"The fact that it's changing"

What do you most enjoy about the English language?

For David Crystal, the answer to it is simple. 

"The fact that it's changing"

English is attractive as it keeps changing. In particular, it keeps creating new words.
In the following interview, he shows us how to be "playful" with English.

Episode full of puns! --- Cat, catfrontation, catastrophe, catalyst, catarrh . . .

What a lovely game "Ping Pong Punning" is!

"Playfulness" with English is surely important and the quality of it will increase as it gets further exposed to diversity of English today.

Typhoon, tycoon, tyranny and Tyrannosaur Part 1

I like playing with word sounds. And when I am just playing around with them, I sometimes hit on some linguistic features that words share.

typhoon

tycoon

tyranny

Tyrannosaur

These words look similar, sound similar, and also they are all terrifying if they are around you, aren't they. Frightening as one, but imagine all four of them coming to you at once (and I am so good at letting my fantasy fly wild).

".... A typhoon which revives a Tyrannosaur in its hibernation hits your country of tyranny ruled by a tycoon...."

Socially, politically, and catastrophically you are doomed!

Now, both 'typhoon' and 'tycoon' were imported from Asian words - 'typhoon' is 台風 meaning violent wind storm, and 'tycoon' is 大君 originally meaning the Tokugawa Shogun, later changing to refer to someone rich and successful in great power.

               Asian origin words showing great power over people

It may be just a coincidence, but don't these common features excite you?! They do for me.

J. R. R. Tolkien as a Philologist

J.R.R. Tolkien (1892-1973) is now famous for the publication of fantasy novels, such as The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings. 

What is less known is the fact that he was a gigantic scholar at Oxford University, a medievalist, and above all, a philologist (as he describes his occupation). He loved the language, (whether ancient or modern) and was particularly fond of Old English and Old Scandinavian languages. They are intimate with each other since both languages are originally from Germanic root. 

As compared with other nations, Tolkien was acutely aware of an absence of national myth in England, a tale told and passed down in his native language.

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I was from early days grieved by the poverty of my own beloved country: it had no stories of its own (bound up with its tongue and soil), not of the quality that I sought, and found (as an ingredient) in legends of other lands. There was Greek, and Celtic, and Romance, Germanic, Scandinavian, and Finnish (which greatly affected me); but nothing in English, save the impoverished chap-book stuff. Of course there was and is all the Arthurian world, but powerful as it is, it is imperfectly naturalized, associated with the soil of Britain but not with English; and does not replace what I felt to be missing. (144)

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His motive for creating stories comes from grievance over the lack of his native mythology. What is amazing is that Tolkien thought he could revive the world by means of “philological” understanding to, and reconstruction of, the medieval texts. His novels are exactly the re-creation of what he perceived as the lost world in England.

The literature written in old English is not easy to access to. The best way to approach to it is to unhesitatingly dive in the modern recreations/adaptations of the world. Through Tolkien’s “secondary world,” we can take a glimpse of old, medieval culture firmly rooted even in our time. Tolkien’s fictions are "fantastic" as they provides a gateway to unlocking the dense historical path of the English language and culture. 

Works Cited
Carpenter, Humphrey, ed. The Letters of J.R.R. Tolkien. Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1981.

"Enjoy the Girl!" Lost in Translation 04

Lost in Translation series 04

Here's a picture of an ad on the train in Japan. It advertises a beauty care salon.

"ENJOY the GIRL!"
A pretty young girl leaning on a mirror smiles at you.

When I saw this, my imagination went wild. I heard in my head this English phrase read by a hoarse male voice and imagined a dark London slum in the 19th century, a scene you would see in "Oliver Twist". A pander and a young innocent girl are standing at the doorsteps of a newly rich's house.
"Good evening governor. She is new to our house and I am sure you'd like her. Enjoy the girl..."
It's like a host of a party saying to the guests at the dinner table, "Enjoy your meal!"
The girl is going to be abused...

The advertising agency probably wanted to mean "Enjoy being a girl!" or "Enjoy your life, girls!", but unfortunately the English phrase, which was meant to add fashionable taste to the ad, turned the whole thing into a cruel sexism ad.

The girl's smile somewhat looks dismal with that English phrase on the top...

Lost in translation.


This ad was taken down in just a short term and was replaced with one saying "Enjoy, girls!"

"I must begin Sanskrit tomorrow"

Herbert Coleridge (1830-61), the grandson of Samuel Taylor Coleridge, was a scholar and lexicographer. He was the first editor of the New English Dictionary, the predecessor of the Oxford English Dictionary.

Scholars of linguistic and philology around this period were all polyglot. They are versed with the idea of “comparative” philology.

Unfortunately, Herbert Coleridge died young because of disease, although he never ceased to work on the Dictionary to the end of his life. The last word that he is reported to have uttered on his sick bed was splendid and so memorable.

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“I must begin Sanskrit tomorrow”

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Philologists should never forget such unconquerable passion for language per se. 

When in ail...

A silly spin-off from Roki's ariticle "O what can ail thee, knight-at-arms?"
(http://barefootphilolo.blogspot.jp/2016/09/o-what-can-ail-thee-knight-at-arms.html)

The knight in Keat's poem was so woe-begone over a mysterious lady that a person who happened to see him in such condition had to ask him what had happened. The poem goes on to tell the knight's story meeting his lady. 

I wonder if the person said anything to the knight after hearing his story. I started to play around with the sound of 'ail', and I thought if I were that person, I would go like this;

When in AIL, 

WAIL!!!

INHALE,

EXHALE,

Then get a GRAIL,

and gallons of ALE,

and drink it down to PREVAIL!

Ale and time heal a broken heart, maybe...

"O what can ail thee, knight-at-arms"

Here is a poem written by the English poet John Keats (1795-1821).

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"O what can ail thee, knight-at-arms,
  Alone and palely loitering?
The sedge has wither'd from the lake,
  And no birds sing.

"O what can ail thee, knight-at-arms!  
  So haggard and so woe-begone?
The squirrel's granary is full,
  And the harvest's done. (1-8)
. . .
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This poem is "La Belle Dame sans Merci" ("The Beautiful Lady Without Mercy"). The story features a dying knight who was "ailed" by an encounter with a mysterious lady.

The use of "ail" in the first line of each stanza is interesting. In present English, the verb is not used in everyday conversation, far from being "colloquial." So people don't usually say, "You don't look well today, what's ailing you?"

Going back in time,

In Old/Middle English, "ail" was widely used in the sense of "causing trouble or harm." It is a word typically inherited from Germanic as the one syllable structure indicates.

Usually, the basic words of daily use tend to remain common up to the present time. For example, “go, eat, ask” existed since the beginning of the English history (the arrival of the Anglo-Saxon, an ancestor of the English).

It is often noted that the English lexicon consists of groups with three etymological levels, whose usage differs according to the context. For example, "ask" is a native lexicon (Old English). English has the word equivalent to its meaning, "question," a newcomer from French, which produces more cultural atmosphere. There is also "interrogate," a word from Latin, which emits a technical, pedantic tone.

These distinctions stem from the multilingual history in medieval Britain, where the repeated invasion took place and the power of domination shifted. The historical perspective into English helps understand the nuances each word carries.

Back to "ail," if "ask" is a kind of chatty word, one may wonder what happens to "ail" in Keat’s poem. Surely, the word serves as a "poetic diction," and appeals to an "archaic" aura it gives. But the question remains why “ail” has retained “archaic” quality up until then (and now) despite the fact that the word has been firmly rooted in the native soil. 

It is curious to think how a native word has lost its secular touch and become less common in a informal sphere. It requires an extensive research.