A Walk in the WoRds

Stinky Portmanteaus

2013-06-07T09:59:00.001-04:00

A semantically spot-on portmanteau -

Spotted on If Companies Had Realistic Slogans at BuzzFeed.

For the Love of Math and Language

2013-06-04T10:08:00.000-04:00

A mathematical limerick by Leigh Mercer -

To be read as:

A dozen, a gross, and a score
Plus three times the square root of four
Divided by seven
Plus five times eleven
Is nine squared and not a bit more.

Mercer is most well known for creating the classic palindrome “A man, a plan, a canal — Panama!”.

Spotted at Futility Closet.

Mass and Count Nouns - brought to you by Meijer

2013-05-29T17:48:00.000-04:00

This is one of two themed billboards that has been peppering Michigan expressways this spring.

The other looks almost identical, save for the final noun phrase which replaces fewer stops with less run-around.

I don't think it is any coincidence that the two separate billboards always seem to appear within a few miles of each other. Meijer's advertising agency copywriters certainly know the difference between mass and count nouns. Funny thing is, I am not a frequent Meijer shopper, so I can't recall whether their check-out lanes are labeled X number items or less, or X number items or fewer.

Apostroph'

2013-05-24T08:05:00.000-04:00

The Wall Street Journal recently published an article by Barry Newman titled Theres a Question Mark Hanging Over the Apostrophes Future. My aunt sent me an email copy of the article as she knew I would enjoy it. And I did enjoy the article; however, my favorite part of the email was her subject line which read: Apostroph'. Thanks for creatively amusing me. I am also still chuckling over the intentionally humorous aspect of the title.*

* In case anyone didn't notice, there are missing apostrophes.

Comic via Funny-Fun-Fun by Scott Hilburn.

Duck Dynasty's Linguist

2013-05-21T07:56:00.000-04:00

Who would have ever thunk that a linguist would be among the characters of a rural reality show? Not me, that's for sure. So imagine my surprise when Duck Dynasty's Phil Robertson gave Katie Couric a lesson in articulatory phonetics during the Rural Reality Showdown: Duck Dynasty vs. Swamp People.

Here is a clip from the show that features this lesson.

I have never watched Duck Dynasty, Swamp People or Katie Couric, so I was glad I paid partial attention as my son watched the show. He is a Duck Dynasty fan and I am tempted to buy him a duck call now that I know it can be used as a tool for teaching articulatory phonetics.

More Fun with Anaphora

2013-05-20T12:27:00.000-04:00

This humorous image reminded me of the recent post, 6 Cartons of Anaphora.

In this instance, the pronoun it is meant to refer to the noun poo, the semantically logical antecedent. Syntactically, it is also more logical to start the process of anaphora resolution by looking to the noun phrase in the sentence which is closest to the pronoun.

Note: I received the above image in an email and was unable to determine where it originated as it has made its way all around the internet.

Yo - Ve, Xe, Ze, Zhe

2013-05-16T14:37:00.002-04:00

I don't know about you, but the above attempts at creating gender-neutral, singular pronouns give me the heebee jeebees.

Here are some more of the ridiculous constructs:
.

Ann Curzan, an English professor at the University of Michigan, recently wrote about the subject of singular they at Lingua Franca. Here are some excerpts from her post:

"I tell students that they are welcome to use singular they in writing for my class, but they should footnote it the first time they use it and in the footnote explain their rationale for using singular they."

"This footnote accomplishes at least three things: It shows readers that the author is consciously making a choice to use singular they; it informs readers about legitimate reasons for using singular they, even if they disagree with its use in this context; and most importantly, it asks students to be careful, self-conscious writers, reflecting on and explaining their choices in their writing."

Curzan's approach to singular they is commendable. Please pass it on.

