Words on the Web: Language Blogs

7 October 2005

Most of us know that blog, a clipped form of weblog, is an online journal, usually updated daily and often including the ability for others to comment on the journal entries. The term weblog dates to 1997 and blog to 1999.

Blog can also be used as verb, meaning to maintain such a journal, and it has given rise to blogger, one who maintains a blog, and blogosphere, the universe of blogs.

But this is not the extent of linguistic interest in blogs. There are several excellent blogs on language that are worth checking out at least every few days. Some of these are listed below:

Double-Tongued Word Wrester is more like an online dictionary than a journal, but you can post comments to the entries. It’s maintained by Grant Barrett, an occasional contributor to the Wordorigins discussion forum.

Every Way But One is a blog maintained by a graduate student in linguistics.

Journal Extime is another blog maintained by a graduate student in linguistics.

Language Guy provides commentary on language by a retired professor of linguistics.

Language Hat will be familiar with those who read the Wordorigins discussion forum. It’s maintained by one of our regular and most valued contributors.

Language Log is maintained by a number of linguists and people interested in language.

Tenser, said the Tensor is yet another blog maintained by a graduate student in linguistics. It covers a wide variety of topics (language, science fiction, computers and technology, comics, anime, and other geekery) and is more personal than most on this list.

Uncle Jazzbeau’s Gallimaufrey addresses linguistics, philosophy, and politics.

And if you find this blogs interesting, you will have to check out Technorati.com, a up-to-the-minute search engine of the entire blogosphere.

Diner Slang

30 September 2005

Waiters and cooks in diners and other short-order restaurants have traditionally used a colorful jargon to describe the various orders that customers place. What follows is a number of terms in this jargon. Now, this jargon is not universal; not all diners use it and often there are many different variants and options for a particular order, as witnessed by the numerous names for common food items on this list.

Some of these jargon terms, like eighty-six and java, are more general slang. Most of the others are obscure.

The jargon probably arose as a means of entertainment, both for the staff who would quickly tire of the same orders again and again and for the amusement of customers. And of course this diner slang served the traditional purpose of a jargon of identifying those who were experienced in the short-order business.

So, without further ado, here is a selection of diner slang:

Adam and Eve, poached eggs, also Adam and Eve on a raft, poached eggs on toast

Adam’s ale, water (the original drink)

alley, in the, serve as a side dish

axle grease, butter

bad news, the, the check

bale of hay, corned beef and cabbage

Becky’s eggs, bacon and eggs (a deliberate mispronunciation of bacon)

beef and, beef and beans

birdseed, cereal

blonde and sweet, coffee with cream and sugar

blue plate, the daily special

Bossy in a bowl, beef stew (Bossy being a traditional name for a cow)

Bostons, beans (Boston being famous for its baked beans)

bow wow, hot dog

bowl of red, chile

brass band without a leader, a plate of beans without pork

breath, onion (from the effect on one’s breath)

bridge, four of anything (a game of bridge has four players)

brown stone front, porter house steak

burn one, cook one hamburger

burn the British, toast an English muffin

C.J., cream cheese and jelly

cackle-berry, egg

cannon ball, cruller

chewed fine, hamburger steak

chicken from on high, the best cut of chicken

chopper, knife

city, water, one on the city is a glass of water (a reference to the municipal water supply, on the city is from the fact that water is traditionally free in restaurants)

cluck, chicken pie

coffee and, coffee and doughnut

cold mud, bucket of, chocolate ice cream, bowl of

cold spot, iced tea

combo, ham and eggs

cosmopolitan, Neapolitan ice cream

cow, the, milk

cowboy, western omelet

cry, make it, add onions (from the fact that the smell from cutting onions can induce tears)

cup of mud, coffee

draw, pour a cup of coffee, as in draw one

dyspepsia in a snow storm, mince pie sprinkled with sugar

echo, duplicate of the last order (one of many numerical names for food items or modes of service)

eighty one, glass of water

eighty six, out of that item, refuse a customer service

Eve with a lid on, apple pie (a reference to the fruit of the forbidden tree)

fifty five, root beer

fifty one, hot chocolate

first lady, spare ribs (a reference to Eve having been made from one of Adam’s ribs)

