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DYSPHEMISM

What's the opposite of euphemism? The daily e-mail from Oxford University Press – USA, Garner's Usage Tip of the Day, says it's dysphemism,

...the substitution of a disagreeable word or phrase for a neutral or even positive one.... Examples are usually slang: "bean-counter" (accountant), "gumshoe" (detective), "tree-hugger" (environmentalist), "egghead" (intellectual), "mouthpiece" (lawyer), "grease monkey" (mechanic), "pencil-pusher" (office worker), "pill-pusher" (doctor), "scoop" (journalist), "talking head" (newscaster), "jarhead" (Marine), "shrink" (psychiatrist), "zebra" (referee), "flyboy" (pilot), "rube" (rural resident), "city slicker" (urban resident).

Many dysphemisms, of course, are hardly printable, as when the word "man" or "woman" is reduced in reference to a low word for a sexual organ. Most racist terms likewise illustrate the phenomenon of dysphemism.

Of course, some of these words are not really disagreeable, like "scoop" or "zebra", but they lack respectful formality.

Since the word "euphemism" is so often used with disdain, and clearly we want to avoid dysphemism, what's left? Must be phemism. Not the phony eu, nor the offensive dys, just plain phemism. Let's do it.

TWO LANGUAGES DIVERGED

Herb H. sent this story, which considering the German sources of English, illustrates the difficulties of translation:

The mathematical logic of English negatives might not always be. My German professor was native to the free city of Danzig. As a teen, already a student of language, toward the end of WW II he was old enough for the NAZIs to draft him into the Luftwaffe with other young teens. He was soon fortunate to be captured by the Yanks. At the base where they kept their young POWs, the Americans posted many prohibitions in rudimentary German, on signs repeating endless commands in the form, "DU MUSS NICHT ... ("loiter in this area," for example, or "walk on the grass"). In response young Ulrich devoted considerable time and energy to conspicuously loitering in such an area or walking on the grass. He had it planned that when the American authorities went to punish him for flouting the rules, he would get the opportunity to explain to them that "Du muss nicht ... " does not mean "You must not ... " In German, the "nicht" quite unambiguously negated the obligatory nature of "must." Their posted command didn't say, as they intended, "You must not loiter in this area," but rather, "You don't have to loiter in this area." Maybe they'd even give him something to do that made use of his linguistic skills! But it was not to be. None of them paid the slightest attention to a teen-age POW loitering in the mess hall or walking on the grass.

It was a wondrous situation ~ “DU MUSS NICHT” signs all over the base, Americans who couldn’t discern what the signs were prohibiting, and Germans who just saw “You don’t have to ... “ do this and that.

So, "must" = "have to", but combined with a negative, are quite different in English: "you must not" isn't the same as "you don't have to" in English. Except when you reverse the order to make a question: "Must you play that music so loud?" is the same as "Do you have to play that music so loud?"

TOUGH

Herb also had something to say on hardy and hearty:

...Thereby reminding me of a similar word use that never fails to irk me ~ a “tough” judge or a “tough” new law or a principal “tough” on the tardy. Tough is a quality held in esteem by all mankind, as the tough will forge ahead in the face of injury and hurt. The American Society for Metals says, “Toughness is the capacity of a material to absorb energy ... before fracture,” surprisingly applicable to the “four tough Steelers” that Terry Bradshaw used to surround himself with. Well, I’ve never seen a tough judge or principal. And while I’m sure there could be a tough judge, when we hear of one ~ or a cop or principal or a law ~ he she or it is not tough at all, but merely harsh. If people could admit that they admire harsh, this language crime could be drastically reduced.

Well, Herb, I'll admit it. What would we call Edward Cashman, the Vermont judge who recently sentenced a man to six months of jail for the crime of raping a young child for years? Neither harsh nor tough. The quality of harsh is too much strained in this man.

Maybe we'll have to consider "tough" a euphemism for harsh; its meaning of dishing out "harsh", not just being able to take it, is well established.

