Archives for August 2003

A Baltimore Sun story [scroll down to #4, “Drawn to tattoos’ secrets”] describes how Danzig Baldayev has compiled a 166-page book called Tatuirovki zaklyuchennykh (“Prisoners’ Tattoos” or, as the publisher renders it, “Criminal Tattoo Encyclopedia”; to be published in English as Russian Criminal Tattoo Encyclopedia), analyzing the designs to be seen on the skin of graduates of the Russian penal system:

Baldayev, 75 and retired, used his time as a guard to observe the tattoos prisoners here apply to each other.

“It was like a foreign language,” Baldayev says, “so I started to collect it.”…

A prisoner who has a tattoo of a cat smoking a pipe is a successful thief, Baldayev says. A snarling tiger or wolf means the thief is particularly powerful. A murderer might have a tattoo of a warrior in armor standing on severed heads or a tattoo of a sword piercing a skull.

Some prisoners have tattoos of churches. The number of domes on the churches represents the number of years spent in prison.

The whole story is fascinating, with a striking anecdote about Lev Gumilyov‘s prison experience. (Via things magazine.)

Monty Python in French? Say no more, say no more! Of producer Rémy Renoux’s staged version, Michael Palin says “Sometimes they hit the mark exactly, sometimes they miss the mark, and sometimes they miss it so completely that it is quite extraordinary.” And the French go wild:

Les sketches ont plus de vingt ans et sont toujours d’une actualité et d’un réalisme époustouflant sans doute parce qu’il aborde l’essentiel, le sens de la vie avec l’humour à la tronçonneuse des Monty Python. En effet, quoi de plus réaliste que le débat sur l’au-delà avec ceux qui connaissent le mieux le sujet, les morts ? Quoi de plus actuel que le ministère des démarches ridicules ? Quoi de plus caustique que le marathon des incontinents ? Et puis, il y a la troupe des cinq comédiens, comiques, clowns et mimes qui s’amusent en scène tout en connaissant leur texte au rasoir et affrontent toutes les situations et toutes les postures sans un bégaiement, sans un malaise, sans une seule fausse note de la complainte des feux rouges à l’ode aux chinois !

Ne les ratez pas !

(Via Taccuino di traduzione.)

Addendum. Des, in the comments, links to this earlier Guardian story, which gives an actual sample of translated Python: “Je suis un bucheron et ca me rejouit, je travaille le jour et je dors la nuit.”

A story [from a parody “news” site] about an unexpected entry in the field of specialized glossaries:

It was becoming a common annoyance. Curious German tourists were visiting evangelical churches in the U.S., and had no idea what was being said. A German travel agency finally issued a 55-page Evangelical English Dictionary which sells thousands of copies a month to Germans vacationing in the U.S.
“I think I speak English pretty well,” said Lerner Bosch, 33, from Frankfurt. “But I was clueless sitting there in that pew [in a Nazarene church in Minot, North Dakota]. Then my wife handed me the phrase translator and the whole service started making sense.”
Bosch found himself in the foyer shaking hands and receiving first-time visitor brochures from greeters. When a man slapped his back and said, “God bless you, brother,” Bosch used his phrase translator and responded, “Amen, brother. God bless you.” Another woman told him that with Jesus, “whatever you’ve done is under the blood.” Bosch went pale momentarily before looking up the phrase and finding it means “everything’s cool, so forget about the past.”
“At first I thought she was talking about Germany’s history in the World Wars, and I was embarrassed,” he said. “Then I realized she was telling me to take it easy. That was much nicer. Without the translator, it could have been a moment of cultural misunderstanding.”
Lerner told the woman, “Leave it at the cross,” which the book translates as, “Don’t sweat it.” He also gave her the “hang loose” sign.
“In German schools, they teach you mainstream English, but not this wonderful dialect,” said Bosch’s wife, Gira, 34.

Not true, but funny anyway. (Via wood s lot, with a brain assist from Rakko in the comments.)

“Perhaps the most marked trend in paranoia is that towards a complete seizing of the world through words, as though language were a fist and the world lay in it….”
—Elias Canetti

(Via alembic.)

I recently looked up Ventura in the superb book California Place Names, by Erwin G. Gudde (pronounced “goody”), and discovered that it was shortened from San Buenaventura in 1891 by the Post Office, which was tired of dealing with the confusion caused by its resemblance to San Bernardino. The entry includes this plangent obituary for the name, by Z.S. Eldredge:

And now comes the Post Office Dept., which is the most potent destroyer of all. I have spoken before of the injury done the people of San Buenaventura. They cling to that name and use it among themselves. But they are doomed. Mapmakers, from the Director of the Geological Survey to the publisher of a pocket guide following the lead of the post office, call the place Ventura, and the historic name will be lost. (San Francisco Chronicle, Apr. 10, 1905)

This is how I feel about enforced name changes, as regular readers know, and I am glad to see it so well expressed.

