The Battle of Maladroit in 1066

On the Plains of Maladroit, in the year 1066, two armies of the night and day, clashed. One won, one lost, and life on Harm was never the same. (Correction: The two opposing armies were bolstered by myriad subarmies: paramilitary tribes and militias loosely organized and even more loosely controlled. In effect, every man, woman, and child on Harm was either conscripted or forced to align with one side or the other. No escaping allegiances, imposed or chosen.)

It comes as no surprise to know that neither side — in fact, no two Harmian individuals — can agree on the battle’s causes, either proximate or remote. Theories abound: which letters to keep in the alphabet; how to pronounce disputed diphthongs, syllables, or words; how to define love, hate, or chartreuse; when to speak or keep silent; how to kiss; how to kill; what to eat; the best method for boiling water; optimal positions for procreation; opposing views on sleep hygiene; disagreement on the need for clothing; disputes over child-rearing; origin narratives; questions on the value of iambic pentameter; opposing views on evangelism (scientific or religious); the propriety of the Designated Hitter role in military strategy; fissures on the practical effect of human sacrifice as sport; debate over chess openings; et cetera.
In real-life quotidian terms, what difference does it make whether either side or all sides, one individual or some individuals, reach consensus on the causes of this seminal conflict? Would it erase present-day conflict on Harm? Would it usher in a Pax Romana (a Pax Harmana or Pax Harmonica, if you will)?

Doubtful.

Owing to the findings of forensic archaeopsychohistorians over the course of Harmian centuries, we can agree upon and consequently itemize these indisputable impacts arising from the Battle of Maladroit in 1066:

• Those in the North embraced and spoke with the long A; those in the South, the short A.

• The umlaut, in sound and symbol, perished.

• Boiling olive oil was no longer used as a foreplay lotion.

• All those in the West insisted on left-handedness under penalty of execution; right-handedness in the East.

• On December 18, every Harmian — North, South, West, East — observes a full 24 hours of silence.

• On every quadri-annual February 29, a 24-hour period of compulsory sexual activity is prescribed, under penalty of death (unless, of course, such activity results in terminal exhaustion or fatal dehydration).

• Wearing, mentioning, referring to, spelling, painting, videotaping, recording, or photographing the color chartreuse is prohibited under penalty of life imprisonment (in a chartreuse cell). 

• Every written sentence must end with a preposition, or the word "preposition."
  

• The Great Migration began, though no consensus exists as to who the migrants were or are, or as to where they went or go.   

 

-lph-bet

Aside from linguists, archaeologists, and archaeolinguists, Earthlings are not aware that the Harmian alphabet lacks the letters h, a, r, and m. Naturally, Earthlings would not know this, since a cosmic app translates automatically into a selected Earthling language, in this case English. If you ask me it’s a sick joke, a perverse planetary editorial. What are we saying: eliminate those letters and we find comity, peace on Harm, good will toward Harmlings?

The calculated omission of these four letters insults any self-respecting diphthong, digraph, ligature, phoneme, or grapheme. Worse, it perpetuates a legacy, a mythos, centered on “harm” even as it struts and pretends to deny harm.

How can we Harmlings reverse this? How might we recalibrate our alphabetical history, alphabetical present moment, and alphabetical future?

The solution is so easy as to be laughable.

Our subversion literally (for once, literally means literally, not figuratively) is as easy as A-B-C, or in our case, h, a, r, m. 

The revolution begins by reinserting those four letters back into the slots they once occupied, eons ago. 

If they say, “A journey of a thousand miles begins with one step,” then let us confidently declare, “The rewriting of history begins with one letter.” 

Or: “Our sentence is commuted one letter at a time.”

Try: “The alphabet deserves all its letters.”

