When I went out to throw the discus
I went and sprained some little viscus.
Since that disruption of my viscera
I don’t go out and throw the discera.
— Don Laycock
Language
In a Word
subagitate
v. to have sex with
verecund
adj. bashful; modest
reme
v. to cry or call out
cacoëpistic
adj. badly pronounced
[Sir Walter Raleigh] loved a wench well; and one time getting up one of the Mayds of Honour up against a tree in a Wood (’twas his first Lady) who seemed at first boarding to be something fearfull of her Honour, and modest, she cryed, sweet Sir Walter, what doe you me ask? Will you undoe me? Nay, sweet Sir Walter! Sweet Sir Walter! Sir Walter! At last, as the danger and the pleasure at the same time grew higher, she cryed in the extasey, Swisser Swatter Swisser Swatter. She proved with child, and I doubt not but this Hero tooke care of them both, as also that the Product was more than an ordinary mortal.
— John Aubrey, Brief Lives, 1697
Place Settings
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?
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.”
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.
Words and Music
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.
Roll Call
Remarkable names of real people, collected in the 1980s by John Train:
- Mac Aroni
- Cigar Stubbs
- Legitimate Jones
- Halibut Justa Fish
- Daphne Reader’s Digest Taione
- Halloween Buggage
- Eucalyptus Yoho
- Solomon Gemorah
- Asa Miner
- Carlos Restrepo Restrepo Restrepo de Restrepo
- Cranberry Turkey Breckenridge Jr.
- Demetrius Plick
- F.G. Vereneseneckockkrockoff
- Rev. Fountain Wetmore Rainwater
- Grecian T. Snooze
- July August September
- Lobelia Rugtwit Hildebiddle
- Tarantula Turner
- Theanderblast Mischgedeigle Sump
- Theodolphus J. Poontang
- Vile Albert
- Welcome Baby Darling
Buggage had a daughter named Easter.
Alienated Majesty
In 2005, Jeremy Winterson bought a bootleg copy of Revenge of the Sith in Shanghai and noticed something wrong with the English subtitles.
The movie’s dialogue had been translated mechanically into Chinese and then translated back again into English, leaving it almost incomprehensible. (A similar disaster had befallen a Portuguese-French phrasebook in 1883.)
Fans replaced the movie’s original audio dialogue with voice actors reading the mistranslated subtitles, and the result is Star War the Third Gathers: Backstroke of the West (highlights above).
Misc
- It’s illegal to mispronounce Joliet.
- G.K. Chesterton left an unfinished poem titled Plakkopytrixphylisperadaulantiobatrix.
- Alms has no singular.
- The Spanish village Trasmoz has been cursed and excommunicated by the Catholic Church.
- “The wink was not our best invention.” — Ralph Hodgson
An Irish riddle: Yonder he is through the stream, a man without a coat, a man without a belt, a man of hard slender legs, it is my woe that I cannot run. Death.
In a Word
vatic
adj. relating to a prophet
futurition
n. future existence
natalitial
adj. of or relating to a person’s birth
aporetic
adj. inclined to raise objections
In 2000, three sisters from Inverness bought a £1 million insurance policy to cover the cost of bringing up the infant Jesus Christ if one of them had a virgin birth.
Simon Burgess, managing director of britishinsurance.com, told the BBC, “The people were concerned about having sufficient funds if they immaculately conceived. It was for caring and bringing up the Christ. We sometimes get weird requests and this is the weirdest we have had.”
The company withdrew the policy in 2006 after objections by the Catholic Church. “The burden of proof that it was Christ had rested with the women and any premium on the insurance was donated to charity, said Mr Burgess.”