From Words to Language

...There are biographies of Shakespeare, Noah Webster, Noam Chomsky, James Joyce...

...It is in this capacity, however, that the book serves some purpose...

...I was tickled pink to learn the term iotacism, meaning an excess of i-sounds, as in itsy-bitsy and teenie-weenie...

...Sabir (the original lingua franca...

...Polari (an argot once popular among sailors, show-biz folk and homosexuals that calls young men feely homies...

...Today you can hear decently educated people—including President Clinton—use I for me in the accusative: Something or other was "a great honor for Al Gore and I," the nation was told on television...

...English possesses the greatest vocabulary, yet no one seems to know it any more...

...Johnson under Atticism, "A man is generally better pleased when he has a good dinner on his table than when his wife talks Greek," which combines the wit and the Greek of the word illustrated...

...Heriz is a "type of Persian rug...

...for the sake of the latter, the approximate date of a term and its etymology are given in brackets at the head of the entry along with useful cross references?starting, as it were, with the lay of the land before zeroing in...

...Of course, it is less good than a strictly reverse dictionary, because that is only one of its several functions: Word Menu is a jack of all trades among lexicons, and, therefore, master of none...

...First, you have to go to Clothing, page 343...

...There is one more promise extended: The book will help us "match a known meaning to an unknown word," i.e., act as a reverse dictionary...

...Unlike Word Menu, it does not purport to help you to become a better writer, speaker, or crossword puzzle-solver...

...will be suitably reflected.' There follows an address where "fortius ongoing work, constructive comments and suggestions" will be welcomed...

...One, for instance, is a specialist in Birds as well as Prefixes and Suffixes...

...For felicities of this sort I am more than willing to overlook certain exclusions—like not mentioning, under Aporia, its prime exemplar, the ironic conclusion of some Platonic dialogues, where Socrates puts aporia to a fine heuristic purpose...

...At what sort of cocktail party will I earn kudos for HanguP...

...The front cover further proclaims that Word Menu is "A merging of dictionary, thesaurus, treasury of glossaries, reverse dictionary, and almanac—fully indexed.' All this in under a thousand 9 1/2 by 61/2" pages .Impossible, you say, and you're right...

...Sixty per cent of the entries are the work of the contributors, the rest are McArthur's...

...That book is certainly right, too, in spelling the slang for semen jism, and not, as in Word Menu, jissum...

...its simplest rules are broken in every conversation around us...

...I couldn't have put it better, or shorter, myself...

...Things have been steadily deteriorating ever since...

...So I flip from page 663 to page 659 and get rhotacism again, defined this time as "excessive use or misarticulation of the sound 'r.'" True, this is under Phonetics, whereas the other was under Linguistics and Writing Systems...

...Under Kitchen-sink Drama, the playwright Jellicoe becomes "Anne" instead of Ann...

...Moreover, some of these consultants strike me as odd ducks...

...I hope that such strictures as I have made fall under that rubric...

...The definitions of Phonic and Phonetic do not make distinct enough differentiations...

...Yet all is quickly forgiven when (under Nonce Word) we come across such a gem as " a hamburger sold at Tin-tagel...

...There is Aesthetics (a model mini-essay...

...My gaze alights on omega particle, defined as a " particle that decays into a cascade particle after colliding with pi meson...

...yes, but what type...

...On the other hand, do we need two consultants on Ballet, or a separate consultant on Basketball when there is already one on Sports in general, and none on any other particular sport...

...Random House, not content with producing the worst dictionary in the language, has compounded the error with Word Menu, by the late Stephen Glazier...

...It would have been proper, in doing justice to the splendid Eric Partridge, to have mentioned his literary achievements as well...

...I give up on baryon, and conclude that the "quick course" is getting me nowhere fast...

...That may be the best one can do with words, but a picture dictionary, such as the Duden, works much faster, proving that one picture is worth three and a half columns of words...

...In despair, I look up pi meson, which is a "meson with mass 270 times that of electron and spin of zero...

...One-liner (sample given: "Karl Marx's grave—another Communist plot...

...Let me verify another of the jacket flap's promises, that I will "discover different ways of saying the same thing...

...Nor am I especially comforted by the presence of consultants on New Age, Hairstyles and Homosexuality, though at least they are three separate persons...

