Delightful Obsolete Words It’s High Time We Revived

From Buzzfeed (probably not the most scientific site on the web, but this is a great article)
Callipygian and Resistentialism are my favourites!

1. GROAK

Meaning: To silently watch someone while they are eating, hoping to be invited to join them.

Origin: Unknown
As in: It’s hard to enjoy your meal when the guy opposite is groaking you the whole time.

2. HUGGER-MUGGER

Meaning: To act in a secretive manner.
Origin: 1530s
As in: I’m sick of all these sneaky types, creeping around and hugger-muggering the whole time.

3. CRAPULOUS

Meaning: To feel ill because of excessive eating/drinking.
Origin: 1530s
As in: Blerg. The morning after St. Patrick’s Day. I feel crapulous.

4. SNOWBROTH
Meaning: Freshly melted snow.
Origin: 1590s
As in: Yesterday we woke up to a perfect carpet of white, but now it’s just snowbroth. :-(
 

5. JARGOGLE Meaning: To confuse, bamboozle.
Origin: 1690s
As in: I don’t get string theory. It utterly jargogles my brain.

6. APRICITY
Meaning: The sun’s warmth on a cold winter’s day.
Origin: 1620s
As in: Even in darkest December you sometimes get a moment of beautiful apricity.

7. TWATTLE
Meaning: To gossip, or talk idly.
Origin: 1600s
As in: I wish you’d quit twattling and get on with your work.

8. GORGONIZE

Meaning: To have a paralyzing or mesmerizing effect on someone.
Origin: Early 17th century
As in: Don’t look into his eyes. He’s so charismatic, you’ll be gorgonized.

9. COCKALORUM
Meaning: A little man with a high opinion of himself.
Origin: 1710s
As in: He’s a boastful shortarse. Total cockalorum.

10. SNOUTFAIR
Meaning: A good-looking person.
Origin: 1500s
As in: Alison Brie? Total snoutfair.

11. JOLLUX
Meaning: Slang term for a fat person.
Origin: 1780s
As in: Time to go on a diet, I’m getting to be a right jollux.

12. CURGLAFF
Meaning: The shock one feels upon first plunging into cold water.
Origin: Scots, 1800s
As in: Those outdoor swimmers must have balls of steel to cope with that kind of curglaff.

13. BRABBLE
Meaning: To argue loudly about something inconsequential.
Origin: 1530s
As in: I can’t stand Question Time, it always descends into brabbling.

14. LUNTING
Meaning: Walking while smoking a pipe.
Origin: 1820s
As in: I’m off for a post-lunch lunt, anyone care to join me?

15. CALLIPYGIAN
Meaning: Having beautifully shaped buttocks.
Origin: 1640s
As in: I admire Beyoncé for her musical talent. The fact she is highly callipygian is neither here nor there.

16. RESISTENTIALISM
Meaning: The seemingly malevolent behaviour displayed by inanimate objects.
Origin: 1940s
As in: That water bottle looks like it wants to kill me. It exhibits resistentialism.

17. CURMURING
Meaning: A low rumbling sound produced by the bowels.
Origin: 1880s
As in: Nothing worse than audibly curmuring during a job interview.

"Languages are like towns: they must grow organically and for good reason. Esperanto is like a new town, Telfor or Milton Keynes; it has linguistically speaking, ample walkways, spacious parking, rational traffic flow and all the modern amenities: but there are no historic sides, no great towering landmarks: there is no feeling that mankind has grown and lived and worked here, shaping the architecture according to neccessity, power or worship.

The English language, however, is like York or Chester or Norwich or London - absurd narrow twisting streets that strangers are so lost in, no parking, no velodrome: but there are churches, castles, custom houses, the remnants of old slums, and old palaces. Our past is there. But not just our past, these cities are not museums, they contain the present too: estates, office blocks, contraflow cycle paths. They are living things, towns and languages."

- Stephen Fry, 'Trefusius Is Unwell', Paperweight

Dunkel war's, der Mond schien helle

My dad recently reminded me of this poem, which I used to love when I was a kid. Unfortunately, there's no real English translation, so I will probably try to translate it - but be warned; it won't be half as good in English as it is in German, because this poem lives through its paradoxes, some of which are really hard to translate into English (especially if I attempt to keep the rhythm of it, which I'm not sure I will - let me direct you to this post about the problems of translating).
The author of the poem is unknown, and one great thing about it is that it has evolved throughout time. The earliest known version is from the 19th century (according to wikipedia) and since then, stanzas have been added or words changed (for example Wagen (coach) is now sometimes Auto (car)). Nowadays there are versions with sixteen stanzas! However, I will only post the first four stanzas, as they are the ones that are normally kept fairly the same, probably because this is the 'most famous' version as children's author James Krüss used it in the 1960s I believe. So, until I have completed the translation (if I ever will), here's the German one for those of you able to understand it:

Dunkel war’s, der Mond schien helle,
schneebedeckt die grüne Flur,
als ein Wagen blitzeschnelle,
langsam um die Ecke fuhr.

Drinnen saßen stehend Leute,
schweigend ins Gespräch vertieft,
Als ein totgeschoss’ner Hase
Auf der Sandbank Schlittschuh lief.

Und ein blondgelockter Jüngling
mit kohlrabenschwarzem Haar
saß auf einer grünen Kiste,
die rot angestrichen war.

Neben ihm ’ne alte Schrulle,
zählte kaum erst sechzehn Jahr,
in der Hand ’ne Butterstulle,
die mit Schmalz bestrichen war.

18 Weird German Words You Won’t Believe Exist

...unless you're German, of course. Taken from this article. I must say, there are a few words I've never heard of or used, so I'm only posting the ones I know and use. In cases like this, being fluent in two languages really is a lot of fun!

1. Ohrwurm (Ear worm)

Have you ever listened to a song on the radio while driving to work only to find yourself still humming the same tune by lunch time? Congratulations, you’ve had an ear worm. The beautiful German word Ohrwurm describes the fact of having a song stuck in your head as if it wriggled itself into your brain through your ear.

2. Fernweh (Distance pain)

This gem describes the feeling of wanting to be somewhere else. It’s kind of like a reverse homesickness (Heimweh in German), a longing for a place that isn’t where you are right now. Fernweh is also a frequent reason for people in Germany to go on holiday.

