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I wasn’t sure whether to post Naomi Kanakia’s The New Yorker offered him a deal, because it’s very long and wouldn’t be of much interest to someone who didn’t care about John Cheever or the strange phenomenon known as the “New Yorker story,” but if you do care about those things it’s fascinating — she goes into the whole history of the magazine’s stories and why they work (and why they’ve always been criticized), and why the magazine’s demands determined Cheever’s career. And I have a deep respect and affection for people who do a deep dive into a corpus they’re interested in so they can report on the results with authority rather than making the usual facile assumptions and moving on: “All told, I’ve probably read five hundred New Yorker stories over the last three months.” (Compare my appreciation of Vera Dunham’s In Stalin’s Time, for which she “waded through mountains of elephant shit,” and see this 2010 post linking to Slawkenbergius’ “thoughtful take on John Cheever.”) She starts off:

Two months ago, I read a seven-hundred-page collection of short stories by John Cheever. But somehow that wasn’t enough. I went on to read seven-hundred-page retrospective collections from Mavis Gallant, Alice Adams, and John O’Hara. And I still wanted more!

Normally when I get halfway through a story collection I think, “Okay…I’m done now”, but with these authors, it wasn’t like that. I wanted more. Not more of these particular writers, but more work that was like their work in some weird, indefinable way. […]

Not only were these stories similar to each other, but they also seemed quite different from other literary stories. These stories were mostly marked by their extreme restraint. They didn’t just eschew plot, they also eschewed lyricism, symbolism, surrealism, or any other devices that would call attention to themselves. Their plotlessness made them seem highbrow, but their unadorned style made them highly accessible. And I wondered how The New Yorker could’ve arrived at this unique-seeming combination of elements.

And she proceeds to the history of how the early “casuals” became short stories, and how the tastes of the first editor, Harold Ross (who “was never totally sold on the idea of publishing stories”), determined the kind of story that would become the hallmark of the magazine. If any of this sounds intriguing, give it a try and you may find yourself reading the whole thing (and perhaps developing a new respect for Cheever, who for so long was a punching bag for critics of all descriptions and who was persistently underpaid by the magazine).

The video How Far Back Can You Understand Northern English? nominally lasts twenty minutes, but it will take longer if, like me, you keep pausing it to read the footnotes. It was sent me by rozele, who says:

it’s a dialect coach called simon roper’s retrogression through cumbrian english from circa 2000 to circa 1200, followed by some overall comments, and then a subtitled (both IPA and a standard u.k. english rendering) repetition, with enough on-screen notes on his reconstruction to make me wish youtube had 10-second jump controls. i don’t know a lot of northern english dialectology, so can’t check his work, but i was quite impressed, on a bunch of levels.

one bigger-picture tidbit from the notes that was news to me, though i’m sure it’s familiar stuff to many of the hatters:

“In the north, from the Middle English period onwards, verbs agreeing with ‘thou’ tended to take the ending ‘-s’ (‘thou does’), unlike in the south where they took the ending ‘-(e)st’ (‘thou dost’). This remained true into the 20th century, and as far as I know is still true in northern dialects that retain ‘thou’.”

(which has me wondering whether the stereotyped u.s. quaker use of “does” in 2sg, which i’d always assumed was generalized from the 3rd person, is just a northernism. and it seems somehow relevant to the current singular “they are”, too.)

I learned a great deal from it, including the word gled ‘(red) kite’ (OED: “the Old Germanic form was probably *gliđon- and with o- umlaut gleđon-, < glið- weak grade of the root of *glîđan to glide v.”). At one point he discusses ingressive speech, which we covered in 2014. I was surprised how far back I could mostly understand what was being said (I think I started losing the trail around the fifteenth century), but my immersion in British cop shows has given me a head start in northern dialects — thanks, Vera, and thanks, rozele!

I was shamed by David Eddyshaw’s recent comment (“I highly recommend The English Understand Wool to the three Hatters who have not already read it”) — he, of course, had no intention of shaming me, as he could not possibly have known that I had failed to read the latest fiction by one of my favorite authors — and I have accordingly remedied my inexcusable omission. I have no intention of telling you “what it’s about”; the text itself will do that. I will quote a couple of early bits to convince you that you need to read the whole thing (it’s a short book and will take only a few hours). Here’s the opening of the novella:

—The English understand wool.

