Hocus Pocus
And [then] I stood on the royal stump and
blessed them in the sacred Altrusian tongue,
“Arooaroo halama rama domino, shadrach meshach
abednego.”
[ Lake Wobegon Days , Garrison Keillor]
The thought of Uncle Louie speaking in tongues
was fascinating... what if he stood up and said,
“Feemalator, jasperator, hoo ha ha, Wamalamagamanama,
zis boom bah!”
[Ibid.]
Exotic, strange-sounding, and unintelligible
words, whether authentic and foreign or artificial
and spontaneously made up on the spot, are an
age-old and pandemic device for creating an aura of
mystery, holiness, or magic. The use of genuine foreign
languages is called xenoglossia . Familiar examples
are the ancient languages, Latin, Coptic,
Hebrew, and Greek, used in modern liturgies. However,
the peculiarity of incantations and prayers is
nothing new. It is attested in Babylonian, Egyptian,
Greek, and Latin religious and magical texts preserved
on clay tablets, papyrus, parchment, gems,
and strips of metal thousands of years old. In ancient
Hittite religious texts Accadian words provide the
mysterious, exotic sounds; in Latin it is Persian
words; in Greek, Hebrew and Aramaic; in Hebrew
prayers Greek was used.
Glossolalia is the technical term for artificial
languages, or “speaking in tongues,” as it is more
commonly known. To cite just a few ancient examples,
an Assyrian incantation for retrieving a fugitive
slave begins with the following nonsense sequence:
en ki-su-al-lu-ki...ki-ku-al-lu...ki na...gi-na-al-qi
( Orientalia 23 , 1954, pp. 52-53). An Egyptian
spell contains this gibberish: edera edesana, ederagaha
edesana, marmu edesana, emui edesana,
degejana edesana, degabana edesana . Another one:
paparuka paparaka pararura . ( Ägypten and Ägyptisches
Leben , A. Erman and H. Ranke, pp.
406-407). A spell in Latin for alleviating sore throat
prescribes chanting: crissi crasi concrasi (Marcellus,
XIV, 24); another for healing dislocated joints: motas
vaeta daries dardaries astataries dissunapiter...
huat hauat huat, ista pista sista, dannabo dannaustra
...huat haut haut, istasis tarsis, ardannabon dannaustra
(De re rustica, Cato, p. 160). The Babylonian
Talmud recommends reciting baz bazia, mas
masia, kas kasia, scharlai and amarlai...bazach
bazich bazbazich to prevent skin rash.
Hundreds of Greek and Coptic magical texts
from Egypt (dating from the 1st c.B.C. to the 11th c.
A.D.) are replete with concatenations of voces magicae,
some with up to a hundred letters, such as the
more mellifluous: melibou melibau melibaubau,
touchar souchar, nennana sennana, samousoum
souma soume soumeia meisouat srouat... rouat , or
the cacophonous: chuchbachuch bauachuch bakaxichuch
bazabachuch bachaxichuch bazetophoth
bainchoooch . (Psycholinguists like F. Trojan even
trace relationships between word sounds and word
meanings, the deep, dark vowels like o and u having
an awesome, threatening, secretive nature on the
one hand, and on the other the lighter ones like e
and i often referring to the gentler, pleasanter
things--whether in Indo-European or Chinese phonetics.)
Some of these ancient nonsensical magical
words enjoyed exceptional longevity. Meriut,
mermeriut in a Greek magical text of the 3rd c.A.D.
reappear in medieval French Catholic and Eastern
Syriac church liturgies as mermeut . Echoes of one
Greek curse text written in the 3rd c. A.D. can be
found in a Greek manuscript written almost 1500
years later. More recently, Goethe in his Reineke
Fuchs (11. Gesang) wrote: “und sie legt' ihm die
Hand auf Haupt and sagte die Worte” [`and she laid
her hand on his head and spoke the words']: nekrast
negibaul geid sum manteflih dnudna mein tedachs .
Thus, Garrison Keillor's boy narrator, with his
arooaroo halama rama , is simply continuing a universal
tradition, hallowed by generations of priests,
magicians--and children--through the millennia.
There is no law against combining bogus, ad
hoc , “foreign” words and the real thing in one
breath, just as Keillor's narrator does in his “Altrusian”
blessing, juxtaposing what is obviously nonsense
next to genuine Latin ( domino ) and Hebrew
( shadrach, meshach, abednego ). Likewise, in ancient
Greek magical texts snippets of Egyptian, Hebrew,
Aramaic, Coptic, and Babylonian words and proper
names commingle in happy abandon with endless
concatenations of gibberish, producing a veritable
Babelian babble to challenge the ingenuity of Indo-European
and Semitist scholars alike two thousand
years later, as they wrangle with these more-than-sesquipedalian
creations of Greco-Egyptian magical
fantasy. For example, the Greek palindrome Aberamenthooulerthexanaxethreluoothnemareba ,
according to one philologist, is Egyptian for `Powerful One
of the Waters, Thoth, God of Rain, O Sovereign:
Rain of God, Thoth, of the Powerful Waters.'
Keillor, by incorporating the names of the three
youths in the fiery furnace into his blessing, is
merely following in the footsteps of some of his forebears
in esotericism, the Copts of early Christian
Egypt, who often invoked Shadrach, Meshach, and
Abednego alongside such fantasy figures as Thoulal,
Moulal, and Boulal in their magical charms. (In all
probability we owe to the Coptic Christians the invention,
and to the Coptic magicians the dispersion,
of the names of the three wise men, who make their
first appearance, as Melchior, Thattasia, Bathesora,
in Coptic magical texts in the 6th-8th c. A.D.)
Aside from the linguistic challenges they pose,
these ancient artificial, noncewords, with their sonorous,
cantillating, rhyming, and rhythmical variations
on phonetic themes, have intrigued and fascinated
scholars who try to divine the rules governing
their formation. For example, variations on a theme
involving homoiarcton and homoioteleuton (similar
beginnings and endings; of. Keillor's “feemal ator ,”
“jasper ator ”) is a common device. A Greek magical
spell for conjuring up a deity (7th-8th c.A.D.) begins
with the following nonsense sequence,
armapophar, astramuphar, astramuchur , and continues
with a series of transmutations typical of magical
texts. Taking off from armapophar , the author transmuted
the beginning to astra - and the ending to
- muphar . For the next variation he combined and
retained astra - + mu - but then altered the ending to
- chur . Later on one finds: Chla, Achla, Achlamu,
Chlas! , showing variations on the theme Chla . Another
jingle in the same text runs: otra peruth,...
methor baruthar, eseluth with the obvious themes
per-, bar-, -uth, -uthar, -ethor , setting the tone in this
ancient version of a magical patter song or jazz scat.
Another theory is that this mumbo jumbo may
represent a kind of ancient pig Latin which, if properly
decoded, might actually make sense. Hidden
anagrams might be lurking there, awaiting the alert
scholar to come along and detect them. Taking the
example cited above: otra perouth might be transmogrified
Greek for o pater, therapeue `O Father,
heal!'
Going a step further, linguists have noted the
similarity between the sonorous sound manipulations
of such artificial words in magical incantations
and children's game songs. Children--and, in earlier
times, illiterates--often took snippets of liturgical
texts which they had heard in church on Sunday,
adapting sing-song versions of them for their own
irreligious and irreverent use on Monday. According
to some scholars, the universally known and applied
designation for magic, hocus pocus , may ultimately
derive from the Latin Eucharist formula and
represent a muddled version of Christ's words in the
Vulgate New Testament [I Cor. 11.24]: hoc est corpus
meum `this is my body.' Likewise, abracadabra ,
it has been suggested, might stem from Hebrew habracah
dabrah `pronounce the blessing.'
Children around the world hold these alliterative
and rhyming nonsensical sequences in great respect
and are careful to incant them with meticulous
exactitude. Furthermore, they seriously believe
their jungles are genuine foreign languages--for example,
Chinese--and hallowed by hoary antiquity.
While their Chinese etymology may be doubted,
“that these rhymes are centuries old is not to be
lightly dismissed.” I, and P. Opie ( Children's Games
in Street and Playground , Oxford 1969, p. 44), the
well-known example ene tene mone mei (Germany
1847), eena meena mina mona (England 1895), ina
mina maina mau (Norway 1959).
In VERBATIM [I, 1 and I, 2], respectively, Roger
Wescott and Paul Lloyd, discussed rhyming, rhythmical,
or alliterative “word chains,” otherwise
known as “coordinates” or “binomials” and “trinomials,”
which exist not only in English but in other
languages as well. For example: kith and kin, wrack
and ruin ; in German: mit Kind und Kegel, drauf und
dran ; in French: sain et sauf . Alongside such fixed
combinations, which seem to adhere to their own
rhythmic and phonetic rules, are the playful, nonsensical,
purely rhythmical and melodious formulations,
which distinctly recall the ancient incantatory
cantillations characteristic of Egyptian, Greek, and
Roman and latterday hocus pocus. In English:
hunkydory, namby pamby, nitty gritty, higgledy-piggledy,
heebie-jeebies, inky-dinky, itsy-bitsy, teeny-weeny ;
in German: Kuddelmuddel, Techtelmechtel,
Krimskrams, Simsalabim, Holterdipolter --to cite
just a few.
These perhaps quondam ad hoc expressions,
now part and parcel of our respective daily languages,
adhere to the same general rhythmical and
phonological rules as the nonsense words in the
magical texts. Hans Winkler, the German Semitist,
noted in 1935 that glossolalia, incantations, and children's
chants all display certain common tendencies,
namely, 1) the repetition of a given motif
( feemalator, jasperator; touchar souchar; astramuphar,
astramuchur ), and 2), the economical use of
the vocal apparatus. Repeating a word or syllable or
sound puts the least strain on the voice. Yet human
creative ingenuity is not satisfied with repetition; it
wants something new. Thus, once a pleasing motif
has been discovered, the next least exerting is to reproduce
it with a slight variation. Winkler discovered
that the first element of binomials, whether
nonsense or not, often begins with a laryngeal or velar
phoneme which is formed in the back of the
mouth (i.e., aspirated and unaspirated vowels). Taking
the above examples, hunkydory, higgledy-pig-gledy,
hanky-panky, hocus pocus, heebie-jeebies,
hodgepodge, hokey-pokey, inky-dinky, itsy-bitsy,
Holterdipolter, Hülle und Fülle , as can be noted, the
second element tends to be a repetition of the first,
beginning, however, with a labial ( p, b, f, m, v, w ).
