Municipal Root

Looking into the etymology of words is always fun, and since I'm stuck with munus, I wondered if "municipal" were linked, and here's what I found:

The second element is -cipere, combining form of capere "assume, take," from PIE root *kap- "to grasp." The first element is from munus (plural munia) "service performed for the community, duty, work," also "public spectacle paid for by the magistrate, (gladiatorial) entertainment, gift," from Old Latin moenus "service, duty, burden," from Proto-Italic *moini-, *moinos- "duty, obligation, task," from PIE root *mei- (1) "to change, go, move," with derivatives referring to the exchange of goods and functions or obligations within a society as regulated by custom or law.

This could go on and on, but my central point is established: an analysis of munus was not necessary to my distinction between ethnic and civic nationalism. My critic advanced the point just to show how smart and well-read he is.

Aphorism Explained

Logo

I learned something today from a site titled "Smart Words," the "something" being the word "aphorism":

Aphorism: A tersely, memorably phrased statement of a truth or opinion; an adage. [from Greek aphorismos, from aphorizein, to delimit, define. Apo- (1. Away from; off; Separate. 2. Without 3. Related to) + Horizein (limit, boundary)] Example: He's a fool who cannot conceal his wisdom.

What I learned was that the "ph" is not the letter "phi," but rather "pi" and the rough breathing mark.

Some of us like this sort of stuff -- etymology, I mean.

Swell!

Swell

Google Images

From a morbid swelling of the ocean in around 1200 . . .

. . . to an expression of satisfaction around 1930:

All's swell that ends swell.

Swell!

Inchoate = Not Choate? Only by Accident . . .

Amazon Books

On page 15 of his book What We See When We Read (Vintage Original, 2014), Peter Mendelsund says:

You may feel intimately acquainted with a character . . . , but this doesn't mean you are actually picturing a person. Nothing so fixed - nothing so choate.

Mendelsund may well be correct that we don't picture a character as we read, but what does he mean by "choate"? Does he consider it the opposite of "inchoate"? This word (as we all know) means: "2. Imperfectly formed or developed; disordered or incoherent" (The Free Dictionary by Farlex). That would suggest "choate" means "Perfectly formed or developed; ordered or coherent."

But "in-" in this usage does not mean "not"; rather, it is the enceptive "in-," which signals the beginning of a process. By a stroke of linguistic luck, then, something is inchoate because the process has only begun, so the thing is still in a disordered state, not yet choate, i.e., ordered - just as if "-in" meant "not"!

But is "choate" actually a word? There is some dispute about this, but "choate" has been used as a legal term since 1828, according to Wikipedia, and it means "perfected, complete, or certain" in a legal context.

Whether Mendelsund knew all of this or not, then, he could justifiably defend his choice of the term "choate" since its legal meaning fits the context here . . . insofar as we are judging character.

Etymology of "Trafika"

Interbrand Blog

I learned yesterday what "trafika" means in Czech (a sort of corner-store kiosk), but I still wondered about its etymology, and I managed to find those roots in time for today's blog entry!

Helmut Satzinger and Danijela Stefanović trace "trafika" from Serbian back to the Bavarian feminine noun "Trafik." Since Trafik is a word used in Bavarian German, it probably entered the Czech language directly from Austro-German (and its meaning is consistently a sort of corner-store kiosk).

But the Germans themselves got the term from the Italian word "traffico," which is a masculine word meaning "traffic," "trade," or "activity" and "rush."

As things turn out, my guess that the word was related to the English word "traffic" -- as in "trafficking" (i.e., "trade") -- was not so far off, after all.

And since the Italian word also means "rush," Kevin Kim's guess of "a 'drive-by' convenience store" was also not so far off the mark!

Trafika Identified!

Google Images

I wondered yesterday what "trafika" means, and have since learned by writing to the Trafika Europe website:

My query will seem rather silly . . . but could you tell me what the word "Trafika" means? I blogged on Trafika Europe today:

And I openly speculated on the word because I found no definition anywhere.

