Not barry black or white

One of the challenges of the English language is that words tend to mean, to paraphrase Lewis Carroll, what specific professions have intended them to mean, which creates great confusion for learners, especially foreign ones. A fine example of this is the simple, three letter word bar. Derived from the old French word barre, meaning a long, rectangular piece, it has taken on so many meaning as to become complete unpredictable for a non-native.

In its simple form, a bar is a barrier. People can be barred from driving if they get too many tickets. If everybody is welcome, bar none, nobody feels bad. Being behind bars means being in jail or prison, a definite barrier. However, if someone raises the bar, it means that they have set a new standard of excellence, not created a barrier.  Passing the bar exam means you now become part of the bar, the society of lawyers. Even more confusing, rebar almost always refers to the metal rod inserted into cement to create reinforced cement, not a second cancellation of rights. In modern slang, it is so foggy that you can see your own hand, barred means just that, not an allusion.

As the second noun in a compound noun, ambiguity takes over. A bar, including a wine bar, is a place to drink alcohol in pubic.  A chocolate or health bar is a tasty snack wrapped in plastic. So, what is exactly a milk bar?  The first actually applies most of the time since it is a public drinking place that does not serve alcohol, as strange as that may seem. On the other hand, there are edible milk bars. Just to confuse matters, an iron bar has nothing to do with either use and instead is a heavy piece of metal used in construction.  For that matter, a music bar is the set unit of music based on established number of beats and isolated by lines on either side of it.

As the first noun in the series, the interpretation is even muddier. A bar tap is the running bill incurred by revellers at a pub and kept by the bartender. However, a barbell (as compared to a bar belle) is a metal object intentionally raised by weight lifters and runners to improve strength.  What is not obvious is that a bar fly is not what happens when gym rats get violently drunk or a pesky insect disturbing them but instead someone who contributes to the financial health of several drinking establishments on a regular basis. For that matter, a barcode is the printed computer code on all products allowing price scanning, not the rules of behaviour at a pub. Likewise, a bar chart generally has nothing to do with drinking patterns but instead is a visual representation of data.

So, foreign learners, who represent the majority of English speakers, find themselves at a loss when faced with such a lack of consistency. Keeping in mind Ziva of NCIS fame, native speakers should be tolerant of any errors or misunderstandings they may make in applying even the simplest of words. After all, English is a barry confusing language.

Boxing day

Languages are archives of historical influences. Expressions from powerful forces in the past retain their strength in the language even if that experience is much less relevant today. One of these areas is boxing, a massively popular sport for many decades. This worldwide interest is exemplified by the 1.5 million people who watched the 3^rd match between Mohammad Ali and Joe Frazier in the Philippines in 1975, known as the thrilla from Manilla. Today, although boxing has lost its mass appeal, its terminology is no less relevant.

A person’s status as a heavy weight or light weight applies to the work place, reflecting the person’s influence. Even lower, being a punching bag means that the person is not getting any respect and is being abused. A ringside seat is a great place to watch any event or incident, especially one that is pleasurable for the observer.

During certain conversations, there may be some jabbing, which are short, rapid biting remarks, or occasionally a knockout blow, which decides the whole matter.  In defense, you shoudl stay on your toes and be alert because you may need to have a counterpunch ready, your own attack, something to put the aggressor on his heals and worried about his position. To do this, you may have to take one on the chin, bravely accept a blow to the face. However, it is not nice when someone undercuts you and weakens your basis or, even worse, gives you a low blow and fails to play according to the rules. which is below the belt, simply nasty.

The result of all these blows can vary. You can be on the ropes and in severe trouble. Worse, you can be down for the count and in danger of losing. Of course, you can get lucky and be saved by the bell and get a chance to recover. On the other hand, you could get knocked out and have to leave the situation.

So, whether you like the sport or not, boxing has enriched the English language. To clarify any misinterpretation, boxing day is a peculiarly English holiday occurring on the day after Christmas on which the servants were allowed to visit their families bearing gift boxes. It has nothing to do with beating up the servants or physical violence at all. With that clarification, I will now step out of the ring and end this post.

When Harry meets Ginny

I admit that I enjoyed the Harry Potter series, the books more than the movies.  It even started my translation career as I translated three of the books into Hebrew on a nightly basis to my then small daughter as I read her the story from the English version. Like all good social literature, Harry Potter reflects the values of general society, which can be problematic.

