Michigan Slang for Intra-state Tourists

For those Michiganders preparing to travel in Michigan during this holiday week, following are some terms with which you should familiarize yourself in case you have not heard them previously:

Yooper: A person who lives in the U.P. or Upper Peninsula.
Troll: A person who lives in lower Michigan or below the Mackinac Bridge.
Fudgies: People who live anywhere in Michigan other than Mackinaw Island and travel to the island to buy fudge.
313ers: An obsolete term for people who live in lower Michigan and travel north of the 45th parallel.
Down-staters: The term that has replaced 313ers now that there are so many more area codes in lower Michigan.
Trooper: A Troll that has relocated to the U.P. (from troll+yooper).
Trunk Slammers: Visitors to the U.P. from the Lower Peninsula.

The Yooper Map of Michigan

Recap Rock on the Radar

Somehow I received a free subscription to an interesting magazine called Radar." In the May/June issue there is a column that lists the term recap rock as being on the radar for vocabulary. Apparently recap rock is a new category of music conceived by two fans of the television show Lost in which they write and sing lyrics that summarize episodes of the show. What a great idea and what a fun word. I love it.

Advertising in Different Languages

I recently received an email that showed how some popular advertising campaigns would be translated in different languages. I don't know if these advertisements were actually run with these direct translations or not, but either way, it is fun to see how words translate.

The Dairy Association's huge success with the campaign "Got Milk?" prompted them to expand advertising to Mexico. It was soon brought to their attention the Spanish translation read "Are you lactating?"

Coors put its slogan, "Turn It Loose," into Spanish, where it was read as "Suffer From Diarrhea."

Scandinavian vacuum manufacturer Electrolux used the following in an American campaign: "Nothing sucks like an Electrolux."

Clairol introduced the "Mist Stick," a curling iron, into Germany only to find out that "mist" is slang for manure. Not too many people had use for the "Manure Stick."

Pepsi's "Come Alive With the Pepsi Generation" translated into "Pepsi Brings Your Ancestors Back From the Grave" in Chinese.

Frank Perdue's chicken slogan, "It takes a strong man to make a tender chicken" was translated into Spanish as "it takes an aroused man to make a chicken affectionate."

When American Airlines wanted to advertise its new leather first class seats in the Mexican market, it translated its "Fly In Leather" campaign literally, which meant "Fly Naked" (vuela en cuero) in Spanish.

The Coca-Cola name in China was first read as "Kekoukela", meaning "Bite the wax tadpole" or "female horse stuffed with wax", depending on the dialect. Coke then researched 40,000 characters to find a phonetic equivalent "kokou kole", translating into "happiness in the mouth."

When Parker Pen marketed a ball-point pen in Mexico, its ads were supposed to have read, "It won't leak in your pocket and embarrass you."The company thought that the word "embarazar" (to impregnate) meant to embarrass, so the ad read: "It won't leak in your pocket and make you pregnant"

Wind Farm Terminology

Wind farms seem to be making the headlines on a regular basis these days. There was an article in the June issue of Fast Company Magazine about a Texas tycoon named T. Boone Pickens who is building the "worlds largest wind farm," and there have also been numerous specials on television recently spotlighting wind farms.

I think that harnessing the power of the wind is a wonderful thing and a big positive for the environment. However, I can't seem to get over my problem with the term wind farm. I have always thought of farms as places where things are grown or raised. Wind can not be grown or raised; it is a product of nature. At any rate, I decided to look up the definition of the noun farm and the listing that was most applicable to the term wind farm was the seventh out of seven listings at Merriam-Webster OnLine:

An area containing a number of similar structures or objects (as radio antennas or storage tanks).

Reading this definition I can somewhat understand why the term was coined as a wind farm does have many similar structures - the turbines. However, with this in mind, I still find the term wind farm problematic. In my opinion, a better and more semantically accurate name for this "area containing a number of similar structures or objects" would be a turbine farm.

Dialects, Idiolects and Clanolects

While most people are familiar with the word dialect and have a general understanding of what constitutes a dialect, not everyone is familiar with the word idiolect. An idiolect is a variety of language distinctive to an individual person and may include word choice or vocabulary, pronunciations, grammatical patterns, use of phrases or idioms and more. What is not included specifically in the semantic parameters of either the word dialect or idiolect is a variety of language specific to an individual family and close friends. The more people I talk to and the more words and phrases I encounter, I believe there is definitely a need for a word to cover this variety of language. I propose the word clanolect.

