Category: All

Ye Olde Schwa

~ Adriel ~ Leave a comment

So if you want your shop, or I should say your shoppe, to sound authentically antique, you might call it Ye Olde Shoppe. This is faux Middle English.  A Modern English speaker would pronounce this as “ye old shop” but the e at the end of olde signifies a schwa.  In Middle English, “old” might have been spelled “olde” and was no doubt pronounced with the schwa ending.  Spelling at that time was not standardized at all. In Middle English the ye would have been “the” because, well, that’s what it was.  The “y” was used by early printers to represent the letter ð from Old English which is still used in IPA symbols to represent the voiced “th” as in the before a vowel. In addition, printing was expensive and th is so common that printers may substituted the y for th.  But of course Middle English is just crazywith the schwa endings contributing to a appealing rhythmic sort of lilt just perfect for poetry.  The one line everybody remembers from Chaucer is:

            Whan that Aprille with his shoures soote

The “Aprille” had three syllables with three stresses.  Low stress-high stress-unstressed.  In Modern English Aprille becomes April and loses the schwa.  Nowadays, the schwa gets short shrift in elementary and secondary school English classes, but actually the schwa is very important in English.  After all, the most common word in English is the definite article the.  Before a consonant, the is pronounced with the schwa IPA /ðə/ with the upside “e” symbol representing an unstressed vowel sound. The schwa can be a reduction from any vowel that is reduced and unstressed sort of a minor throwaway vowel sound that has not the status of a full fledged vowel.  The development of the schwa sound is a process of language change; the schwa is prominent in later periods of Old English but probably was not present in the early days of the Anglo-Saxon period but by Middle English it was common. Chaucer used not only soote but also swete for our modern “sweet”.  In Modern English spelling the “e” ending sometimes lingers as a signal that indicates that the internal vowel is long or a diphthong, a sound change due to the Great Vowel Shift. The standardization of spelling in English was a long time in the making but any printing begins to help make spelling standard.  The Great Vowel Shift really got going after printing was begun in England so we now spell many words the way they were pronounced but the vowels shifted while the spelling remained.  In Middle English the word “name” was no doubt pronounced like Old English “nama” but there was a shift from [a:] to [ei].  The  “e”  ending remains to indicate the diphthong in modern “name”. 

            In fact, I never heard of the schwa until I studied Old English in graduate school.  I wrote my entirely forgettable master’s thesis on the Anglo-Saxon poem The Dream of the Rood where I examined the counting of stressed syllables, an important element in English prosody.  The schwa sound is counted simply as secondary stress and may have been more emphasized than in Modern English.  Now, the schwa sound is not secondary stress but unstressed, short and sort of just thrown away.  Here is a perfect iambic pentameter line in Early Modern English from Marlowe:

            Was this the face that launch’d a thousand ships

The Was is secondary stress and this is primary stress and the secondary then primary stress goes on for the pattern of five units.  Even though the face starts with an unstressed syllable it is counted as secondary stress.  The fact that launch’d uses an apostrophe to indicate a missing “e” tells me that Marlowe did not want launched to be pronounce with two syllables as it was formerly.

            To hear a scholar who is in love with the English schwa, a strange enough love but highly entertaining, listen to the podcast Lingthusiasm #44, “Schwa, the most versatile English vowel”.

Frederick Douglass, Up from Property

~ Adriel ~ Leave a comment

The historian David W. Blight wrote a thorough biography of Frederick Douglass that records his transition from slave to world famous freedom fighter (Frederick Douglass, Prophet of Freedom, Simon and Schuster, 2020). Probably most educated Americans are familiar with Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass, An American Slave, an autobiography that was only one of Douglass’ biographical books. And all American school children are familiar with the story of slavery and the Civil War, but most are unfamiliar with the post-war period or have been told the lies promoted by the Southern racist power structure that, in effect, returned black Americans to servitude in a subservient and de-humanized state. Douglass celebrated the freedom wrought by war, in fact he lobbied for the war to end slavery, but he never stopped fighting for freedom. In my own elementary school, the whole Reconstruction and Jim Crow period was more or less skimmed or even deliberately ignored in class. After class, I rode home on a segregated bus. My private school was not segregated, but all the public schools were whites only or blacks only and I was friends with only one black child, the son of a physician. At that time, the local governments, schools, and businesses dealt with the minority communities as a problem, an issue, something not quite completely on the level with white humanity, something they had, something closer to property.

