World Wide Words -- 20 Jan 07
Michael Quinion
michael.quinion at GMAIL.COM
Fri Jan 19 17:00:36 UTC 2007
WORLD WIDE WORDS ISSUE 523 Saturday 20 January 2007
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Sent each Saturday to at least 45,000 subscribers by e-mail and RSS
Editor: Michael Quinion, Thornbury, Bristol, UK ISSN 1470-1448
http://www.worldwidewords.org US advisory editor: Julane Marx
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A formatted version of this newsletter is available
online at http://www.worldwidewords.org/nl/tbnt.htm
Contents
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1. Feedback, notes and comments.
2. Turns of Phrase: Chindia.
3. Weird Words: Protologism.
4. Recently noted.
5. Q&A: Spot of tea.
6. Sic!
A. Subscription information.
B. E-mail contact addresses.
C. Ways to support World Wide Words.
1. Feedback, notes and comments
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FUDGE Lots of subscribers blinked when they saw I'd used the word
"blench" in this piece last week - surely, many of them e-mailed me
to argue, it should have been "blanch". There are two words spelled
"blench", one of them a variant spelling of "blanch" (to grow pale
from shock). The teachers in question might equally have blenched
(made a sudden flinching movement out of fear or pain). The latter
comes from the Old English "blencan", to deceive, which has been
influenced by "blink" and has changed its meaning substantially
down the centuries.
Others queried the writer's use of "receipt" in the quotation from
the Davenport Daily Tribune in the same piece. This is an old form
that means the same as "recipe". Both derive from Latin "recipere",
to receive or take. "Receipt" was first used in medieval English as
a formula or prescription for a medicinal preparation (Chaucer is
the first known user, in the Canterbury Tales of about 1386). The
sense of "a written statement saying that money or goods have been
received" only arrived at the beginning of the seventeenth century.
"Recipe" is the imperative "take!" from the same Latin verb. It was
traditionally the first word in a prescription, heading the list of
ingredients (frequently abbreviated to an "R" with a bar through
its leg, a form that still often appears on modern prescription
forms). "Recipe" has been used alongside "receipt" since the early
eighteenth century in the sense of cookery instructions, gradually
replacing it over time so that "receipt" is now archaic.
STICK ONE'S OAR IN Many Americans responded that the questioner
was wrong in his belief that this expression was unknown in the US.
It may be one better known by older people. Several writers pointed
to its repeated appearances in Anne of Green Gables by Lucy Maud
Montgomery, a work still known to many Americans as well as in its
native Canada. It may also be familiar from W S Gilbert's libretto
for The Mikado: "And you're just as bad as he is with your cock-
and-a-bull stories about catching his eye and his whistling an air.
But that's so like you! You must put in your oar!" [To pre-empt any
enquiry about "cock-and-a-bull", this is the original form, dating
from the eighteenth century, of the more common "cock-and-bull".]
MAIL PROBLEMS My main mail system has been out of order on and off
for a large part of this week. I don't think any mail has actually
been lost, but there seems still to be a substantial amount locked
up and inaccessible. This situation may continue into the weekend.
Apologies for consequent delays to replies.
2. Turns of Phrase: Chindia
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As a portmanteau term for China and India considered together, this
word has been around in the Western press since 2004, though it may
have been used earlier in the Far East. The blend of the two names
is intended to suggest that they are becoming a powerful economic
force whose global influence may change the pattern of the world's
trade over the next couple of decades.
It has been in the news this month because of a new book by the US
futurist and trendspotter Marian Salzman, Next Now: Trends for the
Future, co-authored with Ira Matathia. This includes the term as
one of the issues that American and European business must watch in
the coming years. It is also, coincidentally, the title of an art
exhibition in London this month that focuses on these two
countries.
Some analysts argue that neither country sees itself partnered with
the other in any meaningful way because of historic distrust and
that the two are based on different economic and social models. But
others argue that China's manufacturing strength complements the
powerful IT sector in India.
* Independent, 8 Jan. 2007: Globalisation is the subject of Italian
artist Patrick Tuttofuoco's art. His first solo show ... Chindia,
focuses on the world's two main emerging powers, India and China.
* The Philadelphia Inquirer, 2 Jan. 2007: Globally, Salzman says,
beware the Chindia factor. She says China and India will become
technology strongholds and leave the U.S.A. in the dust.
3. Weird Words: Protologism
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A word newly coined in the hope it will become accepted.
This may be thought a useful invention, one that's particularly
relevant to this list - coiners often submit linguistic inventions
in the hope that they might be promoted and become a settled part
of the language.
The difference between a protologism and a neologism is that the
latter has actually been used somewhere, even if only once. On the
other hand, a protologism exists only as a suggestion of a word
that might be used.
Wikipedia says that it was coined by Mikhail Epstein, the Professor
of Cultural Theory and Russian Literature at Emory University in
Atlanta, Georgia, and that it was first used in 2005. It's from
Greek "protos", first, plus "logos", word, but might equally be
taken to be an blend of "prototype" and "neologism".
As protologism is quite often used within the Wikipedia community,
it is itself no longer a protologism, but has now ascended to the
status of jargon.
4. Recently noted
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ESKIMO WORDS FOR SNOW For many years, one of the most persistent
language myths has held that Eskimos have 50, or 100, or 200, or a
zillion words for snow. This was debunked as long ago as 1986; the
linguist Geoffrey Pullum wrote a piece about it in 1991, published
as the title essay of his book The Great Eskimo Vocabulary Hoax.