3. Kummerspeck (Grief bacon)

When a relationship ends or during other times of sadness, anger, or worry, it’s common to put on a few pounds of Kummerspeck. What it means is the excess weight put on by emotional overeating. So when you find yourself on the couch watching ”Bridget Jones’ Diary” with a tub of ice cream, you are in fact feeding your grief bacon.

4. Innerer Schweinehund (Inner pig dog)

Can’t get up in the morning to be on time for work? Too lazy to go to the gym? Homework remains undone until the last minute? Don’t worry, it’s not your fault. The blame lies with your inner pig dog. That’s the tiny voice in the back of your head which is trying to convince you to live a life of inertia and which you will have to overcome to rid yourself of Kummerspeck.

5. Fremdschämen (Exterior shame)

For those of you who cringe in phantom pain when others make a fool of themselves, this is your word. It describes the feeling of shame when seeing someone else in an uncomfortable or embarrassing situation. It’s a real thing for the more empathetic folk and has kept more than one person from watching “the Office.” the translation isn't quite accurate, as 'Fremd' means strange, alien, unpersonal, but you get the idea

6. Lebensmüde (Life tired)

This word literally means being tired of life and was used to describe the dramatic and soul-crushing emotional agony of young Romantic poets (see also Weltschmerz and Weichei). Nowadays lebensmüde is what you call your friends when they are attempting something especially stupid and possibly life threatening. Most people in fail videos on YouTube suffer from latent Lebensmüdigkeit.

7. Weltschmerz (World pain)

The world isn’t perfect. More often than not it fails to live up to what we wish it was. Weltschmerz describes the pain we feel at this discrepancy. It can be one of the main drivers for Kummerspeck.

8. Weichei (Soft egg)

No, Weichei isn’t what you order in the hotel when you want a three-minute egg for breakfast. In fact the waiter might look at you slightly disconcerted for accusing him of being a wuss. A soft egg, in German, means someone who is weak and cowardly. The same is also conveyed by calling someone Würstchen, the diminutive of sausage. Apparently Germans like to name wimps after foodstuffs.

9. Erklärungsnot (Explanation poverty)

Erklärungsnot is a state shared by cheating spouses, lying politicians, and school children without their homework alike. It’s what you find yourself in when put on the spot without a sufficient explanation or excuse for something you have done or failed to do. Most often used in the form of in Erklärungsnot geraten or in Erklärungsnot sein. 'Not' is more like 'need' or even 'crisis/emergency', but again, you get the gist

10. Sitzfleisch (Sit or seat meat)

As much as it sounds like it, Sitzfleisch isn’t a recipe of German Hausfrauen that involves tenderizing meat by placing it under your buttocks. Instead, it describes a character trait. Those who possess a lot of seat meat are able to sit through and weather something incredibly hard or boring. It’s like carrying your own personal cushion around with you. 

11. Purzelbaum (Tumble tree)

This tree is so common in Germany that every child knows it. However, if you are about to take out your big German botanical dictionary, let me stop you right there. Fespite the name, a Purzelbaum isn’t part of the kingdom of plants. Instead, it describes a somersault on the ground, a favorite way of children to get their clothes dirty.

12. Dreikäsehoch (Three cheeses high)

This sounds like it would make a great name for a pizza. However, what it describes is a person who is vertically challenged, implying they’re only as tall as three wheels of cheese placed on top of each other. Usually this label is reserved for small children, together with Zwerg or Pimpf.

13. Zungenbrecher (Tongue breaker)

While it sounds like a medieval torture instrument, the nature of the Zungenbrecher is much less gruesome. It is the German equivalent of tongue twister, a phrase that’s very hard to pronounce even for native speakers due to its sequence of letters. A very common one in German is Blaukraut bleibt Blaukraut und Brautkleid bleibt Brautkleid. Yeah, practice that for a while and say it 10 times fast. I still can't do it very fast, and not even close to 10 times

14. Kuddelmuddel (???)

I know, great final word right? Don’t even start guessing its English meaning. Kuddelmuddel describes an unstructured mess, chaos, or hodgepodge. Alternatives which are equally awesome include Tohuwabohu, Wirrwarr, Mischmasch, and Kladderadatsch. I know, some of these just sound too far-fetched to be true. Well, they are far-fetched – gathered in the distant land of Germany. If you’re still convinced I’m making up words, go ahead and look them up in the dictionary! They really do exist & I use all of them

"Obsolete Word of the Day" Blog

Just found this blog, seems worth checking out if you're interested in unusual words!

"bumwhush" is something that I need to use soon!

So many ways to die....

Nice article in the Guardian about the many expressions and euphemism we have for death / dying. I also recommend reading the comments, some nice & interesting things in there - one thing I learned was that 'dying' apparently used to be an euphemism for having an orgasm in Elizabethan times.

The danger of words

Here's -once again- Stephen Fry, talking a bit about the power of language in Nazi Germany. This is a point I find extremely interesting and disturbing - not just because I'm German, simply because I've always been aware and intrigued by the 'darker' side of language and literature, by how words can destroy or manipulate thought (see my thoughts on Orwell's Newspeak). Language can literally do everything - even lead whole nations into commiting genocide. And (although German is particularly suited for slogans and the like - a lot of harsh consonants etc) it can happen to all of us. You can talk someone into commiting suicide - or stop him from killing himself. It all depends on the words you use. And often enough, they're still beautiful words. Beautiful and powerful - and potentially very, very dangerous.

