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Wednesday, February 24, 2010

Grice and Brum

Tengo Birminghambre.

There's bilingual brevity in the form of a pun.
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23 comments:

  1. Lawrence J. KramerFebruary 24, 2010 at 7:00 AM

    Si tienes Birminghambre, come Birmingjamón.

    ReplyDelete
  2. Luigi SperanzaFebruary 24, 2010 at 11:34 AM

    This is all extremely clever. And for the record, Grice is labelled a Brummie aright at:

    www.hurryupharry.org/2009/01/12/amsterdam-january-3-2009/

    Jeff Ketland writes: [the utterer] denied that. You need to study the theory of conversational implicature, a part of pragmatics. Perhaps begin with my fellow Brummie, Paul Grice.. In the speech act you mention, [the utterer] used the word “No” to deny [a claim] and then continued deny [his co-conversationalist's [unstated] implicature. What he denied [or cancelled, rather] was his co-onversationalist's negative insinuation, thus rebuk[ing] his co-conversationalist for her unwelcome implication.

    Anyhow, those puns above are charming. What we should consider, too, is why Jason uses "Brum" in the header, yet all the puns so far offered:

    "Brum" --> "Birm"inghambre
    "Birm"ingHAM --> "Birming"JAMON

    stick to the metathetical form. I BELIEVE Offa, when he founded the thing (he fell in a ditch, right?) did NOT metathetised: it was "Beormeounghuam" alright. At _some_ point, maybe by the time of Lady Godiva (who lived nearby) the vernaculars started referring to it as "Brummagem".

    It brims with grice, all this. Etc.

    In other words, provided we are going to treat Grice as a "Brummie" (and provided he WAS born in the Brummie hospital, rather than the Harborne one, in Warwickshire -- formerly 1889 Staffordshire) we need to know, too, what Grice would have asked to things like:

    "Where are you from, chap?"

    --- I hate that sort of question, and I'm glad the Brits were so reserved in the 1930s-198Os, that perhaps he never endured it. In "Halborne" this blog. N. E. Allott (one of the earliest comments) provided two links for Harborne. And he suggests that when in his entry to "Keyterms in pragmatics" he has:

    "Grice grew up in Birmingham" (I don't think he'll mention the suburb)

    he is of course not stating a falsehood. Also we need to know if you can WALK from Brum to Harborne. If it's walking distance, or biking distance, I imagine Grice would be familiar with Brum and not just stuck in Harborne. (He left early enough for Clifton, too).

    Allott suggests that it's a sort of "Where does C live?" "Somewhere in the South of France" (Grice's example).

    I would assume he'd say

    Where are you from?
    Birmingham.

    rather than _bother_ with Halborne. In his lifetime, records of his birth-place were rare to find. I found one in a coll. in "Essays in the Philosophy of Language" written when Grice was alive, that gave the birthday as "Birmingham" alright. This was an American publication (It reads: Grice was born in Birmingham in 1913"), and it would have been pedantic to mention the suburb.

    Recall that the West Midlands is itself a newish county (post 1974). It was indeed to be just Warwickshire, and (bits of it, such as Harborne, before 1889), Staffordshire. Birmingham itself _Would_ Be in Warwickshire, or Warw. or War. for short. (pace Nancy Mitford).

    It's all very fascinating. And we do have the Harborne address somewhere deposited in the Grice Papers in Univ. of Calif./Berkeley so we can start punning with

    Harborne

    too. Etc.

    ReplyDelete
  3. Luigi SperanzaFebruary 24, 2010 at 11:53 AM

    There's no metathesis in the original. From wiki:

    "Old name: "Beorma inga ham", meaning farmstead of the sons (or descendants) of Beorma."

    wiki leads you to this site in a footnote:

    "In the Saxon 6th Century Birmingham was just one small settlement in thick forest [nr. the Rea river. JLS] - the home (ham) of the tribe (ing) of a leader called

    Birm or

    Beorma."

    "The de BErmingham family held the Lordship of the manor of Birmingham for 400 years from around 1150."

    And we need records if they ever objected to people mispelling their name "Birmingham" rather than "Bermingham".

