delphin

Posted on June 10, 2010 | 3 comments

How does a dauphin deftly move a delphinium from Delft to Delphi? On a dolphin, of course.

OK, no, this is not some bizarre form of delf-punishment. (Or perhaps it is, but still…) And it is not without porpoise. I mean purpose. It just happens that delphin is one word that has swum around quite a bit.

Delphin? Indeed. No, it’s not a dolphin with its eye half-closed (e rather than o). Or, well, it is, but it’s also one with its eyes open, or both closed, or… Delphin is simply the original form of dolphin; it’s the Greek etymon as well as an uncommon English word, and it means, yes, that famous cetacean, the marine mammal family that includes bottlenoses and orcas (yes, that’s right, “killer whales” are dolphins). Flipper.

And just as the family of dolphins includes quite a variety of flipping critters, so, too, does the family of delphin involve quite a flippin’ few words. Delphinium, the flower also known as larkspur, apparently appears like a dolphin when the flower is opening. The dauphin, the eldest son of the king of France, took his designation from what was originally the given name of one person – who was named after the critter. Delphi, home of the Greek oracle, may have been named after the dolphin form in which Apollo first arrived at the place (quite the task given that it’s in the mountains), and/or it may have taken its name from the Greek for “womb”, delphys, which in its turn is also the source for Greek delphin (it was seen as a fish with a womb, it seems). And Delft? Ah, sorry, had to delve elsewhere for that one: it’s from the Dutch for “canal”, which comes from a word for “dig” cognate with, yes, delve.

I may as well also say that dolphins are not related to Philadephia (though undoubtedly this resemblance is why the word delphin causes me to think of cream cheese). Oh, there is an etymological relation; the adelph in the city name comes from Greek adelphos “brother”, which is formed from morphemes for “same” and “womb”. But don’t go to Philly looking for dolphins. May I suggest Miami for that purpose.

There are several other words that begin with delphin, too: delphinate, a salt of delphinic acid, and also a variant of dauphinate, the jurisdiction of a dauphin; delphinic acid, inactive valeric acid, discovered in dolphin-oil; delphine, another word for delphinium, for delphin, or for delphinine; delphinine, adjective, belonging to the dolphin family, or noun, a highly poisonous alkaloid derived from the delphinium; delphinestrian, one who rides a dolphin (of course); delphinidin, an anthocyanidin antioxidant that is an important pigment in cranberries, concord grapes, Cabernet Sauvignon grapes, pomegranates, and flowers, including larkspur (naturally); delphinite, an obsolete name for the mineral epidote; delphinoid, like a dolphin; delphinoidine, an alkaloid derived from (what else) the larkspur (you do remember that larkspur equals delphinium, yes?); and Delphinus, a Latin name for a dolphin-shaped constellation.

So, then, you may be wondering what’s with this move from delphin to dolphin. Was the word just too stuffed full? Well, the Latin delphinus (the Greek plus an us) came over time to be dalphinus (an unsurprising vowel shift that I hear even now from young Canadian women, among others), and this led to French daulphin, whence both dauphin and the English daulphyne, which simplified in spelling to modern dolphin. All English’s delphin forms have simply gone straight back to the Greek.

But do the different words, delphin and dolphin, give you a different aesthetic sense of this animal? I feel dolphin as colder and harder, and it brings echoes of doll, golf, and Adolph; delphin is softer and smoother for me (and spreadable, of course), and echoes elfin and self and perhaps Delsey (makers of suitcases), an may be echoed in assorted names, even perhaps Elaine Phillips, who just happens to have suggested tasting this word in the first place.

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chum

Posted on June 9, 2010 | Leave a comment

Heading towards the kitchen in Domus Logogustationis, I spied Maury sitting with his head in his hands. “Why so glum, chum?”

Maury looked up. Actually, he looked rather down, but he looked up at me when I spoke.

“I had an old chum for lunch.”

Normally I would launch into the obvious pun, but Maury looked like such a chump, I let it slide. “An old school chum?”

“Oh, I think this chum was old school, yes, probably. Whatever school it belonged to would have been rather old, I’m sure.”

