The Consonantal Divide, 4

       The letter “h” is a strange consonant.   No, it isn’t a semi-vowel like "w" or "y," but it isn’t much of a consonant either.  "H" can be silent ("honor," "oh"), but when it has sound, it is only that of the breath moving through partially closed vocal cords.  In fact, it is the sound of panting.  Give it a try:  [h] [h] [h].

       Alexander Pope has a line of poetry describing Sisyphus pushing a boulder up a mountain:

                    "Up a high hill he heaves a huge round stone"

If you have any breath left after saying that line, you're probably an athlete.  Pope creates exertion within the line by including all those panting [h] sounds.

       It takes a lot of effort to say [h] because the only sound of this consonant is breath !

The Consonantal Divide, 3

       We are playing at the fringes where vowels and consonants aren't distinct from one another but converge.

       Think, for example, of the consonant letter "y."  Along with "w," "y" is often referred to as a semi-vowel.  Why?  When we make the sound for "y" at the beginning of words [y], it is composed of two vowel sounds merged, "ih" as in "bit" and "uh" as in "but."

       It helps to try these aloud:  say "ih," then "uh"; then say them close to one another, "ih-uh"; then let them flow into each other without pause.  Do you hear it?  Another diphthong like [w].  

       There you have it.  The so-called consonant "y" is made up of two vowel sounds!

       

The Consonantal Divide, 2

       All right, if the consonant "w" is made up of two u's, a double-u, how so? 

       Produce the sound the letter makes when it begins a word, [w].  You purse your lips and start to say something like "ooh," then merge into a second sound that's something like "uh."  It's a diphthong consisting of those two sounds.

       In fact, it's two slightly different pronunciations of the vowel "u."  It's the "ooh" sound in words like June, tuba, ludicrous,  lubricate, illuminate, plus the "uh" sound as in sun, run,  jump, rub-a-dub-dub, three men in a tub.  Strange to say, but there really are two different vowel sounds merged in that single consonant "w."

       That is why "w" is often called a "semi-vowel."
       

The Consonantal Divide, 1

       Consider some ironies about letters and sounds:  “h” begins with a vowel; “u” begins with a consonant.

       I don’t mean the sounds of the letters, I mean the names of the letters.  The consonant “h” is pronounced “aitch.”  It begins with a vowel "a."   The vowel “u” is pronounced “you.”  It begins with the consonant “y.”

       Another irony is that the "www" of World Wide Web has nine syllables and the MUCH longer "World Wide Web" with 12 letters has only three syllables.  Say "www":  [dub-uhl-you dub-uhl-you dub-uhl-you]--nine.

       Also, if you listen to the letter "w," you hear what that consonant consists of..."double u"...now turn the printed "w" into written "w," you will SEE the two u's, which are both vowels and not a consonant! 

Some Free Writing about Free Writing

 ...your censor starts “improving,” even before you’ve written.  What kind of fun or advantage is that, espcially when it’s a kind of disadvantage, especially with regard to “free” writing.  Why put quotation marks around free, because you can’t really be free, you think, but only in quotation marks?  I suppose so.  But to keep the words coming is a marvelous desideratum; it takes a free wheelingness, and free willingness, and it takes at least a modicum of courage.  Maybe more than that.  It was the secret to doing my essays, and it was the secret to doing my Ph.D. dissertation finally, I had to say each day I sat down, “I don’t care if it comes out shit.”

Even Kings Get Sick (Not to Mention Cartoonists)

Click on cartoon to enlarge.

               In numerology, letters can be assigned numerical value; numbers can be assigned letters.  There's a certain interchangableness.

               None of this has anything to do with what's going on in this crazy cartoon.

Advertising Language

       Hollywood leads like Christian Bale, Leonardo DiCaprio, and Chiwetel Ejiofor are sporting beards and mustaches in public.   Men's razor and blade sales are going down.

       Proctor and Gamble, owner of Gillette Razor Company, is not without a response.  The company says there is "increased shaving below the neck, particularly among younger men."  P&G spies an opening into what it craftily calls "guys' holistic shaving needs," also known as manscaping.

       New this year is the Gillette Body razor, the first tool of its kind "built for the terrain of a man's body."  (Women have curves, apparently, men have terrain.)

       "Holistic" sounds positive, and "built" and "terrain" so masculine, you could almost forget you're shaving off your body hair.