"Sticks and stones may break my bones, but words will make me go in a conrner and cry by myself for hours"

Eric Idle

"Her mouth had the coldly forbidding look of the closed door of a subway express when you have just missed the train"

- P.G. Wodehouse

The Man Who Was Thursday

I must admit I probably would never have come across G.K. Chesterton's book if it hadn't been for the Summer School. But I'm extremely grateful that I did, because it's a fantastic book! I just read it for the 3rd time and still can't get over the brilliant surrealism. It's one of these books you can immediately imagine as a film - in my case I can see it as one of those 1960s technicolour films, but mixed with a little bit Tim Burton. Yep, it's that surreal. Maybe I should outline the plot before I go on, so that those of you who haven't read it can get at least a rough idea:

The era the story is set in isn't explicitly mentioned, but I would say it's around the Edwardian time, so early 20th century. The undercover policeman Gabriel Syme belongs to a special anti-anarchist unit of Scotland Yard. He meets the anarchistic poet Lucian Gregory and manages to infiltrate a branch of the anarchist society (which ironically only acts according to very strict and specific rules) and even to become elected as a new member of the anarchist council, which consists of the seven most powerful anarchists. They are all named after days of the week, with Sunday being the supreme leader and initiator of terrorist attacks. Syme becomes Thursday and goes to meet the council. Then a lot of things happen which I don't want to give away in case you want to read the book, but let me tell you this: Nothing is as it seems.

I knew I would like the book after I had read the first two sentences. I know, that sounds exaggerated, but let me just quote these sentences to you:

"The suburb of Saffron Park lay on the sunset side of London, as red and ragged as a cloud of sunset. It was built of a bright brick throughout; its skyline was fantastic, and even its ground plan was wild."

 I think I read those sentences three or four times before I proceeded to the next, because they're just so wonderful, bursting with alliterations, and have a great rhythm to them.
But the language is not the only great thing about this novel, mainly it's the characters, especially the seven council members. They are all too exaggerated to seem realistic, and yet you don't really question them, because the whole atmosphere of the book is rather dream-like, which always makes me think of a German play I read in school once, Kleist's The Prince of Homburg. It is also important to note that the subtitle of Chesterton's book is 'A Nightmare', which I think is spot on. The whole story really reads like a nightmare - but that doesn't mean it's not funny. It is, very very funny in fact. The humour too is mostly very surreal and at times quite pythonesque, for example in the chase scene (involving an elephant) where Sunday throws little notes out of the window of his carriage, or when Syme and the Professor invent a finger-tapping language to have secret conversations and start tapping out the most ridiculous long sentences.

There's a lot of debate going on about whether Chesterton was trying to convey a deeper meaning (one cannot deny that Sunday is portrayed very much like Christ or God), or whether he just wanted to write a cool, funny, weird book (which he certainly did). In the preface to his book, a poem to his childhood friend Edmund Clerihew Bentley (who invented the clerihew), Chesterton says, speaking about their childhood experiences together:

"This is a tale of those old fears, even of those emptied hells/  And none but you shall understand the true thing that it tells - / Of what colossal gods of shame could cow men yet crash, / Of what huge devils hid the stars, yet fell at a pistol flash. / The doubts that were so plain to chase, so dreadful to withstand - / Oh, who shall understand but you: yea, who shall understand?"

So maybe we're not supposed to understand what this book is really about - but if you ask me, that makes it even more intriguing. Everytime I read it or think about it, there's something new to discover or to interpret differently. But at the end of the day, despite all those different interpretations and theories about it, it's just a marvellous book. And that is good enough for me.

I don't know how many times I have watched this sketch now, I have stopped counting. I can speak along to it, yet it never fails to delight me a lot. THIS is what language is for! Being creative with it, taking it to the most absurd places you could think of. And no-one can do that quite as well as, yes, you've guessed it, Stephen Fry. I think it's the fact you can hear the delight he takes in language, forming sentences etc that make it so wonderful to me. I think I might just watch it again now. And then I will start that piece about language and comedy I've been meaning to write for such a long time.

Swearing III

Soooo, I know it's been a long time since my last post, but I had quite a busy time (moving back to Germany and sulking about it). But now I'm back with the promised next part about swearing (here part one and two). Again, a lot of the 'expert's opinion' stuff is taken from Fry's Planet Word. This post will be a bit more about the psychology of swearing and less about the linguistic side. Still, I hope you enjoy it! (again warning: strong language used)

Well, swearwords are universally used. But the question is, what makes a word offensive? Apparently (well, quite obviously) those words are all taken from the semantic field of bodily fluids / disfunctions, intimate actions or body parts. Steven Pinker, the famous linguist and cognitive scientist states the rather obvious when he says that the areas we get our swearwords from are often connected with negative feelings such as jealousy, disgust, fear or repulsion. According to him, sexuality and sex give way to some especially strong and offensive swearwords, because we tend to connect them with derogation (e.g. rape. incest, exploitation) rather than pleasure. However, he also points out that our Western society is getting more relaxed about swearwords related to sex, while swearing connected with race is still a big taboo. But that would go more into abuse, and that's not what I want to write about. Swearing is something entirely different.

Swearwords get most of their power from reaction. We are taught from a very young age that certain words are offensive and not socially acceptable, even though we might not understand why exactly when we're young. But the first time we say a swearword in front of our parents for example, we get a very strong emotional response (and usually not a very nice one), so subconsciously we link the offensive word to strong emotions. Let me relate a little personal story here: When I was very young (around 8 I think), my cousin who is 3 years older than me taught me the phrase 'fuck you' (well, in German of course, which is fick dich). I had no idea what it meant - and to be honest, I think neither did my cousin - but we had great fun experimenting with that phrase, finding different things people could fuck, at one point shouting 'fuck your bike' after a girl. As I said, I had no idea. Later that day my cousin and I were in my room, still having fun with that versatile phrase, when my mum came in. I got up, ran over to her and gleefully told her to go fuck herself.
She reacted wonderfully, though. She took me aside and calmly explained to me what the phrase meant and why I must not say it to people. I felt very grown-up and serious about it. My cousin got a right shitstorm later.

Why do we swear, though? What was the motivation behind the first swearing? Well, one answer is that we use swearing to channel aggression. We swear at people instead of hitting or biting them like animals do. So swearing actually gives us an evolutionary advantage, if you want to look at it that way. If we would hit or bite someone every time we're angry with them, we probably wouldn't go very far. But there's another, very interesting point: Swearing also seems to be linked to feeling pain. In his documentary, Stephen Fry and Brian Blessed took part in an experiment to prove exactly this: Each of them had to put one hand into a tank of ice cold water. The first time round they weren't allowed to swear at all, but the second time they were allowed to use a swearword. Amazingly, the swearing helped against the pain and Fry managed to keep his hand in nearly twice as long as before. The professor conducting the experiment (I forgot his name) explained it thusly: When we swear aloud, we shock ourselves and the released adrenalin numbs the pain. As Brian Blessed is well-known for swearing a lot, the effect didn't set in with him, because he was so used to swearing it lost its shocking effect for him.

