the romance of the
pioneer communities of Canada.”) After other introductory
pleasantries Shaw confessed, “I had an axe of
my own to grind; and I thought that Professor Wilson's
book might help me to grind it.” And grind it he did,
vigorously and garrulously. The rest of the preface is a
harangue on alphabet reform and has little to do with
Wilson's theories. (At times I have wondered how
much of Wilson he had read.)
The new edition was widely reviewed. The Times
Literary Supplement said bluntly, “Mr. Shaw's preface
ought not to blind the reader to the excellence of Professor
Wilson's treatise.” And a reviewer in The Fortnightly
Review said this of the preface: “It sounds
clear, like all that Mr. Shaw writes, yet it is less limpid
than the flow of Professor Wilson's exposition.”
After Shaw's death in 1950 we were treated to the
farce that resulted from the provision in his will that
the income from the residue of his estate be used for
twenty-one years on the design and dissemination of a
new alphabet for the English language. That part of
the will was declared invalid by a judge, and the interested
parties, not wishing an extensive romp in the
courts, agreed to a compromise whereby the sum of
¥8,300 was set aside for the development of the new
alphabet Shaw called for and for the publication in it
of Androcles and the Lion . (Not utterly irrelevant here
are these words on page 32 of Shaw's Everybody's Political
What's What? , published in 1944: “...we allow
private citizens to make fantastic, unjust, bigoted,
or even spitefully wicked disposals of their possessions
after their deaths by will, and give these wills the force
of law.”)
Shaw called for a new alphabet for the so-called
Received Pronunciation--the mode of speech we call
“Oxford” or “B.B.C. English.” (At one time Shaw was
chairman of the committee of the B.B.C. that was
responsible for spoken-English standards.) That would
have put most of the English-speaking world out in the
phonetic cold, and would muck up written English.
Speakers of General American would have made no
effort to go along with it. We every- r -sounding
Canadians would have been permanently confined to
the linguistic bush. No r -rolling Scot, after generations
of “Georrge” would condescend to “Gawge.” Shaw
would not have liked the way Professor Wilson
spoke--ordinary Canadian-English, the eastern Ontario
kind, with every r sounded. Wilson was sensitive
to the growing edges of language, and he rejoiced in
the ambiguities of it because they are signs of life and
development. Shaw, on the hand, had a strangely
static understanding of language: he was downright
parochial and more than a little snobbish about spoken
English and how an alphabet should standardize it.
In the new edition of the book Wilson put this
little note following the Shaw preface: “I am gratefully
indebted to Mr. Bernard Shaw for the interest he has
taken in the book and especially for his most generous
action in taking the time from his crowded life to write
so magnanimous and stimulating a Preface to it, without
which this present cheap edition would not have
been published.” As I read that I can hear the gentle
irony in Wilson's voice and I can see the twinkle in his
eyes--and I can imagine his rubbing his hands a little
over that final bit.
Then I ask myself this question: Who used whom
to grind whose axe anyway?
Wilson's book, after sales of more than 100,000 in
its various editions, went out of print in 1949, the year
of his death. In 1980 The Canadian Journal of Linguistics
celebrated its silver anniversary with a substantial
issue consisting of the whole of Wilson's original edition
of The Birth of Language , with a valuable introduction
by Professor J.K. Chambers--and without the
Shaw preface. Chambers, of the Department of Linguistic
Studies at the University of Toronto, in the article
on Wilson he contributed to second edition (1988)
of The Canadian Encyclopedia , offers this significant
comment: “Virtually unaware of the developing science
of linguistics, Wilson espoused a more modern
view than was then current, giving central importance
to mentalism and language universals.” Wilson may
yet come to be recognized as a pioneer in what perhaps
can be called “philosophical linguistics.” His book
is again in print.
In his treatise on words and expressions derived
from firearms [XV,1], Richard Lederer was often correct
in his selection of words but was often wrong as to
their meanings and derivations. His knowledge of the
terminology is probably not first-hand.
In the discussion of flash in the pan , the terms
rifle and musket are used as if they were synonyms. A
rifle is a `long-barreled firearm with spiral grooves [rifling]
cut into the bore to impart a spin to the projectile.'
Musket refers to a military weapon. Although
there were rifled muskets in the 19th century, most
were of large caliber (.58 or .69) and were smoothbore.
They were intended to be fired quickly; they
were not intended to be very accurate. The rifle was
more accurate but took longer to load and was more
costly to make.
Lederer writes, “the flash of the primer in the pan
of the rifle failed to ignite the explosion of the charge.”
The pan is the part of the gunlock that contains a
small quantity of fine gunpowder ignited by sparks
produced by the flint shearing small bits of metal from
the frizzen . A small hole bored in the barrel allows the
charge to be ignited. It is the charge that is ignited,
not the “explosion”; also, black powder does not explode:
it burns.
The derivation and meaning of go off half cocked
is far off the mark. The hammer, or cock , of the gunlock
usually can be in one of three positions: down
(fully forward and down); at half cock (partly back, to
allow a flintlock to be carried with the pan closed or
the percussion cap to be placed on the nipple of a
percussion arm); or at full cock . In the half cock position,
the trigger is not “partially back-locked,” whatever
that means. To over-simplify the process, when
the lock is moved to full cock, the trigger, a simple
lever, moves another lever, the sear , out of the notch in
a semi-circular internal lock part to which the hammer
is connected. If the gun goes off from the half-cock
position, the lock is defective. Lederer understood
the expression go off half cocked to mean `futile gesture'
because the flintlock is unlikely to spark. The
expression, however, derives from the percussion lock.
If the main spring of the lock is sufficiently strong, the
blow received by the percussion cap can set it off and
the firearm discharges unexpectedly. Going off at half
cock is dangerous, not futile.
