Confessional

I think my bank account must have some impact on my linguistic judgment. So I'll blame my unfair impressions on my low funds. I have pennies envy.

Because I'm a linguist I feel guilty having a negative opinion about some lexical terms. I'm constantly telling my class that usage doesn't necessarily betray an attitude beyond those that are part of the truth conditions of an utterance. Accents don't necessarily indicate an attitude. Even hoity-toity ones. And terminology is conventional and often determined by community. Jargon isn't always a way of excluding others or bragging about being a part of an elite group.

And yet…

I recently read a short line from someone lamenting that their car was damaged. That's fine. But the writer of this little chirping complaint included the fact that it was his 7 series that was damaged. My first thought: well then I don't care.

Grice's maxim of quantity states that the speaker will give as much information as possible but no more than necessary. By telling me that it it was a 7 series I must assume that he thinks it's necessary information.

Something I own was scratched by a piece of metal.

Yeah. Not enough information. Not really newsworthy. I need more.

Something I own that will cost a lot of money to fix was scratched by a piece of metal.

OK. Worth telling me about but conspicuous in it's vagueness. Why not tell me what it was.

My car was scratched by a piece of metal. This I understand. I need no more information. If my car was scratched by a piece of metal, I'd be upset. No matter what make of car. But if you tell me that your 7 series was scratched… well you just lost my sympathy. I'm willing to invoke the Grice defense. Your violation of the maxim of quantity leads me to assume that there are other implications. Implications of you being an ass. Sorry. I'm just playing the odds.

But then I catch myself rolling my eyes when I hear someone referring to their car as a beemer — even when I don't sense a violation of Grice's maxim of quantity.

Let's imagine a conversation about an Oscar party.

-What time does it start?
-The party starts around Seven. I think I'll just walk because I live so close. How are you getting there?
-I'll be taking the BMW.

Violation. I didn't need to know what kind of car. It's not relevant. You're bragging. I can tell.

However:

-What time does it start?
-The party starts around Seven. I think I'll just walk because I live so close. How are you getting there?
-I'll be taking my car.
-What do you drive?
-A BMW.

No violation. No problem. BMW is a relevant answer.

So obviously I'd judge the following as a violation:

-What time does it start?
-The party starts around Seven. I think I'll just walk because I live so close. How are you getting there?
-I'm taking the Beemer.

But then I feel guilty judging you in the following exchange:

-What time does it start?
-The party starts around Seven. I think I'll just walk because I live so close. How are you getting there?
-I'll be taking my car.
-What do you drive?
-A beemer.

I should be able to accept that beemer is simply the word that you use to refer to your car and I have no reason to think that your term indicates anything about your attitude. I know this in my mind. But my heart tells me not to trust you. Tread softly.

The worst perfect word

Someone out there is spreading the idea that diarrhea is a perfect word. At least that's what one of my students told me. 'Is that true?' she asked. Perfect for what? I asked.

The claim apparently has something to do with the sound and spelling of the word. About the spelling I assured her that the word is actually a pretty bad example of spelling/sound correspondence. The <d> is fine, corresponding to [d]. Then we have <i> corresponding to [aɪ] and <a> corresponding to [ə]. The doubled symbols <rr> are clear, but only one is necessary. Then we have the <h> that corresponds to nothing; there is no [h] in the pronunciation. And finally we have a digraph <ea> that often corresponds to [i] but in this case represents two syllables, [i.ə].

It's not a particularly confusing spelling -- but it's far from a perfect correspondence.

More interesting then is the onomatopoetic quality. Is diarrhea the perfect word for what it means? Because of the blood oath I took to believe in the arbitrariness of language, I have to start off by saying that this is often a pointless argument to make. Words capture and express their meaning because of a conventionalized denotation and connotation, not because of an inherent quality.

But this shouldn't stop us from appreciating that the sound of diarrhea does in some ways capture the flowing nature of its disgusting extension. After the voiced stop onset we have a diphthong gliding into a schwa leading into an approximant giving way to a tense vowel that falls into another unstressed mid vowel schwa. The word flows.

But an important point to make here is that it's really just a coincidence that we can make these observations about the word as a mimetic expression. There's no reason to think that diarrhea would not work equally well for another meaning. If a word sounds horrible to us it's almost always because we find something about the meaning horrible. If a word sounds beautiful to us it's usually because we appreciate what it means. If we switched the meanings, and diarrheal traded places with mellifluous we would probably think diarrheal was the perfect word for a rich and lyrical sound.

