Words for Thought

This is from a blog, "On Art," by Jonathan Jones in the Guardian of January 20, 2011:

"The virtue of blogs and the comments they attract lies in the diversity of opinion in itself: so does the value of democracy. This is surely obvious, yet we do not say it often. It seems it is very difficult to acknowledge that (a) we may be wrong, and (b) the most valuable quality of our culture is the right to be wrong, loudly."

Free speech, I think, is the purest form of freedom and diversity is the best way to find solutions.

The Riddle of the Sphinx

"What creature goes on four legs in the morning, on two legs at mid-day, and on three legs in the evening, and the more legs it has the weaker it is?"

New Authors

A friend of mine recommended that I read Laura Levine mysteries. I love finding new authors especially ones who make me laugh out loud. I'm reading Levine's This Pen for Hire. Here's a sample of lol from chapter 15:

"I flopped back on my bed, feeling overwhelmed. I was lying there, wondering about the nature of good and evil, and whether or not I had any ice cream in my freezer, when the phone rang."

I think my mind works in a similar way.

Word-Hoard...Bare, Bear

Yesterday Chet had trouble with these homophones.

"Bare" in the sense of having no covering is derived from the Old English baer referring to plants or trees with no foliage. At some point we get the Middle English "bald" referring to persons with no hair. Old English also used calu in the sense of no covering. Modern English derives "callow" from that. It means immature. However, it also refers to a young bird who is featherless.

"Bear," referring to the animal, is derived from Old English bera. When used to mean carry, we go back to the Old English beran which also had the form geberan meaning to produce a child. The word "birth" is derived from this as well in the Old English form birP. (The "P" represents the Old English "thorn" which carried the "th" sound.)

Sorry Chet, but they still sound the same.

Word-Hoard...Waist and Waste

Nancy brought up these two homophones. Interestingly, one is derived from Old English and one is not.

"Waist" is from Old English waestm meaning growth, figure, plant, offspring. (A variety of meanings.) It is akin to Old English weaxan from which we get modern English "wax" in the sense of increase in extent: The moon is waxing. The Old English word also meant to be fruitful. It seems to me that we can see a link etymologically between growth and reproduction. I would conclude that "waist" came about from the fact that a woman's waist grows during pregnancy. (You never know where language will take you!)

"Waste" is derived from Old French which in turn is derived from Latin vastus meaning desolute, empty, immense. We get the term "vast" from it which does not necessarily mean desolute. The Latin word may also be connected to vaco from which we derive "vacant" which does mean empty and possibly desolute.  "Waste" did not enter the English vocabulary until after the Norman Conquest and became the Middle English wast.  The "e" was added on the end at some point, probably after the Great Vowel Shift, to indicate that the "a" was a "long vowel."

Curiouser and curiouser.

Ponderings...Downton Abbey

I've been thinking about the differences between Downton Abbey and Upstairs Downstairs.  Specifically I'm pondering the attitudes of the characters and wondering what the reasons are for changes in attitude.

Both storylines are exploring the class system in England. Downton Abbey is set in 1913, ten years later than the beginning period of Upstairs Downstairs. One obvious difference is that the servants are beginning to question their positions and opportunities in Downton Abbey. One of the maids, for example, is taking a correspondence course so that she can become a secretary. (When her typewriter is found, some of the other servants are outraged. This kind of reaction often occurs because social tradition and custom obscure the natural order of things.)

One of the biggest indicators of change in this show is when Mrs. Isobel Crawley (Penelope Wilton) the widow of a doctor, demands that the current doctor perform a procedure on a patient with "dropsy" in order to save his life. The Dowager Countess (Maggie Smith) feels that this distant relative has no business making such a demand. The Dowager, as president of the board of the hospital, refuses to allow the doctor to proceed. However, he does and the patient is saved.

It seems to me that this is an example of the aristocracy losing its power because it has lost its purpose. Noblesse oblige was the custom for centuries: The aristocracy had a moral obligation and duty to protect the "poorer classes." In this example it is the "middle class" woman who fulfills that obligation.

More pondering is required.

English 101: Lie, Lay, Sit , Set

Many people have a hard time knowing when to use these verbs correctly. Their grammatical differences are not difficult once you understand the difference between transitive and intransitive verbs. A transitive verb needs a direct object to complete the meaning of a sentence. An intransitive verb does not need a direct object to complete meaning.

"Lay" is a transitive verb. "I will lay the blanket on the bed." (Subject "I," verb "will lay," direct object "blanket,"  prepositional phrase "on the bed.")

"Lie" is an intransitive verb. "I will lie on the bed." (Subject "I," verb "will lie," prepositional phrase "on the bed." No direct object needed.)

"Set" is a transitive verb. "I will set the pillow on the chair." ("Pillow" is the direct object.)