I think it is not just the shock effect that makes swearwords so strong, it's also their sound. They are mostly rather short, and sound very harsh. 'Fuck' has that great 'ffff' sound and the hard consonant ending after a short vowel. 'Cunt' is even harsher, with a hard consonant at the beginning and at the end. That would explain why we find 'shit' more effective than 'poo' - the latter just sounds too nice with its long open vowel ending, it doesn't sound as disgusting. Plus, those words - especially fuck - are extremely versatile.

And at the end a small link between swearing and comedy, again: Adding a swearword into a sentence - called jab-line - makes the line funnier, because it surprises the audience. And you can create such wonderful sentences with them.

Franz Kafka's It's A Wonderful Life

"As Gregor Samsa awoke one morning from uneasy dreams he found himself transformed in his bed into a.... WHAT?"

Ever wondered how Franz Kafka came to write his famous Metamorphosis? This really, really brilliant short film follows his struggles to come up with a good idea for his new story. It's dark, odd and funny. Richard E. Grant is brilliant as Kafka and the film was written & directed by no other than Peter Capaldi, who by the way won an Oscar for it in 1995.
Not historically accurate, but a great piece of work!

 

This sketch made me learn the poem by heart & introduced me to Wordsworth.

The Language of Comedy (Swearing & The Thick Of It extended)

Peter Capaldi says it as it is

The Art of Swearing & The Thick Of It

WARNING: This post will contain strong language. Just so you know.

In an earlier post here, I mentioned the beauty of swearwords and said that the two people I love hearing swearing most are Terry Hall and Stephen Fry. Let me correct that: It's actually Peter Capaldi as Malcolm Tucker in Armando Ianucci's brilliant The Thick Of It (and the spin-off film In The Loop). The characters in this series are constantly swearing, employing rude similes and extremely visual metaphors – but no-one more so than Malcolm Tucker, the undisputed star of the show. I think it helps that Peter Capaldi is Scottish, it just makes it sound even better (same goes for his side kick Jamie aka 'the crossest man in Scotland').
I must say I only recently got into the series, because I always thought it's one of those programmes that use insults and foul language to get cheap laughs – how wrong I was! I began to be more interested in it when it was mentioned on Fry's Planet Word (and you should know me by know – if Stephen Fry approves, it's worth checking out!). When I learned that the shows has its own swearing consultant (how cool is that?!) and actually contributed a new word to the dictionary, I thought it would be worth giving it a try. Of course there is a lot (and I mean a lot) of swearing, especially the wonderfully versatile fuck, but it's not just mindless abuse – it's actually art! The language is extremely creative, incredibly well-paced and some of the similes and metaphors or nicknames are simply hilarious! It's not just the swearing though, there sometimes are dialogues that are brilliant on their own, completely without swearing – but the foul language just adds that extra bit of brilliance.
I do hesistate to put a youtube compilation on here, because some of the figures of speech lose their impact when taken out of context and put together into an endless stream of abuse and fucks. However, clickhere for some very creative examples (all Malcolm Tucker, though the other characters have great lines too, he usually gets the best ones). And one that works all the time, Tucker's Law:

Just listen to the rhythm of that, just stunning! It all comes together, the two most powerful swearwords (more on those in my next post), a great pace and rhythm and a gorgeous Scottish accent! 
Though sometimes, the build up is very important, just to let that little bomb explode skillfully at the end:

These are only a few examples, they're even funnier in the context of the show & when you hear the delivery.
So if you're okay with swearing, I do implore you: Go and watch it!


I'll be analysing the beauty of swearing more closely in my next post.
Until then,
Fuckety- bye

Wordplay

There are many ways in which you can manipulate words and play with them, some more elaborate and/ or complicated than others. Some are simply ingenious. Here are some of my favourites:


Lipogram
means writing a sentence or paragraph but omitting one letter or a group of letters of the alphabet. The most challenging here is of course trying to omit vowels, especially E, which is the most common letter in the English language. There is a variation to this called pangrammatic lipogram, where you have to use every letter of the alphabet except one. Example: The quick brown fox jumped over the lazy dog (includes all letters except S)
other examples:
Walter Abish's Alphabetical Africa – this one is amazing. The first chapter consists solely of words beginning with A. The second chapter also allows words beginning with B and so on, until in the 26^th chapter all words are permitted. In the next 26 chapters he reverses the process.


Gyles Brandreth – he has rewritten some of Shakespeare's works as lipograms! E.g. Hamlet without the letter I ('To be or not to be, that's the query')


Clerihew

after Edmund Clerihew Bentley, a four-line, sort-of biographical poem. It normally pokes fun at famous people, but without resorting to satire or abuse. The four lines of the poem are irregular in metre and length, the rhyme structure is AABB, the rhymes often forced. The first line of the poem always contains, and often consists solely of, the subject's name.

One of Bentley's best known clerihews is this:

“Sir Christopher Wren

Said, 'I am going to dine with some men.

If anyone calls

Say I am designing St. Paul's.'“

  but I also love this one, not by him:

"Did Descartes
Depart
With the thought
'Therefore I'm not'?"

 Palindrome 
the good old palindrome, a word / phrase/ sentence that reads the same forward and backward. Finding a single word palindrome is rather easy (e.g. noon, madam), but whole sentences that make at least some sense are much harder – well-known examples are 'Dammit, I'm mad' (a whole poem by Demetri Martin) , 'Step on no pets' (the second one even uses correct spacing) or ''Madam, I'm Adam'. The longest palindrome according to the Oxford English Dictionary is the onomatopoeic 'tattarrattat' which first appeared in James Joyce's Ulysses. There are also two whole palindromic novels (!): Satire: Veritas by David Stephens and Dr Awkward & Olson in Oslo by Lawrence Levine (no, I have not read them). 

