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. . . see "LANGUAGE" for related links see "COMMUNICATION" for related links - "When I use a word," Humpty Dumpty said in rather a scornful tone, "it means just what I choose it to mean -- neither more nor less." "The question is," said Alice, "whether you can make words mean so many different things." "The question is," said Humpty Dumpty, "which is to be master -- that's all." --Lewis Carroll [Charles Lutwidge Dodgson] (1832—1898) English writer and logician. _Thorough the Looking-Glass_ [1872] - Aside from a few odd words in Hebrew, I took it completely for granted that God had never spoken anything but the most dignified English. --Clarence Day (1874—1935) American author. _Life With Father_ [1935], "Father Interferes With the Twenty-Third Psalm" Now, as we begin, I must ask you to banish all present information and prejudice from your minds, if you have any. --From a court transcript in Mary Louise Gilman, _Humor in the Court_ [1977]. ^ Vladimir Horowitz (1904—1989) Russian-born pianist. Horowitz occasionally had trouble with the English language. At an audience with Mrs. Hoover, wife of the then President of the United States, Herbert Hoover, he bowed and said courteously, 'I am delightful.' --_Bartlett's Book of Anecdotes_ edited by Clifton Fadiman and André Bernard [2000 ed.] ^ Donne, for not keeping of accent, deserved hanging. --Ben Jonson (c.1573—1637) English dramatist and poet. If the English language made any sense, lackadaisical would have something to do with a shortage of flowers. --Doug Larson On the question of the logical content of Dr. Harding's harangue of last Friday, I do not presume to have views. . . . But when it comes to the style of the great man's discourse, I can speak with . . . somewhat more competence, for I have earned most of my livelihood for twenty years past by translating the bad English of a multitude of authors into measurably better English. Thus qualified professionally, I rise to pay my small tribute to Dr. Harding. Setting aside a college professor or two and half a dozen dipsomaniacal newspaper reporters, he takes the first place in my Valhalla of literati. That is, he writes the worst English that I have ever encountered. It reminds me of a string of wet sponges; it reminds me of tattered washing on the line; it reminds me of stale bean soup, of college yells, of dogs barking idiotically through endless nights. It is so bad that a sort of grandeur creeps into it. It drags itself out of the dark abysm . . . of pish, and crawls insanely up to the topmost pinnacle of posh. It is rumble and bumble. It is flap and doodle. It is balder and dash. --H.L. (Henry Louis) Mencken (1880—1956) American journalist and literary critic. _H. L. Mencken: Thirty-five Years of Newspaper Work_ - Whatever else Churchill may have been doing in those days, he was always providing the English with words. With words he formed their thoughts and emotions. "We shall fight on the beaches, we shall fight on the landing grounds, we shall fight in the fields and in the streets, we shall fight in the hills," said Churchill. Millions answered, apparently, "By God, so we shall." Imagine, however, that Churchill had been an ordinary bureaucrat and had chosen to say instead: Consolidated defensive positions and essential preplanned withdrawal facilities are to be provided in order to facilitate maximum potentialization for the repulsion and/or delay of incursive combatants in each of several preidentified categories of location deemed suitable to the emplacement and/or debarkation of hostile military contingents. That would, at least, have spared us the pain of wondering what to do about the growing multitudes who can’t seem to read and write English. By now we’d be wondering what to do about the growing multitudes who can’t seem to read and write German. --Richard Mitchell (The Underground Grammarian), _Less Than Words Can Say_ [1979] - Will we allow the decline of our language -- the language of Shakespeare, Shaw and Steinbeck? Will we abuse our precious gift of communication? Will we bite our mother tongue with the teeth of indifference, crushing the taste buds of clarity and, without prompt application of the antiseptic of education, causing the gangrene of strained metaphors? Stand up, America, and let me hear your answer: Ain't no way, dude! --Mike Nichols (1931— ) German-born American director and producer. As the intercourse between this part of Great Britain and the capital daily increases, both on account of business and amusement, and must still go on increasing, gentlemen educated in Scotland