Best Word Ever!

In Honor of this being my last Honor's Blog Posting I found the most absolutely fabulous word:

Honorificabilitudinitatibus 

which is pronounced as /anɛrɛɪfɪkɛˈbɪlɪtjuɪnætɪbɛs/.

Shakespeare used this word in his play "Love's Labour's Lost"

“O, they have lived long on the alms-basket of words. I marvel thy master hath not eaten thee for a word; for thou art not so long by the head as honorificabilitudinitatibus: thou art easier swallowed than a flap-dragon.” 

Shakespear did not create the word, it first appears — in the Latin form honōrificābilitūdo in the 1187 and then takes in the Italian form honōrificābilis in the late 1300's. Both words mean honorable. 

Shakespeare is not the only late great to use this little gem, James Joyce used it in his novel "Ulysses" 

"Like John o'Gaunt his name is dear to him, as dear as the coat and crest he toadied for, on a bend sable a spear or steeled argent, honorificabilitudinitatibus, dearer than his glory of greatest shakescene in the country."

More recently the U.S. News & World Report, in 1993, used the original form of the word when addressing a debate going on in the world of Scrabble:

"Honorificabilitudinity and the requirements of Scrabble fans dictated that the New Shorter Oxford English Dictionary's makers be open-minded enough to include dweeb (a boringly conventional person), droob (an unprepossessing or contemptible person, esp. a man), and droog (a member of a gang: a young ruffian)."

By far the greatest fact about Honorificabilitudinitatibus is that it is the longest word that alternates constants and vowels from beginning to end. 

Dahl's Language

Based off of the post mentioning Roald Dahl, I looked into him a little more. I knew that my daughter has a very cute dress made by Hanna Andersson, that is from the Roald Dahl collection, it has letters all over it, I highly recommend it. :)

I was surprised to learn all that he had written, and what a profound influence he has had on language....on words. 

Here are some of the "greatest" words (I believe) that Roald Dahl has created through his various writings:

1. Argy (verb): If giants or human beans or cattlerpiddlers are argying, they are having an argument.
“One of the biggest chatbags is the cattlepiddlers ... They is argying all the time about who is going to be the prettiest butterfly.” -The BFG

2. Biffsquiggled (adjective): If you feel biffsquiggled, you are confused or puzzled.
“’You must not be giving up so easy,’ the BFG said calmly. ‘The first titchy bobsticle you meet and you begin shouting you is biffsquiggled.’” -The BFG

3. Bibble (verb): When something bibbles, it makes a soft gurgling sound.
“All around them lay the vast black ocean, deep and hungry. Little waves were bibbling against the side of the peach.” -James and the Giant Peach

4. Bish (verb): If you bish something, you ruin it.
“’This is it!’ he whispered to himself under his breath. ‘The greatest moment of my life is coming up now! I mustn’t bish it. I mustn’t bosh it! I must keep very calm.’” -Esio Trot

5. Bundongle (noun): A bundongle is something that contains only air.
“I thought all human beans is full of brains, but your head is emptier than a bundongle.” -The BFG

6. Catasterous (adjective): A catasterous situation is very bad indeed, and a catasterous disastrophe is the worst of all.
“’Catasterous!’ cried the BFG. ‘Upgoing bubbles is a catasterous disastrophe!’” -The BFG

7. Churgle (verb): When you churgle, you gurgle with laughter.
“The fact that it was none other than Boggis’s chickens they were going to eat made them churgle with laughter every time they thought of it.” -Fantastic Mr. Fox

8. Crodsquinkled (adjective): If a giant is crodsquinkled, he is in a hopeless situation.
“’I is slopgroggled!’ squakwed the Gizzardgulper. ‘I is crodsquinkled!’ yowled the Bloodletter.” -The BFG

9. Daddle (verb): If you daddle, you run very fast.
“So start to run! Oh, skid and daddle / Through the slubber slush and sossel! / Skip jump hop and try to skaddle! / All the grobes are on the roam!” -Charlie and the Great Glass Elevator

10. Darksome (adjective): Dark and murky.
“’This one is a nasty fierce bogrotting nightmare ... I would be hating to get this one inside me on a darksome night.’ the BFG said.” -The BFG

In honor of Dahl's birth month in September 2016, the Oxford English Dictionary updated its latest edition today with six new words connected to Dahl’s writing, This past May, the Oxford University Press also published a Roald Dahl Dictionary complete with 8,000 words coined or popularized by the author.

