The Adventure for Amazingly August Adjectives

Also, amorous assonance. *heart* Although I actually do enjoy the majuscule A from a typographical point of view (and therefore from a calligraphic view as well), it's strangely not my favourite letter of the alphabet. (Naturally, of course, this worldview changes when I'm getting letter grades on my essays and assignments. Then I want all A's, baby!) Anyway. I'm sitting in the reading room (or quiet study room) in the Student Life Centre on campus, trying to think up a slightly less homophilic title for a friend's photo album (working title: "Boys of Summer"), and this naturally led to the desire to form an adjective for "summer". Summery? summerly? summerian? The first two are actually words that pertain to summer, but it's still not what I wanted. And here is where OED fails again. I've mentioned it before, so I don't see the need to expand on it again. But basically, I needed to look elsewhere for a list of season-related adjectives. And thus, I chanced upon a site that offered them. And so, the four adjectives for the four seasons!

• Spring = Vernal
• Summer = Estival
• Autumn = Autumnal
• Winter = Hibernal

"autumnal" is perhaps the most transparent of the four, and also the best known for its collocation "equinox," whence one might also find "vernal." However, given the relative obscurity of both terms, I suppose they're still only known by about 5% of the English-speaking population. (NB: "5%" is not a statistically researched number; it is based on the extremely volatile intuition of the former honours mathematics student) As for "Æstival" and "Hibernal," I think the salience is even weaker.
Yay! As any good poet or wordsmith knows, there are also adjectives that describe colours (which are already adjectives). That's why we have crimson, scarlet, vermilion and sanguine to describe 'red' without having to resort to fruits (unlike, say, "pomegranate red," or "lemon yellow," etc...) Personally, I think that resorting to precious gems is sorta pushing it as well (ie emerald green, ruby red, sapphire blue, etc.)
Just a quick post for now; more serious post to come soon! :D

Millions of Billions

Another nerd post about Doctor Who.

The two most recent episodes of Doctor Who make some remarks about the number of non-human lifeforms. As the doctor says, there are "[over] a million million" entities on the planet.

A million million?

Clearly, he means, over 10¹², or, 1000 000 000 000. And yet, in the previous episode, he refers to 10⁹ as being a "billion", clearly following the American example. As such, why is it that he can't remain consistent and therefore refer to 10¹² as being a trillion?

Or perhaps, the point of contention that Doctor Who is a [British] BBC production, and should therefore use traditional UK English as opposed to American English (also known as reformed British. They've also since ammended certain orthographical conventions like the single/double quotes, and connexion/connection). In which case, 10⁹ should be "a thousand million", and 10¹² should be "one billion".

The geek/mathematician in me demands that the great Doctor Who be at least consistent in his numbers! >.<

As point of reference, the traditional UK system of numbers works as follows:

10⁶ = million
10⁹ = thousand million
10¹² = billion
10¹⁵ = thousand billion
10¹⁸ = trillion
etc.
Therefore, X-illion = 10^6x

For some reason, however, the Americans decided that "a thousand million" didn't sound nice enough, and decided to push up the use of prefixes, thus making there numbers significantly smaller. So in the American version:

10⁶ = million
10⁹ = billion
10¹² = trillion
10¹⁵ = quadrillion
10¹⁸ = quintillion
etc.
So, for America, X-illion = 10^3(x+1)

Incidentally, the number system in East Asia, namely that used in China, Korea and Japan, goes by groups of 4s, or "myriads" (after the archaic Greek number "myriad" for 10000). Unfortunately, like most Chinese innovations, these namings aren't very productive; they don't really generate subsequently large numbers, since their names aren't derived from numbers themselves. But the cool part means that each number is named uniquely, and apparently from Buddhist sutra. Thus:

10⁴ = man (萬)
10⁸ = oku (億)
10¹² = chou (兆)
10¹⁶ = kyou (京)
10²⁰ = gai (垓)
10²⁴ = shi (秭)
10²⁸ = jou (穣)
10³² = kou (溝)
10³⁶ = kan (澗)
10⁴⁰ = sei (正)
10⁴⁴ = sai (載)
10⁴⁸ = goku (極)
10⁵² = kougasha (恒河沙)
10⁵⁶ = asougi (阿僧祇)
10⁶⁰ = nayuta (那由他)
10⁶⁴ = fukashigi (不可思議)
10⁶⁸ = muryou (無量)
10⁷² = taisuu (大数)

Fun stuff, eh? :D

Business Banter

The wonderful thing about keeping a language-related blog, is that it's difficult to run out of source material. Aside from the rich pages of research journals in this newer branch of study called Linguistics, language itself surrounds us (or at the very least, surrounds those who're capable of reading this blog).

