I’ve always liked the holiday cards that say, “Joy and Peace,” or “Season’s Greetings” in different languages -- Spanish, French, German, Italian, and maybe Greek, Russian, Chinese, or Japanese. And English – of course. The different words and expressions seem at once textbook-familiar but culturally exotic, even when the words are written in green and red ink and fashioned into the shape of a Christmas tree.
But I wonder how exotic the English “Season’s Greetings” seems to foreign speakers – my guess is: not very. According to a recent article in the Financial Times (Nov. 9, “Whose Language?”), roughly 1.5 billion people around the world speak English – that is, one-quarter of the world’s population -- and two-thirds of that number speak it as a foreign language and speak it reasonably well, according to linguist David Crystal.
For decades now, people from Mexico to Mongolia have been learning English as a foreign language – and not as some academic exercise (as is the case here in the U.S. with foreign languages), but as a survival tool; in fact, the Financial Times article calls English “the key to prosperity.” As the language of international business and commerce, English enables Nigerians to speak to Norwegians, Spaniards to Slovenians, and Uruguayans to Uzbekistanis. It lets street sellers in Cairo, Santiago, and New York hawk their wares and haggle with tourists; meanwhile, in sleek, glassy office buildings, English lets investment bankers sell stocks and equity derivatives by conference call to clients in Brazil, France, and Singapore.
Not knowing English limits your ability to thrive outside your village or country; knowing English brings possibility, opportunity – and the ability to fix your computer over the phone with a tech support operator in India. British linguist David Graddol says that the majority of encounters in English today take place between non-native speakers. “Indeed,” the Financial Times quotes Graddol, “many business meetings held in English appear to run more smoothly when there are no native English speakers present.”
This is not because foreign English speakers automatically understand each others’ accents: if one person has learned American English and the other British, that sometimes presents complications. In fact, a French woman living here in New York arrived speaking and understanding British English – but now, after ten years of concentrating on American English, she has discovered, to her great chagrin, that she no longer understands Hugh Grant movies.
Still, overall, foreigners have an easier time of it speaking English with other foreigners, particularly in business situations. Why?
What we’ve got here – particularly when work involves colleagues from different countries – is not standard English, the Financial Times says, but something called Global English. This form of English is different from everyday, conversational, idiomatic-expression-filled English of native speakers; instead, Global English uses words and terms that are generally recognized by those foreign speakers present; it forgives slight grammatical errors; and it is aimed at making sure everyone understands what is being said – not necessarily how grammatically perfectly they say it.
Linguist David Graddol says that “even the most competent foreign speaker sometimes leaves the ‘s’ off the third-person singular,” but that no real loss in meaning comes from saying, for example, “he come,” instead of “he comes.”
In a meeting filled with non-native English speakers, such a “variation” would be perfectly acceptable in Global English.
At the same time, the Financial Times says, “Native (English) speakers are often poor at ensuring that they are understood in international discussions,” due to their use of idiomatic expressions and slang: “Let’s knock this deal out of the ball park!” for example, could easily leave a few foreign colleagues in the dark.
I shared the Financial Times article with some of my corporate English language students (from Switzerland, China, France, and Latin America), and they agreed that meetings would be easier if the native-English speakers spoke more slowly and used regular terms and vocabulary.
One student, an Internet Technology manager from Argentina, said that in conference calls and at big meetings, “It is not hard to understand the foreign people, because they don’t know so many words and they also speak slowly,” she said. “But the Americans and British speak always too fast and use expressions I don’t know -- And then I get more nervous when it is my turn to speak.”
But English among foreigners also seems to vary according to whether the audience is mixed nationalities – or not. A Spanish-speaking lawyer from Chile said she was recently in a room with French lawyers speaking English with each other: “I could not understand any word,” she said. “They spoke English fast and in a French sort of way that is still English but English that only they understand.”
Meanwhile, a Colombian graphic designer stood up for the native English speakers in meetings: she said that native speakers of English at least have clear accents, good grammar and – most importantly to her -- get to the point faster. “Latin speakers,” she added, whether from South America or Europe, “love to talk, love to hear themselves speak.” This can be fine on their home turf and in their native languages, she said, “but in any meeting here that is in English, to listen to them (with their difficult accents and bad grammar), well, it is really hard.”
Even so, native English speakers should at least be aware of the potential for misunderstandings -- and vice-versa: A Japanese bond trader I once worked with recalled the time she had just joined a new office team to work on their project. “What do you want to get out of this project?” her team leader asked at their first group meeting. Not realizing the team leader was asking what she wanted to learn from the experience, the Japanese woman said, “I thought he was telling me to get out of the project. I almost left the room!”
As foreigners learn English, they might not realize when their skills are sub-par – with potentially disastrous results. Take the hilarious ad for Berlitz Language School found on YouTube: in the ad, a young, new-to-the-job German Coast Guard officer is alone at the radar panel when a British-accented voice calls over the radio: “May-day, may-day! We are sinking! We are sinking!” The officer, unsure how to react, leans into the microphone and responds in heavily accented English, “Siss is zeh German Coast Guard. What are you … sinking about?” (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Cu-hW75wF4E)
Sometimes non-native speakers pick up English terms for things by hearing them from Anglo-American friends or colleagues; they then take these terms back to main headquarters -- only a bit altered. This would explain how our term, “touchy-feely,” meaning “ultra-sensitive,” arrived at a Zurich office as “touch-me, feel-me” – currently the large, corporate office’s name for long, in-depth meetings.
In another instance, a Belgian woman, describing her large, New York apartment, added that she loved her “walking closet.”
Other mistakes that non-native speakers make are things like mixing up verb tenses (“I have done not my homework last night.”); confusing “make” and “do” (“Sorry – I did a mistake!”); and translating word-for-word from their own language (“Finally, I must work all the day” – instead of, “In the end, I had to work the whole day.”) Pronunciation, word order, prepositions, and where-the-accent- falls-on-words are all killers too, because they are so irregular. Added trivia: The two words most often mispronounced and hardest to correct, in my book, are “women” (usually said as “two womans” or even “two womens”) and “clothes” (usually pronounced with two syllables as “clo-thes.”)
Such “differences” could some day become standard Global English -- if Global ever becomes a standard language. English itself developed over 500 years, as various foreign newcomers, merchants, and traders came to England and had to communicate with the locals. Over time, this meant pitching genders, the formal “you,” noun-adjective agreements, inflections, adopting easy and regular forms of plurals and past tenses, and all kinds of things that must have shaken each older generation’s foundations. (“Kids these days!” an old, Anglo-Saxon peasant might have said. “I work with my ‘Hande’ but my sons say they work with their ‘hands.’”) Global English could possibly develop in a similar way – except that English developed on one small island, where as Global English is developing all over the globe, making a standard Global English less certain.
In any case, to remedy the native/non-native language barrier in business communication, in 2005, a Frenchman and retired IBM vice president named Jean-Paul Nerriere invented a language tool that he called, “Globish;” this was not a language, he explained, but a simplified and codified version of English to be used at international business meetings. In his book, “Don’t Speak English -- Parlez Globish,” he explains how to learn and use this linguistic tool. Now two years later, Globish does not seem to have caught on, but Nerriere’s point is well taken: native English speakers in multinational business situations should hold back on the slang, long-winded jokes, and sports metaphors -- especially for games not commonly played overseas.
Americans and Anglos with thick regional accents are especially hard for foreign-speakers. On the other hand, good “standard” American accents are appreciated more than I once realized. For example, a young French student and his mother recently enjoyed the 1997 movie, “You’ve Got Mail;” though I had thought they would like the film for the scenes of the Upper West Side, their first comment was, “Tom Hanks and Meg Ryan were so easy to understand!”
What’s happening with English, in short, is that Global English is creating a new strand of the language, a new international strand. Global English and standard English are at a certain crossroads: on one hand, the “key to prosperity” still lies in speaking as much like native English speakers as possible. Global English may allow for mistakes, but ultimately, those who speak it strive for standard English perfection.
On the other hand, with non-native speakers of English being a new and growing linguistic majority, native English speakers just might have to make some adjustments if we want to be understood – and hold onto that slippery key to prosperity.
With that, allow me to be the first to wish you “Have a Happy Holiday” in Global English: “Happy Vacations!”
For those who prefer the more traditional multi-language seasonal greetings, you may take your pick: Cheers! (English) Feliz Navidad! (Spanish) Nollaig Shona Duit! (Irish) Meuilleurs Voeux! (French) S Rozhdestvom! (Russian) Glædelig jul (Danish) and Bom Ano Novo (Portuguese), Gelukkig NieuwJaar! (Dutch), Νέο Ετος (Greek), and ལོགསར་ལ་བཀྲ་ཤིས་བདེ་ལེགས་། (Tibetan).
(P.S. If you want to know how to say the above in Breton, Comanche, Galician, or even Kurdish, then check out this amazing site: http://www.omniglot.com/language/phrases/christmas.htm )
Sunday, December 23, 2007
Wednesday, November 07, 2007
Verb Tension
In one of the most unusual cases linking language use and government waste, Brazil made using the verb form they call “the gerundio” (gerund) officially illegal last month. What’s unusual is not that government workers spoke in such flabby, ineffective language that it provoked a reaction – but that the governor actually took the law into his own hands and did something about it.
Apparently, Brazilian Federal District Governor Jose Roberto Arruda was sick and tired of hearing government workers, especially phone operators at a government call center, add one or two unnecessary verb tenses to their responses; these extra tenses required unnecessary syllables, words, time, and of course, all that zapped their sentences of nice, crisp direct speech and turned it into what Arruda considered verbal mush – and a bit pretentious at that, sounding just a tad too much like the way we say things in English.
An online article from “Estadao.com.br” cited two examples of such wasteful speech, as in, “I am going to be transferring you, sir” which in Portuguese comes out: “Eu vou estar transferindo o senhor;” and another such phrase:, “”Nos vamos estar providenciando,” or “We’re going to be arranging that.”
Though such language does not sound at all unusual or “inefficient” to native English speakers, Brazilians actually could say it more concisely. In standard Portuguese, those same phone operators could say, “I transfer you;” or, at most, “I’m going to transfer you.” But stretching it out to “I’m going TO BE TRANSFERRING you” was, according to Arruda, an abuse and exaggeration of the gerund.
The gerund, according to an online article in the newspaper, “Folha”, is defined as “the noun form of the verb … that indicates continued action.” Such words end in “ndo” in Portuguese, similar to “ing” in English. In the sentence, “I like shopping,” “shopping is a gerund – a noun formed from a verb.
Another use of the gerund, according to the grammar book, “Portugues Contemporaneo” (Georgetown University Press), is as a verb form tagged onto the main verb to suggest duration of an action. For example: They have finished shopping,” with “shopping” as the gerund.
However, In the sentence, “They are shopping,” “shopping” is a verb participle – not a gerund – though lengthy online research proved only that the Brazilians consider them roughly the same thing – noun form, verb form – whatever …
In any case, on September 27, 2007, “by reason of inefficiency,” Governor Arruda made any further use of the gerund strictly prohibited, by Decree 28.314, as stated in the “Diario Oficial do Governo do Distrito Federal.”
The news broke a few days later. On October 2, Brazilian blogger Tania Carvalho wrote, “Well, I woke up today to discover that the governor … has basically fired the gerund! This (form of) the verb can no longer appear in any branch of the government of (the capital city) of Brasilia.”
Though Tania herself mainly informed her fellow bloggers of the facts and withheld any opinion herself, comments to her blog, “O Mundo e uma Aldeia” (The World is a Village), were varied:
(From Marcelo): “At least the gerund left Brasilia. Many others could go too.”
(Marco): “Don’t you think it’s crazy that (Arruda) forbids the gerund but allows so many other (bad) things to continue?”
(Beth): “Maybe the governor should worry about basic education instead.”
(Buzz, a social website): “It seems like a joke, but it isn’t.”
Arruda himself no doubt expected guffaws from around Brazil and the world -- when the news broke, he managed to be unavailable for comment, being at a World Bank conference in New York. But I give it to Arruda for taking a linguistic stand on government efficiency (or lack thereof) and then following through.
But what, you may still be asking, is so BAD about that verb form?
In English, we use the verb participle “ing” forms in the every configuration of present, past and future tenses: I am doing; I was doing; I will be doing; I would have been doing; I will have been doing. These tenses do not exist in that same form in most Western languages, except to a certain extent in Portuguese and to a lesser extent in Spanish.
Language expert David Crystal, in “Stories of English,” suggested that during the Middle Ages when English was still taking shape, there were so many different people speaking different forms of language – Norwegian, Danish, Saxon-German, Latin, Norman French, and more – that people came up with tenses to say exactly what they meant. In other Western languages, the tense is left mainly to context.
Let’s take a look at the tense that drove the Brazilian governor crazy: the present progressive. In English, we use the present progressive tense when we say, “I’m going to the store,” or “I’m reading the best book.” That tense means that we’re in the process of doing a particular, specific action – even if we’re not doing it at that exact moment. That is, you might be going to the store “this morning” or “a little later;” and you might only be reading that good book at night before bed, not at the precise moment you spoke about the book. But going to the store and reading that book are actions that still have yet to be completed.
In Brazilian Portuguese, you have the option of saying, “I am going to the store,” (present progressive) or “I go to the store” (present simple), though both mean the same thing.
In English, “I go to the store” sounds funny, unless it is given further context; that is, followed up by something like “every Wednesday” or “as little as possible,” or some other phrase that lets someone know you go to the store on a regular basis, and that it’s a fact.
The differences in English between these two tenses are so clear that no native speaker would confuse, for example, “What do you do?” (i.e. for a living) with “What are you doing?” or “What do you play” (implying an instrument, or sports position) with “What are you playing?”
But for foreign speakers learning English, these two verb tenses are not as easily distinguished. Both Latin languages and Germanic languages mainly use one tense, the present simple, as in “I go,” to cover both meanings.
The problem with those government workers in Brasilia was that they were adding, “going-to-be-doing something” when a simple “do” would have done. And that got Arruda’s goat.
The French newspaper of record, “Le Monde,” took note of the Brazilian gerund/participle ban in a small column on October 24: in it, columnist Robert Sole let loose with the smugness of a child teasing the losing team:
“All use of the gerund,” Sole says, “was just banished by the governor, Jose Roberto Arruda, who intends to fight against the inefficiency of public service …
The French administration will certainly be inspired by such grammatical politics, while knowing full well that we must respect tradition, that is, to leave the tenses to themselves … “
Sole compares the “gerund” form of Portuguese to the “en train de” form in what he calls his “language of Moliere.” That is, “Estou estudando” (I am studying) in Portuguese is “Je suis en train d’etudier” in French.
However, a random sampling of two highly educated native French speakers begs to differ with Sole: their feeling was that the simple “j’etudie” serves as “I study” as well as “I am studying.” “En train de” doing something does mean that you are in the middle of doing something, but because of the extra length of the sentence and the effort to say it, the expression is usually spoken in the same way that we say, “Well, I’m TRYING to study” – i.e., with a verbal edge that the Portuguese and English forms do not have in their present progressive tenses.
One possible concern to this whole Gerund Prohibition is that someone, somewhere will challenge Arruda’s loose definition of the gerund itself. If the Brazilian Ministry of Language decides that “gerund” and “participle” are two separate entities, then the whole decree may be swallowed up in one giant, linguistic loophole – and the problem, a Brazilian might say, will keep on continuing.
Apparently, Brazilian Federal District Governor Jose Roberto Arruda was sick and tired of hearing government workers, especially phone operators at a government call center, add one or two unnecessary verb tenses to their responses; these extra tenses required unnecessary syllables, words, time, and of course, all that zapped their sentences of nice, crisp direct speech and turned it into what Arruda considered verbal mush – and a bit pretentious at that, sounding just a tad too much like the way we say things in English.
An online article from “Estadao.com.br” cited two examples of such wasteful speech, as in, “I am going to be transferring you, sir” which in Portuguese comes out: “Eu vou estar transferindo o senhor;” and another such phrase:, “”Nos vamos estar providenciando,” or “We’re going to be arranging that.”
Though such language does not sound at all unusual or “inefficient” to native English speakers, Brazilians actually could say it more concisely. In standard Portuguese, those same phone operators could say, “I transfer you;” or, at most, “I’m going to transfer you.” But stretching it out to “I’m going TO BE TRANSFERRING you” was, according to Arruda, an abuse and exaggeration of the gerund.
The gerund, according to an online article in the newspaper, “Folha”, is defined as “the noun form of the verb … that indicates continued action.” Such words end in “ndo” in Portuguese, similar to “ing” in English. In the sentence, “I like shopping,” “shopping is a gerund – a noun formed from a verb.
Another use of the gerund, according to the grammar book, “Portugues Contemporaneo” (Georgetown University Press), is as a verb form tagged onto the main verb to suggest duration of an action. For example: They have finished shopping,” with “shopping” as the gerund.
However, In the sentence, “They are shopping,” “shopping” is a verb participle – not a gerund – though lengthy online research proved only that the Brazilians consider them roughly the same thing – noun form, verb form – whatever …
In any case, on September 27, 2007, “by reason of inefficiency,” Governor Arruda made any further use of the gerund strictly prohibited, by Decree 28.314, as stated in the “Diario Oficial do Governo do Distrito Federal.”
The news broke a few days later. On October 2, Brazilian blogger Tania Carvalho wrote, “Well, I woke up today to discover that the governor … has basically fired the gerund! This (form of) the verb can no longer appear in any branch of the government of (the capital city) of Brasilia.”
Though Tania herself mainly informed her fellow bloggers of the facts and withheld any opinion herself, comments to her blog, “O Mundo e uma Aldeia” (The World is a Village), were varied:
(From Marcelo): “At least the gerund left Brasilia. Many others could go too.”
(Marco): “Don’t you think it’s crazy that (Arruda) forbids the gerund but allows so many other (bad) things to continue?”
(Beth): “Maybe the governor should worry about basic education instead.”
(Buzz, a social website): “It seems like a joke, but it isn’t.”
Arruda himself no doubt expected guffaws from around Brazil and the world -- when the news broke, he managed to be unavailable for comment, being at a World Bank conference in New York. But I give it to Arruda for taking a linguistic stand on government efficiency (or lack thereof) and then following through.
But what, you may still be asking, is so BAD about that verb form?
In English, we use the verb participle “ing” forms in the every configuration of present, past and future tenses: I am doing; I was doing; I will be doing; I would have been doing; I will have been doing. These tenses do not exist in that same form in most Western languages, except to a certain extent in Portuguese and to a lesser extent in Spanish.
Language expert David Crystal, in “Stories of English,” suggested that during the Middle Ages when English was still taking shape, there were so many different people speaking different forms of language – Norwegian, Danish, Saxon-German, Latin, Norman French, and more – that people came up with tenses to say exactly what they meant. In other Western languages, the tense is left mainly to context.
Let’s take a look at the tense that drove the Brazilian governor crazy: the present progressive. In English, we use the present progressive tense when we say, “I’m going to the store,” or “I’m reading the best book.” That tense means that we’re in the process of doing a particular, specific action – even if we’re not doing it at that exact moment. That is, you might be going to the store “this morning” or “a little later;” and you might only be reading that good book at night before bed, not at the precise moment you spoke about the book. But going to the store and reading that book are actions that still have yet to be completed.
In Brazilian Portuguese, you have the option of saying, “I am going to the store,” (present progressive) or “I go to the store” (present simple), though both mean the same thing.
