Why can't you understand me?

It is said that it is possible for a Spanish-speaker to ask a Portuguese speaker for directions in Spanish and be fully understood. However, when the Portuguese speaker replies in Portuguese, the Spanish speaker may be completely lost. This may seem somewhat baffling, but the reason is that the two Romance languages share a degree of mutual intelligibility, but it is not absolute.

Mutual intelligibility is defined by Wikipedia as "a relationship between languages in which speakers of different but related languages can readily understand each other without intentional study or extraordinary effort." There are levels of mutual intelligibility ranging from zero to 100%. The only language with which English enjoys a relatively high level of mutual intelligibility is Lowland Scots, which is considered to be a separate language by some linguists and merely a dialect of English by others. This is not to be confused with Scottish Gaelic, a Celtic language which is apparently fairly mutually intelligible with Irish Gaelic. There is extremely low mutual intelligibility between English and Scottish Gaelic.

Consequently, The Lowland Scots sentence "D'ye see yon hoose ower yonder" (Do you see that house off in the distance) would be relatively intelligible to an English speaker with no previous exposure to Lowland Scots.

But the Scottish Gaelic sentence "Dè an t-ainm a tha ort?" (What is your name?) would probably mean absolutely nothing to an English speaker with no previous exposure to Scottish Gaelic.

Some language sets enjoy a very high degree of mutual intelligibility. Norwegian and Swedish are, to a large degree, mutually intelligible, as are Bosnian, Croatian, and Serbian. Conversely, sometimes different dialects of a particular language will lack a significant degree of mutual intelligibility.

In Mutual Intelligibility in the Romance Languages, Robert Lindsay writes:

What is interesting is that everyone accepts that Spanish, Portuguese and Italian are separate languages, despite 54% intelligibility for Spanish and Portuguese and even higher for Spanish and Italian.

However, in the cases of Austrian/Bavarian, Swabian (spoken around Stuttgart) and Mainfränkisch(Moselle Franconian, close to Luxembourgeois), these three languages are only 40% intelligible with Standard German. Their status as separate languages has infuriated lots of folks who just consider them to be dialects of German, or "cheap slangs" of some type or other. Yet they have a better case for being separate languages than Spanish, Portuguese and Italian do.

Mutual intelligibility can vary in degree with respect to the written and spoken varieties of languages. In many cases, written forms are more mutually intelligible than spoken forms as speakers of one language can recognize similar features more readily in spellings than in pronunciations. A simple example is English and Afrikaans. "My pen is in my hand." could be a sentence in English or Afrikaans, with an identical meaning and read correctly by monolingual speakers of both. However, the words are pronounced differently, which could inhibit comprehension. Furthermore, mutual intelligibility may not be equal on both sides. It is apparently easier for a Dutch speaker to understand Afrikaans than vice versa and statistically easier for a Portuguese speaker to understand Spanish than the other way around.

This brings up the point of the disparity between mutual intelligibility and lexical similarity (similarity of related words between languages). Differences in pronunciation and in the related forms themselves are largely responsible for this. An example is the Spanish word "tiempo," which is lexically similar to the French word "temps." Both mean "time" or "weather." Yet the pronunciations are so different that this could easily prevent comprehension. Lindsay writes:

We also learn, here, that no one can understand French except the French. Spanish, Portuguese, Italians, Romanians, no one can understand the damned French. This makes sense to me. I can’t understand a word of the local French-speaking tourists, and I had a semester of French. The always talk like they are holding their noses. This is interesting in light of the fact that Italian, Spanish, Portuguese and Romanian have 89%, 75%, 75%, and 75% lexical similarity with French. But all those similar words aren’t worth a hill of beans when it comes to understanding a Frenchman." [no offense, of course, is meant towards the French!]

Mutual intelligibility may also decrease over time. English is very closely related to Frisian, spoken in Friesland in the Netherlands, and at one point, Old English and Old Frisian were thought to be mutually intelligible. Over the centuries, English and Frisian maintained some level of mutual intelligibility, giving rise to the sentence "Butter, bread, and green cheese is good English and good Fries," which is pronounced roughly the same and has the same meaning in both languages (in Frisian, it is "Bûter, brea, en griene tsiis is goed Ingelsk en goed Frysk"). Yet the two languages have drifted apart, with English upholding its 1000-year-old Norman French influence, and Frisian being influenced heavily by Dutch, to the extent that monolingual Frisian and English speakers probably could not understand each other today.

Lindsay addresses the subject: "Frisian and English have 61% lexical similarity, but in the Frisian video (featured in a prior post)...I could not make out a single word in five minutes. It appears that 60% lexical similarity and $1.89 will get you a Slurpee at a 7-11, but little in the way of understanding another language."

There is another pitfall with lexical similarity: false cognates. "Ano" exists in both Portuguese and Spanish, but while it means "year" in Portuguese, it means "anus" in Spanish. Similarly, a Spanish-speaking woman may be "embarazada," and an English-speaking woman may be "embarrassed." However, "embarazada" does not mean "embarrassed," but "pregnant."

Curiously, as some dialects of languages are more mutually intelligible than others (for example, some dialects of German and Dutch are more mutually intelligible than Standard German and Standard Dutch), it is thought that, by tracing a chain of mutually intelligible dialects, a "dialect continuum" may be established. In Europe, for example, Continental West Germanic, North Germanic, North Slavic, South Slavic, and Romance dialect continua are said to exist (see Wikipedia about "dialect continuum").

(Posted by language fan and friend Silas McCracken. And feel free to join his Facebook fan page too.)

Chat with Silas

Language fan and friend Silas McCracken, who's a guest poster here, said that he would do a chat (IM/text chat) with readers of this blog. I'm still waiting for him to give me an available date, but when it happens, which will be this month, I'll announce it here and at his Facebook fan page. So stay tuned!

Is Corporatese Truly "Value-Added"?

"Vision-Makers specializes in developing strategic solutions that take your company to the next level. Our mission is to become your turnkey partner for all your business performance and incentive needs; thereby helping you realize success. The focus on integrated business strategies that promote organizational growth through maximizing customer and employee performance. Through the power of incentives, we strive to create positive & measurable results. We offer a portfolio of quality products and services, which are distinguished by integrity, innovation and differentiation through teamwork. In today's increasingly complex marketplace, we understand that one principal stands apart from the rest. RELATIONSHIPS DRIVE BUSINESS."

This mission statement is the first page of a brochure issued by Vision-Makers of Marietta, Georgia, USA. Upon reading that, can you pinpoint exactly what Vision-Makers does or offers? I was not familiar with the company before reading that statement and, after reading that, had no idea as to what the company actually does. A "strategic solution" could be anything from the acquisition of new computer equipment to the acquisition of a new type of office toilet paper. "Integrated business strategies" could refer to scheduling meetings or choosing the best sandwich shop when ordering lunch for office staff. "Incentives" could be raises, opportunities for career development, days off, in-office massages, or gourmet coffee. "Quality products and services" does not specify the type of products or services (Whoopie cushions? Singing telegrams? Computer software? Employee placement?), the level of quality, or the standards for determining "good" or "bad quality." "RELATIONSHIPS DRIVE BUSINESS"? That states nothing but the obvious, since it would be difficult to transact business without a professional relationship of some sort with another party unless you enjoy doing business with yourself. And what exactly is a "turnkey partner"?

A perusal of the company website reveals further mystifying turns of phrase, such as "EmployeeExcite™ can do it all …with measurable results." The first part of the phrase, "can do it all" is simply false advertising, unless EmployeeExcite™ can fly to Jupiter, cure all ills, and develop calorie-free chocolate. And the second part, "with measurable results" is essentially meaningless since all, or at least nearly all, results of any kind are measurable, even if the measurement is zero. The same page exuberantly boasts "Customizable Turnkey Solutions…Right out of the Box!!!!!" Huh? What does this mean in concrete terms?

Many of us who have worked in nearly any capacity with a variety of corporations have encountered this impressive-sounding, but essentially vacuous lingo. Ambiguous phrases such as "leverage," "forward-thinking," and "value-added," which sound focused, professional, and assertive but are far from specific when deconstructed, are widely used these days in white-collar industries. There is, in fact, a name for this phenomenon: "Corporatese." Wikipedia defines Corporatese rather disturbingly as such: "Closely related to Politically correct phraseology and George Orwell's concept of Newspeak, Corporatese is corporate jargon characterized by sometimes unwieldy elaborations of common English phrases. It may dramatize or conceal the real meaning of what is being said."

Not everyone has been hoodwinked by Corporatese. For instance, the poll What's the Most Annoying Corporate Catchphrase shows "Give it 110%" winning so far (for the record, I voted for "leverage"). And I suspect that, the more these empty terms and phrases are used, the more cliched they will become and perhaps actually backfire, reflecting negatively upon the professionals who use them.

Wikipedia has compiled a list of examples of Corporatese and other illustrations of Corporate Jargon. I suspect that you will recognize a number of these terms.

My thanks to Ms. Liz Hunyadi for suggesting the topic of this post.

