Minor Wisdom

Do dogs talk?

The subject of dog communication has come up on the Language Log yesterday and today. If you’re interested in the research, read the posts and follow the links.  On the other hand, if, like me, you’re too intellectually lazy to do that, then watch this video spotted a few days ago on Improbable Research.

Pilots and ushers

Matthew Stibbe reports that an airline in his neighborhood no longer calls a pilot a pilot. From now on, a pilot is a “flight service professional.”

At my church, an usher is not an usher, but a “hospitality minister.” If Edgar Allan Poe had been a parishioner, he might have written “The Fall of the House of the Hospitality Minister.” Somehow that doesn’t sound very scary.

Ax Stella

“The speech accent archive uniformly presents a large set of speech samples from a variety of language backgrounds [including New Orleans]. Native and non-native speakers of English read the same paragraph and are carefully transcribed. The archive is used by people who wish to compare and analyze the accents of different English speakers.”

Lies, damned lies, and statistics

Mark Twain once said, "Facts are stubborn, but statistics are more pliable." On the Language Log, Mark Liberman proves Twain's point, showing that the same sets of numbers can be used to prove two propositions:

• Only 28% of those asked were able to name more than one of the First Amendment freedoms, yet 52% could name at least two members of Bart Simpson's family. (Americans know the Simpsons better than they know the Constitution.)
• 73% can name a First Amendment freedom, but only 65% can name a Simpson. (Americans know the Constitution better than they know the Simpsons.)

Evan Esar once defined statistics as "The only science that enables different experts using the same figures to draw different conclusions." Yep.

2006 list of banished words

Once again, the folks at Lake Superior State University have performed the public service of identifying and banishing a slew of vogue words and phrases.¹ Work is already underway on the 2007 list, and you too can get in on the fun. To nominate a word or phrase for banishment, click here.

To view the 2004 list, click here; the 2005 list is here.
__________
¹Tip of the hat to Grammar Hell.

Says they

As I wrote a few weeks ago, use of masculine singular pronouns to refer generically to both sexes is not as acceptable as it used to be. Writers often struggle to avoid sexist-sounding language, while at the same time not appearing to try too hard to be politically correct. Their problem is that English lacks sexually generic third-person singular pronouns.

Or does it? Linguist Henry Churchyard says that, like you and your, the pronouns they, them, and their enjoy a venerable history of singular usage. He also gives 75 examples of "the singular their" in Jane Austen's writing, plus a slew of additional examples from other respected sources, including the OED, the King James Bible, and the writings of Shakespeare, Lewis Carroll, and other writers.

So it seems anyone who wants to make their writing non-sexist has an easy solution.

Plain English Campaign Awards

The Plain English Campaign has just presented its 2005 "awards for clear—and baffling—use of English." Under the "baffling" category, we find the Golden Bull Awards (for worst examples of gobbledygook) and the Foot in Mouth Award, for a truly baffling comment. Among the eight Golden Bull winners is this bit of Australian tax legislation:

For the purpose of making a declaration under this Subdivision, the Commissioner may:

a) treat a particular event that actually happened as not having happened; and
b) treat a particular event that did not actually happen as having happened and, if appropriate, treat the event as:

i) having happened at a particular time; and
ii) having involved particular action by a particular entity; and

c) treat a particular event that actually happened as:

i) having happened at a time different from the time it actually happened; or
ii) having involved particular action by a particular entity (whether or not the event actually involved any action by that entity).

I think they're trying to say, "In making a declaration, the Commissioner may disregard reality."

Under the "clear" category is the Plain English Web Award, given to the clearest web site that the judges could find. Among the criteria are good writing, clear design, and easy navigation. This year's winner is a legal web site, Advice Now, subtitled "Making sense of the law and your rights."

"Welcome home"

I read an AP story today about New Orleans dialect. The author, who apparently just discovered that New Orleanians don't drawl, says that "How's ya' house?"¹ has replaced "Where y'at?"¹ as the unofficial local greeting.

The AP story doesn't reflect my experience. The most common local post-Katrina greeting I've heard  is spoken in plain American English. It's "Welcome home."

To understand how good this greeting feels, imagine that you hear or see a news bulletin telling you that you and your family must leave town today; if you don't, you may drown. So you spend about a half hour packing for what you think will be a two-day road trip; which, if things get really bad, may stretch into a full week. Things get worse than really bad, and your road trip stretches into two months. Two months without seeing your neighbors, your friends, everyone that you used to socialize with. Then, you finally get home, and once again see a neighbor, friend, or acquaintance who has just endured the same separation you have. Your neighbor or friend or acquaintance sees you, recognizes you, smiles, and says, "Welcome home." You reply, "Welcome home yourself."

That's how we greet each other in New Orleans, when we see each other for the first time since Katrina. We welcome each other home.

After that, we ask, "How'd you make out?," which really means, "How's your house?" The question is not a greeting, but a conversation starter.

If you want to read a more informative article about New Orleans dialect, read this Slate article.

_______________
¹Dialectal spelling by the author of the AP story.

For lovers of New Orleans

Here are three recent items from the Times-Picayune about why New Orleans is special:

1. Jarvis DeBerry explores a few idiosyncracies of the New Orleans dialect.
2. Michael Sartisky explains why New Orleans is "the only authentic indigenous urban culture on the continent, the defining soul of a nation sorely in need of one."
3. C. Ward Bond¹ quotes Lafcadio Hearn, writing in 1870, explaining New Orleans to a friend in Cincinnati. Hearn's words fit today's reality:

Times are not good here. The city is crumbling into ashes. It has been buried under a lava flood of taxes and frauds and maladministrations so that it has become only a study for archaeologists. Its condition is so bad that when I write about it, as I intend to do soon, nobody will believe I am telling the truth. But it is better to live here in sackcloth and ashes, than to own the whole state of Ohio.

_________________
¹ No idea whether he's related to this guy.

Biblical-curse generator

Here's the blurb: "Lost for a smart remark to see off your enemies? Unable to deliver that killer insult? Put an end to unscriptural restraint with the amazing Biblical Curse Generator, which is pre-loaded with blistering smackdowns as delivered by Elijah, Jeremiah and other monumentally angry saints." Click here, and you too can "smite your foes with a custom-made curse straight out of the Old Testament." Like this one:

Woe unto thee, O thou Amalekite dog, for you will be as welcome as a fart in the queen's bedchamber!

(Via Mirror of Justice.)