Assignment 11 – Diction and Dictionaries

 

Exercises:

1. Look up one of the following words (or some other word that interests you) in The Oxford English Dictionary:

Depression
feminine
liberal
immorality
silly

Using the historical evidence contained in the entries for that word, and, if you like, your own knowledge of the word’s history since the publication of the OED, write a one-page essay tracing the development of the word’s meanings. If you prefer, you may embed this account in a more comprehensive account of the social, literary, or technological changes that are correlated with the changes in verbal meaning.

2. Read Francis Bacon’s essay, “Of Studies” (see texts following). Use the OED to make certain that you understand its language as Bacon would have intended it. Now write two paraphrases of some section of that essay (about a modern paragraph in length) into colloquial or informal modern English as follows:
(a) A paraphrase that repeatedly betrays ignorance of, or insensitivity to, the precise meanings of Bacon’s language.
(b) A paraphrase that is as faithful to Bacon’s precise meanings as the resources of colloquial or informal modern English will allow.

3. Select any page in your desk dictionary. Assume that this page is the only surviving vestige of the English language. Write a one-page essay setting forth the deductions that you could make about English and the people who spoke it judging from the meanings and etymologies of words on this page.

4. Compose a paragraph of twelve to fifteen sentences on any subject. Write this paragraph first using words of exclusively English or Germanic origin. Then write an alternative version of the same paragraph in which you indulge heavily in words of Latin, French, Greek, or other foreign origins. Try not to write stylistic parodies; try to make each version as graceful and effective as you can. [A valuable resource in writing this essay will be Roget’s International Thesaurus of English Words and Phrases, a book giving synonyms of all the words in English.]

5. “Originally all language was metaphor,” observed a Romantic thinker, and there is a tinge of regret in his tone–regret that words lose their metaphorical force and become flat and abstract. Write a brief meditation on this phenomenon of latent and nascent metaphor in human language. One good starting point might be to take any sentence that you or another writer composed and translate it back into the original etymological sense of the words. For example, if one so analyzed the first sentence in exercise 2, above, (“Read ____’s essay, ‘Of Studies””), one would come up with a sentences like this: “Guess ____’s weighing ‘Of Pushes””. [Here again the OED would be the best resource, but most desk dictionaries supply some etymological information about the words in them. See other sources listed under “further reading.”]

Examples:

Looking at Style as Linguists

MnE    The Secretary’s aide disputed his justification of the temporary deployment of the armed
forces:

OE       bæ s runwitan helpere wiperspræ c his rihtwisunge bære hwilwendlican unfealdunge
bara gewæ pnodena mæ gna.

W. M.  The rune-wit’s helper witherspoke his right-wising of the while-wendly
H.B.     unfolding of the weaponed mains.

MnE    The quality of mercy is not strained. DE Gecynd mildheortnisse nis oferbrungen.

W.M.H.B. The kind of mildheartness is not overthronged.

Native English

French

Latin

Greek

ask

question

interrogate

 

fat

stout

obese

 

fair

beauteous

pulchritudinous

 

fear

terror

trepidation

 

friendship

amity

amicability

 

help

aid

assist

 

hint

suggest

insinuate

 

home

residence

domicile

 

say

state

asseverate

 

sweat

perspiration

sudorification

diaphoresis

teacher

tutor

educator

pedagogue

weak

frail

fragile

 

wish

desire

desiderate

 

wrangle

argue

dispute

logomachize

life

misinform

prevaricate

 

 

The fire spread wildly vs. The conflagration extended its devastating career.
He began his answer vs. He commenced his rejoinder.

Herbert Spencer: “Evolution is an integration of matter and concomitant dissipation of motion; during which the matter passes from an indefinite homogeneity to a definite, coherent heterogeneity; and during which the retained motion undergoes a parallel transformation.”

William James: “Evolution is a change from a nohowish untalkaboutable all-alikeness to a somehowish and in general talkaboutable not-all-alikeness by continuous sticktogetherations and somethingelseifications.”

