Will someone vouchsafe to me the name of a writer and his or her works in which the author describes the attributes of food. Also, where can I find a list of words that describe the attributes--smell, taste, texture, sight--of food?

A tad off topic, but what about Patrick Suskind's Perfume - wonderfully descriptive in the 'smell' arena and not a little disturbing!

Your first topic (and most others you or anyone could ever dream up) will likely be found through Google.
For your second, please go here and click on the link in the opening post. This is an amazing resource page for which I once again offer my thanks to MaxQ.

There was a wonderful food writer by the name of M.F.K. Fischer (or Fisher). She examined the cultural, social and, yes, the spiritual relevance of food. Her works can be found in public libraries and in discerning book shops.

Happy birthday Bohemian_Cur. : )


(Or, if it's not your birthday, why is there a birthday cake next to your name?)

Excuse my pedantry if you do not like pedantry. Today is the nine-teenth anniversary of my birthday. I am now nine-teen years.

You'll outgrow it, Cur. Or either you'll become obnoxious in your old age.

Signed,
former young know-it-all pedant

The problem with the whole take on pedantry, as I have been experiencing it, is that the one half who call another a pedant with negative connotations do so because they either have not employed themselves to study, or have not the understanding to be one themselves, or at least respect the studious kind for their understanding. The other half, where I might put myself, are irritated by those who do not understand. If there is a feud, it is because the one half does not understand and the other half is not understood. Slang is sluggish; because the world calls one's anniversary their birthday does not make me a obnoxious for correcting. They are wrong; it is not difficult to call it what it simply is: one's anniversary. Maybe the hatred of pedantry spawns from the growing characteristic of being lazy and stupid. My mother constantly yells at me when I tell her double negatives are horrid. If she knew the word, she might call me a pedant. "You know what I mean, all the same. Just shut up!" I usually hear more for telling her why superfluous prepositions are worse. Eh... I will be hated, but I will be correct. And the pure joy of being servile to truth might deem me an artist, a lonely one it seems, but I cannot reason to do otherwise.

"Truth is the only master to serve. Serve her and damn the multitude!"


Am I mad?

If you call the anniversary of your birth your anniversary you will not be understood. There are too many things that an anniversary could be an anniversary of. If it doesn't bother you that people don't understand you when you refer to the anniversary of your birth as your anniversary, fine. If you wish to be understood you should at least refer to it as the anniversary of your birth. You could also call it your birthday and people will understand you. To insist on obsolete usages at the expense of understanding is just nice.

Was yesterday my birthday? No. To call it my birthday would make me one day old. That persons resort to such strange usages of language is silly. If calling yesterday my nine-teenth anniversary is obsolete, then the new is wrong and the old is best--in this case, at least; and if persons do not understand me when I say that, they clearly are ignorant of something that should be generally known.

My parents were married 19 years ago, and tomorrow will be the first day of their 20th year. Is tomorrow their wedding day? Ha! No. Silly conventions are just that: silly.

You are, of course, using 'silly' in its correct meaning of 'blessed.'

Silly conventions are just that: silly.

"Language is a system of silly conventions from outer space." Lori Borgia Driveway or Parkway? (1961).

Why do you park in a driveway, but drive on a parkway? - Steven Wright

You remind me a lot of Curinor, B.C. Y'all two should hook up. Hang in there: to me, anyway, a precocious 19-year-old language pedant beats the hell out of a kid who can only spell txt-wise.

btw, 'sup with the hyphen in nine-teen? I'm quite the fan of hyphens, but.

"My mother constantly yells at me when I tell her double negatives are horrid. If she knew the word, she might call me a pedant. 'You know what I mean, all the same. Just shut up!'"

Ouch!
"...constantly yells at me when I tell her double negatives are horrid." Then stop saying that within her hearing. And consider that you are opting for your version of English and ignoring the musicality of American regional speech and the wonderous aptness of many social dialects.

If she knew the word, she might call me a pedant.
Mercy! Surely you don't really intend to demean your Mother's intelligence. After all, she probably provided your first exposure to speech and language.

