The virtual linguist

Read the riot act

Saying you're going to 'read the riot act' to someone is reasonably common in modern British English; it means you're going to tell them off for having done something in the past, or warn them about the dire consequences that will follow if they do something in the future. Riot act is usually written with a small r and a in this sense.

Today is the 90th anniversary of the last reading of the actual Riot Act (capital letters), a piece of legislation passed in 1715. Workers in Glasgow went on strike in January 1919 (story here) and the government over-reacted (this was shortly after the end of the First World War and soon after the Russian Revolution, and the government feared worker unrest). The Riot Act said that 'if 12 or more persons unlawfully or riotously assembled and refused to disperse within an hour after the reading of a specified portion of the Act by a competent authority, they should be considered as felons'. This could, in theory, have been punishable by the death penalty.

To hear BBC newsreader Peter Donaldson read the Riot Act, and to hear an interview with a historian on the Act, click on the 08.56 interview here (probably only available for a few more days to those in the UK as it is a BBC interview which took place on Saturday 31 January 2009).

Neet

Neet is an acronym standing for 'not in education, employment or training'. It was used as a noun in an article on the BBC website today: 'a fifth were classified as "undecided Neet"' and it was also written as an ordinary word, Neet, albeit with a capital N. The word has existed for a few years now, but initially it appeared as NEET (as it still does on the government's Every Child Matters website). That website uses the word as different parts of speech - as a noun (but describing the phenomenon, not the individual person, as in the aforementioned BBC article): 'No single agency holds all the keys to reducing NEET'; also as an adjectival or adverbial phrase: 'Being NEET between the ages of 16-18 is a major predictor of later unemployment ...'

This 2005 article from The Sunday Times explains in graphic detail exactly what Neets are and what they get up to (or don't get up to). There is also a whole range of synonyms for Neets in the article: underclass, feckless youth, those living on the margins of society, uber-chavs, unproductive, an economic drag on society and a lost generation.

Beryl Bainbridge and the Liverpool accent

I'm grateful to my very good friend Sue (not a Scouser) for letting me know about an interview I missed on BBC Radio 4 a couple of days ago (you can listen here) where writer Beryl Bainbridge, herself a Liverpudlian, complained about the 'hideous' Liverpool accent and blamed soap operas such as Brookside for propagating an artificial Scouse accent, that people then copied.

I'm a Liverpudlian, although I haven't lived there for over 30 years. My accent is not unlike that of Beryl Bainbridge ie an educated Liverpool accent. I can tell that Dame Beryl is from Liverpool, although it might not be apparent to others. There are some sounds that we just cannot get rid of, no matter how long ago it is that we lived in Liverpool. One of them is the /r/, which we 'tap' (ie the tip of the tongue quickly taps against the alveolar ridge); in other English accents the sound /r/ is an approximant, ie the tongue makes no contact with any other part of the mouth when it is pronounced. Another is the sound 'o' as in 'no', and, perhaps the most stereotypical, is the 'fair hair' vowel sound (pronounced by people of my generation as 'fur hur').

People usually feel warmly towards a Scottish, Irish or Welsh accent - they often claim such accents sound trustworthy or warm and friendly. City accents such as those in Liverpool, Glasgow, Belfast or Birmingham rarely evoke such warm feelings. One of the problems with academic studies of accents is that they typically use working class young men as their subjects, and such people tend to cling on to an accent as part of their identity - and Liverpudlians (I can't speak for others) certainly have a keen sense of identity.

Accents are constantly changing and developing, and soap operas probably aren't the only reason. There is a big difference between the Scouse spoken by today's teenagers and their parents. Cilla Black likes to make a thing about being from Liverpool, but her accent is completely artificial - she is drawing on sounds and expressions used in the 1960s, but not by anyone these days.Kevin Watson, a linguist from Lancaster University, who has researched Scouse, says that 'Scouse is getting Scouser' ie particular features are becoming more pronounced, particularly the lenition of the consonant phonemes /k/ and /t/ (which are pronounced as affricates or fricatives ie like [kh], [x], [ts] or [s]). Scousers clearly see this feature as being a marker of their identity.

Post-redundancy

The government are usually the supremos when it comes to euphemism - and it doesn't matter which government. Rhodri Morgan, First Minister of Wales, has been maintaining the tradition of using euphemisms to hide the unpleasant truth. Talking about support during the economic downturn he referred to 'post-redundancy training'. Post-redundancy - that would be a euphemism for unemployment! He also talked about a pre-redundancy situation. That strikes me, not as a euphemism, but a dysphemism ie the alternative is worse than the original, the original being the perfectly acceptable 'employment'.

Moobs

More and more men, according to a BBC article, are having surgery to remove their moobs, defined as excessive breast tissue.The word moobs, a portmanteau word made up of 'man' and 'boobs' was first mentioned in the British press in 2004, but is appearing in more and more newspaper articles (I have to say that I have never heard any of my male acquaintances or colleagues mention the word in conversation).

Please refer to the aforementioned BBC article for more information on moobs - causes, mentions in soap operas etc; I cannot summon up enough enthusiasm to write about the subject here.

Up-Helly-Aa

Today is Up-Helly-Aa in the Shetland Islands when the locals celebrate their Nordic roots. Many will dress as Vikings and the culmination of the festival is when a Viking longboat is set alight (more info here). Helly-Aa is a contraction of the word 'holiday', which, itself, is a form of 'holy day' and the festival also symbolises the end of the holy days after Christmas and the passing of midwinter.

