languagehat.com

Amanda Gefter’s “Finding Peter Putnam” is one of the most remarkable life stories I’ve ever read; here’s a snippet to give you an idea of who he was:

His name was Peter Putnam. He was a physicist who’d hung out with Albert Einstein, John Archibald Wheeler, and Niels Bohr […] “Only two or three times in my life have I met thinkers with insights so far reaching, a breadth of vision so great, and a mind so keen as Putnam’s,” Wheeler said in 1991. And Wheeler, who coined the terms “black hole” and “wormhole,” had worked alongside some of the greatest minds in science.

Robert Works Fuller, a physicist and former president of Oberlin College, who worked closely with Putnam in the 1960s, told me in 2012, “Putnam really should be regarded as one of the great philosophers of the 20th century. Yet he’s completely unknown.”

His ideas, insofar as I understood them, do sound remarkable and prescient. But I’m bringing it to LH for this tidbit:

Just then, a perfect opportunity arose to present Putnam to the public. Wheeler was invited by the Neurosciences Research Program at MIT to speak at their March 1975 meeting on “reality and consciousness.” He insisted he could only do it as half of a pair. […]

I listened to the meeting, recorded on a reel-to-reel, stowed away in the archives at MIT. Here, finally, was Putnam’s chance to explain his ideas to the top neuroscientists of the time. I pressed the headphones tight against my ears.

Wheeler had just finished speaking about the observer in quantum mechanics and introduced Putnam with a warning. “Some terms Peter uses, one needs a glossary to translate.” Wheeler placed a transparency on the projector—he’d made an actual glossary of Putnam’s terms. The crowd burst into laughter. I didn’t have to see Putnam’s face to feel it growing hot. When he began to speak, he stuttered.

“You only perceive signals that are useful for shaping behavior … A game is a special kind of mathematics … But for a game you need a goal function … We’re suggesting that the category repetition is a candidate … You’re searching for rules of choice that allow a repeating or self-reproducing path … There’s a transcendental core to the laws of physics themselves …”

The crowd grew restless. Wheeler’s talk had gone long, and there wasn’t time for Putnam to finish. The neuroscientists headed out for lunch and the tape cut out.

There are probably quite a few people who would benefit from such a glossary when they give talks. Thanks, Nick!

Svenja Bonmann and Simon Fries, “Linguistic Evidence Suggests that Xiōng-nú and Huns Spoke the Same Paleo-Siberian Language” (Transactions of the Philological Society, 16 June 2025, open access):

Abstract

The Xiōng-nú were a tribal confederation who dominated Inner Asia from the third century BC to the second century AD. Xiōng-nú descendants later constituted the ethnic core of the European Huns. It has been argued that the Xiōng-nú spoke an Iranian, Turkic, Mongolic or Yeniseian language, but the linguistic affiliation of the Xiōng-nú and the Huns is still debated. Here, we show that linguistic evidence from four independent domains does indeed suggest that the Xiōng-nú and the Huns spoke the same Paleo-Siberian language and that this was an early form of Arin, a member of the Yeniseian language family. This identification augments and confirms genetic and archaeological studies and inspires new interdisciplinary research on Eurasian population history.
[…]

Conclusion

Our investigation has shown that (a) there are several Old Arin loanwords in Proto-Turkic and Proto-Mongolic, (b) the Jié couplet, Xiōng-nú titles and glosses betray Arin features and thus probably reflect an old form of Arin, (c) Hunnish personal names likewise seem to be Arin in origin ultimately and (d) the Yeniseian hydronyms and hydronym-derived toponyms along the westward migration route of the Huns are predominantly Arin suggesting a correlation between speakers of Arin and the Huns. In a variation of a word by the master detective Sherlock Holmes (in the short story ‘The Adventure of the Devil’s Foot’) it can therefore be established in our view that while each of these pieces of evidence are suggestive, together they are conclusive, because they independently corroborate the implications of each other.

