The Problem with English

Learning Korean, I'm usually so focused on a new system—trying to recognize patterns, remember details, and grasp nuance—that I forget I've already mastered a system: English. I'm volunteer-tutoring again, and my student this quarter is from Somalia. She is struggling with English, and today we went over an aspect of English that must drive English learners crazy: the tense system.

Sure, forming the past tense of most verbs is straightforward: add -ed (which has three pronunciations, of course—"t," "d," and "id"—which is its own small annoyance).

walk > walked
stare > stared
compute > computed

But even though this is the standard method (referred to as "weak" by grammarian-type people), there are a great many verbs that don't fall in line:

sing > sang
swim > swam
give > gave

Imagine that you're trying to learn this system, which we should probably call a "system." Maybe by this point, you've tried to find a pattern and you've thought, "Most verbs add -ed, but with some short verbs with an i, you change the vowel to a." Nice try.

fling > flung
bring > brought
hit > hit

How are you supposed to get your head around the fact that the past tense of catch is caught? "Maybe," you might reason, your desperation growing, "words that end in a -tch sound have these bizarre past tense forms?" Words like teach (taught)?

Sure they do.

reach > reached
search > searched
etch > etched

"Maybe common words are more likely to have irregular ("strong") past tense forms? Please!" After all, look at do (did) and see (saw).

But no.

talk > talked
say > said (strange spelling and slightly off pronunciation, but this is basically say + ed)

I'm not even talking about the bizarre words (be and go) that have past-tense forms that come from a different planet. (This happened through a process called suppletion, where two different words get married and adopt a strict division of labor.) And then there's stand (stood) and make (made) and hold (held).

And what happens when you consider the third principle part of verbs, the past participle? This is the form used in the passive and the so-called perfect forms:

watch > watched > watched (this is the typical “weak” verb pattern)
drink > drank > drunk (three different forms of a “strong” verb)
take > took > taken (three different forms that work differently from drink)
sit > sat > sat (two different forms of a “strong” verb)
run > ran > run (two different forms, but following a different pattern from sit > sat > sat)
put > put > put (only one form!)

The patterns go out the window. The bottom line is that while there are indeed generalizations, they will only get you so far. What you'll have to contend with is memorizing the past tense and past participle forms of tons and tons of verbs.

And what about the places where even native English speakers disagree? What's the past tense of spit?

I'm not suggesting I'm the first person to notice all this. I'm probably more like the billion and first. And there's plenty more to say about the patterns and the exceptions and the exceptions to the exceptions.

Professional intellectual and interesting person Steven Pinker wrote a whole book about this, and it's a real page-turner! (It's actually really good. You should read it. It starts with this phenomenon and ends up getting into the mysteries and wonders of the human mind. Seriously.)

I'm going to try to remember all this when I'm struggling with Korean (that is, always and at all times). Every language has its hurdles, and this is definitely one that English sets up in front of beginners. So the problem with English is really the problem of every language: it's hard to learn it on purpose. When you learn it as a baby, it's easy. Yes, you'll make mistakes, but you won't know they're mistakes, and you'll correct them gradually and automatically, as your knowledge of the system grows and becomes more sophisticated.

Then there's prepositions. And the way you can make what are essentially new verbs with them: do in, take over, buy out... And the proper use of articles! And contractions! And...

Learning Korean 9: I was right!

It's a not-so-great thing to be right about, but I was right that the verb 무섭다 (museopta) is confusing. I could never remember whether it means "to be scared" or "to be scary." It seemed like there were plenty of other similar pairs I had had trouble with, but I looked up 무섭다 many times.

At my lesson today, I brought it up with my teacher. Her answer: it can mean both, so my confusion is completely warranted. What a ... relief? Context determines what meaning is intended, and certain situations trigger different verb forms that prevent ambiguity. For instance:

괴물이 집에 왔는데 난 무서웠어! (A monster came to the house! I was scared/scary.) Only "scared" makes sense given the context. 

괴물이 무서워해. (A monster is scared/scary.) Because the (let's call it) 3rd-Person Internal State form of the verb is used—무서워 + 하다—the only possible interpretation is that this is a statement about the monster's internal state: The monster is scared. 

Then there's what happens when the adjectival form (무서운) is used, but I've already forgotten which meaning this suggests. "Scary," I think. 

(There might also be subject/topic nuances, too, but if so, I've forgotten them, and probably didn't understand them anyway.)

Korean Mnemonics 6: juniors and seniors

I have a hard time keeping the Korean words 선배 (seonbae "senior") and 후배 (hubae "junior") straight.

Then I remember (or try to remember) that seonbae and senior start with the same sound.

Sometimes it just takes a while for a word to sink in deep enough that no tricks are needed to keep it lodged firmly in memory. Multiply this problem by hundreds or thousands of tricky, easily confused or forgotten words, and it's a miracle anyone can ever learn another language. How many tricks and shortcuts will I need to come up with? And how am I supposed to remember them?

Listen to Ancient Languages

Have you ever (I mean "always") wanted to know what ancient languages actually sounded like? Here's your chance:

Are these accurate? How should I know? What do I look like, some kind of Proto-Indo-European guy? But it's still fascinating, just to imagine these long-dead tongues brought back to life.

That Thing

It's time for another misguided article in the New York Times about language and how terrible Americans are at it.

This go-around the subject is the @ symbol and what the heck we're supposed to call it. What most of us (most of us Americans) call it, of course, is "the at symbol." The reason for this puzzles the piece's author, which seems strange. I mean, wouldn't you think a journalist could spare fifteen seconds to look it up if he didn't already know? It's called "at" not because it's now most often used in email addresses to signify that So-and-so can be found at, say, the New York Times, but because it's short for "at the rate of" and it was originally used to indicate the rate at which something was charged: 2 lbs. of onions @ $0.69/lb. (Did he actually not know this?)

