Table of Contents
Title Page
Introduction
a · A · a
abacus
accentuation
accompaniment
acnestis
ad hominy
adulation
adverb
aid, marital
airplane
and
arbitrary
architect (the verb)
awesome
b · B · b
back in the day
bean
bearless
beauty, depth of
belch
bigth
blab, blabber
bless
blob
bloggerheads, at
blurt
body
boo
books, randomly readable
boy
bubble
buckra
bum
but
c · C · c
celebrity
ch
chimera
Chinese sense of time
Chinese, would-be purification of
clever
clown
consonant
coot
cotton
cough
crawfish, crayfish
crustaceous
d · D · d
Daddy
dangling modifier
decapitate
device, narrative, what would you call this one
device, similar, but not quite the same
Dionysian, Apollonian, blended, briefly
discalced
distance, the verb
dubbed
dwell
e · E · e
e, short, the new
each other
ear, writing for the
-ed, -èd
eel
elephant
enough
errata
ew
expertise
f · F · f
fancy
feted
fewer/less
first sentence
flies
flulike
foil
fond
fool, e.g., Will Somers (or Sommers)
form
fox
free speech
frequent
Frisian
frog
fudge
full disclosure
fuss
future, the, caught for the moment
fuzz
g · G · g
gag
garden path phenomenon
gender neutrality, absurd
ghostwriting
gikl
gillie, girl
glass
Gmail?
gnat
Godwottery
going global
golf
gollywaddles
Google-logisms
grammar/glamour
granular
growsome
h · H · h
Haskell, Eddie
head
headlines
hiccup
hippopotamus
hopefully
humble
hunch
hyphen
i · I · i
ingenuity
“Is the pope fallible?,” alternatives to
itch
j · J · j
Jack
jejune
joke, linguists’, which I don’t get either
juice
jump
k · K · k
kick
kiss
kludge
knee
knickers
knickknack
l · L · l
laughing, in letters
laughs, textual
lawyer joke, earliest
ling, lit, don’t invite ’em
looks, poetic
lunge
-ly
m · M · m
mediablur
me-fear
memory, institutional
metanarrative, pig and possum throwing
me-time
mimi
mixed metaphor
modernism/postmodernism
mouse
music
n · N · n
name, fictional, too often taken for granted
names, common but relationship straining (I would imagine)
names, funny
names, good ones
names, not so good
names, unexpected
negative, double
nice
nitty-gritty
o · O · o
oaf
OED and me
off-off rhymes
Ojibwa/Chippewa/Anishanabe
omen
onesies
ooze
ouistiti
outdo
ox
p · P · p
pachyderm/pachysandra
page turning
pang
peeve
pet, peevish
ping-pong
plank
poop-noddy, noddypoop
portmanteau
preemptive
prescient
prick
prior to
proposal, wording of, proper
pshaw
pu-
puffery
pun
punctilious
puppy
purl
q · Q · q
Q-tip
questions not to ask an author, with answers
quip
r · R · r
racism
rank
recursion, excessive
redundancy
rhythm
robinhood
rumpsprung
s · S · s
-sh, sh-
shrapnel
sic
sigh
since
slave
slaver/slobber
slip
slush
smithereens
snazzy
sneeze
so
sonicky
spelling
splotch
sports talk
sportswriting
squelch
sting
strumpet
subjunctive
succinct
such
supercalifragilisticexpialidocious
syllabus
synesthesia
t · T · t
ta
T and A
tare
tenrec
their, them, they, the singular
there
thigh
thong
though, the lazy
tight like that
tit
toadless
touchy
translation, of Mark Twain, into English
tsk-tsk
tut-tut
tutu’s, the two
Twain, Mark, little bits he never used
typos, going with them
u · U · u
ukulelelike
undertaker yarns, lost
undulation
upaya
urge
v · V · v
vim
vowel
w · W · w
wasp
wavelet
Weekley, Ernest
well
,well,
well-intentioned
wheatear
whistle
whiz
who, whom, tsk, tsk
Wikipedia
wisdom
wise, -wise
wobble
woe
woomph
writer’s block
x · X · x
Xanadu
Xit
X-ray
xylophone
y · Y · y
y’all
yare, yar
ylid
yo
you
you-all
z · Z · z
zeroth
zest, zester
zizz
zolotnik
zwischenzug
Zydeco
zythum
Also by
Acknowledgments
A NOTE ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Copyright Page
2JGw/OX
ELSIE: What’s that, Daddy?
