A correspondent writes to say that she has found such sentences as these on the internet:
Keeping these things in mind, you can look well in black dresses.
Peasant tops look well on small busted girls.
She goes on: 'I was always taught that to look good is to be attractive, while to look well is to appear healthy. According to that rule, this use of well would be incorrect. Is there any time when this use of well is acceptable? Is it a regional usage?'
The examples - and there are indeed quite a few of them - suggest that this is an area where usage is changing. I share my correspondent's intuitive preference for good (or great, smart, etc.), and so do three female informants (in their 30s, 50s, and 80s) who happened to be in my house when the email came in. The interesting question is why the change is happening.
I think that well is shifting because of a change in the usage of good. In the early 20th century, look good and listen good emerged in American English in the sense of 'look/sound promising'. The OED has a first recorded usage of 1914. This developed into a general sense of good to mean 'in a satisfactory frame of mind', 'coping well with life', and suchlike. It's most often heard these days in response to a How are you? type of question. I'm well means 'well in health'. I'm good means something like 'things are OK right now'. It's a new semantic distinction in English.
However, it's colloquial, youthful, and originally American, so many older people, especially in Britain, don't like it. (Ironically, pedants who are the first to complain when a semantic distinction is lost - such as the distinction between uninterested and disinterested - are the first to complain when a fresh semantic distinction appears in the language.) And because good has taken on this colloquial resonance when used adverbially, it has made some people sensitive about its use. They may even sense a parallel with such criticized expressions as go slow, where more formal usage requires go slowly. So they look for a more formal alternative expression, and find well available and already being used in a general sense of 'successful'. Indeed, locutions such as go well and do well date from Anglo-Saxon times, actually predating the 'sound in health' sense by a few centuries. So I don't find it at all surprising that people are beginning to say and write It looks well on you, and so on, and would expect it to become more common as time goes by.
Wednesday, 18 August 2010
Thursday, 12 August 2010
On insulting Brits
Radio 4's 'PM' programme get in touch today to ask for a comment about insult language. Apparently an Iranian minister has described the British as 'not human' and 'a bunch of thick people', eliciting an angry response from our ambassador out there. What did I think about it?
My first thought was that the minister wasn't trying. What an unimaginative pair of insults! The English language has an excellent insult record. He would have done better to look up some Early Scots examples of flyting (insult exchanges) or taken some lines from Shakespeare. He could have used one of those online Shakespeare insult generators which combine real examples into new strings, such as 'villainous reeling-ripe deformed clapper-clawed hornbeasts'. That would have been much more impressive.
I find political insults interesting as an illustration of language change. They invariably reflect situations of conflict or unequal power relations between peoples (as when colonial masters describe those they have subjugated or indigenous majorities talk about immigrant minorities). What intrigues me is their longevity, or lack of it. Most are likely to be temporary, going out of use when political relations change, but some gain a permanent place in the language. Many of the following examples are either unknown today or have lost their sting. A few are still with us, with usage wavering depending on the sensitivities of the users to political correctness.
The 17th-century conflicts with the Dutch were the original stimulus for dozens of expressions, such as a Dutch widow (a prostitute), a Dutch auction (where the prices are initially high), a Dutch reckoning (a lump sum without a detailed breakdown), a Dutch concert (several tunes played together), a Dutch bargain (made in drink), and a Dutch feast (where the host gets drunk before the guests do). I could go on - Dutch courage, double Dutch, Dutch comfort... Similar lists could be compiled about the Germans, the French, and so on, depending on the point in history when they were enemies. Analogous expressions circulated about the English in the other languages, of course.
But one generations's insults can be the next generation's orthodoxy. In the 17th century, a Tory was a really offensive term - a type of Irish bandit or outlaw. The name came to be applied to those who in 1679-80 supported the exclusion of a Catholic James to the English throne. And gradually it entered the political mainstream. Of course, depending on your political allegiance, you might still consider it an insult.
(If you're thinking of listening to the item, don't bother. It was dropped, as a dead donkey. That's often the way, with newsy language topics. They tend to be placed at the very end of a programme, viewed as light-hearted pieces whose role is to fill a minute or two after the 'serious' items are over. They are therefore prime candidates for being cut, when other items over-run or something more important crops up. For every one piece I've done on the radio, another has been dropped in this way.)
My first thought was that the minister wasn't trying. What an unimaginative pair of insults! The English language has an excellent insult record. He would have done better to look up some Early Scots examples of flyting (insult exchanges) or taken some lines from Shakespeare. He could have used one of those online Shakespeare insult generators which combine real examples into new strings, such as 'villainous reeling-ripe deformed clapper-clawed hornbeasts'. That would have been much more impressive.