Winkler called this the “ aleph-beth rule” and demonstrated
its practically universal validity, citing evidence
from both medieval and modern gaming
rhymes in European and Semitic languages alike.
Going a step further, he found that nonsense trinomials
generally continue with a word beginning with
a palatal ( ch, g, j, k ). As early as 1835, Richard Lepsius,
the German Egyptologist, had pointed out the
curious fact that the Hebrew alphabet contained no
fewer than three groups of letters which adhere to
this rule: 1) aleph, beth, gimel, daleth; 2) he, waw...
heth, teth; 3) ayin, pe...koph...taw.
This evidently primordial phonetic series has
continued to persist through the ages and is obviously
as eminently appealing to Keillor's youthful
narrator today as it was to his forebears several
millennia ago and half a world away. By initiating
his glossolalic cant with beth -element words
( feemalator, wamalama ) and continuing with palatal
variations on their respective themes ( jasperator,
gamanama ) the boy is apparently responding to the
same primal urge that motivated the anonymous creators
of our alphabet to begin their artificial series of
sounds with aleph, beth, gimel , and daleth --and not
with something like zis boom bah!
William H. Dougherty's “Meanwhile, Back at
the Ranch...” [XVIII,4] refers to huevos in its
slang sense, `balls,' not its literal sense, `eggs.' The
slang meaning is so prevalent that on a recent trip to
Mexico I was given a breakfast menu on which eggs
were referred to as blanquillos `little white ones.'
Adrienne Lehrer's “Wine Vocabularly and Wine
Description” [XVIII, 3] reminded me of a bogus
word used by the distinguished British oenophile N.
Kenne Grant, Chevalier et Baron du Vin. At wine
tastings he is wont to comment quizzically that a
wine is boutique . It is remarkable how many so-called
wine experts agree with him!
A Toast: To the Tautology
(From the Annual Meeting of the
Society of Language Abusers)
Sociologists, military analysts, computer
mavens, other distinguished guests: At this point in
our annual meeting, we pay tribute to some verbal
form that spreads confusion wherever it appears.
Last year, you recall, we honoured the chain of consecutive
nouns, to your enthusiastic applause.
Tonight, we lift our glasses to the tautology.
Nothing comes from nothing, Lucretius argued two
thousand years ago, and tautologists have proved
him right. At once simple and inscrutable, the tautology
promises more than it delivers. In the right
hands, it can be disarming (“The speculation has no
foundation”), profound (“Death leaves a gap in the
social structure”), echolatic (“Exit access is that part
of a means of egress that leads to an entrance to an
exit”), hortatory (“If we do nothing to change this
country, we shall remain frozen in the status quo”).
Some think tautologies nothing but verbiage,
but how wrong they are! To Language Abusers mere
wordiness deserves no special recognition: it is the
good manners expected of those who sit at our table.
The tautology stupefies, however; it makes readers
shake their heads or gaze blankly at their pages.
This is art we must celebrate.
Certainly, not all tautologists explore the form's
splendid possibilities. Yogi Berra, holder of the record
for tautologies uttered in a single season, simply
repeated the same words in a sentence (“It ain't
over 'til it's over.”) Although some find this charming,
Language Abusers prefer a style that more subtly
pretends to convey two ideas while conveying
only one. (“Poor assessment technology made enemy
losses difficult to estimate”).
Our critics, of course, do not think Language
Absures subtle. The quality controllers at VERBATIM
and The New York Times claim that we are crude
promulgators of error, little more than Flat Earthers
of language. Admittedly, we take pride in confounding
people, but we are never crude. Consider
the form we honour this evening: the tautology
causes confusion by stating an absolute truth.
Truthful, bewildering, remarkable--the tautology
deserves a hallowed place in the pantheon of
Language Abuse. Let us drink to its glory.
“Ramiro Ramirez Garza, 39, of the 2700 block of
Leary Lane, was arrested Thursday by police as he was
threatening to commit suicide and to flee to Mexico.”
[From The Victoria Advocate , : 7A. Submitted
by ]
Investigating the Racqueteers
So far as I know, students of so-called “racquet
games” are not required to submit to examinations
that might test whether or not they know what
they are talking about; but I have a feeling the idea
might be useful, for there is an incredible amount of
misunderstanding and downright ignorance of which
name refers to which sport. In short, these games
have an identity problem. It is as if in a particular
neighborhood one family were named Jones, another
Jones-Smith, and a third Smith-Jones and, because
of this peculiar set of circumstances, their
friends spent most of their time trying to distinguish
one family from the other instead of enjoying their
company.
As an experienced practitioner of paddle tennis,
squash, badminton, platform tennis, etc., over the
past twenty years I have become convinced that a
revised nomenclature for racquet sports is in order.
Perhaps the only people who can define these activities
precisely are those who write about them and
those who are officials of national associations. Others,
such as managers of retail tennis shops, coaches,
and regular players (who number in the thousands)
seem to be totally in the dark about such matters as
the proper distinction between paddle tennis and
platform tennis and whether the terms paddleball
and racquetball are interchangeable. It is next to impossible
to carry on an intelligent conversation
about racquet sports because there is no terminology
on which all can agree. By contrast, when one
mentions hockey, baseball , or cricket , a clear picture
comes to mind, and one is not compelled to waste
his time agonizing over the meanings of words.
To begin with let us list some of the official
racquet games, both ancient and modern, that may
be defined in a standard dictionary or encyclopedia
of sport: tennis; lawn tennis; squash tennis; paddle
tennis; platform tennis; table tennis; paddleball; racquetball;
squash racquets; badminton; and racquets .
The most obvious characteristic of this list is that
most of these games appear, at least, to be variations
of the game of tennis , yet in reality they cannot be
technically classified as such. A second characteristic
is the lack of consistency in the origins of the
terms. For example, some have derivations distinctly
removed from the equipment used or the
court on which the game is played. Badminton derives
from the name of the estate in Gloucestershire
where the game was first played in England; tennis
stems from tenetz , an old form of tenez , from French
tenir `to hold'; and squash , according to scholars,
probably grew out of the “squashy” sound which
the original soft ball made against the wall of the
court. Interestingly, in spite of their obscure origins,
these are the only three racquet sports whose
names communicate something specific to the layman.
The confusion comes with those games whose
names emerged from the equipment used ( paddleball )
or from the peculiarities of the court construction
( platform tennis ). A tangential problem relates
to certain ancient racquet sports approaching obsolescence
( court tennis, racquets, squash tennis , for example)
whose original clear-cut identity has become
hazy owing to recently created sports, such as racquetball
and platform tennis , which share some of
the characteristics of the older games.
Let us examine the three terms court tennis, tennis ,
and lawn tennis . Of course, nothing should be
done to change the label court tennis , which still refers
to the archaic four-wall game played by Henry
VIII in the 16th century at the Hampton Court Palace.
However, it would seem that, because of recent
developments in court surface technology, lawn tennis ,
which up to 1975 was an umbrella designation
for a game played on a variety of surfaces, should be
restricted to the few remaining clubs, such as Wimbledon,
that maintain grass courts. Clearly, the term
lawn , with its 19th-century connotation of society
matrons batting a powder puff, should be deleted
from the titles of all official national tennis organizations.
A more serious semantic problem is the ambiguity
regarding paddle tennis and platform tennis .
Here there is a yawning gulf of misunderstanding
between the aficionados, who insist on a precise distinction,
and the thousands on the fringes who sloppily
apply the term paddle tennis to both sports.
Some may consider this sheer perversity; however, I
have a feeling that the fault lies with those two well-meaning
gentlemen from Scarsdale, who, in labeling
their unique game, neglected to suggest that it combines
the skills of squash and tennis. Instead, they
came up with the imprecise platform tennis, which,
to the average person, simply means an `elevated
court.' The meaninglessness of this term is further
illustrated by the fact that the elevation of the court
has nothing to do with how the game is played. As
sports historians are aware, the court was originally
raised several feet above ground level in order to
put it above the snow level. However, there is no
reason why, in places where there is little or no
snow, it could not be played at ground level, and, in
fact, the later courts are so constructed. In short,
remove the platform and a new term would have to
be applied to distinguish the game from paddle tennis,
which technically is simply a form of miniature
tennis and might be better referred to as “mini-tennis.”
As for platform tennis , changing the name to
squash tennis is a possibility if we are willing to concede
that the original four-wall game with this label
is vanishing.
One way of putting some of these racquet
games into sharper focus would be to minimize use
of the words paddle and racquet . To the layman,
terms like paddleball, paddle tennis, racquets, racquetball ,
etc., just fuse into a blur. No one seems to
know if these sports are played on a court with a net,
against a wall, or both. A suggested solution to the
semantic confusion would be to sharpen the distinction
between paddleball and racquetball . These
games could be defined simply as ` handball played
with a paddle,' the only difference being that paddleball
employs a perforated wooden racquet and a
large spongy ball, while racquetball , which is rapidly
pushing both handball and paddleball into obscurity,
employs a small strung racquet and a lively rubber
ball. There is even a question as to whether or
not paddleball , as defined above, should be considered
a legitimate game, since a wooden paddle is
inappropriate for the quick wrist action that the
four-wall game requires. It seems reasonable to assume
that racquetball will prevail and that paddle-ball
will eventually lose its official sanction and will
be confined to a few die-hard eccentrics.
Another minor variation on this theme is the
vagueness related to squash, squash racquets, racquets ,
and squash tennis . All these games, of course,
are basically the same in principle in that they involve
playing a ball off four walls with a strung
racket, the difference being in the dimensions of the
court, the shape and size of the racket, and the size
and make-up of the ball. For purposes of communication,
racquets and squash tennis present no serious
problem, as they are confined to a handful of exclusive
clubs in New York, Philadelphia, and Boston
and, regrettably, may soon pass from the scene.
