Exactly like nothing we've ever seen

Undiscovered animal, alien, or a hoax? How about none of the above?



Again with the suspension of ignorance. We don't know what any aliens look like. So to say that this looks like an alien requires that alien be shorthand for what we have imagined or previously suggested that some aliens look like. And undiscovered of course means previously undiscovered. Both of those abbreviations are reasonable and common in conversation.

But it's quite a stretch to say that a hairless sloth is the most bizarre discovery.

Chupacabra = not very coyote-like coyote

We have another chupacabra candidate.



Jerry Ayer pretty much admits that not knowing what to call it is good enough for him. So he might as well call it a chupacabra. And why not? It'll help bring some attention to his taxidermy business.

But the issue of what we expect a chupacabra to be is harder to resolve. From an investigative position I have to say that longer front legs doesn't convince me this isn't a coyote. Some will argue that just looking at it should be enough evidence that it's not a coyote. It doesn't look like one and that's how we decide most animal classifications. This is an OK argument as far as we trust that seeing something provides us with enough information about it to include or exclude it in a class. If we take the time to identify what exactly doesn't look like a coyote, we come up with the same argument. Just more detailed. No fur = we trust it's not a coyote. But long legs? This is why just lookin' can be so easily countered. Because impressions need to survive investigation.

The old saying about looking sounding and... tasting like a duck is really based on an interplay of feature analysis and prototypes. Prototype theory suggests that we have an idea of an ideal duck in mind when we call something a duck. And we know when we see a good example of what we were thinking.¹ Feature analysis works by proposing a checklist of those features common to a set. Proper features might be something like physical characteristics. Size. Shape. Skin/coat type. When distinguishing species, it's safe to say that something [+scales] is not the same species as something [-scales][+fur]. So for any category, feature analysis will suggest that there is a set of features that are necessary and sufficient for classification. So every member of a group is and must be [+F1] [+F2] [+F3]...

But features are tough to lock down. Features like quadriped or biped can be used when categorizing members of some classes. So among other things, a human is [+biped] and a dog is [+quadriped]. But a husky with two legs is still a dog. Even if it was born with two legs. So we can add a set of transitive features. A little mammal born of a dog is also a dog.² Even if it doesn't have some of the features we use to identify dogs. But this is just passing the buck. Such transitive features rely on the premise that the class of one dog is already known. In some cases this is valid. Like the difference between a Ford and a Chrysler.³ But we haven't moved too far with the analysis. We find ourselves stuck with the ultimate feature being tautological. A dog is [+dog].

This question of the chupacabra works by subtraction. The argument is almost explicit that since it's "unlike anything native to Texas" it must be that mysterious chupacabra that we have never before seen. That's not a very strong argument. But we use some of the assumed features of the chupacabra in our analysis. I wrote about this exact topic a couple of years ago.

So now we see that Texas has produced two of what look like the same weird little sucker. And only 130 miles apart. I'll go out on a limb and say that if we find a few more of these creatures that look like bald coyotes with long front legs, a new category will be created. Some name will be suggested. But no one will accept that this is the little monster. The chupacabra will still be an elusive little wingless bat that must remain [+mysterious].

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1. That's too simple to be very helpful. But we'll move on for the sake of space.
2. One big question here: are we sure it's a dog because when born of a dog it must be a dog, or because we trust that it simply will be a dog?
3. Let's avoid the arguments about quality usually heard in the vicinity of a set of truck nuts and bumper sticker of Calvin taking a leak.

Crossing the threshold of hype

If you watched the video in the last post and you follow reputable language bloggers, you could probably guess that what caught my attention was Craig Crawford's acknowledgment of the Global Language Monitor's claim that English now has one million words.

But acknowledgment doesn't sound right to me. How about 'Crawford's duped acknowledgment...'? That's more like it.

I've written about Payack before, and so have the important language bloggers. The arguments haven't really changed, but they're worth repeating.

A relaxed definition of word would easily lead to several million words in the English language. At any point that you decide to limit the definition of word you've got an argument to make. Do we count rock and rocks as separate words? How about mouse and mice? How about the different tenses of verbs?

Once we get past such grammatical distinctions we have the hard part. Certainly teeter-totter and seesaw and hickey-horse should be counted as words distinct from each other, but what about potato bug referring to the Jerusalem cricket and potato bug referring to the woodlouse? Is potato bug₁ distinct from potato bug₂?

And then we have words like tubular which used to mean resembling a tube then during my childhood I learned it as cool, far out, groovy, outasight. One word or two? Does the second meaning even count as a word? How do we count slang?

