Monthly Archives: November 2008

At work the other night, I came across a word that always vexes me, and which seems to come up frequently in sports stories. I forget exactly what the sentence was, but it was something like “Because of the players’ inexperience, the team has yet to jell.”

I can never, ever, remember if it is supposed to be jell or gel when you are trying to say that something (like a team) has come together nicely. I was on deadline and didn’t have time to look it up, so I did the next best thing, I asked. The guy who sits next to me (and who has been copy editing since before I was born) told me confidently that it is jell.

So I left it alone and moved on. But I wanted to check up  on my own why jell was the way to go.

So today, I looked through four style guides  — the New York Times Manual of Style and Usage, Bryan Garner’s Modern American Usage, Bill Walsh’s Lapsing Into a Comma and Bill Bryson’s Dictionary of Troublesome Words — all reliable sources when I have usage questions.

Zero, zip, nada, naught. None of those books had a peep about jell and gel.

So I tried the dictionary. Or dictionaries, rather.

Merriam-Webster Online:

• jell: Date 1869. intransitive verb. 1. to come to the consistency of jelly; congeal , set 2. to take shape and achieve distinctness; become cohesive. transitive verb. to cause to jell
• gel: Date 1917. intransitive verb. 1. to change into or take on the form of a gel; set 2. JELL 2 (meaning, go look at the second definition of jell).

Oxford English Dictionary:

• jell: Date 1830-1840. 1. intransitive verb. To become a jelly; to congeal or jelly. Also figuratively, to take definite or satisfactory shape; = CRYSTALLIZE. Compare to GEL 2. transitive verb. JELLIFY; Also figuratively, to give shape to; to make clear and definite. Hence participle jelled.
• gel: Date 1917. intransitive verb. To become a gel; figuratively, JELL. Hence participle gelled.

Webster’s New World:

• jell: No date. intransitive, transitive verb. 1. a) to become or cause to become jelly. b) to become or cause to become somewhat firm, as gelatin does; set. 2. [Informal] to take or cause to take definite form; crystallize. [plans that haven't jelled yet]
• gel: No date. intransitive verb. 1. to form a gel; jellify. 2. [British] JELL 2.

All the sources agree that jell is a back-formation of jelly, and the verb gel comes from the noun gel.

So, what did I learn?

That they both mean the same thing. The definitions even refer to each other. Which is why we have style guides, to tell us what to use so we don’t have to agonize over it. Or to ignore if we don’t like the reasoning.

The closest thing to guidance that I got was in Webster’s New World, which tells us that gel is a British usage when used to mean the same thing as jell. And jell seems to be the older word. So I guess jell is the one to use (in the U.S., anyway), even though it really doesn’t seem to matter at all. Most people would understand either in that context.

This week’s Encomiums and Deprecations is being interrupted by this rant. (It’s about words, I promise.) This is only a rant. Your regularly scheduled enthusiastic praise and expressions of disapproval will resume next week.

Note: This post contains language. The regular kind and the profane kind.

I was watching a DVRed episode of Law and Order: Special Victims Unit last night when I was reminded of something that’s bothered me for a while. Some crime victim screamed and yelled and called another woman a bitch. Then I was watching a DVD of the X-Files today, and Agent John Doggett (Mulder’s replacement and apparently reformed T-1000) called a suspect a son of a bitch.

Why is it that on network television, where all sorts of profanity are not allowed, that bitch is? Why is it not OK for Bono to say, “This is really, really, fucking brilliant. Really, really, great,” or for the Philadelphia Phillies’ Chase Utley to say “World champions. World fucking champions!” on TV, but calling a woman a bitch is?

Think about it. Literally, fuck means “to have sex.” Bitch means “a female dog.” But Bono and Utley weren’t using fuck to mean “to have sex.” The Phillies aren’t the world champions of fucking. It doesn’t mean anything in that context. It really doesn’t. And it was on live TV. It wasn’t even scripted. Forget about hearing that in a recorded TV show.

