The History of English (or: Those Irritating Americans Are At It Again)

I was amused to check my news feed yesterday to find the headline "Why do some Americanisms irritate people?"  A click of the mouse took me to the BBC and a short (and rather gentler than expected) history of just how annoying we Americans are with our knack for creating slang so pervasive that there was just no stomping it out.

It goes both ways, my friends. And not just the Beatles and the Rolling Stones either. The British sensibility, especially in terms of comedy, is so deeply intrenched in American society these days that most of us don't even realize it. Beyond American Idol and Big Brother, both of them imported across the pond, there are very few modern sitcoms that do not owe a greater debt to Basil Fawlty than they do to Lucy Ricardo.

It goes both ways and in currents so deep that many of us don't realize they're there until we dig around a bit.

Language Unleashed :: Words in the Radiolab

Words, words, words.  What are they?  We know that they are slippery things, as Shakespeare reminds us.  Their power to confound is as great as their power to shape beauty and feeling.  With words we can encapsulate the quintessence of man and capture the conscience of a king... or we can fritter them away and let meaning slip our fingers. 

But is society possible without them?

Nowhere (outside of Shakespeare) is this discussion more artfully encompassed (at least in my opinion) than on a recent show called Radiolab.  And in fact, no discussion of language - least of all the English language - can be undertaken without delving into Shakespeare, so much of our modern language and idiom owes much of its existence to his prolific pen.  Ranging from the deaf learning their way in a world of noises they cannot hear to the scribblings of the Bard of Avon, the Radiolab guys trace what words are, what they mean and how the connect with meaning in our brains.

How much human society is possible without words?  How much has language formed us rather than the other way around?

I should point out that when I first encountered this story, I came in toward the end.  And I didn't like what I heard.  I got in the car, turned on the engine and got only the end of the story.  Lacking any of the necessary context to understand the discussion already underway, I found it difficult to catch up.  From what I was able to glean, I couldn't really grok what they were on about. 


The show regularly paints word pictures and challenges the bounds of radio, stretching the possibilities of the spoken word.  Their give & take format and conversational progression intercut with interviews and soundbytes is an artful way to present stories, but this is both blessing and curse because as I discovered, it makes it difficult to come in late.

I couldn't catch up.  So I did what I always do -- I went looking for the answers and found the podcast and listened to the end, astounded that what had seemed unsupported assumptions about the nature of language were - of course - much more than that.  In fact, many of my own assumptions about words and the structure of language and thought were at fault.  Whether or not any of that is true, the story is just as amazing and beautiful as I knew it had to be.  It is a journey and to jump in in the middle is to do a disservice to your storyteller and your fellow travelers.

At this point you would be well-served to take an hour and listen to the original and moving episode "Words" HERE.

When I took the time to listen to the full show, my mind was blown.  Thoughts were provoked, gobs were smacked, and the relationship between words and symbolism and the physical objects they refer to took on new depth and meaning.

I'm still assimilating it all.  I'm not entirely sure I agree with every conclusion, but it is nonetheless a fascinating story, artfully told and it's a darn fine way to spend an hour of your life.  Take it from me, I'm parsimonious with my hours and this is one I don't want back.

Speak the speech, I pray you, as I pronounc'd it to you,
trippingly on the tongue...

Hamlet

As a bonus, below is a followup video to the show, further exploring the topic.  Two Radiolab contributors bring us out of the radio and into a visual style of wordplay in "an exploration of how language connects our inner thoughts to the outside world." 

Beautifully done!

10 Words You Need to Stop Misspelling

I would almost go so far as to say that this page should be mandatory reading before anyone is issued a writing utensil... via the mad geniuses at The Oatmeal:

http://theoatmeal.com/comics/misspelling

Feeding Our Pet Peeves

This NPR op/ed is fantastic! 
But for the record, it's a different Scott.  Honest.

Mightier Than the Sword (redux)

So in the various places where these blog posts publish to, I've received some feedback about my adherence to a belief that handwriting is neither dead nor obsolete. These comments seem to fall into two camps. The first camp centers around anecdotal evidence that younger people either don't know how to write cursive or prefer not to.

