Monday, June 06, 2005
How to Speak Nootka
Partial glossary from the Guardian’s report on the first-ever dictionary of Nootka, a 5,000-year-old island tribe’s language
Nuuniiqa To speak to someone you happen to meet
Deehiy Staying at home observing tribal taboos, so as not to spoil a hunter’s luck
Kampuucis High rubber boots (derived in part from English ‘gumboot’ of 18th-century colonial settlers)
Faafaaqsapa Someone who has mastered Nootka
Inflections in a Constantinian Forgery
Latin sytax depends on word order, not endings. That can result in some syntactic ambiguity, as it did in the salutation of Constantine’s (probably forged) Donation to Pope Silvester—sanctissimo et beatissimo patri patrum Silvestro, urbis Romae episcopo et pape. M. J. Edwards untangles the inflections and referents in the current issue of the Journal of Theological Studies:
How should one render urbis Romae episcopo et pap(a)e? T. D. Barnes, commenting on my own version, ‘[to the] bishop and pope of the city of Rome’, insists on the alternative ‘[to the] bishop of the city of Rome and pope’.3 This translation agrees with that of Henderson,4 and indeed with the spirit of the whole decree, because it intimates that the bishopric alone is local, the papacy universal. Urbis Romae episcopo et papae recurs in chapter 15, where Henderson takes it once again to mean ‘[to the] bishop of the city of Rome and pope’.5 Yet Henderson at least is aware that in this text the urbs contains the orbs, for in his translation of chapter 14 the Latin universali urbis Romae papae is properly represented by ‘[to the] universal pope of the city of Rome’.6 Since papa must be construed with urbis Romae here, and since it never appears without some qualifying term elsewhere in the document, there can be no solecism in making urbis Romae depend on it in the other two cases also.
Res, verba, and rhetorical relatives
Don’t ask me why, but this phrase struck me in an old NY Times letter to the editor that contained this sentences
... are forever etched in our collective histories and remain as haunting symbols of a land we call America.
That “we call America” bit seemed cliched, but then I wondered, why exactly is that a rhetorical device? Why is using the common noun and then adding a [usually implicit] relative clause with the “we call [Proper Noun]” a tool of rhetoric effect and even reverence? Is there any literary precedence for this as a rhetorical feature?
So I went to my faculty mentor, Chad Engbers. Spake he:
I am not aware of any formal precedents for that construction, but I can see why it’s popular. Several reasons come to mind:
1. Plainly and simply: sentence variety. It just sounds better and more interesting than “symbols of America.”
2. It emphasizes the difference between res and verba (things and words). I.e., What is really America and what we call America might not be the same thing. The sentence you quoted is already dealing with semiotics—it’s talking about symbols—so this might be appropriate. This is a more cerebral rationale than #1, and I suspect it’s not really that common.
3. Easy significance. Whether an author writes “a land called America” or “a land they call America” or “a land we call America,” he or she is signalling that America is something people talk about. It must be important.
4. Ethos. Of the three variations mentioned above, the third one (“we”) creates a bond between author and reader. I call it America; you call it America: -we- call it America. We’re basically the same, at least in this one respect.
Those are my best guesses.
Cubes in Greek and Bears in Hebrew
From recent forays into books on biblical languages:
Randall Pittman, “Use of Metaphor in the New Testament,” in Words and their Ways in the Greek New Testament, p.23:
Kubeia, which occurs in Eph. iv. 14 only, “by sleight of men” [in the KJV], is rendered “adroitness” by Moffatt. It is a metaphor from dice-playing, so often accompanied by the trick of the hand which deceives the eye. Our word “cube” is derived from the Greek root.