But calling someone (or their mother) a bitch? That means something. You’re calling her a female dog. And it’s usually scripted. Someone thought about it.

So why is this OK? My guess: sexism. Don’t believe me? You ever hear a guy get called a faggot on network TV? Faggot isn’t even a traditional curse word. (Don’t get me wrong, it’s wrong to use it as a pejorative, it’s wrong to call someone that, and it is a foul, hurtful word.) But guys don’t get called that. Cocksucker? Nope. Asshole? Nope. Dickface? Nope. Any of the other dirty, dirty words some guys throw at each other on a regular basis? Nope. Or even the word shit in any context, defecatory or not? Nope.

But call a woman a bitch? No problem. I’ve seen it even on woman-friendly shows like the late, great Veronica Mars. You hear it everywhere on network TV. It’s the only one of the dirty words you do. Is there another explanation for why the networks and the FCC doesn’t care about it?

All that being said, I don’t have a problem with cursing on TV, be it network, cable, or HBO. It’s the way people talk, and I think the way cursing is treated in the United States gives it a power it really shouldn’t have. They’re words like any other. Not magic, evil words. Just words.

But if you are going to ban them, ban them across the board. Or allow them all. But don’t tell me that calling a woman a bitch in the nastiest, most vicious tone of voice is worse than dropping the f-bomb in an unscripted, live moment of joy.

One of my favorite writers, Neil Gaiman, writes about the word prevaricate (it’s the first item below the Batman pictures), which he once thought meant “someone not making up their minds,” was then corrected to say it means “to lie,” and now finds that it really can mean either:

I think it’s a word with shades of meaning, and while in the US it tends to get used simply as “to lie” (as in “All politicians prevaricate”), in the UK it’s more often used as a synonym for Equivocate — i.e. to avoid giving a straight answer… even to tergiversarate. And it’s the equivocation, with its implications of putting off a decision that then shades over into meanings that aren’t simply “to lie”.

He goes on to cite the OED in support of that.

John Scalzi, over at Whatever, pulls out an interesting word in discussing Barrack Obama’s interview on 60 Minutes (and before you get annoyed, Obamaniacs, Scalzi is a big Obama supporter):

The dude’s got seriously wacky ears. I mean, I knew before that they were large and stuck out from his head — you can’t miss that — but during the interview I found myself unaccountably fascinated with them. They just, you know, don’t look normal. And I’m fine with that, since I didn’t vote for him on account of his shapely pinnae. Still wacky, though.

Pinnae is the plural of pinna, and it means “The broad flap of skin-covered cartilage which forms the external ear in humans and other mammals,” according to the OED. Pinna was originally the Latin word “for feather, wing, fin, and raised part of a battlement.” It had similar meaning to the Latin word ala, which means “Any wing-like process; esp. one of the lateral cartilages of the nose.” That meaning of pinna is now obsolete, the OED says.

But do I mean I approve or I punish?

Merrill Perlman discusses the opposite (but not really) meanings of sanction over at her Language Corner at the Columbia Journalism Review:

If you take a closer look, however, both uses of “sanction” hew to the same overall definition: subject to the law or regulations that govern the conduct. Context is the key, as it is for so many things. “Sanction” in a negative sense is almost always accompanied by other negative words—punishment, actionable, violation. When it’s used in a positive sense, it almost always stands alone, with no qualitative accompaniments.

And in case you’re wondering, I definitely approve.

In Sunday’s New York Times Magazine, The Ethicist, who answers letters on ethics questions, used an interesting German phrase to describe how a man should react to his friend’s emotionally distraught wife possibly making a pass at him:

Everyone does foolish things from time to time, particularly when under stress. Such things are often best overlooked. (There’s a phrase for it in German: einmal ist keinmal. Loosely: once does not count.) If everyone were called to account for each utterly atypical marital gaffe made when the moon was full and the wine was flowing, civilization would collapse into a heap of rubble.

