The virtual linguist

Special

It is a truism to say that language changes, and nowhere more so than in the field of disability. When I was growing up people talked of special schools and backward, retarded or ESN (educationally sub-normal) pupils, and no-one gave a second thought to those terms. In the 19th century Earlswood hospital in Surrey was known as the Royal Earlswood Asylum for Idiots, and the term idiot was acceptable at the time (the Idiots Act became law in 1886).

Recently the politically correct term to use has been 'children with special needs', a term designed to be more acceptable than the old terms, but I have recently heard of one school which has banned pupils from using the word 'special', because it had become a term of abuse -- pupils would taunt each other with 'you're special'.

Now my son tells me that a current term of abuse among his circle is 'José Mourinho' (former Chelsea manager), or just 'José'. For instance, instead of calling someone by their name, you'd say 'Hey, José'. This is because José Mourinho's nickname is 'the special one' (an epithet he gave himself, apparently, although he presumably did not mean he had a learning disability).

That's the trouble with political correctness and trying to ban certain words and phrases -- people, especially children, are very good at thinking up something else that is equally pejorative.

OED online

There have been reports in dozens of publications that the OED has decided never to produce another edition in book form, although the Dictionary's publisher itself, OUP, claims that no firm decision has yet been taken (see here). Apparently sales of dictionaries are falling (as are sales of other types of reference books) because people can get the information for free on the internet.

Online dictionaries, and especially the online version of the OED, are fantastic resources and very convenient when one is writing at the computer, or reading something online. However, they do have limitations, and I, for one, would never part with my collection of traditional dictionaries, which I refer to just as often as to the OED online.

For one thing, I do not spend every waking hour at the computer, and still enjoy reading books and other publications sitting in the armchair far away from my computer. An online dictionary is no use to me in that situation. It's far more convenient to have a hard copy within easy reach.

You cannot browse an online computerised dictionary as easily as you can a hard copy. Online versions are getting better in this regard and you can often click on another headword that catches your fancy when looking up a word. But with a hard copy you might just spot something interesting in a definition of another word on the same page, that might take you off into an enjoyable reverie. Or, you can flick idly through a paper dictionary and something is sure to grab your attention.

One of the traditional uses people have always made of a dictionary is to look up how to spell a word. Some online dictionaries are not at all helpful in this regard, although things are generally getting better. Sometimes you need to key in the correct spelling in the first place to find the word. The OED online usually isn't too bad at this -- it ignores hyphens and apostrophes, for instance, whereas a CD-Rom of the single-volume ODE I used to have (until I finally flung it across the room with great force!) would only show a word if you typed it in exactly correctly. I remember using the CD-Rom once to check whether the cricket ground Lord's had an apostrophe, but typing in Lords got me nowhere. Only after I had tried Lords' then Lord's, did I get my answer. Not a major hassle, perhaps, but trying lady's finger followed by lady's-finger, ladies' finger, ladies-finger or any other combination would soon get tedious.

Admittedly, traditional dictionaries aren't completely foolproof in this regard -- if you don't know that psychology begins with a P you'll never find it in a dictionary -- but you can browse the whole page more easily if you are unsure whether broccoli has one C or two, or whether professor has two Fs and one S or two Ss and one F.

More importantly, if I look up the word 'hats' in a traditional dictionary, I won't find it, but I will find 'hat' pretty easily. If I look up the word 'hats' in the OED, I get the message 'There are no results'. The Dictionary does lead me to the place where hats would be if it were a headword, but it's not the 'hat' entry -- it's after hater, but before hatful, for some reason. Similarly, keying in 'cats' takes me directly to the catmint page. That's because cats-mint is an alternative name for catmint. If I look up 'fusspot', the OED tells me that there is no such word. There is, and it is in the OED, but it appears as a synonym of fussbox at the 'fuss' entry and is written on the page like this: "Comb., as fuss-box, -budget, -pot, a person who fusses", so the software doesn't pick up the whole word.

