Punch on the Bungalow Veranda
bandanna, bangle, banyan, bungalow, cheetah,
chintz, chit, chop, chutney, coolie, copra, cot,
cowrie, cummerbund, cushy, deodar, dinghy,
dungaree, gong, gunny, guru, jungle, khaki, krait,
loot, pajamas, punch, pundit, puttee, seersucker,
shampoo, swami, thug, toddy, tom-tom, topee,
veranda
Most readers will probably regard the above as
a list of unrelated, more or less well-known
English words that have been selected at random,
but they will be wrong. Appearances are often deceiving
and this is a case in point. The words are not
unrelated and they have not been selected at random,
for they all have one thing very much in common,
namely, they are all Hindi loanwords. To be
sure, Hindi is not the ultimate source in all cases, but
it was at least the final stopping point in the journey
of the words into the English lexicon. (In this article,
Hindi is used to cover loanwords which etymologists
attribute to either Hindi or Urdu. The two are
basically the same language, except that Hindi is
written in Devanagari characters and Urdu in
Persian-Arabic script.) Hindi has, in fact, been a
more fruitful source of new words for the English
lexicon than most people realize, a not unnatural result
of the centuries of British rule in India. All
Hindi loanwords in English, of course, are not as
well known or as frequently used as those listed
above; indeed, many are obscure in the extreme and
are probably never used in speech or encountered in
print by the overwhelming majority of English
speakers. Nonetheless, all are recognized by English
lexicographers as being good English words.
Thus, all those cited in this article are to be found as
separate entries in Webster's Third New International
Dictionary of the English Language .
Not all the words that English has borrowed
from Hindi are pure Hindi; that is, some words
passed through Hindi en route to English but their
ultimate origins lie elsewhere. For example, out of a
sampling of 481 Hindi loanwords (that is, I know, an
odd number for a sampling of any kind, but it happens
to be the number I had carded as of the moment
I began writing this article), 167 were borrowed
by Hindi from Sanskrit and another four from
Pakrit. Persian was the ultimate source of 67 and
Arabic of 55 (the latter figure includes 16 words that
entered Hindi via Persian and are combinations of
Arabic and Persian elements). Begum `high-ranking
Muslim lady' derives ultimately from Eastern Turkic,
while cowrie `a type of sea shell' comes from Tamil
or Malayalam kavati via Hindi kauri or kaudi . Two
Hindi loanwords have their origin in Europe: ayah
`native maid or nurse,' the Hindi version of Portuguese
aia , and pulton or pultun `infantry regiment,'
adapted from paltan , the Hindi version of English
battalion .
Most Hindi loanwords entered English directly,
but a few first passed through the filter of another
language. Baiza `small copper coin of Oman,' for
example, is the Arabic version of Hindi paisa . Datura
`type of plant' and vanda `variety of orchid'
reached English via New Latin; gavial `large crocodile,'
from Hindi ghariyal ) via French; and mohar
`silver coin of Nepal' via Nepalese. Portuguese was
the immediate source of four words (the Portuguese,
it will be recalled, were also in India for several centuries,
losing their colony of Goa only in December
1961): copra , from Hindi khopra via Malayalam koppara;
machila or machilla `hammock slung from a
pole,' from Hindi manzil (borrowed unchanged from
Arabic) via Tamil macil or mancil; tael `unit of
weight,' from Hindi tola (adapted from Sanskrit tula )
via Malay tahil ; and jambolan `Java plum,' the English
version of Portuguese jambulao , from Hindi
jambul .
Some of the words in my sampling may or may
not be Hindi loanwords; that is, etymologists are uncertain
whether they are properly attributable to
Hindi or some other language of the subcontinent.
Dhoni or doni `fishing or coastal trading vessel,' for
example, may have entered English from Hindi, Marathi,
Kanarese (or Canarese), or Telugu; dinghy
`small boat' from Hindi or Bengali; kathiawari `breed
of horses' from Hindi or Gujurati; khuskhus `aromatic
grass, vetiver' from Hindi or Persian; kirpan
`Sikh dagger' from Hindi or Punjabi; and nagkasser
or nagkesar `tree'. patel `village headman' and
pindari `18th-century mercenary,' from Hindi or Marathi.
Several of the loanwords in my sampling are actually
hybrids; that is, they include elements both
from Hindi and from one or more other languages.
Memsahib `term of respect for a European lady,' for
example, derives from English ma'am and Hindi sahib
`sir, master,' a word borrowed by Hindi from
Arabic; boxwallah `peddler' combines English box
and Hindi wallah `person in charge of a particular
thing'; chotapeg `half-sized drink' unites Hindi chota
`little, small' and English peg (Anglo-Indian slang
since at least 1864 for a drink, especially of brandy
and soda water); and shroffage `commission charged
for shroffing' combines shroff (an adaptation of Hindi
saraf `banker, money-lender,' a word borrowed from
Arabic) and the English suffix - age . Combinations of
Hindi and Persian elements include:
a) balaghat `tableland above a mountain pass,'
from Persian bala `above' and Hindi ghat `pass;
passage or stairway descending to a river';
b) bhumidar `landowner having full title,' from
Hindi bhumi `earth, land' and Persian dar
`holder';
c) chokidar `watchman,' from Hindi cauki `police
station' and Persian dar; and
d) kalaazar `disease also known as dumdum fever,'
from Hindi kala `black' and Persian azar
`disease.'
Mussalchee `torchbearer' combines mussal `torch,
usually of oilsoaked rags,' adapted from Hindi masal
or mashal , the Hindi version of Arabic mash'al , and
Turkic - ci (or chi, ji ), a suffix denoting an agent.
Many Hindi loanwords are simply transliterations
of the Hindi originals. But since different individuals
have different ideas about how the Devanagari
and Arabic alphabets should be transliterated,
in many cases there is no single “correct” way to
spell a specific word and, instead, dictionaries offer
several--sometimes as many as six--acceptable variant
spellings. Burka `loose woman's garment covering
entire body,' for example, can also be spelled
bourka, burkha, burga, burqa , or bourkha , while mahua
`type of tree' can also be spelled mahwa ,
mohwa, mowha, mowra , or mowrah . Loanwords
with five recognized spellings include: chador,
chadar, chuddar, chudder, chaddar `woman's cloth
head covering'; mahseer, mahsir, mahsur, mahaseer,
mahasir `freshwater fish'; mali, mallee, mallie, mally,
molly `member of a gardening caste'; naik, naig,
naique, naigue, nayak `leader, corporal'; and tussah,
tusseh, tusser, tussor, tussur `tan silk; also the silkworm
producing it.' Chukker `period of polo play,'
dhoti `loincloth,' dinghy, ganja `cannabis used for
smoking,' khidmatgar `male waiter,' khuskhus,
kutcha `crude, imperfect,' myna `species of bird,'
puggaree `blight turban, scarf,' raggee `finger millet,'
ryotwar `system of collecting land rents or taxes,'
sambar `type of deer,' and zamindari `system of land
holding' each have three other acceptable spellings.
My sampling contains about fifty other words that
have either two or three variant spellings each.
Although most loanwords differ in form somewhat
from their Hindi antecedents, the changes are
largely minor orthographic ones, as the substitution
of ch, gh , and sh for an original c, g , or s , etc. Thus,
English has champac `tree' instead of campak, gharry
`horse-drawn cab or carriage' instead of gari, darshan
`a Hindu blessing' instead of darsan . A change
of vowels or a doubling of a consonant is also not
infrequent, thus giving English kunkur `variety of
limestone' in lieu of kankar, mulmul `muslin' in lieu
of malmal, muggar `kind of crocodile' in lieu of
magar . Dozens of similar examples could be cited.
On the other hand, some loanwords have undergone
radical changes. Few individuals, I hazard, would be
likely, upon seeing the Hindi terms bilayati, bajara,
bajra, kaawch, pani , and rasaut , to cite only a few, to
discern therein the English blighty Anglo-Indian
slang for `England as home,' brinjarry `traveling
grain and salt dealer,' budgerow `large, keelless
barge,' cowage `tropical vine,' pawnee `water' and
rusot `plant extract.' Two other good examples are
Juggernaut `unstoppable destructive force: or object,'
which derives from jagannath , and kedgeree
`cooked dish of rice, lentils, and spices,' which derives
from khicri or khicari . The familiar cot and
dungaree are close to their Hindi predecessors in
pronunciation, though not in spelling; they derive,
respectively, from khat and dungri .
In the case of some loanwords, there has been a
change in both form and meaning. Bandanna , for
example, comes from bandhu , which denotes a way
of dyeing cloth, while bungalow comes from bangla ,
an adjective meaning `of Bengal.' Other loanwords
which have acquired changed meanings include chitra
`axis deer,' from citra `spotted'; hathi `gray,' from
hathi `elephant'; pukka `genuine, reliable, good,'
from pakka `cooked, ripe, mature'; puttee `soldier's
legging,' from patti `bandage'; pyke `civilian at
whose expense a soldier is treated,' from payik `messenger';
and toddy `type of hot drink,' from tari `palmyra
palm juice.' These are only a few of the many
examples available.
Some single Hindi words have given rise to two
different loanwords. Bandar `rhesus monkey' and
bondar `palm civet,' for example, both derive from
bada or badar `monkey,' while baniya `merchant' is
the Hindi antecedent of both banyan `tree' and bunnia
`member of a merchant caste.' Other examples
of the same phenomenon include: chokey `customs
station' and chowk `marketplace,' from cauki `marketplace';
mulmul (see above) and mull `soft thin
muslin,' from malmal (see above); pandit `scholar;
man held in high respect' and pundit `very learned;
authoritative commentator,' from pandit `wise,
learned'; and numdah `thick felt rug' and numnah
`felt or sheepskin saddle pad,' from namda `carpet,
rug.' Again, numerous other examples could be
cited.
As the examples cited above make clear, Hindi
loanwords in English relate to a wide variety of subjects.