My mother sat on a small sofa in our suite at Claridge’s, from which the television had been removed at her request. She held in her lap a bolt of very beautiful handloomed tweed which she had brought back from the Outer Hebrides. She had in fact required only a few metres for a new suit.

I use the word “suit” because I am writing in English, but the French tailleur—she would naturally think of clothes in French—makes intelligible that one would travel from Marrakech to the Outer Hebrides to examine the work of a number of weavers, perhaps to establish a relationship with a weaver of real gifts. It makes intelligible that one would bring one’s daughter, so that she might develop an eye for excellence in the fabric, know the marks of workmanship of real quality, observe how one develops an understanding with a craftsman of talent. The word “suit,” I think, makes this look quite mad.

She had needed only a few metres, but she had bought the entire bolt to prevent it from falling into ignoble hands. We had stayed overnight on the way north in Inverness, where the shops were full of distinguished tweeds put to debased uses.

And here’s the start of ch. 4:

Maman was exigeante—there is no English word—in matters of protocol. Lunch, tea and dinner were served formally. English was spoken if my father was present, French if we were alone. It is important for the servants to become accustomed to the correct manner of serving; if the President of the Republic comes to dine, they must not be anxiously casting their minds back to the last important dinner. It is an advantage to them to speak both French and English flawlessly. (When they made mistakes, they were corrected.) If an opportunity arises in a great hotel, they will not be unprepared.

Maman spoke French with a pure Parisian accent. She used this in the normal management of the household; it was better for them to accustom themselves. She spoke the standard Arabic, the Arabic of television, of high-level functionaries, of international businessmen, on formal occasions where French was inappropriate. She spoke Darija, the Moroccan form of Arabic, when the servants were ill or had family problems. This was the hardest to learn because the language schools did not like to teach it, and private instructors felt they would lose face if they did not teach what was taught in schools. What she set out to do she did.

I will add that I am entirely in accord with DE’s “At several points I had to suppress an embarrassing desire to cheer out loud for the remarkable heroine, an eminently worthy spiritual sibling to Ludo.” Nobody writes like DeWitt.

I know “odd British pronunciations” is a hoary old trope, and we’ve had posts about it before, but I was struck when looking something up in my trusty BBC Pronouncing Dictionary of British Names by the density of names with unpredictable pronunciations on the spread pp. 70-71. Many of them, of course, are easy enough, e.g. Heriot [ˈherɪət] (hérriot), but around half seemed worth reproducing here:

