NOT PROS AND CONS, JUST “CON” CONFUSION

Here’s a problem: if you stress the second syllable of “confines” (con – FINES), it is a verb meaning restricts. If you stress the first syllable (CON – fines) it refers to a physical location like a prison and is a noun. English is full of such words. On the page, they look the same, but the meaning is different.

Even worse, this situation appears to be a rather arbitrary pattern in the language. For example, the word “defines” is similar to “confines,” but it does not change meaning if you change the stress from one syllable to the other.

Hmm, maybe it is an idiosyncrasy unique to the prefix “con?” I ask this because the same thing happens with other words beginning with this prefix. Stressing the first syllable “content” (CON-tent) makes it a noun for which “substance” is a synonym. The other pronunciation (con-TENT) turns it into either an adjective which is a synonym for “untroubled” or a verb which is a synonym for “ soothe.”

CON-test is a competition, but con-TEST is the action of vying to win that CON-test. Likewise, CON-vict is a criminal and con-VICT is the action which found the person guilty. And another one: con-DUCT is the action of guiding or leading, while CON-duct is the noun and synonym for behavior. The list grows longer with “conflict.” Where two or more things or people con-FLICT (verb), a CON-flict (noun) will exist.

But once again English refuses to be pinned down. It makes no difference changing syllable stresses for the words “consist,” “confuse,” “conclude,” “confer” or “condemn,” among others. However, if you should stress the first syllable of any of these words, a native speaker might decide you are speaking with a dialect or are simply new to English.

Why do English speakers do this? I wish I could offer some help with this issue, but it is just another example of how we twist our language to suit our whims and needs. Of course, I could be very wrong. Wiser students of language might know. I refer you to them.

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ARTICLES AND PRONUNCIATION WILLFULNESS

“The,” three simple letters, is neither a name for something (noun), nor is it an action (verb)—the two requirements for any English sentence—yet it appears in nearly every sentence.  For example, “The dog jumped.” Why is the there?

In English we have two other similar words, “a” and “an,” as in “A bottle broke” and “An elephant roared.” These show up almost as frequently as “the” and are also neither noun nor verb. All three are called “articles,” which I personally find to be ridiculous. The word article can mean “thing” or a piece of writing, like an “article” in a magazine. In other words, an “article” is a noun, but “a” and “an” and “the” are not!

Maybe long ago the teachers of language were struggling to explain these three words and in their desperation they settled on referring to them as “articles of speech.” I suppose I can forgive them, but why are they required? I know English is not the only language that uses these “no definition” words—though to be fair, “a” and “an” can mean “one.” This makes some sense to me as “one,” which was once long ago “ane,” is somewhat visually similar. The two equate to the French “un” and “une,” the Spanish “un,” “uno,” and “una.”

But the “le” and “les” in French, and the “la” and “las” and “los” in Spanish (the equivalents to “the” in English), seem to me only necessary because “that is the way we do things.” What kind of reason is that? Even if I accept that (because what choice do I have really?), the word “the” has two pronunciations with different connotations. The usual sound of the word rhymes with “uh” and is a dull, almost missed sound. The exception to the rule pronounces the word as though it were spelled “thee.”

What does this signify? “The” when pronounced “thee,” is calling attention to the noun which follows, singling it out from all the others of its kind. The dog (pronounced “thee”) is not just one of the bunch of dogs, it is unique in some way.

This change of pronunciation is not obvious as written, yet the native speaker almost always knows when to say the word as “thee” rather than “thuh,” presenting one more stumbling block for those learning the language.

 

#EnglishLanguage

 

 

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WORD CONFUSION

Growing up, I often heard that learning English was hard. As a native speaker, I recognized some stumbling blocks myself. Yet, I thought there must be much harder languages like Chinese, for instance. At least English uses the same alphabet as many other languages.

Now I know that the criticism I heard as a child applied to non-native speakers who struggled to acquire a working knowledge of English. I can see now how listening to English without seeing it written could be even more confusing than just tripping over the spelling of homonyms.

