My daily bread

Despite the endless rows of other food that fill up supermarkets, the most important corner of any grocery store is the bread racks.  Tens if not hundreds of types of bread products tempt and confuse us. Linguistically, some very common stables have interesting histories of which most people are not aware.

Some breads were for special occasions. A kaiser or Vienna roll was made for the Emperor Franz Joseph’s birthday.  A pretzel was for lent since it required no eggs. People often gave bagels as a gift, including Jews over 600 years ago. 

Some flours have quaint backgrounds.  Graham flour, from which Graham crackers are made (ideal for smores, a wonderful sandwich with chocolate and marshmallows melted over the open fire), was invented by a pub owners who wanted his clients to drink more and came up with a whole wheat flour that helped absorb the alcohol.  Pumpernickel, a component of expensive breads today, was once supposed rejected by Napoleon for his personal use and left for his horse and is allegedly translated as “the devil’s fart” for its effects on the digestive system.

Some desert favorites have also come from far away.  Crepes, my personal favorite (with Grand Marnier, sugar and lemon), come from the Latin crispa for waved.  The Bretons make a whole wheat crepe adding meat, which I strongly recommend.  Their name is either les galettes or les saracens, i.e. moors since the wheat grew in the moors.  As for the classic American doughnut or donut, one theory of the name is that the bakers added nuts in the middle since that dough tended to be undercooked there. 

It is true that you can’t live on bread alone but you sure can gain weight on it.  While you are enjoying its satisfying taste, look up a bit of its history, food for the mind you could say.

By sea and by air

Long forgotten by recent generations, including mine, taking a plane to travel long distance was a distant third preference to zeppelins and, mainly, ships.  In commercial language, at the beginning, air transportation was an “extreme” alternative to the comfortable and proven world of ships.  This genealogy has had a strong impact on the vocabulary of planes in English to this day.

A group of planes is called a fleet while the chief pilot is an aircraft is a captain.  The plane itself is divided into various cabins, located aft and stern, not to mention the kitchen galley, where the food is warmed up (prepared would be too kind of a word).These calories are served by stewardesses, the female version of the ship stewards, to add some sex appeal.  The outside of the airplane is a hull. In the airport, like for a ship, are docking spaces.

To be fair, passengers board and exit the plane, not embark and disembark. While a ship is a she, a plane is an it, even for the crew, to the best of my knowledge.  The amount of leg room in an economy seat and ship lounge chair cannot be compared while the space of even the smallest sleeping cabin on a ship involves a pretty penny for a flight.

In retrospect, aside from speed and time issues, travel by ship still seems a more pleasant experience, even taking into account the seasickness problem. If most of us cannot afford in terms of time and/or money the journey by sea, we can at least linguistically experience it by flying.

Racism and the “Dash” problem

Pluralistic countries, such as the United and Israel, suffer from a human identity problem.  In the US, the people walking in the streets are black- Americans, Irish-Americans, Jewish Americans, etc. while in Israel there are Russian, Ethiopian, Moroccan, Druze, Arab, etc. Israelis.  Most countries of the world share the same situation to one degree or another, including such previous essentially homogenous countries of France and Denmark.  The issue is the emphasis: what is more dominant, the “species” or the “genus”. In other words, when people see different citizens of their country, what enters the mind, their shared or differentiated cultural values?

To demonstrate, I live in a culturally diverse neighborhood in Northern Israel.  The culture of origin of my neighbors is obvious from the clothes they wear, the odors coming from their kitchen, and the manner in which they say shalom.  They include Ethiopians, both immigrants and second generation, Russian, Caucasians (from the Russian Caucuses), North African Jews whose taste in music and clothes has not been radically changed by the three generations of living in Israel, and local Arabs who choose to living in a Jewish town for personal reasons, to name only a few.  A white Ashkenazi potential apartment buyer here could have at least two reactions.  On one extreme, this person could the see the differences of life style as a threat; these people are not really “Israeli” enough; “I” don’t fit or want to fit in with “them”.  The opposite attitude is to view the inhabitants as people who have chosen, for whatever the reason, to make their life in Israel and face common challenges, specifically making a living, raising a family, and enjoying life as much as possible.  The choice of keeping the Shabbat or not or the style of Friday night dinner and even the color of the skin are minor details.  When the VAT goes up, we all suffer. 