Clanolect: A a variety of language specific to an individual family and immediate close friends. Includes distinctive vocabulary, pronunciations, grammatical patterns and phrases or idioms.

Examples from clanolects I have encoutered:

Words:
ascared - a blend of afraid and scared
klim - milk

Pronunciations:
purple pronounced as pur - pile
garage pronounced as though it rhymes with carraige

A phrase from a friend's father:
"Go take an obscornicle survey." - When the kids would ask if they could do something he would tell them to take an obcornicle survey first. (Obscornicle being an invented word)

A favorite idiom from my childhood:
"Poo on rye bread does not taste good." - Response to a person who said something with which you didn't agree or didn't like.

I'm sure there are many more examples out there and I would love to hear them. Please click on comments below to send me words or phrases from your clanolect.

Pragmatics and Crossword Puzzles

Where crossword puzzles are concerned, pragmatics can be viewed as the ability of the solver to interpret correctly the meaning or sense the constructor had in mind when writing a clue. When a clue appears as a single word without other words to give it a context, the puzzle itself can be thought of as the context. Oftentimes, even a multi-word clue can leave open more than one interpretation of the meaning or sense of the clue and this is part of the art of writing clues.

A constructor can intentionally use a vague expression in a clue to challenge the solver by not giving an appropriate amount of information. Ambiguities, too, are used in a similar way because the possible alternative denotations provide the challenge. With homonyms, it is specifically homographs that pose a problem to solvers because in written language they can not be distinguished without context, whereas homophones can. Polysemes are similarly problematic as they too have the same spelling for different senses of a word.

A perfect example of how a constructor can creatively mislead a solver even with some contextual information would be the homographic clue; bank deposit. The answer could be cash if the referenced bank is a financial institute or silt if the referenced bank is a river bank. An example of misleading with a one-word clue using a polysemic word is the clue; hire. The answer could be engage or employ. With both examples each possible answer has the same number of letters and each of the answers would be acceptable for the clue. It is in instances such as these that a solver must also take into consideration answers from the crossing clues in the grid to help them choose the best response.

Linguistic Hedges and Crossword Puzzles

A hedge is a linguistic device that is used by a speaker, or writer to communicate his or her feelings regarding the degree of accuracy or truth in a statement. Hedges can be in the form of adjectives, adverbs and, my favorite, phrases. As you readers already know, crossword puzzles are another one of my favorite things. A few weeks ago the Detroit Free Press ran a great crossword puzzle with phrasal hedges as the theme. Boy, was that a fun one. Following are the clues and answers:

Don't know for sure, but... So they say
Don't quote me, but... The word is
According to the grapevine... Reportedly
From people in the know... Rumor has it

The Michigan Accent

After much serious analysis of the Yooper dialect in the past, I thought it would be fun to take a humorous look at what michigannative.com considers to be the Michigan accent.

"aeh Narbor": Ann Arbor. Home of the Michigan Wolverines.
"Ashfault": Asphalt.
"Bob-lo": Bois Blanc. The name shared by several Michigan islands (and a former amusement park).
"Char-LOTT": Charlotte, a Michigan village close to Lansing.
Related: Durand, MI, pronounced "DUrand", Saline, pronounced "SuhLEEN", its neighbor "MYlun" (spelled Milan), and of course, Lake Orion, pronounced "OReeyun."
"COMF-terbul": Comfortable.
"Cranz": Crayons.
"Crick": Creek, in some parts of the state, they say "crick".
"Davenport": Sofa.
"Deerburn": Dearborn, home of Ford Moder Company.
"Di'TROI'": Detroit. You can always tell a non-native because they'll say "DEEtroit". "Drownded": Drowned. "
Related: "drownding".
"EeeevsTraaaf": Eavestrough.
"FI-yerr": Fire. Say it in two full syllables.
"FREVer": Forever.
"Frigerraider": Refrigerator.
"Graage": Garage. Ahhh, shuddup an' go parrk yer cahrr in the friggin' graage. (another one from Tim)
"Gran Blank": Grand Blanc, a suburb of Flint.
"Grrarapids": Grand Rapids
"GROSHries": Groceries.
"Haahkee": Hockey.
"Hunnerd": Hundred. Alternate pronunciation: "hundrid".
"I-munna": I'm going to.
"Kiddycorner": Kitty-corner. Elsewhere in the US: "catty-corner".
"KI-nuh": Kind of. I dunno, I kinuh like Vernor's.
"LayKEERie": Lake Erie.
"Lie-berry": Library.
"liVONEya": Livonia. Perhaps the fladdes' ciddy in Michigin.
"Melk": Milk.
"Michiganderr": Michigan native.
"Muskeeda": Mosquito. The State Bird of Michigan.
"NAWzeeus": Nauseous.
"Night-meer": Nightmare.
"Er": Or. Ya know, it wuz like watchin' X-Files er somethin'.
"Pah-neeack": Pontiac.
"Pahp": Pop. "Soda", in other parts of the world.
"Pellow": Pillow.
"Port Urine": Port Huron.
"Pronounce-eation": Pronunciation.
"Reeelatur": Realtor. This one sent in by Joe in KalamazOOOOOO.
"Samwich": Sandwich.
"Sherbert": Sherbet. Is this unique to Michigan? Another one from Kalamazoo Joe.
"Stold": Stole. "
"Sump'n": Something.
"Tempachur": Temperature.
"Tuh": To. It's hardta get inta the habita sayin' teeeoooo.
"Terr": Tour.
"U-sta": Used to. My deead u-sta work at th' Tek-Cenner in Warn. (submitted by Hari)
"Vanella": Vanilla.
"WEEK-en": Weekend. "
"Winzerr": Windsor, Ontario.

