IT’S REALLY “BLANKING” RAINING TODAY

Some of you regular readers may recall that I like to make up my own words for things. Sometimes I make up new definitions for old words, like Humpty Dumpty in Through the Looking Glass:

“There's glory for you!”
“I don't know what you mean by ‘glory.’ ” Alice said.
Humpty Dumpty smiled contemptuously. “Of course you don't -- till I tell you. I meant ‘there's a nice knock-down argument for you!’ ”
“But ‘glory’ doesn't mean ‘a nice knock-down argument,’ ” Alice objected.
“When I use a word,” Humpty Dumpty said, in rather a scornful tone, “it means just what I choose it to mean -- neither more nor less.”
“The question is,” said Alice, “whether you can make words mean so many different things.”
“The question is,” said Humpty Dumpty, “which is to be master -- that's all.”

Sometimes, I make up words for things that I wish to write about, but there simply aren’t any existing words for them. Coincidentally, most of the words I invent, either brand-new ones or those to replace existing ones that I don’t especially like, have to do with weather. Maybe it’s because I write a lot of poetry, but I find that the English language is really under understaffed when it comes to words for weather in general, and poetic words for weather in particular. We’ve all heard that northern aboriginal peoples have many words for snow, doubtless because of where they live, there's a necessity of knowing the precise conditions they’re venturing into at any given time.

One weather event that does seem to have good roster of terms is ‘rain,’ but though English gets points for having good variety, almost nobody agrees on what name goes with what level of precipitation, so we are all kind of left to our own Humpty Dumpty devices on a rainy day. Here, in no particular order of wetness, are some of the choices:

misting (or wee mist), drizzling, spitting, pouring, sprinkling
light rain, mizzle (mist + drizzle?), downpour, sheets, buckets, cats and dogs…

Finally, here is a word I made up replace the pre-existing weather term virga, which is rain you see in the distance that appears to sweep down like fringe, but doesn’t actually make it to the ground. Fringe of rain = frainge. Now, I realize that there is nothing wrong with virga, per se. In fact, it's a fairly common surname. But still, for fringes of rain in the sky, I thought we could do better. Feel free to use it to impress your friends…

You: “Oh look at that beeeyootiful frainge over the mountains!” (or wherever you happen to see it).
Friend: “Frainge? What’s that? Where?”
You: (feeling a bit chuffed) “You’ve never heard of frainge? Let me explain…”

Now, I just need to figure out what it's doing outside at the moment.


Virga photo from Wikimedia Commons

A FEW ‘NEGATIVE’ THOUGHTS

On Skywatch Friday, I posted some additional notes about two obsolete Shakespearean-era English words, ravel and sleave. When checking on the background of these words, I discovered that “ravel” and it’s perceived (and non-obsolete) opposite, “unravel” each mean the same thing. It brought up the whole topic of how English forms negatives or opposites of things. We usually do it by adding a prefix, and for that we certainly have a number of choices:

likely – unlikely
understood - misunderstood
complete - incomplete
modest - immodest
reversible - irreversible
logical – illogical

A prominent exception, as mentioned on Friday by Sue, is the seemingly opposite pair, "flammable" and "inflammable." However, just as with ravel/unravel, these two fiery words mean the exactly same thing. The confusion (which began in the 16th Century and wasn’t resoled until the 18th!) resulted because each of the English words in question is based on a different Latin one, but the confusion posed too great a risk. We can’t have people thinking that something “inflammable” is fireproof when it isn’t! What we usually see these days in "flammable" and "non-flammable." (If you’d like the complete and really fascinating history, go HERE.)

Another fellow blogger, Small City Scenes, commented on the words “thaw/unthaw.” This really intrigued me. At first glance, this pair would seem to be following the same linguistic route as flammable/inflammable” but wait… We can definitely freeze and unfreeze something. And when we unfreeze something, we thaw it, right? So how do we explain “unthaw?” Stickler as I can be over my word usage at times, I’m also a great fan of slang and creative idioms, so I’m pretty sure I’ve probably used “unthaw” at one time or another. Plus, I found that several online dictionaries listed “unthaw” and the equally redundant “dethaw.” Are these the result of an over-zealous application of the rules of English negation? One online commenter at a site I visited simply called unthaw a “slang synonym.” Then Barb brought up the intriguing subject of "lost positives" like "gruntled" and "sheveled," which we only use now wit the prefix "dis." But I'll save that one for another post and another day.

And finally, a thanks to Sandy Carlson for the link for the Online Etymology Dictionary, a handy reference for all our future linguistic troubleshooting. I’ve saved it, and will surely never unbookmark it!

IT’S A SIGN!

You know what they say - "There's never a comma around when you need one!" And sometimes we all just need to have our personal spacing respected, too. Here are a few photos of signs I've come across in my travels that made me smile. (click to enlarge)


Photo #1 Church
What’s the hurry if there’s no goodies afterwards?!

Recommendation: If the Lenten Sign Kit didn’t come with punctuation, then use three lines instead of two.


Photo #2 Restaurant near the beach
Misleading. I’ve been in there plenty of times without my cat, and I’ve always been served!

Recommendation: How about “YOU CAN'T COME IN HERE UNLESS YOU COVER YOUR HAIRY, SWEATY, SORRY SELF UP! AND LEAVE YOUR MUD-CAKED FRISBEE-SLATHERING DOG IN THE TRUCK.” Granted, it will have to be a bigger sign, but it's so much clearer. Effective communication is always the key to success!




Photo #3 Rental Hall
“I just don’t understand why we aren’t booking any events!”

Recommendation: If you want people to patronize your business, you might try looking like you're OPEN.


Finally, to offset the first three communication pretzels, here is, IMHO, a prize-winning example of effective signage. It comes right to the point; there’s nothing ambiguous, misplaced, or poorly punctuated. And yes, that is another sign in the back window with a phone number to call for the price. What more is there to say?