Onomatopoeias Zipping Past

This morning while driving my son to school, he mentioned that yesterday was National Zipper Day. While I think all the various "National whatever days" are really silly, it did get me thinking about the word zipper. Zipper is a really cool sounding word because it sounds like what it does; zip clothing closed quickly. Words that sound like what they do are called onomatopoeias. Zip originally meant "to move quickly" because zip is thought to resemble the sound something makes when it moves quickly, thus it is onomatopoeic. Interestingly, zipper did not become the name of the fastener that we know by that name until it was trademarked in 1925 by the B. F. Goodrich Company, who used the fastener on rubber boots. And it wasn't until the fastener was trademarked that the word zip acquired its verbal definition of closing something with a zipper.

Some other onomatopoeias: buzz, hiss, fizz, boom, crackle, kerplunk, smack, whizz, whoosh, bang

Sign Semantics

Because of my love of words and word play, I can't help but play with the intended meanings of signs. Whenever I see this particular sign displayed (usually right at the edge of a street), I think to myself, "people really shouldn't let their slow children play so close to the street." Perhaps a better word for the sign would be CAUTION.

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There is a sign on the side of a road near a strip mall that states -

10 BARBERS

WALK IN

Every time I pass this sign I hope that the rest of the joke and the punch line will have been added to it. It never is, so I make up my own. Ten barbers walk in to a bar and offer toupe a head for their drinks. (Not great, I know)

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I know I am not the only one who has fun with sign semantics as someone has taken it upon themselves to alter a sign on a nearby street. The sign reads STEEL PLATE AHEAD to notify drivers that there is a steel plate across the road ahead. However, this sign happens to be on the side of the street in the front yard of an extremely modern house that appears to be constructed of steel and has all sharp edges. A sign semantician crossed out the word AHEAD and turned it into an arrow pointing to the house. I love it.

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On a final note about signs, the close attention I pay to sign semantics and the words on signs may date back to my youth. I grew up near a neighborhood called Lone Pine Estates, I will never forget when a fan of word play changed the sign to read Lone Penis Estate.

Bananas and Rices

This probably isn't something many people think about on a regular basis, but when you do stop to think about it, it seems odd. Why is it one banana but not one rice? Why two bananas but not two rices? Both words, banana and rice, are nouns. So why do they behave differently? The answer is that they are different kinds of nouns. The word banana is a type of noun known as a count noun. One banana, two bananas, three bananas and so forth. The word rice is a type of noun known as a mass noun. Mass nouns cannot be counted and are only pluralized when referring to a particular type of that object, for example: The restaurant introduced some new wines. This is why mass nouns require an additional descriptive noun in order to talk about them in terms of quantity. Grain of rice, bottle of wine, piece of wood, and so on.

Words Cannot Express

Words cannot express the sorrow I am feeling today, for I have lost my best and most devoted canine friend. I do take solace in knowing that he had a long, full and happy life. He was loved by all who met him, as can be illustrated by the numerous nicknames various people had given him. The Gusmeister, Gusaramovich, Guster, Gussy, Goose, and many more.

We love you Gus.

Augusta National Breakwood Payne 7/22/93 - 4/27/08

Pragmatics

Need I say more?

1st Question of the Week Poll Results

Last week the Question of the Week was: If Fred has injured one of his feet and he is favoring his right foot which foot is injured?

The results were very close but the left foot won by a small margin taking approximately 54.5% of the votes. This is interesting because sports writers would say it is the right foot that is injured as was the case when it was reported that Tom Brady was favoring his right foot and was wearing a walking boot on that foot.

So how could the results have been so close?

Well, if favoring is defined as treating something as your favorite, when you treat something as your favorite you generally prefer that something.

Thus the phrase can be interpreted in the way that Fred was preferring to use his left foot because his right foot was injured - so he was favoring his left foot.

On the other hand, the phrase could also be interpreted in the way that Fred was preferring not to use his right foot because his right foot was injured - so he was favoring his right foot.

A Euro English Take on Words

I received a humorous email this morning that I thought I would share today because it revisits the subject matter in my post about George Bernard Shaw and Phonetics. Read, notice the alternative spelling of words and enjoy...

The European Commission has just announced an agreement whereby English will be the official language of the European Union rather than German, which was the other possibility. As part of the negotiations, the British Government conceded that English spelling had some room for improvement and has accepted a 5-year phase-in plan that would become known as "Euro-English".

