Halloween Pragmatics and Etymology

Pragmatics

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ETYMOLOGY

Just in case any readers are not familiar with the etymology of Halloween, here it is compliments of the Online Etymology Dictionary -

Halloween: c.1745, Scottish shortening of Allhallow-even "Eve of All Saints, last night of October" (1556), the last night of the year in the old Celtic calendar, where it was Old Year's Night, a night for witches. Another pagan holiday given a cursory baptism and sent on its way. Hallowmas "All-saints" is first attested 1389.

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By the bye, Happy Halloween to all linguists and to all linguists a good night. Hope you have fun with language tricks and enjoy some treats.

Billboard Plays with Morphology, Syllabification and Semantics - Ad Here

As long as we are on the topic of billboards this week, another great one I spotted recently is a billboard that advertises advertising on billboards. This is a notable billboard because it relies on morphology, syllabification, and semantics to make its point. Unfortunately, there is not an available image of this billboard and I was driving too quickly to take a picture. At any rate, I will do my best to describe it.

There is a bottle of glue in the lower left corner and there are letters that give the illusion of being cut from magazine text and glued to the billboard. The letters appear to form one word adhere; however, the letters a and d are in the same font which is a different font from the letters h, e, r, and e that are also in the same font. Does that make sense? Like this: adhere.

So you have the word adhere with the syllables ad and here, which are also the free morphemes (or words) ad and here. Semantically this delivers two messages:

1. The viewer of the billboard, as a potential advertiser, could put their ad on that billboard
and
2. If the viewer of the billboard puts their ad on that billboard, their message will adhere with future billboard viewers, in other words, the message will stick to the future billboard viewers memory (which is key in advertising).

Iced to Meet You - McDonald's Phonology

McDonald's now sells iced coffee and the advertising campaign to promote it includes a billboard with a photo of the iced coffee and the text "ICED TO MEET YOU." Thank you McDonald's, this billboard is a great exhibit of the fun that can be had with phonology.

The phonemes /d/ and /t/ are both alveolar stops that are only differentiated in their voicing. Because of the close relationship between the /d/ and /t/ phonemes, when they are adjacent to each other they blend and become one sound. The result of this is that when read aloud "iced to meet you" sounds an awful lot like "nice to meet you." This coincidence was clearly a large part of McDonald's intended, though somewhat covert, message on the billboard - McDonald's iced coffee is so good the consumer will think it nice to have met.

Because the /d/ and /t/ phonemes can not be distinguished verbally, this campaign only works in print as it is the act of reading the billboard and reciting it aloud to yourself that makes it fun and gets the intended message across.

Semantics Humor - Fake Billboards

Ditloid = Language Equation

Last week on Jeopardy there was a category titled "DITLOIDS." Having never previously heard this word, I did not know what to expect. Once the clues in the category were revealed, my initial thought was that a ditloid is an acronym that includes letters and numbers. Upon doing a bit of research I discovered that a ditloid is a fairly common type of word puzzle. I love word puzzles (crossword puzzles, jumbles, etc.) and I can't believe I have never encountered a ditloid, especially since another name for ditloid is language equation. The object of a ditloit is to figure out a phrase or quote from the numbers and abbreviated letters in the clue. Most ditloids are written as mathematical equations, though the Jeopardy ditloids were not.

3 = B.M. (S.H.T.R.!) (3 = Blind Mice [See How They Run!])
200 = D. for P.G. in M. (200 Dollars for Passing Go in Monopoly)
1,001 = A.N. (1,001 = Arabian Nights)
7 = W. of the A.W. (7 = Wonders of the Ancient World)
18 = H. on a G.C. (18 = Holes on a Golf Course)

Linguistics Cartoon Favorites - Thesaurus Dog

Pushing Daisies: Digby and Pigby

Pushing Daisies is one of the most creative new television shows of recent years. When it debuted last year I immediately fell in love with the main character Ned's dog named Digby. I love Golden Retrievers and I had never heard the name Digby but I thought it was a great name.

Now in its second season, a new animal character has joined the show. A pig that the character Olive calls Pigby. I love it. I wonder if the creators of the show had the second season's plot line planned ahead of time when first naming all of the characters or if inspiration struck later (in the form of Digby) that led to the new plot line involving the nunnery, mushrooms and a pig.

