Friday, January 30, 2009

English Language Series #2:
In Which a Dual Lesson on the English Language and Great English Writers Wreaks Havoc on the Author’s Spell-Chequer

Originally when I pondered writing this post, I was looking for a story that was shared in a content area literacy class my students took a couple years ago while I was their field instructor. In the story, most of the words were complete gibberish, but the students were given a quiz (made up of the same gibberish) and got all the answers right without fail, without really understanding what the story was talking about. The point of the lesson was how much we take from context. Thinking of language as a set of words that we deconstruct one by one is not really accurate, because when we learn to understand a language, we do it largely through contextual clues. There are phrase structures and sentence structures, and even story or genre structures, that help us know what to expect so that we don’t have to actually think about the individual words, one at a time.

I couldn’t find the story, though (it’s a pity, it would have been fun to share). But then I realized that I had one of the best examples of understanding gibberish through contextual clues in a well-worn book on the bookshelf in my apartment. And so for #2 in my English Language Series, I share a brilliant little poem from one of my favorite books of all time, Through the Looking Glass by Lewis Carroll.

Jabberwocky

‘Twas brillig, and the slithy toves
Did gyre and gimble in the wabe:
All mimsy were the borogoves,
And the mome raths outgrabe.

“Beware the Jabberwock, my son!
The jaws that bite, the claws that catch!
Beware the Jubjub bird, and shun
The frumious Bandersnatch!”

He took his vorpal sword in hand:
Long time the manxome foe he sought—
So rested he by the Tumtum tree,
And stood awhile in thought.

And, as in uffish thought he stood,
The Jabberwock, with eyes of flame,
Came whiffling through the tulgey wood,
And burbled as it came!

One, two! One, two! And through and through
The vorpal blade went snicker-snack!
He left it dead, and with its head
He went galumphing back.

“And, has thou slain the Jabberwock?
Come to my arms, my beamish boy!
O frabjous day! Callooh! Callay!”
He chortled in his joy.

‘Twas brillig, and the slithy toves
Did gyre and gimble in the wabe;
All mimsy were the borogoves,
And the mome raths outgrabe.


What makes this poem great is that, despite the fact that nearly every one of the important words is completely incomprehensible by itself, as you read the poem you can understand, and even visualize, what is going on. And what makes the poem even greater is that even the individual words are not complete and utter nonsense—either Lewis Carroll had a lot of fun constructing the words, or (I like to think this is the case) he had a lot of fun deconstructing the words after he had written them, and making meaning out of what had begun as nonsense.
’There are plenty of hard words there, “ [Humpty Dumpty interrupted]. Brillig” means four o’clock in the afternoon—the time when you begin broiling things for dinner.’

‘That’ll do very well,’ said Alice: ‘and “
slithy”?’

‘Well, “
slithy” means “lithe and slimy.” “Lithe” is the same as “active.” You see it’s like a portmanteau—there are two meanings packed up into one word.’

‘I see it now,’ Alice remarked thoughtfully: ‘and what are “
toves”?’

‘Well, “
toves” are something like badgers—they’re something like lizards—and they’re something like corkscrews.’

‘They must be very curious-looking creatures.’

‘They are that,’ said Humpty Dumpty: ‘also they make their nests under sun-dials—also they live on cheese.’

‘And what’s to “
gyre” and to “gimble”?’

‘To “
gyre” is to go round and round like a gyroscope. To “gimble” is to make holes like a gimblet.’

‘And “
the wabe” is the grass-plot round a sun-dial I suppose?’ said Alice, surprised at her own ingenuity.

‘Of course it is. It’s called “
wabe” you know, because it goes a long way before it, and a long way behind it—‘

‘And a long way beyond it on each side,’ Alice added.

‘Exactly so. Well then, “
mimsy” is “flimsy and miserable” (there’s another portmanteau for you). And a “borogove” is a thin shabby-looking bird with its feathers sticking out all round—something like a live mop.’