When Thomas Jefferson wrote the first drafts of the Declaration of Independence, he had the famous phrase as the triple rights of “life, liberty, and the pursuit of property”. Clearly, this was following John Locke who viewed property as the essence of freedom, as a natural right. When Benjamin Franklin who famously changed the draft declaration from “we hold these truths to be sacred” to “we hold these truths to be self-evident” he introduced another element of the philosophy from the Age of Reason, a change from religion to reason. Jefferson raised the notion of human rights from to a more broad right than property, the pursuit of happiness. But property remained as a fundamental concept upholding eighteenth century political philosophy. A charitable view of Jefferson’s own edit is that perhaps he thought that asserting a right to property might strengthen the notion of slave owning as a right, the right to own property.

In many of Douglass’ brilliant speeches he reminded listeners that he once was property. Douglass was enraged by the horrific Dred Scott decision of the Supreme Court which was based on the notion of the right to own property. Because slaves were property, slavers had the right to hire thugs to go north to retrieve what they owned, human beings as property. When he was an old man, years after the war and the passage of the thirteenth, fourteenth and fifteenth amendments, Frederick Douglass made a trip to visit his former owner. Thomas Ault was the man we all read about in the slave Narrative autobiography, the terrifying rage-motivated beater and owner of the boy Douglass. Ault was the man that the tall and strong Douglass fought and later fled. But now Ault was tempered by age and infirmity. There was no longer the fear and hatred between them. Douglass was no longer property.

The Book of Mountweasels

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Mountweasel. That’s only one of the many English words, and non-words, I learned from a truly delightful novel by Eley Williams: The Liar’s Dictionary. I had heard about fictitious entries in maps and encyclopedias that were inserted deliberately by the editors to entrap plagiarizers. For example, a map maker might insert a false street called Fictive Lane. Of course this is well before google maps anyway. Another publisher who included included Fictive Lane would be caught. In The Liar’s Dictionary the Swansby’s Encyclopedia is taking generations of editors and bored scriveners to construct. One of them, the fictitious lisper Winceworth goes a bit overboard with his imaginative neologisms secreted away among the slips to be imported years hence into the dictionary. Many years later, a descendant of the original founder Swansby, is trying to complete the marathon project and discovers some of the fake entries. A young intern, Mallory is assigned to root them out. The novel tells of the cat and mouse game between the long passed on Winceworth and the modern day Mallory. The story is a light hearted quick read that I followed enjoying all obscure words both real and fake until the whole shebang goes up in smoke.

Eley Williams mentions in the acknowledgements the book by Simon Winchester, The Meaning of Everything: the Story of the Oxford English Dictionary. I had read Winchester’s The Professor and the Madman years ago and it was a truly compelling tale that has been made into a somewhat dull movie of the same name, available from Hoopla. A book that tells the full story of the OED is a favorite of mine, Caught in the Web of Words: James A.H. Murray and the Oxford English Dictionary written by Murray’s descendant (I think his granddaughter) K. M. Elisabeth Murray.

Literally Floored

~ Adriel ~ Leave a comment

During the second impeachment trial of former president T***, one of the attorneys described some evidence as having “literally eviscerated” the opposing side. Adriel was literally floored. I had mentioned before that “literally” is a Janus word, one having two opposite meanings. It can mean actually or metaphorically. In either case, it is an intensifier. And it is perfectly okay to use it either way although language scolds wrongly claim it can only mean actually, according to the meaning of the words. Possibly the objection is based on a sort of etymological fallacy, that is, it is a descendant of “literal” therefore it should be used as such, as “according to the word”. I am usually content to use it in either sense and I am usually content with its use metaphorically by any English speaker. After all, there are easily found citations of the word used metaphorically by Jane Austen, Charles Dickens, James Joyce and even Adriel. Kory Stamper, who I mentioned earlier, wrote in her wonderful book Word by Word, the Secret Life of Dictionaries that Merriam-Webster does receive letters of complaint on many words in there dictionary. They have a brief defense against the complaints here: https://www.merriam-webster.com/words-at-play/misuse-of-literally .

But “literally eviscerated”? I had the image in my head of one attorney being disemboweled by another lawyer. Not necessarily a bad thing, but not a pleasant picture. There must be some usage rule that cautions against the figurative use of “literally” where it takes hyperbole to hyperbolic heights.

A Moot Point

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I am not at all a fussy about spoken English. Of course, written English ought to adhere a little more to standard, more precise usage. However, when my old boss Mr. T. would say, dismissively, that’s a “mute point” I just cringed. Yes, he would write it, too. And that’s not the only evidence that Mr. T. was a certifiable asshole, there is a lot more. I’ll save it for later.

I was reminded of Mr. T by another couple of assholes who were the defense lawyers for Donald Trump for his second impeachment trial. One properly used the term moot in his presentation when he said that since the former president (the other even bigger asshole Mr. T.) was already out of office so removal from office was moot. Meaning null, gone, useless. Lawyers also use moot as in “moot court” a practice or pretend court used primarily by students.