However, the interchangeable terms, squash and
squash racquets require some clarification. Technically,
there is no official game called squash: it is
merely a convenient clipped usage. But perhaps
some consideration should be given to separating
squash racquets more precisely from those games
from which it derives and with which it is often confused.
The obvious method of doing this is to make
the term squash official, thus eliminating the identity
problem and giving the game the distinctiveness it
deserves.
Finally, the one-wall paddle games need to be
freed from ambiguity. The problem arose when people
started employing the same wooden racket for
playing indoor four-wall handball that they used
outdoors against one wall. Both games have been
referred to as paddleball , although the ambiguity of
whether one is alluding to the one-wall version or
the four-wall version must always be resolved. A solution
is suggested in my comments on racquetball:
racquetball , while officially referring to the four-wall
game played with a strung paddle, would unofficially
also include the same sport played with a wooden
paddle; this would leave the term paddleball as the
sole designation for the one-wall game.
Since other proposals for linguistic reform, such
as phonetic spelling and an international language
(Esperanto), have never got off the ground, it could
be argued that we should forget such a minor matter
as changing the nomenclature of a cluster of games
played by only a small fraction of the population.
However, times are changing and hope springs eternal.
In my view the chief obstacle to clearing up this
unfortunate onomastic mess is the inflexibility and
conservatism of those who dominate the official associations
of these racquet sports. Until these people
can be convinced that communication is more important
than blind adherence to tradition the nebulousness
will continue.
Charles L. Nix's amusing letter [EPISTOLAE,
XVIII, 4] recalls doggerel his grandfather saw on the
“El” in Chicago. His grandfather saw it, of course,
on the L . (Chicagoans, I have learned, tend to get
into a snit about New York imports such as “El.”)
[The “L” you say! However Chicagoans spell it,
the word is still a shortening from elevated
(railway).--Editor .]
Join Me For a Spell
A number of years ago a Miami Beach politician
earned linguistic immortality, locally at least,
by announcing at a city commission meeting that he
had achieved the pinochle of success. Everybody
laughed, but he just looked bewildered. I laughed,
too, but I knew how he felt and why he confused a
card game with a peak. At sometime, probably
when he was a child or a young man, he had read the
word pinnacle , figured out its pronunciation for himself,
and forever after--although probably never using
the word out loud--thought of it as pinochle .
Which of us is not guilty of the same crime--if
crime it is? Which of us has not confidently used a
word for years, and then found out (probably in public,
to the sniggering of others) that it had another
pronunciation altogether? I am not talking about
simple preferences. I say tomato, you say tomahto.
The television announcer says Ca-RIB-be-yan; I prefer
Car-i-BEE-yan. I was raised (Southern for being
brought up by one's parents) where the train station,
or depot, was the DEE-po. The Secretary of suhished
to hear folks say DEP-o. The Secretary of duhFENSE
may be introduced at the annual Army-Navy
game, while the crowd is shouting to the players on
the field, “DEE-fense, DEE-fense!”
Back in 1986, upon reading of a forthcoming
astronomical event, I went out amongst the unlettered
and announced in the voice of one who knew,
“Halley's Comet is coming!” I said it to rhyme with
daily, Jack Haley (the Tin Woodsman in The Wizard
of Oz) or Old Bailey (as in Rumpole of the Bailey).
Why not? I had read about Halley's Comet first, I
suspect, as a youngster; seeing the word in print, but
not having much occasion to shout it aloud (the
comet coming around only once every 75 years), I
formed its pronunciation in my mind and there it
stayed. Imagine my shame when I heard a TV announcer
declare that one should rhyme Halley with
Sally, rally , and tally (as in Ho !). Then up popped a
descendant of Edmund Halley, the man who discovered
the comet; he said the family pronounces its
name to rhyme with holly, brolly (as in umbrella),
Good Golly, Miss Molly . I consulted a dictionary
(about 40 years too late), and it sided with the TV
announcers.
Another celestial word crisis arose when Voyager
II began photographing the seventh planet. I
approached an editor at my place of employment
and shouted: “At last! We'll get a look at Uranus
tomorrow!”
“I beg your pardon,” she said somewhat stuffily.
I had pronounced it yoor-ANUS, of course, as always.
To my chagrin, all the TV anchors came on the air
pronouncing it YER-in-us, making it sound as though
it were part of a procedure designed to produce a
specimen in a bottle. At this, I consulted the dictionary
again and learned that while their version was
preferred, a pronunciation similar to mine (yoo-RAY-nus)
was listed as an option. Checking around, however,
I found that a lot of people said it as I said it, so
that, as headlines began to blare such threats as
“Scientists Probe Uranus,” proctological jokes proliferated.
In a Miami Herald column I admitted my confusion
about Halley and Uranus and added that I was
guilty of even greater ignorance. For instance, I was
well past 30 when I was reading an advertisement
aloud: “Do you suffer the painful humiliation of psoriasis?”
Fortunately, I did not, but I suffered humiliation
enough when my listener pointed out that the
word was not pronounced sore-ee-AY-sis. Again, I
had first read the word as a grade schooler, assumed
its pronunciation, never asked about it and never
looked it up. Since we are on the subject of humiliation,
here's another: I suffered great anxiety for
years after learning the correct pronunciation of
anxiety , which I had glibly been pronouncing
ANKS-ity.
My father insisted to his dying day that he
would never live in “a God-damned condimonium.”
He rhymed it with pandemonium ; judging from the
lawsuits which proliferate over condominium parking
spaces, balcony barbecues, and pets pooping in
the halls, he might have been right to use the
neologism.
A high school pal of mine broke up a class by
reading: “Roman women built fires in their brassieres.”
“The word is braziers, William,” said the
teacher. A college friend admitted that he had only
recently learned that a female sheep was not an
EE-wee.
“But critics have since questioned the need for the
United States to maintain the 45-square-foot military base
[at Guantanamo, Cuba]--whose day-to-day mission, officers
say, is primarily Naval fleet training.” [From Conservative
Weekly , . Submitted by ]
Etymology as Educated Guess
So spectacularly successful were the philologists
of the late 19th and early 20th centuries in
working out the lineages of words that the typical
dictionary user takes etymology for granted. This is
made clear to me every time someone discovers that
I am a “word man”--that I am an editor on the Dictionary
of American Regional English and write a column
about word histories in the Atlantic . Inevitably,
I am presented with a favourite lexical curiosity and
asked where it came from. This reveals two assumptions:
that I am a walking dictionary and that the
word's history will of course be known.
Etymologies can be divided into two types. The
first involves words whose histories lend themselves
to philological principles or “rules” of linguistic
change. These rules describe the systematic transformation
of a prehistoric Indo-European root into
Latin then French then into English or into a Germanic
form then into English. There is, for example,
no uncertainly about the derivations of matrimony
and mother , both from the Indo-European * matter
meaning `mother,' the former through Latin and
Norman French and the latter through a Germanic
root.
The second type amounts to what Leonard
Bloomfield calls a “residue”--words that cannot be
accounted for by neo-grammarian formulas. The
histories of these words are generally more recent,
rarely reaching back to to proto-language, and are
anomalous in some way, deriving, for example, from
a historical incident or the name of a person. They
are also often slang or colloquial in nature and therefore
tend to be poorly documented. These etymologies
rise out of the gray area of word derivation that
employs educated guessing and cultivated Sprachgefühl.
A large number of the etymologies in the Dictionary
of American Regional English (DARE) fall
into this latter category. The evidence for a given
dialect expression is often very meager, and a good
guess at the etymology is about all that can be expected.
For example, a single Georgia informant
used fatpoke meaning a `fat person,' which one
might reasonably guess derives from analogy with
slowpoke , or it may also be an r -less pronunciation
and figurative use of fat pork , a dialect name for `fat
back' or `salt pork.' A Tennessee informant used dog
weather for `hot, rainless weather,' which may derive
from the expression dog days referring to dry
August weather. Knocked for a feather meaning
`greatly surprised' could be a humorous blend of
knocked for a loop and knocked over with a feather ,
just as fleazy is perhaps a blend of flea and sleazy . To
go on a bilge or drinking spree used by three Northern
informants is perhaps an alteration of to go on a
binge , or perhaps a punning alteration, or perhaps a
pronunciation variant, with l substituted for n , as in
chimney/chimley . For lack of evidence, all of these
derivations are essentially guesses.
Even where there is more evidence of a world's
usage a good guess at the etymology is about all that
can be made. Foot as an interjection expressing irritation
(“Oh, foot, I've lost my glasses again”) is a
Southernism first recorded in a 1953 issue of The
New Yorker . It might originally be from the obsolete
interjection Christ's foot! , though the latest citation
in the OED is dated 1662. Or it may be from the
French interjection foutre! `Fuck it!'
The Southern word for a “temper tantrum,'
hissy (“She had a hissy when I told her she couldn't
go”), first recorded in 1934, has three plausible derivations.
It could be a hypocoristic or baby-talk form
of hysterical , or it might be from the imitative word
hiss ; or perhaps it is a variant of another dialect
term, jesse , meaning a `severe scolding,' which is
probably from a Biblical allusion. In any case, these
explanations are really only educated guesses.
There is also the learned guess, as in the etymology
for groundhog , the Midland name for the eastern
woodchuck, which may be a calque from Dutch
aertoercken , and archaic variant of aardvarken , literally
`earth pig'; or hieronymous , a euphemism for the
posterior, which may derive from Greek hieron osteon ,
the name for the sacrum; or the southern Appalachian
expression to come out of the little end of
the horn meaning `to be unlucky,' which is probably
an allusion to a “reverse” cornucopia.
Because the historical record is typically spotty
at best, the DARE editor usually has to deal with a
larger `gray area' than the editor of a general dictionary.
