In 1929 linguist Edward Sapir made up two words, mal and mil, and told 500 subjects that one of them meant “large table” and the other “small table.” When asked to tell which was which, 80 percent responded that mal meant “large table” and mil meant “small table” — suggesting that different vowels evoke different sizes.

Four years later, Stanley Newman extended the experiment to include all the vowels. He placed them in a sequence that he said English speakers associate with increasing sizes: i (as in ill), e (met), ae (hat), a (ah), u (moon), o (hole), and so on.

Interestingly, this ranking also reflects the size of the mouth shape needed to pronounce each vowel. “In other words,” writes Peter Farb in Word Play, “the psychological awareness that speakers of English have about what the vowels convey matches the anatomical means of producing them.”

See The Bouba/Kiki Effect.

(Edward Sapir, “A Study in Phonetic Symbolism,” Journal of Experimental Psychology 12:3 [1929], 225; Stanley S. Newman, “Further Experiments in Phonetic Symbolism,” American Journal of Psychology 45:1 [1933], 53-75.)

Just an interesting fragment: When the Chiricahua Apaches of southern Arizona went on a raiding party, they adopted a special speech. One informant told anthropologists Morris Edward Opler and Harry Hoijer:

I used to know many words, but I have forgotten just about all of them. Only one sticks in my mind, and that is the ceremonial way of asking for a drink of water. Instead of saying, ‘I want to drink some water,’ we had to say, ‘I begin to swim the specular iron ore.’

Peter Farb writes in Word Play (1981), “This kind of formal speech had to be maintained until the war party returned to the camp, at which time conversation switched back to everyday language.”

(Morris Edward Opler and Harry Hoijer, “The Raid and War-Path Language of the Chiricahua Apache,” American Anthropologist, New Series, 42:4 Part 1 [October-December 1940], 617-634.)

The 2018 Name of the Year title went to Canadian hockey player Jimbob Ghostkeeper, beating Dr. Narwhals Mating with 57 percent of 7,500 votes cast. Notable also-rans in this year’s contest: Salami Blessing, La Royce Lobster-Gaines, Makenlove Petit-Fard, Bernard Bumpus, Christine Plentyhoops, Habbakkuk Baldonado, Early Champagne, Fabulous Flournoy, Dr. Dimple Royalty, Darthvader Williamson, Chosen Roach, Chardonnay Beaver, Forbes Thor Kiddoo, Quindarious Gooch, Darwin Tabacco, Blossom Albuquerque, Rev. Dongo Pewee, Mahogany Loggins, and Gandalf Hernandez.

Each year 64 candidates are chosen from reader nominations to compete in an NCAA-style bracket to establish the world’s most entertaining personal name. So far the “Hall of Name” includes Assumption Bulltron, Doby Chrotchtangle, Crescent Dragonwagon, Honka Monka, Excellent Raymond, Licentious Beastie, Mummenschontz Bitterbeetle, African Grant, Largest Agbejemison, Nimrod Weiselfish, Tokyo Sexwale, Tanqueray Beavers, Roszetia McConeyhead, Moses Regular, Jerome Fruithandler, Delano Turnipseed, Princess Nocandy, and Destiny Frankenstein. Send your nominations to nameoftheyear@gmail.com.

invious
adj. having no roads; trackless

Bylines appearing in L&N Employees’ Magazine, a house organ of the Louisiana and Nashville Railroad, in the 1940s:

• R.R. South
• Steele Raylor
• Dick C. Lyon
• Lou Nash
• L.M. Lynes
• C. Ross Tye
• Lincoln Penn
• Cole Carr
• M.T. Hopper
• Rowan House
• Rowland Stock
• C.A. Boose

Thinking these fishy, writer Robert Rennick inquired of the railroad’s public relations department and learned that editor Julian James had barred any writer from receiving two bylines in a single issue. So they’d adopted these pseudonyms.

“The assumption was that no reader would ever imagine that these were real names. Yet, W.R. Heffren, writing as C. Ross Tye, once received a letter from a lady genealogist stating that she was researching the Tye family and would he kindly send her his family line to see if it could be related to hers.”

(Robert Rennick, “Fictitious Names,” Word Ways 37:1 [February 2004], 3.)

A reader once wrote to E.B. White:

Dear Mr. White,

I’m omitting needless words!

Sincerely yours,

[a reader]

He wrote back:

Dear Ms. ——

Thanks. So am I.

Yrs,

E.B. White

(From Mark Garvey, Stylized: A Slightly Obsessive History of Strunk & White’s The Elements of Style, 2009.)

cicurate
v. to tame, to render mild