--- J. L. S.
I AM SEEING IF I CAN COMMENT FURTHER or generalise on Kramer's 'anthropological theory' regarding
mercy
--------
misery
---
I'll consider in the body of this post the Italian for 'mercy', "misericordia".
But there's also
"to be at somebody's mercy": "essere alla mercé" (where 'merce' is shorter than 'misericordia')
"mercé"
- misericordia - pietà
To be at the mercy of: "essere alla mercé di"
It goes the whole hog with
"mercy seat", "sedia della misericordia"
---
Kramer proposes in "Comment" to "Riddles of the Sphynx" an 'anthropological theory':
"The kindness of a society can be measured by the ratio of the lengths of its words
for "mercy" and "misery."
In symbols,
mercy
------
misery
"[T'he Italians, with their "misery-fixing" (or whatever "cordia" means) seem not have had to say the word often enough to have shortened it."
But they do use "merce", which sounds pretty Spanish (perhaps Neapolitan. There are of course 'synonyms' as it were (I hate that word: 'were'): 'clemenzia', 'grazia', 'pieta', etc.
In fact, one may need to know what the Anglo-Saxons said before they were able to say 'mercy' OR 'misery'.
Kramer:
"Or maybe [the Italians] were sadistic enough
to make those who needed mercy [misericordia]
really work for it, or make requesting mercy
[misericordia] take so long, that one could
deliver the coup de grace before one knew
it was being asked."
Perhaps we can extend the word for 'misery': that would change the ratio, right? Oddly, they seem to mean the same thing, right? (Latin misereor).
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misere miser, Plaut.
ReplyDeleteIndeed, they mean the same thing. So one might just as well have the ratio for
apple
-------
apple
(Not quite, of course: the ROOT is the same, the meaning, no).
It's here that the Lewis/Short care to provide the root (I supplied entry for 'misereor' and usages in "Riddles of the Sphynx". Here is for 'miser':
mĭser. Prob. cogn. with Sanscr. root "mi-"; cf. "minuo"; akin to Gr. μῖσος; Lat. maestus, maereo
nihil est tam miserabile, quam ex beato miser -- Cic.
homo miser, et infortunatus -- Plaut.
miser atque infelix -- Cic.
urgeris multis miser undique curis -- Lucr.
o multo miserior Dolabella, quam ille, quem tu miserrimum esse voluisti -- Cic. Phil.
miser, infelix, aerumnosus -- id. Par.
miserrimum habere aliquem -- to torment, id. Fam. 14.
miserrimus fui fugitando -- Ter. Eun.
miseros ambitionis -- Plin. Pan.
miserā ambitione laborare -- Hor. S.
misera orbitas -- Cic. Fin.
misera et calamitosa res -- Rosc. Am.
quo morbo misera sum -- Plaut.
homini misero non invideo medicinam -- Petr.
qvid illam miseram animi excrucias?
Plaut.
homo animo suo miser. Truc. 2
miserum esse ex animo -- Ep.
cvltvs miser -- Hor. S.
hominem perditum miservmqve
-- Ter. Eun.
As an exclamation, inserted in the midst of a sentence:
ossa atque pellis sum, misera, macritudine -- Plaut.
miserum! (parenthetically) i. e. what a misfortune! how sad!
tum pendere poenas Cecropidae jussi (miserum!) septena quotannis Corpora, Verg.
bonum valetudo, miserum morbus -- Cic.
est misere scriptum, Ps.
O miserrime -- Plaut.
misere amare -- Plaut.
misere cupis abire -- id.
ut miserius a vobis recipiatur quam ab illo capta est
-- Liv.
misere miser -- Plaut.
misere male -- Bacch.
But if a word compresses through being used more often, this could equally be due to an emptying out of significance, no?
ReplyDeleteAnother possibility is that the principle could be restated:
"The kindness of a society can be measured by the ratio of the lengths of its word
for "mercy" in comparison to the average length of a word in that language..."
A professor of Spanish that I met held the view that 'machine-gun Spanish' derived from the scarcity of monosyllabic words in comparison to, for example, English. So, again, a native Spanish speaker may produce their misericordia in the same or less time than the English speaker can squeeze out their 'mercy'...
And so:
"The kindness of a society can be measured by the ratio of the lengths of its word
for "mercy" in comparison to the average length of a word in that language and to compare one society with another, the average speed at which that language is spoken must be considered also..."
!
Last thought for now. The extra syllables may make the plea for mercy more effective, in that there is certainly greater scope for twisting the face into grimaces of anguish and pitiful waving of the hands during an iteration of 'misericordia'...
ReplyDeleteAlso, 'mercy' may have shortened not because of kindness, but because of the spreading realisation that you needed to get your plea out quick in such a cruel society.
I think this is not so far-fetched. For example, what if 'mercy' was reduced to a single letter, 'u', how would the person desirous of the precious fruit of clemency inject any significance into exclaiming 'u' to their tormentor/s?
This would reverse the original suggestion.
And, truly, the last comment.
ReplyDeleteWhat if 'misericordia' is the result of atrophy, in a society where it need not be regularly invoked, the society being generally more peacable. After all, 'murder' and 'asesinado' Sp. 'kill' and 'matar' 'rape' and 'violar' etc, offer countering evidence. Perhaps English has simply gone through more iterations to reduce its general word length through having a bigger pool of speakers.
It may be better to assess the word 'kindness' itself in seeking to make this determination, as its prevalence or otherwise may be a better indicator.
Oddly, in Spanish, "mercy" _does_ reduce to "u".