New entries:

Dahlesque

The characteristics of Dahl’s work—in the OED’s words, “eccentric plots, villainous or loathsome adult characters, and gruesome or black humour”—now have their own adjective. The term was first used in 1983 by the literary magazine Books Ireland.

Golden ticket

These refer to the tickets hidden in chocolate bars that granted access to Willy Wonka’s chocolate factory in Charlie and the Chocolate Factory (1964). The first golden ticket, however, was awarded to 18th century painter William Hogarth, giving him admission to the Vauxhall Gardens in London, in recognition of his paintings of the venue.

Human bean

This is a mispronunciation of “human being,” uttered by the giant in The BFG (1982): “We is having an interesting babblement about the taste of the human bean. The human bean is not a vegetable.” The first instance of the phrase is over a century older, having been used in an issue of the British satirical magazine Punch in 1842.

Oompa Loompa

The diminutive factory workers who played music and danced in Charlie and the Chocolate Factory were made more famous by the 1971 film adaption of the book, starring Gene Wilder. Gupta called the phrase “typical Dahlesque,” reflecting how the author played with sound to convey meaning.

Scrumdiddlyumptious

“Extremely scrumptious; excellent, splendid; (esp. of food) delicious.” Although the word was first found in The American Thesaurus of Slang in 1942, Dahl’s giant’s use of it planted it firmly in the minds of every child who read The BFG: “Every human bean is diddly and different. Some is scrumdiddlyumptious and some is uckyslush.”

Witching hour

Referred to in The BFG as “a special moment in the middle of the night when every child and every grown-up was in a deep deep sleep, and all the dark things came out from hiding and had the world to themselves.” We can thank Shakespeare for this evocative phrase: according to the OED, “witching time” first appeared in

Monkey See Monkey Do

I was interested in how we "know" if one actually "knows" a language. A professor in one of my classes posed this scenario and gave the following answers.

Suppose some scientific group claimed, in the New York Times,

 that a chimpanzee can truly “talk” using a natural sign language.

1. Capacity question: For this claim to be true, the chimpanzee would probably need to 

• Be curious about what new words mean.

• Know at least 1,000 words.

• Be able to ask questions.

• Can tell you if a sequence is ungrammatical

2. Philosophically motivated question:  Issues raised by the chimpanzee's alleged capacity include

• Whether the chimpanzee learned the language with very little instruction.

• Whether its language knowledge draws on innate capacities.

• How much of the language ability depends on being smart.

3. History of psychological theories issues:  If the chimpanzee has truly mastered language, it probably explicitly recognizes that…

• Different sentence constructions can involve the same agents, verbs and objects, but in different arrangements (e.g. passive vs active…).

4. Experimental behavior question:  If the chimpanzee has mastered the grammar of a language in ways similar to humans, it will probably (remember the assumption is that the chimpanzee has learned sign language)....

• In an experimental setting, mislocate brief location of flashing lights as having actually occurred between phrases.

5. Acquisition question: In tracing the stages of developing knowledge of sign language, if it is like the stages of human children learning their first language (select all that are true and none that are not true)...

• Sometimes the chimp learned exceptions to general rules first, but then, when he learned the regular rule, he used it on the exceptions, creating ungrammatical utterances that he got correct at an earlier stage.

• At an early stage, chimps produce gestures that look like real signs but are actually a kind of visual “babbling”.

• The chimp(s) seemed to learn the syntax rules in discrete steps.

6. Speech errors question: As the chimp's ability to produce utterances improved, if it was like human speech production…

• Certain kinds of speech errors would reveal how words are fitted into phrase frames.

7. Neurology question: If it were possible to use brain imaging techniques chimps, and the neurological organization of the language is like that in humans, it would show that…

• There are particular regions of the brain specialized for different aspects of language knowledge and behavior.

Based on what the chimpanzee "should" be able to do if it truly has acquired the use of language, I now doubt whether I have actually acquired a language....

