Language – notesfromnokomis

Sports Names

I started thinking about sports nicknames when the St. Peter’s Peacocks defeated the Kentucky Wildcats. As improbable as St. Peter’s beating Kentucky at basketball seemed, imagine a confrontation between a wild cat and a peacock. I would definitely take the wildcats in a predator vs. prey bracket.

It is likely that the first sports teams (loosely defined) and nicknames, were based around Roman chariot races. Initially, there were four teams: Reds, Whites, Greens, and Blues. By the time of Justinian (roughly mid-6th century), there were only two teams: the Greens (absorbed the Reds) and Blues (captured the Whites). The teams and their fans had become associated with opposing political and religious positions.[1] The Blues and Greens found common cause when taxes were raised and the leaders of the teams were arrested for dissenting, precipitating the Nika Riots.[2] Justinian exercised less patience and restraint than modern police forces; he sent the army into the Hippodrome, where they killed as many as 30,000 Romans. Think about what you would do if, at the next baseball or football game you attend, hundreds of armored, sword-wielding troops started stabbing and hacking away at the people in attendance.

There is no direct link between the Romans and the Ivy League, but

1. The Romans had the Reds — the Ivies have Big Red (Cornell) and Crimson (Harvard),[3]

2. The Romans had the Greens — the Ivies have Big Green (Dartmouth), and

3. The Romans had the Blues and the Whites — the Ivies have two teams whose colors are blue and white (Columbia and Yale).

I think it’s just that colors are elemental. An extreme example (chosen at random, though I was seeking early professional baseball) is the 1878 version of major league baseball. The six teams in the National League were the Boston Red Stockings, Cincinnati Reds, Providence Grays, Chicago White Stockings, Indianapolis Blues, and Milwaukee Grays. By 1903, only three of 16 teams had a color in their name: White Sox, Blues, and Reds. Today four of 30 MLB teams have a color in their name. I’ll let you guess.[4]

The NFL’s 32 teams have no teams with a color in their name. Through the years they have had Maroons, Red Jackets, Yellow Jackets, Blues, and Reds (Cincinnati, of course), but since the Redskins (can I say that? – even in this context) became the Commanders (by way of The Washington Football Team), no NFL team has a color in its name. But what about the Browns? Turns out the Browns weren’t named for a color, they were named after their first head coach, Paul Brown.

It strikes me that “Browns” might not have been so accepted if it wasn’t a color and long associated with one of MLB’s St. Louis franchises. As far as I know, no other sports team in the country is named after a person.[5] I don’t think Cleveland football fans would have embraced the Cleveland McBrides (first owner), Modells, Lerners, or Haslams quite like they have the Browns.

Recently and with great publicity, the Cleveland Indians became the Cleveland Guardians and the Washington Redskins, an obviously pejorative term, became the Washington Commanders. Miami University beat Washington in the name change game by about 25 years – morphing into the Redhawks in 1997.

Might there be other names that are ripe for reconsideration. The world of college sports is full of strange names, many of them under the radar because of the low profile that most schools keep. Who knew that the Arkansas Tech University men compete as Wonder Boys and the women as Golden Suns? Or that at Angelo State (Texas), the men compete as the Rams and the women as the Rambelles?[6] At the University of Arkansas at Monticello, the men compete as the Boll Weevils and the women as the Cotton Blossoms.

I could do this all day, having not yet made it through the As, but I want to focus on the Spartans. Around 300 high schools and over 20 colleges in the country are called the Spartans, most notably the Michigan State Spartans.[7]

The original Spartans were stone cold killers. Every Spartan male was a soldier and did not work because they had at least five times as many slaves (called helots) as Spartans. The Spartans had a simple way of controlling the helot population: when it got too high, they killed helots, as many as 2,000 at a time. Spartans may also have engaged in institutionalized pederasty, Plutarch certainly thought so, by assigning 12-year-old boys to an older Spartan for training.

The glorious stand of the 300 was real, but it was only possible because of slave labor back home. I wonder how many students, alumni, and fans realize how vicious the actual Spartans were. And I wonder how many other sports nicknames will be changed as we move forward. But mostly I wonder whether the Wildcats (Villanova’s version) will beat the Jayhawks (birds and cats again, though in this case, a mythical bird) and whether the Blue Devils[8] will beat the Tar Heels.

[1] The Blues allied with the ruling classes and religious orthodoxy and the Greens with the people and Monophysitism (a fascinating topic in its own right).

[2] The leaders were sentenced to be hung and a mass hanging was scheduled. Only a few died before the gallows collapsed, after which the survivors were spared.

[3] The very first issue of the school’s student newspaper, called The Harvard Crimson for the past hundred plus years, was The Magenta. But the undergrads voted for crimson (in the late 19th century) and so it has been ever since.

[4] Answer: Red Sox, White Sox, Reds, and Blue Jays. In the early days of the Cold War, the Cincinnati team changed its name to Redlegs because Reds was associated with communism.

[5] The Cleveland franchise was once known as the Naps in honor of star player Napoleon (“Nap”) Lajoie.

[6] Quick internet search suggests that “Rambelles” might have no other association in the world other than as the name of the women’s sports teams at Angelo State.

[7] https://masseyratings.com/mascots?m=Spartans

[8] MLB’s Tampa Bay Devil Rays dropped the demonic association in 2007 and are now simply the Rays, as in ray of sunshine, not flat fish. Duke has not been so inclined, although becoming the Blues would be very Roman of them.

Lexicon Valley

I’ve been listening to a podcast that my son recommended: Lexicon Valley, subtitled: A podcast about language, from pet peeves to syntax. If you like language, especially English, I recommend it.