It therefore seems an inevitable conclusion to us that Huns and Xiōng-nú both spoke the same early form of Arin that we have tentatively termed Old Arin here and that consequently the linguistic and thus most probably also the ethnic core of the Huns derived from the Xiōng-nú. These findings corroborate recent archaeological and genetic findings and show that the application of the methodology sketched out here can lead to substantial insights into the linguistic history even of regions such as Inner Asia that are at present underresearched and the history of which is much less perfectly understood than that of many other parts of the world such as Central Europe or the Mediterranean. It is to be hoped that future archaeological excavations may uncover autochthonous texts of the Xiōng-nú or the Huns (perhaps in the recently identified Xiōng-nú capital Lóng Chéng or in southeastern Europe) that allow for further testing of our Old Arin hypothesis. The synthesis of historiographical, archaeological, genetic and linguistic data and the continued application of the methodology presented here will then hopefully gradually lead to an ever deeper understanding of the linguistic history of Inner Asia and similarly underresearched parts of the world so that one day we can draw a consummate picture of the linguistic evolution of mankind.

Wikipedia has a pretty thorough article on Arin; Svenja Bonmann turned up on LH a couple of years ago in relation to the Kushan script. This is exciting stuff! Thanks go to Y, who sent me the link and added “So Turkish göl ‘lake’ is ultimately a Yeniseian loanword?”

Nick Jainschigg sent me a link to Jennifer Sandlin’s Boing Boing piece on a demon relevant to my interests:

The next time you make a mistake in your writing, or pick up something you’ve published and instantly spot a typo (argh!), don’t fret, it wasn’t your fault! Instead of taking on the shame of not proof-reading your work thoroughly enough, you can just point to Titivillus instead!

Who is Titivillus, you might ask? Well, he’s a demon who has long been blamed for, according to Princeton University’s Medieval Studies department, “slips and sins in song, speech, and writing.” In fact, Medieval Studies scholar Jan Ziolkowski, from Harvard University, traces his origins back to at least 1200, when he began showing up in paintings and sermons in medieval Europe and beyond. And he’s definitely got staying power, as he’s still beloved today in some circles. Princeton University provides this helpful overview of his origins and reach:

Thanks to today’s dominance of English, Titivillus is regarded as especially particular to medieval England, but he became commonplace far beyond the Continent and survived past the Middle Ages to appear in Rabelais, the earliest Slovak literature, Anatole France, Herman Melville, and W. H. Auden, before finally having a novel devoted to him in 1953. He remains unforgotten, a curio beloved among calligraphers and role-play gamers.

Historian Amanda Foreman, writing in The Wall Street Journal, further explains that Titivillus, the “medieval demon of typos” who likely inspired the phrase “the devil is in the details,” took typos very seriously. She recounts that medieval scribes were “warned that Titivillus ensured that every scribal mistake was collected and logged, so that it could be held against the offender at Judgment Day.” Yikes!

There is, of course, a Wikipedia article, which includes this tidbit:

Marc Drogin noted in his instructional manual, Medieval Calligraphy: Its History and Technique (1980), that “for the past half-century every edition of The Oxford English Dictionary has listed an incorrect page reference for, of all things, a footnote on the earliest mention of Titivillus.”

And that revealed to me that there’s an OED entry, itself of great interest; it’s s.v. Tutivillus:
[Read more…]

A piquant bit of anarcho-typographical history from Kropotkin’s Memoirs of a Revolutionist:

We started our printing-office in a tiny room, and our compositor was a man from Little Russia, who undertook to put our paper in type for the very modest sum of sixty francs a month. If he could only have his modest dinner every day, and the possibility of going occasionally to the opera, he cared for nothing more. “Going to the Turkish bath, John? “I asked him once as I met him at Geneva in the street, with a brown-paper parcel under his arm. “No, removing to a new lodging,” he replied, in his usual melodious voice, and with his customary smile.