Helwick Shoals and lightship [ˈhelɪk] (héllick)
Hely, f.n. [ˈhilɪ] (heeli)
Helyer, f.n. [ˈhelɪər] (hélli-er)
Heman, f.n. [ˈhimən] (heeman)
Heming, f.n. [ˈhemɪŋ] (hémming)
Hemingbrough [ˈhemɪŋbrʌf] (hémming-bruff)
Hemmerde, f.n. [ˈhemərdɪ] (hémmerdi)
Hene [ˈhinɪ] (heeni)
Heneage, f.n. [ˈhenɪdʒ] (hénnij) Appropriate also for the Barony of ~.
Henebery [ˈhenɪbərɪ] (hénneberi)
Heneghan, f.n. [ˈhenɪgən] (hénnegan)
Heneglwys [henˈegluɪs] (henégloo-iss)
Heneker, fm. [ˈhenɪkər] (hénneker)
Henig, f.n. [ˈhenɪg] (hénnig)
Henlere, f.n. [ˈhenlɪər] (hénleer)
Henriques, f.n. (henˈrikɪz] (henreekez)
Hepburn, f.n. [ˈheb3rn] (hébburn); [ˈhebərn] (hébbŭrn)
Hepburn [ˈheb3rn] (hébbŭrn)
Heppell, f.n. [ˈhepl] (heppl)
Hereford [ˈherɪfərd] (hérreferd) Appropriate also for Viscount ~.
Hergest Ridge [ˈhargɪst] (haargest)
Herklots, f.n. [ˈh3rklɒts] (hérklots)
Herkness, f.n. [ˈharknɪs] (haarkness)
Hermges, f.n. [ˈh3rmdʒiz] (hérmjeez)
Herries, Baron [ˈherɪs] (hérriss)
Herstmonceux, also spelt Hurstmonceux, Hurstmonceaux [ˌh3rstmənˈsju] (herstmo6n-séw); [ˌh3rstmənˈsu] (herst-mon-soo)
Hertford [ˈharfərd] (haarford) Appropriate also for the Marquess of ~.
Hertingfordbury [ˈhartɪŋfərdberɪ] (haartingfordberri)
Hervey, f.n. [ˈharvɪ] (haarvi)
Herwald, f.n. [ˈh3rwəld] (hérwald)
Heseltine, f.n. [ˈhesltain] (héssltin) Also the pronunciation of Peter Warlock, composer, for his nom-de-plume of Philip ~.
Heselton, f.n. [ˈhesltən] (hésslton)
Hesilrige, f.n. [ˈhezɪlrɪdʒ] (hézzilrij)
Hesleden [ˈhesldən] (hésslden)
Hesmondhalgh, f.n. [ˈhezməndhælʃ] (hézmənd-halsh) ; [ˈhezməndhɔ] (hézmond-haw)
Hespe, f.n. [hesp] (hessp)
Hessé, f.n. [ˈhesɪ] (héssi)
Hessle [ˈhezl] (hezzl)
Hethel [ˈhiθl] (heethl) ; [ˈheθl] (hethl)
Heugh, f.n. [hju] (hew)
Heugh, Northumberland [hjuf] (hewf)
Hever [ˈhivər] (heever)
Hewardine, f.n. [ˈhjuərdin] (héw-ardeen)
Heyrod [ˈherəd] (hérred)
Heysham [ˈhiʃəm] (hee-sham)
Heyshott [ˈheɪʃɒt] (hay-shot)
Heythrop [ˈhiθrəp] (heethrop) Appropriate also for the ~ Hunt.
Hibaldstow [ˈhɪblstoʊ] (hibblsto)
High Legh [ˈhaɪ ˈli] (hi lee)
High Wych [ˈhaɪ ˈwaɪtʃ] (hi witch)
High Wycombe [ˈhaɪ ˈwɪkəm] (hi wickem)
Higham, f.n. [ˈhaɪəm] (hi-am)
Higham, East Suffolk, West Suffolk [ˈhaɪəm] (hi-em); [ˈhɪgəm] (higgam)
Higham, Yorks. [ˈhaɪəm] (hi-em); [ˈhɪkəm] (hickam)
Hinchingbrooke, Viscountcy of [ˈhɪnʃɪŋ-brʊk] (hinshing-brook)
Hindolveston, also spelt Hindolvestone [ˈhɪndlˈvestən] (hindlvéston); [ˈhilvistən]
(hilvéston)
Hindsley, f.n. [ˈhaɪndzlɪ] (hindzli)
Hinwick [ˈhɪnɪk] (hinnick)
Hiorns, f.n. [ˈhaɪərnz] (hi-ornz)
Hippisley, f.n. [ˈhɪpslɪ] (hipsli)
Hiron, f.n. [ˈhaɪərɒn] (hiron)
Hirwaun, also spelt Hirwain [ˈhɪərwaɪn] (heerwin); [ˈh3rwɪn] (hirwin)
Hoathly, East and West [hoʊθˈlaɪ] (hoth-li)
Hodder & Stoughton, publishers [ˈhɒdər ənd ˈstautən] (hodder and stowton)
Hodghton, f.n. [ˈhɒdʒtən] (hojton)
Hoenes, f.n. [ˈhoʊnes] (honess)
Hogarth, fm. [ˈhoʊgarθ] (hogaarth); [ˈhɒgərt] (hoggart) The first is traditional for William ~, painter and engraver. The second is usual in Cumberland and Westmorland.
Hoggan, f.n. [ˈhɒgən] (hoggan)
Hoggard, f.n. [ˈhɒgard] (hoggaard)
Hoggarth, f.n. [ˈhɒgərt] (hoggart)
Hogh, f.n. [hoʊ] (ho)
Hoghton, f.n. [ˈhɔtən] (hawton)

Boy, that was a lot more work than I expected — I think I’ve got the bracketed pronunciations right, but the respelled ones in parens are catch-as-catch-can: I haven’t tried to reproduce the breves and what have you. I trust you’ll get the idea.

