View Full Version : Is vocabulary important?
The use of vocabulary can be controversial. Whether you are writing poetry, novels or works of non-fiction, you may run up against resistance from certain publishers if you use certain words. These words are regarded as discriminatory.
Well-meaning people in the West often list slavery, homophobia, anti-Semitism, racism, sexism, etc., as principal evils, and maybe think that the first thing they should do is ban words, so that the thoughts behind them will ultimately wither.
This form of vocabulary limitation is not uncontroversial. See:
https://www.policypress.org.uk/author/policypress_author_guidelines.pdf (https://www.policypress.org.uk/author/policypress_author_guidelines.pdf)
and
The phrase Old Masters is sexist, authors and students are told - Telegraph (http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/newstopics/debates/2988760/The-phrase-Old-Masters-is-sexist-authors-and-students-are-told.html)
Is there not a risk that by banning the usage of certain words and phrases you prevent people from having the vocabulary to discuss the problem? Is there not a risk that we end up speaking in constantly updated euphemisms, therefore always gliding away from the problem, by never calling a spade a spade?
Towards the end of the first website referred to above (Appendix B - Sensitive Language), there are lists of what are regarded as discriminatory words. My problem with the lists is that there are two types of words: a) clearly discriminatory ones that are insulting, and have been accepted as such for decades; b) somewhat arbitrary interpretations of words and expressions such as "old master", "West Indian", "minorities", "American", "ethnic", etc., where the list-makers are creating problems where there are none.
How do we tackle the problem of discriminatory vocabulary without turning journalists, novelists and article-writers into neurotics, fearful of being sexist, homophobic, racist, etc., whatever they write? Common sense?
For instance, if you can't say "Third World" and "Developing Nations" because it is discriminatory, and you have to call them "Southern Countries", what about the Inuit, the Saame, the Finno-Ugrian peoples of northern Siberia? By being non-discriminatory, you make a nonsense of the geography involved. "Non-industrial" is one alternative, I suppose, but the list-makers don't like that, either. You are left with a quandary.
Sybarite
21-Sep-2008, 14:01
Yes. So is a certain quality of reportage.
As in writing: "Publishers and universities ..." at the beginning of the article ? and then only naming one publisher.
And as for the assertion that phrases have been "banned" (opening paragraph two of the Telegraph piece), then the later comments from educational establishments that the guide "may provide a good starting point" and is an "appropriate source of reference and advice" and is "well worth looking at" ? these are not the same as 'banning'. But clearly such semantics wouldn't make for such fabulously knee-jerking copy.
Whilst there should never be any right to not be offended, it's a balancing act. Perhaps the author would like us to go back to using such words as 'nigger', 'WOG' and 'yid' whenever we want?
Sybarite: please note that I have added the word "certain" to limit the publishers implied. It's a good thing that we can amend things we've written here, even after publication. I only usually use the service to get rid of typos.
"Banned" may also be a bit too dramatic. But there is a tendency in academe to discourage the use of all manner of vocabulary. I am rather worried that this will start to to spread to novels, so that editors feel it is part of their brief to correct an author who uses a discriminatory word, unless s/he can prove it is part of something said by a character that the readers are not meant to like. That would lead to the British brand of Socialist Realism.
Regarding your comments about starting points rather than cast-iron rules, I know the thin edge of the wedge when I see it. This is how anti-Semitism works: first you start kicking Israelis off your publishing team, as happened with a British periodical a year or so ago. Then you ban Israeli academics from Britain. If you don't stem this kind of anti-academic activity, "Israeli" will soon become "Jewish". Oy vey! Never mind calling them "yids". The language is, after all, called Yiddish...
As for the use of words for negroes, Westernised oriental gentlemen (the female version should be: WOL), and so on, the consensus of good people in the Western world has slowly pushed out these words from acceptable usage and print. But again, this is reform, rather than revolution. A gradual realisation that using, say, male chauvinist pig, a little too often should also lead to the realisation that some men may be offended. Strangely enough, the term "female chauviniste sow" has never caught on.
I'm the first to admit that the whole business is a balancing act. I just don't like the way that Policy Press is moving in the direction of prohibition. Guidelines they may be, but editors wield a good deal of power. Jimmy Connolly, Frankie Boyle and a few other comedians would never survive, were their jokes to conform to good taste. But they can use the excuse that they, like the present prime-minister, belong to the persecuted minority of Scotsmen...
Sybarite
21-Sep-2008, 17:51
Sybarite: please note that I have added the word "certain" to limit the publishers implied. It's a good thing that we can amend things we've written here, even after publication. I only usually use the service to get rid of typos...
"Certain publishers" still means more than one. One is cited in the article.
"Banned" may also be a bit too dramatic...
It's inaccurate. It's wrong.
... Regarding your comments about starting points rather than cast-iron rules, I know the thin edge of the wedge when I see it. This is how anti-Semitism works: first you start kicking Israelis off your publishing team, as happened with a British periodical a year or so ago...
Being opposed to the actions of the state of Israel is not being anti-semitic any more than being opposed to the actions of the state of North Korea is being racist. Attempting to organise a boycott of Israel is no more anti-semitic than boycotting Zimbabwean good is racist.
... Then you ban Israeli academics from Britain...
And when did this happen? Would it be like when the UK banned all white South Africans from the UK during apartheid? In other words, never?
... If you don't stem this kind of anti-academic activity, "Israeli" will soon become "Jewish". Oy vey! Never mind calling them "yids". The language is, after all, called Yiddish...
Another swerve, then.
... As for the use of words for negroes, Westernised oriental gentlemen (the female version should be: WOL)...
You really do beggar belief, Eric. I'm beginning to think that you must be a troll, because no sane person would post this with a straight face.
... and so on, the consensus of good people in the Western world has slowly pushed out these words from acceptable usage and print. But again, this is reform, rather than revolution. A gradual realisation that using, say, male chauvinist pig, a little too often should also lead to the realisation that some men may be offended. Strangely enough, the term "female chauviniste sow" has never caught on...
Unbelievable. Just unbelievable.
... Jimmy Connolly...
Who?
I'm getting sick of the rants and counter-rants on here. This is a world literature forum, not an exercice in neo-conservative & liberal dialectics. It's getting so tedious I'm going to stop visiting this place if it goes on any longer. Enough!
Sybarite
21-Sep-2008, 18:41
I'm getting sick of the rants and counter-rants on here. This is a world literature forum, not an exercice in neo-conservative & liberal dialectics...
Are you saying that, within the context of a 'general chat' part of this forum, this is not a legitimate question to raise or just that nobody should reply to the original post or that the realms of politics and books are never connected and should never meet?
None of the above? Are you actually implying that your tiresome exchanges with your nemesis are limited to this part of the forum? Look, I'm really interested in politics, I really am. I even used to be a moderator for a big political forum. Thing is I'd rather discuss this sort of things with people who know that suicide bombings were not invented nor perfected by Muslims or with people that have a better idea of Chilean history.
Do as you please, go on with your counter-rants, whatever... but being the most sensible of the two, I would have thought you'd have understood by know to ignore your pal. Don't feed the troll as they say, and he will starve. I for one prefer reading your opinions on the books you've read. I'm tired of coming on here to see that half of the new posts have been taken by yet another bout between the both of you.
spooooool
21-Sep-2008, 19:20
i'm new, i rarely post at length nor am i likely to here because i cannot be arsed to counter the stupidity at work.
Sybarite, it's akin to tug of war, if you leave go your end of the rope, Eric will have nothing to pull on. You'll wear yourself out, and for what, to counter the idiocies of someone who clearly enjoys playing the role of demented court jester?
Sybarite
21-Sep-2008, 19:54
Okey dokey.
Sometimes I don't post things with a straight face - I have a crooked manic leer.
But I think I'm right about Israel. In New York there are also plenty of left-wing Jews that don't like Israel, and they share this belief with some ultra-orthodox Jews in Israel itself. But I was referring to Europe and anti-Semitism. I think that it is clear where the rise of anti-Semitism on that continent is coming from.
White SA academics may never have been banned from Britain during apartheid. But there was plenty of keenness to ban a great number of South African goods, including books. And the campaign to ban Israeli academics from Britain keeps periodically being revived by academic trade unions at British universities. See: Mona Baker - The Boycott of Israeli Academic Institutions (http://www.monabaker.com/ontheboycott.htm)
I meant: Billy Connolly.
People could present counter-arguments, rather than quoting and shaming. I'm "inaccurate", "wrong", "beggar belief" and a devious swerver, who slithers from one non-sequitur to the other. However, a little more dry and logical countering of my arguments would help the spirit of the debate. I like my little joke about female chauviniste sows.
This "rant" is specifically about acceptable vocabulary in publications. I am claiming that some people are using a similar tactic to the one others use with spelling. While everyone ridicules too much nannying with regard to making spelling conform to sound, people at Policy Press and not only there, appear to also want to weed out some perfectly neutral words.
Like Sybarite, I'm interested in politics. But she is not my pal; we have never met. The problem is that I often have diametrically opposed views, so we end up at loggerheads. That's the problem with these forums (or: fora) where you never meet the person behind the persona. When you see a three-dimensional person, you tend to be more accommodating. Here, we let ourselves go. I think both Sybarite and myself enjoy slagging one another off. Good therapy.. That's how the Argument Sketch was created on Monty Python. ("No it wasn't!" "Yes, it was!")
The art, which I am not very good at, is to strike a balance between being all smiley-cringy-insincere, and being a bull in a cyber-china shop, alienating others. But the over-use of expletives also belies an inability to structure ones thoughts. I over-react when drunk, but can formulate myself more elegantly when sober. If your only register is the written equivalent of shouting, you soon become hoarse.
As this is the general chat section, it can function as a letting-off-steam section for those who like a periodic bitch and a bit of verbal happy-slapping. Too much bile elsewhere does indeed frighten people away, which is why Stewart foreclosed the very bitchy debate we were having on my beautiful cycling & translation thread.
But as was said on Newsnight last night about a famous artists' pub in London, people will slag one another off one evening, and be back the next. Ditto here. If we avoid gross insults and racist, homophobic or other nasty talk in this chat section, I cannot see that a little bad temper can do any harm. But I will try to keep the slagging off out of the more specific threads in other sections of this forum.
Mirabell
25-Sep-2008, 21:29
Being opposed to the actions of the state of Israel is not being anti-semitic any more than being opposed to the actions of the state of North Korea is being racist. Attempting to organise a boycott of Israel is no more anti-semitic than boycotting Zimbabwean good is racist.
oh god I hate to say this, but I have to agree w/ that other guy here.
there is a clear, well known, and often pretty obvious tendency to channel antisemitism through antizionism. in some countries heavier than in others. usually, studies tend to show that the lower a country's "common" antisemitism is, the higher its "hidden" antisemitism is. Britain and Germany are among those countries which are commonly said to be rife w/ the second kind. I can personally affirm this for Germany.
we are here, after all, in a thread about (yes I change the point of the thread from something uninteresting to something else) whether words matter. which is the point, really. it's how do you phrase it. in what way are you being selective. why. "legitimate criticism" often hides either plain antisemitism or antisemitically informed motivation.
spooooool
25-Sep-2008, 23:20
oh god I hate to say this, but I have to agree w/ that other guy here.
there is a clear, well known, and often pretty obvious tendency to channel antisemitism through antizionism. in some countries heavier than in others. usually, studies tend to show that the lower a country's "common" antisemitism is, the higher its "hidden" antisemitism is. Britain and Germany are among those countries which are commonly said to be rife w/ the second kind. I can personally affirm this for Germany.
we are here, after all, in a thread about (yes I change the point of the thread from something uninteresting to something else) whether words matter. which is the point, really. it's how do you phrase it. in what way are you being selective. why. "legitimate criticism" often hides either plain antisemitism or antisemitically informed motivation.
yes, i've said as much too, but it also occurs to me that as a refrain it presumes to make very light of another's sense of self and inner resources,parenthesizes them before setting off in its own tracks.
Sybarite
26-Sep-2008, 08:31
Perhaps there is "hidden" anti-semitism involved in criticism of the state of Israel.
But then again, perhaps there's "hidden" racism in criticism of Zimbabwe?
Or even South Africa. How many people, for instance, have enjoyed criticising Thabo Mbeki for his stance on HIV/Aids for reasons other than its utter ridiculousness, but because it tallies with a idea of backwards, superstitious, uneducated Africa?
Words are powerful things and, as we're saying here, have to be used carefully. A response to any criticism of the state of Israel as being 'anti-semitic'* does nothing but potentially increase the "hidden" problem. In any other area, it would be called 'political correctness'. It has also inspired, in my opinion, a similar defensive approach from other groups. Versions of it are heard, for instance, quite frequently in the UK amongst Muslims and amongst Christians, if a criticism/joke is made about their religion/religious traditions/religious beliefs.
There is a growth (in the UK, certainly) in an apparent attitude that nobody should be offended – this is particularly so in terms of religion; we have bumbled legislation now in place that was expected/hoped by many non-Christians would extend the outdated and ridiculous blasphemy laws to their belief systems – instead nobody really knows what it does, except give confidence to those who will brook no criticism and confuse many who wish to say something about religion.
Do we stop criticising aspects of Islam or extremist Islamists because some people may do so through straightforward Islamophobia and racism?
Do we stop criticising aspects of Christianity (in the UK, for instance, attempts by the Catholic church to blackmail the government over aspects of equality legislation) because it makes them upset and they don't think it's fair?
Do we stop criticising Mugabe's regime in Zimbabwe because some people will use it as a cover for racism?
Do we stop criticising the actions of the state of Israel because some people doing so will use it as a cover for anti-semitism?
I think that the answer is pretty obvious.
* And then the labeling of any Jewish person who criticises the state of Israel as 'self-hating'.
Note: it's also worth noting, since this is also a discussion about vocabulary, that Zionism is not a synonym for Israel or for Judaism. It's a political, largely secular movement, that is extremely nationalistic in character and can be analysed as a form of neo-fascism. It pre-dates the Holocaust and WWII by some decades, being founded primarily in the US by extremely wealthy individuals in the late 19th century. There are Christian Zionists too, although that is less secular, as it tends to do with ideas of the 'End Times' and the 'Rapture'.
It's also worth noting that Balfour – he of the 1917 Balfour Declaration, which gave such promises for a state of Israel – was almost certainly anti-semitic himself, having made anti-semitic speeches in Parliament less than two years previously. For many, the whole idea of a state of Israel was anti-semitic in itself – a way of stopping the diaspora and getting rid of Jews from Europe. Indeed, in the wake of WWII, the western European nations took in fewer Jewish refugees than they took in ethnic German refugees. They wanted to get rid of Jews – and let's face it, who cared about a few sand niggers in the Middle East, eh?
Stewart
26-Sep-2008, 08:41
There is a growth (in the UK, certainly) in an apparent attitude that nobody should be offended ? this is particularly so in terms of religion; we have bumbled legislation now in place that was expected/hoped by many non-Christians would extend the outdated and ridiculous blasphemy laws to their belief systems ? instead nobody really knows what it does, except give confidence to those who will brook no criticism and confuse many who wish to say something about religion.
That's why I like to trot out the old Stephen Fry line on religious objections to free speech: "So you're offended. So fucking what?"
Mirabell
26-Sep-2008, 09:02
Do we stop criticising the actions of the state of Israel because some people doing so will use it as a cover for anti-semitism?
Not 'cover'. Many many tropes of criticism of Israel, mainstream criticism mind you. Again, I don't read so much english press but -to use a German reference- the Spiegel's coverage of Israel is largely suspect, so it's THAT level of mainstream I talk about. If you read Paul Gilroy about blackness...that extends to jews as well, of course. It's not talking about a few nutjobs. It's about the mainstream press.
Second, that applies of course to Islam, too.
Third, it doesn't apply to christians, at leat not in Europe. The point is, after all, not criticism of religion, but a racializing of religious criticism. How you segued from clearly non-religious criticism of Israel to the point of religious criticism is remarkable and disturbing at the same time. Yes, Islam, religion blabla. BUt the point is that "Islam" has been racialized. If you look at the discourse, and this includes images, a certain ethnic provenience has become synonymous with "Islam". This is what racializing means. Using a non-racial concept such as "islam" in a way that clearly connotes race. It's insidious but common. And yes, on the surface you can keep on talking about religion all you like. Usually the way you frame it gives you away.
