Words, words, words

Yesterday’s Writer’s Almanac imparted wondrous trivia about the humble pencil. Herewith some of the tidbits. A common pencil (think No. 2) is hexagonal to keep it from rolling off the table. It is yellow because the best graphite—what we incorrectly call lead—came from China and yellow was the traditional color of royalty in China. Start drawing a line with a common pencil and you can go for 35 miles before you run out of graphite.

Before the advent of computers, or even typewriters, writing was a hand affair. Some of America’s best writers wrote their masterpieces long hand using pencil. John Steinbeck particularly favored the pencil. He started every day by sharpening 24 new pencils. When he wrote East of Eden (oh, I do recommend it if you’ve never read it), he used 300 pencils.

Why this reverie on pencils? Well, writing and more specifically writing words. Words words words. I just finished reading a marvelous new literary biography: Lyndall Gordon’s Lives Like Loaded Guns. The subject is Emily Dickinson, who had her own way with words. Gordon has a dual thesis—first, she posits quite convincingly that Emily suffered from epilepsy, and that the disease may have accounted for her success as a poet. In part, the disease fueled some of the content of her poems, both in subject matter and style. A poem such as “I Felt a Funeral in My Brain” which is sometimes interpreted as a description of madness makes much more sense if you understand it as a foreboding of the effects of a seizure. As for style, Gordon points out how Emily’s unorthodox use of words and punctuation can be a verbal representation of a seizure like state. Read a poem such as “After great pain a formal feeling comes” and think epilepsy. The closing line “First – Chill – then Stupor – then the letting go –“ sounds so like the onset of a seizure.

Not only do the poems shed light on the prospect of Emily’s awareness of her illness, but also the details of her life line up in support. Gordon most convincingly traces the historical record of visits to physicians and medications prescribed for Emily. She slowly withdrew from the world, narrowing her circle of contacts. That is not to say that she did not carry on lively correspondence with various friends. But, if you accept that she suffered from epilepsy, for which at the time there was no effective treatment to forestall seizures, her withdrawal makes absolute sense. She would have isolated herself to avoid the stigma that accompanied having a seizure in public.

Gordon points out that Emily’s father in his effort to help his daughter exempted her from most household chores, which freed her to write poetry. She may have been counseled not to marry—which also freed her. Read this little poem—and see how its meaning dovetails nicely with Emily’s awareness that her illness freed her.

A Death blow is a Life blow to Some

Who till they died, did not alive become —

Who had they lived, had died but when

They died, Vitality begun

Second, Gordon chronicles the adulterous affair between Emily Dickinson’s brother, Austin, and Mabel Loomis Todd, wife of an Amherst professor. Emily Dickinson’s grandfather had built a homestead on Main Street in Amherst. There, Emily’s family—her parents and her brother Austin and sister Lavinia—lived. When Austin married, he and his wife Susan had moved into a house (called the Evergreens) built immediately next door to the Homestead. When Austin began his affair, some 27 years into his marriage, he and Mabel would meet at the Homestead. By then, the senior Dickinson parents were dead, and the Homestead belonged to Emily and Lavinia.

Imagine, sometimes up to three times a week for several hours at a time, the house being taken over by the lovers. They used a room downstairs, the dining room, as their place of assignation. Emily presumably stayed upstairs, writing poetry. No wonder her “life stood like a loaded gun.” Gordon credibly writes that the stress of this untenable situation may have hastened Emily’s death.

The stress of the affair may have killed or at the least hastened Emily’s death, and it also led to a multi-generation feud over who was the heir to Emily’s writings. Sue, Austin’s estranged wife who had been Emily’s dear friend, and Mabel, the mistress, each thought themselves the true beneficiaries of Emily’s life work. Their feud then was passed on to the next generation with Sue’s daughter and Mabel’s daughter each claiming the right to Emily’s words.

WORDS. Wondrous that we have pencils that write them. Wondrous that we have a poet such as Emily who flexed them to her use. And wondrous that we have a biographer such as Gordon to ferret out the details of a complicated life and record that life in words.