One of the features in The Times newspaper that gets readers excited is the crossword and in 2003 one of the answers in the crossword was Up-Helly-Aa. Ironically, the newspaper had recently been accused of dumbing down its crossword and a Mr Tim Sanders wrote this letter to the editor. I cut it out and saved it, as I thought it was very amusing. I repeat it in full below, but it can also be seen, along with various other correspondents' comments on the Times crossword here.

"Sir, Congratulations to the Times Crossword, upbraided in recent times for excessive simplicity, for coming up with the word Up-Helly-Aa (number 22503), which the Oxford English Dictionary defines as the name given to January 28 in the Shetlands. The night itself is described as a 'great flare-up' following '24 nights of feasting, drinking, singing and rejoicing'.

I, for one, intend to celebrate it next year, particularly if I succeed in solving further crosswords of such daunting obscurity."

Prix de la Carpette Anglaise

The annual Prix de la Carpette Anglaise was awarded in France a few days ago. Carpette Anglaise translates as 'English Doormat' and the 'award' goes to 'the person or institution who has given the best display of "fawning servility" to further the insinuation into France of the accursed English language' (BBC story here). Runners-up this year included the supermarket chain Carrefour for describing itself using the English word 'market' and a French rock band called Nelson (after Admiral Nelson) who sing in English. The winner was the French higher education minister Valerie Pecresse who admitted she preferred to communicate in English when attending European Union meetings in Brussels.

Last year's winner was another minister - Christine Lagarde - who also used too much English for the Academie de la Carpette Anglaise's liking. Other winners in previous years have included France Telecom for issuing publications with such titles as Business Talk and Live-Zoom, Jean-Marie Colombani, editor of Le Monde, who published a weekly supplement entirely in English, and Alain Richard, Minister of Defence who insisted military personnel speak English within Eurocorps, even though there are no English-speaking countries within this group. The president of the French Football Federation was nominated in 2004 for adopting the Jackson 5 hit Can You Feel It as the anthem of the French team. More on the Academie de la Carpette in French here.

Burns Night, haggis and pluck

It's Burns Night this evening (it's always Burns Night, for some reason, never Burns Day), which is particularly noteworthy this year as it is the 250th anniversary of Robert Burns' birth. I'm not Scottish, I'm not celebrating the occasion, and I'm definitely not planning to eat haggis, but I thought I'd look at this Scottish 'delicacy' for today's blog post.

If you've got a strong stomach, here's a recipe for a traditional haggis. The first ingredient has me stumped - one sheep's bag and pluck. A sheep's bag is the animal's stomach, I think, and pluck is, according to the OED, 'the heart, liver, lungs and other viscera (= internal organs) of an animal'. The animal's windpipe is clearly also included in the viscera as the recipe I have linked to tells you to leave the windbag hanging out of the pan while boiling everything.

There is an entire ritual surrounding the haggis. It is piped into the dining room by a Scottish piper and then Burns' poem Address to a Haggis is read aloud. Even we Sassenachs know the line 'Great chieftain o' the puddin-race!'. Here's the full text of the poem, with a standard English translation. The meal finishes with a 'toast to the lassies' (ie women).

It is unclear where the word 'haggis' comes from. Many words for food items come originally from French, and it has been suggested that 'haggis' comes the French hachis, hash or that it is related to the verb 'to chop' in French, but the OED doesn't go along with this theory.

Yarnbombing

Yarnbombing is a phenomenon something like graffiti, but knitting wool is used instead of paint, and the yarnbombers cover public property like road signs, trees, even a bus, with knitted creations. The Sun has some pictures of a few objects covered in woolly 'garments' including a tree, a bus and a petrol station here and there is a good selection of photos on this Swiss site.

The craze is believed to have begun in Texas when clothes shop owner Magda Sayeg covered a door handle to brighten her shop up, then started on various other items of street furniture. It was Magda and her friends who covered the bus in a woolly layer. Yarnbombing is also taking place in Britain too, now, apparently, although I haven't spotted the evidence myself.

I'm not very keen on the name for this activity, yarnbombing, as bombing is a negative word for such a creative activity. Of course, 'bombing' also means 'moving very quickly', which is what graffiti artists, and no doubt these knitting artists do too, in order not to be spotted. I would prefer yarnstorming, or perhaps yarnishing.

The new Diploma in Languages

Currently school pupils take GCSE and A Levels if they want a qualification in foreign languages, but from 2011 there will be a new qualification - the Diploma in Languages, which will apply to pupils between 14 and 19 years old.

Diplomas already exist for some subjects in schools - they have recently been introduced for construction, IT and a few other subjects. They are designed to be another "learning choice" alongside GCSE/A Levels and Apprenticeships.

According to the Diploma website, the new qualification will be a blend of theory and practice and is designed to bring language learning to life. Young people will be taught intercultural skills and will be introduced to translation and interpreting. The organisation responsible for the Diploma is the Diploma Development Partnership. It is led by GoSkills, which is the Sector Skills Council for passenger transport, working in close collaboration with CILT, the National Centre for Languages. This organisation is asking for views from employers, pupils, parents, education professionals and anyone else who will be affected by the new qualification. Have your say here.