Samuel Johnson: “Dryden’s page is a natural field, rising into inequalities, and diversified by the varied exuberance of abundant vegetation; Pope’s is a velvet lawn, shaven by the scythe and leveled by the roller.”

“Cough: a convulsion of the lungs, vellicated by some sharp serosity.”

‘Of Studies’
L.

Studies serue for Delight, for Ornament, and for Ability. Their Chiefe Vse for Delight, is in Priuatenesse and Retiring; For Ornament, is in Discourse; And for Ability, is in the Iudgement and Disposition of Businesse. For Expert Men can Execute, and perhaps Iudge for particulars, one by one; But the generall Counsels, and the Plots, and Marshalling of Affaires, come best from those that are Learned. To spend too much Time in Studies, is Sloth; To vse them too much for Ornament, is Affectation; To make Iudgement wholly by their Rules is the Humour of a Scholler. They perfect Nature, and are perfected by Experience: For Naturall Abilities, are like Naturall Plants, that need Proyning by Study: And Studies themselves, doe giue forth Directions too much at Large, except they be bounded in by experience. Crafty Men Contemne Studies; simple Men Admire them; And Wise Men Vse them: For they teach not their owne Vse; But that is a Wisdome without them, and aboue them, won by Obseruation. Reade not to Contradict, and Confute; Nor to Beleeue and Take for granted; Nor to Finde Talke and Discourse; But to weigh and Consider. Some Bookes are to be Tasted, Others to be Swallowed, and Some Few to be Chewed and Digested: That is, some Bookes are to be read onely in Parts; Others to be read but not Curiously; And some Few to be read wholly, and with Diligence and Attention. Some Bookes also may be read by Deputy, and Extracts made of them by Others: But that would be, onely in the lesse important Arguments, and the Meaner Sort of Bookes: else distilled Bookes, are like Common distilled Waters, Flashy Things. Reading maketh a Full Man; Conference a Ready Man; And Writing an Exact Man. And therefore, If a Man Write little, he had need haue a Great memory; If he Conferre little, he had need haue a Present Wit; And if he Reade litle, he had need haue much Cunning, to seeme to know that, he doth not. Histories make Men Wise; Poets Witty; The Mathematicks Subtill; Naturall Philosophy deepe; Morall Graue; Logick and Rhetorick Able to Contend. Abeunt studia in Mores. Nay there is no Stond or Impediment in the Wit, but may be wrought out by Fit Studies: Like as Diseases of the Body, may haue Appropriate Exercises. Bowling is good for the Stone and Reines; Shooting for the Lungs and Breast; Gentle Walking for the Stomacke; Riding for the Head; And the like. So if a Mans Wit be Wandring, let him Study the Mathematicks; For in Demonstrations, if his Wit be called away neuer so little, he must begin again: If his Wit be not Apt to distinguish or find differences, let him Study the Schoole-men; For they are Cymini sectores. If he be not Apt to beat ouer Matters, and to call vp one Thing, to Proue and Illustrate another, let him Study the Lawyers Cases: So euery Defect of the Minde, may haue a Speciall Receit.

Diction and Dictionaries

Diction [1] in writing: choice or selection of words and phrases; wording; verbal style [2] in speech: (a) clarity and precision of enunciation (b) = [1]

simple < Latin simplex [sim (<semel = once) + plex (<plicare + to fold)] thus “folded once” (vs. duplex, complex, etc.) and see, as a parallel, Anglo-Saxon anfeald + “one-fold”–as opposed to Modern English manifold.

I simply (Latin simpliciter) + in itself, not with regard to any contingencies [note U.S. colloquial: “It’s just plain bad” = “It’s simply bad”] But watch:

[a] “Other retentions and evacuations there are, not simply necessary but at some times” (Robert Burton, early 17th cent.)
[b] “…a sacrifice to Baal. . .which of itself was simply and absolutely evil'” (Jeremy Taylor, later seventeenth cent.)

