American Dialects...

At the University of Cambridge (UK), Bert Vaux has been running a survey of English dialects for some time, collecting a large amount of data (you can take the survey and add results yourself).  Now Joshua Katz at the North Carolina State University Department of Statistics has taken this raw data, filtered it for the United States, massaged it a bit, and produced a beautiful set of interactive graphics like the one below, each exploring a different particular dialectical variant.

The example I've reproduced below shows one such dialectical variant: what you call the device for drinking water in public.  The red areas mostly say “water fountain”, the blue areas “drinking fountain”, and the weird little green areas are where they say “bubbler” (what's up with Rhode Island and Michigan?). 

If you're at all interested in language, or just English in particular, this is a fascinating interactive graphic, very well done...

Like-ectomy...

Anyone older than about 25 has experienced the astonishing increase in the frequency of the word “like” in ordinary speech.  I'd be surprised if “like” made it to the top 100 words of my own speech.  For some speakers I have listened to (painfully, usually in a store checkout line), “like” approaches 50% of the words they utter.  These people are predominantly young women, many of whom would be quite attractive if it weren't for their verbal vomitus.

My most recent experience with this phenomenon was just Monday, while standing in the checkout line at Home Depot in Encinitas, California.  A woman of perhaps 20 was in line just before me, and we were behind perhaps 3 others.  She was deep in conversation on her cell phone, which was turned up so loud that I could easily hear both sides of the conversation.  You'd think this would be an ordinary sort of experience, but it wasn't ordinary at all – it was very hard work.  First, I had to mentally subtract all the “likes” in order to have a prayer of understanding the flow of the conversation.  Then every sentence uttered, by both parties, sounded like a question (because of the rising intonation at the end of the sentences).  Upon parsing the actual words, though, it became clear that none of the sentences were questions.  Unfortunately they weren't normal declarative sentences like us old fogies use for communications.  No, these sentences were some new construction that I'm unfamiliar with – full of strange intonations, unusual sounds, and other words (such as “soooooooo...”) interjected into unfamiliar locations within sentences.

However, I'm confident that after five minutes or so, I figured out the actual content of the conversation.  Here's my translation in full:

Woman in front of me: “Hi!”
Woman on phone: “Hi!”

Eventually it was her turn to check out, with her quart of paint and a few other related supplies.  There was some back-and-forth with the clerk, mainly about where one swipes credit cards.  Like the earlier cell phone conversation, her side of this one was about 50% “likes” (and no, I am not exaggerating).  I could see the clerk (a woman of perhaps 30) was working just as hard as I was to keep up with the young woman's speech.  Part of it I never figured out, but the young woman did swipe her credit card, eventually.  Then she mercifully walked out of range of my tortured ears.

The clerk stared at the young woman as she departed, agape.  Then she asked me “Did you year her?”  I think the clerk wanted some reassurance that our mutually experienced encounter was not a hallucination.  I was happy to oblige.

Rachel Lucas has noticed the same phenomenon:

...I said that the girl’s way of speaking had sounded so shockingly stupid to me that I could hardly keep from grabbing her by the shoulders and begging her not to go around Europe talking that way because it gives Europeans an excuse to smugly think Americans are subliterate fools. I said she sounded literally brain-damaged.

Yes, exactly.  Go read the rest of her rant...

New English Letter Frequency Tables...

Many older ciphers (and some less sophisticated current ciphers) are based on letter substitution (instead of “a”, write “m”, instead of “b”, write “j”, and so on).  A basic tool for cryptanalysts trying to break such a cipher is tables of “letter frequencies”.  These tables show how often each letter appears in ordinary writing for any particular language.  Even more importantly, the tables will include how often each “digram” (pair of letters) and “trigram” (triplets of letters) appears.  With these tables and a little additional cleverness for polyalphabetic substitution ciphers, all you need is enough encrypted messages and you can break the code.

Letter frequency tables have been readily available for a long time.  I remember first seeing them in the 1970s (when I was studying cryptography in the U.S. Navy), and the tables I saw then were quite old – WWII-era.  The English letter frequency tables most often used today were generated by a fellow named Mark Mayzner in the early 1960s.  He analyzed (the hard way!) some 20,000 English words to generate his tables.  

It turns out that Mr. Mayzner is still alive, and just last month he wrote Peter Norvig to ask if he might update those tables using today's much easier methods and vastly larger accessible texts.  Peter did exactly that, and the results are here – and freely downloadable!

Say It Ain't So!

The Cutty Sark is storied Clipper ship, built in 1869.  She's a piece of history that you can touch, as she's been carefully preserved (though not without some ups and downs) all these years.

But in a tragic story of Hollywood-meets-history, the Cutty Sark is about to become a joke.  A bad joke:

In her years of cutting ribbons, Her Majesty has had to smile politely at many brave new mistakes. But few can compete with this clucking, Grade A, Bernard Matthews–class turkey. One of Britain's most precious maritime treasures now looks like it has run aground in a giant greenhouse.

