Monthly Archives: September 2015

yark

Posted on September 15, 2015 | 5 comments

One of the pleasures of the Oxford English Dictionary is that it doesn’t throw old words out. A word that may not have been used this half-millennium is still sitting there with an obelisk for tombstone and moldering citations for its epitaph. But, like a story taken off a shelf, it is still alive when you read it, even if it has no currency in everyday usage anymore.

Take for example yark. This is a perfectly good word that we could still be using, but we have preferred a Latin-derived word come to us by way of French (as we have done for so much of our modern vocabulary). Admittedly, it sounds rather abrupt, even yokel-ish, but this is because we associate the sounds of our old Germanic language with a more basic level, and the sounds of French with a more sophisticated level, thanks in no small part to the Norman conquest (which was when a bunch of boring guys named Norman came in and said French was a classier language and we should use it). We still use short words – four-letter ones at that – for more expressive senses, and so when we see an unfamiliar one we are likely to interpret it in terms of what its sound might express. Hmm: yark. Like yank? Jerk? Or dork? Perhaps yokel?

But why should that work? Do we read work that way? We do not; if we did, it would probably seem like a word for the sound a metal baking sheet makes after a few minutes in a hot oven. Hark would be the sound a dog makes when hacking up a bit of indigestible food. Yard would be… hmm… the sound of a long, thin piece of wood vibrating? An abruptly truncated yawn?

So it goes. The speakers and writers of centuries long past prepared a word; they did their work and they worked it into their prose and made it work, and we – or our forebears – got used to it. And then, after time and tide and various changes happened, circumstances ordained that it finally stopped being used. Such is this word: originally gearc, which in Old English pronunciation sounded pretty much like we would say yark, which is its last known spelling. It survived in dialects of northern England longer than in the south, but it seems to have been gone by the 1800s. In its place, we have prepare – and a few other turns of phrase.

Yes, yark meant ‘prepare’. It also meant (per Oxford) “to ordain, decree, appoint; to grant, bestow,” and “to put in a position; to set, place.” Yark to meant ‘close’ and yark up meant ‘open’. Yes, that’s right, the up version meant ‘open’, not ‘close’.

So on a given day, if you’re a baker, when you yark up your shop for the day, a customer might yark (order) a cake, and you will yark your implements and yark the cake. If the customer doesn’t come for it, you could yark it in the display case and hope someone buys it before you yark to.

A bit much, to be sure, especially for the unyarked. But think: next time you’re in the kitchen and someone asks what you’re doing, you can say “I’m yarking dinner.” Don’t be surprised if they don’t grok it the first time, though…

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tiff

Posted on September 13, 2015 | 5 comments

It’s tiff time in Toronto.

No, no, not time for petty spats. Well, maybe those too, but not just those, and not mainly those. It’s an annual tittup for theophanies from the film firmament to titivate and do tipples over tiffin (or breakfast whether or not at Tiffany’s), and for hoi polloi to seek and watch and adulate. Yes, it’s the Toronto International Film Festival, or TIFF for short – or, as their wordmark has it, tiff. It’s a breeze blowing through Toronto for a week and a half – a breath of fresh air? More like a gust of glamour, a puff of applause… a mistral of massive lines, a piteraq of paparazzi-ism…

You go to see motion pictures, of course. I think it’s best to see things you can’t see any other time. Why spend so much more money and stand in a huge line to see a film that will be in your local theatre in three weeks? Yes, yes, there’s the Q&A with the director, if you happen to be at a screening where that’s included. And you might glimpse a star. But really, you can get Q&A at a showing of a movie that won’t be in your local theatre next week, or ever. And how, exactly, is seeing actors walking fifty feet away while assorted adolescents scream in your ears better than seeing them on screen doing what they do best? Well, if you want it, you know where to get it. I prefer watching the people who are there to watch the people. And watching the movies.

Tiff is not such a bad word for it. When it started, it was called the Festival of Festivals (because it was to be the best films from other film festivals); in 1994, it got its present name. It may be a name that brings to mind petty fights – the word tiff meant ‘spat’ or ‘dispute’ probably comes from imitation of a puff of air – but it had other senses too, mostly no longer used. It could mean ‘dress up nicely’ – related to titivate. It could also mean ‘have a light drink’ or ‘sip a drink’ or, as a noun, ‘weak liquor’; it is probably from this, in particular from tiffing, that the English of India and environs got the word tiffin, meaning ‘lunch’. So yes: titivate and do tipples over tiffin. As the stars do.