Unfortunately, he knew no French. I used to write my manuscript in the best of my handwriting,—often thinking with regret of the time I had wasted in the classes of our good Ebert at school,—but John could read French only indifferently well, and instead of “immédiatement” he would read “immidiotermut” or “inmuidiatmunt,” and set up in type such wonderful words as these; but as he “kept the space,” and the length of the line did not have to be altered in making the corrections, there were only four or five letters to be corrected in such uncouth words as the above, and but one or two in each of the shorter ones; thus we managed pretty well. We were on the best possible terms with him, and I soon learned a little typesetting under his direction. The composition was always finished in time to take the proofs to a Swiss comrade who was the responsible editor, and to whom we submitted them before going to press, and then one of us carted all the forms to a printing-office. Our “Imprimerie Jurassienne” soon became widely known for its publications, especially for its pamphlets, which Dumartheray would never allow to be sold at more than one penny.

I’m reminded of the story of a compositor who set texts in some Near Eastern language flawlessly until he got curious and started trying to learn a bit of the language, after which he started making errors.

I saw a rave for the restaurant Çka Ka Qëllu and of course my immediate reaction was “What does that mean in Albanian?” A couple of sites claim it’s “an old proverb meaning ‘what we happen to have,’” which I presume is the restaurateur’s explanation; this review has a more elaborate version:

When directly translated to English, the phrase “Çka Ka Qëllu” means nothing, but in Albanian the phrase represents the principle of giving all that is left and treating visitors as your own blood. The Albanian people are people of honor and despite often having lived in poverty in their country of origin, they never fail to offer all that they had to those who come their way. In an interview conducted by Danielle Lehman, a journalist for Tableside Magazine, Ramiz Kukaj explained, “being that they didn’t have enough and we were poor, if a neighbor passed by your house it would be embarrassing if you didn’t invite them in for a coffee, lunch or dinner. This was our tradition; we would always invite people in. We would say, ‘Come in for bread, salt, and…’ we say the heart and love and everything that’s left” (Kukaj).

But what I want is a literal, morpheme-by-morpheme exegesis. Wiktionary tells me that çka is ‘what’; ka can mean ‘from, out, out of, to’ or ‘who, whom’ (it is also a noun meaning ‘ox; steer,’ but that seems implausible here) [but it’s also the third-person singular present indicative of kam ‘to have,’ which is presumably the relevant sense — thanks, earthtopus!]; qëlloj means ‘to hit; to beat; to gain, obtain’ — presumably the last is the relevant sense, but I can’t find a form qëllu in the conjugation chart. Any Albanianists in the crowd?

(If I somehow got there, I would definitely order the Suxhuk Në Tavë, “A handcrafted blend of ground veal and beef sausage sautéed in olive oil, melted in a velvety fusion of three artisanal cheeses.”)

Yet another great word from Douchet’s Nouvelle Vague (see this post)! In a passage on Jacques Rivette, he writes: “Dire de Rivette que l’Histoire des Treize de Balzac est son livre de chevet, et l’idée du complot la base et de sa vie et de son cinéma, relève de la lapalissade.” [To say of Rivette that Balzac’s The History of the Thirteen is his bedside book, and that the idea of ​​conspiracy is the basis of both his life and his cinema, is a matter of lapalissade.] The last word was unknown to me, so I checked Wiktionary: “An obvious, self-evident truth, especially humorously so; a tautology or truism.” The etymology is sheer delight:

From the name of Jacques de la Palice (a French nobleman and military officer, died in the Battle of Pavia, 1525) + -ade. His epitaph reads ci gît Monſieur de la Palice: s’il n’était pas mort, il ferait encore envie (“here lies the lord of La Palice: if he weren’t dead, he would still be envied”). However, due to the similarity between the letters ⟨f⟩ and ⟨ſ⟩ (long s), it was misread (accidentally or intentionally) as the truism s’il n’était pas mort, il serait encore en vie (“if he weren’t dead, he would still be alive”).

