WHAT is this life devoid of carbs,
We have such time to stand and starve?—
No time to stand between the aisles,
And choose a cake not vegetables:
No time to see, through chippies’ glass,
Chips served with fish not salad, grass:
No time to see, without shame, meat,
It’s not a sin, it’s just a treat:
No time to wait till our mouths can
Enjoy a tart, or pie, or flan:
No time to revel in fine food,
With looks and words we do accuse:
A poor life this restrained by diets
When faced with food, go wild and try it
*the advice contained above should be enjoyed as part of a balanced diet and a healthy lifestyle.
Wednesday 14 March 2012
literally
There was a very interesting piece on Radio 4's Today programme on monday, it was partly the inspiration for this blog and so I feel it is worth a comment.
The programme focussed on the word 'literally' and how it is being abused in the modern world. The presenters and contributors came with a selection of examples to emphasise how 'literally' can no longer be taken literally.
Nick Clegg- 'you see people literally in a different galaxy who are paying extraordinarily low rates of tax'. It must be noted that the man's political history may have resulted in major confusion about whether words do have a literal meaning. Also, being a 'deputy prime minister' already involves some linguistic complexity aside from being largely pointless.
A tastefully anonymous BBC news presenter- 'you'll be up against the Norwegians who are literally born on skis'. This would be a severe breach of health and safety regulations and therefore would be impossible in a Scandinavian country.
Rachel Stevens- 'my legs literally turned to jelly'. This medical phenomenon failed to make the news and has not since been reported in the Lancet or any of the respected medical journals. Stevens has since been seen with legs and is reported to have made a complete recovery from her gelatinous state.
These examples are a few picked from a multitude across many theatres of language - sport, music, politics, arts - and there may be few outposts where the word it safe. So, 'literally' no longer has a literal meaning, when used in general conversation, and its strength is being dismantled.
In that sense it is going the way of many of our other intensifiers. The latin probo is the core of our word 'probably' and so it means to prove by testing, to gain empirical proof. In the twenty-first century it has become a far more speculative term which deals not with possibility instead of proof.
'Quite' is another example, it used to mean 'absolutely and completely' and still retains some of that value in the phrase 'I am quite happy for you to roger my language senseless'. However it is far more recognisable as a way to moderate an expression, as in 'Liverpool is quite nice'.
In Old English the word 'soon' meant immediately, which is a value that anyone who has ever attempted to meet someone will attest that it has lost.
So, words lose their value, this is natural and no-one believed that Clegg was actually proposing galactic travel as a viable tax haven so is this important?
The word has been in use since 1769 and has a very specific meaning - it is a safe word. It is the one word in the language which can separate fact from the linguistic minefield of rhetoric, figurative language and all of the common phrases and poetic devices that we accept as meaning something different to their literal sense.
We are used to all sorts of fruity language and 'literally' is the only way that we can discriminate between fact and fiction. When its value is undermined we lose that ability.
It is also interesting to question why this has occurred. The natural weakening of intensifiers points to a continual need to emphasise and overemphasise our words. We are in a constant battle to be the loudest voice using the biggest phrases so 'he laughed' becomes 'he laughed his head off' and now, in a sick twist, 'he literally laughed his head off'.
Let's accept the value of the words we use, figurative language is brilliant and makes our phrases so much more interesting but the word 'literally', if used incorrectly, does damage the meaning of the sentence and the word itself. So why use it? Let's grow up a little bit and leave the phrase 'he was literally pissing himself' to refer to unfortunate accidents or weak bladders as opposed to someone having a giggle.
Calm down and carry on.
The programme focussed on the word 'literally' and how it is being abused in the modern world. The presenters and contributors came with a selection of examples to emphasise how 'literally' can no longer be taken literally.
Nick Clegg- 'you see people literally in a different galaxy who are paying extraordinarily low rates of tax'. It must be noted that the man's political history may have resulted in major confusion about whether words do have a literal meaning. Also, being a 'deputy prime minister' already involves some linguistic complexity aside from being largely pointless.
A tastefully anonymous BBC news presenter- 'you'll be up against the Norwegians who are literally born on skis'. This would be a severe breach of health and safety regulations and therefore would be impossible in a Scandinavian country.
Rachel Stevens- 'my legs literally turned to jelly'. This medical phenomenon failed to make the news and has not since been reported in the Lancet or any of the respected medical journals. Stevens has since been seen with legs and is reported to have made a complete recovery from her gelatinous state.