So, over the weekend (the first of 12 long-weekends I plan to enjoy this term), I dug up some old movies: A Fish Called Wanda (1988), and Fierce Creatures (1997). Initially, it was to appreciate the role of Michael Palin more, being totally unaware of him and the Monty Python group when I first saw these movies as a child. And near the beginning of the second film, Fierce Creatures (which starred many of the same actors), Kevin Kline holds a conference call, and says this curious line:

"if this communiqué is in any way sleep-interruptive, I'll re-telephone you later,"

which, of course, should strike any native speaker of any variety of English as being non-standard. The comedy contained should be self-evident, making fun of the "professional" businessman (is "white collar" the common vernacular?), and his obvious ignorance on language and language use.

I could expand on the actual anomalies of the line, but I think it's brilliant, and beautifully illustrates the general demographic of the "professional" businessman. A businessman who obviously hadn't received a proper/real/decent education.

And the extraordinary thing is, aside from this common joke that seems to become more and more cliché, is that it seems in actual fact to be based on truth. In my relatively short life of a quarter-century, I've had friends who've gone into business, worked for people in business, and met people from other businesses than the one I was at. And despite the obvious individual characteristics, there were certain common traits found among them all: a general ignorance for higher classical education (as science or philosophy), and a general abuse of language.

Admittedly, nobody I've met has ever used language as terribly as to assume a communiqué is equivalent to a telephone call, or that sleep-interruptive is an accepted adjective. But they still create a certain structure of language that goes beyond mere jargon.

In terms of written communication, I find that most of the time, the business/administrative trendy are usually not so technologically updated. At least, that's the best excuse I can come up with to explain the appalling plethora of emails I received at work, completely void of structure and punctuation. And this, of course, makes me even more critical of small word choice.

One of the examples I abhor the most in "professional language" (or in reality, imitation language, spoken and perpetuated by this false rising "middle" class that totally should have been reigned in and subdued decades ago by the peerage), is the use of the two words in succession: "as per". What the frell is it supposed to mean! Does the latinate "per" magically make the businessman an educated individual? The extraordinary thing is that once people hear it for the first time, usually by some ignorant businessman, they assume that it's proper to use in professional speech, and thus a whole new generation regenerates this lingual travesty.

Do I have any acceptable alternatives? the critical reader may ask. And in fact, I do! Such phrases include: "according to," "as to," "following [your request]," and simply "per". Sample sentences:

"I did it as you requested"
"Following your inquiry, please find enclosed a copy of ---"
"The company has fullfilled the criteria, according to your specifications"
"All parties have completed their tasks per the contract"
etc.

So, really, why spread about more nonsense than necessary in the inherently flawed grammar of English? Speaking of which, something which became popular in my workplace was to end tag questions with "or no?" which was rather new to me. I was tempted to use it at first, until I realised that the reason why it sounded so foreign was because it was simply wrong. But I've blogged about that before, so no need to go there again.

So, please don't make any more sleep-interruptive communiqués that will require a later re-telephoning.

Egghead Expressions

Being the extraordinary geek that I am (or, to put it more nicely, being the avid and thorough intellectual), I decided to look up and watch the first few episodes of the original Doctor Who series (1963), with William Hartnell as The Doctor.

Aside from the obvious differences in cinematic freedom and convention, there were some linguistic issues that caught my attention. Watching a science-fiction show half a century afterwards is revealing in the way that science has actually progressed, as well as the vocabulary that it's developed. Things that the scriptwriters hoped would sound "scientific" may end up sounding tautological or empty.

The first of the two lines which caught my attention was the Darlek's use of the verb "explode":

"We will have to explode another neutron bomb"

Very odd phrasing. Why might that sound odd to us today? The verb "explode", which in contemporary experience is used commonly in the passive, is also almost exclusively used in the intransitive. But is there even a historical basis for a transitive "explode"?

According to the OED, there is! But the most recent cited examples extend from the early 1800s, which seems reasonable to then assume it hasn't been in common usage since. Therefore, a sesquicentury later, it would still seem odd to use "explode" in such a way, and of course, two centuries later, it would definitely sound unnatural. In any case, wouldn't "detonate" or "ignite" have sounded more scientific anyway to the scientists of the 'sixties?