That's why "oh but what about christians" is bull. They are not racialized. We here know full well that there are loads of different kinds of christians. There are certain subgroups which are, indeed, racialized but that's not interesting for the main point.
And no one called for a complete "Stop" in criticism of Israel. No one I ever heard, or read did that. stopping a certain kind of criticism, yes. a complete stop of criticism of the way the current or past governments act? Possibly a few nutjobs, but there are always those. So what rhetorical purpose does that quoted question of yours serve? That's for me to know and for you to find out. God am I didactic today. Ugh.
and yes, talking about africa, not just zimbabwe, is often loaded with racism. Look at you-know-who's posts in that other thread. yuck.
Sybarite
26-Sep-2008, 09:23
That's why I like to trot out the old Stephen Fry line on religious objections to free speech: "So you're offended. So fucking what?"
Nice one. ~~LOL~~
... Third, it doesn't apply to christians, at leat not in Europe. The point is, after all, not criticism of religion, but a racializing of religious criticism. How you segued from clearly non-religious criticism of Israel to the point of religious criticism is remarkable and disturbing at the same time...
Um. I also "segued" into mentioning racism, since we're talking about the roots of some criticism, but you have chosen to be selective about what I posted. In the UK, criticism of religion has led to complaints. It's led to death threats – actual death threats – from Christians (against BBC directors). It's led to court cases charging people with blasphemy. The 'threat' of being expected to abide by a law that everyone else will be expected to abide by (equality legislation pertaining to sexuality) had senior Catholic clerics in the UK threatening to close down children's homes – that's blackmail, simple as). The same church has threatened to withdraw communion from any members who are MPs, who do not vote against abortion at any opportunity – sod what the constitutents that they've been elected to represent want. I know of a case in the north west where an evangelical church is attempting to have a local shop that sells 'New Age' stuff and talks about witchcraft and such nonsense closed down by the council. This is the UK – how 'radical' do you think we should wait for before raising these things?
... Yes, Islam, religion blabla. BUt the point is that "Islam" has been racialized. If you look at the discourse, and this includes images, a certain ethnic provenience has become synonymous with "Islam". This is what racializing means. Using a non-racial concept such as "islam" in a way that clearly connotes race. It's insidious but common. And yes, on the surface you can keep on talking about religion all you like. Usually the way you frame it gives you away...
Eh? This is political correctness, Mirabell. You're apparently accusing me of something that you don't even spell out properly. It very much seems that you're looking for things to take umbrage at – hence you're accusing me of 'segueing' into one thing without observing that I'd also 'segued' into something else too. I don't know – perhaps that's because you live in a country where public breast beating over the crimes of history is expected, even demanded?
... That's why "oh but what abiut christians" is bull. They are not racialized. We here know full well that there are loads of different kinds of christians. There are certain subgroups which are, indeed, racialized but that?s not interesting for the main point.
So they're not radicalised but some are radicalised.
Yup, that makes sense. Particularly as you're now effectively falling for the line that all Muslims – that Islam per se – has been radicalised. That's as crass as asserting that all Irish Catholics were in or supported the IRA. There are real issues with Islam, but I'm amused about your implied assertion that all Muslims see themselves as one racial group. I promise you, the Muslims where I live in the east of London do not all see themselves in that way. The Turkish Muslims do not see themselves as the same as the Pakistani Muslims. There is a crossing over into the racial issue amongst some – the idea that 'Muslim brothers' are being persecuted etc – but it is not a universal.
... And no one called for a complete "Stop" in criticism of Israel. No one I ever heard, or read did that. stopping a certain kind of criticism, yes. a complete stop of criticism of the way the current or past governments act? Possibly a few nutjobs, but there are always those. So what rhetorical purpose does that quoted question of yours serve? That's for me to know and for you to find out. God am I didactic today. Ugh...
I pointed out, in response to a number of posts (I didn't raise the subject) that criticism of the state of Israel is not synonymous with anti-semitism. Now I'm being subjected to a form of inquisition, from which there is, apparently, no escape. The way in which much of this is framed is that my 'motives' need to be explored. My 'segueing' indicates things. My 'record' gives me away. It's funny, it's Orwellian – and it's insidious.* And the implied suggestion that only criticism of the state of Israel that has dubious motives has been subject to the accusation of anti-semitism is naive at best. But you and others here are showing that it works.
* That is not to say that I object to having this discussion, BTW.
Note: as a very slight aside, but for the sake of a bit of context, I live and work very near to where the 7/7 bombs were detonated. Colleagues helped those from the bus bomb around the corner. And before that, the windows of my home have been rattled by IRA bombs. A number of incidents have been far too close for comfort. As such, I don't take terrorism lightly – whatever the motives.
Mirabell
26-Sep-2008, 09:51
So they're not radicalised but some are radicalised.
Yup, that makes sense. Particularly as you're now effectively falling for the line that all Muslims – that Islam per se – has been radicalised. That's as crass as asserting that all Irish Catholics were in or supported the IRA. There are real issues with Islam, but I'm amused about your implied assertion that all Muslims see themselves as one racial group. I promise you, the Muslims where I live in the east of London do not all see themselves in that way. The Turkish Muslims do not see themselves as the same as the Pakistani Muslims. There is a crossing over into the racial issue amongst some – the idea that 'Muslim brothers' are being persecuted etc – but it is not a universal.
are you mad, man? I did not even use the word "radicalized" nor the concept denoted by it. please do read closely. additionally, I never talked about self-images of muslims. have you been talking too long with eric? suddenly responding to things I never said, implied or mentioned?
My 'record' gives me away. It's funny, it's Orwellianahem. by orwellian I take it you mean "1984"-orwell. and, ahem. had I said this, it would've been. Of course I didn't. What I did say was Orwellian in the way that he points out in his essays that words matter. How I frame a certain point rhetorically matters. How that is a bad or even insidious thing is beyond me. It's like Sarah Palin suggesting that the actual "verbiage" is not important. it's important what's "meant". But the meaning does reside in the verbiage, not in your intentions. the how is a large part of the what.
And the implied suggestion that only criticism of the state of Israel that has dubious motives has been subject to the accusation of anti-semitism is naive at best.
...aaaaand neither did I imply or suggest this. and you may be putting too much of a stress on intentional antisemitism here, just a suggestion. intentional antisemitism by people who consider themselves antisemites is a fraction of the actual antisemitism around.
perhaps that's because you live in a country where public breast beating over the crimes of history is expected, even demanded?
well, you see. we learned, and are currently un-learbing again, that what happened, did not happen because a gang of whackos took over and forced everyone to do their bidding. what happened came from the midst of our society which wasn't very different from ours today. so we learned to be aware. looking back at our past, we could see what led to Auschwitz and we saw how blind even many perspicacious Germans were to those tendencies or noticed them too late. We learned that we might have blind spots, too, and to be aware and careful about what we do or say. As I said, that "we" does not apply to all or even most Germans. Which is sad.
Sybarite
26-Sep-2008, 11:26
are you mad, man? I did not even use the word "radicalized" nor the concept denoted by it. please do read closely. additionally, I never talked about self-images of muslims. have you been talking too long with eric? suddenly responding to things I never said, implied or mentioned?
Then someone has nicked your password and is logging in as you:
... Third, it doesn't apply to christians, at leat not in Europe. The point is, after all, not criticism of religion, but a racializing of religious criticism. How you segued from clearly non-religious criticism of Israel to the point of religious criticism is remarkable and disturbing at the same time. Yes, Islam, religion blabla. BUt the point is that "Islam" has been racialized. If you look at the discourse, and this includes images, a certain ethnic provenience has become synonymous with "Islam". This is what racializing means. Using a non-racial concept such as "islam" in a way that clearly connotes race. It's insidious but common. And yes, on the surface you can keep on talking about religion all you like. Usually the way you frame it gives you away.
That's why "oh but what about christians" is bull. They are not racialized. We here know full well that there are loads of different kinds of christians. There are certain subgroups which are, indeed, racialized but that's not interesting for the main point...
Oh ... and it's not "man", man. ;)
... ahem. by orwellian I take it you mean "1984"-orwell. and, ahem. had I said this, it would've been. Of course I didn't. What I did say was Orwellian in the way that he points out in his essays that words matter. How I frame a certain point rhetorically matters. How that is a bad or even insidious thing is beyond me...
What I saw as insidious is the implication that, for instance, in 'segueing' from one thing to another, this is 'interesting'. And the way that I 'frame things' (quote="usually the way you frame it gives you away") 'giving things away'. What does all this imply? That even the entirely factual statement that 'criticism of the state of Israel is not synonymous with anti-semitism' is suspect? That's risable. And insidious.
... It's like Sarah Palin suggesting that the actual "verbiage" is not important. it's important what's "meant". But the meaning does reside in the verbiage, not in your intentions. the [I]how is a large part of the what.
So what is "meant" by such concern over the factual statement that 'criticism of the state of Israel is not synonymous with anti-semitism'?
...aaaaand neither did I imply or suggest this. and you may be putting too much of a stress on intentional antisemitism here, just a suggestion. intentional antisemitism by people who consider themselves antisemites is a fraction of the actual antisemitism around...
On the latter point, I'd completely agree. But I remain concerned, just as with the issues of racism or sexism, for instance, that the idea that displays of unintentional 'isms' means that someone is playing judge of other people's motives. Who gets to say whether my – or anyone else's – comments are a result of an unintentional 'ism'? We're into the realms of political correctness here. It's perfectly reasonable to tackle racism and sexism and homophobia and anti-semitism etc. But is that best done by asserting that everyone that isn't a male, for instance, is automatically sexist? As a woman, I don't think it does that at all. In fact, I'd suggest that it boosts the 'authority' and the influence of extremists (we've seen this in the US and Canada in terms of extremist feminism, and it exists in the UK too; although not yet openly assertive, it is influencing political decisions). To take the idea of the unintentional 'ism' to its logical conclusion, in terms of sexism for example, it reminds me of the old extremist feminist idea that 'every man is a rapist'.
... well, you see. we learned...
Did you? Or did you just learn to say what was expected? Is it a coincidence that the far right has made its presence felt far more in the east of Germany, post the end of the Cold War – despite the intensity of the DDR anti-nazification programmes?
... and are currently un-learbing again, that what happened, did not happen because a gang of whackos took over and forced everyone to do their bidding. what happened came from the midst of our society which wasn't very different from ours today. so we learned to be aware. looking back at our past, we could see what led to Auschwitz and we saw how blind even many perspicacious Germans were to those tendencies or noticed them too late. We learned that we might have blind spots, too, and to be aware and careful about what we do or say. As I said, that "we" does not apply to all or even most Germans. Which is sad.
You'd be astonished how similar things can be said of people from many, many other nations too. There are vast amounts of British people that don't even know that we were the first country to use concentration camps – never mind that we even used them after WWII. How many Brits who babble on about how brilliant it was when we had an empire do you think actually want to consider that it was built on the foundations of the transatlantic slave trade?
Playing pick and mix with one's history, or refusing to learn the lessons of the past is not unique to Germany. Look around you – have they 'learnt' not to be anti-semitic in Russia? Have they 'learnt' not to homophobic in Poland? How do you reckon the Roma are treated in, say, Italy these days?
You do not change attitudes and end bigotry by getting people to repeat some sort of a mantra ad nauseum. Indeed, you almost certainly help to reinforce it.
Sybarite
26-Sep-2008, 11:29
By the way ... I'll be disappearing (to Stewartland for a wedding) in a few minutes. So I'll return to this debate in a couple of days.
Have fun. :)
Mirabell
26-Sep-2008, 13:39
Then someone has nicked your password and is logging in as you:
ok. since you highlighed them. teh word you said I used was
R A D I C A L I Z E D
The words you highlighted were
R A C I A L I Z E D
How bad are your troubles w/ eyesight?
really. it's too dumb to continue this way.
I will not repeat everythiong 5 times until you deign it worthy reading it closely. one eric is enough
but just cuz I like you
So what is "meant" by such concern over the factual statement that 'criticism of the state of Israel is not synonymous with anti-semitism'?I did say "the actual verbiage". you supplied a paraphrase. so. why is your question as just quoted irrelevant to what I said? it is. the answer's easy.
Is it a coincidence that the far right has made its presence felt far more in the east of Germany, post the end of the Cold War – despite the intensity of the DDR anti-nazification programmes?mebbe read something on the topic before pontificating, eh? there are at least three reasons. one, racism is usually, and this applies to france, germany and russia and many other countries in equal measures, worse where less foreigners live. In germany more foreigners live in the richer states. or to formulatre it differently: the states with the most foreigners are the richest. the states in the east of germany used to be and largely still are, although saxony is edging out, among the poorest states. those states in the west which are pretty poor, too, have higher rates of far right wing 'activists' as well. the rule that generally the states with the highest unemployment and the lowest per capita income are the ones most afflicted by that, holds true for all of germany. you don't need to include an east germany" exception into that. it's a socioeconomic fact that holds equally true for many other countries. two the "intensity" of the gdr's "anti-nazification programmes" was only "intense" during the first two decades and eased up later on. string right wing tendencies only developed in the 1970s and were hidden from the public eye by the state-controlled media. they were there all along, outspoken, aggressive, but nobody knew. three the nazi thing developed in the 1990s largely as a youth problem. youths w/ nothing to do (which was tough since the GDR had always something to do for the youths, that was generally experienced as a shock and is still causing problems) and wanting to shock their parents decided to go down that road. i personally had a few friends who turned neo-nazi in their late teens. which means its not relevant to the point
Did you? Or did you just learn to say what was expected?I see you ignored my caveat at the end of my statement. seeing as you have trouble reading that was to be expected. But yes, much was saying the right things. But on the other hand, even though it often did not translate into deep convictions, the shock of losing the war and being confronted with the concentration camps and the like made people here accept the importance of behaving in a decent manner. But as I said, currently it's sort of slipping out of shape. We tended, as a culture, to punish (yes, that isn't very appetizing) those who expressed opinions which showed that the person expressing it had not learned certain lessons. Martin Walser's speech, or Botho Strauss' Bocksgesang-essay are such examples, but expecially the latter text is getting good press again recently, and the brief outrage at Walser's explicitly antisemitic novel Tod eines Kritikers was over pretty soon. Yes, largely ritualistic outrage but it used to last longer. Soon there won't be any outrage any more. And it#s the left who, to no small extent is responsible through its work in channeling things like antisemitism in more acceptable channels. Anti-American sentiments, anti-zionism, and anti-capitalism. urgh.
Sybarite
28-Sep-2008, 17:31
... How bad are your troubles w/ eyesight?...
Actually, very bad. Hereditary myopia, which skipped my father and came to me (but not my sister) from my father's father. So bad, that I get free eye tests from the NHS, plus some money toward glasses/lenses, and so bad that I have to spend a fortune on glasses so that I can get specially glass that doesn't look like bottletops.
How about you?
My deepest apologies. I read a word wrongly. In fact, I read it wrongly several times. Perhaps it was less to do with my eyesight than a natural aversion to US spellings.
But I'm deeply sorry that it seems to have caused you so much grief.
Mirabell
28-Sep-2008, 22:22
But I'm deeply sorry that it seems to have caused you so much grief.
not grief. frustration.
i'm myopic, too. I'm astigmatic.
Sybarite
28-Sep-2008, 22:22
Oh, and I have to apologise to Stewart too, for saying that I was visiting "Stewartland". When I reached New Cumbernauld, I realised that it was not Glasgow.
Sybarite
02-Oct-2008, 11:59
Okay ... an attempt to answer Mirabell's comments without misreading a crucial word. :)
Not 'cover'. Many many tropes of criticism of Israel, mainstream criticism mind you. Again, I don't read so much english press but -to use a German reference- the Spiegel's coverage of Israel is largely suspect, so it's THAT level of mainstream I talk about. If you read Paul Gilroy about blackness...that extends to jews as well, of course. It's not talking about a few nutjobs. It's about the mainstream press.