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photo of Emily Dickinson:

Daguerreotype of the poet Emily Dickinson, taken circa 1848. (Original is scratched.) From the Todd-Bingham Picture Collection and Family Papers, Yale University Manuscripts & Archives Digital Images Database, Yale University, New Haven, Connecticut.

Tears Rolling Down My Cheeks. . .

No, dear reader, I am not crying as in crying. I am crying as in laughing.

You see, I have a new collection of goofs, and whilst searching for some on-line help in explaining similes and metaphors to students, I came upon this site--go there, and laugh, laugh, laugh. Then cry.

OK--the newest batch.

What the student said----------What the student meant

new-----------------knew

thrashed---------------trashed

thrive-------------------strive

close--------------clothes

chose--------------choice

viola---------------voilà

soul--------------sole

suite-------------suit

disaffecting-----------disinfecting

a custom-----------accustomed

waste-------------waist

tuff-----------tough

frevurently------------fervently*

straggles of being a woman---------struggles of being a woman

less it all be lost--------lest it all be lost

And--this sentence: How does glamour mean to you?

Well, I ask, how does it?

And we wonder why a certain governor from Alaska mangles the English language?

Kudos to all of you who bravely wove the last set of mangled English into wonderful sentences, some even in verse form. Check comments here if you missed them.

Your only assignment this time? Just read the hysterically funny metaphors here.
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*Obviously, a spelling error, but included because it was just so funny--a combination of reverently with fervently! I confess, there are times that I struggle (or is it straggle) long and hard to figure out what the student means.

Don't You Just Love the English Language?

Every year, when I get the first set of papers from students, I look forward to (or do I dread) reading them.

There are always some mistakes that are so funny they cause me to laugh. Homophones provide much of the humor. English has so many words that sound alike--and for whatever reasons, students seem particularly prone to using just the wrong word in the right situation.

I wrote about this phenomena last year, and you can see the mistakes from that semester here.

Here's the new gathering of hilarious mistakes. I will start with the more mundane ones:

What the student said----------What the student meant
there--------------------------------their
then---------------------------------than
where-------------------------------were
maybe------------------------------ may be
rite--------------------------------- right

Now the more amusing ones:
What the student said----------What the student meant
pasted----------------------------passed (as in died)
exponentially----------------------exceptionally
existent--------------------------exist
mist------------------------------missed (as in missed the train)
back round-----------------------background
ferrous---------------------------feral (as in cats--of course, ferrous cats are those iron ones!)

And my favorite:
O-zone-------------------------- ozone (maybe the student meant as in O-zone, not P-Zone or Q-zone)

Ahh, teaching English. A source of endless amusement.

And Now, A Word from Our Sponsor

You all know this blog is written by an English teacher--classes start in LESS THAN TWO WEEKS (help).

So, it was with great dismay that I read this story from the BBC: Bad spelling should be accepted.

I sent an email to my daughter with this story attached (she and I share many things including a love of good writing). Her response: This is silly. What about frequently made math errors? Or geography errors?

Oh, I so agree. What's a little mistake in addition? No problem--just consider it a variant. A small geography misplacement? No problem--just a variant. PLEASE.

But, there is still hope. Here's a story about a man who READ the Oxford English Dictionary. For particular enjoyment, note the list of words the man found that were his favorites. Example: gymnologize--to dispute naked, like an Indian philosopher.

Ahhhh--I can relax; there's still hope as long as someone cares enough about words to read the w-h-o-l-e dictionary. All 22,000 pages of it.

Dent de Lion

SUBTITLE: Mouth of the Lion (read on)

As I was leaving campus yesterday, I spotted one of the earliest and most tenacious spring flowers, though not necessarily anyone's favorite: the dandelion.

These perennials (isn't that ironic) are among the hardiest of plants, as any gardener knows who has tried to groom a dandelion-free yard. They are also much loved by children who love to grab the puff balls and blow them to the winds. Skilled photographers have captured dandelion seeds mid-scatter.

