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I just watched Alain Resnais’s nouvelle vague classic Muriel (one of whose characters has the improbable name Roland de Smoke), and in one of the extras on the Criterion Blu-ray someone explains that the reason the lyrics the great soprano Rita Streich sings to Hans Werner Henze’s music are inaudible is because Henze set them as though the words were German, completely ignoring French prosody. Se non è vero, è ben trovato.

Also, I recently saw the delightful Bill Murray comedy Quick Change, and one of the best things in it is the gibberish Tony Shalhoub (playing a cabbie) speaks, as well as the look of tortured incomprehension with which he accompanies it. Shalhoub said: “They had me invent like a gibberish language because they wanted it to be like an unidentifiable thing. So I just made up my own dialogue, and it was a really crazy movie.” (It’s not just a comic bit, it’s an important plot point.) Highly recommended.

Joel at Far Outliers is quoting from Kingdom of Characters: The Language Revolution That Made China Modern, by Jing Tsu, and this post has a fascinating look at old attempts at reform of Chinese writing:

While working on his alphabet, Wang [Zhao] never strayed from the beliefs he had shared with the emperor back in 1898: China was losing its power because language was failing its people. Their low literacy and divided dialects impeded China’s ability to govern, negotiate with foreign powers, and keep pace with the outside world. China’s success as a nation and an international power hinged on the single issue of an accessible spoken and written language.

There had been others who shared Wang’s analysis of the problem, although they offered different answers to it. Lu Zhuangzhang, a Chinese Christian from Amoy (now Xiamen), developed the first phonetic system for a Chinese language by a Chinese. His 1892 Simple Script used fifty-five symbols, some of which were adapted from Roman letters to Chinese sound rules, to represent the southern dialect spoken in Amoy. Lu nearly went bankrupt in the process. Lu’s children would bemoan how he squandered the family’s livelihood financing his linguistic experiments.

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This Twitter thread starts off with Alex Shams saying:

I’ve seen English font pretending to be Arabic, Persian pretending to be Hebrew, Telugu pretending to be Chinese…

But this was the first time I saw Arabic trying to look like Syriac!

It’s followed by “Persian looking like Hebrew at a rest stop in Iran,” “Telugu as Chinese, Japanese, and Arabic,” and other weirdness. Thanks, Y!

As I said recently, Lena Eltang’s novel Каменные клены (Stone Maples) is giving me the pleasure of investigating all sorts of allusions, and one such led me on such an interesting trail I’m sharing it here. She quotes a line in Middle Welsh, A uo penn bit pont, which turns out to mean ‘He who is head, let him be bridge’ and to come from Branwen ferch Llŷr, the second branch of the Mabinogi (a book I happen to own thanks to my grad-school Celtic studies). By googling the Welsh, I turned up an article by Stefan Zimmer, “A uo penn bit pont: Aspects of Leadership in Celtic and Indo-European” (Zeitschrift fur celtische Philologie, 53.1 [2003]: 202–29; Academia.edu), which is full of good stuff. Zimmer starts with this summary of his aim:

The alleged saying in the title of this contribution has never been found attested elsewhere in Celtic literature, except by citation, of course. If it was a fixed expression, or even a proverb when the story became fixed as we have it, it must have had a long history already. The following investigation is an attempt to detect this background by means of historical linguistics and a comparison of IE literary formulas, adducing also archaeological findings.

He explains the context in the Mabinogi: “When Bendigeidvran leads his Welsh army against Ireland in order to avenge and free his unfortunate and maltreated sister Branwen, he comes to the river Llinon i.e. the Liffey.” The Irish have taken down the only bridge, but the Welsh king has a surprising solution:

Nit oes, heb ynteu, namyn a uo penn bit pont. Mi a uydaf pont, heb ef. ‘No, he says, except „He who is head, let him be bridge“. I’ll be the bridge.’ And accordingly, he bows over the river, is covered with fascines, and his whole army crosses over his back to the side where the Irish army stands, looking on and waiting in terror.