Cartoonists Prosecuted

                 Some food for thought in this little reversal.

"Reengaged": Engaging a Word

                                                        

                                     reengaged

Up Over

       Cursing Federer for not closing out Murray in three straight sets and my having to watch the finish on recording the next day in order to get any sleep.   Then cursing Australia for its seasons and time zones belng opposite from ours, the land "Down Under."

       Then waking (barely) into our late American morning today, couldn't help thinking through my bleary-eyed consciousness:

       For people from Australia, am I "Up Over"?

Haiku--Issa--Hass

       What strikes me about so many Haiku and makes me prize them is that little "explosion" in the third line.  Hass captures them in his translations of Issa's poems, and in his oral readings of them!  Here are five of my favorites from the nine Hass shared in yesterday's post:

             Don't worry, spiders,                        Goes out,
          I keep house                                    comes back;
             casually.                                              the love life of my cat.


             Even with insects--             The whole time I pray to Buddha                  some can sing,                     I keep on             
             some can't.                           killing mosquitoes.              


                                            Napped half the day;
                                         no one
                                            punished me!
       

            

"Napped half the day;/no one/punished me!"

       I was looking for a particular Haiku today, found it plus a whole flood of others, as will happen on the Internet.

       I had witnessed poet Robert Hass read at the Dodge Poetry Festival; this is one reading I hadn't heard, from his own book of versions of Issa's Haiku poems.

"Ax" for "Ask"?

       In writing lately about Yiddish words I know from childhood, I came upon John McWhorter's piece in the L.A. Times yesterday on the Black use of "ax" for "ask."

       Yes, it's different from chutzpah or mishegas in my recent posts, but not different in the way Blacks can hold "ax" close to them even when educated and "knowing better" just because it's "a facet of black being" as linguist McWhorter puts it.  If you grow up with a way of saying something that's characteristic of and indigenous to your people, and different from the mainstream's way of putting it, you treasure it in a personal way.   "Correct,"  "incorrect," or whether you can find it in a dictionary are not the question.

       A fuller treatment by the black Columbia University Prof can be located here.

A Poem's Bow to Art

 
       Rabbi Leib 's reminder in yesterday's post that "nature itself" is "the greatest wonder we can know" is echoed in "Notes from Prehistory" by Linda Bierds, a poem on the cave paintings at Font-de-Gaume in France.  Bierds says, in a beautiful phrase, the purpose of art is
                              "to venerate the living world. "

Nature = Miracle

       I'm not sure we believe much in miracles any more.  So it's inspiriting to come across a few words that remind us of such things:

                [We] should understand that miracles and nature are all one. 
                In fact there is no miracle as great and wondrous as nature
                itself, the greatest wonder we can know.

                           from The Language of Truth:  the Torah Commentary 
                           of the Sefat Emet  by Rabbi Yehudah Leib Alter of Ger

Spell it Out for 'em, Cowch!

Click on Cartoon to Enlarge

A Culture Dies When a Language Dies

       Reminded of one thing today I had heard of and apprized of another I hadn't. 

       There is a Living Tongues Institute for Endangered Languages.  The attempt is to save disappearing tongues before they die.  For example, when speakers of 27 Native American languages were forced into one reservation in Oregon in 1885, they developed a "cross-over" language out of necessity that allowed them to speak to one another; only one of the 27 original languages has a living speaker.   The institute has made a talking dictionary of that last language.  You can find the Institute here. 

       There's also a website in which speakers of minority languages can send tweets to one another, such as in Gaelic, yes Yiddish, a host of Native American languages, many others.  The site can be  reached at this location.  

"Peregrinations"

       I used this word in an email today.  It seemed to come out of thin air.  Writing of a former student,  now friend of long standing, I mentioned that "I followed her job peregrinations."  She'd had a few different ones in those years after graduation.  Was it a right use?

       First contact with online defining made the meaning sound like "traveling on foot."  Oops.  Asking Connie, she thought "wandering," which was more in my ball park.  Online, Reference.com used the word in a sentence:  "His peregrinations in and around the mediums of drawing and photography nearly amount to a second and third career."  That echoes my own use pretty closely.

       Gathering from a few dictionaries:  Latin roots meaning "through the land"; journeying or traveling from place to place; wandering, migrating.  I'll claim victory.