Take this job and put it

I don't know what the impact of the phrase is in Venezuela. But several English translations are claiming that Hugo Chávez said America can "shove" its terrorist list.

The AP headline: Chavez says US can 'shove' terrorist list.

The story quotes him: "Let them make that list and shove it in their pocket."

The Canadian press uses the same quote.

The Reuters story quotes Chávez: "Great, let them make their list and shove it in their ... pocket,"

What's the original Spanish? "Bueno, que hagan esa lista y se la metan en el ... bolsillo."

A close (and therefore awkward, ungrammatical and unclear) wording: Well, that they make that list and put them it in the pocket.

the phrase "se la metan" Contains the verb in question. There's a reflexive sense best translated in combination with "el bolsillo" meaning something like put it into their own pocket. The verb meter is simply to put in.

The English verb shove has strong connotations with putting things in other places. And it's likely that the Spanish verb has a similar connotation. A few sources add the ellipses which I imagine is meant to indicate a pause. I haven't found video or audio of the statement.

Think of someone saying stick it in your...ear. Or put it or cram it or shove it.

Place it doesn't quite capture it does it?

Is Yahoo Serious?

I can't call it a snowclone. I'm not sure what name I would give for the pattern--other than 'tired joke.' A story on NPR about James Burrow's new sitcom starring Kelsey Grammer and Patricia Heaton has been given the title "'Back to You' Crew: Sitcoms Are Serious Business." No one expects this headline to elicit a laugh of course but it is playing with the connotations of serious. Jokes are serious? How can that be? I thought jokes were only funny!

A Google™ search tells us that the following are "(a) serious business" in a search for "[X] are (a) serious business":

• Games (5X)


• Cybernet games


• Legos


• Toys (3X)


• funnies


• Funny Ads


• comedies


• comics (4X)


• jokes (2X)


• hoots and hollers (ie laughter)

Those were all found within 200 results (100 each for [X] is serious business and [X] is a serious business). These reversals were not the most common subjects--they make up about 10% of all results.

I would create 4 tiers of the types of results. The first is use devoid of irony. The writers who claim that hurricanes, missles, eating disorders, drugs or allergies are serious are speaking with cheek clear of all tongue. The only slight reversal in the list might be something like "allergies": an affliction some people might consider a mere nuisance but which the writer is saying is a source of real suffering for some people.

I'll put the first list above into an opposing tier: opposing the 2nd list and directly opposing expectation. It's a list of topics that would often be considered contradictory to seriousness. In fact the definition of several of these could easily include the necessary quality that they are not serious. Likewise, serious activity might easily be defined as an activity/event that does not allow games or anything funny or comical.

The third tier would be a list of topics/objects that would not normally be considered serious and which might more likely be considered contrary to seriousness. Cupcakes, birthday parties, and noodles would rarely be defined as serious, but neither would I expect anyone to sp define a cupcake as a non-serious item. But if prompted to rate the seriousness my guess is that these types of objects would fall on the non-serious side. Only an impression--but I'm pretty certain... Non-seriousness may not be a necessary connotation, but seriousness might be an incompatible connotation.

One last tier is the completely neutral. Mowers, acquisitions, reunions and minivans have no typical connotation to either seriousness or non-seriousness. Claiming that these are serious business has no strong implication of bet ya didn't think so...like humor or burritos. Yes it does blend on the edge with the 3rd tier. Especially since inference is a slippery determiner of connotation.

There is of course no clear line between any of these tiers. And any arguement based solely on my inferrences is easily boring even to me. But there is an interesting pattern at each end--of either typical intention or reversal of intention--that favours repetition of items that are in the first two tiers. Illness and disaster are represented heavily as are humor and play.

Out of 200 results 26 said humor or play was serious business. Another 26 said disaster or disease was serious business. These 52 results were distinct results: repetitions were not counted. That left 148 results. The remaining 148 comprised a variety of results: food, legal procedures, machines (technology in general), cultural/mass-media references, hobbies, botany, biology, travel...and all the repetitions thereof.

I decided to leave out any search using "is" because I figured "are" made the point already. But the first 10 results for "* is serious business" turn up 2 results for "comedy"--so maybe using "is" would have made the point better.

Well clearly this is not quite the most scientific survey. So far from it in fact that I should just drop the litotes and say it flat out: this is not a scientific survey. But it does show a pattern with general antonymy that I mentioned in a post a while ago when I wrote

Somewhere in that encyclopedic matrix of 'what this word means' is an awareness of what the word does not mean and a sense of the word's opposites and even complements.