Post-Truth

This year's international word of the year, as declared by Oxford Dictionaries is:

POST-TRUTH

 The University of Oxford Press reported that the adjectives usage began to "soar" after the "Brexit" vote and the highly charged, and equally controversial Presidential Election. 

Oxford Dictionaries says post-truth is thought to have been first used in 1992.

However, it says the frequency of its usage increased by 2,000% 

in 2016 compared with last year.

On the short list of words being considered was: 

"adulting" Often used in phrases such as

 "I'm adulting today, I'll play Pokemon tomorrow." 

"hygge" Which in the Danish culture refers to being comfortable or feeling contentment.

Oxford Dictionary list the definition as:

Relating to or denoting circumstances in which objective facts are less influential in shaping public opinion than appeals to emotion and personal belief:

‘in this era of post-truth politics, it's easy to cherry-pick data and come to whatever conclusion you desire’

‘some commentators have observed that we are living in a post-truth age’

Can we talk without ever speaking?

Is texting killing the spoken language? 

I pose this question because of a conversation with one of my daughters. 

Daughter: Mom can Kyle come to Thanksgiving Dinner with us?

Mom: What is his parent's number so I can call & discuss it with them?

Daughter: I don't know

Mom: Call Kyle and tell him your mom wants to speak to his mom.

Daughter: Ew NO! We talk on Instagram and snap chat; I don't have his number! And who talks on the phone?

Mom: You have a boy you call your "boyfriend," but, you do not know his phone number? Have you ever spoke to him on the phone?

Daughter: Mom you're so old! **Stomps off

Is this a real thing? Can kids have "relationships" solely via social media/text? 

According to a study conducted by the Pew Research Center, on teens between the age of 13-17, they found that other than texting teens communicate in the following manners:

Instant messaging: 79% of all teens instant message their friends; 27% do so daily.

Social media: 72% of all teens spend time with friends via social media; 23% do so daily.

Email: 64% of all teens use email with friends; 6% do so daily.

Video games: 52% of all teens spend time with friends playing video games; 13% play with friends daily.

Messaging apps: 42% of all teens spend time with friends on messaging apps such as Kik and WhatsApp; 14% do so every day.

86% said texting is their primary means of communication with friends; only one person said talking on the phone.

Maybe teens are just creating a new text/snap chat/Instagram language that will eventually begin to corrode spoken language but, I don't think so. I actually think their (teens) inability and/or total lack of practicing the act of speaking (actually verbalizing) on the phone will cause problems in the real/business world....unless they all work in the tech world and then, maybe not. 

Are the plethora of communication apps and the availability of technology destroying the need for the actual phone function on our communication devices? What do you think? 

Not a Linguist

I am not a linguist. I am a lover of words with no appreciation for how words were created, formed, or morphed into their current state ..... I love them flat on a page, ready to be whisk me off to another time or place, I love them in a soft sing-song melody as they perform through rhythm and rhyme. I love words that fall off unknown lips through Audible, telling me stories of great and unfathomable adventures. I love that words can mend, they can give courage and strength simply by the timing, meter, and measure in which they arrive. 

With all that weirdness out of the way, let it be clear that the above loving relationship does not extend to the diagramming of said words, it does not cover the semantics or syntax of these words in which I think are the Bees Knees. Matter of fact, each time I come across either of those "S" words, I have to look them up....again! This week I decided that I would not let my inability to appreciate the study of language stop me from learning. I chose two "things" in which to study, to learn, to gain knowledge of, basically to become  Lord and Master of! Why only two? I am also a realist and I know my limits!

I could not "get" transitive and intransitive verbs. First I felt like the extremely small paragraph in our book did not have enough meat in it, there was nothing for me to latch on to. I read and re-read it about 35 times and came to the conclusion that perhaps we were supposed to bring some type of linguistic knowledge, or knowledge of verbs or maybe just knowledge in general, to be able to "understand" what was being said. It was clear, I had none of the three. 

I'm working (basically) with this information:

Verbs that are followed by objects are transitive verbs.

Verbs that are not normally followed by objects are intransitive verbs. 

Verbs can be both transitive and intransitive.

First Problem:

Any object? If the verb is followed by ANY object it is transitive?

