A Book about Books and a Book about Words, plus: Personal Experiences with Nonsense
Book consist of words, obviously. But what about books about words? Or books about books? This blog post will take a look at two of them (book reviews!); then it’ll focus on two nonsense words, one of which is related to the title of one of the books (fun for “werd nerds”!) This will be a long blog post, but at least there will be mondegreens.
Some business first. My short story "Silkod of the Drenn" is available in Journ-E: The Journal of Imaginative Writing. A stand-alone “Tond” story, it is also a (possibly unsolved) call to adventure. Scroll down to find Volume 1, Number 2. Also, continuing the story of Tond, there's Grendul Rising; here's an interview about it. Also, check out this blog's sister, The SoundScroll. It's about music. Okay, now that that's out of the way, here's the actual blog post.
The Book: A Cover-to-Cover Exploration of the Most Powerful Object of Our Time
by Keith Houston
This is a history of the printed page, told with attention to detail and a dry wit (i.e. punny chapter titles). One particularly interesting element is the inclusion of designations for all of the standard concepts of modern printing (indent, drop cap, ornaments, etc.) where they appear in the text. Good for both the avid bibliophile and for someone who just happens to be curious about books and picks up this one.
Ella Minnow Pea
by Mark Dunn
Ella lives happily on the fictional island of Nollop off the coast of South Carolina. Nollop was named after Nevin Nollop, who wrote the famous phrase containing all the letters of the alphabet, “The quick brown fox jumps over the lazy dog.”
Now Ella finds herself acting to save her friends, family, and fellow citizens from the growing totalitarianism of the island’s Council, which has begun banning the use of certain letters of the alphabet as they fall from a memorial statue of Nevin Nollop. More and more letters drop from the statue, and they disappear from the novel as well — eventually resulting in an entire chapter of abbreviations and baby-talk (which nevertheless is actually readable!) But never fear, the letter-banning totalitarians have already had their comeuppance…
Is this political satire or a comedy of wordplay? Answer: yes. Either way, it’s hilarious. (Hilarious, that is, with serious underpinnings about language, censorship, and the repression of expression.) I especially enjoyed how the answer to the conundrum appears (out of part of a sub-plot) long before the characters realize it (watch for it when you read this book, though don’t be surprised if you miss it like I did.)
Nonsense Word no. 1: Elemeno
The title “Ella Minnow Peal”, of course, is a pun on the often misheard line “L, M, N, O, P” in the children’s Alphabet Song (the one sung to the tune of “Twinkle Twinkle”). Kids across the English-speaking world complain that they don’t know how to write the letter “elemeno”. But, it turns out, that fictional letter is not universal for children learning English. As I posted once on Facebook: I used to teach English in Japan, where I found (inexplicably) that the “elemeno” joke never worked. After teaching the beginning kids the Alphabet Song , I’d often mention that kids in the U.S. were always asking how to write an elemeno. There was always a Japanese teacher in the room who would translate, and both the teachers and the students would stare at me like I had three ears. Every time, there would be a silence of several seconds, and then someone would sheepishly ask, “Including the O?” or “What about Opie?” It took me several times to figure out what they meant. Apparently the same song is heard as “…H, I, J, K, elemen, opie, Q, R, S…” rather than “H, I, J, K, elemeno, P, Q, R, S…” No amount of phraseology, musicology, phonology, or linguistic theory has ever answered the “why” of this (or, for that matter, why kids in the U.S. hear “elemeno” without the P anyway). The closest I can find to an explanation is that English has a single “N” sound but Japanese has two, and both students and teachers were automatically hearing the wrong one. (The one that isn’t found in English is more likely to occur at the end of a Japanese syllable — in fact it’s often thought of as a syllable in itself — though I haven’t a clue why that would cause the other syllables to break in a different place.)