...Why is ephe-bophobia defined as "male homosexuality involving age-differentiated attraction," when what is meant is its opposite, ephebophilial There are similarly aberrant definitions under Sex Acts...

...Under Metre, in the last sentence, the main reason for metrical variety—the need to avoid monotonous singsong—is not given...

...Its jacket copy is accurate in affirming that the book offers "a goldmine of information on writing and speech (including entries on grammar, literary terms, linguistics, rhetoric, and style) as well as such wider issues as sexist language, bilingual education, child language acquisition, and the history of English...

...Agreed, it would make a party livelier to run down this repertoire as each successive glass is drained, provided we don't use l'chaim in Damascus, na zdorovye in Warsaw or Vilnius, and bottoms up in a sailboat just as the sky starts clouding up...

...And it would be nice not to read "styles which allowed" under English Literature, or "not only...

...I knew then that the jig was up...

...Errors, alas, do creep into even the most conscientious human enterprises...

...Pot luck brings me to rhotacism, a "change of speech sound to 'r' as language evolves...

...The volume is described on the front cover of the jacket as "A revolutionary new reference book that organizes language by subject matter, the way we in the 1990s understand it, use it, and remember it...

...Even at the most casual glance one discovers sloppiness...

...What kind of help is now at hand...

...By splitting up meanings according to categories, it is obliged to repeat the same word under several headings, which results in a waste of space and inconclusiveness...

...Yes, we could look the word up in the index and go to the three sections, yet that would mean four operations for what a regular dictionary does in one...

...Maybe expecting illumination in particle physics is too much to ask of Word Menu...

...There has to be something more usefulhere...

...Indeed, it is being blithely butchered by our best schools, our leading newspapers, even our university presses...

...Although the basic idea isn't bad, it would take an encyclopedia of several volumes to do it justice...

...a nice little entry on the Canadian humorist Stephen Leacock...

...but what kind...

...Despite my being a theater critic, I think four separate theater consultants, none of whom I have ever heard of, is a bit much...

...It is nice to be reminded, with examples, under Pleonasm that many famous writers have been pleonastic, and it is encouraging that even a one-column entry on R-sounds can be as entertaining as it is informative...

...I'm all for a book enabling me to "take a quick course in the terminology of an unfamiliar field," as the jacket flap promises...

...Could it be because of the mono- and the thre...

...coverage of every nation in which a significant part of the population speaks English as well as of virtually every regional dialect and pidgin...

...Under English Literature, the Scottish poet Hugh MacDiarmid becomes "MacDiarmaid...

...But, he justly adds, "they have proved to be in their own right a second set of 'core' entries...

...The editor himself modestly calls the Companion "an interim report...

...For the sake of the former, certain customary abbreviations are humanely avoided...

...Well, that at least is fair warning: We in the '90s use language as no dog should be used, and that is what Word Menu proposes to serve up to us...

...Why is cock ring, "ring worn at base of penis, used to prolong erection," listed under this rubric rather than under Sexuality and Libido ? Can't heterosexuals use it...

...Surely, ream does not mean "have sexual intercourse with a woman," but, rather, as Wentworth and Flexner's Dictionary of American Slang instructs us, "to poke something up another's rectum...

...Also that Caucasian rug would be "rug woven in Caucasus mountains," except that I must now go elsewhere to find out where the Caucasus is...

...Without more detail, or an illustration (there are none in Word Menu), I wouldn't know a Heriz if I fell over it...

...There are some well-known academicians among them, and we get (as we do not from Word Menu) their credentials and fields of expertise...

...What earthly good is that to me or anyone without an example...

...I try an easier category: Domestic Life, subsection Carpets and Rugs...

...One is always impressed by the amount of information packed into, say, Hob-son- Jobsonism, where, in half a column, one gets any number of interesting samples of (often comic) Angliciza-tion of foreign words and names...

...And must we have, in addition to sugarpie and honeybunch, the combined sugar-pie honeybunchl Just looking at it makes your gorge and calories rise...

...Distressingly, on top of page 714, the novelist Olive Schreiner's name is divided "Schr-einer...

...Why does quisling appear both under Fraud, Treachery and Deception, where it belongs, and under Espionage and Intelligence, where it does not...