In English, “I go to the store” sounds funny, unless it is given further context; that is, followed up by something like “every Wednesday” or “as little as possible,” or some other phrase that lets someone know you go to the store on a regular basis, and that it’s a fact.
The differences in English between these two tenses are so clear that no native speaker would confuse, for example, “What do you do?” (i.e. for a living) with “What are you doing?” or “What do you play” (implying an instrument, or sports position) with “What are you playing?”
But for foreign speakers learning English, these two verb tenses are not as easily distinguished. Both Latin languages and Germanic languages mainly use one tense, the present simple, as in “I go,” to cover both meanings.
The problem with those government workers in Brasilia was that they were adding, “going-to-be-doing something” when a simple “do” would have done. And that got Arruda’s goat.
The French newspaper of record, “Le Monde,” took note of the Brazilian gerund/participle ban in a small column on October 24: in it, columnist Robert Sole let loose with the smugness of a child teasing the losing team:
“All use of the gerund,” Sole says, “was just banished by the governor, Jose Roberto Arruda, who intends to fight against the inefficiency of public service …
The French administration will certainly be inspired by such grammatical politics, while knowing full well that we must respect tradition, that is, to leave the tenses to themselves … “
Sole compares the “gerund” form of Portuguese to the “en train de” form in what he calls his “language of Moliere.” That is, “Estou estudando” (I am studying) in Portuguese is “Je suis en train d’etudier” in French.
However, a random sampling of two highly educated native French speakers begs to differ with Sole: their feeling was that the simple “j’etudie” serves as “I study” as well as “I am studying.” “En train de” doing something does mean that you are in the middle of doing something, but because of the extra length of the sentence and the effort to say it, the expression is usually spoken in the same way that we say, “Well, I’m TRYING to study” – i.e., with a verbal edge that the Portuguese and English forms do not have in their present progressive tenses.
One possible concern to this whole Gerund Prohibition is that someone, somewhere will challenge Arruda’s loose definition of the gerund itself. If the Brazilian Ministry of Language decides that “gerund” and “participle” are two separate entities, then the whole decree may be swallowed up in one giant, linguistic loophole – and the problem, a Brazilian might say, will keep on continuing.
Sunday, October 07, 2007
Peopleisation
He has been described as a skirt-chaser; she as mysterious, capricious, and detached.
These are not the usual adjectives newspapers use to describe a new country’s president and his wife. And yet the new French president, Nicholas Sarkozy, and his wife, Cecilia, are as much an embodiment of the new generational change in French political power as they are symbols of the new word, “peopleisation.”
“Peopleisation” is not yet in the dictionary, but it already has a lengthy online Wikipedia description, including its various spellings: “pipeulisation, “ “pipolisation,” and the most current, “peoplelisation.”
Those are strange spellings because they’re French. Oui, and pronounced “people-ee-za-seeyon.”
I stumbled upon “peoplisation” in a conversation with a French lawyer I’ll call Veronique. She and I had started talking about President Sarkozy, or “Sarko,” as he is often dubbed, the first Baby Boomer President of France, and his wife, Cecilia. It seems that France’s new First Lady has displayed some rather unusual behavior before, during, and since this past spring’s election. And as Veronique got into the particulars of Sarko and Cecilia’s reported affairs, arguments, and odd conduct, I suddenly realized that she was dishing the dirt on them as if they were Brad and Angelina, or Tom and Kate, or Britney, K-Fed or any other regulars gracing the cover of People magazine (which does not exist in France – at least, not yet) or The National Enquirer.
This is what the French call “peopleisation”: it’s all about “celebrities,” not “people” as ordinary humans. “Peopleisation” is about the people who appear in what the French call the “presse people” – the “anglo-saxon–style” (French Wikipedia’s term) of weekly magazines and tabloid newspapers featuring people in the media, show biz, and in France right now, politics.
Voila “peopleisation” in French power and politics: On Sarkosy’s Inauguration Day this past May, the English newspaper, The Telegraph, gushed:
"Mrs Sarkozy looked more like a star arriving at the Cannes film festival than the matronly presidential consorts France is accustomed to.
Camera shutters whirred as the 49-year old former model, holding the hand of their ten-year-old son Louis, brought Jackie Kennedy glamour to proceedings in an ivory duchess satin Prada dress. Known to prefer T-shirts, combat trousers and cowboy boots, Mrs Sarkozy silenced at a stroke the critics of her dress-down style."
Though celebrity culture in France may have been around for a while, “peopleisation” has only emerged since around 2000 and is still not yet included in dictionnaire.com. As a word, “peopleisation” reflects a definite English/American embrace. Yes, the French long ago adopted “le weekend” and “le Burger King,” but “peopleisation is their own invention. They could have substituted a French word for “people,” but they intentionally stuck with our word – a linguistic nod to the inventors of celebrity culture.
The English newspaper, The Independent on Sunday, had this to say about Cecilia at the G-8 Summit in Germany this past June:
"Like the Devil, she wears Prada, like Marie-Antoinette, she fascinates and antagonises people in equal measure … At the G8, she dazzled photographers with her toned body in an Azzedine Alaia black-laced, strappy dress. Nicolas was very attentive, as always, holding her hand, while she stood, aloof, with a steely smile and fiery eyes."
Monsieur Le President is not without his own attributes: alliterative adjectives punctuate articles in both the New York Times and the Washington Post, who refer to Sarkozy as “passionate,” “pragmatic,” and “pugnacious.”
But others dish a little more deeply – take Judith Warner, author of several non-fiction books ranging from politics to modern-day motherhood, as well as the New York Times blog, “Domestic Disturbances.” In her Sept. 13 posting last month, Warner referred to the “attractive tableau vivant of family disorder exhibited by France’s new president, Nicholas Sarkozy, and first lady, Cécilia.”
Warner went on to explain some of the marital tensions that, in the U.S., might have destroyed a presidential campaign faster than you can say “cuckold” (an old English/Old French word referring to the female cuckoo bird, who is known to lay her eggs in other birds’ nests). Warner’s blog says:
"In case you missed it, Sarkozy last year greatly entertained France by running a campaign in which his wife was almost entirely absent. Cécilia, a former model whom Nicholas first eyed in his previous incarnation as mayor of the city of Neuilly, while administering the vows that consecrated her last marriage; she left him in 2005, eventually showing up – and being photographed – with her lover (a Moroccan advertising executive) in New York City.
The Sarkozys ultimately reunited. But life together remained rocky. Cécilia made major headlines once again last May when she pulled a no-show on the night of her husband’s final run-off race against his Socialist rival, Ségolène Royal.
She was rumored not to have voted at all."
Cecilia hit American radar this past summer when she snubbed President Bush’s invitation to a picnic at the Bush family manse in Kennebunkport, Maine; at the last minute, she backed out, explaining that she and her children had “sore throats” and could not attend the picnic: so Sarko went solo.
The Sarkozys had been vacationing 50 miles away in Wolfeboro, NH and, according to the Times Online/UK, fellow vacationers noticed Mrs. Sarkozy strolling in shorts around town with friends, both the day before and the day after the picnic. Le Figaro, the most pro-Sarkozy newspaper, noted drily that the infection seemed to have come and gone as fast as lightning, adding, "The day before she was in good form, and the day after she was cured."
Over here, newspapers and online blogs, magazines, and newsletters, from the Rochester Democrat and Chronicle to the Liberal Doomsayer to the Surf Wax News, commented on the “sore throat excuse” and gave Cecilia’s behavior a thumbs down.
A French Presidential term is five years – so just think of the rumors, gossip, and innuendos waiting in those Gallic wings. Not that it takes adultery and unconventional behavior in a Presidential couple to get our attention – but recent American history does prove that it’s pretty effective.
Bill Clinton would easily have been called “un lapid chaud” – or, “hot rabbit” – in France, during his administrations. Whether or not politicians-as-celebrities helps us elect the next one remains to be seen. Hillary is older and wiser and her relationship with Bill leaves little else to discover (I hope). Rudy and Judy? Spare me.
So far, “peopleisation” has only really touched Barak Obama -- as in the recent You Tube video sensation, “I’ve Got a Crush on Obama” in which a girl sings and fantasizes about how to get her favorite candidate’s attention.
In contrast, the past two French presidents both had tabloid potential in their lives, yet prior to 2000, the French press did not consider this type of news as peopleisation-worthy. Their transgressions made them human, not celebrities.
The German online magazine, Spiegel International (5/22/07), said of Francois Mitterand (1981-1995) and Jacques Chirac (1995-2007), “Mitterrand had a mistress and paid for her accommodation with taxpayers' money. Shortly before he died, when he admitted to having an illegitimate daughter by her, it only served to give the man many in France referred to as "God" a more worldy image. Mitterrand's successor, Chirac, also had a reputation as a bon vivant.” But these men tended to hide their private lives.
Now, reporters like to comment on Sarkozy’s “in-your-face” style, his hob-nobbing with millionaire friends, his Rolexes and vacations on yachts – and his total lack of embarrassment in enjoying the good life. In short, says New York Times columnist Roger Cohen, Sarkozy “has broadcast that money’s okay.”
That’s “peopleisation.”
Clearly, Sarko is becoming prime meat for the press and paparazzi. He is outspoken, volatile, loves America, listens to an iPod, jogs, and is part Napoleon-part JFK. The “peopleisation” of this President will keep Sarkozy on the front pages of French newspapers, and at least in the first section of American papers and blogs for a while.
It’s taken thousands of years for “peopleisation”, the word, to emerge. From the Latin, “populus,” the French came up with “peuple” for a specific group of people and “gens” for people in general.
“Peopleisation” does not seem like a very French word and it will be interesting to see how long it takes to be made official. The French verbo-crats are so careful not to let English words slip into their formal speech. In France, there is a Ministry of Language that forbids Anglo words to become part of elevated speech: for example, this machine I am typing on cannot be called “le computer;” oh no – only “l’ordinateur” (pron: lor-dee-na-toor) will do.
The same ministry forbids naming your child anything too “extraordinaire” – Gwyneth Paltrow’s daughter’s name, Apple; or Bob Geldof’s daughters’ names, Fifi Trixibelle, Peaches Honeyblossom, and Little Pixie, would never fly with in France. (However, the French lawyer I spoke with did know of a pair of twins who were able to keep their names: Starsky and Hutch.)
Still, I’m betting that the English word “people” will eventually be accepted by the official French dictionary, and maybe even by the Ministry of Language: only “people” conveys that gossipy, trendy, paparazzi-craven world we so take for granted, but which is so new to the French.
And when Sarko’s term is up five or maybe ten years from now, perhaps he and his wife will find a new way to stay in the limelight. Maybe a TV show: “In the French Kitchen with Sarko and Cecilia.” Nothing like a little peopleisation while cooking over a hot stove: a dash of marital tension along with a splash of white wine … The celebrity weeklies can start salivating now.
These are not the usual adjectives newspapers use to describe a new country’s president and his wife. And yet the new French president, Nicholas Sarkozy, and his wife, Cecilia, are as much an embodiment of the new generational change in French political power as they are symbols of the new word, “peopleisation.”
“Peopleisation” is not yet in the dictionary, but it already has a lengthy online Wikipedia description, including its various spellings: “pipeulisation, “ “pipolisation,” and the most current, “peoplelisation.”
Those are strange spellings because they’re French. Oui, and pronounced “people-ee-za-seeyon.”
I stumbled upon “peoplisation” in a conversation with a French lawyer I’ll call Veronique. She and I had started talking about President Sarkozy, or “Sarko,” as he is often dubbed, the first Baby Boomer President of France, and his wife, Cecilia. It seems that France’s new First Lady has displayed some rather unusual behavior before, during, and since this past spring’s election. And as Veronique got into the particulars of Sarko and Cecilia’s reported affairs, arguments, and odd conduct, I suddenly realized that she was dishing the dirt on them as if they were Brad and Angelina, or Tom and Kate, or Britney, K-Fed or any other regulars gracing the cover of People magazine (which does not exist in France – at least, not yet) or The National Enquirer.
This is what the French call “peopleisation”: it’s all about “celebrities,” not “people” as ordinary humans. “Peopleisation” is about the people who appear in what the French call the “presse people” – the “anglo-saxon–style” (French Wikipedia’s term) of weekly magazines and tabloid newspapers featuring people in the media, show biz, and in France right now, politics.
Voila “peopleisation” in French power and politics: On Sarkosy’s Inauguration Day this past May, the English newspaper, The Telegraph, gushed:
"Mrs Sarkozy looked more like a star arriving at the Cannes film festival than the matronly presidential consorts France is accustomed to.
Camera shutters whirred as the 49-year old former model, holding the hand of their ten-year-old son Louis, brought Jackie Kennedy glamour to proceedings in an ivory duchess satin Prada dress. Known to prefer T-shirts, combat trousers and cowboy boots, Mrs Sarkozy silenced at a stroke the critics of her dress-down style."
Though celebrity culture in France may have been around for a while, “peopleisation” has only emerged since around 2000 and is still not yet included in dictionnaire.com. As a word, “peopleisation” reflects a definite English/American embrace. Yes, the French long ago adopted “le weekend” and “le Burger King,” but “peopleisation is their own invention. They could have substituted a French word for “people,” but they intentionally stuck with our word – a linguistic nod to the inventors of celebrity culture.
The English newspaper, The Independent on Sunday, had this to say about Cecilia at the G-8 Summit in Germany this past June:
"Like the Devil, she wears Prada, like Marie-Antoinette, she fascinates and antagonises people in equal measure … At the G8, she dazzled photographers with her toned body in an Azzedine Alaia black-laced, strappy dress. Nicolas was very attentive, as always, holding her hand, while she stood, aloof, with a steely smile and fiery eyes."
Monsieur Le President is not without his own attributes: alliterative adjectives punctuate articles in both the New York Times and the Washington Post, who refer to Sarkozy as “passionate,” “pragmatic,” and “pugnacious.”
But others dish a little more deeply – take Judith Warner, author of several non-fiction books ranging from politics to modern-day motherhood, as well as the New York Times blog, “Domestic Disturbances.” In her Sept. 13 posting last month, Warner referred to the “attractive tableau vivant of family disorder exhibited by France’s new president, Nicholas Sarkozy, and first lady, Cécilia.”
Warner went on to explain some of the marital tensions that, in the U.S., might have destroyed a presidential campaign faster than you can say “cuckold” (an old English/Old French word referring to the female cuckoo bird, who is known to lay her eggs in other birds’ nests). Warner’s blog says:
"In case you missed it, Sarkozy last year greatly entertained France by running a campaign in which his wife was almost entirely absent. Cécilia, a former model whom Nicholas first eyed in his previous incarnation as mayor of the city of Neuilly, while administering the vows that consecrated her last marriage; she left him in 2005, eventually showing up – and being photographed – with her lover (a Moroccan advertising executive) in New York City.
The Sarkozys ultimately reunited. But life together remained rocky. Cécilia made major headlines once again last May when she pulled a no-show on the night of her husband’s final run-off race against his Socialist rival, Ségolène Royal.
She was rumored not to have voted at all."
Cecilia hit American radar this past summer when she snubbed President Bush’s invitation to a picnic at the Bush family manse in Kennebunkport, Maine; at the last minute, she backed out, explaining that she and her children had “sore throats” and could not attend the picnic: so Sarko went solo.
The Sarkozys had been vacationing 50 miles away in Wolfeboro, NH and, according to the Times Online/UK, fellow vacationers noticed Mrs. Sarkozy strolling in shorts around town with friends, both the day before and the day after the picnic. Le Figaro, the most pro-Sarkozy newspaper, noted drily that the infection seemed to have come and gone as fast as lightning, adding, "The day before she was in good form, and the day after she was cured."
Over here, newspapers and online blogs, magazines, and newsletters, from the Rochester Democrat and Chronicle to the Liberal Doomsayer to the Surf Wax News, commented on the “sore throat excuse” and gave Cecilia’s behavior a thumbs down.
A French Presidential term is five years – so just think of the rumors, gossip, and innuendos waiting in those Gallic wings. Not that it takes adultery and unconventional behavior in a Presidential couple to get our attention – but recent American history does prove that it’s pretty effective.
Bill Clinton would easily have been called “un lapid chaud” – or, “hot rabbit” – in France, during his administrations. Whether or not politicians-as-celebrities helps us elect the next one remains to be seen. Hillary is older and wiser and her relationship with Bill leaves little else to discover (I hope). Rudy and Judy? Spare me.
So far, “peopleisation” has only really touched Barak Obama -- as in the recent You Tube video sensation, “I’ve Got a Crush on Obama” in which a girl sings and fantasizes about how to get her favorite candidate’s attention.
In contrast, the past two French presidents both had tabloid potential in their lives, yet prior to 2000, the French press did not consider this type of news as peopleisation-worthy. Their transgressions made them human, not celebrities.
The German online magazine, Spiegel International (5/22/07), said of Francois Mitterand (1981-1995) and Jacques Chirac (1995-2007), “Mitterrand had a mistress and paid for her accommodation with taxpayers' money. Shortly before he died, when he admitted to having an illegitimate daughter by her, it only served to give the man many in France referred to as "God" a more worldy image. Mitterrand's successor, Chirac, also had a reputation as a bon vivant.” But these men tended to hide their private lives.
Now, reporters like to comment on Sarkozy’s “in-your-face” style, his hob-nobbing with millionaire friends, his Rolexes and vacations on yachts – and his total lack of embarrassment in enjoying the good life. In short, says New York Times columnist Roger Cohen, Sarkozy “has broadcast that money’s okay.”
That’s “peopleisation.”
Clearly, Sarko is becoming prime meat for the press and paparazzi. He is outspoken, volatile, loves America, listens to an iPod, jogs, and is part Napoleon-part JFK. The “peopleisation” of this President will keep Sarkozy on the front pages of French newspapers, and at least in the first section of American papers and blogs for a while.
It’s taken thousands of years for “peopleisation”, the word, to emerge. From the Latin, “populus,” the French came up with “peuple” for a specific group of people and “gens” for people in general.
“Peopleisation” does not seem like a very French word and it will be interesting to see how long it takes to be made official. The French verbo-crats are so careful not to let English words slip into their formal speech. In France, there is a Ministry of Language that forbids Anglo words to become part of elevated speech: for example, this machine I am typing on cannot be called “le computer;” oh no – only “l’ordinateur” (pron: lor-dee-na-toor) will do.
The same ministry forbids naming your child anything too “extraordinaire” – Gwyneth Paltrow’s daughter’s name, Apple; or Bob Geldof’s daughters’ names, Fifi Trixibelle, Peaches Honeyblossom, and Little Pixie, would never fly with in France. (However, the French lawyer I spoke with did know of a pair of twins who were able to keep their names: Starsky and Hutch.)
Still, I’m betting that the English word “people” will eventually be accepted by the official French dictionary, and maybe even by the Ministry of Language: only “people” conveys that gossipy, trendy, paparazzi-craven world we so take for granted, but which is so new to the French.
And when Sarko’s term is up five or maybe ten years from now, perhaps he and his wife will find a new way to stay in the limelight. Maybe a TV show: “In the French Kitchen with Sarko and Cecilia.” Nothing like a little peopleisation while cooking over a hot stove: a dash of marital tension along with a splash of white wine … The celebrity weeklies can start salivating now.
Sunday, September 09, 2007
In Any Event
Labor Day is recently behind us – and with it, that glorious state of mind called “summer.” People who haven’t seen each other in a while will be asking for another week or so, “How was your summer? Did you get away at all?” or “Did you have a good summer?”