Lexicon Valley was founded in 2012 by Bob Garfield and Mike Vuolo. Garfield is a long-time reporter and columnist with various publications from USA Today to Civilization. Vuolo is a producer of various radio shows and podcasts. They hosted the show from 2012 through mid-2016. They have great chemistry and provide lively interaction and commentary, displaying a great breadth of knowledge and wit. They often have guests join them, particularly Ben Zimmer, a lexicographer from the Oxford English Dictionary, which adds depth to the presentations. [The tense is troubling me. They recorded the podcasts years in the past (obviously), but I have been listening to them in the present and to me it’s as if the listening is still happening. So – present tense. Feel free to disagree.]

Vuolo is the researcher when the two hosts don’t have a guest, usually coaxing Garfield to guess about word origins or derivations. They tackle goofy words, for instance bozo, heebie jeebies, seersucker, pumpernickel, and cockamamie. They are entertaining and enlightening. They can range widely (and wildly) from the topic of the day, but always return to it.

One of their guests in 2016 was John McWhorter, a linguist and professor at Columbia University. Shortly thereafter, in what appears to have been a bloodless coup, McWhorter was the host, Vuolo the producer, and Garfield was heard from no more. As far as I can tell, the reasons behind the change have never been publicly explained. No matter – McWhorter is fantastic, very different from Garfield and Vuolo, no less irreverent, but more academic. The 80+ Garfield and Vuolo podcasts are zany and informative; the McWhorter podcasts are wry and educational, exactly what I would expect from him.

I have listened to him before. Some company, maybe the Great Courses, has a series of lectures that McWhorter did 15 or so years ago. I enjoyed him then, I enjoy him now. The podcast topics are one-offs, there is no theme or progression like there was in the lectures, which were styled like a class. The podcasts are about whatever happened to strike McWhorter’s fancy the week he produced them. One thing is certain, the podcast will contain clips from popular culture because McWhorter is an aficionado of show tunes, sit-coms, Looney-tunes, and all genres of music.

Recently and outside the context of the podcast or this post, a college friend referred to McWhorter as a genius. I do not doubt it, the scope and scale of his knowledge is astounding, his memory is phenomenal. As one minor example, McWhorter has been tracking the Loony Tunes shows that he’s watched since he was ten and says that he has watched almost 900 of the 1000 or so that were produced from 1930 to 1969. He appears to remember each one and the topic and the songs contained therein encyclopedically.

[Color trivia — if a language has only two colors – and some of them do – which two? The footnote has the answer, but if you look you might see the answer to the next question.[1]

If a language has only one more color – a third – what is it?[2]

If a language has only a fourth and/or fifth color, which two are they?[3]]

I learn something during every single podcast. Sometimes a misunderstanding is corrected, sometimes I learn about McWhorter. The “abominable” snowman is not detestable or odious, which is what the word means in English. Rather, the word in Nepali, from which abominable is derived (at least with respect to the snowman), means raggedy. There are no known photographs.

McWhorter recounted meeting the cabaret singer Bobby Short. He told Short that he owned every recording Short had ever made, which happens to be true. McWhorter said, “I could tell he didn’t believe me.” Vignettes like this spice up every McWhorter podcasts – he loves telling stories about his young daughters grappling with the nuance and intricacies of learning English. Another one-off personal comment: “every day I am thankful that I can see, that I can hear, and that I don’t have to go to camp.” Apparently, McWhorter did not have a good experience at camp as a child.

There is something for everyone. Shows have been devoted to Hamilton (the musical), Black English,[4] contractions, Strunk & White (he’s not a fan), numbers,[5] the singular “they,” and Proto-Indo-European,[6] among many others.

In one podcast, McWhorter had a throw-away paragraph about the frequentative tense. I had never heard of it, but it turns out there are languages that use a suffix or a prefix to indicate how often something happens.

Lexicon Valley comes in two flavors. The early years with Garfield and Vuolo, who were impromptu and entertaining, with more than a dash of information, and the later years (including now) with McWhorter, who is more scripted and educational but with plenty of wit and color. The key take-away from both versions is that our language is ever-changing, trending toward simpler pronunciation and fluctuating grammar that might be more or that might be less complex. Both approaches work for me and they will work for you if you give them a chance.

[1] Black and white.

[2] Red.

[3] Green and yellow. The next color is blue, then brown. And now you know why Homer referred to a “wine-dark sea” and “green honey,” the words to denote blue and yellow did not yet exist.

[4] Yes, some people sound Black. To McWhorter it’s as unremarkable as sounding like you’re from Boston or the south. There’s also a show about how southerners talk.

[5] “Eeny, meeny, miny, moe” is 1, 2, 3, 4 in an ancient Gaelic dialect; “hickory, dickory, dock” is 8, 9, 10 in a different Gaelic dialect.

[6] The prehistoric mother of many languages, including Spanish, English, Portuguese, Hindustani (Hindi and Urdu), Bengali, Russian, Punjabi, German, Persian, French, Marathi, Italian, and Gujarati.

Musings: baseball, hoax, college football, peripathetic

Both wild card games were won by the team with the best record. Good. Even so, having two one-game “playoff” games is stupid. Playing 162 games and making the “playoffs” for one whole game just doesn’t make sense. Neither does having a five-game series in the playoffs. It’s as if MLB wants lesser teams to win.

A better system would be to eliminate divisions. They were created in 1969, so it’s not like they have ancient roots. Instead each league should play a balanced schedule; the current unbalanced schedule in which teams play almost half of their games against the other four teams in their division is absurd. Repeat: absurd.