Sometimes that awareness is subconscious and sometimes its foremost in our intention. And that awareness leads us to rely too often on those opposed meanings--thinking too often that we are the first to come up with a clever use of a word.

I can name that drug with three connotations

Daniel's suggestion of Ameliozene is good (comments of last post). These drug brands can be just that transparent in their implications.

Some notable drug brand names (assume a little ® after each):

Abilify: This antipsychotic drug has a nice 'verbing' name. To make able or to give ability is to abilify right?

Acarbose: Of course diabetics want to neutralize or decarbify all those sugars. They're not carbs. They're Acarbs.

Actron: Not only will you ease your suffering from osteoarthritis, you'll be strong like a robot!

Alavert: Avert is not only appropriate for someone hoping to avoid allergies--vert is also a popular syllable with that upright connotation.

Bactroban: This medication for bacterial skin disease has a negative sense. The name introduces itself as half bacteria for goodness sake.

Celexa: Half of the Citalopram molecule was useless and caused side effects. So they refined it and used only the good half to make Lexapro (Escitalopram). It's like Celexa finally made it to "the show."

Eulexin: These brands love that 'X'.

Flomax: Your enlarged prostate is keeping the flow to a minimum. Well take it to the max. (See this SNL ad for Urigrow. A disgusting parody that's very funny.)

Januvia: For some reason J is not a popular initial letter.

Miltown: Feeling anxious. Come on down to Miltown. More Chillin' when you're illin'

Provigil: Pro is a popular drug brand name morpheme. What sufferer from narcolepsy doesn't wish to be capable of a vigil?

Proscar: Either a racing circuit or a lobby in favor of the cicatrix or a bad name for a medication for an enlarged prostate.

Wigraine: Suffering from migraine? Wigraine? Because you deserve relief.

Wytensin: Why so tense? Wytensin. (You know they thought of that.)

Zanamivir: It's intended to curtail the flu virus. It sounds like the master of the pan flute. Wait. Zanamivir... respiration... flu... playing the flute... pan flute master Zamfir...

Zyban: We don't want any more Zys Dammit!

So I suggest we call this new drug Extasty (PRO) and make it in the shape of a little candy heart stamped with the message "Say Yes to Me!"

You say "potato" I say "loathsome starchy glob thing."

An AP story reports that Keanu Reeves allegedly conducted his Porsche into contact with a man on Monday evening. The story opens thus:

Keanu Reeves was behind the wheel of a Porsche that allegedly grazed a celebrity photographer standing in the path of the sports car, investigators said Tuesday. The photographer fell to the ground and paramedics were called after Reeves' car allegedly struck the man at 7:30 p.m. Monday, said Deputy Ed Hernandez of the Los Angeles County Sheriff's Department.

I had a hard time starting this post because my point was to highlight the writer's chosen wording especially in reference to the pedestrian. I know my first sentence sounds tethered and evasive. I was trying to be so.

The headline reads Reeves' car allegedly hits photographer and the story twice refers to the pedestrian as a "photographer" and once as a "celebrity photographer" before a quote from LA Sheriff's Deputy Ed Hernandez refers to him as a "paparazzi."

Before we roll our eyes too dismissively regarding the writer's obvious agenda of impartiality (can an agenda be impartial?) by using the neutral term in place of the loaded paparrazzi or paparrazzo we should note that Mr Reeves' lawyer Jay Lavely is given ample attention with an uninterrupted and conspicuously long quote. In the generous spotlight Lavely uses "paparazzo" 4 times. He also says the hit was "brought on more by the actions of the [cameraman] than by the actions of Mr Reeves." Laver attempts not only to deflect culpability, but tries to lessen the incident by saying that Reeves "slowly inch[ed] the car away from the curb." Notice that he has drawn attention away from the claim that Reeves was driving, calling attention to the curb: where cars tend to be stationary.

Regarding the hit (a noun which the headline implies by using the related verb) or graze (which the Deputy Sheriff implies by his use of the related verb (thus prompting the writer to report the allegation with the same verb)) Lavely starts with "If" and refers to "contact with the paparazzo."

He then says "It appeared as if the paparazzo was trying to
cause this type of encounter."

Did the filthy paparazzo take a dive? Was the celebrity profile artist assaulted? Is this a case of a visual promotions specialist being crushed under a wheel or was an exploitative private-life profiteer lightly brushed by a door handle?

Only the box office gross of Keanus Reeves' next movie will tell.