The English Language: A Guided Tour of the Language
Page 13
T E R S E N E S S
Anagrams rearrange the letters of a word or phrase to make new words – a procedure which at one time was thought to disclose significant information about a person’s character or future, and even to carry mystical meaning or magical power. Jonathan Swift was one of many who ridiculed the pomposity and superstition of those who dealt in anagrams. In Gulliver’s Travels, natives of Tribnia (Britain) discover plots using the ‘anagrammatic method’:
by transposing the letters of the alphabet in any suspected paper, they can lay open the deepest designs of a discontented party. So, for example, if I should say, in a letter to a friend, ‘Our brother Tom has just got the piles’, a skilful decipherer would discover that the same letters which compose that sentence, may be analysed into the following words, ‘Resist – a plot is brought home – the tour’.
As a game, however, anagrams can provide a great deal of fun, especially by finding an anagram which relates to the original in some way:
astronomers – moon-starers
conversation – voices rant on
Margaret Thatcher – Meg, the arch-tartar
mother-in-law – woman Hitler
total abstainers – sit not at ale bars
A rebus mixes letters, pictures, and graphic symbols to make words and sentences. Often, the sentences make sense only when read aloud in a certain way, as in this famous rebus: Y Y U R Too wise you are
Y Y U B Too wise you be
I C U R I see you are
Y Y 4 me Too wise for me
Other ingenious constructions are shown below:
H&
hand
X Q Q
excuse
reactions reac tions
split second reactions
stalHPments
HP instalments.
Several of the words used in text-messaging (p. 141) are of this kind.
Tongue twisters are one of the few word games which relate purely to the spoken medium. Words are juxtaposed which contain the same or similar sounds, and the exercise is to say them as rapidly as possible. Famous English examples include:
The Leith police dismisseth us
The sixth sheikh’s sixth sheep’s sick
She sells sea-shells on the sea-shore
Palindromes are words or phrases – and sometimes much larger units of language – which read the same in both directions. Simple examples are found in such everyday examples as madam and Eve, but the real challenge is to construct long sequences which make sense, such as Draw, o coward! and Sex at noon taxes. Longer sequences tend to deteriorate into nonsense, though there are exceptions: Doc, note, I dissent. A fast never prevents a fatness. I diet on cod. The longest palindrome is reputedly over 65,000 words.
Pangrams are sentences which contain every letter of the alphabet – ideally, a single instance of each. The typist’s sentence The quick brown fox jumps over the lazy dog satisfies the first criterion, but has several duplications. A 26-letter pangram devised in 1984 reads Veldt jynx grimps waqf zho buck, where there is undoubtedly a syntax, but a good dictionary is needed to establish the meaning.
Lipograms are compositions which omit a letter of the alphabet. One of the most famous lipograms in English is Gadsby (1939), a 50,000-word novel by Ernest Wright, which makes no use of the most frequent letter of the English alphabet, e. A tiny extract from this remarkable work illustrates how it can be done: Upon this basis I am going to show you how a bunch of bright young folks did find a champion; a man with boys and girls of his own; a man of so dominating and happy individuality that Youth is drawn to him as is a fly to a sugar bowl. It is a story about a small town. It is not a gossipy yarn; nor is it a dry, monotonous account, full of such customary ‘fill-ins’ as ‘romantic moonlight casting murky shadows down a long, winding country road’. Nor will it say anything about twinklings lulling distant folds; robins carolling at twilight, nor any ‘warm glow of lamplight’ from a cabin window. No. It is an account of up-and-doing activity; a vivid portrayal of Youth as it is today…
Univocalics are compositions which use only one vowel. The possibilities for expression are very limited, but several clever poems have been constructed in this way, as is illustrated by this sixteen-line work by C. C. Bombaugh called ‘Incontrovertible Facts’ (1890): No monk too good to rob, or cog, or plot.
No fool so gross to bolt Scotch collops hot.
From Donjon tops no Oronoko rolls.
Logwood, not Lotos, floods Oporto’s bowls.
Troops of old tosspots, oft, to sot, consort.
Box tops, not bottoms, school-boys flog for sport.
No cool monsoons blow soft on Oxford dons,
Orthodox, jog-trot, book-worm Solomons!
Bold Ostrogoths, of ghosts no horror show.
On London shop-fronts no hop-blossoms grow.
To crocks of gold no dodo looks for food.
On soft cloth footstools no old fox doth brood.
Long storm-tost sloops forlorn, work on to no port.
Rooks do not roost on spoons, nor woodcocks snort,
Nor dog on snowdrop or on coltsfoot rolls,
Nor common frogs concoct long protocols.