Poor guy! But at least his memory lives on…

A Laudator Temporis Acti post that will be of interest to those who enjoy fussy poetico-morphological details:

R.J. Tarrant, “Silver Threads Among the Gold: A Problem in the Text of Ovid’s Metamorphoses,” Illinois Classical Studies 14.1/2 (Spring/Fall, 1989) 103-117 (at 112-113):

For a poet capable of almost any extravagance in coining adjectives in -fer and -ger, Ovid appears to have been remarkably sparing with adjectives in -ax. The following are securely attested in the Metamorphoses: audax, capax, edax, fallax, ferax, fugax, loquax, minax, pugnax, rapax, sagax, tenax, vivax, and vorax; all of these appear as well in the elegiacs, along with emax, mordax, procax, and salax; sequax and uerax occur once each in the double letters of the Heroides, which are probably late compositions if genuine but whose Ovidian authorship is not beyond doubt.20 Virgil, though not lavish in using these adjectives, is still the probable inventor of pellax and sternax.21 Ovid, on the other hand, has no clear example of a new adjective of this kind; all those just listed had already appeared either in prose or verse, and usually in both.22 Perhaps formations of this kind struck him as disagreeably archaic, or else he found them stylistically inappropriate: many of the bolder experiments of this type are found in passages of comic abuse, such as Plautus’ procax rapax trahax (Pers. 410) and perenniserue lurco edax furax fugax (421) or Lucilius’ manus tagax (1031 M) or the pejorative term linguax attributed by Gellius to the ueteres along with locutuleius and blatero, while others appear in “low” (i.e., commercial or banausic) contexts, like Cato’s precept patrem familias uendacem, non emacem esse oportet (Agr. 2.7) and Gaius’ description of an ideal slave as constantem aut laboriosum aut curracem <aut> uigilacem (Dig. 21.1.18 pr.).23

20 In Her. 4.46 sequacis is a variant for fugacis. This list was compiled by searching the works of Ovid currently available on compact disk for the relevant endings (-ax, -acis, etc.) and by reading through the remaining works (Heroides 16-21, Ibis, Tristia, Ex Ponto). I am grateful to Richard Thomas for encouragement and technological guidance.

21 Virgil seems also to have introduced uivax to elevated poetry; it occurs before him only in Afranius 251 R². I am grateful to Wendell Clausen for information on Virgilian practice and for alerting me to the work of De Nigris Mores cited in n. 19.

22 Bömer on Met. 8.839 notes that uorax is not found in Virgil, Horace, or the elegists, but does not mention the word’s prominent appearances in Republican literature, cf. Catullus 29.2 and 10 impudicus et uorax et aleo, Cic. Phil. 2.67 quae Charybdis tam uorax?; both passages appear as quotations in Quintilian, and the latter was recalled by Ovid in Ib. 385 Scylla uorax Scyllaeque aduersa Charybdis.

23 Ovid’s only use of emax (Ars 1.419 f.) clearly exploits the word’s commercial flavor: insitor ad dominam ueniet discinctus emacem / expediet merces teque sedente suas.

“The work of De Nigris Mores” is S. De Nigris Mores, “Sugli Aggettivi latini in -ax,” Acme 25 (1972) 263-313.

I’ll have to remember linguax, which the Oxford Latin Dictionary defines as ‘loquacious, talkative.’

I stumbled into an etymological briar patch when I innocently looked up aloe in the OED — it’s one of those words I can never retain a clear image of. The range of senses was confusing enough:

1. In plural (in early use occasionally singular). An aromatic resin or wood; spec. the resin or decaying heartwood of any of several Southeast Asian trees of the genus Aquilaria (family Thymelaeaceae), burnt or used as incense; esp. that of A. malaccensis (formerly A. agallocha: see agalloch n.). Also: any of the trees from which this resin or wood is obtained. Cf. lign-aloes n. Now historical and rare.

2. Any of various plants constituting the tropical genus Aloe (family Xanthorrhoeaceae), comprising succulent shrubs or trees, typically having a basal rosette of fleshy leaves with spiked or spiny margins, bell-shaped or tubular flowers borne on leafless stems, and bitter juice, and which include aloe vera and many other plants with medicinal uses; also with distinguishing word. Also (in form Aloe): the genus itself.

3. Also more fully bitter aloe(s).

3.a. A drug made from the concentrated or dried juice of plants of the genus Aloe, having a bitter taste and unpleasant odour, and used mainly as a purgative and laxative. In later use usually in plural (with singular agreement).