Yoopers Identify with Sisu

Now that I am in Northern Michigan for a good part of the summer, I thought I would return to one of my favorite topics which is the dialect spoken in the Upper Peninsula by "Yoopers."
An aspect of this dialect that I have not previously mentioned is its use as a form of identity.

Though the Upper Peninsula dialect may be similar to those found in Canada and Wisconsin, Michigan as a state has a unique geography that enables it to have these two distinct dialectical regions in one state with a fairly definitive dividing line, the Great Lakes.

The Upper Peninsula dialect has not blended with the Lower Michigan dialect into one homogenous “Michigan accent” because of the way speakers use dialect variation as a symbol of identity. There is a growing belief in the field of dialectology that, in addition to region and social class, a speaker’s attitudes and the identity they want to project also have a great influence on their speech behavior.

The Upper Peninsula residents’ self-identity is based on their ethnic and cultural backgrounds and is embodied by the Finnish word sisu. Sisu has no exact translation but denotes a strong sense of pride and determination that is part of the Finnish culture in the Upper Peninsula. Residents of the Upper Peninsula are determined to have their own identity because they are proud of it. The dialect acts as a verbal marker of this identity.

National Spelling Bee - Senior Edition

Saturday was the 13th Annual AARP Magazine National Spelling Bee. Unlike the Scripps National Spelling Bee, this is a bee for people aged 50 years and up. One of the rewards of being more mature and having a continued interest in spelling is the three strike rule. In other words, contestants are not eliminated until they have misspelled three words. The winning word this year was debouch," which is defined as "to come forth; emerge." This was spelled correctly by Larry Grossman, of Northwood, N.D. More impressive to me, however, was the word Grossman, 56, spelled prior to debauch to make it to the final round - botryoidal meaning "shaped like a bunch of grapes." I think botryoidal is a cool sounding and unusual word and would have been another great entry for The Most Unusual Word Contest (hint for future contests).

Semantic Funnies: Signs from Above? Part II

At a Tire Shop in Milwaukee : 'Invite us to your next blowout.'
At a Towing company: 'We don't charge an arm and a leg. We want tows.'
On an Electrician's truck: 'Let us remove your shorts.'
In a Nonsmoking Area: 'If we see smoke, we will assume you are on fire and take appropriate action.'
On a Maternity Room door: 'Push. Push. Push.'
At an Optometrist's Office: 'If you don't see what you're looking for, you've come to the right place.'
On a Taxidermist's window: 'We really know our stuff.'
On a Fence: 'Salesmen welcome! Dog food is expensive!'

And the Winning Words Are...Drumroll Please

The Most Unusual Word Contest concluded on Sunday the 8th. The winning words and their definitions are as follows:

1st Place goes to - batrachophagous: Feeding on frogs

2nd Place goes to - verbigerate: 1. To talk; chat. 2. To repeat a word or sentence, in speaking or writing, without wishing to do so or in spite of efforts to cease.