Sorry to be a bother!

Best,

Jeffery

I received this answer from a Mr. Andrew Singer in reply:

Greetings Jeffery and thanks for the post on Trafika Europe on your blog. Regarding your question:

The previous project, the print quarterly Trafika, began in Prague. A "trafika" in Czech language is a little kiosk or the like where you can get a little of everything -- daily paper, cigarettes, chewing gum -- part newspaper stand, part corner shop. This is where the name of the project comes from.

Again thanks. Have a nice day!

Andrew

A very friendly reply! I now know the full meaning of the word . . . though I still wonder about its etymology.

Translation: It's a Cinch!

Cinch
Keeps the writer secure during translation!
Wikipedia

Unexpectedly, I discover that I am a translator after all! I also learn some intriguing things along the way:

translation, n. Etymology: from Old French translation (12th cent. in Godefroy Compl.), or from Latin

The term "translation" comes earlier than I previously thought, and perhaps directly from the French, if not the Latin, as may be portended in Frédéric Godefroy (1826-1897), Complément du dictionnaire de l'ancienne langue française et de tous ses dialectes du IXe au XVe siècle, the dictionary cited above. In any case, the term "translation" has various meanings, a couple of which apply to me -- though most don't . . . or not yet, anyway:

I. 1. a. Transference; removal or conveyance from one person, place, or condition to another.

Why, I could do that! But the devil is in the details:

Specifically: The removal of a bishop from one see to another; in the Church of Scotland, the removal of a minister from one charge to another; also, the removal of the body or relics of a saint to another place of interment.

Oh. That doesn't specifically apply to me, but it might include me if it can refer to secular affairs -- and why not? -- but here's an early ecclesiastical instance:

a 1350 St. Stephen 211 in C. Horstmann Altengl. Leg. (1881) 30 Of þat ilk translacioun / Es named "saynt Steuyn inuencioun".

That reference is to Carl Horstmann's Altenglische Legende, which describes the transference of the martyred St. Stephen's body from one place to another, apparently through miraculous means. I could certainly transfer a body from one place to another -- though only non-miraculously, and I wouldn't enjoy the task. But what's next?

b. Figuratively: of non-material things. translation of a feast (Eccl.), its transference from the usual date to another, to avoid its clashing with another (movable) feast of superior rank.

Hmmm . . . I don't believe I'm qualified to do that sort of translation. Nor the next:

c. Removal from earth to heaven, originally without death, as the translation of Enoch; but in later use also said figuratively of the death of the righteous.

I can't even do that by non-miraculous means! And I'd just as soon not deal with the next sense of translation:

d. Medicine: Transference of a disease from one person or part of the body to another. Now rare or obsolete

Rare or obsolete? Good to hear that medicine has made such great advances. As has science generally, so let's allow the next type of translation to pass with a bare mention:

e. Astrology

Finally, one type of translation I might be able to handle without needing divine assistance:

f. Physics. Transference of a body, or form of energy, from one point of space to another. motion or movement of translation: onward movement without (or considered apart from) rotation; sometimes as distinguished from a reciprocating movement as in a wave or vibration.

I believe I'm qualified for that, though I might need some technical apparatus to transfer energy. But transferring a 'body' would be a cinch -- the term "body" here denoting any sort of material object, and not specifically a corpse. A book, for instance, and in this sense of "translation," I have 'translated' many, many books in my life. You can do it, too! And already have . . .

As with the other etymological entries these past several days, these examples above are found in the Oxford English Dictionary (Vol. 2, 1971, 266ab).

"Bless thee, Bottom! Bless thee! Thou art translated."

Bottom as an Ass
Google Images

The character Nick Bottom in Shakespeare's comedy A Midsummer Night's Dream is famous for being transformed into an ass.