Doublets is a game where one word is changed into another in a series of steps, each intervening word differing from its neighbours by only one letter. The challenge is both to form the chain of linked words, and to do so in as few steps as possible. The game was invented by Lewis Carroll, who gave as one of his first examples, ‘Drive PIG into STY’. His answer involved five steps: PIG–WIG–WAG–WAY–SAY–STY.
Syzygies is another Lewis Carroll game where one word is changed into another in a series of steps, with each intervening word having several letters in common with the preceding word. For example, MAN can be linked to ICE through the steps PERMANENT and ENTICE. Many other kinds of ‘word-chains’ have been invented, such as the construction of a chain of overlapping two-part words: FIREMAN – MANKIND – KINDNESS, etc.
Words within words is a popular game, often chosen for competitions, whose aim is simply to make as many words as possible from the letters of a single word. To win is far more difficult than one might think – a comment which is true of many of the games in this chapter – and there are impressive scores to beat. One player, for example, has claimed there are 273 words in PSALTER – rat, peat, repast… Clement Wood’s ‘Death of a Scrabble Master’ cleverly portrays some of the special knowledge required to keep on winning:
This was the greatest of the game’s great players:
If you played BRAS, he’d make it HUDIBRASTIC
He ruled a world 15 by 15 squares,
Peopled by 100 letters, wood or plastic.
He unearthed XEBEC, HAJI, useful QAID,
Found QUOS (see pl. of QUID PRO QUO) and QUOTHA,
Discovered AU, DE, DA all unitalicized
(AU JUS, DA CAPO, ALMANACH DE GOTHA).
Two-letter words went marching through his brain,
Spondaic-footed, singing their slow litany:
AL (Indian Mulberry), Al (a sloth), EM, EN,
BY, MY, AX, EX, OX, LO, IT, AN, HE…
PE (Hebrew letter), LI (a Chinese mile), KA, RE,
SH (like NTH, spectacularly vowelless),
AY, OY (a cry of grief, pain or dismay);
HAI, HI, HO – leaving opponents powerless
He, if the tiles before him said DOC TIME,
Would promptly play the elegant DEMOTIC,
And none but he fulfilled the scrabbler’s dream,
When through two triple words, he hung QUIXOTIC.
The day his adversary put down GNASHED,
He laid – a virtuoso feat – beneath it GOUTIER,
So placed, that six more tiny words were hatched:
GO, NU, AT, SI, then (as you’ve seen, no doubt) HE, EP.
Grid games all operate on the principle of building up words on a predetermined grid. Some are intended for individual use, such as Word Search (a large letter grid i
n which words have to be found by moving from one square to the next, in any direction). Others are for several players, such as Lexicon, Kan-U-Go, and Boggle. In Scrabble – the most famous game of this type – points are assigned based upon how many letters are used; the rarer letters score higher points, and certain squares in the grid are more valuable than others. This game now has its own national and international championships, in which expert players display rare feats of lexical awareness to achieve high scores.
Gematria is a technique which substitutes numbers for letters, and compares the ‘values’ of words in order to provide insights into the meaning of life. The idea is very old. In the Middle Ages, there arose a Jewish (later a Christian) system of mystical practices based on an esoteric interpretation of Old Testament texts, known as the Kabbala (from Hebrew qabbalah ‘something received’). It was thought that language in general, and biblical language in particular, contained coded secrets about God and the world, based on the way the letters of the text were arranged, and the numerical values which could be assigned to them. In English, the twenty-six letters are valued 1 to 26, in order. On this basis, all kinds of curious and (some believe) significant correlations can be obtained. For example, it emerges that MAN and EDEN both score 28, BIBLE and HOLY WRIT are separated by 100, MOUNT SINAI and THE LAWS OF GOD both score 135, and JESUS, MESSIAH, SON GOD, CROSS and GOSPEL all score 74. And in the secular domain, several mystical totals can be obtained, which adherents claim demonstrate the truth of the approach:
NOT
+ SAME BOOK
+ LOAN KEEP
+ OFF KING
+ CHAIR GOOD
+ DEEDS ALL
+ VOTE
* * *
* * *
* * *
* * *
* * *
* * *
DIFFERENT LIBRARY GRASS THRONE SCOUT DEMOCRACY
As is evident from the examples, a certain amount of linguistic manipulating sometimes has to take place for the numbers to come out right. SON OF GOD would not work; nor would BOOKS + LOAN. There has to be some numerical manipulating too – totals are allowed to differ by certain amounts (for instance, if two words added up to 53 and 54 respectively, they would still be considered significant). And the cases where numbers coincide are far outnumbered by the cases where they don’t. None the less, such calculations can persuade people to allow their lives to be influenced by the hidden numbers. For example, in deciding whether to carry out a certain activity at a certain time, believers may look to see whether the numerical value of their name and that of the day or date correspond in any way. In such cases, the English word game is no longer being played for fun.