Second, that applies of course to Islam, too.
The ultimate point is that there is still racism and anti-semitism and all sorts of other isms in parts of society ? and that is, of course, going to be reflected in the media. We can certainly see it in the UK, particularly with small, local titles, plus the tabloids. It's quite fluid, in my opinion, in that it adjusts to situations at the time. So for instance, in the UK in recent years, there has been a large amount of Islamophobic coverage in certain newspapers.
I think that (again, I?m talking here of the UK), anti-semitic comment is pretty rare ? it's just not what most people are thinking about and, therefore, not what they can be wound up about. The accusation of anti-semitism in connection with criticism of the state of Israel is usually limited to ? wait for it ? those people/publications that criticise the state of Israel. So you have the irony that the traditionally right-wing press in the UK tends, generally, not to criticise the state of Israel, although that might be expected to be the main source of any anti-semitism in print. Beyond the issue of Israel, the only recent anti-semitism in the UK media that I?m aware of was some snide comments in the Daily Mail (which initially supported Hitler and Moseley etc all those years ago), when Michael Howerd was the leader of the Conservative Party. The publication in question was condemned and satirised for that. But I have no doubt that if, for argument's sake, a Jewish suicide bomber took out a bus, there'd be plenty of it raising its head.
? Third, it doesn't apply to christians, at leat not in Europe. The point is, after all, not criticism of religion, but a racializing of religious criticism. How you segued from clearly non-religious criticism of Israel to the point of religious criticism is remarkable and disturbing at the same time. Yes, Islam, religion blabla. BUt the point is that "Islam" has been racialized. If you look at the discourse, and this includes images, a certain ethnic provenience has become synonymous with "Islam". This is what racializing means. Using a non-racial concept such as "islam" in a way that clearly connotes race. It's insidious but common. And yes, on the surface you can keep on talking about religion all you like. Usually the way you frame it gives you away?
You want to hear UK Christians complaining about how they're being vilified and sidelined, how being critical about Christianity is a new form of bullying and isn't fair, and how Christianity is the British religion and blah blah. It is becoming linked, if not to a race, then to a nationality and a particular view of a national identity.
I don't think that it can be any surprise that Islam is being viewed, in many Western eyes, as being of a specific race ? and that, as an inevitable consequence of that, some of the criticism of Islam takes on a racial and national nature. It's not new or unique to Islam. You earlier said (implying what, I don't know) that how I "segued from clearly non-religious criticism of Israel to the point of religious criticism is remarkable and disturbing at the same time".
Well, the lines are blurred ? and have been blurred for some considerable time.
A few years ago, the English actor Felicity Kendall converted to Judaism. If she was subjected to abuse over her new religion, would that be anti-semitism? You can't change your race, yet even the way in which word 'anti-semitism' is used blurs the lines between what you can choose and what you are born; between race and religion.
Is anti-semitism a form of bigotry on the basis of race or religion ? or a very specific conjunction of the two?
Yet the way that 'semitism' is used is also confusing ? and arguably racist. The Semitic peoples are supposed to be all the peoples descended from Shem, one of the sons of Noah. That includes but is not limited to the Jews, Arabs, Phoenicians and Assyrians. It's as if the current usage is a linguistic version of the Zionist slogan of: 'a land with no people for a people with no land'; a way of using vocabulary to ignore a shared heritage and history.
Actually, it's a perfect illustration of the question at the top of this thread.
So one could say that Judaism has long been 'racialised' and that Zionism and the creation of the state of Israel have added further strands to the complexity. Indeed, we know that, from it's very foundation, the state of Israel has not been home to Jewish people exclusively ? to be an Israeli is not to be automatically Jewish ? yet the flag of that country suggests that it is, in the same way that the Saudi flag suggests that to be Saudi is to be Muslim.
Nationality, race and religion have long been linked.
One might also note, as another example, the decision by some radical black activists in the US (and elsewhere) to convert to Islam from Christianity, as Christianity was viewed as a Western religion and a religion of the oppressor. So even Christianity does, in some people's minds, have links to race and to issues other than theology.
The point is that none of this is new or linked to any one religion or race or nationality. And it can hardly be a surprise when the confusion between the these elements finds its way into criticism of one or other element. Some of that will be deliberate racism/anti-semitism, but some of it won't.
But in terms of Islam, the link between nationalism and religion has been increasing since the early 1970s ? probably since the death of Nasser in 1970, and with him, a sense of a political alternative to the extremes of capitalism/the West, linked with liberation movements. So the defeat of secular aspirations has seen an increase in religiously-linked aspirations, which first came to obvious (from the point of view of the West) fruition in Iran.
But again, since Israel was a religious state, the idea of specifically religious states was nothing new (and ideas of the Caphilate go back centuries, together with ideas of other forms of theocracy).
So I think that, while there is increasing link between race and Islam in some people's minds and in some people's criticism, it's not new, it's not unique, and nationality and national aspiration have been linked to religions for a very long time.
So you have the irony that the traditionally right-wing press in the UK tends, generally, not to criticise the state of Israel, although that might be expected to be the main source of any anti-semitism in print.
How is it ironic? Why would they be expected to be the main source of in-print anti-semitism? Are you actually implying anti-semitism is mainly a right-wing thing?
Mirabell
02-Oct-2008, 12:59
How is it ironic? Why would they be expected to be the main source of in-print anti-semitism? Are you actually implying anti-semitism is mainly a right-wing thing?
pssst. She is ignoring what I said on this. don't disturb her. it may (careful) be orwellian to do so. I'm still not sure which orwell. Wright, I guess. Wright-wing?
saliotthomas
02-Oct-2008, 13:13
Maybe Mirabel could creat a thread about anti-semitisme and anti-zionisme in or out of a literary context?
I thing vocabulary is important as well as spelling(notwithstanding my complete impotency in that matter) ,fiction,non fiction,good food,beautiful women and smell of earth after the rain.All these and much more.
Sybarite
02-Oct-2008, 13:16
How is it ironic? Why would they be expected to be the main source of in-print anti-semitism? Are you actually implying anti-semitism is mainly a right-wing thing?
Yes, when I think of anti-semitism, I primarily – not exclusively, but primarily – think of the political right. When I've heard anti-semitism in recent years it's not been from left-wingers.
Mirabell, having made (and acknowledged quite clearly) a big error in reading previous posts by you in this thread, I've tried to give you a considered answer. If you don't like it, fine. That's your problem. If you don't agree with it, fine. That's your problem. But kindly try not to be such a patronising individual.
'Orwellian'? Well, I'm certainly beginning to feel as though I'm being 'tested' in this thread to see if I say the 'right' words and phrases (quite relevant to the subject of vocabulary).
Mirabell
02-Oct-2008, 14:24
oh no you''ve got it wrong. It's the "wright phrases" I'm demanding. Charles, not James. Oh or am I being Orvillian again? Or villainous? I'm certainly out to test you. A test with zest, yessir. And with a few doors, Frank Lloyd says from the Wright wing. Arrrrrrrr! Was that a pirate? I think it was. And now for something completely different. a poem. (a poem! a poem!)
Saint Judas
When I went out to kill myself, I caught
A pack of hoodlums beating up a man.
Running to spare his suffering, I forgot
My name, my number, how my day began,
How soldiers milled around the garden stone
And sang amusing songs; how all that day
Their javelins measured crowds; how I alone
Bargained the proper coins, and slipped away.
Banished from heaven, I found this victim beaten,
Stripped, kneed, and left to cry. Dropping my rope
Aside, I ran, ignored the uniforms:
Then I remembered bread my flesh had eaten,
The kiss that ate my flesh. Flayed without hope,
I held the man for nothing in my arms.
Yes, when I think of anti-semitism, I primarily ? not exclusively, but primarily ? think of the political right. When I've heard anti-semitism in recent years it's not been from left-wingers.
That's weird. I'll put it down to a difference between the Isles and the continent, but that's weird. The most virulent manifestation of anti-semitism I witnessed in recent years took place in various demonstration against the Iraq war. Some of it was vicious, and did come in equal measure from Islamist associations and far left parties / groups. Though opposed to the war, I did not take part to the demonstrations for various reasons -- my dislike for mass movements being one -- among which the anti-semitism on display was another big one.
Furthermore, the left has a long history with anti-semitism. The right may have had the tendency of blaming bolshevism on the Jews, but there were plenty of virulent anti-semites among the Bolsheviks (and no, I'm not thinking Stalin only). In France, the most ardent defenders of Dreyfus were on the left but his ennemies were on both sides of the fence.
I'm also quite sure the case of Proudhon is not unknown, and much has been argued about Marx -- although here I remain unconvinced. Let's not even bring up Jean Genet.
We could go on and on and on but it's a sad fact that no one -- Right or Left -- is immune to anti-semitism. Same for racism and xenophobia -- the French Communist Party had some pretty heavy tracts and posters on the '70's.
So the irony you're allduing to is definitely lost on me. It seems like a partisan take more than a rational look at the issue.
Sidenote: I didn't want to step-in at first but now that I did, you made some link between zionsim and neo-fascism. Isn't there a chronological issue here? Furthermore, even if we only look at zionism as it is now, what are the links with fascism? (I'm asking because they don't seem obvious to me and the f-word is much too often invoked in vain).
saliotthomas
02-Oct-2008, 16:09
From what Fausto describe about the recent revival of antisemitisme in France.It has been a very heated subjet the last few years,but as a close witness(i lived and work in the jewish distric it Paris)i felt the question to be more national than local.In the sense that i very seldom witnessed nether antisemitic comments nor behaviour,but lot of it was present on the news or statistic lists.
Antizionisme is different,French are Antizionist and Antiamerican to the core,but honestly i never felt direct problemes with Jews.
I'd rather be a jew in France that a Muslim,an Arabe,or a black Africain.And i guess this would apply to a great many countries.
Brussels is in Belgium, which is where I'm talking from although I've got some experience of Netherlands and Spain too. Regarding France, there's been a lot of mediatic circus round it and quite a lot of Jew bashing in the anti-war demos too. It doens't mean people are beaten up or insulted in the Sentier, obviously.
I fail to see what "it's tougher for a... than for a..." line has to do with this debate.
saliotthomas
02-Oct-2008, 17:00
It's just a constatation Fausto.But if people are not beaten, insulted,or discriminated(in job position say) how do you judge antisemitisme.As an aura,a general feeling?
I was talking about France,not Belgium were definetly Brussel stand proudly,and of a general feeling of tiredness about a debat that as become a bit artificial, compared to more urgent racial problemes.And evoking Arabian and black when talking about antisemitisme,is still talking about discrimination.
spooooool
02-Oct-2008, 17:11
If this counts for anything, given that it's a couple of decades since i've been involved in party politics. I don't think that it's necessarily a difference between isles and continents. I saw it then and i see it now, it's only that it dresses differently. So much of the anti-war, anti neo con stuff that i'd meet with - and i'm opposed to the war, and neo cons r evolt me, but so much f the stuff i met with online and in life smacked so heavily of "the jew in our midst" and was accepted so uncritically, without qualification, by people whose opinions of valued, loved and trusted, and i'd often wonder if it was just me
It's just a constatation Fausto.But if people are not beaten, insulted,or discriminated(in job position say) how do you judge antisemitisme.As an aura,a general feeling?
Jew youth organization receive threats -- serious threats -- on a weekly basis and most of their activities, if held outside the precints of the association, have to be done under direct police protection. If you want to call this an aura, be my guest.
(...) a general feeling of tiredness about a debat that as become a bit artificial, compared to more urgent racial problemes.And evoking Arabian and black when talking about antisemitisme,is still talking about discrimination.
You see Thomas... I wonder where we actually talked about discrimination on this tread. This is about vocabulary -- ie anti-semitism vs antizionism -- and whether anti-semitism is limited to the right as some would have us believe. We never discussed discrimination or tried to determine whether it was more difficult to be an arab or a jew, hence my doubting of the relevance of your remark in this debate. Anyway, asides are fair game I guess -- I'm culprit in this too.
Still, let me ask you a question: why is that that any time antisemitism is discussed -- and even when we're not directly talking about discrimination -- someone just has to say the Jews have it easier than the Arabs? Might be true, but why the automatism? And why isn't this the case when, say, Gay rights are discussed? I mean it's also about discrimination, it's also a tired, artificial debate and surely it's easier to be a gay in modern day France than an Arab... Doesn't this tell us something about our attitude to Jews?
(NB: I know you were talking about France, my remark was in reference to you saying "From what Fausto describe about the recent revival of antisemitisme in France". Well, I never described such a thing although many of the remarks I made certainly do apply.)
saliotthomas
03-Oct-2008, 11:27
My remarque might sound overly simplist and antisemitisme is to delicate a subjet to be discussed lightly.
What i implied was that after the general apotheosis of hatred of the early century resulting in the masse muder and extermination of the camps.The casual antisemitisme of the masse as somehow been put to rest,no definetly mind you,but even the crudest jew hater had to find other targets to blame for his own failures.
"The jews in our mist" as Spoooool said or "jews undermining the economie" was transformed in "the Arabes take our jobs" and such.
This might very well change again with the recent crisis but i felt my generation was one spared by antisemitisme,it was inconceivable to be so,as far as i can remember.Therefore my fear of,by making to much ado about it,reviving the old ghost.Certainly an immature way of dealing with a situation.
I don't think gays have it easy ether,not outside major citys,but there situation is not politicals.
Xenonophobie in general is what worries me most,jews been only a small part of it and not the most obvious.This does not mean it is inexistant or as to be ingnored.
Antisemitism is incomparable to other racisms, not transferable to other groups. Shoah alone didn't just confer a special status, it confirmed a long-standing status, wrapped into the fabric of Western civilization, always a target of either end of the political spectrum, and not just the extreme or the most ideological, though most useful as fodder for paranoia there. (Timerman shows the Argentine reiteration in the late 70s.) The motto "Never again" may be taken with 'again' being irrelevant because it's ongoing, always a continuation. And it's an equal opportunity prejudice, prevalent among other historically oppressed groups (in addition to the oppressive ones). Hardly a ghost when it lives on, even thrives, not as a crime of deed or creed but as one purely existential. It taints debate on Israel (eg UCU); Zionism is the only nationalism that's equated with racism (ntm, perversely, fascism), and somehow always seems to get more attention than more egregious human rights violations. Though it's not exculpatory, Israel, and Jews, have good reasons to be paranoid.
Sybarite
03-Oct-2008, 15:49
Antisemitism is incomparable to other racisms, not transferable to other groups. Shoah alone didn't just confer a special status...
All victims of prejudice are equal, but some victims of prejudice are more equal than others, eh?
I don't know about anyone else, but personally, I've no interest in creating a league table where some forms of bigotry and prejudice score more points than others. I mean, how many less points do blacks get for the transatlantic slave trade? Or the slave trade per se? Indeed, what'll be the points difference between those two sets of victims? Was anti-semitism rated on fewer points than the slave trade before the Holocaust?
What the hell is that if it isn't a prejudice itself?
... Zionism is the only nationalism that's equated with racism ...
Nationalism and patriotism are not one and the same.
The apartheid state was both nationalistic and racist.
Nazism was nationalistic. And racist.
The BNP in the UK is fiercely nationalistic. And racist.
And that's just off the top of my head.
************************************************** ************
Fausto – I will respond in full to your earlier comments later, but I've been particularly busy today.
All victims of prejudice are equal, but some victims of prejudice are more equal than others, eh?
I don't know about anyone else, but personally, I've no interest in creating a league table where some forms of bigotry and prejudice score more points than others. I mean, how many less points do blacks get for the transatlantic slave trade? Or the slave trade per se? Indeed, what'll be the points difference between those two sets of victims? Was anti-semitism rated on fewer points than the slave trade before the Holocaust?
What the hell is that if it isn't a prejudice itself?
You seem deeply confused. How do you extrapolate to rating different racisms? I said incomparable. That's essentially different. (You'll note that this replies to saliotthomas, talking of transformations.)