That's fitting, of course, since he's something of an ass anyway and is named "Bottom." Actually, only his head is transformed, but he's all 'Bottom' below the neck, so we're not wrong to say he's an entire ass!

The character Peter Quince is famous for the expression of surprise upon seeing the transformed Bottom in Act 3, Scene 1, lines 118-119:

"Bless thee, Bottom! Bless thee! Thou art translated."

He means "transformed," but is "translated" wrong? No, because "translation" can mean "transformation":

II. 3. Transformation, alteration, change . . . (OED, Vol 2, 1971, p. 266c)

This usage dates from 1382. Unfortunately, the British variant "ass" meaning "arse" dates officially only to 1721 (OED, Vol. 1, 1971, p. 498b), so there appears to be no Shakespearean pun on "Bottom" as "ass."

Unless Shakespeare's choice of "Bottom" as name of the character fated to receive the ass's head is itself evidence of an earlier date for "ass" as "arse" . . .

Grammar Lessen: A Trouser or Two?

Trousers
Google Images

In today's post, we again visit the celebrated Dr. Boli, who 'reproduces' an archaic advertisement showing a distinguished-looking fellow -- distinguished, I mean, by his fine pipe (no, not an iron pipe, the tobacco sort!). Okay, he also wears his hat at an angle one might call "jaunty" (to borrow a nice old French term), and that's kind of distinguished-looking, but the pipe is the important detail. The pipe says this is a guy with gravitas. A guy you can trust! Anyway, this fellow announces:

I make $5,000 a day gathering lint from trousers pockets.

That's not just pocket change, so the fellow must gather a lot of lint! But I'm not especially interested in such economic matters as the going market price for widgets produced from wedged-in lint. Such matters are out-of-pocket for me. No, it's grammar manners that appeal to my mind. Anyway, thinking (or maybe just its near relative, musing) out loud on Dr. Boli's Celebrated Magazine, I commented:

Should that read "trousers pockets," "trousers' pockets," or "trouser pockets"?

On the model of "pants," the first two would be correct, but the third not -- based on what sounds right and wrong to me about "pants" and its putative singular.

Yet . . . "trouser pockets" doesn't sound wrong to my ear.

On a related question -- assuming these do have singulars -- has anyone ever really seen a trouser, a pant, a breech, a britch, or an overall?

If so, would these be correct for what a one-legged man might wear?

I await answers, both here and at Dr. Boli's, and if I don't get some answers soon, I'll be about as sore as a one-legged man in a butt-kicking contest!

Well . . . maybe not that sore. Sitting here at my desk in Seoul, and sporting two lengthy legs stretched out under the aforesaid desk, I'm unlikely to lose any butt-kicking contests but the intellectual sort, and those ain't really very painful since my brain is well-calloused from getting its kicks through musing on the things it muses on.

Not that my head is up somewhere the sun don't shine . . .

Civilization Cessation, Wenming Winning?

Forum Romanum

Photo by Foeke Noppert
May 2005

Wikipedia

In an article titled "Western translations distort China's reality" (Korea Herald, May 1, 2012), Thorsten Pattberg informs fellow Westerners of how seriously they have misunderstood Chinese terms by mistranslating them into Western languages, e.g., the use of "civilization" to translate the Chinese term "wenming":

Wenming is often translated as "civilization," but that is misleading. In a recent lecture at Peking University, the renowned linguist Gu Zhengkun explained that "wenming" describes a high level of ethics and gentleness of a people, while the English word "civilization" derives from a city people's mastery over materials and technology. Think about rockets and architecture.

The implication here seems to be that the Chinese term "wenming" is intrinsically more refined than the English term "civilization." I suppose there are a number of points to make in response.

First, etymology is a never-ending game. There's always a deeper hole to dig excavating the past, where the deeper roots of "wenming" might appear less refined than Professor Gu notes. Everything depends upon where one stops digging.

Second, no word is limited by its etymology, and the term "civilization" does not refers only, or even centrally, to "a city people's mastery over materials and technology."

