New technology is often met with resistance and some confusion. Happily, there are usually people available to provide technical assistance. Apparently such help has been around a lot longer than I’d realized:
Lifted off the dusty shelves of the raincoaster library.
When I was 14 years old, I lived in Hawaii for a few months. My mother was in a relationship with a man who lived in Honolulu, and in December of 1985, she decided we should all move there: my mother, my sister and me. (Perhaps was in part in response to the impending threat of another bitter Colorado winter.)
While I have moved many times in my life, this move was among the most dramatic.
My mother’s boyfriend, who we’ll call C, had a condo in Honolulu, right around Waikiki, in the shadow of Diamond Head. It was about as different a setting as you could get from the antique log house we’d been renting in Colorado. (Though that house too was in the shadow of a mountainous landmark, being in Manitou Springs, at the foot of Pike’s Peak.) We arrived there a couple of days before Christmas, leaving the biting cold and blizzards behind us for beaches and balmy weather. There was also much greenery, contrasting vividly with the white and grey we’d flown away from, and there were palm trees around town wrapped in red ribbon to resemble candy canes, an almost surreal reminder that the season had not changed. Aside from the transition in climate and surroundings, we went through a bit of culture shock, too. While Hawaii is a state, the 50th to join the union, back in 1959, it is also a place of multiple cultural heritages. European and mainstream American culture are blended with various Asian and Pacific island cultures, including a strong steak of indigenous Polynesian cultures. This is reflected in many of the customs and traditions practiced by those who call Hawaii home: food, clothing and music, for a start. And also language.
One of the first people we met in Honolulu was a young neighbor of C’s. I don’t remember how old he was, exactly. Maybe 13 or so. Close to my age, definitely younger than my sister’s advanced 16 years. I’m sad to say that I no longer remember his name (though I could probably unearth it), but I do vividly remember some of the conversations we had with him. He sort of took us under his wing, these 2 clueless haolie girls fresh off the mainland. While he spoke in English, with the local accent, he’d also sometimes demonstrate for us another type of speech. He referred to it as “pigeon.” At one point, I remember him warning us that if we ran into groups of local teens speaking pigeon, we should keep our distance. Such kids were often looking for trouble, our new friend told us.
It wasn’t till years later, at some point in my formal linguistics education, that I learned that what he’d really been saying was “pidgin,” not “pigeon.” A pidgin is a contact language, meaning a sort of blend of two or more languages, and used to facilitate communication between groups of speakers of different native languages. The pidgin in Hawaii developed from contact between speakers of English and Hawaiian, as well as settlers who were native speakers of Cantonese, Japanese, Portuguese and Filipino languages. The resulting mix sounds, to Mainlander ears, a bit like a foreign language with a few recognizable English words thrown in.
And what I learned even later was that what is colloquially known as Pidgin in Hawaii is no longer technically a pidgin, but a creole. A creole is also a type of contact language. However, a pidgin is generally an “initial” contact language. That is to say, it develops at an earlier stage in the contact between populations. Sometimes, a pidgin will develop into a creole. What this means is that both the language and the population have achieved the stability of having native speakers of that language. Not all pidgins turn into creoles, but it does seem that all creoles developed out of pidgins. (What is known in Hawaii as Pidgin is more formally known as Hawaiian Creole English, by the way. But that’s just a technical term, really, as far as I’m concerned. Those in the know, the locals, know that this language they speak is Pidgin.)
