World Wide Words -- 26 May 07
Michael Quinion
wordseditor at WORLDWIDEWORDS.ORG
Fri May 25 16:25:04 UTC 2007
WORLD WIDE WORDS ISSUE 541 Saturday 26 May 2007
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Editor: Michael Quinion, Thornbury, Bristol, UK ISSN 1470-1448
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Contents
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1. Feedback, notes and comments.
2. Turns of Phrase: Ecotherapy.
3. Weird Words: Twitterpated.
4. Recently noted.
5. Book Review: The Art of Punctuation / A Dash of Style.
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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NEET Several readers pointed out that this abbreviation is also
known in Japan. Rupert Smith noted, "I think it's in much greater
common currency there than here as I've never heard it spoken in
England, but I have heard it used on Japanese TV. It's a more
pejorative expression in Japan where a high level of emphasis is
placed on being productive: a 'Shakaijin', literally 'member of
society', is someone in stable employment and it's often used in
the same sense as adulthood (the implication being that until you
get a full-time job you're not an adult)." Some readers suggested
it might have been created in Japanese since it was known in that
country before my quoted date of 2005. I have since found it in a
British government document of December 2002.
BLAG Chris Church followed up last week's item: "Sorry to add
further confusion but in Pennine Yorkshire - and even further
afield for all I know - 'blagging' meant collecting blackberries.
We all thought Regan and Carter [main characters in The Sweeney
television series] were getting very overexcited over such an
innocuous pursuit." Andrew Massey corrected me: "I rather think
that the specialist robbery unit of London's Metropolitan Police is
still officially called the Flying Squad, and not the Central
Robbery Squad. If I've read the Met Police's Web site correctly,
the name was only changed to Central Robbery Squad between 1978 and
1981, and it has since reverted to its original form."
BAD TRANSLATIONS Mr Massey went on, "I agree with you that mocking
translations from other languages can swiftly pall. But there are
occasions when a literal translation, achieved with a dictionary
but no knowledge of idiomatic speech, can add real charm to the
language. I treasure my copy of an Italian guide book to Mount Etna
in Sicily, bought in 1974. So we learn that during an eruption of
Europe's biggest volcano, 'The lava, during the exhaustion phase,
loses the bright red colour of fire owing to the attenuation of the
alimentation, becomes denser and runs slowly producing a
characteristic noise recalling the lament of the pool.'"
2. Turns of Phrase: Ecotherapy
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This term appeared widely in British newspapers last week. Mind
(the public name of the National Association for Mental Health),
published a report to coincide with the association's Awareness
Week. It argued, with support from academic studies, that outdoor,
"green" exercise - conservation work, gardening, or just a walk in
the park - helps people's mental and physical health and "offers a
cost-effective and natural addition to existing treatments".
The idea behind undertaking such activities is not new: a scheme by
the British Trust for Conservation Volunteers, called "green gym",
focuses on physical health improvements through environmental work.
The term appeared in the USA in the early 1990s as an accompaniment
to ecopsychology, contending that real-world actions on behalf of
the environment could take people out of themselves and lead to
emotional health, a very similar concept to the earlier ideas of
Edward O Wilson encapsulated in the word "biophilia" (for more, see
http://quinion.com?BOIL). The term "ecotherapy" became more widely
known through Howard Clinebell's 1996 book Ecotherapy: Healing
Ourselves, Healing the Earth.
* Daily Mail, 14 May 2007 [Mind] Chief executive Paul Farmer said:
'It is a credible, clinically valid treatment option and needs to
be prescribed by GPs, especially when for many people access to
treatments other than antidepressants is extremely limited. We're
not saying that ecotherapy can replace drugs but that the debate
needs to be broadened.' If it was prescribed as part of mainstream
practice, ecotherapy could potentially help millions, he added.
* Evening Gazette, Middlesbrough, 24 Apr. 2006 Ecotherapy is
gaining ground as a serious way to help people stay healthy. Just
walking the dog, stroking the cat or even swimming with dolphins
could help you cope with stressed-out modern life, according to
researchers at the University of Leicester.
3. Weird Words: Twitterpated
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Besotted.
This lovely term appeared, slightly differently, in the article Sex
in Space in Wired magazine on 18 May: "How do you handle love, sex,
romance, heartbreak, jealousy, hurt, unrequited longing, crushes,
loneliness and twitterpation when you're 18 months away from Earth
and perhaps unsure whether you'll make it back?"