(Posted by language fan and friend Silas McCracken. And feel free to join his Facebook fan page too.)

When a French kiss is not a kiss

As Valentine's Day is approaching, many individuals are discussing (or avoiding discussions of) kisses, hugs, and love. Explaining these concepts in certain languages may sometimes be more difficult than expected if a non-native speaker is relying on first-language logic and cognates. 
 
In Spanish, the logic generally follows English. A kiss/to kiss is "un beso"/"besar," and a hug/to hug is "un abrazo"/"abrazar." Similarly, in Portuguese, the same distinction is made: "um beijo"/"beijar" vs. "um abraço"/"abraçar." Moving across the Romance-language spectrum, we find the same logic in Italian with "bacio"/"baciare" vs. "abbraccio"/"abbracciar." We run into major and potentially VERY embarrassing snags when we get to French. 
 
At one point, French followed its Latin brethren, with cognates "un baiser"/"baiser" vs. "une embrassade"/"embrasser" referring to smooching and embracing.  But then something changed. Radically. Confusingly.  
 
A thread on wordreference.com describes the situation:

 
As I see it, the confusion about kissing and hugging got started in the 17th century. The exquisite preciosity (and hypocrisy) of the Versailles courtisans - who called teeth "the furnishings of the mouth", for example - made it popular among them to describe having sex with someone as "kissing" them. It was less crude, but more ambiguous too, and it soon lost its euphemistic sense and became a word just as rude as f---. The result is that, until today, if you say that a couple is baise-ing, it means they are f***ing, et point final!

This expropriation, however, created a need for a substitute to describe the simple act of kissing someone, now that “baiser” had been irretrievably expropriated for another purpose. The solution created even more confusion - the verb "embrasser", to embrace, began to be used (or misused) instead.

The result of all this is that in current French one has to find all sorts of round-about ways of describing these simple acts. For example, to say "I want to kiss you", you can choose between "Je veux t'embrasser" or – curiously - "Je veux te donner un baiser", since the noun did not meet the same fate as the verb.

“I want to hug you” is even worse, since this gesture is not very French and, what with “embrasser” now meaning “to kiss”, has to be described in detail: "Je veux t'entourer des bras", "Je veux t'enlacer", or still "Je veux te serrer dans mes bras". Curiously again, the noun retains its original meaning – the seldom used “une embrassade” still means “an embrace”.

Talk about a potential minefield of traps for non-native speakers! Consequently, "Je veux te donner un baiser" is a perfectly innocent way to say "I want to give you a kiss," yet "Je veux te baiser" means something far more intimate. And "I want to give you a hug" comes across more like an instruction manual than a simple desire, as constructions such as "I want to squeeze you with my arms" or "I want to wrap you in my arms" are generally used.   
 
As for what English-speakers call a French kiss (i.e. a tongue kiss), in France it is often called (politely) as "un baiser amoureux" ("a love kiss"), with the verb "to French kiss" being "embrasser avec la langue" ("to kiss with the tongue"). In Quebec (Canada), however, the anglicism "frencher" is sometimes used as the verb-in French. Now that's ironic! 

(Posted by language fan and friend Silas McCracken. And feel free to join his Facebook fan page too.)

Language predictions for the coming 50-100 years

Language and languages are constantly changing, and, in my opinion, considering language evolution over decades and centuries is quite fascinating. Often when we read literature from hundreds of years ago, it becomes obvious which words, structures, and other language "trends" have gone out of fashion and which trends have become embedded somewhat permanently in language. An example is the use of "to be" in the perfect tense in English with certain verbs such as "to come" (e.g. "he is come" instead of "he has come"). This would appear to have been influenced by French, where as distinction is made between verbs, such as "venir" (to come), which form the past tense (passé composé ) with "être" ("to be"), and the majority of verbs, which form this tense "avoir" ("to have"). Look at this interesting article on the archaic "to be" vs. "to have" in English verbs like "to come".

I've decided to make some unofficial predictions about language in the future based on today's trends. Some may come true, some later, and perhaps none will ever come true. Still, it can be fun to speculate:

1) The ban on ending questions with prepositions will become archaic. When I was a child, I was taught never to end a question with a preposition. It should never be "who are you speaking for?" but "for whom are you waiting?" While this tends to still be true in formal business and academic writing, in informal writing and conversational speech, prepositions seem to come at the end of questions more often than not unless the speaker is especially careful about "correct speech" and/or is a language prescriptionist. However, even in some recent English teaching worksheets for non-native speakers, I was surprised to see it listed as allowable to end questions with prepositions. In certain other Germanic languages (to which English belongs), it is (and has been perfectly acceptable) to end questions with prepositions; Norwegian is one such example, as far as I know. In other Germanic languages, such as German, as well as the Romance and Slavic languages, the ban tends to persist in formal and informal writing and speech.

Nevertheless, this "schoolmarmish" rule in English appears to be dying out as it seems unnecessarily stilted and rigid, and I predict that in 50-100 years, even formal academic and business writing will reflect what is patently obvious in conversational speech.

2) This brings us to the next prediction: the loss of the word "whom." This accusative/dative form of "who' is one of the last vestiges of the English case system, which was, in the past more complex, more along the lines of the modern German or Slavic case systems. However, the use of "whom" mirrors the "proper" placement of prepositions in questions, and these days "whom" seems to be limited to formal business and academic writing in English and the speech of very meticulous grammar enthusiasts, who are in the minority. Its days are numbered. But those who are nostalgic for the once vibrant case system of English shouldn't be too disappointed, as cases will likely continue to remain alive and well in personal pronouns (I/my/mine/me, you/yours/your, he/his/him, she/hers/her, it/its, we/our/ours/us, they/their/theirs/them) and in the possessive apostrophe-s or s-apostrophe added to singular and plural nouns.

3) The complete merger of the subjunctive mood in English with the simple past tense. Today the subjunctive (contrary-to-fact) mood in English, which is highly complex in some languages, such many of the Romance languages, is mostly identical to other tenses, such as the past tense ("I wish he had it"), but in some cases, there are differences, most notably with "to be" (the traditional prescriptionist form being "I wish I were" rather than "I wish I was"). However, again, the use of "were" (which is historically similar to the German subjunctiv) in such cases is becoming increasingly relegated to formal and academic contexts and the speech of those who consciously wish to adhere to the rules and speak "properly." I predict that it will become archaic and fall out of use.

4) Profanity will likely become less "profane." I predict that so-called "swear words" in English will lose much of their taboo status and become more permissible in a greater number of contexts and arenas. This will, in my opinion, be the result of an increasingly less formal society in general (along the lines of women no longer wearing white gloves to public functions and the observation that far fewer people '"dress up" for air travel).

5) The ever-growing influence of technology and popular culture on English due to increased media saturation. In fact, I would guess that, over the next few decades, most new words entering English will reflect both of these spheres, some words becoming permanent fixtures of the linguistic landscape and perhaps being extended metaphorically. For instance, maybe the "Facebook verb" "to friend" ("to add someone as a friend") will gradually replace the current "to befriend" as the verb of choice when referring to act of establishing a friendship. It's possible! SMS-style shorthand, such as "u" for "you" and "lol" for "laughing out loud" will likely be around for a long time, but I doubt that these forms will become mainstream in anything but informal settings, at least not anytime soon.

6) Increased standardization of English. When I took linguistic classes as an undergraduate, I was exposed to the theory that dialects of English will eventually develop into their own distinct languages, just as dialects of Latin have developed into French, Spanish, Portuguese, Italian, and so on. The theory hypothesized that eventually there will be separate British, Canadian, American, and Australian languages, among others. However, what the theory seemingly failed to consider was that the countries (and dialects) of the Anglosphere (collection of English-speaking nations) are far less isolated on a daily basis than the constituent territories of the Roman Empire. Due to the pervasive global media, English speakers all over the world can log on or turn on various devices and be exposed to (or flooded with) English from all over the world. I believe that this cross-exposure will lead to the various Englishes borrowing more from each other and becoming more alike, with each dialect retaining some of its "quirks."

7) The increased use of English around the world. It seems hard to imagine how this could be possible, as English is today's lingua franca, but I predict that English will continue its sweep across the globe, with increasingly fewer non-English speakers. I'll also forecast that a number of historically non-English-speaking countries with large numbers of speakers of English as a second language will legally adopt English as an official language, alongside the historical national language(s), as a nod at internationalization (perhaps the Netherlands and at least one of the Scandinavian countries) or as a "neutral" compromise between rival officially national languages (such as Switzerland).

Some of these predictions may seem extremely obvious, but it is still useful, in my view, to view them as part of the dynamics of language change in English, which is going on as we speak!

(Posted by language fan and friend Silas McCracken. And feel free to join his Facebook fan page too.)

the Property Manager

Late last year, I met Jerome Davis, who's created an audio journal called "The Property Manager". It was featured on Chicago public radio, and since then, his nice and interesting tech producer, Matt Miller, had to move on to other projects, so Jerome asked me to help out. So here's what he wrote and voiced recently, which I produced. It's around four minutes long.

