"It is ironic that Austen, the elegant, precise satirist that she was, should provoke this crude and unsophisticated and wild meanness."

"She was no stranger to anger, to simmering resentments and harsh judgments, to taking people down a notch, but her sentences were if anything the opposite of 'a bomb was placed in front of your house.'"

Writes Katie Roiphe in Slate, about the Jane-Austen-on-the-banknote controversy we were talking about yesterday.

Why is that ironic? Isn't it more exactly what you'd expect, that an elegant, precise writer's antagonists would be crude? What's ironic is that Roiphe, championing the elegant, precise writer would misuse the word "ironic."

I checked the complete works of Jane Austen to see if old Jane had ever used the word "irony" or "ironic." The answer is no, but the search turned up the uses of "iron" as well, and I was amused by this exclamation, in "Northanger Abby," about James's gig:

"Break down! Oh! lord! Did you ever see such a little tittuppy thing in your life? There is not a sound piece of iron about it....."

Tittuppy.  Is that the adjective for the phrase "tits up"? The (unlinkable) OED marks the word as colloquial and defines it to mean: "Apt to tittup or tip up; unsteady, shaky." The first recorded usage is the "Northanger Abby" one I've quoted above. It's based on the noun "tittup," which is "apparently echoic, from the sound of the horse's feet" and means "A horse's canter; a hand-gallop." I guess we'd say "clip-clop." Now, a second meaning of "tittup" is "An impudent or forward woman or girl; a hussy, a minx." You might want to try using that!

1762   D. Garrick Farmer's Return 9   Some Tittups I saw, and they maade me to stare!

We're referred to the second meaning of "tit," which is "A girl or young woman: often qualified as little: cf. chit n.1; also applied indiscriminately to women of any age (? dial.).  (a) Usually in depreciation or disapproval: esp. one of loose character, a hussy, a minx.  (b) Sometimes in affection or admiration, or playful meiosis. (Common in 17th and 18th c.; now low slang.)" This is a very old usage, going back to 1599:

1599   T. M. Micro-cynicon ii. sig. B5v,   He hath his tyt, and she likewise her gull. Gull he, Trull she....
1886   G. M. Fenn Master of Cerem. vii,   She's a pretty little tit....
1932   S. O'Faoláin Midsummer Night Madness 62   I'm sorry for his two tits of sisters, though.

Wow. The oldest meaning of "tit" is a small horse. Surprising, no?

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Why do philosophy professors call themselves "philosophers" when law professors don't call themselves "lawyers"?

I think the answer is that "philosopher" sounds loftier than "philosophy professor," but "law professor" sounds loftier than "lawyer." But it could also be that "lawyer" is a specific job that the law professor needs to signal is not what he's doing, but "philosopher" is not a job.

I'm thinking of this question because I see Instapundit linked to my post from yesterday about the philosophy professor accused of sexual harassment, and I was rereading the beginning of the post: "'There was no propositioning,' said the philosopher. 'Remember that I am a philosopher trying to teach a budding philosopher important logical distinctions.'" Boldface added. It's striking. To insiders maybe it's ordinary, but to my ear, it's either beautiful and romantic and somewhat pretentious or romantic.

The word "philosopher" was originally very broad, referring, according to the (unlinkable) OED to "an expert in or student of any branch of knowledge, including the physical and natural sciences, alchemy, prophecy, the occult, etc., but in later use applied chiefly to those versed in the metaphysical and moral sciences." Over time, it became restricted to those in the academic discipline we call philosophy. There's no one left to claim the title "philosopher" but the professors, though you do see the word applied in to nonacademics who express themselves in a philosophical manner. This seems to happen mostly sarcastically: Oh, a philosopher!

I see that in the 16th century the word "lawyer" — spelled "lawar" or "lawer" — was used to mean "A professor of law." That's obsolete, obviously.

You may be interesting to know that the word "lawyer" is used in dialect to refer to "A long bramble" and in New Zealand "to certain creeping plants."

1863   C. Kingsley Water-babies i. 34   The lawyers tripped him up, and tore his shins as if they had sharks' teeth.
1875   Sussex Gloss.,  Lawyer, a long bramble full of thorns, so called because ‘when once they gets a holt an ye, ye doant easy get shut of 'em’.