I find political insults interesting as an illustration of language change. They invariably reflect situations of conflict or unequal power relations between peoples (as when colonial masters describe those they have subjugated or indigenous majorities talk about immigrant minorities). What intrigues me is their longevity, or lack of it. Most are likely to be temporary, going out of use when political relations change, but some gain a permanent place in the language. Many of the following examples are either unknown today or have lost their sting. A few are still with us, with usage wavering depending on the sensitivities of the users to political correctness.
The 17th-century conflicts with the Dutch were the original stimulus for dozens of expressions, such as a Dutch widow (a prostitute), a Dutch auction (where the prices are initially high), a Dutch reckoning (a lump sum without a detailed breakdown), a Dutch concert (several tunes played together), a Dutch bargain (made in drink), and a Dutch feast (where the host gets drunk before the guests do). I could go on - Dutch courage, double Dutch, Dutch comfort... Similar lists could be compiled about the Germans, the French, and so on, depending on the point in history when they were enemies. Analogous expressions circulated about the English in the other languages, of course.
But one generations's insults can be the next generation's orthodoxy. In the 17th century, a Tory was a really offensive term - a type of Irish bandit or outlaw. The name came to be applied to those who in 1679-80 supported the exclusion of a Catholic James to the English throne. And gradually it entered the political mainstream. Of course, depending on your political allegiance, you might still consider it an insult.
(If you're thinking of listening to the item, don't bother. It was dropped, as a dead donkey. That's often the way, with newsy language topics. They tend to be placed at the very end of a programme, viewed as light-hearted pieces whose role is to fill a minute or two after the 'serious' items are over. They are therefore prime candidates for being cut, when other items over-run or something more important crops up. For every one piece I've done on the radio, another has been dropped in this way.)
Wednesday, 4 August 2010
On the distant future
A correspondent writes to ask if the English present progressive with future meaning can be used to talk about the distant future. As an example, he cites his father getting retired ten years from now. Can he say: 'I’m setting up my own business when I get retired'?
All the standard accounts stress the imminence of the future event, when using this tense form. Quirk et al (§4.44) do give a non-imminent example:
I'm leaving the university in two years' time.
They stress the need to have the more distant time explained in the context (e.g. when I've finished my studies). But the notion of imminence applies here too. To say I'll be leaving the university in two years' time is a straightforward statement about a future event. To turn this into the present suggests that the speaker sees this event as having some sort of current relevance. The notion of 'current relevance' is usually found with reference to the meaning of the present perfect; but it applies here too.
How to define this relevance? The critical point is that the use of the present progressive implies an element of forward planning. Quirk et al describe it thus: 'future arising from present arrangement, plan, or programme'. It refers to actions brough about by human endeavour. So it isn't possible to say The grass is growing next week. And to say He's dying next week could only refer to an execution. Rodney Huddleston makes a similar point about this form, in the Cambridge Grammar (§4.2.4): 'the future is determinable from the state of the world now'. In other words, there's always an element of scheduling.
So, with these considerations in mind, there's nothing at all wrong with my correspondent's example. The planning element is very much in the forefront of his father's mind.
All the standard accounts stress the imminence of the future event, when using this tense form. Quirk et al (§4.44) do give a non-imminent example:
I'm leaving the university in two years' time.
They stress the need to have the more distant time explained in the context (e.g. when I've finished my studies). But the notion of imminence applies here too. To say I'll be leaving the university in two years' time is a straightforward statement about a future event. To turn this into the present suggests that the speaker sees this event as having some sort of current relevance. The notion of 'current relevance' is usually found with reference to the meaning of the present perfect; but it applies here too.
How to define this relevance? The critical point is that the use of the present progressive implies an element of forward planning. Quirk et al describe it thus: 'future arising from present arrangement, plan, or programme'. It refers to actions brough about by human endeavour. So it isn't possible to say The grass is growing next week. And to say He's dying next week could only refer to an execution. Rodney Huddleston makes a similar point about this form, in the Cambridge Grammar (§4.2.4): 'the future is determinable from the state of the world now'. In other words, there's always an element of scheduling.
So, with these considerations in mind, there's nothing at all wrong with my correspondent's example. The planning element is very much in the forefront of his father's mind.
Thursday, 22 July 2010
On long time no see
A correspondent, having encountered the idiom long time no see, writes to ask what its origin is and if there are any more like it in English.
Nobody knows exactly where it comes from. Earliest reference in the OED is 1900, the context indicating a simplified English being used in conversation with American Indians. It probably caught on through cowboy movies. Certainly it was in US usage long before it arrived in British English. But the same pidgin expression has been noted in several other contact situations, such as Chinese/English, so it may have multiple origins.