Most of today's newspaper articles about the online OED mention the subscription price -- over £200 p.a. What they don't mention is that you don't need to spend any money to access the OED -- not if you live in the UK anyway, and possibly in other English-speaking countries. Just about every local council in the UK subscribes to the OED on behalf of its residents, and if you find your local library service website you'll probably find a section entitled Online reference resources, or something similar, which will lead you to the OED. You will usually need your library card number and a PIN. If you don't know what I'm talking about and you use your local library, ask a librarian about it.

Norn

A poetry programme on BBC Radio 4 earlier today (Norn but not forgotten: Sounds of Shetland) was about the poetry of the Shetland Islands and there were interviews with poets who write in the Shetland dialect.

The Shetland Islands off the north-east coast of Scotland were, until 500 years ago, ruled by Norway and there is still much Scandinavian influence there today. The language once spoken in Shetland was Norn, a now-extinct member of the Scandinavian branch of the Germanic language group. It finally died out in the 19th century, although Scots had been gradually replacing Norn in the people's everyday speech for the two or three centuries before this.

Today the Shetland dialect is a mixture of Scots, English and old Norn words. Since the Shetland landscape and weather patterns are so distinctive, many of the dialect words describing these phenomena derive from Norn. Those mentioned on the radio programme included fleckit, meaning a brown and white cow, almark, an unbiddable sheep that jumps fences, and shoormal, the meeting place between the sea and shore. One of the poets described the sounds of the Shetland dialect as harsh, like the landscape itself.

The Shetland dialect was in the doldrums for many years and not considered prestigious, but there has been a resurgence in the past few decades and, as one of the people on the programme said, there are evening classes where you can learn it, as well as groups such as Forwirds, which promote the dialect.

You can listen to the programme for a few more days here or read about it here.  

Bavarian dictionary

Bayrisch is the Bavarian dialect and the BBC had an article this week about an Englishman who is compiling a dictionary of Bavarian words and phrases.

Griàss aich, laidl, gfraid me, dass hergfundn habts is the welcoming sentence on this Bavarian website. Quite different from the standard German Grüsst Euch ... es freut mich, dass ihr uns gefunden habt (I don't know what laidl is, Leute perhaps). So that gives you an idea of the work involved in creating a dictionary. It won't be finished until 2050, apparently, and is expected to be between eight and ten volumes long.

Bavaria had its own king until 1918, and many Bavarians still feel very different from other Germans. You often see people, even young people, wearing dirndls (women) and lederhose (men) and the dialect itself is enjoying something of a renaissance.

Thanks to Elizabeth for sending me the link.

Mullet

It's a brave man who has his hair styled in a mullet! The definition in Chambers Dictionary is "a hairstyle that is short at the front, long at the back, and ridiculous all round" and a couple of the citations in the OED indicate that it is most certainly considered ridiculous: "Connoisseurs of the absurd in gentlemen's hairdressing have been enjoying a laugh at..those unfortunates who continue to commit that most heinous fashion don't, the Mullet", and "The Mullet... If you have one, then a word in your ear: Scissors".

Quite why the hairstyle is called a mullet is uncertain. It might be named after the fish, according to some sources, or perhaps after the obsolete verb to mullet, meaning 'to pluck with tweezers'. The likeliest origin is perhaps the slang word mullet-head, which originated in the USA in the 19th century and means, according to the OED, 'a stupid person' or 'an imaginary fish having no brains.'

I was prompted to write about the mullet because I learnt the German word for it recently (thanks, Lizzie). It's the lovely word Vokuhila which stands for vorne-kurz-hinten-lang, or 'front-short-back-long'. Picture and more info (in German) here.

Ebonics

The US Drug Enforcement Administration is reportedly seeking Ebonics translators to listen in to conversations between suspected drug dealers (story here).

The Oxford English Dictionary's definition of Ebonics is "African-American English, esp. when considered as a distinct language or dialect with linguistic features related to or derived from those of certain West African languages, rather than as a non-standard variety of English". The Dictionary also reminds readers that 'the status of Ebonics as a language is disputed'. The word is a blend of 'ebony' and 'phonics'. These days the term African American English is preferred.

The fact that an official government body has seemingly recognised Ebonics as a separate language is very significant, as for the past couple of decades there has been fierce debate over the status of Ebonics -- the term appeared to imply that there was a genetic basis to the language people spoke.