And there was a tie for 3rd Place between -
squeehaw: out of alignment, e.g., if you hang a picture and it's off kilter, it's squeehaw (Could not find in dictionary but there are many references to the word on Google. Must be regional slang.) and
pneumonoultramicroscopicsilicovolcanoconiosis: an obscure term ostensibly referring to a lung disease caused by silica dust, sometimes cited as one of the longest words in the English language.

Thank you for all of the entries, each and every one was a winning word in its own way. Also, as I still do not have contact information for some of the listed winners, stay tuned - your word may still be in the running.

If you see your word on the winning words list and you are one of the aforementioned individuals, please send me your address via the comment section on the blog.

Word Play and Crosswords

If I haven't yet mentioned it, the topic of crossword puzzles is one of my favorites. I actually wrote a paper about the semantics of crossword puzzles while working on my master's degree. Additionally, I thoroughly enjoy doing the daily crossword puzzles, mainly because of the word play involved. As is the case with many things, some puzzles are better than others when it comes to the creativeness of the word play.

Last week my daily newspaper ran a crossword puzzle with a very clever theme . The theme involved creative word play with the use of synonyms to describe how a person would steal different items in different venues (not that I condone stealing, I don't).

The clues and answers are as follows:

Steal books? palm readers

Steal produce? bag groceries

Steal coins? pinch pennies

Steal gym equipment? lift weights

For the clue steal coins?, my first thought was, pocket change (which actually did fit the spaces and would have worked semantically, to).

This was one of the better thematic crosswords involving word play I have seen in quite a while. If you are interested in seeing the puzzle in its entirety, it is a Tribune Crossword that was printed in the Detroit Free Press on Wednesday, June 4.

The Etymology of Pet Peeves

Returning to yesterday's post, the phrase pet peeve is an interesting one and I started to wonder how it came about. The word peeve actually started out as peevish, meaning ornery or ill-tempered. Some references date the first appearance of the word peevish as occurring in the 1300's and some in the 1500's. Either way, it was through back-formation that the verbal form peeve meaning to annoy or irritate came about in the early 1900's. And it was not long after that the word pet was added to form the phrase pet peeve. As for pet, it is actually a shortened version of petty meaning trivial or minor. Hence, a pet peeve is a minor irritation.

The Age of Pet Peeves

I have a very dear friend who has, what I consider to be, an odd pet peeve. It drives her crazy when a person responds to the question, "How old are you?" with "Almost twelve," or "Just about twelve," or anything similar in nature. Her view is that, if a person is almost twelve, they are not yet twelve so their response should be a simple "Eleven." I, personally, find the former responses to be more semantically informative. However, as the person responding to the question, I suppose it does depend on how old you are and how much you want to reveal about your age. I certainly would not respond, "Almost forty," though my thirteen-year-old son would proudly say, "Almost fourteen."

New Retronyms Appearing on a Regular Basis

I recently came across a word I had not previously heard of : retronym. With my linguistics background and the everyday familiarity of synonyms, homonyms, and antonyms, I was surprised that I had never heard this word.

A retronym is defined by Merriam-Webster as "a term consisting of a noun and a modifier which specifies the original meaning of the noun."

Answers.com adds a bit more detail to their definition by explaining that a retronym is "a word or phrase created because an existing term that was once used alone needs to be distinguished from a term referring to a new development, as acoustic guitar in contrast to electric guitar or analog watch in contrast to digital watch."

In addition to the guitar and watch examples here are some more retronyms to think about:

AM Radio
Bar Soap
Biological parent
Black-and-white television
Brick-and-mortar store, high street shop
Broadcast television
George H.W. Bush
Classical Music
Cloth diaper
Conventional War
Desktop computer
Field hockey
Forward slash
Hard disk
Hardback Book
Land Line
Manual transmission
Natural language
Orthodox Judaism
hard copy
Prop plane
Push lawnmower
Real numbers
Rotary telephone
Scalar processors
Sit-down restaurant
Snail mail
Snow skiing
Static electricity
Turn based strategy
Vinyl record
Whole milk

I guess we have technology to thank for retronymy.

Most Unusual Word Contest Deadline Approaches

Tomorrow is the Last Day to Enter the Most Unusual Word Contest
For more details click:
http://walkinthewords.blogspot.com/2008/05/most-unusual-word-contest.html
Don't miss out on your chance to win an impressive array of prizes.

Linguistics Cartoon Favorites: Linguist Sings the Blues

Flatulent in Three Languages

Best word play commercial in ages.