That said, some issues, often fed by opportunistic politicians, divide people by ethnic background.  Controversial trials, such as those of OJ Simpson in the US and Arie Deri in Israel, highlight ethnicity not  nationality.  International events often create a dilemma of loyalties, perceived or real, for the group in question.  These include threats to fellow members in another country, such as war in the Middle East or a massacre of group members elsewhere. Finally, actual racist behavior directed at the group specifically can separate its interests from the collective interest.  The best example is violent police behavior directed at a member of that ethnic group.  So, the ultimate melting pot is an ideal, not a reality.

Still, the key to a tolerant and non-racist society is seeing beyond obvious visual and behavior differences and noticing the common culture shared by all Israeli, Americans, and even French and Germans, to name just a few.  The excitement of parents on the first day of kindergarten of their children or fans as their team wins a World Cup games transcends individual differences as does the sadness of parents of a soldier on his final journey or frustration of commuters trapped in a traffic jam.

Bill Cosby, in an early and not very “funny” routine demonstrated the stupidity of racism (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZjzB_-3sRqk) as did MAD magazine several decades ago in which a racist was described as someone who loves America but hates 98% of the people who live there.   Hopefully, in the future, people will learn to drop the dash permanently.

Renting and Leasing

The most confusing concepts are those that are quite similar but not identical.  In some cases, the subtle difference blurs, rendering the terms interchangeable.  On other cases, purists, often jurists, insist on the difference even if the general public does not quite grasp it.  An example of this phenomenon is the word pair rent and lease.  Clearly derived from different roots, they both mean in a general sense to allow temporary use of asset, mobile or stationary, in compensation for a regular monthly fee.

In English, the difference remains distinct. A lease, whether of a car or an office, is a fixed duration agreement during which the tenant pays a  predetermined and unchangeable amount during the lease period.  In some case, such as automobile leases, these payments may create some type of potential ownership rights, but this provision does not define a lease.  By contrast, a rental agreement is a renewable short term agreement, daily to monthly depending on the context, whose payment rate may change at each interval.  For example, people may rent a car for a week or day or an apartment on a monthly basis.  Neither side is bound to renew the agreement nor is any ownership rights allowed.  To rent is simply to get short-term temporary use of an asset with minimum legal obligations.  In terms of grammar, each word has a noun and verb form, i.e. lease and rental/rent, respectively.

In French, the distinction has become muddled (see http://www.dictionnaire-juridique.com/definition/bail.php .  The word bail [buy] means lease while location [locasion] refers to a rent, but are in fact used interchangeably.  The verb form for bail, bailler, according to the above source, has given way to donner à bail or louer, the latter based on the abovementioned location. To distinguish the long term use of a car, French dealerships use the English term le leasing because louer is ambiguous (and sounds less special, maybe).

Hebrew does have two separate words, שכירות [Schzerut] and חכירה [Hachira], loosely translated as renting and leasing. In practice, under Israeli law, the former is for a period less than five years while the latter is for five years or more. See http://www.shamainadlan.co.il/itemview.php?item=17 for more information.  In terms of the verb, as in French, one verb,  להשכיר [lahaskir] is primary used for both uses, although להחכיר [lahhakhir] does exist.

So, sometimes the difference between a lease and rent agreement is no difference.

On (corporate) mothers and daughters

Business language has its peculiarities, including expressions that only make sense to those who use it daily.  One interesting example is the description of that slave-like relation between the controlling company and the controlled company, .i.e. when one company owns 100% of another company.  Curiously, there seems to be slight but meaningful differences between languages on how to describe this relationship.

English refers to the company owning the shares as the parent company, reflecting the fact that non-animate nouns do not have a gender in English.  By contrast, since the word for company is feminine in Hebrew and French, the parental relationship is expressed through the mother with a small difference, i.e. חברת אם [hevrat em], mother company, in Hebrew and maison mère, mother house, in French.  Spanish assumes the blood connection and  emphasizes the main point, the power, using  empreza matriz, meaning master or founding company, derived from the word for womb. Russian, for some unknown reason, opts to express all the options, i.e. компания-учредитель [kompaniya uchhyeditel], компания владеющая [kompaniya vladtyushaya], материнская компания [materinskaya kompaniya], and родительская компания [roditelskakya kompaniya], meaning founding, leading, mother, and parental company, respectively.

