Language

NORTHERN PHRASE GOES GLOBAL

Robert Butler — Thu, 05 Jan 2012 18:20:21 +0000

~ Posted by Robert Butler, January 5th 2012

A football match kicks off, the New Year celebrations kick off, a new TV series kicks off. That's simple enough. Then the poet Robert Lowell used the phrase in its darker American sense: "The old bitches / live into their hundreds, while I'll kick off/ tomorrow." read more »

FA KE YOU, RIVER CRAB

Wed, 08 Jun 2011 10:01:33 +0000

"THE Travelogue of Dr Brain Damages", a show of Kenneth "Tin-Kin" Hung's artwork, opened recently in Manhattan. Mr Hung's garish and busy large paintings feature images of Mao Zedong, Deng Xiaoping and other Chinese leaders juxtaposed with icons of Western culture, such as Marilyn Monroe and the Mario Brothers (of Nintendo fame). These pieces are arresting, and I wish Mr Hung success, but most Western viewers will fail to understand some of the games the artist is playing. His work depends heavily on Chinese puns about internet censorship. read more »

"THIS MAY INTEREST YOU"

Mon, 06 Jun 2011 16:46:35 +0000

A friend of mine was recently told by his boss that his position at work was "unassailable": in British office-speak that is a severe warning which has sent him hastily looking for a new job. It reminded me of a guide I came across a few years ago, which aimed to help plain-speaking Dutch executives make sense of their English colleagues. Here's an updated and amplified version. Readers are welcome to add their own entries in the comments field, and to ponder the question of what (if anything) an ingrained cult of euphemistic understatement may say about the British (or should that be English?) national character.

What the British say: "I hear what you say"
What the British mean: "I disagree and do not want to discuss it any further"
What is understood:"He accepts my point of view"

What the British say: "This is in no sense a rebuke"
What the British mean: "I am furious with you and letting you know it"
What is understood: "I am not cross with you"

What the British say: "With the greatest respect"
What the British mean: "I think you are wrong (or a fool)"
What is understood: "He is listening to me"

TRIUMPH OF A LANGUAGE NERD

Thu, 12 May 2011 04:04:05 +0000

Isn't it fun to memorise conjugation tables for verbs in a new language? Well, no, not unless you're Robert Lane Greene, a business correspondent for The Economist and editor of our Johnson blog. My esteemed colleague and self-described office language nerd has written a book, "You Are What You Speak", about "grammar grouches, language laws and the politics of identity". Here he talks to our books & arts editor about the hardest language he has ever tried to learn (Arabic), why English has spread around the world (and how it helped Shakespeare), and why there's no such thing as a truly primitive language.

LA FHEILE PADRAIG

Thu, 17 Mar 2011 22:06:08 +0000

At least 176 languages are spoken in New York City, though some say as many as 800. New York’s police department is said to have more speakers of Arabic than the FBI has. Still, amid this Babel, one does not hear much Irish, and this in a city that experienced waves of heavy Irish immigration.

But this morning at St Agnes Church, a small chapel almost hidden on East 43rd Street, St Patrick’s Day mass was said in Irish by Father Aidan O’Driscoll, visiting from Cork. The church was packed with what seemed an equal mix of Irish and Irish-Americans. (Some curious New Yorkers also strolled in, lured perhaps by the piper playing Irish music outside the church door.) Translations were handed out so everyone could follow along. During the “Our Father”, or the “Ár nAthair”, the colleague who accompanied me noticed that part of the translation differed from the usual one used in Catholic churches:

Agus maith dúinn ár bhfiacha
Mar a mhaithimidne ár bhféichiúnaithe féin

The translation read

And forgive us our debts
As we forgive our own debtors read more »

EVOLVING ENGLISH

Mon, 22 Nov 2010 20:46:07 +0000

400M people speak English as their first language; another 1.4 billion as a second tongue. Born 1,600 years ago among the Germanic tribes of northern Europe, English became global as a result of trade, conquest, migration, the media and the rise of the economic power of America.

A new exhibition at the British Library just down the road from two of London’s main immigrant entry points, Kings Cross and Euston railway stations, traces for the first time the incredible journey launched by the Frisians, Saxons, Angles and Jutes who sailed to south-east England and whose descendants created the Vespasian Psalter in the eighth century. Alongside an image of King David playing the harp are the words, “Dominus inluminatio mea” and underneath “Dryhten inlihtnis mine” (“The Lord is my light”).

