Language Log

In the first sentence of her dissent from the California Supreme Court's ruling that legalized same-sex marriage, Judge Carol Corrigan, appointed by Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger in 2005, explained that even though the marriages should not be legally sanctioned, "In my view, Californians should allow our gay and lesbian neighbors to call their unions marriages." Leaving aside the wondrous temerity of allow, think for a moment about what a reader will do with that our. Did Corrigan really intend to convey that Californians, or at least  her sort of Californians, don't include gays or lesbians themselves among their number  (though they may have some living next door)? Not really, I suspect, but the pronoun betrayed the thought even so.

Today at Talking Points Memo, Josh Marshall reprises a phrase that caught my attention when he first used it on Tuesday ("TPMtv: Terrymania!"): "[Clinton campaign chair] Terry McAuliffe has managed to turn projectile nonsense into something approaching the sublime".

There was a huge one thing going on in Grand Rapids, Michigan today. You know, one. Small step, Giant leap, Unity, Togetherness, Indivisible, all that stuff. This guy John, bit of an also ran, but real nice, he was like

There is one man who knows and understands that this is a time for bold leadership. There is one man that knows how to create the change, the lasting change that you have to build from the ground up. There is one man who knows in his heart that it is time to create one America, not two, and that man is…

You know what? The guy who it was, he was right there, and obviously a bit puffed up at that point, so he kinda did this

John Edwards and I believe in a different America. Hillary Clinton believes in a different America. The Democratic Party believes in a different America.

which, you know, sounds to me like at least four different Americas, but apparently it's just

One America, where we rise and fall together as one people and that’s why we are gonna take Washington by storm this November.

Oh, so that's why we're gonna take Washington by storm. Right, I got it now. One man. One people. One America (different).

Because of the recent catastrophe in the Irawaddy delta, the names of the country formerly known as Burma are in the news again. The same thing happened last fall, when the news was full of protest marches led by Buddhist monks ("Should it be Burma or Myanmar?", BBC News Magazine, 9/26/2008):

The ruling military junta changed its name from Burma to Myanmar in 1989, a year after thousands were killed in the suppression of a popular uprising. Rangoon also became Yangon. […]

The two words mean the same thing and one is derived from the other. Burmah, as it was spelt in the 19th Century, is a local corruption of the word Myanmar.

They have both been used within Burma for a long time, says anthropologist Gustaaf Houtman, who has written extensively about Burmese politics.

"There's a formal term which is Myanmar and the informal, everyday term which is Burma. Myanmar is the literary form, which is ceremonial and official and reeks of government. [The name change] is a form of censorship."

If Burmese people are writing for publication, they use 'Myanmar', but speaking they use 'Burma', he says.

This reflects the regime's attempt to impose the notion that literary language is master, Mr Houtman says, but there is definitely a political background to it.

Richard Coates, a linguist at the University of Western England, says adopting the traditional, formal name is an attempt by the junta to break from the colonial past.

Leaving aside the notion that the local pronunciation is a "corruption", the BBC's discussion omits the most interesting part of the story, at least from an American point of view. They should have asked John Wells, whose discussion of the question I linked to at the time ("Myanmar is mama", 10/15/2007). And the explanations that I've heard and read this time around — yesterday on NPR, for example — again miss the key point. So here it is.

There is no 'r'!

It's often impossible to tell the difference between reduced him and reduced them. In particular, I can't tell whether John Edwards said "I just voted for him on Tuesday, so…" — meaning Barack Obama — or "I just voted for them on Tuesday, so…" — i.e. sex-neutral them, meaning either Barack Obama or Hillary Clinton, he's not saying which.

Mark Halperin can't tell either, but he asks the question ("Did Edwards Tip His Hand?", 5/9/2008). You should listen to the whole Q&A before you decide for yourself.

I don't have time for a full post this morning, but here's the bare bones of one. (In fact, I develop most posts from an annotated series of hyperlinks like this is going to be, whereas bones don't develop before flesh does; so a better metaphor would be "the columns and beams of one".)

From Robert Rummel-Hudson's blog Fighting Monsters with Rubber Swords, under the heading "What could I possibly add to this?":

(Hat tip to Elizabeth Daingerfield Zwicky.)

Yesterday afternoon, I got this note from John Cowan, that indefatigable correspondent:

You linked to the piece on Romney vs. Giuliani speaking styles today,
so I checked back to see if you ever added my comment on it, but I
think I probably sent it during the period when my mail to you was being mysteriously blackholed. So here it is again.

In fact, I recall getting John's comments the first time. But they brought up a problematic point that deserves a post of its own — the vexed question of "stress-timed" vs. "syllable-timed" languages — and so I put John's note on my to-blog list, where it languished until now. I still don't have time for a proper answer, but I'll respond briefly (hah!) under the rubric of fact-checking.

As part of its efforts to spiff up its image for the Olympics and counter the widespread protests over its occupation of Tibet, the Chinese government is putting out propaganda to the effect that all is well for the Tibetan language and that China is promoting its use. CCTV has just reprinted this article originally published in October in the People's Daily (人民日报), the organ of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of China.

In reality, according to Tibetan sources, China is promoting Chinese at the expense of Tibetan as part of its campaign of cultural genocide. Here is a brief news item. The Free Tibet report to which it refers can be downloaded here.

Back in June, we unaccountably failed to cover a linguistic debate that took place in the House Committee on Government Reform of the United States Congress. Lurita Doan, the head of the General Services Administration, testified at length about the number, nature, and interpretation of tenses, aspects, and moods in English. Alternative views were expressed by representatives John Sarbanes (D-MD), John Yarmuth (D-KY), and Henry Waxman (D-CA).

But today, we get another shot at the story, because Ms. Doan is in the news again.

According to Dana Milbank, "Still More Lamentations From Jeremiah", Washington Post, 8/29/2008

The Rev. Jeremiah Wright, explaining why he had waited so long before breaking his silence about his incendiary sermons, offered a paraphrase from Proverbs yesterday: "It is better to be quiet and be thought a fool than to open your mouth and remove all doubt."

Barack Obama's former pastor should have stuck with the wisdom of the prophets.

Milbank focuses on the fact that at the National Press Club yesterday,

Wright praised Louis Farrakhan, defended the view that Zionism is racism, accused the United States of terrorism, repeated his belief that the government created AIDS to extinguish racial minorities, and stood by his suggestion that "God damn America."

We'll leave those issues to the political blogs. But Rev. Wright's recent divagations have extended into linguistic territory as well. And the results are mixed at best.

Earlier today in a speech about his relationship with Louis Farrakhan, the leader of the Nation of Islam, at the National Press Club, Jeremiah Wright, the controversial pastor of the church that Barack Obama attends, said (transcript) (video):

Louis Farrakhan is not my enemy. He did not put me in chains. He did not put me in slavery. And he didn't make me this color.

Let me get this straight. Putting someone in chains is bad, right? Putting someone in slavery is bad, right? So "making me this color" is also bad, right? Personally, I don't think that there's anything wrong with being black. I'm dismayed that Rev. Wright does.

As promised a few days ago by Victor Mair, Amber R. Woodward's senior thesis has now been published: ("A Survey of Li Yang Crazy English", Sino-Platonic Papers No. 180, April 2008).