I liked the German phrase specifically since rhymes, and generally because I like foreign phrases with interesting meanings, so long as they are not overused. (C’est la vie, anyone?) One I like is sláinte, which is Gaelic for health. It’s used as a toast, really meaning good health. It’s pronounced slan-cha.

If anyone has any favorite foreign phrases, please share in the comments.

Every Monday, Talk Wordy to Me discusses newspapers’ uses of big or obscure words in Encomiums and Deprecations. An encomium is glowing and warmly enthusiastic praise. A deprecation is an expression of disapproval.

OK, so not last week. But here’s two encomiums for this week.

Encomium:

To Slate, for the word proboscidean in an article about the trade in elephant ivory

Wild elephants are never going to be tolerated in Africa so long as locals cannot profit from the animals’ most valuable asset: those 120-pound teeth. As journalist John Frederick Walker argues in his provocative new book, Ivory’s Ghosts: The White Gold of History and the Fate of Elephants (to be published in January), the high regard with which American zoo-goers hold these proboscideans is not shared by poverty-stricken farmers in Kenya, who must contend with 4-ton living bulldozers rampaging their cassava fields and threatening their lives.

It’s clear from the context that proboscidean refers to the elephants. Specifically, “any of an order (Proboscidea) of large mammals comprising the elephants and extinct related forms (as mastodons),” according to Merriam-Webster. So all elephants are proboscideans, but not all proboscideans are elephants.

It’s related to proboscis, a Latin word that means “1. A long flexible snout or trunk, as of an elephant. 2. The slender, tubular feeding and sucking organ of certain invertebrates, such as insects, worms, and mollusks,” according to the Amerian Heritage Dictionary. Proboscis comes from the Greek proboskis, which is formed from the root word boskein (meaning to feed) and the prefix pro- (meaning in front of).

Encomium (I think):

To the Associated Press, for the word lexicon in a story about the Indianapolis Colts:

“If we were in any stages of complacency, I think our players looking at that (first Houston) game should take care of that,” Colts coach Tony Dungy said. “We have to continue to work and see if we can play better than we have the last couple of weeks and defend our home turf. It’s obviously a big game for us.”

Complacency is a word that hasn’t entered the Colts’ lexicon all season.

American Heritage says a lexicon is “1. A dictionary. 2. A stock of terms used in a particular profession, subject, or style; a vocabulary: the lexicon of surrealist art.” This was in a story I was editing on Saturday night for our Sunday paper. I wavered about leaving it in or changing it to vocabulary. But I think the story was saying that complacency was not part of the vocabulary of the football team (a particular profession). So I left it in.

The etymology, also from American Heritage: “Medieval Latin, from Greek lexikon (biblion), word (book), from neuter of lexikos, of words, from lexis, word, from legein, to speak.”

I posted sporadically last week, and am taking this week off entirely, because I am working on a project that is sucking up almost all of my free time. I’ll be back next Monday.

A few interesting things I read today:

• You Don’t Say discusses some Baltimore words like arabber and lake trout (not really a trout; also, not from a lake).
• Word Porn defines abstergent.
• The Editrix gauges gage.

Every Monday, Talk Wordy to Me discusses newspapers’ uses of big or obscure words in Encomiums and Deprecations. An encomium is glowing and warmly enthusiastic praise. A deprecation is an expression of disapproval.

Hey, it’s still Monday! Check the time stamp. Sorry, been a bit busy today. I’ll try to find more diverse examples next week, too. I’ve been reading a lot of New York Times the past week.

