Language idiosyncracies

All languages have their idiosyncracies. Some are in such everyday use that native speakers take no special notice of them, but foreigners might consider them as odd. Other such terms may even strike native speakers as strange.

–A deceased person in English is referred to as "the late Mr. X". What was "late" about him? Was he habitually late for work, for appointments, etc.? Was he late dying–did he chain smoke, carouse, live as a couch potato and still live to be 95?

The French have an equally puzzling term for a deceased person: le feu monsieur X–the "fire Mr. X." Was he a fiery person–did he have a hair trigger temper, was he a rabble rouser, did he immolate himself?

--The British and those in Commonwealth countries say a that a person is "in hospital," while Americans say the he is "in the hospital." Why do we put the "the" in front of "hospital" when we don’t say that someone is "in the college," or goes to "the church" on Sundays, or is "in the law school.?" No reason, just the way our language has developed.

--The French have exactly the same word for "stepfather" as for "father-in-law": beau-père ("handsome father"), and the same for "stepmother" and "mother-in-law": belle-mère ("lovely mother"). How to tell the difference? By the context or by explicit explanation.

--The word hijo in Spanish means "son"; but Spanish-speaking people use the plural, hijos, for children of parents (regardless of gender). ¿Cuantos hijos tiene usted? is "How many children do you have?" I have heard Spanish speakers ask in English "How many sons do you have" when they clearly are asking about the number of children one has.

--French school children must snicker when they study English and run across for the first time the male name "Peter" or the noun "pet." The word péter (pronounced "pay-tay") in French is the verb "to fart" and pet (pronounced "pay") is "a fart."

English-speaking students studying German probably are similarly amused by the word fährt, which means a "drive" or a "trip" (it comes from the verb fahren meaning to "drive" or "travel").

--In English we say that we pull one’s leg when we kid him; Spanish speakers say that they take one’s hair ("tomar el pelo").

--In English a "ham" is a short-wave radio operator or a lousy actor; in Puerto Rican slang he is an unmarried man (jamón). However, I have to say that I haven’t heard that term anywhere else. But, jamona ( a female ham) I have heard in other places as a slang term for a buxom woman.

–There are words which seem to be equivalent to one another in English and other languages but actually aren’t--what the French call faux amis ("false friends").

acción (Spanish), action (French). Can mean the same as the noun "action" in English, but also can mean a share of stock in a corporation; accionista is a "stockholder" (male or female) in Spanish, actionnaire is the same in French.

actual (Spanish), actuel (French). Both look like they mean "actual" in English but in fact mean "current" or "present."

déception (French). Looks like "deception" in English but means "disappointment."

pretender (Spanish). Looks like "pretend" in English but means "intend" or "undertake."

habits (French). Doesn’t mean "habits" as in English but "clothes."

lecture (French), lectura (Spanish). Look like "lecture" in English but mean "reading" (the act of reading).

large (French), largo (Spanish). Both appear to mean "large" in English, but the former means "wide" and the latter "long."

assister (French), asistir (Spanish). These don’t mean "assist" in English but "attend" (attend a concert or a wedding).

–Forms in letter writing are paticularly interesting. Why do we open with "Dear" so-and-so in a letter to a person we hardly know or don’t even know at all? Why do we end with "Very truly yours" or "Sincerely" (or, as the British say "Faithfully yours")?–if we don’t, might the recipient think we are just joshing him, that we don’t really mean what we say in the letter?

The French are very blunt when they start off a letter: after the recipient’s name, on a separate line they simply say "Monsieur" or "Madame." (Occasionally they might star off with Cher Client ("Dear Customer") or a similar salutation, which usually happens when the letter writer is trying to sell something or promote something.) But they make up for the blunt salutation at the opening with a very effusive ending: Agréez, Monsieur (or Messieurs/Madame/Mesdames), nos salutations distinguées. "Accept, Sir, our distinguished salutations." Or, alternatively, they might use the term parfaite consideration–it’s been some time since I have seen that form but, as I recall, they say Nous vous assurons de notre parfaite consideration (We assure you of our perfect consideration).

Spanish speakers usually start off with Estimado señor X (or Estimada señora Y) "Esteemed Mr. X", which certainly makes more sense than the "Dear Mr. X" in English. (It is interesting to note that when they spell out señor or señora, the lower case "s" is used, but when abbreviated it is capitalized, thus: Sr. or Sra.)

The Spanish seem to have abandoned the opening salutation Muy señor mío ("Very sir of mine"), a senseless phrase which I haven't seen in many years.

Neither the Spanish nor the French have the equivalent of the English "Ms." for a woman; usually the married form Señora or Madame is used, unless it is known by the writer that Señorita or Mademoiselle should be used.