For example, in working on the etymology
for ofay , a derogatory term for a white person used
by urban black speakers, I discovered three possible
etymologies--all problematic. The most popular explanation
is that ofay is pig Latin for foe . But there is
simply no tradition or precedent in Afro-American
culture for the use of pig Latin. Another version,
propounded by H.L. Mencken, among others,
claims that it is from French aufait meaning `mastery'
presumably introduced via New Orleans. But
none of the early citations locates the word in Louisiana
and the semantic development from the
French is very difficult. An African source is often
suggested. Yoruba ofe meaning `a charm enabling
one to jump very high or disappear' and `to disappear'
was proposed by Frederic Cassidy, Editor of
DARE , but the semantics are very problematic. Alternatively,
a 1932 article in the journal Africa
claims an Ibibio word, Afia , meaning `white or light-coloured'
is the African source. But this cannot be
confirmed. The late appearance of ofay in print
(1925) casts doubt on its African origin. By contrast
buckra , also a derogatory term for a `white person,'
is first recorded in 1787 and is probably from an Efik
word meaning `he who governs' and `white man.'
Not just dialect words, but a great many of the
so-called “residue” words in standard speech have
conflicting etymologies. This has become very clear
to me when written the “Word Histories” column in
the Atlantic over the last three years. Recently in
that column I discussed the origins of the ubiquitous
teen usage, dude meaning `fellow.' We know that
dude first appeared in 1883, probably in connection
with the “aesthetic movement.” Oscar Wilde, the
high priest of this movement whose adherents cultivated
eccentricity in dress and affectation in speech
and manner, came to America in 1882 on a lecture
tour and presented in the flesh the image of an aesthete.
Dude might have been coined to refer to
Wilde and his imitators. Eric Partridge suggests that
it is coined from dud an `article of clothing' altered
to incorporate attitude with reference to the dude's
self-conscious manner or pose. C.T. Onions proposed
that dude derived instead from Low German
dude a `foolish fellow' shortened from duden-kop a
`lazy fellow,' literally `drowsy head.' In this sense,
the development of dude would be like that of fop .
Again we see etymologists struggling with uncertainty
and the educated guess.
Often I try to include several proposed versions
of a word's origin in the “Word Histories” column.
This seems to encourage word buffs to take a stab at
their own versions--a popular pastime if the many
letters I receive are any indication. When I missed a
good alternative guess at the origin of cold turkey
referring to a drug addict who quits abruptly, I received
numerous letters from would-be etymologists
correcting me. I had argued, as does the unabridged
Random House Dictionary , that to quit or go cold turkey
probably developed from to talk cold turkey , a
variant of to talk turkey , that is, to speak bluntly
about something unpleasant. The underlying or
transitional concept is presumably unfeeling abruptness.
The most authoritative of the letters I received
countering my explanation of “cold turkey” came
from an M.D. who said that “the expression alludes
to the `gooseflesh' or `duck bumps' that appear on
the skin of persons withdrawing from addiction to
opiates. The nodular appearance is that of the skin
of a plucked, uncooked, cold turkey.” This sounds
very plausible, though impossible to prove. However,
these are not mutually exclusive explanations.
The phrase could have come from “to talk cold turkey”
and was transferred to drug withdrawal because
the underlying image of a horripilated naked
turkey was memorable.
I have written about many other examples of
disputed word histories in A History of English in Its
Own Words (HarperCollins, 1991) that illustrate the
role of the educated guess. But if etymological uncertainty
perplexes and frustrates scholars, at the
popular level it makes writing and reading about
word histories fun. Playing with the words of “uncertain
origin” is like solving a puzzle: at its most
imaginative but speculative worst, it amounts to a
guess founded on assumptions and other guesses;
and at its best, it is the formulation of a plausible
solution based on a handful of genuine if limited
clues that in the end also amount to a guess, albeit an
informed and educated one.
“Abusing the King's English [XVIII,3] reminded
me of two lines that could be interpreted in a way
that the Bard might not have intended. Friar Laurence
says to Romeo:
Go, get thee to thy love as was decreed
Ascend her chamber--hence and comfort her.
[Romeo and Juliet, III, iii, 146-7]
If the decree is a reference to the wedding
vows, could he not be directing Romeo to consummate
the marriage?
Robert M. Sebastian does a good job of “Abusing
the King's English” [XVIII,3]. Permit me two
other quotations from the Bard:
On dieting: “Oh that this too too solid flesh would
melt.” [Hamlet, I, ii, 129]
On intercourse: “'tis a consummation Devoutly to
be wished.” [Ibid., II, i, 63-4]
Of “Coat-wearers” and “Kekiongas”:
Native American Culture and “Indian” Nicknames
Athletic team nicknames have delighted and inspired
U.S. sports audiences for more than a
century. Yet today a few of them--specifically those
associated with American Indian tribes--find themselves
at the center of a surprisingly bitter controversy.
According to critics, tribal team names set
Indians apart from the rest of humanity--romantically
projecting them into the mythic past (along
with Trojans, Vikings, Pirates , and the like) or else
degrading them to the cartoonlike level of Mud
Hens, Golden Gophers , and other fabulous beasts. In
effect, a living people is reduced to a bold-faced caricature.
Native Americans, for their part, have objected
less to tribal nicknames per se than to the
tom-tom-thumping pregame pageants and war-whooping
halftime shows they so often give rise to.
Such spectacles, they contend, make a lurid mockery
of their tribal rituals.
Are tribal team names (such as Braves, Redskins,
Seminoles , etc.) truly demeaning to red Americans?
Or do they, as their supporters maintain, actually
preserve the heritage of native tribes? Despite its
air of implausibility and apparent unreality, this issue
is more than just a tempest in a teepee or a war
over words. Instead, it raises serious questions of
racism and bigotry and, by treading in the area of
sports, cuts at the heart of some of our best-loved
cultural institutions. Ironically, it also touches on an
important aspect of native culture, for nicknaming
has long been a familiar custom--and even a cherished
tradition--among North American tribes.
Indeed, from the eastern forests to the Rockies,
from the Everglades to the Great Lakes, American
Indians have long been renowned for their love of
rollicking nicknames. Eastern tribes, for example,
used to delight and amaze early colonists with their
resonant and evocative names--names that, when
translated, turned out to have much of the broad
humor and graphic wit of European-style nicknames.
Often comical ( Sleeping Rabbit, Turkey Leg ),
occasionally thrilling ( High Hawk ), and sometimes
bizarre ( Rectum ), Indian names generally tried to
capture in a concise way the individual warrior's
unique personality and style.
In addition to having colorful personal names,
Indians exchanged actual nicknames too. According
to anthropologists, the practice originated as a superstitious
form of self-protection and disguise. The
first nicknames were apparently primitive aliases. In
the belief that knowledge of another person's real
name gave one magical power over that person,
early tribal members often concealed their true
names beneath protective layers of pseudonyms.
Even today, nicknames sometimes serve as a protective
shield (as Fats , for example, might protect an
obese person from even worse insults). Like an inoculation,
a nickname is a minor injury that wards off
more serious harm. And though it would later
evolve into a kind of sport or game--a playful pastime
in which braves showed off their flair for wisecracks
and verbal whimsy, native nicknaming was
still predicated on the idea that an apt name can,
almost literally, capture a person's inner spirit. Indian
nicknames, in short, mingled old superstitions
with tongue-in-cheek sophistication. To this day, for
example, we cannot be sure whether it was primitive
fear or mischievous humour that inspired a famous
Indian woman to introduce herself to white people
by her nickname ( Pocahontas , which provocatively
suggests `Wanton Valley' or `Wild Place') rather than
by her demure real name, Matowaka `Snowflake.'
Once he mastered the art, the Native American
fired his mirth-tipped arrows at friend and foe alike.
And while he scored some memorable bull's-eyes on
his fellow red men (for example, the Mohawks --
`man-eaters'--were given their blood-thirsty epithet
by enemy tribes), he nevertheless reserved his
choicest zingers for the invading whites.
The Algonquian tribes called the first white settlers
Coat-wearers in gentle mockery of the
stranger's curious garb. Did not these savage Newcomers
(another popular epithet), bound up in their
tight-fitting sleeves, buttons, and collars, appreciate
the superior comfort and versatility of blankets?
Bluecoats , the common Plains Indian nickname for
U.S. cavalry troopers, expressed similar sartorial
doubts out west. At the same time, the cavalry officer's
sabre, a much-coveted battle trophy, gave rise
to the alternative nickname of Long Knives , a sobriquet
that combined light-hearted jeering with wary
respect. Tribes in Canada and along the Great Lakes
called Jesuit missionaries Black Robes in yet another
nickname related to outlandish apparel. A recent
movie makes the name seem ominous but the Indians
probably considered the priests more ridiculous
than sinister. Since tribal members preferred to
make brightly colourful fashion statements and generally
wore only custom-designed originals, they regarded
uniform clothing, particularly of a dark and
somber hue, as exceedingly odd.
After the Civil War, the reorganized U.S. Army
contained a few all-Negro regiments. The Indians
called these black men Buffalo Soldiers apparently
because their woolly hair reminded the red men of
buffalo fur. The troopers, for their part, enjoyed the
epithet and accepted it as a good-natured tribute.
In a particularly fanciful metonym, the Narragansetts
referred to the Puritans as Wood-burners .
Observing the Englishmen cut down entire forests to
obtain firewood, the Indians reasonably concluded
that a shortage of fuel must have driven these wancomplexioned
visitors to their shores. Had this cold-natured
tribe, the Indians wondered, used up every
last twig, tree-stump, and stick of firewood in Europe
and come to the New World in search of more?
Although white Americans have tended to ignore
or downplay this joyful side of native culture,
the fact remains that boisterous name-calling and irrepressible
nicknaming was at one time as popular
among the so-called Six Nations and five Civilized
Tribes as among Big Eight or PAC Ten football fans
today. Contrary to the views of sentimentalists, a
people long conditioned to satirical, hard-edged
personal names like Stumbling Bear , who have suffered
for five centuries the misnomer Indians and
who once merrily referred to whites as Long Noses
and Palefaces , are hardly likely to be mortified by
Redskinsor devastated by Braves . Although currently
considered the most glaring of all Indian team
names, Redskins actually predates its New World usage
by some twenty-five centuries or so. The ancient
Greeks first coined the term and applied it to
the ruddy inhabitants of the eastern Mediterranean.
They called this people Phoenicians (from Greek
Phoinikes , `Red Ones' or `Crimson Men') on account
of their sunburned skin.