**For a sentence to have a transitive verb then it must have a subject, a verb AND an object.

 (yes any object)

The test for this is Directly after the verb ask yourself Whom or What? If you can answer either of those then it is a transitive verb. 

Examples:

I baked a pizza. *What did you bake? A Pizza <---- the object 

Baked is a transitive verb

She rode a bike. *What got rode? A Bike <---- the object

Rode is a transitive verb 

Second Problem: 

"NOT - NORMALLY" followed by objects? I feel like that should be clearer, don't you? 

Intransitive does not have a direct object**

Examples:

I laughed. *What or Whom did you laugh? Subject and verb but NO object.

Laughed is intransitive. 

The book fell. *What or Whom did the book fall onto? Subject and verb but NO object.

Fell is intransitive. 

Both:

The choir sings the National Anthem. *What did the choir sing?

 They sang the National Anthem <---- the object

**Sings is Transitive

The bird sings. *What did the bird sing? NO object

**Sings is Intransitive

After creating this little tutorial I was still a little unsure but, I feel like it helps to relate 

Transitive = Transition

Transition means to move or change and for a verb to be transitive it has to move or change something (the object) if it doesn't then it is intransitive. 

Back Formation

While reading some previous information from class, I came across back-formation in the Harley text. When I saw the word a few weeks ago, I pretty much overlooked it and kept on reading. When I saw it again this week, it struck me as crazy-odd. I read it, and the explanation of it and thought, well okay obviously I do not have the mental strength to understand Harley so, I took to Google. I did hold out the slightest of hopes that there was a "back-formation for dummies," sadly that has not been written, yet. I went to about 25 sites and read the various explanations and definitions and thought, okay I need a nap - this is about as clear as mud! I have the meaning, or the description of what back-formation is and even some examples but, really and I mean REALLY what is it?! If there isn't a George Micheal (class TA) following me around telling me which word is a back-formation and which words are front-formation (totally not a thing but, definitely think it works in this sentence) then HOW is a girl to know?! The meaning I had to go on was the following: Back-formation is when a new word (or more exactly a form of a word) is created from an existing word usually by deleting something on the beginning or end of the word. Usually, the thing that is deleted looks like a affix (-er, un, etc.), and so this "affix" is removed, and we step "back" toward a "root" form of the word...though that root may not have actually existed historically. Not a back-formation, but an example of suffixes and roots, just for a reminder: un-lock-able. un- is a prefix, lock is the root, and -able is a suffix. Prefixes and suffixes are both types of affixes. So, for an example of back-formation, take the verb edit. Edit, in fact, did not exist years ago. There were editors, but no one was described as editing something. The -or/-er suffixes commonly denote noun forms of verbs in English (writer, worker, inquisitor, etc.), so it was quite easy to strip away the -or from editor and be left with the new verb form edit. Other examples of this: babysitting -> babysit resurrection -> resurrect burglary -> burgle televise -> television Yeah, so not very clear, in relation to my complaint which is this: We have the word babysitting, and it allows for the back-formation of babysit. How do we KNOW that? How do we know that babysitting was a word prior to babysitting being a word? Would we have to check the OED to see the first date of usage to discover which came first? I think in my brain somewhere it makes sense but, I can't explain it without wondering myself...which came FIRST the chicken or the egg?! I went to the smartest person I know personally, in the study of language at least, and one who quite possibly has the best beard of any TA at the U of A (said TA shall remain nameless as I did not get his permission to quote him or his smarticles on my blog). I posed the question above to him and he gave N-grams a new purpose in my life. The long and short of it is that while cruising the chip aisle at Walmart, and shamelessly watching a woman threaten to make her kid go to bed at 2pm for a week over a bag of Cheetos, I will most likely NOT have to decide if any of her warnings are words created by back-formation. As super fly, bearded guy put it: "You're over thinking it girl slow down!" This is a linguistics term, used in the linguistic (etymology) world considering I am only vacationing here, and not planning to move in; I'm really okay with just knowing what it means. So, if there are others out there losing sleep over back-formation and therapy/medication has not eased your suffering, know that there is help: N-gram! Put in your two words babysitting & babysit and track usage, below it shows that babysitting was in "use" and babysit does not show up until 1947.