The 12 days of Christmas - 4th and 5th day

So, more on the hidden message in the Christmas song, 'The 12 days of Christmas'.

"On the fourth day of Christmas my true love gave to me

Four calling birds

Three French hens

Two turtle-doves

And a partridge in a pear tree"

Birds again... and they are 'calling birds', sounds like they are singing out.

The four calling birds refer to the four Evangelist, Matthew, Mark, Luke and John, and the Gospels they wrote. They are the first Four Books in the New Testament.

Gospel according to Matthew writes Jesus as King of the Jews, Mark as a servant, Luke as the Son of Man, and John as the Son of God.

The word 'gospel' originally means 'good news'. Imagine birds singing good news of Jesus, good association.

On the fourth day, the Lord reminds you of:

the Four Gospels

faith, hope and love

the Old Testament and the New Testament

and the Jesus on the cross. 

"On the fifth day of Christmas my true love gave to me

Five golden rings

Four calling birds

Three French hens

Two turtle-doves

And a partridge in a pear tree"

Five gold rings! At last, something that is present like!

The five golden ring refers to 'the Pentateuch', the first Five Books of the Old Testament written by Moses - Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers and Deuteronomy. It is the history of creation of the world and man, to his fall from grace..... reminder from the Lord of the big mistakes people have made over thousands of years.

So, on the fifth day the Lord reminds you of

the Pentateuch,

the Four Gospels

faith, hope and love,

the Old Testament and the New Testament

and the Jesus on the cross.

The reminder list gets heavier each day...

The 12 days of Christmas - 2nd and 3rd day

What is encrypted in "The 12 days of Christmas" 

So, "my true love" is God almighty, and each day after Christmas he sends messages to the Catholics to remind them of the important teachings of their beliefs.

"On the second day of Christmas my true love gave to me 

Two turtle-doves

And a partridge in a pear tree."

Two turtle-doves mean the Old Testament and the New Testament, two collection books of religious writings. 

The Old Testament is based on the Hebrew bible, and the number of books contained differ between Christian Churches. The Protestant Church Old Testament contains 39 books whereas the Catholic one contains 46. The second part of the Christian Bible, the New Testament contains 27 books.

And also on the second day, the Lord does not forget to remind you also of Jesus on the cross.

"On the third day of Christmas my true love gave to me

Three French hens

Two turtle-doves

And a partridge in a pear tree."

Three French hens refers to "faith, hope and love", the Theological Virtues. It is mentioned in Corinthians 13 : 13 in the New Testament. 

And now these three remain: faith, hope and love. But the greatest of these is love

By the way, the lyrics of the school anthem of my old school was exactly the words from Corinthians 13 - "Though I speak with the tongues of men and of angels..." to "But the greatest of these is love."To me, Corinthians 13 is more a lyrics of the song I used to sing every week at school assemblies than the words of the Bible.

So, on the third day of Christmas, the Lord reminds us of 

faith, hope and love,

and also reminds us again the importance of 

the Old Testament and the New Testament, 

and of Jesus on the cross.

See you next time.

The 12 days of Christmas - an encrypted counting song

Hello. Back blogging again.
Sort of faded off from spring, and through summer and autumn, and now it's Christmas!

So let me blog about one Christmas song that kind of 'haunted' me since childhood, "The 12 days of Christmas".

From Christmas, a person receives a gift from his / her true love every day until Epiphany, and the number of gifts builds up each day. It takes the form of a counting song, but the lyrics never really made sense to me. The gifts that the true love send are genuinely bizarre!

On the first day of Christmas my true love gave to me
A partridge in a pear tree.

On the second day of Christmas my true love gave to me
Two turtledoves
And a partridge in a pear tree

On the third day of Christmas my true love gave to me
Three French hens
Two turtledoves
And a partridge in a pear tree.

On the fourth day of Christmas my true love gave to me
Four calling birds
Three French hens
Two turtledoves
And a partridge in a pear tree.

And it goes on and on and on. So far this person has received 20 birds:
4 partridges in a pear tree, 6 turtledoves, 6 French hens and 4 calling birds (I like to think that the person receives the new gift with the previous ones all over again, it adds more non-sensical fun to the song). This person or the true love must be infatuated with feathered creatures to receive or send so many, not saying any complaint and keep on singing.

Well, it goes on until the twelfth day, and here is the breakdown of the gifts sent:

On the twelfth day of Christmas my true love gave to me
Twelve drummers drumming
Eleven pipers piping
Ten lords a leaping
Nine ladies dancing
Eight maids a milking
Seven swans are swimming
Six geese are laying
Five golden rings
Four calling birds
Three French hens
Two turtledoves
And a partridge in a pear tree.

The troop is fully armed, ready to make havoc on the twelfth night!

Recently I read somewhere that this innocent nonsense song was an encrypted counting song that started and became popular in England in the 18th century among the persecuted Catholics living under the Protestant society. The lyrics have a double meaning that remind the Catholics the important teachings of their belief.

Now, that is something worth digging into, isn't it?

Because Henry VIII split up with the Roman Catholic Church in order to split up his wives (and for some, to cut off their heads), the Catholics could not practice their belief openly, so they taught the Catholic teachings to their young children through this encrypted song.

"My true love gave to me"
Who is the true love in the Catholic context? God almighty.

God sends you messages every day, reminding you of the important doctrines of the Catholic church.



On the first day of Christmas, that's 25th December, you get "a partridge in a pear tree" which is "Jesus on the cross". God reminds you not to forget about Jesus who sacrificed himself to save us from our sins.

More to come tomorrow!

English's Diversity and Complexity

It's quite interesting that Simon Horobin starts his book How English Became English: A Short History of a Global Language with a reference to an adjective "English" that Samuel Johnson made in 1755:

----------
ENGLISH. adj.
Belonging to England; thence English is the language of England.(Dictionary of the English Language)
----------

By citing Johnson's, his aim is to demonstrate how the concept of "English" has changed over time. Horobin continues:

----------
"Samuel Johnson's straightforward identification of English as the language of England hardly begins to capture the diversity and complexity of the language's use in the twenty-first century."
----------

Johnson's definition "hardly captures the diversity and complexity," the one that is not easy to apply to in our present times. It tells how the meaning of the word changes quite in an unpredictable way. Even the gigantic figure in the field of lexicography would not have doubted English is the language of England!

Perhaps the closer to our sense of "English" is the one that first appears in 1910 according to the OED:

----------
2d. As a count noun: a variety of English used in a particular context or (now esp.) a certain region of the world; (in pl.) regional varieties of English considered together, often in contradistinction to the concept of English as a language with a single standard or correct form.
----------

Doctor Johnson would be surprised to know that English is, above all, "a count noun"!

One would say that the time is pretty much closer to the end when people takes English "as a language with a single standard or correct form," as the OED puts it.

These are the ideas that lead up to the very interesting question posed in "Old English, a different language?