And: “Harmlings, alphabetize. You have nothing to lose but your apostrophes.”

texting one two three

the text text texts Scripture scripture stuttering writing the writing the word words wording string of semantic syllables passage extract narrative pretext context line lines nonverbal unspoken legible utterance utterances legible illegible indefinable posit of posing etymological energy of imprecise embedded thought would be thought inked inkling of linked intuition articulation you say text synonymous anonymous musing musings musingification beyond deeper than hermeneutics semiotics sunny cloudy composition in the infinite cloud unlouded texture texting fabricated text the text tyranny of term terminal terminology text textual silence nothing no-thing  
 

emojification

When I took, and passed, a linguistics course 127 years ago, the prof said, "The simpler a language is, the more complex and sophisticated it is." But he couldn't have said that. It's patently absurd. He likely said the opposite.

Never mind.

Linguists debate whether languages are equally complex or sophisticated. They quibble over whether as a general rule languages become more complex over time. Do they?

Consider emojis.

Emojis don't constitute a language, not exactly. They evolved from emoticons. Both alternative "languages" grew out of keyboard demands and changing habits as our planet, especially Japan, became more digitized.

I'm driving out of my lane here, yet I wonder about the apparent simplicity of sign languages, pictograms, and ideograms. (Don't ask me about the linguistic differences between each. My ignorance means I am not free of cultural biases and preconceptions. Duly noted.) But what if we were to communicate solely by emojis? Are we moving in that direction? And does it signify progress or decline?

Before going further, allow me to note that I will resist resorting to emojis in this post. It's too facile, cheap; somehow cheating. Better to have us picture an infinity of emoji images in our minds.

Part of me feels that a stripped down, minimalist method of communicating by emojis would declutter the conversation, like filtering out static on a distant AM station. That may be so, but we already know the perils of methods such as texting, where tone and intent are easily misconstrued. 

Can emojis be misconstrued?

I once had neighbors who communicated by sign language. When an argument ensued, I could almost hear them shouting. Almost.

What would an argument by emojis look like? For all I know, this happens every day.

How about a stately speech? Could these stark iconic symbols be "stretched" into formal, lofty language, the polished-marble discourse of courtrooms and capitols? 

This invites the topic of translation. I would opt for the opportunity to wax eloquent, soaring above the pedestrian emojis of commonplace chatter.

Something tells me these musings are far from original, already obsolete and outdated. Something tells me that government, corporate, and private hackers and programmers have secretly crafted a post-apocalyptic ready-to-go language, bereft of words and sounds, portable and universal, handmade for a denuded, simmering planet.

'No' Is a Complete Sentence. Or Is It?

You can debate it. You can logically and persuasively argue yes or no as to whether "no" constitutes a complete sentence. Your answer depends on context, communication theory, and linguistics. (Go ahead and Google away at "the Gricean Theory of Conversational Implicature" as you're waiting for your Americano at the coffee shop.) Also entering the equation (oops, that's math; wrong subject) is whether you are a strict or loose constructionist in how you define a sentence.

Yes or no, either one works for me. I don't care, as long as I can continue to say "'No' is a complete sentence" and apply it to the matter at hand.

And what exactly is the matter at hand?

Two matters come to mind:

1. People who have a hard time saying no to demands imposed by others
2. People who feel the need to explain, defend, or justify their refusal of a request they want to reject but can't 

Enter a play within the play, as in Hamlet:

Can you lend me $500?

No, I can't because my counterfeit money-making machine in the basement stopped printing when the black-ink cartridge ran out, plus I need to reorder the special paper from my 'friends' at Treasury.

No, the triplets need formula, diapers, binkies, onesies, and meds. And I owe our upscale, artisanal photographer a down payment for the quasi-royal official portraits of the triplets.

No, not today; can I get back to you after I check with my accountant, my lawyer, my therapist, my Zen roshi, and my local arms dealer?

How about $300. Can you lend me that?

No, I'll never get it back.

No, I just spent my last $275 on Mega Millions, and I have no gas in my car, and I forgot to buy my pain meds.

No, I won't. I would but I can't. No, I might but might not. Not sure. I sometimes can and sometimes do but I usually can't and don't. 

Dude. Just give me fifty effing bucks until Monday when my effing ship comes in, okay? Can you do that?

