Calling adults "girls"

Quite a few times I've heard middle-aged men (for some reason it's only ever middle-aged men) express confusion/frustration/anger that you aren't supposed to use the word girl to refer to a grown women, but sometimes grown women refer to each other as girls.

I've been working on clarifying this, trying to quantify it and make a mathematical formula based on age and balance of power, but my shower just gave me a much simpler rule:

It is acceptable for you to call another adult a girl (or a boy, as applicable) if it is acceptable for them to call you a girl or a boy in the same sentence in the same context.

Things They Should Study: body language a sociolinguistic perspective

I don't wink. The best way I can describe why is to say that it isn't part of my active vocabulary (even though it isn't actually a speech act, although it does have pragmatic value). I do sometimes communicate flirtatiousness and "this is an in-joke" and conspiratoriness (or whatever the correct word is), but I do this with facial expression and tone of voice in a way that I can't quite articulate yet because I've given this about 30 seconds of thought so far.

I wonder, if you studied it, if there would be demographic patterns among people who do or don't wink as part of their active vocabulary of body language? And I wonder if there are similar patterns for other kinds of body language?

Things They Should Invent: Google Corpus

A lot of the things I dislike about Google (localizing search results, overdoing it with the "Did you mean…?", including synonyms, making assumptions about what I want) occur when I'm trying to use it as a corpus instead of as a search engine. These functions are useful for people trying to find information for real-life applicable purposes, it's just terminological/phraseological/linguistic research that it's unhelpful for (unless there's another area where it's also unhelpful that I can't think of right now.)

So why not make another Google just for our obscure langling needs? They already have everything they need - the Google index is probably the largest corpus in the world, and Google is, obviously, the best search engine in the world. Just take away the localization and other unhelpful functions, perhaps make a few more precision operators (so you can search for two words near each other, or have a wildcard that represents any preposition), perhaps make it possible to compare the number of results for multiple searches side by side (Googlefight has this functionality in its own unique way), integrate as many publications and academic databases as possible (if you're stuck on copyright issues, you wouldn't have to make the texts themselves accessible through Google Corpus, just show the applicable snippets in the results) and you'll have the best possible tool for us language freaks. You can improve quality of translations everywhere and make life easier for linguistic researchers (and anyone else who needs a corpus of naturally-occuring language), and it will take practically no effort. You could just remove the localization function, call it a Beta version, and put it up in Google Labs today!

No problem!

Dear Dear Abby's Correspondents:

You might be interested in my analysis on the use of "no problem" as a reply to "thank you".

Discourse Analysis

Sitting for a taped interview with Steve Murphy, the anchor for CTV Halifax, Mr. Dion had been asked: "If you were prime minister now, what would you have done about the economy and this crisis that Mr. Harper hasn't done?"

"If I had been prime minister 2½ years ago?" Mr. Dion replied.

"If you were the prime minister right now," Mr. Murphy explained.

Mr. Dion started talking about his 30-day action plan to tackle the crisis but had trouble enunciating and asked to start again. "I've been slow listening to your question."

Mr. Murphy repeated the question. Mr. Dion asked: "If I was prime minister starting when? Today?"

At one point a Liberal aide came in to explain the question.

There were language and communication problems here, but it was bi-directional. Let's walk through.

First, the interviewer asks:

"If you were prime minister now, what would you have done about the economy and this crisis that Mr. Harper hasn't done?"

This is not phrased optimally because the wording of the first clause it not carefully chosen. As Anglophones, we can see what he's getting at, but it is never stated explicitly. The entire point that was misunderstood is contained in the words "would have done," which show that the interviewer meant what would Mr. Dion have done in the past and up to now during his mandate. However, French would not put meaning here and the Francophone brain therefore would not have thought to seek meaning here. French tends to use the conditional willy-nilly, when they're trying to be polite or trying to imply "allegedly" or to add more syllables to make it sound better, so the mere presence of the conditional is not necessarily meaningful. The Francophone brain would therefore look for temporal cues elsewhere in the sentence. And there is in fact a temporal cue elsewhere in the sentence in the word "now", but it is misleading. The interviewer doesn't actually mean "right this minute, on October 9, 2008." He means "in the run-up to and during the current economic crisis."

A better wording would have been to clearly state "If you had been Prime Minister since 2006, what would you have done..." or even to remove the red herring and emphasize that the meaning is in the conditional with "As Prime Minister, what would you have done..."