      

      

"Mishegas"

       The post about Yiddish a couple days ago reminded me I'd written the following over two years ago:

       My Grandma used to look at the new TV set in our living room; any new face that came on, she would say, "Is Jewish?"   A public medium, but she wanted to see her own kind looking back at her, a reflection, a confirmation.

       Today I saw a word used by theatre critic Charles McNulty.  He was reviewing a new play with myriad plot lines with multiple family members, each
                                  "adding to the spiraling mishegas,"

(mish-uh-GAHSS), a Yiddish word meaning "mixed up" and "crazy." And I felt proud.  Why?  Word I recognized, heard family and friends use, was a part of me.

       But look, Charles, "chutzpah" became good American English; maybe next time you don't even need to italicize.

Better than "Hairpiece"?

       Lead actress Sandra Bullock, who spends a lot of time in a cramped space vehicle in the movie "Gravity," was given an offer early in the filming that she couldn't believe.

       As Mexican Alfonso Cuaron reminded her in accepting his Golden Globe award as best director last night on NBC:  "Sandra, I want to thank you for not quitting when I told you I would give you herpes.  My thick accent got in the way.  What I was trying to say to her was 'earpiece'."

       To find his inimitable and charming way of speaking at the Globes, go here.

I'll Drink to Yiddish

       My daughter gave me a mug with Yiddish expressions and sayings on it.  My mother and father spoke some Yiddish, nowhere near as much as their parents, and I know a handful of words.  Thus the progression with each generation a little more distanced from the Mother tongue.  Yet Yiddish makes its way into English:  "Chutzpah," for example.

       My favorite saying on the mug is, "Life is nothing but a dream, but don't wake me up!"

       The Yiddish (transliterated)?  "Dos lebn iz nit mer vi a kholem, ober vekt mikh nit oyl!"

       Yiddish is a combination of German and Hebrew, and English with large Germanic background allows one to make out a few of the words.

       There's an element of street smarts, common sense, and a good deal of humor in these Yiddish expressions.

A Way to Think about Writing

       "Writing is like washing windows in the sun.  With every attempt to perfect clarity you make a new smear."

                                      James Richardson

"Obliterate"

       I've had occasion to think about this word today.   I was worried that something I'd done could end up obliterating my whole blog.  Hopefully this will not happen though I'm still worried.  So I sat and looked at the word "obliterate" and realized the word for "letter" is in there, from Latin littera, and in fact you have the whole English word "literate."

       But I thought "obliterate" meant "destroy utterly" anything the word is referring to.   Of course that is what it often does mean, but it's by extension from the meaning embedded in the Latin root, to "wipe out, erase, the letters, the words."

       So in this case, though I hadn't realized it when the word came to me, I was literally concerned about my blog being obliterated.

Beware of Cartoonist with Hammer

Click on Cartoon to Enlarge

Once again Piraro is here jerking our linguistic heads around.  Check                                                 out any neck pains.

"It's Not Your Way. It's Yahweh."

       Spying this saying or motto stenciled on the back of the car ahead of me this morning reminded me of an earlier saying or catch-phrase I'd seen on the front of a church as I passed by it in a vehicle:

                                                  Let Go.
                                    Let God.

My eyes wouldn't let me look away until I was sure I had this one:

                             It's not your way.  It's
                     Yahweh. 

"Yahweh" is an Englishing of the Hebrew for "Lord," and, of course, a pun on "your way."

       The similarity between the two sayings is striking.  Both catch-phrases promoting God in your life, for sure; both wonderful playing with the language; both transforming the ego-driven secular into the transcendence of the Deity in the flash of an eye.

"Abscond"

       A word used in a newspaper's front page lead story made me realize I must not have known what that word meant.   Yesterday's L. A. Times spoke of ex-prisoners evading probation by absconding.

       I somehow had learned at an early age that "absconding" meant running off and disappearing with money that didn't belong to the person.  Here it seemed money didn't play a part in it at all.  Hiding and not making set meetings with probation officers was itself "absconding."

       Dictionaries confirm my misunderstanding.  Latin abs ("away") and condere ("put" or "stow"), make abscond an intransitive verb that's self-reflexive, meaning "to hide (oneself)."

       I must have read a lot about people stealing funds and then "absconding with the money," thinking money an integral part of absconding.  Not so!    