It refers to the feelings you get when you think about your current
object of desire. A contributor to the Urban Dictionary defined it
as "An enjoyable disorder characterized by feelings of excitement,
anticipation, high hopes, recent memories of interludes, giddiness,
and physical overstimulation which occur simultaneously when
experiencing a new love."
One stimulus for its current popularity is its appearance in the
film Bambi II (following on its invention generations ago in the
original Bambi of 1942, in which Friend Owl says, "Nearly everybody
gets twitterpated in the springtime.") The Oakland Tribune remarked
when the film first came out that "'Twitterpated' is perhaps the
best adjective coined by Hollywood since the pixilated sisters were
invented for 'Mr. Deeds Goes to Town.'"
It also shows signs of becoming accepted, at least in the short
term, as a mildly derogatory term for those obsessive communicators
who use the online medium Twitter to tell their friends every small
thing they're doing with their day.
3. Recently noted
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ENTER, STAGE RIGHT, SLOWLY Tony Blair's resignation as British
Prime Minister and the election of Gordon Brown as his successor
have created an unprecedented state of affairs. PMs usually change
in a brutally instantaneous hand-over after a general election. But
as Blair isn't leaving until 27 June, and Labour MPs elected Brown
unopposed, the new PM has more than a month to wait before formally
taking up office. The media have had to find ways to describe his
novel position, such as "Prime Minister-designate". National Public
Radio in the US on Wednesday called Gordon Brown "prime minister-
in-waiting", which has a delightfully feminine feel about it. But
by far the most common term in the British media is one that's well
known in some other countries but not previously used here: "Prime
Minister-elect".
ISOGRAMS David Crystal's new book, By Hook or By Crook: A Journey
In Search of English, contains a note on isogrammatic place names.
An isogram is a word in which each letter appears only once. After
a lot of searching, he came across Bricklehampton, a small village
in Worcestershire. He writes, "Its 14 letters make it the longest
such name in the [English] language. Maybe there's a place in the
middle of Canada or Australia that beats Bricklehampton, but I
haven't yet found it." Over to you ...
TWITTERING ON Having mentioned Twitter, it may be worth citing a
couple of terms that have come into being recently to describe the
mini-messages that those who Twitter post on the site ("Driving
home excited about relaxing weekend", "Heading out soon to do some
shopping", "I have a slight headache"). Not all the messages are as
banal as these: some are even more so. To call this Twittering is
all too apt a name (curmudgeonly mutterings now over). The term for
such posts is "microblogging" and their sum is a "microblog".
CUTTY SARK Much has been written this week about the fire at the
historic ship of this name berthed at Greenwich. It was built to be
extremely fast, originally to bring tea from the Far East, and was
called a clipper because it moved at a great clip (the verb "clip"
was applied in the seventeenth century to the rapid wing beats of
fast-moving birds, as their action resembled those of scissors).
The Cutty Sark was built in 1869 at Dumbarton. Its name is Scots:
"cutty" means cut short or curtailed, while "sark" in Scots and
Northern English means a shirt, chemise or shift, so a cutty sark
was a short shirt or chemise. The name comes immediately from the
garment ("In longitude tho' sorely scanty") that was worn by the
witch Nannie in the poem Tam O'Shanter by Robert Burns. The whisky
of the same name was created rather later, in 1923.
5. Book Review: The Art of Punctuation / A Dash of Style
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[This book is published in the UK as The Art of Punctuation but in
the US with the title A Dash of Style.]
This, as the author is at pains to point out, and as is immediately
obvious when you start reading, is not a grammar book. Noah Lukeman
wants to get across how to use punctuation effectively as an aid to
better writing, rather than explain the functions of stops; indeed
he omits some of them, such as the apostrophe, and includes others
not usually regarded as punctuation: paragraph and section marks.
He aims to show his readers how to write effectively and creatively
- not only to communicate ideas, but also get across rhythm, stress
and pace, mood and texture, and the voices of characters - and how
punctuation can help the writer. So the emphasis throughout is not
on the rules of punctuation but the effect that they have on the
reader's experience. For example:
When discussing the dash, most grammarians find it significant
only inasmuch as it should not be confused with a hyphen; often
it is relegated to a sign of carelessness. What a shame that is.