These examples are a few picked from a multitude across many theatres of language - sport, music, politics, arts - and there may be few outposts where the word it safe. So, 'literally' no longer has a literal meaning, when used in general conversation, and its strength is being dismantled.
In that sense it is going the way of many of our other intensifiers. The latin probo is the core of our word 'probably' and so it means to prove by testing, to gain empirical proof. In the twenty-first century it has become a far more speculative term which deals not with possibility instead of proof.
'Quite' is another example, it used to mean 'absolutely and completely' and still retains some of that value in the phrase 'I am quite happy for you to roger my language senseless'. However it is far more recognisable as a way to moderate an expression, as in 'Liverpool is quite nice'.
In Old English the word 'soon' meant immediately, which is a value that anyone who has ever attempted to meet someone will attest that it has lost.
So, words lose their value, this is natural and no-one believed that Clegg was actually proposing galactic travel as a viable tax haven so is this important?
The word has been in use since 1769 and has a very specific meaning - it is a safe word. It is the one word in the language which can separate fact from the linguistic minefield of rhetoric, figurative language and all of the common phrases and poetic devices that we accept as meaning something different to their literal sense.
We are used to all sorts of fruity language and 'literally' is the only way that we can discriminate between fact and fiction. When its value is undermined we lose that ability.
It is also interesting to question why this has occurred. The natural weakening of intensifiers points to a continual need to emphasise and overemphasise our words. We are in a constant battle to be the loudest voice using the biggest phrases so 'he laughed' becomes 'he laughed his head off' and now, in a sick twist, 'he literally laughed his head off'.
Let's accept the value of the words we use, figurative language is brilliant and makes our phrases so much more interesting but the word 'literally', if used incorrectly, does damage the meaning of the sentence and the word itself. So why use it? Let's grow up a little bit and leave the phrase 'he was literally pissing himself' to refer to unfortunate accidents or weak bladders as opposed to someone having a giggle.
Calm down and carry on.
Tuesday 13 March 2012
circumbilivaginate
This is not a literary, intellectual or mature piece of writing but it is my appreciation of the word 'circumbilivaginate'. It is an old English word which means to walk around in circles which is, in itself, a delightful concept and which is only enhanced by the exceedingly silly nature of the word to an immature modern audience.
I am not protesting that 'circumbilivaginate' has dropped from the language - even as I write it the computer is drawing ugly red scars beneath it - as it is clearly a clumsy, long-winded verb which was unlikely to stand the test of our fast-paced lifestyle. All I wish to do is to highlight it, revel in everything to do with it and hopefully inspire a couple of you to drop it into a conversation.
'I circumbilivaginated the club for hours looking for you' could become a commonplace sentence among students and my joy at overhearing that would be unbounded. As would hearing how a shopper 'circumbilivaginated the supermarket looking for cheese'.
Please bear with me, language has its rougher joys as well as being a fine art form.
I am not protesting that 'circumbilivaginate' has dropped from the language - even as I write it the computer is drawing ugly red scars beneath it - as it is clearly a clumsy, long-winded verb which was unlikely to stand the test of our fast-paced lifestyle. All I wish to do is to highlight it, revel in everything to do with it and hopefully inspire a couple of you to drop it into a conversation.
'I circumbilivaginated the club for hours looking for you' could become a commonplace sentence among students and my joy at overhearing that would be unbounded. As would hearing how a shopper 'circumbilivaginated the supermarket looking for cheese'.
Please bear with me, language has its rougher joys as well as being a fine art form.
Monday 12 March 2012
caterpillar
I WANDER'D lonely as a cloud,
That floats on high o'er vales and hills,
When all at once I saw a crowd,
A host, of hungry caterpill’s
On Monday they, up in the trees,
Were nibbling apples in the breeze.
They carried on that fruity line:
Two pears, three plums, four strawberries,
And five oranges, hard to rhyme
But they were all still hungry:
Friday I saw them at a glance,
Tossing their legs in sprightly dance.
And after followed saturday
They then had ice-cream and Swiss cheese,
A poet could not but feel ill,
As lollipops they too did swill:
I gazed -- they grazed -- but never thought,
Of fresh salad that one had brought.
But later, after cherry pie,
And pickles, cake and sausage foods,
They turned sick eyes unto the sky
And uttered noises very rude;
With single leaf their stomachs filled,
Cocooned my little caterpill’s.