have long been sensible of the disadvantages under which they labour, from their imperfect knowledge of the English tongue, and the impropriety with which they speak it. --Regulations of the Select Society [1761] _Scots Magazine_ V. 23 [1761] p. 389 Every immigrant who comes here should be required within five years to learn English or leave the country. --Theodore Roosevelt (1858—1919) American Republican statesman and President [1901—1909]. In an article in "Kansas City Star" [27 April 1918]. - A few years back, I collected a bunch of "fumblerules" that illustrated mistakes in English by using them. For example, "don't use no double negatives," "avoid run-on sentences they are hard to read," "place pronouns as close as possible, especially in long sentences -- such as those with ten or more words -- to their antecedents, "and *a writer must not shift your point of view." Rich Maggiani of Burlington, Vermont, found a few more on his email. My favorites: "Foreign words and phrases are not apropos." "Be more or less specific." And finally, "Who needs rhetorical questions?" --William Safire (1929— ) Journalist, speechwriter, novelist, lexicographer, and winner of the 1978 Pulitzer for commentary. _No Uncertain Terms_ - [W]hy do people say 'make the same mistake again'? What does 'again' add to the sentence? And am I right that 'burn up' and 'burn down' mean the same thing? 'Slow up' and 'slow down' mean the same thing? So if 'screw up' is acceptable, why not 'screw down'?". . . ."And take this phrase 'head over heels in love.' " he continued. "This is a common expression, yes? But it's exactly backward. Or, rather, upside down. You are ordinarily head over heels. When you are in love you should be heels over head. Am I right? --Carl Sagan (1934—1996) American astronomer and author. _Contact_ [1985] - I love Americans, but not when they try to talk French. What a blessing it is that they never try to talk English. --Saki [Hector Hugh Munro] (1870—1916) Scottish writer. _The Chronicles of Clovis_ [1911], "Adrian: A Chapter in Acclimatization" The English have no respect for their language, and will not teach their children to speak it. It is impossible for an Englishman to open his mouth, without making some other Englishman despise him. --George Bernard Shaw (1856—1950) Irish comic dramatist, literary critic, Socialist propagandist, and winner of the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1925 [he didn't accept it.] _Pygmalion_ [1913] Okie use' ta mean you was from Oklahoma. Now it means you're scum. Don't mean nothing itself, it's the way they say it. --John Ernst Steinbeck (1902—1968) American novelist. _The Grapes of Wrath_ [1939], Ch. 18 [We] sink further and further into the new Oral Culture. The written word will soon disappear and we'll no longer be able to read good prose like we used to could. --James Thurber (1894—1961) American humorist and cartoonist. Ours is a mongrel language which started with a child's vocabulary of three hundred words, and now consists of two hundred and twenty- five thousand; the whole lot, with the exception of the original and legitimate three hundred, borrowed, stolen, smouched from every unwatched language under the sun, the spelling of each individual word of the lot locating the source of the theft and preserving the memory of the revered crime. --Mark Twain [Samuel Langhorne Clemens] (1835—1910) American humorist, novelist, journalist, and river pilot. _Autobiography_ To be, or what. --Derek Walcott (1930— ) West Indian poet and dramatist; winner of the 1992 Nobel Prize for Poetry. (Describing Sly Stallone's version of Hamlet to Her Majesty, Queen Elizabeth when they were chatting about how Americans speak Shakespearean verse [1989].) - Indeed, in many respects, she was quite English, and was an excellent example of the fact that we have really everything in common with America nowadays, except, of course, language. --Oscar Wilde (1854—1900) Anglo-Irish dramatist and poet. _The Canterville Ghost_ [1887] HOW TO SPEAK GOOD ENGLISH - With reference to the word "umbrage". Many years ago whilst I was still a resident of the "Green and pleasant land called England" there was a TV show which I watched fairly regularly. It was called Panorama and was hosted by a gentleman by the name of Richard Dimbleby who was known for being factual, straight-forward, truthful and informative. He did, however, have a wicked sense of humour. During one programme he made the comment along the lines of, "If someone upsets you, take umbrage." Complaints soon poured in from the drug-stores that people were lining up and demanding to be sold