In England, the Anglo-Saxons would have a moot to gear up for battle or to celebrate victory or assemble for discussing their affairs. A moot was simply an assembly, a meeting, in Old English, it was gemot. The ge- prefix forms the past participle of mot. Modern English “meeting” and “meet” are related word all going back to PIE *mod- “to meet.” England has today places of assembly called moot-halls like a town assembly hall. However, in Anglo-Saxon times, the hall of assembly was the “mead-hall” like the one ravaged by Grendel. I suppose a meeting of the guys called for a great deal of mead drinking. And not entirely off the point, there was a lot of drinking required at an ancient Greek assembly of the boys, called a symposium. You could look it up. It’s a Greek guy-party, a “drinking-together”.

Spurious Puny Child

~ Adriel ~ Leave a comment

This belongs to the category of “wow, I never knew”. The word spurious in common usage means false or fake. The word comes from Latin spurius meaning illegitimate as in illegitimate child, a bastard. This was its original use in English, later becoming to refer to anything that is not quite genuine. Like the word genuine itself, there must be an enormous number of words a phrases related to birth. Genuine goes back to the P-IE *gene- root referring to birth. Genuine, gender, gene, generation, genetics, even genius and many others, and in a roundabout way even the word kin. And then there are words born of Latin natus (born). There is native, natural, natal, nativity, even natural and so many others with the same heritage.

In Kentucky, you will often hear of someone feeling puny. Commonly, the word puny means small or insignificant. In colloquial Kentuckian, it means sick, or slightly unwell. Puny also is a birth word. Puny is an anglicized French puisne or puis (after) ne (born) that is, a child born after another child. That is, a lesser child. How this comes to mean not feeling well, is well, I am not sure, although I have used it myself and rather like it.

The Great Replacement

~ Adriel ~ Leave a comment

Adriel and Mike O’ were good friends in secondary school. Mike had a famous father, a lawyer and respected prosecutor. Mike’s older brother was a lawyer as well, and he served a tour in Vietnam as a military lawyer during America’s awful invasion of that nation that yearned for its independence. After leaving the military, Mike told me his brother gave a series of lectures on some of the abuses of the U.S. forces such as the Mai Lai massacre. Apparently some of the way that soldiers were able to kill villagers and even children was what he called “the Gook factor.” Dehumanization. Soldiers did not talk about villagers or children, but “gooks,” a derisive epithet that included the claim that the Vietnamese, the gooks, did not value life, or at least not in the way the white invading forces did.

This type of dehumanization was explored in a fascinating on-line course I took on Coursera, “The Paradoxes of War” taught by Miguel Centeno at Princeton. Military training always involves a process to overcome the very human reluctance to kill others, even in battle. One of the ways to train soldiers to kill, is to try to make sure that they see their enemy as an enemy only, not full human. And societies always honor their own soldiers not only as heroes, but importantly, as a kind of paragon, a life to emulate. That is, the fallen soldier is an example of true humanity who had to kill those who are somehow less than us. So we can count on young people to be prepared to do this all over again when they are called to action against an enemy who is not quite like us.

Recently, I listened to a podcast on the subject of dehumanization. Brene Brown (“Unlocking Us” podcast 13Jan2021) explored dehumanization as “the most significant drive of insurrection”. I rather think that it is one of many drivers of the January 6th attack on the capital. Brown gave the example of the Nazi propaganda calling Jews vermin and an enemy within and so forth. However, the dehumanization of European Jews goes back hundreds of years, even to the writing of the gospels which purposely depicted the Jews as Christ-killers.

There were multiple causes for the Nazi takeover of Germany, and specifically several causes of the insurrection, the Beer-Hall Putsch. When I saw the news videos of the white nationalists chanting “Jews shall not replace us!” I heard the echoes of Jew-baiting and blood libels over years of hatred of Jews including the Cossacks and the pogroms that drove my ancestors from Lithuania and Russia. These American anti-Semites and the other racists and insurrectionists are reacting to an enormous social unrest that is leaving the non-college whites with fear and resentment of minority gains. I suspect that the American style of pogroms, the riotous destruction of black villages and ghettos, arose when black citizens arose to prosperity and some power, replacing white privileged status. The non-college whites and other Trumpians very well see that the U.S. is becoming more diverse and whites will be a minority soon and are already outnumbered in California, Arizona and other states. Black and other nonwhite Americans are gaining power and prestige. White culture is breaking down into value loss, lack of social capital, job loss, and social disintegration, a process documented by Charles Murray in Losing Ground and other sociologists. Jews the usual target for frustration and resentment for social status decline, but in America, blacks, immigrants and other minorities are targets for revenge.