3.b. figurative. Bitter experiences, occurrences, etc.; bitterness. Usually in plural (with singular agreement).

4. † A mineral (not identified) held to resemble the drug. Obsolete. rare.

5. Frequently with distinguishing word. Any of various other plants supposed to resemble those of the genus Aloe; esp. (more fully American aloe) a tropical American agave, Agave americana, with long spiny leaves.

So I think I’ll give up on ever having a grasp of it. But check out the etymology:
[Read more…]

Dave Wilton’s latest Big List entry is on the phrase “agree to disagree”; he begins by saying Methodists like to claim that the phrase was coined by John Wesley, because the OED has a 1775 letter by Wesley as the first citation, but Dave finds it in Wesley’s 1770 funeral sermon for the Reverend George Whitefield (pronounced /ˈhwɪtfiːld/, as if written Whitfield). So far, so not-all-that-interesting (a five-year antedate is not hard to achieve in the world of Google Books), but Dave is just getting started; he discovers that the phrase was used by Whitefield himself twenty years earlier:

In a 29 June 1750 letter, Whitefield, a strong advocate for ecumenism, wrote:

If you and the rest of the preachers were to meet together more frequently, and tell each other your grievances, opinions, &c. it might be of service. This may be done in a very friendly way, and thereby many uneasinesses might be prevented. After all, those that will live in peace must agree to disagree in many things with their fellow-labourers, and not let little things part or disunite them.

[…]

But Whitefield didn’t coin it either. The earliest use of the phrase that I can find is in another funeral sermon preached some 175 years earlier in 1601 by William Harrison, Roman Catholic archpriest of England [no — see comment thread below] who argued against the existence of purgatory:

It would require a longer discourse, then now I can stand vpon: to descend into each of these particulars, beeing limited with the time, mine owne weakenes, and your wearines; yet if any man doubt, let him demurre with mee vpon a further tryall, and conference, when I shall (if God will) satisfie him to the full; that in all these seuerall points, they doe nothing else but agree to disagree: in the meane time I dare auouch as first I did, that purgatorie is not at all.

He adds that “in a secular and poetic context, William Wycherley used it in a 1704 poem,” and concludes:

Agree to disagree is a good example of how coinages credited to famous people are often incorrect. Celebrities get the credit because either their words are preserved while those of lesser mortals are forgotten, or simply because more people read them and they come to the attention of lexicographers (and in this case, preachers).

An impressive antedating and a good moral at the end.

This site looks interesting, but the details are above my pay grade:

Building a word game forced us to solve a measurement problem: how do you rank 40+ ways to associate any given word down to exactly 17 playable choices? We discovered that combining human-curated thesauri, book cataloging systems, and carefully constrained LLM queries creates a navigable network where 76% of random word pairs connect in ≤7 hops—but only when you deprecate superconnectors and balance multiple ranking signals. The resulting network of 1.5 million English terms reveals that nearly any two common words connect in 6-7 hops through chains of meaningful associations. The mean path length of 6.43 hops held true across a million random word pairs—shorter than we’d guessed, and remarkably stable.

This is consistent with the small-world structure and near-universal connectivity seen in lexical network research on smaller datasets. The network’s structure makes intuitive semantic navigation possible—players can feel their way through meaningful transitions: a crown’s gemstones lead to emerald’s foliage and finally to a forest canopy, or a flame becomes an ember, then a glowing memory, a mental recall, and finally the action to cancel.

English exhibits network effects remarkably similar to social networks—nearly any random pair of words can reach each other in just a few hops through chains of meaningful associations. This “small world” phenomenon was first measured in word co-occurrence networks, and persists even after we deprioritize superconnector words that might otherwise dominate many paths. To probe this, we randomly sampled 1 million word pairs (4 days processing on 32 cores), to get a strong statistical sampling of the connected core of English.

There’s much more at the link, including many charts and examples; there’s a section “Understanding Our Biases,” which is a good thing, and at the end there’s a “Making the Game” link which gives the background. (Via chavenet’s MeFi post.)