Skinflint is not an American expression describing
a parsimonious “gun toter” saving money by “skinning”
his flint with his knife to avoid buying a new
one. Flints are knapped (and not with a knife) to
sharpen them. I have never heard the term skinning
used for the process. References can be found for the
term long before there was an American frontier, and
it sounds as if someone made up this one.
Although hanging fire is defined as being the opposite
of point-blank , the two are unrelated in the field
of firearms: a hang-fire is a `delay in the ignition of the
powder charge in a firearm'--not a benign delay but a
serious, potentially deadly situation.
Heavens to Betsy! had better remain “source unknown.”
The Brown Bess muskets were of British issue,
though many were used by American troops during the
Revolutionary War. Americans produced their own
muskets, as well, but they were not the weapon of the
frontier. That was the Kentucky or Pennsylvania rifle,
a lighter, smaller-bored, more accurate weapon than
the Brown Bess.
Hell will be cold enough to freeze the balls off a
brass monkey before the difference in the coefficients
of expansion (or contraction) of brass and iron causes
cannonballs “in a muzzle-loading battery on a battleship”
to topple. The reference to battleship is an
anachronism. As for the square brass monkey with
circular depressions for stacking cannonballs, it would
have to contract a great deal more than the iron balls
to cause them to tumble. The coefficient of expansion
relates the change in volume, area, or length to a
change in temperature of one degree Celsius. The cubical
coefficient for cast iron is roughly 0.000012; for
brass, it is on the order of 0.000018. If we take a three-inch
cannonball on a very hot day, compute its diameter
on a very cold day (assuming a drop of 60° C.),
and compare this to the contraction of brass for the
same drop in temperature, while it is true that the
cannonballs will have shrunken twice as much as the
brass monkey , the difference for ten balls would be less
than a sixteenth of an inch; the pile would not topple
even if their diameters were twice as large. However,
as cannonballs would career over the deck because of
the motion of the ship, they were kept in crates or on
racks, and the nice-looking pyramids were probably
just for show, as at monuments.
Son of a gun probably is not nautical, and “the
midship gun” used in the explanation doesn't make
sense. Also, women were not usually found on naval
vessels except in harbor. The image conveyed by the
author of prostitutes being carried as supercargo
aboard fighting ships is false. Farmer & Henley, Slang
and its Analogues , defines the term as “a soldier's bastard,”
although the nautical connotation occurs in a
reference to The Sailor's Wordbook , which refers to
women who sailed with their husbands, not to loose
women. F&H also defines gun as a `thief.' This meaning
of gun brings the phrase parallel with “son of a
bitch” (bitch=whore), a derivation that seems more
likely.
In the discussion of stick to one's guns , Lederer
states that “many a soldier was actually chained to his
gun to ensure bravery.” I would like to know where
that one came from. Artillerymen were, and are, very
proud of their role in warfare. A gun crew was a
skilled unit of, usually, more than ten men who spent a
great deal of time practising loading, aiming, and firing
their piece. Each man had a specific duty that had
to be carried out efficiently, not only for effectiveness,
but also for safety. A man chained to the gun (to ensure
bravery?) would be of little use, especially after
the recoil that followed firing.
The explanation for spike one's guns is barely adequate.
The spike was a metal rod driven through the
touch-hole (also called the vent) into the bore of the
gun. The spike was bent, either by driving it against
the lower side of the bore or by pounding the part
inside the cannon with the rammer, so that the rod
could not be removed easily.
I think Mr. Lederer should have muzzled himself
and committed battery upon those who gave him his
information. Neither muzzle not battery is used with a
connotation related to armaments. However, the
American Heritage Dictionary includes in the derivation
of muzzle the “Gallo-Roman musellum (unattested).”
So, too, with “Gunning for the English Language.”
Much of it should be qualified with
“unattested,” a term etymologically related to the brass
monkey's spheroidal appendages.
Lysander Kemp's “Mrs. Malaprop in Mexico”
[XV, 4] recalled my own struggles with Portuguese. I
remember fondly one I repeated frequently one summer
as I hitchhiked up the Portuguese coast. “How did
you get here,” I was often asked. “Por baleia,” I responded,
mistaking boleia the `lift one gives a hitchhiker,'
for baleia a `whale.' I expect the image of being
successively vomited up along the coast by a great fish
amused the seafaring Portuguese.
The most embarrassing Portuguese malapropism I
committed took place in Brazil, where terms innocuous
in continental Portuguese have transmuted into
dangerous slang. Newly arrived, I taxied to my office
and found what seemed to be a queue by the elevators.
To be certain it was indeed an elevator queue I asked
the gentleman in front of me “se o senhor estava na
bicha.” Bicha in Portugal means a `queue'; in Brazil, it
is very crude slang for a `homosexual man.' I had asked
the gentleman, roughly, “Are you into homosexuality?”
He looked away. The error was a bottomless source of
merriment to my Brazilian colleagues.
Backwords and Newances
Having lost my twenty-year-old Timex down a
hotel drain, I found myself shopping for a
watch a few months ago. The problem was that so
many of the models I looked at had digital readouts
without any soul. I wanted the timepiece I was used
to, a normal watch, as I told the saleswoman, you
know, with hands and--
“You mean an analog watch,” she said crisply, and
led me to a nearby display. There I found a watch with
hands that suited me, made my purchase, and left,
but a question was still ticking within: analog watch ?
Presumably, the analog refers to measuring time by an
analog, with hands and a circular face, rather than by
the more scientific-looking digital system. There is
precedent, after all, in analog computers, which compute
by some analog such as discrete electrical voltages
for numerical values. Or maybe analog computer used
to be simply computer --we live in an age of technological
complexity, I concluded, as I bicycled home that
day from work.
The next week, my nephew asked for an acoustic
guitar for his birthday. I won't bother going into the
conversation that ensued; suffice it to say that acoustic
guitars are simply the non-electric type and derive
their sound from the acoustics of the instrument itself.
In the same way, manual typewriters depend on the
full force of the fingers to create words, rather than on
electric (or electronic) assistance. But where do these
terms come from? The point is that these qualifiers
were added only in retrospect, when the emergence of
a new prototype made some distinction necessary.