Spoonerism can be deliberate or merely a slip of the tongue; it means swapping consonants, vowels or morphemes between two words, e.g. a 'smart fellow' becomes a 'fart smeller' (yes, hilarious example, I know) 

Anagram a classic. It means reassembling the letters in a word or phrase to construct a new one. Some great examples, found in Bill Bryson's Mother Tongue: 
 Mother In Law – Woman Hitler 
William Shakespeare – I am a weakish speller
 Funeral – real fun 

And here a brilliant Monty Python sketch that includes anagrams and spoonerism. I read somewhere that Eric Idle can actually speak in anagrams and backwards, which is pretty cool. They also performed this sketch when I went to see them at the O2 a few days ago (yes! Be jealous!)

quote of the day

"My reputation swept back home in drag"

 - 'The Width Of A Circle' by David Bowie (from The Man Who Sold The World)

Jane Austen House in Bath

I forgot to mention I went there a few weeks ago. Austen lived in Bath for about five years, not exactly in the house the exhibition is in, but in a very similar one a bit up the road. I can recommend it to people who don't know a lot about her biographical background. If you already do, there won't be much in it for you, as there is only a very basic introductory talk, about 10-15 minutes, which sort of outlines the major events in her life and focusses of course on the Bath years. After that you can walk around the house and read stuff about life and society in Regency Bath and a few details about Austen's life, with quotations from her letters, or have your photo taken wearing Regency costumes. The talk only deals with the books, but the last room of the exhibition is dedicated to the many film adaptations of Austen's novels and even features a letter from Emma Thompson, who sent a copy of her Golden Globe acceptance speech, which she delivered Jane Austen style.

So it is definitely worth checking out if you are new to Jane Austen, or have read her books but want to find out a bit more about the historical and biographical background. They've also got a lovely tea room upstairs, and if you're a student you can get in a bit cheaper.

Watch Emma Thompson's infamous acceptance speech:

Translations II

A few weeks ago I wrote a small piece on translations and the potential problems and / or shortcomings of translating prose or verse into another language. I found an extract that basically makes the same point but more elaborately and with a nice concrete example. It is rom G.K. Chesterton's book on Thomas Aquinas, chapter VI (The Approach To Thomism). He is talking about how St Thomas describes his basic and universal philosophic idea (it would be too complicated to go into that here, and I have to say I'm not sufficiently informed anyway) with the Latin word Ens:

“...anybody who can read Latin at all, however rudely, feels it to be the apt and fitting word (…) it ought to be a matter of logic (to understand St Thomas' concept); but it is also a matter of language.

Unfortunately there is no satisfying translation of the word Ens. The difficulty is rather verbal than logical, but it is practical. I mean that when the translator says in English 'being', we are aware of a rather different atmosphere. Atmosphere ought not to affect these absolutes of the intellect; but it does. The new psychologists, who are almost eagerly at war with reason, never tire of telling us that the very terms we use are coloured by our subconsciousness, with something we meant to exclude from our consciousness. And one need not be so idealistically irrational as a modern psychologist, in order to admit that the very shape and sound of words do make a difference, even in the baldest prose, as they do in the most beautiful poetry. We cannot prevent the imagination from remembering irrelevant associations even in the abstract sciences like mathematics (…) Now it unfortunately happens that the word 'being', as it comes to a modern Englishman, through modern associations, has a sort of hazy atmosphere that is not in the short and sharp Latin word. Perhaps it reminds him of fantastic professors in fiction, who wave their hands and say, 'Thus we mount to the ineffable heights of pure and radiant Being', or, worse still, of actual professors in real life who say, 'All Being is Becoming; and is but the evolution of Not-Being by the law of its Being' (…) Anyhow it has a wild and woolly sort of sound; as if only very vague people used it; as if it might mean all sorts of different things.

Now the Latin word Ens has a sound like the English word End. It is final and even abrupt; it is nothing except itself...“

Not everything in that passage is directly concerned with the problem of translation, but I left most of it in, because Chesterton's style is too nice to be interrupted. I have underlined what I think is the central point he is making here, and it sort of adds to the point I was making in the other post. Translating can cause problems on several levels: The sound and rhythm, but also the meaning, especially through associations as Chesterton notes. In my post, I focussed more on the form, the beauty that can get lost, but I also mentioned how translation can change the meaning of ideas or concepts, like Chesterton shows here with the Ens-Being example. And on a side note, I do agree with him that those two words do seem to describe completely different concepts, only by their sound.

Cambridge Summer School

It's been a while since I have posted anything on here, and I do apologize for that, but I have spent the past weeks reading frantically, as a preparation for the Cambridge Summer School I'm currently attending. Miraculously, I have now found a little time which is not dedicated to lectures or reading, and as the weather is not particularly nice, I now find myself sat in the beautiful library of Gonville and Caius College, updating this blog.

So far, it has been absolutely fantastic and I have found new interests in fields of fiction I hadn't really thought about before, or had thought I didn't like. I just had a lecture on mercy & forgiveness in Victorian fiction by Dr Jan-Melissa Schramm, which made me see Victorian authors like Dickens in a completely new way. I must confess I don't really like Dickens, but now I think I might come back to him and maybe be able to appreciate him more. The gist of the lecture was that Victorian authors like Dickens or Gaskell were of the opinion that reading (the Bible, of course, but also increasingly fiction (which in my eyes the Bible is anyway, but you know...)) enables us to enlarge our capacity for compassion and to take on different perspectives. Dickens and Gaskell both made their readers sympathise with characters who had done wrong and both wrote very strongly about the importance of mercy and forgiveness. This was especially due to the historical context: The Fair Trial Act in 1890 was just one sign of the increasing want for more humane punishment for criminals; but the Industrial Revolution as well as growing poverty also caused social unrest, which as Dr Schramm argues had Britain on the brink of a civil war by the end of the 19th century. She suggests that Dickens and Gaskell promoted the concept of forgiveness to aid reconsiliation.
This is of course only a very rough version of what she said, and I'm not sure I agree with her on everything - one thing that came up during the questions afterwards was Dickens' 'hypocrisy' of often killing a character (e.g. lady Dedlock in Bleak House) that he spent so much time making his readers sympathise with. One could argue that he felt the need to ultimately punish her anyway, or maybe he just thought it would make people sympathise with her more; but the lecture certainly gave me a new angle on his work.