The second, which perhaps accesses a more common experience, was (again) the Darlek line:

"Displaying [surveillance video] now on frequency six"

Most people nowadays might have said, "now showing [blah] on screen", or "on channel six". But to say "frequency six" sounds odd, especially when the units of frequency isn't offered.

Sorta makes one wonder how hollow Startrek expressions will sound to our science-minded grandchildren. Or, will they perhaps set the standard for such new technologies in the future?

Slippery Slang

Today I was reunited (to use an antiquated term) with a friend from HS. Having recently graduated from the Musical Theatre program at Sheridan, his linguistic register is significantly different from mine. One might describe it as "theatre speak". The speech regularly employed by those in the performance industry, most often used by actors and singers, but also regularly identified in movie producers, directors, etc.

In the course of our conversations today, I was exposed to various curiosities of English, and several artifacts of slang. Most of the time, I was able to guess the correct polarity of his odd phrases (which usually fell into the polar category of being good or bad). One, however, was particularly bewildering for me. He had described himself as being "the sh*t" for a certain performance, which had me guessing whether he meant that he was an exemplary dancer for that performance, or whether he had failed miserably.

Apparently, it means the former. When someone is described as "the sh*t", apparently it means that they are most excellent. On the other hand, if they are described as being "sh*tty", it doesn't. Similarly, if someone "shat" their exams, it does not mean that they passed with flying colours.

This does, however, remind me of another word now used in common vernacular: "bomb". If someone is described as being "the bomb", it's supposed to be a testament to their excellence or their expertise. If they "bombed" something, on the other hand, it means that they failed it miserably. Incidentally, to describe someone as being "bombastic" isn't exactly a positive thing.

Military Misnomer

Met yet another person from the Canadian Militia. That makes three now. Three more than would be expected from my sort of social circle. On the topic of Canadian Navy conventions and such, we got to talking about the army alphabet. (Or, what he called "the phonetic alphabet".)

S: "Oh? ... ... In linguistics, 'phonetic alphabet' is something pretty different..."
X: "Well, it's 'cause it's an alphabet that says how the letters sound."
S: "..."

Having just met the man, I wasn't inclined to launch into a 3~7 minute discussion on the ways in which he was wrong. But I can here in my blog. Mwahaha.

Firstly, it's not an alphabet. An alphabet is an ordered, complete set of letters that are used in a given language. In English, that would make 26 letters. A list of words, however, is NOT and alphabet; it's a list of words that correspond to the alphabet. But I am willing to make a concession on this point, if only because I've been calling it the "army alphabet". (As a side-note, writing systems that have the vowels embedded with the consonants are called syllabaries, and complex writing systems are logograms. Thus, to use an Asian example, Modern Viet and Korean have alphabets; Japanese has two syllabaries and Chinese uses logograms. The two most famous logographic orthographies would be Chinese characters and Egyptian hieroglyphs.)

Secondly, it's not phonetic because as any literate English-speaking person knows, most letters have at least two corresponding sounds. Vowels especially are quite versatile in the sounds that they can represent (12 "pure" vowel sounds in English, but only 5 vowel letters -- hardly something that can be described as phonetic).

Thirdly, the [International] Phonetic Alphabet is already a registered term to denote an actual alphabet, in which each letter is designed to correspond to a single sound. Thus, each of the twelve English vowel sounds are represented by a unique letter in the IPA.

I sometimes wonder about how much thought people put behind naming things. The military "phonetic alphabet", or corporate "human resources". Unless, of course, we're supposed to view employees as cattle... ... or slaves. Oh wait, what's that about the Human Charter of Rights?

Royal Flush

Being the would-be imperialist that I am, issues and titles concerning royalty and nobility are always of interest for me. But before I launch my rant, let's review the basic established terms:

King - male monarch (usually of a country), predominantly European.
Queen - female monarch, predominantly European.
Prince/ss - legal offspring of a king or queen.
Prince/ss Consort - Royal spouse, of non-royal blood. (purely honorary title, as "Princess Diana")
Emperor - male monarch of an Empire. Historically used to describe extravagant tyrants, as France, China, Japan.
Empress - female monarch of an Empire.
Tzar - Russian male monarch. (also spelt czar)
Emir - African/Arabian ruler or chieftain

So, as we can see from above, relatively contemporary examples are more accepting of foreign terms than in the past, (as seen in the appellation of Emperor for Chinese and Japanese monarchs, but the adoption of Tzar and Emir for Russian and African rulers). Or perhaps it's a regional/linguistic discrimination. It'd certainly be less communicable to English ears to use "huangdi" than "Emperor".

