Clothing Labels Can Still Confound

       I bought a new semi-fancy sweat shirt with a hood and just now noticed the label:

click on image to enlarge

       Looks as though it could have been on an original garment manufactured in Brooklyn in 1896 as it says.  And then you see the tab beneath it and know the truth.

Elevating the Cartoon

click on cartoon to enlarge

A Rhythmic Observation

       There's a rhythm that develops in the practice of your trade
       Whether medicine or lawyering or gard'ning with a spade.

       The meter of this poetic truism happens to be (˘˘ˇ´) three light beats for each heavy.

       I learn that the meter is called quartus paeon, originally used by the Greeks in hymns of praise and thanksgiving.   By coincidence then I created a couplet appropriate for this Thanksgiving Day! 

       And one is thankful, after all, when one finds one's rhythm.

"Yearny"

       Where are the song-writers of yesteryear?  

       Bud Green gave us the perfect word "yearny," to rhyme perfectly in all respects with the word, the song title, and the common theme for many of us of a "Sentimental Journey."

       With Thanksgiving and the religious holidays upon us, with people getting together thankfully, it's been too long since I've seen my family and friends still living in or returning to Minnesota, and that's how I'm feelin'---"yearny."

       The word is in none of the major dictionaries I use.  But it is in The Urban Dictionary and Wiktionary.  Anyone might have created the adjective out of the verb "yearn,"  but I'm nominating Bud Green in 1944 for maybe creating, at least helping circulate the word and bringing it into viability and heart-perfection.

 

      

Cartoon Punning "Beware of Dog"

       Our next door neighbor has a sign on the back yard gate:  BEWARE OF DOG.

       This reminded me that the former neighbor on the other side of us used to have a sign that read something like TO HELL WITH THE DOG.   YOU'D BETTER BEWARE OF DOG'S OWNER!

       Altogether this reminded me of my cartoon:

"Self-Referential Sentences"

       What are self-referential sentences?  They are sentences that speak about themselves:

• This sentence was in the past tense.
•  
• This sentence is missing a sylla.
•  
• This is a sentence with "onions," "lettuce," "tomato," and "a side
•      of fries to go."
•        
• This sentence would be seven words long...if it were...six words
•      shorter.
•     
• This here sentence don't know english to good.
•      
• I have been sentenced to death.

        

The "Font"-ain of Youth

       Late night and eye sight can produce funny language to me at this age.  Reading of a favorite poet Stanley Kunitz, I came across the following line:

               Early in his adult life, Mr. Kunitz spent time on a 100-acre
               herb farm in Connecticut which was destroyed when a
               tomato blew through.

I laughed heartily.  I've commented before that an "r" and an "n" next to one another in print can appear a lot like an "m."  Once I saw the "m," it was easy to breeze by the "d" seeing it as a "t."

       It's a lot more exciting and fun when a tomato blows through and destroys a farm.  The thing must have been enormous and impelled by a wind of at least tornado force!

"The Shehecheyanu"

       There s a nice blessing said at the beginning of happy occasions in Judaism; it's from the Talmud, and it'll be said next Wednesday on the first night of Chanukah.
   
       The blessing starts with the usual "Praised be Thou, O Lord, our God" and then gives the reason for the blessing:

                "Who has granted us life, sustained us, and enabled us
                                          to reach this season. "

It feels good to say because it expresses thanks for being allowed to arrive at a joyful moment.

       It also helps that the Hebrew language affords such a rhythmic and rhymed combination of syllables to say those words:

            sheHECHeyanu, viKEYamanu, viHIGeyanu, lazMAN haZEH.

There's a built-in affirmation in the very roll of the utterance.
                                      Listen here.

"The Gettysburg Address"

       My computer was not cooperating, and I couldn't post this on Tuesday, November 19th, 2013, the 150th anniversary of its delivery by Abraham Lincoln.   But here it is now.

Same Old Same Mold?

click on "Dilbert" comic strip to enlarge

Gender Neutral Language

       Connie's "Patient Instructions" sheet when she left Kaiser today read,  "The patient was instructed to keep his follow up appointments with his primary care physician."  It's way too late in the evolution of gender neutral language to accept that kind of thing.

       It made me recall a Readers' Theatre show I wrote 30 or more years ago about language in which we attempted to find new words for some common sexist ones:

                  "Foreman" could become..."Supervisor."
                  "Motorman" could become..."Driver."
                  There can be both "Councilman" and "Councilwoman" OR
                       "Councilmember."                                                    
                  "Chairman" can be "Chairperson"; or, some think "Chair" is
                       even better.
                  "Men" at work:  "People" at work.
                  A "Manmade" lake:  "Artificial," it's been dammed and filled.
                  "Manmade" shoes?  "Synthetic."
                  "Manhole" cover:  "Access" cover.

 "Patient was instructed to keep follow up appointments with primary care physician."