To properly interpret this sentence, Mr. Dion would have to a) recognize that the key meaning is in the would have done, which is not a place a Francophone brain would normally look for this meaning, b) know to reject the only explicit temporal cue in the sentence, c) recognize where the wording was and was not carefully chosen, and d) correctly infer the intended meaning.

So Mr. Dion asks for clarification by stating his interpretation as a yes/no question:

"If I had been prime minister 2½ years ago?"

As you can see, Mr. Dion did interpret the initial question correctly. However, this statement of his interpretation is not worded optimally for an Anglophone brain. The meaning is in the "2.5 years ago", which is the essential piece of information that (to the Francophone brain) was missing from the initial question - depuis 2.5 ans. However, the Anglophone brain is looking for meaning in the verbs because English likes to carry meaning in its verbs

A better wording would have been to put more meaning in the verb, such as "If I had been elected PM 2.5 years ago?"

To properly interpret this sentence, the interviewer would need to avoid inferring primary meaning from the pluperfect of the verb "to be" and instead recognize that the important point is "2.5 years ago"

So the interviewer attempts to clarify:

"If you were the prime minister right now"

This is the biggest communication breakdown in the whole conversation. The interviewer was confirming Mr. Dion's interpretation, but he did not use any affirmatives or repeat any of Mr. Dion's key words. In the absence of affirmatives or repetition of key words, I think the vast majority of people would not interpret a statement as confirmation, regardless of the actual content of the statement. (Example: I'm giving you directions. You ask me "Is it the green building?" I reply "It's #731." When you're at the right corner looking for #731, you're not even going to glance at the street number of the green building, are you?)

A better wording would be "Yes, if you had been elected PM 2.5 years ago" or "If you were elected PM in the last election" or "If you were PM during this economic crisis that started last week" or any other response containing a range of time and/or an affirmative.

To properly interpret this sentence, Mr. Dion would have had to ignore his every instinct (in any language) about how people usually go about confirming other people's statements, and infer the time range that has not yet been spoken out loud.

So Mr. Dion took this to mean that he's PM starting now and started outlining the plan in his platform. Then (apparently in response to the interviewer's reaction to his response), he asked to start over, again asking for the same clarification but this time more clearly:

"If I was prime minister starting when? Today?"

That "starting when" is the key point, the depuis that was missing from the initial question.

I'll bet you anything when the staffer came over to clarify, their clarification included the word (or if they were speaking English the concept of) depuis.

We can retire the SENTENCE game now

In my first year linguistics class, the prof mentioned in passing that you might say "I heard a new word today," but you'd never say "I heard a new sentence today." (She was making some point, I forget what it was.)

We glommed onto that and started pointing out every time someone says a sentence that we have reason to believe has never been uttered before, usually by shouting "SENTENCE!" at it.

But we can retire now. Stephen Fry has us all beat. (And I want to be in the room when this was written):



Added bonus: this is so gay!

Pop quiz

Read the following line aloud.

I can't, can you? You can't, can you? I can't.

Did you read it aloud? Seriously, not in your head, aloud.

Are you sure.

Okay, then you can continue.

Did you pronounce can and can't with the same vowel sound?

Before you did that, did you think you pronounced can and can't with the same vowel sound?

I was absolutely 100% certain I pronounced them the same. But it turns out I don't. I wonder how many other things I don't pronounce the way I think I do. Maybe this is why I always had so much trouble with phonetics.

Upspeak and security

Language Log on upspeak (they call it uptalk, I call it upspeak).

They've covered it more thoroughly than I ever could and I've already thrown hundreds of words at the subject, so I'm not going to reiterate everything. I just wanted to talk about one thing the original LW said that piqued my interest:

It appears that it is a psychological insecurity requesting some sort of approval or affirmation from the listener that what the talker says is correct, approved by the listener or adequately explained to the listener.

I find it so bizarre that they'd perceive seeking approval or affirmation from the listener as a sign of psychological insecurity. I always thought it was a sign of, oh, I don't know, dialogue? In conversation, you check that your interlocutor is with you so far rather than barrelling ahead without a moment's thought to whether they're following you. In a presentation, you gauge your audience's response and give more clarification as needed rather than just reading the script at them.

Actually, to me, if the speaker is seeking affirmation it gives an impression of greater security than if they just talk at you without allowing you to react. If they welcome or even seek affirmation, it means they really know their stuff, they'll explain it to you in different ways until you get it, they've thoroughly thought out their argument and can address any questions you might have in an intelligent and civilized manner. If they don't seek affirmation or even check that I'm following, it can seem a bit ego.