Third, I have not yet found evidence that Professor Gu is correct about his etymology of "civilization." From various dictionaries, one can learn that the word derives from the Latin civilis, meaning "civil," related to civis, meaning "citizen," and civitas, meaning "city." Let's at least check the Online Etymological Dictionary on the term "civil":

late 14c., "relating to civil law or life," from Fr. civil (13c.) and directly from L. civilis "relating to a citizen, relating to public life, befitting a citizen," hence "popular, affable, courteous;" alternative adj. derivation of civis "townsman" . . . . The sense of "polite" was in the Latin, from the courteous manners of citizens, as opposed to those of soldiers.

I see no hint of "mastery over materials and technology." Rather, I see evidence of refined courtesy. This doesn't mean that Professor Gu is wrong. He is, after all, a "renowned linguist."

Are any knowledgeable readers willing to add to this search?

Word of the Weak: "Weepers"

Erin McKean

Wikipedia

Erin McKean, who writes a column on language for the Boston Globe, has a recent article, "New words from noncelebrity neologizers" (January 22, 2012), in which she introduces a new term that beer lovers can use:

You may not have reason to refer to pint-size liquor bottles that often, but if you do you'll appreciate knowing that Jemaleddin Cole calls them weepers: "the sad, drinking-alone counterpart of a growler of beer." (A growler is an older word for a pail or pitcher of beer, now used for a half-gallon jug.)

I said "beer lovers" due to the 'etymology,' but liquor lovers of all kinds can use the term. Cole thinks that this word "weepers" meets the conditions set by Allan Metcalf's acronymically named FUDGE scale:

Neologism expert Allan Metcalf, the executive secretary of the American Dialect Society, gives five factors by which to judge the success of a new word: what he calls the FUDGE scale. FUDGE stands for "frequency of use" (more use means a higher chance of success), "unobtrusiveness" (is it too jokey?), "diversity of users and situations" (is it used by a lot of different people?), "generation of other forms and meanings" (can you verb it?), and "endurance of the concept."

McKean might be right, but I wonder if "weepers" is just a mite too jokey in its acute cuteness.

Readers' opinions?

En-Uk's Art: Window into the Past

My twelve-year-old son En-Uk, as readers doubtless know, has his own blog, which he calls En-Uk's Art Blog and which he posts to daily, adding artwork after artwork after artwork, except when he's gone, as he was recently, missing a couple of days due to a soccer trip.

Before leaving, he posted an artwork titled Color on Thursday:

To my eyes, and the eyes of others, this looks like a postmodern stained-glass window, or so the comments space implies. Perhaps this interpretation influenced his next artwork, posted yesterday after a break of two days:

This one's actually titled Window, but are we looking out or in? Either way, the image reminded me that I had intended to look into the etymology of the word "window." As readers know, I spend time nearly every day teaching my children English. The other day, En-Uk and I read a story that mentioned a window, and I told En-Uk that I used to pronounce this word as "winder" -- that's with a short "i" as in "window," and it rhymes with "fender." That was part of my Ozark dialect, and there was a pattern to this 'mispronuniation', for I pronounced "pillow" as "pillar" (rhymes with "miller"). Explaining that dialectical variant etymologically would itself be an interesting linguistic search . . . but not today. Anyway, that brief anecdote made me wonder about the "-ow" in "window." The "wind-" part surely came from "wind," but what did the "-ow" come from? "Maybe from 'hole'," I speculated, thinking aloud with En-Uk. But I wasn't sure, and I promised En-Uk that I'd find out.

