1. Yesterday I shared Emily Dickinson’s poem “Many a phrase has the English language,” and I noted that there was one more odd little thing I’d cover today. I don’t know how or why this happened, but many poetry sites show one if not two errors with this poem.
The most common issue involves line 15, “Say it again, Saxon.” Instead of “Saxon,” many sites use the word “Saxton,” or on occasion, a site prints “Sexton.” Also, in line 7, some sites use “infection” in place of the correct term, “inflection.”
The most common issue involves line 15, “Say it again, Saxon.” Instead of “Saxon,” many sites use the word “Saxton,” or on occasion, a site prints “Sexton.” Also, in line 7, some sites use “infection” in place of the correct term, “inflection.”
 |  |
2. In my post from 2/22 (HERE), I mentioned that eight of the twelve letters in “onomatopoeia” were vowels, and I asked “is this the word in English with the most vowels?”
I did a little more research into this and found a site (HERE) which claims (in words from 2 to 15 letters), “epizootiologies” is the word with the most vowels – 9 in total.
I did a little more research into this and found a site (HERE) which claims (in words from 2 to 15 letters), “epizootiologies” is the word with the most vowels – 9 in total.
3. In a post from 2/23 (HERE), I mentioned Michael C. Corballis’ article, “The Gestural Origins of Language: Human language may have evolved from manual gestures, which survive today as a ‘behavioral fossil’ coupled to speech,” published in the March-April “American Scientist” in 1999. In the post I said, “The thought that gestures tied to sounds led to “words” which led to grammar and language never really crossed my mind – but it makes perfect sense!”
The idea of gestures leading to speech made me wonder about the “etymology” of common gestures – and is there even such a thing as “etymology” of human gestures? I found this (HERE), "Thumbs Up: The Fascinating Origins of Hand Gestures."
The idea of gestures leading to speech made me wonder about the “etymology” of common gestures – and is there even such a thing as “etymology” of human gestures? I found this (HERE), "Thumbs Up: The Fascinating Origins of Hand Gestures."
4. The article I mentioned above opens with this anecdote:
“In 1934 the behavioral psychologist B. F. Skinner found himself seated at the dinner table with the eminent philosopher Alfred North Whitehead, and proceeded to explain to Whitehead what behaviorism was all about. Obliged to offer a challenge, Whitehead uttered the sentence ‘No black scorpion is falling upon this table’ and then asked Skinner to explain why he might have said that.”
Skinner wrote a response to Whitehead’s challenge more than 20 years later in an appendix to his 1957 book Verbal Behavior; however, Corballis added to Skinner’s explanation (that Whitehead was unconsciously expressing a fear of behaviorism) with this:
“Be that as it may, Whitehead had articulated one of the properties of language that seems to distinguish it from all other forms of communication, its generativity. Whereas other forms of communication among animals seem to be limited to a relatively small number of signals, and restricted to limited contexts, there is essentially no limit to the number of ideas or propositions that we can convey using sentences. We can immediately understand sentences made up of words that we have never heard in combination before.”
I mention this because one analysis of Dickinson’s “Many a phrase has the English language,” echoed Corballis’ statement, albeit it much briefer; she wrote that language allows us to “spin out sentence after sentence, unfolding idea after idea or chit after chat.” The blogger then went on to elevate “mystics, great poets, the holy and the enlightened” who “see and hear more than the rest of us” and how they speak wisdom through parable, metaphor, and myth. While most of us may have an occasional transcendent moment, “The cosmos unfolds for a rare few in the smallest manifestations of the everyday world.”
Dickinson was surely a member of that “rare few,” though in this poem she confesses a lack of knowledge of “ some glorious universal affirmation.”
Now humor me here: Dickinson’s poem itself and this analysis called to mind a scene From season 6 of “The Simpsons,” “Homer vs. Patty and Selma,” where Homer hopes for some glorious universal inspiration to invent some necessary product for all humankind (as a “get-rich-quick” scheme), and in a dream, he accomplished just that. The catch? He never gets to see the “one product” (i.e., Dickinson’s “one phrase”). It eludes him.
Click the pic below to view the scene (or click HERE):
“In 1934 the behavioral psychologist B. F. Skinner found himself seated at the dinner table with the eminent philosopher Alfred North Whitehead, and proceeded to explain to Whitehead what behaviorism was all about. Obliged to offer a challenge, Whitehead uttered the sentence ‘No black scorpion is falling upon this table’ and then asked Skinner to explain why he might have said that.”
Skinner wrote a response to Whitehead’s challenge more than 20 years later in an appendix to his 1957 book Verbal Behavior; however, Corballis added to Skinner’s explanation (that Whitehead was unconsciously expressing a fear of behaviorism) with this:
“Be that as it may, Whitehead had articulated one of the properties of language that seems to distinguish it from all other forms of communication, its generativity. Whereas other forms of communication among animals seem to be limited to a relatively small number of signals, and restricted to limited contexts, there is essentially no limit to the number of ideas or propositions that we can convey using sentences. We can immediately understand sentences made up of words that we have never heard in combination before.”
I mention this because one analysis of Dickinson’s “Many a phrase has the English language,” echoed Corballis’ statement, albeit it much briefer; she wrote that language allows us to “spin out sentence after sentence, unfolding idea after idea or chit after chat.” The blogger then went on to elevate “mystics, great poets, the holy and the enlightened” who “see and hear more than the rest of us” and how they speak wisdom through parable, metaphor, and myth. While most of us may have an occasional transcendent moment, “The cosmos unfolds for a rare few in the smallest manifestations of the everyday world.”
Dickinson was surely a member of that “rare few,” though in this poem she confesses a lack of knowledge of “ some glorious universal affirmation.”
Now humor me here: Dickinson’s poem itself and this analysis called to mind a scene From season 6 of “The Simpsons,” “Homer vs. Patty and Selma,” where Homer hopes for some glorious universal inspiration to invent some necessary product for all humankind (as a “get-rich-quick” scheme), and in a dream, he accomplished just that. The catch? He never gets to see the “one product” (i.e., Dickinson’s “one phrase”). It eludes him.
Click the pic below to view the scene (or click HERE):
RSS Feed