The excellent Trevor Joyce, source of so many things both poetic and bloggic, alerted me to this amazing passage from The kings tovvre and triumphant arch of London. A sermon preached at Pauls Crosse, August. 5. 1622. By Samuel Purchas, Bacheler of Diuinitie, and parson of Saint Martins Ludgate, in London:

O London, which art rich at home, and needest none other World, then Brittaine, how hast thou extended thy Trade into all parts of Europe?

Coeli & soli bonis omnibus donata, thou hast twice, with thy long Armes, embraced the whole Globe; art made delicate with Russian Furres; fed, when need is, with Corne from Danske, and Poland; whom the Germanes present with rare Artifices; Italians, with Silks, Stuffes, Veluets; the French and Spaniard, with Wines and Oyle; the Belgians, with Wares for thy Peace, and Warres for thy superfluous bloud; the Mountaynes of Norway, descend that thy houses may ascend; Narue and the Easterlings are thy Calkers and Riggers for thy Ships; Iseland, New-foundland, and the North-seas furnish thee with Fish; Turkie, with Carpets; Barbarie and the Negroes, with Gold, and Creatures for thy pleasure: the Northwest hath opened her various passages to thee, and if Nature denyed not, would giue the thorow-fare: Greenland melteth her huge Whale-monsters, to doe thee seruice: the Ilands, which Nature had almost lost in the Ocean, are found out by thy Mariners: the Red Sea hath been awed, and the Turks afraid, lest thou shouldst stop vp that mouth of Mahomet: the Mogoll’s, Persian’s, Moscouite’s, large Dominions are thy thorow-fare, thy Staples: Thou hast strewed thy Factories alongst the East euen to Iapan, and sowen and reaped Wealth and Honour in the Ocean. How doe the most remote parts send in their Commodities both for thy profit and pleasure? while, by the way, Saldania, Saint Augustines, Saint Helena, and other places yeeld refreshing to thy Merchants and Mariners; Siam, sendeth the Lignum Aloes, Beniamin, rich Stones; Socodanna, Diamonds; China, Raw Silke, Porcellane, Taffata, Veluets, Damaske, Muske, Sewing-gold, Embroydered Hangings; Macassar, and Patania, Bezars; Baly, Slaues for thy Merchants Indian vses; Timore, White-sanders and Waxe, Banda, Nutmegs and Oyle; the Molucca’s, Cloues; Iapan, Dyes, Salt-peeter, Siluer; Guinnee, dying-wood, Oyster-trees, Guinny-pepper; Zocotora, Ciuet-cats, and Aloes; Arabian Red-Sea-Moha, Indian and Arabian Commodities; Cambaya, Cloth, Carpets, Quilts, Spikenard, Turbith, Cinnamon; Surat, Indicoe’s Callicoes, Pintadoe’s, Chado[r]s, Shashes, Girdles, Cannakens, Treckanees, Senabafs, Aleias, Patolla’s, Sellas, Greene-ginger, Lignum Aloes, Suckets, Opium, Sal-armoniacke, and abundance of Drugges; Balsora, Pearles; Zeilon, Cinnamon; Iambe, great grain’d Pepper; as Priaman, Passaman, best Pepper, and Gold; the East of Africa, Gold and Amber-greese. These, with many more, conspire to make thee Great. Thou hast not, as of old, visited the New-world, but hast made (not Ireland alone, but) Bermuda’s frequent and populous; Virginia, to multiply in Townes and Hundreths; besides, New-England, New-found-land, and other thy Plantations; O magnae spes altera Brittaniae. Virginia! I will repeat of thee, which I said before of thy Royall Godmother, which named thee Virginia, O quam te memorem virgo? thy louely cheekes, alas, lately blushed with Virginian-English bloud: but how soone? and thy blush being turned to indignation, thou shalt wash, hast washed thy feet in the bloud of those natiue vnnaturall Traytors, and now becommest a pure English Virgin; a new other Brittaine, in that new other World: and let all English say and pray, GOD BLESSE VIRGINIA.