At any rate, Pigby brought me back to wondering about the name Digby so I did a little research. The most prominent Digby was Sir Kenelm Digby, 1603–1665, an English naval commander, diplomat, and author. Used as a first name, the name Digby is rare but according to a baby naming website is from Old Norse and means "town by the ditch." Of course the name Pigby does not make the list of names for babies.

Is a Linguist always a Polyglot?

I am sorry to say that yesterday's daily Match Up word game from the "Free Dictionary" included a misleading and inaccurate synonym. The word in the left column was polyglot and the answer in the right column was linguist. While polyglots are generally considered linguists, linguists are not necessarily polyglots and for a pair of words to be true synonyms they should be interchangeable; that is not the case here. The definitions found on the "Free Dictionary" website don't even support the synonymity of linguist and polyglot. These definitions are as follows:

Synonym: A word having the same or nearly the same meaning as another word or other words in a language.

Linguist: A person skilled in the science of language. Also linguistician.
Polyglot: A person having a speaking, reading, or writing knowledge of several languages.

In sum, as these definitions indicate, a person can be skilled in the science of language without speaking many languages (or even two languages for that matter). Semantically this is called lack of entailment because being a linguist does NOT entail being a polyglot.

Political Catch Phrase 08: "That One"

The stand-out political catch phrase of this election year comes from the second presidential debate when McCain referred to Obama as "that one" instead of using his name. This was certainly not very appropriate of McCain and now, wisely, Obama and his camp are capitalizing on McCain's faux pas with a "That One" 08 website in addition to t-shirts, stickers and the like.

Playing with Spelling, Sounds and Semantics - Linguistics Humor

1. The roundest knight at king Arthur's round table was Sir Cumference.
He acquired his size from too much pi.

2. I thought I saw an eye doctor on an Alaskan island,
but it turned out to be an optical Aleutian.

3. She was only a whiskey maker,
but he loved her still.

4. A rubber band pistol was confiscated from algebra class because
it was a weapon of math disruption.

5. The butcher backed into the meat grinder
and got a little behind in his work.

6. No matter how much you push the envelope,
it'll still be stationery.

7. A dog gave birth to puppies near the road
and was cited for littering.

8. A grenade thrown into a kitchen in France would result in
Linoleum Blownapart.

9. Two silk worms had a race.
They ended up in a tie.

10. Time flies like an arrow.
Fruit flies like a banana.

11. A hole has been found in the nudist camp wall.
The police are looking into it.

12. Atheism is a non-prophet organization.

13. Two hats were hanging on a hat rack in the hallway.
One hat said to the other, 'You stay here, I'll go on a head.'

14. I wondered why the baseball kept getting bigger.
Then it hit me.

15. A sign on the lawn at a drug rehab center said: 'Keep off the Grass.'

16. A small boy swallowed some coins and was taken to a hospital.
When his grandmother telephoned to ask how he was,
a nurse said, 'No change yet.'

17. A chicken crossing the road is poultry in motion.

18. It's not that the man did not know how to juggle,
he just didn't have the balls to do it.

19. The short fortune-teller who escaped from prison was
a small medium at large.

20. The soldier who survived mustard gas and pepper spray is now a seasoned veteran.

21. A backward poet writes inverse.

22. In democracy it's your vote that counts.
In feudalism it's your count that votes.

23. When cannibals ate a missionary,
they got a taste of religion.

24. Don't join dangerous cults:
Practice safe sects!

NCAA Football: Armchair Quarterbacks and Sidewalk Alumni

As we are in the midst of NCAA football season, I can't think of a better time to bring up the compound word sidewalk alumni. Though sidewalk alumni is not listed in traditional dictionaries yet, it is semantically similar to, and brings to mind the compound word armchair quarterback, which is listed in dictionaries. Sidewalk alumni and armchair quarterback are semantically similar in that they are both considered derogatory terms for sports fans.

Sidewalk alumni: Fans of college sports teams that are not alumni of the college.

Armchair quarterback: Viewers of sports who criticize plays and think they could play better.