On the other side of the coin, English refers to the owned company as a subsidiary, from the Latin subsidiarius meaning help or support.  Spanish follows this lead, referring to such a company as a subsidiara. Keeping with the parental connection, Russians and Israeli treat their subsidiaries as daughers, using the terms дочерная компания [doshernaya firma] and חברת בת  [hevrat bat], respectively.  The French call it a filiale, which is linked to the Latin word for son, but generally refers to children in general. 

If Turgenev about physical fathers and sons, who will write a book about mothers and daughters of the legal body variety?

The Foreign Feeling

Millions of people have immigrated as adults to countries whose official language is different from theirs.  The minute they say they open their mouths, people identify them as foreigners, regardless of how many years they have lived in that country.  As a personal example, my mother has lived in the United States for over 60 years while I am in Israel for 25 years.  We are still foreigners and identified as such.  Our experience applies to the millions of immigrants around the world.

Israelis are very accepting of immigrants since almost everybody is not more than a generation or two removed from that status.  Still, without intending to offend, some Israelis treat non-natives in frankly annoying ways. For example, they significantly slow down their speech and use overly simple words, as if we are small children with limited understanding. In other cases, they switch to my native tongue, English, not even giving me a chance to prove that I know Hebrew. The most annoying comment I have received is “You still have an accent.”  Most people who immigrated as adults keep their native accent to one degree or another, without any connection to their knowledge of the language.  Henry Kissinger was a good example of that.

Other attitudes don’t bother me.  I have no problem with a mortgage counselor reminding me to ask if I have any question. Even native Israelis have problem with legal/banking language, incidentally my specialization in translating. I don’t mind friends correcting my Hebrew mistakes.  Otherwise, how would I improve my language?   I find it completely natural to ask a native speaker to review anything I write in Hebrew.  I want to make a good impression and know that pride has a heavy price.  So, I ask my wife to edit my Hebrew.

So, for most immigrants who came as adults, the second language never completely becomes the first language.  We have our mistakes, hesitations, and accents, which nothing to do with our intelligence or knowledge of the language itself.  As Aretha Franklin sang so well, all immigrants want R E S P E C T.

Who's got that holiday feeling?

What is a holiday feeling?  To people born, raised and living in the same country all their lives, the emotions and rituals associated with each holiday, whether anticipated or dreaded, are part of the flow of the year and to a certain degree obvious.  However, to expatriates, foreign residents, and other culturally confused people, there is no obvious emotional connection.

I was raised Jewish and have lived in Israel for 25 years.  Yet, my manner of experiencing the national and religious holidays of Israel is different from Sabras.

I grew up in an atheist Jewish house.  To explain that apparent contradiction, my parents did not practice or believe in Judaism, but insisted on building my Jewish awareness through a minimal Jewish education, active identification with being Jewish, and basic holiday rituals, specifically Rosh Hashana, Yom Kippur, and Pesach.  Therefore, at least for those three holy days, I experienced their rhythm.   Granted, fasting on Yom Kippur meant only not eating, not as in Israel where it means not eating and drinking.  As for the rest of the Jewish holidays, they mean nothing to me, including the joy of Purim, the ecstasy of Shevuot, or the mourning of Tisha b’Av.  These days are emotionally ordinary days, not special days as they are for religious Jews.

In terms of national holidays, I did not grow up here.  Israeli is going through its week-long catharsis consisting of the Holocaust Memorial Day, Memorial Day for fallen soldiers, and Independence Day.  As my mother was in Europe during the war and lost her father, among others, the first does have meaning, even if I am slightly ambivalent about the endless run of depressing movies and documentaries.  In terms of the Memorial Day for soldiers, I did not serve in the military.  Moreover, I have never known anybody who died in a war.  My father was wounded twice in World War II, but luckily came home safe and sound.  So, I have no one to remember on this day. It is a heavy day in terms of the national feeling, but without specific thoughts for me.  Tomorrow is Independence Day in Israel.  The feeling of wonder and excitement of being a country that characterized this holiday in the early years of the country is gradually disappearing.  Instead, almost every Israeli takes part in a mass feeding frenzy of barbecued meat.  That reminds me of July 4, without the Boston Pops and Soussa marches of course.  So, I can relate to the national experience. 

As I once said to my parents, I have the privilege of being able to live in three different societies (US, France, and Israel) without belonging 100% to any of them.  In terms of holidays, being socially confused makes you an outsider on holidays.  It is a bit like being an only child: not a tragedy but a situation.  I just have a different holiday feeling.