How rich a piece of writing! how many exotic names of wares: Pintadoe’s, Chadois, Shashes, Cannakens, Treckanees, Senabafs, Aleias, Patolla’s, Sellas! And Place-names both familiar (China) or easily recognizable (Iapan, Zeilon) and mysterious (what or where is Saldania? or Iambe?), and the rhetorickal Turnes (“with Wares for thy Peace, and Warres for thy superfluous bloud”), and the wondrous Participles (sowen!); truly one could spend hours luxuriating in Purchas his Prose.

Continuing to look through Michael Weiss’s Elementary Lessons in Tocharian B (see yesterday’s post), I was struck by a word in this passage:

In Classical Tocharian B ä and a, on the one hand, and a and ā, on the other, are in an alternation governed by the position of the stress. These rules are not yet in place in the archaic texts. In general, disyllabic words have initial stress and tri- and more syllabic words have stress on the second syllable from the left edge of the word, so-called peninitial stress. In tonic position ä becomes a and in atonic position ā become[s] a.

Who was so-called peninitial stress so called by? Not me, I didn’t remember ever encountering the word (though it turns out it occurs in a passage quoted by DM here); while I can see the rationale for it (if stress on the next-to-last syllable is penultimate, why can’t stress on the syllable after the first be peninitial?), I don’t like the word — it looks too much like penitential. It’s not in the OED, but there’s a Wiktionary page which says it’s “(chiefly linguistics),” and a Google Books search confirmed that. But I was a grad student in linguistics; why didn’t I know the word? Judging from the Google Books hits, it seems to have gotten going in the 1980s, just after I had gotten gone from the field. Are Hatters familiar with it?

Nelson Goering in a Facebook post showed an image of a footnote from Kuśiññe Kantwo: Elementary Lessons in Tocharian B by Michael Weiss (p. xx fn. 31) that I couldn’t resist posting here:

Don Ringe related the following story, which he heard from Warren Cowgill: In the early course of the decipherment “Sieg could tell from the names in a Tocharian text he was working on that it was a Buddhist text, but he couldn’t figure out which. One night he dreamt that he got up, went to his library, took a particular book, opened it to a particular page, and there was the Sanskrit parallel. Upon waking he did exactly that and found the parallel.” The story may be apocryphal, but names have often played a key role in decipherment from Grotefend’s and Champollion’s day on.

(Cowgill was the director of my ill-fated dissertation half a century ago.) Weiss’s book looks useful and readable; the preface begins:

There are now many excellent resources for learning the structure and grammar of the Tocharian languages, but there are few resources for learning to read the languages. The natural person to write such an introductory textbook would be one of the great Tocharianists, but they have better things to do. So, on the principle “fools rush in, etc.,” I’ve put together twenty lessons that will introduce the basic grammar of Tocharian B — generally regarded as the more archaic and interesting of the two languages for Indo-European purposes — and a vocabulary of about 500 words. The first ten lessons present the rudiments of the synchronic phonology, morphology, and major syntactic topics. Lessons 11-20 cover some diachronic topics and continue the presentation of the syntax. My models are the bare-bones introductory texts of yesteryear (Perry, Quin, the original Wheelock) and the excellent Sanskrit samizdat of Craig Melchert.

And here’s what he has to say about the names of the languages:
[Read more…]

A couple of place names that have recently crossed my path:

1) I enjoyed the 1952 movie Macao and followed the action as best I could on a map I happen to have (there were a pleasing number of geographical references, including shots of street signs); a scene set at the A-Ma Temple led me to look it up and discover it is “one of the oldest in Macau and thought to be the settlement’s namesake,” and sure enough, the Etymology section of the Wikipedia Macau article says:

The first known written record of the name Macau, rendered as A Ma Gang (亞/阿-媽/馬-港), is found in a letter dated 20 November 1555. The local inhabitants believed that the sea goddess Matsu (alternatively called A-Ma) had blessed and protected the harbour and referred to the waters around A-Ma Temple by her name. When Portuguese explorers first arrived in the area and asked for the place name, the locals thought they were asking about the temple and told them it was Ma Kok (媽閣). The earliest Portuguese spelling for this was Amaquão. Multiple variations were used until Amacão / Amacao and Macão / Macao became common during the 17th century.

It has a whiff of folk etymology (people love those “the locals told them” stories), but it could certainly be true.

