That Gerund Is Funky: words, grammar, usage and language in the news this month.
* * *
As cartoonists and demonstrators around the world raise and wield their pens in protest against the recent atrocities in France, the BBC asks the question: who first wrote or uttered the phrase “the pen is mightier than the sword”? Continue reading
Why do we talk slang? Is it like an inside joke, which makes us feel more connected with others in the know? Is it useful for covert communication, to hide wrong or bad stuff from prying ears? Are slang words and expressions the equivalent of linguistic toys, injecting some fun and humor into our normally drab verbal discourse? Can it fulfill a need for verbal economy, providing one word or phrase to capture a paragraph’s worth of meaning and suggestion? Can slang be a proverbial ice-breaker, offering a sense of informality or even affection to an otherwise frosty exchange?
The answer is yes: any one of these factors can come into play when slang is on the linguistic menu, and some of these factors are at the heart of a particular slang’s very existence. Slang in its many forms can represent the most nuanced, potentially ambiguous, socially delicate and subtle of human utterances, depending as much as it does on the social context and culture in which it lives and thrives.
A fascinating article in The Guardian last year asked the question: Is slang the last frontier for artificial intelligence? Continue reading
Did Alan Turing coin the term “digital computer”? There’s a heady set of questions here: when was the modern-day computer invented, and was Turing its father — in its conception, its realization and/or its naming? The movie The Imitation Game, set in England during the Second World War, is all about the British mathematician, logician, cryptanalyst, philosopher, mathematical biologist, pioneering computer scientist, and marathon and ultra-distance runner, and it does give us a clue. There’s a significant moment in the movie when Turing (played by the ubiquitous Benedict Cumberbatch) explains to his friend and fellow code-breaker Joan Clarke (Keira Knightley) his theory of computing and his new invention — a machine called Christopher. (Watch the movie to find out the reason for the name, and what exactly Christopher was built to do.) Here’s that moment, and it isn’t really a spoiler:
“Auld Lang Syne” is one of Scotland’s greatest gifts; sung around the world from Times Square to Tokyo, the song recalls those we’ve loved and lost and beloved memories of days gone by, as well as giving those who sing it a sense of belonging and togetherness that looks forward to better times. Robert Burns wrote a poem in 1788 and set it to the tune of a traditional folk tune. Soon after the song was penned, it became a Scottish custom to sing it on New Year’s Eve (or what the Scots call “Hogmanay”) — a tradition that soon spread to other parts of the British Isles. Then, as the Scots and Brits started to emigrate around the world, so the song and the tradition travelled internationally. “Auld Lang Syne” translates into English as “old long since” or, more colloquially, “long long ago”, “days gone by” or “old times”. So the first line of the chorus — “For auld lang syne” — can be loosely translated as “for (the sake of) old times”, and indeed those words are often added to the final line of the chorus (ie. “for the sake of auld lang syne”) for this reason.
Here is Burns’s original poem, and below is the song as we sing it around the world today.
Auld Lang Syne
Should auld acquaintance be forgot,
and never brought to mind ?
Should auld acquaintance be forgot,
and auld lang syne ?
CHORUS: Continue reading
“Lennon, Mailer’s friend and authorized biographer, told me that McAlice, whom he described as having “Joycean gifts,” once took the bus to Provincetown to visit Mailer.” — Boston Globe
The flu normally lasts a week, sometimes two. But if that time comes and goes and you’re still miserable and showing symptoms, head to the doctor.” — Kansas First News
“If counting down the last minutes before the new year lying on the couch in a blissful food coma seems like your style, consider one of these celebratory meals.” — Sacramento Bee
The is our definite article: we use it to refer to a specific thing (i.e. a noun) whose identity is clear to everyone reading or listening because of logic, common assumption, or a clause that explains it. “Please take the chocolate biscuit.” “I don’t like the hat she’s wearing.” But curiously there are times when we use the and we’re not being specific, as in the press examples above. Why didn’t McAlice take a bus (since we have no idea which bus he actually took)? Shouldn’t the Kansas First News be directing us towards a doctor (surely we can’t all go to the same one)? How does the Sacramento Bee know which couch is our favorite? Continue reading
Glosso’s advent: baubles of Britishisms. Coda:
Boxing Day.
(See Glossophilia’s earlier post on Boxing Day)
Zed zed zed zed zed zed zed zed zed zed zed zed zed …
(See Glossophilia’s earlier post on the language of slumber)
* * *
Day 25
A Chrimbo A-to-Zed of Britishisms:
On this day of Father Christmas coming from Lapland, bread sauce, mince pies, Christmas pudding, and pantomimes, let’s celebrate the lingo of Blighty. Happy Christmas, and God save The Queen!
Ace, aggro, any road, argue the toss
Belt up, bent as a nine-bob note, bespoke, bits ‘n’ bobs, blag, bloke, bloody hell, (well) blow me down (with a feather), Bob’s your uncle, boffin, bog roll, bog-standard, bollocks, bottoms up!, brass neck, brassed off, bumf, bung it in Continue reading
Day 24
Bob’s your uncle!
“Back in the day, this corruption lark seemed to be a lot easier. All you needed to do was pop over to your local post office, pick up some manila envelopes, hoard up a load of unmarked fivers and Bob’s your uncle (allegedly).” — on the FIFA World Cup corruption report, Irish Mirror, 13 Nov 2014
“We all pretty much know the formula for how a Tour de France route looks. Two longish time trials , Alps, Pyrenees, maybe a team time trial at the start, fill out the rest with sprints and Bob’s your uncle.” — PodiumCafe.com, 22 Oct 2014
What Brits exclaim when the desired result is achieved, often at the end of a simple explanatory list of instructions. “There you have it!” “Et voila!”
A BBC article in November presented one theory for its origins. Donnchadh Ó Ceallacháin, curator of the Waterford museum in Dublin, explains how it was associated with Field Marshall Frederick Lord Roberts, the Earl of Waterford, Kandahar and Pretoria, who was known as Bobs. “‘He was appointed commander of overseas forces stationed in Britain. And in November 1914 he was on a tour of inspection of Indian soldiers serving on the western front when he caught a chill, caught pneumonia, and he died aged 82, the oldest serving soldier to die in the war. … His grandparents were just tradesmen, which is what architects were at the time. … Apparently, he was very decent with his troops looking after their welfare. He was very much admired by the regular troops and that’s why he was called Bob’s Your Uncle; it was an affectionate term of endearment.'” World Wide Words offers other theories …
* * *
Day 23
The full monty.
“What Our Travel Pros Suggest: Hobica recommends springing for the full monty: an upgrade to business or first class — but only under certain circumstances.” — Popsugar, 12 Nov, 2014
“The Alpine Lounge in the Castle’s hotel complex has practically been my second home every winter since I was about ten years-old, so I was on very familiar territory when I sat at my table and ordered the full monty afternoon tea recently.” — Galloway Gazette, 9 Nov 2014
“Ten Ways a U.S. ‘Full Monty’ Plan Can Defeat ISIS. … Max Boot, a military historian and the Jeane J. Kirkpatrick national security senior fellow at the Council on Foreign Relations, has just outlined a comprehensive plan for defeating ISIS that goes well beyond the commitments of Obama and U.S. allies. It might best be described as the “Full Monty” when contrasted with the administration’s more limited approach.” — Fiscal Times, 18 Nov 2014
The full amount expected, desired, or possible. The full shebang. According to World Wide Words, someone in the dictionaries department at Oxford University Press, who wrote the entry for this expression, found 16 different theories — ranging from gamblers’ jargon to the British tailor Montague Burton …