I once had a prof who deliberately suppressed her natural upspeak (it was a linguistics class so she did mention that she was doing this). To me it didn't sound particularly authoritative, it just sounded like she was deliberately suppressing her natural upspeak. I've had other profs who retained their own natural upspeak, and (speaking as a user of upspeak myself) it didn't sound at all inautoritative. It just sounded less formal. Instead of a great big "Now I shall lecture you!" situation, it was just "Okay, here's some information I have that you need. If you have any questions, please don't hesitate to ask."

I've also noticed that when I'm feeling secure, I use my own natural speech patterns. When I first started my job and was overwhelmed with imposter syndrome, I overcompensated by suppressing my natural speech patterns, wearing my hair in a bun, speaking in the most formal French I could muster at all times, wearing only the most subtle of nail colour, writing emails all business-like even when it was just brief and internal. Now that I've been there for over five years and gotten used to it and feel like I belong there, I use my natural speech patterns, I wear long hairstyles, I code-switch back to English for humour and sarcasm, I email jokes to co-workers, I listen to my ipod, I paint my nails fun colours, and all the while I do my job somewhere between perfectly competently and astoundingly well. I know I'm good, I know I deserve to be there, I know my work speaks for itself, so I'm secure enough to be myself, upspeak and all, instead of putting on an act.

Does the age at which you learn to read affect your accent?

Where there is room for variation in pronunciation, I tend to pronounce words very literally, very close to how they are written. I pronounce the T instead of using a glottal stop in words like button (I have both pronunciations around me, I haven't done enough observation to work out which one I'm supposed to have ended up with). I pronounce Tuesday as "toooosday" instead of "chewsday" (I've heard "chewsday" from people with similar background and education who should have developed the exact same pronunciation as I have, but again I haven't done enough observation because I just thought of this). I know there are others because I've noticed them, both IRL and when we were doing Canadian dialects in my linguistics classes, but I can't think of examples offhand.

I'm wondering if this might be because I learned to read using phonics at a very early age - I think I started learning at the age of 2, and by the age of 4 I could fluently read age-appropriate books. I spent less time during my formative years having an auditory-only relationship with my rightful accent, and more time with the internalized concept of one-to-one correlation between letters and pronunciation. (I know it isn't actually one-to-one, but you can't exactly explain the subtleties to a two-year-old).

In support of this hypothesis is my very literal pronunciation, and the fact that I tend to mispronounce words because I've only seen them written more than other people do. (I was 25 before I realized that the written word and verbal pronunciation of annihilated are in fact one word.) I also tend to fudge my vowels a bit when the spelling is different - I don't pronounce buoy and boy exactly the same, even though I remember learning the word as a child and I thought it was "boy", but I still pronounce buoy with one syllable instead of "booo-ey" which is the accepted alternate pronunciation. And I do caught and cot, and collar and caller, like half a phoneme different - not as much as in accents where it's a proper accent feature, but not identically the same even though I think I pronounce them identically the same. (Can I has a few linguistics cred points for knowing that I pronounce something differently but think I pronounce it the same?)

On the other hand, I did manage to acquire Canadian raising, which is acquired strictly through aural assimilation and contradicts strict phonetics. And I Canadian raise in exactly the right places despite the fact that I devoice all my final consonants, which is an inherited accent feature aurally assimilated from the ESL side of my family and also contradicts phonetics.

I haven't talked to any other early readers about this or made proper observations of my family's pronunciations, but if other early readers have the same thing it would be an interesting thing to research.

Things They Should Study: how does vocal register change when speaking another language?

When I'm speaking another language, I tend to speak at a lower pitch. In French (my second language and the one I use most often) it drops a little bit, not very noticeable. I lose access to the higher pitch that I use in English for casual-young-female and customer-service-perky, but I'm mostly within a natural range. But by the time we get to Polish (my fifth language, the one I speak worst of the language I can even remotely claim to speak, and also the one that's least similar to English) my entire register drops a whole octave and I can't even reach my normal pitch. (I am physically capable of speaking Polish at a higher pitch, but I'd have to make a very deliberate effort. In the course of normal conversation, trying to think of what to say and how to say it in the other language and how to pronounce it properly, my pitch drops.)

I didn't think much of this until I saw some stand-up comedian on TV talking about how he has a Francophone wife/girlfriend/whatever, and how her pitch drops when speaking English. This has me wondering if it's a common phenomenon. Does pitch always drop in the other language, or does it rise sometimes? Do certain target languages (or target languages in combination with certain mother tongues) consistently cause pitch to raise or lower? Is the phenomenon the same for both men and women? Is it related to how similar the target language is to the speaker's mother tongue?