    "In 1250 William de BErmingham obtained permission to hold a four day fair at Whitsun."

    While the document linked from wiki is cited as:

    "Birmingham or Brummagem?". Birmingham City Council. http://www.birmingham.gov.uk/cs/

    there doesn't seem to be a good ref. as to when the locals started the "br-" form. Etc.

    ReplyDelete
  4. Luigi SperanzaFebruary 24, 2010 at 12:06 PM

    To consider:

    The Implicatures of Metathesis

    --- This is diachronic, really, but hey.

    axe (originally) became "ask".
    'Birmingham' becomes Brummagem (in ther vernacular)
    'brid' becomes 'bird'
    etc.

    There is a wiki entry for it. In the case of Birm or Beorma, the name of the man was definitely BIRM or BEORM, so the idea was to take those vowels (i, or eo) and have them AFTER the "r" and before the "m" giving

    BRIM and BREOM

    This is latter schwaed into 'schwa'

    "brumm"

    -- Etc. Although I suppose the /bru:m/ prounciation may also be heard.

    The problem was the 'i' in the original "BIRM", I would think. This is NOT the Italian 'i', open. It's more really like a schwa. When I say Italian 'i' ignore me. I mean, this is not /i:/, it's /i/ and the following of /rm/ may make for a darker context or closer context. Note that I'm assuming the man's name was BIRM. If it were, as they say, BEORMa, this is an altogether different process. The sad of this is that it _WAS_ possibly "Beorma" for why would people be even suggesting that?

    So from "eo" in "Beorma" we transcribe the "eo" and get the "b" next to the "r" alright:

    breoma

    and then we schwa the thing to Brum, which we may still pronounce /u/ for fun, or with the schwa.

    In those days men have names ending in -a, as in Beorma, Offa, and my favourite, Horsa. (I think Horsa was a woman, though, or a horse -- "1066 and all that". Etc.

    The implicature of -ing, in BirmINGham is yet a darker horse.

    For if it was the home of Beorma that would be

    Beormaham

    there's really no need for the nasal "ng". It's not like something was 'brimming', etc. The 'ing' thing has a double history in English. The authentic -ing derives from Anglo-Saxon and is correlated with German -ung. The 'ing' in verbal forms is a misunderstanding of the 'nd' present tense participle. In this case, we can assume it was just the original Anglo-Saxon form, for we don't see any verbal meaning to the thing.

    We assume the -ing is not necessary, but was there to make the name of the place longer.

    If things had just stayed we would be feeling like Grice was born in Beorma's home, etc. Which is perhaps just as well.

    Only he was born in Harborne. Etc.

    ReplyDelete
  5. JasonFebruary 24, 2010 at 12:50 PM

    Inside the city of Birmingham, the answer to "Where are you from?" will be of the sort, "Harborne" "Bourneville" etc, as this is information-rich if you actually know the city.

    Otherwise, like your example of the south of France, the less information-rich but more widely disseminated term, "Birmingham" will be used, as "Brum" tends to be one Brummie to another, talking, or part of the civic discourse, as a means of 'talking up' the city.

    My uncles, native born Brummies, generally never use either term, as they almost never leave the city, preferring "town" or to name the specific part.

    I found a Birmingham History forum, so maybe that is the place to ask the questions.

    http://forum.birminghamhistory.co.uk/forum.php

    And, also, I was born in the Sorrento Hospital, which appears to have been built in Victorian times, when was Grice born? It was located in the Moseley area.

    http://www.bhamb14.co.uk/index_files/sorrentohospital.htm

    ReplyDelete
  6. JasonFebruary 24, 2010 at 12:54 PM

    As for puns on Brum:

    To brumpet, to champion the city of Birmingham.

    ReplyDelete
  7. JasonFebruary 24, 2010 at 1:04 PM

    Best to be careful with the factual content of anything on hurryupharry, they've a fine record of simply inventing their 'facts'...

    If it comes to suit them, Grice's birthplace will be moved to a cave in a remote region of Pakistan!

