Wordful Wednesday: Anguished English
As much as I love Engrish.com for its exposure of just how hilarious English can be in the hands of those who don’t really know it, Anguished English, by Richard Lederer, demonstrates that even native speakers have their issues.
It’s basically a big bunch of lists of side-splitting mistakes grouped into a variety of categories. Which makes it fairly difficult to review. So how about some examples?
From It’s an Ad, Ad, Ad, Ad World:
- Tune in next week for another series of classical music programs with the Canadian Broadcorping Castration.
From Wholly Holy Bloopers:
- This being Easter Sunday, we will ask Mrs. White to come forward and lay an egg on the altar.
From Student Bloopers Win Pullet Surprises:
- The problem with intersexual swimming is that the boys often outstrip the girls.
From Disorder in the Court:
- Q. Please state the location of your right foot immediately prior to impact.
A. Immediately before the impact, my right food was located at the immediate end of my right leg.From Stop the Presses!:
- The bride was wearing an old lace gown that fell to the floor as she came down the aisle.
From Two-Headed Headlines
- House Passes Gas Tax Onto Senate
- Stiff Opposition Expected to Casketless Funeral Plan
- Iraqui Head Seeks Arms
From Laffing at Mispellings:
- To celebrate at feasts, the inhabitants of old England sometimes cut the head off the biggest bore and carried it around on a platter.
One of my favorite chapters was actually the one in which Lederer compiled a brief history of the world by stringing together actual student bloopers. Here’s an excerpt:
One myth says that the mother of Achilles dipped him in the River Stynx until he became intollerabe. Achilles appears in The Iliad, by Homer. Homer also wrote The Oddity, in which Penelope was the last hardship Ulysses endured on his journey. Actually, Homer was not written by Homer but by another man of that name.
It made a fun read, and I recommend it to anyone who enjoys halving a good laugh at udder people’s missed takes.
Foney Friday: Never Metaphor I Couldn’t Mix
I consider the English language to be my personal playground. I love coming up with new ways of expressing myself, and the mixed metaphor is at the head of the crop.
Of course, there are two kinds of metaphor-mixing to be done, and they’re as different as night and ice. The First Kind is to smash-up two metaphors into one nonsensical one. The Second Kind involves putting two normal metaphors back to back in a way that doesn’t make sense. Which kind should I use?
The First Kind is easier, so I’ve been advised to go that route. But that kind of advice really goes in one ear and off a duck’s back. I’ve never been one to take the lesser of two high roads.
And it’s not like the First Kind is like shooting fish in a barrel of monkeys with a ten-foot-pole. It can be quite a jagged pill to hoe, or even a tough row to swallow.
The Second Kind is definitely harder. You have to really step up to the plate and throw a Hail Mary and drive hard to the rim, pressing hard toward the finish line the whole way. It takes concentration and the kind of tunnel vision that lets you hear a pin drop. It’s not for the faint of heart to go rushing in where angels fear to tread.
All of this places me on the ropes of a dilemma. Straddling the fence post. But do I have to choose? No!, I say. I’ll side with the great Yogi. When I come to a fork in the road, I’ll take it.
I say that, at least for now, I’m going to stick to my ribs and keep the pedal to the grindstone. I’ll keep putting one foot in front of the other and let nothing move me. I’ll swim against the current and go with the crowd. As for the decision, I’ll cross that bridge when I jump in with both feet.
After all, who wants to be stuck between a rock and a conundrum?
From O.Handwasher’s forthcoming book, English as a Secondhand Language
Market Visit Apostrophe Atrocity
Ethan and I went to the Hillsboro Farmers' Market today to stock up on essentials like blueberries, strawberries, and Great Harvest Apple Crunch bread. And to grab a picture of the latest sign of the Apostrolypse (wherein the world is destroyed by misplaced apostrophes):
The donuts are really quite yummy, but I prefer my deep-fried-pastries grammatically correct.
I’ll have to submit this to Apostrophe Abuse.
Maybe tomorrow I’ll add a picture of Neale’s Specialty’s. I sigh as I contemplate the idea.
Wordful Wednesdays: A Tongue of Questionable Parentage
(I had this mostly written up but forgot it was Wednesday. )
I never really cared for English class, which may be why I majored in Engineering. However, I've become a fan of the English language, even with all its quirks. I'm also enamored of the field of linguistics despite the fact that I have no training in it.
