language

I’m Hokey, You’re Hokey

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But seriously, what is it with this infantile phrasing?

Well, yes, I suppose it is “OK” to be angry about capitalism, though if you’re a lifelong politician, i.e. unskilled labor, and “capitalism” has still seen fit to reward you with enough wealth to own three homes and avoid working for a living, it might be “stupid” to be angry about it, but I digress. Point is, why is this being framed as having permission to have feelings? Is this yet another instance of therapeutic jargon leaking out into the real world? What can we do to quarantine these freaks and their verbal pattycake-games?

Go, Bagehot, Go!

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Isaac Waisberg:

Jacques Barzun (From Dawn to Decadence) on Walter Bagehot:

The first thing to know about him is how to pronounce his name. It is Badjet.

As one whose reading has always far outrun his hearing, this was useful, to have a mental sound file to go along with the text. I’ve never read Bagehot, nor heard him spoken of, so even though I’ve seen his name many times, it never “sounded” in my head. It might as well have been like when Prince changed his name to an unpronounceable glyph for a few years. I see the particular arrangement of letters, I know to whom it refers, and that’s where it ends. (I had read Barzun’s book a long time ago, but obviously this never stuck with me.) Now, though, thanks to an old cartoon theme song, I feel confident I’ll never forget how to pronounce it. 🎶Doo-dee-doo-dee-DOO, it’s Walter Bagehot…🎶

Eviction Notice

By in editorial vigilantism, jests japes jokes jollies, language 2 Comments

From today’s Daily Scroll:

I graciously ignored this last week, but since standards are falling at an alarming rate, I return to note:

I’m sorry; I’ve tried to be lenient, but since you all can’t be trusted with responsibility, I will hereby be confiscating the Internet license of anyone caught conflating “tenet” with “tenant.” If this trend continues, I will add a whole new wing onto the correctional facility where I currently keep all those who misuse “begs the question.”

In a Word

By in books, language 2 Comments

From Foyle’s Philavery: A Treasury of Unusual Words, some choice selections coming soon to a post near you:

captious: inclined to find fault or raise trivial objections

claque: 1. a group of people hired to applaud a performer in a theater etc. or a speaker at a meeting; 2. a circle of admirers and flatterers

contumacy: stubborn refusal to obey or comply; resistance to authority

crepuscular: 1. relating to twilight; dim; 2. denoting animals that are active or appear at morning or evening twilight

enantiodromia: a process by which a strong force produces its opposite, and the interaction between the two

facinorous: extremely wicked

feculent: 1. polluted; fetid, filthy; 2. containing sediment or faeces

flagitious: 1. deeply criminal; utterly wicked; 2. infamous; scandalous; shamefully disgraceful

lethologica: the inability to remember a word or call to mind the right word

Big Dictionary Energy

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Francesca Gillett:

He said: “As professional linguists and historians of English we were intrigued by the challenge of developing a list of lost words that are still relevant to modern life, and that we could potentially campaign to bring back into modern day language.

“We’ve identified lost words that are both interesting and thought-provoking, in the hope of helping people re-engage with language of old.”

According to the BBC, the complete list of 30 words are categorised into different groups: post-truth; appearance, personality and behaviour; and emotions.

I’ve been collecting compilations of archaic and forgotten words for about twenty years. From this list, I particularly like the term ear-rent: The figurative cost to a person of listening to trivial or incessant talk. We recently hired a kid who’s on the high-functioning end of the autism spectrum, and my ear-rent has skyrocketed thanks to his habit of chattering about this, that, and everything. But one of the better compilations I’ve read is a book I only acquired earlier this year: Mrs. Byrne’s Dictionary of Unusual, Obscure, and Preposterous Words, by Josefa Heifetz Byrne. Some of the standouts are:

Anonymuncule: an insignificant anonymous writer.

Breedbate: someone looking for an argument.

Charientism: a gracefully veiled insult.

Dolorifuge: something that relives sadness.

Enucleate: to extract the kernel or truth or nucleus from.

Fimetarious: Growing or living in excrement. [I believe I can find some figurative uses for this one.]

Galimatias: gibberish; confused, meaningless jargon.

Hunkerousness: opposition to progress; old-fogeyism.

Jocoserious: a combination of funny and serious.

Lexiphanic: using pretentious language.

Logastellus: a person whose enthusiasm for words outstrips his knowledge of them.

Nescient: uneducated, unaware, ignorant, and stupid.

Philopolemic: pertaining to love of argument or controversy.

Phrontistery: a place for study and contemplation.

Prosonomasia: use of a humorous modification of a person’s name.

Psilosopher: a superficial philosopher.

Quakebuttock: a coward.

Remontado: someone who has fled to the mountains; a person who has renounced civilization.

Sous-entendu: something implied but not stated.

Twiddlepoop: an effeminate-looking man.

Vade mecum: a favorite book carried everywhere.