Pidgins, creoles and other contact languages are a fascinating and complex area of study in linguistics.¹ Sociolinguists, in particular, have been interested in their development and use in social context. There are many creoles spoken around the world, such as Haitian Creole (kreyòl ayisyen), which is “based” on French, or Cape Verdian Creole (Crioulo caboverdiano), which is “based” on Portuguese. I won’t get into all the details at this point, but I do feel I should make one point, and explain my “scare quotes.” Many people have assumed, when hearing a creole, that speakers are incompetent users of the (usually European) language from which it takes much of its vocabulary. Eg., that Kreyol is just “broken” or simplified, French. However, creoles are far more complex than this, and often the syntax² is based on an unrelated language, such as an African language. So knowing French will not enable you to produce a sentence in Haitian Creole, even though it may enable you to understand much of the vocabulary. This misunderstanding has historically led to discrimination against native speakers of creoles, especially in the area such as education and employment, based on the assumption that the speakers were merely poor speakers of, for example, French.
So there we have it. My pidgin post. Which is really, as it turns out, mostly about creoles. Sorry about the lack of respectable references. I meant to dig up my sociolinguistics textbook, but it’s managed to get itself buried in the recesses of our home. And seeing as it’s getting late, I should be getting to bed. But those of you who know this stuff better than I do, feel free to jump in and elaborate.
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¹ Of course, I’m prone to call just about every aspect of language fascinating and complex. But pidgins and creoles are way cool!
² Syntax, in case you haven’t been subjected to it, is the backbone of the word order and grammatical rules of a language.
For some reason today, an old slogan for Lay’s potato chips popped into my head: “no one can eat just one.” And for some other reason, I thought it could so easily be paraphrased to have a somewhat different meaning:
No one is permitted to eat only one.
I imagine a totalitarian society, where potato chip-eating quotas are strictly enforced. And why just potato chips? Why not have a nation-state that dictates other product use, and daily life in general? Advertising slogans abound that need only the gentlest nudge to conjure up such a society:
And some of the slogans don’t really need any help to be Big Brotherly:
Eagerly anticipated by sixth-graders everywhere, who have been predicting (and getting each other to spell) the product for decades, Apple announced that it will soon be releasing the iCup. Like the iPhone, the iCup is a hand-held device that syncs up with your computer.
iCup Features
In related news, the 79th Carnival of Satire is now available for your reading entertainment, and features my recent iPhone review (in which I come down hard on the iPhone’s chunky, clunky design).
From the pantheons of pants I bring to you the the ultimate excercise in pants procrastination¹. Upon my recent realization that the word procrastination contains the letters of the word pants, my mind has suffered an onslaught of other words which contain pants. You see, pants are that pervasive. So I offer to you the following bit of complete nonsense, just for the sake of using all these pants-containing words.
I recently read an article about a distinguished pantologist, who is being recognized for her life’s work.
She is best known for her prediction of an alignment of planets, for which she used computations based on her observations of a species of bee that pollenates resupinate plants. She also recently received international attention for her study on the mating habits of the spantangus, large percentages of which were highly unexpected by the scientific community. She has hundreds of publications in dozens of fields, on topics ranging from pantheism and theories of pantisocracy, to histories of Pakistan and Palestine, to the cultivation of eggplants. She holds patents for many inventions, including a method for stapling using only dental floss, and various contraptions, such as one for plasticizing antipasto displays for restaurant windows, or another for separating vast quantities of egg whites from the yolks. It is hard to say which of her many achievements is most representative of her work.
She is a passionately creative spirit as well, and one of her favorite leisure pastimes is spattering colorful paints on paper, and pasting on patterns of pastina. She is also a talented pianist, and tapdances whenever she has the opportunity.
The pantologist attributes much of her early explorations into vast areas of knowledge to the eccentricities of her parents, with whom she has a strong relationship, and whose intellectual partnership was an inspiration to her. Her father was once a pantomimist, known for a routine of silent stamping of feet (clad in his signature pantoffles) and for his impersonations of 17th century philosophers and contemporaneous politicians. He left the entertainment industry after a complaints from a reviewer suggesting that his acts catered only to the whims of his sycophants. He then became quite reclusive, and dedicated his efforts to designing closets and pantries for small apartments. Her mother once had aspirations to become a paleontologist before becoming a veterinarian, with a specialization in elephants (which are known to be disproportionately challenging patients). Upon retiring, her parents devoted their time to running the family’s plantations, which primarily grow plantains and peanuts.
