Language Log

One of the things that I acquired over the holiday was a Talking Obama Figure ("Hear His Historic and Inspirational Words") from Gemmy Industries Corp. of Coppell, TX, "the worlds largest provider of all your favorite seasonal decor, animation entertainment and lighting products". This is one of a large number of other Gemmy talking toys, from the "Animated Talking Head Skeleton" and the "Gemmy Talking Dancing Hamster 97 Kurt Busch", to the "Dora the Explorer Talking Christmas Doll in Santa Outfit" and the "Animated Talking Bouncing Van of Love", and  Gemmy's monster hit from 2000-2001, "Big Mouth Billy Bass".

As you press of the red button on its pedestal, the Talking Obama Figure cycles through nine passages from president Obama's speeches. What struck me first about this collection of inspirational oratory was that it's performed by somebody else.

A Bizarro leap forward in animal abilities:

In the lull between Christmas and New Year's Day, I read the droll news of a special parking lot for women in the city of Shijiazhuang, Hebei Province, with spaces a meter wider than normal and painted in pink and light purple "to appeal to female tastes."

Today, Nathan Hopson sent me an article from Le Monde that shows pictures of this wondrous parking lot, leaving me even more in awe of the lengths to which the proprietors have gone to satisfy their customers:

The little bird..Tweets to its mate a tiny loving note (George Meredith, Pastorals, 1851, as cited in OED2)

In my last posting, I reported on Lake Superior State University's 2010 "List of Words Banished from the Queen's English for Mis-use, Over-use and General Uselessness" (for the year 2009), but reserving tweet (verb or noun) for separate treatment.

It's the beginning of a new year, so Lake Superior State University has come out with its annual list of words (well, expressions) to be banished from English. (We've had brief Language Log postings on earlier LSSU lists — at least, here, here, and here.) Yes, it's a publicity stunt, and yes, it's a steaming pile of intemperate peeving (on the evidence of the comments selected for the entries on the site), and yes, the hyperbolic conceit of the site is that not only are the compilers declaring that they despise these expressions but they are proposing that everyone should be prohibited from ever using them (not that such opinions could have any real effect on what people do; the site is all show and no consequence.)

Reader IL writes:

A former Prime Minister here (John Major) has just criticised another one (Tony Blair) in the following terms:

"(Major) said: 'I had myself been prime minister in the first Gulf War, and I knew when I said something I was utterly certain that it was correct, and I said less than I knew. I assumed the same thing had happened and on that basis I supported reluctantly the second Iraq war.'"

Myself, I've always been sceptical of the popular point of view that Blair "lied" or was dishonest about the case for war (I tend to think he was guilty of bad judgement). I'm interested in Major's criticism because it suggests that he and other MPs were (quite reasonably) supposing that Blair was playing some kind of conventional language game in his public statements that he wasn't, in fact, playing, and that this led to a massive misunderstanding. That is, they were supposing that he was lying by omission (saying "less than he knew"). In fact, he was – you might say – misleading by telling them what he thought was the truth.

Crash blossom of the week: Andrew Morse, "Google fans phone expectations by scheduling Android event", Total Telecom 1/4/2010.

A sequence from Pat Brady and Don Wimmer's Rose Is Rose, January 4 and 5:

(Hat tip to JC Dill.)

Ismael Tohari emailed me from Saudi Arabia to ask this:

Sorry to bother you but… I really find it very hard to pinpoint any difference between the two sentences below:

[1]   He was playing a violin when the visitor arrived.

[2]   He was playing the violin when the visitor arrived.

A fascinating question. I wonder if you can see what the difference in meaning is, and why it is so tricky to specify?

Jack Lynch's recent book The Lexicographer's Dilemma was featured last week in the New York Times' Books section, in a review by Neil Genzlinger under the headline "This is English, Rules are Optional".  Arnold Zwicky recommended Lynch's book enthusiastically, back in December, and I agree with his opinion. Genzlinger also liked the book, and his review should be worth a well-deserved boost in sales. But there was something about Genzlinger's perspective that struck me as odd.

I just watched The Man Who Would be King for the Nth time. For those who don't know it, this is the film version of a short story by Rudyard Kipling about two Englishmen retired from the Indian Army who set off to become kings of the mythical Kafiristan. Along the way they acquire the services of a Gurkha called Billyfish, who among other things, serves as their interpreter.

If I have identified the languages correctly, Billyfish addresses the natives of Kafiristan in Urdu, but they reply in Arabic. Neither is really appropriate for the area, which is presumably intended to be in the general area of Afghanistan or the Northwest Frontier Province of Pakistan (though the people are depicted as non-Muslim). A guess is that linguistic authenticity was not a priority and that the film makers simply had the actors speak languages that they knew. The actor who played Billyfish, Saeed Jaffrey, is an Indian Muslim who speaks Urdu and Punjabi. The Kafiristanis were presumably played by local actors, which means they knew Arabic since the film was actually made in Morocco. But before I go too far with this speculation, perhaps someone more competent in Urdu and Arabic than I am can confirm or deny that these are indeed the languages spoken.

Zipper has found his vocation:

And after he graduates, he can get a job in journalism.

Today's Pearls Before Swine:

(Click on the image for a larger version.)