A personal anecdote: I live in the suburbs of one of the most cosmopolitan metro areas in the world, the one with the highest concentration of Jews (from ultraOrthodox to fully secular) outside Israel. The 'burbs have their own concentrations (eg Catholic, Jewish, Afro-Am, Hispanic) but are pretty intermixed. When I moved to my current abode, there was a mezuzah put up by some previous occupant and left up since. On the anniversary of Kristallnacht in 1990, every mezuzahed place in my neighborhood had their storm-doors shattered by a pellet-gun in a drive-by: not an idle prank, someone had taken the trouble to compile their list beforehand. I replaced the storm-door and took down the mezuzah with mixed feelings: stupid to fly a false flag when I don't subscribe to solidarity gestures, but however rational it may have been to remove it, it left a bad taste.
Mirabell
04-Oct-2008, 00:03
Might be true, but why the automatism?
exactly. that was one of the point I meant when I mentioned actual utterances. they follow often certain lines, recurring and showing a certain pattern-
Mirabell
04-Oct-2008, 00:14
All victims of prejudice are equal, but some victims of prejudice are more equal than others, eh?
If you don't mind me saying, that reply of yours is pretty common among a certain kind of, let's say, world view. Nnyhav of course never implied a hierarchy but that you would jump as if he did, and just accessed a reflex does say something.
Ah well.
To all of you I recommend the marvelous satire My Holocaust by the incredible Tova Reich. An almost perfect novel. It's going to be published in Germany these days and I cringe when I think of the possible ways the public is going to react. There are two ways of misreading the text and I don't want to happen upon either of them.
Is vocabulary important? See what they say in today's Telegraph:
'Literally' tops a list of the most hated phrases of Daily Telegraph readers - Telegraph (http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/newstopics/howaboutthat/3400722/Literally-tops-a-list-of-the-most-hated-phrases-of-Daily-Telegraph-readers.html)
Oxford University's top [sic] ten most irritating phrases:
1 - At the end of the day
2 - Fairly unique
3 - I personally
4 - At this moment in time
5 - With all due respect
6 - Absolutely
7 - It's a nightmare
8 - Shouldn't of
9 - 24/7
10 - It's not rocket science
Daily Telegraph top ten list:
1 Literally
2 A safe pair of hands
3 I'm gutted
4 Basically
5 Going forward
6 Upcoming
7 Shouldn't of
8 Up until
9 Neither here not there
10 On a daily basis
*
jackdawdle
21-Dec-2008, 14:14
Is vocabulary important? See what they say in today's Telegraph:
'Literally' tops a list of the most hated phrases of Daily Telegraph readers - Telegraph (http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/newstopics/howaboutthat/3400722/Literally-tops-a-list-of-the-most-hated-phrases-of-Daily-Telegraph-readers.html)
My pet peeves are:
1) Hey
2) Mister
3) I love you (this takes the cake)
4)
5) What's your real name?
A thought for the last day of the Old Year: gender and naming. We are very inconsistent in English, when it comes to marking roles, jobs and positions for gender:
She's a female nurse.
King Elizabeth II is married to the Duchess of Edinburgh.
He's an actress.
Marjorie is a literary translatress.
The cat was saved from certain death by a firewoman.
*
The problem is there in other languages, too:
In several languages, especially the Slav ones and French, you cannot even say "I went to the shops" without revealing your gender. Whilst in languages such as Finnish, "He went to the shops" and "She went to the shops" are absolutely identical. In French and Polish, "They went to the shops" reveals gender by way of the pronoun; not in English.
Death or the sun personified is not always either a man or a woman consistently.
Some languages even classify their inanimate nouns as masculine, feminine or neuter.
Vocabulary is a funny business.
A thought for the last day of the Old Year: gender and naming. We are very inconsistent in English, when it comes to marking roles, jobs and positions for gender:
She's a female nurse.
King Elizabeth II is married to the Duchess of Edinburgh.
He's an actress.
Marjorie is a literary translatress.
Well, we?ll forget the duchess, as she doesn?t have a problem, but from the second wave of feminism in the late 1960s through the march of political correctness, there has been a general trend towards bisexualizing the English language because, for instance, the feminine -ess suffix tends to inferiorize: just how demeaning, for example, does it sound to speak of a ?poetess? or an ?authoress?, a ?manageress? or a ?directress?? ?Translatress? I?ve never heard of, of course*: is it a joke like the male actress (or was that a typo)? Similarly, ?sculptress? and ?actress? are starting to disappear, which is to be welcomed.
In several languages, especially [?] French, you cannot even say "I went to the shops" without revealing your gender.
But you?ve chosen one of a handful of irregular verbs which are conjugated with ??tre?, whereas the vast majority are conjugated with ?avoir?, where (assuming there?s no preceding direct object) there?s no agreement, so no indication of gender.
In French [?], "They went to the shops" reveals gender by way of the preposition
I don?t, for the life of me, understand what the preposition has got to do with it. Can you translate this?
Vocabulary is a funny business.
The problem with ?nurse? is that people still tend to think that this will indicate a woman, and ?doctor? a man. People are funny too.
* I wrote that after referring to my Collins dictionary, which is the full, not the concise, version, and which finds some -ess endings 'disparaging'. I have since Googled 'translatress' and indeed find that some anti-feminist online dictionaries would indeed like to give it an existence. It's a ugly word that certainly should not be in existence this century, and reeks of 19th century sexism.
Thanks for the response, Lionel. The examples were intended to sound slightly ludicrous, but also to highlight the inconsistencies.
My knowledge of French means that I did, of course, deliberately "target" verbs of motion conjugated with ?tre. But French is not the only language spoken in Europe. One of my major points was that there are a whole range of languages in Europe have built-in grammar which means that you either must reveal gender, under certain circumstances, or cannot. Does this mean that the Finns, Hungarians, Turks and Estonians are less sexist than the Russians, Poles, Letts and Ukrainians (and the French when using all verbs of motion)? Russian and Polish women automatically use a different ending for their surnames.
The -ess ending is indeed a bone of contention. The word "poetess" is used in Russian and Estonian to imply a rather well-received female poet, without the rather arch associations that the word has in English.
The pronouns (I wrote "preposition" by accident, a typo, now altered) "they", "we" and "you" are not marked for gender in English. So English is, in this respect, somewhere between the Slav languages where some pronouns or parts of the verb are marked for gender, and the Finno-Ugrian languages, where they are not, consistently. Again my rather rhetorical question is: does this make the speakers of one language more innately sexist than those of others?
If that is not the case, it seems rather unnecessary to turn all actresses into actors, but still keep the distinction down the pub, where Richard Bloggs would think it odd if you regarded him as both "mine hostess" and the "landlady" of the "Boaress' Head" while serving Lady Reginald Postlethwaite. Bring back David Walliams, all is forgiven.
"Doctor" is an interesting one. In England, the word may indeed still imply a male, and yet in Russia, for generations, most doctors of the hospital and GP kind have been women. Once again, a word can imply one thing in one language, another in another.
I have never-ever seen "translatress" used seriously. But I wonder if a woman sexist should be called a Female Chauviniste Sow (or FCS)...
And what about the feminist tendency to turn all the his- and man/men- words into their opposite, neutral, in order to annihilate sexism:
herstory
spokesperson
The above are well-known. But what about:
womandatory
womandrake
womenstruation
womenopause
herstorectomy
Herspanic
footperson
char gentleman
guardsperson
herstrionic
herstogram
person-in-waiting
womandala
womanager
personhole
Womanchuria
And so on. You can certainly have fun with words.
And what about the feminist tendency to turn all the his- and man/men- words into their opposite, neutral, in order to annihilate sexism:
herstory
spokesperson
The above are well-known. But what about:
womandatory
womandrake
womenstruation
womenopause
herstorectomy
Herspanic
footperson
char gentleman
guardsperson
herstrionic
herstogram
person-in-waiting
womandala
womanager
personhole
Womanchuria
And so on. You can certainly have fun with words.
I've always liked 'herstory' because it is genuinely clever, although I doubt that it was ever meant to be taken seriously. 'Spokesperson' isn't too bad, but then if you have too many 'persons' the thing gets a bit silly. I suspect that almost all of the other examples here were in fact part of the backlash against political correctness in order to ridicule it: the original feminist aim was to create a vocabulary that is non-gender specific. It had an important message to say: language is sexist.
I find it very positive that most English city and county councils have replaced 'chairman' with 'chair', although on the race issue I find some councils insisting on 'coffee without milk' and 'chalkboard' plain silly. I know too that some prefer 'idea scattering' to 'brainstorming' as the latter is discriminatory to epileptics! That is fact, not myth.
titania7
31-Dec-2008, 18:23
I suspect that almost all of the other examples here were in fact part of the backlash against political correctness in order to ridicule it: the original feminist aim was to create a vocabulary that is non-gender specific. It had an important message to say: language is sexist.
Yes, language is sexist. However, I must admit, even though I am a feminist, I was never offended when someone called me an "actress."
Indeed, most of the time, the female thespians I knew were referred to as actresses...or at least they were 3 years ago. Could things have become that much more politically correct since then? :)
If you really want to hear about some sexist behavior, I have at least one example to share. Many of the theatre directors I knew referred to the actresses they worked with as either "babe" and "hon." In fact, at least two male directors I worked with called me "babe." I had to bite my tongue to keep from telling them, "That's not my name." It was obvious that, for them, it was just par for the course.
I find it very positive that most English city and county councils have replaced 'chairman' with 'chair', although on the race issue I find some councils insisting on 'coffee without milk' and 'chalkboard' plain silly.
I haven't heard the "coffee without milk" term. That's a new one, Lionel!
I know too that some prefer 'idea scattering' to 'brainstorming' as the latter is discriminatory to epileptics! That is fact, not myth.
It's interesting you should bring this up as it's been a matter of hot debate for a few years now. Here's one side of the story:
Survey: word 'brainstorming' not offensive to people with epilepsy | Epilepsy Action (http://www.epilepsy.org.uk/node/1078)
Oh, and another alternative to "brainstorming" (aside from "idea scattering," which I really like), is "thought showers."
Happy 2009!
~Titania
Yes, language is sexist. However, I must admit, even though I am a feminist, I was never offended when someone called me an "actress."
Maybe not. But I still think it's on the way out. :p
If you really want to hear about some sexist behavior [...]
No, I'd prefer not to.
Many of the theatre directors I knew referred to the actresses they worked with as either "babe" and "hon." In fact, at least two male directors I worked with called me "babe." I had to bite my tongue [...]
Listen, babe, you should have bitten something else. Hard. ;)
Language is sexist, but sometimes behaviour is even more so. Isn't it, Lionel, babe? As for thespians, are they a kind of lithping tribades, or what?
Happy New Year, chaps!
As for thespians, are they a kind of lithping tribades, or what?
Yeah, let's bring homophobia into the debate too. Oh, Happy New Year, Eric!
PS I was talking about a nose. Too phallic, maybe?
Vocabulary, and its importance.
While urinating, just now, it suddenly struck me. Not the liquid in question, but the fact that a famous expression is quite ambiguous.
How many of you saw, years ago, the meaning of the following expression:
"When the shit hits the fan."
I have always taken the image to mean: "when the f?ces hit a whirling fan, and this unpleasant substance is sprayed round the room".
However, another interpretation is possible: "when an unpleasant person [presumably a celebrity] thumps a sycophantic person who always thought that the celebrity was almost godlike".
Ambiguity is what makes vocabulary so amusing.
I saw this in the Times today, in an article about the Labour Party and its problems:
He [Nick Brown] said that they had been joined by ?eccentric individualists? such as the backbenchers Graham Stringer, Graham Allen and Paul Farrelly. The latter categorically denied the claim on the BBC2 Newsnight programme.
Well?
So, has anyone spotted the grammatical point I was making in my last entry. Nothing to do with politics, but with logic: what is the precise difference between "last" and "latter"?
So, has anyone spotted the grammatical point I was making in my last entry. Nothing to do with politics, but with logic: what is the precise difference between "last" and "latter"?
At first I thought that the author had meant to write "individuals" and not "individualists," but then, I've no idea who any of these people are... :o
You make a good point, Eric; however, these articles are written, proofread, edited and prepared for print within approximately 10-12 hours, if not less, so I think it's only natural that some of these grammatical subtleties should escape the attention of even the most devoted of copy-editors.
On top of which, these articles are also generally skimmed through, by the everyday populace on their way to work on a train/bus/trolley/ferry, so unless they have an eagle eye for detail, they probably don't even notice them (which is not an excuse for negligence on the part of the original writer/journalist, but still).
L.
SilverSeason
05-Jun-2009, 12:28
So, has anyone spotted the grammatical point I was making in my last entry. Nothing to do with politics, but with logic: what is the precise difference between "last" and "latter"?
Last would be Paul Farrelly. Latter would be who? I see this all the time. It represents a weakening of distinctions which we are sometime urged to see as a natural evolution of language. The use of individuals/individualists is interesting too. We are all individuals, but only some of us are individualists. Are all backbenchers individualists, or only the three individuals named? In that case they may all be "the latter" in contrast with those backbenchers who are not individulists.
I think that Silver Season is nudging towards what I was getting at. But no one has yet been explicit. It's a simple grammatical point. Try this rehashed text instead. The grammatical point is still there:
He said that they had been joined by “politicians” such as William Ewart Gladstone, Franklin Delano Roosevelt and Caroline Flint. The latter categorically denied the claim on the BBC2 Newsnight programme that she had gone into modelling, subsequent to her recent resignation.
It's got nothing to do with "individuals" (i.e. people counted one by one) versus "individualists" (i.e. people who go their own way, do their own thing, often brushing aside the opinions of others).
The Sunday Telegraph, 7th June 2009:
A headmaster hung himself after discovering that the parents of a pupil were bringing a tribunal complaining about his school, an inquest has heard.
It may be a pedantic point, but there are two past tense words for the verb "to hang" in English: "hanged" and "hung".
The former is usually used when talking about executing criminals, whilst the latter is mostly used about the physical act of hanging up something; about hanging game and poultry to weather and preserve the meat; and in the charming masculinist expression "well-hung".
Vocabulary is important when you have what are termed "false friends" or "faux amis". These are word that look the same or similar, but can mean the diametric opposite, if you go from language to language - but even within the same language. If you don't appreciate this, you will become totally confused.
One example is the word 'liberal", in English or other European languages.
In Britain, "liberal" means centrist, neither conservative nor left-wing, and rather freethinking regarding social policy. But in Europe, the same word tends to denote those who are in favour of free trade, business deregulation and globalisation, which is mainly a right-wing agenda.
An American would no doubt be totally puzzled by the utterance of a socialist politician in Antwerp, an interview I saw a few minutes ago on TV in the Dutch language. In the European elections, Antwerp has swung to the right politically. The largest party is the ultra-rightist "Vlaams Belang" (roughly: Flemish Interests). Yet the socialist politican was complaining that Antwerp was now dominated by "liberaal" politicians. In Flemish terms, "liberaal" means "right-wing". A Brit listening to the interview (assuming he understood Dutch) would also be puzzled. In Britain the LiberalDemocrats are a political party that is sometimes left, sometimes right, but mostly easygoing centrist. They combine a free-trade kind of economic programe with rather laid-back views on drugs, punishment of criminals, abortion, etc., etc.
So between the USA, Britain and the countries of the continent of Europe, this word "liberal" risks causing utter confusion when used in international conversation.
Galatea92
08-Jun-2009, 08:41
I saw this in the Times today, in an article about the Labour Party and its problems:
He [Nick Brown] said that they had been joined by “eccentric individualists” such as the backbenchers Graham Stringer, Graham Allen and Paul Farrelly. The latter categorically denied the claim on the BBC2 Newsnight programme.
Well?
The word latter should only be used when you're dealing with a pair of terms ('the former' and 'the latter'), whereas here we've got a list of three terms. The writer should have said 'The last categorically denied the claim...'.
Hurray, Galatea! You win the prize for setting out the difference. You will, of course, note that I smuggled the "the former" versus "the latter" distinction into my posting about hanging, in order to demonstrate the difference.