Any more like it? Well it's rare to find pidginized expressions becoming part of standard English idiom, but it's not alone. For a start, there's the analogous long time no hear. Then there's the fictitious me Tarzan, you Jane - 'fictitious' as it doesn't actually turn up in the Tarzan books. And this one has a clearly Eastern source: softly, softly, catchee monkey (also heard as slowly, slowly...). I can think of a few others:
monkey see, monkey do
dog eat dog
no can do
and maybe also no go, as in a no-go situation. Any more?
How unusual are these constructions? They're not so far away from the traditional two-part elliptical constructions often heard in proverbial utterances, and still being created today. Some examples:
the more, the merrier
once bitten, twice shy
out of sight, out of mind
penny wise, pound foolish
more haste, less speed
like father, like son
first come, first served
here today, gone tomorrow
waste not, want not
no pain, no gain
garbage in, garbage out
Nor are they far away from those colloquial expressions where the impact relies greatly on ellipsis, such as:
been there, done that
hail fellow well met
twenty-four seven
how come?
yah boo sucks
These can be the stuff of grammatical nightmares.
Nobody knows exactly where it comes from. Earliest reference in the OED is 1900, the context indicating a simplified English being used in conversation with American Indians. It probably caught on through cowboy movies. Certainly it was in US usage long before it arrived in British English. But the same pidgin expression has been noted in several other contact situations, such as Chinese/English, so it may have multiple origins.
Any more like it? Well it's rare to find pidginized expressions becoming part of standard English idiom, but it's not alone. For a start, there's the analogous long time no hear. Then there's the fictitious me Tarzan, you Jane - 'fictitious' as it doesn't actually turn up in the Tarzan books. And this one has a clearly Eastern source: softly, softly, catchee monkey (also heard as slowly, slowly...). I can think of a few others:
monkey see, monkey do
dog eat dog
no can do
and maybe also no go, as in a no-go situation. Any more?
How unusual are these constructions? They're not so far away from the traditional two-part elliptical constructions often heard in proverbial utterances, and still being created today. Some examples:
the more, the merrier
once bitten, twice shy
out of sight, out of mind
penny wise, pound foolish
more haste, less speed
like father, like son
first come, first served
here today, gone tomorrow
waste not, want not
no pain, no gain
garbage in, garbage out
Nor are they far away from those colloquial expressions where the impact relies greatly on ellipsis, such as:
been there, done that
hail fellow well met
twenty-four seven
how come?
yah boo sucks
These can be the stuff of grammatical nightmares.
Wednesday, 14 July 2010
On antinyms
I've been asked a couple of times what one calls a situation where a word is used to mean the opposite of what it normally means. I've usually interpreted the question to be about euphemisms, where the aim is to obscure or hide a reality. When people talk about 'passing away' instead of 'dying', or 'collateral damage' instead of 'war casualties', the reality stays the same, but the word alters. But an experience this week has made me think that my correspondents might have had in mind a different category of usage, where the word stays the same but the reality alters - and, moreover, alters to the extent of becoming the opposite of what it originally meant.
My wife and I returned from a trip abroad this week, flying Club World on British Airways. This allows one's luggage to be given a bright orange PRIORITY label, which means that it should be among the first bags to be offloaded at the destination. We arrived at Terminal 5 in Heathrow and waited for our bag. The luggage started to arrive, with priority labels randomly dispersed among the items. The term priority was beginning to lose its meaning, and I'd encountered this many times before. But this time it was different. Regular readers of this blog will recall a previous post about new words, one of which is bagonizing. We bagonized. All other passengers came, took up their bags and went, until eventually we were the only ones left at the carousel. We were just about to leave and file a complaint about a lost bag when, lo, alone and looking rather dejected, our bag stumbled through the portal, waving its PRIORITY label triumphantly. So there we have my example: this was as far away from priority as it was possible to get. The word was the same, but the reality was the opposite. For this linguistic relief, much thanks.
What to call such a phenomenon? I'm inclined to coin a term: antinyms. This was, I hope, a nonce-antinym - though others have now told me of similar experiences. They are of course the life-blood of satirical books, of the kind made famous by Andrew Bierce's Devil's Dictionary, such as apologise 'to lay the foundation for future offence'. I have a feeling there is an airline glossary just waiting to be written.
So: antinym - a word whose referent becomes the opposite of its original sense. There are many examples of this happening over long periods of time - such as wicked or wonder moving from 'bad' meanings to 'good' meanings. What I'm wondering is how often this sort of thing occurs synchronically. Maybe synchronic antinyms only occur in contexts of bad vs good practice or incorrect data. The railway station sign that says the 8.32 is 'on time' when it is now 8.40. The electronic road sign that says 'congestion' when there is congestion no longer. Such phenomena are transient, yet they recur to the extent of becoming expected events. I'd be interested to see some more examples.
My wife and I returned from a trip abroad this week, flying Club World on British Airways. This allows one's luggage to be given a bright orange PRIORITY label, which means that it should be among the first bags to be offloaded at the destination. We arrived at Terminal 5 in Heathrow and waited for our bag. The luggage started to arrive, with priority labels randomly dispersed among the items. The term priority was beginning to lose its meaning, and I'd encountered this many times before. But this time it was different. Regular readers of this blog will recall a previous post about new words, one of which is bagonizing. We bagonized. All other passengers came, took up their bags and went, until eventually we were the only ones left at the carousel. We were just about to leave and file a complaint about a lost bag when, lo, alone and looking rather dejected, our bag stumbled through the portal, waving its PRIORITY label triumphantly. So there we have my example: this was as far away from priority as it was possible to get. The word was the same, but the reality was the opposite. For this linguistic relief, much thanks.
What to call such a phenomenon? I'm inclined to coin a term: antinyms. This was, I hope, a nonce-antinym - though others have now told me of similar experiences. They are of course the life-blood of satirical books, of the kind made famous by Andrew Bierce's Devil's Dictionary, such as apologise 'to lay the foundation for future offence'. I have a feeling there is an airline glossary just waiting to be written.
So: antinym - a word whose referent becomes the opposite of its original sense. There are many examples of this happening over long periods of time - such as wicked or wonder moving from 'bad' meanings to 'good' meanings. What I'm wondering is how often this sort of thing occurs synchronically. Maybe synchronic antinyms only occur in contexts of bad vs good practice or incorrect data. The railway station sign that says the 8.32 is 'on time' when it is now 8.40. The electronic road sign that says 'congestion' when there is congestion no longer. Such phenomena are transient, yet they recur to the extent of becoming expected events. I'd be interested to see some more examples.
Tuesday, 6 July 2010
On since/ago
A correspondent writes to ask whether it is possible to use sentences like I've been studying English since four years ago and Since three years ago, I've had several accidents.
It must be possible. The question wouldn't be coming up at all if people weren't being heard to use such sentences. What has happened, of course, is that there is a clash between the usage and the rule that is widely taught in grammar books.
The rule says that since and ago are incompatible, because since refers to an event that has current relevance whereas ago refers to a completed event in the past. Another way of putting it is when teachers say that ago is looking from the present towards the past, whereas since is looking from the past towards the present. There appears to be a clash of logic: people can't be doing the two things in the same sentence, goes the argument.
But of course they can. It's the same issue that arose when I discussed ago with present perfect have in an earlier post. It's perfectly possible to switch or conflate different points of view in a single sentence, especially in speech. And people have been doing this with since/ago for ages, both in phrases and clauses. In As You Like It (2.7.24) we hear Jacques reporting Touchstone saying 'Tis but an hour ago since it was nine'. In 1633, a character in John Ford's play The Broken Heart (3.5.63) says 'Tis long agone since first I broke my heart'. There's also a parallelism between ago and since which dates from the Middle Ages. Here's an example recorded in the OED, from Caxton (1489): 'Long time since... shee fell sick and died'.
The usage isn't as illogical as traditional grammars suggest. The logic goes something like this:
I haven't seen John since 2009.
2009 is a year ago.
Therefore, I haven't seen John since a year ago.
And this is how we most commonly hear the usage.
Every day, since a year ago today, I've been writing in my diary...
I haven't been this happy since a year ago.
Retail sales figures show consumer spending trend at highest since a year ago.
Costs have halved since a year ago.
There are over 2 million hits for 'since a year ago' on Google, several in quite formal written contexts, such as financial reporting. So, I have to conclude that there are two rules in English relating to ago and since, not one:
A
I want to say that a completed event in the past, expressed through ago, has no current relevance: I don't use since.
B
I want to say that a completed event in the past, expressed through ago, does still has current relevance: I do use since
It must be possible. The question wouldn't be coming up at all if people weren't being heard to use such sentences. What has happened, of course, is that there is a clash between the usage and the rule that is widely taught in grammar books.
The rule says that since and ago are incompatible, because since refers to an event that has current relevance whereas ago refers to a completed event in the past. Another way of putting it is when teachers say that ago is looking from the present towards the past, whereas since is looking from the past towards the present. There appears to be a clash of logic: people can't be doing the two things in the same sentence, goes the argument.
But of course they can. It's the same issue that arose when I discussed ago with present perfect have in an earlier post. It's perfectly possible to switch or conflate different points of view in a single sentence, especially in speech. And people have been doing this with since/ago for ages, both in phrases and clauses. In As You Like It (2.7.24) we hear Jacques reporting Touchstone saying 'Tis but an hour ago since it was nine'. In 1633, a character in John Ford's play The Broken Heart (3.5.63) says 'Tis long agone since first I broke my heart'. There's also a parallelism between ago and since which dates from the Middle Ages. Here's an example recorded in the OED, from Caxton (1489): 'Long time since... shee fell sick and died'.
The usage isn't as illogical as traditional grammars suggest. The logic goes something like this:
I haven't seen John since 2009.
2009 is a year ago.
Therefore, I haven't seen John since a year ago.
And this is how we most commonly hear the usage.
Every day, since a year ago today, I've been writing in my diary...
I haven't been this happy since a year ago.
Retail sales figures show consumer spending trend at highest since a year ago.
Costs have halved since a year ago.
There are over 2 million hits for 'since a year ago' on Google, several in quite formal written contexts, such as financial reporting. So, I have to conclude that there are two rules in English relating to ago and since, not one:
A
I want to say that a completed event in the past, expressed through ago, has no current relevance: I don't use since.
B
I want to say that a completed event in the past, expressed through ago, does still has current relevance: I do use since
Monday, 28 June 2010
On needed words
A guest appearance on BBC Radio 4's 'Saturday Live' last week has initiated a flurry of correspondence, and the only place to focus it seems to be this blog. Once again it is the ludic propensity of language that has grabbed the popular imagination - in the same way that the 'foreign catch-phrases' theme (see my last post) has done.
As always, it is a passing remark that sparks the interest. The presenter asked me whether there were lost words in the language that ought to be resuscitated. That brought to mind the examples I encountered when I was editing an edition of Dr Johnson's Dictionary a few years ago, so I mentioned one: fopdoodle, meaning a foolish dandy, or prig. Well, everyone thought it was a wonderful word - even the continuity announcer at the end of the programme, who described the producer as a fopdoodle.
And one thing leads to another. Inevitably, it was 'words that the English language needs that we don't currently have'. This is a very familiar one, for me. When I was doing English Now back in the 80s this proved to be the most popular competition of all. There was no shortage of suggestions then - I put a selection into my Language Play - and it seems there is no shortage today. Of all the suggestions in those days, the one I thought the language most needed was the word which describes my state of mind when waiting for my luggage to appear on the airport carousel. Everyone else's turns up straight away. So, one is - 'bagonizing', to my mind.
Do such words ever get into the dictionary? Some such spontaneous creations have - such as blurb, invented during a dinner party. And bagonize has 600 entries in Google now! So, who knows?
Anyway, the point of this post is to offer a location for anyone whose urge to create a new word in a language (not just English) is uncontrollable. Already my email inbox has a flood. Here's one, to illustrate. Adrian writes to say 'When I wake up in the morning my hair sometimes points upwards in a curled peak as in the cartoons of a boy detective. I have realised I suffer from tintinnitis'.
As always, it is a passing remark that sparks the interest. The presenter asked me whether there were lost words in the language that ought to be resuscitated. That brought to mind the examples I encountered when I was editing an edition of Dr Johnson's Dictionary a few years ago, so I mentioned one: fopdoodle, meaning a foolish dandy, or prig. Well, everyone thought it was a wonderful word - even the continuity announcer at the end of the programme, who described the producer as a fopdoodle.
And one thing leads to another. Inevitably, it was 'words that the English language needs that we don't currently have'. This is a very familiar one, for me. When I was doing English Now back in the 80s this proved to be the most popular competition of all. There was no shortage of suggestions then - I put a selection into my Language Play - and it seems there is no shortage today. Of all the suggestions in those days, the one I thought the language most needed was the word which describes my state of mind when waiting for my luggage to appear on the airport carousel. Everyone else's turns up straight away. So, one is - 'bagonizing', to my mind.
Do such words ever get into the dictionary? Some such spontaneous creations have - such as blurb, invented during a dinner party. And bagonize has 600 entries in Google now! So, who knows?
Anyway, the point of this post is to offer a location for anyone whose urge to create a new word in a language (not just English) is uncontrollable. Already my email inbox has a flood. Here's one, to illustrate. Adrian writes to say 'When I wake up in the morning my hair sometimes points upwards in a curled peak as in the cartoons of a boy detective. I have realised I suffer from tintinnitis'.
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