A Man of Few Words

In 1930 linguistic psychologist Charles K. Ogden offered the world Basic English, an international language that stripped conventional English down to 850 words:

Seven and eighty years have gone by from the day when our fathers gave to this land a new nation — a nation which came to birth in the thought that all men are free, a nation given up to the idea that all men are equal.

The movement reached its greatest popularity shortly after World War II, when Ogden promoted it in support of world peace; Winston Churchill thought it might promote an empire of the pen rather than the sword. But FDR pointed out that his friend’s “blood, toil, tears, and sweat” would be reduced to “blood, work, eye water, and face water” in the language’s ruthlessly simplified vocabulary, and in 1945 the BBC suggested that Basic English be left “on a high shelf in a dark corner.” Ogden passed away 12 years later.

| Language

Fertile Country

http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:2007_09_18_-_Blue_Ball_-_US_322_at_SR_23_a.JPG
Image: Wikimedia Commons

Lancaster County, Pennsylvania, contains a group of towns whose names seem to tell a story:

Blue Ball, Bird-in-Hand, Bareville, Mount Joy, Intercourse, Paradise

In 1962, Eros magazine approached the postmasters of Blue Ball and Intercourse, saying “we have decided that it may be advantageous for our direct mail to bear the postmark of your city.” They were turned down — so they used Middlesex, N.J., instead.

| Language

Roll Call

More unusual personal names:

From John Train’s Remarkable Names of Real People (1988):

  • Ave Maria Klinkenberg
  • Gaston J. Feeblebunny
  • Humperdink Fangboner
  • Larry Derryberry
  • Mary Louise Pantzaroff
  • Norman Icenoggle
  • Primrose Goo
  • Rapid Integration
  • Verbal Funderburk

From Barbara Fletcher’s Don’t Blame the Stork (1981):

  • Bobo Yawn
  • Louise Ghostkeeper
  • Constance Stench
  • Naughtybird Curtsey
  • Rat Soup
  • Sir Dingle Foot
  • Consider Arms
  • Craspius Pounders
  • Gizella Werberzerk-Piffel
  • Barbara Savage Machinest

The most impressive specimens come from H.L. Mencken’s magisterial American Language. In 1901 Loyal Lodge No. 296 Knights of Pythias Ponca City Oklahoma Territory Smith was baptized in Ponca City, and in 1949 John Hodge Opera House Centennial Gargling Oil Samuel J. Tilden Ten Brink was interviewed for the Linguistic Atlas in upstate New York. I don’t know what he said.

| Language · Oddities

All Relative

Eddie Cantor and George Jessel played on the same bill on the vaudeville circuit.

In one town Jessel noticed that the billing read EDDIE CANTOR WITH GEORGIE JESSEL.

“What kind of conjunction is that?” he asked manager Irving Mansfield. “Eddie Cantor with Georgie Jessel?” Mansfield promised to fix it.

The next day the marquee read EDDIE CANTOR BUT GEORGIE JESSEL.

| Language

Singular

Why are old bachelors bad grammarians?

Because when asked to conjugate, they invariably decline.

— James Baird McClure, ed., Entertaining Anecdotes From Every Available Source, 1879

| Humor · Language

A Better Invention

farrell mousetrap magic cube

This magic word cube was devised by Jeremiah Farrell. Each cell contains a unique three-letter English word, and when the three layers are stacked, the words in each row and column can be anagrammed to spell MOUSETRAP.

Setting O=0, A=1, U=2, M=0, R=3, S=6, P=0, E=9, and T=18 produces a numerical magic cube (for example, MAE = 0 + 1 + 9 = 10).

| Language · Science & Math

Unquote

“The mind is at its best when at play.” — J.L. Synge

In this spirit, Synge invented Vish (for “vicious circle”), a game designed to illustrate the hopeless circularity of dictionary definitions.

Each player is given a copy of the same dictionary. When the referee announces a word, each player writes it down and looks up its meaning. Then she chooses one word from the definition, writes that down and looks up its meaning. A player wins when the same word appears twice on her list.

The point is that any such list must eventually yield circularity — if it’s continued long enough, the number of words in the list will eventually exceed the total number of words in the dictionary, and a repetition must occur.

“Vish is no game for children,” Synge writes. “It destroys that basic confidence in the reasonableness of everything which gives to society whatever stability it possesses. To anyone who has played Vish, the dictionary is never the same again.”

| Language · Quotations