They aren't quite neologisms to account for new technology,
like cryogenics or LED . Rather, they come
from new technology looking back on old technology--and
I've decided to call them backwords.
Backwords differ from back formations : the latter are
words (often verbs) formed on existing words (often
nouns) by severing an ending. For example, diagnosis
was borrowed from a Greek word (which, incidentally,
did not mean the same thing); two hundred
years afterwards, the verb diagnose --a back formation --was
coined.
Apart from documenting linguistic treachery,
however, the collecting of backwords provides capsule
views of man's progress in a variety of fields. Mono
sound equipment brings back the days when the phonograph
rested in the den instead of in the home entertainment
center, when quadraphonic might have been
a malapropism for something in The Phantom of the
Opera . Other backwords involve longer journeys in
time: straight razors were the only razors around until
the emergence of safety razors, which have in turn
ceded precedence to the injector-blade and finally the
twin-blade. The term live performance gained currency
some time after Edison's inventions. Similarly,
the phrase recorded live , while it suggests the overtones
of a concert rather than a studio performance,
may still sound odd to an untrained ear (this may be
termed sound mixing, in a double sense). The phrase
live audience , if dwelt upon overmuch, suggests a
ghoulish alternative. Fountain pen, dirt road, manual
transmission, steam engine, hand-woven fabric, conventional
weapons, general practitioner, natural childbirth,
cloth diaper --these are backwords dating anywhere
from the era of the jalopy to the nuclear age.
They can, I suppose, be summed up in that slightly
suspect word progress . Still, I must in all fairness note
that I write with a Bic and drive an automatic-shift
with perfect equanimity. The frame of mind for hunting
backwords need not be disgruntlement.
In the gustatory realm, backwords are common:
Fresh-squeezed orange juice and hand-dipped ice
cream simply make the point that most juice and ice
cream no longer come that way. Ditto for free-range
chicken and draft beer . And then there are what
sound like redundancies: French champagne is a hotly
contested instance. The notice that a nation other than
France could produce an effervescent wine and then
have the audacity to label it champagne was the basis
for a lawsuit rather than an etymological inquiry. On a
more prosaic level, the terms plain yogurt, potato
knish, and cheese blintz would have been considered
tautological some years ago. Nowadays, when blintzes
may be filled with anything from puréed walnuts to
spinach, and yogurt comes in eighteen different varieties,
plain has acquired its own distinction. The Coca-Cola
company tried to capitalize on this distinction
after the financial disaster of New Coke: buyers nostalgic
for the old product could purchase Classic Coke in
supermarkets. “Great original flavor!” is the boast of
more than one food company trying to distance a
product from its own later derivatives.
It is a puzzle why certain objects acquire backwords
while others retain their names and it is the
newcomers that are given qualifying labels. These
days, video cameras are all the rage, but, as far as I
know, no one has thought up a backword for the snapshot-taking
type ( still camera does fill the bill, but it
remains for the most part a technical term). When
automated tellers came in some years ago, no one
thought to rename the human operators. Much further
back, automobiles were first known as horseless carriages;
no one called the carriages they replaced
animal-driven vehicles (though someone might call
them that today, or tomorrow). The governing principle
seems to be inurement: when the new has sufficiently
taken hold, it becomes a standard. At the same
time, the old acquires the status of a curiosity, deserving
of its own label.
Perhaps the best example of this paradigm is the
touch-tone phone, which has so edged out the older
models that two backwords were formed for the old
type: rotary phone and dial phone .
On the other hand, cellular phones are still new enough to have
their own novelty label. They are really radio phones,
as opposed to a short-range instrument called a cordless
phone that is at present a miracle of convenience
and voice-distortion. Given time and improved technology,
all non-radio phones may be branded as wire
phones .
Often, the new meaning may be imposed on the
old word without any change in the word itself. To
distinguish them from backwords, they may be termed
newances. Dishwasher (appliance, not restaurant
supernumerary), tape (magnetic, not sticky), and car
(automotive, not horse-drawn) are three ready instances
of this shift, but there are countless others. In
the field of computing alone are such newances as
program, chip, terminal, printer, and so on; software
is listed in the Merriam-Webster Second Edition (1934)
as soft wares and defined as “dry goods.” In the realm
of newances are also a series of verbs: call , from shouting
to telephoning; see , from in the flesh to virtual
image; fly , from avian to human; and drive , applied
slightly differently to each new vehicle developed. And
while xerography has provided both noun and verb
newances for the word copy , Horace's ut pictura poesis
reminds one that picture , too, has newances coexisting
with its age-old meanings.
Finally, there are the objects that, while still possessing
one basic nomenclature, show marked potential
for confusion and hence for backwords. A bicycle
is no longer just a bike; it may now be a ten-speed
bike, a mountain bike (now tagged as an ATB , or `allterrain
bike'), or a stationary bike (also known as an
exercise bike ). The backword in the offing, already
used by many, is road bike , though it usually means a
ten-speed, which is now used as a noun. As for other
areas with potential, have color televisions become
standard enough to qualify all black-and-white models?
Will the flood of decaff poured every day eventually
lead to a diner in 1995 requesting a cup of caff?
When will keyboard and word process do something
to typewriter and type (if they haven't already). Will
the microwave revolution in the kitchen turn conventional
cooking devices into “macrowave” ovens? Any
proficient lexicographer should be an acute observer of
modernity in all its aspects.
As with other etymological quests, the search for
backwords and newances may become a consuming
hobby. All one needs is a sense of history that exceeds
one's lifetime. Wood-burning stove and handwritten
note are two recent items for the backwords collection.
Carriageway , as it is used in Britain, is a good instance
of a newance. Just yesterday, I passed a furniture store
advertising “custom-made” cabinets. It occurred to me
that custom-made anything is approaching the realm
of the anomalous: another item for the collection. The
one risk in collecting backwords is that it does tend to
make one feel like an antiquity, possibly deserving of a
backword oneself. Right now, I can't think of such a
label. Given time, however, history may provide me
with one.