Fear and loss are the breeding grounds of conspiracy theories and bizarre cults. A recent NYT commentary by Thomas B. Edsall (3Feb2021) discussed the motivation of the recent insurrection and the social forces motivating any type of conspiracy believers. Edsall referenced a message from a scholar Karen M. Douglas who wrote that “people are attracted to conspiracy theories when important psychological needs are not being met.” She identified three such needs: “the need for knowledge and certainty”; the “existential need” to “to feel safe and secure” when “powerless and scared”; and, among those high in narcissism, the “need to feel unique compared to others.” The motto of the Trumpian hordes was Make America Great Again, a call to return to a time when the white privilege of the male working class was the very core of U.S. domestic political power. The rise of less privileged, brown and black peoples to wealth and power, symbolized by the presidency of Barack Obama, placed an enormous number of people in a lesser state where loss, powerlessness, and fear comes to dominate their thinking.

Led by President Trump over years of race baiting and fear-mongering the awful mob attacked the Capital. Trump had come to political power by dehumanizing the first black President, Barack Obama, in his racist birther slanders. But he was only capitalizing on the rage of white racists who saw Obama as the ultimate symbol of white race replacement. In the end, I have faith, or maybe just hope, that the violent, resentful, and racist hordes will lose as a diverse nation comes to value its inevitable diversity and reclaim its values.

Bill D.

~ Adriel ~ Leave a comment

What do I know from guns? Nothing. A Glock maybe? Anyway, my good friend Bill D. was pointing one at me. I had come by his apartment in Boca one morning, fairly early, and knocked. After some time he answered with “come on in slowly” which should have been a clue. He wasn’t at the door, but standing back down the entrance hall. Naked but for black briefs and the gun. It was a little disconcerting as I recall. Bill was a tall boy, really dark black hair, shoulder length in the 60’s style and fairly hairy otherwise or so I remember from the picture I still have in my head of that greeting. I can’t remember what transpired after that, I’m sure it was not important except that the weapon must have been put down as I am still alive. He must have had a pretty hard night before I apparently got him up. Bill D. was a child prodigy pianist who played even during our high school days at all the nicest places in Palm Beach and Singer Island. He went on to Nashville to play and travel with name bands in the country music scene. I met him years later as he settled down to gentleman farm life near Nashville when I had a business trip there. How I enjoyed seeing him again, but I did meet him at a very public place. He mentioned he no longer took any drugs.

Dark Forces

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Following the violent Trump inspired assault on Congress, David Brooks’ column in the New York Times (7 January 2021) asks the reader to look to history to be reminded of the dark forces in America. Yet he thinks that this is a turning point in history, a reversal of the trend toward white supremacy and know-nothingness. Well, I doubt it.

After the horrors of the civil war and the assassination of Abraham Lincoln, the vile President Andrew Johnson began to turn back the clock and revive the racist policies of the South. Johnson defied the will of Congress, yet Congress failed to remove him from office. Despite the efforts of Ulysses Grant to insure the civil and human rights of the newly freed slaves, the South succeeded in its intent to “rise again” or in contemporary terms, to “make America great again.” The result was segregation and the nearly complete disenfranchisement of the African-Americans. Black elected officials were driven from office and sometimes murdered.

One hundred years later, the Voting Rights Act restored the political powers of Blacks. After the election of Barack Obama, a wealthy publicity seeker realized he could awaken the racists and know-nothings with the insane birther movement. Even though the birther claim was so obviously false, many, in fact millions bought into it. And riding on this racist renewal, Donald Trump rode into the White House. When the election of 2020 again showed the power of the Black voter, the dark forces were enraged. Inflection point? No, the newly found good sense of the politicians who jumped aboard the Trump train does not demonstrate a return to an fair and tolerant nation. The attack by Trump supporters only showed that we can repel the dark forces, but they will remain in the shadows.

Weird word

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One of my favorite word histories is the weird story. Most people have seen at least one of the many classical paintings of the Three Graces, three nicely naked ladies also known as the Three Charities. These were ancient Greek goddesses represent good stuff like good will, nature, or good luck. For bad luck there were the Three Fates, or Morai. These were the goddesses of past, present, future or sometimes they are at their spinning wheel dealing out your birth, life, and death. Anyway, they were fates. Not so good as the Graces. In Anglo-Saxon the fates were called the three wyrde. So along comes Shakespeare’s Macbeth who meets the three Weird Sisters who foretell his fate. They were actually, in modern English, the Three Fate Sisters. And they were so scary, strange, and unworldly that weird sisters became remembered for their weirdness. So the word for fate became the word for strange and frightening: weird.