My other, regular lectures are on G.K. Chesterton and Jane Austen's Pride And Prejudice and Mansfield Park. I have to confess that I only took Chesterton because everything else was booked, and I had never even heard of him before. My preparatory reading included some of his Father Brown stories, some of his essays, some og his poems and his novel The Man Who Was Thursday.
Now, initially I wasn't very keen on him. I (still) don't really like the Father Brown stories (even though the lectures have made me appreciate them a little more) and when I read that he was an active Roman catholic, I almost gave up on him. Silly me! His essays are really very good (he produced something over 4000 of them in his lifetime! Plus short stories, poems, books... they are not only very witty but they do make very valid points. One I particularly like is The Travellers In State (this site has a lot of his essays, just read a few!). One thing that really shines through in all of them is Chesterton's craftsmanship, his joy in assembling sentences, of rich and especially playful language, that makes me think of Stephen Fry (yes, there he is again! No post would be complete without a little Fry). Chesterton himself described his essay-writing style thus:

There are essays 'that are really themes and themes that are really theses': 'They represent what may be called the Extreme Right of rigid right reason and militant purpose, after the Latin model.'Chesterton preferred those 'very English' essays that are 'none the less beautiful because they twist and ramble like an English road.'

His style really often is like an English Road, beautifully paced - as indeed is his poem The Rolling English Road. His use of humor as well as seriousness (not solemnity!) to tackle quite serious and abstract topics works very well, because these two contrast in a way that makes his message much more striking and often catches the reader off guard and makes him/her think again. Similarly to George Orwell (although they couldn't be further apart in everything else), he also uses everyday examples to explain abstract concepts. People often debate whether his work is just to be enjoyed, or whether there is a deeper meaning to it. Personally, I do think he makes quite a lot of often very profound points, but  I do also think that stuff like The Shop Of Ghosts is just there to be enjoyed. In any case, his essays make great reading, and they're not very long.

I will go on to The Man Who Was Thursday, but right now I have to go to my next lecture - Chesterton, incidentally. Until then, farewell!

Where did Dorian Gray buy all his clothes?

..... at Forever 21



I am so sorry.

" Language is a whore, a mistress, a wife, a pen- friend, a check-out girl, a complimentary moist lemon-scented cleansing square or handy freshen- up wipette. Language is the breath of God, the dew on a fresh apple, it's the soft rain of dust that falls into a shaft of morning sun when you pull from an old bookshelf a forgotten volume of erotic diaries; language is the faint scent of urine on a pair of boxer shorts, it's a half-remembered childhood birthday party, a creak on the stair, a spluttering match held to a frosted pane, the warm wet, trusting touch of a leaking nappy, the hulk of a charred Panzer, the underside of a granite boulder, the first downy growth on the upper lip of a Mediterranean girl, cobwebs long since overrun by an old Wellington boot."

Stephen Fry, 'A Bit Of Fry And Laurie'

John Keats- Ode to a Nightingale

I have listened to this so many times I know most of it of by heart now. Beautiful poem beautifully read. That's how it should be.

18 ways to say 'awesome'

It's a nice word, but I'm a bit tired of hearing everything around me that is excellent, or even just remotely pleasant described with 'awesome'.
Luckily, the Oxford English Dictionary has searched its Historical Theosaurus and has come up with 18 new (well, old rather) ways to express something's brilliance:

thriven and thro

Thriven here appears to derive from the sense meaning ‘advanced in growth’, but thro is not found as a commendation elsewhere – instead it was used in the 14^th, 15^th, and 16^th centuries to mean ‘stubborn’. Together, as ‘thriven and thro’, they were an epithet used in alliterative poetry to call someone excellent – dating to c.1325, according to Oxford English Dictionary (OED) findings.

gradely

Although the earliest known sense of gradely probably referred to people and meant ‘ready’ or ‘prompt’, by 1400 the word could be used to refer to objects – to label them (as with all the words in this list) awesome. You might not be understood if you said this in London or Cornwall, but it’s still in use in the north of England.

eximious

Eximious comes from Latin eximius, meaning ‘select, choice, outstanding, exceptional’ – closely related to exempt – and was common in 17^th-century literature as a way of describing someone distinguished. Examples from 19^th-century literature are usually intended to be humorously bombastic, and that’s probably the way you’d be interpreted today.

jelly

Appearing surprisingly early – around 1560, according to current research – jelly may be related in some way to jolly, although the phonetic change has no parallel. The use is also a little different – describing someone excellent, but with a high opinion of themselves. There is even an adverbial derivative: jellily.

topgallant

Originally a nautical noun, relating to the head of the topmast, the adjective later developed from this literal sense to a figurative one, to designate anything lofty or grand.

prestantious

From the Latin praestāntia, meaning ‘excellence’, this adjective has the distinction of being both rare and obsolete – with only one instance recorded in the OED, from Tobias Whitaker’s 1638 The Blood of the Grape.

gallows

The earliest sense of the adjective gallows means simply ‘fit for the gallows’ – that is, deserving to be hanged. In the same way that wicked and bloody have come to mean their reverse, gallows became a slang adjective meaning ‘excellent ’, first found in 1789. An instance of gallows humour, if you will. The word is still very common in Scotland (in the form ‘gallus’).

budgeree

This Australian colloquialism dates back to the 18^th century, and derives from an Aboriginal language – as does the more familiar word budgerigar, literally ‘good (budgeri) cockatoo (gar)’ .

supernacular

Particularly used to describe drinks, supernacular is the adjective equivalent of the slang noun supernaculum, meaning  ‘a drink to be consumed to the last drop’. A jokey pseudo-Latin learned coinage based on the German expression auf den Nagel (literally ‘on to the nail’; found in the phrase auf den Nagel trinken: to drink to the last drop).

jam / jam-up

From the adverb jam or jam-up (meaning ‘closely, in close contact ’) developed the adjectival meaning ‘excellent, perfect, thorough’, in (originally American) colloquial use. One could thus, conceivably, jam up jam-up jam, if you were stacking shelves of awesome strawberry preserve.