‘And then “
mome raths”?’ said Alice. ‘I’m afraid I’m giving you a great deal of trouble.’

‘Well, a “
rath” is a sort of green pig: but “mome” I’m not certain about. I think it’s short for “from home”—meaning that they’d lost their way, you know.’

‘And what does “
outgrabe” mean?’

‘Well, “
outgribing” is something between bellowing and whistling, with a kind of sneeze in the middle: however, you’ll here it done, maybe—down in the wood yonder—and when you’ve once heard it you’ll be quite content. Who’s been repeating all that hard stuff to you?’

‘I read it in a book,’ said Alice.

Wednesday, January 28, 2009

HEARING VOICES

So I was just looking up some information on Dublin and Belfast before starting some reading for one of my classes. As I started my class readings the voice in my head (you know, the one that you hear when you are thinking) had an Irish accent. In fact as I am writing this it is still there. So if you want to fully appreciate this entry please read it aloud in your best Irish accent. If you need some help listen to Bono or Damien Rice talk.

Monday, January 26, 2009

Andy Murray

In the spirit of my year of Great Britain and all things Scottish I am going be following the Scottish tennis player Andy Murray this year. The ATP has him ranked #4, pretty good for a 22 year old from Glasgow, Scotland.  I am a little concerned with him keeping his ranking as he didn't do too well in the still ongoing Australian open, losing in the 4th round to a very dishy Verdasco. I hope he can pick it up before the real open season starts. I am also hopeful that my new #1 fan status might warrant me an invitation to his birthday which is May 15. I'm sure Amy and I could stop by. BTW Andy shares a B-day with my brother who also plays tennis and was ranked in Wyoming. 

On another sports related note,  Amy and I looked into going to Wimbledon, unfortunately it does not happen until June. Then I thought about attending a premier league soccer game, but a friend warned against that suggesting we might come to bodily harm. So if anyone has any distinctly UK sports suggestion-I'm not going to the UK to play/watch basketball- please let us know... you know rugby, cricket etc. 

The man himself (Andy Murray) although a little less formally attired.  He does have great hair and apparently an uncanny sense of balance. 

Friday, January 23, 2009

Points of Interest in the English Language
#1: In Which a Linguistic Mystery is Solved by a Bell Tower

I believe three months is ample time to learn enough of a language to at least get by when you travel to a foreign country. Fortunately for me, the English language has fascinated me for a long time. And so, as Jess and I navigate the tricky waters of English (would you say de-botch-ery or de-bock-ery?), I thought I would begin a regular column (I’m not willing to commit to how regular quite yet) in order to share interesting linguistic tidbits that I have picked up somewhere along the way. Beginning with...

#1: In Which a Linguistic Mystery is Solved by a Bell Tower

English conjugation is deceptive. On the surface, it appears very simple. If you learn Spanish, you spend years trying to master the present, future, preterite, imperfect, and conditional tenses, and if you try to learn Russian, you learn that verbs are modified not just by tenses, but also by aspects, voices, and moods. But English is easy. If I give you brand new verb, say, “slog,” meaning to slack off in writing on your blog (and for the sake of argument, ignore for a moment that you may already be familiar with the verb “slog” in its very different standard English meaning), you would immediately know that I, you, we, and they all slog, but that (s)he slogs, that we all slogged in the past, and that if you have not written on your blog in weeks, or even months, you are currently in the act of slogging. Any other modifications to tense or condition come through in the words surrounding slog rather than in the word itself. Pretty simple.

But then there are all these little surprises hidden in the English language, where individual words seem to bend the rules (the rules have been bent, not bended). Sometimes this happens in regular ways, where clusters of words have crossed over from other languages with different, but consistent, rules. And occasionally this happens in ways that are completely unpredictable. 

One that I used to wonder about often was the verb to go. As long as you stay in the present tense, it acts perfectly normally—I go, you go, we go, they go, (s)he goes, everyone is going. But leap into the past and suddenly no one goed. They went. It doesn’t sound the same, it doesn’t look the same, and it doesn’t seem to make much linguistic sense.

