"Hagiography"

       Kevin Peraino was interviewed tonight about his new biography on Lincoln's foreign policy.  He spoke of wanting to avoid a hagiography and pronounced the first syllable with a long "a" instead of to rhyme with "bag."   I figure any of these causes for his mispronunciation:

       1.  He was influenced by the Hague in the Netherlands;
       2.  He was influenced by memories of Alexander Hague;
       3.  He's a wide reader but learned words before he heard them pronounced;
       4.  He's Jewish and knows the Hagiographa is the third part of the Hebrew Bible, The Writings, and can be pronounced with long "a";
       5.  He's Catholic and knows hagiography can have long "a" when it is a life of the saints.

       I gather Peraino's is a good book and not a hagiography (an idealized biography of anyone).

Actions Speak Too

       I had trouble understanding Alphonso on one word.  Alphonso was helping put in our wood floors.  His English was fine, but he was telling us how he would keep dust from permeating other rooms:  plastic sheet from floor to ceiling with a [SIH-ped] down the middle.  His gesture was very clear; so after momentary puzzlement, I said, "zipper"?  Alphonso nodded.  The plastic could be zipped or unzipped so one could walk through.

       Looking up Spanish pronunciations online, I learn the "z" is pronounced [th] if you're from Spain and [s] if you're from South of the border.  The "r" except at beginning of words is pronounced more like English "d"; hence Alphonso's [SIH-ped]. 

       Gesture, on the other hand, pinned the meaning home!

Be CAREFUL When Writing for the Ear!

Heard on NPR news today:

              "European diplomats are coming to Washington to question
               President Obama about the tapping of Europe's phone
               communication.  The President is planning to sue them."

       No way for the ear to tell the difference between "sue them" and "soothe them."

      

Two Interesting Language Tidbits

       1.  "Listen" and "silent" use exactly the same letters.


       2.  Place a mirror in the center of this word, and it is exactly
                                  the same in either direction:

       

"Character"

       “Character” comes from Latin character, from Greek kharakter, from kharassein, “to inscribe” or “scratch” or “engrave,” from kharax, “pointed stick."  Shakespeare’s Polonius uses the word in a verb form that conveys its original meaning when he says to Laertes:

                And these few precepts in thy memory
                See thou character.  Give thy thoughts no tongue....
                                             Hamlet, Act I, Scene 3


Character is not a mask.  It is engraved, it is etched into you.

       In "Weathering," Alastair Reid speaks of his

                         father’s carved face, the bright eye
                he sometimes would look out of, seeing a long way
                through all the tree rings of his history.


Time may “delve the parallels in beauty’s brow,” but in the way we act and live...in that is inscribed character.

"Buncombe"--or Worse

       The county that's given its name to the hogwash that emanates from the mouths of politicians has managed to outdo itself!

       A Republican official from Buncombe County, North Carolina, had to resign after his "Daily Show" interview about the state's strict new voter ID laws.  The remarks were unguarded and so racially tinged that Aasif Mandvi even asked Don Yelton, "You know that we can hear you, right?"  County and state GOP leaders disowned Yelton almost at once.

       That county is the origin of the word "buncombe" or "bunkum" or, for short, "bunk."  In 1820, a Representative from the county made an irrelevant speech to Congress just to impress his constituents.

       Now the residents have something else to live down.

And Why Would You Want to Scratch It?

       Seen in the L.A. Times yesterday:

                        "The potential for crowd-
                 funding is immense, and
                 we've just barely scratched
                 the tip of the iceberg," said
                 Anindya Ghose, a New York
                 University professor who
                 studies crowdfunding.

       Once again, a couple cliché images wedded.
       (Note also Monday, October 14, 2013.)

"Palindrome"/Cartoon

       Palindrome, from Greek palindromos, meaning "running back again," palin, "again"; dromos, "a running," which fits...for words that are spelled the same backwards as forwards.

       "Bizarro" is at it once more today.

Words Worth Saving

       While cleaning up my dresser drawer, I found a note that I jotted down years ago after Connie said it:


         "I think that the world is bigger and kinder than most people."


       That's my wife.

Maybe One and One Are...One

In the personal ads of the UCLA Bruin newspaper on Valentine's Day:

                                Waldo,
                                     We're two odd socks that have
                                     found each other in the dryer of
                                     life--a perfect match.  I love you.
                                                      Hillary

I can't help thinking Hillary would have liked this piece of mine:

                                                     Eve

                                            odd Adam
                                            
                                            added odd Eve 'n'

                                            odd and odd are

                                            Eden

Cartooning Punster I

Good Journalism Can Heal

       Yes, the Dodgers lost big 9-0 to St. Louis in their last game of the National League playoff series.  It was humiliating, disconcerting, and deeply sad for Dodger fans.  Two days later Plaschke spoke, ok wrote, in the L.A. Times, acknowledged the worst of it, and then brought us back to the joys, the craziness, the fun, the spiritedness, the team camaraderie, of the regular and post-season all the way (almost) to the end.