No, my ship is coming in too, at the same dock.

No, because when your ship comes in I'll be at the airport.

No, because Monday I'll be tied up all day in bankruptcy court.

Dad/Mom, can I have the car?

No. Dad has a date.

No. Mom has a date.

With each other?!

Now, answer each of these questions with the monosyllabic no.

Start with an interior whisper to yourself.

No. 

Practice it.

Out loud now.

Mantra it.

No. No. No.

How do you feel now? Feel better?

Yes. 

"Because if you can't say no, your yes doesn't mean anything." Regan Walsh

The Embarrassment Manifesto

I am embarrassed. I have become embarrassed. I am embarrassing. Switch pronouns. We are embarrassed. We have become embarrassed. We are embarrassing. We are being embarrassed. We are an embarrassment. "We" here stands for the Disunited States of America. The good ol' DSA. What is it to be embarrassed? Embarrass: "to perplex, throw into doubt." The estimable Online Etymology Dictionary tells us "embarrass" comes to us from the French, meaning "to block," which came to us from the Italian "to bar," which came from Latin. Embarrass came to mean "to hamper, hinder," and then later "make (someone) feel awkward." Other meanings over the centuries have even included "mental state of unease." With this FACTUAL word history in mind, no matter where you perch on today's razored fence of political discourse, you cannot deny the reality of embarrassment. Whether you lament it or celebrate, it is here. The Age of Embarrassment. Whether you are on the barricades or hiding from U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement [Embarrassment] (ICE), welcome to Embarrassmentville. "Welcome" is hereby spelled e-m-b-a-r-r-a-s-s by edict of Embarrassing Executive Order No. 001. So, get used to it, boys and girls -- and anyone in-between or off the charts. Get used to a state of being perplexed, doubtful, blocked, barred, hampered, or hindered. Get used to feeling awkward and ill at ease. Get used to being embarrassed or making others feel embarrassed. Please show your Embarrassment Visa on the way out the door.

 

 

lingua franca Icelandic

From the sparse research I have done, I have learned that Icelandic is an ancient language that has not changed all that much since 1100, give or take the odd hundred years. Icelanders apparently can easily read the original texts of Norse sagas dating back over a thousand years. Yikes! I guess it would be as if modern speakers of English could easily read or speak the language of Shakespeare's time, with "easily" being the italicized, boldfaced operative word. More accurately, you would have to go even farther back in time, but not quite to the time of Beowulf! (I was an English major and recall a tiny bit from my linguistic studies.) From what I understand, Icelanders share with us who speak English the Germanic grammatical structure of S-V-O, subject-verb-object, with allowances made for emphasis or poetry. Speaking of poetry, I hear over and over again that Iceland is a land of bards. I like that. As a solipsistic bard, I am humming the tune for my own personal saga; searching for the narrative, plot, and story line. Many of the characters have or are playing their parts in my saga, myself included. Other characters wait in the wings.

maybe words don't matter

I'm often declaring that words matter. "Words matter" is the tagline on a promotional piece for my business. I make a living flirting, fondling, and fussing with words, as is evidenced in this space. But how and when words matter circumscribes a shifting landscape of context, complexion, and atmosphere. 

Listening to some Beatles oldies has driven this home ("Baby, you can drive my deconstructionist car...") Several years ago, I was driving around. "Maxwell's Silver Hammer," from Abbey Road, was playing. My youngest child was in the car; maybe a young teenager at the time, or younger. I was bopping along to the relentlessly cheery and bubbly tune. My daughter said something like, "Dad, are you listening to these lyrics?" Well, I had many times listened to the song's gleeful depictions of MURDER, but never gave it any mind. The narrative was indefensible, if you were to take the lyrics seriously, that is. But who did? I never did. But a new generation of listeners perhaps took away an utterly different message. This has become a family joke, especially if we listen to "Maxwell's Silver Hammer" in the car.