    ReplyDelete
  8. Luigi SperanzaFebruary 24, 2010 at 3:46 PM

    Well, yes, Jason.
    Interesting you were born in Sorrento. We'll find more about it in due time. After all, that's my favourie ballad in the piano. I play it in Eb. It's the sort Sir Francesco Tosti would sing to Queen Victoria. Brum has a lot of connections with Victoria.

    Interesting what you say about:

    Where are you from?
    -- Birmingham
    -- Harborne

    -- I was thinking the Oxford context in the 1930s, with Grice having from the Midlands. Although he came direct from Clifton (in Somerset, or really Gloucestershire -- now Avon) he went to a college that his biographer identifies with "The Midlands": Corpus Christi. This connects with 'middle-class', etc. Apparently, well, he says it, he was not allowed to join the I. Berlin's meetings at All Souls. So there seems to have been a 'birds of a feather' thing in Oxford, where he would socialise, as an undergraduate, with Midlanders. (As a don, I don't care for he would need to associate with whomever -- etc.).

    I think I knew the etym. of Harborne but I forget. Burn I think is a river. Will find out.

    He was born in 1913. I am going to revise what his father actually did. He was a businessman, and he has this nice cutie phrase to describe his papa: "He was a dreadful businessman but a fine musician".

    The Fentons, his mamma, was possible more of an established family don't know. Apparently, if Grice died of enphysema it was because of his mamma. Instead of telling the boy, "don't smoke, Paul" she encouraged it ("You look so sophisticated"). He smoked so much and from an early age, and by his 75 years old he could not give it anymore and went to rest. Etc. JL

    ReplyDelete
  9. Luigi SperanzaFebruary 24, 2010 at 3:56 PM

    Re-reading my first comment on this thread, I see that the wiki has "Birmingham" as being originally

    Beorma ing ham

    --- where the "ing" MAKES sense, as I thought it didn't. Apparently, in English it means, 'little'. So it makes sense:

    goose gosling

    That's "ling" alright, but I think 'ing' can also mean little, or offspring or son, the wiki suggests. This is a bit otiose, but the point being that the

    home (or 'ham')

    was not really Beorma's

    but belonged to the "ings" of Beorma -- the descendants of Beorma, from which you get:

    Beorma ing ham

    --- Many places end in ham of course. My favourite, Hampstead, which really does not end in "ham" but you add the "stead" meaning place (as in "instead"). Hamsphire is also with "Ham", the shire of the ham (or town).

    "ham" and "ham" qua food is homophone. Different roots, etc.

    ---- If Grice attended Corpus Christi in the 1930s, from which he graduated with honours in Lit. Hum. cum laude, and became B. A. and M. A., (his maximal degree ever -- I love that about him, when if they think you gotta have the PhD -- it would be pedantic in Oxford to go to earn a DPhil) I would think it's then

    -- because of his Midlands connection.
    (this would have been via connections back in Clifton)

    -- for his love for the classics.

    He had a choice at one point of entering the Westminster royal college of music where he would study organ with the organist of Westminster. (He had been headboy at Clifton, and there's records of how he played, notably Ravel, Pavane, in school meetings).

    Instead, he went for a 'scholarship' in classics at Corpus. So he was 'a scholarhip boy' as they called them. I.e. unlike those who just went to Oxford _because_.

    While at Corpus, he played cricket and football (capitan of team) and edited "The Pelican": the philo journal. His tutor was Hardie. He later got transferred to MERTON, for a little while as a post-grad student. He later taught classics for a year in Rossall, and then he was back with a position at St. John's.

    I've been to St. John's and it's lovely. It's in the best part of town (I stayed at the Randolph, across the street). There are two nice pubs he frequented: the "Bird and Baby" and the "Lamb and Flag" (which I preferred, and for which you don't even have to cross St. Giles to get in). Himself, he lived up Woodstock Road, in a flat rented by the College. He had married in 1942 to Kathleen Watson (of London, but with connections in North.), and had Karen and Tim in the 1940s. He led a fascinating life, till in 1967 he crossed to the Americas. And where he died in 1988. With Oxford his maximal position was "University Lecturer" while continuing being a don (tutorial fellow in philosophy). The College made him an honorary fellow in the 1980s. Etc.

