AUTHORS' ANNEXE (English Language Discussions)

[keithgood838]

Hi everybody,
Upon dipping a tentative toe into the Forum literacy pool,
I am pleased to report a suitably favourable reaction.
So rather than let a scatter-post approach develop
it occurred to me that you may approve of a designated
discussion site. As an enthusiastic amateur I will welcome
questions on the subject of English secure in
the professional back-up of Jon (yes Jon?). I would also
expect my fellow-poet, Marian (among others) to be
a likely filly in the language stakes. Not forgetting fancied
outsider Paul jh, whose American English input
would be invaluable. Paul, I cannot remember who said:
'We are two peoples divided by a common language.'
I look forward to some Forum frolicking in English linguistics.

THE LANGUAGE OF LOVE

It is a permanent puzzle to me
that proficiency in literacy
is to so few accorded.
With humility my advice would be:
learn to love the luscious lady
and your ardour will be rewarded.

Keith

[keithgood838]

THE BUG GOING ROUND

Is it contagious or is it infectious
and how can you tell?
A contagion is conveyed by physical contact,
an infection by water or air.
When you join the stricken hordes of the unwell
you're indifferent to how you got there.

Keith


Note. The laughter bug may be contagious
or infectious - antidotal palliative care.

[keithgood838]

Hi folks,
I seem to be ploughing a lonely furrow here.

LOOPY LITERACY

An eggcorn appears in the literary field when some words
are mistaken for similar-sounding words or when someone
uses a wrong word in a well-known expression. The term
was coined by a group of linguists when one noticed the
use of "eggcorn" for acorn. It sounded similar and made
sense, an acorn is egg-shaped and a tree grows out of it:

'We will revisit this topic shortly, as it is the crutch of the matter.'
(Financial Sense magazine, December 2004)

'She's described in reports as a bowl in a china shop.'
(CNN.com, January 2002)

'When my dad and I go fishing, we use magnets.'
(My feisty four-year-old grandson, Jack.)

MONDEGREENS

The term, mondegreen, was coined by America author
Sylvia Wright. It was a mishearing of an old Scottish ballad,
'They have slain the Earl of Murray and laid him on the green.'
A well-known ecclesiastical one: 'Gladly, my cross-eyed bear.'

TOM SWIFTIES

A Tom Swifty is a kind of pun, a sentence followed by 'Tom said'.
'Elvis is dead,' Tom said expressly.
'Is that Timothy or Russell?' Tom asked timorously.

SPOONERISMS

The spoonerism is named after the Reverend William Archibald
Spooner, an oxford history professor renowned for transposing
letters or syllables in a phrase. To students: 'You have hissed
my mystery lecture.' 'You have tasted two worms.'

Keith

[keithgood838]

I hope I shall be forgiven for using the Forum to get my
distaste for the following terminological transgression
off my chest. I think we can safely lay the blame for its
perpetuation at the door of political correctness.

THE CHAIR

'Chair,' cries Councillor Stickler, 'on a point of order.'

'The chair recognises Councillor Stickler.'

'I propose that henceforth we refer to you as 'chairman'.
You are demonstrably of the male sex and 'chair' is such
a dehumanising term. Now I am not calling for your removal
because of any perceived woodenness in the performance
of your role. Nor, indeed, despite my alleged holier-than-thou
reputation, on the grounds of the recent unsavoury incident
involving your big-bosomed ex-secretary. However should you,
at some future time, be succeeded by a member of the gender
for whom you have such obvious affection, I further propose
we refer to her as 'chairwoman'. During the election process
we should refer to the need for a 'chairperson' to fill the vacancy.
You will all be aware that in some conservative (deliberate small c)
circles the lady in situ is, perversely, referred to as 'chairman'.
Therefore my purpose is to remove this Aintree-like
stumbling-block en route to congruent communication.

Have I got a seconder?'

Keith Good

[keithgood838]

AMUSING ADJECTIVES

Comic usually refers to deliberate drollery,
a la comic (it is also a noun) Ken Dodd:
'A laugh starts at the chuckle muscle in the "diagram",
rises up past the clack, then comes out through the titter valve.'

Comical relates mainly to unintended humour
exemplified by an anecdote told on Danny Baker's
Radio London show about a one-man band
who got into a dispute with a critic of his music,
which developed into fisticuffs. The watching users
of Victoria Station were transfixed by a stupefyingly
comical spectacle in which every aggressive move,
punch and kick launched by the busker was accompanied,
and emphasised, by a medley of drumbeats, cymbal-clashes,
and other discordant contributions to the cacophonous comedy.
All 'strikingly' at odds with his silent adversary.

Uproariously comical.

Keith

Note. Similar distinctions apply to the adjectives
economic and economical. Economic relates to the science
of economics, the performance of the national economy,
for example. Economical relates to thrift. Admitting he had lied,
a senior civil servant one famously (or infamously)
confessed to having been 'economical with the truth'.

[keithgood838]

FLY FISHING

In a problem sentence
that won't flow or make sense
and becomes an unproductive pain,
do not hesitate
attach different bait
and cast into the wordstream again.

SENSORY PERCEPTIONS

Sensuous is adjectivally innocuous;
a pleasuring of the senses without overtones
of lustfulness or physical excess.
Sensual is a carnal adjective:
as in sexual senses becoming more intense
with the divestment of each item of dress.

Keith

Aide memoire. Sensuous rhymes with innocuous;
sensual rhymes with carnal. Behave at the back, there!