a bottle of umbrage. The result was that on the following programme, Richard Dimbleby made an announcement that explained what umbrage meant. --Jan. alt.fifty-plus.friends, (reprinted with permission) --- I did my nurse's training at a hospital in Liverpool, England. My fellow students and I had little money for meals, so we ate the awful food provided at the hospital complex. We often took our breaks in the kitchen, and sometimes kindly vistors would give us some of the treats they had brought for patients. One night a woman brought a pork pie to the kitchen and said to me, "Would you eat this up, love?" Delighted at the offer, another student and I devoured every crumb. Soon our benefactor returned, however, and asked, "Is me 'usband's pie 'ot yet, dearie?" --anon. --- From Richard Lederer (1938— ) American author _Anguished English_: I am very much annoyed to find you have branded my son illiterate. This is a dirty lie as I was married a week before he was born. Unless I get money soon, I will be forced to live an immortal life. I am forwarding my marriage certificate and three children, one of which is a mistake as you can see. I am glad to report that my husband who is missing is dead. In accordance with your instructions I have given birth to twins in the enclosed envelope. You have changed my little boy to a girl. Will this make a difference? I cannot get sick pay. I have six children. Can you tell me why? I am writing the Welfare Department to say that my baby was born two years old. When do I get my money? Mrs Jones has not had any clothes for a year and has been visited regularly by the clergy. Please find for certain if my husband is dead. The man I am now living with can't eat or do anything till he knows. In answer to your letter, I have given birth to a boy weighing 10 pounds. I hope this is satisfactory. I am forwarding my marriage certificate and six children I have on half a sheet of paper. My husband got his project cut off two weeks ago and I haven't had any relief since. I want my money as quick as I can get it. I've been in bed with the doctor for two weeks and he doesn't do me any good. If things don't improve, I will have to send for another doctor. --- ADVENTURES IN THE ENGLISH LANGUAGE No wonder the English language is so very difficult to learn: He could lead if he would get the lead out. A farm can produce produce. The dump was so full it had to refuse refuse. The soldier decided to desert in the desert. The present is a good time to present the present. At the Army base, a bass was painted on the head of a bass drum. The dove dove into the bushes. I did not object to the object. The insurance for the invalid was invalid. The bandage was wound around the wound. There was a row among the oarsmen about how to row. They were too close to the door to close it. They sent a sewer down to stitch the tear in the sewer line. To help with planting, the farmer taught his sow to sow. The wind was too strong to wind the sail. After a number of Novocain injections, my jaw got number. I shed a tear when I saw the tear in my clothes. I had to subject the subject to a series of tests. How can I intimate this to my most intimate friend? I spent last evening evening out a pile of dirt. --anon. --- Let's face it -- English is a crazy language! --unknown, George Carlin? There's no egg in eggplant nor ham in hamburger; neither apple nor pine in pineapple. English muffins weren't invented in England or French fries in France. Sweetmeats are candies while sweetbreads, which aren't sweet, are meat. We take English for granted. But if we explore its paradoxes, we find that quicksand can work slowly, boxing rings are square, and a guinea pig is neither from Guinea nor is it a pig. And why is it that writers write but fingers don't fing, grocers don't groce and hammers don't ham? If the plural of tooth is teeth, why isn't the plural of booth beeth? One goose, two geese. So one moose, two meese? One index, two indices? Doesn't it seem crazy that you can make amends but not one amend, that you comb through the annals of history but not a single annal? If you have a bunch of odds and ends and get rid of all but one of them, what do you call it? If teachers taught, why didn't preacher praught? If a vegetarian eats vegetables, what does a humanitarian eat? If you wrote a letter, perhaps you bote your tongue? Sometimes I think all the English speakers should be committed to an asylum for the verbally insane. In what language do people recite at a play and play at a recital? Ship by truck and send cargo by ship? Have noses that run and feet that smell? Park on driveways