Almanac chapter 20: The American Language

                                     Chapter 20

                               THE AMERICAN LANGUAGE

              Here are some interesting bits and pieces about our  American
         language  that  are  not  covered elsewhere in this book.  In fact
         most of these items are not covered elsewhere in any book.

              When modern kids say "bad!" their actual meaning  is  "good!"
         Some  of  us  wince  at this slang reversal. This is not the first
         such reversal in the English language, however.  "Awful"  used  to
         mean awe-inspiring, and "artificial" used to mean full of art.

              Here's an interesting item in the evolution of our  language.
         Butterflys used to be called "flutterbys."

              In France computer  use  is  called  l'informatique,  and  in
         Sweden computers are called dators (because they handle data).

              Hemidemisemiquaver is a funny word.  It  is  a  musical  term
         meaning a 64th note.

              In  the mid-1800's, there was a guy hired by an Irish earl to
         collect high  rent  from  tenant  farmers.   The  farmers  totally
         ignored him. His name was Charles C. Boycott.

                         Some Vocabulary Going Out Of Style
             (This may be the last time you see some of these phrases.)
         FIFTH WHEEL, someone not needed.
         SHALL, this word is seldom used in ordinary conversation.
         BIBCOCK: A faucet.
         DUFF: The rotten leaves that cover the ground in the woods.

              When  is  the  last  time  you  heard  the  word  "aglet"  in
         conversation? It is  the  clear  plastic  tip  on  the  end  of  a
         shoelace.

              Blowouts  are  less-often  seen nowadays. They are the things
         you used to see at parties - you put one end in  your  mouth,  and
         when  you  blow  into  it, the other end unrolls and makes a weird
         noise.

              A word people don't use anymore  is  "ariel"  when  they  are
         refering to an antenna.

              And  pianoforte  has  gone out of style. This is what a piano
         used to be called. Pianoforte literally translates to quiet-loud.

              Here   are   some   seldom   used   nautical   terms  from  a
         century-year-old book:

         Bend: To fasten; as, to  bend  on  a  rope.
         Bulwarks:  The  sides  of a vessel surrounding and extending above
             the deck.
         Caboose: A kitchen on deck.
         Cat's paw: A light puff of wind.
         Painter: A rope used to secure a boat to anything.
         Reeve: To pass the end  of a rope through a pulley, etc.
         Thwarts: A boat's seats.
         Trick: A sailor's duration of time in steering.

                                 More Miscellaneous

                  These words came from the Hindu language: Bungalow,  pajamas,
         shampoo, jungle, cot.

              From  Algonquin  (American  Indian)  we  get:  Skunk,  pecan,
         chipmunk.

              From Arabic: Almanac, mattress.

              From Chinese: silk, tea, ketchup, tycoon.

              Ernest Hogan, a black musician, wrote a song in  1896  called
         "All  Coons  Look  Alike  To Me". He used the then-common slang of
         "coon" to mean white man.  After  the  song  became  popular,  the
         terminology reversed, with "coon" becoming slang for a black man.

              The word gobbledygook was coined by a  Texas  congressman  in
         1944.

              There  is one word mispelled in this sentence which is one of
         the most often misspelled words  in  America.  Which  one  is  it?
         Mispell is misspelled.

              The most common name in the world is Mohammed.

              Do  you  know what a Zambony is? It's the machine used in ice
         rinks to polish the ice.

              When you type the word "typewriter" you do it  all  from  the
         row of keys above the home row.

              The  entire Hawaiian language uses only twelve letters of the
         alphabet: a,e,i,o,u,h,k,l,m,n,p and w.

              All except  15  percent  of  international  phone  calls  are
         conducted in English.

              Here's  a new word that is already passe: "Microcomputer." It
         means an ordinary desk top computer. It was used a few  years  ago
         because until then, computers were five feet tall and several feet
         wide.   Now we just say computer, home computer, personal computer
         or sometimes pc.  The new small ones, called laptops  because  you
         can  hold them in your lap, are more capable than a gymnasium full
         of  equipment made in 1976.  Part of this almanac was written on a
         laptop weighing 6.4 pounds, batteries and all.

