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.

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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.