Read the details here. I thought the English had more sense than this...

A History of English, in 10 Minutes (more or less)...

Crowdsourced English...

What will they think of next?

English is a Crazy Language...

Passed along by my friend and colleague Aleck L. (for whom English is a second language).  As always, click to enlarge:

An Email from Queen Elizabeth...

Via reader Simi L.:

To the citizens of the United States of America from Her Sovereign Majesty Queen Elizabeth II

In light of your immediate failure to financially manage yourselves and also in recent years your tendency to elect incompetent Presidents of the USA and therefore not able to govern yourselves, we hereby give notice of the revocation of your independence, effective immediately. (You should look up 'revocation' in the Oxford English Dictionary.)

Her Sovereign Majesty Queen Elizabeth II will resume monarchical duties over all states, commonwealths, and territories (except Kansas, which she does not fancy).

Your new Prime Minister, David Cameron, will appoint a Governor for America without the need for further elections.

Congress and the Senate will be disbanded. A questionnaire may be circulated sometime next year to determine whether any of you noticed.

To aid in the transition to a British Crown dependency, the following rules are introduced with immediate effect:

1. The letter 'U' will be reinstated in words such as 'colour,' 'favour,' 'labour' and 'neighbour.' Likewise, you will learn to spell 'doughnut' without skipping half the letters, and the suffix '-ize' will be replaced by the suffix '-ise.' Generally, you will be expected to raise your vocabulary to acceptable levels. (look up 'vocabulary').
   
   
2. Using the same twenty-seven words interspersed with filler noises such as ''like' and 'you know' is an unacceptable and inefficient form of communication. There is no such thing as U.S. English. We will let Microsoft know on your behalf. The Microsoft spell-checker will be adjusted to take into account the reinstated letter 'u'' and the elimination of '-ize.'
   
   
3. July 4th will no longer be celebrated as a holiday.
   
   
4. You will learn to resolve personal issues without using guns, lawyers, or therapists. The fact that you need so many lawyers and therapists shows that you're not quite ready to be independent. Guns should only be used for shooting grouse. If you can't sort things out without suing someone or speaking to a therapist, then you're not ready to shoot grouse.
   
   
5. Therefore, you will no longer be allowed to own or carry anything more dangerous than a vegetable peeler. Although a permit will be required if you wish to carry a vegetable peeler in public.
   
   
6. All intersections will be replaced with roundabouts, and you will start driving on the left side with immediate effect. At the same time, you will go metric with immediate effect and without the benefit of conversion tables. Both roundabouts and metrication will help you understand the British sense of humour.
   
   
7. The former USA will adopt UK prices on petrol (which you have been calling gasoline) of roughly $10/US gallon. Get used to it.
   
   
8. You will learn to make real chips. Those things you call French fries are not real chips, and those things you insist on calling potato chips are properly called crisps. Real chips are thick cut, fried in animal fat, and dressed not with catsup but with vinegar.
   
   
9. The cold, tasteless stuff you insist on calling beer is not actually beer at all. Henceforth, only proper British Bitter will be referred to as beer, and European brews of known and accepted provenance will be referred to as Lager. New Zealand beer is also acceptable, as New Zealand is pound for pound the greatest sporting nation on earth and it can only be due to the beer. They are also part of the British Commonwealth - see what it did for them. American brands will be referred to as Near-Frozen Gnat's Urine, so that all can be sold without risk of further confusion.
   
   
10. Hollywood will be required occasionally to cast English actors as good guys. Hollywood will also be required to cast English actors to play English characters. Watching Andie Macdowell attempt English dialogue in Four Weddings and a Funeral was an experience akin to having one's ears removed with a cheese grater.
    
    
11. You will cease playing American football. There are only two kinds of proper football; one you call soccer, and rugby (dominated by the New Zealanders). Those of you brave enough will, in time, be allowed to play rugby (which has some similarities to American football, but does not involve stopping for a rest every twenty seconds or wearing full kevlar body armour like a bunch of nancies).
    
    
12. Further, you will stop playing baseball. It is not reasonable to host an event called the World Series for a game which is not played outside of America. Since only 2.1% of you are aware there is a world beyond your borders, your error is understandable. You will learn cricket, and we will let you face the Australians (World dominators) first to take the sting out of their deliveries.
    
    
13. You must tell us who killed JFK. It's been driving us mad.
    
    
14. An internal revenue agent (i.e. tax collector) from Her Majesty's Government will be with you shortly to ensure the acquisition of all monies due (backdated to 1776).
    
    
15. Daily Tea Time begins promptly at 4 p.m. with proper cups, with saucers, and never mugs, with high quality biscuits (cookies) and cakes; plus strawberries (with cream) when in season.
    