Humorous Signs

TOILET OUT OF ORDER. PLEASE USE FLOOR BELOW

In a Laundromat: AUTOMATIC WASHING MACHINES: PLEASE REMOVE ALL YOUR CLOTHES WHEN THE LIGHT GOES OUT

In a London department store: BARGAIN BASEMENT UPSTAIRS

In an office:WOULD THE PERSON WHO TOOK THE STEP LADDER YESTERDAY PLEASE BRING IT BACK OR FURTHER STEPS WILL BE TAKEN

In an office:AFTER TEA BREAK STAFF SHOULD EMPTY THE TEAPOT AND STAND UPSIDE DOWN ON THE DRAINING BOARD

Outside a secondhand shop: WE EXCHANGE ANYTHING - BICYCLES, WASHING MACHINES, ETC. WHY NOT BRING YOUR WIFE ALONG AND GET A WONDERFUL BARGAIN?

Notice in health food shop window: CLOSED DUE TO ILLNESS

Spotted in a safari park: ELEPHANTS PLEASE STAY IN YOUR CAR

Seen during a conference:FOR ANYONE WHO HAS CHILDREN AND DOESN'T KNOW IT, THERE IS A DAY CARE ON THE 1ST FLOOR

Notice in a farmer's field: THE FARMER ALLOWS WALKERS TO CROSS THE FIELD FOR FREE, BUT THE BULL CHARGES

Message on a leaflet: IF YOU CANNOT READ, THIS LEAFLET WILL TELL YOU HOW TO GET LESSONS

On a repair shop door: WE CAN REPAIR ANYTHING. (PLEASE KNOCK HARD ON THE DOOR - THE BELL DOESN'T WORK)

Linguistics Cartoon Favorites - Language Fluency

Fauxtography

Good old Reader's Digest - the October issue brought another fun, new word to my attention and morphology brought the word together - fauxtography. According to RD, fauxtography is the practice of manipulating digital photographs which is made possible by Photoshop and other computer programs. I had previously heard this practice referred to as photoshopping, which makes sense, but the word play involved in fauxtography sure makes it a lot more fun for written communication.

"The Linguists" - A New Documentary about Soon-To-Be-Extinct Languages

It might surprise you to know that there are over 6,000 different languages in the world today; however, many of these languages are close to becoming extinct as the people who speak the languages die before they are documented. Thankfully, there is a new documentary making its way around film festivals called, "The Linguists," that focuses on the importance of language documentation. Following is a plot summary from IMDb:

David and Greg are "The Linguists," who document languages on the verge of extinction. In the rugged landscapes of Siberia, India, and Bolivia, their resolve is tested by institutionalized racism and violent economic unrest.

Here is a link that lists the screenings of the documentary and a link to view the documentary's trailer.

Humorous Language Questions

These humorous language questions have been around but they are always fun to revisit.

Why is abbreviated such a long word?
Why does monosyllabic have five syllables?
Why is brassiere singular and panties plural?
Why isn't phonetic spelled the way it sounds?
Why is a carrot more orange than an orange?
Why are there interstate highways in Hawaii?
Why do we drive on parkways and park on driveways?
Why are they called apartments, when they're all stuck together?
Why do scientists call it research when looking for something new?
Why do they call it a building? It looks like they're finished. Why isn't it a built?
Why is it when you transport something by car, it's called a shipment, but when you transport something by ship, it's called cargo?
If vegetarians eat vegetables, what do humanitarians eat?
If price and worth mean the same thing, why priceless and worthless are opposites?
Is there another word for synonym?
Is it possible to be totally partial?

The Analyzability of Exocentric Compounds - Buckle Bunny and Puck Bunny

In looking up information for the post about skiers' slang last week I came across two other sport-related terms that fascinated me: buckle bunny and puck bunny. Both buckle bunny and puck bunny are considered exocentric compounds (not definable by either constituent and considered semantically un-analyzable).

Buckle bunny: a female groupie of rodeo cowboys.
Puck bunny: a female fan of hockey or hockey players; a hockey groupie, especially one who has casual sexual relations with players.

