NPR’s just sayin’: when push comes to shove, Downton’s lingo is ahead of its time …

Anyone (like me) who can’t get enough of Downton Abbey should check out NPR’s fabulous segment on the British period piece’s linguistic anachronisms. I guess nothing – not even ‘Downton’ – is perfect …

http://www.npr.org/2012/02/13/146652747/im-just-sayin-there-are-anachronisms-in-downton?ft=3&f=111787346&sc=nl&cc=es-20120219

I’m Just Sayin’: There Are Anachronisms In ‘Downton’

February 13, 2012

NPR STAFF

Listen Carefully: Some phrases have made it into Downton Abbey that are a little ahead of their time. Above, Mr. Carson (Jim Carter) tries out a newfangled gadget with Lady Mary (Michelle Dockery).  

Listen Carefully: Some phrases have made it into Downton Abbey that are a little ahead of their time. Above, Mr. Carson (Jim Carter) tries out a newfangled gadget with Lady Mary (Michelle Dockery). Carnival Film & Television Limited/Masterpiece

PBS’s hit series Downton Abbey has been praised for its subtle and witty dialogue. But a few anachronisms have slipped into the characters’ conversations, and spotting them has become a hobby for many fans.

Linguist Ben Zimmer, executive producer of Visual Thesaurus and language columnist for theBoston Globe, talked with NPR’s Renee Montagne about snippets of dialogue that British people of the time would’ve been very unlikely to say.

 

Watch more historically questionable lines Ben Zimmer has found in season two of Downton Abbey, and click here to read Zimmer’s explanations. 

“I’m just sayin’.”
—Ethel, the maid, to Mrs. Patmore, the cook

“That expression, ‘I’m just saying,’ is a modern expression that we use to couch what we’re saying so that the person doesn’t take offense or isn’t annoyed by what we’re saying … We hear that all the time now, but it’s hard to find examples of it, really, before World War II. That stand-alone expression, ‘I’m just saying,’ is pretty modern and out of place in 1916.”

“Sorry to keep you waiting, but we’re going to have to step on it.”
—Lord Grantham, to his chauffeur

” ‘Step on it’ is another Americanism. … It was in use in the 1910s, but it really was unlikely to have been heard on the British side that early. There were chauffeur expressions being used to describe acceleration: ‘Step on it,’ ‘Step on her,’ ‘Step on her tail,’ … Sort of imagining the pedal to be like the tail of an animal, like a cat that you would step on and it would jerk forward.

Housekeeper Mrs. Hughes describes Lady Mary (right) as an "uppity minx who's the author of her own misfortunes" — never mind that in 1919, it's unlikely anyone would have said "uppity minx." 

EnlargeNick Briggs/Carnival Film & Television Limited/MasterpieceHousekeeper Mrs. Hughes describes Lady Mary (right) as an “uppity minx who’s the author of her own misfortunes” — never mind that in 1919, it’s unlikely anyone would have said “uppity minx.” 

“Those were American expressions, and they would eventually get across the Atlantic, but to imagine that Lord Grantham was up on the latest American slang in 1917 strains the imagination just a bit.”

“When push comes to shove, I’d rather do it myself.”
—Mrs. Patmore, to the servant staff

“She would definitely not have been familiar with that expression. It does date to the late 19th century, but it was a strictly African-American expression for at least a few decades. The Oxford English Dictionary has examplesback to 1898, but if you look through the early 20th century, all the examples that we can find of the expression ‘when push comes to shove’ come from African-American newspapers and other sources.

“It really isn’t until after World War II or so that it spreads to more widespread usage. So it’s extremely unlikely that Mrs. Patmore would’ve been familiar with that expression and have used it in 1919.”

 

Hopefully taking a crack at hopefully

Hopefully, Oliver Twist asks for more.

That, in a nutshell, is “hopefully” being used correctly: when it refers to the hopeful mind-frame of the subject of the sentence – and not of the writer (or of a wider assumed consensus). The last thing any of us  – including, presumably, Dickens – would have hoped was that Oliver should step forward and make that legendary request. And yet it’s correct to say that “hopefully, he asks for more”.