[c] “He hath simply the best wit of any handy craft man in Athens” (A Midsummer Night’s Dream)

[d] His performance was simply marvellous

[e] She wasn’t lying to us: her remarks were simply inane (for it is simply that her remarks were inane. .)

II [A] simple = without guile, not “duplicitous” (= only one of you); thereby [B] foolish or unintelligent (simple-minded) etc.

[a] “What simpleness is this?” (Friar in Romeo and Juliet) = what idiocy?

[b] “And simple truth miscall’d simplicity” (Sonnets LXVI)

III simple = plain, unadorned, un-added to; and thus

[A] simple to understand or follow, therefore easy (perhaps because of being able to be managed by someone “simple” [II B]

[B] modest or unostentatious, frugal, humble

[a] “simple his beverage, homely was his food” (Dryden, translating Virgil)

Conventional Solecisms

(1) lie/lay; he dealt unfairly with Jerry and I

(2) different from/different than

AD HOC SOLECISMS

e.g. A showered B in (for with) kisses vs. (standard) the box was covered in/with velvet [NOTE: are these two totally synonymous?]

NOTE ON THE DEPLOYMENT OF PREPOSITIONS GENERALLY:

1. put the cup on the saucer / put me on

2. put off the visit to her sick friend / put me off;

3. she put in two days’ work (but this didn’t constitute an input) /
put in your two cents worth (slang) put in for a discharge
[=put in one’s papers (slang)]

4. he put out for Morocco in a large ketch (slightly archaic? more neutral set out for…) / he put her out for the night (the cat) she was put out by his childish complaining (but she still put up with it? see 5.) / (taboo) she put out for half the team

5. he put up ten quarts of pickles while she put up a shed

6. she put down a rebellion / she put down her arch-rival [thus suffering, colloquially a put-down as differentiated from a put-on, but in both cases leaving the victim feeling put out by the event]

7. she put over something on him

8. he put forward two new ideas/

9. she put back the date for their meeting

10.she put through the agenda

11.he put it to her (that she should put her sorrow from her)

Synonymy

color/colour

ketchup/ catchup/catsup < Malay <kechap Amoy Chinese kôe + tsiap = minced seafood + sauce

pail/bucket distinction is purely regional, like
wait on/wait for but without danger of confusion, as in latter case

(1) lie/lay; he dealt unfairly with Jerry and I

(2) different from/different than

Ad Hoc Solecisms

e.g. A showered B in (for with) kisses vs. (standard) the box was covered in/with velvet [NOTE: are these two totally synonymous?]

Note on the Deployment of Prepositons Generally:

1. put the cup on the saucer / put me on
2. put off the visit to her sick friend / put me off;

3. she put in two days’ work (but this didn’t constitute an input) /
put in your two cents’ worth (slang) / put in for a
discharge [=put in one’s papers (slang)]
4. he put out for Morocco in a large ketch (slightly archaic? more neutral = set out for…) / he put her out for the night (the cat) she was put out by his childish complaining (but she still put up with it? see 5.) / (taboo) she put out for half the team

5. he put up ten quarts of pickles / while she put up a shed 6. she put down a rebellion / she put down her arch-rival [thus
suffering, colloquially a put-down as differentiated from a -put-on, but in both cases leaving the victim feeling put out by
the event]

7. she’ put over something on him

8. he put forward two new ideas /

9. she put back the date for their meeting

10.she put through the agenda

11.he put it to her (that she should put her sorrow from her)

Glossary of Literary Terms

Hendiadys is a figure and a speech.

An ellipse is a geometrical figure; an ellipsis, rhetorical.

A metaphor is a vehicle bearing a tenor.

A mixed metaphor is a metaphor whose tenor drives two vehicles at once while singing the same tune in each.

An anacoluthon is a sentence, or rather an apparent sentence, which, while beginning in one construction, the speaker changes his mind in the middle and ends it another way.

