The Next Step

Sometimes words and images go perfectly together. Case in point:

The Next Step

This is a shot from a local lake one misty morning over ten years ago. It’s quiet, meditative. It almost evokes a zen-garden feeling. In itself it’s an interesting enough picture. Not my favorite or best shot, and certainly not my worst.

But over the years it's become my best-seller. And I think it's because of its title. More than one person has commented that it’s the caption that really makes the picture for them. Reportedly, it brought someone out of depression after the loss of a loved one. Others have their own reactions to it and reflections branching out from it.

The title and image serve each other symbiotically as a kind of focusing mechanism for a concept -- different for everyone who has commented on it, but similar in function. It’s the best example I have of words enhancing images.

o - o - o

Interestingly, though it's a good seller (all things being relative), I took it with a crappy old Sony Cybershot DSC-P8, which was a 3.2 megapixel camera. It takes a lot of care to get a good print, and even then I can't print it any larger than about 8x11 inches. But it just shows that it doesn't have to be about the equipment.

Advent Is Coming!

On the eve of Advent, a little exploration of things to come...

A few weeks ago, a friend was wondering what the German word Sonnabend means. The answer is "Saturday", but it's not the normal word for Saturday (that's Samstag). Hence his wonderment.

I started musing on why there's this second word for Saturday, and where that word might have come from.

My departure point is usually to think of other words with one or more of the same roots as my object of investigation. In this case:

• Abend ("evening")
• Feierabend (basically, "the end of the work day")

The latter adds to "evening" the concept of feiern (the verb "to celebrate"), which makes a lot of sense at the end of the work day. But why have a word that literally translates to "celebrate-evening" but designates the part of the day before the evening? Similarly, the Sonnabend designation of Saturday as "Sun-evening" seems to put the cart before the horse.

In both instances, -abend is used to designate a moment now, but before the other part of the word ("celebration" and "Sunday").

Maybe, I thought, I'm thinking of "evening" as too limited, as a specific evening part of the day. Maybe there's some more original idea in the word "evening".

Then it hit me how similar German Abend is to English (and others from Latin) advent! I don't know why it took me so long to get here... Because advent means, loosely, "something coming" (L. ad-venire = "to come to"). And then it also hit me how French avenir ("future", as in "something to come") also comes from the same L. root.

So "evening", Ger. Abend and the Fr. word for "future" are all related, and we can see that in our English use of an expression like "on the eve of..."

With this understanding, it becomes very clear why Germans might say Feierabend or Sonnabend, because they're talking about the thing to come, or in these cases, "celebration" and "Sunday".

And with that, if you hadn't already thought of it, I direct your attention to the first line of this entry.

Happy Holiday Evenings!

Like, Where's That From?

The other day I was thinking about German suffixes, as one does, and their English equivalents. 

For example:

-heit  (E. -ness, as in Blindheit, or "blindness");

-keit (E. -ness, as in Einsamkeit, or "loneliness"); 

-schaft (E. -ness, as in Bereitschaft, or "readiness")*; or even 

-nis (-niß) (which, after all is said and done, also has a ness-ness to it).

I have a particular fondheit for the suffix -lich. It corresponds roughly to the English -ly suffix, and is used in German as a frequent adjectival ending. In English it's evident mostly in adverbs ("mostly", "quickly") and a few adjectives ("friendly", "likely"). 

Thinking about English -ly, it seems clear that it means like, as in "friend-like". Adverbially (which is the adverbial form of "adverbial"), you can see this connection in such a colloquialism as "quick-like" (instead of "quickly").** 

It doesn't seem hard to get from the use of -ly as a suffix — as a grammatical form appended to the end of a noun or adverb — to the stand-alone use of the word like, as in "this whisky is like molten gold". 

I'm not aware of a German word that looks like -lich and is at the same time used like like. That doesn't mean it doesn't exist. But since much of this blog's word play is about "speculative linguistics", I can speculate that we derive our English stand-alone like from the German -lich suffix, by way of our English -ly.

Is my speculation correct? I like to think it's likely.