What fascinates me is the origin of the name dandelion. It comes from old French dent de lion (literally lion's tooth) derived from the shape of the leaves. Imagine--deep within human experience is this association between the shape of a plant leaf and the tooth of a feared animal, the lion.

The image of the lion's mouth figures in various ways in Biblical literature, particularly in the Psalms. Portions of the traditional Requiem Mass use a phrase from Psalm 21 which, in Latin, says--Salva me ex ore leonis (Translation: Save me from the mouth of the lion). In the mass it becomes Libera eas de ore leonis, ne absorbeat eas tartarus, ne cadant in obscurum. (Translation: Deliver them from the mouth of the lion, lest the abyss swallow them up, lest they fall into the darkness).

I always loved singing that particular portion, whether Mozart's Requiem, or Fauré's or Durufle's Requiems. Each composer has a different musical interpretation of the section, and for the singer it is great fun to see how text translates to music.

photo of lion from http://www.conservationafrica.net/gallery/index.php?pid=60

I suspect one of the reasons the mouth of the lion has such power for me, if not people in general, is the terrifying prospect of being swallowed up by a lion. That may seem fanciful to you, and perhaps you even think me prone to exaggeration. But it is an image with which I grew up. One of the earliest stories I recall hearing was of a missionary who was, in fact, mauled to death by a lion. In brief, he had gone out to track a lion that had been preying on villages in what was then Northern Rhodesia. All this happened in 1931 (more than a decade before I was born), but my grandfather, who had been a missionary, and two co-authors wrote about this event:

"The lion charged. Myron Taylor (the missionary) shot but the bullet missed. The rifle jammed and the beast was upon him, mauling his right ankle and right hand and biting his left forearm. All the people who had accompanied him fled up trees for safety. The missionary was left helpless. The beast sat quietly by him for possibly fifteen minutes. . .then it ambled off into the bush."

Myron Taylor was carried to the mission station, and even though he received medical help, he died after two days. An interesting additional detail is that he was then buried at Sikalongo Mission, and when my sister died 17 years after his death, she was buried next to him.

I have no recollection of ever seeing a lion in the bush during my childhood, but such a vivid story imprinted itself full well on my brain. Oh, I am not at all fearful of dandelions (please!) but I find most fascinating the degree to which lion imagery rouses something deep within the human psyche.

To remove the image of the mouth of the lion, here's a smattering of spring flowers much more loved than dandelions.

All the News that's Fit to Read

There are really so many things that irritate me when I watch the local news on television that singling one aspect out seems hardly worth the bother.

For example, I am annoyed at the story choices--what leads on the evening news. Never mind the state of the world--our local news invariably chooses the most inane stories as leads. There is even a cycle to this inanity--every year, Groundhog Day (just past) gets top billing. I am so tired of the d*mn groundhog that I feel like hunting down and killing the critter. Oops--careful, control yourself. Or in January, the farm show. And the Farm Show weather. Local legend has it that Farm Show weather is always icy and snowy. Except it isn't. So if it snows that week--well, it's always icy and snowy. But if it doesn't--where's the snow and ice? See?--an endless round of news. On and on it goes.

Then there's the breaking news syndrome--a fire somewhere in our nearby city trumps almost any other story. Breaking news has a close cousin in the exclusive report.

I am always flabbergasted when a news report begins with these words: "We bring you this exclusive report"--the implication being that this channel is the ONLY one to know about and cover this news.

Eh? If it's exclusive--i.e. no one else is covering it--is it really news? Try these headlines--

OUR EXCLUSIVE REPORT

--Pearl Harbor Bombed

--Tsunami Hits Indonesia

--Planes Fly into World Trade Center

--Princess Di Killed in Paris Crash

You get the picture--if it's news, EVERYONE covers it.

Another tendency--salacious video. We've all seen helicopter coverage of police chases in Los Angeles--hello! this is central Pennsylvania. Why on the earth would we want to see L.A. police chases on our LOCAL news? Or grim murders from somewhere in Nevada? It's almost the equivalent of "aliens captured me" stories or "two-headed calf born" stories that grace the pages of National Enquirer. Our local television news now shills the same kind of trash that the newspaper rags feature.