Logical multiple negative:

I couldn't fail to disagree with you.

Emphatic multiple negative:

I don't like to have to kill nobody without they ain't no chance of no gold in it for me.

Test question:

Which one of the above did you understand?

Not neither of them.

If tha ag-yahment fer mua th'n one negat've in a setnce is th't one cuh still undastand 'em, then wha' w' stop ery otha peh-son fum duh-velupping uh di'lect uh thur own?

Language will not survive with an excuse like that.

A less than convincing argument from someone who insists on using his own dialect. (^_^)

A dialect with one speaker is usually called an ideolect. "A language is a dialect with an army or a navy." If English survived the great vowel shift, it can survive your ideolect.

Communication. Some languages require the emphatic multiple negative. My point is that the emphatic multiple negative is more understandable than the logical multiple negative. And my example of the logical multiple negative should have been "I couldn't fail to disagree with you less."

If you can handle a language so corrupt that the adjectives don't agree with their nouns in case, number, and gender, then you can handle a couple of spare negatives scattered about here and there.

Accepting that others are different from you in this and other ways is more about learning to be a social creature than being grammatically correct. Expecting that everyone place the same value on a well turned statement is unrealistic, and not only will it result in you being constantly annoyed, you will alienate a number of fine people in the process.

Agreed, Maven. As my husband says, it's like trying to teach a pig to sing: it's going to frustrate you and irritate the pig.

You're married to Mark Twain?!

With all due respect, Cur, this is not pedantic, it's pathetic.

In the dictionary, if you look up the word (and I suggest you do) you will read: "the annual anniversary of the day on which a person was born, typically treated as an occasion for celebration and present-giving."

Birthday means precisely what you reject it for failing to accurately confer. All you are doing is insisting on a literal-minded interpretation of orthographical cognates over the accepted meaning of words—a prodigiously silly practice which runs into a wall whatever way you turn. Consider, for example, that consider means to examine stars.

You are adolescent all right. All too adolescent.

Hey,Hydra
Cur thinks and cares about words, cut him some slack. I agreed with your statement about word use but the insult was gratuitous and, ironically, rather adolescent.

Defending a logical approach to language (which is what I see it to be) is not adolescent. I assume that you find nothing wrong with the term "look up", because we know it to mean find? Doh, Homer Simpson's exclamation, is in dictionaries; but remember dictionaries are for reference. Because the majority uses "birthday" to mean one's yearly anniversary of birth does not mean it is smart to follow.

Here is a message I received from BranShea:


You are no pedant in this anniversary matter but simply right: We all have only one birthday i.e. the day we were born.

Only the English and the German language give: Birthday and Geburtstag (mentioning birth).

Dutch-verjaardag
French-anniversaire
Spanish-Cumpleaños
Italian-anniversario

These four languages at least just give : the adding or passing of another year. Like what anniversary means.

So it is more correct to use anniversary than birthday.

Listen, you Bohemian Cur; listen and think: BranShea is excetionally bright and exceptionally kind (did you remember to thank her for her permission to post her personal message to you on this open board?) but she is not fully culturated in Americanisms.

The current term "birthday" was coined by two ladies who composed a song called "Happy Anniversary of your Birthday to You" but the song didn't sale so they changed the lyrics to "Happy Birthday to you" and the rest is history.

I accept your thanks for this information in advance as I do not wish you to grow up to be like Faldage who was 50 years old at the time of his birth.

You're right, it is not adolescent, but it does show a lack of understanding about how language works. Ignorance, if you will. You're an intelligent young person but you need better instruction in language. Certainly some logic is needed to construct a coherent argument but when you get down to the level of the word logic goes out the window. Take, for example, the word 'vouchsafe'. You used it at the begining of this thread to mean, essentially, 'give'. Logically, 'vouchsafe' means 'warrant as safe'. Its present meaning is more like 'deign to grant'. Words are doing this sort of thing all the time. Two other examples that I have alluded to in this thread are 'nice' and 'silly'. Both have changed drastically in meaning over the years in the English language. To limit the meaning of anniversary to the year-mark of one's birth is no more logical than simply referring to the day as one's birthday. If you want to complain about usages involving the word 'anniversary' complain about using it to indicate celebrations on other than year markers, e.g., "today is the three month anniversary of my last hair cut." Or you could stand at the seashore at low tide and demand that the water not come lapping up around your ankles. At least King Canute knew what he was doing.