According to the website of the Washington-based Center for Applied Linguistics, African-American English is "a systematic language variety, with patterns of pronunciation, grammar, vocabulary and usage that extend far beyond slang. Because it has a set of rules that is distinct from those of standard American English, characterizations of the variety as bad English are incorrect ...".

The translators, when they are hired, will listen to wiretaps, as in the TV programme The Wire. Here are some of the Ebonics, or African American English, expressions used in that series:

I need a re-up: I need a new supply (of drugs)

I might got to drop him; I ain't even playing: I may have to kill him; I mean it

IIs he shook?: Is he scared?

Well, later. I got to grind: Bye. Got to get to work.

Zeitgeist

One of the reasons that speakers of other languages are so good at speaking English is that they are surrounded by English-language programmes on the television, English-language songs in the charts and English-language sites on the internet.

The Guardian is doing its bit to expose its readers to German by having a section of the online edition called Zeitgeist. Apparently, the articles on offer are chosen after determining which pages and articles are proving most popular with online searchers and readers.

Zeitgeist is a German word meaning 'spirit of the age', but it has long appeared in most English dictionaries, since it is one of those words - like Schadenfreude - for which English doesn't have le mot juste. According to the newspaper's original explanation of the new feature, a number of people queried the use of the word to start with, so perhaps it wasn't that familiar at the time.

The i- prefix

The words iPod, iPad, iTunes, iVillage etc, with their i- prefix standing for 'internet' or perhaps something else, seem to epitomise the 21st century. Not a bit of it! There are dozens of words in the Oxford English Dictionary from the 9th, 10th, 11th and 12th centuries that have the prefix i-: i-be (an old form of the verb 'to be'), i-creoiced (crossed), i-deme (to judge, deem), i-freond (friends), i-go (to go), i-hitte (to hit), i-hwat (everything), i-ken (to make known), i-mete (to meet), i-same (together), i-wepen (weapons), i-wis (certain) and many others.

The i- was a feature of Old English (before the Norman Conquest) and the first centuries of the Middle English period (up to about the 13th century). It later changed to y- so you had ygo and ywis, for instance. The words were written either with the i as a separate word, or hyphenated, and the Oxford English Dictionary has chosen to write them with a hyphen. This prefix was the equivalent of the German prefix ge- (remember that English is a Germanic language because of its structure). It was used to begin collective nouns (as weapons above), adjectives, adverbs and verbs.

GCSE modern language entries down again

Numbers sitting a GCSE in a modern language declined again this year, with languages dropping out of the top ten list altogether (story here). The government made languages optional six years ago, and since then numbers have been declining.

The fact that students perceive languages as difficult and don't opt for them is one reason for the decline, but school heads are also responsible. Many schools have dropped second and third languages and replaced them with much easier subjects that will gain students a higher grade and see the school rise in the league tables. (This doesn't just happen with languages -- the daughter of a friend of mine had the devil of a job getting the school to allow her to take physics A level. They predicted she'd get a C for physics but an A for English so tried to push her to take English, even though she only needed a C in physics to do her chosen university course. The school, of course, wanted the kudos of more A grades.)

Most school pupils don't see the relevance of languages at the age of 14, unfortunately. They do later, however, which explains why modern language adult education classes are very popular and why I am asked to write or edit at least one language coursebook a year.

I suppose the only solution is to make learning at least one foreign language compulsory in schools. People bang on about freedom of choice but we are only doing children a disservice by depriving them of the ability to communicate in another language. The teaching of the languages would have to be of high quality, and pupils should also have access to careers advice explaining the benefits of knowing foreign languages.

I will

Why do brides and grooms state confidently 'I will', rather than 'I'll try' or 'I promise' during the wedding service? Guy Deutscher has an interesting article on his website (click on Times on this page), and I'm very grateful to reader Alan for sending it to me.

The original Latin response in the 16th-century Christian marriage ceremony was volo, which was from the verb 'to want to'. The Church was keen to ensure that marriage was seen as a spiritual affair, not a business contract, so uttering volo showed that each party entered marriage voluntarily and willingly.

When the service was translated into English, volo became 'I will', because I will in English used to mean 'I want to' (it's why we say someone is 'willing' now, or ask someone 'Will you have tea or coffee?').