This month he has returned to the issue with a further comment, at
The Language Log (http://quinion.com?ESKI), because an airline
magazine (Holland Herald, published by KLM) has published an
article debunking the myth. Progress at last. Read his piece for
the full story, but the essence is that a) there isn't just one
Eskimo (properly Inuit) language but eight; b) the number of
discrete words for snow in any one of these languages is about four
or five, about the same as in English; c) the number of words is
meaningless because Inuit languages are polysynthetic - they can
create great numbers of words based on a few roots. He explains,
"Where English uses separate words to make up descriptive phrases
like 'early snow falling in autumn' or 'snow with a herring-scale
pattern etched into it by rainfall', Eskimo languages have an
astonishing propensity for being able to express such concepts
(about anything, not just snow) with a single derived word."
OY GEVALT! Last Monday's New York Times reported that: "In certain
precincts of the Jewish community, a person who insists that the
sky is falling, despite ample evidence to the contrary, is said to
gevaltize - a neologism derived from the famous Yiddish cry of
shock or alarm."
5. Q&A: Spot of tea
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Q. In a recent letter to the editor in the Tucson daily newspaper,
the writer claimed that "spot of tea" is an Americanism. Though he
was born and bred in England, he had heard only Americans using the
phrase and that the British would say "cuppa" instead. I asked a
British friend about the letter and he said that "spot of tea" is
used in Britain, but that it doesn't mean having a cup of tea, but
to having tea with food. Would you discuss this in your newsletter?
[Gary Mason]
A. It depends on who you are, where you are, how old you are, and
even what you mean by "tea".
The phrase "a spot of tea" is certainly known in the UK as well
as the US - the letter writer is wrong to suggest it isn't used
this side of the Atlantic - though it sounds old-fashioned to me,
being more my parents' generation than mine. British newspapers
include enough examples to show that it's still about, though not
to anything like the same extent as in the US. Some dictionaries
report it's mainly a British expression, but the written evidence
shows the balance has tilted heavily towards the US in recent
decades. Quite why Americans have taken it to their collective
bosoms isn't clear, though it does seem to be used very often in
a tongue-in-cheek manner, as a mock-serious way of affecting to
be British about consuming the drink.
By "spot of tea", Americans usually mean a cup of tea by itself.
It can have that meaning in the UK, but not by any means always.
Your friend is right to say that it's frequently connected with
food. That's because "tea" in Britain can refer to a meal. Which
meal depends on where you live. In southern Britain the meal is
traditionally afternoon tea, a light refreshment around 4pm that
includes cakes and sandwiches as well as a nice cup of tea. It's
rarely encountered now. Its image is of a Wodehousian country-
house meal for the leisured upper classes, incomplete without
thin cucumber sandwiches with the crusts cut off. It is now the
preserve of posh hotels and traditional tea shops.
In northern parts of the UK (my geography here is hand-wavingly
broad-brush) "tea" refers to a cooked evening meal, one that we
southerners may instead call dinner or supper (the term has also
been taken to Australia and New Zealand). At the risk of further
confusing you, there's also high tea, eaten in the late afternoon
or early evening; this is a cross between dinner and afternoon
tea, typically consisting of a cooked dish or cold meat or fish
together with bread and butter and cake. A drink of tea may be
consumed with either type of meal, but it's not an essential
accompaniment.
So "a spot of tea" can refer to just a drink of tea or to a drink
of tea with food accompanying it, or even certain meals without
the drink. It depends on where you are in the country, the social
situation, and the time of day. The meal sense turned up in the
People newspaper in November 2006: "Six journalists were enjoying
a spot of tea - that's dinner to the more well-to-do among you."
Note the snobby implications: southerners sometimes regard the
meal called tea or high tea as a lower-class usage.
Incidentally, the "spot" part, long since fossilised into a fixed
phrase, is an eighteenth-century slangy term that means a small
amount or a little bit; it's the source of several other British
usages, such as the outmoded "spot" for a small alcoholic drink
and expressions like "a spot of bother" and "a spot of rain". As
Americans don't use "spot" in any of these ways, "spot of tea"
does seem to have been adopted by them as a way to sound British,
an odd thing to do when the expression has almost vanished in the
country of its birth.
6. Sic!
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The Vancouver edition of the Globe and Mail of 12 January included
this comment: "Far more interesting was Mr Baird's direct plunge
into the waters of global warming, where the Tories have been
roasted." Peter Weinrich comments, "'Interesting' is hardly the
word: it's a remarkable culinary achievement."
Dave Luck reports from Dorset: "The label on a bottle of Tesco
bleach claims 'Kills bacteria as well as the leading brand'. So
that's how Tesco achieves market dominance!"
Nancy Trimble noted that Bloomingdale department store advertised a
"rug closeout" in the issue of the Chicago Tribune for 11 January:
"Authentic Persian Kashan in luxurious handmade wool." So much more
convenient than having to shear all those sheep.
Last Sunday's Observer reported on the young man missing from home
in the US for four years: "Yesterday Shawn and his family appeared
at their home-town school in Missouri to talk to reporters. Shawn
walked on to the stage, festooned in well-wishing posters and blue
and yellow balloons."
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