Noncompositional

The other night someone I was with mentioned a nauseous smell. I thought: huh, interesting! I was of the impression that nauseous was an experiencer-taking predicate (I feel nauseous, nauseous individuals), and that this (and no doubt many other) individuals had done the experiencer/stimulus dance to let that which causes nausea be called nauseous.

I later became rather embarrassed that I hadn’t remembered the old fake usage guideline that, in fact, nauseous is only to be used for the stimulus, and nauseated only for the experiencer. So in effect I not only didn’t have that guideline in my grammar, I felt sure (momentarily) that the standard was the exact opposite!

Now, first off, if you look in any dictionary or usage guide you’ll see that experiencer-nauseous is widely accepted and basically unexceptional. At the same time, nauseated is said to be rather rare (whether the frequencies take into account the sense of nauseous is unclear; the lexeme is overall more frequent on Google, though interestingly not in the BYU TIME corpus).

But further, I asked myself if I even make the distinction between nauseous and nauseated, ever. Certainly I don’t think I use stimulus-nauseous. Do I use nauseated? I have no idea. I don’t think so, but I couldn’t guarantee it. There must be some reason I thought the nauseous smell use was non-standard, and I don’t think it’s because I had done some sort of strange prescriptive rule-reversal.

(Then there’s the unambiguously stimulus-selecting nauseating, and I’m pretty sure I use that.)

So, in conclusion…valence alternations and semantic change: it’s weird! (or am I weird from it?)

(for fun, search Google or whatever for “nauseated smell”)

Perhaps you’ve noticed a slight dropoff from the normally low-frequency posting here. Well, whatever it is that caused it, it’s also causing more cars to be on the road every day, and more people to be on various college campuses. In any case, I have a question. It involves things like this:

For example, in the item description she busts out with the following paragraph: “If you have any questions or comments, feel free to contact me! I do have cats, but I keep them away from the fabrics/craft area.” Uh… non sequitur much? (link)

Your writer’s true colors are revealed when they refer to a Big Mac as “charred flesh”. Ummm, vegan much? Thank you, and have a nice day. (link)

Uh, okay. Prejudiced much? (link)

Beetle: uh, hmmm…literate much? (link)

Not part of my idiolect much? I have to admit that this is not really part of my speech, and I don’t have a good grasp on how to use it and what phrases can the much-ified (thus leaning on the crutch of there sometimes being as uh/um before the item in question). And it sure seems like there must have been some popular or cult individual who popularized this sort of thing - any ideas?

And it could be that I’m not really all that sure what these things mean, at least in the semantic details. That is to day, in something like busy much? or come here much?, you’re asking about frequency. In enjoy movies much? you’re asking about degree/extent (or possibly frequency…I suppose). In something like non sequitur much? is the person (sarcastically) asking about the frequency of non sequiturs (by some individual), or is that not really what’s going on?

About a month ago I wrote about what seems to be the more prevalent pronunciation of Beijing, namely that involving the postalveolar voiced fricative [ʒ]. Recently an AP article was written that aims to clear everything up and explain that, in fact the “hard j” sound in English is a closer approximation to the Mandarin pronunciation than the “soft j” sound that I (and others) find so frustrating. The main source of the article is not native Mandarin speakers, but S. Robert Ramsey (whose book on Chinese I mentioned about three years ago). Bill Poser discusses the article on LL.

So, this is all to the good, no? I suppose…but then again, I find I usually pronounce the name of the city Shanghai so that the first vowel is that of hang or fang, not that of father. This despite knowing full well the Mandarin pronunciation (which, as the official language, I would take to be the expected way for a foreigner to say the word, rather than in Shanghainese). In this case, the low mid-vowel is both the more proper and more foreign sounding option, and yet I do not frequently use it (at least, I don’t think I do, unless speaking with, say, a Chinese-speaker). Is Shanghai really that different from Beijing? And this is to say nothing of Seoul (which I render with a single syllable). Maybe I’m just a super-Anglicizer, and in the case of Beijing it happens to work out.

And for some sane arguments in favor of Beizhing, I recommend this entry in Beijing Sounds.

