Grammar

The Tea Leaf Nation online magazine posted this article on May 19, 2013:  "VP Biden’s Penn Commencement Speech Inspires Viral Rant by ‘Disappointed’ Chinese Student."  The article, by Xiaoying Zhou, offers an excellent account of this tempest in a teapot (as it were), and the comments that follow it are also germane. Still, a closer look at what the angry student, Zhang Tianpu, actually wrote will help us put the controversy in a clearer perspective. Zhang's accusation against the Vice President appeared in an entry he posted on his renren.com (Facebook clone in China) account.  The entry is entitled "Bàid?ng B?ndà bìyèshì y?nji?ng bùhéshíyí de y?ugu?n Zh?ngguó bùfèn" ???????????????????? (Outmoded portion about China in Biden's graduation speech at Penn). Here are the two portions of Biden's speech about China to which Zhang took exception: I love to hear people tell me how to use the vernacular "China is going to eat our lunch." China is a great nation, and we should hope for the continued expansion. But ladies and gentlemen, their problems are immense, and they lack much of what we have. We have the best universities in the world. We have a legal system that is open and fair. We have the most agile venture capital system in the world. We lead the world in innovation and technology, all for a simple basic reason. Steve Jobs, speaking at Stanford was asked by a young man "how can I be more like you, how I can become like you?" And Job famously answered: think different. You CANNOT think different in a nation where you cannot breath free. You CANNOT think different in a nation where you aren't able to challenge orthodoxy, because change only comes from challenging orthodoxy. … I spent 10 days with President Xi at the request of former president Hu and President obama…I listened to his questions and the interests he had and he asked me how I felt after the 5 days in the U.S. and 5 days in China. And I said he's a strong bright man, but he has the look of a man who is about to take on a job he's not at all sure is going to end well. I mean that seriously. These sections appear at 11:05 and 17:41 of Biden's speech as recorded on this YouTube video.  Although there are a few minor errors, I won't quibble with Zhang's transcription of the VP's speech, but should point out that the very first sentence makes a lot more sense if "to use the vernacular" is set off with commas or dashes. What is remarkable about Zhang's criticism of Biden's remarks is that he focuses so heavily on the VP's use of the word "nation" to refer to China: Bàid?ng zài “You CANNOT think different in a nation where you aren't able to challenge orthodoxy” zhè jù huà li yòng de shì nation zhège cí. Zhè y?di?n shì zuì ràng w? qìfèn de, y?nwèi Y?ngy? zhòng nation zh? de “mínzú” de yìsi, hé country, state shì y?u q?bié de. Country, state k?néng gèng qiángdiào de shì y?gè guóji? zh?ngt? de gàiniàn, shènzhì dài y?u zh? zhèngf? de yìsi; huàn jù huà shu?, rúgu? t? zhè jù huà li miàn yòng de shì country zhège cí, nàme jiù k?y? l?ji? wèi k?néng yóuyú zh?ngzh?ng wàibù y?nsù de zhìyu?, w?men mínzú de qiánlì méiy?u 100% de f?hu? ch?lái. ??? “You CANNOT think different in a nation where you aren't able to challenge orthodoxy” ???????nation????????????????????nation??“??”?????country?state?????? country, state????????????????????????????????????????????country???????????????? ???????????????????100%?????? In this sentence, “You CANNOT think different in a nation where you aren't able to challenge orthodoxy”, he used the word "nation".  This is what really infuriated me, because in English "nation" indicates "race, ethnicity", which is different from "country, state".  "Country, state" perhaps places more emphasis on the notion of the entirety of the country, even to the point of referring to the idea of government.  In other words, if he had used the word "country" in this sentence, then perhaps one could understand that, due to va

Hugh MacDiarmid is one of my oldest poetic lodestones; he was one of the first poets I quoted at LH, back in 2002, and I did so again a couple of years ago, but those were both examples of his early short poems in Scots, the poems almost everyone prefers ("We enjoy your films! Particularly the early, funny ones"). Today I feel moved to quote from a couple of his later, longer, less immediately lovable poems in standard English mixed with quotes from all over. I'll begin with his "In Memoriam James Joyce, from A Vision of World Language," a very long poem with a difficult publishing history (he wrote to Eliot in 1941 "You will remember the huge poem of mine you read a year or thereby ago. It was to have been published by the Obelisk Press, Place Vendôme, Paris; but the Fall of France quashed that project"; Eliot loved it but said "in this time when we are really being starved for paper it is works like this which must suffer," later calling it "a magnificent tribute to language"). It begins with a roll-call of those who have practiced epeolatry (OED: "The worship of words"):We who are concerned with 'the living whole Of all the poetry that has ever been written,' And the sodaliciis adstricti consortiis Of all the authors who have been, are, or will be, We remember Jacint Verdaguer whose Atlàntida and Canigó Did for Catalonia what Mistral's Mirèio did for Provence, And the Italian, Marco Girolamo Vida, Who duly figured in Chalmers' collection of British Poets (Trust the English to appropriate all they can !) [...] Rolfe with his tyrianthine style, diaphotick verse, Orchidaceous vocabulary, and his archellenisms, Argute, deaurate, investite, lucktifick, excandescence, Galbanate, effrenate, dicaculous, pavonine, torose, Hybristick, gingilism — Rolfe whose mantelpiece held A card inscribed Verro precipitevolissimevolmente, Hardy with words like lewth, leazes, dumble-dores, Spuds, cit, wanzing [...]Continue reading "EPEOLATORS ALL."