These so-called exocentric compounds are clearly modeled on the linguistic template provided by the compounds beach bunny and snow bunny. The productivity of this template combined with the metaphoric interpretation of the word bunny is what allows these new compounds to be definable or semantically analyzable and therefore not truly exocentric.

Linguistics Cartoon Favorites - The Language of Sports

Skiers' Slang Served on a Lunch Tray

With skiing just around the corner - as my boys keep reminding me when asking for new equipment - I felt inspired to look into skiing terminology. In an earlier post I mentioned the term yard sale, which is skiers' slang for when a skier loses articles of gear and clothing while tumbling downhill. While delving further into the world of skiers' slang (after all, I need to keep up with the lingo and be a hip mom), I came across a website written by one Mogul Mick that is devoted to understanding skiers' slang. After reviewing the sizable list of these slang terms, I was surprised to see that many of them involve food items, as follows:

Death cookie: Firm or frozen clumps of snow, usually the result of incompetent snow-making.
Chicken heads: What you get when spring slush freezes.
Chocolate chips: A cluster of rocks poking out of the snow.
Chowder: Chopped-up powder.
Corn: A type of spring snow that forms into small, light pellets.
Crust: Frozen surface covering loose snow.
Hoho: A handstand on the apex of a halfpipe
Lunch tray: a Snowboard.
Noodle: A ski that lacks torsional rigidity, making it unstable at speed.
Poaching: Skiing out of bounds.

Seeing all of these food-related terms got me to wondering if this is what causes skiers to have toilet turns.

Toilet turns: Sloppy turns made in the pooping position.

Tried and True, Good and Humorous GRAMMAR RULES Part II

31. Even IF a mixed metaphor sings, it should be derailed.
32. Who needs rhetorical questions? However, what if there were no rhetorical questions?
33. Exaggeration is a billion times worse than understatement.
34. Avoid "buzz-words"; such integrated transitional scenarios complicate simplistic matters
35. People don’t spell "a lot" correctly alot of the time.
36. Each person should use their possessive pronouns correctly
37. All grammar and spelling rules have exceptions (with a few exceptions)....Morgan’s Law.
38. Proofread carefully to see if you any words out.
39. The dash – a sometimes useful mark – can often be overused – although it’s a helpful tool sometimes.
40. Proofread carefully to make sure you don’t repeat repeat any words.
41. In writing, it’s important to remember that dangling sentences.
41. When numbering in a written document, check your numbering system carefully.
42. It is important to use italics for emphasis sparingly.
43. In good writing, for good reasons, under normal circumstances, whenever you can, use prepositional phrases in limited numbers and with great caution.
44. Avoid going out on tangents unrelated to your subject -- not the subject of a sentence -- that's another story (like the stories written by Ernest Hemingway, who by the way wrote the great fisherman story The Old Man and the Sea).
45. Complete sentences. Like rule 10.
46. Unless you're a righteous expert don't try to be too cool with slang to which you're not hip.
47. If you must use slang, avoid out-of-date slang. Right on!
48. You'll look poorly if you misuse adverbs.
49. Use the ellipsis ( . . . ) to indicate missing . . .
50. Use brackets to indicate that you [ not Shakespeare, for example ] are giving people [ in your class ] information so that they [ the people in your class ] know about whom you are speaking. But do not use brackets when making these references [ to other authors ] excessively.
51. Note: People just can't stomach too much use of the colon.
52. Between good grammar and bad grammar, good grammar is the best.
53. There are so many great grammar rules that I can't decide between them.
54. In English, unlike German, the verb early in the sentence, not later, should be placed.
55. When you write sentences, shifting verb tense is bad.

