Slow and not too bright

[James A. Landau]

In a message dated 5/13/2003 1:45:54 PM Eastern Standard Time, JJJRLandau
writes:

> I intentionally use such archaic or regional
> words and pronunciations in every day discourse just to see if anyone knows
> what the hell I am talking about.
>
> Try it some time and see what those you are talking to think you are
> talking
> about..
>
> Do they understand what you are trying to say or do they transform them
> into
> words, phrases, etc. which make sense to them.
>
> This is a simple experiment which everyone on this list can do if they want
> to in their spare time.
>
> I do not know in advance what the results of your experiments will be and I
> haven't even begun to develop a protocol for such an experiment.

 It seems obvious to me that a word or phrase can get accepted into a
language/slang/argot/jargon unless the potential users are 1) familiar with
the referent and 2) have some reason to associate the new word or phrase with
the referent.

Example:  "regime change".  I don't know who invented this term or when, but
I do know it became popular 1) when Iraq was very much in the news and 2)
whatever connotations you associate with this phrase, it was sufficiently
self-explanatory  that nobody had any trouble connecting the phrase to its
referent.

Your "archaic or regional words and pronunciations" generally flunk both 1)
and 2).

I once did an experiment such as you suggest.  It was in 11th-grade chemistry
class.  Background:  there is an old chemist's trick.  Take two test tubes
(or other transparent containers) both of which hold a colorless, transparent
liquid.  Pour one test tube into the other.  Result:  the mixture is
colorless and transparent, and then suddenly without warning turns black.

The liquids in the two test tubes contain starch and a couple of chemicals,
one of which contains iodine in the form of iodate.  When mixed there occurs
a very slow reaction which, when complete, converts the iodate into elemental
iodine, which immediately reacts with the starch to form a dark blue/purple
color (which appears black in normal lighting).

The experiment was to see how diluting a chemical affects the rate of a
reaction.  We were to dilute the chemical in one test tube (the one NOT
containing starch, if I remember correctly) and time how long until the
mixture changed color.  The dilutions were 10 parts chemical to no parts
water, 9 parts chemical to one part water, 8 parts chemical to 2 parts water,
and so on down to 1 part chemical to 9 parts water.  Each person would
therefore have ten separate dilutions and timings to perform.

MY experiment was different.  When doing the first run (10 parts chemical to
no water) I announced loudly "I'm doing the ten-and-oh".  For the next run I
announced "I'm doing the nine-and-one."  It worked.  Within a few minues
everyone in the lab without exception was using the expressions "ten-and-oh",
"nine-and-one", "eight-and-two", etc.

Proving what, I don't know.  For a well-conducted experiment there should
have been an independent observer who afterwards interviewed the students to
see why they had accepted this particular expression instead of say "ten-oh",
"nine-one" or even no expression at all, and whether they had consciously
realized where that expression had come from.  (I obviously could not have
interviewed anyone without biasing the data.)

Referring back to the 2 numbered points I made earlier, in this case the
referent was obvious (the dilutions which were the subject of the experiment)
and the association of the expression with the referent was obvious ("I'm
doing the ten-and-oh").   One important point, though:  in this case there
was no pre-established expression for the various dilutions, so my innovation
fell into a linguistic vacuum.



      - James A. Landau