Language Trainers Blog

H. Douglas Brown has an interesting story to share, involving university students and alcohol. Not the most surprising of combinations, perhaps…

A hundred college students were gathered for an audition at the University of Michigan. They had all responded to an advertisement asking human subjects to participate in a “psychological experiment”.

When Professor Alexander Guiora and his colleagues made their way to the front of the room, they explained that one half of the audience, randomly divided, will go to room A, and the other half to room B. The ones in room A were given a small glass of punch; in the punch was one and a half ounces of vodka. Volunteers in room B got the same punch, but without the vodka. After a short period of time the participants in both rooms were led to a large language laboratory, where they simultaneously took a recorded test in which they were invited to try to pronounce words in the Thai language (which none of the subjects knew). After the test they were dismissed, with thanks and a token payment for their trouble.

Later, the results of the experiment were published. Guiora announced that group A did a significantly better job of pronouncing words in Thai than group B. Conclusion: the alcohol lowered the students’ inhibitions, giving group A the advantage.

There is plenty to quibble about in this experiment, but it has been shown via other methods that one of the greatest blocks to adult second-language success is fear: fear of failing, fear of making a fool of yourself in front of others, fear of falling flat on your face. Children are far less inhibited linguistically than adults. Beyond a certain sensitivity to in-group slang, children don’t pay much attention to grammatical correctness and linguistic forms.

Much like inebriated adults.

The affective connotations of a word can best be described as the aura of personal feelings surrounding said word. While there is no necessary agreement about how or what each word emotes, it is the existence of these feelings that enables us to use words, under certain circumstances, for their affective connotations alone, without regard to their informative connotations.

That is to say, when we are strongly moved, we express our feelings by uttering words with their affective connotations appropriate to our feelings, without paying attention to the literal repercussions they may have. In anger, we might call people dirty rats, vultures, and skunks, or alternatively lovingly call someone honey, sugar, duckie or sweetie pie. Indeed, all verbal expressions of feeling make use of the affective connotations of words to some extent.

All words have, according to the usage, some affective character. There are many words that exist more for their affective value than for their informative value: for example, we can refer to ‘that man’ as ‘that gentleman‘, ‘that individual‘, ‘that person‘, ‘that gent‘, ‘that guy‘, ‘that bloke‘, ‘that hombre‘, etc. While the person in question may be the same in all of these cases, each of these terms reveals a difference in our feelings toward him.

Dealers of knick-knacks can be found to write ‘Gyfte Shoppe‘ over the door, hoping that such a spelling carries, even if their merchandise does not, the flavour of antiquity. Affective connotations suggestive of England and Scotland are often sought in the choice of brand names for men’s suits and overcoats to imply style and sophistication: ‘Glenmoor‘. ‘Regent Park‘, ‘Bond Street‘. Sellers of perfume choose names for their products that suggest France for the traditional romantic element: ‘Mon Désir‘, ‘Indiscret‘, ‘Evening in Paris‘ – and expensive brands always come in ‘flacons‘, never bottles.

In your quest to make others take your stance on issues seriously, it’s very easy to fall into the pitfalls known as logical fallacies, errors in logic that stand only to weaken your argument. The term ‘logical fallacy’ indicates a contradiction: while it may seem logical upon first hearing, after close examination it is anything but.

Instead of offering valid reasons to support your viewpoints, fallacies are evidence of unclear, incomplete and over-simplistic thinking. Although often unintentional, sometimes fallacies are used on purpose as a way to deceive people. Many advertisements, commercials, and politicians are renowned for using this tactic. For example, “miracle weight loss” programmes and products use logical fallacies in their marketing when they consistently link weight loss with beauty, popularity and wealth.

In his famous “Checkers Speech”, the late President Richard Nixon argued (or at least, tried to argue) that he did not accept illegal campaign contributions by announcing that he was a family man, that his wife wore a plain cloth coat (as opposed to an expensive fur coat), and he and his whole family loved his dog, Checkers.

These are many types of fallacies, so here are some examples to keep you on your toes:

Loose generalization
“Blondes have more fun”.

Hasty generalization
“Asian students are the best at mathematics”.

Cause/effect
“Ours is not a wealthy neighbourhood, therefore all of its residents are hard-working people”.

False authority
“President Bush says that cruises are wonderful, so they must be”.

Bandwagon thinking
“Because everyone I’ve talked to has enjoyed holidaying in America, I’ll like it too”.

Appeal to emotions
“Because I was an orphan who was later adopted by a dysfunctional, abusive family, I’m sure you will give me a scholarship”.

Trivial objections
“Oscar would be a poor choice as a company president: he dresses poorly and has a funny sounding first name”.

Hand gestures should be used carefully when abroad, in case of misunderstandings. The cheery ‘thumbs-up’ used by the English and Americans (and lately, the Japanese) means ‘up yours’ in the Middle East, and ‘sit on this’ in Sardinia. In France, pressing a thumb against the fingertips means something is absolutely parfait, or just right; while in Egypt the same gesture means ‘stop right there’.

