A Matter of Semantics

Eponymns ("Coke" is sometimes used to refer to all soda, "Band-aid" to all bandages)

In my old(ish) age of 67, I have become more and more enamored of the quirks and vagaries of language. I subscribe to several “Word of the Day” emails, and try hard to incorporate these gems into my vocab--even when they stick out like the proverbial sore thumb. I mean, WHO casually drops words like "asyndeton" (no conjunction between parts of a sentence) into their conversation? Even though I frequently write this way: I woke, I worked, I worried?

 

Then there are the “nyms,” all of which fascinate me:

 

Homonyms--pronounced same, different meanings (bear, bright-- and that’s just some B’s)

Synonyms--different words mean the same (happy, joyful)

Antonyms—words that mean the opposite of one another (gleeful, miserable)

Heteronyms—words that are spelled the same and pronounced differently (bass the fish and bass the instrument)

Metonyms—word standing in for a word to which it’s closely associated (“brass” for “military”)

Acronyms--LOL, ROFL, FOMO, and so forth. GMAB!*Give Me A Break. (I made that one up)

Hyponyms—one word used as part of a whole (football/sports).

 

But my favorite “nym” is the aptronym. This describes people whose names coincidentally describe their jobs. You know, Mr. Cook works in a—restaurant. Dr. Payne is a—dentist. Ms. Taylor is a--legendary movie star (JK, Ms. Taylor works as a—seamstress). Bob “Barker”, the longtime host of “The Price is Right," hawking washing machines and sports cars. “Pope” Francis, an actual pontiff! A fun fact: even as a tiny tot, Francis' mates would call out, “Hey Pope! Give us back our football (soccer ball)!” Being the pope and all, he probably climbed into his mini Popemobile and pedaled away, holding the soccer (foot) ball, smiling and waving in Italian.

 

If we could choose our aptronymical names, I’d probably be Mrs. Wright (er). Stevo would be Mr. Player (acting, acting!), and Sher and Yaj would be the Tunes. But ours is not a perfect world, so we are just Seyfrieds, which means “peaceful victory.” That’s a little lame, don’t you think? I prefer snatching victory from defeat’s crushing jaws; “peaceful victory” sounds like two warring nations just gradually losing interest, yawning, and drifting away from the battlefield.

 

Not sure where this later in life passion for the minutiae of grammar comes from. I’ve been a writer for decades, with no real curiosity about semantics (study of meaning in language) at all. Why care now? 

 

I can only surmise (Word of the Day!) that, as my sojourn here on Earth grows shorter, I am examining every aspect of my existence, to plumb it all for true meaning before it’s too late. 

Now, if you’ll excuse me, I’m trying to build a case for my new, invented category--the goofynym. Goofynyms are words relating to either silly behavior, or Disney’s A Goofy Movie's eponymous character (dog? Or..what?) 

 

Eponymous: a person/thing which has something named after them. Bingo! I just used Wednesday’s Word of the Day! (Peaceful) victory is mine!

Usain "Bolt" (get it?), world's fastest man

Close, But No Cigar

My sister and me with our grandfather. Pop smoked
MULTIPLE cigars daily, but we weren't at all close. Go figure?

There’s a term for unique words and phrases used within families—utterances that’d baffle anyone outside the group. “Familect” (family dialect—get it?) has been called a comfort language, reflecting a family’s history. How adorbs, thought I! We Seyfrieds must have a treasure trove of these gems—a veritable familect dictionary! 

Imagine my disappointment when I came up empty. Oh, sure, my kids said some really cute things when they were little, but nothing that became a shared catchphrase in the clan. The closest we came was “bitty back” which referred to the rear-most seats in our station wagon. Another slight oddity—we had, for decades, a pink-hued chair in our family room. Whenever it was referenced, it was called, quite formally, “the rose-colored chair,” (even in its dotage, when it was far closer to “the muddy brown chair”). This was the only piece of furniture we ever called by its color. 

But these don’t quite fill the bill. I wonder, now that our gang includes newly-hatched Dimitri: can I subtly introduce something familect-ish? Maybe I can start calling our fridge a “frigimator”, or shoes “toe homes.” Alas, familects cannot be imposed, so for us, it’s probably too late.

 

We were delighted to celebrate our Patrick’s engagement to lovely Ashlyn over the weekend, with Ash’s big clan—and many of our fam too. It was heartwarming to observe how close her family is—the five sisters see each other all the time, and are always doing fun things together. At brunch, Ashlyn’s mom mentioned that she would love to buy some property and build a family compound, upon which each of them could construct a house. I asked my daughters if they’d enjoy something similar, and if horror had a facial expression, it would be Rose’s. We are lucky indeed to have Sheridan, Ya-Jhu and their kids in residence, but in my wildest dreams I cannot picture all of my offspring happily residing next door to each other.

 

A phrase used often by my dad was “close, but no cigar.” This referred to near-misses in life, and had its origin in traveling carnivals of the early 1900s. When a grownup would win a game of chance, the barker would award them a cigar  (those fabulous bygone days of lung cancer encouragement!) If they missed the target, well: “close, but no cigar.” 

 

No familect, no compound (no daily phoning or texting either). So, are we Seyfrieds close, but no cigar?

 

I believe we are close enough to suit us. Our mutual affection is never in question, and when we’re together we always have a blast. In anyone’s time of need, we all rally around. I cherish, not only my individual relationships with them, but theirs with each other. We may not have a familect, but we speak the same language of laughter and love nonetheless.

