(no subject)

[naath]

Ridiculously irritating thing of the day:

People who treat the word Halloween as Hallo-ween rather than Hallow-een and then proceed to make up words like "Jesus-ween" or "sexy-ween" or "Howl-o-ween" (this is a selection of things I've actually seen; I'm not intending to comment on the content intended).

It is All Hallows Eve(ning); the 'w' is part of "hallows" not "evening".

I just... don't understand why people do this.


(Also I've decided I'm going to try to post one thing that's been bugging me/on my mind/happens to sound interesting every day in November; instead of trying to write a novel which clearly would not work).

Comments

[cartesiandaemon.livejournal.com]

Well, I agree that's very annoying, and if I'd heard it I'd probably want to strangle someone. But OTOH, people always make portmanteaus ignorant of the etymology, it's not a surprise... :)

[simont]

Also, there's a practical consideration of whether it's actually feasible for the listener to figure out what words have been portmanteaued. If I heard "Jesuseen" I'd probably say "what?", but "Jesusween" gives me more of a fighting chance if I've never heard the expression before (which, before I read this post, I hadn't).

Similarly with foo-copter (for assorted foo) – "foo-opter" sounds like somebody choosing a foo, so it's practically useful to include the c.

[cartesiandaemon.livejournal.com]

Come to think of it, "Jesus-een" would presumably be Christmas Eve, or maybe Easter Saturday, although we already have words for those. But presumably "Jesus-ween" means "Like Halloween but with Jesus"? What is that -- is that like "dressing up as Jesus" or "dressing up at christmas" or "a midnight all saints service"?

So in fact, even if the etymology is dodgy, presumably there's actual useful meaning used by dragging the "w" along, if it shows you're mashing up "halloweeen" and not just "-een".

I hadn't expected this question to be so linguistic :)

[naath.livejournal.com]

I think "Jesus-ween" is because "halloween is EVIL" or something. Which is odd because I always thought of it as a Christian holiday... (the pagan holiday that shares the date is Samhain).

I think the idea is that you hand out goddly pamphlets instead of candy and maybe dress up as apostles rather than "sexy big bird"...

[cartesiandaemon.livejournal.com]

Doh! Yeah, I vaguely remember that, and I guess Jesus-ween is an... appropriate name for it, I just hadn't expected someone in the UK to hear it much. I think I assumed "jesus-ween" would refer to something non-stupid, which in retrospect was really very foolish :)

I always thought of it as a Christian holiday...

I guess it's christian the way the (christian) devil is christian -- only of relevance to a christianity-centric culture, but not necessarily pro christian :)

sexy big bird...

ROFL!

[cartesiandaemon.livejournal.com]

I guess you could compromise by giving out verses from some of the most grisly bits of the bible :)

[naath.livejournal.com]

This is probably the reason.

However I fundamentally think "ween" sounds silly... which I think is adding to my dislike of this thing.

Is it really hellic-opter not helli-copter? I'd never thought about that before. I guess this annoyance is bizarely specific.

[simont]

Yes, it's "helic" (as in "helical", here meaning just spirally/twirly in general) + "opter" (meaning wing, see also ornithopter and gyropter and Coleoptera and Lepidoptera and assorted others that don't have the c).

[naath.livejournal.com]

Ah yes, that makes sense. I was thinking "heli" as in "sun"... which is not really relevant!

[simont]

Although I suppose that example might work the other way round: it's a mistake to leave the c in if what you're trying to do is describe a totally different class of winged vehicle or animal, but if what you're trying to do is describe a subclass of helicopter (e.g. the Batcopter) then you precisely do want to include some vestige of the "helic" part.

Quite where that leaves "ROFLcopter" I have no idea, since I don't really understand its semantic connection with wings of any kind :-)

[cartesiandaemon.livejournal.com]

it's a mistake to leave the c in if what you're trying to do is describe a totally different class of winged vehicle or animal, but if what you're trying to do is describe a subclass of helicopter (e.g. the Batcopter) then you precisely do want to include some vestige of the "helic" part.

