The Trouble with Words
The meeting was finished, and the client, a middle-aged woman with two teenage boys shared her triumph in self control. She wanted to say she didn't lose her temper, and probably thought she was being pretty hip by saying,“I didn’t want to shoot my wad.” There were smiles all around, little don't laugh out loud smiles and eyes meeting eyes. All we needed was John Cleese of Monty Python to stick his head in the door and blurt out—”And now for something completely different.” Never trust a teenager to explain to their parents what something really means. Nudge, nudge; say no more.
Another lady of a similar age and tenure regularly graced our local public television station during pledge drive. She was English and appeared only during British comedy night, which also featured the popular science fiction show Red Dwarf. They took a pledge break right after Dave Lister tried to teach his cyber buddy Kryten to overcome his moral chip and insult Arnold Rimmer, a smeghead. There she was, this pert little elegant redhead sporting a lovely Coco Chanel suit, droning on in her ever-so-perfect Queen’s English, wondering what smeg was and asking the audience to call in if they knew. It was the shortest pledge break in the history of PBS.
Words don’t always paint an accurate picture. Most designers consider words a second method of communication, relying on pictures, color and composition before ever resorting to verbiage. Lots of designers think blogging shouldn't be done by anyone in our field. I’m not that smart. As a volunteer reader for Taping for the Blind, I was red faced to learn in a very public manner that La Jolla, California was not pronounced the way it was written after about 25 people telephoned to pronounce it in the politest way. I blushed with equal radiance in a boardroom with a very important man who loved it that the sweet young thing from Texas called that second toilet in her hotel room a buy-debt. Is it my fault they don’t have bum washers in Painesville, Ohio where I was raised? I was lucky to know it was a be-day at all and not a foot bath. Bee-day or buy-debt, I know spot washing isn't required with a daily shower.
We all risk dabbling in word trouble whether spoken or written. Like the veteran Congresswoman who stood in front of the press on the nightly news, flush with team spirit and a recent legislative victory, “Yes, I am aesthetic.” She meant she was ecstatic because she certainly wasn’t a looker. There's a lot of word trouble on the evening news, and though our boy George W. makes quite a few entertaining boo-boos, he isn’t alone in that. One nightly news commentary on a military coupe included, “Their intent was to disrupt the regimen.” But I think what he meant to say was regime which is a whole lot bigger to upset than a routine.
American Usage of the English language encourages mistakes. How about the phrase used to make women swoon by their Significant Others, “You’re one of the best things that’s ever happened to me . . . ” Which is to say, he thinks of her as a good thing; and as fondly as, say, his fine Italian leather shoes, or his patented titanium golf clubs, or even his domestic muscle car (though I’ve met more men who abandon their women before they would abandon their cars). And what about the quintessential "I’m just pulling your leg?” Doesn’t that put a pretty picture in the mind of every student of English as a second language? Which brings me to one of the many curiosities that started out as a common ethnic slur; something the world has way too many already. WOP stands for without papers which probably would apply to my friend Juan Ricardo Hernandez in Houston but he certainly isn’t Italian and would certainly think you were off the wall if you called him a WOP. So much for the slur and the people it is intended to slur. Few of us are native to much, and derogatory labels only serve to alienate those who are different; it's our differences that make us interesting as individuals. Maybe only stupid people create ethnic and racial slurs—nudge, nudge; say no more.
Generalizations are big word trouble when turned into labels, because they are frequently misnomers. I don't subscribe to the small word products of miscreant minds. I mind my P’s and Q’s* and wonder why a bottle of liquor is called a fifth** I admire anyone who struggles with English as a second language and wonder what they will do when faced with phrases like turn over a new leaf and change your mind.
* P’s and Q’s refers to minding the number of pints and quarts you drink at your local pub.
**A fifth of liquor is so named because it is one fifth of a gallon.
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"Shooting your wad" has different meanings. I know the one YOU are referencing has a sexual nature, but when I was a kid, it also meant having expended your pre-made/premoistened supply of spit-balls.
In gambling circles, it also means having spent all your money (a "wad" in that case being the roll of money you carry lumped in your pocket).
I'm no Bill Safire (there's only one of him) but I suspect his gang might rather say "Blow your wad" when talking about gambling or shopping, Nandy. Nevertheless, mistakes and malapropisms can lead to the most wonderful laughter.