              A  new  high-tech  term  is "degrade gracefully" which is the
         opposite of a computer crash.

              A palindrome is a sentence that if  read  backward  says  the
         same  thing.  The  following  may  be  the stupidest palindrome on
         earth: "Straw? No, too stupid a fad, I put soot on warts."

              This thing is not a slash: /. It is called a  solidus  or  an
         obolus.

              California  means  "hot  furnace"  in  Spanish. Alabama means
         "here we rest" in Indian.  Connecticut means "the long  river"  in
         Indian.   Kentucky  means  "the dark and bloody ground" in Indian.
         Vermont means "green mountain" in French.

              A camera was originally called camera obscura.

              The word "paper" came from the papyrus plant from which paper
         was made.  Papyrus used to be a common  plant  in  Egypt,  but  no
         longer grows there.

              The  word  "bible"  came  from the Greek word "biblion" which
         means book.

              The word "pen" came from the Latin "penna" which means  wing,
         or feather.

              To  the  ancient  Romans, the left side of the human body was
         thought of as evil and the right side was good. The Latin word for
         left is "sinister."

              The Caesar family has two months named after them.  July  was
         named for Julius Caesar and August for Augustus Caesar.

              The  average  American  knows  about  one-tenth  of a million
         words.

              If you look at a monkey wrench, you think it is obvious where
         it got its name, but you  are  wrong.   It  was  named  after  its
         inventor, Charles Moncke.

              And camel's-hair brushes were named after Mr. Camel.

              We  think of snow - as snow, but to Eskimos, there are twenty
         variations, which are all different things, each  with  their  own
         name - much as we think pencils and pens are different things.

              The technical term for snapping your fingers is "fillip."

              A ball of thread was originally called a clue.

              The word robot was invented in  1920,  in  an  early  science
         fiction play.

              The  French  word "verre" which means glass is similar to the
         word  "vaire"  which  means  fur.   It  makes  more   sense   that
         Cinderella's  slippers were made of fur than glass.  It is assumed
         early translators of the story goofed.

              Freelance originally meant mercenary soldier,  a  person  who
         was free to use his lance for you, if you had money to pay him.

              The letter B evolved from the Egyptian symbol for house.

              A radio announcer speaks about 183 words per minute.

              If  you write a letter to the New York Times, chances are one
         in 22 that it will be published.

              Cooties are a kind of lice.  Kids are right, you really don't
         want to catch cooties.

              Etymologists are not sure, but the origin of  the  term  "OK"
         may be from an American Indian word, "okeh," meaning "it is so."

              If you have had a haircut, you can be called an acersecomic.

              Hoful is an unusual word meaning cautious.

              In a typical office, each worker uses  2.5  pounds  of  paper
         each day.

              If  you  stretched  out 1429 words written in longhand, about
         the amount necessary to fill a small  pocket  notebook,  the  line
         would be one  mile  long.   This  almanac  contains  40  miles  of
         writing.

              A professional typist's fingers move 12 miles in one workday.

              You can speed up your writing considerably with the following
         hints:
              *  Instead of writing out the ending "ing," just write "." It
         is much faster to write "end." than "ending," for instance.
              * Any long word that you cannot mistake for another  you  can
         shorten  by  writ.   the  first  few  letters, then using a "-" to
         represent the rest. For exam-, "computer" becomes "co-."
              * You wont hav much  trubl  read.  senten-  witho-  punctuat-
         such as apostrophes, but u cant safly omit comas or periods.
              *  You  can leave out double "leters" in most cases and still
         have a word that you can understand.

              * Consider omit. silent letrs.
              * Many smal words such as and, at, a, is, cn  b  left  entir-
         out.
              *  U  mst b care- avoid tak. so many shortcts u cant mak sens
         out of what u wrot latr.

              Speed writ. taks longr to red but fastr to writ. Usually,  yu
         r mor in hury when wr-. than when read.