Encomium:

To the New York Times Magazine for the word sobriquet in William Safire’s On Language column. Safire often explores words that are in vogue in the news, in this case in this year’s election news. The whole piece is interesting, but I enjoyed sobriquet, which he used just as a part of the article, not one of the ones he was exploring:

This year, Gov. Sarah Palin modernized the soccer mom with the hockey mom and the Wal-Mart mom. (That chain has a great euphemism for the guy on the way out who makes sure you’re not stealing stuff: the exit greeter.) John McCain brought the unforgotten everyman up to date in the third presidential debate as Joe the Plumber. Suddenly, plumber — a word associated with nefarious leak plugging in the Watergate era — emerged as the ringing sobriquet of Samuel J. Wurzelbacher of Holland, Ohio. This big, bald, salt-of-the-earth fellow, worried about taxes, elicited a damaging answer from a canvassing Barack Obama that concluded, “when you spread the wealth around, it’s good for everybody.”

A sobriquet is “a descriptive name or epithet; nickname” according to Merriam-Webster. An epithet is “a characterizing word or phrase accompanying or occurring in place of the name of a person or thing.” Both are apt for Joe the Plumber.

Deprecation:

To the New York Times for the word lacunae in a Maureen Dowd column:

It doesn’t wash to cry sexism now any more than it did at the beginning, when the campaign tried to use that dodge to divert attention from Palin’s lacunae in the sort of knowledge you need to run the world. The press has written plenty about the vanities and extravagances of male candidates. (See: Haircuts, John Edwards and Bill Clinton.) Sexism would be to treat Palin differently, or more delicately, than one of the guys.

According to the OED, a lacunae can mean: “1. In a manuscript, an inscription, the text of an author: A hiatus, blank, missing portion.  2. Chiefly in physical science: A gap, an empty space, spot, or cavity.” Dowd is using lacunae to mean gap. One of my criteria for giving a big word an encomium is that it be a specialized word that does the work of several words. This doesn’t do that. It’s just a long word for gap.

Encomium:

To Sports Illustrated for syzygy in an article about “all these nerds winning football games.”

In the physics and astronomy department, Keivan Stassun suggested we’re in the midst of a syzygy, a rare and portentous alignment of things in the universe. “One of the biggest mysteries in astronomical research is dark energy,” he said. “In the last couple years we have clear evidence that there’s some kind of force at work that is causing all of the matter of the universe to fly apart in an accelerating way. It seems more than a coincidence that at the same time we’ve discovered this mysterious force, Commodore football is on a roll. You hear all the time about somebody opening a can of whoop ass on someone. That whoop ass has to come from somewhere. Maybe what we’re seeing is a gravitational warping of space-time focusing all that energy on football.”

Three different dictionaries I checked give varying definitions for syzygy, but all agree that it is an alignment of the planets, close to the definition Sports Illustrated gives in the story. The article is fairly clever, asking college professors at “smart schools” to explain the success of their football teams, and the use of this specialized astronomy word works here.

Deprecation:

To the New York Times for the word triptych in a Studs Terkel obituary:

In his oral histories, which he called guerrilla journalism, Studs Terkel relied on his enthusiastic but gentle interviewing style to elicit, in rich detail, the experiences and thoughts of ordinary Americans. “Division Street: America” (1966), his first best-seller and the first in a triptych of tape-recorded works, explored the urban conflicts of the 1960s. Its success led to “Hard Times: An Oral History of the Great Depression”(1970) and “Working: People Talk About What They Do All Day and How They Feel About What They Do”(1974). “ ‘The Good War’: An Oral History of World War II,” won the 1985 Pulitzer Prize for nonfiction.

A triptych is “1: an ancient Roman writing tablet with three waxed leaves hinged together. 2 a: a picture (as an altarpiece) or carving in three panels side by side b: something composed or presented in three parts or sections; especially : trilogy,” according to Merriam-Webster. I have two problems with how this was used. One, it was probably being used to mean trilogy, so it’s a more obscure single word being used to replace a common word. Two, even if it was being used as a metaphor that the works hung together, what is the triptych? The next two sentences list three more books and it isn’t clear which, if any, are the companions to Division Street. All three can’t be, since that’s four total books. You’re left scratching your head.