Works cited:

Horobin, Simon. How English Became English: A Short History of a Global Language. Oxford University Press, 2016.

Study of "Sake"

Hidetoshi Nakata, who was one of the worldly-famous football players, has now become a professional “Sake” promoter. After retiring, he began to travel across the world, and it has been years since he launched a journey across the countries of Japan: he is studying and enjoying traditional performance art and craft, especially the ones firmly rooted in each local place.

I respect his global viewpoint and incredible ability to communicate borderlessly with people, as well as his multiple language command. It is this worldwide field of vision and skill that cast his eyes back into the things unique in Japan. In the middle of these local experiences, he finally took a tremendous interest in “Sake,” a Japanese alcoholic drink made from fermented rice.

Joined with a certain company, he contributed to producing a very interesting app named “Sakenomy.” What a fantastic name it is and how outstanding his sense of language is! “Sakenomy,” available to Japanese, Italy, and English, provides information on more than a thousand kind of Sake.

"Sakenomy" is a nice pun. In English, “nomy,” attached to the word ending, forms nouns referring to the science or study of a subject specified by the first element. Ultimately from from Greek, so many lexicons come into a stock of English vocabulary, such as astronomy, economy, taxonomy, gastronomy.

“Nomy” in Japanese means an act of drinking and there is a phrase that sounds exactly like “sakenomy.” The expression often refers to a person who constantly drinks and loves Sake. So this overlapping of both senses is what makes the app really fascinating!

"Shy Man"

----------

A: Thank you for arranging such a party like this today. I really enjoyed it!

B: Did you talk to everybody?

A: Yeah, except one guy who seems so shy. Who was he?

B: Oh, he is a new member to our community. He told me "I am a bit shy in nature so please forgive me if I give a bad impression at first." I think he is just nervous among unfamiliar folks. 

A: I see. Hope he gets used to it soon!

. . . Then time for the check. 

People split the bill and paid their own. The man in question was not able to pay his, because he was also shy with this.

----------

In the nonsense story I made up, I wonder how an adjective "shy" develops into the sense of "lack in the amount of money."

OED defines this "shy" as one of the transferred uses of sense of timidity, recording the first use in 1895, in which the sense of shortage appeared in the context of betting: "to be shy a dollar in the pool"

It's interesting to observe the way the original sense of word develops and transfers in various ways. As for "shy," it's easy to imagine the situation in which "shy" is applied to the sense of "lack" when people, diverting themselves with betting, shout to others "don't be shy! Pool!", out of which the meaning of "shy" becomes common.

Encountering "elf" in yourself

One of the key characters in The Hobbit and Lord of the Rings is Gandalf. He is a wise and erudite wizard, playing a leading role in an adventure of Hobbits throughout the series. This bearded old man played by Ian McKellen also leaves a huge impression on us.

J. R. R. Tolkien, a creator of this Middle-earth sagas, loved stories from Old Norse and got so much influence and inspiration from such ancient mythology and tales. This tells that Gandalf was far from being a fictional figure out of Tolkien's wild imagination: the name was actually recorded in medieval Scandinavian manuscript, showing historical presence of such kind of entity.

“Gandalf” is the word combined with Old Norse (one of the Germanic languages) “gandr” (meaning “wand, staff, cane”) and “alfr” (meaning “elf”), literally meaning “wand elf.” Although they do not belong to any creature on Middle-earth such as elf, dwarf, man, or orc, his name indicates his connection with the elvish race! “Elvish” elements loom so large in the Germanic mythology, and, come to think of it, “alf” is often in the first component of personal names, such as Alfric and Alfred.

Then I embark on finding other hidden presences in daily life.

For example, you often bump into “elves” when you read books: they are on the “shelf.”

Then I realized I have an “elf” much closer to me.

That is “myself.”

I was overjoyed to have met them within me!

There are so many “elves” in a daily landscape. Though the last ones are a mere “pun”, (so the fake etymology), it can suggest that rational creatures (defined based on our modern thinking) are not able to live without the creature of what we usually deem as being "fantastic."

Colorless Green Ideas 02 - an attempt for interpretation

"Colorless green ideas sleep furiously."

Many have attempted to construe some sense out of this nonsensical sentence.  Finding sense in everything is something that humans always try to do. We humans just cannot leave something senseless or "non-categorized". The sentence can come to some understanding if we can make some sense out of the "colorless green" and "sleep furiously". Let's try interpreting it here.

<colorless>
without color or very pale / not interesting

<green>
having the color of grass or the leaves of most plants and trees / not yet ready to eat / young and lacking experience

So "colorless green ideas" can be understood as "monotonous immature ideas".

"Sleep furiously" is a little more difficult to interpret. The agent in the act of sleeping is in an unconscious state, which contradicts with the state of "furiously" where the agent actively and aggressively take part in the action. But how about having  a nightmare? You are sleeping but you are having a frightening experience in your dream, I consider that similar to 'sleeping furiously'.

Colorless green ideas sleep furiously.　
                     ≒　
Monotonous immature ideas have a nightmare.

Is it now comprehensible?

Colorless Green Ideas 01 - what takes us 'above reality'

"Colorless green ideas sleep furiously".

This is a famous sentence made by the distinguished linguist Noam Chomsky demonstrating the distinction between syntax and semantics. The sentence is grammatically correct but semantically nonsensical. One can read it but cannot derive any meaning or understanding from it.

I first saw this phrase in a text book of linguistics I was reading in graduate school. It is said one cannot derive any understanding from it, but it sort of blew me into the world of "Alice in Wonderland." I like the phrase very much, it is simple, poetic, and me with my wild imagination it is easy to imagine "ideas sleeping furiously". Some might say 'how can green be colorless?' or 'how can you sleep furiously?' and I would just answer, 'Why not?'

This sentence shows that syntax and semantics can operate independently in people's minds, and I think this is how metaphors, poetry and fantasy are born, people have the mind to appreciate them and why there are surrealists. The autonomy of the functions are the source of our creativity, what take the human mind 'above reality'

Muslim Free Hospital

I found an article on Huffington Post about a a very special hospital in Myanmar. It was founded and was funded (and still is) by Muslims in Myanmar in 1937 when the country was still called Burma. The institute provides medical care for the poor people free of charge, and welcomes all people of any religion. As the article says, it is remarkable that the hospital is run so for 80 years considering the status of the Muslims in the country. In Myanmar, the majority of the population is Buddhist, while Muslims are only 4%/.The Buddhist monks openly incite violence to Muslims. The article tells how remarkably the institution is run till today even in such disadvantageous condition. I am awed by the people keep this institution running.

What surprised me linguistically is not the content of the article but the naming of the hospital.

Muslim Free Hospital

I wondered where the word FREE falls on. If it was working like a suffix, Muslim-Free, the institute would turn into a really discriminative one, not accepting any Muslims (look at the definition of the suffix in Roki's article Smoke-free.) And thinking about the proportion and the condition of the Muslims in Myanmar, the possibility of that cynical reading could not be ruled out.

