Archives for June 2019

SONNET

I am much inclined towards a life of ease
And should not scorn to spend my dwindling years
In places where my sort of fancy stirs;
Perched up on ladders in old libraries
With several quartos pouring off my knees…
Translating Ariosto into verse…
Paddling about among philologers
And Dictionaries and concordances!

There, on some dark oak table, more and more
Voluminous each day, ye should perceive
My Magnum Opus…that one which untwists
Their bays from poets who shirk metaphor
And make rich words grow obsolete, and leave
Imagination to Psychiatrists.

   — Owen Barfield

From A Barfield Sampler: Poetry and Fiction by Owen Barfield (Albany: State University of New York Press, 1993), via Michael Gilleland at Laudator Temporis Acti. You can see another another language-related Barfield poem at this Laudator post.

It was recently brought to my attention that I didn’t actually know what the phrase “snuffing (out) a candle” meant; I had assumed it meant “extinguish,” and if you do a Google image search on “candle snuffer” you will see devices clearly meant to extinguish candles, but sometimes that sense seems out of place, and this WordReference.com forum post, started by a question on this very subject, produced enlightening answers:

So I understand that snuffing (out) a candle means to extinguish the fire, but this phrase in Charles Dickens’ Oliver Twist made me a bit confused, since English is not my first language.

He remained lost in thought for some minutes; and then, with a heavy sigh, snuffed the candle, and, taking up the book which the Jew had left with him, began to read.

Why would he extinguish the flame if he was to read a book? I have searched for other meanings and apparently it also means to inhale, but that also doesn’t make sense, because he let out a heavy sigh just before snuffing the candle! What does that sentence mean?

The response from entangledbank (Senior Member, London) gives the basic answer:

Today, snuffing means snuffing out or extinguishing, but back when they actually used candles all the time, it was usually the action of removing the burnt part of the wick. There’s another example of this confusing use in Jane Austen’s Northanger Abbey:

The dimness of the light her candle emitted made her turn to it with alarm; but there was no danger of its sudden extinction; it had yet some hours to burn; and that she might not have any greater difficulty in distinguishing the writing than what its ancient date might occasion, she hastily snuffed it. Alas! It was snuffed and extinguished in one.

And PaulQ (Senior Member, UK) provides a useful OED cite:

I am grateful for your question: I did not know, but the OED tells us both that not only does “to snuff” mean “to extinguish; to put out,” (and probably should be used as a phrasal verb “to snuff out”) but it also means “to trim the burned wick from the candle:

1. a. trans. To free (a candle, wick, etc.) from the snuff, by pinching or cutting this off, or removing it with a special instrument.
1887 T. A. Trollope What I Remember I. i. 26 Two tallow candles, requiring to be snuffed by snuffers lying in a little plated tray.

Here is a picture of pair of candle-snuffers. You will see that they are like scissors, but the idea is that you can cut the burned wick of the candle whilst it is still alight and not leave a mess.

http://www.silvercollection.it/snuffer5.jpg

So what Oliver was doing was removing the burned part of the wick and the candle would remain alight.

So all is clear, except that I still can’t picture how exactly it works; my efforts to turn up a video have proved fruitless (e.g., “How to snuff out a candle” simply shows a flame being extinguished). If anyone knows of one, please share.

I was excited about Balashon’s latest post at first simply because it’s the first post this year, and then because I love examples of words that are “obviously” related — in this case, Hebrew chalav חָלָב ‘milk’ and chelev חֵלֶב ‘fat’ — but turn out not to be. But what really prompted me to post was the discovery that Klein’s Etymological Dictionary of the Hebrew Language is available online! Balashon quotes the entries for chalav:

חָלָב m.n. milk. [Related to Aram. חֲלַב, Syr. חַלְבָּא, Ugar. ḥlb, Arab. ḥalab, ḥalib, Ethiop. ḥalīb (= milk). Akka. ḥalābu (= to milk).

And chelev:

חֵֽלֶב m.n. fat, grease. [Related to Phoen. חלב, Syr. חֶלְבָּא, Arab. ḥilb (= midriff). The orig. meaning of these words was perhaps ‘fat of the midriff’.)