Those Annoying Apostrophes

Apostrophes tend to be a major source of irritation and confusion to those (even native English speakers) who write in English. Indeed, a journey across the internet will show just how often "it's" and "its" are mixed up, as are "theirs" and "their's." The writing site Howtowriteessay.co.uk states:

The apostrophe was not widely used until the 17th century, and the rules were not laid down until the 19th century, which perhaps explains its famous abuse from market traders who always seem to sell orange's.

Generally speaking, the apostrophe is used to stand in for missing letters, such as "it's" for "it is" or to show possession (such as "boy's," "mother's"...). Confusingly, possessive pronouns do not take apostrophes, which mean that "his," hers," and "its" are correct even if "Joes," "Sarahs," and "cats" are not when used in a possessive context.

Another source of confusion is how to use the apostrophe for possessives. Generally speaking, for singular nouns, " 's " is added to the noun, while plural nouns ending in "s" simply take an apostrophe after the "s" ("the one boy's" vs. "the two boys' "). What about singular nouns and names ending in "s," such as "Dickens"?

The site states the following:

This rule applies in most cases even with a name ending in s:
Thomas's job
the bus's arrival
James's fiancée
Steve Davis's victory

However, under "exceptions," the same site states this rule:

Second, a name ending in s takes only an apostrophe if the possessive form is not pronounced with an extra s. Hence:
Socrates' philosophy
Saint Saens' music
Ulysses' companions
Aristophanes' plays

So it depends upon pronunciation? What if someone were to pronounce the extra "s" in, say "Ulysses'(s)"?

Dates appear to be tricky. The site, which is British, claims that decades, such as "1970s" are written without the apostrophe in British English but with the apostrophe (e.g. "1970's") in US English. Yet the New York Times, which presumably uses US English, has dropped the apostrophe from such contexts, considering it to be archaic. I've also heard other American sources that swear that apostrophes should not be used in this context.

The British site, however, states that:

a year is occasionally written in an abbreviated form with an apostrophe: Pío Baroja was a distinctive member of the generation of '98. This is only normal in certain set expressions; in my example, the phrase generation of '98 is an accepted label for a certain group of Spanish writers, and it would not be normal to write *generation of 1898.

This sounds reasonable, but it should probably be extended to include school and university alumni groups, since, as far as I know, such spellings as "Class of '89" are perfectly correct. For that matter, "Class of 1989" wouldn't be incorrect, either.

The site advises that apostrophes should almost never be used for forming plurals. More than one dog would be "dogs" and never "dog's." What about for letters of the alphabet that need to be pluralized? Guess what! The plural is formed with-an apostrophe:

An apostrophe is indispensable, however, in the rare case in which you need to pluralize a letter of the alphabet or some other unusual form which would become unrecognizable with a plural ending stuck on it:
Mind your p's and q's.
How many s's are there in Mississippi?
It is very bad style to spatter e.g.'s and i.e.'s through your writing.

The mess doesn't end there? What about holidays such as "Veterans Day" (a US holiday) or "Valentine's Day." For Veterans Day, at least, the debate even became controversial, as reported by the newspaper The Columbia Missourian. "Veterans Day" appears to be the far-from-clear choice because the holiday is a day for all Americans to honor veterans; hence, "Veterans" is used descriptively rather than possessively. When plural nouns are used descriptively, they generally do not take adjectives. Yet the confusion has arisen because if the holiday were a day belonging to veterans, it should be "Veterans' Day," or to "the veteran," it should be "Veterans' Day."

Valentine's Day appears to be a bit less confusing, as it is "St. Valentine's Day," but it could theoretically be interpreted as a day for everyone to celebrate their valentines (Valentines Day) or a day belonging to valentines (Valentines' Day).

To sum up, Howtowriteessay.co.uk has concluded that:

The apostrophe (') is the most troublesome punctuation mark in English, and perhaps also the least useful. No other punctuation mark causes so much bewilderment, or is so often misused. On the one hand, shops offer *pizza's, *video's, *greeting's cards and *ladie's clothing; on the other, they offer *childrens shoes and *artists supplies. The confusion about apostrophes is so great, in comparison with the small amount of useful work they perform, that many distinguished writers and linguists have argued that the best way of eliminating the confusion would be to get rid of this troublesome squiggle altogether and never use it at all.

Perhaps they're right!

(Posted by language fan and friend Silas McCracken. And feel free to join his Facebook fan page too.)

Crème fraîche is not "fresh cream"

Certain food items borrowed from European traditions are readily translated in English, while others are not, and at times the translations themselves can refer to something entirely different. The vanilla-flavored whipped cream known as crème Chantilly may also legitimately be called "Chantilly cream" in English without any change in meaning. The custard sauce Crème anglaise, which is French for "English cream" (despite the dubiousness of the sauce's English origins) may be called "English cream" in English but usually retains its French name.

In contrast, crème fraîche should never be called by its literal translation "fresh cream," especially since it is most akin to what English speakers generally know as "sour cream." Indeed, the dairy product is essentially fresh cream that has been matured or soured. The French name persists in English. By the same token, the French name crème brûlée is almost always used in English instead of the translation "burnt caramel" for the dessert that is not just burnt caramel, per se, but a rich custard served cold and topped with a warm layer of hard (perhaps burnt) caramel.

Similarly, the "croissant," which literally means "crescent" (due to the shape of the buttery pastry) is occasionally (albeit somewhat rarely) called a "crescent" or "crescent roll" in English. However, in some English-speaking countries, this could cause confusion, as a crescent roll may generally refer to a different type of crescent-shaped, often savory pastry that is made with far fewer layers of dough than a typical croissant.

The pastry known as the "mille-feuilles" in French is generally not translated in English literally as "thousand-leaf" or "thousand-leaf pastry." In Australia and the UK, it is often called a vanilla slice. In New Zealand, it is a custard square. In South Africa, it is a custard slice. In the USA (and, incidentally, in a number of non-English-speaking countries), it is called a napoleon, not derived initially from the emperor but from the city of Naples, Italy. Interestingly, in French, a "Napoléon" refers specifically to a "mille-feuilles" pastry filled with almond paste. Canada proves to be an exception, however, as it is often called a "mille-feuilles" in French and in English there as a viable alternative to the term napoleon in English.

And as we are speaking of pastries frequently served in cafes, what to call coffee drinks made with milk can be confusing. A café au lait is a "French-style beverage made with drip coffee and boiled milk". A café con leche is a "1 1/2 ounce espresso with enough steamed milk to fill an 8-ounce cup." A caffè latte is "a shot of espresso, with a healthy covering of hot steamed milk and up to a quarter inch of foamed milk on top" (references taken from here). Yet they all mean "coffee with milk" in French, Spanish, and Italian, respectively! To complicate the issue, there is an entirely different drink, "coffee milk," which is cold milk mixed with coffee syrup and is the state drink of Rhode Island!

(Posted by language fan and friend Silas McCracken. And feel free to join his Facebook fan page too.)

Holy days and holidays

As the holiday season is upon us, I feel that it is timely to give some thought to some of the diverse origins of words associated with Christian holidays in English. Christmas, of course, is derived from Christ mass (i.e. a mass for Christ) akin to other holidays, which have waned in relative importance over the years, such as Michaelmas (the mass for the Feast of St. Michael), Candlemas (the Candle Mass on the Feast of the Purification), and Childermas (Children's Mass or the commemoration of the Massacre of the Innocents).

However, Christmas is often synonymous with Yule as in such expressions as "Yuletide cheer" and "Yule log." Yule is the pagan Germanic winter festival celebrated before the Germanic peoples were converted to Christianity (and elements of Yule were incorporated into the celebration of Christmas in these regions). In fact, in Scandinavian languages, cognates of Yule (such as "Jul" in Swedish) are still used to refer to Christmas itself.

As for the term "Noel," which has traditionally been a name given to baby boys born in December and appears in the Christmas carol "the first Noel," that is the French word for Christmas (Noël). Similarly, "Natalie" has often been given to girls born around this time, as "Natalie" is derived from "Natal," which, along with its cognates, is the word of Christmas in a number of Romance languages, such as Portuguese ["Natal") and Italian ("Natale"). It is not surprising that "Natal" refers to the birth of Christ (analogous to terms such as pre-natal or ante-natal care) and is related to words such as "nativity" (as in "nativity scenes" that depict the birth celebrated at Christmastime).

Easter has a similar multilingual and multicultural background. Easter is derived from the Anglo-Saxon "Eostre-monath," a month honoring the pre-Christian Anglo-Saxon goddess Eostre (a cognate of the continental form Ostara). The Greek form "Pascha," derived in term from the Hebrew word "Pesach" ("Passover") found its way into Latin as "Pascha" and hence not only into most modern Romance languages (such as "Pascua" in Spanish), but also a number of Celtic languages (such as "Pask" in Breton) and even some Germanic languages ("Pasen" in Dutch), although German uses "Ostern." In English, occasionally, the form "Paschal" is used to refer to the feast celebrated with Easter. For the most part, Slavic languages (with the exception of Russian) have remained outside this influence, with some Slavic languages opting for the equilavents of "Great Day" or "Great Night" (such as "Velikonoce" in Czech) and the South Slavic languages occasionally borrowing terms (such as "Uskrs," meaning Resurrection, in Serbian and Croatian) from Old Church Slavonic.