For example, there are three words that sound like “tense.” Two are nouns, “tents” and “tense” (as in present or past tense). Yes, I know there is a “t” near the end of one of these, but only the British are likely to enunciate the letter. “Tense” is also a verb or adjective. Notice there is no variation in spelling for the three uses of  “tense.”  You tense (flex) your muscles doing exercise. Your nervous disposition is called “tense” (adjective). Or it can describe the tightness of a stretched cord.

How confusing it must be to a non-native speaker to hear, “He was two tents today,” when the speaker actually said, “He was too tense today.” Can you see the poor non-native speaker trying to grapple with a human being transforming into tents?

Another example is the sound “pray.” In this case there are two verb uses and one noun. Pray by itself is a verb. Its homonym “prey” is the one playing games with the hearer. Prey is both the object pursued (noun) and the action (verb) of pursuit. But to the ear, all three sound the same. Imagine hearing “He likes to pray on animals of all kinds,” when the speaker was using the other “prey.” Did you see a male kneeling in prayer beside an animal or offering a blessing over a herd?

These are just a couple of examples. The actual list is much larger and more challenging to the non-native speaker. No wonder they ask that we native speakers talk slowly. They need time to translate, reject, and start over.

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FOR HALLOWEEN: WORDS THAT MASK, HIDE AND DISGUISE

October is the month ending in Halloween when trick or treaters wander our streets and shopping centers. So, I decided to share some of my favorite odd words, all meaning to trick or deceive.

Hornswoggle is associated with the southern United States and first appeared in the nineteenth century. But its etymology is appropriately a mystery. Some have suggested it is related to the scene of a roped steer—its horns lassoed and the animal shaking its head in disbelief. Could be, but I’ll let you decide.

The next word in my list, bamboozle, has conflicting reports of its origin though the consensus points to its appearance around 1700. One group point to Italian and similar words meaning a very young child with the idea that a child is easily fooled, or a duped person appears to be a confused child. Alternately, Bamboozle may be a borrowed word lifted from a French word meaning to make a baboon out of someone. Seems appropriate to me. Ape costume anyone?

Hoodwink popped up in sixteenth century England and suggests, if your mind tends to the macabre, rather a gruesome origin associated with executions or kidnappings. If not, the more innocuous origin is blindfold. The word was once the title of a version of the game Blind Man’s Bluff, a game which appears in Charles Dickens’ A Christmas Carol. But that’s a later holiday. Still, isn’t a Halloween mask much like a blindfold?

This concludes my short list of odd English words all meaning to trick, deceive or disguise reality. A perfect collection for the night of Halloween trickery, don’t you think?

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NONSENSE, AMERICAN STYLE

In an earlier essay, I asserted that the English language loves nonsense words, and named a few with origins in the UK. This current essay will show that the American speakers of the language share this same penchant for silly words. All of the following are synonyms for “nonsense.”

Applesauce (appearing in 1739 and popular in 1920s). Why this word equates to nonsense eludes me. Baloney (1915-20). Bologna, like hot dogs/wieners, is for me a junk food—a bunch of stuff ground up together and molded into a form. Sounds like nonsense to me.

Bunkum or buncombe (1820). I kind of like this word, but mainly because it sounds funny and obviously means nothing. Except nonsense, of course. Hokum (1908), like bunkum, sounds old fashioned to me—out of date. But it does rather sound like “ho hum,” which is appropriate response to hearing nonsense. Hooey (1920s), unlike Bunkum and Hokum, seems like the infamous Bronx cheer. There’s a sneer in this word.

Horsefeathers (1927) or *horse-hockey (1928). The first version of this term is excellent for pronouncing something nonsensical, as feathers are not natural for a horse. The other seems more likely to be a synonym for Polo. Malarkey or marlarky (1824). Malarkey is a good nonsense synonym as it, too, means nothing. But it also resembles a real name for a person, rather like “the real McCoy” came from a real person. Are we expected to know who this Malarkey person is and why that person is associated with nonsense? Hmm.