The Spanish frequently end their letters with lo saludo atentamente (la saludo atentamente for a woman)–"I salute you with respect." Sometimes they say something like con nuestros atentos saludos ("With our respectful salutations.") Sometimes, they will put just before the ending salutation Sin otra particular, lo saludo...("Without anything else, I salute you..." meaning "That’s all I have to say.")

When one stops to think about it, all of these opening and closing forms of a letter make no real sense–they are just meaningless forms that everybody uses because they always have. With e-mails now used so frequently, it seems possible that these antique forms may some day be dropped and more meaningful forms like "Hello, Mr. X" and "With best regards," as used in e-mails, may replace them.

There is some reason for hope that these antique forms may be so replaced, just as "Your humble and obedient servant"--a routine closing in business letters up through the 19th century--became obsolete during the 20th century.

Couscous--a delectable dish

Couscous is a wonderful dish–easy to prepare and delectable. Its geographic origin as an edible is North Africa; it is a product of wheat, finely ground, sometimes called semolina. I first tried it at a North African restaurant in Paris some years ago.

Buy it in any supermarket or grocery store (I buy the "Near East" brand which comes in 5.8 ounce packages, is available in several varieties as to ingredients, and is very inexpensive ). Prepare it as follows:

–Follow the directions for boiling the spice (which is contained in a separate envelope), then adding the grains, followed by letting the whole thing settle.

–Add for more flavor whatever turns you on. I mix in diced vegetables (green peppers, cucumbers, onions, radishes, and anything else I find in the vegetable drawer of my fridge).

–Add something to spice up the mix (which tends to be dry)–I prefer chili and cilantro, a hot product put out by a well-known Indian purveyor of spices, Patek . Then add something else to moisten the mix–I use Margarita mix for its limey flavor.

Do all of that and mix it well and you’ve got a great meal. After adding the above ingredients, the dish will be lukewarm, which is how I like it–but you can heat it up on the stove top if that is your preference.

A word I'll avoid with a cop in Spain

In 1988 I visited a family in Madrid, Spain whose teen-age son had spent some time the previous year living in our home in the Baltimore area as an international exchange student. His family had several times invited my wife and me to visit them, so after finishing a business trip in London, I took them up on their invitation and hopped over to Madrid.

The boy’s father took him and me for a spin around the city in his car. As we approached the Puerta del Sol (Madrid’s equivalent of New York’s Times Square), a traffic cop gave a rather ambiguous signal to the driver, upon which he turned off to the right; immediately, the cop blew his whistle and waved him back. My frustrated host shouted a word at the cop which I for a brief second thought might land us in jail. The word I had only known as a Spanish slang term for a part of the female anatomy.

Luckily, the cop was unruffled and waved us on straight ahead; I imagine that, had this happened during the Franco regime, we might have all been hauled off to jail. Afterward I consulted my Spanish-Spanish dictionary and found that two definitions of the word were provided: the first was the slang term with which I was familiar, but the second was an "exclamation of anger, amazement, annoyance, admiration, etc." (my translation from the original Spanish).

I have driven in Spain but never had any confrontation with a cop. If such should happen in the future, I don’t think I’ll use my host’s word but, rather, something less daring.

The best search engine yet

I have just discovered a search engine that beats them all: it is Vivísimo (a Spanish-type word, although it doesn’t appear in my Spanish-Spanish dictionary, which would mean something like "zesty"); its Internet address is http://vivisimo.com (note that it is not on "www").Earlier this year I discovered Webcrawler, which simultaneously searches Google, Yahoo, MSN, Ask Jeeves, and several others (see my Don’t just Google–cast a wider net posting of March 5, 2006). In doing a search, one should not stick to any one engine because any of them will occasionally pick up something that the others won’t. However, I find Vivísimo the best single one.

Vivísimo’s beauty is its "clustering": it instantaneously lists the word or words sought into categories, with the quantity of items in each category. As a test, I typed in my own name (in quotation marks) and found the following:

My name (14)
Books (6)
Handbook for Professionals (3)
My name, London (2)
University (2)
Other Topics (3)

The 14 items in the first category included 8 references to a book that I wrote in 1993 and was published by Lloyd’s of London Press–5 of the 8 were listings by on-line booksellers offering the book and 2 listed the book as useful for study by those taking professional examinations in the insurance industry. Another listing, which I had never seen before, was by an on-line bookseller for another book which I co-authored in 1989.

The 14 also included 2 listings which were a big surprise to me: One a letter which I wrote in 2003 to the Daily Tar Heel, the University of North Carolina student newspaper on the occasion of the death of Charlie Justice, a contemporary of mine at UNC and, in my opinion and also that of the ESPN College Football Encyclopedia, the greatest Carolina football player of all time. The second was a listing in a history of the University of North Carolina published during the 1890's of my grandfather (after whom I was named) as a member of the Dialectic Society, a debate society, during the 1850's. (I belonged to the same society during my student days there.) I had never run across those two items at any other search engine.