This is factually incorrect, even within the Indo-European family of languages. The most common word in Hindi for "birthday" is made up of two words, the first meaning "birth" and the second meaning "day". Put together they translate, quite literally, as "birthday". As for the rest of it, I'm with Faldage, you're extemely nice, possibly the nicest person it has been my profound lack of pleasure not to be able to avoid reading, to paraphrase a role model of mine.

"birthday"

Latin, an Indo-European language last time I checked, has dies natalis, literally 'natal day'. Natalicium, an adjectival form of natalis 'birth' means 'birthday present'. Classical Greek cut to the chase and simply used ημερα (hēmera) 'day' for 'birthday'. They also used ta genesia, literally 'the natal (thing)' for 'the day kept in memory of the birthday of the dead'. (Cf. Koine Greek in Matt. xiv.6 γενεσίοις δὲ γενομένοις τοῦ Ἡρῴδου ὠρχήσατο ἡ θυγάτηρ τῆς Ἡρῳδιάδος ἐν τῷ μέσῳ καὶ ἤρεσεν τῷ Ἡρῴδῃ, die autem natalis Herodis saltavit filia Herodiadis in medio et placuit Herodi (Vulgate), But when Herod's birthday was kept, the daughter of Herodias danced before them, and pleased Herod (KJV).) Czech has narozeniny, literally 'natal', as well as datum narození 'birth date' and den narození 'birth day'.

Thanks for the assist, nuncle. I only post on what I know, which is why I don't post often.

Thanks for the assist, nuncle.

You're welcome. À propos Hindi, Sanskrit has janidivasa a samasa (compound) meaning quite literally 'birthday'. It seems a common enough construction in IE languages.

"You're an intelligent young person but you need better instruction in language."

I have been teaching myself. The books that I have now I got from half-priced-book stores, so I am not sure they are the best ones to peruse. I have a glossary of semiotics terms, some grammar books from the 1950s, a book "for writers" from 2001, some books of structuralism and post-structurialism--which I do not understand much, but can read that it deals with language some--, an old book (maybe 15 years) on language and speech and how the two are connected, and some grammar test-books. As you can see, the information I have gleaned is very incomplete and slipshod. Maybe my approach was smart, but my materials are sketchy. Hmm... How should I continue, then?

Here are some classic books on linguistics which you can probably pick up at used books stores (or find in a good-sized library):

Bloomfield, Leonard. 1933. Language.

Jespersen, Otto. 1921. Language: Its Nature, Development, and Origin.

--. 1924. The Philosophy of Grammar.

Sapir, Edward. 1921. Language: An Introduction to the Study of Speech.

de Saussure, Ferdinand. 1916. Cours de linguistique générale (Course in General Linguistics) .

And some newish books:

Aitchison, Jean. 1981. Language Change: Progress or Decay?, 3rd ed.

Crystal, David. 2003. The Cambridge Encyclopedia of the English Language, 2nd ed.

McWhorter, John. 2001. The Power of Babel: A Natural History of Language.

Pinker, Steven. 1994. The Language Instinct

--. 1999. Words and Rules: The Ingredients of Language.

Modern linguistics has been around for a couple of centuries. The study of language goes back a couple of millennia to the Greeks in the West and the Indian Sanskrit grammarians in the East. A good history of linguistics book might be a good read, too.

Pedersen, Holgar. 1931. Linguistic Science in the Nineteenth Century: Methods and Results.

Robins, R H. 1997. A Short History of Linguistics.

[Correct some typos and some downright mistakes.]

