Theme Thursday -- Sound -- What Language Is by John McWhorter

Hosted by Reading Between the Pages

Rules:

*A theme will be posted each week on Thursday
*Select a conversation/snippet/sentence from the current book you are reading that features the theme
*Post it and don't forget to mention the author and title of the book
*Event is open for the whole week
*Link back to Reading Between the Pages

This week's theme is sound/music.  

 

Did you ever wonder why Ned is the nickname for Edward, Nellie for Ellen, and Nan for Ann?  After all, if someone's name is Maria and you come to be fond of her, your impulse is not to start calling her N'Maria -- and speakers of Old and Middle English were no sillier than we are.  In itself, even Ned for Ed seems a little goofy -- "Hey there, Ed, Eddie boy, good ol' . . . .Nnnnned!!!"  Why??? Today, if we have a friend named Aisha, the last thing we would start saying is "Ooh , here comes my . . . Nnnaisha!"  What was it with early Brits and n?  

 

The answer is a "mistake".  Just as in German, my is mein, in Old English, my was min [long i].  You would say, in modern parlance, mine book, mine cat.  And, you would often say, in affection, mine Ed, mine Ellen. As min changed to my, people started heaing the old n as the first sound in the names: mine Ed became my Ned.  The result was new versions of these names starting with n, used as nicknames -- i.e., names you use in affection, as people used to in saying mine Ed.

 

I'm thrilled to hear this explained, as I've often wondered about this exact thing.  I wonder if Sarah/Sallie has a similar explanation?

Out of the Silent Planet by C. S. Lewis

I'd never read any of C. S. Lewis' fiction for adults before picking up Out of the Silent Planet -- the first in his Space Trilogy.  Dr Elwin Ransom(modeled after Tolkien, by the way) is on a walking holiday when he is abducted by a former schoolmate and his (evil-scientist-)physicist partner and taken to the planet Malacandra.  When Ransom escapes his human captors, he has to figure out how to survive in an alien (so to speak) environment and distinguish friend from foe.  Being a lover of language and linguistics, I enjoyed watching Ransom (a philologist himself) begin to consider the way language works on Malacandra.  I will probably want to pick up the final two (Perelandra, That Hideous Strength) at some point as well.

Friday 56 and Book Beginnings -- Ordeal by Innocence by Agatha Christie & The Language Instinct by Steven Pinker

Hosted by Katy.

How to participate: Share the first line (or two) of the book you are currently reading on your blog or in the comments. Include the title and the author so we know what you're reading. Then, if you feel so moved, let us know what your first impressions were based on that first line, and let us know if you liked or did not like the sentence.

"It was dusk when he came to the ferry. 

He could have been there much earlier."

~from Ordeal by Innocence by Agatha Christie

This beginning definitely caught my attention -- I wanted to know what he was putting off and why. The speaker is Dr. Arthur Calgary, just returned from two years in Antarctica.  An old newspaper article brought the realization that his amnesia directly before leaving for his expedition has put an innocent man in jail.  In his desire to "make things" right, he is traveling on the ferry to share the news that he assumes (incorrectly) will be a relief to the convicted man's family.  An interesting premise a bit out of the norm for Christie.  Enjoyable.






Hosted by Freda.
Rules:
*Grab a book, any book.
*Turn to page 56.
*Find any sentence that grabs you.
*Post it.
*Link it here.

Anyone familiar with Yiddish knows a better example, the ultimate riposte to someone reasoning from improbable premises:  Az di bobe volt gehat beytsim volt zi geven mayn zeyde, "If my grandmother had balls , she'd be my grandfather."

~The Language Instinct by Steven Pinker