One of the more interesting words in English language is this one. This article will not use that word simply because I have an aversion to using it in general, but especially in a public forum. Instead, I will use the word Frack. It loses some of the strength of the invective, but if you do the translation, you'll get the general idea of where I'm going. Do the translation everywhere you see the word Frack.
This article is not so much about the word, because the Wikipedia article to which I pointed you already has a very fascinating write-up. This article is more about a grammatical nuance that profanity seems to bring to English. I noticed it while I was trying to think of a motto for myself. (Hey, I was out walking and was bored out of my mind. What else was I supposed to be thinking about?) Anyway, the motto I decided I liked best was Frack the Obstacles. (But transposed inappropriately, as mentioned.) I was going to ask a friend of mine to translate this into Latin for me. But as I thought it through, I realized that the translation was very important and had to convey the rancor of the vituperation. I wondered first if there was the vulgar equivalent in Latin, then I wondered how he would conjugate it.
To explain why that is important, I need to back up a little further to the reason why the motto appeals to me. It starts with myself and a different friend pulling into a parking space. A small tree overhung the space and my truck was really too large to fit there. However, heedless, I pulled forward all the way into the spot. The limbs of the tree screeched against the side of my truck. A mass of leaves pressed against the windshield. My friend laughed and said, “Frack that tree.”
That's how I felt as I was walking and thinking about mottoes. Frack that tree. Frack whatever is trying to stop me. I'm going where I'm going to go, and nothing is going to stop me.
Back to conjugation. There is concept in English that allows for a sentence fragment if the subject is understood. For example, if I say, “Go to hell,” the subject You is understood. If I were to translate that into another language, I would use the conjugation that implies You. For example, ¡Vas al diablo!
Unfortunately Frack is not so easy to translate. Frack that tree does not carry the same meaning as You frack that tree. The sentence Frack you! does not seem to be as effective as You frack you! (Although it is quite effective when transposed to Go frack yourself! It just seems to have a subtly different meaning.) There is one famous line in history that has a similar meaning and phrasing. Damn the torpedoes. Full speed ahead!† I think the understood subject Everybody would work just as well. Everybody damn the torpedoes – full speed ahead! But again, that doesn't translate with frack that tree. I also wondered if the subject is understood to be self referencing. That is, I frack that tree. While closer, I am pretty sure it simply isn't true. That's not what I would mean if I said it.
The truth is that the tree is irrelevant or worse. By saying, frack that tree, I'm saying that the value of the tree is of no consequence to me. I'm saying that the tree's wishes are of no consequence to me. In fact, I hold the tree in such high contempt that I will make a conscious effort to frustrate that tree's efforts to inhibit me – even if going around or making a small adjustment would be easier for me. It holds more malice than the statement, I don't give a frack about that tree.
This leads me to the conclusion that there is a sentence structure that is allowable in English even though it has no subject. The subject is not understood. The subject is non-existent. Furthermore, it may be that the only time that this is true is when we use the verb form of Frack.
That said, there are two types of feedback I would like from the thousands of people who don't read this blog. The first would be from grammar wonks. What do you think of my conclusion? Does this warrant another exception in the English language? The second from students of Latin. Is there a translation that carries the full connotation behind phrases like Damn the torpedoes and Frack the Obstacles?
†It turns out that the linked Wikipedia article shows that this is a misquotation of the quote on record. Read it for yourself and see. The original quote could have the understood subject of you as it is a direct order from the admiral.
Showing posts with label language. Show all posts
Showing posts with label language. Show all posts
August 17, 2013
March 18, 2012
Culture Shock - Hospital iZation
Yesterday I spoke with a friend who had been to India for several weeks as part of a Rotary Club outreach. She indicated that she had met a gentleman who had lost his family in a plane crash and subsequently started a hospital in India.
It was a touching story, but there was a strange twist that I was having trouble following. Several times, instead of simply calling it a hospital, she called it an iHospital. For the life of me, I could not figure out how this worked. Was this some new technology by Apple? Was this an online method of working on patients? Unfortunately, I was so caught up in this, that I missed some of what she was saying and ended up destroying the heart warming nature of the story with my big reveal.
As the story progressed, it became clear to me that I was missing something very important. It turns out that this iHospital has several iDoctors who were helping out somewhere in the neighborhood of 150 iPatients a day.
That's when I realized my error. She was talking about an Eye Hospital. Yeah, I shared my ignorance, and we had a good laugh.
I blame Steve Jobs.