Dear Sir Sjmaxq,

You are correct, there are more than the two languages I mentioned that will use the word "birthday" in stead of "anniversary". I should have said : f.i. English and German make mention of birth referring to that day.

I took the six languages (of which I have learned to speak and read five icl. homeland language) to show the difference in usage/habit.
In German and English there is the mentioning of the once happened fact of birth.

Not so in Dutch, French, Italian and Spanish (I only know some Spanish) where only the turn or completing of another year is visible in the word.

I do not know the exacts about the X - amount of other existing languages concerning this birthday topic. Do you?

anniversary
c.1230, from L. anniversarius "returning annually," from annus "year" (see annual) + versus, pp. of vertere "to turn" (see versus). The adj. came to be used as a noun in Church L. as anniversaria (dies) in ref. to saints' days.

I found Cur's thought refreshing even though "birthday" is fine with me (in English). I never though about the fact that this homely word " birthday " could be looked at as indeed only that one special day long ago (for me at least).

I'm no philologist.

Kind regards, Branshae

You assume right. Nor do I have a problem with using "gymnasium" to mean "a room or building equipped for gymnastics, games, and other physical exercise" despite the fact that, etymologically, it means: "exercise naked."

You, Cur, have two choices: Turn up naked for gym class on Monday, or demand that your school adopt your ideosyncratic, aphasic approach to language.

You actually remind me of the novel White Noise by Don DeLillo, in which characters who've taken a black market drug called Dylar suffer the curious side effect of being unable to understand the metaphorical meaning of language, and take everything that is said to them literally. If you say, "That went over my head", they will look to the ceiling and ask, "What did? Where is it?" If you tell them that you've got a bone to pick with them, they will politely tell you that they have eaten.

What you are actually set against is the metaphorical economy of language. You want everything spelt out for you, with all the holes filled in. But what you are actually advocating is more like a code language for computers; the very opposite of poetry, literature, prose, creative language use. When Shakespeare writes, "Out, out brief candle", he is not failing to be pedantic, he is demonstrating a very human, abstract, analytical ability to draw a comparison between disparate phenomena with important properties in common: a candle and a human life, for example: both are lament, brief, beautiful, both burn, both illume, both can be snuffed out. Making sense of language requires a meaning-sensitive being to fill in the lacunae, and this, in fact, is much of what the pleasure of reading consists of. A word like "Birthday" is a very minor case of the same essential phenomenon. Where are you gonna draw the line?

Actually, it doens't mean "find". I was going to say it means "search for" but that's not quite right, either. It means something more like "search for in some source in which you expect to find it, but without the certainty of being able to find it". "Look up" is a little more compact.

I was puzzled by the style of the clothes you had on, so I went to the library and looked up your dress.

Of course you will always have the literalists to contend with.

Hydra, very well said. Bravo!

Now I'm gonna scurry off the the library to look up White Noise.

People like to know. They like rules: when this occurs, do this. X implies Y. Moreover, we like to believe that our knowledge, including our knowledge of convention, corresponds to reality. In this regard, I'm not sure I see a difference between prescriptivists and descriptivists.

On the one hand, I see the advantage of just telling us how words are used. On the other hand, I can see that in some cases, we need to know if we are not communicating effectively (and there are many ways this can happen, some of them less obvious than others). A possible example is the contention by some people that there are sexist elements in our language and we ought to try to eliminate some of them. I could do without the lectures and some of the remedy grates, but generally I don't have a problem with their bringing it to my attention. I have my own pet peeve: the interminable conflation of 'schooling' and 'education' which are used synonymously. I have a dilemma here: the very fact that someone does not see the difference or believes it to be negligible is a huge impediment to solving problems related to actual education. OTOH, people don't have patience to learn a different way of communicating, particularly when you're disagreeing with something they already know to be true.

The upshot is that when I point out this source of confusion and poor communication I am often being confusing and communicating poorly. One potential criteria to use for determining when to correct is: does the usage create more confusion or does the correction?