Linguistics Quotation Favorites - Patterns

The marvelous thing is that even in studying linguistics, we find that the universe as a whole is patterned, ordered, and to some degree intelligible to us.

-Kenneth L. Pike

Linguistics Cartoon Favorites - Punctuation

A Suggestive Homophonic E-Mail Address

In preparation for the class I will be teaching beginning September 3, I recently phoned one of the campus bookstores to place the order for the book I will be using. The bookstore representative gave me a great laugh that I am still chuckling about. After I gave him all of the information about the book, the course number, and the number of students registered, he asked for my e-mail address to send me a confirmation. In addition to my campus e-mail address, I gave him my personal e-mail address (which is a rocketmail account). He promptly responded, "I'm guessing that is not the 'm' 'a' 'l' 'e' spelling."

Tautologies: A Three-Part Trilogy

I. A tautology is a statement that is true regardless of the truth values of its parts.
(ex. All Golden Retrievers are either golden or they are not golden.)

II. A tautology is a redundant expression that is true by its own definition.
(ex. new innovation, significant landmark)

III. A tautology is that which is tautological.

Linguistics Quotation Favorites - Metaphorically Speaking

Failure is the condiment that gives success its flavor.

-Truman Capote

A New Weather Term Pops Up

Last Friday in northern Michigan my husband and I were on an inland lakes waterway cruise with a group of friends. The weather was supposed to be perfect so we were all surprised when the sky turned dark shortly after launching the boat. We turned on the radio to check the weather and heard that some storms had been spotted over Wisconsin and a "pop-up storm" would not be out of the question for our location.

Having never heard the word 'pop-up' used in relation to weather I decided to google "pop-up storm". There were 21,200,000 hits; however, none of those on the first few pages included a definition, they were simply excerpts from weather forecasts that included the term. I next googled "pop-up storm definition" and the closest google hit was for the term "popcorn storm" from Double-Tongued Dictionary. The definition is as follows:

popcorn storm: n. a brief, unexpected rain shower or thunderstorm. Also, collectively and more formally, popcorn convection.

I then searched the National Weather Service's weather terms and definitions page and found this definition:

Popcorn Convection: Slang for showers and thunderstorms that form on a scattered basis with little or no apparent organization, usually during the afternoon in response to diurnal heating. Individual thunderstorms typically are of the type sometimes referred to as air-mass thunderstorms: they are small, short-lived, very rarely severe, and they almost always dissipate near or just after sunset.

Amazing how technology influences language use.

Thankfully, the storm never did hit...probably because we turned on our pop-up blocker.

Baldness Euphemisms

According to WordNet, a euphemism is "an inoffensive or indirect expression that is substituted for one that is considered offensive or too harsh."

Having grown up with a father who is classified as bald, I am familiar with the politically correct euphemisms 'follicularly challenged' and 'acquired uncombable hair'. I just, however, came across a euphemism for baldness that I had never heard before and is perfect for my dear dad.

In last week's episode of the television show Psych, Shawn's new girlfriend, upon meeting his balding father, says:

"You're not bald, you're just taller than your hair."

This euphemism is perfect for my dad because he is tall (6'4") and, though he may have a lack of hair on his head, he certainly has never been short on the qualities that make him a wonderful, sensitive, and caring father.

McDonald's Advertising - Less is More

What a great way to advertise a product without even showing the product.

I have to believe that there is not a person on this planet who doesn't know that the above photo is that of a McDonald's french fries box. And the fact that the box is empty is meant to send the symbolic message that the fries were so tasty, "you didn't save me any".

Awwww. How sad.

Linguistics Cartoon Favorites - The Mnemonic Plague

The Link Between Speech and Writing - Deep Dyslexia

Dyslexia is the widely recognized optical and neurological condition that causes difficulty with reading, spelling, and writing. Letter and number reversals are common signs of dyslexia.

Deep dyslexia is a less common condition that provides evidence of the close relationship between speech and writing. With deep dyslexia, a person will see one word and verbalize a different, but closely related word.

In the book Word Weavers by Jean Aitchison the example is given of a person reading the word play instead of 'drama', ill instead of 'sick', football instead of 'soccer'.

This example illustrates that "at some deep level, the patient has understood the word he or she is reading, then been unable to retrieve the phonological shape needed to utter it."

I had never heard of deep dyslexia but I think it would be fascinating to study for anyone in the fields of cognitive linguistics and/or neurolinguistics.

The #1 Reason To Be Religious About Spelling Words Correctly

A young monk arrives at a monastery. He is assigned to help the other monks in copying the old canons and laws of the church by hand. He notices, however, that all of the monks are copying from copies, not from the original manuscript. So, the new monk goes to the head abbot to question this, pointing out that if someone made even a small error in the first copy, it would never be picked up! In fact, that error would be continued in all of the subsequent copies.
The head monk, says, "We have been copying from the copies for centuries, but you make a good point, my son."

He goes down into the dark caves underneath the monastery where the original manuscripts are held as archives in a locked vault that hasn't been opened for hundreds of years. Hours go by and nobody sees the old abbot. So, the young monk gets worried and goes down to look for him. He sees him banging his head against the wall and wailing.

"We missed the R! We missed the R! We missed the R!"

His forehead is all bloody and bruised and he is crying uncontrollably.The young monk asks the old abbot, "What's wrong, father?" With A choking voice, the old abbot replies,

"The word was... CELEBRATE!!!"

###

*This humorous e-mail I received does not mention the fact that 'celibate' is spelled with an 'i' in place of the second 'e' but I still got a kick out of it.

It's All How You Look at Things

For Dawn, Tom and Miller -

*Maddy must wait about 19 more years.

Linguistics Cartoon Favorites - Onomatopoeia Yawn

Breadcrumb (Verb)

I recently drove one of my sons to a new camp in Ohio. We followed the directions to the main road for the camp but decided to look for a restaurant to have some lunch before going to the camp. As we drove, it seemed like we were driving in a circle and the restaurant where we ended up was off of the same express way we had just exited (though we couldn't tell if it was the same exit or not). Being unfamiliar with the area, I couldn't decide if we should assume we had driven in a circle and wing it back to the camp or if we should backtrack. I asked my teenage son what he thought and he responded, "I think we should breadcrumb it." I had never heard the word "breadcrumb" used as a verb and I wondered if he heard it on a television show. He claims that this usage just popped into his head at that moment based upon the fairy tale Hansel and Gretel.

I did a quick web search and came up with the following:


Wiktionary
Verb
Infinitive to breadcrumb
1. (transitive) (cooking) To sprinkle breadcrumbs on to food, normally before cooking.

NetLingo
The nickname for a top navigation menu that uses a string of section names to identify where you are.

For example, when searching for cell phone product reviews on CNET.com, you will see the following "breadcrumbs" just beneath the top level navigation:

> Home > Reviews > Cell Phones and Accessories > All Cell Phones

Likened to the practice of leaving breadcrumbs behind you when you go hiking on a new trail or wandering through the wilderness, these top navigation links help you find your way back to where you started by following them in reverse order.

While the NetLingo definition comes close to my son's definition, I still prefer his version as it has a far broader application.

Breadcrumb:
Verb
Infinitive to breadcrumb
1. (transitive) To retrace one's steps, to backtrack.
Example sentence: To avoid getting lost, we breadcrumbed it.

Thank you JJP