Pause. “I… You what?” I looked again at Maury, and realized that he looked perhaps a little more peaked than piqued. “Oh. Some dodgy salmon?”

“I am wondering,” Maury said, “whether, when the menu said chum, it actually meant fish refuse, shark bait.”

“Well, where did you have it?”

“The Spa Diner.”

“Oh, yes, west on Queens Quay, isn’t it. I ate there once. The staff seemed friendly.”

“Oh,” Maury said wanly, “my waiter was certainly chumming around. It actually seemed a bit much as a chumbled my chunks of chum.” (Chumble means “nibble” or perhaps “munch” – Maury did not say chunder, but he looked as though that might be next.) “The atmosphere was less than elegant. They had CHUM on the radio.” (That’s a venerable Toronto hit radio station.)

“You should have gone to the Cambodian place,” I said. “Then you might have heard Chum Ngek.” (A master of Cambodian classical music: www.youtube.com/watch?v=DoMc4BJAoho)

“And not eaten yecchy chum neck.” Maury pulled a little face and looked a whiter shade of pale. “An evil coincidence it was that a nice food fish came to have the same name as a rather variegated mess of fish trash.”

“Coincidence indeed,” I said, “especially given that chum meaning ‘fish refuse’ or ‘shark bait’ may have come from Scots chum meaning ‘food’, while chum meaning ‘spotted salmon’ comes from a Chinook word meaning ‘spotted’ or ‘variegated’.”

“At least I didn’t eat an old chamber-mate,” Maury said, adverting to the origin of the chum that means “friend”.

“Well,” I said, turning towards the fridge, wherein a bottle of fizzy awaited my attention, “would you like some champers?”

Maury made a faint wave. “In a bit, perhaps. At the moment I have a chummy ache.”

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rue

Posted on June 8, 2010 | 6 comments

There’s fennel for you, and columbines:
there’s rue for you; and here’s some for me:
we may call it herb-grace o’ Sundays:
O you must wear your rue with a difference…

So said Ophelia, expressing a rueful madness not long before she drowned herself, an act that Hamlet in turn rued.

Ah, indeed, one does rue pain, and rue may cause pain, too: I don’t mean the rue that is the rarely used noun form of the verb, but the rue that refers to the evergreen shrub of which Ophelia spoke. It may have been used for medicinal purposes, but consumption of rue oil can cause stomach cramping, convulsions, even death, and its application to the skin can cause blistering in the sun.

I also refer to the rue and pain one may find in France and western Switzerland. I was walking down the street in Montreux once when a couple of American tourists asked me where they could find “grand rue,” said just as if they meant a great sorrow, a pronunciation that caused me some pain. I asked them, for clarity, “Grande Rue?” saying it as French, and they repeated again – as though correcting me – in their nasal American way, “grand rue.” I indicated the direction and walked on down my own rue to procure some of the more agreeable pain – the sort made in a boulangerie (or at the very least to find a nice gravy made with a roux of flour and butter). Indeed, I wanted to make like a grand ’roo and hop away from the scene of mispronunciation as fast as I could. Or call in Lash LaRue, a mid-century actor in westerns known for his skill with the bullwhip. I would even have settled for Rue McClanahan, though she is not the most violent of femmes.

One way or the other, I would have liked to see them covered with rue – not necessarily for a blister in the sun; simple regret would have been sufficient. For one may be covered with rue, as Jim Taylor (who requested this tasting) recently said to an acquaintance. If one is thus well rued, one may well have rued it, but it will at least not be rude, will it? But may one become inured to being in rue?

Well, not in the Rue Morgue, I’m sure – a common collocate of rue, but obviously of the French rue. Let us take a different route: one to the past. This word rue meaning “regret, feel remorse, pity” is a grand old Germanic word, manifest in Old English as hréow (noun) and hréowan (verb). It was at first an impersonal verb: in modern English, that would be of the sort it rues me (seem is still one such – it seems to me – and think‘s impersonal origin survives in methinks). But what could be more personal, really, than rue? So now we say not it rues me but rather I rue it. But, then, what do I rue? Likely, I rue the day or rue the hour. (Rue day? Rude, eh?) One may even simply rue, intransitively.