A balanced schedule would put all teams in a league on equal footing; none would play a weaker or stronger schedule. My scheme is radical, so I might as well double down and propose that MLB decrease the schedule from 162 to 154 games.[1] One hundred fifty-four is the perfect number for two reasons. First it allows each team in a league to play every other team 11 times. Second, it’s the number of games that all major league teams played from the early 20th century until 1960 when baseball expanded.[2]

Notice that there is no provision for interleague games. Even better. That was another silly Bud Selig creation (like the one-game wild card playoff), that is best discarded as quickly as possible. With 15 teams in each league and each team playing all of its games within its own league, one team in each league will always be without an opponent. So what? Let the players enjoy a few three-day vacations during the season in addition to the all-star break. I’m sure they will love it. And the fans will be able to adjust.

Ok – no interleague play, no unbalanced schedule, no divisions, and “only” 154 games. Time to tackle the playoffs: the top four teams in each league make the playoffs. The #1 and the #4 seed play in the first round, as do the #2 and #3 seeds. There will have to be a tie-break system to determine seeds, but no extra games, unless the #4 and #5 or more finished tied.

The first round will be seven games with no extra days between games. That will reward the team with deeper starting pitching. Because of travel and other off days built in to the current system, many teams only use their top three starting pitchers. The second round and the World Series would also be seven games with no extra days between games. The teams all fly charter planes, so the players will be able to handle it, just like they do all year. I might even consider a longer World Series. In the early days, a few World Series were played until a team won five games (1903 and 1919-1921).[3]

Eliminating travel days would help the better teams, who are presumably deeper in pitching and position players – otherwise they wouldn’t have won more regular season games. It would also enable the post-season to end before November. Baseball should not be played when players can see their own breath.

These ideas are available to MLB for the asking. If they want to give me two tickets to the next World Series game seven, I probably wouldn’t say no.

In November 2004, Colin Powell, then US Secretary of State, in response to Russian interference in the elections in Ukraine, stated “We cannot accept this result as legitimate because it does not meet international standards and because there has not been an investigation of the numerous and credible reports of fraud and abuse.” http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A10212-2004Nov24.html

In September 2017, President Donald Trump, in response to various investigations regarding Russian interference in the elections in the United States, stated “I call it the Russian Hoax, one of the great hoaxes.”

I’m not saying Trump’s victory wasn’t legitimate – it was unless someone can prove otherwise. And, as far as I can tell, nobody is even trying to. That does not mean the Russians did not interfere, which is why the investigations are important. We must determine what happened and attempt to prevent it from happening again. Calling it a hoax demeans virtually every American, all of whom know that the Russians were up to something. Whether that something worked, whether it was collusion, even whether it influenced a single vote, has not been proven – and may never be. But that doesn’t mean that the interference doesn’t matter. And it is beyond debate that their attempt to influence the election was not a hoax.

Q: Why is Ohio State’s football team ranked above Washington State’s?

A: Pedigree.

Oh, I guess you could argue that OSU is more likely to win the rest of its game than WSU. But based on what has happened so far, there is no reason to rank OSU ahead of WSU. They have both played five games – WSU is 5-0, OSU is 4-1.

OSU has beaten juggernauts like Indiana (48th in Sagarin’s College Football Rankings — http://sagarin.com/sports/cfsend.htm ), UNLV (101), Rutgers (108), and Army (138). That’s an average ranking of 99. 99! That is an incredibly unimpressive string of victories.

WSU has done something similar, defeating Boise St. (49), Oregon St. (111), Montana St. (135) and Nevada (138). That’s an average ranking of 108, even worse than OSU, though not appreciably so.

But what about the fifth game you ask. OSU played Oklahoma (who was ranked in the top ten at the time) at home and was favored by a bit more than a touchdown. They managed to lose decisively. The final score, 31-16, was not indicative of how little chance OSU had to win. Oklahoma dominated the second half.

Meanwhile, WSU played USC (who was ranked in the top ten at the time) at home and was a five-point (or so) underdog. They won. It wasn’t decisive, but it was a victory.

To recap – OSU and WSU have played four nobodies and beaten them. They have also each played one (at the time) top ten team. WSU won; OSU lost, but is higher ranked because . . .

Neologism (see previous post https://www.notesfromnokomis.com/?p=627 ) – peripathetic. This word was created (by yours truly) in “honor” of the Cleveland Browns. The word combines “peripatetic,” which describes a person who travels from place to place and “pathetic,” which needs no explanation. Neither does the ascription of that word to the Browns.

[1] There would be 5% fewer games. The overall impact on revenues is uncertain, but would likely be less than 5%. For example, no team operates at full capacity, so they can still sell the same number of tickets, just at slightly fewer games.

[2] Does anybody know why baseball expanded? I gave you a clue in my last post.

[3] Baseball expanded in 1960 to forestall the Federal League.

Value beats sunk cost anyday

We use economic terms all the time. For instance, economies of scale,[1] efficiency,[2] elasticity,[3] and externality,[4] just to name a few that start with “e”. For the most part, we more or less know what they mean, even if we don’t use them precisely correctly.

This short foray into economic terms is mere prelude to two short stories: the first centered on the term “value,” the second on the term “sunk cost.”

Last weekend, I was fortunate enough to be invited to two different homes. Friday night I visited former neighbors, Sunday night I went to visit my nephew at his new apartment. Both times, I took (among other things) a small cooler full of drinks. The cooler is an Igloo brand Tag▪Along 8. My working theory is that nothing I currently own has provided more value to me.