He then goes over the grammar of the quote:
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Mount Holyoke College has come up with an excellent idea:

The LCC [Language & Culture Commons] is excited to present six new little free world libraries that have been installed on campus this summer. Based on the concept started by the Little Free Library organization, the LCC student staff collaborated with the Fimbel lab folks (a big thank you to Kris Camp) to design and create the boxes during the 2021-22 academic year. Each little library provides books in one or two different languages and the MHC community is encouraged to “take a book, share (or leave) a book” as written on the little library doors in the language that the box holds. Feel free to borrow and/or donate a book to the box in the language of choice. We hope you thoroughly enjoy these new additions to the campus.

Pratt Hall: Chinese and Vietnamese
Ciruti Language Center: Spanish
Elliot House: Japanese
LITS/Dwight: French and Italian
Prospect Hall: Russian and German
Kendall Sports & Dance Complex: Arabic and Korean

There are pictures at the link. Thanks, Sven!

I’m reading Lena Eltang’s second novel, Каменные клены (Stone Maples, the name of the Welsh inn where most of the story takes place; for my thoughts on her first, see this post), and once again I am having the pleasant task of investigating all sorts of allusions and quotations, some of which are damnably difficult to track down (I think “Было не было, есть только есть” [Was wasn’t, there’s only is] is a distorted version of Faulkner’s “The past is never dead. It’s not even past,” but I can’t be sure). There are a great many quotations (probably altered) from at least one old травник (herbal), and one of them reads:

…пурпур бывает античный, из морской улитки по капле выдоенный, и барочный — сок лишайника всего-навсего, выжатая насухо трава оризелло

…purple can be antique, milked from a sea snail drop by drop, or baroque — just the sap of a lichen, orizello grass squeezed dry

That mysterious word orizello sent me on a chase that had such a satisfying ending I had to bring it here. After much googling and comparing I eventually determined it was the same as the English word entered in the OED under orchil (entry updated September 2004), which exhibits this wide range of forms: orchell, orcall, orcheall, orchel, orchall, orchal, orcheal, orcheil, oricelle, orselle, orcella, orchill, orseille, orchil (and that’s not even taking into account the alternate form archil, which has its own entry). It’s pronounced with ch as both /k/ and /tʃ/, which is a bit odd, and means “A red or violet dye prepared from certain lichens, esp. Roccella tinctoria.” The etymology is tangled and interesting:
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I was listening to a news report of some people in Mexico accidentally burning down an encampment with loss of life when the reporter said they hadn’t meant to “cause this disgrace,” and I knew immediately what had happened. Spanish desgracia, like French déception (which means ‘disappointment’), is a classic false friend: it means ‘misfortune,’ not ‘disgrace.’ Tuvo la desgracia de perder un hijo means ‘(s)he was unfortunate enough to lose a son’; han tenido una desgracia tras otra is ‘they’ve had one disaster (or ‘piece of bad luck’) after another’; desgraciado is ‘unhappy, ill-fated,’ not ‘disgraced.’ So consider this a public service message: if you find yourself having to translate Spanish on the fly, keep this fact firmly in mind; it’s fatally easy to grab the obvious cognate. (Compare the “echelon” problem in Russian, though that is of course far less likely to turn up in practice.)

Unrelated: from John Emerson’s Facebook feed, I learn that Mathematicians have finally discovered an elusive ‘einstein’ tile (Science News piece by Emily Conover). Why do I bring that here? Two reasons; the first:

Although the name “einstein” conjures up the iconic physicist, it comes from the German ein Stein, meaning “one stone,” referring to the single tile.

The second is that the tile is known as “the hat.” (Also: Come back, JE, we miss you!)

Back in 2009, I raved about the then-new third edition of Jesse Sheidlower’s magnum opus, The F-Word; now Jesse is soliciting help with the forthcoming fourth:

The first edition came out in 1995, and was based on the Historical Dictionary of American Slang (the fuck-containing volume of which had been published in 1994). This edition largely ignored non-American uses of the word, and its treatment of entries beyond the letter F was spotty. The second edition of 1999 remedied these and other problems. The third edition, published in 2009, was a massive update; by that point I had become an editor at the OED, and was able to use its resources, as well as the greatly increased availability of online sources, to significantly expand the book. The fourth edition will benefit from the further expansion of online databases, as well as increased interest (both popular and academic) in both the use and the study of offensive language.