By “good summer,” perhaps we mean “eventful” -- which Encarta defines as “full of important, interesting, or exciting occurrences; or something that had a major effect on your life.” On the other hand, a “good summer” could mean one of long, lazy days, lots of iced coffee, and reading beach books so l-i-t-e they floated away – i.e., a blissfully uneventful summer.
Eventful, uneventful, event … to ancient Romans, evenire, i.e., to come out of, or occur.
I’m thinking about the word “event” these days not just because my second child just went off to college for the first time (THAT was an event) and my first child just went back to college (very important, but less of an event than the first time), and we now have just one child (well, age 16) at home for the first time since 1989 -- there’s probably a name for this new period, but that’s a separate column.
No, what’s getting to me is the commercialization of the word “event,” which is diminishing the real meaning of the word. So what, exactly, is an event? Encarta defines it as 1. “an occurrence, especially one that is particularly significant, interesting, exciting or unusual; 2. An organized occasion, such as social function or sports competition; 3. Any of the races or other competitions that form part of a larger (sports or other) event; and 4. A happening or occurrence.
Now take a look at my Exhibits A, B, and C: I just drove through town and noticed the women’s clothing store, Ann Taylor, is having what they call, a “Shoe Event.” A few weeks ago, they were having a “Sweater Event,” and before that, a “Summer Sale Event.”
(Could the events of my summer even begin to compare to those?!)
Last week, The Body Shop was having a “20% Off Everything Event.”
Even pet shelter organizations like PetBond.com, and the giant Petco pet store chain, have gotten in on the “event” action with “Pet Adoption Events.”
Have these so-called events become a modern sales code word meant to avoid sounding crass or commercial? What Ann Taylor and The Body Shop are really doing, it seems, is “promotion” for one and “a sale” for the other. Has the word “event” become polite society’s expression for the equivalent of “blow-out sale”?
The release of the seventh and final Harry Potter book was commercial but, still, definitely an event, even a worldwide event – with children and grown-ups alike dressing up in Harry Potter character-related costumes, going to parties at bookstores that had book-related games, trivia contests, face-painting, and food – definitely memorable events, as was my own completion of reading the series.
Meanwhile, Ann Taylor’s “Shoe Event” includes no balloons, confetti, or live auction; no face-painting or speeches or anything to make the “event” in any way memorable or once-in-a-lifetime. All it means is that the new fall shoes have arrived, and that we should come in and try them on. The fall sweaters that were the featured “event” in August are still on the table near the door – but now considered a tad dated for the “event” crown. Mind you, those sweaters and shoes are still full price – any reductions will no doubt be announced with the Fall Sale Event.
As for the pet shelters and their Pet Adoption Events: these regular-as-morning-coffee happenings (though an event is supposedly a unique or rare occurrence) give people who want a pet an opportunity to acquire one. The shelter brings animals from their locations to a local pet store or town center. There, the shelter displays cats and dogs in cages, pens, and carriers and waits for hopeful owners to apply for ownership.
The potential owners are then thoroughly screened – they must fill out a lengthy application with many personal questions as to why they want a pet and how and where they intend to keep it, and keep it safe (from falling off balconies, out of windows, etc.); you must also supply references, which are duly checked: If your reference cannot be reached (not at home, cell phone on the blink), too bad -- either wait, or try again at another “event.”
Once potential pet owners have passed the paperwork stage, some shelters require a home-check: they bundle the pet-owner-wannabes into a van, then with a pet professional, go to each wannabe’s house or apartment to check for possible safety hazards.
They call this an “event”?! For those proud pet owners who make it through the entire process, bringing home the puppy or kitten is definitely an event. But the method of acquiring it -- while completely fair and humane for the animals – is more Trial than Event for the humans simply seeking a little love and four-legged companionship. (Perhaps the shelters could call these ordeals, “Attempt to Adopt a Pet Day.”)
Lifetimes are full of events – some are acknowledged with a hug and a surprise under your pillow, or a “How ‘bout that!” (losing your first tooth, not being picked last at gym). Other events are reasons for extravaganzas – bar mitzvahs, Sweet Sixteens, graduations, weddings, births. (And though death is equally dramatic and occurs just once per lifetime, I’ve never heard anyone refer to someone’s death as an “event.”)
County fairs are also full of events: Bingo; the 4H Poultry, Rabbit and Livestock Competitions; the tractor pull, the dessert cook-offs, the greased pig race, the watermelon-eating contest, and much, much more. Swim and track meets have different events within them; our local fire station had a festive little event today for parents and little children, with balloons, a train, face painting, spin art, sticker tattoos, and free food and drink.
Events are usually happy or fun – but not always. There is a tremendously popular children’s book series called, “A Series of Unfortunate Events,” which describes the bitter and painful experiences, disasters, and awful occurrences that challenge three orphans seemingly every second of their miserable lives.
The biggest use “events” as a negative occurrence is the one attached to to September 11, 2001: the terrible happenings of that day are often referred to as “the events of September 11th”. In this case, the word “events” is fitting – since it’s hard to find a date in American history with more drama or significance.
So my advice to Ann Taylor, The Body Shop, pet shelters, and other entities dressing up their promotions, sales, and rigorous adoption procedures in verbal sheep’s clothing is: delete “event” from your sales language. Unless you come up with something that has us consumers standing in line overnight; that can rival the first day of school in significance; or that can compete in emotional tension with a county fair’s husband-calling contest, it’s best to let our natural idea of events remain as special, happy, or even tragic as they are meant to be.
By “good summer,” perhaps we mean “eventful” -- which Encarta defines as “full of important, interesting, or exciting occurrences; or something that had a major effect on your life.” On the other hand, a “good summer” could mean one of long, lazy days, lots of iced coffee, and reading beach books so l-i-t-e they floated away – i.e., a blissfully uneventful summer.
Eventful, uneventful, event … to ancient Romans, evenire, i.e., to come out of, or occur.
I’m thinking about the word “event” these days not just because my second child just went off to college for the first time (THAT was an event) and my first child just went back to college (very important, but less of an event than the first time), and we now have just one child (well, age 16) at home for the first time since 1989 -- there’s probably a name for this new period, but that’s a separate column.
No, what’s getting to me is the commercialization of the word “event,” which is diminishing the real meaning of the word. So what, exactly, is an event? Encarta defines it as 1. “an occurrence, especially one that is particularly significant, interesting, exciting or unusual; 2. An organized occasion, such as social function or sports competition; 3. Any of the races or other competitions that form part of a larger (sports or other) event; and 4. A happening or occurrence.
Now take a look at my Exhibits A, B, and C: I just drove through town and noticed the women’s clothing store, Ann Taylor, is having what they call, a “Shoe Event.” A few weeks ago, they were having a “Sweater Event,” and before that, a “Summer Sale Event.”
(Could the events of my summer even begin to compare to those?!)
Last week, The Body Shop was having a “20% Off Everything Event.”
Even pet shelter organizations like PetBond.com, and the giant Petco pet store chain, have gotten in on the “event” action with “Pet Adoption Events.”
Have these so-called events become a modern sales code word meant to avoid sounding crass or commercial? What Ann Taylor and The Body Shop are really doing, it seems, is “promotion” for one and “a sale” for the other. Has the word “event” become polite society’s expression for the equivalent of “blow-out sale”?
The release of the seventh and final Harry Potter book was commercial but, still, definitely an event, even a worldwide event – with children and grown-ups alike dressing up in Harry Potter character-related costumes, going to parties at bookstores that had book-related games, trivia contests, face-painting, and food – definitely memorable events, as was my own completion of reading the series.
Meanwhile, Ann Taylor’s “Shoe Event” includes no balloons, confetti, or live auction; no face-painting or speeches or anything to make the “event” in any way memorable or once-in-a-lifetime. All it means is that the new fall shoes have arrived, and that we should come in and try them on. The fall sweaters that were the featured “event” in August are still on the table near the door – but now considered a tad dated for the “event” crown. Mind you, those sweaters and shoes are still full price – any reductions will no doubt be announced with the Fall Sale Event.
As for the pet shelters and their Pet Adoption Events: these regular-as-morning-coffee happenings (though an event is supposedly a unique or rare occurrence) give people who want a pet an opportunity to acquire one. The shelter brings animals from their locations to a local pet store or town center. There, the shelter displays cats and dogs in cages, pens, and carriers and waits for hopeful owners to apply for ownership.
The potential owners are then thoroughly screened – they must fill out a lengthy application with many personal questions as to why they want a pet and how and where they intend to keep it, and keep it safe (from falling off balconies, out of windows, etc.); you must also supply references, which are duly checked: If your reference cannot be reached (not at home, cell phone on the blink), too bad -- either wait, or try again at another “event.”
Once potential pet owners have passed the paperwork stage, some shelters require a home-check: they bundle the pet-owner-wannabes into a van, then with a pet professional, go to each wannabe’s house or apartment to check for possible safety hazards.
They call this an “event”?! For those proud pet owners who make it through the entire process, bringing home the puppy or kitten is definitely an event. But the method of acquiring it -- while completely fair and humane for the animals – is more Trial than Event for the humans simply seeking a little love and four-legged companionship. (Perhaps the shelters could call these ordeals, “Attempt to Adopt a Pet Day.”)
Lifetimes are full of events – some are acknowledged with a hug and a surprise under your pillow, or a “How ‘bout that!” (losing your first tooth, not being picked last at gym). Other events are reasons for extravaganzas – bar mitzvahs, Sweet Sixteens, graduations, weddings, births. (And though death is equally dramatic and occurs just once per lifetime, I’ve never heard anyone refer to someone’s death as an “event.”)
County fairs are also full of events: Bingo; the 4H Poultry, Rabbit and Livestock Competitions; the tractor pull, the dessert cook-offs, the greased pig race, the watermelon-eating contest, and much, much more. Swim and track meets have different events within them; our local fire station had a festive little event today for parents and little children, with balloons, a train, face painting, spin art, sticker tattoos, and free food and drink.
Events are usually happy or fun – but not always. There is a tremendously popular children’s book series called, “A Series of Unfortunate Events,” which describes the bitter and painful experiences, disasters, and awful occurrences that challenge three orphans seemingly every second of their miserable lives.
The biggest use “events” as a negative occurrence is the one attached to to September 11, 2001: the terrible happenings of that day are often referred to as “the events of September 11th”. In this case, the word “events” is fitting – since it’s hard to find a date in American history with more drama or significance.
So my advice to Ann Taylor, The Body Shop, pet shelters, and other entities dressing up their promotions, sales, and rigorous adoption procedures in verbal sheep’s clothing is: delete “event” from your sales language. Unless you come up with something that has us consumers standing in line overnight; that can rival the first day of school in significance; or that can compete in emotional tension with a county fair’s husband-calling contest, it’s best to let our natural idea of events remain as special, happy, or even tragic as they are meant to be.
Sunday, July 08, 2007
Endangered Semicolons
It’s summertime, the livin’ is easy – right?
Well, it’s easy livin’ to some – but not to the poor semicolon, whose existence is fading as fast as the Polar Ice Cap but without a Live Earth Concert to protect it. (Witness the first line, above.)
The actual lyrics to the Gershwin brothers’ “Summertime” are, “Summertime, and the livin’ is easy.” The “and” between “summertime” and “the livin’” keeps the flow of the line going; it also links the first part of the sentence to the other.
There – did you see how I snuck in that semicolon?
A semicolon is perfect for when you have two related sentences without an “and,” “but,” or “or” to connect them; a semicolon tells you to give each related sentence equal attention – not just a comma’s worth of a pause – because a pause is sometimes just not enough:
Like in “Clueless” when Paul Rudd accuses Alicia Silverstone of driving through a stop-sign: “I totally paused!” she says in California-style self-defense. But, you see, a “pause” – whether on paper or on wheels -- is not the same as a more definite stop.
A semicolon between two sentences tells the reader that each part is sufficient to stand alone, but that there is a close relationship between the two parts that would get lost with a full-stop period. (A comma should not attempt to join two complete ideas – and I’ll get to that.)
In the excellent, humorous grammar book, “Woe Is I,” author Patricia T. O’Conner calls the semicolon “one of the most useful but least used punctuation marks,” and I have to agree. O’Connell also thinks people might be too intimidated to use semicolons, but I think that’s optimistic: (I put a colon there because a colon means, “now I’m going to elaborate.”) if people are thinking that semicolons intimidate them, then that means they’re at least thinking about semicolons. I don’t think most people even think about semicolons.
To those of us who remember watching “Leave It To Beaver” and “The Brady Bunch,” the semicolon probably dates back to some grammar lesson slept through years ago. Those born during the “Beaver” and “Brady Bunch” years probably did not even have a grammar class, so they now hardly recognize a semicolon’s existence -- except as a curiosity found in other people’s writing.
Willing as I am to accept that punctuation, like language, changes, losing the semicolon would indeed be a loss. Visually, semicolons carry more muscle than a comma. Commas don’t stop the flow – they simply regulate it, with changes of tone and pauses. Semicolons bring the flow to what O’Connell calls the “flashing red light” stage – a brief stop; they serve as connector-rods to strengthen a sentence.
The trouble is, people have found a way to live without them; but their writing suffers as a consequence. A semicolon is red meat, full of iron; a comma is lettuce – valuable, good for you, but light and somewhat flimsy, occasionally left to an author’s discretion or whim.
Transition words like “however,” “nevertheless,” and “anyway,” are always followed by a comma; commas separate asides, things that could also be put in parentheses; and commas, which are often forgotten in these cases, go before clauses beginning with “which.”
Commas also separate items in a list or series; but when that list already has commas and/or dashes in the items, use a semicolon. Like: Don’t forget to bring the popcorn, which I hid on the back shelf so no one would it eat before the picnic; the cream soda – mmmm; and a big blanket for the lawn.
Semicolons hold together two related sentences. A sentence, or “independent clause,” has a subject, a verb and a complete meaning. For example, “John reads” is a complete sentence, with a subject, verb, and complete meaning. Likewise, “Run!” is a full sentence, because it has all the elements of an independent clause: a subject -- in this case, an understood subject, which is “you;” a verb, “run;” and a complete meaning, which is along the lines of “You’d better get out of here fast!” In contrast, a clause like, “When you run” has a subject and verb but no complete meaning, so that is a “dependent” clause.
Newspapers articles tend to use periods, commas, and dashes. (We’ll get to dashes another time.) Semicolons are more often used in magazine articles and books. However, lately, in books or articles where there are plenty of properly placed semicolons, there are random paragraphs where they were left out. Either this is a dubious stylistic choice, or simply editorial neglect, I don’t know. For example:
*The book, “Men Are From Mars, Women Are From Venus” is a perfect example of the spineless punctuation seen today. I could see if this were a list, like: Men are from Mars, women are from Venus, and semicolons are nowhere. But as it is, the title lacks the bite a nice semicolon would have provided.
See if you can find the missing semicolons in the following passages:
In Philippa Gregory’s, “The Other Boleyn Girl”: “Whenever I looked up the king’s eyes were on me, whenever I looked away I was conscious of his stare still on my face.”
In Nick Hornby’s “How To Be Good” the husband says to his wife over the phone, “Yeah. Molly’s here watching TV, Tom’s round at Jamie’s.”
And in J.K. Rowling’s “Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince” a person quoted in an article in a Hogwarts newspaper says: “We’re not allowed to talk about it, don’t ask me anything.”
Moving away from literature and fixating on the warning on my cup of Barnes & Noble/Starbucks coffee, I see the following:
“Careful, the beverage you’re about to enjoy is extremely hot.”
Now, why did the coffee-cup editor put a weak, little comma after a warning? An exclamation point, or at least a period, would have been more appropriate for preventing drinkers from burned fingers and potential lawsuits. Grammatically speaking, a full-stop would have been the correct choice too: “careful” is actually a command and thus an independent clause with an understood subject (you) and understood verb (be), with “careful” a complementary adjective. “You be careful,” is what the word really means.
On a daily basis, I find plenty of semicolonless emails like:
“Here is the report, I hope you can understand it;” or
“Thanks for the update on Shelia, I was wondering what happened to her.”
You might argue that those lines, punctuated with commas instead of semicolons, sound the way people speak. But to me they simply lack muscle, or definition; they’re just not going to last.
Printed interviews often take the same comma-or-bust approach, which robs the speaker of the expression and intonation he probably better conveyed on tape:
In an online interview with Eric Zala who, with his two friends and fellow “Indiana Jones” fans, spent seven years, between ages 12-19, remaking “Raiders of the Lost Ark,” said, “My mom had this big rambling house and a huge basement which was perfect for our makeshift soundstage, where we would later shoot the bar, the cave, the Well of Souls, the map room, and we listened to a bad horror movie sound effect records, two 12-year-old kids getting inspired about the idea of doing our own Indiana Jones movie.
Still, it’s not too late to start a Semicolon Survival Campaign; it just might work. We can start with a little grass roots effort and build awareness from there. And by Summertime 2008 we might even see ”Punctuationfests” carried by satellite right to your living rooms, Palm Pilots, cellphones and iPhones from semicolonless spots all over the world.
Well, it’s easy livin’ to some – but not to the poor semicolon, whose existence is fading as fast as the Polar Ice Cap but without a Live Earth Concert to protect it. (Witness the first line, above.)
The actual lyrics to the Gershwin brothers’ “Summertime” are, “Summertime, and the livin’ is easy.” The “and” between “summertime” and “the livin’” keeps the flow of the line going; it also links the first part of the sentence to the other.
There – did you see how I snuck in that semicolon?
A semicolon is perfect for when you have two related sentences without an “and,” “but,” or “or” to connect them; a semicolon tells you to give each related sentence equal attention – not just a comma’s worth of a pause – because a pause is sometimes just not enough:
Like in “Clueless” when Paul Rudd accuses Alicia Silverstone of driving through a stop-sign: “I totally paused!” she says in California-style self-defense. But, you see, a “pause” – whether on paper or on wheels -- is not the same as a more definite stop.
A semicolon between two sentences tells the reader that each part is sufficient to stand alone, but that there is a close relationship between the two parts that would get lost with a full-stop period. (A comma should not attempt to join two complete ideas – and I’ll get to that.)
In the excellent, humorous grammar book, “Woe Is I,” author Patricia T. O’Conner calls the semicolon “one of the most useful but least used punctuation marks,” and I have to agree. O’Connell also thinks people might be too intimidated to use semicolons, but I think that’s optimistic: (I put a colon there because a colon means, “now I’m going to elaborate.”) if people are thinking that semicolons intimidate them, then that means they’re at least thinking about semicolons. I don’t think most people even think about semicolons.
To those of us who remember watching “Leave It To Beaver” and “The Brady Bunch,” the semicolon probably dates back to some grammar lesson slept through years ago. Those born during the “Beaver” and “Brady Bunch” years probably did not even have a grammar class, so they now hardly recognize a semicolon’s existence -- except as a curiosity found in other people’s writing.
Willing as I am to accept that punctuation, like language, changes, losing the semicolon would indeed be a loss. Visually, semicolons carry more muscle than a comma. Commas don’t stop the flow – they simply regulate it, with changes of tone and pauses. Semicolons bring the flow to what O’Connell calls the “flashing red light” stage – a brief stop; they serve as connector-rods to strengthen a sentence.
The trouble is, people have found a way to live without them; but their writing suffers as a consequence. A semicolon is red meat, full of iron; a comma is lettuce – valuable, good for you, but light and somewhat flimsy, occasionally left to an author’s discretion or whim.