    

God Save the Queen!

Shakespeare...

I'm not sure where this originated, but it's a great presentation of a bunch of English expressions still in common use that actually originated with the bard: Shakespeare.  It's rather stunning just how much influence a single writer had.  Click to enlarge, and enjoy!

North American Dialects...

Here's a fascinating little web site that's chock full of information about the English dialects of North America.  There are even audio samples you can listen too!

Origins of Some Sayings...

...and some other things.  Via my mom:

There is an old Hotel/Pub in Marble Arch, London , which used to have a gallows adjacent to it. Prisoners were taken to the gallows, (after a fair trial of course) to be hung.

The horse drawn dray, carting the prisoner, was accompanied by an armed guard, who would stop the dray outside the pub and ask the prisoner if he would like ''ONE LAST DRINK''.

If he said YES, it was referred to as ONE FOR THE ROAD.

If he declined, that prisoner was ON THE WAGON.

They used to use urine to tan animal skins, so families used to all pee in a pot & then once a day it was taken & sold to the tannery. If you had to do this to survive you were, "Piss Poor", but worse than that, were the really poor folk, who couldn't even afford to buy a pot, they "Didn't have a pot to Piss in" & were the lowest of the low.

The next time you are washing your hands and complain, because the water temperature isn't just how you like it, think about how things used to be.

Here are some facts about the 1500's:

Most people got married in June, because they took their yearly bath in May and they still smelled pretty good by June. However, since they were starting to smell, brides carried a bouquet of flowers, to hide the body odor.

Hence the custom today, of carrying a bouquet when getting married.

Baths consisted of a big tub filled with hot water..

The man of the house had the privilege of the nice clean water, then all the other sons and men, then the women and finally the children. Last of all the babies. By then the water was so dirty you could actually lose someone in it. Hence the saying, "Don't throw the baby out with the Bath water!"

Houses had thatched roofs, thick straw piled high, with no wood underneath. It was the only place for animals to get warm, so all the cats and other small animals (mice, bugs) lived in the roof. When it rained it became slippery and sometimes the animals would slip and fall off the roof. Hence the saying "It's raining cats and dogs."

There was nothing to stop things from falling into the house. This posed a real problem in the bedroom, where bugs and other droppings could mess up your nice clean bed. Hence, a bed with big posts and a sheet hung over the top, afforded some protection. That's how canopy beds came into existence.

The floor was dirt. Only the wealthy had something other than dirt. Hence the saying, "Dirt Poor." The wealthy had slate floors, that would get slippery in the winter when wet, so they spread thresh (straw) on floor to help keep their footing.

As the winter wore on, they added more thresh, until, when you opened the door, it would all start slipping outside. A piece of wood was placed in the entrance-way.. Hence: a thresh hold.

In those old days, they cooked in the kitchen with a big kettle that always hung over the fire. Every day, they lit the fire and added things to the pot. They ate mostly vegetables and did not get much meat. They would eat the stew for dinner, leaving leftovers in the pot to get cold overnight, then start over the next day. Sometimes stew had food in it that had been there for quite a while. Hence the rhyme: ''Peas porridge hot, peas porridge cold, peas porridge in the pot, nine days old''.

Sometimes they could obtain pork, which made them feel quite special. When visitors came over, they would hang up their bacon, to show off. It was a sign of wealth that a man could, "Bring home the Bacon." They would cut off a little, to share with guests and would all sit around talking and ''Chew the fat''.

Those with money had plates made of pewter. Food with high acid content caused some of the lead to leach onto the food, causing lead poisoning & death. This happened most often with tomatoes, so for the next 400 years or so, tomatoes were considered poisonous.

Bread was divided, according to status. Workers got the burnt bottom of the loaf, the family got the middle, and guests got the top, or ''The Upper Crust''.

Lead cups were used to drink ale or whisky. The combination would sometimes knock the imbibers out for a couple of days. Someone walking along the road would take them for dead and prepare them for burial. They were laid out on the kitchen table for a couple of days and the family would gather around and eat and drink and wait and see if they would wake up. Hence the custom of ''Holding a Wake''.

England is old and small and the local folks started running out of places to bury people. So, they would dig up coffins and would take the bones to a bone-house and reuse the grave. When reopening these coffins, 1 out of 25 coffins were found to have scratch marks on the inside and they realized they had been burying people alive. So they would tie a string on the wrist of the corpse, thread it through the coffin and up through the ground and tie it to a bell.

Someone would have to sit out in the graveyard all night, (the graveyard shift) to listen for the bell; thus, someone could be, ''Saved by the Bell '' or was considered a ''Dead Ringer''

And that's the truth.

Now, whoever said History was boring ! ! !

I was unable to verify any of these with a few minutes of searching, though I did run across an etymology site that dismissed the “threshold” story here as mere “folk etymology”.  True or not, they're all entertaining...