- o - o -

* Okay, -schaft is more properly E. -ship, but that's a synonym for -ness.

** It's fortunate we have this colloquial form to resort to, because then we can make adverbs out of some awkward adjectives like "friendly". Saying something is "all friendly-like" is nicer than saying friendlily.

- o - o -

Now, where does the verb to like fit into all this? Maybe it began through the use of the above mentioned stand-alone like as a downgrading of to love. According to this theory, the first instance could have gone something like this:

He: Do you love me?
She: Hm, well...
He: Do you not love me?
She: I wouldn't say love, darling, but something very much like it. Not quite love, but like.

Hewing and Gluing

Have you ever been struck by a cleaver? No? Good!

How about by the word cleaver? I have. The verb cleave is something I’ve pondered for quite a few years (okay, not continuously). It can mean one thing, but also pretty much its exact opposite: "to cut apart" and "to hold together".

There are a number of things going on here... First, the cutting, chopping (or chopped) sense is in these words: to cleave, cleaver, cloven, cleft and probably cliff, and of course, cleavage. *

Speculating a little, I wonder if clover is related (with its distinctly separated or cloven leaves). Stretching a bit further afield, there’s also clove, which I believe takes its name from the French word clou, for “nail”, which the little pungent spicey thing resembles almost to a T. (Hint: nails are for pounding.)

There’s possibly even more. If, as a certain eminent linguist of my acquaintance likes to point out, “b” = “v”, then what about clobber, and from that a club? A club, in addition to being a weapon, is also what English speakers call the suit of cards that looks like a clover but the French call trefle, from trefoil or “three leaves”).

Is it just a coincidence that all of these words have some apparent kinship revolving around the concept of cutting, chopping, or hitting? Read on...

This cutting/chopping/separating idea is what most people today get from these words. But there’s another conceptual use of cleave that survives in older English and modern poetical or oratorical styles. There are phrases such as to cleave to your partner and cleaving to a path, for instance. Both of these phrases mean “to stick to...”, which is decidedly not akin to cutting, chopping, or hitting. **

I have fewer related words to show for this meaning of cleave, but that doesn’t diminish the puzzle for me. (Hint: that was foreshadowing.)

I think it’s pretty clear that this older “stick to” concept of cleave is related to the modern German verb kleben, which means “to stick, affix, glue”. I don’t know enough German to know whether there are kleb- words that also mean “to cut, chop, separate”.

But I do know another German word that somehow brings us back to the “cut apart–stick together” dichotomy: hauen. This verb means “to chop, cut, strike”. In fact, it resembles in no small measure our English hew, meaning the same thing. Again, it’s not part of the conversational lexicon for today’s English speakers, but it exists in phrases like rough-hewn or even to hew a path through a thicket or whatever.

Here’s where the puzzle, or “coincidence” gets most interesting. *** Because in the same sense that we have cleave to a path or cleave to your partner, we ALSO have hew to a path or hew to a line (“stay the course”)!

Huh? On one hand we have a word, cleave, that seems to come into English through German (though undoubtedly it’s an IE root) and can mean both “chop” and “stick together”. On the other hand we have an apparently very different word, hew, that seems to come into English though German and can mean both “chop” and “stick together” -- not just literally, but in the poetically idiomatic expressions: cleave/hew to a path.

How can two apparently unrelated words mean, on the one hand, one thing, and on the other, the exact opposite, in a poetical, figurative sense?

I suspect the answer is that cleave and hew are not as unrelated as they at first appear.

That still leaves the question of meaning one thing and its opposite... But, since this post has already clobbered you over the head with a lot of words, I think I’ll save the obligatory, revelatory trip to my OED for another time and just leave you with this thought:

Instead of asking at the start of this blog post whether you’d ever been struck by a cleaver, it seems I could have also asked if you’d ever been STUCK by a cleaver.

- o - o - 

* For readers who may remember that this blog is about words and pictures, I'm sorry to disappoint you on this one. (Oh, alright. Look here.)

** Unless you have to chop down trees to clear a path, beat up rival suitors to claim a spouse, or cut in on someone to dance with a desired partner.