That floats on high o'er vales and hills,
When all at once I saw a crowd,
A host, of hungry caterpill’s
On Monday they, up in the trees,
Were nibbling apples in the breeze.
They carried on that fruity line:
Two pears, three plums, four strawberries,
And five oranges, hard to rhyme
But they were all still hungry:
Friday I saw them at a glance,
Tossing their legs in sprightly dance.
And after followed saturday
They then had ice-cream and Swiss cheese,
A poet could not but feel ill,
As lollipops they too did swill:
I gazed -- they grazed -- but never thought,
Of fresh salad that one had brought.
But later, after cherry pie,
And pickles, cake and sausage foods,
They turned sick eyes unto the sky
And uttered noises very rude;
With single leaf their stomachs filled,
Cocooned my little caterpill’s.
good
When you look at the English language it often becomes hard to avoid one fundamental problem. Namely, that we have a beautifully rich abundance of words with which we can work, play, build upon and adapt and yet the words that make it out of the dictionary and into our mouths are a very select number. We are barely skimming the surface of the language we have on offer and this is a real shame.
English is a fascinating language and one which has evolved for thousands of years. Some of our words can be traced to Rome by their latin roots, some to the Scandinavian tongues of Viking raiders and traders, the French provided a buffet of language at which ate quite heartily before we gorged ourselves on all of the words we learnt through shipping, trade and empire. This list barely scratches the petals of the the flower of our language, the roots go very deep and all around the globe which is what makes our language so delicate, interesting and so hard to learn in all its intricate forms.
As if that bounty were not enough, the internet provides us with instant access to virtually every word written or spoken around the globe. With a few keystrokes you could be reading my words in German or Farsi and watching highly sophisticated computing completely fail to understand the rules and nuances that are the real meaning of my words. You can see other languages, see what words they share, pick out traces of grammar and learn new words which you can use, adapt yourself and work into you own language make-up.
This malleable development process is a delight and, though I will certainly be accused of pedantry for future posts, something which is integral to the language and which should be embraced.
However, some of these new words are grey squirrels. They are brought into the language and they eat away at the variety of words we have readily on our tongues. Rather than working alongside existing words and adding a new dimension or flavour to a sentence, they replace the existing words and gradually those words fall out of favour.
At this stage it is popular to blame the youth and their access to media which does make them culpable for some of the mediocrity of language. For instance the word 'good'. It is a perfectly acceptable word to denote positivity or mild praise and its weakness denotes a satisfactory state of affairs, as opposed to 'fabulous', 'magnificent' or 'brilliant' which are clearly more emotive endorsements. 'Good' has, however, overstepped its boundaries and I have a sneaking suspicion that this may the work of another perennial language culprit - the americanism.
Food, for instance. I have witnessed entire conversations about food with 'good' as the only adjective. These people were, in essence, determining the level of 'good' which could be attributed to their food and this is not an acceptable way to discuss it. If the discussion were to be focussing mathematically on the calorific intake provided by the food, that is a quantifiable figure and so 'good' would be allowed, in the same way that 'good' is an acceptable response to the ever popular adult question 'how are the figures looking?'.
The experience of eating, however, is highly qualitative because it includes millions of different taste sensations of sweetness, salt, bitterness, sourness and umami in combination with texture and temperature and moisture and viscosity and acidity and aroma and colour and 'good' is not enough to encapsulate that. It gives no information.
What is worse, however, is that by using 'good' we sacrifice the opportunity to use any of the thousands of adjectives in the English language that can be used to assess the previously ranted factors that make up a food experience. We lose the chance to really describe the quality of the experience and relay that to others. I have never read a food review consisting of the single word 'good', it would be pretty insulting to the chef. As this is the internet, in a wild feat of ridiculous conjecture, I will speculate that within a year we will live in a world where everything is considered 'good' or 'not good'.
The youth, however, is not solely to blame and 'good' is just an example of how easy it can become to forget language. Management-speak very quickly washes over the true descriptors of the language with bland, generic and soulless terms, marketing bods have numbed us to the real value of varied lexis in an effort to sell everything to everyone and politics is desperately keen to remove all meaning and substance from words in case a politician is heard to express anything.
We have a fantastic range of words at our disposal. Let's use them, all of them, for the purpose for which they were intended. Some of them have travelled from history to be available to us and it is not fair to drain them of value or ignore them such that they become redundant.
As a final note, I am very sorry if this blog is 'good'.
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