That's a nice dicussion) May god speed you, translator!))) What about vocabulary... It's a rather important thing. To my mind everyone, who deals with translations should always enlarge his vocabulary
Metaphors should be used with care. Here's a sentence from today's Observer (the Sunday version of the Guardian, London):
With temperatures at 35C, the situation in the Iranian capital threatened to reach boiling point as special forces in riot gear chased protesters through side streets near Fatemi Square.
Logic tells me that however apt the metaphor, you need another 65 degrees Celsius (aka centigrade) of heat to reach real boiling point.
Another not-brilliant sentence in this article, this time caused by the ambiguity of the verb "to lie":
Ahmadinejad lies in front of the whole nation on state-run TV.
OK in context, as the word "liar" is in the previous sentence. But I can't help thinking of Ahmedi-Nejad vying with British model politician Caroline Flint to look gorgeous, stretched out languidly on a carpet in front of the whole nation.
nice examples! Many young juornalists or wrighters try to make the language of their articals more vitable, but sometimes such things as you've shown, happen. I remember words from one pop song (one humourist has said about it): "Eneralb eyebrows are in the ear by the light of the Moon" )))))))))))
This is a sad story. A depressed Dutch-born banker has disappeared along with two shotguns. People fear the worst. But the journalist's use of English means she didn't quite say what she wanted to, given the various meanings of the verb "to miss":
Huibert Boumeester is an experienced marksman. He has been missing since June 22, 2009.
Well-meaning people in the West often list slavery, homophobia, anti-Semitism, racism, sexism, etc., as principal evils, and maybe think that the first thing they should do is ban words, so that the thoughts behind them will ultimately wither.
Although I found out later that this line was older than the hills, back in the day it DID teach me a thing or two about the importance of choosing the right words:
When yours truly was still a well-behaved young Catholic boy, he quoted Leviticus 18:22 to a guy he eventually ended up in bed with: "Thou shalt not lie with mankind, as with womankind: it is an abomination."
"That's OK," the other one said. "We'll do it standing up."
To me, it seems like there will ALWAYS be some loophole. Vocabulary is such a slippery tool.
Cheers,
L
Vocabulary is such a slippery tool.
I love that sentence in this context!
I second Lionel's amusement at the mention of the slippery tool in the context of a small orifice such as a loophole.
I second Lionel's amusement at the mention of the slippery tool in the context of a small orifice such as a loophole.
This sounds like the kind of painful, embarrassing, and painfully embarrassing solitary pleasure gone wrong that, according to anecdote or urban myth, firefighters are occasionally called in to extricate men from.
Harry
Tony:
I love that sentence in this context!
Eric:
I second Lionel's amusement at the mention of the slippery tool in the context of a small orifice such as a loophole.
Harry:
This sounds like the kind of painful, embarrassing, and painfully embarrassing solitary pleasure gone wrong that, according to anecdote or urban myth, firefighters are occasionally called in to extricate men from.
And here I thought we were all adults here...
[You guys made me laugh though].
L.
This sounds like the kind of painful, embarrassing, and painfully embarrassing solitary pleasure gone wrong that, according to anecdote or urban myth, firefighters are occasionally called in to extricate men from.
You know, when I was a kid, I saw this irresistible milk bottle, and... OK, I'm all growed up now and prefer dolls.
beelzebubbles
30-Jun-2009, 07:45
When yours truly was still a well-behaved young Catholic boy, he quoted Leviticus 18:22 to a guy he eventually ended up in bed with: "Thou shalt not lie with mankind, as with womankind: it is an abomination."
"That's OK," the other one said. "We'll do it standing up."
I am glad that I am a heterosexual woman, because I am too lazy to have sex standing up.
Good to know my supine nature has me right with the Lord.
I am going to go lie down now.
Good to know my supine nature has me right with the Lord.
If that's a joke, then I like it, but if it's not, then I don't like it.
Although not a heterosexual woman myself, I side with Beelzebubbles: I'm buggered if I'm going to have sex standing up.
Although not a heterosexual woman myself...
That's good to know, Eric...
:)
L.
beelzebubbles
01-Jul-2009, 22:33
'If you lie down with dogs, you will get up with fleas.'
If you lie down with me, there could be waffles later.
Getting back to the less cuddly aspects of this waffle-hugging thread, why is it that the British media are incapable of distinguishing between a translator and an interpreter? Yes, both translate but one on paper (or hard disk), the other verbally, usually instantly. It's like blurring the distinction between an electrician and an electronics expert. They too do different jobs.
Here's another one:
I've always assumed that the established English name for the coastal city in the West of Sweden is Gothenburg in English. Then the Swedes themselves started calling the book fair there the "G?teborg Book Fair" following Swedish usage. In Swedish the city is pronounced something like "yerter-BORRY".
Now the Daily Telegraph (online 11 September 2009), a newspaper not known for being particularly Europhile, said this:
The report is being prepared for the October meeting of EU finance ministers in G?teborg, which will focus on the exit strategy from the economic crisis and the long-term sustainability of EU public finances.
So, when choosing where to go for my holidays, should I choose to go to Milano, Warszawa, Brussel, Lisboa, Roma, K?benhavn or Beograd? Some names of cities co?ncide with the local name (e.g. Berlin, Paris, Amsterdam, Stockholm, Oslo, Madrid, Frankfurt), although the pronunciation may differ, but some do not.
What's wrong with the established English name "Gothenburg" in this instance?
Latest piece of "important" vocabulary used by BBC newsreaders:
petting farm
This is presumably a farm where heavy petting takes place... The sheer daftness of this term beggars belief.
Another stoopid book about silly words:
Are these the best ever words in the English language? - Telegraph (http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/newstopics/howaboutthat/6207300/Are-these-the-best-ever-words-in-the-English-language.html)
As the article says:
Some are lost words redisovered, others are gems from local dialects, but all are intriguing examples of how English continues to be the most quirky languge in the world.
It's ironic that some typo-ridden hack called Harry Wallop, of all names, is writing this in an article about language.
As many people can't even cope with the normal words we've got, and sort them into posh, not-so-posh, and downright vulgar, I don't think we need some "bowerbird" to collect junk words and put them in a book.
Deriving words correctly is important. There are words such as "terror", "terrify", and so on, that have negative meanings. But one Times reader replied to an article about what looks to be a pretty devastating earthquake near Padang on the island of Sumatra as follows:
what terrific news in the world
I don't think that's quite what he meant.
beelzebubbles
30-Sep-2009, 22:57
Actually 'terrific' does mean 'causing extreme terror' as well as 'astoundingly good' but it certainly isn't common usage. I would just put it down to a typo.
Yes, Beelzebubbles, if only we all stuck to the original meanings. What about a term such as "enormity". Is it a noun describing physical size or scandalousness?
Another expression that made me think of vocabulary was a jingle that you hear a lot on those couple of minutes between programmes on the BBC:
Making the unmissable unmissable.
This is clever and not tautological, as the first time it's used it means "not to be missed, an essential programme" while the second means "prevented by decent technology from being missed".
Squelch - ouch!
I was reading an otherwise informative article, which then said:
A declaration of independence was read in Napierville, but the British finally squelched, at least temporarily, the growing desire for sovereignty.
I would suggest that "squelch" implies a squeaky leaking welly, whilst the words "quashed" or "crushed" are perhaps nearer the mark.
What does the team think?
Squelch - ouch!
I was reading an otherwise informative article, which then said:
I would suggest that "squelch" implies a squeaky leaking welly, whilst the words "quashed" or "crushed" are perhaps nearer the mark.
What does the team think?
I agree with you.
About an hour ago I was finishing off today's "Observer" where I found an article about some leading judge in which the heading said that he had "resided" over some change in the law. Resumably meaning "presided".
Harry
We can't all be educated. But it does help if you want people to understand what you're writing.
A nice pun in yesterday's De Morgen, a Flemish daily:
Meer dan helft halal vlees niet koosjer.
i.e.
More than half of halal meat not kosher.
This was the headline of an article saying that The European Association of Halal Certifiers had tested products purportedly halal throughout Europe and had found that around 60% of products were not ritually clean owing to trickery and crookery.
An unusual way of putting it, but you know what they mean. Just out of interest, a smaller article tells the rules for halal slaughter of animals. The animal must lie on its left flank; its head must face Mecca. The artery must be severed in one movement. A lot of blood must flow. I'm not sure how kosher ritual works with respect to slaughter, but I imagine it's similar.
Most of you will not have heard of J?rn Donner. But he is an established Finland-Swedish ("finlandssvensk" in Swedish) writer, now aged 75. An erstwhile angry young man. And the financier of Ingmar Bergman's film "Fanny and Alexander", about which film director he has just written a book.
Sweden is right next door to Finland, and anyone with any education should know that there are about 300,000 citizens of Finland who have Swedish, not Finnish, as their mother tongue. Yet when Donner came to speak at the biggest bookshop in Stockholm (the capital of Sweden) yesterday, the woman introducing him called him a "svensk finne" i.e. a "Swedish Finn". How long will it takes Swedes to learn anything about the only tribe in the world speaking the same language as themselves? We wouldn't call Oscar Wilde or George Bernard Shaw "English Irishmen* because they write in English, or would we?
Most of you will not have heard of J?rn Donner. But he is an established Finland-Swedish ("finlandssvensk" in Swedish) writer, now aged 75. An erstwhile angry young man. And the financier of Ingmar Bergman's film "Fanny and Alexander", about which film director he has just written a book.
Sweden is right next door to Finland, and anyone with any education should know that there are about 300,000 citizens of Finland who have Swedish, not Finnish, as their mother tongue. Yet when Donner came to speak at the biggest bookshop in Stockholm (the capital of Sweden) yesterday, the woman introducing him called him a "svensk finne" i.e. a "Swedish Finn". How long will it takes Swedes to learn anything about the only tribe in the world speaking the same language as themselves? We wouldn't call Oscar Wilde or George Bernard Shaw "English Irishmen* because they write in English, or would we?
No, we'd probably call them Anglo-Irish, which means much the same thing.
I know of J?rn Donner as a film-director.
Harry
beelzebubbles
21-Oct-2009, 21:30
From the Merriam-Webster Dictionary online
Main Entry: 1squelch
Pronunciation: \ˈskwelch\
Function: verb
Etymology: origin unknown
Date: 1624
transitive verb 1 a : to fall or stamp on so as to crush b (1) : to completely suppress : quell (http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/quell) <squelch resistance> (2) : silence (http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/silence) <squelched the protesters>
2 : to emit or move with a sucking soundintransitive verb 1 : to emit a sucking sound
2 : to splash through water, slush, or mire
? squelch?er noun
I think Beelzebubbles' definition of "squelch" implies you don't squelch desire. But I'll leave it for a language judge to reside over.
As for Donner, he's been quite a jack-of-all-trades: novelist, autobiographer, reportage journalist from Berlin, columnist, filmmaker, film producer, Member of Parliament. He even acted in a soft porn film called "Naistenkuvia" (Pictures of Women) back in the 1960s or 1970s, where, in a black-and-white still in the book about the film, you can see him with an erection. Self-production, I think. (I mean the film, not the erection, which inevitably is.) Proves you don't have to be La Cicciolina to move from porn to parliament.
"Strait" and "straight", what's the difference? Is your jacket rectilinear and long or narrow and tight? Is the bit of sea past Dover non-curving, or close to both shores? Homophones can confuse. The Mandelbaum Gate, or the Mandelson gait?
kateuic
11-Nov-2009, 12:39
"To give" or "to bring" - the Irish verb (tug) for both is the same, hence my eldest's persistence in using "to give" whenever she meant "to bring" or "to take with" until she was almost eight. I hadn't the heart to correct her; it was a relic of a lost language. Both my children spoke only Irish until the were three and a half, and began attending pre-school. As we don't live in a Gaeltacht (Irish-language area), rather than assimilating English as well as Irish, they both rapidly dropped the Irish in favour of English. My youngest (6) speaks Irish to the dog, however, in the belief that as she came from her uncle's farm in the Gaeltacht, the dog only understands Irish. :) Her vocabulary includes "alsoly" and "of" for "if", even though she reads both words correctly. I was looking for a stapler recently and she asked: "Do you remember that criminal guy they stapled to a wall?". Hmmm. No. "Oh, I remember his name, Jesus!" So, in the mind of a 6-year-old, nails and staples are one and the same, and messiahs and criminals are interchangeable. Then again, Da Vinci knew that.;)
Kateuic brings up some rather interesting things about the Gaeltacht and godly staplers.
This give/bring problem reminds me of an Estonian one where Estonians, when speaking English will say "I'll send you to the bus stop / station" when they mean they'll accompany, take, escort, or see you there. This is on account of a verb "saatma" which, like the "tug" you mention, has a different compass to the English ones involved. It can mean "send" in the letter sense, and accompany.
The Finns have the expression "hei!" which is an informal greeting on arrival, as well as a way of saying goodbye. So don't be surprised if a Finn, at the end of a two-hour meeting, says "hello", then leaves.
An Irish thing I noticed many years ago was "Would you like?" or similar meaning "Would you like a / some (biscuit; tea, etc.)?" In England-English, the verb sounds odd without an object.
Language interference is quite fascinating.
I've seen words like "genocide" and "mass murder" used in the newspapers recently.
How many people do you have to kill before it qualifies as either of the above two? Two hundred, two thousand, two million?
It is important that we define the meaning of the words we use. Otherwise we might as well be living in a postmodernist novel, where anything goes. Nothing is real, and nothing to get hung about.
I've seen words like "genocide" and "mass murder" used in the newspapers recently.
How many people do you have to kill before it qualifies as either of the above two? Two hundred, two thousand, two million?
It is important that we define the meaning of the words we use. Otherwise we might as well be living in a postmodernist novel, where anything goes. Nothing is real, and nothing to get hung about.
Yes, I heard somebody on the news today saying that the Libyan army was causing genocide in the streets of Benghazi and Tripoli. It seems to be used loosely these days to mean murder on a large scale. Judges in places like the International War Crimes Tribunal at the Hague have to re-examine the word to work out whether the inter-communal slaughter in the former Yugoslavia, for example, counts as genocide proper - i.e. were Serbs consciously trying to root out all traces of Croats and Muslims, as the Nazis tried to do with the Jews, or was it just the usual kind of civil war where people turn on their neighbours of a different ethnicity or religious persuasion.
I think it's important that we preserve the traditional meaning of genocide, as it's a different thing from mass murder generally.
Harry
Speaking of genocide, some South Americans speak (spoke?) of genocide when they refer to the death of millions of indigenous after the arrival of the conquistadores. However, for aught I know, it wouldn't be right using the word "genocide" here: there were infectious diseases, suicides and other factors still I guess.
Among all my jokes, I am trying to introduce an element of realism and reality into the argument.
It is patently obvious that Gadhafi is not only half mad, but that, if his madness allows, he should be tried for genocide. But if he goes to live with Hugo Chávez, who also cosies up to the Iranian régime, he will not be extradicted unless some sort of Eichmann-style team try to grab him.
As for the genocide perpetrated on American Indians in North, South, and Central America by Europeans, this is too late to set right unless you expect mass deportations from the whole continent to Europe, Africa, Asia and elsewhere. Jews, Blacks, Europeans, they're all invaders from an indigenous point of view. But what can you do about it?
I've read all the stories about shooting Indians and giving them infected blankets, but what are all those politically correct student idealists going to do about it now, anno 2011? If you want to boil with rage at injustices, look at the Maghreb and start boiling at all those indigenous dictators that arose as soon as the European imperialists left.
Are you referring to me, by any chance? If so, explain yourself better, please.
Parapraxes are amusing. I read the following text:
He was accompanied by one of his female bodyguards. I am sorry (gleeful) to say that I read the text as:
"He was accompanied by one of his female bodyparts."
Now, who could the text be referring to?
Yesterday's Swedish version of Metro has one headline saying:
I full fart runt Slottet
Which surely translates into Swedish as:
Jag mätt fis puttefnask The Castle
Spot the nonsense word:
16.58 The Ministry of Defence has announced that Gurkhas will be among those to lose their jobs in the first trance of redundancies to hit the services (http://www.telegraph.co.uk/finance/newsbysector/industry/defence/8427093/150-Gurkhas-axed-as-thousands-of-servicemen-lose-jobs.html) under spending cuts that could affect personnel serving in Libya.