From: creativeteachingsite.com

Tried and True, Good and Humorous GRAMMAR RULES Part I

1. Verbs HAS to agree with their subjects.
2. Never use a preposition to end a sentence with.
3. And don't start a sentence with a conjunction.
4. It is wrong to ever split an infinitive.
5. Avoid cliches like the plague. (They're old hat.)
6. Also, always avoid annoying alliteration.
7. Be more or less specific.
8. Parenthetical remarks (however relevant) are (usually) unnecessary.
9. Also too, never, ever use repetitive redundancies endlessly over and over again.
10. No sentence fragments.
11. Contractions aren't always necessary and shouldn't be used to excess so don’t.
12. Foreign words and phrases are not always apropos.
13. Do not be redundant; do not use more words than necessary; it's highly superfluous and excessive.
14. All generalizations are bad.
15. Comparisons are as bad as cliches.
16. Don't use no double negatives.
17. Avoid excessive use of ampersands & abbrevs., etc.
18. One-word sentences? Eliminate.
19. Analogies in writing are like feathers on a snake (Unless they are as good as gold).
20. The passive voice is to be ignored.
21. Eliminate commas, that are, not, necessary.
22. Never use a big word when substituting a diminutive one would suffice.
23. Don’t overuse exclamation points!!!
24. Use words correctly, irregardless of how others use them.
25. Understatement is always the absolute best way to put forth earth-shaking ideas
26. Use the apostrophe in it's proper place and omit it when its not needed and use it correctly with words’ that show possession.
27. Don’t use too many quotations. As Ralph Waldo Emerson said, "I hate quotations. Tell me what you know."
28. If you've heard it once, you've heard it a billion times: Resist hyperbole; not one writer in a million can use it correctly. Besides, hyperbole is always overdone, anyway.
29. Puns are for children, not groan readers.
30. Go around the barn at high noon to avoid colloquialisms.

From: creativeteachingsite.com

The Japanese Suffix -San and other Honorifics

A common feature of Japanese morphology that most people are familiar with even if they don't know Japanese is the use of the suffix san. The suffix san when added to a person's name signifies that the speaker has great respect for the person he or she is addressing. What some people may not know is that in linguistics this type of suffix is called an honorific. There are many other Japanese honorifics as well, including: Kun, Chan, Sensai, and Shi.

Honorifics appear as suffixes and in other forms in many other languages and cultures too. English has honorifics, though they precede and are not attached to a person's name. English honorifics include: Mr., Mrs., Miss, Master, Sir, Dr. and the like. You might be surprised to know that even words like dude, bro, and girl can be used as honorifics.

Linguistics Cartoon Favorites - Glottal Stop

Rhyming Word Pairs, Reduplication and Idioms, e.g., Tramp Stamp and Roach Coach

A recent episode of the television show "Bones" happened to include two rhyming word pairs: roach coach and tramp stamp. This phenomenon of rhyming word pairs is often considered a form of reduplication. Reduplication is the linguistic process of repeating all or part of a root word. Reduplicative or not, I believe there is more to this type of rhyming word pair than is apparent in the initial semantic interpretation. The more I am referring to is idiomaticity.

Take the rhyming word pair tramp stamp for example; each word in the pair can stand alone, and when the words are paired the meanings of the individual words are still included in the semantic interpretation of the pair; however, there is more to the meaning of the whole than the combination of the meanings of the parts.

tramp = woman of loose morals
stamp = a lasting imprint
tramp stamp = a tattoo on a woman's lower back

Additionally, this type of rhyming word pair should be considered idiomatic because if an aspect of either of the individual words is changed it will lose the meaning of the whole, in other words its idiomatic meaning.

The Plural of Mongoose - Mongooses or Mongeese

The manager of a large city zoo was drafting a letter to order a pair of animals. He sat at his computer and typed the following sentence: "I would like to place an order for two mongooses, to be delivered at your earliest convenience."
He stared at the screen, focusing on that odd word mongooses. Then he deleted the word and added another, so that the sentence now read: "I would like to place an order for two mongeese, to be delivered at your earliest convenience."
Again he stared at the screen, this time focusing on the new word, which seemed just as odd as the original one. Finally, he deleted the whole sentence and started all over. "Everyone knows no full-stocked zoo should be without a mongoose," he typed. "Please send us two of them."

According to Dictionary.com and the American Heritage Dictionary the plural of mongoose is mongooses which makes sense because etymologically there is no relation to the word goose. The word mongoose comes from mangus, a word from the Indic language Marathi.

Interestingly, the Merriam-Webster Dictionary does include mongeese as an accepted plural form. This is likely because of its repeated usage by people unfamiliar with the etymology of mongoose.

To learn more about what qualifies a word for dictionary inclusion please refer to the previous post on this topic.