It’s not news to readers of  Yahoo! News that the writers and editors frequently make mistakes, including these that appeared at the same time on the same page: That is supposed to be “Star Wars,” of course. And the Barbie Dreamhouse is trademarked: And so is Ping-Pong: The common noun for the sport is “table tennis.” Filed under: Capitalizing, Hyphens, Punctuation, Wrong words Tagged: Barbie Dreamhouse, capitalization, editing, Ping-Pong, proofreading, punctuation errors, punctuation mistakes, Star Wars, trademark, typo, typos, wrong word, Yahoo!, Yahoo! News

I liked my first Booker’s bourbon box cacti planter (see previous post) so much that I made a second one, this time with even more succulents!

From Simon King: I am pleased to announce that the English section of this year's Blizzard Challenge listening test is now live. Please help us out by taking part, and encouraging your colleagues, students, friends, contacts, etc. to take part too. It's your chance to hear a range of speech synthesisers, including some really good ones. Please circulate this message widely - for example, on mailing lists, forums and using social media - we need to reach as many people as possible in the coming month or so. In order to participate, sign up here and follow the instructions.

What dictionary did the writer for the Yahoo! front page use to check the spelling of this? According to the dictionary you’ll find on Yahoo! (the American Heritage Dictionary), there’s no hyphens in peekaboo. According to the folks at yahoo.com, there are two of them. Filed under: Hyphens, Misspellings, Punctuation Tagged: bad spelling, editing, hyphen, incorrect punctuation, misspelling, peekaboo, proofreading, punctuation mistakes, spelling, spelling error, spelling mistake, Yahoo!, Yahoo! front page

Shmeat: Meat grown in a laboratory from animal cells; the objectives include reducing animal cruelty and increasing the global supply of affordable protein. “Shmeat” is a portmanteau of “sheet” and “meat.” An undated article on a website called Shmeat.com (apparently operated by SavingAdvice.com) explains the process: Cells are harvested from a live animal, such as a chicken, pig or cow. The cells are then placed in a special solution of nutrients which mimics the qualities of blood. This nutrient solution will help the cells to multiply where they can then be secured to a spongy sheet which has been soaked with nutrient solution. The sheet is then stretched to increase cell size and protein content. It’s from the combination of this “sheet meat” that shmeat derives its name. Shmeat was the subject of “Building a $325,000 Burger,”a May 14, 2013, story in the New York Times. Reporting from the Netherlands, where researcher Mark Post has created a proof-of-concept shmeat patty, science writer Henry Fountain noted that the burger “was created at phenomenal cost — 250,000 euros, or about $325,000, provided by a donor who so far has remained anonymous.” Fountain went on: “This is still an early-stage technology,” said Neil Stephens, a social scientist at Cardiff University in Wales who has long studied the development of what is also sometimes referred to as “shmeat.” “There’s still a huge number of things they need to learn.” The origins of “shmeat” are uncertain. The earliest citation I could find is in a December 5, 2008, column by Lou Bendrick (“Meet Shmeat”) in the online environmental magazine Grist: Test-tube meat is also known as in vitro meat, cultured meat, victimless meat, vat-grown meat, hydroponic meat, and, finally, shmeat. (Note to self: Be sure to apply for inevitable X Prize to rename this stuff.) For now, let’s call it shmeat. Shmeat is grown from a cell culture (hence the in vitro or cultured prefixes), not from a live animal. These harvested cells are taken from an animal, such as a pig, and placed in a “nutrient-rich medium” that mimics blood. Once the cells multiply they are attached to a spongy scaffold or sheet (sheet + meat = shmeat) that has been soaked with nutrients and stretched to increase cell size and protein content. “Also known as” suggests that “shmeat” had already entered the vocabulary, but I couldn’t find an earlier citation. As Bendrick jokingly points out, and as the title of his column underscores, “shmeat” is not a felicitous name for a serious product. (Shortly after the Grist column appeared, a commenter on the Offalgood website said “shmeat” was “a horrible name, it sounds like what you get when you cross shit and meat.”) Words beginning with shm- indicate mockery or derision in Yiddish (see shmo, shmendrick, shmegegge, shmuck, etc.), and the pattern has been adopted in dismissive English reduplications like fancy-shmancy. (See my recent post, “Name, Shmame,” and related links.) __ Obligatory Urban Dictionary addendum: “Shmeat: Small penis or dick, also reffering [sic] to any person or anything. It can be used for anything anyone and anything can be a shmeat.” Posted November 27, 2006, a full two years before the Grist column.