I remembered that promise this morning. The search for "window" was embarrassingly simple. I simply clicked over to The Free Dictionary's entry on "window":

The source of our word window is a vivid metaphor. Window comes to us from the Scandinavian invaders and settlers of England in the early Middle Ages. Although we have no record of the exact word they gave us, it was related to Old Norse vindauga, "window," a compound made up of vindr, "wind," and auga, "eye," reflecting the fact that at one time windows contained no glass. The metaphor "wind eye" is of a type beloved by Norse and Old English poets and is called a kenning; other examples include oar-steed for "ship" and whale-road for "sea." Recently we have restored to the 800-year-old word window a touch of its poetic heritage, using it figuratively in such phrases as launch window, weather window, and window of opportunity or vulnerability.

This apparently comes from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language (fourth edition, Houghton Mifflin Company, 2000). We now know that "window" comes from "wind-eye." I suppose this particular "kenning" comes from the impression we have of windows as the eyes of a building, combined with the fact that no glass was used in the old days, thus letting in wind as an eye lets in light.

Next etymological puzzle to decipher: that dialectical form "winder" (and "pillar").

Atonement not as covering?

William Tyndale

(Image from Wikipedia)

Yesterday's post -- in which I inquired why the English term "atonement" is used to define the Hebrew word for "covering" ("kapara") -- received a comment from Dave (Balashon), a blogger in Israel who uses his blog to investigate Hebrew terms, for he has posted a blog entry for September 28, 2006 on "kapara."

Dave's post on "kapara" is interesting and provides some useful links on the Hebrew term though it doesn't investigate why William Tyndale chose "atonement" to translate "kapara," for that's not Dave's focus, but the post is worth reading for anyone fascinated by the Hebrew that stands behind various English words of religious significance in the Bible.

But I'm still wondering why Tyndale chose "atonement" to translate "kapara."

Maybe he didn't. Maybe he chose it to translate the Greek term "katallagēn" (καταλλαγὴν) in Romans chapter 5, verse 11:

οὐ μόνον δέ ἀλλὰ καὶ καυχώμενοι ἐν τῷ θεῷ διὰ τοῦ κυρίου ἡμῶν Ἰησοῦ Χριστοῦ δι’ οὗ νῦν τὴν καταλλαγὴν ἐλάβομεν

Here's Tyndale's translation:

Not only so but we also ioye in God by the meanes of oure Lorde Iesus Christ by whom we have receavyd the attonment.

The King James Version (1611) borrowed Tyndale's use of "attonment" (1526):

And not only [so], but we also joy in God through our Lord Jesus Christ, by whom we have now received the atonement.

Anyway, I make the suggestion that Tyndale was initially intent on providing a translation for the Greek term "katallagēn" (καταλλαγὴν) because he first focused on the New Testament, in 1525-1526 -- even going so far as to translate Martin Luther's Compendious introduccion, prologe or preface vnto the pistle off Paul to the Romayns in 1526 -- before going on to translate the first five books of the Old Testament in 1530.

Admittedly, Tyndale does use "attonement" in the third book of the Old Testament, in Leviticus chapter 23, verse 27:

also the tenth daye of the selfe seueth moneth, is a daye of an attonement, and shalbe on holy feast vnto you, ad ye shall humble youre soules and offer sacrifice vnto the Lorde.

Compare the King James Version:

Also on the tenth [day] of this seventh month [there shall be] a day of atonement: it shall be an holy convocation unto you; and ye shall afflict your souls, and offer an offering made by fire unto the LORD.

But in using the term "attonement," Tyndale may have been making an analogy from the New Testament to the Old, rather than from the Old to the New, for the Greek term in Romans 5:11, katallagē, means "reconciliation," and Tyndale may have been interested in conveying the result of that reconciliation through Christ, namely, the state of being "at-one-ment" with God.

But I'll have to investigate this point further tomorrow, for I'm out of time today.

Atonement as covering?

The Ark of God Carried into the Temple

Les Très Riches Heures du duc de Berry, Folio 29r

Musée Condé, Chantilly

Place of the Kaporet

(Image from Wikipedia)

Last Sunday during Bible study, the topic of "atonement" came up in discussion, and one of the participants noted that the word literally means "at onement" and that the word "atone" is a back formation from the word "atonement."