Our Magnificent Bastard Tongue: The Untold History of English, by John McWhorter, is both a terrific title and a very interesting read. I didn't find it exactly gripping, evidenced by the fact of my finishing seven other books between starting and finishing this one. However, that doesn't mean I didn't enjoy it.
I thoroughly enjoyed McWhorter in a series of audio lectures I listened to some time ago, called "The Story of Human Language." And since you asked, that is the series I blogged about back in November. Good memory.
Given that it's subtitled "The Untold History of English," it's not surprising that some understanding of the told story was needed, or at least helpful. I've read books about English spelling and vocabulary, and I did take a class called "England to 1688" in college, and in the class we touched on the Language (though I'd remember more of it if it hadn't been an 8am class and generally the location where I got my last hour of sleep).
Point is, the background might help, but it wasn't necessary to the enjoyment of the book, niche topic though it was.
As the title suggests, and I don't think this comes as a surprise to anyone, English isn't what you'd call a pure and logical language. It has many quirks, and the Story of English generally tries to explain how we got from Proto-Germanic to our current tongue. McWhorter takes issue with some of the typical explanations.
For instance, the Celtic influence on English (via Cornish and Welsh, among other languages) is generally thought to have been minimal. One of the strongest arguments for this is the fact of the relative lack of Celtic-derived words in English. But, McWhorter points out, English and the Celtic tongues are the only Germanic languages with two very rare quirks: meaningless "do" and the verb-noun present. I'll explain both.
Meaningless "do" is just what it sounds like. For instance, "Do you have any peaches?" What, exactly, does that "Do" mean? Weren't we really asking, "Have you any peaches?" In other Germanic languages, that's how you'd do it. In German (one of the Germanic tongues you may have heard of), it would be "Haben Sie Pfirsiche?"
The verb-noun present is another strange thing, and it involves expressing the present tense with a verb that can also be taken as a noun. The more Englishy of readers may recognize that these verb-nouns are also known as gerunds. (For instance, "to run" is a verb, "running" is a gerund or verb-noun.) Here's an example of the weirdness:
Q: "What are you doing?"
A: "I'm eating a peach."
(And yes, it's peach season, and I'm eagerly anticipating going peach-picking. I mean I eagerly anticipate it.)
Doesn't seem strange, does it? After all, we're used to it. But is it really that much clearer than "I eat a peach?" Does the person standing there, asking you a (admittedly dumb) question, really have a difficult time grasping that you're not commenting on something you do sometimes, but rather on what you're currently doing?
Yes, there's a fine distinction there, but it's one of the quirks of English that make it a challenge to learn. And it happened in the Celtic languages and English. And they occupy the same island. McWhorter points out that this can hardly be coincidence. And yet, the traditional Story of English says it is.
Why? The vocabulary thing. We didn't get a bunch of words from them, so it's assumed they didn't really affect us. And the changes don't show up in the written language early enough for the tastes of the guardians of the traditional view.
But, McWhorter points out, there's a very big difference between written and spoken languages. For instance, and I love this example, where would you find "a whole nother thing" written down? Nowhere, because it's a completely bizarre usage. (BTW, it should be "a whole other thing." And I know that sounds wrong.)
Written language tends to preserve the "correct" language, while the language on the streets is quite different. For much of the history of Italy, for instance, Latin was the "educated" language, while Italian was spoken by the normal folks.
It seemed like a good half of the book was taken up with the Celtic influence, but McWhorter also surveyed the Viking influence and managed to make a good case for Phoenician influence on English.
True, the book is perhaps best appreciated by those who already have something of a grasp on the History of English. But the writing is good enough and witty enough to make it interesting for a novice like me. And it can be paired alongside a larger Story of English since it's really less the "untold history" than "scenes from the history" of English.
Just a note on the whole "bastard" thing, and this is completely random, but I have a memory from my teenage years of playing a game of three on three softball with some friends. My friend, who shall remain nameless (but my family would recognize him as the youngest of the MDOs) struck out to his sister!!! In softball. His response: "I feel so illegitimate!" I do not think that word meant what he thought it meant. It has nothing whatsoever to do with a review of any book, but that's the way the mind works sometimes. At least mine, anyway.