That is today’s mystery. Maybe some of you already know the answer, but I ask that you refrain from giving it away before the end of the post.

One day, when I was a student at BYU, I was walking on campus and thinking very non-linguistic thoughts. As I was walking, the carillon tower began to chime the hour. For those of you who don’t know, the BYU bell tower plays the first few phrases of “Come Come Ye Saints” on the hour, and as the chimes broke through my thoughts of boys or weather or mathematics or oatmeal, or whatever I had been thinking at the time, I suddenly realized that I had solved the mystery of the past tense of to go. All thoughts of boys, weather, math, and oatmeal vanished and I couldn't wait to get home and validate my new theory.

Can you figure it out? I’m going to pause here and post a pretty picture of the bell tower while you think about it.



Got it yet? If not I’ll give you one more hint, which is that I have hidden one other clue in the text above. Here’s a picture of William Clayton while you ponder.



Got it now? It’s in the last line that the tower plays, “But with joy, wend your way.” And just like when we bend a rule in the past, we say that we bent it, if the saints looked back on their journey many years later, they may have said that they joyfully went their way. Somewhere along the way two words that sounded very different, go and wend, but meant essentially the same thing, became conflated. One got stuck in the present tense, and one got stuck in the past. It makes perfect sense!

I thought that was pretty cool, but I’m going to go just a little deeper because it turns out that the interesting details on the irregular past tense of to go don’t end there. Although went got attached to go way back in the 15th century, to go already had an irregular past tense (eode, later yode or yede). In fact, and I thought this was interesting, it turns out that in almost every Indo-European language, to go is irregular. Think for example about conjugating the verb ir, if you know Spanish. And in the meantime, while go has stayed irregular, wend has accommodated the standard English verb tense. So those pioneers would actually have been wrong if they said that they joyfully went their way. Technically, they wended.

Monday, January 19, 2009

Plane Tickets and Commitment

I have just made a huge commitment to someone. No I did not get engaged nor have I taken orders to become a nun. I have, however, committed to spend three weeks with one person in another country. Other than my mission I don't think I have ever spent that much time time with one person. I did go to China with my friend Amren but we were not together 24/7 and didn't have to share a bed, something I am sure Amy and I will have to do numerous times. 

I was really excited to buy the ticket but as I started to push the confirm button I had this rush of panic as I realized that I was making a huge commitment. Now that's over I am really excited and hope that Amy can stand me for three weeks and doesn't mind me talking in my sleep.
These nun's feelings mirror Amy's  (if I can speak for Amy) and my feelings about our trip. 

No turning back now!

The last thing you want to do before doing something scary is think about it. It seems counterintuitive, because if you're going to do something potentially life-threatening, like diving off the high dive, riding a 400-foot-tall roller coaster, moving to Michigan, or buying plane tickets to London, you'd think you might want to think twice before putting your life in danger. But thinking even once will almost certainly lead to thinking four, ten, a hundred times, and nothing will happen.

And so Jessica and I simultaneously pressed the "purchase tickets" approximately ten minutes after I learned about the awesome ticket prices she had just found. Maybe less.

I think perhaps I will write a poem about this, as I promised to compose poetry for our new blog. Once I compose myself, that is. 



Saturday, January 17, 2009

Dear Blog Community,

This is a joint blog venture by Amy and Jessica to solicit information and helpful hints, as well as to document the process, adventures, and outcomes pertaining to our British peregrination. Please feel free to offer any advice you may have pertaining to places to visit, things to do, ways to save money, how to court British gentlemen, how to get British gentlemen to court you, how to learn the language in 3 months or less, what exactly is meant by "pound," "meter," "loo," "queue," and "bloody," how to avoid contracting mad cow disease, and where to find the best blood pudding or, alternatively, the best non-English ethnic cuisine.

Sincerely,

Amy and Jessica