The other five categories referred to my 1993 book in one way or another.

Vivísimo did miss one or two references to me in other search engines, one a reference to a presentation I made during the annual "Saturday with Sherlock Holmes" that local Sherlockians put on at Baltimore’s Pratt Library. Still, I think Vivísimo is the best single search engine.

By omitting my middle initial, I came up with several references to my son (named after me) as a regional manager of the company he works for in California. I am particularly proud of his being cited as the top regional manager in sales in the U.S. and Canada in 2005.

The disgusting baseball spitting

If only someone in authority would take action to stop that disgusting spitting by baseball players and managers. Seeing them chewing bubble gum like adolescents is bad enough, the spitting is totally beyond the pale (it’s almost as bad as if they were urinating on the field). Of course, it’s been going on for years–formerly they chewed tobacco and had to spit–but it wasn’t as noticeable as it has been since TV takes the home viewer of a game right up to the faces of the players and managers.

Since baseball players, like other professional athletes, are supposed to be models for young people, why can’t someone in baseball recognize the negative effect that the chewers and spitters have on these young people?

Those in other sports don’t do it, so why do baseball players and managers have to?

Although not alone, Terry Francona, the Boston Red Sox manager is one of the worst of the spitters. Indeed, there are so many of them, it is easier to note the ones who don’t chew and spit. Among this latter group are Jim Leyland, the Detroit Tigers manager (look how the Tigers have come to life under his management), Joe Torre, the New York Yankees manager (the Yankees have pulled well ahead of the Red Sox for first place in the American League East), and Mike Mussina, the New York Yankees (and former Oriole) pitcher. When I watch a game on TV and watch a pitcher start on the mound, or a batter step up to the plate–players that I don’t know much about–I pay close attention to whether they chew and spit (I can very soon tell). Those occasional ones that don’t I root for to do well, regardless of their team.

I just wish some prominent American--such as Senator John McCain, Tim Russert, the NBC "Meet the Press" host, any of the living former U.S. presidents (Clinton, Bush, Carter, Ford), Oprah Winfrey, or some of the many others–would take a stand against the repulsive chewing and spitting and use their influence to put an end to it.

Visit this blog's archives

The following postings from the past, and now in the Archives, may interest you. They may be accessed by clicking on the "SEARCH THIS BLOG" button just to the left at the top of the blog and scrolling down the dates (which are in descending date order) to find them. For some strange reason, which I can’t explain, the dates shown as you scroll down are not the correct dates, but clicking on the posting shown will take you there anyway.

Or, you may go to the "SEARCH THIS BLOG" button and type in just a few words of the title of the posting and you will be taken to those words, where you can click and get the full posting.

Alternatively, you may click on the "Archives" for the month shown at the bottom of the sidebar column to access the postings (the dates shown below in the present posting are the correct dates ).

"The Worst President in History?" (May 28, 2006) This is the title of an article in the 5/4/06 issue of the magazine Rolling Stone by Sean Wilentz, a professor of American history at Princeton University. In it he includes George W. Bush among the four worst presidents (the "Biggest Failures" he calls them)--the other three are James Buchanan, Andrew Johnson, and Herbert Hoover. (Conversely, his "The Greatest Successes" are George Washington, Abraham Lincoln, and Franklin D. Roosevelt.) I concur that, if not the absolute worst, Bush is certainly one of the worst and give my reasons for this opinion.

Today is the first day of the rest of your life... (Feb. 9, 2006). Uses info developed by life insurance actuaries. Beginning with your present age, you answer 24 questions about your family background, your physical condition, and your life style to predict to what age you might live.

What women in the throes of passion say in various countries. (March 15, 2006). Tells how they react in Britain, France, Spain, Italy, Germany, and the USA.

Our English language. How difficult is English compared to other languages? (Jan. 17, 2006). First, the posting tells how simple English is in some ways; then it points out the perplexing difficulties in other respects for a foreigner trying to learn it.

Encounter of Pope John Paul with St. Peter. (Jan. 16, 2006). Tells of the pope’s difficulties in trying to get past St. Peter at the Golden Gates.

Islam: a "peaceful" religion or a dangerous one? (Feb. 19, 2006). Debates the issue.

Shame of Darfur... (April 9, 2006). Decries the savagery going on there with no action taken to stop it.

Everybody hates Wal-Mart... (March 28, 2006). Or do they?

How to tell you've grown old (January 16, 2006). I learned it when women (some near my age) offered me their seat in subway trains in Madrid, Spain, Buenos Aires, Argentina, and Santiago, Chile. Also, comments on subway systems that I have ridden in many cities of the world.

As you scroll down these postings, you may find others of interest.