Kryponite and garlic

[Herb Stahlke]

Reminds me a little of a story Ken Pike used to tell about his
monolingual demonstrations.    Pike used to demonstrate field
methodology as shtick by asking an audience to produce a speaker of a
language Pike knew nothing of.  He would then, speaking only Mixtec
and gesture, elicit vocabulary and grammar and in about forty-five
minutes sketch a phonology and grammar of the language.  He enjoyed
telling how once at Harvard he was set up, and the informant had been
prompted to respond only with descriptions, not with single lexical
items.

Not as good as Chagnon's, though.

Herb

On Sat, Jan 9, 2010 at 11:29 PM, Baker, John <JMB at stradley.com> wrote:
> ---------------------- Information from the mail header -----------------------
> Sender:       American Dialect Society <ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU>
> Poster:       "Baker, John" <JMB at STRADLEY.COM>
> Subject:      Re: Kryponite and garlic
> -------------------------------------------------------------------------------
>
> I summarized the story at =
> http://listserv.linguistlist.org/cgi-bin/wa?A2=3Dind0605C&L=3DADS-L&P=3DR=
> 2004
> =20
> =20
>        There is a more verifiable account of this type in Napoleon
> Chagnon's book Yanomamo - The Last Days of Eden, pp. 24 - 25, where he
> discusses his collection of genealogical information, which in fact
> amounted to an invasion of the Yanomamo system of prestige and
> etiquette, if not a flagrant violation of it.  The Yanomamo for a period
> of five months maintained a systematic sabotage of his project.  The
> denouement:
>
>        <<My anthropological bubble burst when, some five months after I
> had begun collecting the genealogies, I visited a village about ten
> hours' walk to the southwest of Bisaasi-teri.  In talking with the
> headman of this village, I casually dropped the name of the wife of the
> Bisaasi-teri headman, to show off a bit and demonstrate my growing
> command of the language and of who was who.  A stunned silence followed,
> and then a villagewide roar of uncontrollable laughter, choking,
> gasping, and howling.  It seems that I thought the Bisaasi-teri headman
> was married to a woman named "hairy cunt."  It also came out that I was
> calling the headman "long dong," his brother "eagle shit," one of his
> sons "asshole," and a daughter "fart breath.">>
> =20
> =20
> John Baker
> =20
>
> ________________________________
>
> From: American Dialect Society on behalf of Joel S. Berson
> Sent: Mon 1/4/2010 11:07 AM
> To: ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU
> Subject: Re: Kryponite and garlic
>
>
>
> At 1/4/2010 10:28 AM, Charles Doyle wrote:
>>I.e., the four sounds that elephants make to signify (with various
>>shades of meaning), "Humans are listening!"
>
> Charlie, remind me of the ur-story of the anthropologist who visited
> a primitive tribe, asked what various things were called, published,
> and it was later discovered that ... they were being
> obscene?  calling him derogatory names?
>
> Joel
>
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> <http://www.americandialect.org/>=20
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