"Defenestration"

       While going to the Merriam-Webster website to look up another word, I discovered their video feature on interesting words.  "Defenestration" is certainly one of those, and while it's not one you and I are likely to need in our everyday vocabulary, the story behind it is worth knowing.

       Its Latin derivation might lead you to think the word means something like "out the window," and you'd be right.  But then how did such a word come into existence?

                                          You can learn that here.

Double Negatives: Writer Beware!

       Today's (Jan. 5th) L.A. Times has an article on the release of Vladimir Horowitz's Carnegie Hall recitals over 35 years:  41 CDs.

       The caption under a photo of the musician at the piano reads
VLADIMIR HOROWITZ performs in 1965 at Carnegie Hall, a venue whose               importance to the pianist's career can't be understated.
Most likely the caption writer made the mistake; the author said "overstated" in the body of the article.

       Let's see:  "Was Carnegie Hall important to Horowitz's career?"  "Uh-uh.  It was unimportant.  No, it was really worse than that.  It was terribly unimportant.  Somehow that doesn't do it justice.  Carnegie Hall meant nothing to his career."

       Using a double negative or a negative plus something like "overstated/understated," be careful you don't contradict your own intended meaning!

Saving P. L. Travers

       Connie, David, and I saw Saving Mr. Banks today.  I did it somewhat grudgingly.  I loved Mary Poppins when my mother read it to me as a child...the take-charge-of-the-kids-and-household, not-to-be-stopped whirlwind of governess Mary Poppins.  I agreed with author P. L. Travers the movie was too saccharine.

       Oh, yes, they showed Mary Poppins' author as stern and resistant to seeing her book adapted a la Hollywood, and they made a plausible psychological case for Travers' reluctance to let the Disney team lighten the movie, practically giving her a therapeutic catharsis right before your eyes.  But I still felt the two Disney movies did the same thing, taking the guts out of Travers as they had out of Mary.  These were Disney's stories, not Mary Poppins' and not Mrs. Travers'.

"Fartlek"

       You pop into a chair in an orthopedic physician's outer office waiting for her to see your wife about a foot problem.  You pick up a running magazine because you jog, and you come across a coach's article regarding training for marathons and become puzzled and smile when you read that the coach says he employs fartleks for his runners.

       Did I read that right?  Yes.  I did.  What in the world is a fartlek?

       And then you learn that a fartlek is a training device, especially useful for long-distance runners:  short bursts of fast running with slower paced passages in between.  The OED tells me later the two syllables of the word mean "speed" and "play" respectively, in Swedish.  
       Meanwhile, the English speaker, conjuring up a different "short burst,"  cannot refrain from smiling :).

"Empathy," Literature, and Performance

       Does the reading of serious fiction boost one's ability to feel into another person's emotions, help one understand another person?   Research published in the journal Science suggests the answer is yes, says Robert M. Sapolsky's op-ed piece in last Sunday's L.A. Times.

       This certainly was an article of faith during my college teaching career, now apparently verified with more objective measurement.

       Broadening one's capacity for empathy, for "feeling into" (from the Greek) is a worthwhile virtue for living.  Reading good literature does it,  performing literature can go even further, calling for the enacting of that empathy, for oneself and for audiences. 
      

"To the Point," Happy New Year

       I have praised this radio series before.

       This New Year's Day prompts me to wish the program success for the coming year and to thank it for over a decade of great programs.

       Do I value words?  Yes.  Spoken words in a way especially?  Yes.  The auditory art of radio with particular affection? Yes.

       The visual is great with TV news to see what's happening.   Hearing the complexity and gaining understanding through pointed interviews with excellent spokespersons for frequently contradictory positions,  better yet.  Even topics I'm not necessarily avid to hear about like today's "Should College Athletes Be Paid?" turn out to be interesting, multi-faceted, controversial, illuminating!

        Be instructed by the series "To the Point" here.

Peculiar Label

       I noticed an unusual label the other day on an old sweater of mine.  The brand appeared to be "Bowen & Wright," which had a rectangular box inscribed around it and underneath it the words "Registered Trademark."  But above them both in a semi-rainbow-shaped arc was "AUTHENTIC CLOTHING."  What?  Was there some doubt?