I was skeptical and wondered if this were a folk etymology, but I'll be damned if it isn't right!

Or at least partly right. The Online Etymological Dictionary says this about "atone":

1555, from adv. phrase atonen (c.1300) "in accord," lit. "at one," a contraction of at and one. It retains the older pronunciation of one. The phrase perhaps is modeled on L. adunare "unite," from ad- "to, at" + unum "one." Atonement is 1513; theological sense dates from 1526.

This implies that the verb "atone" is no back formation from the noun "atonement" but has its origin in the adverbial phrase "atonen" -- which, by the way, doesn't look like a phrase to me, but I suppose that the lexicographers meant that "atonen" is an adverb formed from the prepositional phrase "at one."

As for the word "atonement," it seems to have been coined by William Tyndale (c. 1494-1536) for his 1526 English Bible to translate the meaning inhering in the Hebrew word "kaphar."

According to the online Blue Letter Bible, "kaphar" has the following meanings:

כפר kaphar

1) to cover, purge, make an atonement, make reconciliation, cover over with pitch
a) (Qal) to coat or cover with pitch
b) (Piel)
1) to cover over, pacify, propitiate
2) to cover over, atone for sin, make atonement for
3) to cover over, atone for sin and persons by legal rites
c) (Pual)
1) to be covered over
2) to make atonement for
d) (Hithpael) to be covered

Also at the Blue Letter Bible site is the Gesenius Hebrew and English Lexicon, which gives the basic meaning of "kaphar" as "to cover, to cover over."

According to Wikipedia's entry on "atonement" (as of November 30, 2008), "Tyndale thought that if [the meaning behind "kaphar" were] translated as "reconciliation," there would be a pervasive misunderstanding of the word's deeper significance to not just reconcile, but "to cover," so the word ["atonement"] was invented."

I confess that I do not understand this. The word "atonement" does not convey any sense of "covering" -- not so far as I can see. Either Wikipedia is wrong (which is definitely possible), or I am wrong (also possible, for I was wrong about the etymology of "atonement").

Perhaps some of the Bible experts who occasionally visit this blog can help me out on this rather puzzling choice of "atonement" to capture the sense of "covering" inherent in the Hebrew term.

More Greenery . . .

Green's Spectral Coordinates

It's all so complicated . . .

(Image from Wikipedia)

Searching for more on that green knight on a green horse, I came upon an interesting fact. According to the Online Etymological Dictionary, "green" is related to the word "grow":

O.E. grene, earlier groeni, related to O.E. growan "to grow," from W.Gmc. *gronja- (cf. O.Fris. grene, O.N. grænn, Dan. grøn, Du. groen, Ger. grün), from PIE base *gro- "grow," through sense of "color of living plants."

Compare with the entry for "grass":

O.E. græs, gærs "herb, plant, grass," from P.Gmc. grasan (cf. O.N., Ger., Goth. gras), from PIE *ghros- "young shoot, sprout," from base *gro-/*gre- "that which grows" (cf. L. gramen "grass"); related to grow and green.

And we might as well check out "grow":

O.E. growan (of plants) "to flourish, develop, get bigger" (class VII strong verb; past tense greow, pp. growen), from P.Gmc. *gro- (cf. O.N. groa, O.Fris. groia, Du. groeien, O.H.G. gruoen), from root of grass (q.v.).

These dictionary entries inform us only about the etymologies for the English words "green," "grass," and "grow," but the proposed etymology for "verdure" suggests a parallel in the Romance languages:

c.1300, "fresh green color," from O.Fr. verdure "greenness," from verd, variant of vert "green," from L. viridis (cf. Sp., It. verde), related to virere "be green," of unknown origin. Perhaps ult. from a root meaning "growing plant" and cognate with Lith. veisti "propagate," O.N. visir "bud, sprout," O.E. wise "sprout, stalk, etc."

That, however, is speculation.