And finally, some Christian churches celebrate the "Eucharist" (Holy Communion) every Sunday. The word is derived from Greek eucharistía (comprised of roots for "good" and "grace"), with "Eucharistéō" being the verb "to thank" in New Testament Greek. It comes as no surprise that "Eucharist" is directly related to "efharisto," which is Modern Greek for "thank you."

Happy holidays!

(Posted by language fan and friend Silas McCracken. And feel free to join his Facebook fan page too.)

Of Navy Beans and Haricot Beans

Gourmands beware: vegetables can go by many different names throughout the English-speaking world.

For instance, the North American vegetable "squash" takes its name from "askutasquash" (literally "green thing eaten raw") courtesy of the indigenous Naragansett Indians of the New England region. However, in the United Kingdom and in parts of the British Commonwealth, the vegetable is called a "marrow" (due to comparisons between the cooked flesh of the squash and bone marrow, although this hardly sounds terribly appetizing). To add to the confusion, the vegetable (or at least one variety) is called a "marrow squash," including in the USA.

French influences seem to be more evident in names of vegetables in British and some varieties of Commonwealth English (but not others). What North Americans and Australians call a "zucchini" (taken from the Italian) is called a "courgette" by Brits, the Irish, South Africans, and New Zealanders. What North Americans, New Zealanders, and Australians call "snow peas" are called by the Brits as "mangetout" (literally, "eat everything"!), although I have read that there is technically some difference between true snow peas and true mangetout peas.

Furthermore, what North Americans, Australians, and New Zealanders call an "eggplant" is called an "aubergine" by the Brits, "brinjal" (derived from Sankrit and Persian and also the distant root of "aubergine") by South Africans, Malaysians, and some Indians. In Trinidad, the vegetable is called a "meloongen" (a Latin derivative).

Beans appear to be especially vulnerable to variation across the Atlantic. "Navy beans" in the USA are called "haricot beans" (taken from the French word "haricot" for bean) in the UK. "Lima beans" in the USA are "butterbeans" to Brits, and "fava beans" in the States are "broad beans" in Blighty. Moreover, "stringbeans" in the USA are "runner beans" in Britain.

The term "corn" is rather interesting since, traditionally, in British English "corn" has meant nearly any type of grain, so the Brits have often called this vegetable (or grain, if you wish) "maize," descended from a Taino Indian (Caribbean) word by way of Spanish. Nowadays, the Brits and Irish seem to have largely supplanted "maize" with "sweetcorn," whereas Americans and most of the rest of the English-speaking world call the vegetable simply "corn." In South Africa, however, it is often called "mielie" (derived from the Portuguese word for corn: "milho").

There are some vegetables with acceptable alternates. What Brits call a "gherkin" (descended from Dutch and referring to the vegetable) is usually called a "pickle" (also derived from Dutch, but referring to the salty liquid in which the vegetable is pickled) by Americans, although "gherkin" is occasionally used in the United States. What Brits call "coriander" is generally called "cilantro" by Americans, although there appears to be some interchangeability (and some debate as to whether they are technically the same!), and the terms "garbanzo" (derived from old Spanish) and "chickpea" (with "chick" derived from the French word for the vegetable "pois chiche," descended in turn from Latin "cicer," the origin of the Roman name Cicero!) sometimes used interchangeably within various dialects of English, with Brits tending to prefer "chickpea."

And let's not forget the "avocado" (descended from the Spanish "aguacate"), which has been known colloquially in various regions as an "alligator pear," which is what the English in Jamaica first called it due to the avocado's rough skin!

(Posted by language fan and friend Silas McCracken. And feel free to join his Facebook fan page too.)

The Mystique of Double Consonants

Double consonants can be confusing in English because often they are pronounced exactly the same as single consonants. In this regard, it would perhaps be much easier for those who are writing in English were like Italian, which has double consonants, although the consonants are lengthened when they are doubled. Hence, speakers can hear the doubling. Curiously, although the doubling of English consonants cannot usually be heard, often doubling (or lack thereof) can affect the pronunciation of the preceding vowel. For instance, "a" is pronounced differently in "scarring" and "scaring," even though the "r" is pronounced identically in both words.

Spanish tends not to have double consonants except in the case of "r" and "l." "rr" is treated as a separate letter of the Spanish alphabet, pronounced as a longer, more strongly trilled version of the singular "r." Furthermore, "ll" is pronounced entirely differently from "l," with the former sounding very similar to "y" and the latter sounding similar to the English "l." Consonants that are doubled in French, Portuguese in German tend to sound the same as the singular counterparts, with the notable exception of "s," which often sounds like an English "z" in the singular and an English "s" in the plural.

There are so-called rules that govern the doubling of English consonants in verb stems when followed by "-ing" or "-ed." For instance, one-syllable words ending in a "consonant-vowel-consonant" sequence (such as "rub" or "stun") undergo doubling ("rubbed," "stunned"). In two-syllable words, if the stress is on the second syllable, then the consonant in which the root ends is also doubled ("admit">"admitting"). The rules are described in greater detail here.

But this is not the whole story, as there are dialectal variations. For instance, "final -l is always doubled after one vowel in stressed and unstressed syllables in (Commonwealth) English but usually only in stressed syllables in American English". Hence, while most, if not all, dialects of English have "rebel">"rebelled," American English has "travel">"traveled" and Commonwealth English has "travel">"travelled." To confuse matters, American English occasionally doubles "l" in roots where Commonwealth English does not. Thus, American English has "skillful," 'enroll," and "fulfill," while Commonwealth English has "skilful," "enrol," and "fulfil" (although "skill" remains "skill" in most, if not all dialects).

With all of this orthographical chaos, it should come as no surprise, then, that "misspell" is commonly misspelled as "mispell" even by native English speakers!

(Posted by language fan and friend Silas McCracken. And feel free to join his Facebook fan page too.)

Writing "awhile" for "a while"

For some reason, I have trouble wrapping my mind around "a while" vs. "awhile." The rule is simple enough, according to daily writing tips:

"A while is a noun meaning “a length of time”

“I slept for a while.”
- (compare with “I slept for a bit” and “I slept for three hours”)
“I was away from my desk for a while.”
- (compare with “I was away from my desk for two minutes”)

Awhile is an adverb, meaning “for a time,” or literally, “for a while”.

“I slept awhile before dinner.”
(compare with “I slept deeply before dinner” and “I slept badly before dinner”.)

As you can see, the words can be used almost interchangeably in some cases – but a while needs to be accompanied by a preposition, such as “for” (“I slept for a while”) or “ago” (“I left work a while ago”). Awhile always means “for a while”.

Logically, this makes sense, with prepositions, "a while" is used, while "awhile" is used as a stand-alone adverb. I am not sure why "a while" looks so wrong to me even when it is used correctly. It is also curious because English lacks analogous pairs like "alot" and "a lot" or "akimbo" and "a kimbo." Usually only one choice applies to most, if not all, situations. Hence, the "awhile"/"a while" dichotomy may strike my eyes as strange, especially since, as the description states, "the words can be used almost interchangeably in some cases."

(Posted by language fan and friend Silas McCracken. And feel free to join his Facebook fan page too.)

Is It All Right To Use "Alright"?

English is notorious for its baffling spelling rules and its seemingly capricious and arbitrary differentiations as to what is correct and incorrect. I am thinking specifically of "all right" and "alright."

Native speakers of English often spell "all right" as "alright." For instance, the British group the Who released a song called 'The Kids are Alright' (also used as the title of a British-made documentary about the group). Nevertheless, many people (including me) have been taught that "alright" is not a word and that it should always be written "all right."

For instance, an article intended to prepare candidates for the SAT university entrance exam advises that "Alright is all wrong. Use the two-word form, all right." Similarly, a website listing commonly confused English words dictates "All right. NEVER alright."

It's not that simple, though. After all, English has the acceptable pairs "all together" and "altogether," as well as "all ready" and "already." So why not "all right" and "alright"? Apparently "alright" and "all right" have both had a now-you-see-it-now-you-don't existence, and despite the efforts of prescriptionists to banish "alright" to the linguistic corner, it frequently creeps up in well-respected journalism and literary works.

The SAT Prep article continues:

this requires a bit of explanation. Alright is now widely used, particularly in informal settings such as blogs, emails, text messages, instant messages, tweets, and even some classrooms. Many well-known writers, including James Joyce and Langston Hughes, have used it in literature. It is ubiquitous in written dialog and, sadly, in student papers.