 

Though maybe...if I win the lottery and buy land in the south of France? Would that lure everyone into building adjoining chateaux? 

Probably “mais non.”

Chateau du Seyfried? 
photo by Dorian Mongel on Unsplash

(Potato) Chip on My Shoulder

photo by Ron Lach on Pexels

For a family that consumed as much junk food as we did, I don’t have many childhood memories of potato chips. I must’ve eaten them on occasion as a (tater) tot. But it wasn’t until my teens that I really began crunching and munching (you know, during my sojourn in Zit City, the perfect time to consume quantities of greasy snacks). 

 

I quickly discovered that, while I would never dream of eating a thousand M&Ms, the same restraint did not apply to Ruffles (I had a definite preference for chips with ridges). And so, I tried to steer clear of this salty temptation. As the years passed, the up-scale chip made an appearance when dining out--the kettle-cooked, multi-colored, all-natural product that garnished my pricey restaurant sandwich (avocadoes, artisanal cheese and locally-sourced alfalfa sprouts). Based on total meal cost, these went for about a buck a chip.

 

I rarely purchased Wise or Lay’s when my kids were growing up, and my current chip budget remains low. These days I am more curious about chip lore, than taste. Herewith, a couple of random crumbs I’ve gathered…

 

Did you know that medically fragile people are sometimes called “potato chips”? This refers to their vulnerability when it comes to having certain operations; their precarious state of health puts them at greater surgical risk. I do not count myself as one of these folks YET, but I’m sure there’ll come a day when I overhear an M.D. refer to me thusly. I hope to accept my future chippiness graciously, although I’d vastly prefer being called “a delicate Limoges teacup” (maybe I’ll add that to my chart, along with my DNR).

 

During my European travels, I have been to Ireland, England and Scotland. Along with wrong-side-of-the-road driving, my biggest adjustment occurred at mealtime. Hamburger and--chips? No, they’re French fries! Bag of potato chips? Nope! Crisps! I find this stubborn refusal to call potato preparations by their proper names very annoying, and wish they’d all just agree with us Americans. While we’re at it, they should also jettison that pesky metric system, and talk instead about miles per hour and pints in quarts. Good riddance to liters (except for soda, naturally!) These stark differences, I feel certain, led directly to our declaration of independence way back when. Sorry, King George, no one tells US what to call our gallon of milk! And what’s up with the “pound”? In the U.K. having a huge amount of them means one can buy an expensive sports car. Here in America, it means one should step away from the potato chips—I mean crisps—I mean—now you’ve got me all confused! 

 

I’ve been sending pitches to a food history magazine recently, researching everything from pasta puttanesca (THAT’s a spicy story) to the inventor of chocolate mousse (the artist Toulouse-Lautrec!) Every issue has a theme; they’ve yet to tackle famous potato snack offerings.

 

But when they do, I’ll be ready to scribble! Let the chips fall where they may. 

Sound Affects

 

image by Gordon Johnson on Pixabay (after Munch's "The Scream")

“Yeeeeargggghhhh!” 

 If you’ve ever heard that particular, blood-curdling scream, in the movies or on TV, you may have wondered about its origin story. No? Well, here it is anyway (whether you want it or not😊). There’s a scene in the 1951 movie Distant Drums, where a character is attacked by an alligator. The accompanying shriek, which has been named for the character Private Wilhelm in the later film The Charge at Feather River, became a very famous sound effect. It has been sampled more than 400 times, and can be heard in Star Wars, Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom, Toy Story, Pirates of the Caribbean, Lethal Weapon, etc. It’s really bone-chilling; in fact, I suggest that the makers of pepper spray and other bad-guy deterrents, program it into their devices. Imagine the effect it would have on a would-be mugger! “No, no! Anything but the scream!!!!” (runs away).

 

“Chuckle. Hahahahaha. Ho ho ho ho ho!”

 

If you’ve ever watched a sitcom, you’ve heard that long eruption of delight from the “audience,” when a character says or does something funny. So prevalent was the laugh track, that it was jarring to watch a comedy without one (nowadays, they are rare.) The thought behind the track was that if you were home alone watching, you’d be much more apt to howl with mirth with the cue of fellow laughers (comedy loves company?) Imagine Leave it to Beaver without a laugh track! Would we KNOW that Eddie Haskell was a regular riot? Legend has it that a specific canned laugh track from I Love Lucy is still in circulation, even though those laughers are very likely in the Big TV Studio in the Sky by now. Turns out that is not strictly true—Lucy used only its live studio audiences’ actual laughter. But that live laughter WAS recorded, and was used again in other shows.

 

After Rose graduated from Berklee with a degree in sound production, some early jobs involved “Foley” (named for film sound pioneer Jack Foley). She would be tasked with creating sounds such as footsteps and creaking doors, to be added to movies in post-production (real steps and door creaking in the scene were often too faint to be picked up). Rose’s out of that biz now, but I bet she could still come up with some cool audio effects -- “once a Foley artist…” after all.

 

How do sound effects, affect us? I remember performing our children’s shows in elementary schools. We wrote them to get laughs, but often the principal would introduce us by saying, “Now I don’t want to hear ONE PEEP! Welcome our guests, boys and girls!” and the confused but obedient kids would sit in total silence the whole show. You haven’t been mortified until you go onstage dressed as a giant dog, and NO ONE LAUGHS.

 

So, don’t be afraid to make some noise (joyful, terrified)! And who knows? YOUR voice could be captured for posterity—maybe for Die Hard 30!