FATHER: A cow.
ELSIE: Why?
—from a 1906 issue of Punch, quoted by Ernest Weekley as an epigraph to his book An Etymology of Modern English
When we reflect that “sentence” means, literally, “a way of thinking” (Latin: sententia) and that it comes from the Latin sentire, to feel, we realize that the concepts of sentence and sentence structure are not merely grammatical or merely academic—not negligible in any sense. A sentence is both the opportunity and the limit of thought—what we have to think with, and what we have to think in. It is, moreover, a feelable thought, a thought that impresses its sense not just on our understanding, but on our hearing, our sense of rhythm and proportion. It is a pattern of felt sense.
—Wendell Berry, “Standing by Words”
Captain Smith … , happening to be taken Prisoner among the Indians, had leave granted him to send a Message to the Governor of the English Fort in James Town, about his Ransome; the Messenger being an Indian, was surpriz’d, when he came to the Governor, … for that the Governor could tell him all his Errand before he spoke one Word of it to him, and that he only had given him a piece of Paper: After which, when they let him know that the Paper which he had given the Governor had told him all the Business, then … Capt. Smith was a Deity and to be Worshipp’d, for that he had Power to make the Paper Speak.
—Daniel Defoe, An Essay on the Original of Literature, 1726
Introduction
This book includes two disastrous wedding nights, several touches of romance (aside from the long-deferred union of scratch and itch), and lots of animal life (eels, crabs, elephants, flies), but it all springs from things going on among letters on a printed page.
Where almost anything can happen. I’m reading a fascinating piece by Oliver Sacks in The New Yorker about a novelist who woke up one morning and couldn’t read, couldn’t recognize letters (see O), which makes my blood run cold to begin with, and I’m reading that people with certain ocular disorders “may be prone to visual hallucinations, and Dominic ffytche et al. estimate …”
Oh my God, I’m having one. What the hell kind of phantasm is “ffytche et al.”?
Then I go back, reread, and settle down. Some medical researcher’s name is Dominic ffytche. I’ve heard of such names. But I want to say to this man, “Dom. Please. I have name issues myself—Blount pronunced [sic] Blunt. That is no doubt one reason I’m so hipped on phonetics, that my own name is blatantly not spelled the way it’s pronounced, so I have to spend a great deal of my time arguing with people about how to pronounce my own damn name, which is a centuries-old English pronunciation and I am not about to change it. And I wouldn’t try to tell you, sir, that you should turn your y into an i and lose your e. All I ask of you is this: find it in your heart to capitalize one, at least, of your f’s. You don’t know what a start you gave me.”
What do we have, if we don’t have letters? The police chief on The Simpsons advised people to “follow the Four A’s: Always Act According to the ABC’s.” There is more to life than that, but it’s a good start. This book, like its only slightly worse predecessor, Alphabet Juice, is not, except in irritable moments, a book of advice. It does urge you to dwell upon the literality and the physicality of language.
Wait! Hold on a minute!
Almost lost you, didn’t I? I had the TV reference nailed down. (Quick, here’s another one: remember in The Simpsons when the local library had a big neon sign outside that said, “We Have Books by People on TV”?)
But then I drifted off into -ity words. Not nitty-gritty -ity words, like pity or Fitty (there, you young folks, there’s a hip-hop reference, and see blob), but longish … Excuse me, this damn phone …
Ah, well. Where were we? These days, with so many demands on our—what?—our attention, it may seem hard to bring words into close focus. Hard and also retro. But, to paraphrase Gerard Manley Hopkins (see foil), there is a freshness deep down in words, and you never know when it’s going to flash out. Here’s a little teaser from this book’s entry on garden path phenomenon:
… a review, by Janet Maslin in The New York Times, of a memoir by Barbara Walters:
Ms. Walters … will acknowledge this much: She’s old enough to have had the daughter of one of the Three Stooges …
WHAT? WHAT? Which one? Surely not Curly! …
Yet another TV reference. And for you sports fans, how about the pleasures of the narrow-box-score phenomenon: Zmmn. DvMrp. (See vowel.)
It’s a shame, isn’t it?, that people who use words in public don’t pay more granular attention to the words they use. On public radio I hear a concerned interviewee: “We—including the president—are not doing nearly enough to ensure that our children eat healthy food.”