Value is defined as “a measure of the benefit provided by a good or service to an economic agent.” https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Value_(economics) I purchased the cooler sometime in the late 1980s for under $10. In the intervening 30 or so years, I have used it hundreds of times. It accomodates six cans or bottles of soda, beer, or water, with enough room for sufficient ice to keep the drinks cold for the duration of the event. The best non-cooling feature is a wide shoulder strap that makes the cooler easy and comfortable to carry.

My best estimate is that I have used the cooler 500 times (a bit more often than once a week) in the last 10,950 days (30 years times 365 – I’m ignoring leap days). If so, the cooler has cost me two cents per use. It is unlikely that I have another possession that I have used as often that still provides the same functionality that it provided 30 years ago.

Upon further review, I have come up with a couple of possible contenders. Flatware is essentially indestructible and gets used daily. Each individual item is much less expensive; currently you can buy decent forks for $60 a dozen. I haven’t owned any flatware for 30 years and (like most of you) I don’t keep track of individual forks. Still, I think we all receive significant benefit from our forks and spoons.

My mother gave me a pot that I have had for at least 30 years. I still use it often, whether for boiling vegetables or pasta. It might be an even better value than the cooler because it cost me nothing. I’ve had some LL Bean boots since high school. They don’t get much use now that I live in Ohio; they retain significant user value, if not monetary value.

Each of these items is used regularly and each performs according to original expectation. I would be quite cynical if I didn’t appreciate the fact that they still assist me after all these years. See Oscar Wilde who defined a cynic as “a man who know the price of everything and the value of nothing.” From Lady Windemere’s Fan. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lady_Windermere%27s_Fan

Though I have a few possessions that have provided long-term benefit similar to my Tag▪Along 8 cooler, none of them has appreciated in value. Although ebay is an inexact predictor of price, the exact (vintage) cooler I have, is being offered for $32. http://www.ebay.com/itm/like/112521252487?chn=ps&dispItem=1 My flatware, pot, and boots are not currently sellable for over three times the original purchase price. So I’m giving the value edge to the Tag▪Along 8 – it still provides benefit and it’s worth more than when I bought it. It has been an excellent value play.

Do you any long-held possessions that have generated excess value?

The next vignette is not nearly so positive. A “sunk cost” is “a cost that has already been committed and cannot be recovered” — the virtual opposite of value. https://quizlet.com/460890/100-economics-terms-flash-cards/ I never hear or read the term without offering up an internal chuckle.

A few months after purchasing the Tag▪Along 8, I bought new skis, bindings, boots, and other assorted skiing necessities. They cost much more than my cooler, but I had been skiing enough to justify purchasing equipment instead of renting it. Or so I thought.

The very next day (literally), I went skiing with friends and they took me on a slope that was beyond my capability. I managed to get to the bottom, after many flips, spills, and falls, without damaging my body or equipment. My ego was another matter.

The rest of the group was assembled at the bottom of the hill, waiting for me. In what was (I hope) an aberrant fit of pique, I vented my frustration by taking off my equipment and outer ski garments throwing each one to the ground while yelling – it’s just a sunk cost. I threw my skiis muttering, I don’t care how much money I wasted, it’s a sunk cost. I threw my goggles, saying, it’s a sunk cost. Over and over as I threw each item, I uttered some variant of it’s just a sunk cost.

My best friend’s father-in-law, one of the nicest, most interesting and generous men I have ever met, could not stop laughing. Virtually every time he sees me, the story is revisited. And he chuckles and I chuckle. Not one of my better moments, but then, they can’t all be.

Well, I’m off to a neighborhood Labor Day party. I’ll fill my Tag▪Along 8 with my beverage of choice and I promise not to shed gear and clothing while screaming “sunk cost.”

[1] “the property whereby long run average total cost falls as the quantity of output increases” https://quizlet.com/460890/100-economics-terms-flash-cards/

[2] “the property of society getting the most it can from its scarce resources” Id.

[3] “a measure of the responsiveness of quantity demanded or quantity supplied to one of its determinants” Id.

[4] “the impact of one person’s actions on the well being of a bystander” Id.

American Exceptionalism

The current denizen of the White House is the most exceptional President in our country’s history. To be clear, I am using the primary definition of the word (unusual), not the secondary definition (unusually good). http://www.dictionary.com/browse/exceptional President Trump is uniquely devoid of political experience. He is unconcerned with being consistent, which might not be the worst thing. See Ralph Waldo Emerson, “a foolish consistency is the hobgoblin of little minds, adored by little statesmen and philosophers and divines.” See also, Oscar Wilde, who said that “consistency is the last refuge of the unimaginative.” President Trump was the star of a reality TV show, a presidential first. (Please let it be a last.)

President Trump is certainly the first president to play a feature role in a professional wrestling event. Here is a clip of Donald Trump beating and then shaving Vince McMahon. http://www.wwe.com/videos/playlists/donald-trump-greatest-wwe-moments [1] And, of course, President Trump makes extensive use of Twitter. Given that the 272-word Gettysburg Address is one of the greatest speeches in American history, I believe Abraham Lincoln would have used Twitter extremely effectively.[2]

I could likely go on all day and half of the night. Instead, I will briefly explain that three recent events that we consider exceptional are not.

First event[3] is that President Trump appears unusually thin-skinned, especially for one so prolific at insulting others.[4] “Don’t dish it out if you can’t take it” comes to mind. But he is hardly our first President who prickled when insulted. In Robert Morris: Financier of the American Revolution, author Charles Rappleye writes that the first President “was particularly susceptible to the barbs directed his way.” According to Rappleye, “political attacks pierced straight to that dark core of [Washington’s] spirit which gave an air of gravitas to everything he did.”