boss

The adjective boss, meaning ‘excellent, masterly’ (essentially in the manner of a boss) developed earlier than one might imagine from attributive use of the noun in collocation with occupational titles, e.g. ‘boss shoemaker’, ‘boss carpenter’, etc. (for ‘master shoemaker’, ‘master carpenter’, etc.) — the first truly adjectival use recorded in the OED is from 1881: ‘No country in the world could make such a boss-show as the United States.’

fizzing

Many verbs with specific senses have come to have a broader adjectival slang sense of ‘excellent’ – such as ripping, topping, and rattling. Fizzing is another example, often used quasi-adverbially.

bad

Bad can, of course, be the antonym of awesome, but its slang use to mean ‘good’ is well-known – popularized by the 1987 Michael Jackson song ‘Bad’. However, this sense of the word can be found rather earlier than you might expect – at present, the OED’s first citation is from George Ade’s 1897 Pink Marsh: “She sutny fix up a pohk chop ‘at’s bad to eat.”

deevy

Deevy is an affected alteration of divvy, which is (in turn) a slang abbreviation  of divine. Early uses cited in OED include examples from the works of  Elinor Glyn (in her 1900 novel Visits of Elizabeth), Vita Sackville West, and E.F. Benson (who also uses the adverb deevily).

v.g.

V.g. – as an initialism for ‘very good’ – may well not be new to you, but you might be surprised to find that it’s been part of the English language since at least as far back as the 1860s. The OED cites it in a quotation detailing the generosity (or otherwise) of a particular prison warden: “[he] was not in their [i.e. the prisoners’] opinion sufficiently liberal with his V.G.’s (‘Very Good,’ as marked in the accounts.)”

bosker

This Australian and New Zealand slang adjective, of unknown origin, also appears in the form boscar and boshter. More familiar will be the similar bonzer (also meaning ‘extremely good’), which – it has been suggested – may be an alteration of bonanza. In turn, bonanza is the Spanish for ‘fair weather, prosperity’, and was first used in English to describe a highly productive mine.

jake

This originally American adjective is now used further afield If you want some alternatives, Australian and New Zealand slang have jakeloo,jakealoo, and jakerloo.

bodacious

Although dating back to the 19^th century with the sense ‘complete, thorough’, this adjective later appeared in American slang as a synonym for awesome, currently first attested in 1976 (and gained the meaning ‘sexually attractive’ in the 1990s). The word was greatly popularized by the teen film Bill and Ted’s Excellent Adventure (1989). It is probably a variant of the (south-western) English dialect word boldacious, a blend  of bold and audacious.



And if that's a bit too old-fashioned for you, the current Theosaurus offers some nice synonyms too!

Translations

I'm reading Thomas Mann's Death In Venice at the moment - in English, which is a bit weird as German is my mother tongue. Whilst reading, I couldn't help but admire the people who translate prose and poetry (especially poetry, which takes the whole thing one step further I assume). I always get incredibly frustrated when I attempt to translate something from German to English or the other way round.
It's not getting the meaning right, that's easy; what always baffles me is how to get the beauty across. Each language has its own charm (though I still fail to find it in French), and to transport the respective cleverness, elegance or subtlety into another language is often hard, sometimes impossible. And I'm only talking about German and English here, which at least have similarities. But there are some expressions and qualities that are simply unique to one language, and the task of finding a similarly elegant, beautiful, striking (or even deliberately ugly)  equivalent in another language always fills me with desperation. It's not just getting across what's being said - it's how it is being said, the tone, rhythm, sometimes metre. German with its consonant clusters and sibilance often sounds quite aggressive, while English is generally much more polite, even when it is at its most pompous.

That's only one difficulty to overcome when recreating certain moods and atmospheres, not to mention subtleties like irony or innuendo. And of course there is the aspect of beauty. Imagine translating a Shakespeare poem into German: The meaning is there, but now you have to find a way to make it sound beautiful too, the German way, but it still has to match the metre etc. People have done it, but I still prefer the original - and that is not just because I prefer English to my native language. I'd choose English over German any day, but when it comes to reading Goethe's or Schiller's poems, I'd stick to German. I simply think it purer, if you know what I mean. Translations can come close, but they'll never exactly match the tone or mood of the original. I believe it's impossible. But maybe that's just my view because I'm fluent in both languages. People who only speak English might still think that Death In Venice is brilliant (& I'm sure a lot do), but I'd rather go for the original - I should count myself lucky to have that choice between two languages.

Sometimes, translations can shed a different light on meanings. In Fry's Planet Word, Stephen Fry talked to a French actor who has acted in many Shakespeare plays - the French traslated versions. He said that when translated into French, the famous 'To be or not to be, that is the question' can also be interpreted this way: 'To be or not - to be, that is the question', which gives an entirely new meaning to that immortal phrase. Still, even he said that he'd prefer the English original, because it's richer and just matches the whole style better. And I have to say, when he said the line in French (NO idea what it was, but it sounded awful!), I just could not imagine it having the same effect as the original. It was longer, had more monosyllabic words, which takes away a lot of the dramatic impact.
In the same episode, Mr. Fry also talked to some Chinese - and they said that there is no verb 'to be' at all in the Chinese language (I assume they were talking about the Mandarin dialect, but it sounded like no other dialect had that verb either), so they have to find the nearest equivalent, which would be 'To live or to die', I believe - now, compare that to the original. Nothing like it, much of the intensity and intimacy is gone. Just goes to show: If possible, read it in the original.

           "We thought a day and night of steady rain
           was plenty, but it's falling again, downright tiredless
           ...much like words.
           But words don't fall exactly; they hang in there
           In the heaven of language, immune to gravity
           If not to time, entering your mind
           From no direction, travelling no distance at all,
           And with rainy persistence tease from the spread earth
           So many wonderful scents..." 

Robert Mezey, 'Words'

The Ode Less Travelled

"Finding two hendecasyllables in a row in Paradise Lost is like looking for a condom machine in the Vatican"

If you are one of those people who love poetry and would like to give it a go yourself, but don't dare to, there is a book for you. Likewise, if you're one of those 'Bah, how hard can it be, writing a few lines of poetry' philistines, you should definitely try it - it's not easy at all.
Well, it's not easy, but Stephen Fry's The Ode Less Travelled will make it seem at least achievable - and, most importantly, will show you that writing poetry is not intimidating, but great fun!