[jon]

Hi Keith

Thanks for your entertaining and erudite contributions on the English language; keep them coming. You're right to point out that the words "contagious" and "infectious" are often confused and that people cannot distinguish between which means transmission of an illness by contact and which transmission by infection. I manage to work this out myself by linking "c" at the start of "contagious" with "c" at the start of "contact", rather like "c" in "stalactite" for "ceiling".

I wonder if you have ever heard of the poet William McGonagle, widely regarded as the worst poet ever in the English language (though he was himself Scottish), who was unable to scan correctly and was deaf to poetic metaphor? Despite his reputed awfulness as a poet, however, his work remains in print (he died in 1902) and he has enjoyed something of a posthumous success in being regarded as an example of a British failure/underdog who just kept trying and had a delusional sense of his own ability (perhaps like Del Boy from "Only Fools and Horses"?). One of his more well known poems was "The Tay Bridge Disaster" and gives a flavour of his poetic shortcomings:

"Beautiful railway bridge of the silvery Tay!
Alas! I am very sorry to say that ninety lives have been taken away
On the last Sabbath day of 1879
Which will be remembered for a very long time".

[keithgood838]

Hello Jon,
And a warm welcome to the Authors' Annexe. I trust other
members of this articulate Forum will follow. Yes I have heard of
dear William McGonagall; thanks for quoting some of his lines.
I think he added to the general merriment of literature, although
perhaps unintentionally. I may even have been guilty of some
McGonallesque constructions myself in the past.
I note with interest your reference to the stalactite/stalagmite
spelling dilemma and offer the following resolution thereof:

UPS & DOWNS

Siblings stalactite and stalagmite
cause confusion I have found,
so this little rhyme, to help get them right,
will be welcome I'll be bound:
stalactite (spelt c) grows down from the ceiling,
stalagmite (spelt g) up from the ground.

Keith

Alternative aide-memoire: ants in the pants;
mites up lead to tights down.


PS Jon, I'm sure your grasp of the language
is superior to mine, so I hope you will let me
pick your brain from time to time. It's never too
late to learn. Thanks, mate.

[paul jh]

Here, with the help of Wikipedia and google, is The New Colossus.


The New Colossus


Not like the brazen giant of Greek fame,

With conquering limbs astride from land to land;

Here at our sea-washed, sunset gates shall stand

A mighty woman with a torch, whose flame

Is the imprisoned lightning, and her name

Mother of Exiles. From her beacon-hand

Glows world-wide welcome; her mild eyes command

The air-bridged harbor that twin cities frame.

"Keep ancient lands, your storied pomp!" cries she

With silent lips. "Give me your tired, your poor,

Your huddled masses yearning to breathe free,

The wretched refuse of your teeming shore.

Send these, the homeless, tempest-tost to me,

I lift my lamp beside the golden door!"


Emma Lazarus, 1883

[keithgood838]

Hi Paul,
The Colossus refers to a statue of the Greek god, Apollo,
at the entrance to Rhodes harbour; I looked it up.
Having committed such magnificent lines to our Forum,
your stout American heart is surely beating a little
more proudly tonight. And with good reason.
Many, many thanks, Paul.
Keith

[mariana44]

I gueesed that there was a little more to it, than would fit on a fridge magnet--although it is a nice fridge magnet, with the silhouette of the "Statue of Liberty" against a sunset, with the words at the side of it.

I always find that fridge magnets make ideal holiday souvenirs--they are usually inexpensive---very easy to carry home---and once on the fridge door, they are visible every day , providing memories of special times.

I have lots of them.

[Marian]

We have too Marian. We usually buy one wherever we go on holiday, and they are a neat little reminder of wonderful times.
Marian

[keithgood838]

Hi again, Marian,
Following hard on the wings of Paul's soaring poetic
contribution, I love the way you and your namesake,
as though launching an intercepting land-to-air missile,
brought us all back down to Earth with a bump, via
a chat about fridge magnets. Bless you ladies.
In an effort to raise the tone once more I thought
the following poem about the quintessentially English
landscape might do the trick:

ADLESTROP

Yes. I remember Adlestrop -
The name, because one afternoon
Of heat the express-train drew up there
Unwontedly. It was late June.

The steam hissed. Someone cleared his throat.
No one left and no one came
On the bare platform. What I saw
Was Adlestrop - only the name

And willows, willow-herb, and grass,
And meadowsweet, and haycocks dry,
No whit less still and lonely fair
Than the high cloudlets in the sky.

And for that minute a blackbird sang
Close by, and around him, mistier,
Farther and farther, all the birds
Of Oxfordshire and Gloucestershire.

EDWARD THOMAS (1878-1917)


I think there is indefinable quality (real magic, like Matt Monro)
pervading this poem pronounced as though spelt with two Ds.
Marian, I assume the usual rules of copyright apply
to postings of contemporary works on this website.

Keith

[Marian]

We do tend to wander off the subjects a little Keith. I've just added a long missive on MRSA to the birthday club page!
Never mind, everyone understands us here, and it makes life more interesting.
Michele is very hot on the copyright laws, so yes please keep within the rules as we understand them.
Marian

[Marian]

I like your previous poem Keith. To keep us on this higher plane
here's one, author unknown, about the village where I live....

Mortimer West.
A road that to a stream descends
A meagre brook of everyday,
which no important part pretends
but wanders slowly on it's way,
And fields with sharply curving lines
and summits crowned by crested pines.

A village Church, a tiny shop,
A glimpse of roses red and pale,
An inn where travellers may stop
to drink a glass of foaming ale.
Below, the meadows green and bright
Above, the cloud drift soft and white.

Then evening comes, a crescent moon
hangs coldly glittering in the sky,
The cottage lights are seen and soon
across the dark the wood owls cry.
The little hills their vigil keep
And fir plantations round them sleep.

Marian