and drive on parkways? How can a slim chance and a fat chance be the same, while a wise man and a wise guy are opposites? How can overlook and oversee be opposites, while quite a lot and quite a few are alike? How can the weather be hot as hell one day and cold as hell another? How you noticed that we talk about certain things only when they are absent? Have you ever seen a horseful carriage or a strapful gown? Met a sung hero or experienced requited love? Have you ever run into someone who was dis-combobulated, grunted, ruly or peccable? And where are all those people who ARE spring chickens or who would ACTUALLY hurt a fly? You have to marvel at the unique lunacy of a language in which your house can burn up as it burns down, in which you fill in a form by filling out and in which an alarm clock goes off by going on. English was invented by people, not computers, and it reflects the creativity of the human race (which, of course, isn't a race at all). That is why, when the stars are out, they are visible, but when the lights are out, they are invisible. And why, when I wind up my watch, I start it, but when I wind up this essay, I end it! -- ^ TOPICAL Veneer of high GPAs masking students' deficiency in English August 22, 2006 by Michael Skube We were talking informally in class not long ago, 17 college sophomores and I, and on a whim I asked who some of their favorite writers are. The question hung in uneasy silence. At length, a voice in the rear hesitantly volunteered the name of . . . Dan Brown. No other names were offered. The author of "The Da Vinci Code" was not just the best writer they could think of; he was the only writer they could think of. In our better private universities and flagship state schools today, it's hard to find a student who graduated from high school with much lower than a 3.5 GPA, and not uncommon to find students whose GPAs were 4.0 or higher. They somehow got these suspect grades without having read much. Or if they did read, they've given it up. And it shows — in their writing and even in their conversation. A few years ago, I began keeping a list of everyday words that may as well have been potholes in exchanges with college students. It began with a fellow who was two months away from graduating from a well-respected Midwestern university. "And what was the impetus for that?" I asked as he finished a presentation. At the word "impetus" his head snapped sideways, as if by reflex. "The what?" he asked. "The impetus. What gave rise to it? What prompted it?" I wouldn't have guessed that "impetus" was a 25-cent word. But I also wouldn't have guessed that "ramshackle" and "lucid" were exactly recondite, either. I've had to explain both. You can be dead certain that today's college students carry a weekly planner. But they may or may not own a dictionary, and if they do own one, it doesn't get much use. ("Why do you need a dictionary when you can just go online?" more than one student has asked me.) You may be surprised — and dismayed — by some of the words on my list. "Advocate," for example. Neither the verb nor the noun was immediately clear to students who had graduated from high school with GPAs above 3.5. A few others: "Derelict," as in neglectful. "Satire," as in a literary form. "Pith," as in the heart of the matter. "Brevity," as in the quality of being succinct. And my favorite: "Novel," as in new and as a literary form. College students nowadays call any book, fact or fiction, a novel. I have no idea why this is, but I first became acquainted with the peculiarity when a senior at one of the country's better state universities wrote a paper in which she referred to "The Prince" as "Machiavelli's novel." As freshmen start showing up for classes this month, colleges will have a new influx of high school graduates with gilded GPAs, and it won't be long before one professor whispers to another: Did no one teach these kids basic English? The unhappy truth is that many students are hard-pressed to string together coherent sentences, to tell a pronoun from a preposition, even to distinguish between "then" and "than." Yet they got A's. How does one explain the inability of college students to read or write at even a high school level? One explanation, which owes as much to the culture as to the schools, is that kids don't read for pleasure. And because they don't read, they are less able to navigate the language. If words are the coin of their thought, they're working with little more than pocket change. Say this — but no more — for the Bush administration's No Child Left Behind Act: It at least recognizes the problem. What we're