My sampling also includes the following
words in the indicated subject categories (words already
cited are not repeated):
Animals: balisaur, barasingh, bhalu, bharal, chikara,
chital, gaur, hanuman, jumnapari, kakar,
kastura, langur, nilgai, rusa, tangun, tattoo
Birds: baya, chukar, hurgila, jermonal, sarus, shama
Buildings: chawl, gola, gunge, mandir, tope
Caste/religious terms: balahi, bhagat, bhangi, bhat,
bhora, chamar, chhatri, chuhra, churel, gadaria,
goala, granthi, jajman, kahar, kalwar, khatri,
kumbh mala, kumhar, kumkum, kurmi, math,
mela, nai, Nanakpanthi, pardhan, Rajput,
samadh, samaj, sangh
Clothing: bursati, kambal, sari, sherwani
Coins: anna, pice, rupee
Drugs/chemicals: bikh, chandu, charas, goracco,
karaya, khair, kutira gum, lac, munjeet,
passewa, reh
Fabrics: jaconet, khaddar, nainsook, pattu, tat
Fish/marine life: ghol, goonch, hilsa, rohu
Foods/beverages: chapati, chotahazri, dahi, ghee,
jaggery, khoa, puri
Governmental/legal terms: batta, begar, chaprasi,
dakoit, dakoity, dhan, dharna, kotwal, kotwali,
panchayat, pottah, sabha
Household items: bidri, chagul, chatta, chowrie,
chulha, dhurrie, gaddi, kangri, lota, phulkari,
pitarah, punkah, teapoy
Insects: khapra
Measures: bigha, crore, lac, maund, ruttee, ser,
tank, tola, yojan
Military/weapons: kukri, kuttar, sangar, thana
Musical instruments: bin, narsinga, pungi, sarinda,
sitar
Occupations: bapu, chokra, dhai, dhobi,
gharrywallah, madrasi, mahajan, mahout,
puggy
Plants: ber, bhabar, bhang, chirata, dhal, gulancha,
hursinghar, jarool, jowar, kans, khesari, kusa,
maloo, mand, mesta, mudar, munj, pan, rosha,
sarson, til, urd
Snakes: baboia
Titles: babu, bhai, burra, maharajah, maharani,
rajah, rajpramukh, rani
Transport vehicles/boats: dak, dandy, morpunky,
palkee, pulwar, putelee, tonga
Trees/shrubs: bahera, bel, bendy, caraunda, dhak,
dhaman, dhauri, dhawa, haldu, jaman, jambo,
jambos, jambool, kapur, karela, kathal, kikar,
kokan, neem, palas, pipal, sal, salai, sunn, susco,
toon
Miscellaneous: abir, amla, bandarlog, banghy, bat,
bhadan, bhoosa, bhut, bidi, bock, bukh, chee-chee,
chopper, churrus, ghurry, goonda, hartal,
Holi, hundi, jheel, jungli, kaithi, kartik, keddah,
machan, nautch, nullah, pachisi, piuri, paig,
purree
The above do not include those loanwords deriving
from words earlier borrowed by Hindi from
Persian and Arabic, which are (in addition to those
already cited):
From Persian:
Clothing: jama, rumal
Fabrics: kincob
Governmental terms: daroga, dewan, durbar,
parganna, peshwa, purwannah, russud,
sheristadar, zamindar
Household items: charpoy, chillumchee, rezai
Islamic terms: khaksar, khankah, pir, purdah
Legal terms: benami, dastur
Military: sepoy, subahdar
Occupations: begari, bheesty, bildar, bobachee,
chakar, chobdar, darzi, khansamah, mazdoor,
phansigar, rahdar, shikari
Titles: akhundzada, bahadur, shahzada, sirdar
Miscellaneous: bas, bazigar, buckshee, bund,
charka, chawbuck, cillum, dasturi, gunge,
kajawah, koftgari, koomkie, sarod, shikar,
shikargah, shikra, tabasheer
From Arabic:
Government terms: abwab, hookum, jumma, malik,
mofussil, munshi, munsif, musnud, nabob,
nawab, nizam, omrah, tahsil, taluk
Military: maidan, nazim
Occupations: mutsuddy, syce, vakeel
Plants: gingelly
Religious terms: fatwa, khalsa, mazhabi, minah
Miscellaneous: baba, howdah, izzat, khalat, kharif,
majoon, nuzzer, rabi, shrab
From Arabic via Persian or Arabic-Persian
combinations:
Government terms: burkundaz, daftardar, faujdar,
faujdary, malguzar, malikana, nazir, tahsildar
Military: dafadar, havildar, jemandar, risala,
risaldar
Religious terms: shahidi
Miscellaneous: halalior
“The Baths is a dying institution. Last year, we refunded
money to 86 people who died.” [From the Daily
News Magazine , . Submitted by ]
“Box 2101 Terminal Annex.” [The address of a life
insurance company in Los Angeles. Submitted by ]
ETYMOLOGICA OBSCURA
snake oil
The first oil well in the United States was drilled
in 1859, by Edwin L. Drake, near Titusville, Pennsylvania,
a town named for Jonathan Titus, who settled
it in 1796 (and wanted to call it Edinburgh).
Before oil was actively sought, it seeped out of the
ground in various parts of the world...
“Here along Oil Creek, Indians skimmed the
surface oil off the water for domestic uses, and white
settlers bottled it for medicinal purposes and called
it Seneca Oil.”
Was Seneca Oil the origin of snake oil ?
The World of Abbreviations and Acronyms
I have traveled throughout Europe, the Far East, and North America, but nowhere have I found
more abbreviations and acronyms in use than in the
U.S., particularly in the medical field. In the small
community hospital where I teach and practice hematology
and oncology, I frequently struggle to decode
the abbreviations and acronyms used by house
staff and medical students. While this process is
frustrating at times, certain abbreviations and acronyms
add humor to the atmosphere of busy and
stressful day-to-day medical practice. For example,
while we often say that a patient needs lots of TLC
“Tender Loving Care,' at times we end up seeing the
result of another TLC --`Total Lack of Concern.'
Many of us, including me, use WNL for `Within Normal
Limits' to describe the results of various x-ray
and laboratory tests; however, at times we find this
may well mean `We Never Looked.' When NMR
`Nuclear Magnetic Resonance,' which is now better
referred to as MRI `Magnetic Resonance Imaging,'
was first introduced to the medical community,
many consumer advocates and insurance people,
fearing the escalating health-care costs associated
with this expensive diagnostic procedure, thought a
better translation would be `No More Radiologists.'
DRG `Diagnosis Related Group,' the term Uncle
Sam uses to describe prospective payment to a hospital,
could mean `Damned Regulatory Government'
to the medical profession or `De [The] Revenues
Gone' to the hospital administration.
For those of us in medicine, we all carry a title
M.D . `Doctor of Medicine.' When I was drafted into
the U.S. Army as a Medical Officer, my title was
“Dal Yoo, M.D., U.S.A. (United States Army)” and I
recall my Master Sergeant's morbid joke that M.D. ,
U.S.A. could stand for `Many Die and U Shall Also.'
Speaking of various titles, M.D.s are not the only
ones who get the bad names. B.S. `Bachelor of Science'
could well mean `bullshit'; M.S. `More of the
Same,' and Ph.D. `Pile Higher and Deeper,' etc.
In the field of medical laboratory testing, you
may remember a test called the SIA for detecting
abnormal macroglobulin in the serum. The test is
performed by putting a drop of serum into distilled
water, producing a grossly visible white precipitate
in patients with Waldenstrom's macroglobulinemia
and other dysproteinemic disorders. Dr. Walden-strom
some years ago told me that he had an opportunity
to meet Dr. Sia, a Chinese physician who first
introduced this simple bedside technique to medicine.
However, when I was in West Germany, this
SIA test was labeled as `Serum In Aqua.' Another
example comes from VIP `Vasoactive Intestinal Poly-peptide.'
This assay was quite variable from laboratory
to laboratory when first introduced; thus it
meant `Very Inconsistent Polypeptide' to some of
the gastroenterologists and surgeons who were pondering
the possibility of pancreatic surgery in patients
with high levels of VIP .
These abbreviations and acronyms are generating
laughter in day-to-day life as well as in the medical
field. Some time ago, I heard that President
Bush's budget proposal was DOA `Dead On Arrival'
on the congressional floor. However, President
Bush's interpretation of DOA was `Defining Opportunity
for America.' More recently, during the war
in the Gulf we saw both pro- and anti-war demonstrations,
thus generating SMASH `Students Mobilized
Against Saddam Hussein,' as well as SCUD
`Sadly Confused Unpatriotic Demonstrators.' At
times abbreviations or acronyms get upside-down as
well as backward meanings. In President Carter's
days, when inflation was sky high, Democrats used
the slogan WIN `Whip Inflation Now'; Republicans
turned the WIN button upside down, making it NIM
`No Immediate Miracle.' For the backward example,
I saw the sign for DAM which is supposed to
represent `Mothers Against Dyslexia.'
When I first visited Philadelphia to plan my future
postgraduate training, a local acquaintance gave
me a quick city tour which included the worldfamous
Philadelphia Museum of Art. The windows
of the museum gave some nice views of downtown
Philadelphia. The visit was in early summer when
ongoing road pavement work was generating strong
smells. From the museum window we could see a
neon sign with PSFS in bright letters on one of the
high-rise downtown buildings. The letters stood for
`Philadelphia Savings Fund Society' but on that day I
told my local guide that they stood, more appropriately,
for `Philadelphia Smells Funny Sometimes.'
However, I later fell in love with this city of brotherly
love, not only for its excellent medical training
but also for its rich metropolitan atmosphere.
Speaking of smells, we have the organization
called NOSE in the Washington suburban area
which, as you may have guessed, stands for `Neighbors
Organization for Stench Elimination.' NOSE is
fighting for the beautification of residential housing
districts. Like everything else, the meaning of certain
abbreviations or acronyms could vary depending
on the observer. The Belgian airline called
SABENA could stand for `Such A Bad Experience--
Never Again' but also could mean `Such a Beautiful
Experience--Never Alone.' Indeed we do not seem
to be able to get away from numerous abbreviations
and acronyms every day of our lives because newspapers,
magazines, and TV newscasts love to come
up with new and innovative ones. The latest scandal
of the television ministry concerns the organization
known as PTL , which is supposed to stand for `Praise
The Lord' or `People That Love'; others think it
means `Pass The Loot.' In this era of the litigationprone
society, including the high rate of malpractice
suits, I noted an organization called, HALT `Help
Abolish Legal Tyranny.' I welcome any means of
bringing laughter into bedside medicine, which we
all think of as the last place where one could ever
find any decent humor. When the medical practice
gets tough, particularly for those truly complicated
cases where I have no idea what the patient has, I
apply my favorite of all the abbreviations, GOK syndrome
`God Only Knows.'
[Dr. Yoo would like to hear from readers who have heard or seen
outrageous abbreviations or acronyms. Address him at: Dal Yoo,
M.D., FACP/Director of Education/Hematology/Oncology Section/Providence
Hospital/Washington, D.C. 20017-2180.]
“Free lays to the first 50 people!!” [From an invitation
to a “Blue Hawaii” Beach Party in Staff Bulletin No.
31, p. 6, of the Madison Area (Wisconsin) Tech College.
Submitted by ]
“No detail is too small to overlook.” [From an advertisement
for a lawn product on KCMO-TV , Kansas City,
Missouri, . Submitted by
]
Once again the myth of German-replacing-English-by-only-one-vote
has surfaced, this time in the
pages of VERBATIM [XVII, 2:21]. The myth began its
life in mid-19th century histories attempting to document
the contributions of Germans to American
culture and history. But it is no more than a myth.
There was a language-related vote that may be
the ultimate source of the myth, but that vote had
nothing to do with choosing an official language. It
did not take place in 1776, as is often maintained,
but on January 13, 1795, when the House of Representatives
debated a proposal, not to give German
any official status, but merely to print copies of the
federal laws in German as well as English. An ad hoc
committee reported favorably on the proposal, but
during the debate a motion to adjourn failed by one
vote. The failure of the motion to adjourn probably
represents a vote of no confidence in the committee
report. After some further debate, which focused
not so much on translation as on the means by which
copies of the English versions of the federal statutes
were to be furnished to the individual states, a new
committee was appointed to study the matter and
report to the House. In the final vote, which took
place one month later, the proposal for translation
was defeated. The ayes and nays of the final vote are
not recorded. It is from the close interim vote, not
on an actual bill but on adjournment, that the so-called
“German vote” legend has been built.
There is a further bit of embroidery to the
myth: it is often claimed that F. A. Muhlenberg,
Speaker of the House and member of a prominent
assimilationist German family, stepped down to cast
the deciding vote damning German in the U.S. forever
to minority-language status (Muhlenberg's detractors
go so far as to assert that his own German
was pretty incompetent). But while Muhlenberg's
voting record in the Third Congress did not seem to
annoy his German American constituents, they did
react quite strongly when, as Speaker of the Fourth
Congress, he stepped down and cast the deciding
negative vote against the Jay Treaty. This action
caused his brother-in-law to stab him, and it cost him
his congressional seat in the 1796 election as well.
This significant tie-breaker soon became confused
with the earlier adjournment cliffhanger, conveniently
fleshing out the myth of the German vote.
[ A helpful letter from Colyn L. Phillips, of Frederick,
Maryland, provides three possibly useful references
for those who might wish to document this issue further :
American State Papers, Volume 037, Class 10:
Miscellaneous:
Number 50: “Laws published in German Language”
93rd Congress, 1st Session
Number 59: “Promulgation of laws extended to
German language editions”
Number 62: “Promulgation of laws” (latter two
from 3rd Congress, 2nd session).