"Selfie"

       "Selfie" is the word of the year according to the Oxford English Dictionary.  They just announced it.  It's a photo you take of yourself with your smartphone...a newbie for dictionary makers.

       The "ie" ending is appropriate, a diminutive affectionate suffix.  I was called "Donnie" a lot in my earliest years and through the teens.

       Of course, we are a pretty "self"-absorbed society with individualism a strong marker for our characters and life styles.  I was astonished around 50 years ago to see a new magazine called "SELF."  Really?

       The OED says "self" is of "unknown origin."  Yes, the self may be at the center of each of our lives--which we need to value.  We also need to be humble about it since we don't know, in the final analysis, whence it comes.

      

"Dish Towel"; "Hanging Up"

       I used a dish towel yesterday in an unusual way.  I dried a dish.  We carry hot containers wrapped in a towel; we wipe up spills with a towel; we dry our hands with a towel.   Rarely do we use a towel to dry a dish.

       Yet people still call it "dish towel" though the dishes it "towels" may be few and far between if you're a dishwasher household, which I'm sure not everyone is.

       It's a little like we say "hanging up" the phone, which less and less is the mode of discontinuing telephone calls, that is, hanging up.

"Eschew," "Bollix," "SCUTTLEBUTT," 3

       "Scuttlebutt” is “rumor, idle gossip, unfounded report,” and the OED seems glad to tell us that meaning originated colloquially in the United States in the early 20th century.  But before the colloquial meaning, where does it come from?

       Scuttlebutt, its first published use dated 1805, is “a water-butt kept on a ship’s deck for drinking from.” It's a contraction of “scuttled butt,” “butt” being a cask for water or other liquid and ”scuttled” a nautical term for “having a hole cut in it," from Spanish escotar, “cut out.”
  
       So when you next gather around your water cooler to chat, you can share both the “scuttled butt” and the scuttlebutt.

       Spanish escotar, of course, is also the source for "scuttling" a boat.

"Eschew," "BOLLIX," "Scuttlebutt," 2

       To “bollix” up is “to bungle, confuse; mess up,”  “to throw into disorder.”  But why does the OED say it is “coarse slang”?  British sensitivity to sexual matters?  The word is a variation of bollocks or ballocks: testicles.  This further comes from Middle English balloks and from Old English beallucas, thence back to Indo-European bhel- “to blow, swell; with derivatives referring to various round objects and to the notion of tumescent masculinity.”

       Yes, ball comes from the same root, as does indeed even phallus.  Nothing can botch things and throw them into disorder more than a man’s private parts, and that’s where we’re at, all bollixed up.

       (Tomorrow, "scuttlebutt.")

"ESCHEW," "Bollix," "Scuttlebutt," 1

       This is a threesome of words I corralled for the peculiarity of their sound and in the case of the latter two, the peculiarity of their roots as well.  Let's look at each.

       “Eschew” has always been a strange “chewy” word to me, to “avoid, escape, keep clear of.”  Some sources allow for the “shoe” pronunciation, but all accept “chew,” which is my preference.  It comes from a Germanic root scheuen, meaning simply to “shun.” 

       Now I think "eschew" is peculiar enough that I am choosing to eschew using eschew.  How about you?

       (Tomorrow, "bollix.")

Not Only "Except After C"

       Found on a T-Shirt in a signals.com catalogue:

                                             I BEFORE E
                                              except when
                                       eight feisty neighbors
                                             seize a surfeit
                                         of weighty heifers.


       There are five different pronunciations of the "ei" syllables in these seven "ei" words.       

So Near, And Yet So Far

Cartooning "Oxymoron"; "Sophomore"

                                                        
       "Oxymoronic" comes from Greek oxys, "sharp," "keen" + moros, "foolish"; hence "keenly foolish."   An oxymoron is a combination of contradictory or incongruous words--"cruel kindness," for example.

       Like oxymoron itself, "sophomore" is a built-in oxymoron in one word.  Perhaps it's appropriate that a person part way through an education would be half wise (sophos) and half foolish.

"Huh?"

       "Huh" is not just a palindromic gasp.  It's apparently a pretty universal, quick conversational word to express failure to understand something.  Speakers of many languages offer up a very similar sound under the same circumstances, linguistic investigators have discovered.

       They found that in all ten disparate languages they researched, the sounds were single syllables, there were a lot of low vowels like "ah" and "eh" and "uh," the word always started with a [h] or a glottal stop (the sound in the middle of English "uh-oh").

       Mark Pagel, who studies language evolution, says "huh" has undoubtedly been invented independently many times over because its brevity and ease of utterance answer a constant conversational need.

       A news article reporting on these findings by the Max Planck Institute for Psycholinguistics in the Netherlands can be read here.  

Only in America

             In a strip mall near where we live, Ali Baba's Persian
           Restaurant is two doors down from Al & Bob's Carpets.
                (No, I checked, and the carpets are not Persian.)

