WordsWordsWords

Intrepid Reader Barney of Ithaca, NY, is getting a lot of play on WordsWordsWords this week. Today’s mention is due to the fact that I’m reading a book he recommended. Damp Squid: The English Language Laid Bare, by Jeremy Butterfield, is a small volume—a quick, 165-page read from Oxford University Press. It really packs a punch for its size; it’s got so much great information that I’ve ordered a copy for my own collection. (Otherwise, I wouldn’t want to return this one to the library that’s so kindly lent it to me.)

Butterfield uses the Oxford Corpus—the group of electronic texts, comprising billions of words, that is used to do research on the language and to compile Oxford’s dictionaries—as a tool to explore various linguistic topics. He talks about things like how many words there are, what counts as a word, categories of word origin, the vagaries of spelling, usage pet peeves, and idiomatic phrases. He has a very entertaining writing style, with just enough humor to lighten the discussion without distracting from the information being shared. Some of his examples are British things that I’ve never heard of (“green-wellie brigade”?), but it’s fun for me to see that new vocabulary as well.

One of those British examples is the title phrase, “damp squid.” Apparently, if you were from across the pond, you’d know that “damp squid,” or the phrase, “damp squib,” of which the former is a misspeaking, means that something is a disappointment. “Squib” means a firework, so clearly a damp one would be no fun at all. Butterfield goes on to say

As the word squib now rarely appears outside this idiom—though still used in some areas, for instance parts of Scotland—it no longer makes sense to some people. Replacing it with the word squid does two things: it links it to a word that people know, and it breathes new life into an otherwise dead metaphor. Squid intensifies the idea of dampness; and there is, arguably, a strong metaphorical link between dampness and disappointment: a wet blanket, to rain on someone’s parade, not set the Thames on fire, to go belly-up, to pour cold water on something, and so forth.

While I wouldn’t recommend this book to anyone but dilettantes and wordfreaks, I believe you’ll really enjoy it if you’re in either of those two groups. Check your local library!

When I mentioned to Intrepid Reader Magi, currently of Somewhere-on-the-Road-in-New-Mexico (and also known as my best friend) that I wanted to do a post on back formation, she said, “That’s interesting, because I have an extra vertebra.” While I couldn’t believe we’ve been friends for 23 years and I didn’t know this, and while perhaps this explains why she is so courageous, that wasn’t the type of back formation I had in mind.

I began thinking about it a few days ago when I got this note from Intrepid Reader Barney of Ithaca, NY: “[I]t grates on my nerves when people refer to a so-called ‘mentee,’ that is, one who is mentored. It makes sense to talk about an examinee because there is a verb ‘to examine,’ just as there is a noun ‘examiner.’ But there is no verb ‘to ment,’ so mentee is linguistically invalid.”

Aw, dang, Barney. This is back formation in action. This instance just makes us a little nervous because it’s so new.

I would say that at least once a week, I look up an etymology and see the phrase “back formation from [such and such a word].” Back formation occurs when a speaker/writer removes what he thinks is a prefix or suffix from a word and, left with a new “root” that wasn’t actually a root in the first place, adds another particle and creates a new word.¹ As you’ve pointed out here, “ment” wasn’t the root of “mentor.” The verb comes from the Greek mythological character of the same name, and has come to mean trusted adviser, or one who shepherds another through a time of personal or professional growth.

Why does back formation occur? Sometimes there’s ignorance of the source word’s origin—a factor in this case. But often, the new word derived from back formation is also a convenient and frugal expression of the concept it’s now describing. And almost always, the new word formation follows a pattern that’s seen in other words. In this case, It’s obvious that what’s happened is that the “–or” suffix, which typically means “one who does (root verb),” has been dropped, and the “-ee”—”one who gets (root verb) done to him”—has been added.

As I’ve looked at this idea, I’ve found things that I didn’t even realize were back formation. For example, the singular of “syringes” was originally the Greek-derived “syrinx.” Take off the –s like you would with any regular plural, and “syringe” was born. “Complicit” didn’t originally exist, but was formed from the noun “complicity,” taking on a form like “explicit” and “implicit.” If we declared “linguistically invalid” every word we have that came from a back formation, the corpus would shrink considerably!