It was a touching story, but there was a strange twist that I was having trouble following. Several times, instead of simply calling it a hospital, she called it an iHospital. For the life of me, I could not figure out how this worked. Was this some new technology by Apple? Was this an online method of working on patients? Unfortunately, I was so caught up in this, that I missed some of what she was saying and ended up destroying the heart warming nature of the story with my big reveal.
As the story progressed, it became clear to me that I was missing something very important. It turns out that this iHospital has several iDoctors who were helping out somewhere in the neighborhood of 150 iPatients a day.
That's when I realized my error. She was talking about an Eye Hospital. Yeah, I shared my ignorance, and we had a good laugh.
I blame Steve Jobs.
February 7, 2011
Isn't It Ironic?
It bugs me that the English dictionary is descriptive and not prescriptive. And yet, people still treat it as if it were. The phrase, "look it up" seems to trump a great many arguments. In fact, to my knowledge, there is no accepted authority for the definition of words. English is an adaptive language. If the populous misuses a word often enough, sooner or later, it will appear in the dictionary with the misused definition right there beside it.
I was discussing the definition of ironic with a fellow ponderer. After a good deal of discussion, and because I was seen as an authority, we decided that the definition of the word indicated a sense of expecting a certain outcome from a certain action and achieving the totally opposite result. For example: If you put up a sign that says don't look up, the intent is that you don't want people to look up. But the irony is that the sign will actually cause people to look up.
It took a good deal of discussion to dissuade my compatriot of the notion that ironic meant coincidental. He would say, "Isn't it ironic that when you were talking about bananas, a banana commercial came on TV?!?" No, that isn't ironic. That's a coincidence. I can see how the term can become synonymous with coincidence because the two go hand-in-hand. One incident is the one which is intended to cause the expected or perhaps predicted result. The other incident is the actual occurance of the opposite result. These incidents work in conjunction with each other and therefore coincide.
So today, I went to an Internet dictionary to see how exactly the definition of ironic should be phrased. What did I find? Two references to irony and a reference to coincidence. I didn't find the definition I expected until defnition #6 behind irony. The word appears to be more strongly correlated with sarcasm but is still a notion of opposing expectations.
So, I looked up ironic and found that it was defined in a way I didn't expect. That's ironic. The fact that I was actually looking up the word ironic when it happened is...well...ironic (coincidental). The fact that I just said ironic instead of coincidence is also ironic (sarcasm).
Blah. Language evolution is frustrating. I would use a dead language if using it wouldn't corrupt it by bringing it back to life.
Notice in the definition of irony that coincidence is not mentioned. This implies that the use of ironic to mean coincidental truly a corruption of the meaning. So, I'm still right even if the dictionary says I'm wrong. So there.
Recently Watched: The Philidelphia Experiment, Dirty Jobs, Jim Henson's Storyteller, Jackie Chan Adventure Series
I was discussing the definition of ironic with a fellow ponderer. After a good deal of discussion, and because I was seen as an authority, we decided that the definition of the word indicated a sense of expecting a certain outcome from a certain action and achieving the totally opposite result. For example: If you put up a sign that says don't look up, the intent is that you don't want people to look up. But the irony is that the sign will actually cause people to look up.
It took a good deal of discussion to dissuade my compatriot of the notion that ironic meant coincidental. He would say, "Isn't it ironic that when you were talking about bananas, a banana commercial came on TV?!?" No, that isn't ironic. That's a coincidence. I can see how the term can become synonymous with coincidence because the two go hand-in-hand. One incident is the one which is intended to cause the expected or perhaps predicted result. The other incident is the actual occurance of the opposite result. These incidents work in conjunction with each other and therefore coincide.
So today, I went to an Internet dictionary to see how exactly the definition of ironic should be phrased. What did I find? Two references to irony and a reference to coincidence. I didn't find the definition I expected until defnition #6 behind irony. The word appears to be more strongly correlated with sarcasm but is still a notion of opposing expectations.
So, I looked up ironic and found that it was defined in a way I didn't expect. That's ironic. The fact that I was actually looking up the word ironic when it happened is...well...ironic (coincidental). The fact that I just said ironic instead of coincidence is also ironic (sarcasm).
Blah. Language evolution is frustrating. I would use a dead language if using it wouldn't corrupt it by bringing it back to life.
Notice in the definition of irony that coincidence is not mentioned. This implies that the use of ironic to mean coincidental truly a corruption of the meaning. So, I'm still right even if the dictionary says I'm wrong. So there.
Recently Watched: The Philidelphia Experiment, Dirty Jobs, Jim Henson's Storyteller, Jackie Chan Adventure Series
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