As Mark Davidson explains in his book Right, Wrong, and Risky, “the adverb hopefully is risk-free if you use it to modify a verb or an adjective, and thus to mean “in a hopeful manner”.” He goes on to quote an example from the New York Times: “In anticipation of China’s 2008 Olympic bid, the city [of Beijing] is fervently and hopefully preparing for the event.”

However, the word is often used colloquially as a sentence modifier, rather than as an adverb, with the implied meaning “it is to be hoped that”. Compare it with the sentence modifier “fortunately”, implying that anyone writing or reading the sentence recognizes that “it is fortunate that” whatever follows does indeed follow. But the word is “hope-FUL-ly” – not “hope-ly”, or “hope-ably”. It makes no sense to say “it is hopeful that” – since someone has to be doing the hoping in order for it to be hopeful and full of hope.

Strunk and White go far in their damnation of the word ‘hopefully’ used as a sentence modifier. “Such use is not merely wrong, it is silly. To say, ‘Hopefully I’ll leave on the noon plane’ is to talk nonsense. Do you mean you’ll leave on the noon plane in a hopeful frame of mind?  … Although the word in its new, free-floating capacity may be pleasurable and even useful to many, it offends the ear of many others, who do not like to see words dulled or eroded, particularly when the erosion leads to ambiguity, softness, or nonsense.”

Hopefully I’ll never find myself making a word choice that would have offended Messrs Strunk and White.

 

Hardy’s farewell to 1900

Happy New Year! Here is how Thomas Hardy bade his sombre farewell to the 19th century, ending it with a sweet tweet of hope …

The Darkling Thrush
by Thomas Hardy
(written on Dec 30, 1900)

I leant upon a coppice gate
When Frost was spectre-gray,
And Winter’s dregs made desolate
The weakening eye of day.
The tangled bine-stems scored the sky
Like strings of broken lyres,
And all mankind that haunted nigh
Had sought their household fires.

The land’s sharp features seemed to be
The Century’s corpse outleant,
His crypt the cloudy canopy,
The wind his death-lament.
The ancient pulse of germ and birth
Was shrunken hard and dry,
And every spirit upon earth
Seemed fervourless as I.

At once a voice arose among
The bleak twigs overhead
In a full-hearted evensong
Of joy illimited;
An aged thrush, frail, gaunt, and small,
In blast-beruffled plume,
Had chosen thus to fling his soul
Upon the growing gloom.

So little cause for carolings
Of such ecstatic sound
Was written on terrestrial things
Afar or nigh around,
That I could think there trembled through
His happy good-night air
Some blessed Hope, whereof he knew
And I was unaware.

“Days of the Week” by Flo

A new poem by Flo.

http://tuftsobserver.org/2011/12/days-of-the-week/

Days of the Week

Flo Wen

 

If ever I could walk away
And leave her on her own,
I’d plan the perfect leaving day –
But one that I’d postpone.

For Monday’s when we lie in bed
Before the week’s restart –
Between us: those three words unsaid –
And dread our days apart.

On Tuesday nights we’re reading things,
The weekend left behind.
Our supper’s what delivery brings,
The place she ‘doesn’t mind’.

By Wednesday we have mastered roles
Of boring parts to play.
She pours the milk, I lay the bowls,
And breakfast starts the day.

And Thursday’s time for restlessness
That manifests itself:
Complaints and faults we can’t suppress
Or keeping to ourselves.

But restless turns to passion when
We see the light ahead;
Friday brings her smile again
And those three words are said.

They linger through to Saturday,
When going out’s a ‘must’.
It’s fine by me; content she’ll stay
And passion turns to lust.

Yet Sunday’s been our stay-in night,
Her tired eyes don’t shine:
Their Easter-blue and yellow white,
The opposite of mine.

You see, there’s really not a chance,
Amidst all that, to go.
I’d miss what people call romance;
The pattern’s all I know.