graduating from our high schools isn't college material. Sometimes it isn't even good high school material. When students with A averages can't write simple English, it shouldn't be surprising that people ask what a high school diploma is really worth. In California this year, hundreds of high school students, many with good grades, faced the prospect of not graduating because they could not pass a state-mandated exit exam. Although a judge overturned the effort, legislators (not always so literate themselves) in other states have also called for exit exams. It's hardly unreasonable to ask that students demonstrate a minimum competency in basic subjects, especially English. Exit exams have become almost necessary because the GPA is not to be trusted. In my experience, a high SAT score is far more reliable than a high GPA — more indicative of quickness and acuity, and more reflective of familiarity with language and ideas. College admissions specialists disagree and are apt to label the student with high SAT scores but mediocre grades unmotivated, even lazy. I'll take that student any day. I've known such students. They may have been bored in high school but they read widely and without prodding from a parent. And they could have nominated a few favorite writers besides Dan Brown — even if they thoroughly enjoyed "The Da Vinci Code." I suspect they would have understood the point I tried unsuccessfully to make once when I quoted Joseph Pulitzer to my students. It is journalism's job, he said, to comfort the afflicted and afflict the comfortable. Too obvious, you think? I might have thought so myself — if the words "afflicted" and "afflict" hadn't stumped the whole class. Mr. Skube teaches journalism at Elon University in Elon, N.C. He wrote this article for the Washington Post. ^ A linguistics professor was lecturing to his class one day. 'In English', he said, 'a double negative forms a positive. In some languages, though, such as Russian, a double negative is still a negative. However, there is no language in which a double positive can a negative.' A voice from the back of the room piped up, 'Yeah, right.' - INTERESTING WEBSITES: http://www.rinkworks.com/words/ http://www.wordsmyth.net/ http://www.yourdictionary.com/ -- HOW TO WRITE A RECOMMENDATION LETTER YOU DON'T REALLY MEAN THE PROBLEM Having to write letters of recommendation for people with very dubious qualifications can cause serious legal troubles in a time when laws have eroded the confidentiality of business letters. In most states, job applicants have the right to read the letters of recommendations and can even file suit against the writer if the contents are negative. THE SOLUTION Here is an arsenal of statements that can be read two ways: You are able to state a negative opinion of the ex-employee's poor work habits, while allowing the ex-employee to believe that it is high praise. When the writer uses these, whether perceived correctly or not by the ex-employee, the phrases are virtually litigation-proof. 1. To describe a person who is extremely lazy: "In my opinion," you say as sincerely as you can manage, "you will be very fortunate to get this person to work for you." 2. To describe a person who is totally inept: "I most enthusiastically recommend this candidate with no qualifications whatsoever." 3. To describe an ex-employee who had problems getting along with fellow workers: "I am pleased to say that this candidate is a former colleague of mine." 4. To describe a candidate who is so unproductive that the job would be better left unfilled: "I can assure you that no person would be better for the job." 5. To describe a job applicant who is not worth further consideration: "I would urge you to waste no time in making this candidate an offer of employment." 6. To describe a person with lackluster credentials: "All in all, I cannot say enough good things about this candidate or recommend him too highly." TOPICAL In the presence of NAACP President Kweisi Mfume and other African-American leaders, comedian Bill Cosby took aim at blacks who don't take responsibility for their economic status, blame police for incarcerations and teach their kids poor speaking habits. [...] Cosby said, according to Leiby: "Ladies and gentlemen, the lower economic people are not holding up their end in this deal. These people are not parenting. They are buying things for kids - $500 sneakers for what? And won't spend $200 for 'Hooked on Phonics.' He added: "They're standing on the corner and they can't speak English. I can't even talk the way these people talk: 'Why you ain't,' 'Where you is' ... And I blamed the kid until I