Since there is no hyphen linking Muslim and Free, it can be read 'Free Hospital',  and it must be read like that.

Comma or hyphen could have done a job to make a clearer understanding. Punctuation does matter.

Yakki burger...

When a nation is so called 'advanced' or 'globalized', I find that there are in their cities American based world wide franchised fast food restaurant or two. One of the most successful company is McDonald's. Although it is a global brand, the company allows countries to have latitude in menu, marketing and management to meet the local optimum. One way to enjoy your travel abroad is to go and try the original McDonald's local menu.

In Japan, there are original menus like Teriyaki Burger, Mega Teriyaki Burger, Bacon Potato Pie. Another menu joined the list recently, Shoga-yaki Burger (pork ginger burger). And I was in McDonald's the other day, and found this poster on the wall. Shocking...

To make the product more familiar to people, they have shortened 'Shoga-yaki Burger' to 'YAKKI'. If the person who was producing this product had some senses in English, he wouldn't have given a food menu such a name. It sound exactly like 'yakky', or similar to 'yucky'. If you just read the Japanese it would sound exactly the same as 'yucky'. On the wrapping paper of the burger YAKKI in Japanese character (ヤッキー) is written all over as the design. Yes, what you are about to eat is all wrapped with 'yucky' around it...

yakky

talkative, noisy

yucky

disgusting, very unpleasant, revolting.

In fact, 'yucky' was one of the first English words that I learnt when I started school in Australia, and my classmate's mother was worried about me saying such word.

The sound of the word means something to me so it would take me an effort to enjoy the pure taste of the food. The word gives influence to what I feel... I wonder if anyone has made a complaint on the naming of this product?

Suffragette - Amelioration

Watched a movie called 'Suffragette', starring Carry Mulligan and Helena Bonham Carter, and Meryl Streep making a cameo appearance. It was about women who stood up to fight for their social rights equal to men, set in England in 1912, when the Suffragette movement was at its height.

The characters are fictional, but the historical backgrounds and incedents, the movement of the suffragettes are faithful to what is recorded in the history. I enjoyed the movie very much, and it was hard to believe that all this happened only a hundred years ago, but was not told in detail until recently.

My first encounter with the word 'suffragette' was in the musical movie 'Mary Poppins'. The mother of the family is a suffragette, and she goes to rallies and demonstrations, all secret to her husband. She sings a number in the movie 'Sister Suffragette'. It is a delightfully cheerful song, and my impression towards the word 'suffragette' remained very neutral.

However, the movie 'Suffragette' changed my impression completely. Women were fighters, soldiers, and they had pride to be a suffragette.

The term 'suffragette' was first made and used in Daily Mail in 1906, when the suffragette movement started to become more intense and active. The etymology of the word mentioned in the OED is as below.

suffragette
etymology
SUFFRAGE (n) + ETTE (suffix)
A female supporter of the cause of women's political enfranchisement, especially one of a violent or a 'militant' type.

What interests me is the suffix -ETTE. It is a diminutive suffix. It also does refer to something feminine, but I suspect that the newspaper made the word 'suffragette' with the diminutive tone in it.
'OK, the ladies are trying hard and fighting for their rights, aren't they? Let us see how well they can do it without the help of us men...'
kind of tone.

In early 20th century widely read literary and scientific periodical 'Anthenaeum', the word is clearly used in a diminutive, negative tone.

1907 Athenaeum 28 Sept 358/2
[Aristophanes] who represented Cleon, as noisy, Euripides as sentimental, Socrates as pedantic, and women as 'suffragettes'

The word may have started with a negative tone, but watching the movie 'Suffragette', it was used not negatively but powerfully, full of pride and vigor.

This seems an opposite process to pejoration that the word had undergone - it started as negative, but gained positive, if not, neutral tone. This process is called 'amelioration'.

Like women who fought to earn their rights, the word that represented them also earned its present status.

Some Notes on "Often" 1

The pronunciation of “often” serves as one measure to know to which English accent, British or American, the English learners/speakers are inclined: If you pronounce “t,” it’s more like British, and if you don’t, it can be from natives of American English. I often ask students which, and fewer of them pronounce “t.”

I remember I was too taught NOT to pronounce “t” when I was a junior high school student. But after having stayed in Australia and communicated with lovely Aussie, I became a man of “t” side (I was "naughty" during the stay though) Or, as I recall, my “t” accent might have come from a constant exposure to, and desire to copy, the speech of my favorite British actor Rowan Atkinson, who clearly pronounce the word.

In 1926, Fowler noted that pronunciation of “t”

“is practiced by two oddly assorted classes―the academic speakers who affect a more precise enunciation than their neighbours . . . & the uneasy half-literates who like to prove that they can spell by calling hour . . . howr”.

It is interesting that around the time of this remark, “t” pronunciation was associated with affected behavior among academics. Is it possible to speculate that the present pronunciation “t” has its origin in the posh society, which permeates into people of pretentious motives?

To be continued.

-------
Butterfield, Jeremy. ed. Fowler's Dictionary of Modern English Usage. 4th ed.Oxford Clarendon, 2015.

Yahoo! Attempted Genericide

It was not only Bing that attempted genericide. I found this movie on YouTube which campaigns Yahoo's search engine. The title of the commercial, and the final catch phrase is

'Do you Yahoo?'

It clearly uses the trademark in verb form.

Fortunately, it is only attempted genericide.
The trademark is still well and thriving, though it does not line up to top Google...

The Trojan "Brand" 2

Here is a follow-up to The Trojan "Brand" 1.

For Japanese, the word “brand” calls up a costly image. It is “a brand name,” a type of product manufactured by a particular company under a particular name. Japanese tend to associate the word with fashion goods of high quality, such as Hermes and Louis Vuitton.

A bit of a surprise that this is the same brand as "brands and ashes"!

Originally, the mark made by burning iron is a sign of infamy, indicating a mark of someone’s ownership or trademark. From this, though initially negative, the word seems to have developed the more familiar meaning, at least among Japanese, “a particular sort or class of goods, as indicated by the trademarks on them.” (OED, s. v. “brand,” n. 6), first recorded around the middle of the 19th century.

It is interesting that the English dictionary does not give a sense of high class to "brand" itself. This means the implication attached to the word is peculiar to Japanese. What we call “brand” item gives an air of extravagance, usually pointing to luxurious items normally available to wealthy people. I suppose that the semantic gap is a reflection of Japanese attitude towards western culture, but it is worth further research.

Japanese usage of "brand" is far removed from the original sense the word carried. With its drastic change of connotation, they enjoy basking themselves in the Trojan "brand" in a different way.

Bing! Attempted genericide

For Google it is a serious matter that its trademark is on the verge of generification, that it might lose its power as a trademark and become a general verb. The word Google has almost become a synonym 'to search something on the Internet using a search engine'.