       Imagine finding a loaf of bread labeled "AUTHENTIC FOOD."  Wouldn't you wonder?  In fact, I had taken the sweater off its hanger simply to confirm it was wool as I figured all along it was.  There were no other labels than this one.  Now the "Authentic" has me wondering what the darned thing IS made of.

      

Misleading Label Again

       I probably wouldn't have gone for an ice cream called "Black Raspberry" as Connie did, not being attracted to fruity flavors, but might have been lured by the rest of its name "Dark Chocolate Chunk."

       Since I was out of my own ice cream, I tried hers and found the "chunks" tiny and disappointing.  I looked back at the cover label and read in smaller print "pieces of dark chocolate folded into..." "pieces" already being a reduction from "chunks," but what was inside would not have been misnamed "bits" or even "specks."

       If you're going to call something "chunk," remember the sound and heft as well as image of that;  I imagined mini-iceberg size chocolate fragments, not dainty dots, especially with most of the container covered in a rich deep brown! 

      

"The Child Is Father of the Man"

       I just finished munching a "Nut Goodie" candy bar that I ordered by email and had sent to "Donnie" at my address here in California, a box of ten bars.  I loved them as a kid in St. Paul where they're made.  I even wrote a note to include to my younger self:

                 Dear Donnie,
                      
                          Since "the child is father of the man" (Wordsworth),

                 Happy Father's Day.

                          I know how much you loved Nut Goodies.

                 And because of that, thankfully, I do too.

                          Let's share the box!

                                      Don

"Under Penalty of Law"

       How many of us leave tags untouched on the end of new pillows?

       Consumers can rip them off if they want.  They're unsightly; they hang out the pillow case ends and tickle a bed partner.   YET I BET THERE ARE THOUSANDS of homes with those tags present and accounted for!

       We are intimidated by those first words in the federally mandated statement, "UNDER PENALTY OF LAW"...my God, I've got to obey whatever follows: 
                       UNDER PENALTY OF LAW THIS TAG
                                    NOT TO BE REMOVED
You see jail bars and hardly notice the final
                             EXCEPT BY THE CONSUMER

       Consider this changed word order:
                              EXCEPT BY THE CONSUMER
                          THIS TAG NOT TO BE REMOVED
                                UNDER PENALTY OF LAW
The threat is allayed!  I predict a lot more joyous tag-ripping ceremonies in America.

"Day" Thoughts upon Awakening

Today is Friday wash day because yesterday's usual wash day daughter Elizabeth was still in town;  must confirm next date to read newspapers over the air (my regular every-other-Wednesday was Christmas Day, no broadcast).    Good to have set days for things.  What was Friday for in that song my dad sang?..."Friday Fish"..."Monday Hasenpfeffer," I think, "All the German mothers we wish the same to you"; Tuesday can't remember, I know Wednesday was "Zooop" (Soup), Thursday "Roast Beef," pretty sure;  doing week backwards each time brought me "Tuesday String Beans"; Saturday I think was "Payday"; Sunday of course "Church." 

       Good to have those set days, those things to anchor your week on, whether broadcast day or fish day...or wash day (even a day late)--better get up to do it.

Lazy Day Repartee

       Exhausted from family stuff for the last two days, Connie and I were sitting in late morning poring sleepily over newspapers in our sunroom with sunlight pouring in.

       After reading awhile and my sharing a funny passage from a humanizing piece about John McCain in the N.Y. Times Magazine, I contemplated my situation and said,  "I'm trying to figure what to do with my day....Do you know what you're doing with your day?"

       "I'm just trying to sit here and let it go by," said Connie.

       It cracked me up good.

Oof, He's At It Again

"The Love of Self"

       "The curse of our house...has been the love of self; has ever been the love of self.

       "There is a kind of selfishness...I have learned it in my own experience of my own breast:  which is constantly upon the watch for selfishness in others:  and holding others at a distance by suspicions and distrusts, wonders why they don't approach, and don't confide, and calls that selfishness in them."

                        Martin Chuzzlewit, Charles Dickens

      

"Keelhaul"

       In the final blog post yesterday on "Naming Rites," it was noted that the sports team nickname chosen by the California Maritime Academy was "Keelhaulers."

       It's a word I'd run into but was unsure of its meaning.  Kevin Baxter thought the name was appropriate for a school with a "nautical mooring."  After all, "What could be more threatening than keelhauling, an often deadly form of punishment."