In fact, according to Merriam-Webster Online, the single word alright has been in use since 1887.
The two-word phrase all right was used more than five hundred years ago, spelled al right by Chaucer around the year 1385. The word fell out of favor, then returned to common usage later, when Percy Bysshe Shelley employed it in Scenes from Goethe's Faust.

In any case, all right is the much older form. It remains the standard for use in formal writing today. Alright should be used, if at all, only in informal writing.

I scratch my head and wonder about this logic. If "all right" (written as "al right") was used in the 14th century, only to vanish for roughly 400 years and subsequently reappear as "all right," followed a mere few decades later by "alright," how did "alright" become entirely incorrect instead of just a less common variant? Was it simply a case of "the fastest spelling wins the race"?

There does not, to my mind, seem to be a rational reason why one spelling should be regarded as incorrect especially since both have been widely used by English speakers of varying levels of education and literacy. The notion of incorrect vs. correct seems due to narrow-minded convention ("we spell it this way to not offend any fussy English teachers out there") rather than being founded on any linguistic basis. The flimsiness of the "alright" ban may be why such dictionaries as the American Heritage Dictionary now (as of 1996) list "alright" as an alternate spelling rather than a misspelling. Still, "old-school" teachers and editors may wince and continue to perceive it as incorrect, hence prompting the word of caution in the SAT Prep article.

It makes me wonder who decides the rules of natural language-average speakers who actually speak and write natural languages or small groups of elitist prescriptionists who have an idealized view of how we "should" speak and write, whether the issue is "alright" vs. "all right," a split infinitive, or a preposition precariously placed at the end of a question.

(Posted by language fan and friend Silas McCracken. And feel free to join his Facebook fan page too.)

When Alice's White Rabbit becomes a White Kangaroo

As an adult, I read Lewis Carroll's Alice's Adventures in Wonderland and marveled at the use of puns, inversions, and other types of wordplay such as the following dialogue:

"Why did you call him tortoise, if he wasn't one?" Alice asked.
"We call him Tortoise because he taught us," said the Mock Turtle angrily. "Really, you are very dull." (Chapter IX)

or

"That's the reason they're called lessons," the Gryphon remarked: "because they lessen from day to day." (Chapter IX)

While I found Carroll's writing to be witty, as a translator, I wondered how on earth Carroll's classic could have been translated into other languages, and, according to Wikipedia, the work has been translated into 125 languages. For instance, the play on "Tortoise" and "taught us" would be completely lost in French or Spanish, as would the play on "lesson" and "lessen." An exceptional pun or rhyme might be dealt with neatly with a footnote, but so much of the novel consists of these clever linguistic maneuvers that would seem to only work in English.

I recently did a Google search to find out how translators may have handled this particularly tricky work. In 1999, Sílvia Mas interviewed translator Salvador Oliva in An Interview With Salvador Oliva: Translating Alice in Wonderland into Catalan. In the interview, Oliva states that

Sometimes the content itself is not so important because it is not referential language. Therefore, it can always be replaced. The fundamental aspect for me is the rhyme. not referential language. Therefore, it can always be replaced...the translator has to alter the meaning. It is unavoidable.

Essentially Oliva creates new puns that keep the tone and basic suggestion of the original text, even if the “translation” is not literal.

Vladimir Nabokov, perhaps best known for his infamous work Lolita, produced a Russian translation of Carroll's classic. Leigh Kimmel writes that

while most of the earlier translators of Alice in Wonderland had simply given up on trying to preserve the humor of the puns and had simply translated the words as they were, Nabokov instead tried to find pairs of near-homophones in Russian which would be equally humorous for the Russian reader.

In Exploring Translation and Multilingual Text Production: Beyond Content (Erich Steiner and Colin Yallop, 2001) discuss (pp. 232-238) Nancy Sheppard's translation of Carroll's work into the Australian aboriginal language Pitjantjatjara. Not only does Sheppard have to deal with all the wordplay, but also a very English context that is decidedly out of place in the central Australian desert. Hence the concept of Alice in Wonderland has been translated as "Alitji in the Dreamtime." Instead of seeing a white rabbit, Alitji sees a white kangaroo. The dormouse becomes a koala. Furthermore, l ike Oliva and Nabokov, Sheppard creates new puns that are intended to suggest the spirit of the original puns to readers even if the actual content has been changed.

Translators are, by nature, given the task of rendering the meaning, tone, and spirit of a source text in one language faithfully into a target text in a second language. Often this does not pose a problem and can be accomplished by skilled professionals. However, sometimes in more creative texts, such as poetry or in documents involving the use of wordplay exclusive to the source language, a choice must be made, and either the literal meaning or the spirit must be sacrificed. This represents a gray, murky area in the dynamic field of translation and also underscores the need for qualified human translators to carry out such translations. Indeed, as faulty as "computerized" translations (such as those offered by Babelfish) of straightforward documents might be, it would, at this point, seem nearly impossible for such a work as Alice to be translated effectively by such software.

(Posted by language fan and friend Silas McCracken. And feel free to join his Facebook fan page too.)

Ought we to use "the Aughts"?

With only a few months left of this decade, there seems to be a lack of consensus on what this decade should be called in English. The 1990s were nicely summarized as "the nineties," the 1980s as "the eighties," and so on. However, English, despite its seemingly legendary flexibility, has seemed unable to produce a decisive term for the years 2000 to 2009.

In The Age of the Aughts, Mark Peters discusses the use of "aughts" to refer to the 00s and writes:

A gold star for word-predicting should go to Visual Thesaurus Editor Ben Zimmer, who speculated on OUP Blog in 2007 that "aughts" had a good chance of winning the race, despite the fact that "aught" isn’t exactly a common word for zero. Zimmer noted that the archaic-sounding word is commonly used in the United States to describe the years 1900 to 1909, and that "mid-aughts" was already starting to pick up steam, potentially sparing us the silliness of no-naming, which Zimmer explained was "…when a radio station announces that it plays ‘hits from the ’80s, ’90s… and today!’

Despite the success of "aughts," recent tweets show some people are still paralyzed--or at least amused--with uncertainty as to how they will linguistically look back on 2000 to 2009:

"Amazing how 9 years into this decade there’s still no consensus on what to call it. Can we just go with @maddow’s ‘two-thousandsies’?"
Aug. 21, 2009 Mike McCaffrey

"So we had the 60’s, 70’s 80’s, and 90’s. But what will we call this decade? I'm gonna vote for the Zero’s!"
Aug. 19, 2009 shaythai

"Considering its focus on terror and uncertainty, I propose we call this decade ‘The Dread Naughts’"
Aug. 18, 2009 Fred Zelany

"@rands I propose we call this decade ‘The Holes."
Aug. 18, 2009 rstevens

Wikipedia writes:

Determining a name for the decade has been problematic, especially in the United States. In 1999, anticipating the upcoming awkwardness, a U.S. group calling itself "Project Naughtie" ran a viral campaign in an attempt to popularize "the Naughties" as the decade's name. The term is a portmanteau of naught, meaning "nothing" or "zero", and the names of other decades such as the eighties and nineties, with the intentional implication of naughty as being uninhibited. A limited number of the media has made some use of the term as well, including the BBC (using the common British spelling, nought). The Naughties version was also broadcast regularly in morning news bulletins on UK radio station Atlantic 252 between the end of 1998 and Christmas 1999. An Australian website used the name from 1998. The Noughties is also used in the UK Both spellings have gained some currency among the legitimate press in the United Kingdom, Ireland, and Australia, but there still remains no consensus on what term to use.

In some other languages, such as French, this would appear to be less of a problem. The "sixties," for instance, are known as "les années 60" (the '60 years). Analogously, this decade is "les années 2000." In Spanish, as well, the "sixties" are "los años 60" (the '60 years), and this decade is "los años 2000."

Perhaps, in true dramatic fashion, a "silver bullet" will arrive this December 31, with the suggestion of a perfect term that pleases everyone. As this is unlikely to happen, we will probably be left with a multitude of options, such as those that Peters proposes:

Other names suggested over the years have included the "diddly-squats," "the double naughts," "the double nuts," "the double ohs," "the double zeroes," "the goose eggs," "the naughties," "the naughts," "the nillies," "the nots," "the oh-ohs," "the pre-teens," "the uh-ohs," "the unies," "the zeds," "the zero zeros," and "the zilches." "The aughts" feels like an antique by comparison, a verbal relic like "thou" or "fishmonger". But some antiques still get the job done.

(Posted by language fan and friend Silas McCracken. And feel free to join his Facebook fan page too.)

A Boy Named Anne, A Girl Named Laurence

On the sitcom "Friends," a joke was made about Louisa May Alcott's 19th-century novel Little Women in which there is romantic tension between the characters Jo and Laurie, as the genders of the characters may not be readily apparent to many modern US readers. Indeed, Jo (which sounds like the frequently male name "Joe") is a female, while Laurie is a male. In Alcott's time, and at least into the 20th century in some parts of the English-speaking world, Laurie was a not uncommon nickname for "Laurence," although in the modern US, "Laurie" (akin to "Laura") is used almost exclusively as a female name. To further complicate things, while English speakers will likely identify "Laurence" as a male name, in French, "Laurence" is often used as a girl's name, the feminine form of the male name "Laurent."