An interesting consequence of this aboriginal
foundness for nicknaming is that several of the oldest
and best-known Indian team names can trace their
deepest roots--and in some cases their actual origins--to
the exploits and linguistic customs of Native
Americans themselves. Though the exact date
of their birth is uncertain, team nicknames originnated
in the United States sometime before the Civil
War. They were in any case in popular use well before
they were officially adopted in 1871 by the
original members of the National Association of Professional
Baseball Players, the world's first fully professional
baseball league. A charter member of the
organization picked the name Ft. Wayne Kekiongas
and thus became, for better or worse, the first American
sports teams to adopt an Indian nickname.
Kekiongas was apparently chosen more for its
poetry and local color than for any drollery or satire
at the expense of Native Americans. To this day historians
are unsure what those resonant syllables
actually mean. It had originally been the name of a
vast Miami village that used to stand between the
Maumee and St. Joseph Rivers near present-day
Ft. Wayne. The entire village was reportedly destroyed
in 1790 during the Northwest Indian wars.
According to local legend, Kekionga means `Blackberry
Patch,' presumably an apt description of the
Ft. Wayne area at the time red Americans first settled
there. A more colourful and allusive translation,
however, is `Place of the Clipped Heads,' a reference
to the tribe's well-known fondness for bold,
highly decorative punk-style haircuts. If this
eymology is correct, Clipped Heads was the tribe's
own self-styled nickname, and the Ft. Wayne Kekiongas
(or “Bare Scalps” as we might call them today)
in essence preserved a tradition of verbal humor
and nameplay that the Miami themselves had
cheerfully begun. The Keks , by the way, won America's
first official major league ballgame, 2-0 over the
Cleveland Forest Citys . Unfortunately, the team
folded--financially and competitively--later in the
season.
In 1900 the National League's Boston Braves
became the second major league team to adopt a
tribal nickname. The team had previously been
known by the memorable designation Beaneaters ,
which, in a curious way, might also be considered an
Indian nickname. That is because long before it became
a popular name for a resident of Boston, warlike
tribes had used Beaneaters as a derisive epithet
for peace-loving agrarian Indians.
Perhaps the most famous--and certainly the
most improbably begotten--of all tribal team names
made its official major league debut in 1915. At that
time owners of the American League Cleveland
Naps , faced with the defection to Philadelphia of the
team's inspirational player-manager, the eponymous
Napoleon “Nap” Lajoie, held a city-wide contest to
select a new nickname. The surprise winner was Indians .
According to press-box history and grandstand
legend, the name was a belated tribute to Lou
“Chief” Sockalexis, the first Native American to
play professional baseball. Sockalexis, a full-blooded
Penobscot, played right field for the old Cleveland
Spiders of the National League. During the years
1897-99, he and his identically monickered teammate,
Charles “Chief” Zimmer, helped the Spiders
maintain a league-wide reputation for rowdy, dust-raising,
bowl-'em-over baseball. Indeed, the two
“Chiefs” practically personified Spider baseball during
that period--which could be the reason why opposition
hecklers started referring to the ballclub as
a bunch of “wild Indians.” After a while, Cleveland
fans grew accustomed to the epithet and began using
it themselves, gradually converting it into an unofficial
nickname.
Fond memories of those free-spirited Spider
teams were apparently running through the minds of
Cleveland residents when the 1915 nickname contest
was held. At any rate, Indians somehow won
out--inspired, supposedly, by a rough-and-tumble,
crowd-pleasing red man whose exciting playing career
was unfortunately cut short by a series of
scrapes, off-field misadventures, and episodes with
the bottle. Ironically, Cleveland Indians , a name of
no joy among red people today, may be the only
shrine and surviving legacy of this memorable Native
American.
For most of this century, tribal names have been
the most popular nicknames in American sports. In
recent years, however, their number has begun to
decline, most by having succumbed to inevitable
changes in taste and fashion, a few by having fallen
victim to the Black Robes of political correctness.
One unfortunate casualty of this trend is Hurons , until
recently the vibrant and storied nickname of Eastern
Michigan University and a name rich in authentic
Indian lore. Deriving from an old French word,
huré , meaning `bristly' or `stubbled,' the epithet was
originally coined by French fur traders, hard-living,
robust fellows who trapped and hunted in the vicinity
of the Great Lakes. The Frenchmen applied the
term to the Iroquois inhabitants of that region on
account of the Indians' barbarous appearance and
rough-cut hair. In effect, the name was an ironic
compliment, a friendly jest passed from one scruffy
and uncouth people (the traders themselves were
hardly known for their dainty manicures and designer
coiffures) to another. And the Indians appreciated
it as such. Before long they were proudly
calling themselves Hurons `Roughnecks' or `Rugged
Ones' and the nickname stuck. It has served as a
semi-official tribal designation ever since.
Nicknaming, it seems fair to conclude, is an activity
that has long delighted and entertained all
Americans--white, colored, hyphenated, and just
plain--and the fiercely contested clash over “Indian”
nicknames appears to be largely due to overzealous
activism and misdirected social reform. A
sense of humor has been notably absent from the
battlefield. Yet humor, as Native American author
Vine Deloria, Jr., once observed, is absolutely vital
to both the continuation and appreciation of Indian
culture:
When a people can laugh at themselves and
laugh at others and hold all aspects of life together
without letting anybody drive them to
extremes, then it seems to me that people can
survive.
[Custer Died for Your Sins,
Vine Deloria, Jr., Macmillan, 1969]
Here is good advice indeed for Clipped Head
and Coat-wearer alike.
“When multiplying a newton by a meter, for example,
MicroMath automatically displays the result in jewels.”
[From MacWeek , , p. 17. Submitted
by ]
“An engine fell off a commuter airplane before it
crashed into a farm field last week, killing all 14 people
aboard, investigators said Tuesday. It wasn't clear
whether that caused the crash or was just another sign the
plane was in trouble.” [From the San Bernardino Sun , . Submitted by ]
“Wilbur J. Witzel, 42, of San Jose, who pulled a
fallen woman from train tracks June 11, 1990, as a commuter
train rapidly approached.” [From a list of Carnegie
heroes in the San Francisco Chronicle , ,
p. B8. Submitted by ]
Images of English
Anyone interested in the English language
ought to read this book; furthermore, it is a reasonably
safe prediction that it will prove readable, enjoyable,
and informative. From the perspective of a
professor of English at a noted American university
(Michigan), Richard Bailey, a former president of
the American Dialect Society who has long been active
in English linguistics and associated with lexicography,
has provided a historical view of the development
of the language that concludes with a
realistic assessment of its present position among the
languages of the world.
The chapter headings offer succinet clues to
Bailey's approach: English Discerned; Emergent
English; English Abroad; World English; English
Transplanted; Postcolonial English; English Improved;
Imaginary English; English Imperiled; and
Proper English. To gain access to much of the material
presented one would have to ransack innumerable
recondite sources; certainly, it would be difficult
to select and organize it so effectively and palatably.
Bailey writes well. One of the structural features to
be particularly savored in each chapter is the author's
system of broaching his subject, describing it
lucidly, then illustrating the attitudes (“images”)
perceived by citing passages from prominent commentators.
These extracts, which are in chronological
order, have been well selected for clarity and
interest; neither cryptically brief nor tediously long,
they accurately reflect the opinions on, for example,
World English--the spread of English and its emergence
as a lingua franca--dating from 1846 to 1990;
comments on Proper English are reflected in extracts
dating from 1711 to 1986.
Throughout, Bailey properly maintains the
clinical view of the scholarly observer, and I could
find little evidence, even in the selection of extracts,
indicating where his personal preferences lie.
Each of the chapters in Images of English could
stand on its own as an outstanding essay. People
who are concerned that the vibrant vitality of English
is diminished by its aberrant spelling, reliance
on idiom, and inconsistent, ambiguous grammar may
derive consolation (but little pleasure) from the attempts
to codify the language as described in English
Improved. Notwithstanding my personal speculations
about the author's sentiments on the
“improvements” discussed, from spelling reform to
the reasonable/unreasonable acquiescence to the
pressures of feminism, I could find nothing that interferes
with his even-handed, detached description
of how people feel about English. Many consider
themselves qualified to offer opinions about the English
language in its multifarious manifestations, but,
as far as I am aware, no one has, till this book, taken
the trouble to engage in a comprehensive, comprehensible
review of those opinions. That is not to say
that Bailey has remained coolly aloof from his subject,
for everywhere the reader can sense the affectionate
warmth he brings to his subject. The book
concerns itself, above all, with the attitudes and
opinions of others: though demonstrably capable of
the most uninvolved, scientifically analytical dissection
of an attitude, Bailey never slips into careless,
autoschediastic, personal commentary.
Unencumbered by footnotes, Images of English
offers a good, but not overlong list of References, an
Index of Names, and a Subject Index. My only cavil
is with the compositor's (editor's, and proofreader's)
apparent ignorance of the accepted hyphenation of
the word English : after, not before the -g-.
Laurence Urdang
Euphemism and Dysphemism
Although this book contains much excellent material,
it suffers from a most serious shortcoming,
probably to be laid at the door of the publisher
rather than the authors: it lacks an index of words
and phrases (which might have fit neatly into the
thirteen blank pages at the end). The text is organized
into ten chapters titled “The Lexicon for Bodily
Effluvia, Sex, and Tabooed Body-Parts,” “Euphemisms
in Addressing and Naming,” “Taboo Terms as
Insults, Epithets, and Expletives,” and so on; without
a word and phrase index, access to particular
expressions is denied, thus reducing the usefulness
of the work.
It ought to be self-evident from the subject matter
that those who are squeamish about seeing
“naughty” words in print should avoid reading the
book, which is a longish monograph--the best and
most comprehensive I have seen--analyzing the
ways in which English speakers deal with taboo
words. The treatment is clinical and contains much
useful ancillary information concerning usage, dialect,
and etymology (loo, crapper) , detailing the results
of considerable research, all of which is presented
along with the authors' commentaries and
speculations. It is curious, though, to find so few
references in the Bibliography to articles that have
appeared in, for instance, Maledicta , the main repository
of scatological analysis, and to such articles as
Allen Walker Read's “You Know What,” in American
Speech (reprinted in VERBATIM II, 3) and Sidney
Landau's “ sexual intercourse in American College
Dictionaries” [I, 1].