Do we win a prize if we answer correctly?
Spot the nonsense word:
"Trance" should be "tranche" and I hereby claim my £50 book-token.
The one that is bugging my wife and myself at the moment is "swath" in the Guardian - a word they seem to be fond of these days - and which any right-thinking person would write and pronounce as "swathe".
Harry
Phew, I'm glad you spelt "bugging" right. The "resided" mistake must have been made by a Finn. They don't do double consonants at the beginning of words. That's why Brahestad became Raahe. I wish I had the wherewithal to distribute book tokens.
Even I've used the word "swathe" on these threads, and am loath to loathe those who struggle to write proper, but will fight them with a sward, albeit a green one...
Here's another great piece of vocabulary:
12.37 Meanwhile in Yemen, two dissident soldiers and three other people have been killed in a firefighter in the capital Sanaa.
Here's a bit of Dutch vocabulary that's important:
De autochtone Alphenaar woonde bij zijn vader.
It is one sentence from an article in the Dutch centre-left daily De Volkskrant about the shooting in the shopping mall in Alphen aan den Rhijn.
"It means: "The autochthonous Alphen resident lived with his father."
You might wonder what the word "autochthonous" means. It means "indigenous" and is Dutch codespeak for "White". The Dutch press took pains to stress the ethnicity of the gun psycopath to avoid any hint that the perpetrator was an immigrant.
So vocabulary can be important to defuse potential racial tensions.
Important vocabulary news:
Richard Langley had just dosed off in his fishing bivouac when he felt something move by his head.
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/earth/earthnews/8450736/Fisherman-in-furry-deerhunter-hat-bitten-by-a-fox-as-he-slept.html
Did he give himself a dose of the clap or crack? Was that movement in his head a thought?
Recently I've been realising how diverse Italian vocabulary is diatopically speaking, that is it varies from area to area. Thus, for instance, "balcone" in Tuscany and the majority of regions means "balcony", but in Venice it means "window". There are lots and lots of these examples in Italian. It is a phenomenon called geoomonimia (I don't know if "geoomonimy" exists in English as well, but it's clear what it means: the same word means different things depending on where it's used). There is also another linguistic phenomenon called geosinonimia, different words, used in different areas, meaning the same thing. For example, to express the idea of "truancy", there are many variants: bu(c)are, fare forca, fare chiodo, fare focaccia, saltare...
Since these phenomena confuse even Italian speakers, for obvious reasons, I can't imagine the difficulties that a foreigner learning Italian and who visits Italy has to experience.
What about other countries? Of course it happens in other countries as well, but I don't in think it happens so much as it does in Italy.
Well, you're basically talking about dialectal variation, and that is widespread in every country, especially a large country with a population of millions. In the UK there are big variations between the north and south of England, and when you factor in Scottish and Welsh dialects and slang expressions, and Northern Ireland too, the variation is immense. Likewise in Germany and France.
Speaking as a former teacher of EFL (English as a Foreign Language), I know that many foreigners who have learned English in their own country are taken aback when they try to talk to people in the streets and shops over here, and they encounter local dialects for the first time.
Harry
Yes, the "balcony" thing that Loki mentions, and the regional usage Harry does are both interesting. I would instinctively resist using such opaque vocabulary as diatopic or diatropic or geoomonimia, as they are so rare that they obscure what you are talking about. But the topic interests me.
The balcony thing suggests that in certain parts of Italy, at least years ago, windows would tend to automatically open out onto balconies, so the distinction grew blurred. Like in the English expression "french windows" which are in effect glass doors, despite the term "windows".
Whether you say "playing truant" (an odd use of the verb) or "skiving", or "skipping school" will, no doubt depend on age, region, and class, among other things. As Harry says, larger countries can have considerable variations, especially of vocabulary. But I have understood from Poles that Poland, which has roughly 40 million inhabitants, is very uniform regarding language. This may be because people have clung to Polish during all the partitions.
pesahson
15-Apr-2011, 13:55
Eric is right, Polish is a very unified language. There are minor differences in accents and vocabulary but really slight. The only dialects that stand out are: the Silesian Language (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Silesian_language), the Kashubian language (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kashubian_language).
But geosinonimia appears of course. I think is the most common deviation from the norm.
(A little bit of trivia here, I recently found out that such thing as Vilamovian language (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vilamovian_language) exists, Wilamowice is a town very near to my home town and I've never heard of it).
Back to what Loki wrote. Geoomonimia sounds interesting. I understand it is a phenomenon that appears in the borders on one language. It reminds me of Polish and Russian/Czech/Slovakian. For example: dywan (carpet) in PL sounds like диван (sofa) in RUS and so on and so forth. The same happens in the case of Spanish and Portuguese. But they are two separate languages. That's why it makes me think this geoomonimia, maybe it is some kind of vestige of major differences in dialects of Italian before the unification of Italy?
I'm not sure we can talk about dialects here. Such "geosinonimi" (can't understand what's obscure about this word; anyway, give me a synonym and I'll use it) are not dialectal words, but they are words of the Italian language.
These two phenomena are related to the history of the Italian language: as the norm was only written (see Pietro Bembo), and it was codified on the language of Dante, Petrarca and Boccaccio, words of everyday language are left out: thus, variants could easily emerge.
There's an interesting aspect to the language/dialect thing in Britain. In the period before the French takeover, which we call the Norman Conquest (1066+), there were various dialects of Anglo-Saxon/Old English spoken from the south of England up to the Forth estuary in southern Scotland (where English eventually supplanted a P Celtic language). The kingdom of Northumbria had several important religious sites, e.g. Jarrow (the Venerable Bede) and Lindisfarne/Holy Island, with monasteries where writing was practised, and the first surviving fragment of Old English poetry, Caedmon's Hymn, is from the north-east. So that northern form of Old English would originally have had as much prestige as southern Old English (West Saxon).
But in the later Middle Ages, London became the fixed capital of England, and people from all over the country moved to London, where a mixed dialect with various regional features became the English of the capital, and therefore the most prestigious form of the language. This meant that other dialects of English, like Northumbrian and Mercian (from the Midlands), were downgraded in socio-linguistic terms.
However - and now I come to the point of my story - over the border in Scotland, a form of northern English very similar to the English of Northumbria had become the language of prestige in the Lowlands, pushing the boundaries of Gaelic back into the Highlands. And this is still the situation - that the Lowland Scots language of Scotland, which has for centuries been a vehicle for imaginative literature and continues to be so, sounds to unpractised ears very like the despised spoken vernacular of north-east England, the area around Newcastle. In surveys of attitudes to regional dialects, north-eastern English regularly comes at or near the bottom in English people's estimation. And yet a few miles further north a very similar speech-form from the same northern Anglo-Saxon roots is pretty much the national language of Scotland (although of course there are plenty of people in Scotland who feel more at home with standard English - just as many Norwegians prefer Bokmål to Nynorsk).
Harry
Even native-speakers are not always accurate:
http://www.heraldscotland.com/news/politics/labour-failing-a-literacy-lesson-with-election-leaflet-1.1096495
Harry's point is interesting as it suggests that a real-life continuum (from Newcastle in England to the Lowlands of Scotland) only changes status because in Scotland it is lauded as the national tongue, while a bit further south it is just an incomprehensible non-London dialect of English English.
So there is no strict linguistic difference between a dialect and a language. A lot of it is geo-political.
While sitting on that familiar seat in the bathroom just now, leafing through the pink business section of El País (not an everyday occurrence) I saw the headline "La locomotora turca" and the thought suddenly struck me that the weirdly titled play by the Pole Witkacy "Szalona lokomotywa" (Crazy Locomotive) was probably generated by the fact that "loco" means crazy in Spanish. Witkacy was an erudite man, and I wouldn't have put this beyond him. A pun involving crazy and locomotive is more easily understood with a bit of Spanish.
What does "tramp" mean?
http://edition.cnn.com/2011/OPINION/04/19/granderson.children.dress/index.html?hpt=P1
The expression "plain sight". Is this a new one, or has it been around a long time and been revived? Because I've not really noticed it until very recently in the press. Some expressions come into vogue, then vanish for a decade or too.
Now that these pesky elections are over, I'm waiting for some defeated politician to say "I've got to put my hand up ..." That's a footballing one - captains of defeated teams are always putting their hands up and admitting that they didn't play well enough. It must derive from the schoolroom.
Another locution that has entered politics from the football field is "a big ask". Maybe it's commoner in Scotland, I'm not sure. A football manager urging his team to make a special effort against tough opposition will say, "I know it's a big ask ...", and I've even heard the demure middle-aged female leader of the Scottish Conservative party using the phrase, although it's so downmarket that it sounded almost like a swear-word coming from her.
Harry
Top US intelligence officials have cancelled engagements this weekend and are at their desks as analysts pour through the material seized from bin Laden's compound – described as an "al-Qaeda playbook".
Pour us a cup of tea, luv, while I pore over the ignorance.
Here's an interesting article about language by the (American) professor of American Literature at Eric's alma mater.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2011/may/09/neologism-thang-scrabble-abominations?INTCMP=SRCH
Harry
I've seen the suavely affable Sarah Churchwell plentytimes on the "Newsnight Review" as it was then called, a programme that was cut in two in Scotland, as IO believe, as the BBC had complicated ethnic ideas as to what Londoners and those north of the Border should share or not.
I have to admit that I haven't the slightest idea what "thang" means. "Innit" is only really a regional variant of "intit?" which was all the rage in 1950s Yorkshire - as part of natural discourse.
I've heard of Famuel Johnson.
An interesting experiment would be to introduce random neologisms via blogs, and see how long it takes for them to catch on. I believe that someone did this with "tottyfuck", but that except for a small part of Durham (the county) it just didn't catch on. What it means I can't remember.
I learnt a new word today when browsing a funny photos site: merkin.
How many of you know what this word means (before you Google for it)?
I learnt a new word today when browsing a funny photos site: merkin.
How many of you know what this word means (before you Google for it)?
It's what Chancellor Merkel does. She goes about merkin what the other European leaders are up to.
Harry
The word has a fairly surprising meaning, dating back to the 18th century, as I believe. On the funny photo site there was a photo of a hairdresser's called "Fanny Coiffeur" and the caption quip underneath was: "Stop merkin me laugh". Now usually the pretty corny caption puns are obvious. But I didn't get that one, so I Googled and found out what it means.
See:
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/travel/picturegalleries/signlanguage/8489770/Sign-Language-week-150.html?image=5
Here's another completely mysterious set of signs:
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/travel/picturegalleries/signlanguage/8445168/Sign-Language-week-147.html?image=12
Maybe the result of machine translation.
Vocabulary is always important. Here is a headline in the Guardian:
Obama praises US-UK axis in speech to parliament.
Obama himself was only doing his best, but maybe other people should have been sensitive to the fact that the Axis powers during WWII were Nazi Germany and Fascist Italy. So a historical awareness of the use of vocabulary would have been nice.
Isn't "axis" more or less a synonym for "alliance"? I think one cannot rule out a word because 70 years ago it meant a very specific thing.
My generation, at least, still has that connotation of Axis (with a capital A) as meaning the alliance between Nazi Germany and Fascist Italy during WWII. Axis can be used in a lot of contexts quite uncontroversially. But saying that Britain and the USA form an axis has echoes of an unholy alliance.
I espied the word "lehendakari" in a prominent headline on the first page of El País just now. That would like having the word "taoiseach" in a headline in The Guardian.
I espied the word "lehendakari" in a prominent headline on the first page of El País just now. That would like having the word "taoiseach" in a headline in The Guardian.
I don't know if "taoiseach" has been in a Guardian headline, but it has certainly been in the text of many articles as it seems to be the only acceptable way of referring to an Irish Prime Minister. It means "leader" (shades of Führer?), and the Scottish Gaelic equivalent is toiseach, giving the surnames Tosh and Toshack and McIntosh.
The taoiseach's deputy is the tanaiste.
Harry
Here's a vocabulary dilemma. In Britain, the words "football" and "soccer" are synonymous. But American football is literally a whole new ball game. So the journalist in the following article can only use "football" more freely lower down in the article, once it has been established to the CNN readership that it's Europe that's being talked about:
http://edition.cnn.com/2011/SPORT/football/05/27/football.champions.final.explainer/index.html?hpt=C1
It was simply that it seemed strange to see the word "lehenkandari" so prominently displayed. The word was still in inverted commas and refers to one Patxi López (patchy lopers?), who is presumably Basque. You rarely see Basque words, as opposed to names, in the Spanish papers, but the name for a member of ETA is "etarra" which is also presumably Basque.
Here's a vocabulary dilemma. In Britain, the words "football" and "soccer" are synonymous.
Are they? I thought it was one of the lexical differences between BrE and AmE.
(Incidentally, although "soccer" is pronounced /so'ke(r)/, in Italy we pronounce it "socher", with the "ch" of "church").
It's perfectly OK to use soccer in Britain. Read this Wikipedia article for more details:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Association_football
I understand Loki's confusion. It's true that "soccer" will be understood by Brits to mean association football, but it's much more common to say "football". "Soccer" sounds posh and public-school to me, like saying "rugger" instead of "rugby". And I detest the faux-childishness of saying "footie". Some adults think it's funny to use infantile language. Like saying "sarnie" for sandwich, or "tum" or "tummy" for stomach.
What the Americans call "football", we call "American football". And what North Americans call "hockey", which is played on ice, we call "ice hockey" (that's right, because it's played on ice). When we say "hockey", we mean the game played on grass, mainly associated with schoolgirls but also played by men. The Irish have a similar game, called "hurling", and other varieties are Scottish "shinty" and Swedish "bandy" (maybe other Scandinavians play too, I don't know).
I understand that the most popular spectator sport in the USA is basketball.
Harry
Sillie Billie playing footie, why dunnie eat a sarnie...? Infantenglish, to be sure.
Yes, Harry, I see what you mean.
I wasn't aware that "soccer" sounded upper class, though I have always used the word "football" myself. "Rugger" on the other hand does sound rather jolly hockeysticks to me.
As for bandy, is that where the expression "bandy-legged" comes from? It's a cult sport here in Uppsala, but I always skip the sports pages.
Here's another piece of dumb journalism:
London's 25,000 black cab drivers are planning a blockade to bring the capital to a standstill over a ban on them using the 100-mile VIP road network during next year's Games
What do you imagine this story is about?
Now look at:
http://www.thisislondon.co.uk/standard/article-23960106-cabbies-in-revolt-over-olympic-ban.do
Have any of you noticed that there are two verbs that more or less mean the opposite of one another in English: to oversee and to overlook. Curiously, both of these verbs have the same corresponding noun "oversight". So as you can see in the newspapers, you have sentences like:
"It was an oversight on my part", meaning I didn't see it, missed it.
"We need more oversight of company practices", meaning monitoring, surveillance.
See:
http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/oversight
An example of the use of "oversight":
A key member of a House of Representatives oversight committee meanwhile
joined calls for Congress to look into the allegations.
Representative Bruce Braley, an Iowa Democrat, said that “Congress has
important oversight responsibilities in responding to the charges” and
“getting to the bottom of this evolving scandal”.
To overlook or oversee?
Spot the point at which the British reader will get the wrong mental image in the following:
Every day, the Birdman performs the same ritual: he climbs out onto his
window ledge to see if he can manage to kill himself—and never does. The Birdman
is a member of a loose-knit group of failed suicides, each pursuing absurd ways
to end their lives: one saving up lost-dog reward money to buy enough good
whiskey to drink himself to death, another hoping to contract a fatal disease by
sleeping with as many women as possible. When it seems these routines will
continue indefinitely, the Birdman meets a “professional” suicide: the dangerous
and inscrutable “man with orange suspenders,” who makes a living by trying to
hang himself whenever he sees a potential rescuer approaching. This chance
encounter, which leads at last to a real death, will force the Birdman to
confront the roots of his desire to escape from life, and to see first-hand that
dying is more than just a rehearsal.
This is from a description of the Teodorovici book as mentioned on the Romanian Literature thread.
Question: is the professional suicide a transvestite?
