a minipost
My wife thinks it's funny when I'm talking with a native-speaking Montanan. After about fifteen minutes my accent shifts towards my almost hidden native accent. It's still there, buried under so many years living out of the state. The funny thing is neither I nor my Montanan friend notice what's happening. Similarly I can code-switch and fit into the culture of my parents church - at least over the phone as my beard and dress don't conform with the standards.
In high school I spent a lot of time in Alberta and became fascinated by Canadian English. I didn't realize Albertan, like the Montanan, was a dialect of its own. There were the obvious Canadianisms comedians emphasize, but my attempts at using them were unconvincing. Canadians tend to be unusually polite, but deep down inside they know your attempts are clueless. In college I ran into people from all over the world and quickly got to the point where many of the "rules" of spoken English didn't bother me like they did my k-12 teachers.
A friend happens to be a computational linguist specializing in the rhythm and sound of a language - the prosody of language. Getting this part right - good enough to begin to add the meaning in speech that's often missing in text - is one of those hard problems. I've read a few of the papers in her field and find them jargon laden and bewildering. Still, there's something very important that we just do naturally. There's another branch of linguistics that's more accessible. Sociolinguists studies how society, including cultural norms, expectations, and context impacts language. The good stuff all of us use and misuse. Aalthough nothing like earlier changes in the language, there's constant change. The Gen Z meaning of wholesome comes to mind as a recent shift in progress.
One of my most dramatic experiences with the sociology of language came as I was finishing my graduate work. A Chinese professor who didn't speak English was visiting the physics department. Not really an issue as there were several native-born professors and graduate students. I was working something out on a blackboard and didn't realize he was watching. He walked up, took a piece of chalk (yes -- we had lovely chalk back then), and gave me a look that asked permission to annotate what I was doing. It turned out he was interested in the same area. We went back and forth using drawings and equations that were part of the culture we shared and had a lovely conversation for about fifteen minutes. It occurred to me afterwards that we were relying on facial expressions and posture along with the chalk marks and never spoke a word. Afterwards I reproduced what remained on the blackboard in my lab notebook. Not that it was profound, but rather that it was such a nice chat. He was only around for a few more days, but there were grins every time we saw each other.
Two weeks ago a linguist (not the prosody expert) gave me a beginner's tour of sociolinguistics by Valerie Fridland: Like, Literally, Dude Arguing for the Good in Bad English. It's great fun! Learn where change in language comes from (hint - it's not upperclass/educated males), how text messaging is entirely different for teens and their 35 year old parents, why ums and uhs in speech are beneficial and much more. I'd go for the audiobook as she gives acoustic examples. I'm not good at communication, but now at least I'm a bit more aware.
an almost lost word from the dictionary
The warmth of a bright Sun in on a clear cold Winter day. That's something that captures most of us know - the radiant heat of the Sun isn't isn't perturbed by the cold air and can be quite comfortable. Then it hit me I heard the word in a John McPhee lecture in Princeton.2 A few decades had passed since he wrote Coming into the Country, but it was about three Alaskas including a look at the Winter. A perfect word for some of the days.
A day of apricity can make snow melt in subzero air temperatures on Southern-facing roofs only to freeze into beautifully clear long icicles at the edge. This type of ice formation is often free of bubbles producing beautifully clear ice. If you have wide enough icicles you might try making an ice lens and starting a fire.
Such days are made for outdoor recreation if there isn't any wind. Perhaps more importantly the basic principle - heat transfer by radiation - can keep heating expenses down. Heating and moving air to fill rooms is enormously inefficient. If you aren't moving around much you might try a small radiant heater and point it at the area where you are. Heat what you need to heat with infrared light. Direct sunlight is the same... sit in the Sun. These measures, plus wearing warm indoor clothing and being somewhat active lets you get away with low thermostat settings. And be on the lookout for aprocity as that can give a big psychological boost!
Another Winter word I like is tingilinde. It's a constructed word based on J.R.R. Tolkien's elfin language Quenya meaning the sparkle of the starlight reflecting on the snow on a dark moonless Winter night. Such sights could be spectacular in Montana away from town when it was really cold and a bit of new snow had fallen as tiny ice crystals. Another great spot is Yellowstone .. super cold air forms the right kind of ice crystal snow near the hot springs and geysers. Once it was magical - the cold starlight reflecting from millions of tiny diamonds along with the greens and reds of a bright aurora dancing overhead. On such nights you don't notice that it's really cold.
__________
1 The Compact Edition of the Oxford English Dictionary is the 1928 edition. Devilishly small print that requires a magnifying glass, but the real OED and only about $80 (still a lot back then!) rather than the fortune the full dictionary went for. There's a lovely bit of historical fiction on the dictionary and the people who made it happen: The Dictionary of Lost Words by Pip Williams. It's set in the time and place with many of the characters, but focuses on what was left out.. those who weren't white, male and of a certain class. Recommended!
2 McPhee is a great writer - a master of the creative non-fiction genre.
Posted at 05:53 PM in amateur science, book, book recommendation, general comments, miniposts | Permalink | Comments (0)
| Reblog (0)