We’ve seen one movie so far, and will see a few more. But while it’s nice to take in pictures, I also like taking pictures. Not of stars, but of planets: everyone and everything in orbit around the stars (and mooning over them). People can be so interesting to look at. TIFF is a great place for taking pictures of people taking pictures of people. Here’s a photo album I’ve started on Flickr: https://www.flickr.com/photos/sesquiotic/albums/72157658469724426

Here are a couple of photos from it of people standing around in the rain hoping to see a star of the silver screen:

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to the nines

Posted on September 9, 2015 | 5 comments

Today has been the ninth day of the ninth month. Three squared squared. If it weren’t for the generally inopportune timing (beginning of academic year, just after Labour Day, weather rather variable), I’d say it’s a good day to have a formal dress event. You know, so you could dress up to the nines.

Why to the nines, now? Where, in fact, are the nines?

Some people (notably Walter Skeat, first editor of the Oxford Etymological Dictionary, as Michael Quinion tells us) have suggested that it comes from Middle English to then eyen – at that time eyen was a normal plural for eyes. So if you can be armed to the teeth, you can be dressed to the eyes. The problem is just three things: first, there are no known printed usages of the phrase to the nines before the 1700s (several centuries too late); second, people who are dressed to the nines often have a hat, which is above the eyes; third, the first known usages don’t refer to dressing.

The first citation in the Oxford English Dictionary is from 1719: “How to the nines they did content me.” Two more early usages are from Robert Burns in the 1790s: “’Twad please me to the Nine”; “Thou paints auld nature to the nines.” In fact, we don’t see the phrase dressed to the nines in print as such until 1837, and even a century later to the nines (or sometimes to the nine) is seen with other things to mean ‘the utmost degree’.

Which is to say, the whole nine yards. Which used to be the whole six yards, but then, you know, inflation. Well, nine is more ultimate than six, isn’t it? So to a lesser degree is seven, as in seventh heaven, but that rhymes, so there’s no reason to go to ninth heaven. (Meanwhile, the third degree is a reference to a specific Masonic examination, so it has never advanced. Well, not never – you can find Google hits for the ninth degree.)

That’s actually as much as we know for sure about the origin of to the nines: it uses the highest single-digit number as an expressive. Perhaps it has something to do with the fact that it sits high forward with the /n/ sounds and has that vowel closing on high front, as though the tongue is dancing eagerly on its tip. Perhaps it really is intended to be penultimate. Somehow to the tens doesn’t quite sound as fine, does it?

I like dressing up. It’s true that the quality of your dress has no relation to the quality of your personality, but why not please the eyes? Indeed, if you what’s inside the package is not so great, it’s at least something if the outside is pleasing. Trooper may have scorned the three dressed up as a nine, but I am more inclined towards the Split Enz view, from “Ships” (which somehow no one has posted on YouTube):

Some people pop a pill, when they feel exposed
Long as I’m dressed to kill
I’ll make sure no-one knows
Disguised in fancy-dress
Deep down, messed up
Hit town dressed up
To the nines, to the nines, to the nines, my disguise

It’s not the be-all and end-all, but it’s better than nothing, no?

The be-all and end-all? In numerology, 9 is sometimes thought of as the number of ending. After it, the cycle starts again at 1. But really, that makes it the number of being all and preparing to begin yet again – to end the ending. And 9 is particularly fascinating precisely because it is 1 less than 10, and we write numbers in columns of multiples of 10. Add 9 to anything and the digits still add up to the same thing: 23+9=32 (2+3=3+2); 76+9=85 (7+6=8+5).

This is because you add ten and subtract one, so you reduce the ones column by one as you advance the tens column by one, and the total stays the same. Every multiple of 9 has digits that add up to 9 or (for larger numbers) a multiple of 9, for the same reason: every time you increase one digit by 1, you decrease another by 1… and the basis of all that is adding on 9, so it stays at 9.

This also means that if you multiply anything by 9, the digits will always add up to 9 or a multiple of 9: 3×9=27 (2+7=9); 7×9=63 (6+3=9); 64×9=576 (5+7+6=18… and 1+8=9). As the nine gives, it takes away.

So nine is agreeable; you can add it anywhere and it fits in. But when things multiply, it prevails. So too when you are dressed to the nines: You are ready to glide in anywhere, but if matters take a turn, you are suited to prevail. But always with grace, of course, and pleasingly to then eyen.