Words form in a lot of ways in English. We adopt them from other languages (Schadenfreude), we change parts of speech (like the mentor→to mentor), we chop off whole sections (phone). We are all kinds of creative. Back formation is this creativity in action. If “mentee” is not doing its job in getting across a concept, if the speakers and writers decide it’s ugly sounding or that there’s a better word, “mentee” will die. If not, in a few years or decades, people won’t be any more aware of its origin than they are of “syringe.”

I’m afraid that even if we made Herculean efforts to remind people of the mythological origin of “mentor,” it would be a Sisyphean task. My advice? Take your shoulder from the boulder and relax.
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¹ Or, he may know that it’s not actually a prefix/suffix, but may think the new word is a clever coinage.

From time to time, I like to publish, verbatim, the best spam comments I get on the blog. I especially liked these two. It practically sounds like they read it!

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Together with almost everything which seems to be building throughout this particular subject matter, a significant percentage of opinions are actually somewhat radical. Nevertheless, I appologize, because I do not give credence to your entire theory, all be it stimulating none the less. It would seem to me that your commentary are generally not completely rationalized and in fact you are your self not wholly certain of your assertion. In any case I did enjoy looking at it.

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Most of what you claim happens to be supprisingly accurate and that makes me wonder the reason why I had not looked at this with this light before. Your piece really did switch the light on for me as far as this particular subject goes. But there is 1 position I am not too comfortable with and while I make an effort to reconcile that with the core idea of your point, allow me see exactly what the rest of the subscribers have to point out.Nicely done.

I recently read The Sherlockian, by Graham Moore. The 28-year-old Mr. Moore is getting a lot of attention for this first novel, which has two different plot lines that unfold in alternating chapters. One is a fictional account of an adventure that Arthur Conan Doyle had around the turn of the 19^th century. The other is a modern-day story about the adventures of Harold White. Harold is the newest member of the Baker Street Irregulars, an invitation-only society of Sherlock Holmes scholars and extreme aficionados. (They call the collected novels and stories The Canon.) I hesitate to say anything more about Moore’s book. I love a mystery and loathe having my pleasure in it diminished by any untimely revelations. But if you like historical fiction, or murder mysteries, or both, you will enjoy this book.

Along the Sherlockian path, natch, I learned a new-to-me word, darbies. It was easy to tell from context what they are—handcuffs—but I went looking for more information. It turns out that they are the now-outdated D-shaped barrel lock handcuffs.¹

from ushandcuffs.com

To see where this word came from, we have to start with the surname Darby, from which it was ultimately derived. The OED explains it thusly: “A southern (not the local) pronunciation of Derby, the name of an English town and shire, which was formerly also sometimes so spelt. Hence an English personal surname, and an appellation of various things named after the place or some person of that surname.”

Back in the late 16^th century, there either may or may not have been a noted usurer by the name of Darby. In any case, “Darby’s bands” or “Father Darby’s bands” came to refer to the bonds placed on a debtor if he couldn’t afford to pay up. Within another century or so, the term darbies had come to refer to handcuffs in general. A quote from 1673: “Darbies, irons, or Shackles or fetters for Fellons.”

As much British mystery stuff as I’ve read over my life, I was surprised that I didn’t know this word. The OED doesn’t list it as archaic, but it and other sources identify it as slang. I did some poking around the web to try to get a sense of how the word might be used today. The fact that it’s slang may explain why I didn’t find any instances of it in The Times or the BBC.

I did, however, find one appearance in The Guardian. It was a sarcastic comment by a reader responding to a negative story about a required cycling course for police officers. The reader said, “…it’s highly unlikely that bike-mounted villains will go on for very long being pursued by bike-mounted police at a sedate 20mph until they get overtaken and the darbies are clapped on their wrists.” I also discovered a question about it on the UK blog Quiztime Quizzes, which indicates that it’s not something everyone would know; otherwise it wouldn’t merit trivia question status. The most frequent mention of the word in the online universe, though, referred to “Billy in the Darbies,” a poem that appears at the end of the novella Billy Budd, by Herman Melville. There are many references to it in a British context, often relating to the song of the same name in the Benjamin Britten Billy Budd opera. Wouldn’t it make a great name for a band?

