Book Review Briefs: The Fingertips of Duncan Dorfman

"The Fingertips of Duncan Dorfman" by Meg Wolitzer

ʌ ʌ (2 carets up)

What a wonderful book for young readers. Whether interested in language or not, this is an enjoyable book and I'll bet anyone who reads it will discover a new found enthusiasm for vocabulary, parts of speech, and morphology.

If the cover image didn't give it away, the book is about the game of Scrabble, more specifically, a Youth Scrabble Tournament and what brings three preteens from different states to the tournament.

Here is a summary from Penguin.com:

At first glance, Duncan Dorfman, April Blunt, and Nate Saviano don't seem to have much in common. Duncan is trying to look after his single mom and adjust to life in a new town while managing his newfound Scrabble superpower—he can feel words and pictures beneath his fingers and tell what they are without looking. April is pining for a mystery boy she met years ago and striving to be seen as more than a nerd in her family of jocks. And homeschooled Nate is struggling to meet his father's high expectations for success.

When these three unique kids are brought together at the national Youth Scrabble Tournament, each with a very different drive to win, their paths cross and stories intertwine . . . and the journey is made extraordinary with a perfect touch of magic. Readers will fly through the pages, anxious to discover who will take home the grand prize, but there's much more at stake than winning and losing.

Anagrams are a frequent topic in the book, as evidenced by these excerpts:

"Words are like clay, Dorfman," he went on. "They can be shaped and messed with not only by your hands, but also by your head."

"PROSE is an anagram of ROPES. Oh, and SPORE is too. And POSER."

Here is an excerpt that includes the topics of vocabulary, parts of speech and morphology:

Duncan thought about the word AA, for instance, which he had looked up in the Scrabble dictionary and found out that it meant "rough, cindery lava." If he hadn't known it was a noun, he might have tried to add ING onto the end of it, thinking it was a verb.

Makes me wish I was a kid again so I could read books and play Scrabble all day long.

Props for a Vocabulary Update

Back in February of this year I posted about the word props and an observant reader, Joseph Christina RN, sent me the following which I thought I would share.

I was recently asked the origin of the phrase “giving props” to someone. The general attribution on the net is to rappers in the 80’s. Some further digging indicated that the phrase came into broader use after Aretha Franklin used the phrase in her cover of “Respect” in 1967. Although the song was written and released by Otis Redding in 1965, Aretha added the line:

“I'm about to give you all of my money - And all I'm askin' in return, honey - Is to give me my props”

Apparently, I’m not the first person trying to track this down. Below is an excerpt from The New York Times:

Bernard Schneider of Falmouth Foreside, Me., recalled that ''during a recently aired Ed Bradley interview of the artist on '60 Minutes,' he inferred that her artistic plea for propers was for adoration and attention of a sexual nature.''
That torrent of informed correction drove me to J. Redding Ware's 1909 ''Passing English of the Victorian Era,'' which touches lightly on the term as ''erotic.''
Reached during a tour that took her through Washington, Franklin is having none of that. Her use of propers (which many heard as profits ) in the lyric was her own, not in the words originally written and performed by Otis Redding in 1965.
''I do say propers ,'' says the queen of soul. ''I got it from the Detroit street. It was common street slang in the 1960's. The persons saying it has a sexual connotation couldn't be further from the truth. 'My propers ' means 'mutual respect' -- what you know is right.''

The original version of the article is available at http://www.nytimes.com/2002/07/28/magazine/28ONLANGUAGE.html
Aretha’s version of "Respect" was recorded on February 14, 1967, and we have her stating that it was “common street slang” in the Detroit area at that time.

Thank you for sharing Joseph; you deserve props. This was much more information than I came up with during my brief search. Also, I have lived in the Detroit area all of my life and have heard Aretha's version of the song more times than I can count so I am amazed that I never noticed the word before. I must have heard it as a mondegreen.

Language Specific Shopping Acronyms

I am not much of a shopper, but as I passsed a store advertising a sale today it struck me how much the acronym for "BUY ONE, GET ONE" has truly become a standard part of the lingo of shopping in the United States. As I read the sign (similar to the one pictured below)...

I immediately read aloud to myself, "bogo" (phonetically, /bogo/). By the way, it is not uncommon to overhear people discussing which store is currently having a bogo. In fact, it has become so common that some stores advertise as follows:

This, of course, got my language-loving brain thinking about other languages and their shopping acronyms.

If English language speakers have "BOGO"...are the following acronyms used by native language speakers in their respective countries?

AUOU (acheter un obtenir un) in France

CUyLU (compre uno y llévese uno) in Spain

KSEAM (Kaufen Sie eine ankommen man) in Germany

OYSY (ostaa yhden saat yhden ) in Finland

VEKE (vesz egy kap egy) in Hungary

KEFE (Kaupa einn fá einn) in Iceland

CACCAF (ceann a cheannach ceann a fháil) in Ireland

PUPD (paghi uno prendi due) in Italy

Vehicular Vocabulary

I recently came across a new term in the August issue of Detroit's Hour Magazine. The appropriateness of the timing of my newly acquired vocabulary cannot be denied, as I read the article just two days before driving home from northern Michigan after a holiday weekend (Yuck, an extra hour added to the trip). The term I am referring to is "phantom jam"; a traffic jam with no apparent cause -- no accident, no stalled vehicle, no lanes closed for construction.

According to an article on Wired.com, Massachusetts Institute of Technology researchers who are studying the phenomenon in hopes of expunging it, have suggested an additional name for this kind of gridlock - a "jamiton". "It’s a riff on 'soliton,' a term used in math and physics to describe a self-sustaining wave that maintains its shape while moving."