five, milk

fluff it, add whipped cream

fog, in a, with mashed potatoes

forty one, lemonade

garden, take it through the, add lettuce and tomato

George Eddy, customer who doesn’t leave a tip (presumably from the name of a notoriously poor tipper)

go for a walk, take-out order

goat, the, butter

graveyard stew, milk toast

hail, ice

ham and, ham and eggs

hash no, hash without onions

Hebrew enemies, pork chops

hen fruit, boiled egg

high and dry, sandwich without mayonnaise or butter

houseboat, banana split

ice the rice, rice pudding with ice cream added

in the dark, without cream (coffee order)

in the dark, without milk (coffee order)

java, coffee

jerk, ice cream soda (from soda jerk)

joe, coffee

let the blood follow the knife, rare roast beef

let the chicken wade through it, chicken soup (a joke on the paucity of chicken meat in the soup)

lumber, toothpick

maiden’s delight, cherries

mealy bustle, mealy potato

Mike and Ike, salt and pepper

motorman’s glove, veal cutlet

Murphy with his coat on, an unpeeled, boiled potato, unpeeled

Murphy, potato

mystery, hash

nervous pudding, jello

Noah, poached eggs

Noah’s boy, ham (Ham being the name of one of Noah’s sons)

on a raft, on toast

on the hoof, meat cooked rare

pair of sleeve buttons, two fish balls

pale, light on the cream (coffee order)

put out the lights and cry, liver and onions

radio, tuna sandwich (from "tuna down" mispronounced as "turn it down")

red lead, ketchup

red, white, and blue, mixed ice cream

roly poly, strawberry pudding

rose, onion

sand, the, sugar

sea dust, salt

shingle, toast

shipwreck, scrambled eggs

sinker, doughnut

slaughter on the pan, a porter house steak.

snowstorm, In a, with powdered sugar

solid shot, apple dumpling

squeeze one, one glass of orange juice

stack, pancakes

stars and stripes, pork and beans

summer time, bread and milk

sunny side up, eggs fried on one side

sweep the kitchen, hash

tea no, tea without milk

team of grays, two crullers

twenty one, limeade

two in three, two three-minute eggs

veg, vegetable soup

velvet, milk shake

Vermont, the, maple syrup

walking, to go

wheats, buckwheat pancakes

whisky, rye toast

white wings, sunny side up, fried eggs

whitewing, egg

with the light out, without milk (coffee order)

with, an additional item, beans with is beans and bread., eggs with are eggs with onion, one egg, lots of with means an egg with lots of onion.

wreath, carrying a, with cabbage

wreck ‘em, scramble the eggs

yesterday, today, and forever, hash

zeppelins, sausages (from the shape)

Department of Humorous Names

23 September 2005

According to the Associated Press, the Cornwall Record Office in Britain has compiled a list of 1,000 odd or unusual names found in census, birth, death, and marriage records dating back to the 16th century. The list contains such gems as Abraham Thunderwolff and Freke Dorothy Fluck Lane.

The list was inspired by the discovery of a real-life Horatio Hornblower in county records, a name more famous as being that of C.S. Forester’s fictional naval hero. The real Horatio had six siblings, named Azubia, Constantia, Jecoliah, Jedidah, Jerusha and Erastus.

The records tell us that a man named Levi Jeans lived in Cornwall in the late-18th century.

Other names on the list include Boadicea Basher, Philadelphia Bunnyface, Faithful Cock, Susan Booze, Elizabeth Disco, Edward Evil, Fozzitt Bonds, Truth Bullock, Charity Chilly, Gentle Fudge, Obedience Ginger and Offspring Gurney.

Marriage records tell us that Nicholas Bone and Priscilla Skin were joined in wedlock in 1636. Charles Swine and Jane Ham were married in 1711 and John Mutton and Ann Veale tied the knot in 1791. Finally, Richard Dinner and Mary Cook were joined in 1802.

Stormy Weather

23 September 2005

Katrina devastated New Orleans and Mississippi. Now Rita is slamming into the Texas coast. Where do these names come from? Who picks them?

Traditionally, hurricanes were named for the saint’s day on which the hurricane occurred. This practice was prevalent in the Spanish West Indies. The same storm could have different names in different locales, depending on the day it struck each location as it moved across the Caribbean. On 13 September 1876, Hurricane San Felipe hit Puerto Rico. 52 years later, on 13 September 1928, Hurricane San Felipe the Second hit the island. This practice was even Anglicized on occasion; the September 1935 storm that devastated New England is known as the Labor Day storm.