** Cue daughter’s sigh: “Actually interesting? Or merely Dad interesting?”

Beer and the Bible, sort of...

Back to the wonderful topic of beer, I was thinking about two words that crop up sometimes in beer styles here in Germany: Urtyp (“original type”) and Urquell (“original source”, as in “source of water”, like a spring). The ur- prefix means “original”. Then I remembered another German word, Ursprung (“origin”) and its adverb, Ursprünglich (“originally”).*

You can’t help but notice the similarities between ur- and or- in English “original”. Easy to imagine they come from the same source (pun intended).

So that got me thinking about the origin of origin. It struck me that the three major monotheistic religions (Judaism, Christianity, Islam) trace their roots to Abraham. And Abraham traces his roots to... Ur, as in Ur of the Chaldees or Chaldeans. (Check your Genesis, 11:31.)

Could Ur (which seems to be a common prefix in Mesopotamian place names) be the origin of our word origin? Time for a trip to my OED.

Results? Not as clear-cut as I’d like. I’ll spare you the details**, but essentially origin (“rise, beginning, source”) led me to originate (“bring into existence”) led me to original (“from L. oriri, to rise”) before something interesting cropped up with orchestra, which comes through Greek from the PIE *ergh- “to set in motion, stir up, raise”, from root *er-/*or-.   Er...in other words, the PIE root *er-/*or- has to do with starting up, beginning, or rising up (like a spring) from the earth.

Seems like my attempt to link beer with the Bible are coming to nought. Ergh! Unless we can somehow delve into Sumerian place names and figure out whether their ur- prefix is related to the PIE root *er/*or. Which I can’t.

But it is a bit of fun imagining Urians playing pick-up football in the hot sun against the visiting Babylonians, chilling with a brewsky afterwards. I imagine one of them scratching his head, looking at the bottle, and asking “What are we gonna call this?”

- o - o -

*Interestingly -- to me, at least -- the German quelle and spring/sprung root both relate to our English spring as a source of water.

** The Details:

origin: early 15c., from M.Fr. origine, from L. originem (nom. origo) "rise, beginning, source," from stem of oriri "to rise, become visible, appear". [Let’s try originate.]

originate: yadda yadda (see original).

original: early 14c., from L. originalis, from originem (nom. origo) "beginning, source, birth," from oriri "to rise" (see orchestra).

orchestra: c.1600, "area in an ancient theater," from L. orchestra, from Gk. orkhestra, semicircular space where the chorus of dancers performed, with suffix -tra denoting place + orkheisthai "to dance," intens. of erkhesthai "to go, come," from PIE *ergh- "to set in motion, stir up, raise" (cf. Skt. rghayati "trembles, rages, raves," L. oriri "to rise"), from root *er-/*or- (cf. L. origo "a beginning;" Skt. rnoti "rises, moves," arnah "welling stream;" O.Pers. rasatiy "he comes;" Gk. ornynai "to rouse, start;" Goth. rinnan, O.E. irnan "to flow, run").

Strategazing: New Word of the Day Feature!

This post inaugurates an aperiodic Word of the Day feature. Don’t be fooled by the title. It’s more “Word of the day on the day that I post it”. If you actually got a word a day it might get boring.

Our inaugural word is strategazing.*

Strategazing /strætəgezɪŋ/ (noun). A portmanteau word formed from bases strategy and star-gazing (some lexicologists hold the origin of the latter base to be navel-gazing -- either way, the effect is the same). Of or pertaining to the process of thinking big thoughts, purportedly with the aim of implementing them...some day...somehow. (In its purest form, strategazing leaves implementation to someone else.) Often accompanied by blind optimism and a total disregard for resources or timelines required for someone else to implement that big thought some day...somehow. (See also the related Good idea fairy.)

Now go forth and use this word! Impress your friends! Strategaze something up for someone else to make happen and then tell them there's a word for that!

-o-o-o-

* A Little Light Writing would like to thank the kind sponsors of today’s Word of the Day:

Strategazing is brought to you by the Purveyors of Fine-Ideas-Just-for-the-Sake-of-Purveying-Fine-Ideas.

