The Ancients in Their Own Words Book

I've been a word geek for as long as I can remember. Big words, little words, in or out of context - they fascinate and delight me. Those lists of weirdly specific phobias , bizarre methods of divining the future , beastly adjectives , crash blossoms -- they keep me entertained for days. In line at the post office, I make up words in my head, or concoct fake but amusing typos. I construct weird little ditties which then stick in my head like the hook of a power ballad by REO Speedwagon.

To someone with a word addiction, the internet presents a constant, boundless, temptation. All those time sinks, the verbal equivalent of YouTube for logophiles, we have them all bookmarked. What's that you say, somewhere there's a list of all the words that David Foster Wallace had circled in his dictionary? How could a person not go visit? Before you know it, another hour wasted, hungry cats circling, and the dishes still not done.

But my interest in words and language is strictly that of an amateur. That's why you won't find me writing books on the topic. I have your typical INTJ's respect for technical competence, which is to say that I expect someone who writes a book about a given subject to know something about it. This is obviously a very regressive view, in an age where everyone's an expert on everything, courtesy of Wikipedia. But you know, people with an amateur interest in physics, or astronomy, or some other "hard" science generally have enough awareness of their own limitations to stop them from writing books on quantum physics or string theory. Amateur wordlovers and armchair linguists, on the other hand, apparently feel no such inhibition. After all, they've been using words their entire life, so why shouldn't they write a book?

Two particular topics seem to hold a fatal attraction for armchair wordlovers. The first I'll call "folk etymology". Since uninformed speculation about the origins of common words and phrases is free and easy, almost anyone can come up with a rambling script that (choose one):
1. purports to establish that virtually every English slang term in current use is derived from a Gaelic/Sanskrit/Klingon root (take your pick)
2. perpetuates the usual grab bag of linguistic urban legends that pollute the internet
3. adds another two cents to the mountain of rampant speculation about the origins of a handful of expressions that might reasonably be termed "the usual suspects".
It is mandatory for books in the third category to include at least four pages of tedious speculation about the origins of the term "OK", just as it is customary to pad those in the second category with demonstrably false (mis)information presented as fact (rule of thumb is related to wife-beating, posh is an acronym for "port out, starboard home" on ships to India, news is an acronym signifying "North-East-West-South, saved by the bell originated with precautions taken by people who feared being buried alive, and other popular linguistic urban legends). The canonical example in the first category is the appalling, shameful, How the Irish Invented Slang, a monument to a certain kind of sloppy "scholarship" so wilfully anti-intellectual it flirts with mental retardation. The basic fallacy is an inability (or unwillingness) to distinguish between random similarities in spelling and a genuine etymological connection, leading to such obviously bogus claims as the statement that "jazz" and "bunkum" have Gaelic roots. A (relatively restrained) debunking may be found at this link.

The second lexicological McGuffin is the slippery concept of "words in other languages that have no exact equivalent in English", often referred to as being "untranslatable". This is like catnip to word-fanciers; in addition to Christopher Moore's book, there are several others out there with the same basic premise. Howard Rheingold's They Have a Word for It dates back to 1988; in 2005, an English author called Adam Jacot de Boinod came out with "The meaning of Tingo" in similar vein, and subsequently followed it with a sequel, "The Wonder of Whiffling". Books in this general category all follow the same approximate formula - lists of putatively untranslatable words in various languages, interspersed with comments by the author of varying length and insight. They all face the same fundamental challenge, not always successfully - since the author cannot possibly master every language for which an example is quoted, he cannot guarantee accuracy of content based on personal knowledge and is forced to rely on external sources.

It doesn't always work out as well as you might hope. "The Meaning of Tingo", for example, is generally recognized to be riddled with inaccuracies; a distressingly high proportion of entries have no discernible basis in fact and are, at best, amusing flights of fancy. This inconvenient truth is not acknowledged explicitly by the author, but becomes clear if one reads the comments at the author's website, or reviews of the book at Amazon. There are a few warning signs, however - an uncritical embracing of the linguistic urban legend involving the number of Eskimo words for snow, inclusion of the Russian (non)-word for falling out of love, "razliubit", as well as a generally unquestioning tone of acceptance that borders on the naive.

I regret to report that Christopher Moore's contribution to this particular sub-genre is also notable for its general air of credulity. His scholarly approach appears to have been little more than to find and ask one native speaker for each of a variety of languages. The results are amusing, but don't inspire much confidence. There is a suspiciously high number of words of alleged Scandinavian and Teutonic origin which purport to describe the unique sense of "coziness at home" felt by inhabitants of the Netherlands, Denmark, Germany, Sweden, Norway - it makes a person wonder if there isn't some kind of concerted conspiracy by inhabitants of these countries to present a more positive view of life in winter than can realistically thought plausible. "Razliubit" also makes an appearance, with no indication that its status as genuine is mired in controversy. And, in the one area where I have some personal ability to make a judgment, I estimated that about half the words of "celtic" origin included were problematic in some way. But then the introductory sentence to that chapter gives a clear indication of where the problems are likely to lie, not just for the chapter, but for the entire book:

"Gaelic is an ancient Celtic tongue with an oral tradition that spans almost two thousand years and reflects a crofting lifestyle that remained virtually unchanged in all that time."

The magical, mystical celtic twilight strikes again! With this sentence Moore unwittingly points out the flaw that undermines his own endeavor - ultimately the kind of "untranslatable word" that is likely to make it into his book is that which confirms whatever preexisting romantic notion he has about the language and people concerned, accuracy be damned.

But then I realize that this is the unavoidable flaw in every book in this category. If it bothers you, steer clear. If not, be my guest - you may find these books funny and diverting. Just please ingest with a few grains of salt.