Yahoomanity: people en masse.

In a delightful coincidence, just as I was finishing this post, I got the email notifying me that John Koenig has finally published his book The Dictionary of Obscure Sorrows. (“It’s a dictionary of made-up words for emotions that we all feel but don’t have the words to express. Featuring hundreds of new definitions, otherworldly illustrations, and lyrical essays that explore forgotten corners of the human condition—from zenosyne, the sense that time keeps getting faster, to sonder, the awareness that each random passerby is the main character of their own story.”)

The Decibels of This Disenchanting Discourse Continue to Dampen the Day

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Andrew Sullivan:

This is a kind of bewildering, private language. But the whole point of the guide is to make it our public language, to force other people to use these invented words, to make the entire society learn and repeat the equivalent of their own post-modern sanskrit. This is our contemporary version of what Orwell went on to describe as “newspeak” in Nineteen Eighty-Four: a vocabulary designed to make certain ideas literally unthinkable because woke language has banished them from use. Repeat the words “structural racism” and “white supremacy” and “cisheteropatriarchy” often enough, and people come to believe these things exist unquestioningly. Talk about the LGBTQIA2S+ community and eventually, people will believe it exists (spoiler alert: it doesn’t).

And that is the only recourse an average citizen has when buried by this avalanche of abstraction: ask the language-launderers what they are really talking about. When some doofus apologizes for the “terrible pain” they have caused to the whatever community, ask them to give a specific example of that “pain.” When someone says “structural racism,” ask: what actual “structures” are you referring to? How do they actually work? Give concrete examples.

When someone calls American society “white supremacy”, ask them how you could show that America is not a form of “white supremacy”. When someone uses the word “Latinx”, ask them which country does that refer to. When someone says something is “problematic”, ask them to whom? When you’re told you’re meeting with members of the BIPOC or AANHPI communities, ask them first to translate and then why this is in any way relevant, and why every single member of those communities are expected to have the same opinion. And when you’re told that today is IDAHOBIT Day, ask them if you can speak to Frodo.

Yes, some humor is key to fighting back. But the core truth is: we do not have to speak this debased and decadent language. It is designed to overwhelm and confuse and smother and subdue. And the more it is used by elites, the more normal Americans, still living in the real world, feel utterly alienated by their masters, and the deeper our divide goes. Reclaiming our discourse from these ideological contraptions will make our writing better. It will help us think more clearly. And it could help re-start a genuinely national conversation. In everyday English, the language of democracy.

I think it’s adorable that Sullivan seems to believe that these impertinent questions would result in welcome enlightenment for those being questioned, followed by honest, good-faith conversation. Who knew that human resources departments and academic grievance studies could be dissolved by the equivalent of a child pointing out that the Emperor is a nudist? Did Sullivan likewise give up his religious faith when asked by Christopher Hitchens to define his terms and provide his proof?

Most amusing of all, though, is that final paragraph: in a newsletter about Orwell, our politics, and the English language, we get this flowery call to action including that old favorite of mine, “a national conversation.” This is the language of newspaper editors and op-ed columnists, the gatekeepers of a dying industry who spend all their time talking to their peers and deluding themselves into believing that they’re mouthpieces for the zeitgeist. Leave aside the fact that “conversation,” in the abstract, is one of the very terms that have been captured, tortured, and brainwashed into service as progressive jargon (whenever a progressive says, “We need to have a conversation about X,” it’s a safe bet that they mean, “Sit down and shut up while we lecture you about how this or that anodyne thing is actually racistsexisttransphobic”). Let’s follow his advice and ask him: What does that even mean? “Re-start”? Does that mean there once was a time when a “national conversation” existed? If so, when? Assuming we get it “re-started,” in a nation of 330 million people, who gets to participate, and how? How will their representatives be chosen? Where will this “conversation” take place? Are we all jumping on the same Zoom call at an appointed time? What is the babbling bedlam of social media, if not the closest thing to a national conversation we could get? And what sane person wants more of that?

As an aside: Orwell’s rules for clear writing and thinking didn’t prevent him from believing in the prospect of a “true” socialism that would somehow avoid the inevitable denouement, so maybe we could stop acting as if he were some kind of oracle. It’s a fine thing to refuse to bullshit and to be bullshat, but it’s just one virtue among many, none of which will truly save us.

Do the Work? Don’t You Dare Mention That Phrase In My Presence Again!

By in language, the geist of the zeit No Comments

With a little bit of luck, someone else will do the blinkin’ work!

— Alfie Doolittle

Michael Tracey:

This is only a small sampling of the outpouring of organically-generated solidarity on display since the verdict came down. As you continue reflecting and “reckoning” and educating yourself, remember to seek out additional examples from your favorite faceless institutions. Then you may resume watching Netflix and ordering DoorDash.