...But no, a xi particle is a'' baryon having strangeness number -2 and isotopic split 1/2...

...Itangliano (where we learn that the application of Italian phonology to English produces "pootzlay" for puzzle...

...Then you have to look down a list to find said category, page 363...

...also kam pai, l'chaim, na zdorovye, and a half dozen more, all without explanation or indication of what language they're in...

...When, some years ago, I reviewed a work written by a professor at one of the California state universities and published by the Harvard University Press, I found in it three instances of lay misused for lie...

...and many, many more...

...Who would think, coming upon the definition of ombudsman, that there are two further, different ones in two other sections...

...in which further developments...

...Thus a Zeugma is not necessarily the same trope as syllepsis—there is a fine distinction...

...to say nothing of prolixity...

...The example given is: "If you can't remember the word for 'a close-fitting academic cap with flat, square top and tassel, look under Hats (in the category Hats, Headgear, and Hairpieces) to find the word 'mortarboard.'" In fact, it's not that simple...

...For there is a hierarchic system of categories, subcategories, entries, all clearly indexed and supplied with cross references...

...The Companion provides bibliographies for the larger entries, generous cross-referencing, etymologies for headwords, a chronology of English from Roman times to 1990, and an index of people who appear in entries or bibliographies...

...or the wonderful quotation from Dr...

...Under Pet Names, why cara mia, mi amore and liebschen (sic, for Liebchen), but nothing French or Spanish...

...Among the lexicon's aims (along with the dubious "help[ing] to solve crossword puzzles or to win at word games") is "to help the writer or speaker find the mot juste...

...its teachers no longer want to or know how to teach it to our children...

...Why, even something as basic as dative is not made clear by "noun case for indirect object in inflected languages...

...Instead, on 1,100-odd pages, it does tell you in brief nearly everything there is to know about the English language...

...the thing I'd be picking myself up from might as readily be a Bokhara or Indo- Tabriz for all the help I get from Word Menu...

...This is not the way to mastery of technical terms and jargon...

...As you leaf through the Companion, no page fails to catch your eye with some seductive entry...

...By not providing etymologies, for example, it makes it harder to memorize a new word...

...Particularly delightful are the examples cited, e.g., under Honorific, Samuel Johnson's "Were it not for imagination, Sir, a man would be as happy in the arms of a chambermaid as of a Duchess...

...Quarterly Review of Doublespeak...

...sometimes an entry bears the initials of two co-authors...

...the Attic salt brought water to them...

...More important slip-ups occur as well...

...Where else would I have learned such a mot juste as dental dam: "device placed in mouth to prevent entrance of body fluids during oral sex...

...Entries can be generous, as for Phrasal Verb, six and a half columns...

...A refreshing sense of humor underlies this lexicon, though the emphasis is always on clarity and contextuality...

...Call it not being able to tell a- from be...

...This is Chinese to me, so I dutifully look up cascade particle, and find it to be the "least massive of xi particles," which I take to mean 11 particles...

...extended articles on everything from psycholinguis-tics to sign language to tragedy...

...Absurd...

...a second edition...

...nevertheless, why should something evolutionary on one page be a mistake on the (almost) next...

...Under Genteel-ism, we read that it is usually a euphemism "for evasive 'polite' purposes, such as bathroom, lavatory, powder room, rest room, toilet for a place for urinating, defecating, and washing...

...but" (without an also) under Literature, both entries by a professor emeritus who seems to be not only retired but also tired...

...Not one of these four worthies saw fit to include histrionic under Actors, Stagecraft and Theatre People, though it does show up, less appositely, under Stagecraft, Production and Dramatic Structure...

...Granted, when I discover that Hangul is the "alphabet used in writing Korean," I finally have something solid to latch on to, yet how am I ever going to make use of it...

...Since no field could be more unfamiliar to me than Nuclear and Particle Physics, I try my luck with it...

...Having enjoyed reviewing The Oxford Companion to the English Language, I look forward to many deeper drafts from its Pierian spring...

...Swahili (containing the information that mbenzi is a rich person, one owning a Mercedes-Benz...