Mr. Phillips adds :
During this same Congress there were also proposals
to adopt the metric system of weights and
measures as the official American standard. These
proposals also failed, as I remember (from long-ago
reading), by a close margin.]
Americans are frequently guilty of nonsense
about the German language, but it is regrettable to
see it spilling over into your pages. Thus, in “Redundancy
in Natural Languages” [XVII,3], Mr. Steve
Bonner cites two German nouns, Autoreparaturwerkstatt
and Haupthandelsartikel , as being “simply
longer than they strictly need to be.” These two are
alleged to mean `garage' and `staple.' But a garage is
not necessarily an auto repair workshop, and a principal
stock in trade is not necessarily a staple (except
in the loosest sense). Actually, the German noun
Stapel is used much more precisely than its English
counterpart, as in such terms as Gabelstapler `forklift
truck' and, more poetically, as in Hochstapler `swindler.'
The immense combinative resources of the
German language may lead to the creation of ponderous
nouns, but seldom to redundancies.
William H. Dougherty's article, “French
Leave” [XVII, 3], concerning the difficulty of translating
satisfactorily the title of the movie Au Revoir
les Enfants , reminds me of a conversation that, as an
undergraduate at Princeton, I had in the 1930s with
Professor Maurice E. Coindreau, who was engaged
in translating Hemingway into French. As an example
of one kind of difficulty that translators face,
Coindreau cited the title of Faulkner's The Unvanquished
and asked, “Is it plural or singular? Masculine
or feminine?” He said that the translators, R. N.
Raimbault and C.P. Gorce, had put those questions
to Faulkner, who only laughed. Knowing that any of
the four possibilities would considerably narrow the
range of suggestion in the original, but helpless,
they settled for L'Invaincu .
It is understandable that Michel Vercambre
would find it disconcerting to run into blue jaundice
in his English-Welsh dictionary [“Instant Welsh,”
XVII, 3]. The term seems to contradict itself, but at
least it is to be found in Webster and means `cyanosis.'
My own surprising encounter with color occurred
when, in a report on the restoration of the
Sistine Chapel, one of the experts--an Italian,
speaking in English--said that they had used a preparation
that contained whole eggs, “including the
red.” I was, of course, appalled to think that Michelangelo's
work was in the hands of someone who
sees yolks as red. Curiosity led me to consult an
Italian dictionary, where I found for egg yolk , `rosso
d'uovo.' So as to leave no possible doubt, I checked
on rosso and got `red,' as in il mar Rosso . Can you
help explain that one, Mr. Vercambre?
I recently asked my wife, Maureen, an experienced
editor, to review some material I had written
for publication. When the review was completed,
our conversation led to the following addition to the
English language, which we would be pleased to
share with VERBATIM'S readers:
lallaperuser `a world-class editor.'
Upon reading Adrian Room's “Don't Get Your
Titles in a Twist” [XVI, 3], I was happily surprised to
see reference made to the tiny, misspelled, but spellbinding
novel by Daisy Ashford, The Young Visiters .
I have been an ardent admirer of “Miss Daisy” ever
since 1928, when I had the good fortune to be cast
in a dramatization of her novel, presented at the
Strand Theatre, London, in January of that year. It
was a special matinee, under the auspices of the
Stage Society, with a cast drawn exclusively from
children of prominent theatrical families. We were
all between the ages of seven and fifteen, which was
entirely appropriate, since Miss Ashford had written
her novel at the age of nine.
My father, Ernest Truex, had been appearing in
London's West End for several years and was currently
starring in Good Morning, Bill! , by P.G.
Wodehouse, thereby assuring my brother Jim and
me of an invitation to audition for James Whale.
Whale was a brilliant man of the theater who wore
three hats on this occasion, donating his services as
director, producer, and scenic designer. After the
auditions it was announced that I had been cast as
the Prince of Wales (the future Edward VII), and Jim
was to play an old crony of his, the Earl of Clincham.
This was pretty exciting stuff!
The program proclaimed that “Miss Daisy Ashford's
famous story, dramatized by Miss Margaret
Mackenzie and Mrs. George Norman, will be acted
by the following promising juveniles....” There
followed a list of more than thirty names. The leading
characters were played by Christopher Casson
(son of Sybil Thorndike and Lewis Casson) as Mr.
Salteena and Dorothy Hyson (daughter of Dorothy
and Carl Hyson) as Ethel “Monticue.” Christopher's
sister, Ann Casson, read the passages which
linked up the various scenes.
I still remember the enthusiastic reception we
got from the audience; but, better still, I can quote
from the glowing review we got from St. John Irvine,
the eminent critic for The London Observer ,
who observed that Christopher “displayed all the
signs that denote an accomplished comedian.” As
for Dorothy, Mr. Irvine called her “a very beautiful
little girl and, at the risk of turning her head, she has
the makings of a very good actress.” And our narrator,
Ann Casson, “read the passages with a clearness
of utterance that was remarkable.” Towards the end
of the review Mr. Irvine added, “Mr. Ernest Truex's
two sons, Philip and James, were extremely diverting
in their parts; and I was greatly touched by the
spectacle of Philip Truex, in the part of the Prince of
Wales, solemnly removing his crown during the
singing of the National Anthem.” I decided then
and there to go on the stage.
The Young Visiters lent itself readily to dramatization,
except that one loses the special sort of
charm inherent in Daisy's quaint spelling. But there
are other things to charm one in a stage version. We
all had the pleasure of getting to know Daisy a little
bit at rehearsals and felt very much at home with
her, which wasn't surprising, since she was only
about eighteen herself.
I was totally entranced by Dorothy Hyson and,
before we had to return to school, I persuaded our
mothers to take us to the circus. There I had the
thrill of winning a canary by rolling a penny down a
slide into a tiny bull's-eye. With a flourish, I presented
it to Dorothy. Soon after that, my father got a
good offer to return to Broadway, and I didn't see
Dorothy again until a number, of years later when
she came to New York in a play titled Most of the
Game . Well, sure enough, Mr. Irvine was right: she
was a beautiful woman--and a good actress! But,
alas!, she was married. She did, however, confide to
me that “our” canary was still in good voice.
In 1973 Doubleday wisely reissued The Young
Visiters , and it got a rave review by Alan Friedman
in The New York Times . He called it “a tiny novel
that begs comparison with giants: Tolstoy's War and
Peace , Flaubert's Sentimental Education , and Lawrence's
Women in Love may be bigger, but The
Young Visiters too manages to contain and display,
more gracefully than the giants, an entire civilization.”
He added that Daisy Ashford “is as ambitious
as George Eliot and as innovative as Gertrude Stein
and Virginia Woolf.” Well, as Beatrice Lillie used to
say, “You could have knocked me over with a
fender!” I really had not thought about The Young
Visiters in that context. That is to say, in 1928 we
budding thespians looked on acting in the play as
simply a joyous lark. We loved the story and the
characters, but we had never heard of Flaubert or
Tolstoy. At this stage in my life I could see that
Friedman was on to something: I knew, for instance,
that some readers suspected that J.M. Barrie, who
had written the Introduction, had written the novel
himself, and I had sneered at that theory. But Friedman
went further than that. He insisted that “Nothing
in Barrie's fiction can match Ashford's chefd'oeuvre....
But most of all, even though she
shows us a world of buffoons--for no one escapes--
she causes us to love them.” And I say “Amen” to
that!
Though my Chinese is rudimentary, I cannot
help commenting, as my eyes fall on the first page of
VERBATIM XVII, 3, that Bonner's statement, “Chinese
has no notion of tense,” is erroneous. As in the
case of the future tense in English, tense in Chinese
is indicated by an auxiliary verb or a particle, not by
inflection of the verb. One would translate the Caesarean
Veni, video, vincam! into Chinese something
like `Wo laide, kan, yao desheng.'
The Bummel is a German river [“Don't Get
Your Titles in a Twist!” XVI, 3]? If so, neither the
Rand McNally nor the Times atlas has noticed it.
Nor do the etymologies in Duden and Langenscheidt .
If my memory is reliable, Jerome was rhapsodizing
about the experiences of three friends on a footloose
bicycle tour. Take away the bicycles, and it is as
near to the meaning of ein Bummel as one can get.
The German usage is worth comparing with the obsolescent
American bummer and with bummle in
British dialect. Could your contributor, notwithstanding
his correct identification of the background
to Three Men on the Bummel , be confusing it with
the better-known Three Men in a Boat , where the
scenery is decidedly fluvial?
Both German and English employ the definite
article where the indefinite would be equally appropriate.
Might not Jerome, who knew Germany well
and spoke German fluently, have simply chosen the
slightly more forceful of the two alternative titles?
[ In all fairness, it must be said that Mr. Room wrote
as soon as he realized his slip in referring to the Bummel
as a river.--Editor .]
We would really have to be Schleppers (with a
capital S: the learned judge will not the distinction)
to drag the populace, me among them, from saying
“It's me.” Judge Scott's Canutian position [EPISTOLAE
XVII, 3] reminds me of William Safire several
years ago cravenly caving in to some of his readers
who lambasted him for having written, “Who are
you rooting for?” When I wrote Safire to ask
whether he could imagine Hemingway, Faulkner,
and O'Hara sitting in the grandstand at Yankee Stadium,
hot dogs (with mustard) in hand, asking each
other, “Whom are you rooting for?”, he responded
with a form postcard answering a question about the
locution God Bless , one that Judge Scott and I could
certainly get along without.
Context is important. I can imagine myself answering,
“It is I, (Lord),” to a voice from a burning
bush, but not to the good citizens of Chatauqua
County, New York.
Regarding “The Scandalous Yiddish Guide of
the Census Bureau,” by Dr. Zellig Bach [XVII, 2], I
must say that I wholeheartedly agree with the author's
assessment of the awkward and often amusing
government translation. The strange concoction of
grammar and syntax served up in the Guide no
doubt confused and discouraged many of the people
it was meant to benefit. Yiddish deserves better, and
based on Dr. Bach's accurate analysis of this recent
gelechter (Yiddish `joke'), I propose that the government
hire him as its official translator of future Yiddish
publications.
Stanley Mason, in his “Little Waterloos on Europe's
Language Frontiers” [XVII, 3], cites the case
of a Swiss mountain railway ticket which entitled the
holder to `1 Fahrt Fr. 9,50' as an indication of the
high cost of living in Switzerland.
A few years ago, while my father and I were
visiting relatives in Denmark, we had occasion to use
an elevator in his hometown of Svendborg. When
my father pressed the button it immediately lit up
with the words I FART `IN MOTION,' causing him to
remark, “I bet people who don't know Danish think
the elevators run awfully fast in this little country.”
In the spirit of Richard Lederer's “World According
to Student Bloopers” [XIII, 3], I enclose a
collection of fourth-grade students' replies to test
questions, given to me by a public-school teacher
when I taught at the University of Texas at Austin.
A virgin forest is a forest in which the hand of
man has never set foot .
A city purifies its water supply by filtering the
water and then forcing it through an aviator .
The people who followed the Lord were called
the twelve opossums .
The spinal column is a long bunch of bones. The
head sits on top and you sit on the bottom .
One of the main causes of dust is janitors .
Animal husbandry is having more than one husband .
The four seasons are: salt, pepper, mustard, and
vinegar .
The climate is hottest next to the Creator .
Syntax is all the money collected at church from
sinners .
The difference between a president and a king is
that a king has no vice .
Henry VIII by his own efforts increased the population
of England by 40,000 .
The triangle which has an angle of 135 degrees is
called an obscene triangle .