Code games
Children often spontaneously play with spoken English by turning ordinary words back-to-front or inside-out. Most of these games are based on the spelling. Even in the more complex cases, practitioners can teach themselves to talk at great speed. Records of some of the languages go back over 100 years. Some of the games are also heard in use among adults, especially in contexts where secrecy is required, such as in front of customers, or small children.
In back slang, words are spelled backwards, and then the new arrangement of letters is given a plausible pronunciation. It has been observed among soldiers, barrow-boys, shopkeepers, thieves, and public-school pupils. First World War examples include kew (week), neetrith (thirteen), tekram (market) and tenip (pint).
In what is sometimes called centre slang, the central vowel of a word, along with its following consonant, is placed at the beginning, and a nonsense syllable added, e.g. eekcher (cheek), hoolerfer (fool), ightri (right).
In eggy-peggy or aygo-paygo speech, an extra syllable is added, e.g. Pugut thagat begook dowgun (Put that book down). Similar games insert an extra vowel or consonant between each syllable: using f, for example, ‘Where are you going’ becomes Wheref arefyouf gofing.
In pig Latin, the first consonants are put at the end of the word, and ay or e added, e.g. Utpay atthay ookbay ownday. In a variant of this, last consonants are put at the beginning of the word, with extra sounds to aid the pronunciation, e.g. Teput tatha keboo nadaw.
In t-ing in i (talking in initials), certain words are replaced by their first letters. A case from a school in Texas showed examples such as Some p l-ed the m (Some people liked the movie), She’s a v p g (She’s a very pretty girl). Parents also sometimes use this form of abbreviation in front of their young children, such as It’s time for b (bed), and dog-owners often substitute such forms as w for walk. This genre of secret language is perhaps not too far away from the widespread use of initials in technical slang, e.g. the medical Very SOB (short of breath).
Sound Symbolism
It is a basic principle of language study that sounds don’t have a meaning. It doesn’t make sense to ask ‘What does p mean?’ or ‘What does e mean?’. On the other hand, we often encounter words where there does seem to be some kind of relationship between the sounds and what is going on in the real world. We link a particular kind of sound with a particular kind of meaning. When this happens, we talk about ‘sound symbolism’. When it happens in poetry, it goes under the heading of ‘onomatopoiea.’
Words with sound symbolism are very common in children’s literature – the names of story-book characters (Mr Pip, Mrs Snoozle), or the sound effects in comic strips (Pow! Zap! Screeeech!). A number of everyday words also use sounds that seem to have a common meaning. Single-syllable words ending in a short vowel + ck often convey a sense of ‘sudden movement or sound’: crack, click, cluck, flick, whack, prick, hack, peck, kick, nick, tick. Words ending in -le often imply smallness or slightness: bubble, trickle, rustle, needle, pebble, nibble, feeble, nimble, icicle, wiggle, tingle, pimple, little, beetle. Words with ee are also sometimes associated with smallness: wee, teeny, twee, peep, seed, peek. On the other hand, there are many exceptions to each of these categories (book, sock; castle, bustle; tree, beef).
The sl consonant cluster is perhaps the best-known candidate for sound symbolism in English. Words beginning with sl are said to convey unpleasant or negative associations: slimy, slob, slug, etc. How far is this true? A list of the main sl- words given in one dictionary is printed opposite (ignoring compounds and derived words, e.g. slow-coach, slowish). There are 41 words which have at least one sense with ‘negative’ associations, and 27 which have none (‘neutral’). There are even some with strongly positive associations (sleek). The situation, then, isn’t totally straightforward. However, it does seem that sl- words are twice as likely to have a negative rather than a positive ‘feel’ to them. And if the word appears towards the end of the list (slo– or later), the correlation is very strong indeed.
Sl- words in English
neg.
neut.
slab
+
slack
+
slag
+
slake
+
slalom
+
slam
+
slander
+
slang
+
slant
+
slap
+
slash
+
slat
+
slate (v.)
+
slate (n.)
+
slattern
+
slaughte
+
slave
+
slay
+
sleazy
+
sledge
+
sleek
+
sleep
+
sleet
+
sleeve
+
sleigh
+
slender
+
sleuth
+
slice
+
slick
+
slide
+
slight
+
slim
+
slime
+
sling
+
slink
+
slip
+
slipper
+
slit
+
slither
+
sliver
+
slob
+
slobber
+
sloe
+
slog
+
slogan
+
sloop
+
slop
+
slope
+
slosh
+
slot
+
sloth
+
slouch
+
slough
+
slovenly