At the end of the final book, the readers are informed that Harry married Ginny Weasley while Hermione marries the brother Ron. My initial reaction was these pairings that it was a waste for the Harry and Hermione.  To explain, on an intellectual and personal value, the two stars were equal, albeit with different approaches, and clearly superior to their chosen spouses. Hemione’s matching is more disturbing since she seemed strong enough emotionally to handle an intelligent husband while Harry maybe needed emotional support more than intellectual partnership given his background.

On second thought, I can understand the choice of the writer.  Looking at the biographies of intellectually outstanding women, just as with men, I found very few women who dared married their equal. The best example is Hannah Arendt, the leading female philosopher of the 20^th century, who married Heinrich Blücher, a leading public speaker.  Their partnership was so complete that their ideas are considered inseparable even if their ways of expression differed. At the beginning of the 20^th century, the great German socialist thinker Rosa Luxemburg teamed up with Gustav Lübeck to try to prevent World War I from happening, to her demise. These two people were passionate and intelligent in their personal and professional lives. These are the exceptions.

Amantine Lucile Aurore Dupin, aka Georges Sand, a French female novelist of the 19^th century, had a successful career after divorcing her first husband but never married the famous men she had affairs with, including Chopin, Alfred de Musset and Flaubert. By contrast, Sidonie-Gabrielle Colette, a wonderful French writer of the 20^th century, had a successful career as a novelist and was buried in the French Pantheon, the greatest honor in France. She did remarry, to the publisher Henry de Jouvenel, apparently to attain financial stability.  These women were more practical, it appears, and represent the more common choices of even the most exceptionally women.

On second thought, marriage is a complicated decision and can be based on many factors aside from intellectual compatibility, including emotional need, sexual appetite and financial stability. These are no less legitimate or prognostic regarding the future of the marriage.  So, it is okay if some of Harry Potter’s children are redheads. Still, it is a pity that the leading pair did not tie the knot as their children would have amazing, a bit like the children of Andre Agassi and Steffi Graf in terms of tennis talent.

Forgotten bygones

Searching for a snack at the college where I teach, I noticed a tin container labeled Kojak lollipops. To satisfy my curiosity, I asked the cashier, who was in his 20’s, whether he knew who Kojak was. His answer and that of my students that day, also all in their 20’s, was negative.  This generational ignorance in regards to the then famous non-smoking detective of 1970’s and 1980’s television made me consider how many names, brand and otherwise, have lost identity over time and no longer make sense.

For example, in choosing a car, one of the most important features is horsepower. I am sure that an average person in 1850 had an idea of how much a horse could carry but I strongly doubt that today anybody in the Western world could now produce a reasonable guess. By the way, one horse power is the strength required to more 500 lb. one foot in one second. Likewise, people generally store their insurance papers, some long-forgotten gum, a dried-up pen and maybe a screwdriver in their glove compartment.  It has been at least half a century since anybody drove with gloves and needed to store them.  Nonetheless, a glove compartment is still useful if inaptly named.

Some locations are also mislabeled.  Like men, women at restaurants do occasionally go to the toilet, euphemistically referred to as “going to the bathroom” or “going to powder my nose”.  However, I am convinced that they neither take a bath nor put powder on their face in that room. Still, those expressions are still used, maybe because saying “I need to take a pee” is a bit crude. Similarly, the use of the term “penitentiary” for prison ignores that the fact the term originates from an unsuccessfully and dangerous social experiment for the Puritans in the 1790’s. They thought that if criminals had enough time and solitude to contemplate their sins, they would become penitent.  Alas, prolonged solitary confinement too often leads to insanity and not the intended result.

Some people had their names become synonyms for objects. For example, if anybody asks for your John Hancock, they are asking you to sign.  Alas, it is not clear how many people know that Mr. Hancock was one of the signatories of the United States Declaration of Independence.  A shirley temple, a non-alcoholic drink made of ginger ale, grenadine and a maraschino cherry, is named after the famous child actress of the same name in the 1930’s, who served as an ambassador as an adult. However, who remembers that?

Lastly, the French have had a huge cultural and culinary influence on America. As an example, American troops serving in World War I brought home French fries and French postcards. The first, fried potatoes, were actually a Belgium specialty but they spoke French. So, the French stole the credit, to this day. The second, a synonym for erotic pictures, showed women in more clothes than you would see at an average public beach today.  Times have changed but the names has not.

 So, the next time you feel old and stupid because you cannot understand the jargon of computers, Facebook and tweeter, I suggest you take a look around, find some archaic term unobtrusively retaining its existence and ask someone from the current generation about it.  You still may feel old, but you will feel just as privileged in knowledge.