Image credit

Chart via Wikipedia

The Sound and the Shapey - Conclusion

2013-05-10T06:55:00.000-04:00

The results of the poll from the post, The Sound and the Shapey -

The blue shape is a kiki and the green shape is a bouba. 91.8%

The results of the poll from the post, The Sound and the Shapey 2 -

The shape on the left is a takete, and the shape on the right is a maluma. 91.3%

The overall results of both polls in the previously mentioned posts illustrate what is called the Bouba-Kiki Effect; that is, the mapping of certain shapes with certain speech sounds is not an arbitrary one.

Jessica Love at The American Scholar explains that, "across multiple studies, with participants from different cultures, boubas (and other words formed with the so-called 'rounded' vowels in boo or bow) are linked to smooth, curvaceous objects, while kikis (and similar words) are associated with jagged angles and objects sharp to the touch."

The Bouba-Kiki Effect is sometimes considered a form of synesthesia, which is defined by Merriam-Webster as follows:

1 : a concomitant sensation; especially : a subjective sensation or image of a sense (as of color) other than the one (as of sound) being stimulated 2 : the condition marked by the experience of such sensations

###

Comments from the previous posts.

From idiomatico: "Sounds in which you have to round yours lips ("b") suggest rounded forms in any language. It's something that I smell."

- I love the way he extended the synesthesia aspect.

From Marcelo García Facal: "There has been much literature about the effect of "defaults", meaning, how the fact that the option "The blue shape is a kiki and the green shape is a bouba." is chosen by default has an effect on the choice respondents finally make."

- This is the reason I posted a different version of the poll in The Sound and the Shapey 2.

Interestingly, the results were still very similar.

Pronouns Playing with Plurals

2013-05-09T12:27:00.000-04:00

I couldn't resist throwing a bit of alliteration into the title for the added wordplay effect.

Thank you, Steve, for bringing this comic to my attention.

Comic by Jesse Tahirali.

Wine and Wordplay

2013-05-03T09:32:00.002-04:00

Thank you to 22 Words for bringing this video to my attention.

The Sound and the Shapey 2

2013-04-29T18:17:00.002-04:00

A variation of last week's post regarding the mapping between speech sounds and the visual shape of objects.

One of the above shapes is a takete and one is a maluma; which is which?

Please participate in the following poll only if you are not familiar with the experiment. There is not a right or wrong answer. Again, no cheating, please (i.e. no google searches). I will reveal more about the experiment later in the week.

Special note: There were a some comments for last week's post that I did not publish because they might have given something away. I will mention the comments from idiomatico and Marcelo García Facal in my follow up post.

The Sound and the Shapey

2013-04-26T10:38:00.003-04:00

The following shapes were used in a well-known psychological experiment regarding the mapping between speech sounds and the visual shape of objects. The original experiment was conducted in the late 1920s; it has been repeated since then with slight variations.

I have included a poll below to see what my readers think. There is not a right or wrong answer.

Please participate only if you are not familiar with the experiment. Also, no cheating, please (i.e. no google image searches).

I will reveal more about the experiment next week.

Songs of Love & Grammar (& %# - :@; etc.)

2013-04-23T14:59:00.001-04:00

From James Harbeck's book Songs of Love & Grammar:

Dim innuendos

A sweet musician in a bar said, "Boy, I think you're #."
I said, "Girl, you're a ♮, but I don't want to harp."
She said, "Well, here's the key so you can get into my ♭."
The rest of it I can't repeat, so I'll conclude at that.
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Sharp, natural, flat. I didn't think it would be wise to try to include a repeat typographically - it doesn't really work without the rest of the bar lines.
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Harbeck's book is filled with over 100 pages of delightful poetry that turn grammar and punctuation lessons into fun, little love ditties.

My only complaint is that the title is a bit misleading; there seem to be almost as many songs about symbols (see Dim innuendos above), signs, and abbreviations as there are about grammar, so I added to the title of this post * & symbols, signs, and abbreviations.

Either way, it is a highly entertaining book and I recommend it to anyone who enjoys having fun with language.