English speakers are often used to the gender ambiguity of unisex names such as "Pat," "Alex," "Chris," "Robin" (although in some English-speaking countries the female version is commonly spelled "Robyn"), and "Jamie," as well as names like "Kelly" and even "Marion" (macho US movie star John Wayne's real name was Marion Mitchell Morrison). And over time, some predominantly male names, such as "Taylor," "Adrian," and "Shawn," are used with increasing frequency for baby girls, although, curiously, the reverse happens only rarely.

Because of the infrequency, for whatever reason, of women's names being used for men, it may be confusing or startling to see the use of men's names for women even in a cross-cultural context. "Dominique," used occasionally in English as a female name, may be a man's name or a woman's name in French. The name "Jean," a woman's name in English, is used, although pronounced differently, as a man's name in French (the French form of John). Similarly, "Joan," also used as a woman's name in English, is used, although again pronounced differently, as a man's name in Catalan (the Catalan form of John). "Nicola" and "Andrea," identified primarily as women's names in English, are often used as male names in Italian. Furthermore, "Anne," used as a female name in English, is a man's name in Frisian (a language, closely related to English, spoken in the Netherlands), primarily a woman's name in English, is often used as a male name. And "Marie" or "Maria" have sometimes been given to baby boys as a middle name in parts of Europe, generally traditionally Catholic regions.

This all brings to mind the classic Johnny Cash song A Boy Named Sue. Is it really so far-fetched?

(Posted by language fan and friend Silas McCracken. And feel free to join his Facebook fan page too.)

Looking askance at "-ence" and "-ance"

A few weeks ago I wrote about the trickiness of English words that end in "-ible" and "-able." Another pair of English suffixes that, in my opinion, appears equally troublesome is "-ence" and "-ance" or "-ent" vs. "-ant." For instance, English has the word "independence." It may be traced back to Latin "independens," but it entered English from French, which spells the word "indépendance." To complicate matters, why is "independence (and "independent") spelled the way it is "while the related word "pendant" is spelled "pendant"?

Looking for an explanation of this irregularity, I found the following:

The suffixes are usually applied to verbs that have survived the journey from Latin through Old French, Norman French, and Middle English into Modern English. In addition, there are several words derived directly from Latin which have been recently added to English as scientific and technical terms. Frequently, the verbs themselves didn't survive, but the nouns and adjectives formed from them did.

As some of you may know (and somewhat fewer care), Latin verbs fall into four basic classes describing their conjugation. In one of these classes of verbs (in fact called the "first conjugation"), the infinitive forms end in -are. In another class, infinitives end in -ere. This forms the basis of the suffix rules for most verbs: words derived from first conjugation verbs usually get -ant and -ance, the rest get -ent and -ence. But there are exceptions, even to this!

To add to the confusion, there is a class of words (which we will not list here) which end in -ment.

In the long run, we will have to throw up our arms and proclaim "there are no rules here!"

Indeed, as with "-ible" and "-able," this is essentially a question of "Well, you should know how the original Latin verbs are categorized and then be aware of the exceptions." This isn't terribly helpful.

To complicate matters, sometimes both "-ant" and "-ent" possibilities are acceptable, and others are not:

Spellings with in words such as independence (Latin dependere) are due to later qualms by English scholars. But etymological respectability did not always weigh heavily with the public, and so the dictionary makers have had to allow both spellings in some common words, notably dependent, dependant, dependence, dependance. To allow free variation like this in some particular words only serves to confuse spellers still further. These relaxations are not, however, very consistent: *independent, unlike dependant, is not permitted. The speller may feel entitled to ask: if I am allowed in dependent/dependant, why is this choice not allowed in independent, resplendent, and abundant? An out and out free thinker might even wonder: if a Romance language such as French, regulated as it is by a fearsomely conservative Academy of scholars, can fix the spelling in French as , , , , very conveniently but quite unetymologically, why cannot it be done for English?

(taken from A Survey of English Spelling by Edward Carney (1994), p. 422)

Indeed, why cannot it be done for English?

(Posted by language fan and friend Silas McCracken. And feel free to join his Facebook fan page too.)

Our Fine-Feathered and Four-Legged Verbs

Throughout human history, humans have had to interact at some level with animals, whether for food sources, companionship, study, repulsion, or fascination. Given the close coexistence of humans and animals, it is not surprising that words for animals have entered natural languages. For instance, Portuguese speakers, at least in Brazil, may refer to objects of affection as "gatinho" or "gatinha" (little cat). French speakers may call twilight the period "entre chien et loup" (between the dog and the wolf).

Animal metaphors abound in English, including such adjectives as "catty" and "foxy." Verbs represent one part of speech that is particularly rich in animal inspiration. The verb "lionize" ("to treat as a celebrity") suggests the idea that lions are deserving of attention, perhaps very fitting for the King of the Jungle.

Animal names that are used directly as verbs are plentiful in English. Among a few are "to chicken out" (to lose courage, suggesting that chickens are cowardly," "to fox" (or "to outfox") (to trick someone, suggesting that foxes are wily), "to ape" (to imitate, suggesting that apes are frequent mimics), and "to ram" (to hit something hard, suggesting the a ram's combative motion with its horns).

An extensive, but probably not exhaustive, list of animals used as verbs appears here.

In some cases, such as "to tomcat" (to be promiscuous, used of men) the link between the verb and the animal seems self-explanatory. In other cases, the link appears to be coincidental, such as as "to yak" or "to swallow." I doubt that yaks are notorious chatters or that swallows have exceptionally talented throats.

(Posted by language fan and friend Silas McCracken. And feel free to join his Facebook fan page too.)

The -able/-ible Conundrum

I've previously written about the trickiness of adjectives in English ending in -ic vs. -ical. Another thorn in my side when it comes to the language of Milton is the confusion over adjectives ending in -ible versus adjectives ending in -able (or their corresponding adverbs ending in -ibly and -ably respectively). Part of the problem is that the two suffixes sound exactly alike in many, if not most, dialects of modern English, with the "i" or "a" being reduced to a schwa sound. Another difficulty is that these adjectives, borrowed from other languages, sometimes swap endings in the transition. The French adjective "responsible" has become the English "responsible" for no apparent reason in my mind other than possible lazy spelling by medieval English speakers.

A trawl through the internet offers some clues as to possible rules governing which spelling to use.

Bhacharada.com lists the following points:

Point 1: –able is the basic form. Many more words end in –able than in –ible. When in doubt, and if your dictionary is temporarily unavailable, use –able (or –ably).

Point 2: An a for an a and an i for an i: If the adjective is closely related to a noun that ends in –ation, the adjective is almost certain to end in –able; if a related noun ends in –ion instead of –ation, the adjective is pretty sure to end in –ible.

The site essentially says that 1) -able is preferred because it is statistically more probable and that 2) someone who is writing in a hurry should take the time to search for a related noun ending in -ation to determine whether the suffix is -able, which is already the preferred form. These rules don't seem to be terribly helpful in most cases because for words like understandable or responsible, without corresponding -ation nouns, it's a guess because the rule doesn't state that adjectives without an -ation form can't have -able or -ible as a suffix.

Englishclub.com states that

The -ible ending is for words of Latin origin. There are about 180 words ending in -ible. No new words are being created with -ible endings. Here are the most common examples:

but

The -able ending is for:

* some Latin words, for example: dependable
* non-Latin words, for example: affordable, renewable, washable
* new (modern) words, for example: networkable, windsurfable

Okay, so both endings are for Latin-derived words. That doesn't help much.

The site also provides a rule of thumb:

Rule of thumb: This rule can help you decide the correct spelling. It works most (but not all!) of the time. Remember, if you are not sure about a word, it is probably best to use a dictionary. Here is the rule:

* If you remove -able from a word, you are left with a complete word.
* If you remove -ible from a word, you are not left with a complete word (note that accessible, contemptible, digestible, flexible and suggestible above are among the exceptions to this rule).

Interesting, but there seem to be quite a few exceptions to that rule. To the ones listed, we might add "destructible," "combustible," "resistible," among others. So the rule seems rather flawed, at best.

The Pennington Publishing Blog goes even further, stating

End a word with "able" if the root before has a hard /c/ or /g/ sound (despicable, navigable), after a complete root word (teachable), or after a silent e (likeable). End a word with "ible" if the root has a soft /c/ or /g/ sound (reducible, legible), after an "ss" (admissible), or after an incomplete root word (audible).

but concedes the following common exceptions:

Exceptions to the rule: collapsible, contemptible, flexible, formidable, indomitable, inevitable, irresistible, memorable, portable, probable

That rule seems awfully involved and confusing, especially when we consider that many words fall into two categories. Take "pass," which is a complete root word, so it should end in -able. However, it also ends in the letters -ss, suggesting that the adjectival form should be "passible." In this case, the first guideline applies, and the word is indeed correctly spelled "passable," yet there is no way a native or non-native speaker of English would know this based on the stated rule.