Thinking About New Words

And now for a word from the real* OED — the Oxford English Dictionary, that grand old arbiter, the last court of instance, the very Supreme Court of what passes for correctness when it comes to English words.

Actually, I should have started out by saying “and now for some new words from the real OED”. Every new edition of a dictionary adds words — neologisms and colloquialisms that have gained enough currency among speakers of the language to force lexicographers to take official notice of them.

So every new edition sees language nerds and pundits make big noise about these newly minted official words. Such revisionism raises the hackles of some linguistic conservatives. To be honest, I can empathize with their conservatism. But it also helps validate the idea that a language grows, simplifies, and changes to reflect the living reality of the only truly important constituency: the folks who use it.

With that, an excerpt from a more or less giddy New York Times opinion piece from 5 April celebrating that OMG and LOL have made the OED:

It’s wonderful to experience the ongoing corruption and evolution of the English language. Last month, OMG and LOL were inducted into the Oxford English Dictionary, along with the heart symbol — the first time a meaning enters our most exalted linguistic inventory via the T-shirt and bumper sticker.

They follow in the steps of other representatives of our electronic age. Google is there. So are dotcom and wiki. Chances are the meaning of tweet will soon spill out of its ornithological domain. The additions bring to mind the words of William Safire, The Times’ former master wordsmith, who climbed down from the conservative ramparts in the culture wars 25 years ago to accept that “words come to mean what most people think they mean, not what we say they ought to mean.”

Chalk another one up for language-as-reflection-of-its-speakers. But by no means do I think its speakers ought to just spold, mindle, or futilate their language. There are more or less accepted ways of using it at any time. The conventions du moment are not meaningless, even if sometimes arbitrary (why not start a sentence with but?). The rules reflect a shared view of the best ways at the moment to convey meaning through language, to the largest audience possible.

I remember in grade school looking up the word ain’t in response to those adults who were trying to tell me it wasn’t a word in the acceptable sense. I knew that if it was in the dictionary, I had the weight of justice on my side, so I slept securely, keeping my moral superiority a comforting secret. Only later did I realize that conventions had their use. Ain’t may indeed be a word, but it ain’t for all occasions or audiences. Now I deliberately attempt to follow the conventions, because they (generally) produce sentences that sound best in my ear. If I knowingly deviate, it’s mostly to follow Orwell’s dicta not to say anything avoidably ugly or outright barbarous.

Anyway, while part of my heart is with the linguistic conservatives because of my own joy at spinning words into meaning, another part is with the pragmatists who recognize (and celebrate) that any given edition of a dictionary is, at best, a snapshot of the culture. If such a venerable word maven like William Safire and such an august word treasury like the OED can do it, I sure can.

-o-o-

* I don’t know how many times the blogging gods dictate I’m supposed keep disclaiming my personal shorthand for the Online Etymology Dictionary. But if it’s seven times seventy I’ve got some more disclaiming to do: I call that one “my OED” to distinguish it from the OED.

Thinking about words and light

I started this blog as a place to write about words and language, and also to write about my photography.

There's the old adage that "a picture is worth a thousand words," which sort of suggests an opposition between the two. It's true that an exceptional image can tell a story or evoke countless thoughts and reactions all on its own. 

But I find there can also be a kind of symbiotic connection between words and images that brings them together or adds a new dimension to both. (This can be as simple as the photographer's choice of an image title.)

So in this space you'll find me posting some images, musing on words, and sometimes exploring the intersection between the two.

It makes sense, then, that this first post should be about the word photograph. The word combines two Greek roots meaning "light" and "to write".* So photography is, both literally and figuratively, "writing with light" - a metaphor others have explored.

A Little Light Writing, then, offers a little light reading about words and images.

o - o - o

* One of my favorite websites is the Online Etymology Dictionary, which will pop up again and again here. While it's not the real OED, I'll use that abbreviation informally to refer to it. Accordingly, my "OED" gives the following information: the Greek root photo-, comes from phos "light," while -graph comes from graphein “to write, express by written characters".