 

The history of English in 10 minutes

 

“The English language begins with the phrase ‘Up yours, Caesar!'”. Did you know that Shakespeare invented the word “hob-nob”? That the Vikings gave us the words “give” and “take”? Or that the King James Bible taught us that the leopard can’t change its spots? In which century did our ‘private parts’ first get their names? This fun video is as much a history of the British Empire as it is of its ubiquitous tongue.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=gSYwPTUKvdw#

 

5 most common nouns: the answer is in time (and not in Black Friday)

According to Wikipedia, these are the five most commonly used nouns in the English language:

  1. time
  2. person
  3. year
  4. way
  5. day

And according to the The Reading Teachers Book of Lists, the five most common nouns are:  1) word 2) time 3) number 4) way 5)  people.

Isn’t it interesting that in both cases the nouns are all abstract (with the exception of person/people, which is almost on the abstract spectrum)? And perhaps more significantly: “time” makes both lists – and is represented by three separate words in Wikipedia’s rankings (“time”, “year”, “day”).

So, for us mortals – at least for those of us who speak English – time is never far from our minds and lips. Or could it be simply that there are fewer words in the English language to describe units of time and time itself, whereas perhaps in other areas of our waking lives we have a greater vocabulary to express particular concepts?

It’s reassuring to discover that even in this world of money and materialism – when human souls are bold enough to risk their lives for a flat-screen TV – it is still time that appears to be our most  significant commodity.

 

 

The five most common nouns

Take a guess:  what do you think are the five most commonly used nouns in the English language? Not articles, pronouns, or conjunctions, but good old-fashioned nouns.

I took my own guess. At the top of my list was “home” – a place that we all spend a lot of time in, going to, and planning our lives around. My teenage daughter suggested “phone”: clearly an object that features largely in so many people’s minds these days. I wondered if “bed” — another human anchor — might be in the list:.

What do you think are the five most commonly used nouns?

Slightly surprising answers – and discussion – tomorrow… (Or, if you can’t wait until then, try Google.)

She’s fly; it’s sick; they’re H: r u lost?

Can’t work out what your teen means?  Take Good Housekeeping‘s teen slang test, and get down with the lingo. And no Angus Deaton! (Wrong slang, but I felt like using it.)

http://www.goodhousekeeping.com/family/parenting-tips/test-teen-slang-quiz

(To get the answers, you’ll need to take the test at Good Housekeeping‘s site at the link above.)

Test Your Teen Slang

What’s harder than getting your teen to communicate with you grunt-, shrug- and eye-roll-free? Trying to make sense of their ever-changing vocabulary, of course. If you’re feeling lost in translation, take our teen slang test, and bone up on all of the latest lingo.

By Jennifer Saltiel, LMSW

Page 1 of 2

1. When you ask your daughter if she likes the new chicken dish you baked for dinner, she replies, “It’s sick!” This means:
She doesn’t like it one bit
The food is making her feel nauseous.
She thinks the dish is delicious.
2. Your daughter calls you on her cell phone and asks, “Can I make a requestion?” This means:
She meant to say, “Can I ask you a question?”
She probably said “Can I make a request?” but since the cell phone connection wasn’t clear, you thought you heard “requestion.”
She is combining the words request and question to ask both at the same time.
3. Which of the following words does not mean wonderful or awesome?
Tool
Dope
Tight
4. Your daughter sends you an email fuming about her teacher’s unfairness. She begins her litany of complaints with “OMG!” What do the three letters stand for?
On my grave
Oh my god (or gosh)
One more gripe
5. While driving your son and his friends to baseball practice, you overhear his buddy ask what your son thinks of the new girl at school. When he replies, “She’s fly,” you interpret this as:
She’s irrelevant to him. He’s not impressed.
He thinks she is cool
He finds her ditsy, like her head is in the clouds.
6. An individual who has a pessimistic attitude and is constantly talking about his or her friends is a:
Hater
Neg
Meano
7. An angst-filled teenager who dresses in black; wears thick-rimmed glasses; and listens to alternative music about life’s heartbreak and miseries would be described as:
noob
crunk
emo
8. You pick your son up from school on a snowy day. He’s waiting for you outside with his friend, Brian. When you ask how he’s doing, Brian says, “I’m chillin’.” What he’s trying to tell you is:
It’s so cold, his fingers have turned to ice
He feels stressed and frazzled
“Life is good. I’m relaxing.”
9. Your son and his friend, Mark, are checking out a new CD. When Mark asks what the music is like, your son replies that the lyrics are pretty “H”. What does this mean?
Hardcore – the words are an intense experience.
Hilarious – they’re cracking him up.
Horrible – could they have written anything lamer?
10. Your daughter’s best friend, Jane, does not show up at the mall to meet her, like they had planned. When your daughter calls Jane to ask her where she is, Jane replies, “My B.” This means:
That’s my business, not yours.
My boyfriend needed me.
My bad — totally my fault.
11. Your son and his friend are shooting hoops in your driveway. When you ask if he’d like to stay for dinner, your son’s friend says, “I’ve gotta bounce.” What does he have to do?
Run it by his parents
Finish the game
Get going