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blatant

Posted on September 8, 2015 | 2 comments

Blatant! It’s like a blunt blast from a blaring horn, something so obvious it’s a blow to the eyes and ears. It’s the exact opposite of latent, and the difference is made with the simple addition of the punch-to-the-head /b/ at the start. It’s like so many other things that start with an obstruent (b, f, g) plus a liquid (r or l) and the “long a” sound /eɪ/ in a trochaic word: blazing, glaring, flagrant, flaming, brazen…

The things most often described as blatant include discrimination, racism, prejudice, hypocrisy, and violation and disregard of various things (laws, codes, sanctions, shareholders…). There is clearly a typical sense of a shameless display of blameworthy behaviour. It’s a word for the sort of person who will lie openly… to your face… about you.

But where did we get this word? Did it slip in the backdoor, evolve from somewhere, undergo a gradual change of meaning? Perhaps it’s formed on bleat as an alternative to bleating? Or perhaps it comes from Latin blatire to babble?

There are theories and claims. But we do know exactly when it first appeared in the English language. Wander over to your bookshelf and, with both hands, heft down your copy of Edmund Spenser’s Faerie Queene, that epic poem published in the 1590s. In it, Spenser creates a character he calls the blatant beast (or blattant beast – he spells it two ways, and we can see he probably meant it to have a “short” a). It is a thousand-tongued monster, the offspring of Cerberus and Chimaera, and it symbolizes slander. The word blatant from that came to mean ‘noisy, obtrusive, clamorous’ and thence the modern sense. Somewhere in there the a became the “long” diphthong it is now, no longer just noisy but pointed.

Still, where did Spenser get the word from? Did he just blatantly make it up? He might as well have. At this point, it matters little; it is known by its sound and by the company it keeps. And it does not even pretend otherwise.

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tirade

Posted on September 7, 2015 | Leave a comment

You know what it is when someone launches into a profanity-laced torrent of irate verbiage, an oral rampage of outrage, against someone or something. Oh yes. What does one launch into? What is always against someone or something and often profanity-laced? Yes, when someone is fit to be tied and makes a verbal raid on some subject, it’s a tirade. Alas, the person on the receiving end is so rarely the one responsible for the provoking state of affairs. Hey, as they say in French, ne tirez pas sur le pianiste! Don’t shoot the piano player!

Funny, isn’t it: in English it’s shoot but in French they say tirez sur, which literally translates to ‘draw on’ or ‘pull on’ – or, more figuratively, aim at or shoot at. From that, a volley or shot is a tirade (which in French sounds sort of like English “tea rad”): literally something pulled, but actually something let fly. A salvo. Figuratively, it’s also a long passage of prose or a speech. In English, it has a specialized use referring to a passage of poetry, but in ordinary use it always includes a sense of vehemence. A tirade is like a harangue. Long.

Just like the vowels in it. Well, they’re what we call “long”; actually, they’re diphthongs now, not lengthened versions of their “short” counterparts. They start with the mouth wider open, and then it narrows down, like biting. This seems to make the word tenser, wilder, more expansive and more aggressive. It also gives a stronger echo of other angry words. Just as the words rampage and outrage, which come from French and have the same –age suffix as garage and garbage, express their tension and resemblance to rage with the turning of a reduced “short” vowel into a full-value diphthong, tirade sounds more irate and more like I rage and I hate when the original French vowels are reinterpreted according to English orthography. Though she might tell tales at length, Scheherazade would not launch into a tirade – but a pirate might, or a raider, or a tyrant… unleashing it on his poor tired aide.

None of it is true, and none of them are right

Posted on September 4, 2015 | 7 comments

One of the more popular grammar superstitions is that none must always only be singular. This belief has less basis and produces more awkward results than the idea that you should never step on cracks in the sidewalk, but it persists, even though if you Google none is none are you will get a full page of authoritative sites, none of which supports it.

None of which support it. Not one of which supports it.

Ah, and there’s the thing: those who spread this bit of syntactic spit-over-the-shoulder support it with the contention that none is short for not one or no one. Since you would say no one agrees or not one of them agrees, you should – they counsel – say none agrees and none of them agrees.

Even if the supposed derivation were true, it wouldn’t matter: etymology is not a guide to current usage. Even words that have their current form due to a historical mistake still aren’t guided by the pre-mistake usage – although peas was a reanalysis of pease, which was singular, we can’t now say The peas is ready. (Well, not in standard English, anyway.) But none isn’t a contraction of no one or not one.

OK, to be fair, back in the mists of time it came from a root meaning ‘not’ and a root meaning ‘one’ or ‘any’. But by the time there was an English, it was already one word, nan or non, and it was already being used with plural as well as singular referents.

And there’s the important thing: you can use it with the singular. Of course you can. It’s the less common usage – when we want the singular we are more likely to say no one or not one – but it’s entirely available. You can even use the conjugation to make a subtle differentiation: “We expected deer, but none have arrived”; “We expected deer, but none has arrived.” (The former sentence might be spoken in a park, the latter perhaps in a restaurant.)