Just as, when we want to elucidate a word by looking it up in the dictionary, we are sometimes sidetracked by the sight of other entries, and read them instead, one definition or etymology leading to another, especially if it is a good dictionary like the OED or the American Heritage, though for etymologies I prefer the latter, until we forget what we originally sought, if our powers of concentration are weak or our interests broad, so the Homeric simile, beginning with a one-to-one comparison of an event or scene with. another from a different realm, sometimes develops the comparison until it has an interest and substantiality of its own and no longer refers part by part to what occasioned it.

Autonyms

word

noun

two words

ten letters

mispelling

This is a sentence.

Is this a question? No, this is an answer.

There are no two ways about it: some sentences begin with great confidence, or perhaps assertiveness is a better word, and then in the middle or thereabouts they seem to, or some would say they really do, but I don’t know, lose their force (or whatever) and, as it were, sort of peter out, without really…

Michael Ferber

A Taxonomy of Illocutionary Acts, John Searle:

What are the criteria by which we can tell that of three actual utterances one is a report, one a prediction and one a promise? In order to develop higher order genera, we must first know how the species promise, prediction, report, etc., differ from one another. When one attempts to answer that question one discovers that there are several quite different principles of distinction; that is, there are different kinds of differences that enable us to say that the force of this utterance is different from the force of that utterance. For this reason the metaphor of force in the expression “illocutionary force” is misleading since it suggests that different illocutionary forces occupy different positions on a single continuum of force. What is actually the case is that there are several distinct criss-crossing continua. A related source of con- fusion is that we are inclined to confuse illocutionary verbs with types of illocutionary acts. We are inclined, for example, to think that where we have two nonsynonymous illo- cutionary verbs they must necessarily mark two different kinds of illocutionary acts. In what follows, I shall try to keep a clear distinction between illocutionary verbs and illocu- tionary acts. Illocutions are a part of language as opposed to particular languages. Illocutionary verbs are always part of a particular,language: French, German, English, or whatnot. Differences in illocutionary verbs are a good guide but by no means a sure guide to differences in illocutionary acts.
It seems to me there are (at least) twelve significant dimensions of variation in which illocutionary acts differ one from another and I shall – all too briskly – list them:

1. Differences in the point (or purpose) of the (type of) act. The point or purpose of an order can be specified by saying that it is an attempt to get the hearer to do something. The point or purpose of a description is that it is a representation (true or false, accurate or inaccurate) of how something is. The point or purpose of a promise is that it is an undertaking of an obligation by the speaker to do something. These differences correspond to the essential conditions in my analysis of illocutionary acts in chapter 3 of Speech Acts (Searle, 1969). Ultimately, I believe, essential conditions form the best basis for a taxonomy, as I shall attempt to show. It is important to notice that the terminology of “point” or “purpose” is not meant to imply, nor is it based on the view, that every illocutionary act has a definitionally associated perlocu- tionary intent. For many, perhaps most, of the most important illocutionary acts, there is no essential per- locutionary intent associated by definition with the cor- responding verb, e.g. statements and promises are not by definition attempts to produce perlocutionary effects in hearers.

The point or purpose of a type of illocution I shall call its illocutionary point. Illocutionary point is part of but not the same as illocutionary force. Thus, e.g., the illocutionary point  ́of requests is the same as that of commands: both are attempts to get hearers to do something. But the illocutionary forces are clearly different. In general, one can say that the notion of illocutionary force is the resultant of several elements of which illocutionary point is only one, though, I believe, the most important one.