Ultimately, it seems that the best way to deal with words ending in -able and -ible is to buck up and memorize them. And, as with the case of adjectives ending in -ic and -ical, words ending in -able and -ible will probably continue to force people to head to their nearest dictionary to dispel the almost inevitable (one of those pesky exceptions!) doubts.

(Posted by language fan and friend Silas McCracken. And feel free to join his Facebook fan page too.)

When "yes" and "no" become complex

"Yes" and "no" seem like fairly clear-cut words that refer distinctly to affirmative and negative responses, respectively, but the concepts of "yes" and "no," at least as modern English speakers understand them, are far from universal even within a mostly related European context

While Modern English has the two-form "yes" and "no" system, English, as recently as Early Modern English, had a four-form system with "yes' and "yea" corresponding to the modern "yes," with the modern "no" being covered by "no" and "nay." Wikipedia states that "The answers to positively framed questions ("Will he go?") were yea and nay, whilst the answers to negatively framed questions ("Will he not go?") were yes and no. (see Wikipedia entry) Interestingly, "yes" is derived from the Old English adverbs for "surely" and "so," while "no" stems from an Old English adverb that means "never."

Some languages, such as Romanian, continue to use four-form systems. Three-form systems also exist, such as in French, which as"oui" (an affirmative answer to a positive question), "non" (no), and "si" (an affirmative answer to a negative question). Other languages that currently use three-form systems are the Scandinavian languages (Norwegian, Swedish, Danish, and Icelandic) and German.

In addition, there are languages that use "echo responses" to answer affirmatively or negatively. With an "echo response," the verb mentioned in the question is repeated with or without a subject and without the use of "yes" or "no." For instance, in English, you would be using an echo response if you answered "Is he happy?" with "He is." Latin, Finnish and Welsh, as well as Manx, are languages that primarily use echo responses instead of "yes" and "no." I remember that during my brief study of Manx, being particularly mystified by answering questions almost entirely this way, with "yes" being replaced by such answers as "she will be," "she is," or "she was," and I used to joke "how odd that Manx has past and future tenses of yes."

Incidentally, Latin, unlike modern Romance languages, has no distinct words for "yes" and "no." Modern Romance have developed these words, especially "yes," in interesting ways. At least one of the words for "yes" in Romanian ("da") is borrowed from the Slavic languages in the region. In Western Romance languages, there are generally "si"-type languages (e.g. Spanish and Italian, as well as the Portuguese "sim"), "oïl" (or "oui")- type languages (such as Modern French), and "òc"-type languages (Occitan, spoken in southern France). Wikipedia gives this explanation:

"The name Occitan comes from lenga d'òc (i.e. òc language), which comes from òc, the Occitan word for yes. The Italian medieval poet Dante was the first to have recorded the term lingua d'oc. In his De vulgari eloquentia he wrote in Latin: "nam alii oc, alii si, alii vero dicunt oil" ("some say òc, others say sì, others say oïl"), thereby highlighting three major Romance literary languages which were well known in Italy, based on each language's word for "yes", the òc language (Occitan), the oïl language (French), and the sì language (Italian). This was not, of course, the only defining character of each group.

The word òc came from Vulgar Latin hoc ("this"), while oïl originated from Latin hoc illud ("this [is] it"). In old Catalan and nowadays in Catalan of Northern Catalonia (France, Catalunya Nord) is hoc (òc) too. Other Romance languages derive their word for yes from the Latin sic, "thus [it is], [it was done], etc.", such as Spanish sí, Modern Catalan sí, Western Lombard sé, Italian sì, or Portuguese sim." (see Wikipedia entry)

(Posted by language fan and friend Silas McCracken. And feel free to join his Facebook fan page too.)

Puce and taupe sound more colorful than flea and mole

In a recent post, I discussed how speakers of different languages see color differently. Continuing with the theme of color, I thought that it might be interesting to explore how certain colors obtained their names.

For instance, turquoise is derived from a French word for "Turkish," as the bluish stone for which the color is name was known in French as "la pierre turquoise" (the Turkish stone). Logically, such colors as topaz, sapphire, jade, amber, ebony, and emerald also come from their respective stones, just as gold and silver come from precious metals.

The colors ultramarine and aquamarine refer, not surprisingly, to the sea, as well as to stones. Aquamarine originally referred to the color of a type of stone that came from the Mediterranean region and suggested the color of that sea, whereas ultramarine was used to designate the color of a stone (lapis lazuli, imported from Asia), that originated across the sea ("ultra" in this sense meaning "beyond" and not "excessive").

Pink was named for a flower known as a "pink," although the etymology of the word gets a bit murky, as the original word leading, by way of Dutch, to the name of the flower may have meant "small" or "hole." Violet and rose have similar floral origins.

A number of color names come from fabrics. These include ecru and beige from French, as well as "scarlet," from Persian. Colors have also been named for dyes or dye-producing plants. Purple comes from Greek via Latin. Crimson comes to English through Old Spanish, Arabic, and Sanskrit, while indigo, meaning "the Indian dye," comes from Portuguese. Magenta was taken in the 19th-century from one of Garibaldi's then-sensational Italian victories and used to market a type of photographic dye.

Some colors have surprisingly bizarre origins. Puce, originally a French word, means "flea-colored." Taupe, also French, refers to the color of a mole (the animal, not the skin blemish). Perhaps more appetizingly, maroon comes from a French word for a type of chestnut. Teal, an English word with Old English roots, is named for a color pattern found on a type of river duck, also known as a teal.

For an interesting discussion on many of these colors as well as observations on how certain color names, such as khaki and auburn, have shifted to denote different colors over time, please visit Word Wide Words.

(Posted by language fan and friend Silas McCracken. And feel free to join his Facebook fan page too.)

Foot Fingers and Other Body Part Naming Curiosities

In my last post, I gave a brief outline about how different languages classify colors differently. It may come as some surprise that different languages may also provide different classifications of another subject that we may take for granted: body parts.

Slavic languages, for instance, often do not distinguish between arm/hand or leg/foot. In Russian, "ruka" may mean a hand or an arm, while "noga" may refer to a leg or a foot. Similarly, Amharic also considers the leg and foot to be part of the same entity. Lavukaleve, spoken in the Solomon Islands in the Pacific, features the same word for arm, leg, and hand.

Jahai, spoken in the Malay Peninsula in Southeast Asia, has a particularly interesting division of body parts, with different lexical terms for upper arm, lower arm, and hand, but supposedly no specific word for mouth!

While English, German, and Norwegian consider fingers and toes to be entirely separate body parts, other languages, such as Spanish, Portuguese, Japanese, and Russian, label toes as simply "foot fingers." In French, either option is possible, with "orteil" (a word for toe that is separate from "doigt," used for finger) being more formal and literary and "doigt de pied" ("foot finger") being used often in oral language.

Conversely, while English and German refer to a cheekbone as being the "bone of a cheek," in a number of Romance languages, such as French, Spanish, and Italian, the word for cheekbone has nothing to do with the word for cheek. For instance, in French, a cheek is a "joue," while a cheekbone is a "pommette."

(Posted by language fan and friend Silas McCracken. And feel free to join his Facebook fan page too.)

A color by any other name

Those of us who are sighted tend to take the colors we see for granted. The sky (at least on a sunny day) is blue, while the grass (when lush and healthy) is green. Yet these very distinctions are, to some degree, arbitrary, and vary between languages and cultures. It appears that every language has a color scheme with between two (such as Burarra, an aboriginal language spoken in Australia that divides all colors into shades of two colors that very roughly mean "light" and "dark") and twelve basic color terms (with other color terms in each language being variants of these terms), yet each language divides and assigns these colors in its own way.

Celtic languages have definitions of "blue" and "green" that are surprisingly different from those assigned in English. In Middle Irish and Old Irish, "glas" encompassed green, blue, and some shades of gray. In Modern Welsh, "gwyrdd" refers to "green,' while "glas" generally means "blue." However, "glas" can also refer to the color of grass, the color of the sea, and the color of silver, suggesting that, although the distinction between blue and green exists, the dividing point is different between Welsh and English. Increasingly, though, and probably due to the considerable influence of English in the British Isles, Welsh appears to be tending toward the eleven-color color scheme used in English, adopting "llwyd' for gray in addition to "gwyrdd" and "glas."

Other languages, such as Lakota (spoken by the Sioux), represent blue and green as shades of one color, and such languages. Yet some languages outdo English (which, admittedly, has terms such as "indigo" and "azure," but these are often considered to be shades of blue, although indigo is sometimes classified as a separate color in the spectrum) and and make further distinctions between blue and green. Greek, for instance, has six words for varying shades of blue, one word for turquoise, and four words for varying shades of green. Italian has two words for light blue, "azzurro" and "celeste," as opposed to "blu" which means "blue." More significantly, "azzurro" is generally not considered to be a shade of "blu," but an entirely separate color. Some Slavic languages, as well as Romanian, also treat light blue and blue as separate colors. Kazakh has one color ("kök") for natural green objects and another color ("jasâl") for human-made green objects. Interestingly, "kök" also refers to the color of the sky and of the sea. Japanese and Mandarin also have different color boundaries for blue and green.

