Archives for June 2004

The Pedagogical Grammar of Nuer is a product of the IU Libraries African Studies Collection in collaboration with the IU Digital Library Program (the former has a useful page of websites for Africanists); besides the lessons and exercises, there is a translation of the Book of Genesis into Nuer (one of the Nilotic languages of the southern Sudan). Via wood s lot.

Bill Poser at Language Log has an entry on cooking verbs, comparing the large variety available in English to the four of Japanese and the two (dry cooking versus steaming/boiling) of Carrier. This reminds me that I once tried to compare the semantic ranges of English and German cooking verbs and found they didn’t match up at all well, but my dictionaries weren’t as much help as they might have been, which brings up my standard complaint: bilingual dictionaries don’t do food terms as well as they should. Let’s change that, lexicographers!

Addendum. The Apply_heat frame is useful in this context. (Found via a blog pointed out by MM in the comments.)

Neologisms – a Dictionary of Findable Words and Phrases is just what it says.

This website is being developed as a record of new and evolving words and phrases in the English language, with special reference to UK English usage. One of its prime aims is to act as a repository for new words and phrases which are not otherwise listed on the Net – or at least not found by Search Engines. Hence the working title: Dictionary of Findable Words and Phrases.
Content is intended to include etymology, definitions, derivations, origins, neologisms, coinages, usage, dialect, slang, first citations, abbreviations and acronyms.

And of course they welcome “comments, corrections and contributions.” A few sample entries:

Devil’s delphinium
Definition: A telecom transmitter tower.
Derivation: Probably coined by Vikram Seth.
Citation: “…a grey telecom tower with its pustules of transmitters and receivers, a devil’s delphinium. ” [Vikram Seth, An Equal Music, Phoenix 1999 p.78]
Gate
Definition: The # keyboard symbol.
See Octothorpe
Variant spellings: gatesign; gatemark; gatesymbol
Haemosexuality
Definition: The sexual basis of the vampire relationship.
Derivation: Coined by Christopher Frayling in “The Vampyre”.
Citation: “Whether vampirism is related to civilization and its discontents (Freud), to suppressed memories in the collective unconscious (Jung), to breast-feeding and the projection onto others of the need to bite (Melanie Klein), or to monstrous manifestations of eroticism for any othe reason, I have chosen ‘haemosexuality’ as the most apt general term to describe the sexual basis of the vampire relationship ” The Vampyre by Christopher Frayling, 1978; London: Victor Gollanz.

(Via the indefatigable aldiboronti at Wordorigins.)

Update (Sept. 2019). Original site is dead; here‘s an archived version.

I was not familiar with this archaic phrase until I read about it just now in Language Log (Mark Liberman division)—which surprised the heck out of me, since I’ve been stuffing my brain with archaic material for nigh on half a century now (I presume the first few years were taken up with more modern words and phrases, like “mommy” and “no!”). Furthermore, my wife did know the expression, a discrepancy in knowledge that gave her no little pleasure. At any rate, the short version is “by no manner of means is an archaic emphatic form of by no means, just as in no kind of way is an modern emphatic form of in no way“; if you want the details, including the many ways the phrase has been distorted, go read Mark’s excellent entry with its plethora of citations.

Andrew Krug has sent me a link to this amazing census map from the MLA. Pick a language and find out where it’s spoken, in the US as a whole or in any state. You can zoom, have it show the data by county or by zip code, and play with it in other ways I haven’t tried yet. Enjoy!

Update (March 2020). I can’t find an archived version of that defunct map link, but it’s obsolete anyway: here’s the new one, “using data from the 2006–10 ACS, ACS 2005, and the 2000 US Census. Comparative tables and graphs provide a snapshot of changes between 2000 and 2010 in American language communities, showing speakers’ ages and ability to speak English.”

MadInkBeard is a blog dedicated to the idea of formal constraints in writing; as the About page says:

I’ve been interested in the (mostly French) group called the Oulipo (Ouvroir de Litterature Potentielle) ever since I discovered the writings of Italo Calvino and (thanks to him) Raymond Queneau (both being members, the latter one of the founding-presidents). To put it as succinctly as possible the idea of the group is to create new forms of literature for the possible use of other writers. It’s not about creating new literature qua literature, but about creating forms for new literature. Now using the words “form” is pretty damn open, and that is something that I need to work on thinking through. Basically, the Oulipian concept involves “formal constraint”, voluntarily chosen constraints on the process of writing (such as writing a novel without the letter ‘e’ (Perec’s La disparition a.k.a. A Void) or writing a book whose structure is based on the drawing of a sequence of tarot cards (Calvino’s Castle of Crossed Destiny (sorry, the Italian escapes me)), in many cases this involves starting with a base text that is then transformed through constraints.

I have created this blog to discuss the idea of formal constraints (mostly in writing, but also in other media) as well as offer explanations and examples of various constraints. My hope is that this will help proselytize a bit for the idea of writing under constraint and also offer some practical places to start.