In the middle of the 18th century, all the morons
moved to Utah .
We do not raise silkworms in the United States
because we get our silk from rayon. It is a larger
animal and gives more silk .
A scout obeys all to whom obedience is due and
respects all duly constipated authorities .
Most of the houses in France are made of Plaster
of Paris .
To prevent head colds, use an agonizer to spray
into your nose until it drops into your throat .
Strategy is when you don't let the enemy know
that you are out of ammunition, but keep on firing .
While no author will be unhappy with a review
that begins, “ The Surname Dictionary , in particular,
becomes the best available work on the subject,”
several points in Leslie Dunkling's remarks on A
Dictionary of Surnames [XVII, 4:11] require comment.
He writes, “the awkward fact... is that a great
many people will consult it in vain for information
about their own names.” He is right that the dictionary
concentrates on the more frequent names
(though it is not limited to these), yet that is inevitable
in a first attempt at a pan-European dictionary.
Even so, the book contains almost seventy thousand
family names, which is nothing to sneeze at in a pioneering
effort. (Future editions will, of course,
contain more.)
“The authors say that if they came across reliable
information about rarer names, they wrote entries.
In other words, if someone else had done the
research in what appeared to be a scholarly way,
they took advantage of it.” One should not think
that the book is a scissors-and-paste job. The compilers
write, “...the number of reliable reference
works [on family names] is remarkably small” (p.
xlvii). After mentioning these few, they conclude,
“At this point the list of honourable exceptions begins
to run out” (p. xlviii). Therefore, to compensate
for the scarcity of reliable secondary literature,
the compilers turned to many specialists. From the
five pages of personal acknowledgments (as opposed
to a mere two pages of bibliography), it should be
clear that the dictionary rests largely on original research.
As “special consultant” for the Jewish
names, I can say that all of my explanations are original
with me. (How the Jewish names were treated is
described in “The Jewish Family Names in the Oxford
Dictionary of Surnames ,” Jewish Language Review
7, 1987, pp. 139-46.)
Mr. Dunkling has “doubts about how ordinary
users of this dictionary will cope with its metalanguage,”
citing lines which contain several abbreviations
and technical terms. With forty-one pages of
Introduction and two pages devoted to the resolution
of abbreviations, the task is not as hard as he
makes it out to be.
He writes, “genealogical information is occasionally
added..., but only when the families concerned
are `important' according to a very traditional
definition of that word.” Yes, and that is
because genealogical information is most abundant
for such people: what, for instance, is known about
the ancestry of Frankie Vaughan? Also, if anyone
infers from later remarks in Mr. Dunkling's review
(about “the `noble' theme”) that only “noble” families
are the subject of genealogical notes, that assumption
would be wrong: there are genealogical
vignettes for George Washington, John Adams,
Abraham Lincoln, the Roosevelts, and many other
“commoners.”
What I missed in Mr. Dunkling's remarks is
mention of a major innovation in this dictionary:
nesting. The family names are not listed as in a telephone
directory, merely in alphabetical order, with
no articulation between one entry and the next:
rather, if names are etymologically related to one
another, they are all listed under the same entry.
For example, over 285 names appear under George .
Moreover, within each entry the names are broken
down according to form and structure--for example,
variants, cognates, diminutives, augmentatives,
patronymics, and patronymics from diminutives--
with further classification (according to language)
and comment. A 230-page alphabetical index guides
the user to the location of the names. A Dictionary
of Surnames is thus more like a thesaurus than an
alphabetical dictionary.
The anecdote of the Polish lady who resented
the slur on her country [review of the Bloomsbury
Dictionary of Contemporary Slang , XVII , 3:17] reminded
me of an incident related to me by a friend
who taught third grade in a church-affiliated school.
The story of the Nativity was under discussion, and
the least sophisticated member of the class raised
her hand to ask, “What is a virgin?”
The teacher explained, in terms that she hoped
were appropriate to her audience. When she had
finished, the class Brain turned to the questioner and
smugly elucidated, “So you see, you're a virgin.”
“I am NOT! ” shrieked the outraged eight-year-old.
Many readers will recall with pleasure Leo Rosten's
THE EDUCATION OF H*Y*M*A*N
K*A*P*L*A*N , which appeared in the late 1930s
and early 40s and which dealt with the amusing difficulties
of a Jewish immigrant from the Russian Pale
of Settlement in coping with what we now call “English
as a second language.” Rosten's articles were
good-humored, and there was no intimation of negative
or hostile feeling toward an ethnic minority. To
be sure, as it was fiction, Rosten exaggerated a bit,
but the real-life models were then extant, and I can
vouch for at least one from my own experience.
In the 1940s my father, a certified public accountant
in Boston, acquired a client named Morris
Kaplan, an affable, outgoing insurance salesman
(pronounced SALE-ess-mahn) whose accent reflected
his origins in the Pale of Settlement, specifically in
Minske Gebernyeh: Mr. Kaplan was an echt Litvak.
Over and above the accent and intonation, Mr. Kaplan
had a knack for transmogrifying the Anguish
Languish into levels of meaning scarcely intended
by its users. I can cite two examples:
One noontime Mr. Kaplan and my father went
out to lunch from my father's office on Devonshire
Street. Within a few paces they encountered an acquaintance
of Mr. Kaplan's. “Mr. Pincus,” said Kaplan,
“I want you should meet mine accountant,
Harry Ober. He's the finest figurehead in New England.”
True enough, my father was a lightning calculator
and an expert at solving arithmetical puzzles.
The second incident occurred some years later.
In June 1960 my father went down to Houston to
have his aortic aneurysm repaired by the distinguished
Dr. Michael DeBakey. The operation was a
great success, and a couple of days afterward my father
received a get-well card from Mr. Kaplan. The
picture was suitable enough, but the handwritten
message read, “Dear Harry - Hoping this will be
your last illness....”
Alas, one rarely hears the echt Litvisch accent
these days. Mr. Kaplan's generation has largely died
off, and its progeny have become Americanized. We
lose in color what we gain in homogeneity.
Random House Webster's College Dictionary
This dictionary might be said to be the grandson
of The Random House Dictionary of the English Language
- College Edition , 1968, of which I was editor
in chief (with the late Stuart B. Flexner as managing
editor) and the great-grandson of the American College
Dictionary [ ACD ], 1947, of which Clarence L.
Barnhart was editor in chief. There are, naturally,
many resemblances among the three and to the College
Edition, Revised Edition , 1975, reviewed in Volume
II, Number 3 (pp. 172ff. in VERBATIM: Volumes
I & II ). Before discussing the content, I may be allowed
a comment on the title.
It is taken as given in the dictionary business in
the U.S. that if a dictionary bears the name “Webster”
it magically attracts sales far beyond those of a
dictionary that tries to rely for its success on quality
alone. Compared to the soft-drink business, that is
like saying that all cola drinks ought to be called
Coca-Cola, though one would be legally enjoined
from doing so. Not so with Webster , for, owing to a
bit of folly in the 1930s, G. & C. Merriam Company,
of Springfield, Massachusetts, successors to the line
of dictionaries originated by Noah Webster, published
a synonym dictionary and called it a Webster .
World Publishing Company, of Cleveland, had the
wit to see that Merriam had, in effect, forsworn its
birthright, for Noah had never published a synonym
dictionary. World called its dictionary Webster's
New World ; Merriam sued and lost, confirming that
the appellation Webster had fallen into the public
domain. That is why virtually every American dictionary
of any shape, size, provenance, comprehensiveness,
quality, and lexicographic persuasion is
likely to be called a Webster these days.
When I was director of the reference department
at Random House, during the 1960s, at meetings
held with Bennett Cerf, Donald Klopfer, and
Lew Miller, sales director, we often touched on the
matter of what the new dictionary, successor to the
ACD , was to be called. It was pointed out then that
including the name Webster in the title would be
likely to increase the sales by a measurable amount;
but Bennett and Donald, staunchly independent and
proud of the successes gained in the name of Random
House , would not hear of it. It was I who proposed
the original title for the series of dictionaries
published from 1966 onwards: The Random House
Dictionary of the English Language - Unabridged
Edition, College Edition, School Edition , and any
other subtitles that might come along. From what I
know of Bennett and Donald, the decision to include
Webster in the title of this book has probably set
them spinning in their graves.
There is another aspect to this change: lamentably,
it emphasizes the abiding ignorance and gullibility
of the dictionary-buying public. Anyone who
compares the multifarious dictionaries bearing the
Webster name cannot help observing the differences
in quality, quantity, and treatment offered: the name
has become meaningless, made inferior by its universal
application to virtually any kind of dictionary.
While I am making general observations, I
might add, for the record, that my review of the
1975 edition of the Random House College was not
favourable because it was based on an examination of
the entries mentioned in Jess Stein's Preface: I had,
out of a feeling of sympathetic and loyal association
with the book's 1968 edition, which still constituted
more than ninety per cent of the 1975 edition, selected
for analysis the words mentioned in the Preface
on the premise that they were “showcase” entries
which the editors were especially proud of. As
it turned out, I was compelled to point out several
glaring errors in most of those entries, and Jess Stein
never spoke to me again. I must confess to being
displeased at Stein's having removed my name from
the title page of a book only slightly changed from
its first edition so that he could insert his own as
editor in chief; but that was nothing new for him, as
he had deleted from later editions of the ACD the
name of its editor in chief, Clarence L. Barnhart, to
insert his own. So much for De mortuis ...
The present work contains 180,000 entries,
fully 20,000 more than the 1968 edition and 10,000
more than the 1975 edition. It would be a waste of
time to go through the editions noting the differences:
in most cases, the editors followed the wise
dictum, “If it ain't broke, don't fix it,” so little has
been done to the basic information in the original
edition. The 1983 edition of Webster's Ninth New
Collegiate introduced the practice of giving, in the
etymologies, “dates of earliest occurrence,” data
presumably derived from the Oxford English Dictionary
(for, while Merriam and Random House
maintained a citation file for the tracking of new
words and senses, there was no point in duplicating
work done long ago by Murray, et al.). It is questionable
to what purpose users of dictionaries are to
put this information. Naive users--by far the majority--are
bound to misinterpret the dates as meaning
“when the word first appeared in the language”
rather than as “the date of the earliest recorded evidence
found (at press time).” Moreover, the date
cannot be associated with any particular definition,
so it is a bit misleading, for an entry like log , which
has several definitions, to show it as having entered
the language “1350-1400.” In which sense? And
what is to be made of the following?:
1. All numbers, from one through twelve, are
listed as having entered English “before 900” except
five, for which “bef. 1000” is given. Are we
to conclude that people got along without the
number five for a hundred years before someone,
perhaps feeling that “something was missing,”
awoke one morning to invent it?
2. If one looks up the ordinals, the following
information is revealed:
first “bef. 1000” tenth “bef. 1150”
second “1250-1300” eleventh “bef. 1000”
third “bef. 900” twelfth “bef. 1200”
fourth “bef. 950” seventeenth “1300-50”
fifth “bef. 1000” eighteenth “bef. 900”
sixth “1520-30” twentieth “bef. 900”
seventh “1275-1325” fortieth “bef. 1100”
eighth “bef. 1000” fiftieth “bef. 1000”
ninth “bef. 900” eightieth “bef. 850”
To be sure, there is nothing to justify the assumption
that the names of the numbers emerged in numerical
order from the primeval ooze of language; but
one might mistakenly conclude that the very first
ordinal to be talked about in English was eightieth ,
and this at a time when only a small percentage of
the population had a life expectancy of half that.