The technical term, often so labeled on the base of the phone, is
pulse-tone , as opposed to touch-tone , a distinction in signal transmission;
nowadays certain telephones with buttons are really pulse-tone
models that “dial” as each button is pushed.
My ears (or should I say my eyes) pricked up upon
reading Robert M. Sebastian's “Red Pants” [XV, 3]
wherein he cites, inter alia , Ezra Pound's Mr. Nixon:
Don't kick against the pricks.
In The Acts of the Gospels, New Testament , 9:5,
Jesus says to Saul (later Paul): It is hard for you to kick
against the pricks . Later, we have Aeschylus (525-456
B.C.) in Agamemnon , 1. 1624: Do not kick against the
pricks . The line appears also in Pindar, Pythian Odes
II, 1. 174 and in Euripides, Bacchae , 1. 795 (cited in
Bartlett's Familiar Quotations , 14th edition, Little,
Brown and Company, 1968, p. 78).
But what I love is dear Samuel Beekett's turning
the whole thing round for the title of his first novel,
More Pricks Than Kicks (1934). Mr. Sebastian has, of
course, started me collecting my own “Red Pants”
items. I do not know yet whether to thank him, for
once one gets on a kick like this it can easily turn into a
disease!
Writing the Hard Way
It is a truly gripping story, told in lean, hard
athletic narrative prose.
--N.Y. Times book review of
Hemingway's first novel, The Sun Also Rises, 1926.
What does it mean to call a prose style hard?
What does hard add to lean in describing
sentences like these:
We dined at a restaurant in the Bois. It was a
good dinner. Food had an excellent place in the
count's values. So did wine. The count was in fine
form during the meal. So was Brett. It was a good
party.
The harder something is the less it is influenced by
other things, the less it interacts. In the above paragraph,
the first-person narrator, Jacob Barnes, gives
the fact of a dinner, the experience of a dinner, and the
value of a dinner their own self-contained moments.
There is no syntactical relationship linking them.
Longer sentences are mostly the same: a series of short
sentences cut off not with a period, but with and :
I wondered if there was anything else I might
pray for, and I thought I would like to have some
money, so I prayed that I would make a lot of
money, and then I started to think how I would
make it, and thinking of money reminded me of
the count, and I started wondering about where he
was, and regretting I hadn't seen him since that
night in Montmartre, and about something funny
Brett told me about him...
Even long sentences other than a series of short sentences
strung together set forth only one discrete moment
at a time:
Out in the center of the ring, all alone, Romero
was going on with the same thing, getting so close
that the bull could see him plainly, offering the
body, offering it again a little closer, the bull
watching dully, then so close that the bull thought
he had him, offering again and finally drawing the
charge and then, just before the horns came, giving
the bull the red cloth to follow with that little, almost
perceptible, jerk that so offended the critical
judgment of the Biarritz bull-fight experts.
The various moments here are related only sequentially.
Despite the intense interaction that exists
between a bullfighter and bull, there is an avoidance
of interactive conjunctions such as when, while,
and as .
It is this very avoidance of interactive conjunctions
throughout the novel that creates the hard style. Such
conjunctions, when placed in the beginning or middle
of a sentence, form clauses that hang suspended,
awaiting definition from their relationship with what
follows. Sentences which use such clauses are softer,
more pliant. Not a boxer's jab--coming at you from
close range, with its full effect felt at once--but a
dismount from a high bar. Virginia Woolf, for one,
often used suspension to create a world of subtle interaction:
There were few mornings when Mary did not
look up, as she bent to lace her boots, and as she
followed the yellow rod from curtain to breakfasttable
she usually breathed some sigh of thankfulness
that her life provided her with such moments
of pure enjoyment.
--Night and Day,
Harcourt Brace Jovanovich, 1948.
There is a moment of pure enjoyment depicted by
the narrator in The Sun Also Rises which uses this
same interactive syntax. Riding on top of a bus in the
Spanish countryside, squeezed in among people whose
language (Basque) he doesn't speak, he turns his attention
to the land around him. It is much like terrain he
has described before, only now, for the first time, he
does not break down the description into a mere series
of self-contained, tightly held moments. As much as
the words themselves, the syntax shows him to be relaxing
into the moment:
As soon as we started out on the road outside
town it was cool. It felt nice riding high up and
close under the trees. The bus went quite fast and
made a good breeze, and as we went out along the
road with the dust powdering the trees and down
the hill, we had a fine view, back through the
trees, of the town rising up from the bluff above
the river.
But for the most part, interaction between clauses is
reserved for moments of consternation. The narrator
does not let down his guard, he must be thrown off it:
Why I felt that impulse to devil him I do not
know.
When I got up to go I found I had taken off my
shoes.
While we were waiting I saw a cockroach on the
parquet floor that must have been at least three
inches long.
As all the time I was kneeling with my forehead on
the wood in front of me, and was thinking of myself
as praying, I was a little ashamed...
He offered the wine-skin to Bill and to me, and
when I tipped it up to drink he imitated the sound
of a klaxon motor-horn so well and so suddenly
that I spilled some of the wine, and everybody
laughed.
As I started to get on my feet he hit me twice.
She kissed me, and while she kissed me I could feel
she was thinking of something else.
When I woke it was the sound of the rocket exploding
that announced the release of the bulls from
the corrals at the edge of town.
So select is the narrator in his use of such suspensions
that the simple variation of the placement of a
clause in two otherwise almost identical statements can
be momentous. Look at the two phrases: “We met
Cohn as we came out of church” and “As we came out
of the door I saw Cohn.” Both times the narrator is
with the woman who had had a brief affair with his
friend Cohn and then dumped him. But the first time
the narrator is not sure how the woman feels about his
friend hanging around, whereas the second time he
has just been told by her that Cohn's presence
“depresses me so.” The first time, then, he can plainly
state “We met Cohn...,” but the second time the
encounter is troublesome: he is caught in the middle
between two friends. The mere suspension of the
meaning of the sentence expresses the quandary. The
encounter itself is not expanded or even commented
on.
