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A reader wrote: “As a lover of swearing, perhaps you might like this link for the blog: Compound pejoratives on Reddit – from buttface to wankpuffin.” And so I did! Colin Morris’s post begins:

Dirty words are, let’s face it, a lot of fun. If you want to express your dislike for someone and a standard insult like “jerk” or “moron” won’t cut it, you can get creative. There are a few reliable recipes for forming derogatory noun-noun compounds in English. For example:

• Start with a word for a disgusting or worthless substance
• Add a word for an agglomeration or container

Hence, dirtwad, scumbag, pissbucket, snotwagon…

The introduction ends “If only we had some concrete data on how these pieces fit together…”; Morris continues:

I collected lists of around 70 prefixes and 70 suffixes (collectively, “affixes”) that can be flexibly combined to form insulting compounds, based on a scan of Wiktionary’s English derogatory terms category. The terms covered a wide range of domains […] As a corpus, Reddit has the virtue of being uninhibited in its profanity, and on the cutting edge of new coinages. For example, Google Books Ngram Viewer, which indexes the majority of all books published in English up to 2019, gives no results for fuckwaffle, whereas the term has been used in 1,096 Reddit comments.

The full “matrix” of combinations is surprisingly dense. Of the ~4,800 possible compounds, more than half occurred in at least one comment. The most frequent compound, dumbass, appears in 3.6 million comments, but there’s also a long tail of many rare terms, including 444 hapax legomena (terms which appear only once in the dataset), such as pukebird, fartrag, sleazenozzle, and bastardbucket.

Check out the Matrix of Pejoration, the discussion of flexible and inflexible affixes, and odd lacunae (“Butthead is common, so why are asshead and bumhead so rare? Why does buttclown fail where assclown succeeds?”); it’s all fun and informative. Thanks, Ryan!

Dave Wilton has done a Big List post on the legal phrase stare decisis, for which he quotes the definition in Black’s Law Dictionary:

stare decisis (stahr-ee di-sI-sis or stair-ee) n. (Latin “to stand by things decided”) (18c) The doctrine of precedent, under which a court must follow earlier judicial decisions when the same points arise again in litigation.

I’ve known the phrase as long as I can remember, and I just assumed it was International Latin, like deo volente or primus inter pares. Imagine my astonishment on discovering it’s purely Anglo-Latin:

Stare decisis is not an idiom found in classical Latin, having been invented in the seventeenth century—not the eighteenth as Black’s incorrectly indicates. It appears in the record of a legal case decided by a British court in 1673:

It being moved again this Term, Hale consented that it should be reversed according as the latter Presidents have been; for he said it was his Rule Stare decisis.

It is used as a verb in another case, this one from 1735. While in Latin stare decisis is grammatically a verb phrase, in English usage it is almost always a noun phrase. This is an exception to the usual trend:

Whatever therefore my first thoughts were, and how much soever the law of executors wants alteration; we think, that as to the two bonds which were forfeited, the defendant must have an allowance for the penalties: and we must stare decisis.

Also somewhat astonishing is the fact that Dave has antedated the OED by over a century, despite the entry having been updated in June 2016; its first citation is:

1800 Rep. Deb. House of Commons Ireland 15–16 Jan. 61 Stare decisis and non quieta movere has been the cant of the cabinet.

Last year I posted about Dr. Ester Salgarella’s work on Linear A, and people seemed intrigued; now Aeon has published Salgarella’s own explanation (for laypersons), and since it includes examples where the earlier piece was pretty generic, I thought it was worth its own post. I’ll skip the lengthy introduction about the history of the Cretan scripts and their discovery and proceed to the meat of it:

In this respect, because of the historical context of adaptation and use of the Linear writing tradition, it is legitimate to draw a comparison (of signs and words) between the known Linear B and the less well-known Linear A. Although the underlying languages are different, evidence suggests that those signs that have the same shape in both Linear A and Linear B (‘homomorphs’) can be read with the same, or at least approximate, phonetic value identified for Linear B (hence called ‘homophones’). There are, in fact, a number of sign-sequences (or words) that are the same in both Linear A and Linear B: mostly place names and personal names.

By way of example, the place names pa-i-to ‘Phaistos’ and se-to-i-ja (which has not survived) show the same spelling in both Linear A and B, as do a number of personal names such as ki-da-ro, da-i-pi-ta, pa-ra-ne. There are also morphological adaptations from Linear A personal names (di-de-ru, ka-sa-ru, a-ta-re) to Greek in Linear B (di-de-ro, ka-sa-ro, a-ta-ro). This comparison, whose legitimacy has been recently supported by Torsten Meissner and Pippa Steele, has allowed scholars to reconstruct a sketchy outline of Minoan phonology. Today, we are therefore able to ‘read’ Linear A texts – without gaining full access to the contents of the inscribed documents.