What you have to understand is that this does not mean that handwriting is dead or even dying. A script is dying, but the ballpoint pen seems to still have a strong heartbeat. In the evolution of handwriting, this is a common occurrence that has happened hundreds of times before as society creates and casts aside the best mode of expressing written thoughts. If it didn't, we would still be practicing our heavy gothic hands and our novels would look like Gutenberg Bibles. (Which would be cool in concept but clunky in practice) I suppose if handwriting didn't evolve, we would actually still be using other languages and other hands, but I think you get the point. Handwriting evolves. Having studied a bit of paleography as research for a recent story, I'm frankly astounded that Parker Penmanship and it's descendants survived as long as they did.

Camp #2 thinks I'm a Luddite, clinging desperately to a past aesthetic and stifling or looking down upon the new mode that is replacing mine.

Systems of written communication evolve and I have no problem with that -- I would not rather be incising ideograms into clay tablets and neither would you. Technology, language and what we could do with language evolved and the mode of transmission had to evolve too.

The survival of handwriting is about neither the persistence of a script nor an aesthetic. It's about how best to express one's thoughts and just as there is no one classroom that will best serve all students, so too there is no one tool of language transmission that will serve all writers or all thoughts. Handwriting is about more than aesthetics, it's a tool of transmission. One tool in an ever-growing toolbox, but the new tool doesn't make the old one obsolete.

Every day at the writing center, we deal with different learning styles. A preference for writing or typing is part of that. As the lady in the New York Times article that set me off last time correctly points out, messy handwriting is not indicative of a second-rate intelligence, but the corollary is that abandonment of handwriting isn't either. And just as we have come to slowly embrace the idea that not all people think and learn best in the same classrooms, so too I think we will come to grasp that not everyone is going to best express themselves at a keyboard, or on a blackberry or with a pen.

This is an argument about how best to interact with the language. Writing by hand does slow us down a bit, and for many it's a good thing. In the earlier post, I believe I mentioned science fiction writer Neal Stephenson. He apparently writes his lengthy novels with a Mont Blanc fountain pen. Typing those ideas into a computer would certainly be quicker and wouldn't require a hireling to take them and type them into a word processing program for transmission to a publisher. But he still chooses to interact with our language through the transmitting medium of pen, ink and paper.

Presumably for a bestselling novelist this isn't because he can't afford a laptop, but because it's how he produces his best work, the toolbox best suited to him. (Incidentally, I'm not saying "Because Neal does it, we all should" or anything of the sort, it's just that I recently noticed his pens and manuscript at the Seattle Sci Fi museum...) A pen is a tool whether it's a goose quill an expensive fountain pen or a Bic you swiped from a bank. So too is a laptop or a cell phone.

The writer who interacts with the language through one medium is in no way inferior or superior to the other simply by the merit of their tools. And the advent of one is not necessarily the death knell for the other. in order for the pen to die, I believe that our language will have to fundamentally change in a way that makes it no longer valid as a tool of expression. With our current assortment of Western languages, however, in my opinion it remains a vital tool that is merely out of fashion at the moment.

 

Wordplay

The other day I was talking to someone (who shall remain nameless) about language. They told me that they felt English was effectively dead. This was followed by a lengthy rant about how our language has no life, no humor, nothing bright and how it only stifles creativity.

I suggested that they write in Spanish or French, but they didn't like that suggestion.

Now, the reason I'm not going to mock that person by name or post their photo and email address so as not to hog the mockery all for my very own, is that I've been there. That person's in a bad spot in their writing.

Let me not cast that first stone, for I've certainly had moments when my optimism fades and I'm left staring at that hated blinking Microsoft finger flipping me off, casting its little shadow across a blank screen. Mocking me. Oh, how I hate that little cursor.

There are a lot ways I get unstuck and we've talked about those before. Unfortunately, most of them only really work if you're writing fiction. Fiction's a lot easier for unsticking, traction can be invented out of whole cloth. If you're writing nonfiction, what do you do? What if it's a school paper or an annual report?

I do a lot of copywriting and business writing and so forth and don't talk about it much because it's not as fun as talking about literature and mystery novels. So one of the things I haven't mentioned yet is this: Get silly. Play around. Noodle with it. Find the absurdities. Find the fun in your topic.

English isn't dead and absurdity abounds. Go looking for it. Nothing is more absurd than a business report, go find it and have fun with it. English isn't dead, it's borderline crazy. This is why there's no coffee in coffee cake and there are no fairies in fairy cake. Girl Scout cookies contain no Girl Scouts, butterflies are blissfully butter-free. Because truth, you see really is more surreal than fiction and there's room to play. Linguistically, at least, the rules are malleable and the potential for whimsy abounds... especially in a business setting. So maximize those synergies.