According to Wyndham Lewis, the voice of Jacob
Barnes contradicts his own character because it makes
a man of action sound passive:
This infantile, dull-witted, dreamy stutter compels
whoever uses it to conform to the infantile,
dull-witted type. He passes over into the category
of those to whom things are done, from that of
those who execute.
--Men Without Art, Black Sparrow Press, 1987.
But the hard style of the narrator, far from being
an expression of passivity, is, in fact, a symptom of a
man who is trying to avoid having things done to
him--someone afraid to let go of himself, afraid to
merge. The castrating war wound from which he suffers,
barely mentioned in the novel, is merely the outward
show of this inner disability, to which we are
referred again and again. The narrator tells us that he
has trouble falling asleep: he cannot give himself up to
darkness. For one six-month period he never slept with
the light off. “It is awfully easy,” he says “to be hardboiled
about everything in the daytime, but at night it
is a different thing.”
Nor can he fall in love: he cannot give himself up
to another. “She had been looking into my eyes all the
time. Her eyes had different depths, sometimes they
seemed perfectly flat. Now you could see all the way
into them.” You do not need to ask what depth level his
eyes were at as he was observing her. Throughout the
novel he convinces us that he is drawn to a woman but
not to love itself: “In a way,” he says of it, “it's an
enjoyable feeling.” The woman, however, knows better:
“No,” she says, “I think it's hell on earth.” And the
narrator can't dispute this, because what the woman
feels when she is in love would be, for a hardboiled
man, a living hell: “Love you?” she replies to his entreaty,
“I simply turn all to jelly when you touch me.”
Giving himself over to hatred is no easier. After
his friend runs off with this same woman his strongest
statement is “I certainly did hate him.” Had he said “I
hated him,” he would have been giving himself over to
that emotion, throwing himself off balance; but the
work certainly acts like a cane to prevent it. (Try saying,
“I certainly do love you” without eyes that are
perfectly flat.) He cannot even give himself over to
jealousy. To be jealous of a person is to be open to
another's influence, to have one's sense of self continuously
challenged by another. The narrator is not jealous
of the friend he “certainly did hate,” but only
“jealous of what happened to him.” By dismissing the
perpetrator he confronts only the act.
“Style,” according to Georges Louis, “is the man
himself,” and part of what makes The Sun Also Rises
Hemingway's masterpiece is how much of himself he
managed to get into it. He was never again to write as
autobiographical a character as Jacob Barnes, never
again to use a voice as tightly controlled. Yet the character,
it seems, never left him. Even in his final moment,
the hard style was there.
To take one's own life is to take control of one's
destiny; but inevitably a moment must be faced, after
the deed, in which what is experienced is loss of control.
The longer the time between the deed and the
moment of death, the more that loss--the giving up of
oneself--is experienced. Hemingway did not just shoot
himself. He leaned his forehead on the barrel of the
rifle and only then pulled the trigger. Virginia Woolf,
on the other hand, loaded her dress up with stones and
let the river carry her away.
Verbal Analogies II--Miscellaneous
See if you can make the Verbal Analogy by selecting
the appropriate term or description from among the
Answers provided. To make it harder, cover the Answers.
The solution appears on page 24.
1. horn: cornucopia:: goat:?
2. lemon: poppy:: citric:?
3. distribute: cut:: dealer:?
4. USA: Hong Kong:: Dow Jones:?
5. hawks: goshawks:: falconer:?
6. 12: 8:: pica:?
7. sun: earth:: Copernicus:?
8. humans: blood:: Greek gods:?
9. California: New York:: Eureka:?
10. motion pictures: Oscar:: mystery novels:?
11. dawn song: aubade:: cradle song:?
12. Scotland: kilt:: Greece:?
Answers
(a) Amalthea (e) Edgar (i) Ichor
(b) A(u)stringer, (f) Excelsior (j) Meconic
Ostringer (g) Fustanella (k) Pone
(c) Berceuse (h) Hang Seng (l) Ptolemy
(d) Brevier
“The 55 mph speed is widely flaunted.” [CBS Evening
News, . Submitted by ]
“In Cleveland, pollution along the Cuyahoga River was
so bad 20 years ago that the river caught fire. Now pleasure
boats from nearby marinas must dodge freighters on their
way to nightclubs and restaurants along the banks of the
cleaned-up river.” [From the Chicago Tribune , .
Submitted by ]
I have a few entries to propose for Richard Lederer's
Concise Dictionary of American Slurvian:
axe inquire. “I wanna axe you a question.”
cask variant of axe. “Cask you sumpin?”
pry most likely. “He's pry not home, but you cask his
sister.”
sup what is happening. “Sup, man?”
waddle interrogative contraction. “Waddle it be tonight,
boys?”
In his article, “American Slurvian” [XIV, 2], Richard
Lederer issued a delicious challenge; however,
some of the terms he claims are examples of Slurvian
are highly suspect. “Formally” and “then” applied
where “formerly” and “than” are intended are merely
misuses. No lazy mouth here--if asked to put it into
writing, the speaker would probably write the wrong
words in the same context.
The citations of granite (“taking it for granite”)
and intensive (“for all intensive purposes”) are embedded
in clichés. I maintain that those two choices are
merely misunderstood expressions, derived from trying
to make sense out of auditory confusion rather than
being the result of slouchy verbal vapors. The speaker
probably thinks “taking it for granite” is correct, justifying
it as meaning “as solid and stable as a slab of
granite.” Similar faulty justification could be made for
“intensive purposes.” In fact, such expressions may be
perpetuated by others who hear the wrong version of
the cliché, take it for granite, and, for all intensive
purposes, use it as the genuine expression.