...And right beneath it, the illustrative quotation for Attic Salt (from Tristram Shandy) not only uses the term, but also embodies it: "Triumph swam in my father's eyes, at the repartee...

...Sure enough, in the category Arts and Leisure, subcategory Toasts, I find a votre sante, bottoms up, cheerio, cheers, chin chin, down the hatch, gesondheid, gun-bei...

...The book might be useful, because its promises include making me "correctly employ technical terms and jargon...

...My eye encounters bearskin, which, I learn, is "fur of bear used as rug...

...A much more serious and, in its chosen area, useful lexicon is The Oxford Companion to the English Language...

...Some of these 'general' outer entries," McArthur says, "may at first sight seem unlikely candidates (such as book, chapter, form, line, mark, model, modem, network, note, space, and system...

...The companion proceeds from Core Englisbat the center outward, to cover 22 themes: Geography, History, Biography, Name, Literature, Style, Education, Grammar, Writing, Speech, Reference, Word, Usage, Language, Variety, Media and Technology...

...We are a nation drowning in like and you know and I mean, in hopefully and like I said, in lack of grammar, syntax, and verbal power...

...Nor is there any mention of the spreading asininity that puts quotation marks around the names of characters in movies, often in the very title sequences, e.g., so-and-so as "Jason" or "Betty Jane...

...Why does the definition of troubadour fail to mention that the medieval poet-musician was an itinerant...

...Nowhere, incidentally, do we get that ambiguous appellation buster...

...Under shtup, we are not told (as elsewhere in similar cases) that it is Yiddish slang...

...In a front-page obituary for Dizzy Gillespie in the New York Times we read about his being beloved "for his intensity, artistry and bemusement with life," where, of course, amusement, the near opposite, was meant...

...Why three entries for succubus, with one of them inappropriately under Perversions, Fetishes and Titillations...

...Why do we get the Japanese tanka, a verse form no one uses in the West, and not the Malayan pan-toum, a fairly popular Western poetic form...

...King Arthur" to explain Excaliburger, which is really a portmanteau word...

...Aha, flossa is a "hand-woven Scandinavian carpet...

...a site associated with...

...Actually, I sort of knew that...

...Why does monody appear only once, and threnody thrice...

...Chee-chee English (the language of Anglo-Indians...

...Reviewed by John Simon Aside from their intrinsic interest, language or word books could provide life belts for the shipwrecked...

...Now, I agree that tummy is ridiculously genteel for an adult belly, but would it be more forthright and honorable to inquire "Where is your place for urinating and defecating...

...He acknowledges various changes that had to be made during the last of its six years of preparation, and promises "In due course...

...The entire book, sensibly, is in alphabetical order, and each topic has a theme list, enabling us to find the subcategories without disrupting that order...

...But the book is politically correct enough to have three columns under Homosexuality, including some mighty queer definitions...

...Then you must wade through three and a half columns of various hats to find your answer...

...Ah, but Word Menu is contemporary—with a vengeance...

...I try again and hit on middle voice, which turns out to be "verb form, as in Greek, indicating that the subject is acting on or for itself...

...or cogently concise, as for Diatribe, eight lines...

...Pygmalion (including a reference to a 1989 book, John Honey's Does A ccent Matter?—The Pygmalion Factor, which I wouldn't mind reading...

...Still, it's good to ascertain that a runneris a "long, rectangular hall rug" and not a running rug or, with a little added elan, a flying carpet...

...Thanks, but I'll just bring a sandwich and Coke from home...

...Again, score does not mean " entice another into having sexual intercourse," but merely to make out—a phrase, by the way, that isn't in Word Menu...

...Among its bak-er's dozen editors, I find not a single name that I recognize, and I have not previously encountered any of its 50-odd consultants...

...Pun (from the Bible to today's headlines...

...another, in Prison and Eastern Religions...

...no matter how arcane or specialized," and this it may do...

...Under Quotation Marks, the subsection Headings and Titles provides no information on how to deal with short stories, plays and musical works, to name but a few omissions...

...All right, let me try a field where I already have some knowledge...

...The editor, Tom McArthur, who also edits the prestigious journal English Today, enlisted the services of his wife, Feri, as managing editor, 10 others as associate editors, 84 contributors (all entries are initialed), and a greater number of consultants...