2) Ian Frazier’s latest New Yorker piece (archived) mentions Prudhoe Bay, and it occurred to me to wonder how that name is pronounced — I mentally said it /ˈprʌd-hoʊ/ (PRUD-ho) but had no confidence in that. So I went to Wikipedia and to my horror saw /ˈpruːdoʊ/ (PROO-doh). To get a second opinion I went to my old standby, Merriam Webster’s Geographical Dictionary, and sure enough it said the same thing. But above it was the name of the Northumberland town that (via Algernon Percy, Lord Prudhoe) gave the place in Alaska its name, and that had the pronunciation /ˈprʌd-(h)oʊ/ (PRUD-(h)o). Having learned distrust, I turned to the BBC Pronouncing Dictionary of British Names and found the same thing — but Wikipedia has /ˈprʌdə/ (PRUD-ə)! And I don’t know whether the change from /ˈprʌd-/ to /ˈpruːd-/ happened because of Algernon or Alaskans. It’s enough to drive a man to drink.

I’m not a great fan of the opera Carmen, but Larry Wolff’s NYRB review (February 22, 2024; archived) of a recent Met production has some material of Hattic interest:

In Carmen, first performed in Paris in 1875, Georges Bizet created a Mediterranean musical world in elegant French style. Spanish song and dance fascinated nineteenth-century Paris […]. The Metropolitan Opera’s new production, directed by Carrie Cracknell and premiered on New Year’s Eve, sets the opera in contemporary America, possibly in the vicinity of the Mexican border, where Latin rhythms would not be out of place.

Carmen is an entertainer. This is clear from her very first appearance, singing the erotically descending phrases of the “Habanera” and then the sinuous “Seguidilla” later in the first act. For Bizet, Carmen’s artistry is closely tied to her Andalusian origins and Roma identity. The “Habanera,” named for Havana, borrows its Afro-Cuban inflections from a piece by the Spanish Basque composer Sebastián Yradier, who had visited Cuba. […]

Bizet set the second act in the inn of Lillas Pastia in Seville, where Carmen and her two best friends give a cabaret performance; the lyrics celebrate the “strange music” of the Roma—“ardent, crazy, fevered”—and reference Basque tambours and frenzied guitars. At the Met there is no Andalusian inn; the act takes place inside the trailer of the hijacked truck racing along the highway. It is a spectacular update, a cabaret in motion, and the twenty-seven-year-old mezzo-soprano Aigul Akhmetshina, dancing in denim short-shorts and shiny blue cowboy boots, handled every sensual ornamentation in Carmen’s vocal lines with youthful agility. Akhmetshina played Carmen not as the more usual worldly femme fatale but as a teenage rebel without a cause, which gave a different sense to the character’s recklessness, volatile sexuality, risky romances, and impulsive confrontations. […]

[Read more…]

We’ve discussed Ryan Starkey before, but I recently took a look at his website, Starkey Comics (“Colourful images about culture and language”), and was astonished at the breadth of his coverage. Check out Etymologies of Endonyms and Exonyms, which currently includes The etymologies of Georgia, Georgia, and Sakartvelo; The Etymology of Croatia and Hrvatska; The Etymology of Myanmar and Burma; and The Etymology of Japan and Nippon — I’m sure holes can be picked in details here and there, but it’s so nice to see etymologies laid out in such pleasing graphic form, and his discussion of Burma/Myanmar is exemplary:

Burma was the earlier exonym for this southeast Asian nation in English, and is derived from the informal, spoken form of the endonym “Bama”.
“Bama” evolved from the more formal/literary form of the endonym, “Mranma”.
In 1989 the official English name of the country changed to “Myanmar”, a Latinised form of Mranma”, although “Burma” remains in use in many places, including the adjective form and name of the main language (Burmese).
Both “Burma” and “Myanmar” contain the letter “r”, despite being borrowed from Burmese words without an “r” in those positions. This is because Burma was a British colony, and majority of the accents of England are non-rhotic: the letter “r” is always silent when not before a vowel, and is simply there to modify the preceding vowel.
So an “r” was added to the spelling of both simply to show that the preceding vowel was long, not because it was ever intended to be pronounced.

There’s Austronesian words for ‘two’, Indo-European Words for Ten, The Etymology of Every Toki Pona Word, and much, much more. Enjoy!