 

Another Candidate for Worst Pun of All Time

click on cartoon to enlarge

Election Language, 4: "Derivation"

       To conclude this series of posts, starting from Ancient Rome and Latin, let's light a "candle," (same shining, glowing root as "candidate") for the political process as well as the linguistic process.

       Governments do "run," societies do "flow" through time, and the stream (rivus) of language flows with them, carrying all its derivations.

Election Language, 3: "Senator"

       Let us say one of two "rival" "candidates" is fortunate enough to be elected "senator."  Senators are such by virtue of being “old,” from Latin sen-, senex, “old, old man.”  

       Now some U.S. senators truly are old, if not “senile,” and are most likely the “senior” senators from their respective states, therefore, the older elder, i.e., longer in office, of the two senators from that state.
 
       But there also has to be one “junior senator” from each state, (juvenis, “young”), and so you have a “younger oldster” as well as an older oldster.  But if the older oldster is driving a roadster, look out for second childhood and mere oblivion.  In which case, the junior senator will become the senior.

Election Language, 2: "Rivals"

       Candidates differing from one another in their candor and other qualities is what makes "rivals" in political competition.  And whence cometh "rivals" from the Latin source bag?

       Rivalis means “one using the same stream as another.”   It comes from rivus, “stream” or “rivulet.”  People who dwelled by the same source for water, cooking, bathing, and so on might indeed become contentious with one another over that life-giving, cleansing, and beautiful liquid, become, in fact, rivals.

       Rivus goes back further to Indo-European rei-, meaning “to flow, run.”  And the word “run” itself is also derivative from that root rei-.  So get a couple "candidates" together, turn them into "rivals," and they’ll “run” for office.

Election Language, 1: "Candidate"

       Election Day USA.  No federal elections in odd years, some local elections and votes on issues.  On a day typically swamped with candidates, let us appreciate...Latin...for its contributions to our political language!

       First off:  “candidate,” for which we owe thanks to the toga-wearing populace of ancient Rome.  In this case, those who were running for office wore white togas to mark them as candidates, and candidatus meant “clothed in white.”  The Indo-European root here is kand- meaning “to shine,” and gives us also the words we hope to find associated with candidates, namely “candor” and “candid.”  Do we find them?  Not usually.

       But this leads to other Latin-rooted, politically connected words...tomorrow... 

Polarizing/Paralyzing

      Some words that are "poles" apart are yet related, maybe attached, connected at the hip.  I'm thinking of the word "polarizing."  

      Coming across the two together in the same sentence wrapped them up for me :

                                    Polarizing/Paralyzing

What do they share in today's politics?  PUH-lenty.

       The first word produces the second word, and once we are paralyzed,  the population gravitates further towards its poles; hence Paralyzing produces more Polarizing.

       That little slash between them (/) is a teeter-totter, lifting one, then the other, then settling them into a stasis of perpetual accusing eye-stares.   








     

"Nuclear" and "Jewelry"

       I don't like hearing [NEW-kya-lar] instead of [NEW-klee-yar].   The "l" comes after the "c," not a vowel.  Merriam-Webster seems ready to accept either pronunciation because some educated and prominent people use [NEW-kya-lar].

       I have heard an occasional educated person pronounce "jewelry" as [JEW-luh-ree] instead of [JEW-uhl-ree].  But no; the "e" comes before the "l", not after it.  Would Merriam-Webster accept [luh]?

      The apparent challenge in pronouncing "nuclear" is almost all the sounds are produced in the upper part of the mouth with the tongue moving from front to back to front then middle of the mouth, making it effortful to get all the sounds in in the right order.  Only the effort needs to be made...say I, and many others!    

      

ONE YEAR

       Today is the anniversary of "Living with Language" on "blogspot.com".   Why did I start the blog on that particular day, November 2, 2012?  Here's how I recalled it on New Year's Eve:

       "The little girl Abigael crying and expressing her impatience with both Mitt Romney and 'Bronco' Bama, home videoed by her mother, which then went viral, was just too precious a moment with language to let pass by.  The president had been likeable to many, but to see him transformed into a Western Cowboy Hero by a four-year-old through her quite understandable misnaming told me the blog had to begin that very night.  And so it did."

Geriatric Anagrams, 2

       Connie offered me the bag of remaining M&Ms from our movie a few days ago.  I took a couple, then refused more, said, "I shouldn't; both chocolate and peanuts are not recommended if you've had..."

       I paused because I was experiencing trouble recalling the word for my problem.  It's a stymie like the one I referred to as Geriatric Anagrams in my Tuesday, July 30, 2013 post.

       The word I came up with was "Kennedys."  "Not recommended if you've had Kennedys."  You know that it's the wrong word, but it's on the way to the right one.  So you say it, "Kennedys."  And then it comes.

       "Kidney stones."

        But you've found the word(s)!