But to go back to the beginning, I think it is
agreed that euphemism is the deliberate substitution
of a socially acceptable, or “laundered” term for one
that is considered taboo (for any reason at all--because
it is inappropriate to a given situation, irreligious,
antireligious, deprecatory, insulting, impolite,
indecorous, subversive, unpatriotic, slanderous,
prejudicial, and so forth). The cultural perception
of what is taboo changes, from the Victorian avoidance
of a word like leg , to the current sanction of
television advertising of gear for the incontinent and
menstruating, to the blatant public discussion of
rape, incest, and other actions formerly anathema.
The authors define a euphemism as
an alternative to a dispreferred expression, in order
to avoid possible loss of face: either one's
own face or, through giving offense, that of the
audience, or of some third party. [p. 11]
The dispreferred expression may be taboo, fearsome,
distasteful, or for some other reason have
too many negative connotations to felicitously execute
Speaker's particular communicative intention
on a given occasion. [p.14]
The terms used here are not immediately transparent:
if by communicative intention is meant `denotative
purpose, the information the speaker wishes to
convey,' unless one views communication in the
broadest way, it would seem to me that the definition
confuses denotation with connotation; that is to
say, whether an expression is euphemistic, neutral,
or taboo is a matter of connotation, and the fact that
a speaker avoids shit for defecate, move one's bowels ,
etc., is purely a connotative matter: denotatively
(communicatively?) they all mean exactly the same
thing. I can conclude only that that communicative
intention is used to mean both denotation and connotation:
but if that is so, then it would seem that the
contrast implicit in euphemism is lost. Moreover,
“loss of face” is entirely irrelevant: if what is meant
is embarrassment , then why not call it that? This curious
aspect is further explained in these terms: “lest
Speaker lose face by offending Hearer's sensibilities”
[p. 12]. I am not persuaded that a speaker who
offends a hearer's sensibilities directly suffers loss of
face: loss of face could come about only by some
retaliatory action of the hearer's.
Turning to dysphemism , the authors provide the
following definition:
an expression with connotations that are offensive
either about the denotatum or to the audience, or
both, and it is substituted for a neutral or euphemistic
expression for just that reason. [p. 26]
Dysphemisms, then, are used in talking about
one's opponents, things one wishes to show disapproval
of, and things one wishes to seem to downgrade.
[p. 27]
In the first part, I am not sure that one can say that
there is anything “offensive” about a denotatum: Is
there anything inherently offensive? Is not the offensiveness
invariably--virtually by definition--in the
minds of the audience? In any event, even these criteria
are abandoned later on in the book (e.g., in the
chapter on “Bodily Effluvia”) where, for example,
john, jakes, bog, crapper are said to “tend to the
dysphemistic,” whatever that means. What I am
getting at, to paraphrase the infinite wisdom of Pigs
is pigs , is that shit is shit , and there is nothing
dysphemistic about it (unless used “in talking about
one's opponents”)--that is, it is the context that determines
whether it is dysphemistic, which is again
dependent on whether it was the intention of the
speaker to use a taboo word in place of socially acceptable
one. In other words (to keep on explaining
this simple but hard-to-articulate point), in order for
an expression to be dysphemistic it must be the intention
of the user to employ it to an insulting, derogatory,
or otherwise offensive purpose.
In a book dealing with a subject of this sort one
must be extremely careful to cleave to rigid definitions
of the key terms ( euphemism, dysphemism, taboo ,
etc.) and not deviate from them. Yet revenue
augmentation is described as a euphemism “except
when it is used by the government to mean `raising
taxes,' which is taboo.” Taboo is here employed in
its loosest sense, quite a different one from that demanded
by the context of the book, and it would
have been better to have described raising taxes as a
term that is “politically inexpedient” (itself a useful
euphemism).
Nowhere could I find any comment on language
levels and the fact that euphemisms are seldom used
in certain contextual situations (e.g., among close
male friends, in a bar, in a team changing room, in a
prison). Those who leave a social gathering to use
the toilet usually say, “Excuse me”; it might, depending
on the gathering, be acceptable to say, “I
have to powder my nose,” “I gotta go (and when
you gotta go, you gotta go),” “I have to pee,” “I
have to take a leak/piss/crap/shit, etc.” but who
cares enough about a person's temporary disappearance
to want to know its details? Also absent is comment
on the borrowing of terms as dysphemisms (or
as euphemisms): for example, gurry is a neutral term
for the gut(s) (or, if you prefer, entrails) of an eviscerated
fish, but it becomes cynically dysphemistic
when used, as it is in medical slang, to refer to human
organs or parts removed in surgery.
The authors might also have discussed the deliberate
use of taboo words for their shock (or humor-inducing
embarrassment) value by so-called “x-rated”
comedians, especially performers like the
American Lenny Bruce and the British Jerry
Sadowitz and Kevin Bloody Wilson: some of that humor
can be heard on British television, where some
of the studio audience are evidently easily convulsed
by the mention of words like shit and fart .
The most common forms of dysphemism occur
in the many terms used against ethnic and religious
groups, which need not be retailed here. As the authors
point out, the taboos among speakers of English
occur mostly among terms for death, God, fear,
sex, lust, and bodily parts, to which one should add
bodily functions and, perhaps, disease.
Euphemisms & Dysphemisms contains a vast
amount of valuable material, much of which is admittedly
hard to classify with any precision, for it
depends so much on context. But that is not an excuse
for not trying.
It is worth noting that the authors are both Australian,
and it cannot be denied that their views--
like anyone's--are influenced by their linguistic experience
and environment and by their age. (From
their photograph, they would appear to be in their
thirties.) A British, Canadian, or American investigator
of the same age or older or younger would be
bound to produce different descriptions and different
conclusions.
Laurence Urdang.
Anent “Beyond Compare” [OBITER DICTA,
XVIII, 4], let me throw another clod in the churn. My
brother Carl is 81 years old; my brother Edwin is
73; and I am 77. Carl refers to me as younger
brother, but I say that I am his older brother; Edwin
calls me an older brother; but I insist that I am his
younger brother, a three-way disagreement. However,
because of our oldness, we all agree that the
perplexity should soon resolve itself.
Referring to the review of Reception and Response
[BIBLIOGRAPHIA, XVIII, 4], I note the Editor's problem
of understanding what is in the minds
of some who phone to radio call-in shows. Let me
see if I can elucidate:
Caller says, “I'm a first-time caller”; the Editor
comments that he has never fathomed the purpose
of this statement. To get a caller (or a reader) to
participate for the first time indicates a growing audience.
The host (or editor) is made to feel good by
this, whether or not admitted publicly. Though this
caller has not called before, he is not a new listener.
He has learned enough about how broadcasting
works to know that the statement pulls just a little
extra attention from the host.
Caller says, “I really enjoy your program” or
“You really have a great program tonight.” Pure
sycophancy, you say. More nearly the opposite. US
magazine readers, for example, used to be so single-minded
that Collier's, Saturday Evening Post , and
few others were all they needed. In today's more
anarchic times, nobody can count the numbers of
magazines needed to do the job. Radio is the same.
Whatever subject a radio host picks, he has targeted
some listeners, lost others. The caller in this instance
is really saying, “You targeted me tonight,
and if you know what's good for you, pick subjects
like this more often, or I'm outta here.”
Caller says, “Thank you for taking my call.” Editor
says that is what the host is supposed to say. But
the reference is not necessarily to that particular
call. Sometimes all the lines are occupied. The host
can read on his computer screen an indication, provided
by the person who screens the calls, of what a
caller wishes to talk about. More often than not, the
host has only limited time: maybe a dull caller can
be disposed of quickly; on the other hand, an interesting
caller might merit being continued after a
break for the news or a commercial. Sometimes, a
caller has been holding on for 40 minutes or more
before getting in his quick remark, with the news
only 29 seconds away.
Imagine getting to express one's views to thousands--maybe
hundreds of thousands. The caller
who says, “Thank you for taking my call,” is the
gentle and courteous kind of person one should have
more respect for. And thank you for taking my
letter.
[I am sure that, like me, there are readers who appreciate
Mr. Martin's well-reasoned demystification
of what seems to have become a private language.
As a frequent writer of letters to The Times and an
occasional writer to other periodicals, all of which
receive a great deal of mail, I can understand the
points made. But, as the letter itself makes clear,
one does not write “Thank you for publishing my
letter” in such correspondence, and the approach
still smacks to me of smarminess. --Editor. ]
Jack Orbaum comments on the King James Version's
“mistranslation” (Isaiah 7:14) of the Hebrew
almah as `virgin' [XVII, 4]. He fails to make explicit
that the portion of Matthew he quotes (1:23) is not
just an identical “mistranslation”: Matthew's use of
the Greek parthenos is the KJV's authority for the
choice of word.
Bible writers have, presumably, a latitude of interpretation
denied mere translators. However,
Matthew did not have to stretch the language here.
A better English match than `young woman' for
almah is `maiden,' which, while it narrowly
means only `young woman,' certainly connotes virginity.
(See, for instance, Ronald Knox's translation
of the Vulgate Latin. Many languages have this
ambiguity.)
Lacking the authority of either Isaiah or Matthew,
most of us might well remember that while
the goal in writing is to avoid ambiguity, the goal in
translation should be to replicate it.
On another point, James II of Scotland was king
in the mid 1400s. It was James VI of Scotland who
became James I of England in 1603. James VII (of
Scotland) and James II (of England) became king in
1685 and was overthrown in the same year.
Further to the letter of Muriel Smith [XVIII, 2]
regarding gunsel , perhaps her taste and discretion
prevent her from quoting Queen more directly. “In
the Queen's Parlor” specifically refers to Hammett's
use of gunsel and describes him as meaning it in the
“catamite” sense. He also mentions “a boy kept for
unnatural purposes” in quoting from a pamphlet,
“Hard-Boiled Detective Fiction,” by James Sandoe,
as his source. I thank Don Herron of Glen Ellen,
California, the author of The Dashiell Hammett Tour ,
City Lights Press, for finding these citations.