At least it should be Tobey Maguire and Quai Laubeuf in this photo caption from Yahoo! Movies: Apparently the ability to spell — or even do a Google search — is not a requirement at Yahoo!.  Filed under: Misspellings Tagged: bad spelling, editing, incorrect spelling, misspelled celebrities, misspelling, proofreading, Quai Laubeuf, spelling, spelling error, spelling mistake, Tobey Maguire, Yahoo!, Yahoo! Movies

Alison Dye’s novel The Sense of Things (1994) has a conversation between the narrator, Joanie, and her friend-to-be, Jesus, in which Jesus nervously corrects himself twice in an effort to speak more properly. Joanie has gone to Jesus to order new flooring for the shop she works in, and Jesus is explaining the sheet approach to her: ‘Installation is slightly easier with the sheeting and therefore cuts down on your labour costs. We would unroll it and cut as we go, from the wall out. However, with a sheet you are stuck with the one colour or print except for the borders which you can be a little creative with, if you like. I mean, with which.’ He coughed. After a brief exchange about the relative advantages of tiles, Jesus continues: ‘I like to advise customers that the replacement tiles will always be slightly different in shade than – I mean from, sorry – the original because of wear and tear.’ So we have preposition stranding (which you can be creative with vs. with which you can be creative) and idiomatic variation (different than vs. different from) deployed as usage shibboleths which the speaker rewords to present himself more professionally. He code-switches awkwardly and self-consciously. The author’s use of preposition stranding for this purpose is unremarkable, since it’s one of the best known historical usage disputes, a source of contention ever since John Dryden invented the rule in the 17th century. Different than as a style peeve is far less notorious, and is therefore more interesting here. If you were asked to name a dozen ways someone might correct their own speech in order to sound more proper, I suspect few would include different than – though it was among the 36 questionable examples in my Usage Peeve Bingo card. The phrase elicits strong reactions, though, as can be seen in the comments to my post on different from/than/to, where debate over these phrases’ relative acceptability periodically reignites. Incidentally, I used The Sense of Things in a bookmash last year, and am glad I finally got around to reading it. Filed under: books, grammar, language, usage Tagged: Alison Dye, books, code switching, correction, different than, formal English, grammar, language, phrases, prepositions, speech, usage

Q: Why are so many things going viral? Pictures of cute puppies or kittens or kids may be widely seen on YouTube, but “viral”? An ugly image, and it’s wildly overused. Thanks for letting me get this off my chest. And now you can move on to your next complainer. A: The verbal phrase “go viral” may be going viral these days, but we kind of like the imagery: the rapid spread of a YouTube video likened to a virus running amok. The noun “virus” has been around in one sense or another since the 1300s, according to the Oxford English Dictionary. It comes from a classical Latin term for a poisonous secretion, a malignant quality, and animal semen, among other things. When it entered English sometime before 1398, the OED says, the noun referred to either semen or pus, but it later came to mean any infectious substance in the body. It wasn’t until the early 20th century, though, that the term was used in its modern medical sense, which Oxford defines this way: “An infectious, often pathogenic agent or biological entity which is typically smaller than a bacterium, which is able to function only within the living cells of a host animal, plant, or microorganism, and which consists of a nucleic acid molecule (either DNA or RNA) surrounded by a protein coat, often with an outer lipid membrane.” In the 1970s, according to published references in the OED, the word “virus” took on its familiar figurative sense in computing: “A program or piece of code which when executed causes itself to be copied into other locations, and which is therefore capable of propagating itself within the memory of a computer or across a network, usually with deleterious results.” OED citations indicate that the adjective “viral” first showed up in the late 1940s and the verbal phrase “go viral” in the late 1980s. The adjective was used at first in the medical sense. A 1948 citation from a medical work, for example, refers to “viral agents.” By the late 1980s, the OED says, the adjective was being used in the marketing sense to describe the “rapid spread of information (esp. about a product or service) amongst customers by word of mouth, e-mail, etc.” A Sept. 31,1989, article in PC User, for example, describes the “viral marketing” of Macintosh computers. The OED’s earliest citation for “go viral,” the usage you’ve asked about, is from How to Get Stupid White Men Out of Office (2004), a collection of accounts by young people who influenced elections: “Their petition also went viral, gathering half a million signatures in a few weeks.” Check out our books about the English language