Avva recently had a couple of entries that provoked typical firestorms of criticism, in which self-appointed defenders of the purity of the great and mighty Russian language took severe issue with his acceptance of “incorrect” usage as simply products of normal linguistic development that hadn’t yet been accorded social acceptance. What particularly struck me was this entry (in Russian), in which he pointed out a disingenuous ploy routinely used by the self-appointed defenders in which they loudly deprecate not the actual usage they disapprove of, which might not sound that bad to the fence-sitters, but an exaggeration of it which is guaranteed to offend the ear. Thus the verb zvonit’ ‘to ring; to call (on the telephone)’ is officially end-stressed in all its forms: zvoNYU, zvoNISH, zvoNIT, and so on. Now, there is a common pattern of conjugation in which the first-person singular has end stress but the rest have stem stress: eg, tsenit’ ‘to value’: tseNYU, TSEnish’, TSEnit. For some speakers, this pattern has attracted zvonit’, so that they say ZVOnit ‘he/she rings.’ Tsk, tsk! But, as I say, this doesn’t automatically sound that bad, since it fits a common pattern (which is why it’s said in the first place). So the self-appointed defenders instead make fun of a stem-stressed infinitive ZVOnit’ (palatalized final t), used by few if any speakers. This sort of intellectual dishonesty is not restricted to Russian-speakers or to discussions about language.

Incidentally, I was saddened to see that among the hundreds of comments, none (that I noticed) supported his view, or showed any awareness of the rudiments of linguistic science (for instance, the idea that language is contained in the minds of its users, not the pages of dictionaries and grammars). I’m used to fighting this battle, which I’ve done more than once on MetaFilter, but I’m also used to having people chime in and support my arguments. I can only hope the science of language begins making inroads among the speakers of the great and mighty Russian language.

Speaking of which, I can’t resist sending you to this hilarious Duma report on a meeting that devolved into a discussion of bad language:

The deputy Alexander Fedulov did nothing bad, but only once swore in the boardroom. For that he was denied the right to speak, and was being discussed in mass-media for a week. The Duma philologists set to the organization of round table with mind and scope. They invited leading experts from Institute of the Russian language and faculty of journalism of Moscow State University. And not to yell them get puffed up from the rendered honor, they also invited Barrie Alibasov with Detzl. There were also the author of « Encyclopedias of Russian bad language » Alexander Plutser-Sarno, and one of the developers of the law « On state language of the Russian Federation », the deputy of the fraction “The Unity” Alexey Alekseev. Due to the law, as it is known, bad language, at least in public sphere, is forbidden.

It appeared, that the Russian language had been attacked by insidious foreigners, and therefore it might be good to replace foreign words by primordially Russian. It was offered to use mutiny instead of revolution, community instead of communism, whore instead of prostitute, fuse for some reason instead of condom. After that, Vladimir Volfovich without a shadow of constraint deepened into definition of the word “her” [Wiktionary] which turned out to come from the German “Herr”, that means “sir”. The audience which predominantly consisted of students-philologists, was already squealing with enthusiastic laughter. The speech was proceeded with a joke about the riches of the Russian language. « It is for relaxation », -Vladimir Volfovich explained. Then he passed to the analysis of other abusive words and expressions. « I say It to encourage the speakers not limit themselves while speaking out ». At these words the director of the Institute of the Russian language Vladimir Vinogradov blushed and showed no desire to speak out during the round table. The raper Detzl turned out to be one more supporter of language freedom. « Hm-hm, – he began, – it is not necessary to forbid anything, any child will understand, when it is possible to swear, and when it is not. And let deputies be engaged in more serious problems ». The philologist Vladimir Krysin started to protect the honor of scientists. He told the deputies, that the language is not adjusted by laws, and it is time for them to liquidate total linguistic illiteracy. But the deputies who received the mandate for free expressions from the chairman of round table Girinovskiy, decided not to surrender. The member of the fraction of Union of Right Forces Andrey Wolf said that « bad language is very tasty », and therefore it is necessary to legalize it immediately. « And then I shall swear from tribunes of the State Duma with great pleasure », – he said with hope.

Why can’t Congress have debates like this?

Addendum. A quote from Tsypkin’s Summer in Baden-Baden which seems somehow relevant here:

…at this period in his life [Dostoyevsky] had been writing a particularly prolific amount about the Slavonic Question, emphasizing the God-given role of the Russian people whose vocation it was to free the rest of Europe, the basis of this chosen destiny being, in his opinion, the special, unique nature of the Russian national mentality and character which, amongst other things, was demonstrated in the use of unprintable words, pronounced in various ways and with various shades of meaning, which were employed by the common people not, of course, to insult others or abuse them, but to express the subtle, profound, and even saintly feelings buried in the soul of every genuine Russian.

Update (June 2024). I have replaced some of the links with archived ones and others with Wikipedia entries (and added a couple of links).