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My late friend Allan, who had French friends, used to love to say “Allons-y, Alonso!” I was delighted to hear it used in Godard’s Pierrot le Fou (you can see the clip here), and Godard, a magpie for colloquial speech, used similar expressions such as “Tu parles, Charles!” and “je fonce, Alphonse!” (both from Breathless). I decided to google to find out if there was a comprehensive list, and I see I’m not the only curious searcher; michelmanu, under the heading Relax, Max, said:

Je trouve plutôt amusantes ces expressions bâties sur des assonances :

Tu l’as dit, bouffi ;
Tu parles, Charles ;
Cool, Raoul ;
C’est parti, mon kiki ;

Mais je peine à me souvenir d’autres ; en connaissez-vous?
Manu

Responses included À l’aise, Blaise; T’as raison, Gaston !; Tu m’étonnes, Yvonne !; Ça glisse, Alice !, and others. Like Manu, I enjoy this form of wordplay, and am curious if anyone knows anything about its history and geographical spread. Do people still use these bits of linguistic flotsam (like “cool” in English), or are they redolent of a previous generation (like “groovy”)?

I’m always griping about publishers commissioning the umpteenth translation of Anna Karenina rather than looking for something interesting that hasn’t appeared in English yet, so I’m especially appreciative of Columbia University Press’s Russian Library series (see this post on their Krzhizhanovsky edition, with prior links), which does exactly that, and does it very well. They have now published Boris Poplavsky’s Homeward from Heaven, translated by Bryan Karetnyk (see this post), and have been kind enough to send me a copy. As is usual with Russian Library, it comes with an informative introduction by the translator and a full set of end notes that not only explain the realia of the novel (“The Paris-Midi was a midday newspaper in daily circulation between 1911 and 1944. It enjoyed wide popularity and catered principally to a working readership at a time when two-hour lunch breaks were still common…”) but quote long chunks from the typescript (the textual history of the novel is complicated) and French lyrics used in the text (in both French and English). The publisher’s summary says:

The novel’s protagonist and sometime narrator is Oleg, whose intense love for two women leads him along a journey of spiritual transfiguration. He follows Tania to a seaside resort, but after a passionate dalliance she jilts him. In the cafés of Montparnasse, Oleg meets Katia, with whom he finds physical intimacy and emotional candor, yet is unable to banish a lingering sense of existential disquiet and destitution. When he encounters Tania again in Paris, his quest to comprehend the laws of spiritual and physical love begins anew, with results that are both profound and tragic.

Taken by Poplavsky’s contemporaries to be semiautobiographical, Homeward from Heaven stands out for its uncompromising depictions of sexuality and deprivation. Richly allusive and symbolic, the novel mixes psychological confession, philosophical reflection, and social critique in prose that is by turns poetic, mystical, and erotic. It is at once a work of daring literary modernism and an immersive meditation on the émigré condition.

You can read an appreciative review at Kaggsy’s Bookish Ramblings. Karetnyk’s Englishing is eloquent and convincing, and I’m glad he’s chosen to focus on little-known writers like Gaito Gazdanov, Yuri Felzen, and now Poplavsky rather than on the usual suspects. Kudos to him and to CUP!

Jose Vergara (see this LH post) did an interview with Mo Rocca which focused on Rocca’s early work as a writer for the PBS show Wishbone, which “retold classic stories, introducing them to children by dropping the eponymous dog with an instantly classic theme song into their plots.” Introducing the interview, Vergara says:

Rocca wrote on the show’s two seasons, including the episode “Rushin’ to the Bone,” which was based on Nikolai Gogol’s play of mistaken identities, The Inspector General. Given my own interests, I was eager to speak to him about this Russian connection in particular.

A relevant exchange:
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Faima Bakar writes for HuffPost about the eternal problem of bad language:

A series of Tesco mobile adverts which used food puns to allude to commonly expressed expletives have been banned after receiving a lot of complaints. The ads used words such as shiitake, pistachio and fettuccine in place of popular phrases. One of them said ‘what a load of shiitake’ with an image of a mushroom, while another featured a nut next to the words ‘they’re taking the pistachio’. A third revealed pasta uncovering the words ‘for fettuccine’s sake’. And naturally, 52 people complained. The Advertising Standards Authority (ASA) declared the images “were likely to cause serious and widespread offence” and told Tesco to stop using the ads. Tesco Mobile claimed it didn’t actually use any offensive words or images, but agreed to the ban and apologised nevertheless. […]

We spoke to Tony Thorne, a lexicographer and language consultant at King’s College London, who tells us we’ve learned to associate swearing with personality and morals. “Many Brits still affect to be shocked by bad language because they think it fits an image of respectability,” he tells HuffPost. “In fact scientists have proved that swearing is therapeutic and most people do it, even if not publicly. “Lots of brands have tried to use plays on rude words, since FCUK, but younger consumers often find these cringeworthy while older consumers may find them offensive – or obscure if they don’t get the reference.”