You can read more excerpts from the book at Harbeck's blog Sesquiotica, (which, by the way, happens to be one of my favorite blogs).

Also, make sure to check out Harbeck's Word Tasting Notes. These notes cover the visual aspect of words, how words feel in the mouth, the semantics and etymologies of words, and more.

Restroom Legalese

2013-04-16T14:15:00.000-04:00

From a restaurant in northern Michigan.

6 Cartons of Anaphora

2013-04-12T11:31:00.001-04:00

A wife asks her husband, "Could you please go shopping for me and buy one carton of milk, and if they have avocados, get 6."

A short time later the husband comes back with 6 cartons of milk.

The wife asks him, "Why did you buy 6 cartons of milk?"

He replies, "They had avocados."

What makes the above joke humorous is actually called zero anaphora or gapping.

The Summer Institute of Linguistics defines anaphora as the "coreference of one expression with its antecedent. The antecedent provides the information necessary for the expression’s interpretation. This is often understood as an expression 'referring' back to the antecedent."

For example, in the sentence, "John rode his bike to town so he wouldn't have to worry about finding a parking spot", "he" is an anaphoric expression that refers back to the subject "John".

Zero anaphora is defined by SIL as "the use of a gap, in a phrase or clause, that has an anaphoric function similar to a pro-form*. It is often described as “referring back” to an expression that supplies the information necessary for interpreting the gap."

*A pro-form is a word, substituting for other words, phrases, clauses, or sentences, whose meaning is recoverable from the linguistic or extralinguistic context.

Now, look at the first line of the joke again:

A wife asks her husband, "Could you please go shopping for me and buy one carton of milk, and if they have avocados, get 6 [gap]."

The gap leaves open the possibility of referring back to either noun phrase, "avocados" or "one carton of milk". However, it makes more sense to start the anaphora resolution process by looking at the nearest antecedent first.

Now go return those five cartons of milk and bring me my six avocados, silly man.

Avocado image via.

Chomsky Comics

2013-04-09T07:22:00.000-04:00

The Adventures of Noam Chomsky by Jeffrey Weston is a series of comics based on Chomsky's political views. While I don't follow Chomsky for his political views and I prefer not to state mine, he is a brilliant linguist and I found this particular comic from the series rather chuckle-worthy.

Baseball Linguistics

2013-04-05T16:52:00.002-04:00

In honor of the Detroit Tiger's home opener today, I thought I would share some links to posts about baseball and language.

Earlier this week, Ben Yagoda at Lingua Franca wrote about the "pluralification of sports-teams names" in a post titled Play Ball(s). Yagoda noted that "things started to change dramatically in the ’80s. Today, the norm is to talk of (for example) a Yankees game and a Yankees fan; the use of 'Yankee' in those contexts is pretty much limited to the over-50 set." His post included an Ngram chart comparing "Cub fan" to "Cubs fan."

Here is one comparing "Tiger fan" to "Tigers fan." The results are similar to the "Cubs, Cub" results in that "Tigers fan" showed an increase in usage around the '80s; however, "Tiger fan" is still the dominating version whereas "Cubs fan" took over from "Cub fan."

Be sure to check out the full post at the link above.

And here are a couple more:

NPR's How Baseball Explains The Nature Of Language

Wikipedia's Glossary of English-Language Idioms Derived from Baeball

Banging a Left in Boston

2013-04-04T17:56:00.003-04:00

Thankfully, I did not have to "bang a left" while visiting Boston this past week; I left all the driving to the expertise of the hacks (that way I didn't have to "pahk" a car either). I have no problem "hanging a left" or parking in Detroit but driving in Boston is a whole different animal.

Did I mention the dialect?