With the advent of modern meteorology and storm tracking, the use of names that changed daily was untenable. The use of women’s names for storms began in the 1940s, following the use of a woman’s name for a storm in the 1941 novel Storm by George Stewart. Women’s names were used exclusively until 1978, except for 1951-52 when storms were named after the phonetic alphabet (Able, Baker, Charlie, etc.). In 1978, male names were added to the list of names for Pacific storms and a year later, Atlantic storm name list followed suit.

For each year the World Meteorological Organization creates a list of 21 male and female names for Atlantic storms, one for each letter of the alphabet (letters Q, U, X, Y, and Z are not used due to the relatively few names that begin with those letters). The list includes French, Spanish, Dutch, and English names to reflect the languages spoken throughout the Caribbean. The names are periodically reused, although names of storms that cause significant destruction are retired from the list. So, it is unlikely that we will ever have a Katrina the Second.

The Tropical Prediction Center in Miami, Florida tracks Atlantic storms. As soon as one is identified with wind speeds in excess of 38 miles per hour (34 knots), the next name on the list is assigned to the storm. Not all of these tropical storms grow into hurricanes and not all make significant landfall. (Which explains why we can go from Katrina to Rita in only a few weeks.)

If the list of names is exhausted and more storms continue to arise, the plan is to start naming them with letters of the Greek alphabet (alpha, beta, gamma, etc.). This has never happened before, but is a near certainty this year as hurricane season runs through November and we’re already on Rita. The most storms on record in a single season is twenty one, recorded in 1933, but this was before the modern system of nomenclature was introduced. 1995 is second, with nineteen named storms that year.

Gone to the Dogs

23 September 2005

He may be man’s best friend, but no one is quite sure where his name comes from.

The word dog appears once in Old English, in a gloss from ca.1050, rather late in the Old English period. The gloss reads "canum docgena." Initially, dog was used to refer to particularly large canines. The origin of the word is obscure with no known root in other languages. Several European languages have cognates of dog, but these are all descended from the English word and provide no clue as to its original provenance.

Prior to the appearance of dog, the Old English word most commonly used to refer to canines was hund, or as we say today, hound. The word dates to as early as ca.857 and was originally used to refer to any canines. Starting ca.1200, hound began to be used in the restricted sense we know today, a hunting dog specialized for the chase, especially one that follows its prey by scent. Later the meaning was extended to chase dogs that rely on sight, such as greyhounds, and the terms scent hound and sight hound have come into use to differentiate between the two types.

Dog is also used to refer to a male canine and to males of other species such as foxes. The female counterpart is bitch, a term that dates to c.1000. The Old English bicce has only one known cognate, the Old Norse bikkja. Which is the original is unknown. If the Norse term is older, it may derive from the Lappish pittja, but the reverse could also be true and the Lappish could be derived from the Norse and ultimately the English. The use as a derogatory term for a woman dates to sometime before 1400.

As befits man’s best friend, dogs have a prominent place in English phraseology. One can go to the dogs (1565) or lead a dog’s life (1764). We are admonished to let sleeping dogs lie (1562) and after a night on the town to take a hair of the dog that bit you (1546). When one ruins something for everyone else, one is a dog in the manger (1573), after the fable of the dog that would not let the other animals eat even though it had no interest in the fodder itself. And of course, a torrential downpour is to rain cats and dogs (1738).

As a verb, to dog means to follow closely and persistently, 1519. It can also mean to close and secure a door or opening (1591), after the name of a type of clamp likened to a canine because of its jaws and teeth. In 20th century American slang, to dog it means perform lazily or shirk one’s duties.

The adjective dogged also carries the connotation of persistency (1779). But it can also mean sullen or morose (ca.1400) or simply refer to the characteristics of a canine (ca.1440).

To dog ear a book, meaning to turn down the corners of a page to mark one’s place, is from sometime before 1659. The use of dog ear as a noun to refer to folded down corner dates from ca.1725.

Dogfight has meant a battle between fighter aircraft since at least 1919, but it has been in use since 1880 to generally mean any scrap or melee.

So despite its obscure origin, dog, like the canine it represents, has become an integral part of our lives.