I have very little advice for non-fiction, so this is the best I can do -- remind you to play with your language. If it's not fun, you're not going to want to do it and you're going to get stuck sitting at your desk trying to look busy. Make everything fun. Irreverence is fun. So remember that a new vice president isn't a "paradigm shift" and it doesn't get much funnier than a bunch of execs talking about moving cheese. And while we're at it, coffee beans aren't beans and English horns are neither English nor are they horns, which is somehow overshadowed by the fact that French horns are really German. So be a little nuts if you need the boost. It's okay, you can always delete the whimsy later if it doesn't fit the desired tenor of the piece. (There's only so much room for knock-knock jokes in your annual reports.)

Play with your language. And if anyone has a problem with it, tell them I sent you. (And while their trying to figure out who I am, make your escape under cover of their confusion.)

Great Big Meanies (A backlist book review)

I must confess: I'm guilty of book-rustling. Last week, someone left a book lying around the break room at work and I couldn't find anyone who would claim it. (I did try to ask permission before borrowing it, honest!)

I really do try not to judge a book by its cover, but Grammar Snobs Are Great Big Meanies strikes me as a deliberate attempt to provoke an exquisitely-erudite riot. Surely I was doing a service to my fellow grammarians by removing it from the writing center for the weekend.

We wouldn't want the grammar snobs to riot, now would we? (Though I admit that the image of disapproving grammarians toting well-punctuated picket signs tickles me somewhat.)

All seriousness aside, newspaper copy editor June Casagrande has made grammar funny again. She has written what I can only describe as the anti-Eats Shoots and Leaves by lobbing the verbal hand grenade back across the lines.

It seems impossible that someone can teach you the difference between the subjunctive and indicative verb forms and effect the pantsing of the entire English language establishment in one go, but Ms Casagrande manages it. Not only does she manage it, but she makes it funny.

At risk of cliche I must say: This is not your father's grammar guide. In fact, if you want to test Fitzgerald's axiom about first-rate intelligence ("...the ability to hold two opposed ideas in mind at the same time and still retain the ability to function") then you should read this book back-to-back with the humorously-fussy Eats Shoots and Leaves. You would be surprised to know that it's possible without your head exploding, but only just. (I just did it and the headache lingers.) Somewhere between Lynn Truss's call to take up arms in the fight against the Decline and Fall of Western Punctuation and June Casagrande imploring us to get a grip lies the battlefield where most of us live.

Think of Grammar Snobs Are Great Big Meanies as a survival guide for those of us caught in the combat zone. Casagrande has provided a strategy guide for those put-upon by the free-roaming grammar snobs in our midst.

"It's time, oh yes, it's time for the rest of us to stand up to these snobs--to call their bluff. If not for our own edification, if not to gain a better command of the language and all the doors it opens to us--at the very least we must learn a little about grammar and usage for the sheer thrill of taking down these grammar tyrants, one at a time, just to watch them fall."

Each chapter is targeted at a specific common error that is harped-upon by those who wish to polish their linguistic credentials on the foreheads of those less fortunate. Casagrande makes her hyperbolic stance work by using self-deprecating anecdotes and a liberal dose of dark humor. She makes short work of the Oxford Comma, the predicate nominative, semicolons, punctuation within quotes and a host of other issues that define the linguistic battlefield. In fact, by staking out the two ends of the grammar spectrum, this book and Eats, Shoots & Leaves work remarkably well together.

You might want to keep them apart of your bookshelf though, lest you have to break up a fight.

This is a highly-recommended addition to your reference library and a darn fun read. How often do you hear those two things in the same sentence?

Simplicity Sunday

I don't usually blog on Sundays. For some reason, my brain shuts off the blogging function at 11:59 pm on Saturday night and it doesn't usually reactivate until sometime Monday morning. So honestly, I really don't have anything to say on Sundays anyway.

If it wasn't for the BEDA vow I wouldn't even be here. (Now I sound like Dante. "I'm not even supposed to be here today!") 

Because it's Sunday and my mind is in "simplification" mode, I thought it would be fun to think complexly about simplicity. (Go with me on this one.) Finding the simplest way to tell any story is part of the magic involved in getting from idea to finished story (or blog post for that matter).