Nerts (1932). This is a good one, obviously not a word with meaning in English and it sounds a lot like “nuts,” another word used for ridicule. *Poppycock (1865). I love this word. It just sounds so silly, and therefore, appropriate.

Gobbledygook (first appearing in 1944)—this word always makes me think of the sound a turkey makes. If you have ever heard several of these birds sounding off at the same time, you have a good idea of what gobbledygook means. In fact, it is used to refer to abstruse technical language which is not easy to understand by the average person.

*As for other associations of these words–see starred words above, several are also synonyms for a popular abbreviation “BS” (short for bull shit). Others of these words did/do not always mean “nonsense,” but I will let you explore that on your own. While you are investigating, you may find other silly words to add to these I have given you. I wish the joy of discovery.

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ENGLISH LOVES A BIT OF NONSENSE

This summer I encountered a wordsearch puzzle, Wonderword, with the theme of “nonsense.” There I found many of my favorite “silly” words, all in some way a synonym for the word nonsense. Some originated in the United States, but many were born in the United Kingdom.

I have tried often to focus on how a non-native English speaker might react to the idiosyncrasies of this language. Our nonsense words must present them quite a hurdle. Even we native speakers trip over these, often archaic, words and have to seek out help.

But I love them for their very oddity. I will share just a few with you here, giving you the approximate date of their origin as I do. From the UK comes balderdash (1590 with modified used in 1670) and it is now the name of a board game. You will sometimes hear this word in old black and white films produced in England, usually spoken by an older gentleman. I never associate this word with meanness, only with bluster.

Tommyrot (1400 with modified use in 1848) is another from the UK. This is easy to associate with England as they called their WWI soldiers“Tommies.” Unlike balderdash, “tommyrot” carries, in my mind, more sneer.

Tomfoolery (Middle Ages) you might think is related in origin, but it is not. For some unknown reason, the English seem to like using “Tom” as a tag for several words. This word, however,  began with a theater character “Tom Fole” who was a clown or buffoon. Easy to see how a Tom Fole could morph into Tom Fool, then become a name for the behavior of that character, the clown/buffoon. This is my least favorite of the three I have just shared. In its favor, it is less condemning than tommyrot or balderdash.

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Words on the Endangered List

David Ouellet stunned me with a list of words chosen for his Wonderword* puzzle theme “Words Going Extinct.” Among those words was “read.” Read? No, not possible, I thought. It must be a mistake. Even if, worse case ever, books vanished forever, will we not still be “reading” digitations—codes, images, whatever? I reject the conclusion that read is disappearing from English.

On the other hand, there were many words listed I had never heard or seen before: Agrestic, Chroous, Dalles, Esurient, Fubsy, Skirr, Sprent and Ubtceare. I willingly abandon them all to the obscurity of obsolescence. Although, I hold some reluctance for “fubsy” just because I like the fun it presents to the ear and eye.

Some words being shunted out of currency are truly victims of progress and history. “Tuppence” (two cent coin) is no longer necessary when the world is debating keeping the penny (one cent coin). Joule seems to be falling into disuse because it has become too finite in a world of mega-this, and mega-that.

A few others may have always been considered colloquial, but with the expansion of easy communication, these are also falling by the wayside. These include varmint, parley, canny, quaff, wheedle and yammer.

Victims of progress and the passing of some fad or culture-specific words are discos, hogan (I wonder if the Navajos would agree) and leeboard (though this is still used in Friesland on boats for tourists). Words favored by Shakespeare and poets supposedly on the chopping board are arras, bade, hark, morrow and yore. Most of these will still linger, I believe, in crossword puzzles and so, will not entirely disappear into the dust of libraries and archives. So ends my series on words becoming obsolete.

*Source – newspaper puzzle, –Nov 22, 2021—WONDERWORD, by David Quellet. Theme: Words Going Extinct

 

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THE DURABILITY OF “OBSOLETE” WORDS

Recently I wrote about the startling news regarding some familiar words which someone has decided to dump into the “obsolete” or “archaic” bucket. Some of those words I still use in my own speech and writing. I guess that means I, too, am becoming antique. Oh, well.