He points to Claudine Davi’s Letters from the linguists: the evolution of swearing, which shows that profanity came from blasphemy – against God, against royalty. Then in the 18th and 19th century, it evolved into a social taboo which elevated its status. Forbidden words had more power to shock and disgust, something that somewhat remains. But now, we have more commonly accepted obscenities that won’t cause anyone to cast a second look. Unless they’re on a Tesco advert, maybe.

I’m endlessly fascinated by the power of words to cause such reactions. Thanks, Trevor!

Balashon has a post about the star name Betelgeuse, quoting the explanation in American Heritage:

The history of the curious star name Betelgeuse is a good example of how scholarly errors can creep into language. The story starts with the pre-Islamic Arabic astronomers, who called the star yad al-jawzā’, “hand of the jawzā’.” The jawzā’ was their name for the constellation Gemini. After Greek astronomy became known to the Arabs, the word came to be applied to the constellation Orion as well. Some centuries later, when scribes writing in Medieval Latin tried to render the word, they misread the y as a b (the two corresponding Arabic letters are very similar when used as the first letter in a word), leading to the Medieval Latin form Bedalgeuze. In the Renaissance, another set of scholars trying to figure out the name interpreted the first syllable bed- as being derived from a putative Arabic word *bāṭ meaning “armpit.” This word did not exist; it would correctly have been ibṭ. Nonetheless, the error stuck, and the resultant etymologically “improved” spelling Betelgeuse was borrowed into French as Bételgeuse, whence English Betelgeuse.

Balashon links to Ian Ridpath’s Star Tales entry for more information and goes on to discuss the etymology and possible Hebrew cognates of Arabic jawzā’; I was struck by the odd entry in Andras Rajki’s Arabic Etymological Dictionary (see this LH post):

jauz : pair [zauj]

Balashon writes: “it would seem that jauz and zauj (also the Arabic word for ‘husband’, one member of the pair), are related through metathesis.” But Arabic doesn’t work that way, does it?

However, what most surprised me (“shocked” might not be too strong a word) was going to the OED and finding (along with the unhelpful etymology “< French Bételgeuse, < Arabic”) this list of pronunciations:

Brit. /ˈbiːtldʒəːz/, /ˈbɛtldʒəːz/, /ˈbiːtldʒuːs/, U.S. /ˈbidlˌdʒus/, /ˈbidlˌdʒəz/, /ˈbɛdlˌdʒəz/.

It would never in a million years have occurred to me to use ə for the last vowel, though in a French loan it makes sense. Sort of. It sounds weird and foreign to me, and I’ll stick with “beetlejuice.”

Via Anne Lounsbery’s FaceBook post, I present the Fellowships Open Book Program:

The Fellowships Open Book Program supports the conversion of recently published books funded by NEH into eBooks that are freely available online. This page lists all books that have received a Fellowships Open Book award and includes links to the eBooks that are currently available. Other open access books can be found at the NEH-Mellon Humanities Open Book Program website.

It’s some mitigation of the outrageous prices charged for academic books that more of them are being made freely available online. Two that immediately attracted me are The Other/Argentina: Jews, Gender, and Sexuality in the Making of a Modern Nation by Amy K. Kaminsky and American Girls in Red Russia: Chasing the Soviet Dream by Julia L. Mickenberg; among the “Forthcoming eBooks” is Anne’s Life is Elsewhere: Symbolic Geography in the Russian Provinces, 1800–1917, which I highly recommend (LH, The Millions).

Amelia Gentleman (a striking surname I hadn’t run across before) reviews Stalin’s Library: A Dictator and His Books, by Geoffrey Roberts:

Stalin was a voracious reader, who set himself a daily quota of between 300 and 500 pages. When he died of a stroke in his library in 1953, the desk and tables that surrounded him were piled high with books, many of them heavily marked with his handwriting in the margins.

As he read, he made notes in red, blue and green pencils, underlining sections that interested him or numbering points that he felt were important. Sometimes he was effusive, noting: “yes-yes”, “agreed”, ‘“good”, “spot on”, “that’s right”. Sometimes he expressed disdain, scribbling: “ha ha”, “gibberish”, ‘“nonsense”, “rubbish”, “scumbag”, “scoundrels” and “piss off”. He became extremely irritated whenever he came across grammatical or spelling mistakes, and would correct errors with his red pencil.

During his life he amassed a personal library estimated at about 20,000 books, but he also read widely from the collections of friends. The Soviet poet Demyan Bedny complained that Stalin left greasy fingermarks on the books he borrowed. After Khrushchev’s denunciation of Stalin in 1956, plans to preserve the library in his dacha were abandoned and his books (which included volumes on child psychology, sport, religion, syphilis and hypnosis as well as works by Turgenev and Dostoevsky) were dispersed, so it has become challenging to make an exhaustive study of what he enjoyed reading. […]

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