Nonsense Word no. 2: Pachycephalus
Okay, on to another nonsense word that I had a strange experience with. Again, it happened in a school context, though this time it was me in 8th grade (and apparently nobody else remembers this). At the time, I was mortified, but with fifty years hindsight, it’s comedy gold. (A certain type of comedy, that is. Those who enjoy highbrow humor may want to skip this; here, the brow is somewhere down around one’s ankles.) The problem is that, like a lot of kids, I had discovered dinosaurs; and being a nerd kid, I had instinctively memorized their polysyllabic names and constructed new ones. In fact I was trying to impress the other kids by rattling them off quickly and sounding “intelligent”. (Warning to other 8th-graders: if you have to sound intelligent, then you’re probably not.) An edited excerpt from my novel “Ussers and the Echo of Nothing”, where I fictionalize the incident, will suffice.
(The setting: The protagonist Tony, my alter-ego in this excerpt, is looking at a book of dinosaurs. Rosanne and Paul are two other eighth-graders.)
…the meanings were a problem. Ankylosaurus: “fused lizard”. Dimetrodon: “two layers of teeth”. What did any of that even mean? Tyrannosaurus Rex: “tyrant lizard king”. Apatosaurus: “deceitful lizard”. Triceratops: “three-horned face”. Stegosaurus: “covered lizard”. Silly. None of that worked. His plan would fall flat.
And then, as he turned a page, there it was. Pachycephalosaurus: “thick-headed” or “bone-headed lizard”. Perfect. …he would have to alter it slightly. Hmmm. Remove the “saurus” so it wasn’t so obviously a dinosaur. So, pachycephalo — something. Let’s see… Usually those words end with a “U” and an “S”. So, add that, and the result is: pachycephalus. “Packy-Sefflus”. That was the word he needed.
Next day, biology class — the second day of school. Tony dashed to the class early, bolted into the room and sat down at his desk. Roseanne entered a couple of minutes later along with a cluster of other girls. They went to their respective desks. Tony glanced around. Paul — where was Paul? If Paul came in late, it would wreck Tony’s plan. Oh, there he was, struggling with a stack of books. Marcus, who was sitting near the door, helped him. Both sat the books on Paul’s desk, just to the left of Roseanne. And then Paul left out of the door again!
Tony pumped his fist in the air. (“Yes!”) Books, and leaving early — probably to go the bathroom before class started — he had just made Tony’s job easier. Tony stared at the open door, making sure Paul didn’t suddenly wheel around and come back into the classroom. Then Tony made his move. He almost ran to Paul’s desk. He gently slid his books towards the edge. Roseanne glanced up, realized the joke and stifled a laugh. Tony returned to his desk.
A few more kids filed in, and then Paul. He strutted over to his desk, and must have realized that something was amiss a second before he tried to sit down. He bumped the table. BOOM! The books discovered gravity and flopped onto the floor in a random pile of pages. Roseanne snickered.
That should have been the end of it. Paul was standing there with a red face, staring around him like everything in the universe was suddenly new to him. Tony should have stopped there. But he stood, pointed at Paul (but from another angle it might have looked like he was pointing at Roseanne). The bell rang as he taunted Paul and shouted, “What a pachycephalus!” Then he repeated it, louder, mocking, to make sure everyone had heard. “You’re a pachycephalus! And I bet you don’t even know what that means!”
Suddenly the room was nothing but eyes, all staring at Tony. Every sound ceased. The teacher, Ms. Novak, glared. Roseanne stood up, aimed a grimace at Tony that was so poisonous that he felt the room had filled up with cyanide and scorpions. She stomped up to him and kicked him in the left shin with a pointed shoe, and raged out of the door. Ms. Novak said, “Tony Bradner, go to the principal’s office. Now. We will not have that kind of language in this classroom!”
Tony gaped at her. What kind of language? He had done nothing except make up a weird insult. But she repeated her request, “Go to the principal’s office, now.” Tony shrugged, and strolled out of the room behind Roseanne. He didn’t know why she’d suddenly gotten mad either (or was it merely an excuse to get out of class? She wasn’t in the hall now!). But, he reasoned, when the principal heard his side of the story, he’d laugh and that would be that.
