Surveying the American South in the 1980s, University of Florida linguist Thomas Pyles found so many unusual personal names that he managed to make a poem of them:
Yerdith, Virtus, Frow, LaDonna,
Nishie, Alderine, Zollie, Conna;
Garalene, Methalene, Ethelyne, Fal,
Bennilene, Gatsey, Ripsie, Ral.
Dolliree, Jetteree, Mauderie, Flem,
Nubit, Wogan, Omria, Kem;
Pheriba, Yuba, Twylah Jo,
Ovidetta, Zava Roe.
Leos, Cubie, Dicie, Metha,
Shi, Revonie, Sag, Uretha;
Arsie, Kissie, Bussie, Missie,
Yada, Telka, Clell, Elissie.
Ozena, Madula, Oleta, Zippie,
Ozella, Schiley, Florine, Rippie;
Amorus, Onan, Coeta, Pasco,
Reion, Merkin, Jeline, Vasco.
Incia, Phenis, Phalla, Icy,
Idlene, Birdene, Ala, Nicy.
Rectus, Dilly, Dally, Nil;
Mosco, Oco, Rumbo, Zill.
Stobo, Chlorine, Bamma, Floyce,
Willamane, Voncile, Thair, La Voice;
O’Leita, La Gita, Ludille, La Coy,
Arnetta, Loonis, Fanida, Hoy.
Shira, Reva, Terrayne, Aslean,
Etrelle, Mardelle, La Nan, Rudine.
Zazzelle, Glathu, Lavora, Troy,
Colonys, Wylodean, Cy, La Joy.
Alfa, Alto, Shyne, Arveta,
Pledger, Mortis, Cance, La Nita;
Anys, Cyrese, Bink, Eloyde,
Verdine, Merdine, Pink, La Void.
Raysal, Quintelle, Raz, Zerene,
Estyl, Bytha, Bevelene;
Boysy, Lugen, Lavator, Lake,
Eskaleen, Lueverine, Voline, Flake.
La Vada, La Voime, Donrue, La Nelle,
Kartaleen, Avalene, Zan Jamelle;
Ronalene, Darlene, Denna Fo,
Japnel, Oynel, Wynell, Bo.
Vivett, La Carl, La Bruce, La Don,
La Vondus, Burtis, Joette, Lavon;
Zedro, Velpo, Bryna Lee,
Zefferine, Windell, Zim, La Mee.
Oklahoma’s Hoyette White named her daughters Norvetta, Yerdith, Arthetta, Marlynne, and Wilbarine. “I wanted names no one had ever had and names nobody would ever want,” she said. “So I made them up.”
(Thomas Pyles, “Bible Belt Onomastics or Some Curiosities of Anti-Pedobaptist Nomenclature,” in Kelsie B. Harder, ed., Names and Their Varieties, 1986.)
Full text of a memo from Winston Churchill to his War Cabinet, Aug. 9, 1940:
To do our work, we all have to read a mass of papers. Nearly all of them are far too long. This wastes time, while energy has to be spent in looking for the essential points.
I ask my colleagues and their staffs to see to it that their Reports are shorter.
(i) The aim should be Reports which set out the main points in a series of short, crisp paragraphs.
(ii) If a Report relies on detailed analysis of some complicated factors, or on statistics, these should be set out in an Appendix.
(iii) Often the occasion is best met by submitting not a full-dress Report, but an Aide-memoire consisting of headings only, which can be expanded orally if needed.
(iv) Let us have an end of such phrases as these: ‘It is also of importance to bear in mind the following considerations …’, or ‘Consideration should be given to the possibility of carrying into effect …’. Most of these woolly phrases are mere padding, which can be left out altogether, or replaced by a single word. Let us not shrink from using the short expressive phrase, even if it is conversational.
Reports drawn up on the lines I propose may at first seem rough as compared with the flat surface of officialese jargon. But the saving in time will be great, while the discipline of setting out the real points concisely will prove an aid to clearer thinking.
W.S.C.
He followed this up in November 1951:
BREVITY
Official papers are too long and too diffuse. In 1940 I called for brevity. Evidently I must do so again. I ask my colleagues to read what I wrote then (it is reproduced overleaf) and to make my wishes known to their staffs.
I also invite attention to the Foreign Secretary’s recent despatch to Heads of Missions about the length of telegrams.