I’d been doing haphazard work on the fourth edition since the third edition went to press, but in the last year, I’ve been working in earnest. There are over 1,500 new quotations; over 100 antedatings (earlier evidence for existing senses, forcing us to rethink what we thought we knew about a word’s history); and over 80 new senses. […] I will also be revising the Introduction, incorporating new discoveries about the earliest known examples of fuck, and discussing the constantly shifting acceptability of offensive terms in current usage, where mainstream American newspapers have begun printing the word openly (often spurred by the frequent use of such language by prominent political figures).

As for how the rest of us can help, he says:

There are many ways. You can suggest items that should be in, preferably with good examples of usage. If you have antedatings of any of the new examples listed above, I’d love to get those. If there are particular quotations, anecdotes, or the like that you think deserve to go in, please suggest them! […] Finally, I do have a list of items I’m actively looking for. For these specific items, I already have an entry; I am looking for actual quotations. The general idea is to find “good” examples (except for antedatings, which can be anything): nothing from glossaries, nothing referring to the word as a word, nothing from “the Internet” at random. Printed examples from published texts are preferred, but anything traceable, or from sources that are well-known or reliable, is fine. Indeed, my coverage of online sources could be improved, so I would welcome evidence from major websites, prominent social media accounts, and so forth. Least preferable are totally random examples such as “I’m familiar with this,” or ones found by Googling, searching Twitter, or the like.

The list of specific items starts with cuntfuck, n. (“British use as a term of abuse: antedating 2002”) and ends with SNEFU ‘situation normal, everything fucked up’ (“any evidence not from glossaries”); visit the post for many glorious examples of wordfuckery, and of course help out if you can.

Update (Oct. 2024). The new edition is out:

This new, fourth edition (2024) is not just a minor update but a comprehensive revision. The fourth edition includes over 2,500 new quotations; over 150 new entries; and over 150 antedatings—earlier examples of existing entries, improving our understanding of the word’s development. Major new discoveries push back the known history of fuck by almost 200 years.

Quotations are as recent as 2024, taken from a wide range of sources, both literary (traditionally published books, magazines, and newspapers) and nonliterary (rap songs, TV shows (The Wire, The Sopranos, and Succession are quoted dozens of times), 19th-century pornographic phonograph records, and internet sites such as Twitter, Instagram, Urban Dictionary, and Reddit).

The many new entries include, in general use, brainfuck; the MILF spinoff terms DILF and GILF; thank fuck; the group of expressions of the sort to give no fucks or zero fucks given; fuck around and find out (and its abbreviation FAFO); fuck bitch; fuck doll; the social game Fuck, Marry, Kill; fuckton; several new senses of fuck with including ‘to enjoy’; and trophy fuck.

New entries from literary figures include James Joyce’s fuckbird and Henry Miller’s concept of the Land of Fuck.

New initialisms or abbreviations, often associated with online communication, include AF ‘as fuck’; DTF ‘down to fuck’; FFS ‘for fuck’s sake’; FML ‘fuck my life’; LMFAO ‘laughing my fucking ass off’; and WTAF ‘what the actual fuck’.

Many antedatings represent significant improvements in our knowledge of the word’s history. The expression for fuck’s sake, previously first recorded in 1943, is now known from 1922; fucked ‘crazy’ has been improved from 1971 to 1951, fuckload from 1984 to 1970, headfuck ‘something that causes confusion’ from 1993 to 1976, ratfuck ‘a frenetic social event’ from 1979 to 1969. In particular, research into early erotica has resulted in a number of major antedatings. The noun ass-fuck, previously first found in 1940, is now recorded in 1874; dogfuck has been improved from 1980 to 1867, face-fuck from 1972 to 1899, fuckstick ‘the penis’ from 1973 to 1904, mouth fuck from 1954 to 1868, and tongue fuck from 1974 to 1902.