To get back on route, the other rue, for the plant, comes from Latin ruta, from Greek ruté. But in English the plant has long been associated with the sense of the Germanic rue. In Lithuania, on the other hand, where it is the national herb, it is associated with young girls and maidenhood. Ah, it seems almost to rue maidenhood itself, for one half-kisses empty air when saying it. And so may a young lady go regretfully to an early, if herbal, end: if she miss a kiss, then “there’s rue for you, and here’s some for me.”

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reefer

Posted on June 6, 2010 | Leave a comment

So these dudes were, like, smokin’ some reefer in a reefer, eh? So and it was lucky that they were wearing reefers, ’cause they got cold stoned, and they woulda been stone cold without the reefers to protect them in the reefer while they were cookin’ up that reefer. Man, they mighta had a visit from the grim reefer! Hee hee hee hee…

Madness, you say? Hmph. Refer to a dictionary. We are simply saying that they were smoking marijuana cigarettes in a refrigerator train car while wearing heavy overcoats. And then we made a pun.

It is, indeed, largely coincidence that leads these three things to be homophones. Largely, I say, because undoubtedly two of them took their present form under the influence of resemblance to an existing English morphological construct which happens, by transference, to name the third.

Let us start at the beginning. In the beginning was the Germanic word reef. It referred to a strip of canvas, such as a sail may be made with, and seems to be cognate with the word rive. Oh, that other word reef referring to something sailing ships don’t want to hit? Apparently unrelated, but apparently cognate with rib. Anyway, a reefer is someone who reefs sails, which is to say rolls up reefs of the sails to reduce the area exposed to the wind (so, no, there is no derivation from refurl). It came to refer to a midshipman. And the coat a midshipman may wear (at least since the later 1800s) is a heavy, close-fitting, double-breasted thing called a reefer jacket or reefer coat, or reefer for short. Reefers typically have gold buttons and epaulettes, as they are worn by officers – a midshipman is a low-ranking officer.

Meanwhile, up from Latin came the word refrigerator. It shares a root with frigid, which is a condition in which you may wear a reefer jacket. But that is not the connection; it is because of the North American pronunciation – with the vowel like in “reef” rather than the British schwa version – that refrigerator came by 1911 to have the rigerat dropped, leaving what is pronounced and respelled as reefer.

And meanwhile there is Spanish grifo, “cannabis smoker”, related to grifa, “cannabis”, which is somehow related to the third reefer, which means “cannabis cigarette” or simply “cannabis”. Again, the existing English reef likely served as a bit of a magnet, and I’m sure that the sound of “reef”, modestly reminiscent of the inhalation of smoke (or of the sound made by a stoned toad) and a little reminiscent of the middle of marijuana, may have helped a little. At any rate, reefer in this sense was established enough by 1931 that Time magazine referred to it: “Its [marijuana’s] leaves can be dried, ground and rolled into cigarets, which are bootlegged under the name of ‘muggles’, ‘reefers’, or ‘Mary Warners’.” A scant five years later, a film came out by the name of Reefer Madness, and it was not warning parents of the dangers their children faced from refrigerators or overcoats. On the other hand, it was also not called Mary Warner Madness or – and J.K. Rowling will have been glad of this – Muggle Madness. Somehow reefer just sounds more seedy, sleazy, easy, with a bit of a wheeze, those Hispanic-sounding /i/s (not that Hispanic is actually sleazy or seedy, but we must be aware of the stereotypes that influence usage), and of course the ever-reliably low-grade retroflex /r/.

And we know which of the three words has prevailed most strongly. My wife came by a few minutes ago and, looking at the title of this note, gave me a swat on the shoulder. Fridges and coats do not typically produce such a reaction, I think, but if you dispute, we may call a referee…

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floatel

Posted on June 3, 2010 | 1 comment

When Roberto De Vido brought this word to my attention, the first thing I thought was, Floating hotel? But then I thought, Well, wait, that might not be it. After all, a cartel isn’t a cart hotel, and there are other words with el endings that trace back to Germanic diminutive forms. Gunsel, for instance (more recently more often used for gunslingers, but originally from a Yiddish word for “little goose” and roughly synonymous with catamite).