Transition words like “however,” “nevertheless,” and “anyway,” are always followed by a comma; commas separate asides, things that could also be put in parentheses; and commas, which are often forgotten in these cases, go before clauses beginning with “which.”
Commas also separate items in a list or series; but when that list already has commas and/or dashes in the items, use a semicolon. Like: Don’t forget to bring the popcorn, which I hid on the back shelf so no one would it eat before the picnic; the cream soda – mmmm; and a big blanket for the lawn.
Semicolons hold together two related sentences. A sentence, or “independent clause,” has a subject, a verb and a complete meaning. For example, “John reads” is a complete sentence, with a subject, verb, and complete meaning. Likewise, “Run!” is a full sentence, because it has all the elements of an independent clause: a subject -- in this case, an understood subject, which is “you;” a verb, “run;” and a complete meaning, which is along the lines of “You’d better get out of here fast!” In contrast, a clause like, “When you run” has a subject and verb but no complete meaning, so that is a “dependent” clause.
Newspapers articles tend to use periods, commas, and dashes. (We’ll get to dashes another time.) Semicolons are more often used in magazine articles and books. However, lately, in books or articles where there are plenty of properly placed semicolons, there are random paragraphs where they were left out. Either this is a dubious stylistic choice, or simply editorial neglect, I don’t know. For example:
*The book, “Men Are From Mars, Women Are From Venus” is a perfect example of the spineless punctuation seen today. I could see if this were a list, like: Men are from Mars, women are from Venus, and semicolons are nowhere. But as it is, the title lacks the bite a nice semicolon would have provided.
See if you can find the missing semicolons in the following passages:
In Philippa Gregory’s, “The Other Boleyn Girl”: “Whenever I looked up the king’s eyes were on me, whenever I looked away I was conscious of his stare still on my face.”
In Nick Hornby’s “How To Be Good” the husband says to his wife over the phone, “Yeah. Molly’s here watching TV, Tom’s round at Jamie’s.”
And in J.K. Rowling’s “Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince” a person quoted in an article in a Hogwarts newspaper says: “We’re not allowed to talk about it, don’t ask me anything.”
Moving away from literature and fixating on the warning on my cup of Barnes & Noble/Starbucks coffee, I see the following:
“Careful, the beverage you’re about to enjoy is extremely hot.”
Now, why did the coffee-cup editor put a weak, little comma after a warning? An exclamation point, or at least a period, would have been more appropriate for preventing drinkers from burned fingers and potential lawsuits. Grammatically speaking, a full-stop would have been the correct choice too: “careful” is actually a command and thus an independent clause with an understood subject (you) and understood verb (be), with “careful” a complementary adjective. “You be careful,” is what the word really means.
On a daily basis, I find plenty of semicolonless emails like:
“Here is the report, I hope you can understand it;” or
“Thanks for the update on Shelia, I was wondering what happened to her.”
You might argue that those lines, punctuated with commas instead of semicolons, sound the way people speak. But to me they simply lack muscle, or definition; they’re just not going to last.
Printed interviews often take the same comma-or-bust approach, which robs the speaker of the expression and intonation he probably better conveyed on tape:
In an online interview with Eric Zala who, with his two friends and fellow “Indiana Jones” fans, spent seven years, between ages 12-19, remaking “Raiders of the Lost Ark,” said, “My mom had this big rambling house and a huge basement which was perfect for our makeshift soundstage, where we would later shoot the bar, the cave, the Well of Souls, the map room, and we listened to a bad horror movie sound effect records, two 12-year-old kids getting inspired about the idea of doing our own Indiana Jones movie.
Still, it’s not too late to start a Semicolon Survival Campaign; it just might work. We can start with a little grass roots effort and build awareness from there. And by Summertime 2008 we might even see ”Punctuationfests” carried by satellite right to your living rooms, Palm Pilots, cellphones and iPhones from semicolonless spots all over the world.
Saturday, June 16, 2007
Why “Oui”?
I was lucky enough to be in Paris recently and after hearing, or responding with, the affirmative French word for “yes” for a few days, I began to wonder about that little word, “Oui.”
“O-U-I” is pronounced something like “we;” however, to sound more French, you must purse your lips tightly, then say the word while keeping your tongue as close to your front upper teeth as possible. (This gives “oui” a sharper, slightly breathy, and somewhat more nasal sound than the English “we.”)
But again, why “oui”? In France’s neighboring Latin-language-based countries like Italy, Spain, and Portugal they say “si,” “si,” and “sim.” Is France’s reputation for being different rooted even in its ancient linguistic development?
Apparently, oui:
It was the 12th century writer, Dante Alighieri (of “Inferno” fame) who first put France’s regional language variations into three groups, each group defined by the way they said, “Yes.” In the south, they spoke “the Langue d’Oc;” in the central and northern parts, “La Langue d’Oil,” and closer to Iberia (later Spain) and Italy, “La Langue de Si.” In his essay, “On Vernacular Speech,” Dante noted, “some say ‘oc,’ (awk) others say ‘si,’ (see) and others say ‘oil’” (oh-eel) – and his groups were each named some form of “The Language of “Yes.”
“Oc” comes from Latin’s “hoc,” or “that;” whereas “oil” is a combination of “hoc ille,” meaning “that is it.” “Si” came from the Latin, “sic” meaning “thus.” The “Si” group was relatively minor; the main choice was between “oc” or “oil.” With Paris being for centuries the main power seat and located in the Langue d’Oil region, it’s easy to see that the Oil group would win out over the Oc one (and “oil” eventually changed to the standard French oui). There was a brief period in the 1200’s when the Langue d’Oc, in southern France’s Provence region, was the mightier, with Provencal considered the language of literature and the roving “troubadours” or minstrels. (War and politics changed all that.) Still, the name Langue d’Oc lives on in the name of the famous Languedoc wine region, and also in the adjective “occitane” (meaning, from the “Oc” region); in fact, the French-based, international luxury body lotion and bath oil stores called “L’Occitane,” now have put Oc back on the map.
As for “Si,” the French did not dispose of it completely. Where the Spanish, Italians and Portuguese found “si” and “sim” fit to mean a resounding, “yes,” the French found it a useful word for contradicting a negative statement: “You’re not going to the meeting?” “Si*! I’m going, and you?” (*In this case, “si” means neither “yes” nor “no,” but something like “of course.”)
Having a special word like “si” is found in other languages too: The Germans do this with “Doch (Dok);” and the Norwegians use “Jo” (Yoo). Those of us whose language doesn’t have such a handy word must hobble along with more emphasis in our responses: “Don’t you like the food?” “Yes, of course I like the food, and in fact, I’ll have seconds” – just to clarify our position.)
Just why the French went for the Oc’s and Oil’s in the first place and rejected the Roman “Si” can be found (in my opinion – not documented) in any “Asterix” comic book. This French comic book series, started in1959 and now translated into 100 languages, takes place in Gaul in 100 B.C., when Julius Caesar invaded and occupied the land (now France). Gaul was named after the early Celtish tribe of Gauls living there. (The adjective and noun, Gaul, in French is “gallois”– thus the name of the popular French cigarette brand). The series’ main character is Asterix (whose name comes from the Latin/Greek “aster” meaning “star” + “rix,” Celtic for “king”), who is a funny little Gaul; along with his equally funny and oversized sidekick, Obelix, the two have adventures and exploits throughout the 33-book series in trying to outwit the never-as-clever Roman soldiers.
Though I doubt the real Gauls had as much fun as Asterix and Obelix, they most likely did resent the Roman intrusion: in fact, it took some 500 years for early French to replace Gaulish – and this included their refusal to adopt the Roman word for “yes.” True, the Celtic word for “yes” was lost (or, if Celtic Gaulish was like the Celtic Gaelic, an exact word for “yes” may have never existed); so if the Gauls were going to turn to Latin for an affirmative, then perhaps they thought it should at least be a different word than the “si” used by the obnoxious occupying Roman soldiers.
That the north of France would differ for centuries with the south of France on whether “Yes” would be Oc or Oil is mere sibling rivalry (like the English “yes” vs. “aye”); and leaving “si” for responding to negative questions almost seems like a French-style (and long-lost) in-joke. Tres funny, oui?
“O-U-I” is pronounced something like “we;” however, to sound more French, you must purse your lips tightly, then say the word while keeping your tongue as close to your front upper teeth as possible. (This gives “oui” a sharper, slightly breathy, and somewhat more nasal sound than the English “we.”)
But again, why “oui”? In France’s neighboring Latin-language-based countries like Italy, Spain, and Portugal they say “si,” “si,” and “sim.” Is France’s reputation for being different rooted even in its ancient linguistic development?
Apparently, oui:
It was the 12th century writer, Dante Alighieri (of “Inferno” fame) who first put France’s regional language variations into three groups, each group defined by the way they said, “Yes.” In the south, they spoke “the Langue d’Oc;” in the central and northern parts, “La Langue d’Oil,” and closer to Iberia (later Spain) and Italy, “La Langue de Si.” In his essay, “On Vernacular Speech,” Dante noted, “some say ‘oc,’ (awk) others say ‘si,’ (see) and others say ‘oil’” (oh-eel) – and his groups were each named some form of “The Language of “Yes.”
“Oc” comes from Latin’s “hoc,” or “that;” whereas “oil” is a combination of “hoc ille,” meaning “that is it.” “Si” came from the Latin, “sic” meaning “thus.” The “Si” group was relatively minor; the main choice was between “oc” or “oil.” With Paris being for centuries the main power seat and located in the Langue d’Oil region, it’s easy to see that the Oil group would win out over the Oc one (and “oil” eventually changed to the standard French oui). There was a brief period in the 1200’s when the Langue d’Oc, in southern France’s Provence region, was the mightier, with Provencal considered the language of literature and the roving “troubadours” or minstrels. (War and politics changed all that.) Still, the name Langue d’Oc lives on in the name of the famous Languedoc wine region, and also in the adjective “occitane” (meaning, from the “Oc” region); in fact, the French-based, international luxury body lotion and bath oil stores called “L’Occitane,” now have put Oc back on the map.
As for “Si,” the French did not dispose of it completely. Where the Spanish, Italians and Portuguese found “si” and “sim” fit to mean a resounding, “yes,” the French found it a useful word for contradicting a negative statement: “You’re not going to the meeting?” “Si*! I’m going, and you?” (*In this case, “si” means neither “yes” nor “no,” but something like “of course.”)
Having a special word like “si” is found in other languages too: The Germans do this with “Doch (Dok);” and the Norwegians use “Jo” (Yoo). Those of us whose language doesn’t have such a handy word must hobble along with more emphasis in our responses: “Don’t you like the food?” “Yes, of course I like the food, and in fact, I’ll have seconds” – just to clarify our position.)
Just why the French went for the Oc’s and Oil’s in the first place and rejected the Roman “Si” can be found (in my opinion – not documented) in any “Asterix” comic book. This French comic book series, started in1959 and now translated into 100 languages, takes place in Gaul in 100 B.C., when Julius Caesar invaded and occupied the land (now France). Gaul was named after the early Celtish tribe of Gauls living there. (The adjective and noun, Gaul, in French is “gallois”– thus the name of the popular French cigarette brand). The series’ main character is Asterix (whose name comes from the Latin/Greek “aster” meaning “star” + “rix,” Celtic for “king”), who is a funny little Gaul; along with his equally funny and oversized sidekick, Obelix, the two have adventures and exploits throughout the 33-book series in trying to outwit the never-as-clever Roman soldiers.
Though I doubt the real Gauls had as much fun as Asterix and Obelix, they most likely did resent the Roman intrusion: in fact, it took some 500 years for early French to replace Gaulish – and this included their refusal to adopt the Roman word for “yes.” True, the Celtic word for “yes” was lost (or, if Celtic Gaulish was like the Celtic Gaelic, an exact word for “yes” may have never existed); so if the Gauls were going to turn to Latin for an affirmative, then perhaps they thought it should at least be a different word than the “si” used by the obnoxious occupying Roman soldiers.
That the north of France would differ for centuries with the south of France on whether “Yes” would be Oc or Oil is mere sibling rivalry (like the English “yes” vs. “aye”); and leaving “si” for responding to negative questions almost seems like a French-style (and long-lost) in-joke. Tres funny, oui?
Monday, May 21, 2007
Coming and Going
The saying, “I don’t know whether I’m coming or going,” implies that there is a sense of confusion in the life of the speaker. It’s like not knowing if you’re arriving or departing. Come and Go. We all know the difference -- don’t we?
I thought I knew the difference until I tried explaining it to several transplanted students from South America of mine who seem regularly confused by the way we use the two verbs in English. When I’ve tried to explain the difference, I’ve end up so muddled, I haven’t known whether I’m coming or going myself.
I thought this blog would be a good place to work out the confusion. And for those of you who have never wondered at the difference, well, it’s perhaps time for you to do so.
Here are some familiar situations in English that take some form of “to come:”
* Your kids are calling you from the car, impatient to leave; you shout back, “I’m coming!”
* You call up a friend and ask, “Can I come over this afternoon?”
*You RSVP over the phone to an invitation to a party: “I’d love to come.”
In Spanish, each of those situations would be handled with the verb, “to go.”
“I’m GOING!” you’d shout to your kids in the car as you rush out the door. “Can I GO to your house?” you’d ask your friend. “I’d love to GO to your party,” you’d say.
That’s because the Spanish verb, “ir” or “to go” means (according to Diccionario.com) to move from HERE to THERE – the same as “to come” in English.
According to Dictionary.com, “to come” means, “to approach or move toward a particular person or place.” In other words: to move from HERE to THERE. So a mom shouting, “I’m coming!” as she heads from kitchen to car is exactly right by English standards, but the opposite in Spanish.
According to DIccionario.com, the Spanish verb, “venir” (“to come”) means, “to
move from THERE to HERE.” So the kids waiting in the car would call, “Mama, VEN! (informal command) or VENGA! (formal command),” because she would be going from the house (there) to the car (here). Likewise, someone from Buenos Aires throwing a party would ask guests to COME (there to here): “Pueden VENIR a mi fiesta?”
Where it gets confusing is that in English, we say, “I’m COMING!” in response to someone’s call (HERE to THERE) and “I hope you can you COME to my party” (from THERE to HERE).
This means that English speakers use “to COME” for both COMING and GOING.
On top of that, Dictionary.com says that in English, “to go,” means “to move or proceed, esp. to or from something.” In other words: “to go” can mean from HERE to THERE as well as from THERE to HERE. By definition, COMING and GOING apparently mean the same thing – but we know they don’t. In fact, there is almost never any misuse or confusion. So why is this subject so confusing?
Let’s look at this in real life:
Let’s say John has a business trip coming up. He says to his colleague, “I’m GOING to Peoria.” Fortunately for John, he has a friend in Peoria he wants to visit while there; so he whips off an email saying, “Guess what -- I’m COMING to Peoria!” In both cases, John is departing from, say, New York, and landing in Peoria; but in the first instance, he’s “going” and the second, he’s “coming.”
The difference is this:
In the first instance John is heading to Peoria but he’s not talking to a person in Peoria -- both colleagues are in New York – so, he says he’s GOING. In his email, John is talking to his friend in Peoria; John is here, but his friend is there
-- so he says he’s COMING.
The difference in the two uses is whether there is a person (or people) at the other end of your destination – be it a friend in Peoria; your mom who’s called you inside to take a phone call; or if you’re explaining to your teacher why you came late to class.
Some more examples:
Two people invited to a party will talk with each other about looking forward to GOING to the party. But if you talk about the party with the person giving it, you tell her you’re looking forward to COMING to it. A store clerk who normally GOES to work might tell his boss he’ll be COMING in late the next day. The difference is the person at the other end.
The words, COME and GO, are of Germanic origin, whereas IR and VENIR are thoroughbred Latin words. (The French word for “future” is “avenir” – to come; and the word “avenue” is another derivative.) And In Spanish, the definitions correspond exactly with the usage.
Clearly, the Germans were a bit less specific about the definitions, and over time, usage has carved out its own distinctions. Since these distinctions are not noted in the dictionary, allow me to do so here: Use “come” when there is a person on the other end; use “go” when there is no person on the other end.
Is that clear?
Which is not to say life itself is clear. But at least for now I hope we know if we’re coming or going – and why.
I thought I knew the difference until I tried explaining it to several transplanted students from South America of mine who seem regularly confused by the way we use the two verbs in English. When I’ve tried to explain the difference, I’ve end up so muddled, I haven’t known whether I’m coming or going myself.
I thought this blog would be a good place to work out the confusion. And for those of you who have never wondered at the difference, well, it’s perhaps time for you to do so.
Here are some familiar situations in English that take some form of “to come:”
* Your kids are calling you from the car, impatient to leave; you shout back, “I’m coming!”
* You call up a friend and ask, “Can I come over this afternoon?”
*You RSVP over the phone to an invitation to a party: “I’d love to come.”
In Spanish, each of those situations would be handled with the verb, “to go.”
“I’m GOING!” you’d shout to your kids in the car as you rush out the door. “Can I GO to your house?” you’d ask your friend. “I’d love to GO to your party,” you’d say.
That’s because the Spanish verb, “ir” or “to go” means (according to Diccionario.com) to move from HERE to THERE – the same as “to come” in English.
According to Dictionary.com, “to come” means, “to approach or move toward a particular person or place.” In other words: to move from HERE to THERE. So a mom shouting, “I’m coming!” as she heads from kitchen to car is exactly right by English standards, but the opposite in Spanish.
According to DIccionario.com, the Spanish verb, “venir” (“to come”) means, “to
move from THERE to HERE.” So the kids waiting in the car would call, “Mama, VEN! (informal command) or VENGA! (formal command),” because she would be going from the house (there) to the car (here). Likewise, someone from Buenos Aires throwing a party would ask guests to COME (there to here): “Pueden VENIR a mi fiesta?”
Where it gets confusing is that in English, we say, “I’m COMING!” in response to someone’s call (HERE to THERE) and “I hope you can you COME to my party” (from THERE to HERE).
This means that English speakers use “to COME” for both COMING and GOING.
On top of that, Dictionary.com says that in English, “to go,” means “to move or proceed, esp. to or from something.” In other words: “to go” can mean from HERE to THERE as well as from THERE to HERE. By definition, COMING and GOING apparently mean the same thing – but we know they don’t. In fact, there is almost never any misuse or confusion. So why is this subject so confusing?
Let’s look at this in real life:
Let’s say John has a business trip coming up. He says to his colleague, “I’m GOING to Peoria.” Fortunately for John, he has a friend in Peoria he wants to visit while there; so he whips off an email saying, “Guess what -- I’m COMING to Peoria!” In both cases, John is departing from, say, New York, and landing in Peoria; but in the first instance, he’s “going” and the second, he’s “coming.”
The difference is this:
In the first instance John is heading to Peoria but he’s not talking to a person in Peoria -- both colleagues are in New York – so, he says he’s GOING. In his email, John is talking to his friend in Peoria; John is here, but his friend is there
-- so he says he’s COMING.
The difference in the two uses is whether there is a person (or people) at the other end of your destination – be it a friend in Peoria; your mom who’s called you inside to take a phone call; or if you’re explaining to your teacher why you came late to class.
Some more examples:
Two people invited to a party will talk with each other about looking forward to GOING to the party. But if you talk about the party with the person giving it, you tell her you’re looking forward to COMING to it. A store clerk who normally GOES to work might tell his boss he’ll be COMING in late the next day. The difference is the person at the other end.