Mayan (as in “What's yours is yours, and what's
Mayan is Mayan”) is another of Mr. Lederer's more
dubious examples. He maintains Mayan is a rare form
of Slurvian created by adding an extra syllable. I
maintain it is not Slurvian at all. It is regional dialect.
How do we judge all as in “I need to get some all for
my car”? All is Alabama dialect; is it also Slurvian? I
would judge that it isn't, no more so than Earl , as in “I
need to get some Earl for my car,” as stated in the
Ninth Ward of New Orleans. I have heard milk pronounced
“meowk” by one of my Georgia relatives, but
I would hesitate to label “meowk” as an example of
double-syllable Slurvian. That pronunciation can
probably be traced to familial/regional roots, not to
lazy mouth disease. In fact, I should doubt that a lazy
mouth would bother to add an extra syllable.
Wouldn't the Slurvian tongue take the most slothful
route, avoiding waggle where waggle is avoidable?
Before we Slurvophobian sleuths begin our hunt,
some rules of the game need to be defined. I suggest
that each Slurvian term should have one or more of the
following characteristics to distinguish it from some
other form of (mis) pronunciation:
1. Consonants and/or vowels are left out. Examples
taken from Mr. Lederer's list are “lining” for lightning ,
“lays” for ladies , “forced” for forest , “please”
for police , and “torment” for tournament .
2. Vowels are squashed. Whereas “Mayan” is dialect,
“mahn,” bearing a squashed i , could certainly be
considered an impure Slurvian form of the word.
“Whir” is pure Slurvian for where .
3. Combinations of sounds that ordinarily require
movement from both lips and tongue are compromised
so that all the work is done by only the lips or
only the tongue. Consider the case of the three
Sams--Sam Witch, Sam Ridge, and Sam Itch. Any
way you slice it, the Earl of Sandwich was responsible,
but only two of the three examples fit the Slurvian
rule of swallow and squash. Sam Witch and
Sam Itch are pure Slurvian. The lips took away the
duty of the tongue by substituting an m for an n .
But what about Sam Ridge? The tongue hoisted
itself up and bothered to put in an unnecessary r .
Wouldn't Sam Ridge, then, be just plain mispronunciation?
Sand Ridge, on the other hand ...
4. Combinations of sounds requiring two or more consecutive
tongue movements are distorted into one
compromised sound. What are you doing becomes
“Watch a dune.” How much easier for the tongue to
splat itself against the palate and make a ch sound
rather than make three more delicate maneuvers to
form the sounds of a t , and an r , and a y .
Removed from cliché, could there be pure Slurvian
words that have become exalted by repetition--perhaps
an elevated Slurvian of the upper
plane? “Bob wire” (for barbed wire ) may qualify as
elevated Slurvian. At first I was prepared to offer
“sparrow grass” (for asparagus ) as elevated Slurvian; I
now retract the offer. Is it Slurvian or is it wondrous
mispronunciation? It doesn't fit the Slurvian, rule of
consonant deletion. The tongue has added an r after
the g ; would a lazy tongue go to that much trouble?
Like “sparrow grass,” “calvary” for cavalry , one of Mr.
Lederer's questionable examples of Slurvian, falls midway
between pure mispronunciation and misunderstood
expression, perpetuated by a massive misuse. A
Slurv who knew the difference would say “cavry.”
Perhaps we Slurvophobes should be alert to three
types of pure Slurvian; regular, elevated, and complete
sentence. I offer the following examples of completesentence
Slurvian:
I moan ohm; I mow Nome: I'm going home.)
Watch a dune: (What are you doing?)
Watch a Seine: (What are you saying?)
Whirred ego; Word ego: (Where did he go?)
Below are more examples of regular pure Slurvian,
to add to the collection:
A myrrh can `from the United States': “I can tell
she's A myrrh can ...”.
ever `each': “Bless us, ever one.”
fern `not A myrrh can': “I have some fern currency.”
gum mint `ruling body': “That's against gum mint
policy.”
pearl `more than one': “What's the pearl of hex?”
(see VERBATIM XI, 3)
sits in `inhabitant': “I'm an A myrrh can sits in, as
opposed to a fern sits in.”
to mar `the day after today': “I'll think about that
to mar.”
twin knee `one more than nineteen': “Less play
Twin Knee Questions.”
whir `in what place?': “Whir am I?”
yes D `the day before today': “He's gone today, but
he was here yes D and will be back to mar.”
I thought that VERBATIM readers may find interesting
this example of how tradition can be made. Had I
taken your advice months ago and referred to Brewer's
Dictionary of Phrase & Fable , my research would have
been easier. But by reviewing items I had gathered and
after examining annotated Bibles, especially the Dart-mouth
Bible, I arrived at the same derivation as
Brewer's.
Years ago, while sightseeing in Rome, I went to
the church Pietro e Vinculo to see Michelangelo's
sculpture of Moses. Although I had seen pictures of the
sculpture, I was startled to notice for the first time
animal or devil horns visible beneath the curly hair of
Moses. And I became melancholy as I puzzled over
Michelangelo's reasons for what I supposed was an
insult to the deliverer of the Hebrews and the Law
Giver of the Western World. I groaned at the thought
of Michelangelo's succumbing to sixteenth-century
anti-Semitism. Even though I work in publishing, it
did not occur to me that a mistranslation or a typographical
error could make its way into the Bible. Authors
and publishers employ editors and proofreaders
to give readers publications free of error. In spite of all
efforts, errors get by, at least in first printings. I should
have realized that early translations of the Bible from
Aramaic and Hebrew into Greek and Latin, then into
all the languages of the world, would be at least as
vulnerable as modern-day publications.