The Lady of the House is far more Montaignean than I am, funny enough. She’s sanguine and genuinely interested in a wide variety of people. She greets idiosyncrasy and eccentricity with a beaming smile and a “How interesting!” Unfortunately, the times being what they are, this means she has several people in her orbit who belong to the herd of independent minds. Unique, quirky individuals all, with ironically identical opinions and rhetorical tropes. The socially-just have a cultish vernacular, as most of us probably know. It’s like the unholy offspring of empty corporate buzzwords and what Tracey calls “therapeutic trauma jargon.” I don’t know exactly how I’d define it, but if I may wildly paraphrase Potter Stewart here: I know it when I hear it, and I’m not waiting around to hear any more. I’ll continue to enjoy reading Montaigne’s broadminded essays, but in my own life, I’m a rabid xenophobe. If I hear someone use that vernacular in earnest, it’s raise the drawbridge, lower the portcullis, drown them in the moat.

Shibboleths

By in books, language 2 Comments

From then on, I never laughed at anyone who mispronounced an artist’s name, because it usually only meant that what he had read had run far ahead of what he had heard, and I knew too well how that can happen. When you are learning a new language, there is a blissful moment when, from not knowing how to, you pass to not knowing how not to. The second phase is the dangerous one, because it leads to sophistication, and one of the marks of sophistication is a tendency to forget what it was like to be naïve. But it was when we were still naïve that we knew most intimately the lust of discovery, a feeling as concentrated and powerful as amorous longing, with the advantage that we never had to fear rejection. Art will always want us. It finds us infinitely desirable.

— Clive James, Cultural Amnesia

My mom still likes to tell the story of how, as an angry seven-year-old, I called someone an EYE-doyt. How embarrassingly ironic.

It’s not a heavy burden, but one of the definite downsides to autodidactic learning is an unfamiliarity with the sound of certain words, even when they’re familiar by sight. These days, most of the words I’m well-acquainted with through reading but not exactly sure how to pronounce are (mostly Latin) loan-words — pace, ne plus ultra, and several others which will no doubt spring to mind as soon as I press “publish” on this post. I have looked up their pronunciations, of course; they just never seem to stick. Words alone are too abstract until one becomes familiar with them through the melody of speech (I can still sing the lyrics to “Cielito Lindo,” which we learned in fifth-grade Spanish, even though I would probably stumble over the same words in a Duolingo session).

As for names, I only learned a couple years ago that apparently the great man’s name is officially pronounced mon-TEN rather than mon-TAYN. I remember having a Nietzsche reading group at a local coffee shop with a few friends, where they confirmed that “Hegel” rhymed with “bagel.” (Had I not first encountered Nietzsche’s name by hearing it pronounced by my philosophy teacher, I can only imagine what a mess I would have made of it on my own.) The most cringeworthy example was when I went to a book fair with a friend and attempted to impress her by casually mentioning that I had picked up a book of aphorisms by Goethe, which I pronounced as “Goath.” (Luckily, she was none the wiser, so I still looked suave.) Fortunately, I learned early on that only plebes pronounced it MOW-zart instead of MOAT-zart, but I’m not clear on whether I should say SHOE-bear, shoe-BEAR, SHOW-bear, or show-BEAR, despite having been informed (in an email, by the same friend who clued me in to Hegel/bagel) that he is the greatest composer of all time.

It occurs to me that these days, I could probably render all this moot by just looking up any unfamiliar word on YouTube, and find both pronunciation guides and videos of lectures where the words are used.

Obiter Scripta, no. 96

By in books, jests japes jokes jollies, language No Comments

Undeterred, Vaughan dismissed More as an “Elf” and a “scurvie, slabbie, snotty-snowted thing,” whose “Excrements run the wrong way, for his mouth stooles.”

— Jonathan Rée, Witcraft: The Invention of Philosophy in English

Neil Postman marveled at the fact that audiences for the Lincoln-Douglas debates willingly, cheerfully, sat still to listen to seven hours of oratory. He went on to paint a grim picture of shrinking vocabularies and attention spans in the age of digital media. He was a gentleman and a scholar, though, so he didn’t include an analysis of how shallow and unimaginative our oaths and invective have become. I am neither a gentleman nor a scholar, so it falls to me to lament the fact. We say that someone is “full of shit”, or “talking shit.” With just that little bit of extra effort, we could have said that someone’s excrements ran the wrong way and called him a stool-mouth. And look at that alliteration! Do you think that was an accident? No. That’s skill, and dedication to the craft. Why can’t we revive the old ways?

Obiter Scripta, no. 94

By in books, language, obiter scripta No Comments

If countries were named after the words you first hear when you go there, England would have to be called “Damn It”.

― Georg Christoph Lichtenberg, The Waste Books

Truly, it was a more genteel time back then. Nowadays, thanks to the ambassadorial efforts of English football fans in particular, residents of that noble island are known by a different term, at least among the French. From Geoffrey Hughes’s An Encyclopedia of Swearing:

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