Politicians can be such easy targets, but I
thought that VERBATIM readers might appreciate this
statement by former Attorney General Edwin Meese
during an interview on WBEZ, our local affiliate of
National Public Radio:
One of the purposes of the primaries is for members
of political parties to sort out their differences
in the areas in which they agree.
At last, what may be the definitive condemnation
of “politically correct language” for the nonsense
that it is! [OBITER DICTA, XVIII, 1] I, for one,
am proud to be an unreconstructed linguistic traditionalist.
My generic-pronoun usage is defiantly
masculine, my descriptions are bluntly factual, my
Holy Trinity is and always will be Father, Son, and
Holy Ghost, world without end. Amen.
The idiocy inherent in the hypersensitivity
plague may perhaps be seen in an example which
occurred to me while reading this morning's sports
page. The Chicago Bears football player, William
“Refrigerator” Perry is a large gentleman whose
weight is variously estimated at between 350 and
400 pounds. His ancestors came from Africa. The
censors of the moment would have us refer to Mr.
Perry as (to use examples from OBITER DICTA) a
“non-slim African American adult male.” This description
may be utterly inoffensive, but it is also so
lacking in color or character that a sports-page editor
would reject it instantly.
If this drivel carries through to its logical conclusion
we will have to stop writing and speaking
altogether, for there will not be a single noun or
adjective that will not be deemed offensive to some
group, and if we cut speech down to simple verb
forms we will end up sounding like a nation of boot-camp
drill instructors: “Come!” “Sit!” “Add!”
“Pay!” “Write!” Nor will there be any grunts in this
boot camp, because the Sir or Ma'am in Yes, Sir/
Ma'am will be deemed exclusive and taboo; someone
will probably take offense at Yes or No , for that
matter.
It seems to me that the political correctness
movement is a natural descendant of the recurrent
spasms of prudery that have assaulted our language
over the centuries. The Reverend Dr. Bowdler is no
doubt chortling in his grave.
On another subject, lest a reader be misled into
assuming that Skeat was a bishop by the facetious
heading, “The Invariably Right Reverend Walter W.
Skeat [OBITER DICTA, XVIII, 1], it should be pointed
out that Right Reverend is the customary title for
that rank in the Anglican Communion.
“Entitling” books and other works is an inferior
usage, which I was surprised to find in VERBATIM
[XVIII, 2]. It means no more than the shorter word,
titled. This usage muddies the distinction between
two perfectly good words with their own meanings,
and I see no justification for it. I call this practice
“Cosellism,” for sportscaster Howard Cosell, who
was always willing to use a bigger word that seemed
to mean the same as a smaller, even if it didn't
(which was often). Cosell apparently legitimized the
habit for millions of Americans; from a recent issue
of a San Francisco weekly newspaper:
Agnos and his family were gathered in the glass
empaneled room at the back of the hall.
[ Entitle and title , as transitive verbs meaning `give a
title to,' appear to be coeval, both given their earliest
citations in the 14th century in the OED . Thus,
one is given a choice between them, a choice that
might be dictated by the style, meter, and rhythm of
a sentence or by personal preference. Context, of
course, enables us to distinguish between this and
the other meaning of entitle , `give (someone) a
right'; it is hard to see where the two meanings
would conflict. A similar notion surrounds the word
till , which many would suggest is a somehow less
formal shortening of until , the shortening of which is
properly written 'til . As it happens, the original
form was till , with until being formed from unto `up
to' + till . The citations in the OED , which are rather
thin on the ground for early 13th-century (Middle)
English, show the two forms to be of virtually contemporaneous
origin. --Editor. ]
Robert Archibald Ford's article, “Learn to
Spike Lunars” [XVIII, 4], on the late Dr. Spooner of
New College, Oxford, reminded me of two, doubtless
apocryphal spoonerisms attributed to him. One
was nonverbal: on seeing his wife off at the railway
station, he is reported to have kissed the porter and
tipped his wife sixpence. The other was made to an
errant undergraduate whom he rusticated with the
stern rebuke, “You have hissed my mystery lessons,
you have tasted three worms, you must leave by the
town drain.”
“Beyond Compare” [OBITER DICTA, XVIII, 4]
does not mention a problem I had as a boy in referring
to the younger of my two old brothers. Could
that tedious description be abbreviated to “my
younger brother”? My eldest brother must have suffered
the same dilemma in reverse.
“To the Foot of the Letter,...” [XVIII, 3] demonstrates
the author's conviction of the superiority
of English over any other means of expression, an
attitude best exemplified by the explanation given
by an Englishman to his continental colleagues over
dinner in Paris. Holding up his dinner knife, he proceeded
as follows:
Now, Jacques, you call this une couteau; you,
Fritz, call it ein Messer; we call it a knife. He paused
to allow them to digest this information, then said
very slowly, “And, when you come to think about it,
that is exactly what it is.”
“To the Foot of the Letter,...” [XVIII, 3],
though interesting and amusing, contains some misunderstandings.
A pierna suelta does not mean `to
sleep like a loose leg' but `to sleep with loose legs,'
i.e., completely relaxed. La horma [not “herma”] de
su zapato does not mean `encountering the shoestring,'
since horma means `shoemaker's last,' that is,
the wooden form on which shoemakers build--or
used to build--shoes. In other words, it means that
someone is encountering something or someone that
is an exact fit, and the author need not be
“astounded by the funny logic.”
In “To the Foot of the Letter,...” [XVIII,3]
the following errors seem to stand out:
“It makes beautiful.” That is not Spanish, but
French (Il fait beau). In Spanish, the expression is
hace buen tiempo, the literal version of which
would be `it makes good time' (tiempo being the
word for `weather' as well as `time').
Y no tengo pelos en la lengua. The expression does
not begin with the conjunction y `and'; moreover,
the concept of “not having hair on one's tongue”
does not exactly mean `I'm telling what I think'
but rather `I'm telling it like it is' or `I'm not beating
about the bush.'
Equador. Please! The country's name is spelled
Ecuador.
Hacer vaca. In this case, `to play hooky' has nothing
to do with a cow: vaca is short for the word for
`vacation,' that is, if you're not in school you're
creating a vacancy, a void.
Dar zapatetas. This is not `to give shoe slaps'; it is a
`jump for joy accompanied by a slap on (the upper
part of) the shoe.'
Sin ton ni son. This is rendered as `without tone or
sound.' Ton is not the word for `tone': it is not
even a standard Spanish word, being a nonceword
in this expression, mainly for rhyme and euphony.
Son means `sound,' to be sure--but in French! In
this context, it means `beat, rhythm.' The expression
means, literally, `without rhyme or rhythm,'
bearing in mind that, paradoxically, ton rhymes
with son.
En menos de lo que un gallo makes no sense in that
form; it should be en menos de lo que canta un
gallo.
[Mr. Labrada's comments on additional items are
covered in other letters.--Editor.]
“To the Foot of the Letter,...” [XVIII,3] is
delightful. But there are a couple of errors. Encontrarse
con la horma [not “herma”] de su zapato
should be `to find the last to one's shoe, or to meet
one's match.' Basquear is probably derived from
Celtic waska `oppression'; una basquería `a dirty
trick' might be from Basque , although the word for
the Basque language is vascuense (eúscaro in
Basque), and one would expect the Spanish spellings
of words relating to the Basques to begin with a v . I
do not know about pato , as in ser el pato de la boda :
ducks are usually considered objects of sympathy, as
in pagar el pato `to pay the duck, be blamed for
someone else's misdeeds' or hacerse pato `to make
oneself a duck, play dumb' rather than “be the life
of the party.” “ Cervesa ” should be cerveza , and
“ sopentón ” should be sopetón .
There are so many variations in usage from
country to country in Latin America that it is difficult
to keep track of them. I have lived in Mexico
and Chile and have traveled extensively in Argentina,
Bolivia, Paraguay, Peru, and Uruguay, remaining
constantly on guard lest an expression acceptable
in one country slip out in a country where it is
not acceptable! In Chile, gasfiter has been adopted
and is used to mean `plumber'; a `watchman' is
wachiman or guachiman ; and I was temporarily baffled
by a headline referring to an event taking place
at the Guay , which turned out to be nothing more
than the `Y[MCA]'!
[Readers' attention is drawn to articles on the subject
touched on in Ms. Hopping's letter: “Never Ask
a Uruguayan Waitress for a Little Box: She Might
Apply Her Foot to Your Eyelet,” by John Cassidy
[X,1]; “Mrs. Malaprop in Mexico,” by Lysander
Kemp [XV,4]. Other comments appear in various
EPISTOLAE.--Editor.]
“To the Foot of the Letter,...” [XVIII,3] set
me to thinking about a related subject: anglicisms in
Latin American Spanish. Many have become so naturalized
as to sound sometimes Castilian, sometimes
indigenous, as if they belonged in Quechua, for example.
A great many words in Quechua begin with
hua- or gua- (used interchangeably), so when the hacienda
owner tells his Indian quachimán to keep a
sharp lookout on his nightly rounds, neither may realize
that the word derives from watchman . And
when Mami is persuaded that daughter needs a new
sweater and buys her a chompa , neither may think of
the long departed Englishwomen whose jumpers
brought the word into the language. What is one to
make of the plumber listed in the yellow pages under
gasfitero (`gasfitter') or the restaurant menu that
lists aristú (`Irish stew') as the main course and budín
for its `pudding,' not to mention Chilean onces
(`elevenses'): `afternoon tea or coffee.'
A confusion of a different kind underlay the former
Lima café San Sussy : there is no such saint in
either the old or the expurgated Calendar of Saints,
but there is Frederick the Great's famous castle Sans
Souci (`without care').
[Mr. Lerdau's comments on items in the subject article
are covered in other letters. --Editor.]
“To the Foot of the Letter,... [XVIII,3] is very
amusing, but it contains a number of mistranslated
Spanish idioms. To begin with, al pie de la letra
would be better rendered as `at the foot of the letter.'