Warning: the Borat DVD is dangerous for langlings

It all started with a simple plan: I'll watch Borat on DVD. I haven't seen it yet and it may or may not end up being funny.

But it's in broken English, which means I have to watch it again with the French and Spanish subtitles to see how they addressed that.

And the DVD case and some of the captions on the DVD and in the movie are in Cyrillic letters, wich means I have to work out if it's real or fake, and if it's real which language, and if it's Russian what does is say, and is the sloppy English a logical bad translation of the Russian? (All this being complicated by the fact that my attempt to learn Russian didn't take.)

So in my original plan I'm in for two hours of movie, and maybe the extras if I feel like it. Now I'm in for six hours plus, like, learning Russian.

Edited to add: This is compounded by the problem that I don't find the movie particularly entertaining. I see what they're trying to do, and I appreciate Sacha Baron Cohen's talent in creating the character, but it just didn't entertain me. I laughed maybe three to five times during the whole thing, and the idea of watching it again for the subtitles seems like a chore (but I'm going to do it at least in places anyway.)

Where exactly are you from with that dialect anyway?

Lacey on Corner Gas says soda (instead of pop). But she also says Tranna (instead of Tor-on-to.)

Does that combination of markers even exist in any known dialect? Any Canadian who's had enough US influence on their dialect that they're going to say soda to a bunch of hosers in Saskatchewan is NOT going to say Tranna.

The only possible explanation is an American upbringing, followed by a move to Toronto in late adolescence/early adulthood (giving her enough time living in TO to start calling it Tranna, but not feeling any peer pressure to stop saying soda). But if Lacey were USian, I'm quite certain we would have heard about it on camera. At the very least Oscar would have complained at some point.

This is awesome (like 47,013 hot dogs)

Language Log discusses British attempts at American accents.

In the comments, a number of people (who I assume are British speakers of non-rhotic dialects) discuss how you know where to pronounce the rhotic R in American dialects. It takes several comments before they establish that you pronounce the R where a letter R is written. Then they briefly hypothesize on WHY American dialects would do such a thing.

That completely blew my mind! I'm familiar with the concept of non-rhotic R and I've been exposed to a reasonable variety of British accents, but I never consciously realized that their pronunciation of R does not directly correlate with the presence of a written R! In my dialect, R is one of the few reliable letters that is always and consistently pronounced as written. (Unless, of course, you can think of some exceptions that I'm blind to, although R is one of the phonemes I had speech therapy for so I am more aware of it than I am of the average phoneme.)

Why is the subway called the subway?

The world's first subway (i.e. underground rapid transit) was in London. But they don't call it a subway at all in London. The call it the Underground or the Tube. (Someone once told me that the word "subway" in England refers to underground walking tunnels, but I don't feel confident enough in that factoid to present it as an unqualified declarative statement.)

So how did the subway get to be called the subway in North America? They speak English in London, what made them decide to NOT use the English word coined for the first-ever one and instead coin their own word?

I've already looked in the OED and it was unhelpful.

Are official languages inclusionary or exclusionary in other countries?

Language Log has been writing about how there are some people in the US who want to make English the official language of the country (currently it has no official languages).

This has been grating on me, and for the longest time I wasn't able to articulate why. After all, I earn my living through our official languages. I have more academic and professional knowledge of official languages policy than most people, and it's always struck me as completely benign and not especially worth worrying about. So if Canada's official languages policy seems so utterly harmless to me, why does this proposed US official languages policy give me a gut reaction of "OMG that is SO WRONG!!!!"? (Yes, I know, American policy is not my business at all, but my gut reactions aren't very good at sticking to their own jurisdiction.)

But reading Language Log's latest entry on this issue, I realized what the difference is. Official languages policy as I'm accustomed to it is a tool of inclusion. It's there so people can live in English or in French. It's in no way stopping people from doing other languages as well. Our legislation is just making sure that I can read the instructions on my cough syrup in English and do my taxes in English and get helped in English when I frantically call 1-800-O-CANADA because my wallet was stolen and I need to know how to replace all my ID. But you can still serve your deli customers in Polish, you can still provide TTC information in Tagalog, and you can still label your food products in Mandarin as long as the English and French are on there somewhere too. It's setting out a minimum standard that anyone is welcome to exceed.

But this proposed American policy would be (at least if some of the loudest people had their way) a tool of exclusion. Rather than making sure people would be able to live in English, it would be trying to prevent people from using other languages. It would be setting out a ceiling and preventing anyone from exceeding that standard.