For the rival company, Google's popularity is something that they envy and want. Bing is also a search engine like Google, but like Coke and Pepsi rivalry, Bing is a little behind in history for it to compete with Google the great. However, the CEO of the company Steve Ballmer has mentioned in an interview in New York Times in 2009 that he sees potential in the trademark 'to verb up.'

The phrase "Bing it!" has been used in an episode in Hawaii Five-O series, but it did sound a little odd there.

Bing's attempt to gain popularity is the same as risking the life of a trademark -  it's an attempted genericide. Fortunately or unfortunately, it has not verb-ed up yet like Google.

"Bing it"

The Trojan "Brand" 1

Reading the medieval text is an opportunity to encounter the words whose senses are different from, or quite opposite to, what they are now. It often makes me wonder how the semantic gap was born throughout history. Here is the beginning of some Arthurian literary poem:

     SIÞEN þe sege and þe assaut watz sesed at Troye,
     Þe borȝ brittened and brent to brondeȝ and askez,

     (When the siege and the assault had ceased at Troy,
     And the fortress fell in flame to brands and ashes...)

Then it follows how the Trojan survivors explored westwards and became an ancestor of the most European countries, finally reaching Britain (named after Brutus, a grandson or great grandson of Virgil’s Aeneas). The story of Troy was extremely popular in the Middle Ages and a claim of its lineage empowered aristocrats. (see Brutus and Britain and Eponym of Britain)

As the passage shows, the story of Troy serves as a kind of prologue to the Arthurian dynasty that ensues. Interestingly, it is a story of rebirth from “brands and ashes,” a destruction caused by the Greek. "Brand", or devastation of Troy, was not an end but an impetus in creating new nations. Thus, a sense of their identity was boosted by, so to speak, the Trojan "brand."

The Trojan "brand"?

“Brand” is an interesting word here from the viewpoint of semantic change. Here “brand” means a piece of burning or smouldering wood, referring to the state of devastation and wilderness. It has a negative sense such as “an identifying mark burned on livestock or criminals or slaves with a branding iron.” It is a mark of stigma and disgrace. When used as a verb, it is usually used in a negative context like “they have branded him as an imposter.”

To be continued.

Hubby and Hussy - Pejoration with a touch of Sexism 03

Still going on about pejoration...

Pejoration is a downgrading of the meaning of a word. The word was once neutral in meaning, but along the history, it went down the hill. And on this blog I am picking up words that refer to women which have undergone pejoration (contrasting it with the counterpart male words). So far, master and mistress and bachelor and spinster.

This time, hubby and hussy.

These two words are both short form of husband and housewife. Here are the definitions from OED.

hubby : (informal) a husband.  Origin late 17th century, familiar abbreviation

hussy : impudent or immoral girl or woman.  'that brazen little hussy!'
from Middle English, contraction for 'housewife' (the original sense); the current sense dates from the mid 17th century.

And look at this list of synonyms for hussy...

adulteress, fornicatress, loose woman, strumpet, trollop, slut, jade...

All the insulting words to call a woman are here, and no trace of the original meaning. Both hubby and hussy started off as contractions for longer words, but why?! Why did only 'hussy' become a victim of pejoration?! What happened in the mid 17th century? Does execution of Charles I (1649) and the rise of the Commonwealth have anything to do with this? A voice from a historian on this matter is very welcome.

Bachelor and Spinster - Pejoration with a touch of sexism 02

I remember learning in my English classes in primary school the different nouns for male and female of the same jobs or status; actor - actress, duke - duchess, master - mistress, bachelor - spinster, etc.

Later, I learnt that after your undergraduate studies, you get your bachelor's degree, and your graduate studies, your master's; and both degrees happen to be called by nouns which also refer to male status.

In my very naiive innocent mind, I wondered why when woman finishes her undergraduate or graduate studies, she is not awarded spinster's or mistress' degree. Forgive me, I was only 9 or 10.

Looking up the word 'bachelor' in the dictionary of etymology, there are definitions as follows:
1. (a 1300) a young knight, a young man
2. (a 1300) an unmarried man
3. (a 1376) a degree, a person who has been awarded a degree by a college or a university.
4. (1418 - 1809) a young member of the guild

I looked up the female equivalent, spinster.
1. (a 1376) a woman who spins wool
2. (1380) an unmarried woman
3. (1636) a spider
4. (1719) an unmarried woman who has passed the age of marrying and is unlikely to get married. Old maid.

Clearly, 'spinster' had undergone pejoration. The Oxford American Dictionary admits in its definition that it is derogatory.

First the word referred to a job, a person who spins. Long before the Industrial Revolution, spinning wool was a common job for an unmarried woman, so the job also denoted a single young woman. It was used in legal documents too. However, around late 18th century, the definition started o include older unmarried women or women who chose not o marry, and today only the most lately added meaning survives.

The word 'spinster' does not carry the neutral sense anymore...

Bachelor party sounds all wonderful and exciting, but how about 'spinster party'? What would you imagine from here? Moans, cries, grudges...

Language sexism...

Banzai!

While staying in Australia for a home-stay programme, I remember my host father often expresses joy by saying “Banzai!” This was a bit of a surprise to me as a student. I knew there were Japanese words or phrases already familiar to, and used by, the native speakers of English, such as Suchi, Sumo, Manga, but I had not expected “banzai” along this line of thought.

According to the OED, “Banzai” means “1. a shout or cheer used by the Japanese in greeting the emperor or in battle,” first recorded in 1893. This reminds me of the original sense the word carried: It was a way of political and militaristic celebration. Now, there are many occasions when Banzai is used, for example, an election campaign, wherein people celebrate a winner of candidates by raising their hands and sharing Banzai shouting. It is a collective or social behavior celebrating success and achievement.

When my host father said “Banzai,” it was a personal expression of joy and nothing sort of ceremonial, so that it gave me a bit of confusion as well as amusement. But my host father was right to use “banzai” not simply because I am Japanese but also the word has already changed its connotation.

The OED shows that the political sense has already faded away, and people use it simply for expressing cheer, as in the "Banzai"'s second definition; “(as if) shouting ‘banzai’, uproarious, jollificatory. slang,” recorded from 1929.

Interestingly, “banzai” is also included in the category of “merriment” in the Historical Thesaurus of the Oxford English Dictionary (HTOED). Starting from “blithe” (from the time of Old English) there are so many entries for the words of merriment in English, in which "Banzai" is the second recent entry.

I am interested in the way in which the original specific sense of the word has been changed or reduced into the general use.

Master and Mistress - Pejoration with a touch of sexism 01

Meaning of words change in time, some positively, some negatively. This change in the meaning, I consider, is the reflection of how people think about the world, and language is what we use to describe and understand the world we live in.

I am a fairly neutral person and do not take any extreme position in ideas and philosophy, but I do get a little sensitive with words that talk about women in a demeaning way.