    ReplyDelete
  10. JasonFebruary 24, 2010 at 4:54 PM

    There is also the South Hams in Devon, where the towns of Totnes and Newton Abbot are, a beautiful part of England.

    And, of course, West Ham and East Ham, Peckham, Durham, Cobham, Horsham, Measham (Midlands), Topsham, Cheltenham, Buckingham (site of a famous cupboard!), Rockingham, Sandringham...

    I was led to believe a ham was a fertile area for agriculture, but I'll bow to you on any etymological investigation.

    I can imagine there may have been some measure of snobbery re: Grice's roots, so many of the Oxbridge students were located in the Home Counties that the phraseology was "going up" to university (Orwell uses this), signifying both the direction and the prosaic nature of the progression for those generations of public schoolboys.

    Exactly 200 years after the Jesuits are driven out of the Spanish Empire, Grice travels to the US...

    ReplyDelete
  11. Luigi SperanzaFebruary 24, 2010 at 9:44 PM

    Mmm. I'm bad at mathematics. Let me calculate:
    1967
    - 200
    ------
    1767

    Is that so? Interesting. But a few remain, I hope? (I like a jesuit).

    Anyway, yep. Glad you mention about the snobbery. I love that aspect: to analyse. Good you mention Orwell, and indeed "up to Oxford".

    Arnold (Oxford Dict. Quot.) mentions: "only the poor learn in Oxford". So I get the feeling.

    There probably was a look-down on those 'scholarship boys', but he wouldn't have cared.

    On the other hand, the 'lah-di-dah' are meant to _leave_ college, after the BA. So staying for the MA and some -- let me check

    1967
    - 1938
    _______
    29 years

    some 29 years in a row _makes_ for a difference. But he had so many other interests (notably cricket, bridge, chess, etc.) that we can't hardly just call him a 'don'. Plus, he was a genius, so what gives?

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  12. Luigi SperanzaFebruary 24, 2010 at 9:47 PM

    You're probably right that a 'ham' was a fertile thing. I mean, there were no cement things those days, right? As my mother says: you water something frequently enough and it becomes fertile.

    I was saying "Home" because it's the same root.

    (I believe).

    If you think about those Anglo-Saxon days, one wonder what thing they did call a "home". Apparently, they disliked stone (they did not inhabit the Roman ruins, but next to them). I can check out this. But I do believe 'ham' qua fertile soil and 'home' are cognate.

    ReplyDelete
  13. Luigi SperanzaFebruary 24, 2010 at 9:49 PM

    From an online etymology:

    home
    O.E. ham "dwelling, house, estate, village," from P.Gmc. *khaim- (cf. O.Fris. hem "home, village," O.N. heimr "residence, world," heima "home," Ger. heim "home," Goth. haims "village"), from PIE base *kei- "to lie, settle down" (cf. Gk. kome, Lith. kaimas "village;" O.C.S. semija "domestic servants").
    " 'Home' in the full range and feeling of [Modern English] home is a conception that belongs distinctively to the word home and some of its Gmc. cognates and is not covered by any single word in most of the IE languages." [Buck]

    -- but now I have to check with "ham". I suppose there we'll find this reference to the fertility of the thing.

    ReplyDelete
  14. Luigi SperanzaFebruary 24, 2010 at 9:57 PM

    http://keithbriggs.info/EPN_maps/ham.pdf

    provides a cute map with all the hams in England. But still have not found a good explanation of

    -ham qua English Place Name Element.

    I actually belong if you can believe it, to the English Place Name Society, based in Notts!

    (I love that as a hobby!) Toponyms are relics that "mean" so many things, in Gricean ways and other!

    ReplyDelete
  15. Luigi SperanzaFebruary 24, 2010 at 10:01 PM

    Well, if the same etym. online gives 'hamlet' as per below ("see 'home'") then they must be cognate.

    hamlet
    early 14c., from O.Fr. hamelet, dim. of hamel "village," itself a dim. of ham "village," from Frank. *haim (see home). Especially a village without a church.