Theology Thursday Book Review: The Revelation of Jesus Christ
Perhaps you've noticed I haven't been blogging much in the last week or so. I actually didn't feel like writing humor, so I've stuck to theology and book reviews. Humor will come back soon. But for today, it's a Super-Sized Theology Thursday Book Review. I'm just telling you right now that this post is about four pages long. Eighteen hundred words or so. So you might want to hit the restroom first. If you're interested at all, of course. And now, the review...
In the past, I've recommended (and still heartily do) Steve Gregg's excellent Revelation: Four Views: A Parallel Commentary. In it, he shows the common interpretations of Revelation from the four major historic viewpoints. When I read his book, I was already familiar with the Futurist (looking for a future Tribulation and Beast) and Preterist (looking backward to A.D.70 for much of the fulfillment) views. I also had a certain familiarity with the Historicist view (finds fulfillment through the course of Church History). The view I was most unfamiliar with was the Idealist/Spiritual approach, which finds a cycle of fulfillment of the visions in the struggle between Satan and the Kingdom of God. It applies all the visions to All Time.
By the way, I was going to go into a rather lengthy survey of what I see as the benefits (to the Church both past, present and future) of the Four Views, but I think I'll save that for when I'm actually reading Revelation. Which should be in May-ish. So remind yourself to skip it if you're not interested. I won't be looking at what Scriptural basis the Four Views have, but only giving my impression of how useful they are/have been/will be. It'll be good, I promise. Plus, I've already written most of it, and I've got several months to put the finishing touches on it.
Anyway, back to the Spiritual/Idealist position. I was pleased when a friend from the faraway past mentioned that her church was really into the Spiritual Interpretation of Revelation, particularly as espoused in Dr. Lynn Hiles' The Revelation of Jesus Christ: An Open Letter to the Church from a Modern Perspective of the Book of Revelation. I found it on InterLibrary Loan.
Unfortunately, as much as there was some interesting stuff in it, I mostly hated it. But I think I'll start with the positive. Dr. Hiles is very passionate, and we seem to agree on several major issues as regards the Book of Revelation and interpretation of Scripture in general. He favors the early date (60s A.D.) for the writing of the Apocalypse, as do I. He hits very hard on the fact that Jesus is not waiting to be crowned but is currently reigning as King (and if you can't agree on this, you need to read Acts 2 again). And he thinks that there is a benefit to reading Revelation and attempting to understand it. And he points out that, more than anything, Revelation is a revealing of Jesus Christ himself. I think that's a great point. That's all positive.
And one other thing: He has some really good things to say, even if they didn't always make sense in the context of the book (he meanders a bit, which I've been known to do). And this is where I was greatly disappointed. See, I was hoping for more of what Steve Gregg did in his book. Mr. Gregg pulled together something of a consensus of the Idealist position on each passage in Revelation. Dr. Hiles' book was just his own opinions, which is okay, I suppose, but less than authoritative. And some of his opinions were just plain strange.
My gripes with the book boil down to two things: his use of language, and his use of Scripture. And the two crossed over more than you'd probably think possible.
First, his use of language. Now, I'll admit to being something of a Word Nerd or Grammar Geek (although I don't think I'm a Grammar Snob). But when I hear or read improper uses of "and I," I cringe. And I'm aware there are folks out there who don't have any sense for how to use "and I" and "and me," so they just go for one approach, on the assumption that they'll be right half the time. But an author? Really? And an editor didn't catch them when they happened twice on the same page?
Maybe I'm just uptight about this, but wouldn't it just sound better with "and me" in both cases? Just remove the "you and" on both of them and see if I'm not right. (I'm writing now to anyone who might be in the '50% right' category. Not to you, members of my family.)
I was equally offended by Hiles' use of Scripture, because he comes up with some, er, novel interpretations. And sometimes, he mixes in a little misuse of language:
Umm...what? To me, this kind of rubbish is just appalling. The Greek here is the word for (wait for it) "to remember." That is, to recall or to think of. There's no sense in which the word could be stretched to "put back together." I almost laughed out loud when I read it. Why would Hiles take a passage in which the plain meaning was, well, plain, and try to stitch in some esoteric misinterpretation? I don't get it. And this isn't an isolated incident. For a few other examples, here's a list I've titled...