I've already ranted about local weather forecasters--any time the temperature rises to abnormal levels in the winter, they laud it! They inveigh against cold of any kind. As a cold weather lover, I am driven nuts by this tendency. And I have a sneaking suspicion that such coverage of the weather contributes to our human inertia in face of global warming--why do anything, we ask, we like it warm. Way over-simplified, of course (but, hey, it's my blog).

Oh, and who can ignore the constant tease approach. "Coming up. . .a dog adopts a duck. Where this happened and what people are saying about it." At each news break interval, the same promo. Finally, 5 minutes before the end of the news, a 30 second video clip of a "cute" story. That's it. So, you get 3 minutes of promotional tease for a 30 second nonsense story.

I almost forget--the comments from the person on the street. Some national tragedy may be reported, but it can't possibly be authentic until you get a comment from Joe Schmoe. Now, I don't know Joe. I have no idea what he knows. I don't know if he is interested in the news, if he reads to inform himself, if he has any of the same values that I might have--but, hey, I know what he thinks about this important story. Far too often, it seems to me, Joe Schmoe appears to have gone no further in schooling than 3rd grade. He forgot to shave this morning (how was he to know he would be on local news). And, to top everything off, his fly is unzipped. OK--I made up the part about his fly.

So what's left to complain about where local news is concerned? Well, I'll tell you--pronunciation.

Any local newscaster should be required to have a crash course in pronouncing place names. Of course, every area has its local peculiarities. I live in central Pennsylvania so we have some words with odd pronunciation. In our town we have a street named Muench. You might think--well, that looks like MUNCH, and you would be wrong. It is pronounced MINNICK.

A local creek is named Swatara--derivative of an American Indian name. The emphasis is on the second syllable--SwaTARa. But some newbies on local news have said--SWAtara. Or worse. A nearby town is Carlisle. Now, the only way that sounds right to me is to say CarLISLE. Emphasis on the second syllable. But many local announcers have taken to saying CARlisle. Can't figure out why.

Then there are "regular" words. The other night, a newscaster said something about having to repeat something. Only he said REpeat. Huh? I say rePEAT.

It has gotten so I spend so much time "correcting" these peculiar pronunciations that I end up not really listening to the news.

Maybe that's why I prefer print news. No mispronunciations there!

My Words

As someone who was an English lit major in college, I confess to loving words. In fact, I collect them. It's true--right now I have a list in the back of my white notebook (where I jot down blogging ideas) where I write down great words that I come upon. Top of that list right now--quotidian.

Words that appeal to me are those that have a great sound and are packed with meaning. I have gathered this pile of words partly to use them in poems someday, and partly just because. There's no other rhyme or reason for them.

Here are two more favorite words--facetious and abstemious. Why? Because these two words use all the vowels in the English language and use them in alphabetical order. I have been looking for another word that does that, but no luck so far.

There are also words I avoid--catchphrases that are cliched, over-used. Or jargon. Every now and then I catch myself saying something like--"the bottom line" (shudder) or "a new paradigm" (shudder shudder).

There are words that I despise--many of which are bandied about on television. Since when did "impact" become a verb?

I try to pay attention to the words I use. Sometimes I use a phrase in response to everyday situations. I catch myself falling into regular use of these phrases. In fact, I go through cycles of these phrases.

Here's a sampling.

"This too shall pass"--I said this frequently when I first began teaching 40 years ago. Maybe I was overwhelmed--but I noticed one day that I kept saying "this too shall pass."

Then I went through a phase of announcing "it's not my problem." I worked in an organization at the time where work would build up--so the announcement of "it's not my problem" was not me shirking work, but a delineation of boundaries.

Recently, I have caught myself saying "it's not the end of the world." Maybe that phrase comes to mind as I contemplate some of the unsettling news stories--stock markets going haywire; protracted fighting in Iraq; global climate change. Maybe my repeating "it's not the end of the world" is a little like whistling past the graveyard.