12. You see an instant message between your daughter and her friend Jill on the computer (No, you weren’t spying; you were just trying to check your email). It reads:

Dana: Hey Jill, Sup?
Jill: Chillin’
Dana: Me too, but I’ve g2g now.
Jill: Lol! That was fast. Ttyl.
Dana: l8tr.

How much of this correspondence do you understand?

Some of it. But none of the initials.
All of it.
You lost me at “Hey Jill”

Piecing It Together

A poem by my 18-year-old daughter, Flo.

http://tuftsobserver.org/2011/10/piecing-it-together/

Piecing It Together

Flo Wen

The sky was green, the grass was blue, and chaos we were feeling;

Between us: wreckage, hostile thoughts, and things he was concealing.

I knew enough to topsy-turve the love we’d been maintaining

For disbelief replaced whatever passion was remaining.

 

For he and I had always said, it’s you and me forever

In those five words, there wasn’t room for his or my whoever.

But pacts are pacts, by nature meant to be a bit mistreated

They say that love’s a game and if it’s true, his pawn had cheated.

 

I called her all the names I could; indeed my friends came running

For ladies who have morals jump at any chance of shunning.

Yet shunned or not, this lady stayed the object of affection –

He was mine, and she was his: it’s just love’s imperfection.

 

But imperfection paves the way, like puzzle pieces fitting:

The process of elimination used before committing.

And though I didn’t know it then, we didn’t fit together;

For he remained a corner piece, and I was in the center.

 

But I, like every puzzle piece, upheld my only function:

To find that central piece near mine, and strengthen the conjunction.

For God knows every pair of lovers needs a good supporting;

In fact, it’s just the nature of the troubled act of courting.

Can word rage be worse than road rage? The other side of editing …

Someone isn’t very pleased with what happened to his copy in the hands of the Times subs. “Anger, real steaming fucking anger can make a man verbose.” Dedicated to 21C’s fabulous izers, who would never inspire such word rage. (And thanks to Olivia for sharing this Guardian article on Facebook. I LOVE it.)

http://www.guardian.co.uk/media/2008/jul/23/mediamonkey

Read Giles Coren’s letter to Times subs

Chaps,

I am mightily pissed off. I have addressed this to Owen, Amanda and Ben because I don’t know who i am supposed to be pissed off with (i’m assuming owen, but i filed to amanda and ben so it’s only fair), and also to Tony, who wasn’t here – if he had been I’m guessing it wouldn’t have happened.

I don’t really like people tinkering with my copy for the sake of tinkering. I do not enjoy the suggestion that you have a better ear or eye for how I want my words to read than I do. Owen, we discussed your turning three of my long sentences into six short ones in a single piece, and how that wasn’t going to happen anymore, so I’m really hoping it wasn’t you that fucked up my review on saturday.

