Ization, What Goes Around, and beerhandedness

Yes, language evolves (sometimes in a pathetic, tortured way) as people create the words that they need (or that they think they need):

• Heard on KCBS today, a spokesperson for some organization in San Francisco, discussing the "condominiumization" of apartments. Frankly, "condominiumizing" would have at least had one fewer syllables.
• As a writer and editor, I often give people grief over their sloppy/casual use of language. You should have heard the roasting I got last night (in agility class) when I mentioned that "I attend an annual party every year..." Now, note that in fact the party could be an annual one that I don't attend every year; none-the-less I chose to let them have their say and then moved on to the real purpose of my blathering, which was to discuss:
  • Beer-handedness: The ability of one to play challenge croquet while holding a full beer cup in the other hand.
  • This goes in line with the agility people discussing the various subjobs assigned at agility trials when rebuilding rings of equipment, such as the Table Taker-Offer.

Crosswords Sometimes Evoke Cross Words

Most crossword puzzles are not merely vocabulary tests. They're also trivia tests. Sometimes moreso than they are tests of one's working lexicon. What's really annoying is when they are tests of language trivia--words that normal people would never know and that even crossword afficionados would never have occasion to use in even the most extreme intellectual emergencies.

On the other hand, a year or so back, the San Jose Mercury did use the word adit in an article about closing old mine entrances in the Almaden-Quicksilver area. (Adit being a mine entrance...sure, it's quicker, but who understands you when you use it?) But I've never yet had anyone say to me, "Hold on, I don't seem to have my etui" (needle case or ornamental case); and maybe it's only because we live in a monogamous society that I've never had occasion to ask where the oda (harem room) is. Perhaps when I become ambassador to Bahrain (capital of: Manama; or--capital of: dinar).

The San Jose Merc's crossword puzzle is a comfortable speed for me. It takes me 15-20 minutes to complete, and I can almost always eventually fill in the whole thing, although it's challenging enough that I have to work across and down and across and back again and in and out and puzzle a few things out. Still, it is interesting to note how much one needs to know to be able to get through it.

For example, aside from what I'd consider "normal vocabulary" (and nontricky clues), to do this morning's puzzle, one had to know:

• People: Meg Ryan, Elvis's middle name (Aron), Nanette Fabray (never heard of her), Willie Mays, Edna Ferber (never heard of her before I started doing xwords. Still don't know what she's known for except having a first name that's popular in crosswords), Edna Best (ditto), Len Dykstra (who?), Raoul Walsh (who?), Yoyo Ma, Lenin's love (Yoko Ono)
• Places: Florida city (yeah, like there's only one... Ocala, in this case), Laguna Beach (CA), San Miguel (CA), Uru. neighbor (know what countries border Uruguay), French city (yeah, like there's only one... Caen in this case), Las Vegas, where Nova Scotia is
• Other languages: Spanish lariat (reata or riata), Seine sights (Seine is a french river containing islands, hence iles), Corrida cheer (olé), modus operandi, Alain's affirmative (Alain being a French name, hence oui)
• Esoteric vocabulary: Eosin (ink ingredient), cote (dove shelter), eclat (great brilliance), tael (Old Chinese money), oda (harem room)
• Miscellaneous: Madonna hit "La ____ Bonita", three-letter names of Greek letters, characters in Lohengrin,who and what Scrooge is, Hawaii Five-0 villain

Some of these were easily within grasp in the parts of my brain that I never knew were devoted to trivia, but many weren't. And you surely know some that I didn't. What a balancing act for a crossword puzzle creator and editor, to aim at a reasonable audience without knocking them backwards in a dead swoon after half an hour (like the NY Times Sunday xword does to me--usually I can get most of that one if I work at it for a couple of hours. But who has that kind of time? And it becomes frustrating when I have to look up half the words in a crossword puzzle dictionary, thesaurus, atlas, almanac, or encyclopedia).

A Pun is Worth a Thousand Words

It's hard for me to imagine people who love language not also loving puns, but --gasp-- it's true, some folks are like that. But I'm not like them and I like them (there's a turn of phrase for ya). So here are some nice, short ones I've found or remembered recently:

• What did the bald man say when given a solid-gold comb?

  Thanks, I'll never part with this.



• A dog walked into a saloon wearing a gunbelt and with one foot in a bandage. He said:

  "I'm looking for the man who shot my paw."



• What do you call a fish with no eyes? (Note: This is a tricky one. The answer is much clearer when written, but the pun in the question really works only when spoken (hint--think of homophones for "eye").)

