Fine Pleading

From a letter from Thomas Sheridan to Jonathan Swift, July 15, 1735:

I cum here formo ni. Itis apparent I canta ve mi mærent, mi tenentis tardi. I cursim e veri de nota pen cani res. I ambit. Mi stomachis a cor morante ver re ad ito digesta me ale in a minute. I eat nolam, noram, no dux. I generali eat a quale carbone dedat super an da qualis as fine abit as arabit. I es ter de I eat atro ut at a bit. De vilis in mi a petite. A crustis mi de lite. (I neu Eumenides ago eat tuenti times more.) As unde I eat offa buccas fatas mi arsis. On nam unde I eat sum pes. A tu es de I eat a pud in migra num edit. A venis de I eat sum pasti. Post de notabit. Afri de abit ab re ad. A satur de sum tripes.

That ain’t Latin. What is it?

I come here for money. It is apparent I can’t have my May rent, my tenant is tardy. I curse him every day, not a penny can I raise. I am bit. My stomach is a cormorant, ever ready to digest a meal every minute. I eat no lamb, no ram, no ducks. I generally eat a quail carbonaded at supper, and a quail is as fine a bit as a rabbit. Yesterday I ate a trout at a bit. Devil is in my appetite. A crust is my delight. (I knew you, many days ago, eat twenty times more.) A Sunday I eat of a buck as fat as my arse is. On a Monday I eat some peas. A Tuesday I eat a pudding; my grannum made it. A Wednesday I eat some pasty. Post day not a bit. A Friday a bit of bread. A Saturday some tripes.

“Not a day passed that he did not make a rebus, an anagram, or a madrigal,” wrote William Fraser Rae of Sheridan in the Dictionary of National Biography. “Idle, poor, and gay, he managed his own affairs badly, and he justly wrote of himself, ‘I am famous for giving the best advice and following the worst.'”

| Language

Speaking Terms

Indiana University anthropologist Daniel Suslak is compiling a dictionary of Ayapaneco, an indigenous language of Mexico that has only two remaining fluent speakers.

Unfortunately, the two aren’t speaking to each other.

Manuel Segovia, 75, and Isidro Velazquez, 69, live 500 meters apart in the southern state of Tabasco, but “they don’t have a lot in common,” Suslak told the Guardian in April. Segovia can be “a little prickly,” and Velazquez is “more stoic” and rarely leaves his home.

Without their cooperation, Ayapaneco may die out altogether. “When I was a boy everybody spoke it,” Segovia said. “It’s disappeared little by little, and now I suppose it might die with me.”

(Thanks, Sharon.)

| Language · Society

Sound Choices

Bertrand Russell’s 20 favorite words, given in response to a reader’s inquiry in 1958:

  • wind
  • heath
  • golden
  • begrime
  • pilgrim
  • quagmire
  • diapason
  • alabaster
  • chrysoprase
  • astrolabe
  • apocalyptic
  • ineluctable
  • terraqueous
  • inspissated
  • incarnadine
  • sublunary
  • chorasmean
  • alembic
  • fulminate
  • ecstacy

These are notable, I think, because it appears he wasn’t influenced by meaning.

| Language

Borrowed Blessing

http://www.sxc.hu/photo/163968

“Webster’s” means nothing. The word entered the public domain when the copyright lapsed on Noah Webster’s original dictionary in the 19th century. The name still conveys authority, though, so it’s become a marketing ploy among dictionary publishers, who display it even on books that have no connection to Webster’s original work. You can, too, if you like.

| Language

In Memoriam

Speaking of unfortunate names …

https://www.facebook.com/photo.php?fbid=191393367591432&set=a.169986843065418.49102.166551566742279&type=1

From Cedar Grove Cemetery, Patchogue, N.Y.

“People always grow up like their names,” wrote George Orwell. “It took me nearly thirty years to work off the effects of being called Eric.”

(Thanks, Neil.)

| Death · Language

Signature Style

In the 1940s, newspaper columnist E.V. Durling founded the My-Name-Is-A-Poem Club. Members included:

  • Hugh Blue, president
  • Jesse Lesse, Boston
  • Merry Berry, Chicago
  • Max Wax, Chicago
  • Hollie Jolley, San Bernardino, Calif.
  • Della Stella Serritella, Chicago
  • Jane Cane, Wheaton, Ill.
  • Newton Hooton, Cambridge, Mass.
  • Kenny Tenny and his daughter Penny, San Francisco
  • Dick Vick and his son Dick Jr., San Diego
  • Trudy Moody, Newburgh, N.Y.

Durling said his favorites were Nancy Clancy and Truly Dooley.

Here are a few more odd personal names, these from Elsdon Coles Smith’s Treasury of Name Lore (1967), “all names of real persons”:

  • Original Bug
  • Ephraim Very Ott
  • Gladys Whysoglad
  • Park A. Carr
  • Fairy Duck
  • Vito d’Incognito
  • North Western
  • Napoleon N. Waterloo
  • Tressanela Noosepickle
  • Osbel Irizarry
  • Athelstan Spilhaus
  • Weikko Tinklepaugh
  • Twilladeen Hubkapiller

According to Smith, Canadian broadcaster Clyde Gilmour founded the Society for the Verification and Enjoyment of Fascinating Names of Actual Persons (SVEFNAP) while working for the Toronto Telegraph. Gilmour died in 1997, though, I think, and I can’t find any record that the society survived. If you know otherwise, please let me know.

| Language

Point of Information

Sexauer is an ordinary German name referring to one who came from Sexau, in Germany. Looking for a Mr. Sexauer, a man in Washington called at the Senate Interstate and Foreign Commerce Committee. Helping him, a girl employee called the Banking and Currency Committee by telephone to check, and inquired politely, ‘Do you have a Sexauer over there?’

‘Listen,’ the girl switchboard operator snapped, ‘We don’t even have a ten-minute coffee break anymore.’

— Elsdon C. Smith, Treasury of Name Lore, 1967

| Language