obstringe
v. to put under obligation
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.)
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.
Borrowed Blessing
“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.
Misc
- No bishop appears in Through the Looking-Glass.
- Can a law compel us to obey the law?
- 98415 = 98-4 × 15
- Why does the ghost haunt Hamlet rather than Claudius?
- “Put me down as an anti-climb Max.” — Max Beerbohm, declining to hike to the top of a Swiss Alp
In a Word
perpession
n. the endurance of suffering
patible
adj. capable of being endured
longanimity
n. patient endurance of hardship
In Memoriam
Speaking of unfortunate names …
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.)
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.
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
Classical Works
In 1989, the Finnish news service Nuntii Latini began broadcasting the news in Latin.
Not to be outdone, in 1995 Finnish literature professor Jukka Ammondt recorded an album of Elvis songs sung in Latin. It includes Nunc Hic Aut Numquam (“It’s Now or Never”), Non Adamare Non Possum (“Can’t Help Falling in Love”), Cor Ligneum (“Wooden Heart”), and Tenere Me Ama (“Love Me Tender”).
“Two years later,” writes linguist Mikael Parkvall, “he followed up the success with the album Rocking in Latin, featuring classics such as Quate, Crepa, Rota (better known as ‘Shake, Rattle and Roll’).”
Lewis Carroll’s uncle Hassard Dodgson rendered one of his nephew’s poems into Latin elegiacs. Do you recognize it?
Hora aderat briligi. Nunc et Slythæia Tova
Plurima gyrabant gymbolitare vabo;
Et Borogovorum mimzebant undique formae,
Momiferique omnes exgrabuêre Rathi.
“Cave, Gaberbocchum moneo tibi, nate cavendum
(Unguibus ille rapit. Dentibus ille necat.)
Et fuge Jubbubbum, quo non infestior ales,
Et Bandersnatcham, quae fremit usque, cave.”
Ille autem gladium vorpalem cepit, et hostem
Manxonium longâ sedulitate petit;
Tum sub tumtummi requiescens arboris umbrâ
Stabat tranquillus, multa animo meditans.
Dum requiescebat meditans uffishia, monstrum
Praesens ecce! oculis cui fera flamma micat,
Ipse Gaberbocchus dumeta per horrida sifflans
Ibat, et horrendum burbuliabat iens!
Ter, quater, atque iterum cito vorpalissimus ensis
Snicsnaccans penitus viscera dissecuit.
Exanimum corpus linquens caput abstulit heros
Quocum galumphat multa, domumque redit.
“Tune Gaberbocchum potuisti, nate, necare?
Bemiscens, puer! ad brachia nostra veni.
Oh! frabiusce dies! iterumque caloque calâque
Laetus eo!” ut chortlet chortla superba senex.
Hora aderat briligi. Nunc et Slythæia Tova
Plurima gyrabant gymbolitare vabo;
Et Borogovorum mimzebant undique formae,
Momiferique omnes exgrabuêre Rathi.