Relying on nuance to complain

When a complaint about language is merely a statement about preference I have no reason to argue against it. I have my preferences too. When it's based on faulty understanding or analysis of language structure or history my response should only go as far as saying that the logic is incorrect. So while the conclusion might still stand it needs a different rationale. But what if the complaint itself doesn't make any sense?

I've mentioned Minnesota Public Radio's Grammar Grater^® podcast a couple times before. As I've said before the show is pretty good at not complaining about language abuses. The writers usually accept that language change is not a sign of weakness. And I find no major fault with last week's contribution Episode 56: The Essence of an Expression.

The episode is "inspired" by Bryan from Seattle's very uninspired complaint. They quote him:

I hear time is of the essence all the time, and it's almost always misused. It does not mean we are in a hurry—it comes from contract law, and means that cited dates and times are part of the fundamental trade-offs in the contract, or part of its essence. It means that if something is supposed to happen by noon the next day, before the end of the year is not good enough.

My response: What are you complaining about Bryan? You're saying it means pretty much the same thing. That a task has to be accomplished before a certain point in time.

He gets a fair response. GG turns to the business law expertise of Paul Muilenberg who says The reality is that in almost every case, time is very important essentially means the same thing as we are in a hurry,

Bryan is probably picking on a reading of the phrase to mean 'we are in a hurry' but that's a peevishly chosen reading. The phrase is similar to 'remember there's a deadline' or 'time is running out.' Those are true at any point in a timeline and they don't directly mean 'we are in a hurry' or 'you should hurry up.' But they are really only used when the fact might affect behaviour. It is typically the context that leads the conversation implicature that it's worth noting that time is of the essence because we are uncomfortably close to that essential time.

It's not really the fault of GG but it is pretty clear that the listeners and readers feel it is their job to offer up simple complaints. The comment boards are riddled with peevological rants and opinions. Tho not uniformly. There are also comments disagreeing with the rants or just saying 'calm down.'

It's a fascinating if at times frustratingly common pattern of discussions about language being dominated by those who are just looking to shoehorn a complaint into an observation.

An technicality at worst

I'm not sure I want to write this post. Ben Zimmer's study of (and commentary on) language is impressive reasonable thorough precise entertaining and...good.

And he has been kind enough to leave a few comments here. For all--our thanks. So I don't want to protest too much.

In his wholly reliable style he recently posted over at Language Log about Victor Washington's case against the NFL. Washington seeks fuller retirement benefits because of his injuries. The NFL doesn't want to pay out so much. Washington's plan offered higher benefits if he suffered "a football injury" and the NFL is sticking to the argument that his several injuries don't entitle him to "Level 1" benefits. (Follow this link to read the story.)

The sentence that caught my attention was the following observation by Zimmer regarding arbitrator Sam Kagel's use of "a" instead of "an" in the phrase "a injury."

"The legal emphasis on the word a would apparently be lost if it underwent the regular addition of the epenthetic consonant /n/ to create an before a word beginning with a vowel like injury."

His suggestion makes sense regarding the rhetoric. I'll buy it. I'm not sure about his analysis of the a/an alternation as epenthesis: the /n/ being an additional letter. It is additional if we say the underlying form of the article is a. But historically the form was an which was realized as a before most consonants. In that case "an" alternates with "a" by deletion of the /n/ coda. So at most this is a pure technicality.

But let's say that for the sake of a clear point Zimmer is using the wording of the retirement/disability plan as the underlying form. Since the plan uses the phrase "a football injury" we'll say our input is "a"; and from that form to its reflex in the phrase "a(n) injury" we would expect that /n/ would be added because the new phrase places the article before [i] instead of [f]. But I'm still not sure I'd call it epenthesis in that case.

And I'm not sure that I wouldn't.

_

Remind me not to do yoga with him

I've never been a fan of Jackass or any of those crazy-stunt shows that focus on attention starved boys kicking each other in the groin. I'm not sure what they do or say to each other to convince themselves that their little dares are worth taking. Perry Caravello must have known what he was getting into doing business with Johnny Knoxville. And at some point while putting his genitals a mousetrap he must have thought This might not be entirely pleasant.

Yes. He put his genitals in a mousetrap.

His lawsuit now claims that he was injured. Not a surprise. Wasn't that the whole point? I don't know how much tissue damage is necessary to constitute injury but even if there was no tissue damage I'm willing to go ahead and say that a mousetrap snapping on your slim-jim counts as an injury. So don't do it.

Here's the surprise. The lawsuit makes the following claim.

Plaintiff agreed to do so, and, much to his emotional tranquility and to his physical harm, was severely injured when the trap literally went on his manhood[.]

Is this a legal term? Emotional tranquility? Uhhh...what? Either this is a mistake or Mr Caravello is one hell of a Buddhist.

Or...
The phrase anticipates the phrase "was severely injured" and the sentence is trying to say that his emotional tranquility was severely injured -- he sustained severe injury to his emotional tranquility. But putting it alongside "physical harm" confuses the whole sentence. How can severe injury undo his emotional stability while at the same time furthering his physical harm? But if "and to his physical harm" is a parenthetical that isn't coordinated with "to his emotional tranquility" then we have a reading that makes more sense to me. Let's see if we can rewrite that just a little:

"In regard to his emotional tranquility (and this caused him physical harm) he was severely injured when the trap literally went on his manhood."

Now one last question. Did it hurt as soon as it "went on" his manhood or was it when it "went-off on" his manhood? It doesn't matter. It was a stupid idea from the beginning.

And according to the lawsuit he didn't get paid. Yeah I'm sure that stings.

I Don't Think He'll Keep It Down

Here's an odd strategy for keeping teenagers quiet.

According to the Associated Press a woman who thought a 14 year old boy was too loud when playing basketball decided to encourage discourage his noise by standing on her sundeck and dropping her clothes. He ran into the house to tell his parents.

The linguistic concern here is that the law regarding indecent exposure refers to the perpetrator as one who "exposes his person." So the judge threw out the case. The prosecution argues that elsewhere in California state law is the claim "words used in the masculine gender include the feminine and neuter" so this indecency law is not gender specific and the woman should be prosecuted.

Is it possible that the masculine includes the "feminine" and "neuter?" Would it be more accurate to say that grammatically masculine words may also refer to people or objects that are not male?

But I lean towards the prosecution. There is some ambiguity in the wording of the law. It certainly would be gender exclusive if instead of "his person" it refered to "his manhood." And without regard to gender isn't "his person" kind of vague anyway? If I have a coat on my "person" I can still be wearing it as I should -- on my back and shoulders right?