The 2,500 new quotations include an enormous range of prominent writers and public figures, in many genres. Some of the additions include Amy Schumer, Maria Dahvana Headley (from her award-winning translation of Beowulf), Jonathan Franzen, Mike Tyson, Thomas Wolfe, Charles Bukowski, Horace Walpole (yes, the 18th-century writer), the pop singer Lorde, William Vollman, James Ellroy, William Gibson, Marilyn Manson, Margaret Atwood, Joan Rivers, George Pellicanos, Dan Savage, Dave Eggers, N.K. Jemisin, Larry Kramer, John Waters, Nick Cave, David Foster Wallace, Rebecca Traister, Rachel Kushner, 50 Cent, Lauren Groff, Barack Obama, Hilary Clinton, Sally Rooney, Tupac Shakur, Colson Whitehead, Charlamagne tha God, Anthony Doerr, Ottessa Moshfegh, Gary Shteyngart, Ocean Vuong, Marlon James, Ben Lerner, Amor Towles, Hank Green, Marc Maron, John Oliver, and Elon Musk.

I’m too lazy to put all the new terms in boldface as he does, so just imagine it (or click through).

Molly Rookwood writes in defense of my own metier, copyediting, and does so persuasively and well. I’ll just single out a passage that made me particularly happy:

Descriptivist vs. Prescriptivist Editing

Good copyeditors use descriptivist editing (editing that is based on the current usage of language) rather than prescriptivist (like Strunk & White).

I don’t know why so many writing programs still assign The Elements of Style. While it was indeed held up for many years as the pinnacle of grammar rules, the book is an entirely prescriptivist endeavor. Strunk and White tell you there are definitive rules of language and you should not deviate from them. They’ll tell you that singular “they” is not allowed and that you should use “he or she” instead.

Editors have long ago moved past the idea that there is one correct set of writing rules. The goal of editing (and writing) is clear communication, and clear communication is dependent on the current use of language. Strictly enforcing the use of “whom” in a fantasy novel is not in service of clear communication. And replacing “they” with “he or she” is doing harm.

The editors I know and work with use the descriptivist method because it allows us to help our writers connect most effectively with their audience. It acknowledges the evolution of language and keeps our field from becoming, as Rubinstein suggested, stodgy and outdated.

Preach it! (There are, of course, hordes of editors who would disagree with her. They are wrong.)

Joel at Far Outliers is doing a series of posts with quotes from Face[t]s of First Language Loss (yes, the title has the bracketed letter), by Sandra G. Kouritzin (see the “Recent Posts” sidebar at the link for others, which are all of interest); I thought Losing Your First Language: Polish was particularly worth bringing to the Hattery:

Alex is a borderlander who is also the son of borderlanders. His mother was born to Russian immigrants in Chicago, but moved to Russia when her parents returned there after the Revolution. She moved into a border town that had once been the southwest part of Poland, just north of the Ukraine, but which had become part of White Russia. Living in such a linguistically diverse region, Alex’s parents spoke Polish and White Russian (a dialect) and standard Russian, depending on the situation. When Alex was born, they adopted Polish as the home language. They moved to a vibrant Polish-speaking community in the United States when Alex was 3 years and 3 months old. They later moved to northern Canada where several of their relatives lived, and where they were able to communicate in Ukrainian, another language spoken by both of his parents.

Alex remembers beginning school, and he remembers the day when his Polish first name was changed to Alex so that his teachers could more easily pronounce it. Like Kuong, he has no recollection of Grade 1 and 2, though he has clear memories of Grade 3 and following (after he could speak English) and of playschool and kindergarten (when he played and had fun in Polish). While Alex was growing up, his parents relied on him to translate English into Polish for them; his father worked in a foundry and did not require English, while his mother stayed home. When I met him, Alex could speak only a little, broken, Polish, and could follow a very basic conversation in Polish. He remembers being much more fluent, and he feels like he is losing Polish bit-by-bit, day-by-day.

Everybody’s situation is different, and it doesn’t make sense to try to generalize about these things.