    ----

    ReplyDelete
  16. JasonFebruary 25, 2010 at 5:28 AM

    My favourite English place name : Fishacre Barton

    Your remarks on home bring Heidegger to mind:

    "Earth is the serving bearer, blossoming and fruiting, spreading out in rock and water, rising up into plant and animal. When we say earth, we are already thinking of the other three along with it, but we give no thought to the simple oneness of the four."

    The four being earth, sky, the divine and the human.

    ReplyDelete
  17. Luigi SperanzaFebruary 25, 2010 at 6:24 AM

    Exactly. Then there's the idiom:


    Nothing to write BirmingHOME about.


    I think I'm going to post to blog.

    Grice Fishacre Barton Lecture -- Rescheduled.

    --- Odd that Heidegger speaks of those four as the four. I was thinking more on the four elements:
    Not earth, wind, and fire, because those are three (and an Australian band)
    but
    earth/fire/water/air.
    Aristotle or a follower then added the fifth essence: the quintessence.
    We should post a post, The Quintessential Grice.
    Etc.

    JL

    ReplyDelete
  18. JasonFebruary 25, 2010 at 6:34 AM

    How bizarre, I coined 'squintessence' laying in bed this morning, and up pops its parent so soon after.

    And, Wikipedia notes that there are two bands called Quintessence, one of them being 'a 1970s progressive rock band specializing in Indian themes and sounds' Lord save us from their charms!

    ReplyDelete
  19. Luigi SperanzaFebruary 25, 2010 at 4:53 PM

    You are not suggesting

    The Squintessential Grice?

    ReplyDelete
  20. Luigi SperanzaFebruary 25, 2010 at 4:58 PM

    Actually, why not.

    He speaks of 'myopic overconcentration' on things.

    And cfr. Kramer on the implicature of

    "Get a life!"

    --- But one would need first to analyse the essence of squint. According to google it has two or three main uses, etc.

    So we may need to see which one is essential. This may bring as back to King Alfred, provided he was the first to use the lexeme, etc.

    (If you can find the first squint, a bonus)

    ReplyDelete
  21. Luigi SperanzaFebruary 25, 2010 at 5:04 PM

    The squintessence:


    "squint (adj.) 1563, shortened form of asquint (adv.) "obliquely, with a sidelong glance" (12c.), probably related to skwyn in odskwyn "obliquely" (c.1440). The verb is attested from 1599; the noun from 1652."

    and the disease...? (cfr. dis-ease)

    ReplyDelete
  22. JasonFebruary 25, 2010 at 5:27 PM

    I have a friend who is so English and also possesses a squint, so I thought, "He is the squintessential Englishman..."

    But with the hard to see quality of the aether, it fits with that, too.

    I have to bow on your ability to look up the earliest references, etc, I'm practically bookless here.

    ReplyDelete
  23. Luigi SperanzaFebruary 25, 2010 at 6:06 PM

    OK.

    So we have two contexts. Good you mention your friend. These things ARE serious.

    So he should NOT get offended, etc.

    A squint can be a serious thing. I have to STUDY this, you see, from the wiki. I wouldn't know how to say the thing in the vernacular. Hence my relying on Latin roots, etc.

    "He's the squintessential squint", as applied to your friend, works fine. "quintessential" has been used in so many different contexts.

    I recently used "Essential Grice" elsewhere. Someone was commenting on a piano recording as being 'essential'. I usually distrust those qualifications. There's a collection of Hitchcock films, e.g. "The Essential Hitchcock". So I suggested, "The Essential Grice" but was careful enough NOT to expand on it. (I can do "The Essential Strawson" anyday!).

    ----

    The other context about eather being hard to see, that's very appropriate.

    Trust Dawkins will say, 'the beauty of the squint' as per the latest "Journal of Medical Optical Research" or something.

    No "bookless"-me here! Your internet connection is ALL You need and LOADS of time. Take it to Starbucks or something.

    Squintessence. We may have to use it online in different fora. It may caught up. Not that we should care, but hey.

    Cheers,

    JL

    ReplyDelete

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