Stanley the Pup Helps Red Wings Bring Home Stanley the Cup

Congratulations to the Detroit Red Wings on bringing home the Stanley Cup

As I have mentioned previously, I am not a huge hockey fan, but if ever there was going to be a year that I really wanted to see the Red Wings win, it was this year. My heightened interest was due to our new puppy, Stanley. I like to think that my boys' choice in his name is what brought the Wings the luck they needed to win (not that they didn't have the skill).

At any rate, to bring some linguistic relevance to the Red Wings win, I want to point out a couple of Detroit Free Press headlines from today that demonstrate their editors' ability to have fun with words, specifically homophones.

On the front page, section A, main headline: Red Reign
A homophonic play on the phrase Red Rain. Red Rain is a phenomenon that occurred sporadically in 2001 in the southern Indian state Kerala. It is also the title of a song by Peter Gabriel and a song by The White Stripes ((a band from Detroit)) Coincidence? I think not).

On the front page of a special Red Wings section: 11th Our's
This is the 11th time the Red Wings have won the Stanley Cup and it is homophonic play on the phrase At the 11th Hour meaning at the last possible moment.

Thank you for the linguistic fun Free Press editors.

Eric Clapton in Japanese

While checking out a blog called "Who? Wot! Me?,"
I came across this picture with the caption "What do Japanese people really think of Eric Clapton?"

I, personally, am a big fan of Eric Clapton's music, but I still found humor in this Japanese attempt at spelling his name in English. There is, however, a very valid reason that the Japanese would spell Clapton's name as such and that is: the Japanese language does not have the "l- sound." Actually, the /l/ phoneme, as it is called, is unique among American English speech sounds.

The /l/ phoneme is classified as a sonorant approximant liquid by phoneticians - as is the /r/ phoneme. Although the /l/ and /r/ phonemes do have articulatory differences, many non-native American English speakers have difficulties differentiating between the two. These difficulties result in non-native speakers of English most frequently replacing the English /l/ phoneme with the /r/ phoneme.

This is why the Japanese pronounce Eric Clapton as Eric Crapton, not necessarily because they don't care for his music.

Scrabble Anyone? by Guest Columnist LP Graziani

When Laura asked me to be a guest writer on her blog, I was hesitant since I am not a linguist or a writer. I struggled to think of a topic that would interest her readers. Then I ran across a word I thought would be good for playing Scrabble and it hit me, I could write about Scrabble strategy.

I have always enjoyed playing Scrabble but it wasn’t until I started playing regularly with my sister and brother-in-law, who are avid Scrabble players, that my competitive nature took over. Basically, I hated always losing. So I started to research Scrabble techniques and applied some of what I learned to our games. I actually started winning. So, I’ve decided to share one of the techniques.

In Scrabble one way to increase your score is to “layer” your words or run a word parallel to an existing word on the board. Being familiar with some lesser known two-letter words helps to increase your score since you can layer more of the word you are putting down. Here are some of my frequently used two letter words. Using the X, K, M and J helps to optimize your score.

1. Oy – used to express dismay or pain
2. Yo - used to call attention or to express affirmation
3. Xi - a Greek Letter
4. Qi - the vital force that in Chinese thought is inherent in all things
5. Aa - rough, cindery lava
6. Ae - one
7. Oe - a whirlwind off the Faeroe islands
8. Ka - the spiritual self of a human being in Egyptian religion
9. Jo - a sweetheart
10. Mu - a Greek letter

Are there any two-letter words you’ve used when playing scrabble?
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Thank you Lori.

If anyone else is interested in contributing, I would welcome articles from any of my readers. It is not necessary to be a linguist or a writer, just to have an interest in language and words and in sharing your observations.

An additional note on Scrabble - The book "Word Freak" by Stefan Fatsis is about competitive Scrabble. It is a fun, fascinating and educational read. Check it out if you haven't read it yet.

Scripps National Spelling Bee Results

If you haven't yet heard, a 13-year-old from Indiana by the name of Sameer Mishra won the Scripps National Spelling Bee Friday evening. The winning word was guerdon which is defined as "something that one has earned or gained." Congratulations Sameer and thank you for adding humor to the evening with your response upon mishearing the word numnah (See post below for a replay).

While on the subject of spelling, a friend recently emailed me a link to a different kink of spelling test for "regular folks." Give it a try, it is a lot of fun.

http://lifestyle.msn.com/familyandparenting/raisingkids/article.aspx?cp-documentid=7459725&gt1=46001