What a wonderful world! (But it bothers my copyeditor self that the etymologies have a bracket at the start but none at the end.)

As a pendant to yesterday’s Latin post, I present a phrase I learned from Laudator Temporis Acti’s Adam to God. It discusses Heine’s “Adam der Erste”, whose fourth stanza reads:

O Gott! wie erbärmlich ist doch dies
Consilium abeundi!
Das nenne ich einen Magnifikus
Der Welt, ein lumen mundi!

Gilleland gives Peter Branscombe’s translation:

O God! How pitiful this Consilium abeundi is! That’s what I call a real Magnificus of the world, a Lumen mundi!

He thoughtfully provides this explanation from Jeffrey L. Sammons’s Heinrich Heine: A Modern Biography (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1979):

There the matter seemed to have rested at the end of the year, but in January 1821 Heine received the consilium abeundi, the “advice to leave,” for half a year; Wiebel was also rusticated and given two weeks in the student prison to boot.

The phrase has its own Wiktionary entry and German Wikipedia article; are any Hatters familiar with it?

It was probably inevitable: Finland’s Yle radio axes Latin news show after 30 years.

Finland’s public broadcaster Yle has ended its weekly Latin language news bulletin, after three decades on the air, the broadcaster announced. Since its debut in 1989, Nuntii Latini has offered a five-minute summary of the week’s national and foreign news in the classical language. In later years the show was also made available online, garnering it around 40,000 listeners around the world, including some from the Vatican.

The last bulletin was broadcast on June 14, and detailed the agreement between the US and Mexico on immigration, talks between the presidents of China and Russia and the end of the Latin programme, which “post ferias aestivas non continuabuntur” (will not resume after the summer holiday). […]

Kaj Farm, head of programmes for Yle Radio 1, said they had decided to cancel the show since the producers were unable to continue. “The same people have been doing it week for week now for 30 years, and they are not that young anymore,” he told AFP. Farm said the show had originally started as somewhat of an “inside joke,” and since it was hard to find suitable replacements for the ageing staff they decided it was time to pull the plug.

In addition to Finnish and Swedish, Yle produces news in English, Russian, Sami, Roma, simplified Finnish, Karelian and sign language.

I first mentioned Nuntii Latini back in 2004; sic (as they say) transit. Thanks, Yoram!

Mary Hui reports for Quartz on some linguistic aspects of the recent Hong Kong protests:

[…] One exchange that has since generated a long list of caustic variations (link in Chinese) involved a riot police officer who was caught on video swearing at a reporter (link in Chinese) who called out “Journalist! I’m a journalist!” during a police clearance operation at one of the protests on June 12.

“Gei nei lou mou (記你老母)!” came the baton-wielding officer’s aggressive response. The phrase roughly translates as “journalist your mom!” The words nei lou mou (“your mom”) are widely-used as an insult in Hong Kong, and stems from diu nei lou mou, which ensures there is no ambiguity by adding diu, the Cantonese equivalent to “fuck.” […]

If the Umbrella Movement protests were defined by the character 傘 (san), meaning umbrella—but also homophonic with the word for disperse—then the fight against the extradition bill may be remembered for a single composite character combining the words 自由 (zi yau), or freedom, and 閪 (hai), a profanity describing female genitalia. The word comes from another insult used by the police against protesters, and was caught on camera (link in Chinese).

There is more detail about this (as well as images) at Victor Mair’s Log post Hong Kong protest puns; see also his more recent post Alice Mak Addresses the Hong Kong Chief Executive with Vulgar Language. (Thanks, Trevor!)

From Barbara Newman’s LRB review (17 August 2017, pp. 29-30; archived) of The Medieval Invention of Travel, by Shayne Aaron Legassie (which sounds like an interesting book):

Further down the socioeconomic scale, pilgrims eagerly collected the mass-produced lead badges or ampoules (flasks for holy water) on sale at every shrine. Each saint had his or her own distinctive badge. Those who sought St James in Galicia wore the scallop shell, while the ‘Rome-runner’ could display St Peter’s keys and the vernicle, or Veronica’s veil – a celebrated image of Christ. Well-travelled pilgrims pinned or sewed these badges onto their hats, like the palmer satirised by Langland:

A hundred ampoules sat on his hat,
Signs of Sinai and shells of Galicia,
And many a cross on his cloak, with the keys of Rome
And the vernicle in front, so people would know
And see by his signs which saints he had sought.

