The Seed of Language

There is a fascinating article in the NY Times about the origin of language. Quentin D. Atkinson, a biologist at the University of Auckland in New Zealand, used mathematical modeling to argue that southern Africa is where modern human language originated.

His study was based on the theory that the number of phonemes in a language increases with the number of people who speak it. Using that as a base, Dr. Atkinson contends that phoneme diversity would decrease when groups split off and migrated away from the parent group. There are about 44 English phonemes. In contrast, the Khoisan languages – the click languages of Africa – have 90 phonemes. Among the speakers of Khoisan languages are the Bushmen of the Kalahari Desert. Based on human mitochondrial DNA, the Bushmen belong to one of the earliest branches of the genetic tree.

So did language originate in Africa, split into separate dialects and languages, and then continue diversifying as people began to move to other parts of the world?

Phoneme inventories are tricky things. However, languages, like genes, provide vital clues about human history. Language greatly leveraged the power of individual brains to understand the world. As Mark Pagel, a biologist at the University of Reading in England who advised Dr. Atkinson, states, “Language was our secret weapon, and as soon we got language we became a really dangerous species.” Dr. Atkinson's theory may not solve all the riddles of language origin, but it certainly adds to the discussion.

OMG! OED Adds LOL and FYI.

A team of more than 70 wordsmiths from the stalwart bastion of language, the Oxford English Dictionary, have decided to add OMG, LOL, and FYI to the March 2011 release of the OED Online dictionary.

The OED notes that on the Internet, “initialisms are quicker to type than the full forms, and (in the case of text messages, or Twitter, for example) they help to say more in media where there is a limit to a number of characters one may use in a single message.” It's amazing how much the digital world is affecting vocabulary and grammar. Interestingly, though, these “initialisms” go quite a ways back in history.

OED Examples:

1917 J. A. F. Fisher Let. 9 Sept. in Memories (1919) v. 78, I hear that a new order of Knighthood is on the tapis—O.M.G. (Oh! My God!)—Shower it on the Admiralty!

1990 Jargon File Draft, part 4 of 4 in comp.misc (Usenet newsgroup) 13 June, LOL‥laughing out loud.

1941 Washington Post 27 Apr. 5/3 ‘FYI’ titles this new program for the Mutual network‥. The letters mean ‘For Your Information’—a series detailing how the United States is combating sabotage and espionage.

Whether you view these additions as a further corruption of the English language or as natural evolution, it's a fascinating development. As I've said before, grammar prescriptivists don't stand a chance in this rapidly changing world.

Copy Editing for the Web

A report in the Columbia Journalism Review claims that websites published by magazines don't have the same copy standards as the print version of the magazine. The research project surveyed 665 consumer magazines, about 12 percent of which had print circulations of more than 500,000.

Stephanie Clifford of the NY Times reports:

Copy-editing requirements online were less stringent than those in print at 48 percent of the magazines. And 11 percent did not copy-edit online-only articles at all.

A similar trend held with fact-checking. Although 57 percent of the magazines fact-check online submissions in the same way they fact-check print articles, 27 percent used a less-stringent process. And 8 percent did not fact-check online-only content at all. (The other 8 percent did not fact-check either print or online articles.)

There was also variance in how corrections were indicated to readers. Almost all of the magazine sites — 87 percent — corrected minor errors, like typos and misspellings, without telling readers of the change. And 45 percent of the sites changed factual errors without letting readers know they had gotten it wrong.

What does this mean? Do web writers and editors care less about grammar and fact-checking than those in the print side of the business? Or in the race to be the first to cover breaking news, has speed trumped accuracy?

National Grammar Day

Today is National Grammar Day. I'm always leery of holidays devoted to language because, by and large, they are initiated by prescriptivists. Actually, National Grammar Day was founded by Martha Brockenbrough to promote her book, Things That Make Us [Sic].

However, John McIntyre, a former professor of journalism at Loyola College, has used the occasion to write a grammar-based pulp fiction serial. He started last year with Grammarnoir, followed this year by Pulp Diction. If you're a fan of Raymond Chandler and of language, take a look. Here is a sample:

I was sitting at my desk in the old Intelligencer-Argus building the day she walked in. It was late afternoon on a rainy day, and my hand had strayed more than once toward the dictionary in the bottom desk drawer. I heard footsteps approaching, and when I looked up, there she was. She was — lissome.

“Mr. McIntyre?” she said.

“Take a load off, lady,” I said pushing a chair, the one with the loose armrest, toward her. Cheapskate publishers. “What can I do for you?”

“Mr. McIntyre, my name is Martha Brockenbrough, and I need your help.”

“What’s the problem, sis?”

“Well, a dear friend of mine is married to a man — he's a hard worker and a good provider, I don’t mean to say anything against him — but he’s so rigid.”

“What’s his game?” I asked, with a suspicion dawning like the morning sun over the penitentiary down the street.

“He’s a writer.”

“I know the type.”

“No, you don’t,” she said, lifting her stubborn little chin. “He’s a good writer. Well, most of the time, anyway. It’s just that he’s fallen into some bad ways.”

“Tell me about them, doll,” I said.

“He positively insists that none can be used only as a singular.”

“Uh-huh.”

“And once he threatened to strike a grocery clerk in the ‘10 items or less’ aisle.”

“Yeah?”

“He got so angry once over my … my friend’s placement of only in a sentence that she was afraid she would have to call the police.”

“Baby, I’ve met a million of ’em. This place used to crawl with ’em before the bottom fell out of the paragraph game. But why are you coming to me about this bozo?”

“Well, I heard, Mr. McIntyre, that you’re a highly professional copy editor.”

“I’ve nailed the errant adverb in my time.”

“I thought you could talk him, work with him, help him somehow.”

“Toots, I’ve got it soft here. Twenty an hour, and I don’t have to furnish my own pencil. I don’t need the aggravation.”

“But Mr. McIntyre, National Grammar Day is almost here. It’s March 4, and I’m so afraid for him, and for my friend, that if he isn’t turned around by then, something terrible might happen.” She sobbed softly into a dainty little lace thing she’d plucked from her purse.

It was the tears that got to me, against my better judgment. I should’ve known better. I did know better. Always a sucker for any sweet dame.

“All right, Ms. Brockenbrough, you've got yourself a green eyeshade. Let's have his name and address.”

“Oh,” she said. “There’s a problem.”

Continued here…