While attending the King County Bar Association's 2001 Bench-Bar Conference today, my mind slipped away from the weighty subjects on which a splendid array of speakers held forth, and concentrated instead on how they chewed up the English language. Joseph D, Lehman, the Secretary of the State Department of Corrections (which runs all the prisons) used two interesting words: "anominity" -- which is, I suppose, a state of mental and emotion upset resulting from a loss of values -- and "phenomenom" -- which may mean a word used to describe an observable event. The Hon. Michael J. Fox, Judge of the King County Superior Court, used the word "crooshible" to descibe a situation which puts one to the test.

There is a name for this.

internal sort-of Spoonerism?

[unabashedly slouching toward OldHandhood]

ASp,

there's another way to pile up the posts: variations on a theme; to wit - OldHand, ColdHand, CoolHand(Luke), SlowHand(Clapton), etc. HTH.

>there is a name for this.

sounds like mala praxis to me.

A high court judge here some weeks ago accused a convicted something-or-other of "machismacho". Seems to me that's a really bad dose of machismo.

Perhaps if judges make law, they also believe they can make language?

How about malneologism? or caconeologism?

How about ignorance?

Father Steve - I wouldn't say there's anything wrong, exactly, only question where these guys were when the earthquake struck! Could be that portion of the brain which regulates word formation (or something extremely scientific and biological like that) was sent slightly askew and hasn't yet recovered?

And there IS a word for this. I believe it is malapropism even if unintentional!?!

What do I win? [feeling better about herself emoticon] Or was that from the other post?

Shoshannah

The word malapropism originally referred to misuse of words by ignorant persons. Father Steve is giving examples of atrocities committed by educated persons.

In reply to:

---

Father Steve is giving examples of atrocities committed by educated persons. emphasis mine

---

Okay - but the real question here is the 'educational level' of those in question - after all - they are lawyers, judges and such... right? Of course, right!

Yeah yeah yeah - no remarks - "some of my best friends are lawyers"

Shoshannah

Fathes Steve is right, there IS a term that describes the phonological process of consonants changing places within a word (due to whichever reason). It would apply to his example of "anominity". Unfortunately, as fate would have it, I have so completely forgotten it that no amount of cogitation has sufficed to bring it back.

I do, however, vaguely remember the example that illustrated the definition. It was about the Spanish word "murciélago", meaning "bat". Apparently, it evolved from a Latin word or expression that had two lexical components, "mur" (from "mus/muris", meaning "mouse") and something like "*caecalus/*caegalus" (from "caecus", meaning "blind"). Throughout the long period of of linguistic change, the "g" and the "l" got switched around, giving us the word "murciélago", which we use now.

I would absolutely love someone coming up with the name for this phenomenon. I shall keep on trying to remember anyway...

the Spanish word "murciélago", meaning "bat".

I find it rather strange that Spanish would use a more subtle feature of the bat to make it's name - "blind mouse" rather than "flying mouse". And if the word is very old, how would they have known that bats have poor vision? Just because they're nocturnal?

Jazzoctopus wonders why the Spanish would use a more subtle feature of the bat to make it's name - "blind mouse" rather than "flying mouse"

I think I may safely say that we are not really aware that we are talking about "blind" mice. Nowadays, "murciélago" doesn't give away its etymology so easily. For one thing, the consonantal change makes it more difficult to relate "ciélago" to our word for "blind", which is just "ciego". More importantly, though, our contemporary word for "mouse" has nothing to do with the Latin "mus/muris"!! Spanish mice are always "ratones".

As to how the ancient speakers of Latin knew that bats were blind or nearly, I seem to remember that there are some types that don't even have eyes?? That would be a definite sign. Also the fact that they were nocturnal, and possibly the way they fly around, almost crashing into objects and then deftly avoiding them at the last moment when they detect them.

>a term that describes the phonological process of consonants changing places within a word

I may not be thinking of exactly the same thing, but the grammatical term for the interchange of position between sounds or letters in a word is metathesis.

FWIW, the Portuguese word for "bat" is a cognate of the Spanish word: morcego.

Rapunzel said: How about ignorance?

Oh dear me, no. Don't you realise how judgmental that is? You could disturb their frail little psyches for ever by this indiscriminate use of speech. They might suck their thumbs, lose their self-respect, become mere shadows of their former selves if such implied criticism were allowed. No, indeedy - we must overcome such tendencies to claim that people might be different in their abilities.

We have already prevented schoolboys from playing games in which they actually score points (who tawdry and competitive), and we are now after your language. Anything you say that might suggest a differential in ability will be firmly censured (though of course we are all for free speech)...

Yours &c

The Procrustean English Society

Since your post about bats and their odd flying ways, I simply had to add this old chestnut: our word 'butterfly' comes, as far as I know, from the original 'flutterby', when the consonantal sounds were interchanged (through the process whose name even the mighty tsuwm has not yet authoritatively posted).

"Noralottapeepulnothat"

the sunshine "Harry Carter" warrior

My hubby had all he could do not to remark out loud during a meeting with the Big Bosses of the department store chain he used to work for, when the Chairman enthusiastically spoke of a new item they were stocking, which had a "beautiful placenta color."

Dear Sparteye: When the Boss was born, they should have thrown him away and kept the magenta placenta.

My first reaction. But on second thought, a quick look at the on-line thesaurus (under "inarticulate") yields some better suggestions, such as, tongue-tied, faltering, mumbling, maundering.

bats and butterflies
Interesting that you should bring up butterflies in connection with bats.

Two of my favorite words, which I consider among the most beautiful words I have ever heard, are the Italian words for 'butterfly' -- farfalla; and the Italian for 'bat' - pipistrella.

>...a quick look at the on-line thesaurus (under "inarticulate") yields some better suggestions, such as, tongue-tied, faltering, mumbling, maundering.

Nothing starting with W?

I've been working on my scene with the women who keep their men in line... sheer brilliance has bubbled to the surface when it comes to G.W. and Laura, if I do say so myself. I've written her as a dominatrix linguistics coach:

L: "Subliminal"
GW: "Subliminable"
L: No, "subliminal"
GW: "Subliminable"
L (cracking whip): "Subliminal"
GW: Ow! "Subliminable"
L: I'm not going to stop until you get it right!