In cycles of four years, in the Bavarian village of
Oberammergau, a Biblical passion play attracts thousands
of people. The next show is in 1990, I believe. In
the pageant, Moses is costumed to display horns. Pleas
of Jewish organizations asking for the elimination of
the horns have not been heeded. It took a while, but I
think I learned the source of those horns, which I now
see in many Renaissance paintings of Moses, varying
from cute little devil's horns to those that look like
horns of an antler.
Exodus 34:29, describes Moses descending from
Mount Sinai after talking to Jahveh, or Yahweh (Jehovah).
Understandably, after talking to the Almighty,
one cannot expect to be the same again. So, when
Moses came down from the mountain, “the skin of his
face shone” (King James Version). St. Jerome, translating
from the Hebrew and referring to the Greek, while
preparing the (Latin) Vulgate, evidently mistranslated
the Hebrew qaran to shine, for qeren horn and went
on record with cornuta , horned: Quod cornuta esset
facies sua . Brewer's Dictionary of Phrase & Fable calls
the translation “a blunder,” explaining that “the Hebrew
for this shining may be translated either as `sent
forth beams' or as `sent forth horns.' ” The Vulgate took
the latter, and Michelangelo followed earlier painters
in depicting Moses with horns.
Adding further to the wonder of it all is this translation
(in Brewer ) from the Vulgate: “His [Moses]
brightness was as the light; he had horns [rays of light]
coming out of his hand [not his head!]. That was
about 1400 years ago. Now the horns are traditional.
In December 1977, VERBATIM published a letter I
wrote containing some mock sociological “laws” I had
collected of the Murphy's Law type. That resulted in a
literary adventure worth reporting, for since then the
article has taken on a remarkable life of its own.
In January 1978, James J. Kilpatrick wrote a column
in which he republished much of the letter and
described the observations as “profound laws ...
among the truths we live by.” The column was syndicated
nationally, with both VERBATIM and me mentioned
prominently. I became a Nationally Quoted Authority
In The Field. A few months later, the article
was reprinted as the back-page humor article in the
house magazine of a giant international corporation--for
money. I was now Internationally Published
and Professional, authorially speaking. Life was good.
Then Paul Dixon published The Official Rules,
“the definitive, annotated collection of laws, principles,
and instructions for dealing with the world.” All
the original “laws” were there, and I was cited as “the
authority” for Borkowski's Law: You can't guard
against the arbitrary . It is named after a friend of
mine who said it in a drunken stupor. Chamberlain's
Laws were also there, and so the résumé now included
Scholar and Original Contributor to the Genre. I became
sought after by hostesses. But the best was yet to
come.
In 1986 I became a Sex Symbol, fulfilling a lifelong
ambition, when Chamberlain's Second Law was
published in Cosmopolitan . The Law is itself a bit
more prosaic: Everything tastes more or less like
chicken . And by 1988, Chamberlain's Second Law and
Borkowski's Law had become Xerox art--those unattributed
photocopies of vulgarity and cheap wit that
circulate around offices. This propelled me into the
public domain and made me, of course, a Lawgiver
and a Legend.
I figure that with a little luck I can be a Lion of
Literature in just a few more years. Then I'll give up
my job and conduct motivational seminars.
A Taxonomy of Epigrams
“What is an epigram? A dwarfish whole: its
body brevity, and wit its soul.” So said
Coleridge in an epigram of his own. Nietzsche called
them “thoughts out of season,” and Tagore his “stray
birds.” They may be little nothings, but they are also
full of pith and vinegar, if you'll pardon the lisp. “I
think, therefore I am” said Descartes, to which one
might add: “I think, therefore I (epigr) am.” Epigramming
is a form of word play (or thought play) which
evolved from epitaphs on tombstones. Because of the
material on which it was inscribed, the message had to
be brief and literally to the point. “O rare Ben Jonson!”
reads the poet's inscription on his tomb at Westminster
Abbey. What would you like to put on yours? Endings
are a good place to start.
As Roger Wescott has shown (in a 1980 article),
epigrams also evolved from proverbs and adages. The
difference is that these earlier forms were inclined to
take themselves seriously, while epigrams or aphorisms
are more frequently reflexive and satirical. Even
though some epigrams are rhymed, they are not to be
confused with poetry, or even blank verse. Poems rely
on narrative imagery to evoke feelings, while epigrams
focus on contradictions to provoke thought. The explosive
tension of the epigram serves to focus consciousness,
while the opennness of poetic imagery serves to
dilate consciousness.
In my own case, writing epigrams may be a congenital
defect, since it was my father's preferred style
in several of his books. I started writing them in my
teens, and in 1976 I launched a magazine called
Thoughts For All Seasons: The Magazine of Epigrams
[ TFAS ]. The first issue of Thoughts came out in 1976, a
bicentennial year. The second issue celebrated George
Orwell's 1984. The current issue marks the bicentennial
of the Bill of Rights and the French Revolution. It
is also Pitirim Sorokin's centennial. Our quincentennial
issue will appear in 1992, and the general theme
will be the discovery and rediscovery of America.
Sorokin has been called the world's greatest sociologist,
but he was also a master satirist. We live in a
satirical age, after all, and epigrams are the perfect
vehicle for social satire. Consistent with Sorokin's cyclical
theory of social change, our time bears an uncanny
resemblance to the first century A.D. when a
Roman named Martial was penning his epigrams.
(“Conceal a flaw, and the world will imagine the
worst.” “You ask what a nice girl will do? She won't
give an inch, but she won't say no.” “You'll get no
laurel crown for outrunning a burro.” “You puff the
poets of other days, the living you deplore; spare me
the accolade: your praise is not worth dying for.”)
Although epigrams are usually sorted into content
categories, I am going to attempt a semantic and
structural taxonomy. Although my classification system
does not apply to all the epigrams I have seen or
published, it does seem to include most of them. As we
shall see, many epigrams fall into more than one category,
but the categories themselves are conceptually
distinct.
1. SEMANTICS
a) Satirical Definitions
The most systematic example of this form may be
found in The Devil's Dictionary , by Ambrose Bierce.