What Hiles Does With Scripture
- Conflates "The Lord's Day" in Revelation 1 with "The Day of the Lord" (p. 54). So, instead of Sunday, we're talking about The Last Day? Umm, no.
- Associates Jesus with the Man of Sin in 2 Thessalonians 2 (p. 45). Yeah. Wow. And I know it's not what he meant, but it is what he wrote. Seriously. p. 45: "The 'He' who is to be revealed in time is the Lord Jesus Christ." Now look at the verse in question and tell me Hiles hasn't completely run aground here.
- States that the Beatitudes are "attitudes that we need to be in" (p. 98). It made me throw up a little.
- When Christ says he knows the "works" of the Ephesians (which he is plainly praising them for), Hiles thinks he's criticizing them for a "works righteousness," completely missing the pattern of the Letters to the Seven Churches (p. 103).
- Again with Ephesus, he says that when Jesus tells them to remember from "whence they have fallen," He's referring all the way back to the Garden (p. 104). I'm actually surprised Hiles doesn't think they're supposed to "put the Garden back together."
- When Jesus tells the Smyrnans to be "faithful unto death," Hiles thinks they're supposed to be faithful to Jesus' death (p. 122). The plain sense of the passage, however, is to be faithful in the face of martyrdom.
And even when he's making good points, he has a tendency to go just a bit too far with his analogies. For instance, in his chapter on Thyatira, he puts together a good analogy of dying to the Law and being united with Christ. More specifically, he presents it as being formerly married to Adam, but now to Christ. And that's fine, because Paul uses that very imagery. But then there's this:
As my wife pointed out, how exactly does this present Christ in a good light? Better than an abusive husband? Wow, what an honor! And the trouble is, he follows this tripe up with a truly profound passage:
It's a good analogy, but it's dealt a hard blow because of the outrageous lead-in.
I realize I've been somewhat verbose here, but I covered a sheet of paper with notes on this book, so I could really go on and on if I wanted to. But I won't. Again, the real bummer here is that Hiles wrote some good stuff. I think he makes some good points when he presents an alternate view of the "second death" (in which he challenges the traditional view of Hell as Eternal Torment). He also sees a different meaning to the "Last Days" mentioned by several NT writers. Different in that, unlike many contemporary scholars, he sees those Last Days as already fulfilled in events of the first century.
And, again, Hiles believes there's value in reading Revelation, because Jesus reveals himself in it.
I realized when I was most of the way through this book that Dr. Hiles is probably fantastic as a speaker. But I think he'd be one of those speakers you were really high on until you got home and started thinking about what he actually said. On the page, that process doesn't take so long. I can't tell you the number of times I said (aloud) "What? That doesn't mean that."
There's one last gripe I have. On the back cover (and somewhere inside the book), is this statement: "The Book of Revelation is not about dreadful beasts or scary monsters, ...it is an on-going revelation of Jesus Christ and God's redemptive plan."
And yet, Hiles fails to deal with any of the passages in Revelation that make reference to dreadful beasts. Now, I agree with the sentiment of his statement, but if I set out to write a book claiming that, I'd probably attempt to address those passages that seem to be about scary monsters. It's not that the Idealist position can't deal with them, either. So Hiles hurts his own cause by not addressing them.
I promise my next book review will be both shorter and more positive. And hopefully it'll be ready by next week. If you read this far, I'm very impressed. When I went back through to proofread, I got a bit weary. So raise your hand if you made it. (That means leave a comment. Even if you skipped through to the end.)
Foney Fridays: A Gulp of Mea Culpa
Local Man Putting the Brakes on Correcting People
HILLSBORO, OR -- A local man is beginning to realize that being overly pedantic isn't considered an "attractive" quality.
"You know, it's odd, but I figured everybody wanted to be corrected. I mean, who would want to be wrong?" said Mr. S. H. Utup.
He had been going along, blithely correcting verbal and written abuses that offended his delicate sensibilities, not letting a single "runs the gambit" or "could care less" or "do you want to come with Chris and I?" stand. He truly felt he was doing society a service, ridding the world of incorrect usages.
Then he found the mother lode of all incorrect usages: "begs the question." Once he became aware of the correct usage, he noted that only similarly pedantic people (and not all of those) knew it . He could correct nearly everyone!!!!
