Archive of November 2009
To say a French word in the middle of an English sentence exactly as it would be said by a Frenchman in a French sentence is a feat demanding an acrobatic mouth; the muscles have to be suddenly adjusted to a performance of a different nature, & after it as suddenly recalled to the normal state; it is a feat that should not be attempted; the greater its success as a tour de force, the greater its failure as a step in the conversational progress; for your collocutor, aware that he could not have done it himself, has his attention distracted whether he admires or is humiliated.
— H. W. Fowler
Language is funny.
Someone on Hacker News, while discussing languages, said, ‘I suspect “human language” has a very specific meaning among linguists.’ I responded, “‘human language’ actually means very little among linguists. If he were being very precise he’d say “natural language”,’ which I think is true. after all, if your professional context is almost always natural language—and you are not a xenolinguist—you probably wouldn’t have any semantically-invested terminology to distinguish among species.
But now I’m thinking about the analogous case, which would be asking a programmer, ‘So, what language are you thinking of using for your next project?’ and receiving the answer, ‘Uh, English. duh.’
Which is making me giggle.
A little while ago my friend posted on the internet a little extemperaneous rant about the state of the Green industry. After another commented that he could easily hear that rant read in our friend’s voice I suggested that everybody should record themselves reciting it. It wasn’t too long till our international comrades started contributing foreign-language translations, and so it was suggested that I record a Yiddish version. So I did my own translation and recorded it.
The original:
You know, if this job has taught me anything it’s that the green movement is a bunch of meaningless, self-congratulatory bullshit; a way for over-educated yuppies to make money off of one another while getting to pat one another on the back for having a social conscience. For every good idea that’s going to effect positive change, there are 30 assholes who have added a leaf to their business cards and want to sell you environmentally-friendly convention materials like handbills and banners and loads of other bullshit so you can attend these insufferably smug, self-satisfied GO GREEN conventions where you will try to sell your own marginally less-wasteful products to other people who have spent oodles of money on promotional materials, as well. If this is what environmentalism looks like, our planet is effed in the a.
My translation*, in Latin letters for easier following along:
Her, oyb ot di arbet hot mikh epes gelernt, iz es az di “grine” baveygung iz a hayfl onzinendike, zikh-baykhl-patshndike bobkes; s’iz an oyfen far iberdertsoygene Yopinikes zikh tsu makhn di grobe koze, un beys-mayse konen zey zikh oykh eyner dem tsveytn a knipl ton in bekl farn yandes. Far yedn a gutn gedank vos ker baytn di velt tsum gutn, faran draysik paskudnyakes vos hobn tsugegebn a grin bletl tsu zeyere vizit-kartlekh un viln dem oylem-goylem farkoyfn natur-frayndlekhe konferents-materyaln, azoy vi bletlekh un fones un nokh a sakh shmokhtelyakes kedey az me zol kenen bayvoynen di nit-tsu-fartrogn zikh-tsufridene, zikh-tseshaynendike GEY GRIN tsuzamenforn, vu me vet pruvn tsu farkoyfn eygene oyf a hor veyniker oysbrengerishe skhoyre mentshn vos hobn aleyn gants oysgepatert zeyer gelt oyf pirsemvarg. Oyb der environmentalizm zet beems azoy oys, iz undzer planet ongemakht in tokhes arayn.
* With invaluable editing provided by my lerer, Yankl-Perets
And they say that Yiddish literature is dead.
Learn about syllepsis, then refuse to stop employing it
The quickly-growing-essential How to Write Badly Well had a particularly linguistically rich entry today. I will only give you a choice quote so as not to spoil it:
As he ran a red light, the conversation back in his mind and away from his troubles, he couldn’t help but feel…