The following examples, however, are all TFAS originals:
adult a fossil child.
anorexic a vegetarian who doesn't eat vegetables.
condoms where the rich folks live.
consistency a form of ritualism.
deviance something in the eye of the beholder.
fate an unconscious choice.
grantsmanship a form of panhandling in which the
participants are very well dressed.
marriage friendship put to the test.
nuclear family an explosive device.
obstetrics a system of religious belief based on the
assumption that pregnancy is a disease and that
natural birth must be prevented at all costs.
optimist someone who waxes his skis in preparation
for the Nuclear Winter.
Zen the highest form of unconsciousness.
b) Comparisons
This type of epigram involves an association between
things which have no apparent connection. For example:
Scatology and eschatology are often hard to distinguish,
since they both deal with end products.
Olympics: triumph of the human spirit or tyranny
of the performance principle?
Tell me what you remember of your life before
birth, and I will tell you what to expect in your
life after death.
In the primitive world there was human sacrifice.
Now we have elective surgery.
It is natural to be concerned about what television
does to children. But does anyone care what it
does to the actors?
c) Counterpoint
Epigrammatists frequently take old saws and stand
them on their heads, or give them a new twist which
changes the meaning. Ambrose Bierce defined an adage
as “boned wisdom for weak teeth”; the challenge
to the epigrammatist is to put some teeth into it.
Blessed are the meek, for they shall be given safe
seats behind the pillars.
Of course we should love our enemies. They teach
us to be resolute, relentless, and resourceful.
[These are my three R's.]
Power corrupts not only those who wield it, but
also those who are subservient to it.
Children who are “seen and not heard” grow up to
be dumb.
Better to give than to receive, because you get a
tax write-off for it.
“A penny saved” is an indication of inadequate
goal-setting behavior.
A prophet is not without honor, save in his own
Rotary Club.
How do you know they are swine until they reject
your pearls?
“Two heads are better than one,” especially if you
are seeking employment in a circus.
If I have not seen far, it is because I stood on the
shoulders of midgets.
It's O.K. to search for the truth; just make
damned sure you don't find it.
2. STRUCTURE
a) Repetition
One of the characteristics of both proverbs and aphorisms
is repetition of syllabic structure. If the onset of a
phrase is repeated, we have alliteration:
Home is where the hooks are.
If chivalry is here, can chauvinism be far behind?
It takes two to tango, but any limp loner can
limbo.
As the prig is bent, so is the prude inclined.
The deprived soon became the depraved.
When the nucleus of a phrase is repeated, we have
assonance:
Be fruit flies and multiply.
The evil eye is the seeing eye which has been denied.
When the coda is repeated, we have what Wescott
calls “reliteration”:
Some say the world is evil, but I say it is oval.
And when both assonance and reliteration occur, we
have rhyme:
“Neither a borrower nor a lender be” plays holy
hell with the economy.
Perhaps it's boredom that causes whoredom.
Instead of a Reign of Terror, we now have a reign
of error.
b) Substitution
Substitution of sounds, syntax, or meaning also occurs
in many epigrams. When two words have identical
spellings but different meanings, we have a homonym:
An autoerotic is someone who fondles strange cars.
Teenage pregnancy ends in child labor.
To retire with a modicum of dignity, a little jack is
necessary.
Where there's a will, there's a hopeful relative.
When two words sound the same but are spelled differently,
we have a homophone. Obviously homophones
usually need to be written in order to make sense, but
let's experiment with the following anyway:
Hebrew: a Jewish tea, favored by men.
Patience is for patients.
Female socialization is a case of guise and dolls.
I was browsing through Bartlett's yesterday, and I
found Pere.
All good carnivores begin meals by first muttering:
“Let us prey.”
I regret that I have but one asterisk for my country.
Other substitutions do not qualify as either homonyms
or homophones, but they are interesting nonetheless.
Either a letter, or an entire word, or phrase may be
substituted, as follows:
May the farce be with you.
A barfing dog never bites.
Every cloud has a silly lining. (forthcoming)
Beware of Greeks bearing Turks.
Condoms are a girl's best friend. (forthcoming)
A wise man and his Moonie are soon parted.
Discretion is the better part of pallor.
Pro-Life vs. Pro-Choice: Fetalists vs. Fatalists.
I almost became a born-again Christian but I was
swept away by the tithe.
Do not ask God for anything; simply thank Her for
what She gives us.
c) Transposition and Contraction
Finally, the words of a well-known saying may be
transposed, or the entire phrase may be contracted to
create new meanings:
Sure, time wounds all heels, but the good guys get
their lumps as well.
He who laughs, lasts!
In Wescott's view, the age of miniaturization has
given epigrams a new lease on life. Look around you:
they are everywhere. I understand that graffiti have
been eliminated from the New York subway system,
but we find them in abundance on T-shirts, bumper
stickers, and bathroom walls, as well as in a variety of
work settings. They are personal statements even if
they are not original, and they are a way of talking
back to the Establishment, that great generalized
other which intimidates and bores us at the same time.
Down with jargon! Long live the lapidary art of
epigramming! Writing, after all, is one of the best
forms of exercise, good for body and soul. But I would
also like to think that there may be a few Martials
among the contributors to Thoughts For All Seasons ,
and that their quips will continue to delight or offend
long after they are gone.
“More than 2,900 dogs to flood Ryon Park during competition.”
[Headline in the Lompoc (California) Record, . Submitted by ]
“Serious crime down, but murders increase.” [From the
Rocky Mountain News , Denver, Colorado, Submitted
by ]
“Audi's at reduced savings.” [An ad in The Hartford
Courant , . Submitted by ]
Solution to Verbal Analogies II
1: Amalthea 5: A (u) stringer, 9: Excelsior
2: Meconic Ostringer 10: Edgar
3: Pone 6: Brevier 11: Berceuse
4: Hang Seng 7: Ptolemy 12: Fustanella
8: Ichor