This description unintentionally highlights a sharp contrast between our first and our current president. The former had gravitas from leading the army during the brutal War of Independence, which included risking the hangman’s noose for treason. Among the greatest challenges faced by Donald Trump was getting by on a $450,000 per month allowance as a condition for renewing his loans in the early 1990s. http://www.nytimes.com/1990/06/26/business/quick-who-d-have-trouble-living-on-450000-a-month.html President Trump’s gravitas appears more fabricated than earned.[5]

The second event is that Washington and Trump indisputably have one thing in common: each was depicted or described as headless by a political “commentator.” Kathy Griffin recently and infamously held up a fake decapitated head of Donald Trump. If you want to see it, here is the link. http://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-40108959 Less well known is a broadside by Philip Freneau, which was written during the French Revolution and described the death of Washington and Supreme Court Justice James Wilson by guillotine. https://founders.archives.gov/documents/Hamilton/01-15-02-0125 [6] Even though Freneau worked as a translating clerk for the Department of State, he did not lose his job. His patron, Thomas Jefferson, at the time Washington’s Secretary of State, protected him.[7]

The third event is that there is broad consensus that the Russian government meddled in our most recent presidential election. The efficacy of that meddling remains unknown and may never be known – there is no control group – but there is little doubt that the Russians wanted to assist Donald Trump.

Intervention by a foreign government on behalf of a presidential candidate happened at least one other time in our country. Revolutionary France favored Republican Thomas Jefferson, who has ardently pro-France[8] to the pro-English Federalist John Adams. Despite considerable efforts, France was unable to help Jefferson win, though he did become his staunch rival’s Vice President. Although their opinions of each other softened through the years, at the time Adams and Jefferson were as friendly to one another as Donald Trump and Hillary Clinton are now. Imagine if she were his Vice-president.

If our President is exceptional, so is our country. Below are a few examples. I’m sure there are many more.

Countries that have not officially adopted the metric system: Liberia, Myanmar, United States.

Countries that measure temperature according to the Fahrenheit scale: Bahamas, Belize, Canada, Palau, United States.

Countries that use the “MM/DD/YYYY” date format: Belize, Micronesia, United States.

Countries that had not adopted the Paris Accords: Nicaragua, Syria, United States.

Countries whose paper currency is all the same size and without distinguishing tactile features: United States.[9]

American Exceptionalism: not what you expecting.[10]

[1] A tribute to President Trump’s imagination is his embrace of the doctored WWE video, which shows him body slamming CNN. I found it hilarious, if not particularly presidential. http://dailycaller.com/2017/07/02/video-trump-body-slams-cnn-in-wwe-tweet/

[2] You can follow notesfromnokomis on Twitter @notefromnokomis. I just noticed that when I set it up in May 2015, I forgot an “s”. Rats. Now that I’m up to four followers, I should start tweeting more than once every 2.2 years.

[3] I would have preferred to use numbers, but doing that caused all sorts of unwanted formatting issues in Word Press.

[4] Rabbit holes everywhere. “Prolific” is used with various prepositions: 48% “in”, 10% “of”, 8% “with”, 6% “for”, 5% “at”, 4% “on”, 3% “during”, 2% “as”, and 1% each “from”, “throughout”, “since”, “over”, “inside”, “across”, “around”, “among” and “after”. The numbers do not add up to 100%. Don’t sue me, sue the source: https://lingohelp.me/preposition-after-adjective/prolific-in-of-with-for-at/.

[5] To be fair, Washington was not without affectations. For instance, he wore his army uniform to meetings of the Continental Congress prior to being named commander of the army to remind people of his military experience.

[6] I searched online, futilely, for a copy of the entire The Funeral Dirge of George Washington and James Wilson, King and Judge.

[7] Jefferson’s relationship with Freneau is rather well known. He gave Freneau a job as a translator, though Freneau’s French was less fluent than Jefferson’s, to provide an income so that Freneau could publish the rabidly anti-Federalist National Gazette. https://founders.archives.gov/documents/Jefferson/01-20-02-0374-0001

[8] Jefferson’s love for France led to the introduction of that most American of foods: the French fry. http://theplate.nationalgeographic.com/2015/01/08/are-french-fries-truly-french/ For that, I will always be most grateful.

[9] I’m not suggesting that we should adopt the metric system or the Paris Accords. I’m merely pointing out that by not doing so, we are unusual.

[10] According to Wikipedia, “American exceptionalism is one of three related ideas. The first is that the history of the United States is inherently different from that of other nations.^[2] In this view, American exceptionalism stems from the American Revolution, becoming what political scientist Seymour Martin Lipset called “the first new nation”^[3] and developing the uniquely American ideology of “Americanism“, based on liberty, egalitarianism, individualism, republicanism, democracy, and laissez-faire economics. This ideology itself is often referred to as “American exceptionalism.”^[4] Second is the idea that the U.S. has a unique mission to transform the world. Abraham Lincoln stated in the Gettysburg address (1863), that Americans have a duty to ensure that “government of the people, by the people, for the people, shall not perish from the earth.” Third is the sense that the United States’ history and mission gives it a superiority over other nations.” https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/American_exceptionalism

Baseball has begun

If you’re not a baseball fan, you might not have noticed that pitchers and catchers have reported. In fact, entire teams have now reported and are already playing games. It’s awesome. I listened to part of a game on the radio last Friday. Even though the games don’t count, the rhythm of well-announced baseball is exquisitely soothing.