The distinguished pantologist’s record is not untarnished, however. There were some phantoms of rumors of misappropriation of funds, as well as some speculation about the ethics of some of her experimentations. There was the well-publicized scandal of 1983, during which she received some criticism for a study on the benefits of regular naptimes, in which participants were misled about the compensation they would receive. Her interpretations of data have also sometimes been called into question, and her explanations have not always been transparent. Her fan base, however, anticipates that these minor problems will soon be forgotten, and that she will be remembered for her accomplishments.
An award ceremony, an event with all the trappings for which elaborate preparations were made, was held last week. The article contained a brief transcript of the highlights of the award presentation, during which the distinguished pantologist surprised the audience with a spontaneous anecdote about an embarrassing incident from her youth involving the mispronunciation of the word cephalopod. The article was also accompanied by a few images, some with rather cryptic captions.
Okay, there it is. Anyone want to count how many words in this post contain the letters p-a-n-t-s? (I actually haven’t counted yet myself. I have work to do, you know.)
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¹ An expression for which I now have (thanks to azahar, and the anagram generator to which she referred me) a veritable abundance of anagrams:
How about A Catnap Torsion Sprint? Or A Transact Pinion Sport? Or maybe A Tsarina Popcorn Stint?
So here I was, sitting here with my laptop when I should’ve gone to bed. And having just finished a task of actual work, I continued to poke around on my laptop, looking around what other folks have written. And then (dude!), what catches my eye but a post on the quotative like.
As you may know, I’m all over the quotative like. So I couldn’t help but to check it out. And what’s more, I learned that there’s even a recent New York Times Magazine column on the topic. And I was like, “Woohoo! Quotative like is hitting the mainstream!”
The article’s a quick read, and generally fairly accepting of the quotative usage of like. However, I don’t entirely agree with the author’s categorization of the quotative like as a function word:
O.K., the new like is hot and it’s useful, but is it legit? Aren’t some rules of grammar or usage being broken here?
Linguists and lexicographers say no. It’s natural, they say, for words to take on new roles. In this case, a “content word” (one that means something) has become a “function word” (one that has a grammatical function but little actual meaning). Academics call the process “grammaticalization.” It’s one of the ways language changes.
I would tend to categorize the quotative “like” as a content word, not a function word. But it’s a bit tricky. But it does make me ponder the origins of the usage. I wonder if it arose from the hedge-like interjection form of “like.” You know, the one that, like, people toss in that doesn’t, like, add a lot of meaning? I can imagine an origin based on a usage like (such as) “…and then he said, like, ‘no way.'” or “I thought, like, ‘his use of that discourse marker was infelicitous in that context.'” If my hunch is right, then this would be a case of a word becoming more contentful…
A few weeks back I wrote a post in which I claimed that some posts a few folks wrote (for a meme) had used too much of a thing. Too much, in fact, to fit the name they’d used for that meme. So I wrote a post of my own, played that same game, and stuck to the rule.
Well, I had fun with that post. I had to choose my words with care. And then I thought it might be hard to write a whole post that way. But I thought I’d give it a try. It’s not as hard as I thought. As I sit here, I can find quite a lot of words to use. (The sad thing is, I can’t name the thing, the rule, since to tell you would break that “one” rule of this post. You’ll have to guess what it is. Or in case it’s not clear, just go back to that old post. )
Since I may find it hard to write with much depth, as I find that there is a tense or two that I can’t use, I think I’ll tell a tale. Here goes.
There was once a young girl who loved words. She loved to say them, write them, and play with them like toys. She’d bounce them, flip them, or squish them up. She liked to roll them off her tongue.