But not all badges were pious. Some were even gleefully obscene, depicting winged phalluses or vulvas in the garb of pilgrims – offering their own brand of parody on the institution of pilgrimage.

I was vaguely familiar with the word ampoule, though I couldn’t have told you what it was (you can see images at Wikipedia; M-W just takes it back to Latin ampulla, while AHD tells us the latter is a diminutive of amphora — I refuse to pronounce it /ˈampyo͞ol/, since there is no justification for the /y/); the delightful vernicle was new to me. OED (entry not fully updated since 1917):

Etymology: < Anglo-Norman and Old French vernicle, = Old French veron(n)icle, variants of veronique, < medieval Latin veronica the sudarium of St Veronica: see Veronica n.2 and compare veronicle n., veronique n. On the change of –ique to –icle see the note to chronicle n.

1. The picture or representation of the face of Christ said to be impressed upon the handkerchief or sudarium of St Veronica (see 2); any similar picture of Christ’s face, esp. one engraved, painted, or worked upon a vessel, garment, ornament, etc., used for religious or devotional purposes; an ornament or token bearing this as worn by pilgrims.

1362 Langland Piers Plowman A. vi. 14 Moni Cros on his cloke and keiȝes of Rome, And þe vernicle [C. fernycle] bi-fore for men schulde him knowe.
c1405 (▸c1387–95) Chaucer Canterbury Tales Prol. (Hengwrt) (2003) l. 685 Swiche glarynge eyen hadde he as an hare A vernycle hadde he sowed vp on his cappe.
[…]
1901 Athenæum 27 July 131/3 The vernicle, or face of our Lord, appears in the centre of the paten.
[…]

2. The cloth or kerchief, alleged to have belonged to St. Veronica, with which, according to legend, the face of Christ was wiped on the way to Calvary, and upon which His features were miraculously impressed.
This cloth is preserved at St. Peter’s, Rome, and is venerated as a relic.

a1400 Stac. Rome 59 Whon þe vernicle schewed is, Gret pardoun forsoþe þer is.
[…]
1845 J. Saunders Cabinet Pictures of Eng. Life: Chaucer 14 Thus originated the Sudarium or holy kerchief—the Veronica—and, by corruption, the vernicle.

If I ever get a chance to work it into conversation, I will.

This classic David Moser essay has been mentioned here in comments a few times, but I think it deserves its own post; it’s not only thorough and convincing (except, of course, to those who will never be convinced) but brilliantly written. It begins:

The first question any thoughtful person might ask when reading the title of this essay is, “Hard for whom?” A reasonable question. After all, Chinese people seem to learn it just fine. When little Chinese kids go through the “terrible twos”, it’s Chinese they use to drive their parents crazy, and in a few years the same kids are actually using those impossibly complicated Chinese characters to scribble love notes and shopping lists. So what do I mean by “hard”? Since I know at the outset that the whole tone of this document is going to involve a lot of whining and complaining, I may as well come right out and say exactly what I mean. I mean hard for me, a native English speaker trying to learn Chinese as an adult, going through the whole process with the textbooks, the tapes, the conversation partners, etc., the whole torturous rigmarole. I mean hard for me — and, of course, for the many other Westerners who have spent years of their lives bashing their heads against the Great Wall of Chinese. […]

Those who undertake to study the language for any other reason than the sheer joy of it will always be frustrated by the abysmal ratio of effort to effect. Those who are actually attracted to the language precisely because of its daunting complexity and difficulty will never be disappointed. Whatever the reason they started, every single person who has undertaken to study Chinese sooner or later asks themselves “Why in the world am I doing this?” Those who can still remember their original goals will wisely abandon the attempt then and there, since nothing could be worth all that tedious struggle. Those who merely say “I’ve come this far — I can’t stop now” will have some chance of succeeding, since they have the kind of mindless doggedness and lack of sensible overall perspective that it takes.