Moreover, spring has sprung early in Ohio. I attended a baseball game[1] between ODU (Ohio Dominican University) and OWU last Saturday.[2] The weather was beautiful, the players were not wearing turtlenecks, etc. It was the earliest I have ever seen a baseball game live north of Florida. It was so much fun, with such warm and baseball-friendly weather, that the coaches decided to play another 18-inning game on Sunday. I went to that too.

Over the winter I collected a few trivia questions (and answers). I don’t like true trivia, as in trivial details. I like bigger questions, questions you can think about, instead of either knowing or not knowing. An example of the latter is: who is the last player to steal home twice in a single game. It’s an absurd question. Who could possibly know that it was Vic Power, a first baseman not exactly notorious for his speed. He totaled 45 steals in a 12-year, 1627-game career.

A better question, to my way of thinking, is: name the players who had 10 or more seasons with the same team in which they hit at least 30 home runs and had at least 100 RBIs.[3] This is a question that can be played with even if you don’t know the answer. You would think about great hitters, hitters that played for the same team for a long time, hitters who likely are among the best the game has ever seen. If you tried, you might come up with: Babe Ruth (12 seasons), Lou Gehrig, Henry Aaron, Albert Pujols, and David Ortiz (all with 10). That’s a pretty impressive list, spanning three generations of baseball greats.

More trivial trivia: did you know that four players have hit for the cycle three times in their careers. First, a player hits for the “cycle” when he has a single, double, triple, and home run in the same game. It has happened almost 300 times, roughly twice a year since professional baseball began in 1870s. John Reilly (in the 1880s), Bob Meusel (in the 1920s), Babe Herman (in the 1930s), and Adrian Beltre, who is still active, are the only players to hit for the cycle three times.

I’ll end with one last question: name the three pitchers who have 100 wins, 100 saves, and 50 complete games. Two of them are in the Hall of Fame and are well known for converting from starting pitchers to relief pitching. You could figure them out, given a little time. The third is impossible to guess and you might not have heard of him, though his last season pitching was relatively recent, 1984. The first two are Dennis Eckersley and John Smoltz. The third pitcher is somewhat similar, in that he began starter before moving to the bullpen. But he hadn’t nearly the star power and he wasn’t nearly as good.

Eck and Smoltzie cleared most of the hurdles rather easily, our third pitcher eked his way over. Eck has 197 wins, Smoltz had 213, RR had 146. Eck has 390 saves, Smolt had 154 (all in just four seasons), RR had 103. Eck had 100 complete games, Smolt had 53, and RR had 55. The cut-offs make it appear that RR is in the same league with Eckersley and Smoltz. And he was (literally), they all played in both the American and National Leagues. But figuratively, there is a large gap between the two hall of famers and Ron Reed.

Similarly, there is a very large gap between an ODU vs. OWU baseball game and the major league baseball games that I will be watching all summer. But baseball is baseball and this time of year, you take what you can get. Expect me to write much more about baseball in the months to come.

[1] The game was 18 innings long, that way it only counts as one game for each team. Division II baseball teams can play a limited number of scrimmages. By the way, the teams did not keep score, making it a little bit like a tee ball game.

[2] The Dominicans are Catholic and the Wesleyans are Protestants, continuing a religious rivalry that goes back centuries.

[3] Please never say “RsBI.” It’s stupid. It’s beyond stupid. It’s way over the outfield fence on stupid. One of the talking heads on ESPN started doing it years ago because he figured out that it’s “runs batted in,” apparently assuming he was the first person to make that wondrous discovery. “RBI” is an initialism, which is pluralized by adding an “s.” The same applies to POWs. Nobody would ever say “PsOW,” even though we all know that when there is more than one, the term is “prisoners of war,” not “prisoner of wars” (which would be exceedingly unfortunate). Initialisms are words and they are pronounced by stating each letter, making them quite distinct from acronymns (think FBI vs. NATO).

Neologism

A “neologism” is a newly coined word or expression. My last post addressed my desire for a couple of new words. I received surprisingly few recommendations from you. Perhaps you’re still thinking. It isn’t easy to coin a new word.

But it’s not so hard to change one letter of a existing word. The example I often use to illustrate the concept is “sarchasm,” which is defined as the gulf between the speaker of sarcastic wit and the listener who doesn’t get it. The term appeals to me in part because of how often my own comments get lost in that figurative ravine. I tend to believe it’s the listener’s fault, my wife assures me that the fault lies in the speaker.

Through the years, I have mentioned this concept to many people, each time describing it as an annual competition run by the Washington Post. Alas, my memory was roughly half right. The Post actually runs a weekly contest, called the Style Invitational. The contest is not limited to neologisms. For instance, the very first Style Invitational, in March 1993, challenged readers to select a less offensive name for Washington’s football team. The winner chose “the Baltimore Redskins,” suggesting that the simplest way to address the issue was to make it someone else’s problem. Cleveland tried that once with the Browns – and then went out of its way to resurrect the problem.

The Style invitational has taken on a life of its own. According to Wikipedia, a group of devotees holds an annual awards dinner. One devotee won the contest so often that he inspired a contest to decide what to do about him. It did not have the desired result, he won that contest as well.

Winning the contest or merely having your entry mentioned is called getting ink. Several people have exceeded 1,000 inks. I have none. I like to think this is largely because I haven’t submitted any entries, that I could have ink if I tried.

“Sarchasm” by Tom Witte won Style Invitational Week 278 in 1998. I saw the non-word on the internet, where it was part of a list of other witty neologisms. The Post is credited with that list, but disclaims it. https://www.washingtonpost.com/entertainment/the-style-invitational-goes-viral/2013/02/28/74a76fac-77a3-11e2-95e4-6148e45d7adb_story.html?utm_term=.6c2b59df307b

The son of my college roommate embraced the concept upon hearing about it. Here are two of his ideas:

Carcolepsy – condition of a person in the passenger seat who falls asleep as soon as the car begins moving, and

Celfish – adjective to describe people who focus too much on their cell phones.