Takamitsu Muraoka, “Septuagintal Lexicography,” in Biblical Greek language and lexicography : essays in honor of Frederick W. Danker:
In some cases a the meaning of a Greek word [in the Septuagint] may not match that of the underlying Hebrew one ... I illustrated this principle by citing Hos 13:8, [Greek and Hebrew text], where the Hebrew means “I shall meet them like a bereaved bear,” whilst the LXX, instead of employing one of the standard translation equivalents, such as [ateknoo, apotknoo], uses a striking lexeme, [aporeo], which has two main senses, 1. to be mentally at a loss as to how to act, and 2. to be in want. Only the second meaning fits the context. Thus the translator recognized a danger posed by a hungry bear, whereas the prophet’s imagery is that of a deranged, dangerous bear just bereaved of her cubs. *
* Note: “Contrary to Jobes and Silva, none of the translation equivalents listed for this verb by J.Lust e al., A Greek-English Lexicon of the Septuagint, can be made to represent the Hebrew meaning.
Friday, June 03, 2005
French pronunciation of ‘blog’ prescribed
...by the Journal officiel of the French Ministry of Culture for 20 mai 2005. Read all about it (in English).
Nabocklish, buster!
Today’s Erin’s Weird and Wonderful Word of the Day (hereafter EWWWD):
nabocklish
[na-BOCK-lish]
an incredibly useful Irish interjection meaning “Never mind! Leave that alone!” Literally meaning ‘don’t meddle with it’.
(EWWWD’s are sent by e-mail daily.)
Linguistics Beach Reading This Weekend
Two Language Log posts worth revisiting:
Geoff Pullum on grammatical authority; Mark Liberman on ancient precedence for the notion of “correctness.” And today at LL, rigorous defense of beginning a sentence with and.
Earlier: Pullum exhorts English teachers.
Thursday, June 02, 2005
Which Magnesia?
Language Hat on the etymology of magnet:
I knew that the word magnet was ultimately from Greek Magnētis (lithos) ‘Magnesian (stone),’ which the AHD says is “from Magnēsiā Magnesia, an ancient city of Asia Minor.” Merriam-Webster’s concurs: “stone of Magnesia, ancient city in Asia Minor.” But my problem, as I looked at my map of Asia Minor, was that there were two Magnesias: Magnesia ad Maeandrum (‘on the Meander River’), now in ruins, and Magnesia ad Sipylum (‘at the foot of Mt. Sipylus’) or ad Hermum (‘on the Hermus River’), now buried beneath the Turkish city of Manisa (whose name obviously derives from it).
Run Batted In’s?
Question from a reader of my Tribune column:
> Dear Mr. Bierma,
> I listen to too much sports radio, and inevitably many of the
> misinformed reporters refer to multiple runs batted-in as rbi. It’s
> “chalk on the blackboard” to my ears, and the only thing that keeps me
> from contacting the offenders is that I do not know the term for
> abbreviating the words runs batted-in to rbi. (I believe I am correct
> that the abbreviation takes on a singular form so the correct plural
> of rbi is rbi’s. Also, what is the correct punctuation for the plural
> of rbi?)
I referred him to William Safire’s 11/7/04 column:
‘‘I see many references to WMDs,’’ writes Marc Eisen. ‘‘Doesn’t WMD stand for ‘weapons of mass destruction,’ already plural? Maybe we need to use WsMD.’‘
No. We don’t write Ps.O.W. as initialese for ‘‘prisoners of war’’ or, in baseball, Rs.B.I. for ‘‘runs batted in.’’ The initials focus on the subject and ignore the number. Although the Times stylebook says ‘‘never r.b.i.‘s,’’ the A.P. says ‘‘one R.B.I., 10 R.B.I.s,’’ and I think that easy-to-understand formula holds for the horrific: one WMD, two WMDs.
Not everyone agrees. In the campaign, Vice President Cheney’s text warned of ‘‘terrorists equipped with WMD,’’ meaning ‘‘weapons,’’ while Senator Kerry’s statements were written to refer to the plural as ‘‘WMD’s,’’ including an apostrophe that does not indicate possession. The Times likes the apostrophe and insists on periods after each letter.
My personal preference: a WMD (standing for a single weapon, or for the subject of ‘‘weapons of mass destruction’‘); and WMDs (for two or more of the weapons). Forget about WsMD because you can’t say it.