Archives for May 2003

John Hardy‘s comment in my latest Sapir-Whorf thread led me to this brilliant article (on the brilliant Zompist site) on how English could be written with a character system; if you don’t know how the Chinese writing system works (which you probably don’t if you haven’t studied it), read about “yingzi” and you’ll learn the basics.

One example from the article leads me to a brief etymological excursus:

“One way would be to use hanzi directly, as the Japanese do…. Chinese and Japanese borrowings could be written using the original hanzi, e.g. ‘gung-ho’ would be 工合.” Now, he doesn’t explain “gung ho” further, but most dictionaries give it as Chinese for ‘work together.’ It’s not that simple. To quote the always quotable American Heritage Dictionary:

Earlier Gung Ho, motto of certain U.S. Marine forces in Asia during World War II, from Chinese (Mandarin) gonghé, to work together (short for gongyèhézuòshè, Chinese Industrial Cooperative Society) : gong, work + hé, together.

Most of us are not aware of it today, but the word gung ho has been in English only since 1942 and is one of the many words that entered the language as a result of World War II. It comes from Mandarin Chinese gonghé, “to work together,” which was used as a motto by the Chinese Industrial Cooperative Society. Lieutenant Colonel Evans F. Carlson (1896–1947) borrowed the motto as a moniker for meetings in which problems were discussed and worked out; the motto caught on among his Marines (the famous “Carlson’s Raiders”), who began calling themselves the “Gung Ho Battalion.” From there eager individuals began to be referred to as gung ho.

However, this is not quite correct. There is no “Chinese gonghé, to work together”; gonghé is purely an abbreviation for the full name gongyèhézuòshè, and corresponds exactly to the equivalent English abbreviation Indusco. So what Carlson’s Raiders were actually yelling as they charged the enemy was “Indusco!” Inspiring, no?

Today’s Doonesbury is a brilliant example of language as politics. I found it at Pedantry, but his permalinks are bloggered, so you can either go there and look for the top entry on Sunday, May 04 or visit the Doonesbury link and go to the same date. (If your French isn’t up to snuff, try here.)

An excellent appreciation of the late Stan Brakhage by Steve Anker (Dean of the School of Film/Video at the California Institute of the Arts) in the new Film Comment.

Brakhage was part of America’s first generation of independent filmmakers who practiced filmmaking throughout their entire lives. His own role within this larger endeavor was to fight for the filmmaker as poetic visionary artist, equal to and in frequent dialogue with the traditional arts, and this insistence on defining himself foremost as an artist galvanized thousands of filmmakers and students over the decades. Although it is impossible to divide his work neatly into periods, the earliest films were mostly quasi-narrative “psychodramas” (Desistfilm, 54), those made during his middle years were largely centered on his family life (Scenes From Under Childhood, 67-70), and the later films increasingly explored what he called “hypnogogic” vision (Chartres Series, 94), frequently reducing all imagery to non-representational essences, much as abstract painters had done over the past century. His work made bridges between film and poetry by learning from the rhythms and mythos of Pound, Stein, Creeley, and Duncan; music through the structures of Bach, Webern, and Feldman, painting through the expressive gestures of De Kooning and Pollock, and collage through the material sensitivity of Cornell (with whom he collaborated on several films in the Fifties). Sometimes drawn to grand statements, he was most eloquent when dealing with the humility and fragility of human existence: his 30-film 8mm Song cycle, epic in scope but small in scale, remains possibly his most intimate work, incorporating and elevating the understanding of traditional “home movies” to the status of art.

…the main reasons Brakhage’s films are still little known remain the same as when he first emerged and was briefly embraced during the Sixties: in contrast with the seductive high-glitz tactility of Matthew Barney or the chic philosophizing and clever conceptualizations of Bill Viola, both of whom have been totally embraced by the high-art collector culture, all of Brakhage’s values – the core of his aesthetics – exist to resist being handily consumed and canonized. Brakhage celebrates life in all its sprawling dimensions, embracing even its blemishes and uncertainties, and this remains as distant from society’s ideals as ever.