And it might be imagined that in giving directions to
get to one's hovel, one would say, “Go to the fifth
hovel, and mine is the next one,” for sixth did not
come into being till the sixteenth century. One
would expect the editors to have signaled the truth
of the matter under Using This Dictionary, despite
the reluctance of users to refer to such things. But
no; here is the only comment:
when and how the word entered our language,
including the date that it first appeared and its
source or relatives in other languages
The redundancy of when and the date that is confusing
enough; but to describe the date as when the
word “first appeared” is grossly misleading and inaccurate:
it is the date for the earliest written evidence
of the form. That might seem a niggling
point, but dictionaries dwell (and thrive) on niggling
points, and such misstatements are unforgivable.
The editors would have been on safer ground had
they simply followed the wording in the Random
House Unabridged , to wit:
Most dates are expressed as a spread of years,
giving the time within which the earliest document
containing the main entry was written or
published.... In many cases a term may have
existed in the spoken language long before it first
appeared in texts and, in any event, earlier written
evidence may exist that has not yet been discovered
or reported. [p. xxxiv]
The publication of college dictionaries in the
U.S. provides an outstanding textbook demonstration
of the principles of competitive free enterprise
at work and of what used to be called supply and
demand, but is now dubbed “market forces.” There
are five major dictionaries of approximately the
same size competing for buyers in the market. It is
impossible to get an accurate figure for the total
market, which has been estimated at two million
sales a year. Publishers steadfastly refuse to reveal
their sales figures because of the highly competitive
nature of the business, though it is generally acknowledged
that Webster's Ninth New Collegiate
outsells its nearest competitor by about two to one.
That nearest competitor is probably Webster's New
World, 3rd Edition , with the Random House College
(occupying a niche to be filled by the book under
review) and the American Heritage, 2nd Edition neck
and neck for third place, and Webster's II New Riverside
bringing up the rear in this horserace. These
are only guesses.
The fierce competition among the dictionaries
results in what must be regarded as the greatest
book bargain in the history of publishing: taking the
Random House Webster's as a typical example, it
contains 18 million characters (say, 2.5 million
words) for which one pays $18, which works out to
about 139,000 words per dollar. The average novel
of 200,000 words for $25 works out at 8,000 words
per dollar. This is all the more astonishing when one
considers that the publishers maintain full-time staffs
of skilled lexicographers and editors to keep their
dictionaries up to date by continuously monitoring
both the language and other kinds of data, like population
figures for geopolitical entries, death dates for
biographical entries, etc. Consider, too, that the
quality of the paper, printing, and binding of such
dictionaries is far superior to that of most other
books available, creating a cost per copy of about
$5. Were all these factors taken into consideration in
normal pricing procedures in the industry, a college
dictionary ought to retail for about $50 a copy. One
is given to wonder how manufacturers of other staple
consumer products manage to come up with
identical packaging (say, 1 pint, 10 fluidounces or 2
pounds 13 ounces) and identical pricing on supermarket
shelves without being in collusion; even the
most cursory view of college dictionary publishing
at once reveals a most extraordinary example of the
workings of “market forces”: no publisher wants to
be the first to break the $20 barrier; the Indexed
edition of the Random House is the first to touch that
mystical figure.
Random House dictionaries, from the ACD onward,
have always been known for their ease of use
and the clarity and understandability of the information
presented. The book at hand supports that reputation.
Notwithstanding, people who use dictionaries
regularly become accustomed to one, which
becomes their favorite for any number of reasons:
for purposes of utility and for philosophical reasons,
I prefer geographical and biographical entries to be
interfiled with other entries in one alphabetical listing;
others prefer to have them separate. To be sure,
if one is going to spend $18 or so, the dictionary
selected ought to be the most up to date and have
the largest number of entries, a bit of reasoning not
lost on the crowd at Random House. Besides,
although publishers seldom get into such detail in
the publicity about their dictionaries, the more entries
a dictionary has, the more definitions it has.
That is not the truism it appears to be: as lexicographers
add entries, increasing the depth to which the
lexicon is being probed, they must add definitions,
proportionally increasing the coverage of existing
entries (which often accomplishes little or nothing to
increase the entry count).
Some dictionaries offer more information than
others about the entries they cover. Thus, on average,
Webster's Ninth New Collegiate and the Random
House Webster's College contain at least fifteen per
cent more information per entry than American Heritage
and Webster's New World. (A copy of Webster's
II Riverside was not available for this comparison,
but is unlikely to come up to the last two.)
In all this talk about entries, it must be remembered
that the (accepted) practice in counting
dictionary entries in the U.S. (and becoming the
standard in the U.K. as well) is to count not only
headwords, or main entries, but inflected forms, variants,
changes in part of speech, run-on words (like
cunningly and cunningness under cunning ), and list
words (like reaccuse and reacquire ), which need no
definition. A dictionary with, say, 150,000 entries is
likely to have no more than 80,000 headwords.
Other desirable (or desired) features might influence
the purchase of a dictionary: according to a
comparison chart provided by Random House, its
dictionary has 800 illustrations; Webster's Ninth
600+; Webster's New World 650; and Webster II
Riverside 300+. But the American Heritage has
3000. (Most British dictionaries have traditionally
had no illustrations at all.)
I must admit that I have not been watching very
carefully the admittance of the naughty bits of the
language into dictionaries, but I am pleased to see
that their omission, so long a sop to the Cerberean
self-styled “guardians” of the language, chiefly struthious
provincials in the Bible Belt, Texas, and--believe
it or not--California, has ended. I do object,
however, to the label Vulgar given to such entries. I
am sure that the label is the product of endless hours
of agonizing discussion, but I think they came up
with the wrong solution. Vulgar still carries the
strong denotation exemplified in the first (hence the
most frequently encountered) sense, “characterized
by ignorance of or lack of good breeding or taste:
vulgar ostentation .” It has congeners, like vulgarian
“a vulgar person”; vulgarism “ 1. the state or quality
of being vulgar. 2. something vulgar, as an act or
expression”; vulgarize “ 1. to make vulgar or coarse;
lower; debase. 2. ...popularize”; Vulgate “... 4.
( l.c. ) commonly used or accepted; common.” The
problem in reviewing these sets of definitions is that
one can never be sure which definition of vulgar
ought to be applied to its use in the definitions of the
ancillary entries, for the word has a spectrum of
meanings. I often think that it would not be untoward
for a dictionary to add to its entries for words
that also serve as labels (e.g., Colloquial, Informal,
Slang , etc.) definitions that begin, “As used for labels
in this dictionary,...” In the event, a user
might well be confused about seeing the label Vulgar
applied to four-letter words, when its definitions
seem to indicate that it means (merely) “in bad
taste.” My own choice for a label is Taboo , which is
incisively denotative. Its main definition in the Random
House reads, “proscribed by society as improper
or unacceptable: taboo words ,” which I believe
is a lot closer to what the editors were seeking
than Vulgar .
I cannot conclude this review without commenting
on an element of dictionary marketing that
I think may be infra dig these days, namely, the attempt
at hoopla. Dictionaries are generally consistent
products of superior scholarship and care; at
this stage of the game, trying to change what Madison
Avenue calls “brand loyalty” is like getting
someone who has been driving a Ford all his life to
switch to a Toyota. As Ford and Toyota know, that is
far from impossible, but manufacturers find it very
costly to effect the change. Publishers grasp at anything
they think might catch the fancy of the dictionary
buyer. Random House has come up touting its
treatment of entries like gal and girl , as in Gal Friday,
I'll get my girl (`secretary') to type up this letter
right away . The treatment is good and it might be
unique among the desk/college dictionaries--I
don't waste my time checking such trivia--but it is a
shame to see publishers relying on such undignified
approaches. On the other hand, pecunia non olet,
and today's market might need just such an incentive
to choose one dictionary over another.
Another ploy has been to get major newspapers
and other media to acknowledge their reliance on a
particular dictionary to decide spelling (mainly) and,
I suppose, other language matters. Unfortunately,
that leads to inconsistencies, for dictionaries report
what they find and are not intended as sources of
prescriptive decisions. Thus, a given dictionary
might hyphenate thick-skinned, thick-skulled , and
thick-witted but not thickheaded (e.g., the Random
House 2nd Unabridged ). We know that the language
is inconsistent, and there can be nothing wrong in
reporting that fact: the dictionary merely reflects
the practice of the majority of written citations
available to its compilers. But it must be said that
space is at a premium in these expensive books, and
if, say, a dozen citations are found for each of the
spellings thickwitted and thick-witted , one can be
sure that no lexicographer, thrifty of space, will display
the variant, whichever he perceives that to be.
But publishers are not bound by such variety: neatness
is a virtue in publishing newspapers, magazines,
and books, and no publisher who produced a style
book that required all such compounds to be consistently
spelled with or without a hyphen could be
subjected to criticism for yielding randomness to
logic. I would be the last one to stake anything
worthwhile on the statistical base used for determining
the “preferred” spellings in dictionaries. Thus,
when a dictionary is touted as the one used by such-and-such
a newspaper, readers should think back to
the number of times that paper has been cited in
SIC ³--seldom for the kinds of things that dictionaries
have much bearing on--and discount the claims
for “adoption” as so much hype. After all, the use of
a hyphen in adverb/adjective compounds is a matter
of style, which can be described in a rule: in position
before a noun, compounds with well --indeed, any
not ending in - ly --like well-heeled, well-known,
well-thought-out , are hyphenated, as in well-heeled
gambler, well-known man-about-town, a well-thought-out
plan ; but when they are in predicative
position, as in Is she well heeled enough to sit in on
our game?, His peccadillos are well known to his wife,
The plan was well thought out , or, if they end in - ly
in any position, they are two words, as in That is
chiefly British usage, this usage is chiefly American.
Why, then list thousands of hyphenated well -words?
With such a simple rule, would anyone need
to look such words up in a dictionary?
To sum up, the Random House Webster's Dictionary
is an excellent dictionary containing up-to-date
information about the English lexicon in
America and, to a limited extent, elsewhere. Indeed,
while I was writing this review an acquaintance
phoned to say that he had to replace all the
aging dictionaries in his office and asked me to recommend
a replacement. I recommended this book
without hesitation or reservation. It might be time
for you to switch from a Ford to a Cadillac.
Laurence Urdang
Writing the Spoken Word
It suddenly struck me that, in all the years I have
read and admired VERBATIM, I cannot recall an
article on the language of public speaking--or, if
the reader insists, oratory. That being the case and
because I am a long-time professional speechwriter,
I feel it incumbent on me to remedy the deficiency.
I will concede that there may not be another
reader who is the least bit interested in speechwriting
per se --indeed, many might well disdain it because,
after all, it is one of the most lucrative forms
of writing. But my guess is that many will be variously
bemused, enchanted, and appalled by some of
the rules for good speech writing that run quite
counter to the rules for good writing for print.
One widely acknowledged tenet for speechwriting
is to use simple and direct sentence structure
and to keep sentences as short as feasible. There is
nothing remarkable about that; but the fact is that
sentence structure that is commonly accepted in
writing for print--that, in fact, is not only stylistically
impeccable but is virtually indispensable to expert
writers--can be taboo to speechwriters.
I refer, for example, to something along the following
lines: “Although the economy is in extremely
poor shape, my company has been reporting excellent
financial results.” That is what we speechwriting
gurus call bass-ackward sentence structure.
What is wrong with it? The same thing, essentially,
that makes homophones horrendous no-nos in
speeches. Whereas a document is read, a speech is
heard . Yes, of course everyone knows that; but perhaps
thought is seldom given to its implications, of
which there are many. Homophones can be pure
poison in a speech. A hapless auditor might conceivably
spend several minutes thinking the speaker is
discussing, say, roles , when he's actually discussing
rolls. By the time the light of comprehension
flashes, the listener might have lost the thread completely.
