The Search

I've visited two schools so far: George Mason U, and University of Del.

At both places I initially met someone with an odd name: Tal at GMU, an older British fellow; and Gaby (pron. Gobby) at UD. Could also have been Tel, I have no idea. He showed me and another prospective student around campus, used his wry British wit to describe various buildings and facilities, talked about opera, and told us who George Mason was. I forget who he was.

Gaby (pron. Gobby) is interested in something something and "microparameters," which are interesting but let's not get into it. She showed me Dr. Heinz, a cool dude, and Dr. Bruening, who I did not like, though he was the only syntax guy there. Everyone, by the way, looked very different from their photos on the department's web site. Did I look at these photos to see if there were any hot grad students? Yes I did. That worked out nicely - it was the professors whose photos were deceitful.

In his photo, Bruening looks tall and handsome, up close he looks small and nervous. Heinz's photo portrays a short, plump, nerd, and in person he is tall and attractive, self-assured. Gobby looked a bit more shriveled and old than her photo, but she had on the same huge glasses.

The girl that showed me the child language labs was short and pretty, with bewilderingly giant brown eyes. I decided not to put the moves on her in the creepy "habituation" lab after she mentioned her "boyfriend." Oh! you coquettish developmental linguist.

Let's not forget my pizza party with the grad students! No, let's forget it.

-

Some lessons. It's awkward visiting these places. People seem to think it very unusual and I can see in their eyes they suspect something. Why? Why can't a guy visit a school?

Also, when you tell a person you're interested in syntax* (a perfectly reasonable thing to be interested in, as a linguist) - EVEN IF YOU'RE TELLING SOMEONE WHO DOES SYNTAX - they look at you like you're a fucking Martian. I'm pretty sure the study of syntax is the only reason linguistics is still relevant. If people could keep making up whatever they wanted about the structure of language, as they did before the 1950's, the field would be so wide open as to be quite desolate. Creativity flourishes under constraints - a lesson, in fact, from syntax.

It's a shame I didn't get to go over that sort of thing at University of Delaware, since I'm actually kind of excited about their program.

-

Bruening, being short and nervous - and rather young - tried to assail me with his intellect. Smart guy, but an asshole.

Heinz is a phonologist (pronounced funologist - he studies fun ... and speech sounds). As is the case with other phonologists I've met, he's a genius. He was much more agreeable.

(Chomsky, more or less, started out as a phonologist. Well, first as an anarchist.)

Gaby (pron. Gobby) discouraged me from applying - indirectly - as the department receives very little funding, and, as she told me, "there are very few syntax jobs." NO SHIT GOBBY, although I get plenty of time to think about grammar while I'm washing dishes.

Well at least she was honest. I still haven't heard back from my alma mater.

-

* Sorry for the jargon, syntax = grammar, basically.

Candy

From the Arabic...

Etymology: Middle English sugre candy, part translation of Middle French sucre candi, from Old French sucre sugar plus Arabic qandi candied, from qand crystallized sugar!

The word was born in the 1400s, but the thing - the thing - is eternal.

Garnish support

Here's a new one. I'm not sure if it's a malapropism or an eggcorn:

"...the Democratic candidate for mayor is making an appeal along racial lines to garnish support..." The Capital

If you don't agree with me that it should be garner support, you are in a serious minority, viz 4,610 hits for "garnish," 214,000 for the real one. But there it is, right in the Capital's big lede. Not that I care, naturally, but click that link and see what marginal company our fancy hometown paper is keeping with its word choice.

Anyway, the interesting question is really whether it's a malapropism or an eggcorn. You're right to be confused about these. I only know about "eggcorns" from reading something called Language Log, where the term was coined. It's sometimes pretty interesting, sometimes very boring. Their ongoing fascination with eggcorns goes on here, but also check out this, their fine taste in comics.

The difference between our two new vocabulary words seems to be that eggcorns form a new sort of meaning relating to the old word or phrase, while malapropisms are just fuck ups. Those links'll take you to the examples, and of course scroll down a skosh for my first post on my roommate Kristen's gibberish.

Got me thinking about spoonerisms, too. Hilarious. And this caught my eye: Rickyisms!

And remember, if your malapropism doesn't go away after four hours, call a doctor.

My roommate Kristen

I'm afraid to go downstairs a lot of the time because if Kristen is down there she'll corner me and start talking to me. She'll talk to me while I fix a whole meal and continue as I eat it. Grant me the serenity not to stab her to death next time she does this.

And what does she talk about? I don't know. I don't listen. Every ounce of energy I have goes into NOT hearing what she's saying. I am however somewhat aware that she is so desperate to make noise in front of another person that she'll choose most any subject to babble about so that she doesn't have to stop talking.

Okay, a little gets through. Especially when she switches words around, uses them wrong, or just makes them up.

"She was old, you know, kind of weird...a little dimensional."

"They know that it can't 'pass the mustard,' so to speak."

(Literally talking about finding someone to walk her dog) "I'd have to find someone to walk my dog, so to speak."

Some notes: "trunicating" Entirely made up word. Use of "inhibit" as its opposite. Free use of "proficient" to mean almost anything. I'll try and write some instances down. Okay goodnight.

Homonyms!

Alright, the last round saw a tie between "Annie" and "Sterling," two of my blondest friends. You'll recall the clues:

Altercation between rodents?
Problem with teaching stupid kids?
Treat's ability?
Door to a squirrel's abode?
Spooky bird's nest?

Their answers (Annie/Sterling):

rat spat / mice mess
idiots shitiots / fool foul
nice rice / dessert desert
nest / port hole's portals
scary aerie / an armpit!!!!!

The right answers:

Squirrels' quarrel
(or Mouse grouse)
Students too dense
Snack's knack
Entry in tree
Eerie aerie

Thanks for playing!

The homonym game

Most of you know this game. You get a clue and the answer is a set of homonyms. Here are some bad examples:

The entire emptiness? Whole hole.
The only being? Sole soul.

The relationship between the clue and the answer is sometimes like the one you roll your eyes at when you're doing a crossword puzzle. So the answer isn't always exactly synonymous with the clue. I also like answers that aren't strict homonyms, or they're a stretch, literally. More bad examples:

Arborial snack? Tree treat.
Soda for a tree? Oak Coke.

Onto the game!

Altercation between rodents?
Problem with teaching stupid kids?
Treat's ability?
Door to a squirrel's abode?
Spooky bird's nest?

The maths

I've never seen this before. Not only does The Economist freely use the silly word "maths," but they go right ahead and consider it singular.

"The maths is still daunting." article

"Their maths was dodgy..." article

Maybe it's a British thing? Further - and I'm not very good at this - Google turns up tons of entries for "maths is" and "maths was," while results for "maths are" seem to be strictly limited to cases like "Students struggling with maths are going to be put to death." (Okay, not a real example, but fuck it, do the search yourself.)

Not like I care, just strikes me as something I wouldn't find myself saying. Are there any analogous cases of bizarro opposite nouns?