"Sit" is an intransitive verb. "I will sit on the chair." (No direct object needed.)

"Put" can be substituted for the transitive verbs "lay" and "set." Easy! Or as easy as English can be.

Fun With English (2)

In Funny English Errors and Insights compiled by Troy Simpson, here is a student's explanation of grammar:

"In the sentence 'I saw the goat butt the man,' 'butt' is a conjunction, because it shows the connection between the goat and the man."

How do you argue with that logic?

Word-Hoard...Ware, Wear, Where

Yesterday Shelley listed more homophones so I had to do some more research.

"Ware"  has four uses (as opposed to definitions) listed in Random House dictionary. The first has the common denotation of  "an article of merchandise." The second means "watchful" and is shortened from "beware." The third (in Scotland and England) means "expend" and the fourth (again in Scotland and England) refers to the season of spring. The word is derived from the Old English waru which meant an article of merchandise and also shelter or protection.

"Wear" is a transitive verb (requires a direct object) as in "to wear jeans." It is also an intransitive verb as in "jeans that wear well." It is derived from the Old English word wergian meaning "to become tired." The modern English "weary" has the same derivation.

"Where" is an adverb as in "Where is it?" It is also a conjunction as in "It is where you left it." Derivation is the Old English word hwaer.

As you can see, the Old English words were not homophones since the Anglo-Saxons pronounced each letter. How did the pronunciation change? I'd suggest that it was through laziness: It's much easier to say these words the modern English way even though they add to the difficulty of our great language.

Word-Hoard...Homophones

I've been thinking more about the difficulty of learning English if you're not a native speaker. Homophones--words that sound the same but aren't spelled the same and that have different meanings--is one example. Peek, peak and pique. How did English acquire these words?

Peek, in the sense of looking quickly or furtively, is derived from Middle English  piken (which, of course, looks like pike, but let's not get into that now).  It may be related to Scottish keek which means peep: to look slyly or in a prying way. (Interestingly peer means to look at continuously.)

Peak derives from Middle Low German pek meaning pick as in pickaxe. The word pike was also used in the same way. In modern English peak means the point of a mountain. The concept of a sharp point seems to be the common element here.

Pique, to irritate or make angry, is derived from Middle French piquer (to prick or sting) and that in turn is derived from Vulgar Latin piccare meaning to pick. Perhaps modern English gets the phrase "to pick on" someone from this sense.

It's crytsal clear now right?

Ponderings...Wittgenstein

I'm pondering what this means and if I agree with it:  "Philosopy is a battle against the bewitchment of our intelligence by means of language" (Wittgenstein, Philosophical Investigations).

Word-Hoard...Knight

Have you ever wondered why we pronounce "knight" the way we do? We have left out the sounds of several letters.

The word is derived from the Old English cniht which meant manservant. The Anglo-Saxons would have pronounced each letter: the "c" was hard and flowed into the "n"; the "i" would have been pronounced like a long "e" (Old English was before the Great Vowel Shift which I'll get to another time); the "h" was gutteral ending in a sharp "t" at the end.

After the Norman Conquest the English language took on many French influences. We have to assume that the Normans would have heard the Anglo-Saxons pronounce "cniht." When the Normans wrote down the word, they spelled it phonetically in French.

Later (after the Great Vowel Shift) we became lazy and didn't want to go through all of the contortions of mouth and tongue necessary to pronounce it the Old English way. Thus, we  have a six-letter word with only three sounds.

English 101

When I first started teaching English comp, non-native speakers made me understand what we take for granted in our language. Here's an example:  How do you explain when to use "a." "an" or "the"?

Grimm Revisited

Mention of fairytales reminded me of Anne Sexton's book, Transformations, published in 1971. In it she has a selection of poems that rewrite some of the Grimm's fairytales. They are wonderfully scardonic.  My favorite is "Cinderella." Here's the final stanza:

Cinderella and the prince
lived, they say, happily ever after,
like two dolls in a museum case
never bothered by diapers or dust,
never arguing over the timing of an egg,
never telling the same story twice,
never getting a middle-aged spread,
their darling smiles pasted on for eternity.
Regular Bobbsey Twins.
That story.

Here's a link where you can find the entire poem:

http://www.units.muohio.edu/technologyandhumanities/sexton.htm

Fun with English

In a book that I received from a friend (Funny English Errors and Insights. Compiled by Troy Simpson and published by the National Library of Australia), example 301 is this:

"And they were married and lived happily even after."

It's difficult analyzing something that is humorous and you may wonder why bother with analysis but it's something that I do.  The wordplay is wonderful. There is just one letter--a phoneme--different from the traditional fairytale ending. It says it all: the indoctrination found in fairytales, the reality of marriage. (I've known many happy marriages but I've always thought that the institution is not the purpose of life as many fairytales seem to claim it is.)