Pejoration is a downgrading of the meaning of a word. The word was once neutral in meaning, but along the history, it went down the hill. I feel that words referring to women tend to undergo pejoration.


'Master' and 'Mistress'

'Master' means, since the time of Old English, a teacher, and later becomes to mean a person having control or authority. Around 14th century, a scholar degree, and in 16th century, the head of the household.

'Mistress' is the female equivalent to 'master'. In 14th century it meant a female home teacher, a governess, but that definition is now obsolete. It also means a woman having control or authority, who is the head of the household, same as 'master'. It was also used as an honorific to address a gentlewoman, and up to 18th century, to address an unmarried lady.

Around 15th century, it started to mean 'a woman who has a continuing extramarital sexual relationship with a man'.

Now how did that come into the definition? I imagine from the original meaning the word something like this -  Around medieval times. A mistress works as a home teacher in a wealthy family. It does not matter which seduces first, but somehow the master of the house and the mistress become very intimate, and secretly start a relationship. Because she is the governess, she works in the family until the child grows up, fairly many years, meaning the extramarital relationship last for years.

Today, this meaning of 'adulteress' seems to be the one that first comes into a lot of people's minds when they hear the word. The definition of 'master' is unstained.

Extramarital relationship is possible with two people. Why did only 'mistress' undergo this pejoration, and not the male equivalent? ...Sexism!

----------
The Kenkyusha Dictionary of English Etymology

®.I.P. Escalator (1899 - 1950) Epitaph file 02

®.I.P. Epitaph series 02 Trademarks that unfortunately lost its effect.

Escalator, yes, this was once a trademark of Otis Elevator Company...

Escalator is, as you know, a very convenient moving stairway that transports people from a level to a higher or a lower level. The first working escalator was invented and patented by Jesse W. Reno in 1892, and was installed in Coney Island, Brooklyn in 1896 (the first working escalator). It was then called 'inclined elevator', and it was not for practical use but for amusement at the Old Iron Pier.

The escalator in design as we know today was invented and patented in 1897 by an American inventor Charles Seeberger, who also created the name 'Escalator' from joining two words 'scala', Latin word for steps, and 'elevator', which was already invented before this moving stairway. In 1899, Seeberger joined Otis Elevator Company and developed the first commercial use escalator. The Seeberger - Otis Escalator won the first prize at the Paris 1900 Exposition.

In 1910, Seegerger sold his patent to Otis, and in the following year Otis also bought the Jesse Reno's escalator patent. Since then, Escalator had become the trademark of the Otis product, and enjoyed the dominance for half a century. Other similar manufacturers had to come up with names like 'Motorstair', 'Electric Stairway', 'Moving Stair' to refer to their product.

With the development of high-rise buildings in cities in the first half of the 20th century, this convenient product, escalators, became indispensable and were installed in many places. In 1950, the U.S. Patent Office ruled that the word 'Escalator' had lost its effect as a trademark, and had become a generic term for moving stairways.

In 1922, about 30 years prior to the death, the verb 'to escalate' was born from the trademark Escalator. When a trademark starts to get used as verbs, it is MFD... Marked For Death.

®.I.P. Escalator.

To Skype - Genericide 05

Many of my relatives outside Japan, in the States and in countries in Europe, so Skype is now indispensable in our family communication. The application allows people to communicate via Internet on text, on voice or on video, instantly and most importantly, free if it is Skype-to-Skype calls. It is faster and more instantaneous than e-mail correspondence, cheaper than telephone calls, and the video function makes it more informational than other styles of communication.

Skype application was first released in 2003. Its easiness and convenience, and the widespread use of personal computers and the Internet made the application tremendously popular, so popular that the trademark Skype is on the verge of gerericide, another endangered trademark.

Skype brand name guideline clearly forbids the trademark to be used as a generic word; to write it in the lower case, to use it as a verb (Skype legal brand guidelines). Though stipulated, the reality does not follow what is said. On wikiHow, the trademark, though still written with the upper case, is used as a verb. (wikiHow Skype).

- How to Skype
- Skyping your friends, familiy and co-workers...

Here is another evidence of the peril of the trademark Skype. The two famous talk show hosts of the U.S.A., Oprah Winfrey and Ellen DeGeneres, use the trademark as verbs when they are conversing on Ellen's show (March 20th 2009). Oprah made a big surprise appearance on Ellen's show via Skype.

Ellen : How is this happening? Are you Skyping in? What's happening?
Oprah : Skyping in, that's exactly what I'm doing.

See, 'Skype' is endangered.

This surprise appearance of Oprah was written as an article in The Huffington Post. In the article, it uses the trademark correctly as the guideline stipulates, but incidentally, another endangered trademark 'Photoshop' is used as a verb (Huffington Post Oprah invites Ellen).

®.I.P. Zipper (1925-1930) Epitaph file 01

®.I.P. Epitaph series 01 Trademarks that unfortunately lost its effect.

Zipper is now common and indispensable fastening item in clothing, luggage, camping and sports goods. It can fasten two edges of materials or flexible items by clasping metal or plastic teeth together. Not many people know that the word "zipper" was once a trademark (I did not know until recently).

The item was invented by an American inventor Whitcomb Judson in 1893, but the product name was not as is now, it was then called a "clasp locker".

The trademark "Zipper", and "Zipper Boots" were first registered by B. F. Goodrich Company in 1925. They used the fastening item in their rubber boots.

The word 'zip' was already in the English vocabulary since the late 19th century as onomatopoeic noun and verb, meaning the sound of a fast moving item or the act of moving very fast. It is said that an executive of B. F. Goodrich Company used to slide the fastener up and down saying "zip 'er up", and the trademark "Zipper" was made.

In 1930, the company sued to protect the trademark but lost, and the word Zipper became just a generic 'zipper'. Genericide victim...

In 1936, a new verb 'to zip' meaning to 'zipper up' something joined the dictionary. And of course because it is a new verb, it inflects in regular form (why it is a regular verb); zip, zipping, zipped, not zap.

Reproducting words

Observing the case ("Love being drunk"), it is perhaps natural to find out that the Historical Thesaurus of the Oxford English Dictionary (HTOED) records plentiful ways of describing the fundamental act of human being, a copulation. There are obviously myriads of the expressions regarding the sexual behaviour, and the thesaurus records 67 variations under the subcategory of “having sexual intercourse.”

The first citation is “play” from Old English poem: as an intransitive verb in a sense of “ engaging in amorous play, to make love; to have sexual intercourse with.” 

“ming” (mingle) is the earliest example of a transitive verb in a sense of “causing to associate (sometimes spec. in sexual intercourse); to unite in marriage”

One of the most common four letter words appears in the 16th century, although the record is found further back in the part of surname like “Fukkebotere” (c1290) or “Fuckebegger” (1287). The recent inventions are "bonk" (transitive 1975) and "shack" (intransitive 1976).