Long-time readers will know that I am a fan of Oulipo and will remember my exuberant praise of Helen DeWitt’s The Last Samurai, an enthusiasm shared by the Beard, so I’m pleased to discover his blog.

1) E-mail. One of the things I was glad of when I got my own domain was that I would be able to use it for mail; my Yahoo inbox was almost full, and the NeoMail one had a great deal more capacity. Alas, not only was it quickly aswarm with spam, but lately I’ve discovered that a couple of my valued correspondents have sent me messages that I did not get. I only found this out because they told me; I fear that others must have had the same experience and simply thought I hadn’t cared enough to respond. Coincidentally, Yahoo (under pressure from Google’s Gmail) has increased its inbox capacity from 4 MB to 100 MB, which means mine is now almost empty as opposed to almost full, and I can go back to using it. [However, I have since gotten a Gmail address under the name languagehat which I use for LH-related correspondence.] So I hereby suggest that y’all write to me at languagehat AT yahoo DOT com; I’ll keep using the other for comments on other people’s blogs (hoping to keep the spam there) and I’ll keep checking it, so if you send mail there I should get it — [I have given up on it now] but if you’ve ever sent me mail and not heard back, please try again at the Yahoo address write me at languagehat @ gmail.com. I am very good about answering mail — even if I’m pressed for time, I send a quick “Thanks!” — so if I didn’t respond, it’s because I didn’t get it. Thanks for your understanding.

2. Comments. A number of people have expressed diffidence, either in a comment or via e-mail, about commenting here: they’re worried about their English, or afraid they’re not expert enough to be worth hearing, or something. Please don’t feel that way! This is not an Expert’s Corner, it’s a place for everyone with an interest in language (or poetry or any of the other things I occasionally discuss) to talk about it. I like to think of LH as your friendly corner cafe/bar, where people can wander in and stay as long as they like. You can contribute information, ask questions, or just joke around. But please don’t ask me if you’re Jewish — for the last time, I don’t know!

OK, this is the best lexicographical development I’ve seen in ages. Chris J. Strolin has started a completely insane project: “rewriting the highly revered OED… completely in limerick form. Possible? Yes. In one lifetime? I sincerely doubt it.” (The FAQ is here.) Here are his first few entries:

a
The very first word here is “a.”
It’s used with a noun to convey
A singular notion
Like “a duck” or “a potion”
Or top notch as when used in “Grade A.”
aa
In geology this word is autonomous
And with rough-surfaced lava synonomous,
Yet the meaning it conveys
With two capital A’s
Is, of course, Alcoholics Anonymous.
(a sidenote: This is the first example of where I have corrected the old OED which defined “aa” as “a stream or a water course” with no mention of the more widely-known definition involving lava.)
aal
An aal is a plant (this is clear)
Which yields a red dye kings revere.
Should you, Fred, and Ted
Go to paint the town red,
Sing out “Hail, Hail, the gang is aal here!”

But my favorite is by another member, wordnerd:

Consider this curious word:
He who steals cows from your herd
Commits the infraction
That’s known as abaction
(But rustling‘s the term that’s preferred).

Thanks to Grant Barrett for the link!
Update. OEDILF has moved to a new site, and I have replaced the links accordingly.

The action of Ulysses took place 100 years ago today. Read about it in Andrew Lewis Conn’s Voice essay; follow the links in riviera’s MeFi thread; listen to the Symphony Space reading hosted by Isaiah Sheffer being broadcast by WBAI at this very moment (audio here) [Note: “very moment” guarantee has expired]. Added value: Sean O’Faolain’s “50 Years After Bloomsday” from the NY Times of 1954.
Update. Fionnula Flanagan read the Penelope chapter so brilliantly my wife and I were mesmerized and hated having to go to bed before “…yes I said yes I will Yes.”
Also, John Banville has a disillusioned take on the whole thing in the NY Times Sunday Book Review, “Bloomsday, Bloody Bloomsday,” which ends with this sad anecdote:

[Anthony] Cronin was the instigator of another Bloomsday event in 1982, when writers from around the world were invited to Dublin to celebrate Joyce’s own centenary. Among the many notable artists who came was — yes — Borges, who by then was in his 80’s and totally blind. He was collected from the airport by a couple of volunteer meeters-and-greeters, who deposited him in his suite at the Shelbourne Hotel and went off to do more meeting and greeting. When they returned, late in the day, Borges was still in his room, and in fact had not left during the intervening hours. What was he to have done, Borges asked, since he did not know the city or anyone in it? Ever since, when I hear talk of Bloomsday celebrations, that, I am afraid, is the image that springs immediately to mind: an old, blind writer, one of the greatest of his age, sitting alone in a hotel room overlooking an unseen St. Stephen’s Green.

“Ty vydumal menya…” [‘You invented me…’] has Anna Andreyevna’s poetry and much other material by and about her (including a Russian translation of Amanda Haight’s biography). (Via wood s lot.)