As for convoluted and backside-to sentences,
the problem is that the point of a statement should
ordinarily come first. If your company is reporting
excellent financial results, say so right out, then add
the impressive fact that this success has been
achieved despite a weak economy. Serve the entrée
first, let the other courses follow.
This is even true of the proper treatment of
modifiers. Suppose one wants to brag that his company
has just completed a new, state-of-the-art,
$250-million, completely computerized, 2,000-foot-long
reverberating furnace. It should never be put
that way! A long string of modifiers in advance of a
noun is frustrating and confusing to listeners; they
want to know--right off--what the speaker is talking
about. Good speech style calls for: “My company
just completed a new, state-of-the-art reverberating
furnace. It cost $250 million. It's 2,000
feet long. It's...etc.”
The speaker should get to the point, and get
there with maximum effectiveness, which is why signaling
is an indispensable technique in any speech-writer's
bag of tricks. While one would never write
“Would you like to guess how much our new reverberating
furnace cost my company? No takers?
Well, listen carefully and I'll tell you...,” that is
excellent speechwriting style if only because challenging
the audience in a sprightly conversational
manner tends to awaken snoozers and invigorate the
lethargic. On a more positive note, there cannot be
any question of the value of alerting audiences that
information worth listening to is forthcoming.
While on that particular subject, how about restating
something important that has just been said?
Good form! “That furnace cost us $250 million.
That's right, I said a cool $250 million!” Consider it
a rule that facts and figures that a serious reader
would reread in a printed text should be repeated
orally in a speech. If he thinks--or looks--back
over a few of the points I have made, the reader will
realize that speech texts--or at least important passages
within such texts--often are longer and wordier
than comparable writings for print, and necessarily
so. After all, speakers have to rely entirely on
audience comprehension through hearing, and a
speaker's words skitter by so swiftly!
Can a speaker reasonably expect his audience to
remember anything at all about that big furnace if
he has spent only a few seconds describing it?
Speakers who want to impress their audiences know
they have to telegraph key points and facts, then
announce them, then repeat, dramatize, explain,
and embellish.
Finally,--and this may come as the most unkindest
cut of all to purists--most speeches call for
use of conversational, colloquial English. Most
speakers, on most speaking occasions, should sound
natural, not pedantic. “We're going to do it” is
more natural, and sounds more natural, than “We
will do it.” Similarly, “We've got to do it” is more
natural than “We must do it.” I would hazard a
guess that scores of words and phrases in virtually
every one of the 750 or so executive speeches I have
written through the years would be criticized by
most high-school English teachers.
I have not given the whole story; there are
many other differences between optimal speechwriting
style and standard English usage, but I have
already taken up more than enough of your time.
And rest easy, Miss Dalrymple, when I reedit speech
scripts for print publication, I always revert to good
old academically pure English usage.
The (invariably) Right Reverend Walter W. Skeat
Rev. Walter W. Skeat, surely one of the greatest
linguists of all time and an outstanding innovator of
his day (late 19th century), was often given to testy
replies when a correspondent to Notes and Queries
either disagreed with him or speculated on the etymology
of a word without having first looked it up in
one of Skeat's works or, if the alphabetic section had
appeared, in the Oxford English Dictionary . He was
often nasty; but toward the latter part of the 1890s
the crust softened, and he mellowed a bit. Some
contributors to learned journals of his day frequently
submitted their suggestions with a hesitation
born of the fear of being flayed alive by the
scholar in a contemptuous retort to be published in a
later issue. In some cases, Skeat's irritation stemmed
from a reader's failure either to read correspondence
that had been published decades earlier or to
be intimately familiar with every last syllable of
Skeat's seven-volume work on Chaucer.
A poor man named John Cordeaux was brazen
enough to suggest [May 27, 1893] that stoat is from
the Anglo-Saxon steort , a tail.
In the issue of June 10, Skeat pounced:
...A moment's reflection will show that stoat
and start are different words, just as coat and cart
or moat and mart. That any one should for a moment
deem it possible to derive stoat from A.-S.
steort is a clear proof of the inability of the English
mind to conceive that etymology obeys fixed
laws.
A year later, he was still fuming [June 16, 1894]:
No one seems to refer to the `New English Dictionary'
or even to my `Concise Dictionary'
(1890). It is of no consequence what the theories
are. The fact is, that the word was spelt bane-fire
in the (Northern) `Catholicon Anglicum' in 1483,
and is correctly explained in the same work as
`ignis ossium' [`fire of bones'].
Notwithstanding this, all the old rubbish is repeated.
And we are told that it “probably
reaches us from Danish baun, a beacon.” But really
the English way of pronouncing baun is beacon;
and no living soul can pretend that we left
off saying beacon and began saying bone or bon.
...
I need hardly add, in the year 1894, that there
is not a scrap of evidence in favour of any connexion
of bale-fire with Baldr or with Bel or with
Baal.
By the time he entered his sixties, in 1895, Skeat
gave the impression that he was beginning to take
these matters a little less seriously:
...We might as well derive laundress from
the Gk. Leander, on the plea that the famous
hero was in the habit of swimming about to keep
himself clean. This is no unfair parody of the desperate
pleas that are constantly being used in “etymology.”
[8th S. IX, March 21, 1896]
Lest one might be deceived into taking the preceding
to be a pleasantry, even as late as 1909 (at seventy-four),
Skeat's contempt for those who knew
less than he was undiminished:
The word hawser has nothing whatever to do
with the verb to hoist; neither does the `N.E.D.'
say that it has. It correctly derives hawser from
the obsolete verb hawse, which had indeed the
sense of “to hoist,” but is really a derivative, as
shown, of the Latin altus...
But, as the `N.E.D.' says, there was an early
confusion (of course, by popular etymology) with
the Scand. hāls, a neck, and its derivative hawsehole;
but we ought not to be misled by such a
specious bit of guesswork. I speak feelingly, for I
was caught once in this particular trap, as shown
by the article on hawser in my `Etymological Dictionary,'
for which I was promptly rebuked by
Mr. Wedgwood in 1882 (twenty-seven years ago);
and that is why I so fully recanted my heresy in
the `Supplement';... We are now invited to entangle
ourselves once more in the old meshes;
which I decline to do.
The verb to haul has nothing whatever to do
with either hawse or hawser.
Like many intellectual bullies, Skeat behaved
like the injured party when caught in an error, making
it appear that it was the other--the person who
was right--who had done wrong. Like everyone, he
was himself occasionally wrong; in 1895, somewhat
begrudgingly and without direct reference to the authors
of the correspondence that confuted his earlier
surmise, he wrote to N. & Q. [July 27] on the subject
of the expression the wrong end of the stick:
I have no doubt that the right explanation of
this phrase is that given at the latter reference
[July 13], and not the one suggested by myself,
which I beg leave to withdraw. I remember now
“the vulgar variant” of the phrase, which is
decisive.
Sometimes Skeat's tactic when confronted, either
with evidence of error--which occurred very
rarely indeed--or with a complaint about his overbearing
lack of tolerance of those who knew less
than he or had committed the unpardonable sin of
failing to have both his books and the latest fascicle
of the OED at hand, was to go all soft with humility.
Yet, he could not resist the barb in the tail:
I am merely a humble collector of facts, always
endeavouring to find out authorities and quotations
for the instruction of others. But I do not
advise any one to ignore my authorities.
[Ibid., July 18, '96]
It goes without saying that not all targets of
Skeat's wrath and contumely took his abuse lying
down, notwithstanding his correctness in most matters
etymological. Still, substantial contributors to
N. & Q . took issue with what they perceived as a
rather high-handed attitude:
Are we to be shamed into speaking of “phonetic
decay” because it pleases Prof. Skeat to say
that “whenever a writer uses the word `corruption'
we may safely assume him to be guessing. It
is the one word that is prized above all others by
those who prefer assertion to fact”?
Here is Skeat fuming at a correspondent who
had the gall to suggest that the origin of the Ox - in
Oxford , long a bone of etymological contention,
could be traced through Usk to a connection with
Gaelic uisque `water,' as in uisquebaugh literally `water
of life,' from which we get whiskey (etymologically
speaking):
...Not only fifty years ago, but even at the
present time, there are people who are ignorant
of the commonest principles of language, and refuse
to admit any phonetic laws or to take any
trouble to discover the historical sequence of
forms. Their only idea is that “etymology” is a
question of assumption and assertion, founded on
guesswork and proclaimed by reiteration and
bluster. They will never cease to repeat that Ox
is a “corruption” of Ouse, or Ose, or Usk, or
something else that is completely ridiculous. The
more “corruption” there is in a guess, the deeper
is their conviction of its truth...
[Notes & Queries, 8th S., X, July 18, '96]
In an issue of N. & Q . not two weeks later, in
commenting on a correspondent's plea for help in
tracing the form irpe , Skeat wrote:
[As to its origin,] there is nothing but to guess.
He might be seen to have got his final comeuppance
at the hands of one correspondent, who
wrote at length as follows about the etymology of
Cambridge:
...[I]n the present instance, I am concerned
with Prof. Skeat alone.... I have already had
occasion... to allude to an unfortunate habit
which Prof. Skeat has of writing important notes
without first consulting the full and accurate Indexes
of N. & Q.; and I am very sorry to be
obliged to renew my accusation. On the former
occasion the consequences were annoying to me,
but of no great importance. Now the matter is
much more serious, for Prof. Skeat has thereby
been led to attribute to himself entirely a derivation
for the word Cambridge which I propounded,
both in N. & Q. and in the Athenæum,
so far back as 1869....
One could forgive Prof. Skeat for his note on
Cantabrigia (8th S. ii. 329), because twenty-three
years had then elapsed since my first note appeared.
He had, no doubt, seen and read my
note, which was the first in that number of N. &
Q . and filled seven columns and a half, for he
was, even at that time, a constant reader of N. &
Q ., as is shown by his having contributed no
fewer than fifteen notes to the volume in which
my note is to be found; and very likely he had
carried off an impression which in after years he
came to regard as an idea that had originated in
his own brain. Still, as the interval between my
first note and his first note was so great, I do not
know that any great fault, beyond that of carelessness,
can be attributed to him. At the same
time I thought it advisable, in my note under the
same heading ( Cantabrigia ), to point out to him
that he had, no doubt inadvertently, been poaching
on my preserves, and I took advantage of the
opportunity and filled up the lacunae in the steps
of the derivation which, from want of evidence,
had been left in my first note. I then, naturally
enough, looked upon the incident as closed. But
no; Prof. Skeat, just three years later--again
trusting to his memory, which seems to be particularly
faulty with regard to the contributions of
other correspondents--returned to the charge,
and this time, under the heading of Cambridge ,
wrote a longish note to the same effect as before,
and yet did not even once mention my name.
And not only did he do this, but he afterwards
“much expanded” this note, and this expansion
was “printed (with the title `Cambridge and the
Cam') in the Cambridge Review , 30 Jan., 1896.”
It was not there, however, that I saw it, but in A
Student's Pastime , which has just been published
by Prof. Skeat, in which the expanded note is reprinted
in full and fills eight pages (pp. 393-401).
Now I defy Prof. Skeat, or any one else who
will take the trouble to read the four notes
quoted at the beginning of this note, together
with the article in the Cambridge Review , and
who will compare what I have said with what
Prof. Skeat has said--I defy either the one or the
other, I say, to find any material difference between
us. Prof. Skeat does, indeed, in his last and
longest note (I mean the one in the Cambridge
Review ) go into the question as to how it came to
pass that the a in Cambridge is pronounced long
as in came --a point which I had not considered--and
he also differs from me in attributing,
without any apparent evidence, the change of the
Gr of Granta into the C of Canta to the Anglo-French
scribes of the twelfth century; for I was,
and am still, disposed to attribute it, in part at
least, to the undoubted confusion between the
old forms of Cambridge and of Canterbury which
I have pointed out in both my notes. But neither
of these points can be regarded as of any great
importance.