She could talk all day, and use lots and lots of words. But the sad thing was, she did not have much to say. At least not much that was worth while. Most of what she said made no sense at all.”Truck, muck, shoe, socks!” she would say to her dog. “Boo, blue, too, true,” she’d tell her mom. “Dude, prude, dance, pants” she’d shout to the man at the store. All day long, words would pour out of her mouth. Lots of words, short words. But not much sense. Blah, blah, blah, blah, she might as well have said.
One day as she was on her way home from school, she saw a strange red cat. She stopped to have a look at the way the bright red fur shone in the sun. As was her way, she spat out some words of no sense. “Bird, turd, drop, fraught,” she sang.
“What do you mean by that?” asked the cat.
Kate, for that was the girl’s name, paused. She had not known that cats could talk. “Cow, crow, coo, phlegm,” she said, once her first shock had passed.
“Why do you talk like that? I don’t get it,” The cat said.
“Hmmpf,” Kate said. “Well, I’m not sure. I know I like to play with words, though,” she told the cat. (For she could make some sense when she chose to.) “It’s fun. Roof, tooth, duck, shale.”
“Oh,” said the cat. “I see what you mean.” He thought for a bit and said: “Flip, trip, burp, plow.”
Kate smiled. “Scoop, stoop, tree, sine,” she said right back. And the two of them walked off hand in hand.
The end.
“Wait,” you say. “Cats don’t have hands.” Well, that’s true. But I made the rest of it up, too. So there.
One last thing. Can you give a thought as to how to end this phrase:
Now is the time for all good men to come to the aid of their _____.
It’s time for another helping of Themed Things Thursdays. It being vegetable week here, in honor of my first pick-up of my CSA veggies, this Thursday Theme for Things is vegetables. Okay, the list is a bit heavy on the onion bits (with apologies to those who don’t like onions), but you can pick them out.
some vegetables
Peter Peter pumpkin eater
Had a wife and couldn’t keep her
He put her in a pumpkin shell
And there he kept her very well
Bugs Bunny’s nonchalant carrot-chewing stance, as explained many years later by Chuck Jones, and again by Friz Freleng, comes from the movie, It Happened One Night, from a scene where the Clark Gable character is leaning against a fence eating carrots more quickly than he is swallowing, giving instructions with his mouth full to the Claudette Colbert character, during the hitch-hiking sequence.
Shrek: Ogres are like onions.
Donkey: They both smell?
Shrek: NO! They have LAYERS. There’s more to us underneath. So, ogres are like onions.
Donkey: Yeah, but nobody LIKES onions!
If you have ever peeled an onion, then you know that the first thin, papery layer reveals another thin, papery layer, and that layer reveals another, and another, and before you know it you have hundreds of layers all over the kitchen table and thousands of tears in your eyes, sorry that you ever started peeling in the first place and wishing that you had left the onion alone to wither away on the shelf of the pantry while you went on with your life, even if that meant never again enjoying the complicated and overwhelming taste of this strange and bitter vegetable.
Cucumbers circle Kalamazoo. Lima beans loom over Levittown. Artichokes advance on Anchorage.
Check out some of the illustrations on the publisher’s webpage for the book.
I’ve decided I need to organize my things. I have a tendency to make lists of things, willy-nilly, whenever the urge strikes. Any old day of the week. Whether it’s blue dudes on a Saturday, balls on a Friday, or pigs on a Sunday, or cheese on a Tuesday. Willy-freakin’-nilly, I tell you.
So I was all like “hey, I should pick a day. Have a thing day. A themed thing day.”¹ So to go all out with the alliteration, I’m going with Thursdays. Thus creating the Themed Thing Thursday.
So in honor of the onset consonant of the words theme, thing and Thursday, the voiceless inderdental fricative, my first official theme of things for this Themed Thing Thursday will be teeth. Because without teeth, it’s really hard to say things.
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¹ I’m also inpsired by some folks I admire who have their own weekly theme days, like KC’s Medical Advice Mondays and Sage’s Word Wise Wednesdays.
collecting tokens 