I think this is the key understanding and needs to be reposted as its own top-level post :)

Quite where that leaves "ROFLcopter" I have no idea,

I don't remember exactly how it started, but it seems to have been an animated ascii image, presumably linked to in connotations where ROFL seemed appropriate but insufficient, so I suppose the connotations are something like "like ROFL but roaring towards you at hundreds of miles per hour"? :)

[lethargic-man.livejournal.com]

Oh, I so didn't know that's how it breaks down either (cue one informative trip to the Online Etymological Dictionary (http://www.etymonline.com/index.php?term=helicopter&allowed_in_frame=0)); but surely it would be helic-o- + pter- (as in pterosaur, pterodactyl, etc) rather than helic- + opter-?

[cartesiandaemon.livejournal.com]

I didn't know that either, but I looked it up when Simon said :)

I guess this annoyance is bizarely specific.

I guess it's a combination of (a) anything that's a living etymology to me is annoying when someone else treats it as a dead etymology, even though I do the same thing myself with "piano" and "bus" and so on, and (b) lots of the X-ween things sound stupid and are stupid things, so they're legitimately annoying anyway, and the annoying etymology serves as a convenient lightning rod.

[lethargic-man.livejournal.com]

anything that's a living etymology to me is annoying when someone else treats it as a dead etymology

Oh, that is such a great way of looking at the issue. That makes so much sense of what annoys me but leaves other people unaffected; thanks for bringing it to my attention.

[cartesiandaemon.livejournal.com]

Thank you!

[vyvyan.livejournal.com]

Another obvious example of this kind of resegmentation and reanalysis is alcohol-ic -> alco-holic, producing chocoholic, workaholic etc. Or even the creation of -gate from Watergate as a marker of political scandal.

[atreic.livejournal.com]

I have never thought that there is no such thing as chocohol and workahol before, but now you point it out it is so obviously wrong! :-) Yay for lazy language joy.

[chess]

Whereas I've often heard people complaining that someone's on the workahol again when they're working too much, etc... huzzah for bizarre linguistic re-formations :)

[gerald_duck]

Um. Isn't it "helico-pter"? So "foopter" rather than "foöopter"?

In any case, we've already joined "zo" with "-ology" to make "zöology", so there's precedent for doing that with words, even if people then spoil the effect by abbreviating "zöological gardens" to "zoo", ignoring the diaeresis.

That "Jesusween" is etymologically bankrupt whereas "Jesuseen" sounds odd might be a clue that people are trying to make a stupid word for a stupid concept. (-8

[simont]

Fair enough. Counter-pedantry, though: haven't you got your diaereses in the wrong places? Normally they mark the second of two separate vowels, not the first (e.g. Chloë). So that you'd have fooöpter and zoölogy/zoölogical.

[cartesiandaemon.livejournal.com]

Is counter-pedantry different to pedantry? </irony> :)

[the-alchemist.livejournal.com]

Why do you assume it's ignorance?

My take on it is that 'Halloween' is a word just as 'Hallow' and 'e'en' are word, and if people want to make portmanteaus based on a current word rather than on one of the two more old-fashioned words on which it's based, then that's a perfectly OK thing to do. It doesn't necessarily mean they don't know the old words, it just means they've chosen not to use them.

[cartesiandaemon.livejournal.com]

You're right, sorry. I was falling in with Naath's general rant and assuming the individual examples she was complaining about were annoying[1], even if the etymology isn't wrong.

[1] I feel really stupid because I wanted to point out that portmanteaux were common even if you didn't like them, but felt hypocritical and argumentative by saying that without admitting that neologisms often annoyed me too. So I tried to empathise with the annoyance, but obviously that just drew a lot of criticism from anyone who felt I'd agreed too much or not enough.

[gerald_duck]

May I please put in a good word for "portmanteaux" at this juncture?

Discussions of language use are bad for me. Every time I see someone talking about "Jesusween" I start compensating by using words such as "juncture".

[cartesiandaemon.livejournal.com]

ROFL. OK, I endorse "portmanteaux" as more fun, while defending "portmanteaus" as still correct :)