How about ginormous? Fucktastic? Krunk? Bevemirage? The arguments about what is and what isn't a word immediately dissolve Mr Payack's claims that on June 10, 2009 at 5:22 GMT the millionth word entered the English language. The only way this determination is even theoretically defensible is if Payack and and his algorithm were able to account for ever slang word and every bit of jargon and every portmanteau and sandwich word and regionalism and simply say when you count everything without argument about what should be counted, there are X words known to and used by English speakers.

And that's only theoretically possible. And the count would be many times what Payack says it is. Especially if phrases like "wardrobe malfunction" are counted as words. How about other compositionally predictable items like "terrorist attack" or "computer program"? If they occur together enough, are they single words in addition to the individual words they comprise?

But he claims that his number is only an estimate and it's meant to celebrate the globalisation of English. We already know that English is global and we could have celebrated it a long time ago. And there's no reason to celebrate the threshold now just because he has marked the date.

According to a barely skeptical CNN.com story

[Payack's] computer models check a total of 5,000 Web sites, dictionaries, scholarly publications and news articles to see how frequently words are used, he said. A word must make 25,000 appearances to be deemed legitimate.

So it's a late celebration if we decide a word needs 10,000 appearances from 10,000 sources. And it's a very early celebration if we decide 30,000 appearances on 2,500 sources is necessary. And that is if we agree on a standard of word-form count.

Craig Crawford's home turf is CQ Politics, not Language Log or Visual Thesaurus. So we can't expect his bullshit sensor to be as well-tuned on issues of lexicography. But there is a tendency to believe a sparkly press release merely because it would be cool for it to be true. And the coverage of Payack's pronouncement has been more eager than investigative. The linguists are usually included as mere dissenters: stingy academics stifling the entrepreneurial spirit. There are exceptions.

A BBC4 segment pitted Payack against Ben Zimmer on level ground. With the opportunity to speak plainly in response, Zimmer shut down the claims pretty easily. When PRI's The World reran the story the silliness of such claims was pushed even further to the fore with David Crystal's reasonable voice adding some lovely and firm criticism.

The relevant segment takes up the first 10 minutes.



Even the host, Patrick Cox, speaks with a clearly dismissive tone, not just of Payack, but of the headline writers who were "the only people who seemed to like the story and the declaration."

Bravo Mr Cox. Bravo.

So is Palin Goose or Charlie?

A short piece at dcexaminer.com takes a look at the history and current state of maverick. Usually pieces like this are eager to provide an easy story that sounds reasonable. And they're often much too easy to be true. Those are called folk etymologies.^†

But this story keeps it together and gives a decent history.

In the 1860s, Samuel Maverick was an indifferent herder who refused to brand his cattle. When cowboys would see his unmarked cows wondering the countryside, they'd say, 'Oh that's a Maverick.'

Compare that to the OED entry:

< the name of Samuel Augustus Maverick (1803-70), U.S. politician, and the owner of a large herd of cattle in Texas in which the calves were unbranded.

Also relevant to the story of this word: the use of an emerging derivation

It seems the family's biggest confusion is not that McCain links himself to a liberal family (We have some Republicans in the family now admits Mrs. Maverick) but that he hasn't done anything very mavericky.

Mavericky is an adjective that is formed by the derivational adjective suffix -y. It's been making the rounds. SNL used it amusingly in its VP debate sketch

Tina Fey (as Sarah Palin): With Barack Obama you're gonna be payin' higher taxes. But not with me and my fellow maverick. We are not afraid to get mavericky in there and ruffle feathers, and not got to allow that. And also too: the great Ronald Reagan.

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† We could say a lot about the different types of folk etymology. Two major types: 1) Explicit: a false story about the history of a word. Explanations like the claim that posh is an acronym for Portside Out Starboard Home; or that fuck is an acronym meaning for unlawful carnal knowledge or fornication under carnal knowledge or fornication under command of the king; or that hooker (prostitute) is related in origin to Civil War general Joseph Hooker —all false. 2) Effective: a morphological analysis that mistakenly connects words just because they sound or look similar. These might not be explicitly noted but they often affect pronunciation (as Geoff Nunberg suggests that a folk etymological connection to words like molecular and particular has effected the pronunciation 'nuk-yu-ler') or meaning (as jejune has been connected to the idea of youth probably because of resemblance to juvenile while the true etymology connects it to the sense of emptiness by fasting).

Wouldn't a little be enough?

More and more I think the BBC knows that it's doing this sort of thing.The reporting starts of with nods to a reasonably skeptical tone. But the story about the allegedly existent hirsute megalopodous quasihomonid ends on a cheeky note.