Rosanne was already sitting in the principal’s office, glaring swords at Tony.
“Why don’t you explain what happened?” The principal asked Tony, matter-of-factly.
Before Tony could say anything, Rosanne pointed an accusing finger at him and snarled, “He called me a pack of syphilis!”
Okay, this isn’t exactly how it happened. Tony, Paul, Rosanne, and Ms. Novak are fictional characters. The actual incident unfloded over several weeks, from what I remember, and involved more kids, a lot more confusion, a brain contest, swearing, fisticuffs, more "scientific" name-calling ("Brainless nematode!" "Coelenterate!") and marijuana around a boy scout campfire. (I didn't smoke any. Yeah right. Actually, that's true. I didn't.) (And also, yes, I was aware of the difference between “poisonous” and “venomous”.) But the problem is obvious. I kept trying to explain that the disgusting insult everyone heard was not the mild (and comical) one I’d intended. “I didn’t say syphilis! I said cephalus!” The principal probably thought I was frantically backpedaling, trying to cover up for saying something truly offensive (and truly weird); though I remember wondering at the time if he was too stupid to hear the difference. (Yeah, the mental processing of an authority-questioning 13-year-old.) Either way, I wound up having to write a lot of sentences on a blackboard.
Basically, I’d been Mondegreened.
Nonsense(?) Word no. 3: Mondegreen
Mondegreen: is a mishearing or misinterpretation of a phrase in such a way as to give it a new meaning. The term comes from a Scottish ballad, where "layd him on the green" was heard as "Lady Mondegreen". Some famous examples (also from song lyrics) are Hendrix’s “’scuse me while I kiss this guy” and the Beatles’ “A girl with colitis goes by”. I have one of my own: I used to think that there was an idiom, “to give through”, meaning to show up or become obvious — from the misheard line “…gave through, through the night, that the flag was still there…” in the Star-Spangled Banner. Not the Hendrix version.
Which brings us back to Ella Minnow Pea, where the new meaning of the phrase is not only a new letter in the alphabet but the name of a character. Maybe they’re still trying to find Ella’s namesake letter on Nollop’s monument. But, as far as I know, the word "pachycephalus" was booted out of the English language before it even had a chance to join.
Some business first. My short story "Silkod of the Drenn" is available in Journ-E: The Journal of Imaginative Writing. A stand-alone “Tond” story, it is also a (possibly unsolved) call to adventure. Scroll down to find Volume 1, Number 2. Also, continuing the story of Tond, there's Grendul Rising; here's an interview about it. Also, check out this blog's sister, The SoundScroll. It's about music. Okay, now that that's out of the way, here's the actual blog post.
The Book: A Cover-to-Cover Exploration of the Most Powerful Object of Our Time
by Keith Houston
This is a history of the printed page, told with attention to detail and a dry wit (i.e. punny chapter titles). One particularly interesting element is the inclusion of designations for all of the standard concepts of modern printing (indent, drop cap, ornaments, etc.) where they appear in the text. Good for both the avid bibliophile and for someone who just happens to be curious about books and picks up this one.
Ella Minnow Pea
by Mark Dunn
Ella lives happily on the fictional island of Nollop off the coast of South Carolina. Nollop was named after Nevin Nollop, who wrote the famous phrase containing all the letters of the alphabet, “The quick brown fox jumps over the lazy dog.”
Now Ella finds herself acting to save her friends, family, and fellow citizens from the growing totalitarianism of the island’s Council, which has begun banning the use of certain letters of the alphabet as they fall from a memorial statue of Nevin Nollop. More and more letters drop from the statue, and they disappear from the novel as well — eventually resulting in an entire chapter of abbreviations and baby-talk (which nevertheless is actually readable!) But never fear, the letter-banning totalitarians have already had their comeuppance…
Is this political satire or a comedy of wordplay? Answer: yes. Either way, it’s hilarious. (Hilarious, that is, with serious underpinnings about language, censorship, and the repression of expression.) I especially enjoyed how the answer to the conundrum appears (out of part of a sub-plot) long before the characters realize it (watch for it when you read this book, though don’t be surprised if you miss it like I did.)