And anyway, floatel has such a close resemblance to floater, which has a variety of associations, many of which unappealing (whether it be those bits of errant crap that sometimes may wander through your eyeball, or some bit of food spotted in a beverage, or any of several less savoury things), who would really want to apply it to a hotel? And the other blend with hotel that comes to mind is of course motel (from motor hotel), a type of accommodation which has successfully avoided the luxury niche or any sort of upscale associations.

Well, here’s the sentence in which Roberto spied it, from cnn.com:

He said the company now has about 30 aircraft searching for signs of oil and has moved more than 300 people of offshore “floatels” to speed up its response time.

(I think of offshore… is supposed to be to offshore…). So, but wait, there are hotels just floating about in the Gulf of Mexico like spare squid or algae? Well, the OED helps clarify: while the first definition is “A floating hotel, or one built over water; spec. a boat operating as a hotel,” it adds “Also used of the accommodation blocks for workers on off-shore drilling rigs.” I suspect there may have been some irony – or its opposite, marketing – in the use of the term for rig accommodations, which probably don’t feature chocolates on pillows and triangled toilet paper.

But there are some floatels that likely do feature those niceties of fancy hotels. And I don’t mean cruise ships, since they might not count (as they don’t stay put), although I can tell you the Queen Mary 2 does feature chocolates on your pillow and toilet paper that has been put back to a point practically every time you go to use your washroom. Rather, I am put in mind of such as the creatively (not) named Floatel in Calcutta, India (located at an address made for tapdancing: Kolkata Jetty), or the Bakkara and Faraon floatels in Kiev. Or any of many built since the 1950s, when the word first appeared. Not the Floatel in Northwich, England, though – it was demolished last year.

So while at first I thought this word might refer to some kind of jetsam, it seems it may more readily feature the jet set. And why not? Float anagrams to aloft. True, floatel also anagrams to fall toe and oat fell, and to folate with an l left over. But those might relate to a spa that surely must be on board one or more of these, which would be suitable given that hotel roots in medieval Latin hospitale (which formed first hostel and from that hotel).

On the other hand, there’s probably no spa on the oil rig floatels. Just a guess, but…

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schorl

Posted on June 2, 2010 | 1 comment

Hmm, does this wood need another lork? No, that’s supposed to be an r, not an o: schorl. But the influence of school may make you want to say the sch as “sk”. This is, however, a word derived from German, not from Dutch, Italian, Latin, or Greek, so the sch is “sh”. That makes it a little less like the last sound you hear as water finishes emptying down a drain. But still, it sure’ll give you a taste of whorl, won’t it? But also an impression of a crush of rock, perhaps – less like coral and more like something you’ll find on a shore.

There used to be a town named Schorl, near the German-Czech border (with a pond, too). The town’s still there, but the name has improved a bit: now it’s Zschorlau – pretty much the same, but prettier. So what is it that made this town eponymous? Something they found in a tin mine: tourmaline.

Well, they didn’t know it was tourmaline. Actually, tourmaline hadn’t been “discovered” yet in medieval Germany. The name tourmaline – note that it, too, has those curly liquid sounds, ironic for a mineral crystal – comes from Sinhala, and names pretty rocks found in Sri Lanka. Who knew that the shiny black rock crystals (very geometric-looking, pretty in their chthonic, gothic way) found in Schorl’s mine were the same thing, generally – crystal silicate compounded with various other elements? The Sri Lankan stuff is just prettier. Well, eventually someone figured it out. Which would be sort of like figuring out that gold and iron were the same thing, because natural deposits of schorl make up about 95% of all natural tourmaline deposits. That sure’ll give you a new perspective! (So will the collocation schorl-schist. Be careful where you say that!)

Speaking of new perspectives, consider the different ways you can say this word, depending on where you’re from. The Oxford pronunciation guide just gives an extended vowel before the /l/; the /r/ is elided. Anyone who trills the /r/ will give quite a different, vibrating result. And for those of us who speak with retroflex /r/s, it has that swallowed sound and gives a bit of extra tongue exercise – say “Are you really sure it’s rural schorl?” a few times and see how you like it. Ah, all those realizations with the same basic material. English rocks!