Looking through the list, what caught my eyes is that there are a number of basic common verbs that began to take on such sexual meaning. For example, even up to the end of 14th century, the following transitive verb seems to have carried the note:

“have” (OE)“know” (c. 1200) “touch” (c. 1384)“deal” (a. 1387)“use” (a. 1387) “take” (c. 1390) 

The meaning of words in OED is of course ascertained by modern researchers and lexicographers, so that grasping them depends heavily on how they interpret and understand the context of the work. Nonetheless, it is interesting to observe that many common verbs turned to assume the sexual nuance. The semantic application implies the importance of and accessibility to “bedding” (c. 1315). 

Genericide terminal ward - near to death trademarks

There are a lot more victims like Google and Photoshop. I will list here the casualties of genericide. These are trademarks that are protected but still are used as generic word; they are in serious condition, nearly dead... You could say that this entry is the terminal ward of trademarks. I have listed ones that are used not just in English but in Japanese too. It shows how pandemic the generification is.

Band-Aid

Trademark of Johnson and Johnson, first appeared in market in 1920. Its generic name is adhesive bandage.

Ping-Pong

Trademark of Jaques of London, now passed to Parker Brothers. The generic name of the game is, of course, table tennis. In Japan, there was a popular comic with the title "Ping-Pong", and it was make into a film. In Japanese, Ping-Pong refers to a fun, non-sportive game of table tennis, where as 卓球(TAKKYU meaning table tennis) refers to more serious sports game.

Frisbee

Trademark of Wham-O, first appeared in market in 1957. The generic name is flying disc. The product became a skyrocketing hit for being used in a new type of sport.

Jeep

Trademark of Chrysler. The 4-wheel-drive utility vehicle first was used by the US Army in World War II. The civilian model came into the market in 1945. The generic name is SUV (Sport Utility Vehicle), and Chrysler has made advertisements to prevent the trademark to becoming a generic term (They invented "SUV" because they can't call them Jeep.)

Sellotape

Trademark of Sellotape. The generic name is clear adhesive tape. Sellotape appears in both trademark and generic word in dictionaries, and you could say the trademark is, in reality, dead.

These casualties are all result of world-wide popularity... Ironic, isn't it.

Love being "drunk"

Besides OED, the OED online offers an access to the Historical Thesaurus of the Oxford English Dictionary. The huge volume of this thesaurus is first published in print in 2009 and became available online. It is a unique resource of the English language, utterly irresistible for word lovers, enabling users to narrow down the range of meanings of as many as 800,000 words, in 235,000 entry categories. It is unprecedented as it is not just a plain collection of synonyms but also “historical” records from Old English to the present-day English.

For example, the website offers an immediate access to the list of words related to “drunk.” In fact, a state of being “drunk” has produced the largest number of synonyms throughout the history of English: there are over 150 ways to refer to being “drunk”! Let’s take a brief overview of the synonyms from the beginning up to 15th century. The number in parentheses is the year first recorded, followed by the OED’s definition.

"Fordrunken" (c897) ---Drunk, overcome with drink.

"Drunken" (1050) ---Overcome by liquor; intoxicated; = drunk adj.

"cup-shotten" (c1330) --- cup-shot adj., being the earlier form.

"Drunk" (c1340) --- That has drunk intoxicating liquor to an extent which affects steady self-control; intoxicated, inebriated; overcome by alcoholic liquor.

"Inebriate" (1497) ---Inebriated, drunken; intoxicated (lit. and fig.). Often const. as pa. pple.

"Overseen" (c1500) ---Drunk, intoxicated. Freq. in overseen with drink (also wine,etc.). Obs. (Brit. regional in later use).

… and the number swells from the following century to more than a hundred! The latest entry is "rat-arsed" (drunk, intoxicated; = ratted), which appears in 1984.

From the number of these synonyms, it is easy to understand how much native speakers of English loves drinking! They have been in love wth drinking historically, creating so many different ways in describing their loving state over time.

This monumental achievement will open up a new perspective by which to look at English. The number of words reflects multiple expressions of human culture.   

You can read further related topic below,

https://newrepublic.com/article/118711/almost-complete-list-every-word-weve-ever-used-mean-drunk

http://www.latimes.com/opinion/op-ed/la-oe-1231-crystal-drunk-words-oxford-english-dictionary-20141231-story.html

"I'm lookiting"

I used to collect "Peanuts" comic books when I was very young. It sort of became a rule in me to buy a new book when the family went on a holiday trip and read it through during the trip. I think I was about 8 when I started this, and I still have the books I got then.

There is one comic strip that I remember very clearly, and it happens to be about inflecting a new verb.

Charlie Brown's friend is jumping rope, and she wants him to look at her. Here is the comic strip.

(by Charles Schulz   Feb, 18th 1963)

"I'm lookiting!"

I found it very funny.

I liked the sound very much and I remember saying it over and over, I'm lookiting, I'm lookiting!

Lookit is 'look it', meaning to look at it. 

The little kids in Peanuts must be around 7. Children around that age have fairly good command of their mother tongue, but most of their knowledge of the language is acquired verbally, from 'strings of sounds'. Unlike written language, verbally produced language does not have any markers to tell where are the starts and ends of words or sentences. Then how can a child know when hearing a sentence if the verb contained is an intransitive or a phrasal verb or a transitive verb that needs an object?

It is very plausible that the children in that linguistic stage to make a rough guess about the word (in this case, verb) using the cues they get from the pauses and breaks of sound.

For the girl and Charlie, 'lookit' was one verb. She may have heard some grown-ups around her using it like "Oh, look it!" She uses it in imperative, Charlie uses it in present continuous form, although he has never heard it before. He applied the regular rule of forming a present continuous. It seems that Linus was the only one who knew that there was no such verb as 'lookit'.

Children cleverly and productively create maximum output from the minimum grammatical knowledge they have. Whenever they have no example to refer to, they go for the regular rule. 

George Orwell's linguistic spoof

George Orwell was a British writer who occasionally satirized contemporary overuse of polysyllabic loanwords. Simon Horobin (p. 60) cites his rendering of the Authorised version (King James Bible) alongside his own parodic translation of it into Modern English:

Ecclesiastes, Chapter 9, verse 11: I returned, and saw under the sun, that the race is not to the swift, nor the battle to the strong, neither yet bread to the wise, nor yet riches to men of understanding, nor yet favour to men of skill; but time and chance happeneth to them all. 

Orwell’s version:Objective consideration of contemporary phenomena compels the conclusion that success or failure in competitive activities exhibits no tendency to be commensurate with innate capacity, but that a considerable element of the unpredictable must invariably be taken into account.

The former is a plain sentence, full of monosyllabic words, while Orwell’s latter version virtually contains none of them. His is extremely long, made up of only one sentence. At first glance, the sense each passage makes looks different, yet what is essentially conveyed is the same. By altering the sentence into something grander, Orwell mocks perhaps the unnecessary effort by the contemporary.