These "phantom jams" or "jamitons" occur when there is even the slightest disturbance in the flow of heavy traffic - a driver unnecessarily touching the brakes, someone tailgating or an idiot talking on the phone and not paying full attention to the road. These minor disruptions to the flow of traffic cause a chain reaction that results in a self-sustaining traffic jam.


Following is a video of MIT's model of the formation of a phantom jam.



As a frequent weekend and vacation expressway traveller, I wholeheartedly support MIT's research efforts and would like to remind drivers not to tailgate, not to talk on the phone, not to unnecessarily use brakes and, most importantly, that the left lane is for passing and slower traffic should keep right.

Let's eradicate these terms from our vocabulary.

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Read more about The Semantics of Slower Traffic.

Check out slowertraffickeepright.com

Food Language - Homemade vs Housemade

The June 1st issue of Newsweek magazine includes an article about the current trend that has restaurants labelling menu items with the neologism "housemade" instead of the well-known adjective "homemade."

In regards to the word homemade, Chef Brian Bistong from Braeburn is quoted as saying, "The word has lost its meaning, it sounds either amateurish (Aunt Edna's homemade pie) or hokey (Chevy's homemade ranch dressing). Housemade has more cache."

The article also states that many chefs "insist that the shift from homemade to housemade is a mere linguistic correction; one dines 'on the house' after all."

The Baltimore Sun restaurant critic, Elizabeth Large, posted the following comment from a friend on her blog -

"What's with restaurants calling things 'homemade' anyway? Does someone live at the restaurant? Did the chef make it at home before coming to work?"

Large responds that the reason restaurants do this is that "they want to convey that their food is just like the food that you could lovingly fix for yourself at home, only better."

In regards to the difference between "homemade" and "housemade," Large points out that

"'housemade' isn't any more or less accurate when you think about it; a restaurant isn't a house either."

In my opinion, the difference between the two words is a simple matter of subtle semantic innuendo and status. A Ritz Carlton restaurant is far more likely to have a "housemade" item on their menu than a Big Boy restaurant is, just as a Big Boy restaurant is far more likely to have a "homemade" item on their menu than a Ritz Carlton restaurant is.

By the way - I don't know about you, but I can't stop chuckling at the name of the restaurant critic from the Baltimore Sun.

Linguistics Cartoon Favorites - Expanding Vocabulary

A Missing Futuronym - Key Card

This is a picture of the back of a key card from a recent stay at a ski resort. It is a bit hard to make out but just above the name of the resort is a sentence that reads:







Upon departure please leave keys.



The wording would make much more sense if the futuronym key card was used because the item in the picture is clearly not a set of keys or even one key for that matter - it is a card that is used as a key otherwise known as a key card.

This is a good example of how technology is constantly adding new words in the form of futuromyms (and retronyms) to our lexicon. And in case technology has erased your memory, a set of hotel keys is pictured below.

While the word retronym is fairly well known and found in dictionaries, the word futuronym (or futronym) was just recently coined in the blogosphere and is not well documented yet. A futuronym is defined as the opposite of a retronym. In other words, where a retronym is a word that includes a noun and a modifier that specifies the original meaning of the noun, a futuronym is a word that includes the original noun and a modifier that specifies the technological advancement that caused the need for the retronym.

For example:
original word - guitar
retronym - acoustic guitar
futuronym - electric guitar

Sagging is Not Stylish

The July 28th Newsweek has an article that references the style of wearing pants low on the hips and revealing boxer shorts. Until I read this article, I did not realize that there are technical terms that describe this style (other than sloppy, silly and juvenile). The act of dressing in such a way is called sagging and a person who sags is called a sagger. Talk about taking droopy drawers to new and unnecessary extremes. I sure hope my boys don't follow this trend or pick up this vocabulary. If you ask me, sagging is downright idiotic-looking.

Free Vocabulary = Free Rice

Returning to the subject of vocabulary from yesterday, if you have not yet heard of the website Free Rice (http://www.freerice.com/), it is definitely something worth checking out. It is basically a vocabulary quiz and for each word definition you get correct 20 grains of rice are donated to the United Nations World Food Program. Also, each time you get a word definition correct, the next word is harder. In sum, this website is fun, challenging, eductional and philanthropically responsible.

Scripps National Spelling Bee: More Than Just Spelling

What a great time of year it is for word, vocabulary, etymology and spelling lovers. The Scripps National Spelling Bee begins today. Yes, I know it is call a spelling bee but viewing it is also a great way to learn new words and their definitions and etymologies, in addition to their spelling. In other words, watching the spelling bee is a great way to expand your vocabulary.

For example, here are some of the winning words from years past:

crustaceology: The branch of zoology that studies crustaceans. Latin crusta = "crust, hard shell."
eudaemonic: Producing happiness and well-being. Greek eu- + daimon = "good or happy spirit."
esquamulose: In botany, lacking minute scales; not squamulose. Latin e - "not" + squamula- "small scales."
hydrophyte: A plant adapted to grow in water. Greek hydro + phyte
vivisepulture: An act or instance of burying someone alive. Latin vivus 'alive' + sepulture 'burying.'
appoggiatura: an embellishing note or tone preceding an essential melodic note or tone and usually written as a note of smaller size. Borrowed from Italian appoggiatura, derived from appoggiare, meaning “to lean.”

Interestingly, Spell Check did not recognize even one of these words.

The Quarterfinals are on ESPN360.com this afternoon, the Semifinals are on ESPN tomorrow afternoon, and the Finals are on ABC tomorrow evening.