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My veil of tears: an eggcorn poem

Posted on June 2, 2010 | 14 comments

Herewith a poem (and following note) from my book Songs of Love and Grammar, which will be forthcoming if and when I find a publisher or give up and publish it myself with an on-demand web publisher [EDIT: buy it at lulu.com]. The poem is about eggcorns. What are they? Read on…

My veil of tears

Oh, woeth me! I’ve fallen hard,
hosted by my own petard!
In one fowl swoop, my just desserts
have been served up – and, boy, it hurts!
I have betrayed my love, but plead
compulsion by deep-seeded need!
Whole-scale short-sided wrecklessness
has got me in an awful mess.
My Jane was straight-laced; I was cursed,
chalk-full of need to slack my thirst.
Although our lives were going fine,
I just couldn’t tow the line.
When on a small site-seeing tour,
I took a pretty southmore’s lure:
jar-dropping beauty, looks to kill –
with baited breath I stood stalk still.
“I have a view that’s quite unique,”
she said. “Let’s go and sneak a peak.”
Why did I heed her beckon call?
Free reign of passions leads to fall,
but what I thought led straight to hell:
“She’ll tie me over – my as well!”
We didn’t buy our time that night;
we cut straight to the cheese on sight –
I won’t mix words: our will to dare
just grew like top seed then and there.
As if possessed of slight of hand,
in never regions we did land
(to name a view would be too course
and put the cat before the horse).
When all was done, I had the sense
I’d face cognitive dissidence,
but thought I’d pawn off bold-faced lies.
At last I had to realize
my power mower was not one-of
when I got news that caused my love –
a note a few months later: “Soon your
southmore will produce a junior.”
I got a mindgrain; I could see
a storm in the offering for me.
My Jane was cued in, bye and bye,
and she raised up a human cry
in a high dungeon. “You’ve done wrongs!
Let’s go at it, hammer and thongs!
The chickens have come home to roast!
I won’t lie doormat now! Your toast!”
She caused a raucous with abuse
and anger I could not diffuse.
Her words were nasty – so profound,
my vocal chords can’t make the sound.
She was a bowl in a china shop,
beyond the pail. I said, “Please stop!
The dye is cast! It’s not the place
to cut off your nose despite your face!
Don’t get your nipples in a twist!
You give me short shift! I insist
I’m utterly beyond approach!
Don’t treat me like a mere cockroach!”
She cried, “My cause for consternation
is not a pigment of the imagination!
There’s a bi-product of your lust!
Get out! You fill me with disgust!”
The point was mute; my chance was past,
so I gave up the goat at last.
Fate accompli, forgotten conclusion –
my morays were my dissolution.
And so, without further adieu,
here’s some advice that’s trite and true:
It would be who of you to trust your gut;
nip wayward passions in the butt.
Don’t sow your wild oaks around –
the eggcorns might just bring you down.