Anyway, back to the part that really bugs me. After going through the adorable names other languages use for @—in Danish it's elephant trunk A, in Hungarian it's worm, and so on—and being reminded that Americans are a bunch of dopes with no vision, no sense of wonder, we get this pronouncement from a real-live linguist:

"It just doesn't seem like it's a habit of ours as English speakers. If you want to go for some sort of very, very general cultural metaphor, we go for function while the other so-called artistic cultures take an immediately holistic view. Instead of 'What do you do and who are you?' it's more, 'What do you appear to be?'"

Where do you even start with this kind of thing?

First off, "Americans go for function" isn't a metaphor. It's a generalization. 

Second, how is it more "holistic" to name things according to their appearance rather than their function? Or was that word chosen only because it would let her fondle a pet prejudice? I think it's clear that she meant those other cultures (the "artistic" ones!) are clever and cute and charming, and boring-old Americans go for the obvious answer.

(The piece also mentions that quotation marks are called "goose eyes" in Danish and "little paws" in Belorussian. To which I say: Now, hold on. Are you telling me Danes and Belorussians never use more prosaic terms to name quotation marks? I don't buy it for one second.)

Even if we ignore the astounding fecundity of American slang and jargon and confine ourselves to typographical symbols and numbers, we easily see that the piece's thesis is absurd. Here are some "holistic" terms English-speakers use for numbers and typographical symbols:

0  Goose egg
† ‡  Dagger and double dagger
!   Bang
…  Dot-dot-dot (not very clever, no, but also not the functional flavor of boring mentioned in the piece)
“”  Curly quotes (then there are also smart quotes and dumb quotes)
•  Bullet
/  Slash (not something functional, like demarcator)
⌘  (the Apple command key symbol) called clover, pretzel, etc. 
And what about dingbat?

None of these are "functional." They all describe the appearance of the symbols—sometimes playfully—and thus put the lie to the idea that Americans are a bunch of by-the-numbers halfwits. And remember, this is looking only at symbols. Imagine the rich—and virtually endless—stream of jargon from sports, medicine, the military, government, and every other trade, profession, hobby, discipline, and subculture you can name. 

This linguistic abandon and invention was something H. L. Mencken hammered hard in his The American Language, from 1919.

[T]he American, on his linguistic side, likes to make his language as he goes along, and not all the hard work of his grammar teachers can hold the business back. A novelty loses nothing by the fact that it is a novelty; it rather gains something, and particularly if it meets the national fancy for the terse, the vivid, and, above all, the bold and imaginative. The characteristic American habit of reducing complex concepts to the starkest abbreviations was already noticeable in colonial times, and such highly typical Americanisms as O. K., N. G., and P. D. Q., have been traced back to the first days of the republic. Nor are the influences that shaped these early tendencies invisible today, for the country is still in process of growth, and no settled social order has yet descended upon it. Institution-making is yet going on, and so is language-making. [...] The American vulgate is not only constantly making new words, it is also deducing roots from them, and so giving proof, as Prof. Sayce says, that “the creative powers of language are even now not extinct.” 

But of more importance than its sheer inventions, if only because much more numerous, are its extensions of the vocabulary, both absolutely and in ready workableness, by the devices of rhetoric. The American, from the beginning, has been the most ardent of recorded rhetoricians. His politics bristles with pungent epithets; his whole history has been bedizened with tall talk; his fundamental institutions rest as much upon brilliant phrases as upon logical ideas. And in small things as in large he exercises continually an incomparable capacity for projecting hidden and often fantastic relationships into arresting parts of speech.

And then there's this:

American thus shows its character in a constant experimentation, a wide hospitality to novelty, a steady reaching out for new and vivid forms. […] It is producing new words every day, by trope, by agglutination, by the shedding of inflections, by the merging of parts of speech, and by sheer brilliance of imagination. […] One pictures the common materials of English dumped into a pot, exotic flavorings added, and the bubblings assiduously and expectantly skimmed. What is old and respected is already in decay the moment it comes into contact with what is new and vivid. “When we Americans are through with the English language,” says Mr. Dooley, “it will look as if it had been run over by a musical comedy.” Let American confront a novel problem alongside English, and immediately its superior imaginativeness and resourcefulness become obvious. Movie is better than cinema; and the English begin to admit the fact by adopting the word; it is not only better American, it is better English.Bill-board is better than hoarding. Officeholder is more honest, more picturesque, more thoroughly Anglo-Saxon than public-servant. Stem-winder somehow has more life in it, more fancy and vividness, than the literal keyless-watch. Turn to the terminology of railroading (itself, by the way, an Americanism): its creation fell upon the two peoples equally, but they tackled the job independently. The English, seeking a figure to denominate the wedge-shaped fender in front of a locomotive, called it a plough; the Americans, characteristically, gave it the far more pungent name of cow-catcher. So with the casting where two rails join. The English called it a crossing-plate. The Americans, more responsive to the suggestion in its shape, called it a frog.

But that's only H. L. Mencken talking.

You know, it's practically a law: Every generalization about a particular language variety or its speakers is completely wrong. It's true: we call @ by something pretty darn functional. What's your point?

Addendum: I realize now that I might have climbed onto my hobby horse a little prematurely. The piece didn't make a distinction between Americans and other English-speakers. It made a (spurious) distinction between English-speakers and the speakers of other languages. All that Mencken stuff up there is still true—and still worth reading—but not quite as super-duper relevant as I had thought.