The dash is a beautiful, striking mark of punctuation, which
can enhance creativity and which is crucial for capturing
certain forms of dialogue.
As an example of his approach, his first chapter is on full stops
(periods in the US edition). His comments are not about how to use
them - that's easy enough to grasp - but how creatively varying the
lengths of sentences will achieve a rhythm and keep the reader's
interest alive and focused. On commas, he points out that - though
they're essential - it's all too easy to both underuse and overuse
them. He goes into the subtleties of the semicolon and the colon,
and when to use parentheses and when to prefer dashes instead. He
states ideas I've not seen expressed elsewhere: that stops and
content are interconnected to the extent that some content is not
possible with certain punctuation and vice versa; that stops with
different strengths in the same piece of prose influence each other
and change their effect on the reader; that sometimes marks will
complement others, while at other times they will conflict (his
last chapter, entitled The Symphony of Punctuation, goes into this
in some detail).
Every chapter ends with exercises directed at readers who are also
active writers. He suggests trying out variations in stops to gauge
their effect on the tone, analysing the relative usage of various
stops in a piece, and rewriting passages to use ideas discussed in
the chapter. Preceding each set of exercises is a section that sets
out what writers' use of a punctuation mark reveals about them. He
says, for instance:
As the semicolon is an advanced tool, writers who overuse it
are likely to be somewhat advanced, people who take chances
with language and strive to make it the best it can be. This
bodes well. However, since the semicolon is also a fairly
formal, classy tool, writers who overuse it are also likely
to lean towards pretentiousness. They are more likely to write
in flowery, ornate prose, and the writing is likely to be
overly intricate. Simplification is needed.
Every part of Mr Lukeman's argument is illustrated with lavish
quotations from good authors and he is easy to read. Anyone who
wants to improve their authorial voice will find value in it.
[Noah Lukeman, The Art of Punctuation; ISBN-13 978-0-19-921078-7,
ISBN-10 0-19-921078-0; paperback, pp192; Oxford University Press,
UK; list price GBP7.99. Published in the US by WW Norton as A Dash
of Style: The Art and Mastery of Punctuation; in paperback: ISBN-
13: 978-0-393-06087-4, ISBN-10: 0-393-32980-1; publisher's price
$13.95.]
AMAZON PRICES FOR THIS BOOK
Amazon UK: GBP6.39 http://quinion.com?A67P
Amazon USA: $11.86 http://quinion.com?A34P (US edition)
Amazon Canada: CDN$16.75 http://quinion.com?A29P
Amazon Germany: EUR12,58 http://quinion.com?A68P
[Please use these links to buy. They get World Wide Words a small
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6. Sic!
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I was at a meeting on Thursday that included a sandwich lunch. Mine
was Italian Chicken, whose other ingredients were Italian pesto,
sun-dried tomatoes, freshly-ground black pepper, and free-range
mayonnaise. It was sad to think of those cute little mayonnaises,
running around unconstrained and happy until it was time for them
to join the rest of the ingredients in my sandwich.
Mike Burke came across a notice in a store in Plymouth this week:
"DO NOT USE THE ESCALATOR IN THE ADVENT OF FIRE". He asked, "Is
this an eggcorn?". It's an odd usage, though I suppose we might say
that fire does indeed fall into the category of "the arrival of a
notable person or thing". I was unsure about its linguistic status,
so queried the experts on another list. Arnold Zwicky thought not:
"I'm inclined to see it as a simple confusion of phonologically and
semantically similar words, like militate/mitigate, flaunt/flout,
flounder/founder, etc." He went on, "It would be nice to have a
technical term for these confusions. Let me suggest 'flounders'." I
found another example last week while on holiday on Exmoor. We were
touring Dunster Castle but were brought to a halt by a contractors'
hoarding with this notice: "WARNING! SCAFFOLDING WORKS IN PROGRESS.
DO NOT EXCEED PAST THIS POINT WITHOUT AN ESCORT." (A picture is in
the online version.)
James Wigmore saw a notice in a Vietnamese restaurant in Taunton,
Somerset, about eighteen months ago (it has since closed, though
presumably for reasons unconnected with the sign): "FOR THE TOILET
PLEASE USE THE BACK STAIRS".
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