The Cambridge Encyclopedia of the English Language also cites the passages and other ones from his essay Politics and the English Language (1946), in which it notes that Orwell particularly disliked the words like: 

expedite, ameliorate, predict, extraneous, deracinated, clandestine, subaqueous...

“Predict” is a pretty usual word nowadays, but others are indeed not used in daily conversations. Yet, I clearly remember that, when reading his novel 1984, I came across “clandestine” and I thought you wrote it here!

Works Cited

Crystal, David. The Cambridge Encyclopedia of the English Language. 2nd ed. Cambridge: CUP, 2003.

Horobin, Simon. How English Became English: A Short History of a Global Language. Oxford University Press, 2016.

To google - why it is a regular verb - Part 1

In my earlier entry Google - worldwide genericide, there was a list of verbs "to google" in other languages, and I noted that all the verbs that show regular verb inflection. Why are they regular verbs? Let me show you here what happens when a new verb enters our language by looking at language acquisition of children learning English as their first language.

Preschool children (age 4 to 6) start talking in sentences, and they also start using their knowledge of morphology quite cleverly and productively. They encounter numerous new words everyday, but they somehow figure out the new words' parts of speech and how to inflect them.

We often see children make errors like breaked or comed - they overgeneralize the regular verb inflection rules to irregular verbs to make past tense. Unfortunately for children acquiring language, ten most frequent verbs in English, which could also be equivalent to ten most frequent verbs that the children need to learn early in life, are all irregular verbs (be, have, do, say, make, go, take, come, see, get). Regular verbs come lower in frequency, but children, when they make past tense, apply productively the regular verb inflection rule, adding -d to the verb, to new verbs they encounter.

Berko (1957) has shown in experiments (so called wug test) with preschool children the over-application of regular inflectional rules of nouns and verbs in nonsense words.

Number of nonsense monosyllabic words were made up, and pictures to represent the nonsense words were drawn on cards. A text, omitting the desired form was typed on each card. Children, and also adult subjects as control group, were shown the cards and the text read, and were induced to say the nonsense word in the inflected form. Here is an example of the question forming past tense.

This is a man who knows how to RICK. He is RICKING. He did the same thing yesterday. What did he do yesterday?
Yesterday, he ..............................

Over 76 percent of the children answered RICKED. They apply the regular inflection rule to the nonsense word. The percentage is higher of adult subjects. They are applying regular suffixing rule to form the past tense.

Inflections of irregular verbs, on the other hand, are memorized, stored in their memory.

In the human mind, the memory and rule interact in a fairly simple way (Pinker 1999) - if a word can provide its own past tense form from memory, the regular rule is blocked, but elsewhere, by default, the rule applies. That's why adults and children can inflect the nonsense word because there are no memorized inflected forms that is stored in the memory.

A new word "to google", which has no memory stored information on its past tense, has to be inflected in regular form.

(to be continued)

Berko, J. (1958) The child's learning of English morphology.  Word, 14, 150-177
Pinker, S. (1999) Words and Rules  New York N.Y. : Harper Perrenial

"television" and "fernseher"

The Oxford English Dictionary shows that "television" is first recorded in 1900.“Television” consists of “tele” and “vision,” a combination of Greek “telos” (far) and Latin “visio” (see).

A German word for “TV” is “fernseher.” It is the word combined with “fern” (far) and “seher” (seer). German and English belong to the same language family as West Germanic (“the Germanic group”), so that their basic words are often identifiable.

What we found here is that, on arrival of a new word, German has retained method of word formation by replacing “television” with their own lexical stock. English would also have done the same thing, and put it “ferseer,” but instead they borrowed “television” just as it is, adapting a continental vocabulary.

It is interesting to observe the different stance towards borrowing. One of the contributing factors that led English to a common international language would be the borrowing of diverse words regardless of regions and nations. This is not to say German is not appropriate for global language, but flexible nature of English in adapting multiple languages would undoubtedly have been and is a necessary step to the present global status.

Works Referred 
Horobin, Simon. How English Became English: A Short History of a Global Language. Oxford University Press, 2016.

Google strikes back - the resistance Genericide 04

Companies should be happy if their products are widely used by consumers and rejoice their success, but paradoxically, when their product trademark starts being used widely in a generic sense, the companies' trademark lawyers would furiously start trampling them out. The trademark loses its power when it is generified and defines an action or function that does not specifically refer to the using of the product.

Although they have admitted the word to become a verb, Google has pressured the lexicographers in defining the word. The company specifically wants 'to google' to mean

'to use the Google search engine to obtain information about (as a person) on the World Wide Web'

and Webster has done so in defining the word (Merriam Webster). So by definition, it does not include search with YAHOO or Bing or any other search engine (but unfortunately it does not faithfully reflect the reality).

In 2006, the year when the word 'google' entered dictionaries, Google clearly stated in their official blog (which seems to me an unavailing try) the guidelines for proper using of the word 'google' (Do you google.).　The company also has successfully pressured and made Sweden remove the word 'ogooglebar' meaning 'ungooglable' in English from their language vocabulary (Ungoogleable removed from list of Swedish words). The Language Council of Sweden was pressured from Google on the definition of the word, and the council was fed up with the language controlling from Google that they decided to drop the word, and shows their displeasure towards the giant.

Google trademark lawyer is constantly fighting with the uncontrollable evolution of the word (Google calls in the 'language police').

Whether the company tops want it or not, when words start evolving among people, it is unstoppable, language is a natural object.

Old English, a different language?

The development of the English language is usually divided into several stages.

     ----------
     Old English (c. 500 - c. 1100)
     Middle English (c. 1100 - c. 1500)
     Early Modern English (c. 1500 - c. 1800)
     Late Modern English (c. 1800 - Present)
     ----------

Of course, people of the Middle Ages did not find themselves speaking “Old English or Middle English”: these divisions are a creation of modern scholars on the basis of linguistic feature and changes.

Interestingly, or naturally, they have all “English” in each period, showing that English was "English" from the start. Yet, it is often said that Old English is unaccessible, extremely hard to read as it is more like a German. Even native speakers of English have tremendous difficulty understanding it. It is a completely different language despite the fact that it is called “English.”

Related to this, Simon Horobin poses an interesting question:

“English has been in use for 1,500 years; during that time it has changed to such an extent that the form of the language used by the Anglo-Saxons is unrecognizable to contemporary English speakers. Today we refer to this language as Old English, but should we perhaps think of it as a different language altogether? Modern Italian is descended from the Latin spoken by the Romans, but these are considered to be different languages. Might that not also be true of Old English and Modern English? (2)Yes, Italian comes from Latin, but the latter is not referred to as “Old Italian,” so do other Romance languages, such as French, Spanish, Romanian. They do not share the consistent naming, diverging into one distinct language.