Nonsense Word no. 1: Elemeno
The title “Ella Minnow Peal”, of course, is a pun on the often misheard line “L, M, N, O, P” in the children’s Alphabet Song (the one sung to the tune of “Twinkle Twinkle”). Kids across the English-speaking world complain that they don’t know how to write the letter “elemeno”. But, it turns out, that fictional letter is not universal for children learning English. As I posted once on Facebook: I used to teach English in Japan, where I found (inexplicably) that the “elemeno” joke never worked. After teaching the beginning kids the Alphabet Song , I’d often mention that kids in the U.S. were always asking how to write an elemeno. There was always a Japanese teacher in the room who would translate, and both the teachers and the students would stare at me like I had three ears. Every time, there would be a silence of several seconds, and then someone would sheepishly ask, “Including the O?” or “What about Opie?” It took me several times to figure out what they meant. Apparently the same song is heard as “…H, I, J, K, elemen, opie, Q, R, S…” rather than “H, I, J, K, elemeno, P, Q, R, S…” No amount of phraseology, musicology, phonology, or linguistic theory has ever answered the “why” of this (or, for that matter, why kids in the U.S. hear “elemeno” without the P anyway). The closest I can find to an explanation is that English has a single “N” sound but Japanese has two, and both students and teachers were automatically hearing the wrong one. (The one that isn’t found in English is more likely to occur at the end of a Japanese syllable — in fact it’s often thought of as a syllable in itself — though I haven’t a clue why that would cause the other syllables to break in a different place.)
Nonsense Word no. 2: Pachycephalus
Okay, on to another nonsense word that I had a strange experience with. Again, it happened in a school context, though this time it was me in 8th grade (and apparently nobody else remembers this). At the time, I was mortified, but with fifty years hindsight, it’s comedy gold. (A certain type of comedy, that is. Those who enjoy highbrow humor may want to skip this; here, the brow is somewhere down around one’s ankles.) The problem is that, like a lot of kids, I had discovered dinosaurs; and being a nerd kid, I had instinctively memorized their polysyllabic names and constructed new ones. In fact I was trying to impress the other kids by rattling them off quickly and sounding “intelligent”. (Warning to other 8th-graders: if you have to sound intelligent, then you’re probably not.) An edited excerpt from my novel “Ussers and the Echo of Nothing”, where I fictionalize the incident, will suffice.
(The setting: The protagonist Tony, my alter-ego in this excerpt, is looking at a book of dinosaurs. Rosanne and Paul are two other eighth-graders.)
…the meanings were a problem. Ankylosaurus: “fused lizard”. Dimetrodon: “two layers of teeth”. What did any of that even mean? Tyrannosaurus Rex: “tyrant lizard king”. Apatosaurus: “deceitful lizard”. Triceratops: “three-horned face”. Stegosaurus: “covered lizard”. Silly. None of that worked. His plan would fall flat.
And then, as he turned a page, there it was. Pachycephalosaurus: “thick-headed” or “bone-headed lizard”. Perfect. …he would have to alter it slightly. Hmmm. Remove the “saurus” so it wasn’t so obviously a dinosaur. So, pachycephalo — something. Let’s see… Usually those words end with a “U” and an “S”. So, add that, and the result is: pachycephalus. “Packy-Sefflus”. That was the word he needed.
Next day, biology class — the second day of school. Tony dashed to the class early, bolted into the room and sat down at his desk. Roseanne entered a couple of minutes later along with a cluster of other girls. They went to their respective desks. Tony glanced around. Paul — where was Paul? If Paul came in late, it would wreck Tony’s plan. Oh, there he was, struggling with a stack of books. Marcus, who was sitting near the door, helped him. Both sat the books on Paul’s desk, just to the left of Roseanne. And then Paul left out of the door again!
