Hi, my name's Holly, and I'm a language geek

[cosmolinguist]

When I was little, I had a hard time looking up anything in the dictionary.

I had a tendency to get distracted along the way, you see. There was so often something, on a page I was meant to be merely flipping past, that would catch my eye. Some word would snag my attention and entice me to find out what it was. I'd read it and, some new fresh bit of knowledge in my head, often smile ... and only then would I remember that I was meant to look up something else all along. Usually I could remember that original word, but sometimes I didn't.

A while ago I was reminded of this and I thought Well, I seem to grown out of that; I don't think I do it any more. I congratulated myself on my improvements in focus or attention span or whatever it was that I'd been lacking.

But later I realized the terrible truth: I never looked things up in books by the time I got to college. There I could access the OED online, there I used Google for anything I could have looked up in an encyclopedia (and a lot of things I couldn't have!).

Typing in a little text box means you don't have to trek to the library in the rain or worry about not being able to find the book you really want. It means you'll never spill coffee that makes the ink run and the bindings will never come unglued.

It also means you miss out on the stuff language geeks like to rhapsodize about: the feel and smell and presence of books as tangible things with margins to write in or words to highlight.

But that's not what I'm here to talk about (this time), tonight I need only remind you that typing in a little text box means you have no pages to flip through, no intervening words to tantalize you away from your intended goal.

And I was right in suspecting that it was a change of medium and not a change in me that had brought about this seeming increase in determination as I grew up. I remember, last spring, looking through the glossary of my Old English textbook for help in my translations and finding some words too irresistable to pass by. uuiþ?! What the hell is that?! ... oh, just "with" but with the w actually written as two u's, is that all? Hey, that's kind of cool, actually... And just last night I dragged out my giant Norton Anthology of Poetry and came across this by some guy I'd never heard of, when I was looking for some guy I had heard of. It's called "In Paris with You," and it goes like this:

Don’t talk to me of love. I’ve had an earful
And I get tearful when I’ve downed a drink or two.
I’m one of your talking wounded.
I’m a hostage. I’m maroonded.
But I’m in Paris with you.

Yes, I’m angry at the way I’ve been bamboozled
And resentful at the mess that I’ve been through.
I admit I’m on the rebound
And I don’t care where are we bound.
I’m in Paris with you.

Do you mind if we do not go to the Louvre,
If we say sod off to sodding Notre Dame
If we skip the Champs Elysées
And remain here in this sleazy
Old hotel room
Doing this or that
To what and whom
Learning who you are,
Learning what I am.

Don’t talk to me of love. Let’s talk of Paris,
The little bit of Paris in our view.
There’s that crack across the ceiling
And the hotel walls are peeling
And I’m in Paris with you.

Don’t talk to me of love. Let’s talk of Paris.
I’m in Paris with the slightest thing you do.
I’m in Paris with your eyes, your mouth,
I’m in Paris with...all points south.
Am I embarrassing you?
I’m in Paris with you.

That makes me happy.

Comments

[karaksindru.livejournal.com]

Your icon looks vaguely inappropraite... Not to detract from the content of the post ...

[cosmolinguist]

I thought that myself, though I do try to use it sparingly (partly because it seems to freak some people out) and when it makes sense, but it just seemed to fit with this tale, perhaps because of the geekiness and lust inherent in liking books for sentimental reasons. :-)

[paninogirl.livejournal.com]

The fingers look scarier than the way she's holding the mouse, actually...

[cosmolinguist]

Well, I don't think I meant "scary" so much as "eye-catching" or "shocking" ... or, as Andrew said, "please make something else your default icon, so I don't get in trouble for looking at your LJ at work." :-) I have gottena few comments along those lines. Other than his, I mean.

[tempter.livejournal.com]

Oh, that's a mouse.

Yeah, that looks much dirtier when you don't know that.

[cosmolinguist]

The fact that it is a mouse is what I like so much about it. :-D

[bernmarx.livejournal.com]

Une souris, pas une chatte.

(Yes, it works in English, too, but it's so much less vulgar in French. :) )

[tempter.livejournal.com]

Heh. Very cute. :) Is it really less vulgar in French, though?