       As the OED defines "keelhaul," "Haul (a person) through the water under the keel of a ship, as a punishment (obsolete except Historically).  Now also figuratively, rebuke or reprimand severely."

"Naming Rites," 5

Sidebar 2  by Kevin Baxter, L.A. Times Sports Section

       So what's in a nickname?  PLENTY.  As Kevin Baxter's December 15, 2013, L.A. Times sports section article reveals.  (I don't know whether Baxter or the headline writer gave us the pun in the title, but it's an excellent one, both humorous and appropriately illuminating.)

"Naming Rites," 4

Sidebar 1 by Kevin Baxter, L.A. Times

"Naming Rites," 3

From Kevin Baxter's L.A. Times Sports Section piece

"Naming Rites," 2

Excerpted from L.A. Times article by Kevin Baxter.

"Naming Rites," 1

Excerpts from L.A. Times Sports Section, Dec. 15, 2013 

Waning "Gibbous" Moon

       Today is actually a full moon, traditionally called the December "full cold moon."  But what happens after today?

       The words above caught my eye yesterday and reminded me, after full moon, the moon's phase becomes "waning gibbous moon."  No longer circular, the moon loses some of its roundness and gains the term "gibbous" (pronounced GIB-us) from the Latin gibbus ("hump").

       As long as the moon is between 50% lit and full, it's called gibbous for its rounded but not round appearance, or "hump-backed" if you wish.  When the moon is becoming smaller, it's "waning," when the moon is becoming larger, it's "waxing."

       Just so it's between 50 and 100% illuminated, it's gibbous.  As soon as the moon has "points," it's no longer a gibbous moon.  

"Being Alive," by Stephen Sondheim, 5

      At the end of Bobby's song, the words "being alive" are sung three times, meaning something a little different and a little more each time in accord with Bobby's progression:   surviving the challenges of "being alive"; going through those together is "being alive"; and what life's about, "being alive!"

       There's a beginning, middle, and end in "Being Alive," it develops, and Bobby is NOT in the same place at the end as he was at the beginning.  Stephen Sondheim has thrillingly fulfilled the prescription of his mentor Oscar Hammerstein for lyrics in a musical.

       As for words, well Sondheim must have to pay words overtime for making them do so much for him.

       In the new documentary film Six by Sondheim, you'll see Dean Jones give a memorable and moving performance of "Being Alive."
   
       

"Being Alive" by Stephen Sondheim, 4

       Stanza seven makes a dizzying turn, Bobby welcoming the helter-skelter of relationship and life.  By stanza eight,  Bobby has worked his way through to acknowledging this turn from "alone" to "alive."

       And in the final ninth stanza the intensity of stanza four is reprised but with the same small word changes of five and six, bringing their height of emotional angst and yearning, Bobby pleading "Somebody crowd me with love," the intensity now at a peak.

       "Alive" appears a dozen times in stanzas four, five, six, eight, and nine:  Bobby and someone being "frightened" "of being alive,"  Bobby asking somebody to make him "aware of being alive,"  to "support" him "for being alive," to "make" him "alive,"  Bobby will "help us survive / Being alive." The repetitions and variations are exalting and affirming.

      
      

"Being Alive" by Stephen Sondheim, 3

       In the lyrics as I posted them yesterday, you can see the progression of language, expressive of Bobby's resistance, wrenching transformation, and change.

       In the first three stanzas, Bobby is aggrieved and distanced ("Someone to hold you too close") and satiric ("To ruin your sleep"); in the fourth stanza the language intensifies ("Someone to crowd you," "to force you," "to make you"), and Bobby's  distance collapses ("[Someone] as frightened as you/Of being alive.")

       In the fifth stanza, with Sondheim altering only two or three words from the first stanza, Bobby's complaint ("Someone to hold you too close") transmutes to an anguished and yearning self-referenced plea ("Somebody hold me too close").  And that little but amazing shift carries through every line of stanzas five and six, raising emotions right along with it.

"Being Alive" by Stephen Sondheim, 2

In Company, Robert (Bobby) a confirmed bachelor of 35 goes through two acts observing the plight & joys of his married friends, plus his own plight & joys with three girlfriends, & sings this culminating song:

click on lyrics to enlarge

"Being Alive" by Stephen Sondheim, 1

       In the film Six by Sondheim the composer/lyricist says when he was 15, he learned from Oscar Hammerstein directly the most important single thing about lyric-writing for a musical:  the lyric had to have a beginning, middle, and end; it had to develop; the character singing needed to be in a different place when the song finished than when it began.