The words, COME and GO, are of Germanic origin, whereas IR and VENIR are thoroughbred Latin words. (The French word for “future” is “avenir” – to come; and the word “avenue” is another derivative.) And In Spanish, the definitions correspond exactly with the usage.
Clearly, the Germans were a bit less specific about the definitions, and over time, usage has carved out its own distinctions. Since these distinctions are not noted in the dictionary, allow me to do so here: Use “come” when there is a person on the other end; use “go” when there is no person on the other end.
Is that clear?
Which is not to say life itself is clear. But at least for now I hope we know if we’re coming or going – and why.
Friday, May 04, 2007
Pragmatically Speaking
For word-watchers, this past April was an interesting month to see what happens to people who don’t watch their words – and, in particular, the context in which they are spoken. Poster Boy for Blowing It Big Time was the radio shock-jock whose succinct, crude, and now notorious hyphenated adjective-plus slang plural noun so defamed the upstanding Rutgers Women’s Basketball Team that his show was first canceled for two weeks and then ultimately, forever.
Over in England, a mother’s hopes of having her daughter marry the prince were dashed, in part, by said mother’s unfortunate use of certain vocabulary words: These words were not monosyllabic, Saxon-sounding slurs or foul-mouthed interjections; rather, they were simply words and phrases (plus one action) that indicated that she was not “one of them” – which to the royals, raised the specter of an unhappy marriage due to irreparable class differences.
What these seemingly distinct cases have in common, however, is “pragmatics” – a branch of linguistics that studies how the meaning or interpretation of certain words can change according to context. Pragmatics is what guides our ability to change or modify our word choices and even gestures when speaking to a teacher, a friend, a baby, or a stranger who’s speaking too loudly on his cell phone. If you don’t pay attention to your audience, you may end up falling flat.
The morning that ex-radio host Don Imus spewed his gender- and racially charged remarks about the Rutgers women, he was talking by speaker phone to a male sports commentator as well as to the station’s listeners; he was also able to be heard by anyone who missed the show – including the Rutgers Women’s Basketball team –on the news and Internet. So, Imus’s audience, in the end, was actually men and women of all races in the New York tri-state area and, via the media and technology, the world.
The racist remarks he made that morning were not Imus’s first: In fact, the radio host had a track record that had been largely ignored in the past – mainly because he picked on people whose stature was big enough to handle the offense, not because it was any less offensive. But using those words to describe a team of hard-working, championship-playing young women athletes rightly – and finally! -- hit a nerve, and crossed a line. His nasty words sank like a slam-dunk into the wrong hoop.
Michael “Kramer” Richards of “Seinfeld” fame also needed a better understanding of pragmatics when he used racial slurs to lambast two African American audience members who annoyed him during his comedy act last November. Like Imus, he did not think pragmatically – and ended up sounding not like the edgy comic he possibly wanted to be – but more like Mel Gibson, who last summer made some equally offensive remarks about Jewish people, while being arrested for alleged drunk driving. The police officer, and object of Mel’s tirade, rightly did not appreciate those remarks – and Mel promptly landed himself not only in rehab but in a swirl of public outrage.
These days, course language is fashionably cool and hip. Movies, radio, TV, the Internet and email all use nasty words and blunt images. It seems like our society is Anything Goes – but it’s not. Filthy language is one thing; racist remarks, especially personal, racist remarks should not be tolerated and it was a boost to see society rise up and vanquish these perpetrators.
Meanwhile, the English mum, Carole Middleton, who had worked so hard to have her daughter, Kate, be the kind of girl to interest the English royal family’s Prince William apparently did not take her own words and actions into account.
According to a Royal Source quoted in the English newspaper, the Daily Mail (4/14/07), Carole Middleton “is pushy, rather twee* and incredibly middle-class. She uses words such as ‘Pleased to meet you,’ ‘toilet,’ and ‘pardon.’” (*Twee is a British word for dainty or pretty in an overdone and affected way.)
The Royal Correspondent for the Australian TV news show, News Idea, said that Mrs. Middleton, on meeting the Queen, should have said, “How do you do?” and not, “Pleased to meet you.” I’m guessing that even in proper BBC English, “Pleased to meet you” (and the reportedly pushy and socially ambitious Mrs. Middleton no doubt was pleased to meet The Queen) sounded a bit too chummy. “How do you do?” has such a nice, frigid sort of sound, and seems a more natural choice for people known for speaking about themselves in the 3rd person singular, as in: “One wonders if one ever thinks referring to oneself as ‘one’ sounds funny.’”
As for calling that sine-qua-non of necessary rooms a “toilet” instead of a “lavatory” or “bathroom,” well, the trouble with that word is simply that, according to the experts, upper crust English people over the age of 30 simply do not say it. Ever. Etymologically, there’s nothing crude about the word: the root is not “toil” or work, suggesting grunts or groans, but rather, the root is “toile,” (twahl) referring to a lacy cloth that was used to cover the dressing table, which the French called a “toilette.” Dressing oneself in French was called “to make one’s toilette,” and the word evolved from there. But at this point, even informal Americans go to the “restroom” or “bathroom” and only speak of the toilet when referring to the object itself.
Saying “Pardon” instead of “What?” was another of Carole Middleton’s verbal offenses, according to Sarah Lyall’s article in the New York Times. (Memo from London 4/26/07) Saying “Pardon?” makes a person sound like she’s trying too hard – and in the same way that, “If you have to ask, you can’t afford it” works, so does the idea that if you have to try to sound correct, you’re obviously, hopelessly not up to snuff.
And try – really, really try -- is what Carole Middleton did. Though her methods were different, Mrs. Middleton and the meddling, neurotic Mrs. Bennett, mother of the five eligible girls in Pride and Prejudice, could be distant cousins. News articles from the Daily Mail, The New York Times and others all cite Mrs. Middleton’s aspirations for daughter Kate, beginning with starting a mail order business twenty years ago – a business that catapulted the family from middle class to nouveau super-riche, enabling her three children to go to private school and on to any university that they could get into. Meeting Prince William seems not exactly unexpected on Mrs. Middleton’s part.
In fact, it was the perfect plan – and it almost worked (and that’s not to say it never will for Kate). But Mrs. Middleton, a coal miner’s granddaughter and former airline hostess, -- attributes that made mockery all too easy for Prince William’s upper crusty crowd -- neglected her pragmatics: and her lack of discretion coupled with the language of an arriviste were interpreted on the Royal Family’s side as strictly NOCD (i.e., Not Our Class, Dear).
"The irony is that Carole has been so busy pushing her daughter forward and doing her best to groom her for Royalty that she's rather missed the point that she might not fit in herself,” said the Royal correspondent for News Idea. He added that in addition to her language faux pas, Mrs. Middleton was seen at the formal Sandhurst Military College parade – the one in which Prince William marched this past winter -- chewing gum.
Chewing gum?! That is a type of body language that emanates the same strong message as its verbal counterparts – which is, that in the wrong context, such an activity is Just Not Done. At this point, it is probably a truth universally acknowledged that chewing gum is more than a tad tacky at formal functions. Did Eliza Doolittle slip a little Dentine into her mouth before the ball? Did Cinderella’s breath smell like Wrigley’s spearmint when she danced with the prince? Did Mrs. Middleton think the Queen wouldn’t notice? She could have at
least swallowed the gum before gushing, “Pleased to meet you.” One has to wonder.
Mrs. Middleton could have taken some tips from Nancy Mitford’s classic 1945 novel, The Pursuit of Love, a mostly autobiographical novel of growing up in an eccentric, aristocratic English family in the 1930s. Here is what the father (“Uncle Matthew” to the narrator/his niece, Fanny, who, unlike his own children, attends a regular school) thinks about formal education – and its influence on the decline of proper English:
“Education! I was always led to suppose that no educated person ever spoke of notepaper … Fanny talks about mirrors and mantelpieces, handbags and perfume, she takes sugar in her coffee, has a tassel on her umbrella, and I have no doubt that, if she is ever fortunate enough to catch a husband, she will call his father and mother Father and Mother. Will the wonderful education she is getting make up to the unhappy brute for all these endless pinpricks? Fancy hearing one’s wife talk about notepaper – the irritation!”
Coming to the rescue, Aunt Emily says, “A lot of men would find it more irritating to have a wife who had never heard of George III. (All the same, Fanny darling, it is called writing-paper you know-don’t let’s hear any more about note, please.)”
So you can see what Mrs. Middleton was up against. All the same, being British, didn’t she know? It’s not as if the English aristocracy has hidden their subculture or dialect from the world. In 1954, Ms. Mitford even compiled a glossary of Upper Class and Non-Upper Class words, which, though intended for a lighthearted article, nonetheless still carry the sting of reality for today’s wannabe royal mothers-in-law.
Upper Class Non-Upper Class
Bike or Bicycle Cycle
Dinner Jacket Dress Suit
Knave Jack (cards)
Vegetables Greens
Ice Ice Cream
Scent Perfume
They've a very nice house. They have a lovely home.
Ill (in bed) Sick (in bed)
Looking-Glass Mirror
Spectacles Glasses
False Teeth Dentures
Die Pass on
Mad Mental
Jam Preserve
Napkin Serviette
Sofa Settee
Lavatory or Loo Toilet
Rich Wealthy
What? Pardon?
Though it is now 50-odd years later and I am not sure what still applies to the general English verbal class distinctions today; however, the mere fact that such a list exists at all is unusual – and seems like something that could only happen on a small island nation with a fairly homogeneous society. How else to tell the social wheat from the chaff? But with all the changes going on there recently, perhaps this list will be completely obsolete in the near future. But for the moment, we shall have to leave it to the English to separate aristocrats from arrivistes through sofas and serviettes.
Over in England, a mother’s hopes of having her daughter marry the prince were dashed, in part, by said mother’s unfortunate use of certain vocabulary words: These words were not monosyllabic, Saxon-sounding slurs or foul-mouthed interjections; rather, they were simply words and phrases (plus one action) that indicated that she was not “one of them” – which to the royals, raised the specter of an unhappy marriage due to irreparable class differences.
What these seemingly distinct cases have in common, however, is “pragmatics” – a branch of linguistics that studies how the meaning or interpretation of certain words can change according to context. Pragmatics is what guides our ability to change or modify our word choices and even gestures when speaking to a teacher, a friend, a baby, or a stranger who’s speaking too loudly on his cell phone. If you don’t pay attention to your audience, you may end up falling flat.
The morning that ex-radio host Don Imus spewed his gender- and racially charged remarks about the Rutgers women, he was talking by speaker phone to a male sports commentator as well as to the station’s listeners; he was also able to be heard by anyone who missed the show – including the Rutgers Women’s Basketball team –on the news and Internet. So, Imus’s audience, in the end, was actually men and women of all races in the New York tri-state area and, via the media and technology, the world.
The racist remarks he made that morning were not Imus’s first: In fact, the radio host had a track record that had been largely ignored in the past – mainly because he picked on people whose stature was big enough to handle the offense, not because it was any less offensive. But using those words to describe a team of hard-working, championship-playing young women athletes rightly – and finally! -- hit a nerve, and crossed a line. His nasty words sank like a slam-dunk into the wrong hoop.
Michael “Kramer” Richards of “Seinfeld” fame also needed a better understanding of pragmatics when he used racial slurs to lambast two African American audience members who annoyed him during his comedy act last November. Like Imus, he did not think pragmatically – and ended up sounding not like the edgy comic he possibly wanted to be – but more like Mel Gibson, who last summer made some equally offensive remarks about Jewish people, while being arrested for alleged drunk driving. The police officer, and object of Mel’s tirade, rightly did not appreciate those remarks – and Mel promptly landed himself not only in rehab but in a swirl of public outrage.
These days, course language is fashionably cool and hip. Movies, radio, TV, the Internet and email all use nasty words and blunt images. It seems like our society is Anything Goes – but it’s not. Filthy language is one thing; racist remarks, especially personal, racist remarks should not be tolerated and it was a boost to see society rise up and vanquish these perpetrators.
Meanwhile, the English mum, Carole Middleton, who had worked so hard to have her daughter, Kate, be the kind of girl to interest the English royal family’s Prince William apparently did not take her own words and actions into account.
According to a Royal Source quoted in the English newspaper, the Daily Mail (4/14/07), Carole Middleton “is pushy, rather twee* and incredibly middle-class. She uses words such as ‘Pleased to meet you,’ ‘toilet,’ and ‘pardon.’” (*Twee is a British word for dainty or pretty in an overdone and affected way.)
The Royal Correspondent for the Australian TV news show, News Idea, said that Mrs. Middleton, on meeting the Queen, should have said, “How do you do?” and not, “Pleased to meet you.” I’m guessing that even in proper BBC English, “Pleased to meet you” (and the reportedly pushy and socially ambitious Mrs. Middleton no doubt was pleased to meet The Queen) sounded a bit too chummy. “How do you do?” has such a nice, frigid sort of sound, and seems a more natural choice for people known for speaking about themselves in the 3rd person singular, as in: “One wonders if one ever thinks referring to oneself as ‘one’ sounds funny.’”
As for calling that sine-qua-non of necessary rooms a “toilet” instead of a “lavatory” or “bathroom,” well, the trouble with that word is simply that, according to the experts, upper crust English people over the age of 30 simply do not say it. Ever. Etymologically, there’s nothing crude about the word: the root is not “toil” or work, suggesting grunts or groans, but rather, the root is “toile,” (twahl) referring to a lacy cloth that was used to cover the dressing table, which the French called a “toilette.” Dressing oneself in French was called “to make one’s toilette,” and the word evolved from there. But at this point, even informal Americans go to the “restroom” or “bathroom” and only speak of the toilet when referring to the object itself.
Saying “Pardon” instead of “What?” was another of Carole Middleton’s verbal offenses, according to Sarah Lyall’s article in the New York Times. (Memo from London 4/26/07) Saying “Pardon?” makes a person sound like she’s trying too hard – and in the same way that, “If you have to ask, you can’t afford it” works, so does the idea that if you have to try to sound correct, you’re obviously, hopelessly not up to snuff.
And try – really, really try -- is what Carole Middleton did. Though her methods were different, Mrs. Middleton and the meddling, neurotic Mrs. Bennett, mother of the five eligible girls in Pride and Prejudice, could be distant cousins. News articles from the Daily Mail, The New York Times and others all cite Mrs. Middleton’s aspirations for daughter Kate, beginning with starting a mail order business twenty years ago – a business that catapulted the family from middle class to nouveau super-riche, enabling her three children to go to private school and on to any university that they could get into. Meeting Prince William seems not exactly unexpected on Mrs. Middleton’s part.
In fact, it was the perfect plan – and it almost worked (and that’s not to say it never will for Kate). But Mrs. Middleton, a coal miner’s granddaughter and former airline hostess, -- attributes that made mockery all too easy for Prince William’s upper crusty crowd -- neglected her pragmatics: and her lack of discretion coupled with the language of an arriviste were interpreted on the Royal Family’s side as strictly NOCD (i.e., Not Our Class, Dear).
"The irony is that Carole has been so busy pushing her daughter forward and doing her best to groom her for Royalty that she's rather missed the point that she might not fit in herself,” said the Royal correspondent for News Idea. He added that in addition to her language faux pas, Mrs. Middleton was seen at the formal Sandhurst Military College parade – the one in which Prince William marched this past winter -- chewing gum.
Chewing gum?! That is a type of body language that emanates the same strong message as its verbal counterparts – which is, that in the wrong context, such an activity is Just Not Done. At this point, it is probably a truth universally acknowledged that chewing gum is more than a tad tacky at formal functions. Did Eliza Doolittle slip a little Dentine into her mouth before the ball? Did Cinderella’s breath smell like Wrigley’s spearmint when she danced with the prince? Did Mrs. Middleton think the Queen wouldn’t notice? She could have at
least swallowed the gum before gushing, “Pleased to meet you.” One has to wonder.
Mrs. Middleton could have taken some tips from Nancy Mitford’s classic 1945 novel, The Pursuit of Love, a mostly autobiographical novel of growing up in an eccentric, aristocratic English family in the 1930s. Here is what the father (“Uncle Matthew” to the narrator/his niece, Fanny, who, unlike his own children, attends a regular school) thinks about formal education – and its influence on the decline of proper English:
“Education! I was always led to suppose that no educated person ever spoke of notepaper … Fanny talks about mirrors and mantelpieces, handbags and perfume, she takes sugar in her coffee, has a tassel on her umbrella, and I have no doubt that, if she is ever fortunate enough to catch a husband, she will call his father and mother Father and Mother. Will the wonderful education she is getting make up to the unhappy brute for all these endless pinpricks? Fancy hearing one’s wife talk about notepaper – the irritation!”
Coming to the rescue, Aunt Emily says, “A lot of men would find it more irritating to have a wife who had never heard of George III. (All the same, Fanny darling, it is called writing-paper you know-don’t let’s hear any more about note, please.)”
So you can see what Mrs. Middleton was up against. All the same, being British, didn’t she know? It’s not as if the English aristocracy has hidden their subculture or dialect from the world. In 1954, Ms. Mitford even compiled a glossary of Upper Class and Non-Upper Class words, which, though intended for a lighthearted article, nonetheless still carry the sting of reality for today’s wannabe royal mothers-in-law.
Upper Class Non-Upper Class
Bike or Bicycle Cycle
Dinner Jacket Dress Suit
Knave Jack (cards)
Vegetables Greens
Ice Ice Cream
Scent Perfume
They've a very nice house. They have a lovely home.
Ill (in bed) Sick (in bed)
Looking-Glass Mirror
Spectacles Glasses
False Teeth Dentures
Die Pass on
Mad Mental
Jam Preserve
Napkin Serviette
Sofa Settee
Lavatory or Loo Toilet
Rich Wealthy
What? Pardon?
Though it is now 50-odd years later and I am not sure what still applies to the general English verbal class distinctions today; however, the mere fact that such a list exists at all is unusual – and seems like something that could only happen on a small island nation with a fairly homogeneous society. How else to tell the social wheat from the chaff? But with all the changes going on there recently, perhaps this list will be completely obsolete in the near future. But for the moment, we shall have to leave it to the English to separate aristocrats from arrivistes through sofas and serviettes.
Thursday, April 19, 2007
Build-A-Word
Happy or unhappy? Filled with happiness or unhappiness? Taking on a lot of responsibility, or are you completely irresponsible?
You don’t have to answer those questions – but do take a look at how English builds words to mean one thing, and alters it slightly to mean its opposite; or to mean one thing as a noun, and another as adjective. We take a base word – like happy or responsible – and then add prefixes (little endings before the base word) or suffixes (after the base word) to make the proper changes and meanings.
What we don’t do much is to take full-bodied words or ideas and stick them together, two or three at a time, to come up with a single word. Germanic languages do this all the time. For example:
Got a safetystrikewood?
That’s the literal name in German for the little wooden stick whose rough, rounded end (dipped in a sulfur paste) creates a flame when struck against the textured surface of the little box it comes in. That’s right – a match, or a light. But in Berlin and Zurich and elsewhere in the Germanic world, safety matches are called Sicherheitszundholzer (zee-here-HIGHTS-ZOOND-holtser) – a name practically longer than the object itself.
And if you happen to be in Germany and feel the need for speed, you might want to drive on the Autobahn, or highway, where there is no Geschwindikeitsbegrenzung ((guh-SHVIND-i-kites-begrens-sung), or speed limit.