And in the United States, "lawyer" is used in some locales to refer to the black-necked Stilt (Himantopus nigricollis), the Burbot ( Lota maculosa), and the Bowfin or Mudfish (Amia calva):

c1850   S. H. Hammond Wild Northern Scenes 45   ‘What on earth is that?’ said I to the fisherman. ‘That’, said he, ‘is a species of ling; which we call in these parts a lawyer’.
1859   J. R. Bartlett Dict. Americanisms (ed. 2) ,   Lawyer..the black-necked Stilt... On the New Jersey coast it is some~times called lawyer on account of its ‘long bill.'

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"Is this really the message we want to send to the rest of the world? That this is Wisconsin? A place where people can’t come and express themselves in their state capitol? That’s bologna."

So said state senator Bob Jauch, about the arrest of 22 of the "Solidarity Singers," for singing in the Wisconsin Capitol building without a permit. This singing has been a regular event since the big protests in 2011. The arrests followed a singalong that defied the police chief's message — posted on a sign — "I have determined that your group does not have the required permits. I am declaring this an unlawful event. Please either move outside or disperse immediately. If you do not, each participant is subject to arrest."

By the way, I think it's funny to write "That’s bologna." Normally, one sees the spelling "baloney," when the reference is to humbug/nonsense. My authority is the (unlinkable) Oxford English Dictionary, which gives the alternative "boloney."

1928   Sat. Evening Post 28 Nov. 21   Gee, that's a long shot. Boloney! That's not the ball—it's the divot.
1935   Discovery Dec. 378/2   He even suggests that much of modern psychiatry is ‘hooey’ and ‘baloney’.
1935   E. Weekley Something about Words 64   Boloney must surely be for Bologna sausage (whence also the English polony, dating from the 18th century), influenced perhaps by the contemptuous sense associated with the German wurst.

"Bologna" is the spelling for the sausage, which is notable for its large size. Here are the OED's historical examples:

1596   T. Nashe Haue with you to Saffron-Walden sig. R2,   As big as a Bolognian sawcedge.
1833   ‘M. Dods’ Cook & Housewife's Man. (ed. 5) iii. i. 267 (note) ,   Real Bologna sausages labour under the imputation of being made of asses' flesh.
1850   Knickerbocker XXXV. 23   Relishing ‘Bolognas’, will he plead that a jelly-eyed roaster is disgusting?
1916   C. Sandburg Chicago Poems 24   The dago shovelman finishes the dry bread and bologna.

First, I love the spelling "sawcedge." Second, dago shovelman?

The dago shovelman sits by the railroad track
Eating a noon meal of bread and bologna.
     A train whirls by, and men and women at tables
     Alive with red roses and yellow jonquils,
     Eat steaks running with brown gravy,
     Strawberries and cream, eclaires and coffee.
The dago shovelman finishes the dry bread and bologna,
Washes it down with a dipper from the water-boy,
And goes back to the second half of a ten-hour day's work
Keeping the road-bed so the roses and jonquils
Shake hardly at all in the cut glass vases
Standing slender on the tables in the dining cars.

I love the way Sandberg empathizes with the worker, all the while calling him a "dago."

"Dago" is in the OED, in case you're wondering. It's defined as "A name originally given in the south-western section of the United States to a man of Spanish parentage; now extended to include Spanish, Portuguese, and Italian people in general, or as a disparaging term for any foreigner." The word is a corruption of the proper name Diego. Some historical examples:

[1723   Bumstead in New-Eng. Historical & Geneal. Reg. (1861) XV. 199   The negro Dago hanged for fiering Mr Powell's house.]
1832   E. C. Wines Two Years in Navy (1833) I. vi. 145   These Dagos [of Minorca], as they are pleasantly called by our people, were always a great pest...
1904   T. Roosevelt Let. 2 Sept. in H. F. Pringle T. Roosevelt (1931) 294   It will show these Dagos that they will have to behave decently....
1909 H. G. Wells Tono-Bungay iii. iv. 406 'E's a foreigner... That's what E is—a Dago!

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"I don't like being described as 'sniffing'?"

Says Meade, reading the last post. I'm going for vivid verbs, but I'm still attentive to image control. Meade's not a big language pedant, but he says: "I do object to the suffix '-wise,' like 'weatherwise.'"