W.S.C.
anatine: of or pertaining to, resembling or characteristic of, a duck
cancrine: having the qualities of a crab
caprine: of or relating to a goat
columbine: of, belonging to, or of the nature of, a dove or pigeon
formicine: of, or of the nature of, ants
fringilline: pertaining to the finches
hippotigrine: of or relating to a zebra
leporine: relating to a hare
lutrine: relating to the otter family
musteline: of or like a weasel
pavonine: of, relating to, resembling, or characteristic of a peacock
procyonine: of raccoons
sciurine: of or relating to squirrels
suilline: of or relating to pigs
talpine: relating to the moles
viverrine: resembling or related to the civet
vulpine: characteristic of a fox
“The sight of an old limping horse, tugged forward by one man while another kept beating it with a stick to get it to the knacker’s yard at Colmar, haunted me for weeks,” wrote Albert Schweitzer in his 1924 memoir. “So when my mother had prayed with me and had kissed me good-night, I used to add silently a prayer that I had composed myself for all living creatures. It ran thus: ‘O, heavenly Father, protect and bless all things that have breath; guard them from all evil, and let them sleep in peace.'”
In 1884, zoologist William Hay Caldwell sent a historic cable from Australia to his colleagues at the British Association for the Advancement of Science:
MONOTREMES OVIPAROUS, OVUM MEROBLASTIC
In four words this manages to proclaim that the platypus lays eggs and that the early stages of its embryo formation resemble those seen in birds and reptiles rather than mammals.
In German, a young lady has no sex, while a turnip has. Think what overwrought reverence that shows for the turnip, and what callous disrespect for the girl. See how it looks in print — I translate this from a conversation in one of the best of the German Sunday-school books:
Gretchen. Wilhelm, where is the turnip?
Wilhelm. She has gone to the kitchen.
Gretchen. Where is the accomplished and beautiful English maiden?
Wilhelm. It has gone to the opera.
… A tree is male, its buds are female, its leaves are neuter; horses are sexless, dogs are male, cats are female — tomcats included, of course; a person’s mouth, neck, bosom, elbows, fingers, nails, feet, and body are of the male sex, and his head is male or neuter according to the word selected to signify it, and not according to the sex of the individual who wears it — for in Germany all the women wear either male heads or sexless ones; a person’s nose, lips, shoulders, breast, hands, and toes are of the female sex; and his hair, ears, eyes, chin, legs, knees, heart, and conscience haven’t any sex at all. The inventor of the language probably got what he knew about a conscience from hearsay.
— Mark Twain (from A Tramp Abroad)
There are biscuits on the sideboard if you want them. That’s a natural-enough-sounding expression, but it’s also a peculiar thing to say.
“[T]he verb is the highly ordinary are,” noted philosopher J.L. Austin in 1956, “but the if is more like that in ‘I can if I choose’ than that in ‘I panted if I ran’: for we can certainly infer from it that ‘There are biscuits on the sideboard whether you want them or not’ and that anyway ‘There are biscuits on the sideboard’, whereas it would be folly to infer that ‘If there are no biscuits on the sideboard you do not want them’, or to understand the meaning to be that you have only to want biscuits to cause them to be on the sideboard.”
Delightfully, such expressions are called biscuit conditionals.
A surprising number of flowers are named for people:
The ackee fruit of Jamaica is named Blighia sapida after William Bligh, who discovered it in his travels after the mutiny on HMS Bounty.
(Via Maxwell W. Nurnberg, Wonders in Words, 1968.)
“Plaindromes” are ordinary sentences that sound as if they ought to be palindromes:
Money-man I, an Adam, not even a doom.
Stella, Otis deified Satan and Edna.
An item? No, revolt took Natasha.
Eggbert, a wry dross needs seating, tea-grams.
Droop: an old fan? Needles fone a poor ode.
“Ungrams” are invalid anagrams:
Richard M. Nixon / Noxious charmer
Brooklyn Bridge / Good ride by lake
Both were invented by Jef Raskin of Cupertino, California (from the August 2010 issue of Word Ways).
quidam
n. an unknown person
oppidan
n. an inhabitant of a town
obrute
v. to overwhelm, bury; to cover over
recumbentibus
n. a knockdown blow
The “sitting man” is numbered among the victims of Vesuvius in 79 CE.
He died crouching in a corner of his house, holding a scarf over his mouth.