And speaking of driving with long words, some American friends of ours who have been living over in Holland report, “We routinely receive bureaucratic mailings with words of up to 25 letters in them, such as the pretty straightforward ‘vergunninghoudersplaatsen’” or “permission-holder-plate,” or ‘license plate.”
English could not possibly come up with such long names for anything -- we start choking on words longer than “surreptiously.” But our German and Dutch language cousins glom together nouns, noun endings, adjectives and other syllables to create a new word or give the old one an added meaning. This type of linguistic pile-on is what so astounds, assaults, and baffles English speakers trying to learn these languages. Mark Twain once said that some German words are so long they have a perspective, and for once he might not be exaggerating.
Nevertheless, Germanic long words should not be confused with English’s big words (last posting’s topic). Big words are the longer, less familiar words that can substitute for shorter, more common ones; these words can be fairly short but still sound inflated or pretentious: “obtain” instead of “get” Or a phrase like, “I recommend that we hasten our exit,” instead of, “We should get going!”
For length, even fancy, Latin-based English words, like “beautification,” “romanticism,” and “inauspiciously” are usually not more than 15 letters and four or five syllables long, being strung together with one base word plus a little prefix and/or suffix. In the end, English prefers language the way the crow flies – direct and fast, with the easiest words and the fewest syllables possible. Long words, like big words, are not really nurtured in our tongue.
Yes, long words exist in English, but mainly as scientific or medical terms. We take a Greek or Latin root – say, “derma,” which is Greek for “skin” and then add an ending, or “suffix” to describe, say, an expert in the study of skin -- and zing! --we get “dermatologist,” or “skin doctor.” To make that word longer, you might be able to become an expert in the study of elephants; for this word, English takes the Greek, “pachyderm” for elephant (which literally means “thick-skinned”), adds the proper suffix and we’ve got a “pachydermatologist.” Of course, if you wanted to be an expert in elephants’ skin, you could possibly then become a “pachydermadermatologist.”
The longest non-scientific word in English is “antidisestablishmentarianism; that 28-letter, 12-syllable whopper is not, however, a “ big word.” If that word is used at all (outside of a spelling bee or crossword puzzle), it is probably in some context referring to its meaning – a 19th century movement involving the Church of England. It’s just not something that can be switched for a more common term and dropped casually into conversation.
In fact, the word “antidisestablishmentarianism” does not really make sense: broken down, its 2 prefixes, “anti” and “dis,” are two negatives, “against” and “not;” + establish (a verb)+ment (making establish a noun) + arian (turning it into an adjective) + ism (turning it back into a noun, and specifically one meaning an action, process or practice – like terrorism or favoritism). So you’ve got the original establishmentarianism, and the movement against it – disestablishmentarianism; so if the antidisestablishmentarianists are against the disestablishmentarianists then are they PROestablishmentarianism? If so, they are merely the regular “establishmentarianists.”
Breaking down German words is easy in comparison. Let’s go back to “match” and “speed limit.” You might be wondering how Germans could take two such ordinary, everyday ideas and morph them into such consonant-crammed tongue-twisters. Here’s how:
Sicherheitszundholz:
Sicher (zee-here) means “sure” + heit (an ending, like “ness”) + zund (zoond) “strike” (as in the action with the stick against the box) + holz (holts) “wood.” So a match is a surenessstrikewood.
Geschwindikeitsbegrenzung:
Geschwind (guh-SHVIND) seems to start with the word, “Wind” (just like our own word); tack “sch” onto Wind for Schwind” which suggests “dizziness;” add “Ge” to “schwind” and you’ve got “fast” or “rapid;” + “ig” (a suffix, like speed-Y) + keit (an ending, like “ness” to make it a noun); meanwhile, Begrenzung comes from the word for “border,” which is “grenze;” and a “BEgrenzung” is a boundary. So “speedynessboundary” to them becomes “speed limit” to us.
It’s a whole different approach to word-making than English.
Let’s say you’re in the mood for something sweet; you go to the “Backer” (pronounced “baker”) whose specialties include pie crust (“Geback”) and pastries, or “Feingebackenes,” or roughly, “finebakedthings.” Let’s say you can’t decide what tasty treat to choose, so you ask for a finebakedthingsselection, or, “Feingebackenesauswahl.” (“Wahl” means “choice;” aus (out) + wahl = selection.)
Meanwhile, there are other languages with long words, including llanfairpwllgwyngyllgogerychwyrndrobwllllantysiliogogogoch; this 58-letter Welsh word means "The church of St. Mary in the hollow of white hazel trees near the rapid whirlpool by St. Tysilio's of the red cave.”
The longest place name in the United States is a little lake in Webster, Massachusetts with the official Native American 45-letter name of Lake Chargoggagoggmanchauggagoggchaubunagungamaugg; locals say the name means, “You fish on your side; I’ll fish on my side, and no one fishes in between,” though no Algonquin expert exists to vouch for that translation.
And yet the Welsh and the Algonquins – separated not only by an ocean, but by completely different racial, linguistic, and cultural roots – both created specific place names by linking meaningful words together, rather than separating them with space or a hyphen; and behold – two names, both almost impossible to pronounce but which allow for no confusion as to which town, or which lake one was talking about.
Meanwhile, I challenged some of my Swiss German students to come up with some words longer than antidisestablishmentarianism, and they easily offered:
Fussballmannschaftsspielerinnen = football (i.e. soccer) + man + (“schaft” – a noun ending) = team + spiel (play) + er (player) + innen (feminine ending, plural) – (thank you, 8-year-old Sina!) 31 letters;
Hauptstrassentunnelabschrankunge = main-street-tunnel-barricades (for stopping traffic into a street’s tunnel) 32 letters;
And tied for first place with 38 letters each:
Schifffahrtsgesellschaftsangestellter = ship-travel-company-employee (aren’t those 3 “f’s” in a row fffantastic?!); and
Versicherungsgesellschaftsvorsitzender = insurance company big boss (or literally: the one who sits in front of everyone)
In Mark Twain’s 1880 book, A Tramp Abroad, he mentioned that a North German man had a word of thirteen syllables surgically removed from his throat, though ultimately the operation was not successful.
But what all languages do seem to share is the ability to break down and build up words as needed, through the adding or subtracting of different prefixes, suffixes, or word parts. It reminds me of those Build-A-Bear stores, where you can make your own stuffed animal. You begin with a lining (bear, tiger, or Hollywood movie tie-in product of the moment), add stuffing, a voice box (or not), and clothes. You make the choices and make the stuffed animal just the way you want it. Words are not so custom-built, but if they were constructed in a store like the stuffed animals, a typical morning workshop might go like this:
Shopper: I’d like a word – something that describes the process of making a neighborhood go from being a terrible pit to something … nice.
Clerk: We’ve got “pretty.”
S: No, that’s an adjective. I need something to describe the process.
C: Well, that would be a noun. Hmm. You could start with “beauty” but you’ll need an ending for that.
S: (looks dubious) And add what: i-f-y? Beautify? No, that’s a verb. How about adding f-u-l, for “beautiful” and then …
C: We’ve got a stack of noun endings right over here, fresh off the truck. Here’s your “m-e-n-t” pile; here’s “n-e-s-s” and “s-h-i-p” --
S: SHIP?
C: Yeah, you know – friendship, citizenship – Ah! here’s a great stack of “if-i-ca-tions.” Play around with them, and I’ll check back with you.
(a little later)
S: I’ve come up with “beautification” but it sounds too garden-y. My word has to express that the whole population of the neighborhood changed.
C: Populification? That’s not a real word -- but new words are on sale today.
S: No thanks.
C: Let’s try some other Latin form for “people” or “race” – gens, gentis. Gen … generation, general, gentry – ah ha! Here you go: try this: Gentri …
S: Gentri --?
C: Now, stick on the ending of your old word –
S: Gen-tri-fi-ca-tion? Yes! Gen-tri-fi-ca-tion! Perfect! I’ll take it.
Of course, in German, Algonquin, or Welsh that might be something like Peoplemoneyspiffupneighborhoodbringnewproblems. And bingo! A new word.
You don’t have to answer those questions – but do take a look at how English builds words to mean one thing, and alters it slightly to mean its opposite; or to mean one thing as a noun, and another as adjective. We take a base word – like happy or responsible – and then add prefixes (little endings before the base word) or suffixes (after the base word) to make the proper changes and meanings.
What we don’t do much is to take full-bodied words or ideas and stick them together, two or three at a time, to come up with a single word. Germanic languages do this all the time. For example:
Got a safetystrikewood?
That’s the literal name in German for the little wooden stick whose rough, rounded end (dipped in a sulfur paste) creates a flame when struck against the textured surface of the little box it comes in. That’s right – a match, or a light. But in Berlin and Zurich and elsewhere in the Germanic world, safety matches are called Sicherheitszundholzer (zee-here-HIGHTS-ZOOND-holtser) – a name practically longer than the object itself.
And if you happen to be in Germany and feel the need for speed, you might want to drive on the Autobahn, or highway, where there is no Geschwindikeitsbegrenzung ((guh-SHVIND-i-kites-begrens-sung), or speed limit.
And speaking of driving with long words, some American friends of ours who have been living over in Holland report, “We routinely receive bureaucratic mailings with words of up to 25 letters in them, such as the pretty straightforward ‘vergunninghoudersplaatsen’” or “permission-holder-plate,” or ‘license plate.”
English could not possibly come up with such long names for anything -- we start choking on words longer than “surreptiously.” But our German and Dutch language cousins glom together nouns, noun endings, adjectives and other syllables to create a new word or give the old one an added meaning. This type of linguistic pile-on is what so astounds, assaults, and baffles English speakers trying to learn these languages. Mark Twain once said that some German words are so long they have a perspective, and for once he might not be exaggerating.
Nevertheless, Germanic long words should not be confused with English’s big words (last posting’s topic). Big words are the longer, less familiar words that can substitute for shorter, more common ones; these words can be fairly short but still sound inflated or pretentious: “obtain” instead of “get” Or a phrase like, “I recommend that we hasten our exit,” instead of, “We should get going!”
For length, even fancy, Latin-based English words, like “beautification,” “romanticism,” and “inauspiciously” are usually not more than 15 letters and four or five syllables long, being strung together with one base word plus a little prefix and/or suffix. In the end, English prefers language the way the crow flies – direct and fast, with the easiest words and the fewest syllables possible. Long words, like big words, are not really nurtured in our tongue.
Yes, long words exist in English, but mainly as scientific or medical terms. We take a Greek or Latin root – say, “derma,” which is Greek for “skin” and then add an ending, or “suffix” to describe, say, an expert in the study of skin -- and zing! --we get “dermatologist,” or “skin doctor.” To make that word longer, you might be able to become an expert in the study of elephants; for this word, English takes the Greek, “pachyderm” for elephant (which literally means “thick-skinned”), adds the proper suffix and we’ve got a “pachydermatologist.” Of course, if you wanted to be an expert in elephants’ skin, you could possibly then become a “pachydermadermatologist.”
The longest non-scientific word in English is “antidisestablishmentarianism; that 28-letter, 12-syllable whopper is not, however, a “ big word.” If that word is used at all (outside of a spelling bee or crossword puzzle), it is probably in some context referring to its meaning – a 19th century movement involving the Church of England. It’s just not something that can be switched for a more common term and dropped casually into conversation.
In fact, the word “antidisestablishmentarianism” does not really make sense: broken down, its 2 prefixes, “anti” and “dis,” are two negatives, “against” and “not;” + establish (a verb)+ment (making establish a noun) + arian (turning it into an adjective) + ism (turning it back into a noun, and specifically one meaning an action, process or practice – like terrorism or favoritism). So you’ve got the original establishmentarianism, and the movement against it – disestablishmentarianism; so if the antidisestablishmentarianists are against the disestablishmentarianists then are they PROestablishmentarianism? If so, they are merely the regular “establishmentarianists.”
Breaking down German words is easy in comparison. Let’s go back to “match” and “speed limit.” You might be wondering how Germans could take two such ordinary, everyday ideas and morph them into such consonant-crammed tongue-twisters. Here’s how:
Sicherheitszundholz:
Sicher (zee-here) means “sure” + heit (an ending, like “ness”) + zund (zoond) “strike” (as in the action with the stick against the box) + holz (holts) “wood.” So a match is a surenessstrikewood.
Geschwindikeitsbegrenzung:
Geschwind (guh-SHVIND) seems to start with the word, “Wind” (just like our own word); tack “sch” onto Wind for Schwind” which suggests “dizziness;” add “Ge” to “schwind” and you’ve got “fast” or “rapid;” + “ig” (a suffix, like speed-Y) + keit (an ending, like “ness” to make it a noun); meanwhile, Begrenzung comes from the word for “border,” which is “grenze;” and a “BEgrenzung” is a boundary. So “speedynessboundary” to them becomes “speed limit” to us.
It’s a whole different approach to word-making than English.
Let’s say you’re in the mood for something sweet; you go to the “Backer” (pronounced “baker”) whose specialties include pie crust (“Geback”) and pastries, or “Feingebackenes,” or roughly, “finebakedthings.” Let’s say you can’t decide what tasty treat to choose, so you ask for a finebakedthingsselection, or, “Feingebackenesauswahl.” (“Wahl” means “choice;” aus (out) + wahl = selection.)
Meanwhile, there are other languages with long words, including llanfairpwllgwyngyllgogerychwyrndrobwllllantysiliogogogoch; this 58-letter Welsh word means "The church of St. Mary in the hollow of white hazel trees near the rapid whirlpool by St. Tysilio's of the red cave.”
The longest place name in the United States is a little lake in Webster, Massachusetts with the official Native American 45-letter name of Lake Chargoggagoggmanchauggagoggchaubunagungamaugg; locals say the name means, “You fish on your side; I’ll fish on my side, and no one fishes in between,” though no Algonquin expert exists to vouch for that translation.
And yet the Welsh and the Algonquins – separated not only by an ocean, but by completely different racial, linguistic, and cultural roots – both created specific place names by linking meaningful words together, rather than separating them with space or a hyphen; and behold – two names, both almost impossible to pronounce but which allow for no confusion as to which town, or which lake one was talking about.
Meanwhile, I challenged some of my Swiss German students to come up with some words longer than antidisestablishmentarianism, and they easily offered:
Fussballmannschaftsspielerinnen = football (i.e. soccer) + man + (“schaft” – a noun ending) = team + spiel (play) + er (player) + innen (feminine ending, plural) – (thank you, 8-year-old Sina!) 31 letters;
Hauptstrassentunnelabschrankunge = main-street-tunnel-barricades (for stopping traffic into a street’s tunnel) 32 letters;
And tied for first place with 38 letters each:
Schifffahrtsgesellschaftsangestellter = ship-travel-company-employee (aren’t those 3 “f’s” in a row fffantastic?!); and
Versicherungsgesellschaftsvorsitzender = insurance company big boss (or literally: the one who sits in front of everyone)
In Mark Twain’s 1880 book, A Tramp Abroad, he mentioned that a North German man had a word of thirteen syllables surgically removed from his throat, though ultimately the operation was not successful.
But what all languages do seem to share is the ability to break down and build up words as needed, through the adding or subtracting of different prefixes, suffixes, or word parts. It reminds me of those Build-A-Bear stores, where you can make your own stuffed animal. You begin with a lining (bear, tiger, or Hollywood movie tie-in product of the moment), add stuffing, a voice box (or not), and clothes. You make the choices and make the stuffed animal just the way you want it. Words are not so custom-built, but if they were constructed in a store like the stuffed animals, a typical morning workshop might go like this:
Shopper: I’d like a word – something that describes the process of making a neighborhood go from being a terrible pit to something … nice.
Clerk: We’ve got “pretty.”
S: No, that’s an adjective. I need something to describe the process.
C: Well, that would be a noun. Hmm. You could start with “beauty” but you’ll need an ending for that.
S: (looks dubious) And add what: i-f-y? Beautify? No, that’s a verb. How about adding f-u-l, for “beautiful” and then …
C: We’ve got a stack of noun endings right over here, fresh off the truck. Here’s your “m-e-n-t” pile; here’s “n-e-s-s” and “s-h-i-p” --
S: SHIP?
C: Yeah, you know – friendship, citizenship – Ah! here’s a great stack of “if-i-ca-tions.” Play around with them, and I’ll check back with you.
(a little later)
S: I’ve come up with “beautification” but it sounds too garden-y. My word has to express that the whole population of the neighborhood changed.
C: Populification? That’s not a real word -- but new words are on sale today.
S: No thanks.
C: Let’s try some other Latin form for “people” or “race” – gens, gentis. Gen … generation, general, gentry – ah ha! Here you go: try this: Gentri …
S: Gentri --?
C: Now, stick on the ending of your old word –
S: Gen-tri-fi-ca-tion? Yes! Gen-tri-fi-ca-tion! Perfect! I’ll take it.
Of course, in German, Algonquin, or Welsh that might be something like Peoplemoneyspiffupneighborhoodbringnewproblems. And bingo! A new word.
Tuesday, April 03, 2007
Beware of BIG WORDS
In English, when we speak of “big words,” it’s generally not a good thing. “Big words” – words usually of Latin or Greek origin that are not instantly understood, are hardly ever spoken or even pronounced properly – are the verbal equivalent of fake jewelry trying to pass itself off as the real thing. Big words are out to impress, mislead, or intimidate – but most often they just confuse and annoy. Don’t get me wrong: I love a good, rich vocabulary – but big words are mere pretenders to the throne.
English, having been created by the peasant masses – not royalty or the upper classes -- is not a language where long, fancy words can safely camouflage themselves in daily conversation. Words like “get,” “have,” or “do” serve so many linguistic purposes, they’re like maid-butler-gardener-and-chauffeur all in one; the minute an “obtain” or “possess” or “accomplish” appears instead, it is quickly taken in for questioning: was that word necessary, or is the speaker trying to put on airs?
Big words happen when we forget who we’re talking to. A humorous, small business website demonstrates what happens when big words are left to their own devices:
In promulgating your esoteric cogitations, or articulating your superficial sentimentalities and amicable, philosophical or psychological observations, beware of platitudinous ponderosity.
(See: http://www.abcsmallbiz.com/funny/big-words.html)
Even with a plethora of English words to choose from, words like “plethora” stick out – anyone hearing or reading that word would think, “Why didn’t she just say ‘a lot’ or ‘gazillions’?” “Plethora” is the kind of word we learn when studying for the SATs but never really say. In general, English speakers prefer to hear and speak their language straight up with a twist, and easy on the high-fallutin’.
Speaking of pretension, Dictionary.com offers a Word of the Day to all interested in building up their word power. However, given some of their recent choices, I have to wonder if the motivated student wouldn’t be better off reading a checkout counter weekly, like the National Enquirer -- at least those deliver descriptive words you can use: a woman “seethes” with rage (when her 60-year-old husband runs off with his 18-year-old sister-in-law); a celebrity might “brandish” a broken martini glass at an intrusive paparazzi photographer; a well-known politician might have recently been accused of “perjuring” himself on the witness stand. Meanwhile, Dictionary.com offers such baubles as:
roborant
autochtonous
clerisy
animadversion
Most of us can go a healthy lifetime without ever using one of those words. (Or, anyone want to play “Dictionary”?) A few weeks ago, without having checked the link myself, I had recommended Dictionary.com’s “Word of the Day” to a motivated French student, a data technologist; in an email last week he asked how he could use these words, either at work or elsewhere. I told him that Harry Potter couldn’t even use them for spells, and to cancel his (free) subscription.