heard the mother talk. And then I heard the father talk. ... Everybody knows it's important to speak English except these knuckleheads. ... You can't be a doctor with that kind of crap coming out of your mouth!" --Bill Cosby (1937— ) American comedian. Blacks can't speak English NAACP leaders stunned by remarks of prominent comedian http://www.wnd.com/news/article.asp?ARTICLE_ID=38565 - ----- amphiboly (noun) [æm-'fi-bê-li] 1 A phrase that is ambiguous because of its syntactic structure; 2 any ambivalent or ambiguous phrase. anglophone (noun) ['æng-glê-fon] Anyone who speaks English. aphorism (noun) ['æ-fê-ri-zêm] A concise definition of a principle of science; any terse expression of a truth or belief. A bon mot is a particularly well-turned phrase, distinguished more by wittiness than by profundity, such as Adlai Stevenson's famous line, "A politician is a man who approaches every question with an open mouth." An epithet is an adjectival characterization of someone, as Lyndon Johnson's characterization of a senatorial colleague as someone who could not chew gum and walk at the same time. Apothegms and maxims are more purposeful philosophical opinions, e.g. Lord Acton's famous apothegm, "Power tends to corrupt and absolute power corrupts absolutely" or Charlemagne's profound maxim, "To know another language is to have a second soul." --anon. chiasmus (noun) [kI-'æz-mês] A two-part rhetorical structure with a clever inversion of the first part in the second, e.g. "When the going gets tough, the tough get going" irony - Verbal irony occurs when a character says one thing, but suggests or intends the opposite in order to make a point rather than to deceive. Note: Verbal irony may be confused with sarcasm, but sarcasm is harsh and direct, while verbal irony is implied. --anon. malapropism (noun) ['mæ-lê-prahp-iz-êm] The unintentional use of one word that sounds a bit like another (almost homophones), but which is completely and hilariously wrong in context. malaprop (noun, verb, adj.) Etymology: A commonization (conversion from proper to common noun) circa 1849 from Mrs. Malaprop, a character noted for her misuse of words in Richard Sheridan's comedy "The Rivals" (1775). Sheridan created her name from the French phrase mal à propos "inappropriate." Mrs. Malaprop thus is the eponym of "malapropism." oxymoron (noun) [ahk-see-'mo-rahn] A phrase comprising two mutually contradictory words. Examples: a long brief, the living dead, freezer burn, near miss, old news, pretty ugly, alone together, almost exactly, half naked, jumbo shrimp, holy war, rap music. palindrome /PAL-in-drohm/, noun: A word, phrase, sentence, or verse that reads the same backward or forward. A few examples: * Madam, I'm Adam. (Adam's first words to Eve?) * A man, a plan, a canal -- Panama! (The history of the Panama Canal in brief.) * Able was I ere I saw Elba. (Napoleon's lament.) * Mom, Dad. paronym (noun) ['pæ-rê-nim] A derivation from another word, a word related to another by derivation, as "derivation" and "derivative" are derived from "derive;" they also are paronyms of "derive." tautology (noun) [ta-'tah-lê-ji or taw-] Redundant word or phrase, a pleonasm; Examples: an unmarried bachelor. tmesis /TMEE-sis/, noun: In grammar and rhetoric, the separation of the parts of a compound word, now generally done for humorous effect; for example, "what place soever" instead of "whatsoever place," or "abso-bloody-lutely." Examples of tmesis: "His income-tax return, he remarked, was the 'most rigged-up marole' he'd ever seen." --Frederic Packard "In two words, im possible." --Samuel Goldwyn tittle (noun) ['tit-êl] 1. A small jot, the dot of an [i], cross on a [t], the beard on [ç], or a diacritic such as the tilde on [ñ]; 2. Minute, incredibly tiny, smaller even than an iota-indeed, an iota (Greek short [i]) is capped by a tittle. Usage 1: This noun is unrelated to the verb "to tittle," which was clipped from the rhyme compound "tittle-tattle." It should not be confused with a titter, either, for that is a suppressed giggle. Think of a tittle as the smallest thing or amount visible without a microscope. end page | EARS - ECONOMY (THE) | EDUCATION | EFFORT - ELEPHANTS | ELOQUENCE - EMOTION | EMOTIONS & FEELINGS | EMPIRE - ENERGY | ENGLAND - ENGLISH (THE) | ENGLISH (LANGUAGE) | ENLIGHTENMENT - ENVY | ENTERTAINMENT, HOBBIES, & LEISURE ACTIVITIES | EPITAPHS - EQUAL RIGHTS | ERROR - EVIDENCE | EVIL - EXECUTIONS | EXERCISE - EYES | | A | B | C | D | E | F | G | | Return Home | The Credits | The Cast | Act 1 | Act 2 | Act 3 | The End | The Reviews | Photos | |
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