With all this about handcuffs, I couldn’t help but think about the offensive Spanish word for them—esposas. Literally, that means “wives.” I suppose it’s analogous to our “old ball and chain” appellation for one’s wife. I think it’s sad that the popular perception is that one’s wife is a shackle. I feel lucky every day to have my everything-but-wife, The Professor, filling my life with her brilliance, humor, kindness, support, and love.
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¹ From handcuffs.org, “A Collector’s Guide to Vintage Handcuffs”

12/2/13 Note: The Quiztime Quizzes blog seems to have disappeared from the web. Its former URL was quiztimeuk.blogsome.com.

Intrepid Reader Barney of Ithaca, NY, writes, “I cringe when airline flight attendants say that “federal regulations require that items are stored beneath the seat.” I want to shout out, “Use the subjunctive!!!!! It should be that federal regulations require that items BE stored beneath the seat.”¹

While I also take note of the infraction, my reaction is more on the order of “Sigh…I guess the subjunctive is dead in English.” Then I try to be excited about knowing that I am seeing history in the making as the language evolves. Someday, “fewer bananas” will sound quaintly archaic. (Are we there yet?) This thought—that I’m a living witness to linguistic change—is merely a survival mechanism, because in truth, I cringe a bit too.

However, in defense of all the “require that items are stored” folks, you have to admit that the English subjunctive is awfully anemic. Its verbs look like other declarative verbs, only past tense, or like the infinitive. They’re very quirky in their behavior. In Barney’s case, it’s properly “requires that you be,” but it could also correctly read “requires you to be.” With other verbs, though, you see different patterns–“wish that you were” (past subjunctive–we know why, it’s expressing non-existence) or “want you to be.” You can’t say “wish that you be” or “want that you be,” when those two constructions would seem analogous to “require that you be.” Why not?

I don’t know anything about the history of the English subjunctive, but its current state is probably a result of the same case/tense implosion that has shaved almost all inflections off our regular verbs–only the 3rd person singular present has that tiny “s” on it, and the past has lost them altogether. We had to start using auxiliary verbs for future and conditional just to clear things up, for godsake. Then, as if to make up for the fact that this might give non-native speakers an easy time of it when learning English, we’ve developed an extensive and completely unpredictable set of irregular past-tense verbs. Bring, brought; eat, ate; take, took; drink, drank. They’re just obscene.

I know my thoughts on this are influenced by Spanish, where the subjunctive is its own, well fleshed out, goddamn tense, thank you very much, with different verb forms and a whole array of uses having to do with influence, desire, non-existence, uncertainty and emotion. It’s initially difficult for an English speaker because of our dearth of it, but once you get it, once you realize that you’re entering a whole different world there, it’s inconceivable not to have it. You hear it constantly, regardless of the sophistication or education level of the speaker. You’d sound foreign and feel like an idiot if you didn’t get it right. (That’s me, occasionally, since I still have an EFL brain, even after 30+ years.)

In contrast, in English, you get the occasional “if I were you” and “require that they be,” and how is someone who’s not a linguist supposed to really get that?
Consider:
“If he brought me the receipts, I wasn’t aware of it. I was away from my desk yesterday.”
“If he brought me the receipts, I wouldn’t have to nag him about it at tax time.”

Many of my intrepid readers will know that the second sentence is the subjunctive, while the first isn’t. But the first clauses in the two are identical. How do you expect anyone to pick that up? My argument is that the tense has eroded to such an extent that even a well-educated native speaker can be almost unaware of its existence.

Despite the fact that my skin may crawl ever so slightly upon hearing it, I simply have to give “if I was you” a pass except in the most formal of circumstances. It doesn’t cause any confusion, and it’s widely used. “If I were” and “If I was” are currently co-existing; the balance seems to be tipping in the favor of the latter; only time will tell.

For the record, Garner’s Modern American Usage lists six uses for the English subjunctive.
1) conditions contrary to fact. If I were king…
2) suppositions. If I were to go, I couldn’t…
3) wishes. I wish you were my lover.
4) commands. I insisted that he go.
4) suggestions. I suggest that you consider it.
5) statements of necessity. It’s necessary that they be there.

Garner omits any discussion of the fact that some of these are past subjunctive (first three) and some present (last three). It looks from these examples that the past is used with non-existence and the present with influence.
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¹Barney might also want to read my musings on the exclamation point.

End note:
Perhaps the most well known uses of the subjunctive in popular culture are in The Wizard of Oz—I’d turn back if I were you! and If I Were King of the Forest