I recently slipped in the CD for Rubber Soul. (I am really bothered that Capitol released the British version; it totally messes with my boyhood memory of listening to the LP; different songs, different sequence.) "Run for Your Life" has John Lennon, or more accurately the character in a song, threatening death to a girlfriend (maybe it's an ex-girlfriend) owing to the narrator's jealous rage. As a teenager, these lyrics never fazed me (perhaps because I was such a late bloomer and had no actual 3D girlfriend at the time of the song's release). I don't recall the song causing the slightest controversy. It likely caused less stir than "Under My Thumb" by the Rolling Stones. (Was preconceived prejudice a factor? After all, the Stones traded on their outlaw appeal.)

Would any of these lyrics cause a ripple today?

These reflections have forced me to evaluate some of my easy-access hostility to pop or hiphop lyrics that strike me as patently offensive (though, I don't have ready examples except the obscenities or verbal brickbats hurled from car speakers whose drivers are pleased to give the finger to society as if to shout, "you got a problem with that?").

And it's not just words alone, is it? In music, the lyrics coexist with the melody, whether we like it or not. It has been said that the tune for "Yesterday" started off with "scrambled eggs" as a holding pattern, a place holder, for the immortal lyrics eventually wedded to the musical notes. Imagine if "Yesterday," perhaps the most covered song in history, with its haunting and heartbreaking melody and lyrics, had silly or indecipherable or obscene lyrics. It would not endure.  At all.

So, I'll come full circle and say that words do matter. But how and when and why are tricky concepts to delineate. 

Just as in life.

reflextns on txtng2

It happens. After all, who wants to use more thumbstrokes? Who wants to slow down the effluvial ephemera of quotidian trivia? The "it" I refer to above -- an "it" typed without its antecedent -- is the shortening, the abbreviating, the consequent depunctuation of texting.

I do it.

I've done it.

Both with and without guilt.

I'll not do "it" when I want to be pedantic, when I want to prove a point to the recipient that I'm either not uneducated or that I was an English major or that I do not subscribe to the vulgar laziness of texting, the habits of stark simplicity.

But other times I do subscribe to minimalist fervor, an icon of the age.

And linguistically we know that language inexorably grows, organically, toward simplicity, as a sign of its sophistication!

So, when I text I sometimes will say to myself, hey, the question mark was obvious just by the phrasing, it couldn't be anything but a question. or I mutter to self that periods commas or semicolons are just getting in the way course they no wot i mean who needs caps either its all undrstd txtng is fun after all japanse grls hv wrttn txt novels etc no end pt

Texting.

Txtng

Just some thoughts.

alpha bravo tango website

Bravo to The Associated Press for now proclaiming "website" instead of "Web site" as its preferred style (note to pedants: this is about style, not grammar).

I have long argued this was inevitable.

Yes, there are, and will be, holdouts. Maybe forever. (Right now: The New Yorker, New York Times, and a plethora of others insist on "Web site.") (As you all know, I can be stubborn about such things. I did not become a Serial Comma Commando for nothing!)

I have pushed for this change with particular clients I have worked with (yes, yes, yes, of course you can end a sentence with a preposition! Or even a proposition!).

The organic and natural evolution in American English is for compound forms to go from two words to hyphenated forms to solid, one-word configurations.

Be organic linguistically! Go organic!

After all, we don't use "tele-phone" anymore. We don't write "tele-vision." At least I don't.

Back in my linguistics course in 1968-69, I learned that such linguistic contraction is a mark of a language's sophistication.

Simplify.

Just as Thoreau said.

Zen masters too.

By the way, my friend Mark Murphy alerted me to a fantastic resource if you are into this sort of esoteric stuff:

OnlineStylebooks.com

Awesome. I salute its creator and maintainer.

Facebook Security Word Poetry, an addendum

All right.

I'm a Facebook newbie.

These security "passwords" are common for many sites, including here.

In Facebook it says:

"Enter both words below, separated by a space."

Has the definition of words been so broadened as to include any combination of letters, letters and numbers, and so on -- in a quasi-English syntactical fashion?