Here are the others:
encontrarse con la horma [not “herma”] de su zapato
`to meet one's match by encountering the shoe
tree of one's shoe'
trabalenguas `tongue jammer' from trabar `to jam or
lock'
Qué mosca te ha picado? needs the accent on qué
buscar tres pies al gato does not sound right;
buscarle la quinta pata al gato `to look for the cat's
fifth leg' is very common with the meaning `to
look for trouble'
dar calabazas is properly `to give pumpkins' (plural)
echar una cana al aire `to toss one gray hair in the
air' (not just `gray hair')
ne chicha ni limonada should be ni chicha...
andar de la Ceca a la Meca `to dash or chase about'
(Meca `Mecca'; Ceca literally `mint (the plant)' but
more likely just an echoic nonsense word prob. a
rhyming reduplicative); similar to from pillar to
post.
William B. Ober's article, “Writing Maketh an
Exact Man” [XVIII,2] was enjoyable not just--as in
all his work--for its quirky insights and elegant
style, but also--uncharacteristically--as an exercise
in irony. The very title is a small masterpiece of
ironic wit, being a misquotation rather than an
accurate transcription from Bacon's essays. As one
of the finest Two Cultures researchers around--
medical specialist and literary historian--Dr. Ober
is certainly qualified to censure the under-investigated
assertions, careless citations, and flawed
proofreading he detects in the work of fellow
scholars... and make himself a hostage to fortune
(to mis-cite Bacon in my turn) when doing so.
Committing slip-ups of one's own, in other words,
while brashly reproving the slip-ups of others,
would tend to undermine one's moral position
somewhat.
Dr. Ober has cleverly circumvented this
danger. By adopting the ironic stance and
deliberately infiltrating many of his own whimsical
inaccuracies into his critique, he in effect preempts
at once the charge of tu quoque . Consider how he
balances that opening irony with a corresponding
subtlety at the very end of the article. President
Routh, we read, advised an undergraduate, “Always
verify your references, sir!” A brief verifying of
one's references reveals that the wording here is
again misquoted and, furthermore, that the
recipient of the advice was almost certainly no
longer an undergraduate.
Dr. Ober strews a variety of such booby-traps
along the trail: the teasing reference to Peter Sellars'
participation in Amadeus , for example, and the
characterizing of George Steiner as the Oxford
pundit. My own favorite coup d'ironie occurs in the
paragraph on Robert Craft's lapses: “He also refers
to Mozart's first love,” Dr. Ober notes with regret,
“as Aloysius,” instead of Aloysia , that is (or
“Aloyisia” as the article cunningly renders it!).
Ironists run a continual risk: if they nudge too
hard and use too broad an irony, they risk sounding
facetious; if they stay deadpan and use too subtle an
irony, they sound in earnest and risk being taken
literally. Swift's “Meditation upon a Broomstick,”
for instance, impressed the Countess of Stanford as
deeply pious instead of hilariously parodic. Perhaps
Dr. Ober, too, if I might venture a criticism at this
point, has edged beyond the critical angle of irony,
cutting it too fine in his approach and thereby
risking a literal reading. Certainly I, for one, was
taken in at first by his solemn academic tone and
groaned at the prospect of having to write a
moralizing corrective--“Even Ober nods,”
“Physician, heal thyself”--spare us!
What saved me from falling into that trap was
the sudden recognition that he would never be so
presumptuous as to write an article exposing the
inadequacies of his peers' researches while at the
same time allowing half a dozen comparable lapses
of his own to remain unheeded and unweeded in the
exposé itself. Fortified with that realization, I went
back to the text and saw at once--even in the title--
that the straight-faced phrasing of the article was
really just a ruse, and that an ironic reading was the
only one possible.
A footnote to the verify-your-references
anecdote may interest readers, since the two
participants in that famously anticlimactic exchange
(Martin Joseph Routh, then aged about 92, and John
William Burgon, then about 34) are celebrated for
other reasons. Here, first of all, is the full story
(accurately quoted, I hope), as recalled by Burgon
some 35 years later:
I ventured to address him somewhat as follows:
“Mr. President, give me leave to ask you a question
I have sometimes asked of aged persons, but never
of any so aged or so learned as yourself.” He looked
so kindly at me that I thought I might go on. “Every
studious man, in the course of a long and thoughtful
life, has had occasion to experience the special value
of some axiom or precept. Would you mind giving
me the benefit of such a word of advice?” He bade
me explain, evidently to gain time. I quoted an
instance. He nodded and looked thoughtful.
Presently he brightened up and said, “I think, sir,
since you care for the advice of an old man, sir, you
will find it a very good practice” (here he looked me
in the face) “always to verify your references, sir!”
Routh is still notable as one of the great British
eccentrics. He became President of Magdalen
College, Oxford, in his thirties and, since there was
no compulsory retirement age in those days, clung
to that office until his death, in 1854--at the age of
99! His tenure of 63 years as head of an Oxbridge
college must be a record. He remained very much
an 18th-century man right through the middle of the
19th century: he always wore a wig in public and
simply refused to believe that such a thing as the
railways could possibly exist. Perhaps his most
engaging eccentricity was the way he reared his
dog: he apparently brought it up to think of itself as
a cat, to the point where it even used its paws to
wash its face.
As for Burgon, who later in life became Dean of
Chichester, he retains a tiny niche in the history of
English literature for two immortal lines of poetry
he composed in 1845, much quoted and much
admired ever since. They come from his poem
“Petra,” which won him the Newdigate prize at
Oxford:
Match me such marvel, save in Eastern clime--
A rose-red city, half as old as time.
[Corrections also received from, among many, David
Miles, Charlevoix, Michigan; Seán Devine,
Blackrock, Co. Dublin; Raymond Harris, London.
--Editor.]
The review of Have a Nice Day [BIBLIOGRAPHIA,
XVIII, 2] cites cute as a button as a cliché of
unexplained origin. It looks like the
Americanization of bright as a button by somebody
who missed the point--the juggling with the two
meanings of bright `mentally alert' and `physically
shining.' The button envisaged would be the
polished brass type, traditionally made in
Birmingham, which was fashionable at certain
periods and standard on British Army uniforms until
1939. American examples of this type of witticism
include, from George Jean Nathan's Monks Are
Monks (1929), as bored as an oil-well and as swell as
the mumps .
Lewis Carroll provides a classic example: in
Through the Looking-Glass , the White Knight relates
how he fell into his own helmet and “it took hours
and hours to get me out. I was as fast as--as
lightning, you know.” When Alice objected, “But
that's a different kind of fastness,” he replied, “It
was all kinds of fastness with me, I can assure you!”
I noted with interest the discussion of the word
bungee [XVIII,2]. The Editor's memory matches
mine with regard to the use of the fabric-covered
elastic for yachting and the use of the term shock
cord . However, my familiarity with the material
goes back farther. Prior to World War II, light
aircraft, such as the Piper Cub, used the material,
referred to as shock cord or bungee cord , for the
landing-gear spring. This system can be seen on
aircraft of World War I vintage, but I do not know
what term was used then. I am sure that a search of
the appropriate literature would reveal its early use,
for the rubber bands broke frequently, something
pilots would complain about when writing their
memoirs.
Also, in old photographs of glider flying one can
see that the method used for launching was to have a
group of men stretch a long bungee attached to the
glider, which was held in place by others. When the
anchor men released the glider, it flew into the air
like a model airplane launched by a rubber band.
The captions of such photographs often refer to this
as a bungee launch . While this does not help with
the question of the source of the word, it goes
further to indicate that bungee did not originate with
the current fad.
[Similarly from Robert J. Powers, Colonel, USAF
(Ret.), Shreveport, who adds that his Random House
Dictionary of the English Language “properly defines
the word... but has the accent on the wrong
syllable. It was invariably [bun JEE ] throughout my
career...always in the combination bungee cord .
...[It] served to secure--open as well as closed--a
variety of things, parachute packs and hatches
among them.” I have never heard any pronunciation
but [BUNjee].--Editor.]
R.F. Bauerle's “The Power of Doubled Words”
[XVIII,2] mentions the reduplication tricky-dicky ,
applied to President Nixon during the Watergate
scandal. The present Canadian Prime Minister,
Brian Mulroney, because of his tendency to change
his public position on such things as the universality
of social programs, is widely known as Lyin'-Brian .
In the 1970s, Prime Minister Trudeau was overheard
using the f-word in the House of Commons,
but when asked about it later, he claimed that what
he had said was fuddle-duddle . The country was
generally amused (though not deceived) by this humorous
explanation. In fact, one of the less reputable
wine producers immediately named one of its
abominable sparkling wines fuddle-duck . No reduplication
there.
Bob Swift (“Wrenches in the Gorse and
Bracken” [XVIII,2]) should read A Political Bestiary ,
by Eugene McCarthy and James J. Kilpatrick, Op
Ed, 1978. This book included, with wonderful
drawings, such wildlife as The Untouchable Incumbent,
The Viable Alternative, The Running Gamut,
The Qualm, The Budgetary Shortfall , and The Gobbledegook .
I cannot imagine how they could have
missed Swift's Utter Gall, Preemptive Strike , and
Sheer Audacity . Perhaps those are so common in
Washington as to be overlooked.
Frank Abate (“Unraveling the American Place-Name
Cover” [XVIII,2]) missed a few choice names:
there is a village (though without a post office)
named Obtuse , Connecticut; many know about
Truth-or-Consequences , New Mexico, named for an
old quiz show. For years I used “Toadsuck, Arkansas”
as a generic term for any town out in the boonies;
then I discovered that there really is a Toad
Suck , Arkansas!
A possibly apocryphal story from Herman Oliver's
Gold and Cattle Country concerns a local
prominence once called Squaw Tit (not all of the pioneers
being missionaries); the Geographic Board decided
the name was too earthy and, wishing to retain
a semblance of the original appellation changed the
name to Squaw Butte ; when the map came out with
the new name, the final e was unfortunately omitted.
Another Squaw Tit graced the Cascade Range; the
U.S. Board on Geographic Names ignored the name
and called it Mt. Washington ; everyone assumes it
honors George.
“[Jessye] Norman was in high dungeon, according to
the gossip.” [From The Boston Globe ,
Submitted by ]