  Fsh.

License Plates

Ah, the American dream: Expressing oneself through your very own license plate and frame.

Today's intriguing combination on a car:

License: BYAVOWL (or maybe BYAVWEL)

Frame: M_T_RC_CL_ / Thanks Pat and Vanna!

Soooo... did they win the car on Wheel of Fortune? Did they win a motorcycle on Wheel of Fortune? Are they simply fans of WoF? I wanted to leap out of my car, run forward (we were stopped at a light), pound on their window, and ask. But I didn't. So I'll probably never know.

And what a cultural phenomena, that even I, who almost never watch TV and have probably never watched Wheel of Fortune, still know that it's Vanna White and Pat Sajak and that contestants can "Buy a vowel" to complete a mystery word... Is there anyone in America today who does NOT know that? Is the program even still on? Who knows?

Unclear Pronoun References

Another entry found in Wikipedia (and that I fixed): "These dogs are very loving with children, provided they do not tease them." Who's teasing whom?

Important Is Sentence The of Order A

Here's a good one that I just excised from Wikipedia:

"Game show host [[Bob Barker]] is known for advising viewers of [[The Price is Right]] to help control the pet population, to have their pets spayed or neutered at the end of each episode."

My own personal dog would likely become exhausted being spayed at the end of each episode, not to mention the ongoing cost. But it would certainly give the vet something to do to keep him off the streets, committing random acts of veterinarianism.

Time Flies Like an Arrow, Fruit Flies Like a Banana

I can't believe it's been 3 weeks since I posted something here. It seems like only yesterday--or maybe 1996. I have trouble realizing that it's--like--2006 already! I still have trouble believing that I'm still not in the 20th century. January til March hardly seems like an aphid on the leaf that is my life on the plant of time (OK, I just felt the need for a bad metaphor).

For other Groucho Marx quotes (as in today's title line):

• quotationspage.com
• wikiquote.org

Word Play

I happened to notice that, in yesterday's Mercury News, three of the comic strips were based on plays on words--yes, puns!--although milder forms than some: The Duplex, The Quigmans, and to a lesser extent, Family Circus (http://www.familycircus.com/), where Jeffy? asks, "When did cowboys and start ridin' horses instead of cows?" Today, only one squeezed in wordplay.

Hmm, I'm thinking I'm going to make a point about the prevalence of wordplay in the English language because of so many "overloaded" words and phrases (those with multiple meanings), but I don't have time to do any research. Hate when THAT happens, too. Meanwhile, you can entertain yourself by reading Wikipedia's articles on word play and paronomasia (there's a word for ya).

Voodoo, Hoodoo, You Do...

Juju. It seems to have inserted itself violently into my current working vocabulary sometime in the last year or so. "Weird juju" or "bad juju" seem to be the sole phrases in which it's used. And I'm not the only one; it pops up everywhere in conversation. I got to wondering what it meant really (I know that in my mind it means sort of like voodoo or some hint of dire magic, but really what did it mean) and where did it come from and how long has it been a current slang?

I had an odd experience about 10 years ago where I encountered the phrase "sea change." Wow, thought I, what a lovely and creative way to express something that has altered profoundly. What a unique, original way to express it! And then--I encountered the phrase somewhere else. And somewhere else again. And in yet another place. And I heard it on the radio. And someone used it at work. And it was in magazines, fiction, newspapers. Everywhere. As if the world had undergone a sea change in its vocabulary overnight. But, in fact, I learned, the phrase had been in common use for a very, very long time, and most anyone I asked was familiar with it. Somehow for 40 years I had managed to completely avoid noticing a phrase that probably appears at least once in every novel or magazine ever published.

I tell you that story to tell you that juju has not only been around for longer than the last year or so, and that it is in fact in the dictionary, and to boot dates back to at least 1894 in American English. It originated in the languages of west Africa, probably related to the Hausa word jùju meaning fetish--as in the charm type of fetish. Its modern meaning is synonymous with charm, voodoo, fetish, or the supernatural power ascribed to such things.

Sooooo has the word been in hiding for all these years and is just coming into popular use? Or have I been sea changed again?

Zzzzzzzzz

The English language doesn't make a lot of use of the letter Z. The whole Z section of my Merriam-Webster's 1459-page Collegiate Dictionary is 4 pages. Zs in the middle of words aren't common, either, but they seem to follow a pretty predictable pattern of pronunciation; consider: puzzle, muzzle, guzzle, nuzzle, fuzzy-wuzzy wuzza bear, buzzer, defuzzer. So if a shopping mall offers "Kiddee Kruzzers" for the kids to ride, how WOULD you pronounce that?