Tony pumped his fist in the air. (“Yes!”) Books, and leaving early — probably to go the bathroom before class started — he had just made Tony’s job easier. Tony stared at the open door, making sure Paul didn’t suddenly wheel around and come back into the classroom. Then Tony made his move. He almost ran to Paul’s desk. He gently slid his books towards the edge. Roseanne glanced up, realized the joke and stifled a laugh. Tony returned to his desk.
A few more kids filed in, and then Paul. He strutted over to his desk, and must have realized that something was amiss a second before he tried to sit down. He bumped the table. BOOM! The books discovered gravity and flopped onto the floor in a random pile of pages. Roseanne snickered.
That should have been the end of it. Paul was standing there with a red face, staring around him like everything in the universe was suddenly new to him. Tony should have stopped there. But he stood, pointed at Paul (but from another angle it might have looked like he was pointing at Roseanne). The bell rang as he taunted Paul and shouted, “What a pachycephalus!” Then he repeated it, louder, mocking, to make sure everyone had heard. “You’re a pachycephalus! And I bet you don’t even know what that means!”
Suddenly the room was nothing but eyes, all staring at Tony. Every sound ceased. The teacher, Ms. Novak, glared. Roseanne stood up, aimed a grimace at Tony that was so poisonous that he felt the room had filled up with cyanide and scorpions. She stomped up to him and kicked him in the left shin with a pointed shoe, and raged out of the door. Ms. Novak said, “Tony Bradner, go to the principal’s office. Now. We will not have that kind of language in this classroom!”
Tony gaped at her. What kind of language? He had done nothing except make up a weird insult. But she repeated her request, “Go to the principal’s office, now.” Tony shrugged, and strolled out of the room behind Roseanne. He didn’t know why she’d suddenly gotten mad either (or was it merely an excuse to get out of class? She wasn’t in the hall now!). But, he reasoned, when the principal heard his side of the story, he’d laugh and that would be that.
Rosanne was already sitting in the principal’s office, glaring swords at Tony.
“Why don’t you explain what happened?” The principal asked Tony, matter-of-factly.
Before Tony could say anything, Rosanne pointed an accusing finger at him and snarled, “He called me a pack of syphilis!”
Okay, this isn’t exactly how it happened. Tony, Paul, Rosanne, and Ms. Novak are fictional characters. The actual incident unfloded over several weeks, from what I remember, and involved more kids, a lot more confusion, a brain contest, swearing, fisticuffs, more "scientific" name-calling ("Brainless nematode!" "Coelenterate!") and marijuana around a boy scout campfire. (I didn't smoke any. Yeah right. Actually, that's true. I didn't.) (And also, yes, I was aware of the difference between “poisonous” and “venomous”.) But the problem is obvious. I kept trying to explain that the disgusting insult everyone heard was not the mild (and comical) one I’d intended. “I didn’t say syphilis! I said cephalus!” The principal probably thought I was frantically backpedaling, trying to cover up for saying something truly offensive (and truly weird); though I remember wondering at the time if he was too stupid to hear the difference. (Yeah, the mental processing of an authority-questioning 13-year-old.) Either way, I wound up having to write a lot of sentences on a blackboard.
Basically, I’d been Mondegreened.
Nonsense(?) Word no. 3: Mondegreen
Mondegreen: is a mishearing or misinterpretation of a phrase in such a way as to give it a new meaning. The term comes from a Scottish ballad, where "layd him on the green" was heard as "Lady Mondegreen". Some famous examples (also from song lyrics) are Hendrix’s “’scuse me while I kiss this guy” and the Beatles’ “A girl with colitis goes by”. I have one of my own: I used to think that there was an idiom, “to give through”, meaning to show up or become obvious — from the misheard line “…gave through, through the night, that the flag was still there…” in the Star-Spangled Banner. Not the Hendrix version.
Which brings us back to Ella Minnow Pea, where the new meaning of the phrase is not only a new letter in the alphabet but the name of a character. Maybe they’re still trying to find Ella’s namesake letter on Nollop’s monument. But, as far as I know, the word "pachycephalus" was booted out of the English language before it even had a chance to join.
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