2. Differences in the direction of fit between words and the world. Some illocutions have as part of their illocutionary point to get the words (more strictly, their propositional content) to match the world, others to get the world to match the words. Assertions are in the former category, promises and requests are in the latter. The best illustration of this distinction I know of is provided by Elizabeth Anscombe (1957). Suppose a man goes to the supermarket with a shopping list given him by his wife on which are written the words “beans, butter, bacon, and bread”. Suppose as he goes around with his shopping cart selecting these items, he is followed by a detective who writes down everything he takes. As they emerge from the store both shopper and detective will have identical lists. But the function of the two lists will be quite different. In the case of the shopper’s list, the purpose of the list is, so to speak, to get the world to match the words; the man is supposed to make his actions fit the list. In the case of the detective, the purpose of the list is to make the words match the world; the man is supposed to make the list fit the actions of the shopper. This can be further demonstrated by observing the role of “mistake” in the two cases. If the detective gets home and suddenly realizes that the man bought pork chops instead of bacon, he can simply erase the word “bacon” and write “pork chops”. But if the shopper gets home and his wife points out he has bought pork chops when he should have bought bacon he cannot correct the mistake by erasing “bacon” from the list and writing “pork chops”.

In these examples the list provides the propositional content of the illocution and the illocutionary force determines how that content is supposed to relate to the world. I propose to call this difference a difference in direction of fit. The detective’s list has the word-to-world direction of fit (as do statements, descriptions, assertions, and expla- nations); the shopper’s list has the world-to-word direction of fit (as do requests, commands, vows, promises). I represent the word-to-world direction of fit with a downward arrow thus and the world-to-word direction of fit with an upward arrow thus 1. Direction of fit is always a consequence of illocutionary point. It would be very elegant if we could build our taxonomy entirely around this distinction in direction of fit, but though it will figure largely in our taxonomy, I am unable to make it the entire basis of the distinctions.

3. Differences in expressed psychological states. A man who states, explains, asserts or claims that p expresses the belief that p; a man who promises, vows, threatens or pledges to do a expresses an intention to do a; a man who orders, commands, requests H to do A expresses a desire (want, wish) that Hdo A; a man who apologizes for doing A expresses regret at having done A; etc. In general, in the performance of any illocutionary act with a propositional content, the speaker expresses some attitude, state, etc., to that propositional content. Notice that this holds even if he is insincere, even if he does not have the belief, desire, intention, regret or pleasure which he expresses, he nonetheless expresses a belief, desire, intention, regret or pleasure in the performance of the speech act. This fact is marked linguistically by the fact that it is linguistically unacceptable (though not self-contradictory) to conjoin the explicit performative verb with the denial of the expressed psychological state. Thus one cannot say “I state that p but do not believe that p”, “I promise that p but I do not intend that p”, etc. Notice that this only holds in the first person performative use. One can say, “He stated that p but didn’t really believe that p”, “I promised that p but did not really intend to do it”, etc. The psychological state expressed in the performance of the illocutionary act is the sincerity condition of the act, as analyzed in Speech Acts, Ch. 3.

If one tries to do a classification of illocutionary acts based entirely on differently expressed psychological states (differences in the sincerity condition) one can get quite a long way. Thus, belief collects not only statements, assertions, remarks and explanations, but also postulations, de- clarations, deductions and arguments. Intention will collect promises, vows, threats and pledges. Desire or want will collect requests, orders, commands, askings, prayers, pleadings, beggings and entreaties. Pleasure doesn’t collect quite so many-congratulations, felicitations, welcomes and a few others.
In what follows, I shall symbolize the expressed psycho- logical state with the capitalized initial letters of the corre- sponding verb, thus B for believe, W for want, I for intend,
etc.
These three dimensions – illocutionary point, direction of fit, and sincerity condition-seem to me the most important, and I will build most of my taxonomy around them, but there are several others that need remarking.

4. Differences in the force or strength with which the illocutionary point is presented. Both, “I suggest we go to the movies” and “I insist that we go to the movies” have the same illocutionary point, but it is presented with different strengths. Analogously with “I solemnly swear that Bill stole the money” and “I guess Bill stole the money”. Along the same dimension of illocutionary point or purpose there may be varying degrees of strength or commitment.

Assignment 2 – Of Pointing

Assignment 2 – Of Pointing

 Exercises 1. Re-punctuate (and re-paragraph if you think it useful) Francis Bacon's "Of Suspicion" (handout). Type up the essay, with your changes, and be prepared to discuss your revisions in conference. 2. Write "Of _____________” Your essay should be about...

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