It is, indeed, just possible that, in this second
case of forgetfulness, the substitution of Cantabrigia
as a heading, for the original Cambridge,
may have had something to do with the matter;
but if Prof. Skeat had taken the trouble to consult
the Indexes as I have done, his eye would certainly,
whilst looking for Cambridge , have been
caught, as my own was, by Cantabridga , which
stands very near to it. I think, therefore, that
this time, as the offence was repeated at the end
of three years only, there is hardly any excuse to
be found for Prof. Skeat. At all events, he seems
to me to have got into a very serious hobble; at
least I should consider it so, if I had, as is the
case with Prof. Skeat, appropriated a derivation
long before made public by another person,
even though I had done so in the most utter
unconsciousness.
In conclusion, I trust that Prof. Skeat will not in
this case ignore this note and repeat the offence
at some future time. I hope he will, for once, offer
some little explanation, and perhaps even
some words of excuse....
[ Notes & Queries , 8th S. X. Nov. 28, '96.]
The Rev. Skeat's reply was suitably abject at the
outset, but, as might be expected, notwithstanding a
direct apology, he could not resist commenting on
the entirely irrelevant matter of the origin of wayz-goose
while attempting to turn the tables on his
critic by painting himself as the put-upon, absentminded
professor, struggling in his tiny cell against
overwhelming numbers of books and the obligations
that attend them:
I willingly admit that Dr. Chance is perfectly
correct in saying that he had explained the etymology
of Cambridge both at an earlier time and
more completely than myself. His first note made
no impression on me, because I had not at that
time sufficient experience to take it in; and his
second one I most unfortunately overlooked,
which accounts for the imperfections in my latest
article.
I offer Dr. Chance, for the second time, my sincere
apology. I have already printed one apology
in the Cambridge Review of 26 November at
p. 111. I have “got into a serious hobble,”
doubtless; and shall be truly thankful if I can be
allowed a way out of it.
It is not at all easy for one who, like myself,
not only does a good deal of work on his own account,
but a good deal to help others, to remember
where all the multitudinous notes on words
occur. For example, I often cannot find even my
own articles. I certainly wrote one on wayzgoose,
which is again inquired about this week (8th S. X.
432); and I have found, after some hunting, that
it appeared in the Phil. Soc. Trans. of 1890. The
same article says that I wrote about the word to
N. & Q.; so that, by putting together the information,
I find that my note appeared in N. & Q.
about that time; but I cannot tell when till I consult
some library. In any case, the writer of the
article in the number of N. & Q. for 28 Nov. altogether
ignores it--which does not surprise me.
I have often answered the same question twice,
and sometimes thrice; for all that, they will turn
up again.
I have a good many volumes of N. & Q. in my
possession; but it often takes a long while to find
any particular number, owing to the impossibility
of keeping things in their places in a room of limited
size, when books are being sent to me from
many places all the year round. I submit that
these are extenuating circumstances; but I have
made a mistake, and must take the consequences.
[Notes & Queries, 8th S. X. Dec. 12, '96.]
The foregoing is merely a sampling and by no
means constitutes the full documentation of Skeat's
clawing back from the brink of ignominy at having
pinched another's work. To be sure, he was far too
good and honorable a scholar to be considered, even
remotely, a deliberate plagiarist; but he was careless
at times and rather mean, and his apologies, always
couched in language that tried to put the onus on
others, come through as being very insincere
indeed.
Several Types of Ambiguity: Minimalist Language
Ted Bernstein, when he was assistant managing
editor of The New York Times , published a house organ,
“Winners and Sinners,” that offered kudos for
the occasional “bright passage” or deft metaphor
and cited questionable and nonstandard grammar
and usage that appeared in the newspaper. Among
the items that he enjoyed catching were the ambiguous
headlines, which he dubbed “two-faced heads.”
These are not very hard to find in newspapers (as
of the headline writer (who is not, usually,
the writer of the article) is to come up with something
that is a telegraphically brief inkling of the
substance of the article. Headline writers are often
given to paronomasia (which they would probably
call punning, as paronomasia , which would not fit
into most headlines, is not in their vocabulary).
Gleaned from the current collection:
1. Cost of food scares mounts. [The Times, 11
October 90:5]
I was not under the impression that horses worried
much about the price of fodder.
2. PLO may supply Arabs with arms. [Ibid.: 14]
Arms is always ripe for ambiguity.
3. Children taken on ¥500 raid. [Ibid., 12 October 90:7]
The children were not captured on the raid: the
story was about a father who had his children (and,
as I recall, his wife) wait in the family car while he
went off to commit a robbery.
4. Students filmed in secret. [Ibid., 13 October 90:7]
Filmed is here intended as a past participle, not the
past of an active verb. This grammatical ambiguity
is a frequent source of confusion, one cleverly exploited
by those who write clues for crosswords.
5. Prices fear as oil shortage puts pressure on
refining. [Ibid., 11 October 90, p.31]
Prices is an unusual noun to find in attrubutive position
before a word like fear (in contrast to noun/verb
ambiguities like drop, rise, increase, decline , etc.). In
any event, it is still not clear why an oil shortage
should put pressure on refining (one would expect
the reverse) and why the prices resulting ought to
rise (for fear would scarcely suggest `reduction' except
in a petroleum trade journal or oil company
annual report).
That is not to say that ambiguity is confined to
headlines. In the following quotation, the reader
may have difficulty in determining how far from his
wife this ideal husband lives, why he isn't bankrupt
from feeding parking meters, and what circumstance
might have afflicted him with muteness:
6. “[Odette] lives in Walton-on-Thames with
Geoffrey [Hallowes], a tall, courteous gentlemen
retired from the wine business who
seems content to write her letters, listen
while she tells her stories, feed one's parking
meter, and altogether to be as attentive as a
wife could wish. [The Sunday Times, 14 October
90:3:3]
Antiprejudice Prejudice
Issues concerning language never seem to calm
down or go away. Yet it would appear, from the
amount of comment published in the British press,
that the subject concerns people in Britain more
than people in the U.S.A recent report from Charles
Bremner, their New York correspondent, appeared
on the front page of The Times . It dealt with what
Bremner characterized as the “new plague of euphemisms”
that threatens to overcome meaningful
communication between Americans. He was reporting
on a glossary, issued by the journalism school at
the University of Missouri, proscribing certain
words as being offensive to special groups of people.
Interdicted are burly “too often associated with
large black men” (large, yes; black, no), fried
chicken “often used to refer to the cuisine of black
people” (something that customers of Colonel Sanders
might well dispute), gyp “because it insults gypsies”
(only for those who are aware of the etymological
nuances of the language), go Dutch insults
“citizens of the Netherlands” (what utter balderdash
!), Ugh! “ `highly offensive' in any context because
it denotes the stereotype of the American Indian”
(too asinine to merit comment).
It appears that just when we were finally settling
down to remember that certain people want to
be called black (rather than colored or Negro ), they
change their minds and now want to be called “African
Americans,” while those who are not yellow or
red or some other color are to be termed “non-African-American”
or “non-American-Indian.” Despite
the revival of black (or Black , I can never keep
them straight), the media are still enjoined from
playin Ol' Black Joe and the song containing the line,
“That's why Darkies were born”; we should have
lost Ol' Man Ribber were it not for the fact that
Darkies and people have the name number of syllables.
Though not mentioned in Bremner's article, it
beggars the imagination to contemplate what the
Missouri mashers want a Chinese, Japanese, East Indian,
etc. to be called. You are not allowed to say
man or men any more: only “male adult” will do; fat
has given way to “non-slim,” even “fluffy” or
“plush,” though “husky” and “heavy” are allowed.
Handicapped is taboo, replaced by “challenged” or
“special,” and senior citizen is beginning to appear
on the linguistic hit list. Personally, I prefer other
terms. When I request a discount to which I am entitled
owing to my advanced age, I ask for the fogy
discount or rate . When in England, I request the rate
for wrinklies and delight in watching people squirm.
I might have mentioned that I admit to being a
little offended by a road sign on the A-41, near Finchley,
CRIPPLES CROSSING. I am not sure it is still
there, but I imagine there are other signs in Britain
equally as frank. The British have gone so far in this
business of telling it like it is that they have all but
eliminated the subjunctive that covers contrary to
fact conditions.
All this is complete tommyrot, of course. ( Tommyrot ,
as we all know is a term of prejudice against
British soldiers. Better not use that word.) It is all a
lot of crap. (Uh-oh! I can anticipate a letter from the
descendants of the American linguist George Philip
Krapp enjoining me from using the word that sounds
like his name on pain of a suit for slander.) It is nothing
but codswallop. (Look out! Here comes the fisherman's
lobby!) And I almost repeated balderdash,
which is sure to lose me the hurried hairless vote.
NOTICE! Subsequent issues of VERBATIM will
consist entirely of blank pages, lest we offend somebody.
“Malpractice Made Easy.” [Title of a book advertised
in Legal Aspects of Medical Practice , .
Submitted by ]
“Faster swimmers have the right away.” [From a professionally
made, plastic laminated, wall-mounted sign at
the swimming pool of the Sports Connection health club
in Beverly Hills, California. Submitted by
]
Polysemy & Pleolexy
Polysemy is the name given by linguists to the
lexical phenomenon exemplified by words like run
and set , each of which has a very large of senses,
many of which seem unrelated. (This is not the
place to enter the discussion between the dictionary
splitters `definers who write a definition for almost
every citation' and the combiners `definers who tend
to write “basic” definitions and rely on the ability of
users to divine metaphoric extensions for themselves.')
Just to clutter up the language a bit more, I
suggest pleolexy as the term to describe the `manywordedness'
of English, the characteristic of its
enormous vocabulary that so many writers comment
upon. I thought it might be interesting to look at the
sources of some of those words.
As one might expect, much of the pleology of
English can be ascribed to its propensity for naming
things: many--indeed, most--of the names of organic
and inorganic chemicals, numbering in the
tens of thousands, are not listed in even the largest
general dictionaries; nor are the names of all insects
(of which, I seem to recall, there are more than
50,000 species) and plants. Perhaps a bit more interesting
is the intelligence that, according to The
Slang and Jargon of Drugs and Drink , by Richard A.
Spears (Scarecrow Press, 1986), there are 624 terms
for marijuana , 151 for P.C.P. (`angel dust'), and 167
for powdered cocaine ; in addition, Spears lists eight
pages' worth--too many to count--equivalents for
drunk , though added to the many metaphors and
other words and phrases are many similes ( drunk as
a badger,...as a bastard, ...as a bat , etc.). In
contrast, the more conservative (?) Scots Thesaurus ,
by Iseabail McLeod (Aberdeen University Press,
1990), lists only 50 alternatives for drunk , including
smeekit, souple , and tosie , though omitting similes
and extensive metaphors (which probably abound).
In his “Feather Report” of 27 October 1990, in
The Times , Simon Barnes lists the following nicknames
for the nightjar: fernowl, fen owl, jar-owl,
churn-owl, goat-owl, goatsucker, nighthawk, dorhawk,
moth hawk, wheelbird, puck bird, litch fowl ,
and gabble ratch , the last having its origins in the
Norse meaning `corpse hound,' (similar to litch fowl ,
which means `corpse fowl'). This information he derived
from The Nightjar Yesterday and Today , by
Margaret Grainger and Richard Williamson (West
Sussex Institute of Higher Education, Bishop Otter
College), a source I have been unable to verify.
So, the next time comment is made about all
those words that fill up (and are omitted from) the
English dictionaries, remember the nightjar and the
drunk , here and abroad.