While I'm pondering this further, does anyone have other examples of funny English?

Women and Fiction

Discovering the neglected poetry of Charlotte Mew made me turn back to the famous essay by Virginia Woolf, A Room of One's Own, which is based on two lectures that she gave at two Cambridge colleges--Newnham and Girton--in October, 1928. She had been asked to speak on women and fiction but what she did was to explore women's circumstances and the effect of those circumstances on their artistic work.

Woolf begins with the Elizabethan age and compares the circumstances of Shakespeare to that of Judith, a sister she creates for him. Shakespeare was educated, free to roam the countryside "and had, rather sooner than he should have done, to marry a woman in the neighbourhood, who bore him a child rather quicker than was right." He left for London and the rest is history. Judith was "as adventurous, as imaginative, as agog to see the world" as Shakespeare was. However, she was not educated nor was she free. She tried to read some of her brother's books by Horace or Virgil "but then her parents came in and told her to mend the stockings or mind the stew and not moon about with books and papers." So she ran away to London to try to get work in the theater.  What she found instead of work was the actor-manager of the theater who "took pity on her; she found herself with child by that gentleman and so--who shall measure the heat and violence of the poet's heart when caught and tangled in a woman's body--killed herself one winter's night and lies buried at some cross-roads where the omnibuses now stop outside the Elephant and Castle."

What amount of heat and violence did Mew have in her heart? She committed suicide when she was 59. At the same age, Woolf drowned herself in the river Ouse. The "Room" of the title of Woolf's essay is a symbol for a specific kind of independence that includes freedom from social, religious, and legal constraints. I think that we, today, have come further in finding such a room. Yet I'm not sure. 

Happy New Year

Why do we make New Year's resolutions? Did you make any?

Charlotte Mew

Has anyone ever heard of this poet? I never had until I ran across one of her poems on the blog "First Known When Lost." Charlotte Mew (1869-1928) was an English poet, published and admired in her day. Hugh Walpole, the Poet Laureate Robert Bridges, Lady Ottoline Morrell, and Virginia Woolf all praised her poetry. In 1923, on the recommendation of John Masefield, Walter de la Mare and Thomas Hardy, she was awarded an annual Civil List pension. Thomas Hardy said that Mew was "far and away the best living woman poet."

And there might be a clue to the reason why she has been forgotten. Hardy apparently found it necessary to use the adjective "woman" to describe her work. Did that carry the same connotation then as "chick lit" carries now?  Here is an example of her poetry taken from Charlotte Mew Collected Poems and Selected Prose. Ed. Val Warner. New York: Routledge, 2003.  You decide:

In the Fields

Lord, when I look at lovely things which pass,
  Under old trees the shadows of young leaves
Dancing to please the wind along the grass,
  Or the gold stillness of the August sun on the August sheaves;
Can I believe there is a heavenlier world than this?
  And if there is
Will the strange heart of any everlasting thing
  Bring me these dreams that take my breath away?
They come at evening with the home-flying rooks and the scent of hay,
  Over the fields. They come in Spring.

Virginia Woolf and Montaigne

I find Woolf's writing philosophy similar to that of Montaigne. She, of course, is famous for the writing style termed "stream of consciousness" which she used in most of her novels. He, I think, writes in a similar way but rather than place the reader in the minds of various characters as Woolf does, Montaigne's "character" is himself.

In her essay on Montaigne, Woolf calls him "this great master of the art of life." She writes that Montaigne's essays are "an attempt to communicate a soul" and that he is one of the few writers who succeeded in "drawing [himself] with a pen." In fact, she feels that he is the only one who gave an entire picture of himself, including his vagaries, imperfections and confusions--those things we often try to hide from others behind our social masks.

Both writers are aware of the fact, as Woolf says, that "this soul, or life within us, by no means agrees with the life outside us."  Thus Woolf gives us characters in 3-D: We see them from the outside perspective of others as well as from their own interior thoughts, moment by moment. We know them intimiately and often feel  empathy--we have known and experienced life in such a similar way. In his essays, Montaigne, master of the art of life, gives his readers the same vicarious experience.

Montaigne...Wine

I mentioned in my first post that I'm reading Sarah Bakewell's biography of Montaigne, How to Live.  I've discovered that the Chateau Montaigne was damaged by fire in 1885 but was restored "to the same design." The Tower that became Montaigne's library where he wrote his Essays was undamaged by the fire. There he had his collection of books on five rows of curving shelves.  He also had the roof beams painted with classical quotations. (You can still see these today.)

Montaigne's great-grandfather bought the property in 1477. Among other things, he had been a merchant of wine. By the time Montaigne inherited the chateau, it had become "the head office of a fairly large wine-producing business, yielding tens of thousands of liters of wine per year." The best part is that the chateau "still produces wine today"!