By the way, using harsh instead of harshness in "admire harsh" reminds me of its slangy use as a verb: "Don't harsh my buzz, dude." Or sometimes "my mellow".

BACK TO AMERIKA

Son Jude wrote: "I always thought the K in Amerika was to suggest Soviet era totalitarianism. Using the K was a western perception of how Russian speakers would confuse Cyrillic with Roman characters."

Fred also mentioned the novel Amerika by Franz Kafka, the German writer, who of course used the German spelling of America. Since Kafka never visited America, and I never read his book, I won't elaborate, but apparently his surreal take on America and his spelling were influential.

To understand why American writers have spelled it with a K, we'd have to ask them. No doubt they had several associations in mind while writing.

STILL LEADIN' OLD DAN

The Old Dan question brought the musicians out of the woodwork.

Herb wrote:

My ear always hears, "A-ridin' old Paint, and a-leadin' old Dan, I'm bound to Montana to throw the Hoolihan." The idea of a dog does not fit this song, which is about cowboys singing all day and night and riding real slow around the doggies [sic], both singing and slow-riding to avoid spooking the cattle into a stampede. I went in search of any info on a dog on a cattle drive, and found a very interesting modern story: Soapweed's Ranch Ramblings.

But this was an exceptional dog allowed to go along on this latter day cattle drive (with no danger of stampeding longhorns) because he would stay way behind as they went. I think ol’ Dan is the spare horse, serving as a packhorse on the trip to Montana.

By the way, here's where some confusion has arisen. Dogies (with one G; singular dogy or dogey) are orphaned calves.

Charlie M. wrote:

Dan also meanders into a later cowboy song called "Cool Water" by The Sons of the Pioneers. They sing "Old Dan and I with throats burned dry and souls that cry for water, etc."

Charlie also went so far as to inquire of The American Donkey and Mule Society ~ bet you didn't know there was one! ~ who told him:

Leading implies that Old Dan (or perhaps originally old Dun) was a pack-horse or pack-mule. Old Dan was a popular name for horses, mules, and dogs from the 1800s into the early-to-mid 1900s.

"Dun" doesn't rhyme with "Hoolihan", though. As for taking the dog for a drag, Dea added:

During the cattle drive, some cowboys rode ahead of a herd keeping a lookout for dangerous conditions to the steers, while other riders held back whistling out to their old dans. Old dan was in the back joyfully nipping on command at the heels of the bovines, driving them forward towards their masters. Thus, the dog followed the lead of the cowboy's whistle, and the cows reluctantly trotted suspiciously between the two.

MONDEGREEN OR CULTURE CLASH?

Thanks to Sue for this, which shows how songs become "folk" songs when how the folks start to disagree about lyrics:

I was in Algodones, Mexico a couple of weeks ago with a friend doing some shopping. In this little plaza there was a Mexican band playing oldies music. They were singing Pink Floyd's "The Wall" which has a line in it that goes, "We don't need no thought control". I don't know if they did it on purpose or someone gave them a bad translation, but they were singing that line as "We don't need no pest control." I got a big kick out of it. Most of the tourists were about 75, so I think I'm the only one who caught it.

In class today with my sweet Muslim student, when we got to the end of a section in the lesson, she sang the words "the end" in a way that reminded me of that bar from the song by the Doors, "The End". I mentioned it to her, and it turns out she knew the song and Jim Morrison! Small world.

Want to see those cartoons that drove so many not so sweet Muslims to mayhem? They're pretty mild compared to the average American political cartoon. Maybe you remember the p**s Christ and feces-covered Madonna art works that drove Christians to rioting and murder in the streets of New York. Oh, I forgot ~ they didn't.

WHAT'S THE GOOD WORD

Random House has a good Maven's Word of the Day site (mavens = Yiddish for experts), including a link to some thoughts on "sensitive" language.

If you buy books from Amazon using the link below, I'll get a tiny commission, and I'd appreciate it.

Link here to look for books on Amazon.com!

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