Althoughing Away the Hours

I warn you now that I am joining somewhat the ranks of peevologists the world over (at least English-speakers the world over) with this post. I won't go so far as to say, as many peevologists have, that English is going to hell in any sort of basket, nor even to claim authority over the topic I'm writing about. But I have done and will continue to do a lot of editing of various types, and this little "problem" jumps out all the time. The problem is with the words although and while. Although while has many very specific uses that although couldn't be used in ("You hold the nail although while I hit it with this hammer."), I often see while where, at least in my experience, although is called for . . . especially at the beginning of a sentence. My rule is this: While indicates simultaneity — two or more things happening at once. ("While Jack drew everyone's attention, Jill pilfered customers' jacket pockets.") Although indicates a contrast of some sort. ("Although Bjorn hated the thought of young animals being slaughtered, the veal was too juicy and scrumptious to pass up.") Consider the subtle difference between these two sentences:

• While Jon shot the video, Jamie took credit for it.
• Although Jon shot the video, Jamie took credit for it.

Do you see the difference? In the first one, Jamie was taking credit for the video at the same time that Jon was shooting it, but the second sentence doesn't imply any sort of timeframe: Jon could have shot the video 30 years ago, and then Jamie discovered it and claimed to have shot it himself. Yes, it seems like a small point, but I see this all the time in sentences like this: "While Although these profiles will always be non-increasing functions of scale, they may vary in their slopes and shapes." And while although I won't go so far as to say this is wrong wrong wrong!, you can bet that, if I'm editing your work, I'll make the change every time. ---------- This post was brought to you by the letter J and by the number 30.

Today's Word: zombify, zombification

zombify: To turn something into a zombie. Zombification is therefore the process of zombifying. I chose this word today because it so aptly describes how I feel. Outside, the gray, drizzly weather dampens streets, trees, and moods. For some reason, I haven't been sleeping well, so I am more tired than usual. And it's a Friday, right after lunch. I drift through the afternoon, trying to stay awake and to get work done, and occasionally I find myself blankly staring at the computer screen as if I have been zombified. If "real" zombies are "undead" or "the walking dead," I guess that makes me the "unslept" or the "walking sleeper." Zombify is also one of those words of note that separates dictionaries. Zombify appears in the Merriam-Webster Collegiate Dictionary, 14th Edition, but not in the Webster's New World College Dictionary, 4th Edition.

Today's Word: Guttle

guttle: to eat gluttonously; to gorge oneself. "Although the pizza was meant to be shared among all four of the group, Ringo guttled the entire thing on the way back from the pizza shop."

Today's Word: lupine

lupine: Having the characteristics of a wolf.

Lupine can have very different connotations depending on how it's used. A lithe and lupine woman could be quite appealing to a single guy like me, but you don't want to have to face off against a lupine lawyer unless you have your own facinorous (exceeding wicked) lawyer to back you up.

Book Review: We by Yevgeny Zamyatin

Trans.: Natasha Randall

Written in the 1920s in Soviet Russia, We set the bar for dystopian fiction. You don't have to read far to see the influence it had on Orwell's 1984, Huxley's Brave New World, and even Pink Floyd's The Wall. It's well worth reading, not only because of its literary historical significance as the progenitor of the modern dystopian novel, but also because it's a damn good story.

We is an epistolary of sorts, though the chapters aren't exactly letters but journal entries destined to be transported to other planets and read by other people. The protagonist, D-503, is a male mathematician who is in charge of building a spaceship called the Integral. The purpose of the spaceship is to seek out life on other planets, and to spread the happiness endowed by the One State to those planets . . . by force if necessary.

In the world of We, centuries from today, all aspects of life are controlled by the totalitarian One State, which is led by the Benefactor. Citizens have given up all forms of privacy and individuality and are regulated by the time tables. All people awake at a set time, go to work at a set time, and eat at a set time. In the lunchroom, they each chew every bite of food exactly 50 times, in time with everyone else in the room. As D-503 explains, this surrender of freedom has led to universal happiness by eliminating all difficult choices, all disagreements, and all struggles for self-improvement.

But then D-503 meets I-330, and his world is turned on its head. He finds in her a woman who defies the One State by indulging in the vices of drinking, smoking, and screwing. As disgusted as he is by her actions, D-503 is compelled to seek her out by some unknown force within him. He then discovers that she is not alone, that a revolution is brewing to take down the totalitarian One State. Their first step: to steal the Integral, for which D-503 has expended so much time, thought, and energy. He is then faced with an ethical dilemma — the first in his life. During this dilemma, he is diagnosed with a disorder called imagination, which may lead to something even worse: a soul. As the moment of revolution nears, the One State announces that it has found a way to surgically remove the imagination and orders all citizens to immediately submit to the surgery.

What will D-503 choose: freedom and uncertainty or regimented happiness? Zamyatin's ending is bleak, to say the least, but then, the future was bleak for artists and writers in Lenin's USSR during the 1920s, when the story was written. As they say, art imitates life.

Today's Word: fatidic, fatidical

fatidic: prophetic or pertaining to a divination or prophecy. "Trelawney's fatidic trance was the basis for all of Lord Voldemort's actions." (also fatidical) You can also "verbify" this word — to fatidicate is to prophesy. Only time will tell whether FATidic will be a good title for the biography of Michael Moore or Rush Limbaugh.

Today's "Word": autopodophagy

Okay, so I made this one up. Autopodophagy ought to mean the eating of one's own foot. Metaphorically, it would refer to someone who is constantly putting his foot in his mouth. Michael Scott of The Office is a great example of a clueless autopodophage. The idea for this word came up after a conversation I had with a coworker. When discussing my preference for e-mail over instant messaging, phone calls, and (quite often) face-to-face conversation, I used as support the idea that "I am very familiar with the flavor of my foot." Then I started wondering what you would call a person who is always putting his foot in his mouth. My answer: autopodophage. Not to be confused with autopedophage, one who, like Zeus's father and grandfather, eats his own children. All right, I made that one up, too. But pedophagy (or paedophagy) is a real word that describes animals that survive by eating the eggs, larva, and/or young of other animals. (This perhaps describes veal-lovers?)

Self-referential

• four
• eighteen characters
• nineteen letters long
• forty characters long (including spaces)
• forty-six characters in length (not counting spaces)
• nonhyphenated
• mispelled
• noun
• word
• sesquipedalian
• CAPITALIZED
• This sentence is in the active voice.
• This sentence is always true.
• You have almost finished reading this sentence; now you have finished it.

Today's Words: pixilated/pixelated

pixilated/pixillated or pixelated/pixellated: There doesn't seem to be a consensus yet about whether to use one ell or two, but there are very different meanings to these two words. Pixellated refers to what happens when you zoom too far into a JPEG and start to see individual squares (pixels, but blown up). Pixellated letters lead to jaggies, those jagged curves (although anti-aliasing has largely smoothed the jaggies down). One the other hand, pixillated has been around longer. It comes from an irregular form of the word pixie and means "somewhat unbalanced mentally." I don't know about you, but I often feel pixillated after a long day of staring at a computer screen...

Recursion

[There used to be a photo here that i linked to at Language Log. I don't remember exactly what it was, and the link has apparently broken. I'm sure it was just hilarious, though. 4/13/06]