Why, then, is it that contemporary African rulers get the English titles instead of adopting indigenous ones? I'd also like to draw attention to the definition of Emir, which uses "ruler" and "chieftain", decidedly less regal terms than monarch. A quick look on wikipedia will show a pretty complete list of titles for sovereigns and rulers in the world.

The "Kingdom" of Jordan, for example, is one that I find somewhat odd. Clearly, their titles were created during a time before the blind adoption of foreign words had become popular. And yet, I can't help but think that emir might be a more fitting title than "king". And, more specifically, the peripheral addresses should be adjusted as well.

I was reading on a friend's blog, who mentioned Queen Noor of Jordan, later using Her Majesty, and the Queen to refer to her. When I first read those terms, my thoughts leapt immediately to the Queen of England. After all, when one speaks of the Queen in English, there really is only one. Moreover, if we are to be true to English convention, this "queen" or Jordan is really nothing more than a princess consort. Such ludicrous ballooning of one's status is near-heretical.

Royalty in our age of equal rights and dubious election strategies has little place to exist and breathe. Even though being born to a King no longer means a mandatory education in leadership and governing, the media is still fixated on you and your every action, as being representative of your culture and country.

With the French, they committed mass regicide, so no problems there (since the dead don't speak), but with England and Japan, they're trapped in glass castles. Personally, I think they should all go into witness protection programs. Go back to being normal people, and then the only people who get media attention are those who work for it -- fools, idiots, and actors.

Buzz, Pomp and Lexis

Today, my sister and I went to see a movie with a pair of family friends we hadn't seen in around 13 years. Well, maybe 8 years for the older one, but anyway. We saw Bee Movie (starring Jerry Seinfeld and Renee Zwelliger). Lots of random humour, but the one part that really got my attention was a reference to the phrase pomp and circumstance.

Now that is a phrase that I've always heard, but usually in the context of music (i.e. the title of Sir Edward Elgar's musical composition, in the mid-17th century). However, my non-rigorous search online revealed that perhaps it was originally from Shakespeare's Othello, in which the description is about the formalities and glories of war. But in any case, I feel that this is an extremely dated phrase that no longer serves any useful purpose; The etymology is obscured, and the meaning unclear.


Meanwhile, I was browsing around Chapters today, looking for some "classical" children's literature (ie. A.A. Milne and Beatrix Potter). After being ignored for a while by two female employees (whose conversation was apparently more important than their work), I found my Beatrix Potter in the age 0-5 section. What was more astounding, aside from the now-antiquated vocabulary in Peter Rabbit's Adventures, is the fact that each little booklet which originally sold for a dollar or two, is now being sold for $10 a book! That's insane! That, and there is no clear order or index in the kids section for books... ...And they wonder why kids have trouble organising their thoughts...

I doubt I'll ever have man-spawn of my own, but in terms of general pedagogy, I find it helpful to introduce children to established stories first. They won't understand the words, but they're learning language for the first time anyway, so it doesn't make that much of a difference. They learn to sense the general meaning of a word based on context and illustration, and they'll recognise certain words later in life when they happen to be reading a 150-yr old manuscript.

These books also set a standard for what constitutes good literature. I think, if it hadn't been for these books growing up, my sense of English wouldn't be half as strong as it is now. Even though the job hasn't existed in my country throughout my entire life, I still knew what a milkman was.


And lastly, my friend sent me a link to a poverty-feeding, vocabular-building site. They basically quiz you on your vocab, and for every answer, they donate 10 grains of rice. (It doesn't matter if your answer is correct or not; sometimes the options are a bit strange.) There's also a vocab level counter, indicating what level you're at. It's out of 50, and I'm guessing an average university student should have be at least lvl 35, based on the words I've been playing around with. (So far, my record high is lv 43. yay.) So, build up your vocab, and feed some hungry people! Highlight words from the quiz so far: camelopard, and prophylactic. (Don't ask why I happen to know the definition for either word... it's been a strange life for me.)