One way in which contemporary dictionaries are a clear improvement over their precursors is in their superior illustrations. For instance, The American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language has gorgeous photographs (you can see a few in the sample pages shown here). But Merriam-Webster’s Collegiate Dictionary has elegant line drawings, and today’s NY Times Magazine features an interview with Jeffrey Middleton, who’s responsible for the 230 new illustrations. Before I continue with excerpts, however, I’ll torment you with a question. With one exception, every drawing illustrates a noun. What do you suppose the exception is? (Hint: it’s an adjective.)

For laughs around the office, Middleton would pull old drawings from Merriam-Webster’s archives, which go back 100 years and include a MONKEY that looks ”for all the world like Ross Perot” and a goofy, grinning CARIBOU. ”I cannot imagine why anyone would draw huge eyelashes on animals or make them smile,” he says.

…Middleton admits that autobiography informs many of his illustration choices. ”I did get away with doing things like a volcano, because it’s a personal interest of mine. Areas where I have personal knowledge, it’s very heavily biased in that direction.” The CHAISE LONGUE, for example, is the very one that he and his older brother used as a teeter-totter when they were kids (much to his father’s displeasure). Because Middleton has spent much of his life in Oregon and Arizona, the flora and fauna of those states also reside in the pages of the 11th. Middleton says: ”I thought everyone knew what a THUNDER EGG was. I didn’t know it was an Oregon colloquialism. And I really wanted to put it in because I think it’s a cool thing.” The STREETCAR was modeled on the one that runs through Tucson; the DEVIL’S CLAW he found in his aunt and uncle’s backyard, near Saguaro National Park. There was a review process, and Middleton had to answer to higher-ups, of course, ”so they make sure I don’t get out of hand.”

Beyond getting at the essence of a thing, another reason for using illustrations instead of photographs is to keep the dictionary from looking out of date in the 10 years (on average) between editions. ”Someone may see a photograph and compare it with something they see on the street, and they may say it doesn’t look the same,” Middleton explains. While many of the new entries come from technology—BOTOX, ACTIVE-MATRIX and DOT-COMMER are all additions to the 11th edition—illustrations tend not to. ”Anything technology-related dates quickly,” Middleton says. ”Cars, computers, microchips—if I were to draw an Amiga computer from 10 years ago, it would look pretty bad right now. People would giggle and point.” Through the decades, GRAND TOURING CAR and wrestling’s HAMMERLOCK have been deleted for this reason. Not that datedness is the only reason for removing old illustrations. Middleton took MUZZLE out of the unabridged third because, he said: ”I couldn’t take it. The dog was such a sad individual.” And PIÑATA didn’t make it into the 11th because of ”the violence of it all. Many people liked that picture, but it’s a collegiate dictionary, and the piñata seemed incongruous.”

Violence? A piñata? Ah well, never mind.

You can’t link to individual definitions at the Merriam-Webster site, but you can look things up, and the definition for “thunder egg” (I know you were wondering) is ‘chalcedony in rounded concretionary nodules’; you can see some here. Oh, and the one illustrated word that isn’t a noun? It’s “rampant.”

I’ve been listening to The Next Big Thing on NPR; today’s episode (which you can hear online) is quite interesting from a linguistic point of view. The title is “Speak for Yourself,” and the site describes it thus:

Conversations with two men for whom conversation is rarely a simple proposition. One’s a well-known nature writer. The other is a young man from rural Pennsylvania. Both have struggled to overcome or make peace with a stutter.

But the segment that I most enjoyed was “Chinatown Blues,” in which radio producer Ken Hom (not the chef) describes growing up in New York’s Chinatown with a mother who dragged him to Chinese opera. (If you listen online, I believe it’s the fourth clip.) What particularly struck me was his description of trying to tell his mother what he’d had for dinner. In his rudimentary Chinese (Toisan, a variety of Cantonese) he tries to say the word for ‘shrimp,’ which is ha. He says it over and over, trying to get the tone right, until finally his mother says “I really have no idea what you’re trying to tell me.” His imitation of his desperate attempts to say the word are hilarious, and should put paid to any idea that people who are Chinese by birth somehow have the magical ability to pronounce tones.

In the late ’30s, swarms of WPA writers descended on communities all over America and took down the stories they elicited. The results are being put online as part of the amazing American Memory section of the Library of Congress site. You can search the whole corpus by keywords or by state; once you dive in, it’s hard to extricate yourself. As the site says:

The entire body of material provides the raw content for a broad documentary of both rural and urban life, interspersed with accounts and traditions of ethnic group traditions, customs regarding planting, cooking, marriage, death, celebrations, recreation, and a wide variety of narratives. The quality of collecting and writing lore varies from state to state, reflecting the skills of the interviewer-writers and the supervision they received.

Some of the accounts are in standard English, which may or may not have been standardized by the interviewer; others are in dialect, which may or may not have been precisely transcribed. Either way, it’s full of gems.

[Read more…]

Project Wulfila has put the Gothic Bible (parts of the New Testament translated in the fourth century by Wulfila) online, as well as much of the text of Streitberg’s Gotisches Elementarbuch (1920). Another excellent linguistic resource. (Via UJG.)