So is this: perhaps green is subtly associated with a 'supernatural' ability to regenerate. That might explain the Green Knight in Sir Gawain and the Green Knight has the supernatural power to survive having his head chopped off:

The green knight got ready, feet firm on the ground;
leaned his head a little to let the cheek show,
and raised the rich riot of his hair
so the nape of his neck was naked and exposed.
Gawain held the ax high overhead,
his left foot set before him on the floor,
swung swiftly at the soft flesh
so the bit of the blade broke through the bones,
crashed through the clear fat and cut it in two,
and the brightly burnished edge bit into the earth.
The handsome head fell, hit the ground,
and rolled forward; they fended it off with their feet.
The red blood burst bright from the green body,
yet the fellow neither faltered nor fell
but stepped strongly out on sturdy thighs,
reached roughly right through their legs,
grabbed his graceful head and lifted it from the ground,
ran to his horse, caught hold of the reins,
stepped in the stirrup, strode into the saddle,
the head dangling by the hair from his hand,
and seated himself as firmly in the saddle
as if he were unhurt, though he sat on his horse without
a head.

(Sir Gawain and the Green Knight, Stanza 19, translation by Paul Deane)

Rather gruesome, but it makes my point. The Green Knight survives decapitation. Also noteworthy is that he appears in the dead of winter but at the new year's beginning, when the darkest days are just being left behind, bearing -- in an earlier stanza -- a sprig of the evergreen holly, a winter promise of life in the coming springtime.

I've written "supernatural," but I'm not entirely satisfied with the term, for the growing of green grass -- as with all greenery -- is a purely natural process, presumably not just for us Moderns but also for Medieval people. But what does "natural" mean in such a context? Perhaps the green growth of springtime was considered natural but also mysterious, even uncanny.

A natural miracle.

"Lacativity"?

Activity

Yes, activity. (Not?)

(Image from Free Online Dictionary)

Cousin Bill reports on a fascinating week in his "Weekly Ramblings":

"Lacativity" (lack of activity) in the car market (usual for the month's first week) eliminated any long trips this week, with the only trips being to KC, quite boring and unworthy of further mention.

Thanks, Cousin Bill. It's always good to know what you've not been up to.

Still, I did learn something both novel and interesting in Cousin Bill's 'report', the portmanteau word "lacativity." I've neither seen nor heard this word before, and neither has Google, so Cousin Bill and I -- through the assistance of this Gypsy Scholar blog -- just might have initiated a new memelet.

My hunch is that this 'word' will find its niche in the vocabulary of economists because it's perfect for describing such economic matters as the major lacativity in the housing market these days.

Be that as it may, I've now introduced "lacativity" to the internet, so anyone doing a Google search will find lacativity here first . . . though I can probably also expect major lacativity on this particular Google search.

Pear-Apples?

Pear-Apples?

(Image from Wikipedia)

When I was five years old and staying with my maternal grandparents in their old Ozark home, my grandfather brought some pears from town and gave one to me. I ate it and told him that it was a very good apple. My grandfather -- whose family name "Perryman" implies that he would surely know -- corrected me:

"It's a pear."

Yet . . . it was once said that Adam, in his native innocence, saw into the essence of things and therefore correctly named all of the animals. Milton has the still innocent Eve name the plants (PL 11.277). In my childlike 'innocence', I knew that I was right, but I compromised and called the fruit a "pear-apple," and for the next several months whenever my grandfather went to town, I badgered him to get some more "pear-apples."

From some recent etymological work, I see that mine was not the first instance of compromise. In checking the Promptorium Parvulorum, a dictionary made in 1440 for speakers of Middle English to help them find the Latin terms for Middle English words (or so I assume, for the entries are given in Middle English), I found the following entry:

peere appul: pirumpomum, piri-pomi, neut. 2.

This entry "peere appul" is obviously the Middle English expression "pear apple" -- and the Latin "pirumpomum" just as obviously means the same thing.