Of the words listed by David Ouellet for the  puzzle Wonderword using the theme “Words Going Extinct” are some I only call on when working crossword puzzles. Yet, many of these words carry with them special memories for me. Like Penelope Lively says in the Moon Tiger, “our language is the language of everything we have read. Shakespeare and the Authorised Version surface in supermarkets, on buses, chatter on radio and television.”

One of the words slated for obsolescence is “jetsam.”  Its companion, “flotsam” is also on the list. These two words became names of characters in the recent musical, The Little Mermaid which may extend their life for a bit. Quoting Penelope Lively again, “I never cease to wonder…. that words are more durable than anything, that they blow with wind, hibernate and reawaken, shelter parasitic on the most unlikely hosts, survive and survive and survive.”

The memory which comes to me when I see or hear “jetsam” is a televised production of Archy and Mehitabel starring Tammy Grimes. It was my introduction to this actress. She was wonderful and every time I see or hear that word I remember her singing the song “Flotsam and Jetsam.” Such is the power of “obsolete” and “archaic” words.

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Where Are the Elegant Words?

Visiting my brother for the holiday, I found a puzzle in his local paper, “WonderWords.” The theme for this circle-the-word challenge was “Words Going Extinct.” There were several I had never seen or heard before, some I agreed were probably antique—good only for writers creating new works set in the past.

But then, I woke the following morning with the thought that there are many words I have not heard for a long time. I miss elegant words, I thought. Words that are precise, not just make-do. I long for days I never knew except in the movies of the 1930s when language was almost as important as the plot. My mother regularly seasoned her speech with words that required definition, but which were precise. Sometimes at school I would drop one of these words and startle my friends. “It’s a Mom word,” I told them which explained nothing but sufficed for the moment.

It has been too long since conversation has challenged and thrilled with the words and expressions it contains. I am tired of the sloppy talk of back alleys, rough streets, gutters; broken grammar copied until it seems to be no longer broken but somehow just as it should be by too many. I can appreciate the clever misuse of language, but I mourn when it becomes the standard. Language is owned by its speakers, but sad to say there seem to be too few who joy in its potential artistry.

Elegant speech challenges but is received too often by its hearers as a “put down” because it makes the listeners feel left out and confused. Rather than pursue knowledge and gain understanding of those wonderful words and expressions, they choose to believe they are an act of aggression. I once dated a man who was sure I was trying to make him uncomfortable on purpose, by speaking of things to which he had not been exposed or disposed to discover.

“That’s just how I talk and always have within my family,” I told him. “I am not trying to insult you and I am sorry you feel that I am. I can’t promise to stop mentioning topics important to me and using the words I know that you may not. I guess you’ll just have to accept that or stop dating me.” That relationship did end shortly after this conversation. Wish it had not been so.

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WORDS BECOMING OBSOLETE

Recently, courtesy of a puzzle Wonderword, I learned of some words slated to become obsolete or labeled archaic. I was shocked to find among the words listed those I knew well and still use. These include abate, ephemeral, facetious and even the less used, pallid.

Subsequent to this discovery, I came upon a quote from the Moon Tiger by Penelope Lively which speaks eloquently about why I mourn the dying off of words. She wrote in part, “We open our mouths and out flow words whose ancestries we do not even know. We are walking lexicons. In a single sentence of idle chatter, we preserve Latin, Anglo-Saxon, Norse, we carry a museum inside our heads, each day we commemorate peoples of whom we have never heard.”

This sentiment is why I am such a fan of etymology. Every word has a history—not just where it was born, but how influences shaped its latest form and use, and even why and how it first appeared in English. Such an adventure! It is like time travel, coasting unknown waters and encountering unknown civilizations.

But, according to the word puzzle mentioned above, some of these voyages are being closed to ongoing traffic like abandoned rail lines that once led somewhere people wanted to travel and did so frequently. I mourn this loss.

 

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