Here are a few other examples of Style Invitational contests gleaned from the Post, along with a representative example:

Bad analogies (week 120): The lamp just sat there, like an inanimate object.

Change a movie title without changing any letters (1195): La-la-land, a man overcomes his insecurities stemming from a stutter to become an air traffic controller. (by Brian Cohen, Winston-Salem, N.C.)

Sometime in 1998, new meaning for an existing word: Coffee: a person who is coughed upon. (David Hoffman)

This is an endless rabbit hole as the Post crests Week 1200 — too many weeks, too many contests, too many funny lines. So I’ll close with two winning neologisms from the 2014 WPM (word play masters) Invitational:

Meanderthal – a lazy ancestor known for wandering around doing nothing while others hunted and gathered, and

Luxurinate – using a really nice restroom

http://www.washingtonpostsmensainvitational.com/2014-submissions/

I welcome any submissions you might have. If you want to win a prize, often described as “a strange, weird thing that few people would want,” you should submit to the Washington Post.

Language Gaps

Languages are in a constant state of flux, both within and without.

Of the 7,000 languages in the world, many are in serious danger. A language becomes endangered as the number of native speakers being born drops. It will survive (roughly) only as long as the last few native born speakers live. It may endure as a remnant language, perhaps with a dictionary and some academic speakers, but for all intents and purposes, it has ceased to exist.

Ethnologue, a web-based publication tracks the world’s languages. Its list indicates that there are 7,097 living languages and 360 extinct languages. It believes that approximately 470 languages are nearly extinct, meaning that “only a few elderly speakers are still living.” Ethnologue is Christian-based and is seeking to translate the Bible into as many languages as possible. The current count is over 2,500.

Question: Of the 470 or so nearly extinct languages, how many are based in the United States?

Languages and animals have similar ranking systems. The World Wildlife Fund ranks animals that are not safe from extinction on this continuum: least concern (brown bear), near threatened (beluga), vulnerable (giant panda), endangered (chimpanzee), critically endangered (black rhino). UNESCO ranks languages as safe (English), vulnerable (Sicilian), definitely endangered (Yiddish), severely endangered (Breton), critically endangered (Hawaiian), and extinct (Old Prussian). A language can also be dead, meaning that it is no longer spoken as a primary language but continues to be used in legal, scientific, or religious fields. Latin is the best example of a dead language.

Sicilian is listed as vulnerable despite having roughly 5,000,000 current speakers. Obokuitai (Indonesia), with 120 current speakers, is also listed as “merely” vulnerable. Both Northern Tutchone (Canada), with 115 speakers, and Lombard, with 3,500,000 speakers, are considered definitely endangered. These wide ranges are possible because the rankings are based on the likelihood that children will learn the language as their native tongue.

All of this is prelude (or superfluous). It distracted me from my initial focus: the English language. Even though English has the most words of any language, something like 250,000, there are some frustrating gaps. For instance, there is no gender-neutral third person singular pronoun. “He” and “she” are perfectly valid and useful, but they don’t adequately work when referring to a generic person.

A constant “he” is too paternalistic (for some) and a constant “she” is too feminist (for some). Through the years, I have thought that “s/he” might work, but have never used it, and usually I fall back on “he or she.” For example, you can often determine whether a person is from England, the first time he or she speaks. This works fine once, but it is awkward to continually repeat it in the same sentence or paragraph.

Another gap that confounds me is another continuum: friendship. I think of someone as a friend if we are reciprocally comfortable calling each other to chat or do something together. I know many people that I like but with whom I am not that familiar, they are not quite friends. I’m friendly with them, but they aren’t friends. Colleague or associate works, if we work(ed) together, neighbor works if we live near each other, roommate works, if we live(d) together. There a plenty of useful words that skirt the issue without closing the gap. I want a specific word for a person who is more than an acquaintance but less than a friend. Any suggestions?

I just did a Word synonym check on “friend” and found these: acquaintance, contact, colleague, associate, comrade, workmate, pal, buddy, companion, chum, and mate. None of these adequately narrow the gap between acquaintance and friend.

What gaps in the English language would you like to see filled?

p.s. Answer: Over 150 languages in the United States are nearly extinct. I’m guessing that none of you aimed that high. Our Native American neighbors are so separate from the rest of us that we don’t often consider them when we think about the United States. Or maybe you do, I know that I don’t.

A little of this and a little of that

It’s time to revisit a couple of issues.

(1) I was listening to ESPN Radio today and a guy named Chip Brown, representing Horns Digest was discussing the likelihood that the Texas Longhorns will soon be in search of a new head coach. Mr. Brown said that Texas was “on unchartered ground.” I was going to let it go because speakers should not be held to the same grammatical and linguistic standards as writers.

But then he said it a second time. Not only is the “unchartered” part wrong (as previously discussed), but he has taken the idiom from its rightful place in the water and brought it to dry land. I have never heard that usage before. Stop it! The term is “uncharted waters.” You can be in them or on them, but they are “uncharted,” not “unchartered.” And they most emphatically are wet.

(2) In an alarmingly distressful development (please assume sarcasm), I have determined that I have had a barely discernible impact on the internet. I just searched for “uncharted waters” through 38 Google pages (that was all of them), and there was no entry from notesfromnokomis. Then in a fit of overzealous commitment, I searched for “unchartered waters” through 45 Google pages. Again, that was all of them, and again, nothing. Then I searched for “unchartered” and “nokomis,” and came up as the first entry. With apologies to Descartes, my blog shows up on Google (after a very specific search request), therefore I am.