In the first year, "s" will replace the soft "c". Sertainly, this will make the sivil servants jump with joy. The hard "c" will be dropped in favour of "k". This should klear upkonfusion, and keyboards kan have one less letter.

There will be growing publik enthusiasm in the sekond year when thetroublesome "ph" will be replaced with "f". This will make words like fotograf 20% shorter.

In the 3rd year, publik akseptanse of the new spelling kan be expekted to reach the stage where more komplikated changes are possible. Governments will enkourage the removal of double letters which have always ben a deterent to akurate speling. Also, al wil agre that the horibl mes of the silent "e" in the languag is disgrasful and it should go away.

By the 4th yer people wil be reseptiv to steps such as replasing "th" with "z" and "w" with "v".

During ze fifz yer, ze unesesary "o" kan be dropd from vords kontaining"ou" and after ziz fifz yer , ve vil hav a reil sensibl riten styl. Zer vil be no mor trubl or difikultis and evrivun vil find it ezi TU understand ech oza. Ze drem of a united urop vil finali kum tru. Und efter ze fifz yer, ve vil al be speking German like zey vunted in zeforst plas.

Apparently this is a fairly common joke about English spelling that can be readily found with different variations when doing an internet search; however, I had never seen it and thought it was fun. And, interestingly, there is a website called foolswisdom.com that claims Euro English is not a joke and is a serious project to make English words and spelling easier to teach.

Animal Phrases Part II

"The cat got your tongue?" -- This phrase is a question commonly posed to shy and or quiet children by adults. It is basically a way of asking a child why he or she is so quiet. The origins of the phrase are based on an ancient belief that a cat could steal the breath from sleeping children.

"Get the monkey off your back" -- This phrase refers to getting rid of a recurring problem, generally an addiction of some form or other. The monkey is a metaphor for the addiction. Think of a crazy monkey riding on your back refusing to let go.

" It's raining cats and dogs." -- This is a very well known phrase which indicates that it is raining very hard. This phrase is also metaphoric and was most likely deduced from the fact that, in Germanic mythology, cats were associated with storms and dogs were associated with rain .

These are just a few examples of fairly common animal phrases, the majority of which are based on metaphor. There are also metaphors that are animal based but don't include an animal in the actual phrase; for example, "don't bite the hand that feeds you."

Animal Phrases

At the suggestion of one of my readers (Hello Ryn), tomorrow I plan to discuss the origins of some phrases in English that make reference to animals. For example: cat got your tongue, get the monkey off your back, and raining cats and dogs. If anyone has a particular animal phrase you are curious about, please send me a comment by clicking on comments below.

Word Order and Aging

In response to this recent comment from Ross :

"I think this whole linguistics area so interesting. What comes to mind is word order and how that is set up in the brain. As I get older and with medication, the word order of my sentences comes out weird sometime: never in a serious environment; more, when I am at home."

The word order problem can also be referred to as syntax error.

The study of cognitive aging and language involves the input-side (language comprehension) and the ouput-side (language production). Research and studies have shown that the effects of aging on language production are far more drastic than the effects on language comprehension. In other words; while a person still understands much of what he or she hears, it is often hard for that person to think of the words they want to speak. Tip of the tongue experiences are a good example of this phenomenon. Cognitive aging and language is a hot topic and there is still much to be learned in the field.

Only 4 Days Left

Please make sure to cast your vote in the poll of the week (See below left). I will review the topic at weeks end.

Some Fun Metathesized Words

Metathesis is phonological process that switches the order of phonemes in an individual word. Metathesis can also occur across corresponding words and this is commonly know as a Spoonerism. The process was named after Reverend William Archibald Spooner (1844 - 1930)who was known for his very frequent slips of the tongue.

Bass ackwards, chilled greese, hot poles, cop porn
One of my favorites is - "no bout adoubt it"
A bumper sticker on a car - "Juck Fapan"

The Barenaked Ladies and Semantics

The Barenaked Ladies are one of my favorite "newer" bands, not only because I like their sound, but also, and more importantly, I love their lyrics. They are a band that knows how to have fun with words. They play with word meanings and with listeners' expected interpretations of words.

Take a couple of lines from one of their more recent songs titled "Adrift" as an example:

Ever since we said our goodbyes
The onion rings, the phone makes me cry

The syntactical juxtaposition of the words onion, rings, phone and cry almost causes the word rings to be interpreted as a verb because normally people think of a phone as something that rings and onions as something that makes you cry.