An eggcorn is a misconstrual of a word or phrase on the basis of an inaccurate (but seemingly sensible) analysis of its parts or origins. It uses other existing words or word parts in place of the originals. The term eggcorn is of course one such – the word should be acorn. The six dozen eggcorns in this poem have all been observed “in the wild” – used by real people in earnest, not as jokes (see eggcorns.lascribe.net). The eggcorns (and their proper forms) are veil of tears (vale of tears), woeth me (woe is me), hosted by my own petard (hoist with my own petard), one fowl swoop (one fell swoop), just desserts (just deserts), deep-seeded (deep-seated), whole-scale (wholesale), short-sided (short-sighted), wrecklessness (recklessness), straight-laced (strait-laced), chalk-full (chock full), slack my thirst (slake my thirst), tow the line (toe the line), site-seeing (sightseeing), southmore (sophomore), jar-dropping (jaw-dropping), baited breath (bated breath), stalk still (stock still), sneak a peak (sneak a peek), beckon call (beck and call), free reign (free rein), tie me over (tide me over), my as well (might as well), buy our time (bide our time), cut to the cheese (cut to the chase), mix words (mince words), grew like top seed (grew like Topsy), slight of hand (sleight of hand), never regions (nether regions), to name a view (to name a few), course (coarse), put the cat before the horse (put the cart before the horse), cognitive dissidence (cognitive dissonance), pawn off (palm off), bold-faced lies (bald-faced lies), power mower (paramour), one-of (one-off), caused (cost), mindgrain (migraine), in the offering (in the offing), cued in (clued in), bye and bye (by and by), human cry (hue and cry), high dungeon (high dudgeon), hammer and thongs (hammer and tongs), come home to roast (come home to roost), lie doormat (lie dormant), your toast (you’re toast), a raucous (a ruckus), diffuse (defuse), profound (profane), vocal chords (vocal cords), bowl in a china shop (bull in a china shop), beyond the pail (beyond the pale), the dye is cast (the die is cast), cut off your nose despite your face (cut off your nose to spite your face), don’t get your nipples in a twist (don’t get your knickers in a twist), short shift (short shrift), beyond approach (beyond reproach), a pigment of the imagination (a figment of the imagination), bi-product (by-product), the point was mute (the point was moot), gave up the goat (gave up the ghost), fate accompli (fait accompli), forgotten conclusion (foregone conclusion), morays (mores), without further adieu (without further ado), trite and true (tried and true), be who of you (behoove you), nip in the butt (nip in the bud), sow your wild oaks (sow your wild oats), and of course  eggcorns (acorns).

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moulin

Posted on June 2, 2010 | 1 comment

Most likely the first thing you’ll think of on seeing this word is Moulin Rouge, a Paris cabaret once a bit scandalous but now very touristy and expensive (and also the rather altered, fantasized subject of a Baz Luhrmann film). Moulin Rouge, for its part, makes my punning mind think of Hua Mulan (or Fa Mulan; the name means “magnolia”), the legendary Chinese woman warrior, who, if she had been fighting for the communists, could have been called Mulan Rouge.

For that matter, Mulan rouge might name some makeup she applied. If she applied makeup, that is – I don’t know that it would have been appropriate for Chinese warriors of 1500 years ago. I’d imagine muscles would be more in fashion (not mussels, moules, which one would order closer to the Moulin Rouge – though muscle, mussel, and moule do all have the same source). But as a woman in the army of that time and place, one wonders whether her position was not a bit Quixotic – tilting at a windmill, as it were. A windmill? Moulin-à-vent.

But never mind wind, and never mind red. How about a hole in a glacier that drains water from the top to the bottom? That would be a moulin bleu, perhaps, or replace vent with eau. While you’re mullin’ that over, consider that whatever it is, it’s called a moulin, anyway (yes, as in French for “mill” – the water’s swirling is the reason for the name), and as Greenland’s glacier cap is being run through the mill of global warming, we can wonder whether our efforts at forestalling the big melt are like tilting at windmills. The glaciers are being taken down by these new mill streams – one two-square-mile meltwater lake, 11 million gallons, drained in 84 minutes (that’s more throughput than Niagara Falls).

The word moulin looks a little like different angles on a glacial moulin: the waterfall m, the hole seen from above o, the pond before the hole bores all the way through u, the channel seen in side cutaway li, and perhaps a bit more flow n. It has such a smooth sound, nasals and liquid, it’s hard to associate it with churning, or grinding, or the roar of a massive drain. But it seems the speakers of Latin found molina as natural a name for a mill as we find mill to be – anyway, molina is the source of both moulin and mill. Molina is also a common enough surname, for various noted artists, athletes, and politicians, as well as millions of ordinary folks. I wonder if there’s a milliner named Molina who makes hats for the Moulin Rouge? Maybe a costume on a Mulan theme, made with magnolias. One would hope such an effort would not meet a chilly reception, be all wet, or go down the drain.