It was the final sentence. Final sentences are very, very important. A piece builds to them, they are the little jingle that the reader takes with him into the weekend.

I wrote: “I can’t think of a nicer place to sit this spring over a glass of rosé and watch the boys and girls in the street outside smiling gaily to each other, and wondering where to go for a nosh.”

It appeared as: “I can’t think of a nicer place to sit this spring over a glass of rosé and watch the boys and girls in the street outside smiling gaily to each other, and wondering where to go for nosh.”

There is no length issue. This is someone thinking “I’ll just remove this indefinite article because Coren is an illiterate cunt and i know best”.

Well, you fucking don’t.
This was shit, shit sub-editing for three reasons.
1) ‘Nosh’, as I’m sure you fluent Yiddish speakers know, is a noun formed from a bastardisation of the German ‘naschen’. It is a verb, and can be construed into two distinct nouns. One, ‘nosh’, means simply ‘food’. You have decided that this is what i meant and removed the ‘a’. I am insulted enough that you think you have a better ear for English than me. But a better ear for Yiddish? I doubt it. Because the other noun, ‘nosh’ means “a session of eating” – in this sense you might think of its dual valency as being similar to that of ‘scoff’. you can go for a scoff. or you can buy some scoff. the sentence you left me with is shit, and is not what i meant. Why would you change a sentnece aso that it meant something i didn’t mean? I don’t know, but you risk doing it every time you change something. And the way you avoid this kind of fuck up is by not changing a word of my copy without asking me, okay? it’s easy. Not. A. Word. Ever.

2) I will now explain why your error is even more shit than it looks. You see, i was making a joke. I do that sometimes. I have set up the street as “sexually-charged”. I have described the shenanigans across the road at G.A.Y.. I have used the word ‘gaily’ as a gentle nudge. And “looking for a nosh” has a secondary meaning of looking for a blowjob. Not specifically gay, for this is soho, and there are plenty of girls there who take money for noshing boys. “looking for nosh” does not have that ambiguity. the joke is gone. I only wrote that sodding paragraph to make that joke. And you’ve fucking stripped it out like a pissed Irish plasterer restoring a renaissance fresco and thinking jesus looks shit with a bear so plastering over it. You might as well have removed the whole paragraph. I mean, fucking christ, don’t you read the copy?

3) And worst of all. Dumbest, deafest, shittest of all, you have removed the unstressed ‘a’ so that the stress that should have fallen on “nosh” is lost, and my piece ends on an unstressed syllable. When you’re winding up a piece of prose, metre is crucial. Can’t you hear? Can’t you hear that it is wrong? It’s not fucking rocket science. It’s fucking pre-GCSE scansion. I have written 350 restaurant reviews for The Times and i have never ended on an unstressed syllable. Fuck. fuck, fuck, fuck.

I am sorry if this looks petty (last time i mailed a Times sub about the change of a single word i got in all sorts of trouble) but i care deeply about my work and i hate to have it fucked up by shit subbing. I have been away, you’ve been subbing joe and hugo and maybe they just file and fuck off and think “hey ho, it’s tomorrow’s fish and chips” – well, not me. I woke up at three in the morning on sunday and fucking lay there, furious, for two hours. weird, maybe. but that’s how it is.

It strips me of all confidence in writing for the magazine. No exaggeration. i’ve got a review to write this morning and i really don’t feel like doing it, for fear that some nuance is going to be removed from the final line, the pay-off, and i’m going to have another weekend ruined for me.

I’ve been writing for The Times for 15 years and i have never asked this before – i have never asked it of anyone i have written for – but I must insist, from now on, that i am sent a proof of every review i do, in pdf format, so i can check it for fuck-ups. and i must be sent it in good time in case changes are needed. It is the only way i can carry on in the job.

And, just out of interest, I’d like whoever made that change to email me and tell me why. Tell me the exact reasoning which led you to remove that word from my copy.

Right,
Sorry to go on. Anger, real steaming fucking anger can make a man verbose.
All the best
Giles