Stories of a giant ape roaming the forests of North America date back to before European settlement. But despite occasional footprints and photographs, there has never been much proof of Bigfoot's existence.

But there may be some charitable reading of this use of proof. It may be related to the term from Scottish law for a civil case. Or it may be some sort of cancelable predicate. If it's worth specifying proof beyond a reasonable doubt then it can also be proved within an enormous amount of reasonable doubt. Right?

English on statistical deathbed

According to the statistics provided by the Global Language Monitor English is only 4,882 words short of a million.

I mentioned Paul JJ Payack's accounting project a month ago. So why bring it up again?

Because in an entire month not a single new word has entered the English Language! Not one. No explanation has been given for this stagnant spell.

I've got a word for him

I've heard a lot lately about mistaken spellings and pronunciations of Barack Obama's name. As if a slip of the tongue is disrespectful. It happens. I've already heard him mistakenly called Oback Barama several times. And just last week Jay Leno slipped and called him Osama. I trust it was a mistake. It has nothing to do with attitude.

Now over at the Global Language Monitor Obama is being counted as a new root word in English and its various derivations are adding up: Obamamentum, Obamacize, Obamarama, ObamaNation, Obamanomics, Obamican, Obamafy, Obamamania, Obamacam

Why is the word count important? Because Paul JJ Payack, "GLM’s president and chief word analyst" has been peddling his million word landmark for several years now and his latest promise is that we are only 4,882 away in the English language. There's a clock on the page keeping track of seconds.

Back to the mispronunciation topic: whole word metathesis was never mentioned. Over on the Global Language Monitor page



A lot of papers and stations are taking this Payack fellow seriously. He's worth ignoring. A simple mistake like switching the names is nothing. The mistake is believing that anyone could pin down and count the words in the English language. And the shame is in claiming to be the one doing it. I'll make up a word: lexicanery. That's trying to make money by making false but seductive claims about language.

It didn't drop to 4,881 did it?

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BBC's myth-take on dialects

Tenser, said the Tensor posted a couple weeks back on the BBC presentation of How the Edwardians Spoke. His post does a fine job of going over some of the laughable claims made by program host Joan Washington.

It's an hour long so if you have the time you should watch it. And just for the record: it is an enjoyable hour even tho Ms Washington peppers it with ridiculous conjecture and baffling superstitions. The recordings are fascinating. And occasionally touching.

Watch the Google™ video or the GUBA video (better quality). Both are downloadable.

A few parts that stuck with me:

◊ At about 15:00 when told that the Germans made these tapes with the intention of using the data to learn native British dialects she reacts with what strikes me as an incredibly patronizing "Do you...Do you...Do you surmise that? Do you guess that? Or do you know that?"

Her disfluency strikes me as indicative of a sudden discomfort. I don't think she believes Jürgen-Kornelius Mahrenholz. She has been leaning in towards him and as soon as she starts asking she backs away. My instinct tells me that she's aware that there's aggression in her question and she's padding it by her slight retreat. Notice that when he tells her that there is documentation of the fact her cheeky smile fades slightly. (She might not be used to people being able to actually back up their claims.) But I'm no Jack Byrnes. It's just an impression.

◊ Her claims regarding terrain and sinuses and temperature affecting the phonetics of dialects remind of the hokum I mentioned this past summer. But take a look at the IMDb page. At least one viewer thinks those are interesting claims. The stuff sells. Fallacies are the best opiate.

◊ Washington's label of Major and Minor keys in accents is particularly interesting. I can't imagine how the intonations of dialects would be bound to a major or minor key. They're really just full of accidentals. And given the relatively narrow range of pitches and the great variation in tones from phrase to phrase and sentence to sentence it's much more likely that we're looking at a chromatic scale.

This major/minor distinction is a tough one for the untrained. People really know as little about music as they do about linguistics. Earlier today a rerun of My Wife and Kids featured a guest appearance by the wonderful Betty White. In one scene she plays a difficult passage on the piano and remarks "Did you hear that? ... Your C-major is a quarter tone off." C major could be a quarter tone off. Sure. But that wouldn't be a helpful observation because it could really only mean that one note in the C major chord or scale is off. And that same note could be in the A minor scale (It would have to be really) or the C harmonic minor or the C minor or the A major...as long as it's a white key. But back to the dialect stuff:

Washington makes the distinction between major and minor keys by saying that in a major key the speaker sounds self assured and confident and in a minor key the phrases and sentences don't end on any clear and definite note. Notes are all just as definite in every key. She seems to be talking about phrase ending intonation which is sometimes a rising or falling tone and sometimes not. But that has nothing to do with keys. Each key is as definite as the rest.