"But when I said 'weatherwise,'" I say, referring to the time I said 'weatherwise' the other day, "I was making an allusion to that Frank Sinatra song. Weatherwise, it's such a lovely day... Come fly with me...."



When that album came out, in 1958, my father looked exactly like that. It's funny, when you're a kid — I was 7 — you can get the feeling that if someone looks just like someone else, that they kind of are that person. And not just in that jokey separated-at-birth way. (You never see them in the same place at the same time, ever notice?) But in some mystic way. Even when you know it's not true. It's still kind of true.

Did anyone ever come up to you and accuse you of being a celebrity and when you said that you were not, they insisted that you were? Meade had that experience. Here's Meade's 70s-era doppelganger. ("But you didn't have that hairy mole," I protest, questioning the story.)

Do you pop the bubble of fantasy or not? Would Frank Sinatra admit to being Frank Sinatra? If he were my father, he'd sign the autograph — Frank Sinatra — and get rid of the crumb.

The above-pictured album is somewhere in this pile of records that I inherited from my father, who was a terrible singer, but loved music:



I have a planned blog project related to these records, which I might roll out soon.

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I told you this 3 weeks ago, but Drudge flashes it today: Rachel Jeantel says she warned Trayvon Martin that Zimmerman could be a gay rapist.

Drudge has the transcript of last night's Piers Morgan interview on CNN:

MORGAN: You felt that there was no doubt in your mind from what Trayvon was telling you on the phone about the creepy ass cracka and so on, that he absolutely believed that George Zimmerman, this man, you didn't know who he was at the time, but this man, was pursuing him?

JEANTEL: Yes.

MORGAN: And he was freaked out by it?

JEANTEL: Yes. Definitely after I say may be a rapist, for every boy, for every man, every -- who's not that kind of way, seeing a grown man following them, would they be creep out?... And people need to understand, he didn't want that creepy ass cracker going to his father or girlfriend's house to go get -- mind you, his little brother was there. You know -- now, mind you, I told you -- I told Trayvon it might have been a rapist." 

Here's my post from June 27th, with embedded video from Jeantel's testimony. I said (boldface added):

You assume that there's no way he'd say "cracker" if he didn't see him as white? But he didn't say "cracker." He said "creepy ass cracker." I understand the use of "ass" as an intensifier connected to the adjective "creepy." Creepy-ass cracker, as in very creepy cracker.

But "ass" could go with "cracker" — "ass-cracker." The conversation continued, according to Jeantel: "So... he told me the man was looking at him, so I had to think it might have been a rapist."
Why rapist? A man raping a man? How common is that as a fear? But it was the first thing Jeantel thought to say after he said creepy-ass cracker/creepy ass-cracker. The term "ass cracker" could easily mean a man who rapes a man, especially one who goes after a teenaged boy....

The word "creepy" makes special sense if you reinterpret the "ass" to go with "cracker." Martin said a man was following him, looking at him. He might have thought Zimmerman was a man out looking for sex and was watching him for that reason. What conversations had Martin had in the past with Jeantel about worries of this kind. She "had to think it might have been a rapist."...

Why didn't Martin take Jeantel's advice and run home? The rapist/ass-cracker theory makes sense of Martin's decision to go after Zimmerman. If he saw Zimmerman as a sexual predator, he might think confrontation was a good idea or even an important step: These creeps in the neighborhood need to know that I'm not their prey. It's not enough to run inside daddy's house. My manhood must be established here and now or I can't walk free around here anymore.

Call out the gay rights activists. In this interpretation, it was a gay-bashing!

ADDED: Thanks to Irene for nudging me to post this. It was right there in the testimony, and the defense lawyers — who were pretty astute about hearing cues and following up — missed this.

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Prisoners on cellphones blab incriminating statements — even though they know they're being monitored and recorded.

"It’s a bizarre thing.... Most of the time, they’re using code words they don’t think the listener will understand.... But when you listen long enough, you get to know their patterns and understand the code.”

Quotes from the indictment show gang members using slang like “skat” and “toy” on the phone in a bid to hide the fact they’re talking about guns.

How long did they have to listen to figure that out? On the other hand, if that's so stupid, why haven't the authorities crushed these gangs by now?

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