Classes have begun again at our local community college, and I am trying once more to get students interested in and excited about words. I challenge them to make sure they understand all the words in any essay they read, and to look words up if they don't know them. I even try to shock them a little.

One of my favorite word exercises is to get students thinking about the emotional content that some words have. Words have denotative or connotative meaning. Denotative is essentially the dictionary definition, where connotative is the emotional load a word carries. To help students grasp the difference between denotative and connotative, I will look at one of the female students, and ask if she would be insulted if I called her a "hussy." Of course, she is always shocked and begins to take umbrage. I quickly point out that at one time "hussy" meant nothing more than "housewife"--and in fact that is its word origin. "Hussy" is a shortened version of "housewife." So, there's no need to be insulted.

Words, words, words. My words. We load them up, we throw them around, we let them slip out when we shouldn't, we can't take them back. And, yet. . . And, yet. . .Where would we be without words?

What I meant to say. . .

A number of years ago, a marvelous little book called Anguished English came out. Written by Richard Lederer, the book is a compilation of hilarious mistakes students have made on papers or exams. Any time you need a good laugh, click on the link and read a few.

When I teach students literature, I will begin teaching drama by asking them which is more universal, and more lasting: tragedy or comedy. Frequently, students will say—comedy. Of course, I expect that answer, which happens to be incorrect. Comedy frequently depends on understanding the social setting or the cultural mores or the verbal twists. True, there are some comedies (perhaps in the sense of “all’s well that ends well”) that bridge the cultural divide. But mostly comedy requires you understand what the norm is, so that when the events in the drama twist or distort the norm, you get the joke. Tragedy, on the other hand, appeals to deep seated human emotions that tend to span all time.

I confess to loving verbal humor—not surprisingly considering I teach English. I love a good pun; I love shaggy dog stories, especially when they end with a wonderfully bad pun. All such stories depend on your knowing what the original expression is, again so you get the joke when it comes.

Well, I am in the midst of encountering unintended verbal humor. As I read my way through the second set of papers the students have turned in, I am highly amused at some of the inadvertent errors they make.

Herewith a few examples and my parenthetic comment as to what I think the student meant to say:

--Although once looked down upon, having a baseborn child in today’s society is strangely a great doing. (And, strangely, a great wording! I simply put an exclamation point over baseborn. And a question mark over a great doing.)

--This is probably because for the most part a woman getting pregnant is how most marriages spawned in my grandfather’s day. (While spawned has reproductive meaning, I believe the writer meant started.)

--In the past, a great eminence was place on overcoming adversity within a marriage and remaining loyal. (True, eminence means to grant high status, but I suspect the writer meant emphasis.)

--Six years later, their only biologically combined child was born, me. (The writer was speaking of her father and mother, each having previously been married, combining their families and then having one child together, her—but the wording came out humorously.)

--The anticipation of having a child is almost more than one can bare. (This error makes a wonderful pun, which is purely unintentional. The writer mistakes bare for bear.)

--Fortification, the act of making love without being wed, rarely occurred, or at least was not spoken freely of in the past. (Another hilarious confusion—fortification should be fornication—hmmmm!)

--In today's society, you see exuberant amounts of ethnically diverse and same sex couples. (I do believe the writer means exorbitant; in fact, I hope the writer means that!)

--While younger generations are not as effected by this, the older generations see those relationships as anomalistic. (This one has me puzzled. The word anomalistic means “departing from the rules”and is usually used in astronomy but I suspect the writer meant anomalous. Or maybe animalistic! Yikes, I hope not that latter.)

Not quite up to the Richard Lederer standard, but these examples were just enough to amuse me while I plowed through paper grading. Hope they amuse you too.

UPDATE: THREE new examples to add to the list above.

--The girl wonders how to end the idol conversation, so she can escape through the front door and into her house. (Maybe so she can watch American Idol? or so she can go idle in her house?)

--Society is defiantly not helping with making parenting easier on parents. (Um, make that definitely.)

--They did not have clichés in her class. (I'll bet they didn't have cliques either.)