Only a Blockhead

Self and Others

This is more an observation than a rebut to the article linked by David in the previous post.

Will Self says that “the supposedly difficult language” he uses in his stories and novels “seems to have become more and more offensive to readers.” It’s not the language that’s offensive, guv'nor. It’s the attitude, if you know what I mean. I'll spell it out for you. When you use a word like “milt” you’re saying: I know this word and you don’t, and you should know it because it’s good for you, and if you’re too lazy to look it up, then I’m not interested in trying to communicate with you. The proper response to that kind of arrogance is an Anglo-Saxon expletive followed by “you.” Writing is an act of communication with a reader, so damn right we’re offended when we find that you’re actually masturbating for our apparent entertainment and edification.

Of course Self is right about the richness of English vocabulary. And thanks to modern technology, perhaps there are ways to bring its more arcane elements back into play. Since World War II, there have been continuing official moves here in Japan to limit or abolish Chinese characters in the interests of effective communication. But today, thanks to technology (type in word, out come its kanjis) there are more obscure Chinese characters being used than ever.

So don’t be a wanker, Will. If you write stuff like

I'd observe that English, being a mishmash of several different languages, had a large and exciting vocabulary, and that it seemed a shame not to use it - especially given that it went on growing all the time, spawning argot and specialist terminology as freely as an oyster does its milt.

and you want us to understand, enjoy and learn, give us a click-through definition.

--Julian

"Sally, having swallowed cheese..."

In a recent post, wanting to use the word apprise (inform), I almost used appraise (evaluate) instead. Just one confusing letter’s difference between them.

In a similar vein, a friend wrote that he was awaiting news with baited breath. And noted what a strange expression that was. Intrigued, I investigated, only to find that said breath was in fact bated… which made immediate sense: abated—held in anticipation of the news to come.

Bated/Baited--a common enough mistake. And exploited delightfully in Cruel, Clever Cat, a 1930s poem by Geoffrey Taylor:

Sally, having swallowed cheese

Directs down holes the scented breeze

Enticing thus with baited breath

Nice mice to an untimely death.

 

--Julian

Inspired mistake

Overheard this week in the foreign language room at school:

An English teacher, apprised that his zipper was open, corrected the situation and used it as a chance to teach the idiom “leave the barn door open.”

 Another student arrived just as the explanation was ending, and checked to see if he'd understood: “I see. You left the banana door open?”

--Julian

BA FA

--David

Japanese study aid

 Image: Wikimedia Commons

This should have gone in my Best of 2010 list. But it’s worth posting now in case anyone has a New Year resolution about studying Japanese.

 The news is that the most helpful website for studying nihongo just got even better. Denshi Jisho Online Japanese-English (and English-Japanese) dictionary  http://jisho.org/ recently added diagrams showing the order and direction of the strokes when writing kanji Chinese characters. So now practically all my dictionary and kanji needs are met on this one site. 

 I can’t praise Jisho too highly: If I input a Japanese word in roman letters, it instantly converts what I wrote to hiragana, and to kanji. There’s also a kanji search option using radicals, so when I’m not sure where to look in my (paper) Halpern Kanji Dictionary, I can find what I’m looking for on the site. And when a kanji comes up, there’s in depth information about it… including the new stroke order diagrams.

 One of my New Year resolutions is to expand my foreign language study to include French. Do you have a online French-English dictionary that you recommend?

 --Julian

Me With My Academic Hat On

My review of Philip Seargeant's The Idea of English: Ideology and the Evolution of a Global Language is forthcoming in Applied Linguistics.  It begins:

There is a lot more to language than language, a lot more to English than English. This will not come as news to teachers, policy-makers, applied linguists, sociolinguists, or indeed to anyone who has taken a moment to think seriously about the stuff that flows from our mouths and pens. We all know that, as Philip Seargeant writes, ‘our use of language is always influenced by the ideas we form of language’ (p. 1), and we all know, too, that these ideas are inextricably enmeshed with a variety of non-linguistic factors. In The Idea of English in Japan, Seargeant gives substance and rigor to these intuitions, exploring, for example, why the Japanese, a well-educated people, instructed in generously funded programs by cadres of education professionals both foreign and native, have so little apparent success in mastering English. The trouble, one is certain, is neither in the language itself nor in the learners and teachers. Rather, it is to be found in the ideology that has grown up around English—in, that is, ‘language ideology’, a concept that Wolfram and Schilling-Estes (1998: 9) have defined as the ‘ingrained, unquestioned beliefs about the way the world is, the way it should be, and the way it has to be with respect to language’. Language ideology is the lens through which Philip Seargeant examines English in Japan, and his scrutiny is fruitful.

Read the whole thing here.

—David