Difficult to understand for today’s English speaker, the roots of the language are nonetheless discernibly there. From the Vespasian Psalter the journey moves on through England’s early literary heroes, Beowulf, Sir Gawayne and the Grene Knight, and on to Jonathan Swift, who wrote that “the English Language, as it is spoken by the politest part of the nation, and as it stands in the writings of our most approved authors, often offends against every part of Grammar.” read more »

FIVE THINGS: A PERILOUS NOUN

Molly Young — Thu, 28 Oct 2010 15:15:43 +0000

There it was in black graffiti letters on an earthen wall in Mexico City: A todo madre o un desmadre. Liza Bakewell, a linguistic anthropologist at Brown University, noticed the phrase and puzzled over how to translate it. Her bewilderment inspired a lengthy investigation into the word madre (mother) and its complicated meanings, which she documented and distilled in her new book, "Madre: Perilous Journeys with a Spanish Noun".

Made up of only five letters and two syllables, madre, Bakewell finds, is like "a cell under a microscope"—seemingly small but "filled with more activity than I had planned and had seen with my own two eyes over the years." The word itself implies power and powerlessness; it is central yet marginal. Here More Intelligent Life has chosen five highlights from the author's charming book, a mix of memoir, research and travelogue.

On common phrases and their implications:

¡Qué padre! literally translates as "what a father", and means, "How marvellous and awesome."Me vale madre, however, translates as "it is worth a mother" and means, loosely, "I don't give a damn" or "It's worthless.

On grammar: read more »

ACRONYMS, EG

Mon, 20 Sep 2010 17:02:23 +0000

To go with our study on the rise of the acronym, considered by both Lane Greene and Jonathan Meades, we've compiled a list of some of our favourites.

TMI too much information.

WILCO will comply (US, 1930s).

ROTFL rolling on the floor laughing.

NORWICH (K)nickers off ready when I come home (WW2).

STD subscriber trunk dialling (UK, 1950s); sexually transmitted disease (1970s).

KISS Keep it simple, stupid (US military 1960s).

DAB Dull and backward (UK 1950s); digital audio broadcasting (1980s).

STASI Staatssicherheit (East German State Security 1950–89).

MAD Mutually assured destruction (US 1960s, possibly Robert McNamara).

NED Non-educated delinquent (UK probation service 1970s).

POETS Piss (or push) off early, tomorrow’s Saturday (UK 1950s, US 1970s).

YUPPIE Young urban or upwardly mobile professional (US 1980s).

PUMPIE Previously upwardly mobile prat (City of London 1980s).

FILTH Failed in London, try Hong Kong (City of London 1980s).

BO body odour (Lifebuoy soap ads, 1930s).

LOMBARD Lots of money but a real dickhead (City of London 1980s).

BTM Back to me.

WAGs Wives and girlfriends (UK 2000s).

GHD Good hair day.

ADIDAS All day I dream about sex (or sport, or shoes; hip-hop 1990s).

TG Tiny gangster (gang member under 10, US 1990s).

GTG Got to go.

THE Q&A: BERNARD LAMB, PRESIDENT OF THE QUEEN'S ENGLISH SOCIETY

Lucy Farmer — Fri, 10 Sep 2010 14:07:04 +0000

We’ve heard the grumbles about the standards of English declining in schools. We’ve read the amusing anecdotes about grammar vigilantes who correct signposts by night, and the furore sparked by some UK councils banning the use of apostrophes in road signs “to avoid confusion”. Is this pesky pedantry or a growing problem that needs addressing? Bernard Lamb, president of the Queen’s English Society, and a geneticist at Imperial College London, believes the latter. The QES exists to protect what it calls the Queen’s English. The Queen's English is not elitist or overly complex, it is simply “authoritative, correct, clear English”, says Mr Lamb. Though he has been known to take a marker pen to a public sign, he is also active in the society’s aim to promote use of the Queen’s English where needed, such as in business, education and the public arena. His latest effort is the unashamedly finicky handbook “The Queen’s English: And How to Use It”, out now. read more »

POLITICS AND METAPHORS

Robert Lane Greene — Fri, 14 May 2010 20:27:20 +0000

Why do people keep calling Elena Kagan, Barack Obama's nominee to America's Supreme Court, a "blank slate"? The term, combined with her name, gets 70,300 hits on Google. Glenn Greenwald, Paul Campos and Andrew Sullivan have all used it prominently, and AOL news gives it the number-one billing of their "top 5 metaphors for Elena Kagan." The thing about a metaphor, though, is that it's supposed to help us to understand something. The blank slate itself is meant to have no opinions or proclivities, and can be written on by others at will. It is a theory held by some about children, for example.

This is very hard to square with the reports, many supported by actual evidence, that Kagan is pro-gay, comfortable with executive power, a closet conservative, the intended Democratic counterweight to John Roberts, a liberal academic who boldly hired conservatives at Harvard, a Mets fan and, hell, let's throw in the alleged fondness for cigars. As a child she also dressed up in judge's robes. Some of these tidbits are at odds with one another, and I'm not sure they're all true, but they're all things that describe a real person with quite real proclivities. "Blank slate"? Hardly. read more »