Similar differing semantic fields are found for other colors. Pink and red are considered to be separate colors in English, yet shades of the same color in Mandarin. A number of African languages see blue and black as shades of the same color, as did Old Norse (and Swedish until the early 20th century).

As we can see from the examples of Welsh and Swedish, color divisions can change in a single language over time. In English, "orange" became established as a separate color as late as in the early-mid 20th century. Prior to this date it was often called "yellow-red" on artists' palettes. "Pink" and "purple" are also examples of descriptive (subordinate shades that have, respectively developed into abstract colors in their own right.

(Posted by language fan and friend Silas McCracken. And feel free to join his Facebook fan page too.)

Fan page created

If you're one of those people who enjoys reading posts here by my language fan friend Silas, I've created a Facebook fan page for him. I also did it because it seems that he's quite active on Facebook with some loyal friends of his, so I figured I might as well make it official :D

So click here to join his Facebook fan page and have a nice day :D

"-ic" vs. "ical": The distinctions can be fickle

Cheesy blog post titles aside, in my opinion, one of the trickier elements of English is the use of adjectives ending in "-ic" vs. those ending in "-ical" when they share the same root. For instance, is it "electric cord" or "electrical cord"? Although hardly scientific or academic, a simple Google search reveals 184,000 results for "electric cord" and 274,000 for "electrical cord." While the latter option is the clear winner, a very sizable minority uses the former. To make matters even more confusing, in some instances the distinction appears relatively clear. English speakers would probably feel that "electric guitar" is a much better choice than "electrical guitar" and "electric eel" is definitely preferable to "electrical eel." Similarly, English speakers would probably vastly prefer "electrical engineering" to "electric engineering." 
 
"Electric" is generally defined as something that uses, provides, produces, transmits, or is powered by electricity; "electrical" refers to something that simply has to do with electricity. Obviously, there is a considerable amount of overlap here. Why the difference? Both "electric" and "electrical" would seemingly refer to something that has to do with or powered by electricity. At first glance, this would appear to be redundant. After all, in many Romance languages, this discrepancy does not exist. In French, for instance, both "electric" and "electrical" are translated as "électrique." And a number of English roots have only one option; for example, we say "fantastic" and not "fantastical," "terrific" and not "terrifical." 
 
It would appear that the morphological rules in English regarding "-ic" and "ical" are quite complex, perhaps suggesting that the meanings of forms with "-ic" and "-ical" have either become more similar or have diverged over time. Consider "numeric" and "numerical," which would appear almost interchangeable (referring to numbers), as would "botanic" and "botanical" (referring to plants). Conversely, "economical" (referring to a thrifty solution) is quite different from "economic" (something relating to the economy), just as "politic" (an adjective meaning "prudent" or "shrewd") differs from "political" (having to do with politics).   
 
The Maven's Word of the Day site discusses the difference between "historic" and "historical," a particularly confusing pair.  It is generally accepted that something that is "historic" is important in history ("a historic event"), but that something that is "historical" simply has to do with history "a historical museum").  (And don't even get me started on the controversy between "an historic/historical" and "a historic/historical"!)
 
The site states that "The earlier word is historical, from the early fifteenth century. Historic is first found in the early seventeenth century, and the use of historic to mean 'important in history', is more recent still, from the late eighteenth century. The distinction between the two words is therefore relatively recent. Nonetheless, the distinction seems a worthwhile one, and since it is straightforward, you might as well follow it."
 
Hence, we can conclude that the rules regarding "-ic" and "-ical" are hardly set in stone, have a number of exceptions, entail varying degrees of confusion if flouted, and will likely continue to be a headache for non-native- and native English speakers! 

(posted by language fan and friend Silas McCracken)

The cow goes..."Hamba"?

"Onomatopoeia," in addition to being a great spelling bee word, is the term used to describe those words that are supposed to reflect an actual sound accurately. Examples of these words include "splash," "thud," and "boom." They also encompass words used to describe animal sounds. However, different languages represent animal sounds differently, sometimes with a surprising amount of variation. In Language History, Language Change, and Language Relationship, Hans Heinrich Hock, et al. write that

While ordinary speakers (i.e. non-linguists) may be convinced that there is a clear connection between sound and meaning, at least in onomatopoiea,....linguists are just as firmly convinced that even here the relation is to some degree arbitrary. To support this view they can point out that other languages can employee different onomatopoetic means to express the same animal sound." (p. 228)

For instance, to an English speaker, a bird may say "tweet, tweet," while a Czech speaker will represent this sound as "jek jek," and a Spanish-speaker will swear that it's "pio pio." An English speaker will likely say that a cow says "moo," whereas a Bengali speaker will probably claim that a cow says "hamba." As for what a pig might say, the disparity indicates a real Tower of Babel. That grunting sound is interpreted by Croatian speakers as "rok-rok," English speakers as "oink oink," Chinese speakers as "hu-lu hu-lu," Japanese speakers as "buubuu," and Swedish speakers as "nöff."

Sometimes even two different dialects of the same language can produce two different representations. UK English speakers usually represent the sound a baby chicken (a chick) makes as "cheep cheep," while US English speakers often prefer "peep peep." Spanish-speaking Spaniards tend to think that a sheep says "bee," while Spanish-speaking Argentines generally feel that "meeee" is a more exact rendering of the sound. Similarly, a pig says "gruinh" to some European Portuguese speakers and "óinc-óinc" to Brazilian Portuguese speakers.

You can find more examples in this rather extensive list.

This variation in ways to mimic animal sounds could potentially cause difficulties when trying to use puns or other plays on words to a speaker who is not familiar with the terms used in a particular language. For instance, a cute greeting card with a picture of a happy cat and the caption "You're purr-fect!" might appear confusing and unfunny to a native Hungarian speaker who is used to hearing a cat's purr as "doromb."

Even humans' "primal" exclamations can vary from language to language. If you stub your toe, you may, as a reflex, cry out "Ouch!" if you're an English speaker, "Eina!" if you speak Afrikaans, and "Aie!" if you're a French speaker.

(posted by language fan and friend Silas McCracken)

Foreign terms as convenient euphemisms

Supposedly delicate topics, especially those relating to bathroom functions, death, disease, sex or "taboo" parts of the human body, have often been difficult to express in language. One fairly clever way to solve this problem has been for cultures to adopt foreign equivalents of daring native words as 'euphemisms'.

In Japanese, the language of choice is English. A New York Times article entitled "Japan's Favorite Import From America: English" states that "English words are particularly useful as euphemisms, serving the Japanese preference for approaching delicate topics indirectly...the Japanese use sekkusu when discussing sex, and if they have trouble achieving sekkusu tashi (sex ecstasy), they can consult a sekkusu pato (sex expert. A young woman who wears daringly tight clothes is described as bodi-kon garu (body-conscious gal)." (See article about Japanese and English here.)

In traditional Jewish languages such as Yiddish, Judeo-Italian, and Ladino, words of Hebrew-Aramaic origin, with connotations of high culture and refinement, are often used as euphemisms when referring to such taboo subjects as death, certain body parts, and bathroom functions. For example, "Hebrew-Aramaic words for bathroom functions in Jewish languages are typically quite euphemistic. mashtin zayn 'urinate', nekovim gedoylim and nekovim ketanim 'big holes and 'little holes', geyn af gedoylim and geyn af ketanim "to defecate' and 'to urinate' are indirect and learned ways to avoid saying kakn or shaysn and pishn." (Read essay about Yiddish here.)

A Serbian user of the online language resource www.reference.com remarks that Greek may serve the purpose of a "cleaner language" for some South Slavs. The user posts that "Generally, in spite of having rich assortment for different nuances of "dirt", seems that Slavs are inclined to adopt foreign words as euphemisms. For example, in "children language" of Balkan countries we mostly use Greek word "kaka" (bad, unpure, like in "cacophony") for excrement, with derived verb "kakiti" or "kakati", but the adjective "kakan/a/o" means "dirty, not good for touching." (See discussion about Slavic and Greek here.)

English is not immune to this phenomenon, and we English speakers tend to use French or Latin when we wish to mention the unmentionable. French seems especially useful when discussing sex or taboo body parts, Ménage à trois, derrière, and au naturel seem, to some users of English, more acceptable and "classier" than "threesome," "butt," and "naked." Latin and Latin-based words appears to be helpful when discussing sex, having lent such terms as copulate and coitus interruptus, as well as certain awkward medical conditions, such as carcinoma (instead of the harsher-sounding "cancer"). Similarly, a woman who was inspecting was, in the past, often described as enceinte (directly from French) instead of "pregnant" (curiously, also of French origin). Interestingly, I was once told that the Spanish cognate encinta is a more delicate alternative to "embarazada" ("pregnant)."

(posted by language fan and friend Silas McCracken)