Another example is a couple of lines from their song "Crazy":

I'm a few bricks short of a load,
but a full load always hurt my back.

Here, by adding the second line, they prompt the listener to identify the individual words and their meanings in the idiom "a few bricks short of a load" rather than think of it as one unit.

Phonetics and George Bernard Shaw

Because of the inconsistencies in English language spelling and word pronunciation, when George Bernard Shaw died in 1950 he left money in his will to develop a new phonemic alphabet. The Shaw Alphabet contains 48 letters and each letter represents one individual sound.

Think about this - how would you pronounce the word ghoti?

This is the spelling that Bernard Shaw suggested be used for the word fish to demonstrate the inconsistencies in English spelling and pronunciation. He suggested this spelling based on the [gh] from "laugh", the [o] from "women" and the [ti] from "nation".

The preferred phonetic alphabet today is the International Phonetic Alphabet or IPA. The IPA consists of 43 symbols for the sounds of American English and additional symbols for the sounds of other languages.

Laverne and Shirley

One, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight.
Schlemeel, schlemazel, hasenfeffer incorporated.
We're gonna do it!

Remember the theme song? I always thought that schlemeel and schlemazel were made-up, nonsense words used for their phonetic oomph. The words did add a cool sound to the chorus.

In actuality, schlemeel and schlemazel (or schlemiel and schlimazel) are both words with Yiddish origins. They are synonymous nouns defined as an unlucky person.

Padiddle

As a child, I thought everyone knew what a padiddle was. It wasn't until college, when I came into contact with many people from areas other than the town I grew up in, that I realized the word is not so common. The word paddidle is defined as a car with only one working headlight. To us, it was simply an observation ("There goes a padiddle") when we were outside playing in the evening and saw a one drive by. I have since learned that the word is also used for the name of a travel game and points are scored dependant upon the type of vehicle spotted. A quick internet search will bring up numerous sites about the word padiddle and its supposed first recorded use in an "Archie" comic in 1948.

Interestingly, my neighborhood dialectical group also had a word for a car with only one working taillight - a padaddle. This word seems to be even less known and there is still not a whole lot of information available on it.

Update: Here is the definition and etymology of padiddle from the Oxford English Dictionary

padiddle, int. and n.

Pronunciation: Brit. /pəˈdɪdl/ , U.S. /pəˈdɪd(ə)l/
Forms: 19– bediddle, 19– padiddle, 19– pediddle, 19– perdiddle, 19– perdiddo, 19– pididdle. Also with capital initial.
Etymology: Origin unknown.
Dict. Amer. Regional Eng. s.v. also records the forms padoodle , padungle , in the same sense. By some the game is extended to cover cars with only one working rear light, on sight of which the word pedunk is shouted.

U.S. colloq.
A. int.

An exclamation shouted in a game by the first of a group of people who spots a motor vehicle with only one working headlight, this person being entitled variously to kiss or hit the others.

1948 B. Montana Archie (comic strip) in Nevada State Jrnl. 23 May (Comics section) 7 Let's play ‘padiddle’.‥ When a car goes by with one headlight if I say padiddle you have to give me a kiss!
1959 in Dict. Amer. Regional Eng. (2002) IV. 79/1 If a fellow sees a car coming with only one light and says ‘padiddle’, he may kiss his girl. If she sees it first and says ‘padiddle’, she may slap the boy.
1991 Washington Post (Electronic ed.) 21 Apr. w8 Years ago in some parts of the country when you were out just driving around of an evening and you saw a car approaching with one of its headlights out, you were supposed to say ‘Padiddle’ and you got to kiss your date.

B. n.

The motor vehicle itself; (also) the game.

1948 [see sense A.].
2003 K. W. Duisberg Good Patient 290 It's just one of those one-eyed cars. What was it she used to call them when we were little, my mother?‥ Padiddle Pediddle. Are they good luck? Do you get a kiss or just a punch?
(Hide quotations)

padiddle, int. and n.
Third edition, March 2005; online version September 2011. ; accessed 31 October 2011.

A Collection of Uncommon Words

If anyone out there has heard an unfamiliar and interesting word they would like to find out more about - please post it here and I will be happy to find out as much info as I can about the word.

For example: who out there knows what a padiddle is? If you have never heard this word before and are curious, please check back tomorrow and I will fill you in.

Also, if you have a fun word that is common to you, but perhaps not to many others, please post that word here with your definition.