Or are all these "words" in the latest O.E.D. Supplement?

Monetize This

Tempting though it is, I will not click on the tab titled "Monetize" on the new Blogger settings. Why? First, monetize is an imperative verb. Being the knee-jerk, left-handed rebellious sort, I tend to disobey orders, at least orders from cyberstrangers. True, another tab uses an imperative verb ("View Blog"), but this command harmless and utilitarian. Monetize?

Monetize? Blogger ain't fooling me. It's an attempt to get me to spend money via ads, allegedly to make money.

Right.

(I rule out the remote possibility that Monetize may mean to form, shape, or look like something painted by Claude Monet. HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAAHAHAHAHAHAHA!)

What about a Kierkegaard imperative verb? Kierkegaardize.

Post Position

For some neurotic, compulsive, obsessive reason (or lack of any reason), I am determined to publish more posts this year than last year, 2007, which was my first full year of blogging.

And that won't be hard, given posts like this one.

Ever notice that THAT SAID or HAVING SAID THAT are vogue phrases?

I think people think it makes them sound erudite.

Having said that, I sign off for now.

Nonplussed

It is easy to be nonplussed by the word "nonplussed."

It is commonly used as a substitute for "unfazed" or undaunted," although it means perplexed or bewildered.

Surprisingly, there's no entry for nonplussed in The Associated Press Stylebook.

At least not yet.

(But in my experience as a copy editor, or copyeditor, if you prefer, at a newspaper, the sports desk seemed to shun The AP Stylebook about as much as some of its prose stylists shucked modesty and moderation, especially in the Run-Away or Rampant Metaphor Department. I digress.)

Today I saw this sentence in the sports section (called "Sport" [singular] in British papers) of the local paper:

"[name of basketball player] seems nonplussed by the big time."

True, you can't tell what the sense is just by that sentence, but if you read on you understand by context that the intended sense was "unfazed."

I refer you to Charles Hodgson for an enriching and entertaining history of "nonplussed."

I don't deny that words change meaning and would not be surprised to find that perfectly acceptable dictionaries now give variant definitions for nonplussed that incorporate the "right" and the "wrong" meanings.

I don't get my Y-fronts in a knot over these things.

A pedant does reside in my bones, but I also am capable of sitting back and enjoying the etymological ride, so to speak.

(Note to true editors: yes, yes, yes, this post is a mess regarding consistent or proper use of quotation marks and italics. Mea culpa. Mea maxima culpa.)

Greenwashing

I learned a new word at an environmental conference last week:

greenwashing

It's a delicious combination of green and whitewashing (and brainwashing, come to think of it).

According to Wikipedia, here are the Six Sins of Greenwashing:


In December 2007, environmental marketing company TerraChoice gained national press coverage for releasing a study called "The Six Sins of Greenwashing," which found that 99% of 1,018 common consumer products randomly surveyed for the study were guilty of greenwashing.

According to the study, the six sins of greenwashing are:

• Sin of the Hidden Trade-Off: e.g. “Energy-efficient” electronics that contain hazardous materials.
  

• Sin of No Proof: e.g. Shampoos claiming to be “certified organic,” but with no verifiable certification.
  

• Sin of Vagueness: e.g. Products claiming to be 100% natural when many naturally-occurring substances are hazardous, like arsenic and formaldehyde (see appeal to nature).
  

• Sin of Irrelevance: e.g. Products claiming to be CFC-free, even though CFCs were banned 20 years ago.
  

• Sin of Fibbing: e.g. Products falsely claiming to be certified by an internationally recognized environmental standard like EcoLogo, Energy Star or Green Seal.
  

• Sin of Lesser of Two Evils: e.g. Organic cigarettes or “environmentally friendly” pesticides.

Being a bit of a wordsmith, I ask you, what would these words mean:

yellowwashing

redwashing

purplewashing

blackwashing

graywashing

Oh, I have ideas percolating. Oh yeah.