The best example of the difference between a major and minor key that I can think of (and that people are likely to recognize) is the Gracie Films fanfare best known from the closing credits for The Simpsons. The normal ditty is in a major key but the Halloween Treehouse of Horror episodes feature a little shift into a minor key.

Where I come from we have a word for this

Mr Verb recently posted a gateway to a brilliantly ignorant article at The Christian Science Monitor website. It's a grand ol' flailing attempt at linguistics by anthropology PhD student David Keyes. The CSM article is a shorter version of an earlier post on his own blog.

Mr Verb controlled his commentary--and with good reason. It's hardly worth the argument because the claims are quite ridiculous. But there's reason to think that a counter voice is necessary. Just look at the commentary on Keyes' blog. His readers love this stuff and they feel smarter having read it. Ay...(that's Spanish for Oy Vey).

His claim is simple. Soccer proves that the Sapir-Whorf hypothesis is true.

Let's dive into this shallow end of argument:

Keyes references the "obscure theory about linguistics called the Sapir-Whorf Hypothesis" claiming that it offers an explanation for the great chasm between "English" and "Argentinian" soccer. As an example he introduces the Spanish term enganche for a soccer position. He was confused when he first heard the word then he learned what it meant.

From his original post:

The reason that I had so much trouble understanding enganche was because it was a position that didn’t fit into my frame of reference, which only had space for defenders, midfielders, and forwards.

That's like saying that I once found it so hard to understand French pomme de terre because my frame of reference only had room for spuds and taters. It's called not knowing the translation.

And as commenter Brett points out here, David's claim--that his ability to understand the position is hindered by his not knowing enganche--is felled by the fact that he has the word playmaker and he uses it. Not knowing how one vocabulary corresponds to another does not in any way equal not having the ablility to conceive as the other does. In fact he uses 2 terms for the idea: "a number ten" and "a playmaker". This apparent reliance on the idea that language-shapes conception would surely conclude for that for Keyes this position is twice as important and easy to conceive of because he uses twice as many words for them. Right? (if this sounds like the Eskimo-words-for-snow argument you can just take my word for it right now that it's all a crock. Better yet take Geoffrey K. Pullum's words.)

Likewise regarding the libero position Keyes says in his original post that "Franz Beckenbauer was a player whose unique style of play created the need for a new word to describe a newly created position."

Wait--if they didn't have the word for it how the hell did they come up with this hard to conceive of position? You see the problem here?

Then he introduces as evidence a dirty play in which the cleats are used in a tackle. Of the term La Plancha he says

Because there is a single word that describes this type of tackle, Spanish-speakers are more likely to be aware of the offense (and thus take offense at it being employed against them).

This is not to say that non-Spanish-speaking players are not sensitive to straight-legged, cleats-up tackles (speakers of all languages like their ankles in one piece). But the fact that a word exists to describe this kind of tackle heightens Spanish-speakers' awareness of it.

Heightens their awareness? So if somebody slashes my ankle with cleats and I don't have a single word for that I'm less likely to be upset? Really? It's having the word that allows me to be more aware and offended?

"Of course, players take offense at these types of tackles around the world" he says. "But [I would argue that] they are more frowned upon in Latin America." I suppose familiarity does breed contempt. Note that the bit in brackets is only included in his original post. In the CSM piece it was cut. Boo editor. Boo.

There are so many jumps in this argument--but to be fair they are necessary. Because there are so many gaps in the logic. And yet these stories have wings. I'm not sure what it is. Real linguistics and real psychology are so much more interesting and surprising than this. Why are people so willing to believe these people: they who claim that crisis and opportunity are the same word in Chinese even when that and similar claims have been satisfactorily refuted? Why do people still believe that women say more words per day than men do? Why do people believe that we can't think without language? Why is multilingualism considered a threat to the unity of our country? Why do people still read William Safire?

Well to end with one last petty and insignificant criticism of Keyes' article: Sapir-Whorf is not by any means an obscure theory. It's old and tired. It is dragged out and flaunted by scores of inept linguists manqués. It is a very commonly cited and abused theory and just as commonly (and more effectively) disputed.

[Update: Let me just add that it's a 'hard' reading of S-W that has been tossed aside. There's little doubt that language plays a role in our categorization of concepts. An appropriately 'soft' reading of S-W might go so far as to say that language sheds a little light on concepts at work. But once phrases like can't imagine or understanding is limited start creeping it it's time to grab the reins.

But I do not claim that language and thought are unrelated. That's just silly.
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