Everyone has a particular pet issue, whether it be the indefensible "irregardless" or the arcane use of "comprised" (or "arcane", for that matter). Mr. Utup had them all. At least, whenever he learned a new one, he made immediate use of it as if he'd always known it (though he has been known to say "comprised of").
He's wiser now. He now realizes that correct usage isn't worth it if attaining it means alienating people. Of course, there was a particular issue involving a particular person whose particular feelings were hurt, but he was less than forthcoming about the details.
"Let's just say I call it my 'hockey puck' and leave it at that." (And yes, you had to be there.)
Source: O.Handwasher, who could care less what you think of his usage, irregardless of what his writing is comprised of, and who will forgive people for perhaps not being familiar with the arcane word "pedantic."
Theology Thursday: Tower of Babble?
I've wondered for some time if there's a connection between the Tower of Babel story in Genesis and the English word "babble." I mean, they're homophones, and doesn't that count for something? After all, the Bible was written in King James' English, wasn't it?
On the off-chance somebody unfamiliar with the story is reading this, here's the abridged version: People, all speaking the same language, decided to build a great tower. However, it wasn't a tower to be used to glorify God, but rather to honor themselves. God took issue with their plans and confused their languages. Not being able to communicate, the people all went their separate ways.
Many skeptics assume that this narrative is a myth that attempts to explain linguistic variation. I'll put myself out there for angry comments by saying that I agree it really looks like that. And there are many comparable myths from other cultures. However, they can be explained away, if somewhat lamely, by the statement that if such a thing happened, various cultures would remember it and report it in their own ways (similar to the common defense of the Flood narrative against its many cross-cultural-variations). By the way, I have no particular reason to doubt the biblical Babel narrative. Just thought I'd toss that in.
I'm getting a bit far afield here, aren't I? Well, it's my blog and I'll ramble if I want to.
Now, as someone mildly interested in enthralled with linguistics, I'm aware that there's no need to use divine intervention to explain linguistic diversity. It just happens. Separate a group of people into smaller groups, and their languages just change. Rather quickly, actually. So, what God apparently did by supernatural intervention, He could easily have accomplished just by splitting up the group geographically. Which happened anyway (so maybe I've put the cart before the horse).
Anyway, back to the Babel/babble thing. I Googled it, of course! Here's something I found (here):
Babble is derived from the incoherent bab-bab sounds made by babies and has cognates in several Germanic languages including the Dutch babbelen and in the Icelandic babbla. Technically, babble is said to be the frequentative form of bab. That is to say, bab was lengthened (by adding -le) without a change in meaning. A similar process occurred to the word prate, giving us prattle. Both prate and prattle are more or less synonymous with babble.
The "Tower of Babel" myth is a neat but implausible explanation for the multiplicity of languages spoken by mankind. The Hebrew name Babel (bab "gate" + el "god" = "gate of god") is thought to refer to the ancient city of Babylon. Now Babylon is merely the Greek form of bab-ili, the Assyrian translation of the Akkadian ca-dimira, "gate of the gods", which is what the locals called it.
Okay, so "babble" in English doesn't have any natural descent from "Babel." Still, there's the added wordplay in the biblical passage explained by this note in my NLT Study Bible:
Genesis 11:9 - Babel: Or Babylon. Babel sounds like a Hebrew term that means “confusion.” The Babylonians viewed their city as the residence or gateway of the gods. The pun that concludes this account accurately reveals Babylon’s spiritual confusion. Babylon achieved prominence under Nimrod (10:10) and in later biblical history (see 2 Kgs 25). Its role as an epicenter of arrogance and idolatry make it a fitting image for the anti-God forces associated with the end of time (e.g., Rev 14:8; 16:19; 18:2). • The tower builders had centralized to ascend into God’s realm (11:3-4). God descended and scattered them all over the world to frustrate their idolatrous ambition.
"Babble" isn't all that far off from "confusion," even if we don't have a true linguistic link here.
I'm sure this was much more interesting to me than for you...
Too Funny Tuesdays: Aggressively Inarticulate
Back in May, in one of my first Too Funny posts, I blessed you all with Taylor Mali's The The Impotence of Proofreading. At the same time I found that one, I found another of his performances from Def Jam. So, more word-nerdery for you (funny, with a positive message):