It’s funny, though, that “big words” in English are not especially long; the Dictionary.com words above have no more syllables than other, more regular words like beautiful, intelligent, and authoritative. What makes a word “big” is its lack of familiarity, and the reason it’s not familiar is probably because we have a shorter word or simpler phrase to explain the same thing.
For instance, most people would probably refer to “a 70-year-old man” before calling him a “septuagenarian.” Weathermen can talk about “precipitation” but we generally call it “rain;” just as a movie reviewer might call a movie “extraordinary,” “astounding,” and “magnificent,” whereas fans might just say it’s “great.” Still, if those words are used in a proper context and add color or meaning, they can come out as clean and clear as, well, “clean” and “clear.”
But using fancy terms to impress listeners invariably does just the opposite. In the mystery novel, “Death of a Bore,” by M.C. Beaton, a pompous, second-rate writer attempts to explain his craft to a room full of practical Scottish highlanders:
“Perhaps we will discuss linear progression,” the writer said.
“Do you mean plot?” called Hamish.
“Er, yes.”
“Then why not say so?”
There are times, however, when the formal phrase serves a purpose. One occasion is the written acceptance to a formal party, and the standard, Emily Post reply is downright Victorian:
“Clara Jones and Joshua Smith accept with pleasure the kind invitation to the …” (insert: birthday party, bar mitzvah, debutante ball or whatever), etc. Using this format might sound retro, but it is easy for the respondent, since you don’t have to think of anything clever to say yourself – and you can ad lib informally, if you like; it’s also useful for the party planner, since it immediately says who the potential guests are, and whether or not they can come; and yet the language and structure acknowledge the formality of the event in a way that “Yes, we can come!” simply cannot.
One of the first times I came across a big-word style expression was when I was about 10 years old and reading an Archie comic book. Smithers, the tuxedo-clad butler to spoiled, rich Veronica Lodge had apparently reached his limit and said to his boss, Mr. Lodge, “I wish to tender my resignation.” Tender his resignation? I figured Smithers meant, “I quit” but I realized with that fancy phrase that Smithers was, in short, keeping his cool. Saying, “I quit!” would have sounded angry and emotional, whereas tendering his resignation helped Smithers maintain his butler-ish dignity.
Still, there’s a limit on what we can tolerate, and some of the world’s worst writing appears not in our children’s research papers or book reports, as might be expected by fledglings, but in what could be considered the Capital Cities of Big Words: business, law, and government. There, big-wordy emails, memos, forms, and other documents can get so loaded with jargon and bloated verbosity as to make readers groan in pain.
One such intolerant reader was Martin Cutts, an Englishman who in 1979 stood in London’s Parliament Square and shredded official documents – the first act of the Plain Language Commission, for which Cutts is owner and director. Ever since the document-shredding, this organization has published books and articles, as well as provided writing services to companies worldwide – with the goal of clear, accurate writing.
(See: http://www.askoxford.com/betterwriting/plainenglish/?view=uk.) (In fact, language and grammar sites abound on the Internet – it’s just a matter of taking advantage of them.)
So how do you know when you’re using Big Words, and when you’re sounding erudite? A first step is to ask yourself if you understood what you wrote. Next, ask someone nearby to read what you wrote. Then try it on your boss. These are not full-proof steps, but they do provide an initial screening of sorts.
As you write, remember that some of the best writing and most treasured lines in literature were short and straightforward, though absolutely eloquent:
Take Abraham Lincoln’s three-minute-long “Gettysburg Address” (‘Four-score and seven years ago our forefathers brought forth on this continent a new nation, conceived in liberty and dedicated to the proposition that all men are created equal”); or Jane Austen’s opening to Pride and Prejudice: (“It is a truth universally acknowledged that a single man in possession of a good fortune should be in want of a wife.”); or Scout’s description of her town in “To Kill A Mockingbird” (“Maycomb was an old town, but it was a tired, old town when I first knew it.”) No big words there. The first two samples are formal, but clear; the third, so easy to understand you can almost feel the flies.
In short, if big words are bad jewelry, then it’s better to keep your language plain and simple than to be caught casting swine before pearls.
English, having been created by the peasant masses – not royalty or the upper classes -- is not a language where long, fancy words can safely camouflage themselves in daily conversation. Words like “get,” “have,” or “do” serve so many linguistic purposes, they’re like maid-butler-gardener-and-chauffeur all in one; the minute an “obtain” or “possess” or “accomplish” appears instead, it is quickly taken in for questioning: was that word necessary, or is the speaker trying to put on airs?
Big words happen when we forget who we’re talking to. A humorous, small business website demonstrates what happens when big words are left to their own devices:
In promulgating your esoteric cogitations, or articulating your superficial sentimentalities and amicable, philosophical or psychological observations, beware of platitudinous ponderosity.
(See: http://www.abcsmallbiz.com/funny/big-words.html)
Even with a plethora of English words to choose from, words like “plethora” stick out – anyone hearing or reading that word would think, “Why didn’t she just say ‘a lot’ or ‘gazillions’?” “Plethora” is the kind of word we learn when studying for the SATs but never really say. In general, English speakers prefer to hear and speak their language straight up with a twist, and easy on the high-fallutin’.
Speaking of pretension, Dictionary.com offers a Word of the Day to all interested in building up their word power. However, given some of their recent choices, I have to wonder if the motivated student wouldn’t be better off reading a checkout counter weekly, like the National Enquirer -- at least those deliver descriptive words you can use: a woman “seethes” with rage (when her 60-year-old husband runs off with his 18-year-old sister-in-law); a celebrity might “brandish” a broken martini glass at an intrusive paparazzi photographer; a well-known politician might have recently been accused of “perjuring” himself on the witness stand. Meanwhile, Dictionary.com offers such baubles as:
roborant
autochtonous
clerisy
animadversion
Most of us can go a healthy lifetime without ever using one of those words. (Or, anyone want to play “Dictionary”?) A few weeks ago, without having checked the link myself, I had recommended Dictionary.com’s “Word of the Day” to a motivated French student, a data technologist; in an email last week he asked how he could use these words, either at work or elsewhere. I told him that Harry Potter couldn’t even use them for spells, and to cancel his (free) subscription.
It’s funny, though, that “big words” in English are not especially long; the Dictionary.com words above have no more syllables than other, more regular words like beautiful, intelligent, and authoritative. What makes a word “big” is its lack of familiarity, and the reason it’s not familiar is probably because we have a shorter word or simpler phrase to explain the same thing.
For instance, most people would probably refer to “a 70-year-old man” before calling him a “septuagenarian.” Weathermen can talk about “precipitation” but we generally call it “rain;” just as a movie reviewer might call a movie “extraordinary,” “astounding,” and “magnificent,” whereas fans might just say it’s “great.” Still, if those words are used in a proper context and add color or meaning, they can come out as clean and clear as, well, “clean” and “clear.”
But using fancy terms to impress listeners invariably does just the opposite. In the mystery novel, “Death of a Bore,” by M.C. Beaton, a pompous, second-rate writer attempts to explain his craft to a room full of practical Scottish highlanders:
“Perhaps we will discuss linear progression,” the writer said.
“Do you mean plot?” called Hamish.
“Er, yes.”
“Then why not say so?”
There are times, however, when the formal phrase serves a purpose. One occasion is the written acceptance to a formal party, and the standard, Emily Post reply is downright Victorian:
“Clara Jones and Joshua Smith accept with pleasure the kind invitation to the …” (insert: birthday party, bar mitzvah, debutante ball or whatever), etc. Using this format might sound retro, but it is easy for the respondent, since you don’t have to think of anything clever to say yourself – and you can ad lib informally, if you like; it’s also useful for the party planner, since it immediately says who the potential guests are, and whether or not they can come; and yet the language and structure acknowledge the formality of the event in a way that “Yes, we can come!” simply cannot.
One of the first times I came across a big-word style expression was when I was about 10 years old and reading an Archie comic book. Smithers, the tuxedo-clad butler to spoiled, rich Veronica Lodge had apparently reached his limit and said to his boss, Mr. Lodge, “I wish to tender my resignation.” Tender his resignation? I figured Smithers meant, “I quit” but I realized with that fancy phrase that Smithers was, in short, keeping his cool. Saying, “I quit!” would have sounded angry and emotional, whereas tendering his resignation helped Smithers maintain his butler-ish dignity.
Still, there’s a limit on what we can tolerate, and some of the world’s worst writing appears not in our children’s research papers or book reports, as might be expected by fledglings, but in what could be considered the Capital Cities of Big Words: business, law, and government. There, big-wordy emails, memos, forms, and other documents can get so loaded with jargon and bloated verbosity as to make readers groan in pain.
One such intolerant reader was Martin Cutts, an Englishman who in 1979 stood in London’s Parliament Square and shredded official documents – the first act of the Plain Language Commission, for which Cutts is owner and director. Ever since the document-shredding, this organization has published books and articles, as well as provided writing services to companies worldwide – with the goal of clear, accurate writing.
(See: http://www.askoxford.com/betterwriting/plainenglish/?view=uk.) (In fact, language and grammar sites abound on the Internet – it’s just a matter of taking advantage of them.)
So how do you know when you’re using Big Words, and when you’re sounding erudite? A first step is to ask yourself if you understood what you wrote. Next, ask someone nearby to read what you wrote. Then try it on your boss. These are not full-proof steps, but they do provide an initial screening of sorts.
As you write, remember that some of the best writing and most treasured lines in literature were short and straightforward, though absolutely eloquent:
Take Abraham Lincoln’s three-minute-long “Gettysburg Address” (‘Four-score and seven years ago our forefathers brought forth on this continent a new nation, conceived in liberty and dedicated to the proposition that all men are created equal”); or Jane Austen’s opening to Pride and Prejudice: (“It is a truth universally acknowledged that a single man in possession of a good fortune should be in want of a wife.”); or Scout’s description of her town in “To Kill A Mockingbird” (“Maycomb was an old town, but it was a tired, old town when I first knew it.”) No big words there. The first two samples are formal, but clear; the third, so easy to understand you can almost feel the flies.
In short, if big words are bad jewelry, then it’s better to keep your language plain and simple than to be caught casting swine before pearls.
Friday, March 16, 2007
Gaelic Go Bragh!
We were talking about the CVS pharmacy chain at dinner the other night, and my 15-year-old son was extolling the stores’ amazing virtues, not least of which was that they seem to be found anywhere with a population over 500: “They have everything a person needs,” my son gushed. “Shampoo, aspirin, food, candy, magazines, wall-to-wall carpeting, and prescription drugs. And anywhere you go, every CVS is exactly the same!”
The English language could already be the CVS of the linguistic world: It’s got Latin, Sanskrit, Old Germanic, vocabulary from all over the globe, volumes from Shakespeare, American musical songs from Rogers & Hammerstein, rock and roll words, technology terms, old words with new meanings, new expressions with old words; and you can find English spoken just about everywhere; English is the common language of India and the corporate world in general; it is the principal language link between all foreigners; and it even serves as a link to people who speak the same language but with different accents, as in:
A French student of mine was once standing in line at the post office in Paris, while a man from the south of France was asking the clerk for what sounded like, “Taym-bra,” (instead of the more nasal standard French pronunciation of the word, “timbre”); the clerk, flustered, barked out, “Tell me in English!” and the southern French man immediately barked back, “Stamps!”
So, yes, in some ways English, like CVS, is wonderful -- convenient, safe, and certainly fills many needs. Still, aren’t we all a little disappointed when a store closes and we imagine what we’d love to see take its place … only to find out it’s another CVS (or bank or real estate office)?
At this point, most of us Americans take it for granted that people from other countries will most likely speak English, or at least be acquainted with it. And who can blame us? Think back to the Mayflower pilgrims for a minute. As the story goes, those pilgrims who survived that first horrible winter in the bitter wilds of the New World, where for thousands of years only thousands of Native American tribes had been living and speaking their tribal languages, were greeted in the spring by the Wampanoag native, Squanto -- who actually spoke English! (He had been kidnapped some years before and had spent time as a slave in England.) As my kids would say, “How random is that?!” And yet I’ve never read of Miles Standish’s amazement at this coincidence – did he simply cluck, “Quite right!” to himself and then ask about proper farming techniques?
So … as we arrive at the annual celebration of the Irish, St. Patrick’s Day, it’s time to give some thought to this day from both a cultural and a linguistic point of view – if only as a small, temporary antidote to the CVS-ization of American-Anglo language and culture.
The Irish, as the saying goes, are lucky: Even as somewhat goofy as St. Patrick’s Day is (though I love men in kilts playing bagpipes; and also love cupcakes with dyed-green frosting and dark green sprinkles), I can’t think of any other group of hyphenated-Americans that gets a whole national day of celebration as the Irish do every March 17 – parades, green beer, a dyed-green Chicago River, even green bagels – from Portland, Maine to Portland, Oregon. As for St. Patrick the man – who’s he?! St. Paddy’s Day in the U.S. is about being Irish – even if you’re not. And though I have never bought a green carnation or a “Pinch Me, I’m Irish!” button in my life, to the whole event I say, “Erin Go Bragh!” (Irish Gaelic for “Ireland Forever!”)
The reason for my enthusiasm is, Ireland might be forever (or until the predicted effects of global warming wash the island out), but their Gaelic language might vanish far sooner.
At the moment, Irish Gaelic is on the list of Endangered Languages (http://www.helsinki.fi/~tasalmin/europe_index.html) Figures vary:
According to the UNESCO Red Book on Endangered Languages (last updated 1999) there are perhaps only 20,000 speakers of Irish Gaelic left; According to a 2005 book, “Beginner’s Irish” by Gary Rosenstock, there are 30,000 native speakers and 100,000 speakers who have learned it as a second language. This could mean renewed interest since the last UNESCO survey, or just … different figures. But one more thing: there are three Irish dialects (Ulster, Connaught, and Munster) of which most only speak one. Still, there is an Irish radio station catering to all three dialects and an Irish TV station (http://www.tg4.ie/).
In Scotland, according to the UNESCO report, more than 50,000 claimed to know the language, but less than half spoke it actively. Welsh, the healthiest of the Gaelic groups, might have up to 250,000 regular, active speakers. So though this doesn’t spell immediate doom for those Gaelic branches, either could die out in a generation or two if children do not learn the language. Though children are now being taught Welsh in school and more adults are interested in learning it, it’s too early to tell if this will stop the erosion completely -- but it’s a good sign. After centuries of being beaten back, Gaelic is finding some muscle.
Once upon a time the Gaelic language, culture and literature ranked just behind the Greeks and Romans. Though the Celtic tribes that spoke Gaelic were mainly fierce warriors and not too meticulous at writing everything down, they did have a strong oral tradition; and what they did manage to write down has been collected and treasured in their many Irish myths, as well as in the original legend of King Arthur, a 6th century Celt and Gaelic-speaking warrior himself.
Irish Gaelic’s fall began long, long ago with the English colonization of Ireland in 1169; Anglicization intensified in the 1500’s – King Henry VIII even issued an order to Ireland in 1537 entitled, “An Act for the English Order, Habit and Language,” which discouraged Gaelic. By the 20th century, children who slipped up and spoke Gaelic at school were punished. Even parents came to realize if their children were to succeed in the world, they had to speak English – not Gaelic. And once a language is no longer handed down to the next generation, its lifespan is severely limited.
David Crystal, a leading language authority, believes that of the world’s roughly 6,000 languages, a good half of them could vanish in the next century or so from the mere lack of speakers – some have fewer than 1000; those on the verge of extinction may have 100 or 10, or even just 1. And once those speakers are gone, the language is gone too. Two other forms of Gaelic, Cornish (from England’s Cornwall) and Manx (from the Isle of Man) have already died out.
What helps languages survive is having people believe that the language is important enough to speak regularly and properly and to pass on to their children. Cultural pride helps – and a national celebration like St. Patrick’s Day can nurture Irish pride, and interest in Gaelic might go along with that.
Gaelic, despite its strange spellings and difficult pronunciation, is an Indo-European language like English. Linguists more knowledgeable than I am can see a correlation in some of Gaelic’s words for words in Sanskrit, one of the bases of Western languages.
But Gaelic is different from other Western languages in many more ways than it’s similar. It only has 18 letters (no j, k, q, v, w, x, y, z); and most simple sentences go verb-subject-object: “Saw I a play last night.” Nor does the language have distinct words for “yes” and “no.” That’s why, in answer to a question like, “Are you going home for dinner now,” you might hear an Irish person say, “I am;” or, “I’m not.” Welsh Gaelic is said to be a particularly melodic language, and the influence can be heard in their English:
In the movie version of “My Fair Lady,” Professor of Phonetics Henry Higgins is astonished at the natural language ability that Eliza Doolittle’s boozing, panhandling father has; at one point, Mr. Doolittle, exasperated at not being able to explain why he wants a little money from the professor, exclaims, “I’m willing to tell you! I’m wanting to tell you! I’m waiting to tell you!” Higgins, moved by the rhythm and alliteration in “willing,” “wanting,” and “waiting,” says to his friend, Col. Pickering, “That would be the Welsh strain in him.”
But let’s go back to that prediction that of 6,000 languages in the world now only 3,000 will be spoken in a hundred years. I find it hard to even name more than 25 languages off the top of my head, you too might think that 3,000 languages are an absolute wealth of words. But language is not just about tourists or business people communicating with native speakers and other foreigners. It’s about diversity -- as much as is saving the snow leopard and blue whale. Animals have it over languages because you can see them – and when photographed by National Geographic, they’re often really cute. A language, on the other hand, particularly one down to its last dying speaker, leaves just an invisible breath; if that language is lucky, there might be a field worker’s notes on its grammar and vocabulary. Otherwise, a world simply evaporates.
So on this St. Paddy’s Day, consider treating yourself to a nice, green-frosted cupcake adorned with a small plastic shamrock, and take a moment to appreciate the Irish – or perhaps some other nationality or ethnic group – be they Laplanders, Outer Mongolians, or Cherokees. Every language reflects a unique spirit, history, even fashion sense. And imagine that every time a language is lost, a new CVS opens up in its place.
P.S. Three-quarters of what I know in Irish Gaelic has already been displayed with “Erin Go Bragh;” but walking up the Bowery the other day, I added one more word to my vocabulary -- thanks to an Irish bar by the name of “Slainte” (pronounced Slahn-tya, also in Scottish Gaelic), which means “Cheers!”
And in honor of St. Patrick’s Day, here are some handy Irish Gaelic proverbs with English translations to keep in mind:
(Sorry, but the Gaelic pronunciation is anyone’s guess)
Is minic a bhris beal duine a shorn.
“A person’s mouth often broke his nose;”
Na diol do chearc la fliuch.
“Don’t sell your hen on a wet day;”
and
Maireann croi eadrom I bhad.
“The light heart lives long.”
A top o’ the morning to you all …. And Slainte!
The English language could already be the CVS of the linguistic world: It’s got Latin, Sanskrit, Old Germanic, vocabulary from all over the globe, volumes from Shakespeare, American musical songs from Rogers & Hammerstein, rock and roll words, technology terms, old words with new meanings, new expressions with old words; and you can find English spoken just about everywhere; English is the common language of India and the corporate world in general; it is the principal language link between all foreigners; and it even serves as a link to people who speak the same language but with different accents, as in:
A French student of mine was once standing in line at the post office in Paris, while a man from the south of France was asking the clerk for what sounded like, “Taym-bra,” (instead of the more nasal standard French pronunciation of the word, “timbre”); the clerk, flustered, barked out, “Tell me in English!” and the southern French man immediately barked back, “Stamps!”