On a lark I decided to switch my Facebook interface to use Japanese. I noticed today that on a particular day when I befriended several people

Russellさんが Aさん、 Bさんさん、 Cさん、 Dさん、 Eさんさんさんと他1人さんと友達になりました。

That’s “Russell-san became friends with A-san, B-san-san, C-san, D-san, E-san-san-san, and one other person-san.”

Aside from the strangeness (to me) of adding the honorific -san to the phrase 他1人 ‘one other person’, there is the extreme strangeness of the multiple -sans appended to some of the names. I looked at some other people’s front pages, and found the same pattern exhibited two other times, as well as a slightly different pattern: A-san, B-san, C-san-san, D-san, E-san-san, and F-san (no ‘others’ mentioned).

At first I thought it might be that some of the -sans got omitted for some names and then stacked up somewhere else, but in no case was someone’s name missing the honorific suffix.

A few days after I got done saying that as used in the “speech act” sense was nearly impossible, though not uncommon in play-by-play commentary, I encountered an example.

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Play-by-play sports commentators are, I believe, sometimes noted for their novel uses of language. Now, the only sports I watch on TV is baseball, but there are some interesting things to say about the langauge of even the most mundane of sportscasters. Take, for instance, predicate inversion, which I have the impression is used more often in play-by-play discourse than elsewhere (don’t know about baseball vs other sports, though).

Coming in safe at second is Giambi

Out at third is Ichiro

In from center field to catch the ball is Davis

One particular construction that I’ve noticed, which I previously thought was impossible, is using temporal as on the speech act level. Like this:

When you’re a catcher it’s important to make sure you’re always on the same page as the rest of the infield, as Ichiro takes Hudson the other way for a base hit.

What the as is doing is not saying that “it’s important to…” and “Ichiro takes Hudson the other way…” are happening at the same time. Rather, the base hit is happening as the commentator is saying “it’s important to…” This happens all the time with other temporal subordinators like before and while:

Before you leave, when are you coming back next?

While you’re here, I was wondering if you could help me out.

What happens “before you leave” is that I’m going to ask you a question (namely, when are you coming back). Similarly for “while you’re here”: it’s (crucially) during the time that you’re here that I’m making (or able to make) a request.

But I always though that as didn’t have this sort of use. It sounded (and still sounds) ridiculous to say, As you get ready to leave, when should I meet you tomorrow?. But I thought about it some more, and maybe as you get ready, I have a question for you isn’t that bad. Then, taking a cue from the sports-as, I put it at the end, sort of as an afterthought: I still have one question for you, (uh), as you get ready to head out. Not bad. But that’s getting uncomfortably close to a strict temporal use: my having a question and you getting ready are taking place at the same time. Saying “I have a question” isn’t the same as “let me ask you a question,” and certainly not the same as “when should we meet up?” So there’s still some strange limitations on as. Except in spontaneous play-by-play talk, where it seems be a sort of way to transition between commentary and reporting the action: you can never plan very far in advance to use as in this way.

(There is of course a “causal” use of as, which allows “speech-act” modification as you’re staying another week, would you like to use our guest bedroom instead of the sofa? But you can do that with because and (causal) since, so it’s not that surprising to me.)

At a dinner I was at recently, one participant remarked that a roommate would continually make requests indirectly, e.g. “Do you think you’ll do the dishes?” “I wonder if we should do some cleaning this weekend.” [language changed to protect the innocent]. She expressed some frustration with that sort of talk, wishing that the roommate would “be direct” and just say

Can you please do the dishes?

In case anyone was wondering if, maybe, somehow, can you X was still only indirectly a request.

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This post will no doubt reveal to the world that I am not a frequent reader of British news sources. This morning I added a little BBC news widged to my customized google page, and found the headline Zimbabwe leaders agree talks pact. “That’s strange,” thought I. A search for “agree” on the BBC news site revealed several more transitive uses:

EU agrees radical farm reform

Bevan agrees a new dea

Santander agrees £1.2bn A&L deal

Then I decided to actually check a dictionary, and found that the Dictionary.com one (based on Random House Unabridged) lists as sense 10:

Chiefly British. to consent to or concur with: We agree the stipulations. I must agree your plans.

I wonder why Americans decided to do away with this particular valence. Default hypothesis: because it sounds snooty. But I’m willing to entertain other ideas.