ETYMOLOGICA OBSCURA
flibbertigibbet
One must be very cautious in proposing etymologies
that attribute the origin of a word to playfulness
or frivolity: they often turn out to be folk etymologies
and totally empty of anything more than
hollow speculation. Yet, as we all know, there are
many instances of playful language, which we encounter
every day, and there is no sound reason to
reject playfulness solely on the grounds that it is
“unscholarly” to be jocular. Any more pedantic
suggestion being absent, I take the bit between the
teeth to suggest that the above word, characterized
by the OED as an “onomatopoeic representation of
unmeaning chatter,” may well be a jocular rendering
of Latin Flebiliter gemens , itself an almost facetious
lament meaning something like `Woe is me!' It
occurs in Horace's Ode “To Virgil” [Book iv, Ode
12]:
Nidum ponit Ityn flebiliter gemens,
Infelix avis...
`Now nests the bird that sadly calls
For Itys...'
[Translated by Lord Dunsany and
Michael Oakley, Everyman's Library, 1961]
Perhaps it was formed originaly as a macaronic
phrase by students, because of its meter; its earliest
OED citation is in the 16th century, when the study
of Horace would undoubtedly have been part of a
scholar's curriculum (including the memorizing of
many of the odes). In later years it appears in various
guises-- Flibbertigibbet (a fiend referred to in
King Lear , III, iv), Mrs. Flibber de' Jibb (1640), Flibbertigibbet
or “Dickie Sludge” (a dwarf in Kenilworth ).
Admittedly tenuous, this suggestion might
last till a better one comes along.
Laurence Urdang
antimacassar
To those who have been exposed, in the etymology
of the above word, to the information that “macassar
oil, [was] formerly a pomade for the hair,” the
following advertisement may prove of interest:
ROWLANDS' MACASSAR OIL, known for 100 years
as the best and safest preserver of the hair, and is
far preferable to ordinary hair restorers, which
dry up and wither the hair. It nourishes, preserves,
and strengthens the hair, prevents baldness,
and is the best brilliantine. Also in a golden
colour for fair hair. Sold everywhere. Bottles 3s.
6d., 7s., 10s. 6d.
--Notes & Queries, 8th S. IX, Jan. 25, 1895.
Laurence Urdang
Learning Disabilities
One of the linguistic phenomena to have
emerged during the last hundred years or so is the
acceptance of the notion that an important step in
solving problems lies in naming them. Although its
philosophy has been taken over by the field of psychiatry
(in which I include psychoanalysis), the idea
of shriving oneself of fears and other besetting difficulties
has its roots--as far as Western culture is
concerned--in the confessional, though it seems
likely that reflexes of that procedure could be discovered
in profound Eastern religions if not in shamanistic
practices. In some ways, the fields of psychology
and psychiatry can be said to rely on the
ability of the practitioner to give a name to a condition,
whether it be normality, schizophrenia, paranoia ,
or some other term. Naming is a reverse form
of defining in that the process calls for determining a
discrete set of differentia and giving the set a unique
title. The next time that set of differentia is encountered,
it serves to identify the problem in much the
same way that a physician, encountering a combination
of chest rash, high fever, Koplik's spots, diagnoses
(for which read `names') an affliction as measles.
Once identified, the procedure for treating measles
is well established. The difficulty that arises with
mental and psychological afflictions is that the procedures
are not well established--indeed, might be
said to be quite chaotic, ranging from putting patients
into straitjackets to having them lie down to
“free associate” or otherwise try to relieve themselves
of their burdens, or to administer tranquilizers
or other drugs that alter the chemistry of the
brain. That is not to say that such procedures cannot
be helpful in some cases, but their results are not as
uniformly predictable as they are in many established
medical procedures.
We are all familiar with the naming process,
whether it be with the great relief at hearing the
doctor say “muscular strain” instead of “rheumatoid
arthritis” as he examines the x-rays, with the Sunday
supplement newspaper article summing up (for the
umpteenth time) the latest new words and acronyms,
with nothing with amusement, admiration, or
consternation what some people name their children,
and with scores of other instances we encounter
daily. In the closing years of the 19th century
there was much discussion concerning the word telegram:
Why do we turn so hastily to Greek and Latin
whenever a new word is wanted, instead of seeking
one home-born? The English speech is already
overburdened with outlandish words that
ought never to have been taken in, and ought
even now to be turned out. Ere another stranger
is welcomed can we not at least see what we have
close at hand? Spelwire and wire-spel for telegraph
and telegram have already been suggested
by the late Rev. W. Barnes, whose knowledge
ought to have given them some weight; it seems,
however, that they have been set aside.
Might we not, ere too late, take speechwire,
wire-speech, tellwire, wire-telth or -tale, wordwire,
wireword, for telephone and telephone message?
If none of these is thought good, there are others
to choose from. Of the following, one or two may
be deemed as good as those already put forward.
Might we not use spelwire, wirespel for telegraph,
telegram; and sound-spelwire, sound-wirespel for
telephone and telephonic message? The two latter
would soon be shortened into soundwire,
soundspel. We already say “wire it,” so the other
is not a very wide step beyond. Or perhaps
flashwire, flashspel for the first, and soundwire,
soundspel for the two latter might do; otherwise
tongue-wire, tongue-wire-spel (which would become
tongue-spel) for telephone and telephonic
message. If these will not pass, why not farwrit
or farmark for telegram, farword or farsound or
farspeech for telegraphic message, and farwriter,
farspeaker, or farteller for telegraph, telephone?
Although, indeed, against these last, notwithstanding
the laughter they might excite (of which
spark of pleasure the writer will only be too glad
to be the cause), farwrittle and farspeakle for
telegraph and telephone may have as much, if not
more, to recommend them, as they have or any
before them.
However, all are simply thrown into the field
by way of challenge, no one else having come
forward on the English side. They will have done
good work if they only bring out two English
champions that will hold the ground against them
and the foreigners too.
AD LIBRAM.
Telephon is too near telephone, I fear, to be admissible;
telephone is exotic; phogram is too
abrupt, and is suggestive of program, grogram,
and Elijah Pogram. I have had a polite letter from
Mr. Francis J. Parker, of Boston, Mass., in which
he suggests phonomit as an equivalent for a telephonic
message. It is good, but does not fully satisfy
my aspirations. Mittophon and phonotel are
not uneuphonic. The former I think the better
word; indeed, I fancy it to be the best yet proposed.
ROBERT LOUTHEAN
--Notes & Queries, 8th S. III,
Mar. 4, '93: 174.
Inventions and discoveries are named after the
fact. Bell did not sit down one day and say to himself,
“I think I'll invent something called a telephone
today” any more than Columbus (or whoever) decided
to sail west from Europe to discover America.
Convention plays a major role in all aspects of language,
of course: by convention we call a certain
fruit a banana and the group of islands west of Morocco
the Azores (or the equivalent in other languages);
astronomers have no difficulty in agreeing
to call a certain configuration in the heavens the
Horsehead Nebula every day of the week and not
something different on Sundays, and chemists concur
in describing the properties of sodium chloride.
The world does not function uniformly, however: for
cultural reasons there are words in some languages
that are unutterable by women, and we certainly
have experience with taboo words in English.
Convention can scarcely be said to have had a
stabilizing effect in the realms of education and psychology:
both are so jargon-ridden that normal conversation
with and even among practitioners is often
impossible without the continual explanation of terminology
and perpetual hedging of definition.
Whatever conventions might have been agreed at
one time are found destroyed by the appearance of a
new article or book or trend. Human beings are accustomed
to a certain amount of imprecision in language:
not only does each of use give a slightly different
interpretation to the concepts represented by
words like good, justice, and God, but our speech is
peppered with expressions like I mean, Y' know , and
I don't get you . But in the field of learning disabilities,
itself a vague, catch-all term suggestive of
many interpretations, the onomasiological problem
reached such a state of confusion some years ago--
as described in Chapter Two of the subject book--
that in 1964 the U.S. government commissioned a
task force devoted to the terminology alone. Even a
partial list reveals the problems of distinguishing between,
say, organic brain damage and cerebral dysfunction ,
though, as is often the case in such naming,
the choice of words reflects the bias. It is curious to
note that terms not appearing on the list included
slow learner, neurological handicap, brain injury,
and educational handicap. In the last analysis, it
makes little difference how sterile, clinical, or innocuous
the words selected might be, for the terminology
attracts adverse connotations owing to many factors,
not the least of which is prejudice. Most
readers can remember the days when it was flattering
to be (or have one's children) designated “exceptional.”
I cannot crawl into the minds of the
youngest generation of psychologists to learn
whether exceptional still carries what I must regard,
personally, to be the unconscionable semantic distortion,
both denotative and connotative, introduced
a generation ago using “etymological” grounds for
justification. For the same reasons, leprosy is now
called Hansen's disease , and mongolism has become
Down syndrome ; people who were once called
crazy, mad, lunatic, demented, etc., are now categorized
as sick . All this name changing is mere
logomancy which neither changes the fact that there
is something wrong with the afflicted nor, in the long
run, our attitudes towards them. For some reason, if
I have cancer , its virulence is somehow diminished if
I call it the big C; a myocardial infarction seems less
life-threatening than a heart attack . Work I have
done on synonym dictionaries confirms that English
has more equivalents, at various levels of usage, for
insane than for any other concept or word in the
language.
It is easy to be cynical on this subject and, at
times, even to try to be funny, as in referring to
DAM `Mothers Against Dyslexia' (as does Dal Yoo, in
an article elsewhere in this issue). But the fact is
that there is a recognizable problem or a collection
of problems, and ridiculing them is nothing more
than a defensive gesture stemming from our own discomfort
at facing them (if I may be allowed a little
armchair analysis of my own). The defining of a concept
like `specific learning disability' is far more than
an intellectual exercise, for the applicability of laws
that relate to people with “an imperfect ability to
listen, think, speak, read, write, spell, or to do mathematical
calculations” (as described in U.S. Federal
law P.L. 94-142: Federal Register, Dec. 29, 1977,
p65083) rely on delineating such afflictions. Some
of us might be inclined to view terms like under-achiever
as psychologist's or educationist's euphemistic
jargon for dope ; but such descriptive designations,
deliberately nonspecific and presumably
neutral (at least for the time being), are in keeping
with the view of the human intellect taken in these
closing years of the 20th century.
Brain dysfunction is poorly understood. It may
be the result of injury, of disease, or of congenital
defect. The inability of an individual to master “simple”
language tasks that come naturally to many of
us, like reading and writing, yet to be able to perform
complex mathematical feats at lightning speed
is still more of a curiosity than predictable from a
CAT-scan or other analysis, intellectual, psychological,
or physiological. Little is known about the
chemistry of the brain, through its physical mapping
is proceeding apace. In a recent letter in Nature,
“Lexical organization of nouns and verbs in the
brain,” Alfonso Caramazza and Argye E. Hills reported
on patients' relative ability to control specific
semantic categories, such as abstract vs. concrete
words, animate vs. inanimate, etc., based on the
dysfunction of a part of the brain. And, while we
have been taught to accept that brain cells are incapable
of regeneration, some investigators continue
to experiment with the stimulation of healthy parts
of the brain to perform functions that atrophied or
injured parts have abrogated.
All this is heady stuff, indeed, and although
Learning Disabilities does not treat all of them in
depth, it provides a thorough overview of its subject,
extremely useful not only as an introduction to
the field but as an important source book for those
who wish to probe further: the bibliography alone
contains close to a thousand references. I suppose I
must describe the book as a text, but it is well organized
and interestingly and clearly written, both attributes
lacking in so much that we see today.
Laurence Urdang
“I fought for my country in World War II and would
die for it again....” [From a letter from William H.
Koontz of Garden City in The Sun News , Myrtle Beach,
South Carolina, . Submitted by .]
