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In his 1954 book Language in Relation to a Unified Theory of the Structure of Human Behavior, Kenneth Pike presents a toy language in which meaning is determined by the relative order of the elements. If these expressions have the indicated meanings:

1. los            "It is smoke"
2. mif            "It is a ball"
3. kap            "They are eyes"
4. losmif         "The ball is smoking"
5. miflos         "The smoke is rolling"
6. mifmif         "The ball is rolling"
7. mifmiflos      "The smoke is rolling in round puffs"
8. mifmifkap      "He is rolling his eyes around" or
                  "The eyes are rolling around"
9. losmifkap      "His eyes roam darkly"
10. mifkaplos     "The smoke is trying to escape" or
                  "The smoke looks around"
11. kapmifmif     "I can see the ball rolling"
12. mifkapkap     "He is looking around"
13. losloskap     "His eyes are smoldering menacingly"

… what would be meant by kapmiflos and kapkapkap?

	Select Click for Answer
The language has no parts of speech; any word can function as a noun, verb, or adverb according to its position in the sentence. If an expression contains one element then it’s a noun; if two elements then it’s a verb followed by a noun; if three elements then it’s an adverb followed by a verb and then a noun. Los means “having some reference to one or more characteristics of smoke,” mif means “having some reference to one or more characteristics of a ball,” and kap means “having some reference to one or more characteristics of an eye or eyes.” So kapmiflos means something like “I can see the smoke rolling,” and kapkapkap means “I can see her looking around.”

Click for Answer

April 3, 2025April 2, 2025 | Language

One or the Other

When the news of [Richelieu’s] passing was brought to Urban VIII, the old Pope sat for a moment in pensive silence. ‘Well,’ he said at last, ‘if there is a God, Cardinal Richelieu will have much to answer for. If not, he has done very well.’

— Aldous Huxley, Grey Eminence, 1941

April 2, 2025April 1, 2025 | History

Another World

You see, when you learn to read you will be born again into another world and it is a pity to be born again so young. I should put off reading, if I were you. As soon as you learn to read you will not see anything again quite as it is. It will all the time be altered by what you have read and you will never be quite alone again. I should stay by yourself a bit longer if I were you.

— Rumer Godden, to her 4-year-old daughter Jane, 1939

April 2, 2025April 1, 2025 | Literature

The Moralist

la rochefoucauld

In his Table Talk, W.H. Auden says that La Rochefoucauld “simply says what one has always known.”

Robert Craft added, “Yes, but without him some of us would not have known that we knew.”

April 1, 2025March 31, 2025 | Literature

All Sides

“Conjugated nouns,” offered by Ohio State University linguist Arnold M. Zwicky in Verbatim in 1975:

I steal the keel. I stole the coal. I have stolen the colon.
They choose the hues. They chose the hose. They have chosen the hosen.
They mow the banks of the row. They mowed the banks of the road. They have mown the banks of the Rhone.
I do it with the buoys. I did it with the biddies. I have done it with the bunnies.

Mike Anglin took this up in Word Ways in 1988:

I tear the hair; I tore the whore; I have torn the horn.
I see the sea; I saw the saw; I have seen the scene.
I draw the law; I drew the loo; I have drawn the lawn.
I throw the bow; I threw the boo; I have thrown the bone.
I sink the mink; I sank the manque; I have sunk the monk.
I choose the booze; I chose the bows; I have chosen the bosun.
I weave the leaves; I wove the loaves; I have woven the love-ins.
I forsake the cake; I forsook the cook; I have forsaken the whole mess.

Philip M. Cohen added, “I scare for the mare; I score for the more; I have scorn for the morn.”

April 1, 2025March 31, 2025 | Language

Credit

Dedication of P.G. Wodehouse’s 1926 book The Heart of a Goof:

To
My Daughter
Leonora
Without Whose Never-Failing
Sympathy and Encouragement
This Book
Would Have Been Finished
in
Half the Time

March 31, 2025March 30, 2025 | Literature

Appeal

Oh Lord, Thou knowest that I have lately purchased an estate in fee simple in Essex. I beseech Thee to preserve the two counties of Middlesex and Essex from fire and earthquakes; and as I have also a mortgage at Hertfordshire, I beg of Thee also to have an eye of compassion on that county, and for the rest of the counties, Thou may deal with them as Thou art pleased. Oh Lord, enable the bank to answer all their bills and make all my debtors good men, give a prosperous voyage and safe return to the Mermaid sloop, because I have not insured it, and because Thou has said, ‘The days of the wicked are but short’, I trust in Thee that Thou wilt not forget Thy promise, as I have an estate in reversion, which will be mine on the death of the profligate young man, Sir J. L. …g.

Keep my friends from sinking, preserve me from thieves and housebreakers, and make all my servants so honest and faithful that they may always attend to my interest and never cheat me out of my property night or day.

— John Ward, onetime M.P. for Weymouth, quoted in M.C. D’Arcy, The Mind and the Heart of Love, 1947

(This must be satire, but I haven’t been able to learn anything more about it.)

04/01/2025 UPDATE: Apparently the “prayer” was discovered among Ward’s papers after his death in 1755 — possibly he was condemning self-dealing in Parliament at the time. (Thanks to readers Brieuc de Grangechamps and Jon Anderson.)

March 31, 2025April 1, 2025 | Religion · Society

Foreign Food

“Ingliz menuyu” presented to writer William Dalrymple at a family restaurant in Turkey in 1986:

SOAP
Ayas soap
Turkish tripte soap
Sheeps foot
Macaront
Water pies

EATS FROM MEAT
Deuner kepab with pi
Kebap with green pe
Kebap in paper
Meat pide
Kebap with mas patato
Samall bits of meat grilled
Almb chops

VEGETABLES
Meat in earthenware stev pot
Stfue goreen pepper
Stuffed squash
Stuffed tomatoes z
Stuffed cabbages lea
Leek with finced meat
Clery

SALAD
Brain salad
Cacik — a drink made ay ay
And cucumber

FRYING PANS
Fried aggs
Scram fried aggs
Scrum fried omlat
Omlat with brain

SWEETS AND RFUITS
Stewed atrawberry
Nightingales nests
Virgin lips
A sweet dish of thinsh of batter with butter
Banane
Meon
Leeches

“It was a difficult choice,” he writes. From In Xanadu, 1989.

March 30, 2025March 29, 2025 | Language

Words and Music

https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Music_cross-rhythm,_cold_cup_of_tea.PNG — Image: Wikimedia Commons

Wikimedia user Tarquin points out that the natural rhythm of spoken language can be used to teach polyrhythms.

Above: The phrase “cold cup of tea,” spoken naturally, approximates a rhythm of 2 against 3.

Below: The phrase “what atrocious weather” approximates 4 against 3.

March 29, 2025March 28, 2025 | Art · Language

“Almost Too Ceremonious”

A gentleman walked up to another gentleman, who was standing before the fire in a Coffee Room, and immediately said, ‘I beg your pardon, Sir, but may I ask your name?’ ‘I am not in the habit, Sir,’ said the other man, ‘of giving my name to strangers, but, as you are so pertinacious, Sir, my name is Thompson, Sir.’ ‘Then, Mr. Thompson, Sir,’ said the first speaker, ‘now I know your name, I beg, Sir, to inform you that your coat tails are on fire.’

— Frederick Locker-Lampson, Patchwork, 1879

March 28, 2025 | Humor