And I thought you used a different word to refer to the computer component in French than 'souris', but I can't recall just what.

[bernmarx.livejournal.com]

I seem to remember that, too, but Apple Canada uses "souris":

Oubliez tous les câbles qui encombrent votre bureau grâce aux connexions sans fil pour Internet, votre clavier, votre souris ou votre téléphone portable. (Source (http://www.apple.com/ca/fr/imac/))

[E]liminate the desktop clutter of unnecessary cables with wireless connections to the Internet, your keyboard, mouse or cell phone. (Source (http://www.apple.com/ca/imac/))

I don't know if Mac actually has a knowledgable translator, though. (That's the first instance I found; Dell Canada, oddly, avoids translating "keyboard and mouse" altogether.)

And everything sounds less vulgar in French. :)

[tempter.livejournal.com]

And everything sounds less vulgar in French. :)

Especially to non-Francophones. You could talk about washing your car and it sounds sensual. French is great for that. =)

[cosmolinguist]

That you thought of using Apple Canada as a source amuses me.

Unless you're just from Canada, or something.

[bernmarx.livejournal.com]

No, I'm from Detroit, but I oversee the fielding of Canadian and Mexican market research studies. So it's very top-of-mind for me that most major Canadian companies have identical English and French websites. :)

I hear ya

[newwaytowrite.livejournal.com]

I too fumble through dictionaries in the book form and get lost in the pages enroute to what I am looking for all the time.

I too now use the OED online. I am totally obsessed with the thing. I get so much more from it -in terms of the word I am looking for at the time.

I would just like to say that the way to really increase your vocabulary is when reading something and you come across a word you don't understand.

1st. write down what you think in means
2nd. then look up the proper meaning
You may be surprised how much you do actually know just by virtue of context and prior knowledge.

It is alway fun.

Well, fun in that geeky literature kind of way.

[dyddgu.livejournal.com]

Who wrote the poem? It's lovely...
I seem to have forgotten to read poetry for enjoyment's sake. :(

[cosmolinguist]

Oh dear; I shouldn't have left that out! :-) Didn't mean to. His name is James Fenton. What little I've read of his other poetry seems cool as well.

[hitchhiker.livejournal.com]

Fenton's absolutely brilliant, and each of his brilliant poems is brilliant in a different way.

[cosmolinguist]

I don't usually find poetry enjoyable (less so since evil_grapefruit ran off with my copy of The Outlaw Bible of American Poetry, which was full of enjoyable poems), but occasionally I'll have a day or two where I like it again. In small doses, for the most part.

[ruudboy.livejournal.com]

Hi. Did you see this (http://www.livejournal.com/users/ruudboy/227546.html?thread=758490#t758490)?

[moominmolly.livejournal.com]

:) Thanks for pointing me here. I think I partly love obscure areas of knowledge just because of the books I still have to use. And it's a very fun poem.

[ladyperegrine.livejournal.com]

Beautiful post! Thanks for sharing.

[new-iconoclast.livejournal.com]

I'd pay more attention to your post but I'm busy chain-browsing links in Wikipedia. ;)

I like the poem!

[cosmolinguist]

I love Wikipedia, too; that's the thing. Just like I love digital music, yet go on about cassettes. So maybe I'm a hypocrite, but at least I have a good time.

[starcat-jewel.livejournal.com]

A quotation of which I'm fond, but can't remember who said it:

"A dull person is one who opens the encyclopedia, goes straight to the item he's looking for, reads the article, closes the book, and walks off."

[cosmolinguist]

I don't even know if I'd be capable of that. :-) I'm dull in many ways, I think, but I don't have such restraint.

[parakleta.livejournal.com]

I've started using the various libraries on campus at my university recently, since I have so much to read for my course that isn't available online (my previous degree, CS and Mathematics, can be done almost entirely online). It's really amazing how many cool books there are, and I find that I look up the call number on the computers, head to that section of the library, and end up browsing that entire row looking at similar books. I'm even starting to find sections of the library that I enjoy hanging out in (793.74).