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zurrukutuna

Posted on June 1, 2010 | Leave a comment

This word displays what Alan Davidson, in The Oxford Companion to Food (1999), calls “the unusual appearance of Basque words.” It just happens that Basque – we should really call it Euskara – has three voiceless fricatives in the neighbourhood where English has two (“s” and “sh”); it spells z the one made with the blade of the tongue behind the teeth, s the one made with the tip of the tongue (thus the tongue concave) just by the ridge, and x the one that’s basically the same as English “sh”. And Basque likes to use these sounds. The result, when combined with the morphology of Basque and the commonality of the sound /k/, spelled k, is something that to English eyes looks like numerous small electric zaps. Here’s an example from euskadi.net:

Lehengo egunetik bakailao beratzen utzi da, ura hiru aldiz aldatuz gatza kentzeko. Txorixo piperrak beratzen egon behar izan dira ere bai gutxienez bost orduz haragia ateratzeko. Buztin ontzi batean baratxuri lurrinduta xigortzen utzi. Ondoren, prest badago piper berdea erantsi, arin lurrindurik. Biguna dagoenean bakailao izpitua bota, txorixo piperren haragia eta ogi xigortuarekin batera, salda pixka batekin estaliz. Egiten den bitartean nahasi eta sakatu masa bat lortu arte. Bukatu baino zerbait lehenago arrautzak irabiatu gabe bota gehitu masa gainean egin daitezen. Arrautzen gainean perrezil xehatuta bota eta sutan utzi arrautzak egin arte.

It puts me in mind of Davidson’s description of Basque women. He is explaining possible reasons for the men-only nature of Basque gastronomic clubs:

perhaps to some extent a male desire for peace and quiet (Basque women being not only beautiful but formidable)

Indeed, is not this tongue beautiful but formidable? It is not even evidently related to any other language: it is an isolate, and odd theories abound as to its ontogeny.

But of course these angular characters are unexceptional to Euskaran eyes; it’s a matter of what one is used to. And the sounds they represent are not so shocking, and not necessarily so foreign. See this word in the middle of what I quoted: txorixo. Remembering that x is like “sh”, say it aloud. Yes, it’s the Euskara version of chorizo, as in the pepper (not the sausage).

This far in and I haven’t even gotten to the word I’m tasting yet! Well, I have, in a way, but it’s a bit circuitous. That block of Euskara up there is the cooking instructions for a soup made with garlic, salt cod (bakailao, which again may look a little familiar), peppers (piperren – along with the zaps, Euskara purrs, as there is a distinction between r and rr), oil, onions, and bread, and topped off with an egg – or more than one egg, depending on how you’re serving it. And its name, I am given to understand, comes from the word for “wood oven” (zur is “wood”), which apparently it was once made in, though all the recipes I’ve seen have it made on a stove. It is, yes, zurrukutuna.

I haven’t eaten the soup – I first saw the word just today, in Tony Aspler’s latest Spanish travelogue – but I have a clear sense of its flavour, and the (to our eyes) angular tang and electricity of the word would seem to be matched by the peppers and salt. We may also take note that it is a word that may be said while blowing on hot soup, as the vowels are /u/ all the way through until the end and there are no labial consonants. Just be careful not to spit on it with the /kutu/.

It is a sort of male-dining word, isn’t it? The zurru brings to mind Zorro, moustache and swagger; the u‘s are convivial cups. The k kicks in the door and drags a chair t to the table n. There’s just the issue of that tuna – too healthy for dude food, really. Replace with salt cod. Ah, there we have it. Now we can eat our food and hide from the women in peace… (Clearly these fearful gastronomes need the sort of advice doled out by this sign.)

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How to explain grammar

Posted on May 31, 2010 | 3 comments

Presented at the 31st annual Editors’ Association of Canada conference, Montréal, May 29, 2010

Handout (PDF, 440 KB)

So OK. You look at the manuscript you’re editing, and you see… this:

Adding the ingredients in this order ensures failed chiffon cakes made at home is not an option.

OK, what’s the first thing you do? After sending a “seen in the wild” email to the EAC email list, I mean.

Well, yeah, you correct it, or humbly suggest a correction to the exalted author, depending on the project. But, ah, right then, what is going on here? And what if you make a correction and the author says, “No, it was fine the way I had it. It makes perfect sense to me, and it’s grammatical”?

Well… Continue reading →

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