 With his typical wit, Fry leads the reader through Metre, Rhyme, Form and Diction And Poetics Today. The chapters are well-structured, he doesn't overwhelm you with pretentious terminology (but you do learn all the terms, well-explained and - should you ever be lost - again collected and explained at the end). At the end of each chapter is an Exercise for the reader to do before he/she proceeds to the next chapter, to practice what has just been learned. The whole process is broken down into understandable and achievable bits and Mr. Fry always humbly provides his own (always witty and entertaining) examples. He also urges the reader to read out loud the examples he gives from classic and famous poets, which really helps getting an ear for rhythm. Still, writing good poetry is far from easy, but with this book learning and developing is guaranteed to be neither discouraging nor embarrassing, but fun - poetry is there to give us pleasure!

So, if you're even remotely interested in poetry and want to a) try it for yourself and b) get a new sense of admiration for those who actually do write successful poems, I cannot recommend this book highly enough. Buy it!

Happy 65th Birthday, 1984

On June 8, 1949 George Orwell published his most famous novel, the dystopian 1984.
Here an article on how a lot of what orwell predicted or described is (still) true today:
read article

simile of the day

"...with a sharp nose like a sharp autumm evening, inclining to be frosty towards the end."

- Bleak House, Charles Dickens

22 pieces of wisdom from George Orwell novels

from this site

22 pieces of wisdom from George Orwell novels

While George Orwell might have written just six fictional novels, his work has ensure him a much-deserved place at the top of any greatest writers list. His influence is far-reaching and his enviable knack for creating thought-provoking one-liners has made his work endlessly quotable.
If you're an Orwell fan or you enjoy a smart piece of day-improving insight then you're going to enjoy this. A lot. We hope.
Here are the 22 best pieces of wisdom from Orwell's novels:

___________________________________________________________
“He who controls the past controls the future. He who controls the present controls the past.”
1984
___________________________________________________________
“The past is a curious thing. It’s with you all the time. I suppose an hour never passes without your thinking of things that happened ten or twenty years ago, and yet most of the time it’s got no reality, it’s just a set of facts that you’ve learned, like a lot of stuff in a history book. "
Coming Up For Air
___________________________________________________________
“Sometimes I think we're all corpses. Just rotting upright.”
Keep The Aspidistra Flying
___________________________________________________________
“If you want to keep a secret, you must also hide it from yourself.”
1984
___________________________________________________________
“Man is the only creature that consumes without producing”
Animal Farm
___________________________________________________________
“Perhaps a man really dies when his brain stops, when he loses the power to take in a new idea.”
Coming Up For Air
___________________________________________________________
“It is one of the tragedies of the half-educated that they develop late, when they are already committed to some wrong way of life.”
Burmese Days
___________________________________________________________
“The best books... are those that tell you what you know already.”
1984
___________________________________________________________
“It is a mysterious thing, the loss of faith—as mysterious as faith itself.”
A Clergyman's Daughter
___________________________________________________________
“Man serves the interests of no creature except himself.”
Animal Farm
___________________________________________________________
“War is peace. Freedom is slavery. Ignorance is strength.”
1984
___________________________________________________________
"One's got to change the system, or one changes nothing."
Keep The Aspidistra Flying
___________________________________________________________
“Envy is a horrible thing. It is unlike all other kinds of suffering in that there is no disguising it, no elevating it into tragedy. It is more than merely painful, it is disgusting.”
Burmese Days
___________________________________________________________
“Think of life as it really is, think of the details of life; and then think that there is no meaning in it, no purpose, no goal except the grave. Surely only fools or self-deceivers, or those whose lives are exceptionally fortunate, can face that thought without flinching?”
A Clergyman's Daughter
___________________________________________________________
“The distinguishing mark of man is the hand, the instrument with which he does all his mischief.”
Animal Farm
___________________________________________________________
“The choice for mankind lies between freedom and happiness and for the great bulk of mankind, happiness is better.”
1984
___________________________________________________________
“An earthquake is such fun when it is over.”
Burmese Days
___________________________________________________________
“...you can get anything in this world if you genuinely don't want it.”
Keep The Aspidistra Flying
___________________________________________________________
“We do not merely destroy our enemies; we change them.”
1984
___________________________________________________________
“Beauty is meaningless until it is shared.”
Burmese Days
___________________________________________________________
“Poverty is spiritual halitosis.”
Keep The Aspidistra Flying
___________________________________________________________
“...the object of waging a war is always to be in a better position in which to wage another war.”
1984

What does 'OK' really stand for?

It's probably the most used word in the world. Universally, people know exactly what you mean when you say it. It is extremely versatile - you can use it as a verb ('Can you o.k. this for me?'), a noun ('I need your o.k.'), an adjective ('It's okay'), an interjection ('Okay, let's go') or an adverb ('We did okay').
As you can see in my examples, there are also different ways of spelling it: OK, O.K. or Okay all mean the same.
But where does it come from? What does O.K. stand for? To use QI phrasing, Nobody Knows.
We know that it is an Americanism, but that's as far as it goes really.
People have their theories though. Here are the three most popular ones (source: Mother Tongue by Bill Bryson)
1) Someone's initials - the most obvious one I should think. Whose initials exactly however still remains a mystery.
2) It was adapted from a foreign or English dialect. Maybe some Geordies emmigrated to the States and their American brothers couldn't understand a word they were saying apart from something that sounded like 'Okay'? Who knows...
3) It comes from 'Oll Korrekt', the favourite saying and spelling of Andrew Jackson, the semi-literate 7th President of the United States. This theory is my favourite.

So there it is, the possibly most popular word in the world, a mystery. If anyone knows more about it, please enlighten me.

Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are dead

I have to say I'm not very familiar with Tom Stoppard's work, though he's been on my list for some time. But after watching this bit, I really want to read or see the whole play, the dialogue (well, it's nearly a monologue) is brilliant (and I think it helps that Benedict Cumberbatch is one of my favourite actors):

Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are characters from Shakespeare's Hamlet and in this play they talk abot death and eternity - sounds grave, but seems to be really funny. I must go and watch/ read the whole thing!