More vocabulary.
Journalists try their best to make headlines pithy and short. But sometimes they resort to using pretty archaïc language to achieve their goals:
Murdoch apologizes to slain teen's kin
Both the words "slain" and "kin" look weirdly old-fashioned to the Bristish reader. For me, at least, to slay and kin are words out of older versions of the Bible. You don't use them in everyday speech. But they are short, and are therefore recycled by journalists. This quote was from CNN online on 16th July 2011.
More vocabulary.
Journalists try their best to make headlines pithy and short. But sometimes they resort to using pretty archaïc language to achieve their goals:
Both the words "slain" and "kin" look weirdly old-fashioned to the Bristish reader. For me, at least, to slay and kin are words out of older versions of the Bible. You don't use them in everyday speech. But they are short, and are therefore recycled by journalists. This quote was from CNN online on 16th July 2011.
Both words are more common in the States than here. American papers used to (maybe still do) refer to gangland "slayings" rather than killings, and lots of Americans are keen genealogists and interested in their kin or kinsfolk.
Harry
Indeed, she was called "Buffy, the Vampire Slayer" rather than "vampire exterminator". But are these words like "kin" and "slay" merely journalese, or do Americans use them in everyday speech? That is something that can only be answered by an American.
Prospective hospital patients in the Lothians - the area of south-east Scotland that includes Edinburgh - are to be contacted in semi-literate textspeak, as apparently 23% of the population of the Lothians are "functionally illiterate" and can't understand a hospital letter -
http://edinburghnews.scotsman.com/news/NHS-chiefs-look-for-ways.6802586.jp
Where did it all go wrong?
Harry
Spot the vocabulary lesson. This is from the NYT / Herald Trib:
Assistant Commissioner John Yates of the Metropolitan Police Service publicly acknowledged that he had not actually gone through the evidence. “I’m not going to go down and look at bin bags,” Mr. Yates said, using the British term for trash bags.
Well, at least I've learnt something. I never knew they were called "trash bags" in the States.
To tackle Harry's point, even SMSes are no good if the people in question don't have an adequate grasp of English. Whilst semi-illiterate indigenous Brits may be reached that way, all those immigrants that the authorities never bothered to teach English may be disadvantaged.
I'm learning new English vocabulary by the day. When you're a translator into English, you've got to keep up with new words and expressions.
What I learnt today was the expression "arrested by appointment". It has a faintly ludicrous ring about it.
I'm learning new English vocabulary by the day. When you're a translator into English, you've got to keep up with new words and expressions.
What I learnt today was the expression "arrested by appointment". It has a faintly ludicrous ring about it.
Does that refer to the great and the good being politely arrested by deferential cops at a time and place convenient to themselves? As distinct from drug dealers having their front door smashed in with a battering ram in the wee small hours and being hauled out of bed and carted off to the slammer?
Harry
Becky Crooks: I'd like to make an appointment for an arrest. Could you pop round to Chipping Norton this afternoon?
Sergeant Fickoe of the Met: Sorry luv, all us Black Marias is occupied. But we can send a car at a charge of £400 per mile. 'Fraid it's quite a few miles to London.
Crooks: Oh, that'll be alright. I'm not strapped for cash.
Fickoe: But I have to warn you that it is cash we take, not y'r actual credit cards...
Crooks: Look, my police lackey and member of the lower class dodgy police force, are any of those jolly gratis cells free? If I'm paying for the journey I might be a bit short as we approach the Tower for my appointment.
Fickoe: Well, if they're free, they're gratis. It means the same thing, dunnit? But there is the statutory Metropolitan Police Service cell entrance fee of ten thousand smackers, cash in hand. No credit, never know if you'll have anything left in your bank account by the end of the week.
Discuss the vocabularic importance of: Chipping Norton, Met, Black Maria, gratis, Tower, dunnit, smackers.
Chipping Norton is the town in the Costwolds (I've been there a couple of times.). "Chipping" derives from "sheeping," when wool production was the local industry. The use in this context refers to wealthy middle class people who have purchased houses in the Cotswolds.
If your Chipping comment was meant as a joke, ha-ha. If it was meant seriously, forgive a pedant for correcting you. Chipping in English place-names is like Köping in Swedish and Købing in Danish, it comes from a word meaning to buy [German "kaufen"] and denotes a place where there was buying and selling, a market town. Eastcheap and Cheapside in London come from a variant form.
Harry
Sorry (everyone appears to be apologising these days), I made a slight error on my previous posting. The name of the sergeant who was conversing and exchanging pleasantries with Ms Crooks was not, as I erroneously wrote, called Fickoe (or, as some newspapers have spelt it, Thickoe). No, in my haste I omitted to tell an eager public of slavering ex-NotW readers that his name is in fact Sergeant Stephenson of the Met. Sergeant Stephenson has just joined the Warders and Lackeys Department of the Metropolitan Police Service and will henceforth be responsible for backhander cell-cleaning, which is effected using one of those bendy brushes. I apologise fully and cringingly for this dastardly error.
So let us return to the serious business of vocabulary.
*
As a young teenager, I visited with my parents the villages of Chipping Campden, and several others. I don't remember Chipping Norton, beyond the name. But we were in the day-tripper, ploughman's lunch league, not the pyjama party jet set. The Cotswolds were lovely. It was there that we also discovered a refugee camp dating back to WWII, which then still housed Polish refugees in Nissen huts. They were soon moved elsewhere, but that was in the late 1960s or early 1970s, and it seemed as if time had stood still in the camp there. They still had a post office of their own - something that many English villages nowadays would be quite envious of.
That was one of the subconscious reasons that I later in the 1970s spent a whole year in Poland - the sheer inquisitiveness as to what that nation was all about. But I now know that quite a few Poles came to Britain at the end of WWII, and all this recent stuff about Polish plumbers is a far cry from the grateful refugees of the 1940s.
Now the Poles are shrugging off corruption whilst the Brits are embracing, nay, cuddling it, presumably in their flowery pyjamas. What I was attempting to amble round to was to point out that had they not knocked that Polish refugee camp down it could have been used admirably when the rest of the Chipping Sodbury set are rounded up as a kind of internment camp, pending court proceedings.
The Chippings.
I rather subscribe to Harry's Danelaw explanation that the Chipping is indeed "köping", as it is in modern Scandinavian, and that Norton will have been "north town" and Sodbury "söderby", i.e. south borough. I'm not sure about the Campden, but it could have something to do with camp. The Cotswolds, even without gossip&scandal, are a whole subject in themselves.
The Chippings.
The Cotswolds, even without gossip&scandal, are a whole subject in themselves.
The last holiday that my wife and I had with our two sons, before they became too old to holiday with mum and dad, was at Longborough in the Cotswolds. I remember wandering down the village high street one balmy summer evening, hearing the strains of music in the distance. Didn't know then about Longborough Festival Opera, based in a converted barn. I read the other day that they are about to put on a performance of Wagner's Ring. Look to your laurels, Bayreuth!
http://homepages.tesco.net/~longborough.history/VILLAGE.HTM
Harry
I found another weird word just now that isn't even in my Oxford dictionary: roil.
Headline in Herald Trib:
An Arrest and Scotland Yard Resignation Roil Britain
What does "roil" mean?
By the way, how can you tell that the above headline is American, not British (other than the use of that word)? There is a consistent difference between British and U.S. headlines in newspapers. Have you ever noticed?
I don't doubt that like "thoil" it has a good Anglo-Ancient pedigree, it's just that the only "royal" I've heard of is rather more regal than a spat.
So what is the consistent difference between American and British headlines in newspapers (but not books)?
The etymology of "Cotswolds" (from Wikipedia): The name Cotswold is sometimes attributed the meaning "sheep enclosure in rolling hillsides",[2] (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cotswolds#cite_note-1)[3] (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cotswolds#cite_note-2) incorporating the term "wold (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Wolds)" meaning hills. The English Place-Name Society (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/English_Place-Name_Society) has for many years accepted that the term Cotswold is derived from Codesuualt of the twelfth century or other variations on this form, the etymology of which was given 'Cod's-wold', which is 'Cod's high open land'.[4] (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cotswolds#cite_note-3) Cod was interpreted as an Old English personal name, which can be recognised in further names: Cutsdean (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cutsdean), Codeswellan, and Codesbyrig, some of which date back to the eighth century AD.[5] (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cotswolds#cite_note-4) It has subsequently been noticed that "Cod" could philologically derive from a Brittonic female cogname "Cuda", which is the name of a mother goddess recognised in the Cotswold region
I'm tempted to say, what a load of Codswallop, but that would be rude as well as unfair. The English Place-Name Society has the last word on such things.
As for Wallop, it also occurs in English place-names. And the Cotswolds have an Upper and Lower Slaughter, picturesque little villages.
Harry
Replying to both of your above posts - "wallop" is also a slang word for beer in England, tho' rather old-fashioned now.
I used to live in a detached county, never mind a detached parish. Cumbernauld near Glasgow (one of several "new towns" built in the 20th c. to re-house Glasgow slum-dwellers) was in "Dumbartonshire (detached)" when we lived there in the 1970s, but it's now in North Lanarkshire.
I'm delighted to find a fellow enthusiast for philology and onomastics (place-name studies to the uninitiated). Some of the most interesting books I've read in the last couple of years have been the three large volumes of The Place-Names of Fife. This is cutting-edge onomastic research by the leading Scottish place-name scholar Dr. Simon Taylor and his collaborator Gilbert Markus, a former Dominican priest and expert on the medieval Scottish church. They are based at Glasgow University. Fife is my native county, hence my interest. I'm looking forward to the final volume in the series, which will be an in-depth study of the languages (mostly Celtic) used over the last few thousand years to name our settlements, rivers, lochs and hills.
Harry
The question still stands: So what is the consistent difference between American and British headlines in newspapers (but not books)?
Notice, by the way, that the word "So" starts with a capital. That is, I believe the Chicago standard for the continuation of a sentence after a colon. I always, in my British way, use a lower case letter. The difference between headlines in American and British newspapers is an allied topic.
*
I used to live in a metropolitan borough called Solihull, which had the curious adjective "Silhillian". The etymology is said to be "muddy hill". Do you know of any other towns, cities, areas, where the adjective is aberrant, such as Glaswegian from Glasgow, and Aberdonian from Aberdeen, to pre-empt Harry? Also Monagasque for Monaco, I believe. (And in the world of people's names, the curious adjective Shavian, from Shaw, especially considering he had such a growth of beard.)
Just to pre-empt myself, Dundonian as a noun and adjective for natives of Dundee, but natives of Paisley are known as "Buddies", and Dumfries natives are "Doon-Hamers".
Birmingham - "Brummies", Liverpool - "Liverpudlians", or less politely, "Scousers", supposedly from the meat and potato stew known in north Germany as "labskaus" or something of the sort (I'm doing this from memory).
Manchester - "Mancunians". I suppose "Bristolians" for Bristol folk is predictable.
Newcastle - "Geordies"! You must be very careful who you call a Geordie. To many of us, the various accents of north-east England sound very similar, and if you call somebody from Sunderland or Middlesborough a Geordie you will be in real trouble.
Harry
There's a bit of a spectrum of official to colloquial with the adjectives. For instance, I believe that "Mancunian" is more official, and "Brummie" more colloquial. Though I imagine that usually people talk about the Manchester or Birmingham police force. In fact, come to think of it, it's more the people of the city that are called, for instance, Liverpudlians, rather than the adjective as a whole. But Geordies and Scousers certainly confuse people not familiar with such nicknames.
You could even extend this quest to include the nicknames of football teams, which again require inside knowledge to be understood. But football is not my forte. Though Amsterdam AFC Ajax is colloquially known as "de Joden" - the Jews, which goes back to the 1930s when Amsterdam still had a large overt and not always assimilated Jewish population, and there were some Jewish players. The Dutch Wikipedia goes into a whole discussion about the origin of this name.
I think we've discussed before the way in which racist epithets for football clubs are turned around and embraced by the fans of the clubs in question. Both Ajax fans in Amsterdam and Tottenham Hotspur fans in London have happily adopted Jewish insignia and symbols although the vast majority are not Jewish themselves. If it serves to inflame the opposition, then fine. Likewise Rangers fans in Glasgow waving the Union Jack and Celtic fans waving the Irish tricolour (which is the only flag that flies at Celtic Park itself).
It was the same determination to face off critics that made Mayor Daley's police force in Chicago start wearing little pig badges, to try and show they didn't mind being called pigs by protestors.
Harry
Kim Wilsher in Le Guardian says this:
The idea would be laughable if the situation in Belgium were not so
ridiculous. The Dutch-speaking north, where the Flamands live, and the
French-speaking south, home to the Walloons, have been unable to agree on how
the country should be run since an election last year. Brussels, a largely
French-speaking enclave in the Flemish area, is particularly contested.
As a result of the deadlock, the Belgians have now been without a government
for more than 400 days. "The political situation that Belgium is going through
is getting worse, appears to have no solution and has left both Walloons and
Flamands in a terrible uncertainty," Le Pen wrote in a statement.
Spot the Franglais.
One of the members of the House of Commons media committee interrogating the Murdochs and Rebekah Brooks is Louise Mensch, Conservative MP for Corby. She was forced to apologise for quoting Rupert Murdoch as saying that it was the most "humiliating" day of his life. What he actually said was it was the most "humble" day of his life.
However, as Alexander Chancellor points out in today's Guardian, days can't be "humble", only people can. Chancellor spends a lot of time in Italy, and every paper there has translated Murdoch's "humble" as umiliante, 'humiliating'. He assumes other papers in other countries will have taken the same line.
"As a consequence, Murdoch really has been humiliated, which was not what he intended to say at all."
Another unrelated article in the same paper reveals that the young-looking Ms. Mensch is actually the former Louise Bagshawe, who has published 12 novels under that name, and she's a graduate in Anglo-Saxon and Old Norse of Oxford University.
Here she is -
http://www.louisemensch.net/
Harry
Mensch was one of the two attractive blondes I mentioned in earlier things about the Murky Murdoch. I did not realise she was aka Louise Bagshawe. Mensch is somehow a more human surname, because she's by no means a bag, sure. The other sharp and questioning blonde was in the other committee and called Nicola Blackwood.
The Aussie Illiterate should have said that it was the most "humbling" day of his life, but he didn't care a fuck, he just wanted to get off the hook by wriggling and wheedling. But it looks as if the ring is closing on his son Herr Flick.
English medical vocabulary is notoriously complex, with many terms taken from classical Greek or Latin, making them difficult for ordinary English-speakers to understand or pronounce.
For example, I've just been reading about Matthew Green, who has just received a heart transplant using an artificial heart, the first time this has been done in Britain. The condition he was suffering from is called "arrythmogenic right ventricular cardiomyopathia". The only word there that could be called English is "right".
I daresay other European languages also make use of terms from the classical languages that underlie our civilisation, but what about the languages of Africa and Asia? Maybe Jayan can tell us what medical terms are like in some of the languages of the Indian sub-continent?
Harry
Harry says:
I daresay other languages also make use of terms from the classical
languages that underlie our European civilisation...
That is not entirely true. Both Finnish and Estonian (and maybe Hungarian) try to keep the Greek & Latin terms down to a minimum. I just happen to have a three-volume medical dictionary and handbook in Estonian dating back to 1939, so I looked up the part of the work that dealt with cardiac (does that mean "heart"?) insufficiency. Obviously, I couldn't find an exact match, as the technology used in this case - i.e. an artificial heart - is groundbreaking. But looking at the vocabulary, I see that during the 1930s, a decade when the Estonians were keen on their own ethnic neologisms if the language didn't suffice, most things are explained in real, transparent Estonian rather than Latin which obscures things in English for the layman. One sentence, just to show what I mean.
Hapnikutarviduse rahuldamiseks kasutavad keharakud punalibledes leiduvalt
verevärvnikult tavalisest enam hapnikku.
"Hapnik" is "oxygen". We have a Greek word; Estonian uses the a noun made from "sour". They could have created the word "oksügeen" which would have fitted their phonemic patterns. "Raku" means "cell" in the body sense. "Lible" is a "corpuscle" where we again obscure the meaning with a funny Latinate word. "Verevärvnik" is called "haemoglobin" in English rather than "blood-colourer".