Someone I was with—perhaps My Sister(tm)(*)— suggested that they meant it to be pronounced as cruiser...kroozer...like that. My belief is that some nonnative-English speaker came up with the phrase and the executives in charge laughed so hard about Kiddie Kruzzers (not Kroozers, mind you) that their resistance to common sense was overruled. Or perhaps they're meant to be Kruzzers, not Kroozers. After all, they spelled it to be Kruzzers, not Kroozers, and one has to give some credit for intelligence to someone who had the creativity to come up with little red car-shaped doohickeys for kids to be pushed around in in shopping malls. Right.

I always fantasize about going down to the mall office and asking what a Kruzzer is, and arguing ingenuously that I don't want a Kroozer, I want a Kruzzer and can they explain what one is.

But I probably never will.

* (My Sister (tm)--this phrase gives me a lot of leeway in blaming things on someone other than myself, but no one can become particularly steamed because it can apply to so many people, so I can argue ingenuously that I wasn't referring to her but rather some other sister.)

Said Word Order Is Important Who?

I left myself a note about the Wikipedia article on Doberman Pinschers ("Dobermann" is the title). The note said:

Dobermann needs editing badly.

The problem, of course, is that it has already been edited badly. What it badly needs is editing.

Who invented this language anyway?

The moral of the story is that your adverb should always be placed so as to modify the verb that you intended to modify. Elsewise modifications happen at random, and good not random placement word is.

Voice

I learned about this while skimming the questions at the Wikipedia Language Reference Desk:

You've heard of active voice (I hit the ball), you've heard of passive voice (the ball is hit by me); now, how about passive-aggressive voice (your butt will be kicked by me)? Just a thought--

Plenty of Bread

The loaf of bread I bought yesterday is labeled "Extra Sourdough Bread." Does this mean that you can buy it only if you already have some bread and need some extra? Or does this mean that they had a lot of leftovers at the factory? (OK, I'm guessing that bread isn't really made in a factory, but it's funnier than "bakery.")

So how would one correctly point out that the sourdough bread is extra sour? It would have to be "extra-sour sourdough bread," neh? I'm not sure that "extra-sour bread" would convince anyone that it was tasty, plus what happened to the dough?

OK, back to real work--

A Unique or An Unique?

Just another note about the challenges of the English language. Why "a unique..." rather than "an unique..."? When a "u" word is pronounced as though it begins with a "y" (yoo nique), it's treated more like the consonant sound of the y. So, a university, an umbrella, a usual day, an unusual day.

Here Am I

On Wikipedia, someone asked on the language reference desk about the difference among "I am here," "Here I am," and "Here am I." Other people had input; I added the following.

I usually see "here am I" in a more poetic or philosophical sense rather than in a physical sense; "here am I, pondering the vagaries of the English language once again." It puts more of an emphasis on the "I" part. Here's part of a favorite poem:

Shadows creep up the mountain,
Mountain goes black on the sky,
The sky bursts out with a million stars
And here, by the campfire,
Am I.
(Kathryn and Byron Jackson)

I'm thinking about this even more and actually the first two phrases can have different emphasis depending on the situation:

• "No one showed up for this meeting!" "Hey, *I*'m here."
• "You're daydreaming again instead of being mentally here with me!" "No, I *am* here."
• "Where are you exactly?" "I am *here*."
• "I give up, I can't find you!" "*Here* I am!"
• (Upon entering a party, late, where you're expected:) "Here I *am*."
• "We were all supposed to meet here at 2:00, well, here *I* am."

(So, in looking at those examples, you can see that ... putting "I" first places more importance on the person (note that importance isn't necessarily emphasis) but "here" first puts more importance on the location.) But I can't think of any more than one general usage for "here am I", which is the metaphysical or philosophical sense of one's existence as I mentioned earlier, or a poetic variation on "here I am".

(In response to question as to whether "here" is a preposition in these sentences:) Actually here is an adverb in most standard uses (as is there). Prepositions usually have an object (not sure that's the right term), explicit or implicit, as in "over the fire", "through the tunnel". Here is describing the ''am''.

We Know What They Mean, But--

Heard on the radio (often): "Thanks to Ron of the KCBS phone force, there's a tremendous backup on 101..." Gee, yeah, thanks a lot, Ron...