As Susan's stories show, ESL-ers are hardly the only people that have trouble with our native tongue. And why English-language puns are not best choice for headlines in ads that may run outside the US, no matter how attractive they are.
Idiomatic expressions abound in every language, too. A German colleague recently wrote that a creative exercise as 'Trockenübung,' which I couldn't find in my German-American dictionaries, but thought it had something to do with 'dry' (since 'Trocken' equals 'dry' like some wines). He wrote back:
"Trockenübung (a very idiomatic word) literally means 'dry exercise' and refer to those days when you spent your 1st swimming lesson coordinating arm and leg movements while laying prone on a chair – with no water in sight (this was well before the swimming babies). So your metaphor was not 100% right, but you got the meaning pretty well."
That's why wordplay (in any language) is such fun.
You make good points, but (a little inadvertently) your post points up the catastrophe that is American education in the last half century.
A "gaff" is part of a sail boat, or a hook on a pole for landing large fish. What you mean is a "gaffe".
I don't know what a "bidette" is, but the restroom item is a "bidet".
It doesn't take a whole lot to recognize French and Spanish words, and in this country, more than most, one is obliged to know the basics of Spanish pronunciation.
There are several opinions about the origin of "P's and Q's", but I've never seen a definitive one. The most popular is "Pleases and Thank Yous", which makes more sense given that the idiom refers to etiquette. Nobody drinks quarts in a British pub, and the term is originally British.
A few years ago the word "oxymoron" became fashionable among people who'd never learned figures of speech in school, and most users of "kudos" think it's plural.
In almost every magazine or newspaper I pick up, there's at least one egregious misspelling per page that no editor should have let go. "Loose" instead of "lose" is now so common we'll soon see references to people "loosing" their minds. Even headlines in advertising are not immune.
Designers should, indeed, make an effort to expand both their vocabularies and their understanding of English grammar and syntax. And we should all make an effort to improve general education, whether we are parents or not.
SDK responds: You're right--I should stick to words I know how to spell--make note of the changes you inspired and pat yourself on the back for 2 good catches.
Please stop perpetuating the urban myth that the ethnic slur "wop" was an acronym for "without papers". This old saw is as bad as the idea of the F-Bomb's origins being the acronym of "For Unlawful Carnal Knowledge..
The ACTUAL etymology of "wop": Italian dialectal guappo, thug, from Spanish guapo, handsome, dashing, braggart, bully, from French dialectal wape, rogue, from Latin vappa, flat wine, scoundrel.
And that's straight from the American Heritage Dictionary lest you still doubt..
Just one more ... you refer to a "military coupe" (a car with two doors and a hard, fixed roof that seats two people or has a small rear seat). I think you meant to say "coup" (the sudden violent overthrow of a government and seizure of political power, especially by the military).
Are you feeling picked on yet? :-)
All languages have idioms. This is the hardest thing to learn in any language. One of the most difficult things to do when learning a new language is telling or understanding a joke. Jokes are usually a play on words, and therein lies the rub.
Just one more for the p's and q's entry: I've heard that it's a printing term, and since the type slugs are reversed when you look at them (so that they'll print correctly), p's look like q's, and vice versa. But I've also understood, as Alan G points out, that "minding your p's and q's" is about etiquette, not focusing on the details, as, say, "dotting your i's and crossing your t's" is.
I hate to point this out in an article dealing with the correct use of language, but consider the following phrase taken from the article ...
"One nightly news commentary on a military coupe ... "
I know as an English speaker that what is meant is 'coup', but what is printed here is a reference to a model of automobile ... so my question is:
Was this an accident ... or was this a test ... ?
SDK responds: I tried to include as many genuine faux pearls (paux, paws, pause) as I could to see if anyone was paying attention. You win the prize for naming the game, Richard. There are at least 5 explanations for Ps & Qs, though I doubt if I would rely on Wikipedia as a reliable source since it is a document created by consensus. It's interesting to read the comments here while keeping my previous blog on critiques in mind—as content, humor, concept and authorship are things of value whether perfectly delivered or not. So if you got the point, communication was a success. EVERY comment is appreciated. Oh, yes, and for the guy with the oxymoron on his mind, my favorite is "mandatory option" found in new car brochures. Sing, even if you are less than perfect.
SDK