(3) In an unexpected development, Oklahoma State keeps winning. They are now tenth in both the AP Poll and the Coaches Poll. They were 11th in last week’s College Football Playoff Rankings, which will be updated tomorrow night. These rankings are based on their current record of 8-2, which should be 9-1. Recall that they lost on an untimed play after the game clock had struck zero that by rule should not have been allowed. At 9-1, they would likely be ranked no lower than 7th and would have a decent chance to make the playoffs. Instead, Central Michigan continues to cling to a win it does not deserve, severely handicapping Ok State’s championship aspirations.

(4) I am thrilled that Hillary Clinton will not be our next President. The only way I could be happier is if Donald Trump was (also) not to be our next President. Alas, one of them winning was inevitable, and thus it came to pass. I have had an aversion to Donald Trump since his hucksterism first crossed my consciousness. Still, I believe we should grant him a blank slate. I will only judge him based on his actions as President, though some of his appointments are troubling. Maybe he will rise to the occasion, stranger things have happened.

(5) Mosquitos may be the most dangerous animal in the world, but bears have always frightened me more. This despite being assured, as a child growing up in Maine, that bears were likely to be as afraid of me as I was of them. I begged to differ, but never had good evidence to the contrary. According to the Bangor Daily News, there have been only six reported attacks of humans by bears in Maine in the last 24 years, and four of those were by wounded bears attacking their hunter. (Maine has a black bear population of approximately 30,000, roughly one for every 44 Mainers.) My fears have largely subsided, partly because I now live in suburban Ohio. Then came news last week that a 60 plus year old woman had been attacked by a black bear in her back yard in Maryland. The woman survived, as did all of the Mainers who were attacked, but I’m back on high alert.

(6) Congratulations to the Cubs. They ended a long drought and they did it in style, winning three elimination games in a row, including game seven in extra-innings. They are relatively young, the field players are the 5th youngest of the MLB’s 30 teams. But you might be surprised to learn that their pitchers are not young, they were the 2nd oldest in the league according to baseball-reference.com. Though I expressed concern that their regular season schedule was a bit soft, their winning percentage in the playoffs (against three good teams) was .647, higher than their regular season winning percentage of .640. I stand corrected, for neither the first nor the last time.

(7) Happy Thanksgiving.

On Being Late

I hate being late. I’d rather be ten minutes early than one minute late. As you are no doubt aware, not everyone feels the same way. I have several friends, colleagues, and family members, who are consistently late. Not so reliably late that I plan on them being late – because even though I expect them to be late, I don’t want to be late on the off chance that they won’t be. It’s something of a curse and among the reasons I usually carry something to read. Fortunately, having a phone these days means that there is always something to read.

We all know the standard definition of late: not on time. There are others, more or less used and useful. But I want to focus on a particular definition: recently deceased, as in “the late President John F. Kennedy.” See http://www.nytimes.com/2013/11/22/us/once-at-kennedys-side-now-at-one-anothers.html and http://takingnote.blogs.nytimes.com/2016/05/06/americas-dirty-secret-is-out-readers-on-donald-trumps-g-o-p-success/ My facetious question for years has been “when will he cease being late.”

Let’s play Jeopardy: to what question are “facetious” and “facetiously” the only answers.

This definition (recently deceased) has been in use since the early 15th century. http://www.etymonline.com/index.php?term=late In 1906, the book “Napoleon’s Last Voyages” included a drawing of a house that was labelled “intended for the late Napoleon Bonaparte.” https://books.google.com/books?id=Chw2AAAAMAAJ&pg=PA5&lpg=PA5&dq=%22the+late+napoleon+bonaparte%22&source=bl&ots=XcTx6ewJpg&sig=6TkxptDsEGEw8ac3SVD3oBbIIPo&hl=en&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwjcmKen18nPAhXD_R4KHeIIBxUQ6AEIKTAE#v=onepage&q=%22the%20late%20napoleon%20bonaparte%22&f=false at page 188. Napoleon died in 1821, meaning that “late” was used to describe him 85 years after he died.

George Washington is no longer called “the late,” neither are Abraham Lincoln or Franklin Delano Roosevelt. But Freddie Mercury, who died in 1991, is — sometimes. On September 18, 2016, the Columbus Dispatch included a snippet that referred to Freddie Mercury, “the late singer” of Queen. http://www.dispatch.com/content/stories/science/2016/09/18/01-science-briefs.html The New York Times recently referred to Mercury as “the lead singer” of Queen. http://www.nytimes.com/2016/09/07/arts/music/freddie-mercury-now-races-around-the-sun.html That one threw me because, according to the standard usage of “the late,” Mercury is too recently deceased to no longer have that label.

The 85-year interval between Napoleon’s death and a reference to his lateness is the longest gap I have found. If you find a longer one, please let me know. I don’t know when, but sometime in the next 20 years or so, John F. Kennedy will no longer warrant “the late” label. It’s not really necessary now. For one thing, it has been 99 years since Kennedy was born. For another thing, I’m pretty sure every person who knows who Kennedy was is well aware that he is no longer alive.

Perhaps there should be a rule, something like — a person stops being late when he or she would reasonably have been expected to die based on life expectancy. In Kennedy’s case, he should have stopped being late about 15-20 years ago. I have no idea who would police this rule.

“Facetious” is the only word in the English language that has all five vowels (without duplication) in alphabetical order.

I don’t like being late, but I’d rather be late than be “the late.”