Hmm. We, including the president. Why not throw in Young Jeezy, the World Trade Organization, Stephen Hawking, the Phoenix Suns, Calista Flockhart, and the supermodel Gisele Bundchen? Don’t tell me any of them are doing enough. When something is not being done enough—and when isn’t something not?—it brings so many people together, conceptually. I’m thinking maybe this book could use an entry on the interviewee we. But then the interviewer says: “Do you think it’s because the president doesn’t want to open up that whole can of worms?”
Here we go! Talking about children, right? And eating, right? Can of worms? Huh? My guess is, the interviewee will respond to that figure of speech in one of three perfectly natural ways:
1. “Funny you should mention that. Studies show that a can of earthworms contains more nutrients, without the trans fat, than three cans of SpaghettiOs.”
2. “Hmm. You may have hit on something. If someone would market high-fiber, sugar-free, organic school-lunch snacks convincingly resembling earthworms, it might go a long way toward solving this problem—anyway for boys.”
3. “Ew.” (See succinct.)
In fact the interviewee responds in none of those ways. She plows on ahead with her message. She doesn’t even chuckle, nor does the interviewer.
People! We’re using figures of speech here! Figures of speech have specific words in them, and words have specific sounds in them, and attention must be paid. I don’t mean pissy, constrictive attention, I mean lip-smacking attention. But not sloppy lip smacking. That spoils it for others. (See Dionysian, Apollonian, blended, briefly.)
There is a widespread tendency today, even on the part of people who write about English usage, to eschew finickiness. I’m sorry, but when it comes to wording, I intend to finick till the day I die. Because there’s kicks in it, as Louis Armstrong used to say. You can even enjoy slovenly syntax (see first sentence) if it conjures up an image. When the sign at a temporary warning light says, “Be Prepared to Stop When Flashing,” you can picture someone throwing open his or her raincoat while poised to desist. When you read in an obituary, “At the age of seven, his grandfather died,” you can imagine three extraordinarily compressed generations.
In a Whole Foods store, I am waiting as my eat-it-there pizza slice is warmed. The pizza will disappoint (there is no more excuse for floppy, doughy pizza than there is for floppy, doughy sentences), but I don’t know that yet. My heart has been warmed, and lifted, by the sign next to where my slice is warm
ing:
HAVE IT WARMED IN OUR HEARTHOVEN
Heart-hoven! A Gerard Manley Hopkins word (hoven as an archaic past participle of heave), surely:
Soul-flung, rump-sprung, heart-hoven I rise …
Then I come back to earth. I lack the chops to fake even one line of Hopkins ( see foil). And what that Whole Foods sign means is hearth oven. But thanks to close reading, I have had a moment there, one that “saved some part of a day I had rued,” as Robert Frost wrote of snow shaken down on him by a crow.
Recently I read a book that stated flatly, “Language is intrinsically neutral.” That is doctrine, I think, passed down to linguistics majors (I am a proud English major) so that they can look beyond words, which resist abstraction, toward notions of universal grammar, which thrive on abstraction. To me, calling language neutral is like (no, worse than) saying “Pizza’s pizza. Depends on who’s eating it and where and when, what it’s eaten with, how it’s marketed …” Okay, pizza does depend, to some extent, on such considerations. I’m not an absolutist. But there is such a thing as pizza that hits the spot. Such a thing as pizza that’s unusually interesting, on purpose. Such a thing as pizza that makes you say, “Now that’s pizza.” There is also such a thing as sorry-ass pizza. And to an undismissible extent, those such-a-things depend upon the pizza’s ingredients and how they’ve been assembled, baked, and slid from the oven. Pizza essences. Alphabet juice.
Anatoly Liberman is a leading scholar of English etymology. “The more expressive human speech is,” he writes in Word Origins, and How We Know Them: Etymology for Everyone, “the more ‘echoic’ words it contains.” He adds:
The criteria for calling a word echoic are not clearly defined. Grunt is an onomatopoeia. A grumpy person may be prone to growling and grousing, though even without gr- in his or her name such an individual would be equally obnoxious. Consider hump, which rhymes with grump and means “a fit of ill temper,” its soft sound texture notwithstanding. The Oxford Dictionary of English Etymology suggests that this sense of hump is rooted in the idea of humping the back in sulkiness. Whether such a conjecture deserves credence is a matter of opinion. Kipling had a similar explanation of the origin of the camel’s humps; his camel was irascible and spiteful.