Here are some examples of phonetic differences between Boston and other American dialects from Boston English:

Word	Boston	Standard American	Northern Cities
pack	[æ]	[æ]	[eæ]
cop			[a]
dawn
load	[o]	[ow]	[o]
food	[u]	[uw]	[u]

	Word	Boston	Standard American
Vowel lengthens, different quality	bar
Vowel lengthens, different quality	burr
/r/ replaced by schwa	bore
	beer
	bear

Here is A Dialect Map of American English

The Boston English site also includes details about phonology and The Wicked Good Guide to Boston English includes information about the Boston lexicon.

It was a wonderful trip, no Boston Coolers to be found though.

Mondegreen Singing Kittens

2013-04-02T07:57:00.000-04:00

I would never normally post something like this but it was just too cute. I mean the kitten really looks like it is singing.

Playing With Vietnamese Food

2013-03-29T08:50:00.000-04:00

Or at least a quote from the menu.

I am almost embarrassed to admit that I had never had Vietnamese food prior to yesterday. I sure have missed out. It was thơm ngon. It also inspired me to play with a quote that was on the menu.

“Ăn Ngon” “Eat Well”

Actually, I played with the quote and Google Translate going back and forth between English and Vietnamese.

I entered: Ăn Ngon Google translated: eat delicious

I entered: eat well Google translated: ăn uống đầy đủ

I entered: ăn uống đầy đủ Google translated: fed

I entered: delicious Google translated: thơm ngon

I entered: thơm Google translated: fragrant

I entered: Ngon Google translated: tasty

I entered: ăn Google translated: eat

I entered: uống Google translated: drinking

I entered: đầy Google translated: full

I entered: đủ Google translated: enough

Image credit

Semantic Swapping

2013-03-27T17:45:00.002-04:00

A semantic phenomenon, similar to the phonetic one I wrote about in Phonetic Typing Errors, occurred recently while I was writing a freelance article about flamingos.

When I write, I often toss ideas around in my head while I am doing other things like walking the dog or making dinner. For a reason I can't explain, I kept thinking "penguin" instead of "flamingo" as I was coming up with ideas for the article.

How bizarre ... one bird is associated with warm climates and the other with cold (not to mention the numerous other differences).

Here is a French idiom from Grammar Party to go with this post just for the heck of it -

French idiom: Faire le pied de grue
Literal translation: To make like a flamingo stands
Idiomatic meaning: To wait
.
Image credits

Found in Translation

2013-03-25T12:57:00.001-04:00

My cousin recently sent me a link to this UK DailyMailOnline post titled "Lost in translation: Hilarious advice signs from foreign airports... where their English leaves a little to be desired."

I prefer to label posts like this "found in translation" because I always find myself laughing and I'm sure the intended messages not humorous in the least.

Following are some images from the post.

Thank you, Kristin.

The Wonderful Wondermark Linguistics Major

2013-03-21T12:29:00.002-04:00

Click on images to enlarge.

The rollover: "How often does somebody actually WONDER ABOUT ETYMOLOGY in my PRESENCE?? You GOTTA give me this!!"

http://wondermark.com/829/

The rollover: Kidding! Of course it means 'a statement with a one in ten chance of being true.' OR DOES IT???

http://wondermark.com/887/

The rollover: 'Prove the rule' actually comes from the idea that a king or queen had the legal right to punish criminal offenders -- thus coming down hard on 'exceptions' to the law was proving the power of their rulership. Either that or it's an obscure ELO lyric that became a proto-meme on Laugh-In.

http://wondermark.com/920/

In a Symbol

2013-03-14T12:39:00.000-04:00

Futility Closet is one of my regular reads and I especially enjoy the "In a Word" posts. Last week one of the featured words was pilcrow and it was accompanied by an image of the named symbol (¶) along with the definition.

pilcrow
n. the paragraph sign

I couldn't resist playing with the name of the post, the word, and the image.
Thus, In a Symbol, literally.

Golden Grammar

2013-03-11T11:58:00.000-04:00

I wish I could give credit where it is due but I received this as an email and I don't know who created it. I sure do love it though.