I'm far too deeply immersed in Canada's official languages culture and in multilingualism in general to even make a nominal attempt at comparing how worthwhile these two opposing approaches are. I'm too accustomed to what I'm familiar with to evaluate it objectively. All I'm saying here is this explains why the idea seemed so viscerally wrong to me - because they would be using official languages policy to do the exact opposite of what I'm used to it doing.

This makes me wonder what the situation is like in other countries. Are other countries' official languages policies inclusionary, setting a minimum standard? Or are they exclusionary, creating a ceiling that you can't exceed?

Is there sign language for "I've lost my voice"?

I have a really sore throat and it hurts to talk (and to whisper), so I was trying to get my errands done with as little talking as possible. It occurred to me that everyone in the world should learn the sign language for "Sorry, I've lost my voice." That would make things a lot easier.

Then I started wondering whether there IS sign language for such a thing. After all, people whose first language is Sign would never have to express that concept.

But it's really just a colourless green idea, isn't it? We can use English to express such concepts as "My telepathy isn't working very well today" or "I seem to be having technical difficulties with my time machine." So Sign should be able to express "I've lost my voice."

You know you're a langling when

A beauty product I bought came with an instruction leaflet in about eight languages. Of course, I looked through it looking at all the languages, but I couldn't identify them all offhand. So I got all pissed off at the thing for not indicating what the languages are.

Then I realized, normals don't need to know what all the languages are. The typical user doesn't need to know what all the languages are. They'd just locate the language they can read most easily and read that.

Banned words in court

From Language Log:

The latest development is that a number of courts in the US are now forbidding lawyers and witnesses to use certain words during trials. Words like "rape," "victim," "crime scene," "killer," "murder," "drunk," "homicide," "embezzle," "fraud," and "robbery" are now not allowed in some courtrooms. Language engineering like this usually has a social or political basis. In this case it's more a problem of trying to treat the accuser and the accused fairly. District Attorneys want to keep on using words like these as they prosecute alleged criminals, while some defense attorneys claim that using such words violates the presumption of innocence that has been held dear by the legal system. They call the forbidden words, "loaded terms."

If I were testifying in court and I was forbidden from using my first choice words, I would very much want to the judge and jury to know that the words I was using aren't my first choice because my first choice words were banned. I can do this when I'm speaking comfortably and confidently. (A side-effect of translation brain is that half the time I think there's a better word for what I'm trying to say, so indicating that the words I'm using aren't the best words to describe the concept has become a natural part of my speech patterns.) But would I be comfortable and confident in a courtroom? Given that I'm shy and I've never been in court before and I'd know that I'm under oath and my words would be recorded for public record, I seriously doubt it.

From later in the article (bolding is mine):

"Using your own words" isn't all that common in trials I've experienced. Among other things, you can't introduce your own topics, you have to answer the opposing lawyer's questions according to the form in which they are asked (usually yes/no questions, or worse, tag-questions), and you have to be ready to be interrupted at any time. Testifying requires a witness to learn a new set of communication skills, many of which can seem counterintuitive. Doing this can be daunting for anyone not trained in the special culture of the courtroom.

I've seen this on TV, when the lawyer very loudly and in-your-face-ly insists that the witness answer with a simple yes or no. But in the oath you take at the beginning, you swear to tell the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth. So what happens if answering with a simple yes or a simple no does not tell the whole truth, or does not meet the nothing but the truth condition? What do you do then? Does this mean I should find out if perjury or contempt of court gets you in bigger trouble before I'm ever called upon to testify in court?

Cocksucker.

Two years ago, I issued a Pride Day challenge for factual use of "That is SO gay!" (And no less an authority than The Onion has taken it up.)

I didn't issue a challenge last year, so this year I'm issuing two:

1. Negative use of "That is so NOT gay!" First usage that comes to mind is things that are aesthetically displeasing, but feel free to broaden usage as it occurs organically. Same tone of voice as negative adolescent use of "that is so gay". Usage: "Fuzzy dice hanging from the rearview mirror? That is so NOT gay!"

2. Let's start using "queer" as the generic. The LGBTTTIQQ2 (and perhaps some letters I've missed) abbreviation is getting ridiculous, and I think everyone falls within a broad definition of "queer", oui?

Bonus link: a relevant article from America's Finest News Source

Oops

I somehow managed to completely miss the fact that the terms "baby mama" and "baby daddy" have negative connotations. I recognized that they're casual, but thought they were neutral and have been using them as such because they're convenient.

So apologies to anyone in reference to whom I've used those terms. Please understand that my word choice was coming from ignorance, not malice.