In order to satisfy oxygen needs, the cells in the red corpuscles use
more oxygen than is usually to be found in haemoglobin.
Or similar. I'm no medical expert. But I think the point about the vocabulary is clear.
To further illustrate my point about Finno-Ugrian languages and using local words even for scientific things, if you look at the very thorough Finnish Wikipedia webpage for the structure and function of the heart, and you look under the rubric "Sydämen rakenne" (The Structure of the Heart) you will note the paucity of Latin and Greek terms in that section:
http://fi.wikipedia.org/wiki/Syd%C3%A4n#Syd.C3.A4men_rakenne
The only obvious ones are "pericardium", which is also called "sydänpussi" in Finnish, which means "heart bag". Similarly, the myocardium become the "heart tissue" in pure Finnish (lihaskudos), the endocardium becomes the "inner membrane" (sisäkalvo), etc.
So you don't get the sudden change from "heart" to "cardiac" as in English. All the Finnish compound words to do with the heart start with "sydän-". The lung is "keuhko" and you don't get that dirty trick as in English where the adjective suddenly becomes "pulmonary". The Finns use "keuhko" in all the compound words too.
The word "eli" occurs a great deal in that article. It simply means "or" and indicates a Latinate name when followed by a Finno-Ugrian synonym, e.g. "pericardium eli sydänpussi".
I was thinking of the Indo-European languages which make up the vast majority of European languages, but you're quite right to remind us that Europe has Finno-Ugric languages too.
I think the important point is not so much whether a modern language shares Indo-European roots with Greek and Latin or not, but whether there is a purist language policy in place or not. Icelandic is an Indo-European language but their language police try to invent native Norse terms for everything rather than having recourse to the classics. A telephone is sími, whose basic meaning is 'wire', 'cable'; television is sjónvarp, 'sight-throwing', and an electrocardiogram is hjarta-línurit, 'heart-line-writing'.
All very well, and nice for the little huddle of Icelanders who know and understand their own language, but there's a parochialness there too, it seems to me. Foreigners abroad in a strange land can usually at least understand the various versions of international words like telephone and television which most language-zones seem happy to admit to their word-hoard, sorry, vocabulary, but in Iceland there's hardly a public sign that means anything to a non-speaker of Icelandic. Meanwhile Brits can luxuriate in a variety of Anglo-Saxon and Graeco-Latin ailments from a good old heart attack to a cerebrovascular accident.
Materia medica are on my mind today as I've just had a second injection of steroids into my dodgy left ankle. The alternative is a pill which might solve my ankle pain but which will compromise my immune system, necessitating frequent hospital visits for monitoring of my blood, liver, heart and lungs, and I can't be arsed with that, as my son would say in his version of the vernacular (he has no background in the classical languages).
Harry
The fundamental problem is that in languages which, as Harry puts it, luxuriate in having roots from both Latin & Greek, plus French, plus the modern language with its trendy inventions, doctors can hide behind using fancy terms to justify their status and opinions. And homeopathic doctors are no better in this respect. That very quote that Harry mentioned at the beginning of this thread is an example of doctor's dazzlement, i.e. blinding the patient with science so he or she shuts up and doesn't start getting uppity.
We've talked about the simian Icelanders and their telephones, but even the German language can go in for Germanic roots instead of Latin ones. They have the "Kardionet" which is Latin enough. But then, German has Herzkammer and Vorhof instead of ventricle and auricle. If you know basic German, you'll guess more than with basic English, I would suggest. Have a look at the folowing website:
http://www.kardionet.de/herz/der_aufbau.htm
But German does have more of a mix of Latin and Germanic than Finnish has with Finno-Ugrian, that much is clear. So they have the Körperschlagader (body beat artery?) as well the word Aorta, and Lungenschlagader, which is the pulmonary artery. And so on. I think that English does lean more towards the Latin than German in everyday language. But that may be my perception. Dutch is in much the same position as German.
Different nationalities also have different health preoccupations and fetishes. They say that British people are overly concerned about their bowels. I once read about someone who kept specimens of his bowel movements in jars on his desk, which he would study anxiously to the disgust and concern of his staff. The kind of thing that David Brent might do in "The Office".
The French are supposed to worry most about their livers, not surprisingly considering their tradition of rich food and drink, and the Germans are always on about their "Kreislauf". If you don't feel up to par, it's probably your Kreislauf. Used to puzzle me until I discovered it means "circulation".
Harry
Here's another example of how ingenious the Icelanders can be in coining words. In compound nouns meaning something to do with electricity, the word for electric, electrical or electronic is raf-, e.g. rafall, 'generator', rafhlaða, 'battery', rafhleðsla, 'electric charge', rafmagnsverkfræðingur, 'electrical engineer', etc.
But the basic meaning of raf is 'amber'. So what's that all about? Well, amber has the property of attracting other substances, like a magnet - and most other European languages (can't speak for Finno-Ugric) take their word for electricity (etc.) from the Greek word for 'amber', which is ηλεκτρον "elektron". So without knowing a word of Greek, or anything about amber, an English-speaker can recognise the word for electricity in a host of languages related to English. But to an Icelander, the connection between amber and electricity is manifest all the time, but the sign outside an electrician's shop would be meaningless to any but an Icelander, and might as well be in Greek as far as the rest of us are concerned.
Harry
Different nationalities also have different health preoccupations and fetishes. They say that British people are overly concerned about their bowels. I once read about someone who kept specimens of his bowel movements in jars on his desk, which he would study anxiously to the disgust and concern of his staff.
Harry
Given what they say, the British should worry about their livers too!
As for medical vocabulary, of course in Italian there are numerous borrowings (adapted usually) from Latin and Greek, it couldn't be otherwise.
Although it would concern the other thread, there are two pronunciations for many medical terms, depending if you pronounce them à-la-Greek (in medicine) or à-la-Latin (in common life): therefore èdema or edèma, catètere or catetère, flògosi or flogòsi, etc. As a matter of fact a lot of people are unsure about the right pronunciation of these words.
Regarding the Finno-Ugric languages, on the one hand it is commendable, from a mere linguistic point of view, that they're trying to preserve their languages from external influences, so to say, but on the other hand this could represent an obstacle to international communication: I mean, the Greek and Latin vocabulary comes in handy because doctors can communicate (through articles, seminars and the like) easily and efficiently, without worrying to translate all the medical jargon.
I think I once read that Latin was an official language of Hungary until the 19th century. Maybe it was used in diplomatic correspondence, as it was in 17th century England. The poet John Milton of "Paradise Lost" fame was Oliver Cromwell's Latin secretary.
Harry
I translated a novel where one leitmotif was electricity. From the Estonian, where the word for electricity is, boringly enough, "elekter", and the word for electric "elektriline". Indeed, on page 123 of the postmodernist novel a story about Electra is introduced by way of a pun.
However, those purist Finns, who are always said to stand with the Icelanders at cocktail parties, as both nations feel left out with the rest speaking Scandinavian among themselves, use the word "sähkö" for electricity, which is as incomprehensible to outsiders as "raf".
Talking of vocabulary, it looks as if the U.S. credit rating has become bog standard and piss poor, so to speak. I like puns.
In one of those charming stories about real life in one Tripoli hospital, I found this:
Twenty bodies were piled on the grass in the garden outside, and one was still lying on a bloody gurney outside the emergency ward.
"Bloody" is being used in its literal sense here, as opposed to the swearword usage as an abbreviation of "by Our Lady". But what's a "gurney"? I couldn't find it in the dictionary.
Actually, I have an old print version of the fat Webster from 1976, which is only 35 years ago, and I couldn't find "gurney" there. So, if I translate another novel for an American publishing house, I will certainly consult the online version too.
Here's another piece of hasty journalist garbage. I don't think that you can say the following in English, whether of the British or American variety. From the Daily Telegraph:
09.11 (04.11 EDT) Understandably, much of today's focus will
be on Irene - but it's worth remembering Typhoon Nanmadol is
currently wrecking havoc in south east Asia.
It also demonstrates how the journalists themselves focus on certain events, and then get all high and mighty about how one should not only focus on the USA, but on Asia too.
Compare this with a sentence from CNN:
The storm is also wreaking havoc on transportaton in several major cities.
"Headed" or "heading" towards something? The Brits say the latter, the Americans the former. Neither is "right" in absolute terms, but we don't need to copy one another just to accentuate the "special relationship".
I keep getting the feeling that "shot to death" is not the same as "shot dead". Obviously, the victim ends up in the same state, but I feel there is a nuance of a difference.
I feel that "shot to death" implies several shots being shot, maybe by several people, until death ensues, and this may take some time. On the other hand, "shot dead" means one or a few shots, with the victim dying almost instantly.
What do the rest of you think?
I keep getting the feeling that "shot to death" is not the same as "shot dead". Obviously, the victim ends up in the same state, but I feel there is a nuance of a difference.
I feel that "shot to death" implies several shots being shot, maybe by several people, until death ensues, and this may take some time. On the other hand, "shot dead" means one or a few shots, with the victim dying almost instantly.
What do the rest of you think?
Also, structurally speaking, "shot dead" gives the impression of something quicker than "shot to death", which is longer and it takes more time to pronounce but also to put into action, so to say.
My analogy is "beaten to death" which implies a long process, versus "beaten dead" which we simply do not say, as beating implies a series of blows.
liehtzu
12-Sep-2011, 02:47
The (http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/newstopics/debates/2988760/The-phrase-Old-Masters-is-sexist-authors-and-students-are-told.html) phrase Old Masters is sexist, authors and students are told - Telegraph
Eric, I think you've done it. You've posted a link to the single stupidest thing I've ever read.
Reading this and not knowing - to laugh? to cry? - made me think of a book I just finished a few weeks ago, Theodore Dalrymple's Our Culture, What's Left of It, which I'd never heard of before I happened across it at the spare little library at the Foreign Information Center here in my Japanese city. The book articulated a lot of what's been on my mind the last few years about so-called cultural relativity (the assumption among academics that there is no such thing as "high" and "low" culture, that Star Trek is just as valid a subject for study as Shakespeare), and how it's tied to social decay. The banning of words, the constant white-washing, the constant need to scrutinize what you say or print (Can "white-washing" be construed as racist?), the turning of language into linguistic muck - well, see George Carlin's standup routine on the evolution of the term "shell shock."
The book's worth a gander even for those who may disagree with its central theses which are, for those who consider themselves the more liberal among us, indisputably of a conservative slant. But I think one ought to re-assess one's values and suppositions now and then - one might find the unpleasant but necessary truth that some of those dearest values and suppositions are constructed from shoddy material indeed.
And for those with a hearty sense of humor the title of the book, as well as the cover photograph, is worth the proverbial thousand words:
http://bloophynix.files.wordpress.com/2007/11/culture.jpg
That article is from 2008:
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/newstopics/debates/2988760/The-phrase-Old-Masters-is-sexist-authors-and-students-are-told.html
It is rather amusing. Why don't they say "Old Masters and Old Mistresses" instead?
As for conservatism with a small "c", it doesn't do anyone any harm to conserve or preserve the good things in society.
I'll look out the Dalrymple book next time I'm near a bookshop here in Sweden that has a good selection of English-language non-fiction.
In Sweden, there is a term "finkultur" meaning "fine culture" in the same way that "fine art" in English suggests something refined. The problem is that it tends to suggest that what I would call simply "culture" is too refined (for snobs only), so that culture must include a lot of other things such as cookery, fashion, and so on, to make it palatable to all. This leads to the watering down of the word "culture".
This morning a woman at the supermarket asked me what was the difference between "vocabolario" and "dizionario" (vocabulary and dictionary), because her son had said to her that he specifically needed a "vocabolario", not a "dizionario". I said that it was exactly the same thing, (I had already checked them on my dictionary). Now, in Italian they are pretty the same thing, and the definitions are very similar; however, while a "dizionario" is just the book where you can look up words, a "vocabolario" corresponds also to the English word "vocabulary", that is:
all the words that a person knows or uses;
all the words in a particular language;
the words that people use when they are talking about a particular subject (medicine, linguistics, etc.). (OALD)
In English there seems to be a preference to call the book "dictionary", although the fourth meaning of "vocabulary is "a list of words with their meanings, especially in a book for learning a foreign language". I tend to go with the English in this case, since we can basically choose. Surprisingly enough (for me), my big dictionary is called "Vocabolario della lingua italiana".
Occasionally, we use the word "lexicon" if it is a specialised dictionary, and "glossary" if it is only really an extended list of not many pages. "Vocabulary" is used as an uncountable in the three meanings mentioned by Loki. I think that using the word to mean a list of words, therefore suggesting that the word can be used as a countable, is inaccurate.
In the newspaper I read a rather serious article dealing with terrorism. This is headline:
New underwear bomb plot 'proof of al-Qaeda's perverse lengths'
Is the journalist talking about the length and warmth of thermal underwear by any chance?
Here's a bit of German for you, from today's German press:
Ein Kontinent wankt – Die Angst vor der Euro-Dämmerung
Say no more... Never mind Wagner's Götterdämmerung. This is the Dämmerung of Onan.
Can you enlighten those of us who don't speak this ugly barbaric language please? :rolleyes: Does the phrase mean "the continent's fucked"? How charming. And so TRUE.
Aldawen
17-May-2012, 05:50
Can you enlighten those of us who don't speak this ugly barbaric language please?
Hey, it's neither the one nor the other - at least for me and compared to English *gg* Not only is the German pronounciation far more consistent than the English one, apart from that German is much more flexible when it comes to word ordering in sentences thereby changing the emphasis in it. You should admire this language ;)
But to answer your question although it loses meaning because of the associations with "Götterdämmerung" called by "Euro-Dämmerung" as Eric already said:
A continent totters - Being afraid of the Euro nightfall
Some of us are so incredibly sophisticated that we have learnt the language of Thomas Mann, Dürrenmatt, Hesse, Frisch, Rilke, Kafka, Kleist, Jünger, Celan, Trakl, Roth, Broch, Sebald, Goethe, Storm, Musil, Fontane, etc., to a degree where we can at least read a newspaper. German is, of course, a dialect of Yiddish. The fact that some nasty Austrian (whose pronunciation was regional) gave German a bad name is neither here nor there.
"Wanken" in German means to sway when about to collapse, i.e. to teeter or totter; so it has nothing to do with Onan. (If you don't know who Onan was and what he did, you're not educated, and it could be said that you are then a "wanker".)
I'm fed-up of "stunning". It's so overused that people seem to have forgotten that when you get stunned, you get hit on the head - and all your critical faculties are put out of action. Here's a recent one:
It is one of London’s top restaurants, awarded two Michelin stars for its stunning food and lauded by critics for its impeccably smooth service. But last summer the Ledbury in upmarket Notting Hill was invaded by masked rioters armed with baseball bats and bottles who terrorised diners and stole jewellery, watches and wallets, a jury was told.
Petrified customers were forced to kneel on the floor while they were robbed before fleeing to a cellar for safety.
I would have thought that the customers in question were trying to avoid getting stunned by the baseball bats of the robbers. "Lauded" and "slain" are also new-old words that are overused by journalists who think that by snatching at old vocabulary they can brighten up their otherwise fairly boring articles.
Another daft word. Just read: "his wife pre-deceased him". Why can't they just say that his wife died before he did.
Ambiguity can lead to amusement. Like in this headline:
Muslims begin Ramadan fast
Leading to the question: Should Muslims perhaps begin Ramadan more slowly?
Another piece of ignorant language shit from a CNN headline:
Syrian clashes hone in on city of Aleppo
We can't all be speaking the English very welly:
Both promised to coordinate efforts to help the growing numbers of Syrians displaced by the violence within Syria or forced to flee over the border to take refuse in Turkey or other nations in the region.
What a load of rubbish.
forced to flee over the border to take refuse in Turkey or other nations in the region
Take refuse?
A load of rubbish indeed!
Yes, Flint, that was my little pun...
Yes, Flint, that was my little pun...
Yeah, sure
Vocabulary, well, very important, innit?
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