He divides his argument into sections with headings like “Because the writing system is ridiculous” and “Because even looking up a word in the dictionary is complicated”; I’ll quote in extenso from “Then there’s classical Chinese,” because it’s so much fun:
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David Shariatmadari, whose linguistics-related pieces in the Guardian have been featured at LH before (e.g., here), has a random collection of accounts of dustups involving words, usage, and translation; most of them will be familiar to frequenters of the Hattery, but he writes enjoyably and has a sensible (i.e., anti-peever) approach, so the link is worth checking out. A couple of items of particular interest to me:

An interesting sub-genre of language controversy is the tiny translation error that has gigantic geopolitical ramifications. In 1956 Soviet leader Nikita Khruschev told western ambassadors at an event in Moscow My vas pokhoronim!, using a Russian idiom that means roughly “we will outlast you” – in other words, that communism would prevail in the long run. Against the background of a nuclear arms race, the English translation, “we will bury you”, took on an altogether more sinister meaning, particularly when it was splashed across the front pages of western newspapers. Five years later the Cuban missile crisis brought the Soviet Union and the United States to the brink of nuclear war.

Of course it’s absurd to suggest that a phrase used in 1956, however much publicity it got at the time, somehow brought about the Cuban missile crisis, but that’s what journalists are paid to do (if you stick to facts, who will buy the paper?); what interested me was that the English phrase, which I had vaguely supposed was not a literal translation, does in fact represent what Khrushchev said: «Мы вас похороним» (English Wikipedia).

Richard Nixon was foxed by elaborate Japanese politeness in 1969. Prime minister Eisaku Satō visited the White House amid a trade row over textile imports. Nixon’s job was to get him to agree to restrict them. According to the New York Times, “Mr Sato replied as he looked ceilingward, Zensho shimasu. Literally, the phrase means: ‘I will do my best,’ and that’s how the interpreter translated it. What it really means to most Japanese is: ‘No way.’” When the Japanese government did precisely nothing, Nixon was furious, branding Sato a liar.

I’m curious to what extent the Japanese phrase can be construed as “No way”; my Common Usage Dictionary has “zénsho suru to manage tactfully,” but I can imagine that in practice “[I will] manage [it] tactfully” might represent a polite refusal, and I am hoping the Japanese-speakers among us can clarify. Thanks, Lars!

Having read a little further in Deadlock (see this post), we were again thunderstruck when we got to the part where our heroine Miriam is taking her new Russian friend to the British Museum, where he orders a book… which turns out to be the very one we are simultaneously but separately reading, my wife in English (the Magarshack translation) and I in Russian: Anna Karenina!

There he stood, Russian, come from all that far-away beauty, with German and French culture in his mind, longingly to England, coming to Tansley Street; unconsciously bringing her her share in his longed-for arrival and its fulfilments. She watched as he talked, marvelling at the undeserved wealth offered to her in the little figure discoursing so eagerly over the cumbrous volume, and at this moment the strange Russian book was probably waiting for them.

It was a big thick book. Miriam sat down before it. The lights had come on. The book lay in a pool of sharp yellow light; Tolstoy, surrounded by a waiting gloom; the secret of Tolstoy standing at her side, rapidly taking off his overcoat. He drew up the chair from the next place and sat close, flattening out the book at the first chapter and beginning to read at once, bent low over the book. She bent too, stretching her hands out beyond her knees to make herself narrow, and fastening on the title. Her anticipations fell dead. It was the name of a woman…… Anna; of all names. Karenine. The story of a woman told by a man with a man’s ideas about people. But Anna Karenine was not what Tolstoy had written. Behind the ugly feebleness of the substituted word was something quite different, strong and beautiful; a whole legend in itself. Why had the translator altered the surname? Anna Karayninna was a line of Russian poetry. His word was nothing, neither English nor French, and sounded like a face-cream. She scanned sceptically up and down the pages of English words, chilled by the fear of detecting the trail of the translator.

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