The terminology employed in the history of English implies how much later people stress and cherish the historical continuity of their mother tongue. Hence, the division of English historical evolution not only results not only from the meticulous analysis of linguistic changes, but also from a desire to claim the coherence and identity of English. 


Works cited:

Horobin, Simon. How English Became English: A Short History of a Global Language. Oxford University Press, 2016.

Google - A worldwide Genericide 03

Google is a company specialized in Internet related services and products, and their search engine is used world-wide. When people want to search for information on the Internet, they 'google' it.

Yes, Google is also a victim of genericide, and the word 'to google' is used as a transitive verb meaning 'to search for information about something or someone on the Internet using the Google search engine.' A lot of people use the verb 'to google' to refer to 'looking up on the Internet', so they could be using bing or YAHOO, and it does not necessarily mean to use 'Google'.

The verb 'to google' entered Merriam Webster dictionary and Oxford dictionary in 2006.

What is amazing about Google is that the search engine has diffused globally and the generification of the word 'to google' has also become world-wide (How do you say google in other languages).

Here are some 'google's in other languages.

German : googlen
French : googler
Italian : googlare
Spanish : googlar
Dutch : googlen
Portuguese : googlar
Turkish : googlemek
Russian : googleet
Japanese : ググる guguru

Google genericide is pandemic, it is thoroughly world-wide... It is unstoppable.

Also, what is notable about all these verbs is that the verbs inflect in regular pattern, non of them are irregular verbs.

Check the regular verb endings in the above given languages.

German : -en
French : -er
Italian : -are
Spanish : -ar
Dutch : -en
Portuguese : -ar
Turkish : -mek
Russian : -ti

They are regular verbs because they are language generated by human beings. The reason? to be continued in the later articles.

to Photoshop - Genericide 02

Photoshop is a trademark of Adobe, and it is a widely used photo manipulation software. This trademark has become a victim of genericide, and it is commonly used as a verb too. Internet articles and tabloids talk about "photoshopped celebrities". Here are some examples of article titles with Photoshop used as a verb.

21 Celebrities before and after they were Photoshopped.
(http://www.lifebuzz.com/photshopped-celebrities/)

This is what happens when you Photoshop celebrities into your holiday party.
(http://twistedsifter.com/2012/03/photoshopping-celebrities-into-holiday-party/)

Tool reveals how much celebs and models are Photoshopped.
(http://www.boredpanda.com/photoshopped-celebrities-before-after/)

Although flattered by the popularity of the software and the usage of the trademark, Adobe does not allow the trademark to be used as common nouns or verbs. The company has press released the guidelines of the usage of the trademark.
https://www.adobe.com/aboutadobe/pressroom/pressmaterials/pdfs/photoshop_guidelines_pr.pdf

The official release does not seem to have stopped the abuse. There is now an entry of 'Photoshop' in Merriam Webster Dictionary.

transitive verb
to alter (a digital image) with Photoshop software or other image-editing software especially in a way that distorts reality (as for deliberately deceptive purposes)

As a generic verb, it also carries a touch of negative nuance. According to the dictionary, the first known use was in 1992.

Words, or language is a natural object. When it starts evolving, it cannot be stopped.

Kleenex, Xerox, Hoover and Walkman - Genericide 01

A new product comes into our life, we find it very practical and easy to use that it soon becomes indispensable. Kleenex tissue, Xerox photocopy machine, Hoover vacuum cleaner and Walkman portable music player are some examples of that kind of essential goods.

What is notable about the examples given above is that Kleenex, Xerox, Hoover and Walkman are brand names or trademarks, but the names have become common nouns because of their popular usage to refer to the generic name of the product. One can say 'pass me some Kleenex' to mean 'pass me some tissue paper', and likewise, Xerox means photocopy, Hoover a vacuum cleaner, and Walkman a portable music player. Xerox and Hoover can also be used as verbs.

'Would you go and Xerox these for me?'

'Just leave the broken pieces there, I'll Hoover them right away.'

Walkman, officially, only refers to portable music players made by Sony, but most people use it to refer to portable music players no matter if it is a product of KENWOOD.

These are called genericide, a legal term, which refers to once brand names or trademarks turned into common nouns. They have not lost their validity as proper trademark nouns but they have died as trademarks. They refer to not only their brands but also to same functioning products made by other companies. That's why the term has -cide ending.

It is ironic for the companies - the products have become so well known and popularly used but the brands name or the trademarks have also become too popular that they can refer to other products. The companies try in every way to stop the genericide of their brand names or trademarks.

Becoming too popular can be a double-edged sword.

Verbing new nouns

New inventions and technological developments bring changes in our lifestyle, and thus bring changes in our language too. Here are some noun converted verbs that came into our vocabulary in the 20th century. The number in the parenthesis show the year first seen in usage as a verb

to taxi (1918)
to fax (1948)
to email (1982)

Prior to the usage of these verbs, the products were invented respectively. Modern taxicabs appeared in London in 1897, the first wireless 'radio' facsimile was invented in America in 1924, and emails were used by researchers in laboratories in 1960s.

A new product comes into the lifestyle and if there are no other existing verbs that describe its function, we easily turn the the noun to a verb and make our language more convenient.

Steven Pinker notes in "The Language Instinct"(1994) that one fifth of the verbs in English are derived from nouns.

...easy conversion of nouns to verbs has been part of English grammar for centuries; it is one of the processes that make English English."

He extensively gives examples of verbs which were originally nouns:

head a commitee, scalp the missionary, eye a babe, nose around the office, mouth the lyrics, gum the biscuit, begin teething, tongue each note on the flute, jaw at the referee, neck in the back seat, back a candidate, arm the militia, shoulder the burden, elbow your way in, hand him a toy, finger the culprit, knuckle under, thumb a ride, writs it into the net, belly up to the bar, stomach someone's complaint, rib your drinking buddies, knee the goalie, leg it across town, heel on command, foot the bill, toe the line.......

(I just admire Steven Pinker!)

Language is incessantly changing to reflect the world we live in.

John Herschel and Photography

John Herschel was the only child of William Herschel, the musician astronomer. Like his father, he showed great talent in playing the flute and the violin, but his interest, also like his father was more deeply fixed in astronomy and other areas of science.

First John thought of pursuing the law, but changed his career and devoted his time to astronomy. He became one of the founding members of the Royal Astronomical Society.

What are his contributions language-wise to be taken up as a topic in this philological blog?

He was the first to coin the word 'positive' and 'negative' in the area of photography.

John Herschel worked closely with William Henry Fox-Talbot, a British scientist, inventor and a photography pioneer. Talbot photographed a window at Lacock Abbey, and from the 'negative', he made the first paper 'positive' print of paper. The printing of the negative was made possible for the discovery by John Herschel of using sodium thiosulphate as fixing agent (salt paper).

Seeing the inverted shades of the two products from photography, John named them 'negative' and 'positive'.