I like simple things. Typewriters, fountain pens, hard copies of books. Too much complexity is bad for us, I think. It builds up until it overwhelms us and we find ourselves bereft of hope in a world awash in widgets designed to do things for us which we can no longer remember how to do ourselves or recall why we did them in the first place. As it is in life, so it is in writing.

Science has taught us that at the heart of complexity, things begin to simplify once more.

All computers are - at their core - just little switches turning on and off as the 1's and 0's of the programmer's code tell them to. The web page you are looking at is the result of two numbers combined and recombined in nearly infinite patterns to tell the machine you are using what to show you. Adenine, thymine, guanine and cytosine are the four nucleotides from which DNA is made. Every DNA helix is a combination of those four "letters" of our genetic alphabet. By combining and recombining these four letters, DNA creates an elegant structure which is unique for each of us. This is why Maureen is different from John, who is different from Hank, who is different from me.

The similarities make us homo sapien, the differences make us who we are. Only four nucleotides are scrambled in seemingly random fashion to the point where each person is truly unique from the other.


A couple days ago I pointed out (and not for the first time) that the great works of our literary canon were written with the same letters as those works which the literary critics consider "lesser". The same twenty-six letters Elmo sings about on Sesame Street go into the creation of every book, every short story, every Twitter post by everyone with words to say whether it be Shakespeare or Wired Magazine.

Even the literary canon -- despite its apparent complexity -- begins to simplify once more as we reach into its DNA.


Think about that: An alphabet of 4 letters can make 6.7 billion unique "words". Mindbogglingly complex, yet so simple at its core that our language cannot quite capture it. So let's bring it back to writing, shall we?

Let us take two somewhat random words from our language: wild and driven.

Our alphabet (the English alphabet for our purposes) has twenty-six letters, which you could also theoretically combine an infinite number of ways. Despite this, the Oxford English Dictionary lists only a little over 172,000 unique letter combinations that form recognizable words. From that impossibly large number of possible combinations, we have extracted only a bit over 172,000 ways of combining letters under the prescribed rules governing our language to actually create meaningful and arguably beautiful results.

From the complexity of a near infinitude of possible combinations of letters, we derive 172,000 possible words. From those 172,000 possible words Shelley selected 25 to create this stanza of his poem. By themselves they are nothing, combined in this way they are poetry. From the complexity of an infinity of choices to the simplicity of a stanza of a poem about the autumn wind.

The trouble with writing is that people try to make it too complex. Load each word with dire portent, as if the future of humanity hangs upon the one that follows it. Too much complexity and our minds freeze and we're back to our little boat, adrift in a sea of needless complexity.

The magic of writing is derived from weaving a spell of words, a web to capture the imagination of your reader. Each strand of the spell is created from the correct words, the simplest words available to tell your story. Mark Twain once said that "the difference between the right word and the nearly right word is the difference between lighting and a lightning bug." Listen to Twain. He was the master of discerning the difference between lightning and bug.

People push and pull against the strictures of the medium -- find them too complex. Its and It's, adverbs are bad, participles shouldn't dangle and neither should prepositions, and what the hell is a gerund anyway? OMG!! But it's the structure of our language that allows us to think the simple thoughts within a complex matrix.

Without structure, your infinite letter combinations would not make the least bit of sense. Neither Twain nor Shelley would be able to make something out of it and our language would be worse than useless.

This is what rules do; they reign in the chaos. The mores of our language; spelling, syntax, noun, verb, adjective, punctuation, etcetera, allows language to be something more than an inarticulate jumble of letters. So from nature that we derive the guidance we need to follow with language. All existence as we know it, pared down to just four nucleotides, a finite alphabet with infinite possible combinations arranged together like our poem into an elegant simplicity to create all of us.

Stripping away the rules wouldn't make our lives easier, it would make them more complex. Anarchy would giving rise to greater variety, yes, but varieties and mutations such that we wouldn’t be able to reproduce ourselves and our species -- or our literature -- would collapse under the weight of its own complexity. Despite the grumblings of you and millions of writers before you, it isn’t the complexity of our language that vexes you; it’s the enforcement of the simplicity necessary to keep it comprehensible.

So when you sit down at your keyboard to write, whether it's a blog post, a novel, or a poem, keep in mind that the simplicity of the medium is your greatest advantage. The constraints of our language are not walls, but guidelines to get you to the next right word.

Simplicity is beautiful in its complexity, isn't it? May all your words be lightning instead of lighting bugs.