Given that every authoritative, learned source you can find will tell you that none can be singular or plural – and given that anyone well read in English knows it by reflex – how is it that so many people insist on this mumpsimus? Most likely just because it was enshrined in one book that remains popular, even though it is inconsistent, self-contradictory, and prone to declaring many of the most revered authors in the language to be wrong.

The book in question is The Elements of Style by Strunk and White. If you want to know why people who know English syntax well tend not to be so fond of it, read Geoffrey Pullum’s “50 Years of Stupid Grammar Advice.” Pullum notes that on the matter of plural none, Strunk and White place themselves above Oscar Wilde, Bram Stoker, and Lucy Maude Montgomery.

They also place themselves above John Dryden (himself no wild descriptivist), Henry Fielding, Oliver Goldsmith, and Somerset Maugham – and that’s just in the short list of citations in the Oxford English Dictionary. I particularly like these two illustrative quotations presented by the OED:

None are more ignorant of them than those learned Pedants…
—Tom Jones, Henry Fielding

There are none so deaf as those who will not hear the truth.
—The Times, March 4, 1963

So trust your ear, and ignore those who self-deafen with this superstitious hypercorrection. None of them is right.

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from time to time, time after time

Posted on September 2, 2015 | 3 comments

These are both phrases I see from time to time. I don’t know that I would say I see them time after time. But they are familiar to me, and have associations for me.

They’re also highly idiomatic. I hadn’t really thought much about how anomalous they are in form until I saw where a non-native speaker of English had written from a time to a time.

Well, why not? What are we saying, in fact? From this time to that time? Not exactly, nor from time A to time B, nor some recursive operation on one axis of a space-time graph. Somehow the times are implicitly specified and iterative. If something changes from day to day, that means it’s different every day. We can do this with place too: from place to place. We can say we went from house to house. Indeed, if I say I was at the cat show and I went from cat to cat petting them, you have a clear picture of me stopping at every next cat I came to and petting it.

So is it that from time to time gives us a picture of something occurring at every next time? Rather not. It is much more desultory. It’s not like going from town to town, from day to day; it’s just here and there, now and again. It’s relaxed, insouciant. Occasional. Not at all from moment to moment. Just, you know, from time to time.

Time after time, on the other hand, is incessant. It matches other uses of the same form: cat after cat, he petted them obsessively; beer after beer, he shotgunned it and stuck the can in a chicken for roasting (and chicken after chicken, he stuffed a beer can up its backside). Day after day, week after week, month after month: it’s a clear picture of an incessant procession. It’s atypical because it specifies the nouns involved without a definite or indefinite article or possessive. But at least it’s consistent.

Except that time is not something that occurs at regular intervals. It’s a continuum. We’re using time here to refer to moments – just as we do in this time and one chicken at a time and so on – and we’re implying a procession of regular intervals. We use time similarly in from time to time, except it doesn’t have the tight insistence that other things in that phrase form have.

Well, it doesn’t anymore. Although the ‘now and again; occasionally’ sense has been with it since its first appearance (in the 1400s), from time to time was used for a time (note that time in for a time refers to an extent of time, not an instance) to mean ‘continuously’. Which may explain the phrase I associate with it.

I’ve known from time to time since I was young, but since I’ve been regularly exposed to Anglican liturgies, I have from time to time encountered it, in the General Confession from the Book of Alternative Services (an updated version of the Book of Common Prayer): “We acknowledge and confess our manifold sins and wickedness, Which we from time to time most grievously have committed, By thought, word and deed, Against thy divine majesty.” We can leave aside my association of manifold with auto mechanics. It’s that from time to time that seems so out of keeping to my modern ears. It’s as though someone said to me, “Have you committed any sins or wickedness?” and I said, with a shrug, “Eh, from time to time.” You know, a sin here, a wickedness there. But when it’s in this self-denunciatory common enunciation, we learn that from time to time can be sterner.

Still, wouldn’t it be better if it were “which we, time after time, most grievously have committed”? I think that puts it across much better to the modern ear. There is an impatient insistence to it. It’s also fresher. Although time after time was in use as early as from time to time, it doesn’t show up in Shakespeare or the King James Bible, as from time to time does (and, incidentally, mostly has our modern meaning in those contexts).

I’ll tell you where it does show up, though, and what is my first association with it. It’s an instance where it’s insistent but not impatient. It’s this song, that I return to on occasion and yet with a guarantee that I will return to it again – in other words, I return to it from time to time, but I will always return to it, time after time: