TERMS OF ADDRESS

On vacation this summer Tim S. visited our old professor, Winston Weathers, now retired. Before the visit they'd corresponded for a while, and Tim of course continued to address him as Dr. Weathers. But after all, more than 20 years had passed since we were in Dr. W's class, and eventually Dr. W. started to start his e-mails "Dear Tim" and sign his first name, but Tim still felt awkward using first names. In our super-casual society, where everyone calls you by your first name, this is unusual.

We get used to the presumption of a primary relationship between strangers, as another of my professors termed it. But it can be grating when a stranger who wants to sell you something in person or on the phone calls you by your first name. And maybe your doctor calls you by your first name when you've got your clothes off, while you're still calling him or Dr. Jones.

Other languages even have different levels of formality in their pronouns. For instance, in Spanish, "usted" is the formal "you" used with elders, persons of respect, and strangers; "tu" is the familiar form of "you" used with younger people and close family and friends. English once had "thou" for the familiar, although now most people think of it as more formal because we only find it used in the Bible. Here are notes on "thou" and "thy" from dict.org:

In Old English, generally, thou is the language of a lord to a servant, of an equal to an equal, and expresses also companionship, love, permission, defiance, scorn, threatening: whilst ye is the language of a servant to a lord, and of compliment, and further expresses honor, submission, or entreaty. . . . Thou is now sometimes used by the Friends, or Quakers, in familiar discourse, though most of them corruptly say thee instead of thou. [1913 Webster]

Dr. Weathers said that although he's in his 70s, he still feels he ought to call his former classical Greek professor, who is in his 90s, "Dr. So-and-so", even after many years of correspondence.

HOLLABACK GIRL

It has recently come to my attention that there is something or someone known as a "hollaback girl". At least Gwen Stefani sings so in her song of that title. As far as I can find out, most people think it's a girl who "hollers back" at people. I'd been thinking it could be a "hollow-back girl", which I thought might be an interesting variant on "round-heeled girl".

DON'T GO AWAY ANGRY

A sidebar in a Newsweek article noted that the words "angry" and "angina" come from the same root, having to do with strangling. I didn't read the article, but I guess this means that anger can lead to choking of the heart.

THE BRITISH CORNER

One of my students had difficulty understanding my pronunciation of "literature" and said that the British pronunciation is clearer. Of course we tend to say "literachur", sometimes even dropping a syllable to make it "litterchur". She also said that the American sound is sweeter. I've never heard that before.

TOP O' THE PILE

From the top of my pile of books:

English: American Style, Jeffrey McQuain, 1999

Articles are grouped in three sections: Personally Speaking: The American Spirit, Intellectually Speaking: The American Mind, and Emotionally Speaking: The American Heart. Here's a bit from the chapter "Orneriness" (in American Spirit) from humorist Finley Peter Dunne, who wrote in 1902:

"Th' best thing about a little judicyous swearin' is that it keeps th' temper. 'Twas intinded as a compromise between runnin' away an' fightin'."

American humor often used to rely for its effects on illiterate spelling and attempts to reproduce vernacular pronunciation. Hard to read. Dunne was right about swearing, though.

Out of Kentucky Kitchens, Marion Flexner, 1949

I'm not much of a cook anymore, but cookbooks can be interesting to read, especially the older regional books like this one. Again we find regional vernacular in "Mozis Addams' Resipee for Cukin Kon-Feel Pees", which starts: "Gether your peas 'bout sun-down." and ends,

"Eat a hepe. Eat mo and mo. It is good for your genral helth uv mind and body. It fattens you up, makes you sassy, goes throo and throo your very soul. But why don't you eat? Eat on. By Jings. Eat Stop! Never, while thar is a pee in the dish."

Most of the cookbook is in standard English, fortunately.

Grunt, Pigorian Chant, Sandra Boynton, 1996

Comes with a CD of Pigorian chant, which Fred, who knows, says is not a bad imitation of Gregorian chant. The chants from the Snouto Domoinko de Silo farm animals are a mix of Latin and Pig Latin, with English translations.

The cows sing in Latin: Tempus porco nihil est. (Time to a pig means zilch.)

The pigs sing in Pig Latin: "At-whay is-ay e-thay eaning-may of-ay ife-Lay? At-whay is-ay e-thay eaning-may of-ay eaning-May? E-way o-day ot-nay ow-kany. Ut-bay ow-nay it-ay is-ay e-thay ickens'-chay urn-tay ot-tay ing-say." (What is the meaning of Life? What is the meaning of Meaning? We do not know. But now it is the chickens' turn to sing.)

It is very hard to type in Pig Latin.

COMMAS

Bob O. wrote:

Periods and commas inside quotation marks is something I was really dinged on by copyeditors at Prentice Hall, and when an editor edited some of my courses ... same thing. In technical software writing, it can be particularly nasty, because you want to convey EXACTLY what is used, and not stray punctuation.

But ... I've bowed to common American usage and have started to be consistent. I think it is going to look careless otherwise ...

People are generally telling me that they stick with American usage on punctuation within quotation marks, and that I should too. I do, when I'm working for someone else. It's only in PO and in private correspondence that I please myself by using the form I find most logical.

DA BEE FLIES

Fred and I got to meet one of my most Constant Readers, Dave Da Bee, last weekend, when he flew in for a conference and visited his brother. After nearly three years of pretty frequent back-and-forthing, he was already an old friend. Anyone else who's in the Cincinnati vicinity, do look us up.

Bernadette Roberts Workshop

I am organizing a workshop with Bernadette Roberts, a remarkable Christian contemplative and author of three books:

What is Self?: A Study of the Spiritual Journey in Terms of Consciousness

The Path to No-Self: Life at the Center

The Experience of No-Self: A Contemplative Journey

This workshop, called The Essence of Christian Mysticism, will be held on the weekend of May 5-7, 2006, in Loveland, Ohio. For more information, go to Bernadette Roberts Workshop. The site may be updated from time to time.

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