A typical American sign for ‘okay’, made by touching the tip of the thumb to the tip of the forefinger, and used internationally by scuba divers, is an insult in Brazil. In some countries, making the V sign can be negative, in others, positive; in Italy, if you reverse the V sign to make it akin to the English ‘victory’ sign, it approximates to ‘to hell with you’. In some countries, flicking your thumb across the teeth tells the other person he’s a cheapskate. Just about everywhere, grabbing the crook of your elbow and raising your fist is rude; similarly, grabbing your crotch rarely intimates a positive sentiment. In the Arab world, the middle finger pointed downwards and moving up and down, with the palm horizontal, equates to a raised middle finger in England.

Probably best to keep your hands by your side and nod courteously.

Aphrodisiac, atlas, biro, boycott, cardigan, panic, and sandwich all have one thing in common. They are eponyms – words derived from the names of real, fictional, mythical or spurious characters. Most eponymous words derive from a person’s surname.

Boycott, for instance, comes from the Irish Landlord Captain Charles Cunningham Boycott. After retiring from the British army, Boycott was hired to look after the Earl of Erne’s estates in County Mayo, Ireland. In 1880 the Irish Land League, wanting land reform, proposed a reduction in rents, stating that landlords who refused to accept such rents should be ostracised. Boycott refused and was promptly ostracised. His workers were forced to leave him, tradesmen refused to supply him, and his wife was threatened – indeed he was persecuted to such a degree that he and his wife were forced to flee to England, and in so doing they made the Land League’s boycott a success. The word quickly passed into other European languages; e.g. German: boykottieren.

Biro is a trademark name used to describe a kind of ball point pen, named after its Hungarian-born inventor László Josef Biró (1900-85). Biro patented his ballpoint pen, containing a quick-drying ink, in Hungary in 1938. The rise of Nazism meant that Biro was forced to leave Hungary, and he later settled in Argentina. Towards the end of the Second World War, Biro found an English company to back his product, but the company was soon taken over by the French firm Bic. So it is, then, that the ballpoint pen is known in France as bic and in the UK as a biro.

Other eponymous words include: bobby (English slang for policeman), Braille, Davis Cup, gringo, jacuzzi, masochism, Oscar (Academy award), Pandora’s box, sandwich, Tuesday, Yankee, and zeppelin. Do you know where they come from?

When it comes to insults, few languages can compete with Yiddish.

In this wonderfully evocative language, even something as simple as the English equivalent ‘fool’ can be said to be a shmutte, a schlump, a nar, a tam, a tipesh, a bulvan, a shoyte, a peysi, a kuni lemel, a lekish, or even a shmenge.

Not content with these, however, the language can get ever more specific. While we’d be content at labelling somebody a fool and getting on with our lives, Yiddish has a word for every type of fool under the sun. If you find yourself being called a schlepper, a shmugeggeshnorrer, a paskudnik, a pisher, a yold or a no-goodnik; you’re simply being labelled a loser. A klutz is a clumsy, oafish bungler and a lekish ber schlemiel is a fool without luck. A fool who is not just stupid but also inept is a schlimazel, and a farshpiler is one who has lost all his money gambling. The saddest of all is perhaps the nisrof, the ‘burnt-out fool’.

Other useful (and similarly wonderful-sounding) insults in Yiddish include:

Nebbish: a nobody
Nudnick: a boring person who doesn’t shut up
Putz: a simpleton
Shlub: a clumsy and ill-mannered person
Shmegegge: a foolish, sycophantic person (cf. ‘suck-up’)
Shmendrick: a timid person who might as well not be there
Shnook: a pleasant but gullible person

Got any more?

In their book, Strategies for Writing, Ann E. Healy and Martha Walusayi state that using male forms to imply both sexes should nowadays be considered incorrect.

Fifty years ago there were very few female police officers – today there are many more. So why refer to the people who pursue that career as policemen? Is everyone who delivers a mail a postman? Is every member of the Board of Directors in a business a chairman? Of course not, and it shows bias in favour of the male gender to use these words as gender-inclusive generalisations. To those who protest that ‘man’ is merely a generic term that includes both sexes equally, consider the phrase often used in history classes: “the great male theory of history”. Whose faces come to mind when you picture these movers and shakers down through the ages? Enough said.

The authors propose that a good way to steer clear of the issue of gender exclusive titles (policeman, congressman, stewardess, and so on), is to use gender neutral words: police officer instead of policeman; senator and representative in place of congressman; flight attendant to replace stewardess. With a little effort the old fashioned terms can be brought up-to-date for the realities of today’s politically-correct job market.

In recent years, people have striven to change to keep up with changing roles in the classroom and the job market. “Every student should have his report done by next week” is needlessly exclusive. Do the girls not need to hand in their assignments at the same time? The awkward phraseology of “his/her” is inclusive, but also tends to stop the sentence mid-breath. What is usually simpler is to cast the whole sentence in the plural: “Students should all have their reports done by next week.”

Now, my question is (aside from the fact that this use may offend women): is it possible (or indeed necessary) to change a speaker’s natural vocabulary by making an artificial effort simply to sound more politically correct?