So, yes, in some ways English, like CVS, is wonderful -- convenient, safe, and certainly fills many needs. Still, aren’t we all a little disappointed when a store closes and we imagine what we’d love to see take its place … only to find out it’s another CVS (or bank or real estate office)?
At this point, most of us Americans take it for granted that people from other countries will most likely speak English, or at least be acquainted with it. And who can blame us? Think back to the Mayflower pilgrims for a minute. As the story goes, those pilgrims who survived that first horrible winter in the bitter wilds of the New World, where for thousands of years only thousands of Native American tribes had been living and speaking their tribal languages, were greeted in the spring by the Wampanoag native, Squanto -- who actually spoke English! (He had been kidnapped some years before and had spent time as a slave in England.) As my kids would say, “How random is that?!” And yet I’ve never read of Miles Standish’s amazement at this coincidence – did he simply cluck, “Quite right!” to himself and then ask about proper farming techniques?
So … as we arrive at the annual celebration of the Irish, St. Patrick’s Day, it’s time to give some thought to this day from both a cultural and a linguistic point of view – if only as a small, temporary antidote to the CVS-ization of American-Anglo language and culture.
The Irish, as the saying goes, are lucky: Even as somewhat goofy as St. Patrick’s Day is (though I love men in kilts playing bagpipes; and also love cupcakes with dyed-green frosting and dark green sprinkles), I can’t think of any other group of hyphenated-Americans that gets a whole national day of celebration as the Irish do every March 17 – parades, green beer, a dyed-green Chicago River, even green bagels – from Portland, Maine to Portland, Oregon. As for St. Patrick the man – who’s he?! St. Paddy’s Day in the U.S. is about being Irish – even if you’re not. And though I have never bought a green carnation or a “Pinch Me, I’m Irish!” button in my life, to the whole event I say, “Erin Go Bragh!” (Irish Gaelic for “Ireland Forever!”)
The reason for my enthusiasm is, Ireland might be forever (or until the predicted effects of global warming wash the island out), but their Gaelic language might vanish far sooner.
At the moment, Irish Gaelic is on the list of Endangered Languages (http://www.helsinki.fi/~tasalmin/europe_index.html) Figures vary:
According to the UNESCO Red Book on Endangered Languages (last updated 1999) there are perhaps only 20,000 speakers of Irish Gaelic left; According to a 2005 book, “Beginner’s Irish” by Gary Rosenstock, there are 30,000 native speakers and 100,000 speakers who have learned it as a second language. This could mean renewed interest since the last UNESCO survey, or just … different figures. But one more thing: there are three Irish dialects (Ulster, Connaught, and Munster) of which most only speak one. Still, there is an Irish radio station catering to all three dialects and an Irish TV station (http://www.tg4.ie/).
In Scotland, according to the UNESCO report, more than 50,000 claimed to know the language, but less than half spoke it actively. Welsh, the healthiest of the Gaelic groups, might have up to 250,000 regular, active speakers. So though this doesn’t spell immediate doom for those Gaelic branches, either could die out in a generation or two if children do not learn the language. Though children are now being taught Welsh in school and more adults are interested in learning it, it’s too early to tell if this will stop the erosion completely -- but it’s a good sign. After centuries of being beaten back, Gaelic is finding some muscle.
Once upon a time the Gaelic language, culture and literature ranked just behind the Greeks and Romans. Though the Celtic tribes that spoke Gaelic were mainly fierce warriors and not too meticulous at writing everything down, they did have a strong oral tradition; and what they did manage to write down has been collected and treasured in their many Irish myths, as well as in the original legend of King Arthur, a 6th century Celt and Gaelic-speaking warrior himself.
Irish Gaelic’s fall began long, long ago with the English colonization of Ireland in 1169; Anglicization intensified in the 1500’s – King Henry VIII even issued an order to Ireland in 1537 entitled, “An Act for the English Order, Habit and Language,” which discouraged Gaelic. By the 20th century, children who slipped up and spoke Gaelic at school were punished. Even parents came to realize if their children were to succeed in the world, they had to speak English – not Gaelic. And once a language is no longer handed down to the next generation, its lifespan is severely limited.
David Crystal, a leading language authority, believes that of the world’s roughly 6,000 languages, a good half of them could vanish in the next century or so from the mere lack of speakers – some have fewer than 1000; those on the verge of extinction may have 100 or 10, or even just 1. And once those speakers are gone, the language is gone too. Two other forms of Gaelic, Cornish (from England’s Cornwall) and Manx (from the Isle of Man) have already died out.
What helps languages survive is having people believe that the language is important enough to speak regularly and properly and to pass on to their children. Cultural pride helps – and a national celebration like St. Patrick’s Day can nurture Irish pride, and interest in Gaelic might go along with that.
Gaelic, despite its strange spellings and difficult pronunciation, is an Indo-European language like English. Linguists more knowledgeable than I am can see a correlation in some of Gaelic’s words for words in Sanskrit, one of the bases of Western languages.
But Gaelic is different from other Western languages in many more ways than it’s similar. It only has 18 letters (no j, k, q, v, w, x, y, z); and most simple sentences go verb-subject-object: “Saw I a play last night.” Nor does the language have distinct words for “yes” and “no.” That’s why, in answer to a question like, “Are you going home for dinner now,” you might hear an Irish person say, “I am;” or, “I’m not.” Welsh Gaelic is said to be a particularly melodic language, and the influence can be heard in their English:
In the movie version of “My Fair Lady,” Professor of Phonetics Henry Higgins is astonished at the natural language ability that Eliza Doolittle’s boozing, panhandling father has; at one point, Mr. Doolittle, exasperated at not being able to explain why he wants a little money from the professor, exclaims, “I’m willing to tell you! I’m wanting to tell you! I’m waiting to tell you!” Higgins, moved by the rhythm and alliteration in “willing,” “wanting,” and “waiting,” says to his friend, Col. Pickering, “That would be the Welsh strain in him.”
But let’s go back to that prediction that of 6,000 languages in the world now only 3,000 will be spoken in a hundred years. I find it hard to even name more than 25 languages off the top of my head, you too might think that 3,000 languages are an absolute wealth of words. But language is not just about tourists or business people communicating with native speakers and other foreigners. It’s about diversity -- as much as is saving the snow leopard and blue whale. Animals have it over languages because you can see them – and when photographed by National Geographic, they’re often really cute. A language, on the other hand, particularly one down to its last dying speaker, leaves just an invisible breath; if that language is lucky, there might be a field worker’s notes on its grammar and vocabulary. Otherwise, a world simply evaporates.
So on this St. Paddy’s Day, consider treating yourself to a nice, green-frosted cupcake adorned with a small plastic shamrock, and take a moment to appreciate the Irish – or perhaps some other nationality or ethnic group – be they Laplanders, Outer Mongolians, or Cherokees. Every language reflects a unique spirit, history, even fashion sense. And imagine that every time a language is lost, a new CVS opens up in its place.
P.S. Three-quarters of what I know in Irish Gaelic has already been displayed with “Erin Go Bragh;” but walking up the Bowery the other day, I added one more word to my vocabulary -- thanks to an Irish bar by the name of “Slainte” (pronounced Slahn-tya, also in Scottish Gaelic), which means “Cheers!”
And in honor of St. Patrick’s Day, here are some handy Irish Gaelic proverbs with English translations to keep in mind:
(Sorry, but the Gaelic pronunciation is anyone’s guess)
Is minic a bhris beal duine a shorn.
“A person’s mouth often broke his nose;”
Na diol do chearc la fliuch.
“Don’t sell your hen on a wet day;”
and
Maireann croi eadrom I bhad.
“The light heart lives long.”
A top o’ the morning to you all …. And Slainte!
Sunday, March 04, 2007
Greening Up
I’m feeling green. And that’s not just because St. Patrick’s Day is soon; or that spring is suddenly in the air after a few weeks of a long-delayed winter. That’s using “green” in the traditional sense – green as in the color of grass or the face of the Wicked Witch of the West. Green from the Old English word, “grene,” which is akin to the ancient Indo-European word for “grow,” in the sense of “the color of living things.”
The green I’m also feeling – the one that has officially gone Hollywood, and therefore mainstream -- is a newer meaning of “green” -- that of being environmentally sound or earth-friendly. (Dictionary.com gives 16 other definitions for this adjective;) If you saw last week’s Oscar Awards, then you know that the event producers tried to be as “carbon-neutral” as possible; and that Al Gore won an Oscar for his global warming documentary, “An Inconvenient Truth.” A few weeks earlier, Prince Charles and Camilla flew to New York on a commercial jet instead of a private one, in order to reduce their “carbon footprint;” and a recent picture of our Pro-Oil President George W. Bush smiling (albeit, uneasily) while – finally! -- holding up a vial of corn-grown ethanol (even though he held it as though it were urine).
Almost every day, I see something or read an article about our new “greenness”: on a recent trip to Boston, for example, I saw what looked like an oversized pine- colored garbage can that called itself a “solar-powered trash compactor.” And in my hotel room was “The Consumer’s Guide to Effective Environmental Choices” put out by the Union of Concerned Scientists – the first hotel literature I’ve ever seen to directly challenge the Gideon Bible for bedside table space. Personally, I find all this very heartening and long overdue.
Since the first Earth Day (April 22, 1972), anyone overtly environmentally conscious has been dubbed a “treehugger” or “a granola.” Though those terms still exist, they may start to fade, as concern for the environment becomes a part of everyday life and no longer a political statement. With that, I already hear a new vocabulary sprouting – with familiar words in new combinations or with new meanings to aid and abet our awakened awareness.
For instance, an environmental firm’s website uses “green” as a verb, describing how to: Green Your Home; Green Your Business; Green Your Event; Green Your Travel; and Green Your Building. I’m fine with making “green” a verb. The only thing I’ll add is that people will probably start to attach “up” to the verb because to green UP one’s home sounds more natural than to simply “green” one’s home.
In any case, the name of this green-as-verb company is the Bonneville Environmental Foundation, and it is from the BEF that the Academy of Motion Pictures purchased “renewable energy credits” to offset the 250,000-pound “carbon footprint” that it took to produce the Oscar Award telecast and the week’s related pre-show events. This footprint was measured by a “carbon calculator” that took into account the amount of carbon dioxide spewed into the air from (I suppose) the gas and electricity used to bring people to the event; to produce and roll out the red carpet; spotlight the celebrities; beam the show into living rooms around the world; and afterward, to keep the stars’ champagne glasses both clean and filled.
A 250,000-pound carbon footprint, the BEF said, is like driving a car around the earth ten times – which is why the Academy purchased “carbon credits,” or “carbon offsets,” which go toward investing in renewable resources like wind, solar, biomass, and low-impact hydropower. (Wow: “Low-impact hydropower” – have you ever said that before? See what I mean about this new vocab?!)
In time, as “greening” becomes ever more integral to our lives, we may start hearing remarks that sound utterly pretentious now, but may lose that tone in the future. Remarks like:
“We considered buying a classic 90’s McMansion, but between the central air, tile floors*, and the cathedral ceilings, the green-up would have cost a fortune.” (*The newest thing in earth-conscious homes is to have hard-packed, dirt floors. See New York Times, Feb. 8, 2007, “Down and Dirty.”)
Or another: “Their wedding was totally green, but the carbon offset to honeymoon in Bali almost broke their budget.”
Savvy green consumers might start to see ads, say, from a garden store: “It’s our Happy Earth Day Sale-a-bration! Buy a solar-powered, all-natural diesel-enhanced lawn mower! 30% percent off and includes $100 in carbon credits.”
Restaurants might also get in on the act. Just as some restaurants now tout “heart-healthy” meals, we might start seeing numbers beside each dish detailing the number of “food miles” used to convey the food to your table. Or patrons might ask the waiter, “Could you tell me the carbon footprint of the house special cheeseburger?”
Packaging, from canned soup to staples, may have to carry carbon footprint details so that consumers can make more earth-conscious choices: locally distributed brands vs. national brands made in Sri Lanka, flown to California, and trucked to Des Moines, Chicago, or New York. Will “carbon footprint miles” become CFM, or “footprintage”? Keep watching.
Clothing stores may also one day reflect this new consciousness, since it takes 1800 gallons of water to produce the cotton in a pair of jeans, and 400 to make the cotton for a shirt (See ct.water.usgs.gov/EDUCATION/waterfacts.htm). Though I can hardly imagine any current stores, from the Gap to Ralph Lauren to Burberry saying this, perhaps stores of the future may brag, “These shirts are made from organically shade-grown hemp and produced with low-impact hydropower.” We laugh now – but didn’t we all laugh at Steve Martin in “L.A. Story” (1991) when he asked the waitress at a restaurant for a “half double decaffeinated half-caf with a twist of lemon.” Though his order sounded hilarious at the time, at this point, it sounds pretty reasonable.
Pretty much all of us can rattle off our cell phone numbers, email addresses, and/or cholesterol. So before too long, we’ll be calculating carbons as naturally as we count carbohydrates. And should your carbon footprint count be lower than mine, well … I’ll be “green” with envy.
Addendum:
After writing this posting, I discovered that this week’s Time magazine’s cover story is titled, “Forget Organic: Eat Local.” I know some of you word-watchers will want to know if “eat local” is grammatically correct, because it sounds at first like it should be “eat LOCALLY.” Normally, an adverb should describe a verb, and in a sentence like, “We rarely eat out and when we do, we eat locally,” locally is used correctly, as an adverb describing where they eat. But in Time’s case, “Eat Local” really means, “Eat Local (Produce),” with “produce” being the understood object; so “local” is an adjective describing the understood noun “produce,” which is fine. Phew! As Sesame Street’s Kermit the Frog once sang, “It’s Not Easy Bein’ Green” – or grammatically correct.
The green I’m also feeling – the one that has officially gone Hollywood, and therefore mainstream -- is a newer meaning of “green” -- that of being environmentally sound or earth-friendly. (Dictionary.com gives 16 other definitions for this adjective;) If you saw last week’s Oscar Awards, then you know that the event producers tried to be as “carbon-neutral” as possible; and that Al Gore won an Oscar for his global warming documentary, “An Inconvenient Truth.” A few weeks earlier, Prince Charles and Camilla flew to New York on a commercial jet instead of a private one, in order to reduce their “carbon footprint;” and a recent picture of our Pro-Oil President George W. Bush smiling (albeit, uneasily) while – finally! -- holding up a vial of corn-grown ethanol (even though he held it as though it were urine).
Almost every day, I see something or read an article about our new “greenness”: on a recent trip to Boston, for example, I saw what looked like an oversized pine- colored garbage can that called itself a “solar-powered trash compactor.” And in my hotel room was “The Consumer’s Guide to Effective Environmental Choices” put out by the Union of Concerned Scientists – the first hotel literature I’ve ever seen to directly challenge the Gideon Bible for bedside table space. Personally, I find all this very heartening and long overdue.
Since the first Earth Day (April 22, 1972), anyone overtly environmentally conscious has been dubbed a “treehugger” or “a granola.” Though those terms still exist, they may start to fade, as concern for the environment becomes a part of everyday life and no longer a political statement. With that, I already hear a new vocabulary sprouting – with familiar words in new combinations or with new meanings to aid and abet our awakened awareness.
For instance, an environmental firm’s website uses “green” as a verb, describing how to: Green Your Home; Green Your Business; Green Your Event; Green Your Travel; and Green Your Building. I’m fine with making “green” a verb. The only thing I’ll add is that people will probably start to attach “up” to the verb because to green UP one’s home sounds more natural than to simply “green” one’s home.
In any case, the name of this green-as-verb company is the Bonneville Environmental Foundation, and it is from the BEF that the Academy of Motion Pictures purchased “renewable energy credits” to offset the 250,000-pound “carbon footprint” that it took to produce the Oscar Award telecast and the week’s related pre-show events. This footprint was measured by a “carbon calculator” that took into account the amount of carbon dioxide spewed into the air from (I suppose) the gas and electricity used to bring people to the event; to produce and roll out the red carpet; spotlight the celebrities; beam the show into living rooms around the world; and afterward, to keep the stars’ champagne glasses both clean and filled.
A 250,000-pound carbon footprint, the BEF said, is like driving a car around the earth ten times – which is why the Academy purchased “carbon credits,” or “carbon offsets,” which go toward investing in renewable resources like wind, solar, biomass, and low-impact hydropower. (Wow: “Low-impact hydropower” – have you ever said that before? See what I mean about this new vocab?!)
In time, as “greening” becomes ever more integral to our lives, we may start hearing remarks that sound utterly pretentious now, but may lose that tone in the future. Remarks like:
“We considered buying a classic 90’s McMansion, but between the central air, tile floors*, and the cathedral ceilings, the green-up would have cost a fortune.” (*The newest thing in earth-conscious homes is to have hard-packed, dirt floors. See New York Times, Feb. 8, 2007, “Down and Dirty.”)
Or another: “Their wedding was totally green, but the carbon offset to honeymoon in Bali almost broke their budget.”
Savvy green consumers might start to see ads, say, from a garden store: “It’s our Happy Earth Day Sale-a-bration! Buy a solar-powered, all-natural diesel-enhanced lawn mower! 30% percent off and includes $100 in carbon credits.”
Restaurants might also get in on the act. Just as some restaurants now tout “heart-healthy” meals, we might start seeing numbers beside each dish detailing the number of “food miles” used to convey the food to your table. Or patrons might ask the waiter, “Could you tell me the carbon footprint of the house special cheeseburger?”
Packaging, from canned soup to staples, may have to carry carbon footprint details so that consumers can make more earth-conscious choices: locally distributed brands vs. national brands made in Sri Lanka, flown to California, and trucked to Des Moines, Chicago, or New York. Will “carbon footprint miles” become CFM, or “footprintage”? Keep watching.
Clothing stores may also one day reflect this new consciousness, since it takes 1800 gallons of water to produce the cotton in a pair of jeans, and 400 to make the cotton for a shirt (See ct.water.usgs.gov/EDUCATION/waterfacts.htm). Though I can hardly imagine any current stores, from the Gap to Ralph Lauren to Burberry saying this, perhaps stores of the future may brag, “These shirts are made from organically shade-grown hemp and produced with low-impact hydropower.” We laugh now – but didn’t we all laugh at Steve Martin in “L.A. Story” (1991) when he asked the waitress at a restaurant for a “half double decaffeinated half-caf with a twist of lemon.” Though his order sounded hilarious at the time, at this point, it sounds pretty reasonable.
Pretty much all of us can rattle off our cell phone numbers, email addresses, and/or cholesterol. So before too long, we’ll be calculating carbons as naturally as we count carbohydrates. And should your carbon footprint count be lower than mine, well … I’ll be “green” with envy.
Addendum:
After writing this posting, I discovered that this week’s Time magazine’s cover story is titled, “Forget Organic: Eat Local.” I know some of you word-watchers will want to know if “eat local” is grammatically correct, because it sounds at first like it should be “eat LOCALLY.” Normally, an adverb should describe a verb, and in a sentence like, “We rarely eat out and when we do, we eat locally,” locally is used correctly, as an adverb describing where they eat. But in Time’s case, “Eat Local” really means, “Eat Local (Produce),” with “produce” being the understood object; so “local” is an adjective describing the understood noun “produce,” which is fine. Phew! As Sesame Street’s Kermit the Frog once sang, “It’s Not Easy Bein’ Green” – or grammatically correct.
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