What I don't know is how this expression originated. Was this a Middle English term translated back into Latin, or a Latin term translated into Middle English? If anyone knows, please comment.

By the way, here in Korea, we find the Pyrus pyrifolia, a pear that looks very much like an apple, so much so that it also bears the common name "apple pear":

Apple Pear

(Image from Wikipedia)

It also has other names, such as the apparently better-known "nashi pear." I say "apparently" because I'd never heard these called nashi pears, so I'm assuming that "nashi pear" is the British expression, for Wikipedia informs me that in India, this pear is called "nashipati."

But that presumably has nothing to do with the Middle English "peere appul" or the Latin "pirumpomum."

A little rewriting...

In the image of the Ozarks

My process of estrangement...

(Image from Wikipedia)

Poetry may be -- as Wordsworth and Coleridge put it in their "Preface" to Lyrical Ballads (1800) -- "the spontaneous overflow of powerful feelings . . . from emotion recollected in tranquility" (though it ain't), but prose requires a lot of rewriting.

Consequently, I've already been rewriting my "Lost in Translation" paper. In my musings on archaic words used in the Ozarks, I draw upon my first encounter with the word "antigogglin," which I heard when I was working as a chainman with a surveying crew that took me into some pretty isolated mountainous areas:

One tough place was on an isolated part of the Spring River valley, where we were looking for a corner marker to set up the surveying instrument and where I learned a new old Ozark word. Trying to get our bearings, we asked an old hillbilly -- in his 70s, I reckon -- if he knew where the marker, a metal spike driven into the ground, was located.

"Yeah," he replied, his face wrinkling with concentration, "but you got to go antigogglin over that hill to get there."

Anti-what!? I thought. But it was pretty clear what the word meant -- the way wasn't straight, which was what we had figured all along.

Some readers may recognize this passage, for I've lifted it from a blog entry of about one year ago. As you've also probably noted, I've been cannibalizing my blog for this 'translation' paper, so the passage quoted above appears in my paper as well. I follow this passage with an explanation of "antigogglin" that segues into a reflection on how my 'misuse' of words in a university environment led me to some glimmers of insight into "Semantic Drift" (also the title of a slightly off-color poem that I've written):

According to the Dictionary of American Regional English, Volume 1, "antigoglin" -- which has various spellings (annigoglin, antegogglin' and antigogglin(g)) -- is used as either adjective or adverb, with the meaning "askew, out of plumb" and "Slantwise, diagonal(ly)," and comes from "anti-" (against, counter) and "goggling" (from goggle, to shake, tremble). That sounds about how the old hillbilly was using this extraordinary old word. We Ozarkers also used ordinary words in unusual, archaic ways, for example, "stout" in the older sense of "strong" rather than its contemporary American meaning of "fat," a difference that occasioned a number of embarrassing linguistic missteps for me when I left the Ozarks for university, for in the campus gym where I exercised and played basketball, I happened to call some rather powerfully built bodybuilders "stout," which they took to mean that I was calling them "obese." Some of the female athletes whom I occasionally played basketball with also took none too kindly to the term. Eventually, I learned from these inadvertently otstranennyye(n) exercises in estrangement (cf. Selden et al., 33f).

This passage above presents an example of the rewriting that my prose requires on its way toward clarity, for I've already posted it on this blog, albeit in less expanded form. The expansion that you see takes my anecdotal experiences and moves them toward scholarship (the etymological information from Frederic G. Cassidy's Dictionary of American Regional English, Volume 1 (Cambridge, Mass., and London, England: Belknap Press of Harvard University Press, 1985)) and toward literary theory (the Russian Formalism allusion from Raman Selden, Peter Widdowson, and Peter Brooker, A Reader's Guide to Contemporary Literary Theory (London: Prentice Hall, 1997)). Both moves are intended to make my paper conform more appropriately to the conference theme: translation.

But that might not be quite so evident from this blog entry...