       I think it's a marvel of language the way Sondheim does it in "Being Alive," one of the six songs of the documentary's title.

       Tomorrow:  The Lyrics

"Cinerama" Anagram

       Amongst many other revelations in the marvelous new documentary film Six by Sondheim which HBO premiered the other night, this linguistic tidbit was noted by Steve Sondheim,

                 CINERAMA has an anagram:
                    AMERICAN 

"Mad Libs": the Hanukkah Edition

  
       Mad Libs books have been out for years:   brief stories with blank spaces for you to fill in words.  But you don't know the STORY till you read it with your created words now filled in.  My sample.

                      CELEBRATING THE JEWISH HOLIDAYS 101

We all know how to celebrate Hanukkah, but other holidays?  Well, on Tu B'Shevat, we celebrate by planting a participle in the ground.  On Passover we have a special meal called a Seder, which means "Duck."  Someone hides the furnace, and all the kids try to find it at the end of the Seder.  On Sukkot we build a glove outside and then crack up in it for 17 days.  There are many more holidays, but one of the most furtive is Shavuot.  That's when we stay up and curse all night long.

"The Long Boat" by Stanley Kunitz

"Lagniappe"

       "Lagniappe" was used in the headline of a review of Treme´ (about New Orleans) for its new, final, abbreviated season on HBO. 

       1.  Lagniappe (LAN-yap) was italicized in the headline when it needn't have been.  None of my references treat it as a foreign word;

       2.  Lagniappe is nowhere in the review itself, thus added by the headline writer based on Robert Lloyd's L.A. Times review calling the five-show season perhaps "an unnecessary appendix" to the series essentially completed last year, but welcome--a bonus, something tossed in extra for good measure;

       3.  The last words of #2 are indeed the word's definition;

       4.  It's a Southern Louisiana word from American Spanish la napa "the gift," and with the Creole dialect mix in New Orleans, then turned into Louisiana French.

        

Self-Serving Insurance Claims

       Actual excerpts from auto insurance claim forms in California.

Claim 1:  A pedestrian hit me and went under my car.

Claim 2:  I pulled away from the side of the road, glanced at my
                 mother-in-law, and headed over the embankment.

Claim 3:  My car was legally parked as it backed into the other vehicle.

Claim 4:  An invisible car came out of nowhere and struck my
                  vehicle--and vanished.

Claim 5:  The telephone pole was approaching fast.  I was attempting to
                 swerve out of its path when it struck my front end.

Claim 6: Pedestrian had no idea what direction to go, so I ran over him.

P(r)i(r)(v)acy

       Campaign Political Funds solicited online:

           when they use the phrase
                                                     "To Protect Your Privacy"--
           why do I always read
                                                      "To Protect Your Piracy"?

"Paraphernalia"

       I employ the term for a spacer tube I use with an asthma inhaler.

       But every time I think of the word "paraphernalia," my first association is with accoutrements for drug taking.

       The word comes from Greek para "beyond," pherne "a dowry," that is, a wife-to-be's personal possessions outside her dowry.

       Generally, the word refers to objects or appurtenances that go along with some main thing else.

Sycamore (forgive me)

Sycamore

                

More Sycamore

                                 
                                                                         

Sick o' More Sycamore?

 

                                                                                                                                                

Oops, Cartoonist & I on a Single Track

Click on cartoon to enlarge.

Photo I took some years back.

Solicitous Husband / Sardonic Wife

       Don:  Are you OK?

       Connie:  Yes.

       Don:  I heard you sneezing.

       Connie:  All I need is a Jewish mother.  I sneeze; therefore, I am.

Out-of-Control Cartoonist

click on cartoon to enlarge

       You kind of wish he'd just been tempted to do this cartoon but hadn't.  (Still, why am I glad he did?)

       So far as I can find out, there are only Jack Russell Terriers, called thus for a reverend of that name who was also a hunter and bred these dogs in the early 19th century.  Of course there have to be female Jack Russell Terriers, but apparently no Jane has given her name to a breed.

       Maybe the dad being happy birthdayed in the cartoon had a crush on the buxom actress back in the 1940s and 50s.

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)!