       A great sports writer, Plaschke was absolutely in the hearts, minds, and mood of Dodger fans everywhere.  I wrote him these words:

       "Plaschke, You know how to put salve in our wounds and joy in our hearts again."

                                        The link is here.

First Fruits

       Going through my study finally (as I've promised myself for years) to get rid of everything but what I can't bear to throw away, I come upon the first "great" article I wrote for the Quarterly Journal of Speech.  I'd forgotten it was given the lead position in the journal for that issue.  It was the main fruits of my PhD dissertation.  It still reads great, what can I say?

       I remember delivering it as a paper at the national convention the year before.  There was a packed "house"; I was a "rock star" of young academia.  Congratulations and requests for copies flew from the rafters.  Can I throw this article away?

        No.

"Diversity"/"University"

       I'm recalling an art work, a photograph.  The photo centers on many hands, at least ten with a variety of skin colors, resting on top of one another above the word "DIVERSITY."   Beneath that, these words:

                "The privilege of a lifetime is being who you are."
                                      Joseph Campbell

       I am proud that higher education during my active years honored diversity, espoused multi-cultural values, encouraged giving voice to the voiceless.

       It strikes me now as an irony that a "UNIVERSity" should be valuing "DIVERSity," that is...by derivation...that "turning toward oneness" would place value on "turning toward difference."

       But then oneness: wholeness or completeness implies making room for the multiple strains within it.

How I Knew I Loved Language

       Each week during my childhood "Dr. IQ, the Mental Banker" came on the radio asking questions of live audience members, giving them money for correct answers.

       My favorite question was always "that little monument to memory, the Thought Twister."  If you could repeat Dr. IQ's rhyme exactly, you'd get 25 silver dollars.  He'd say it only once.  For example:

              The bed is red said Ted to Ned.
              The bed is red, Ted, to him said Ned.

Almost everybody failed and ended up with a box of Milky Ways instead.  I caught onto the pattern and could always repeat the rhyme.

       All four principal rhyming words appeared twice in the same order.  And punctuated properly, it would make sense:  "The bed is red," said Ted to Ned.  "The bed is red, Ted," to him said Ned.  

"Brevity is the Soul of Wit"

       Yesterday, I exceeded my self-prescribed limit for number of words per entry in this blog.  As I was doing so and forgiving myself because I was in a hurry to finish and get to bed with a busy day ahead of me, I thought of George Bernard Shaw.

       In a letter to a friend, Shaw said, "I'm writing you a long letter because I don't have time to write a short one."

Puns Aweigh!

       Headline writers can have fun, especially in the sports pages.  The Los Angeles Dodgers playing in the National League Championship Series had to depend upon their 3rd best pitcher to win after their best two didn't.  Ryu is South Korean, his name is pronounced [rih-YOU], and here's the L.A. Times headline on the morning of his night game:

                It has to be Ryu

I read it about four times yesterday and today, and on the fourth time only, I realized the writer was summoning an old song:  "It had to be you/ It had to be you/ I wandered around, finally found/ Somebody who..."

       Ryu won his game, and today's headline read

                 A BUOY NAMED RYU
The sub-headline read "Rookie's brilliant outing keeps the Dodgers afloat..."  You see the connection between "BUOY" and "afloat" and "BUOY" and "boy" and "Ryu."

       These headlines may be a "stretch," but they are also playful and
true...or should I say [trih-YOU]? 

Radio Language that Made Me Wonder, 2

• Heard in a radio interview:

                 "You hit it on the nutshell, Jackie. . . "


         
                                Why use one cliché?  Combine two.

• Heard on a radio commercial:

                    With sentimental music behind her, a woman delivers
               a Father's Day message to her Dad (courtesy of a local bank):

                       "You told me I should think for myself.  So I often think,
                        'What would Dad say?'"



              
                                Hmm?!      

Radio Language that Made Me Wonder, 1

•  Heard on a radio news cast:

                        "Wilma Mankiller became the first female to head an
                   Indian tribe, the Cherokee."


                                  Hmm.  Wonder how she pulled that off . . .

•   Announcer on radio:

                        "The Judo-Christian tradition."

         
                                  Yes.  A couple quick moves, and you've got a pagan
                                  just where you want him.




          


           

Society's War on the Left-Handed Writer

       My son David's written a piece called "It ain't Right:  Society's War on the Lefty."  David notes "the small impediments we encounter every day."  In school, for example:

        "Scissors come in 'Normal' and 'You.'  Desks have a support for the right arm, leaving the 'Port' side hanging and exposed.  Some desks have a built-in inkwell for--guess which hand?  Taking an exam your pencil or Eraser-Mate pen smudges the paper and your palm as your scrawl crawls rightward.  That's Western writing's left-hand brand."

       And David ends with the image of a hand waving, yes, it's actually moving and waving, or is it signaling for help, or is that hand going under for the last time, drowning?  It is a left hand!