Sometimes, though, it is best to let imaginations play, which would be spectrumwashing.

Word Counts, Revisited

I take back what I said about words in the previous post. Sort of.

Words count. But so does counting words.

Dr. James W. Pennebaker, a professor of psychology at the University of Texas, counts words and analyzes what the array of our words and their number say about us, whether we are lying, what our motives are, whether our relationships are changing, other patterns, et cetera, ad infinitum.

When I was an English teacher, I loathed when students would pencil in their running tally of words in their assigned writing. They'd pencil in pesky little numerals above their text -- text that usually consisted of What The Teacher Wants To Hear. Yawn. And I told them I loathed that practice because they were paying more attention to the number of words than the content of the words. They'd say, "Mr. K, how long does the assignment have to be?"

"I don't know; as long as it's good," and they'd howl.

Who knew the kids were inadvertently on to something?

Click on the link here for the article in today's Science Times; fascinating.

Plus, check out Wordwatchers, Dr. Pennebaker's intriguing website that provides dispassionate and sober critiques comparing word use by, yes, of course, McCain and Obama (and the other candidates).

So, now, this blog has explored the linguistic gamut, From Um to Eternity.

The Cost of Wording

In the economy, we hear about the "cost of living." A raise might even be termed a COLA, or "cost of living adjustment."

What about blogging?

Some blogs rely on imagery or videos or photos; most use words. What if we had to pay for each word (or each character) our fingers tapped out on the keyboard? Already some pilot programs are being tested to limit Internet use, mostly to thwart hoggish e-behavior.

My point is this: in a reversal of the days of Charles Dickens or Henry James, when some authors were paid by the word and were encouraged to serialize and to write more more more, what if we all had to pay for each word?

How measured would we become? How carefully would we choose our words? Would we use the editor's scalpel or even the handy hatchet? Would haiku become the coin of the realm, the currency of choice in a deflated market of post-logorrheic excess?

Watching the financial world turn upside down, I scratched my metaphorical head and wondered what would happen if such tumult applied to the blogosphere.

And now we return to our usual unusual programming.

Absolutely

Notice how ubiquitous the word "absolutely" has become?

Absolutely.

It has become a substitute for certainly, yes, very much so, truly, indeed, without a doubt, yes, of course, undoubtedly, unquestionably, emphatically, unequivocally, yes, heartily, infinitely, assuredly, yes.

It kind of annoys me.

Some Antics . . .

. . . or semantics.

Wordplay. Or is it wordploy?

Whether forecast = predictions on decision making.

That's all I've got for now.

A foregone conclusion (or, to borrow from the late Victor Borge), a fivegone conclusion in times of inflation. A fivecast, too (or three).

Water You Know (Or Thought You Did)

In browsing through the March 24, 2008, issue of The New Yorker, trying to look as if I have risen above my modest station in life, I came across this sentence, discussing the Eliot Spitzer scandal, in a fine essay by Hendrik Hertzberg (ah, America's puritanism!):

"That's what Larry Craig and David Vitter, hypocrites of the first water, are doing; they have faded into the echoing hallways of the Capitol like guerrillas melting into a crowd of campesinos."

"Of the first water"?

I had always seen or heard the phrase "of the first order."

Turns out "of the first water" has a very cool, as in ice (as in diamonds), etymology, as reported in The Phrase Finder, a gem of a British website (which parenthetically does not enlighten us on "of the first order"):

First water - Of the

Meaning

Of the highest quality.

Origin

From the gem trade. The clarity of diamonds is assessed by their translucence; the more like water, the higher the quality. This comparison of diamonds with water dates back to at least the early 17th century, and Shakespeare alludes to it in Tymon of Athens, 1607. The 1753 edition of Chambers' Encyclopedia has this under an entry for 'Diamond':

"The first water in Diamonds means the greatest purity and perfection of their complexion, which ought to be that of the clearest drop of water. When Diamonds fall short of this perfection, they are said to be of the second or third water, &c. till the stone may be properly called a coloured one."