Who Needs Conjunctions Anyway?

Ahhhh, the joys of technical writing. On a daily basis I get to read enlightening engineering-written phrases like these:

This can be appended with C/C++ style structure member selection syntax.

Parse it, go ahead, I dare you.

B0o5t sat1sfact!on

Even with several layers of lovely spam filters, I get about 150 spams a day. I skim their subject lines because, once a week or so, some legitimate piece of email lands in the wrong place. Ergo, I am privileged to become intimately familiar with subject lines that are often boring, often schoolboy gross, usually crassly commercial--but sometimes filled with nothing but intriguing words, designed of course to get past the spam checkers that would be baffled by the vocabulary. For a while a few months back, every spammer, it seemed, found words from the hoary depths of the most obscure Scrabble or crossword puzzle dictionaries, but that trend has mostly, sadly, stopped. Yet some still arrive. Get out your dictionaries or explore at OneLook and get ready to play the dictionary game at your next cocktail party. (Which are real words? which not? can you tell before clicking the link? can you define them?):

antilogy sparge cheeseparing portage diarchy dimerous ringbolt serfage ashlar asphodel cuttystool

exteriority metayer rhomb rimer smalt philobiblic propinquity aeolus uwoknlbwtoqntoblr deliquescent nielloed

Who knew you could learn so much from spam? I mean, other than by actually opening the messages to find out how to become twice the man you used to be, for example.

The Lady Mondegreen Sings Christmas Carols

Tis the season to drape thousands of lights upon my tree and listen with half an ear to my Christmas CDs. I enjoy it all; but sometimes at this time of year I miss the companionship of a spouse or partner. Perhaps it's no surprise that, singing along with "O Christmas Tree", I found myself mouthing the words, "O Christmas Tree, you are my only lover." What a sad and lonely Christmas the songwriter must have been having, thought I. Then, sanity reasserting itself, I listened more carefully to hear what they were really singing. By Jove, it certainly sounded like "you are my only lover," no matter how carefully I listened. (The Time-Life Treasury of Christmas, 1987, Disc A, "Medley," Arthur Fiedler and the Boston Pops. As of June 14, 2024, you can listen to that recording of O Tannenbaum with these unidentified lyrics on YouTube here; It starts around 1:01:00. Wait for the second verse. And tell me if you know what the heck they are singing.)

This carol is interesting because it wasn't written originally in English, but in German ("O Tannenbaum"). As a result, there are no "correct" English lyrics; what you read, hear, or sing depends on the translation used. Each book of carols in which I looked it up and on each lyrics web site, the words are somewhat different. So I suppose it's possible that, in this one translation, someone slipped in "you are my only lover," although I haven't been able to verify that.

If so, I suspect it was the Lady Mondegreen's doing. For more Mondegreen Christmas lyrics, see Snopes.com. And read additional information about Mondegreen lyrics by the author of the entertaining book, Deck the Halls with Buddy Holly and Other Misheard Christmas Lyrics.

Three Times Three (and bonus jargon)

We return you to today's Mercury News. Not that I'm picking on them--they just happen to be there. From an article on airport runway safety, it describes beds of crushed gravel as safety zones at the ends of runways and says that such systems "have stopped three dangerous overruns three times since May 1999 at Kennedy Airport." I'm afraid for my flying safety if indeed there have been 9 dangerous overruns in total. Don't you find it interesting that, in each of the three times when the safety beds worked, there were three simultaneous dangerous overruns? Or perhaps I'm confused—perhaps there were only three overruns, but each had to be stopped three times? (Why, didn't they get it right the first time?)

The airport industry assists in my confusion by referring to "Engineered Material Arresting Systems (EMAS)". Another example of appalling industry jargon. With an appalling acronym, as well. Picture yourself the next time you're piloting your 747 into Kennedy Airport, and your brakes are failing, and someone yells "head for the EMAS!" What the f***, you'd be thinking to yourself, does that mean? It means, gentle readers, crushed gravel beds at the ends of runways. Now, if they really felt that they had to give it an acronymizable name, why not something more obvious, like Emergency Gravel Airport Deflection System (EGADS)? Now picture yourself screeching in for the same emergency landing, and the control tower could simply yell, "Egads!" Everything would be hunky dory. See, someone should pay me for these ideas.

(San Jose Mercury News, Dec 10, 2005, "Hemmed-in Chicago runway scrutinized after fatal crash".)