I have already discussed the Sapir-Whorf hypothesis, admitting that I don’t have the faintest idea whether it’s true or not but hoping for research that might do more to answer the question than the ex cathedra statements of linguists. Imagine my surprise when the NY Times tries to settle the question by consulting the ex cathedra statements of linguists—in this case, one particular linguist, the media’s current darling, Steven Pinker. Now, Pinker is a smart guy (and a brilliant self-promoter, not that there’s anything wrong with that), but he subscribes to a linguistic theory that holds that all languages are essentially cosmetic variants, identical below the surface. Regardless of whether you think that’s plausible or not (regular readers of this site will know that I come down on the “not” side), to ask an adherent of it to judge the validity of Sapir-Whorf is like asking an atheist to judge the validity of the Pope’s infallibility. The Times might (I’m stretching here) ask an atheist for an opinion, but certainly wouldn’t allow it to carry their implicit imprimatur, as they do with Pinker. But this is no surprise; the surprise would be if the newspaper that employs William Safire as its language guru suddenly got a clue about these matters.

[Read more…]

I’ve been turning my attention to the gorgeous illustrations in my new American Heritage Dictionary and in the process have acquired some new vocabulary items, which will stick with me better for having been learned with a visual reference; herewith a sample (with simplified definitions and links to online images):

umiak ‘large skin-on-wood boat’
tole ‘painted metalware’
mutton snapper ‘a snapper of the western Atlantic’
emergence ‘outgrowth of plant tissue, e.g. a thorn’
anoa ‘small Philippine buffalo’
sennit ‘braided cordage’ [etymology unknown, by the way]
Rayonism ‘a variant of Futurism, with rays’ (I like the fact that of the two actual Rayonists, AHD chooses to illustrate the less famous, Natalia Goncharova, rather than her boyfriend Larionov)

In every case, the illustration in the dictionary is better than anything I could find online. It’s that kind of book.

A side note: I was amused and mildly irritated to see the following adjacent entries, with pronunciations as noted:

Olekma (o-LEK-m@) (a river of eastern Russia)
Olenek (ol-en-YOK, @-l@-NYOK) (a river of northeast Russia)

Now, it’s never easy to decide how authentic to be in giving pronunciations of obscure foreign place names, but why give the correct -yo- for the last -e- of Olenek and not for the -e- of Olekma (@-LYOK-m@)?

Addendum. Maureen Brian informs me that this site gives an etymology “from seven and knit” for “sennit.” I suppose it can’t be relied on too heavily, since the word was originally “sinnet” and the OED simply says “A nautical term of obscure origin,” but it’s an interesting speculation. Thanks, Maureen!

I am not about to reproduce here the vulgar little ditty with which this entry is, regrettably, concerned. I know that my readership is largely composed of persons of refined sensibilities who would, if not swoon, certainly raise their eyebrows in a fashion that I’m not sure I could bear. I urge such persons to ignore this ignoble entry. Others, however—those of you who (like my ignoble self) have not attained to a respectable spiritual level—should go here, read the rhyme beginning “Hooray, hooray,” and let me know in the comments whether you’re familiar with it, and if so whether the words are the ones you know. Myself, I have (to my shame) delighted in it for thirty years or so, but I have always said “starts today,” which of course makes for a better rhythm. Ahem. That is all.

Addendum (Feb. 2020). I don’t know why I was so coy back in 2003, but having had to fix the dead link in the original post, I think I might as well just reproduce the post I was linking to (and mention the author’s name, Adam Greenfield):

Happy first day of May, all.

Would you prefer to celebrate the radical labor holiday or the pagan aestival?

Or we could merely mark the date with the celebratory ditty my father would have heard in his Brooklyn youth – the most honest, naturally:

Hooray, hooray:
The first of May –
Outdoor fucking begins today!

Ahem. Well. Whichever version you choose, have a great one. Here’s to a season of solidarity, life and renewal for all of us.