ReplyDeleteWhen they say,
"Ud no sabe"
(You don't know)
the etymology seems to be
"Vd. no sabe"
where "Vd" is short for
"Vuestra merced", "Your mercy"
Since most Spanish speakers I met do drop the 'd', in "merced", this would make the 'd' of "Ud." otiose.
and thus it's Jason's nightmare with a vengeance! Just joking!
Welcome back!
I'm not sure what Kramer was thinking and he should be able to expand.
I think the idea of a ratio is interesting and have generalised it for Gricean pairs whatever:
i.e. alla Kramer,
"anthropological theory: 'the sweeth tooth of a society is measured by the ratio of its words for 'chocolate cake' and 'sugar fix'", etc.
I'm not sure why the ratio had to be
with 'misery' as denominator.
(It must be very obvious, but it's late, or early, I forget -- and I _have_ to go out!)
The connection I was mentioning is that 'misereor' account for both meanings:
to pity -- to have mercy
but a 'miserable' one is one who _merits_ mercy.
Hence the idea of
apple
------
apple
Now, this is mathematical.
The ratio, in English is
mercy
-----
misery
We SHOULD have that in IPA (International Phonetic Alphabet -- all those people up there getting salaries for nothing, at the International Phonetic Association):
'mersi
-------
'misri
I would think the ratio is 1 in English.
In Italian
mertche
--------
miseria
the ratio seems to be, mmmm...
2
---
3
i.e. 0.6 (period)
---- And the unit of kindness is the phone? (Surely there's no need for unit provided we can scale things up, right?
Later
Yes, Jason. The idea of 'atrophy' is very good. Or 'relic atavism', to please Dawkins! (:)).
ReplyDeleteThere is this nice hymn
Salve Re geeeee na
mater mise --ri --koordiae
vita dulceeedo et spes noostra
salve salve Regina Peron.
---- when are you visiting?!
---
"Atophy". It does seem to be the case,
"sedia della misericordia"
seems a mouthful, and it's atrophic. In fact, The Pope is atrophic! All he says is so LOONG! "misericordia", "misericordia".
There are zillion words which are doublets, or as I prefer n-ets. Triplets, etc.
The Latinate, or cultivated Latinism, is, of course, the longest.
But again, we may need to compare with pre-1066 England to check options other than "mercy" or "misery".
Perhaps Roget should help.
(And I wouldn't be surprised if the more peaceful Saxons were heard to utter the word as they were 'pillaged' and 'abducted' by the ferocious Vikings (The Danelaugh).
Atrophisms are common in Common Prayer, too: "Have mercy upon us". Not much of an atavism, but a thing to consider.
What the 'cor' is doing there -- miseri-cordia -- may do, I'm sure, with metonymy or analogy. What _is_ strictly, pitiful? Why assume the 'heart'? Shouldn't it be the _person_ or ego? Dunno.
Duh, why did I choose 'u' ! I was casting around, must be something in the background. Nice catch.
ReplyDeleteGood points, as I _must_ leave, for Jason on 'matar' (2) vs. 'kill' (1) and 'vio-lar' (2) versus 'rape'.
ReplyDeleteAnd he is right about shorter things in English. The lack of monosyllables in Spanish is _absurd_!
Even in Italian it is terrifying enough, but Italian has "di" and "da", which would be wasted on the Spanish ear, I would think.
One way the Spanish has to deal with this is orthographic accent, which I never can use:
'se' versus 'se''
'de' versus 'de''
-- where the stress has no logical function (i.e. it has no phonetic equivalent) OTHER THAN to mark the non-cognateness of the homophony, or something (i.e. that they are different words!). No such thing in English!
The Spanish ear/eye does not seem able to cope with the 'ambiguity' of a thing like
The process is hard to process.
-- or something.
I like the idea of machine-gun Spanish, and the speed is pretty important too. I wonder who regulates those things!?
Note that speed increases as people lose their tempers or something. As volume. Once, Michael Caine said, "I had to play a la-di-da in "Zulu". I had always played 'lower' roles. My vocal coach said, "Just speak softly and slowly. That's what they do."".
Ah well.
----
--- Yes, it _is_ pretty obscene that something as basic as
ReplyDelete"Usted"
be derived from _mercy_. It makes things sound reverential. I think it's an Andalucian thing, too.
The 'vos' for example, of Argentina, and Colombia, is supposed to be "Andalucian". Not used in Central Spain, say.
Now, 'vos' is cognate with "vuestra" and thus with "Ud."
So, while it does have an informal ring to it (it's 'informal' "tu") it is actually, etymologically, more of a power than a solidarity thing.
These choice of T/V things indeed has been tried to be explained alla Grice, but failing. The consensus seems to be that the implicature is "conventional" rather than 'conversational', but, I tell you, it IS a bother! (on occasion).
"Ustedes", i.e. "ye", is then, short for
vuestras mercedes.
---- (your plural mercIES).
This makes you wonder, because the 'Vuestro' corresponds strictly to second person PLURAL, never singular.
So there must be a majestic mercy involved in using "Vd" to refer to the second person SINGULAR. What makes it complex (if not illogical) on top is that the FORM of the verb is the _third_ person.
("Ud. come")
But then, the same with German: "Nehmen Sie bitte Platz" (Sit down).
-- but literally either:
Take (or nim) she (I bid) place
or
take (or nim) THEY (I bid) place.
No, I won't end this with "voulez vous coucher avec moi" (slightly oxymoronic for "If your mercy grants me the favour of ...?") or RSVP
"-- where the stress has no logical function (i.e. it has no phonetic equivalent) OTHER THAN to mark the non-cognateness of the homophony, or something (i.e. that they are different words!). No such thing in English!"
ReplyDeleteI had this very discussion over aún and aun and cómo and como with my girlfriend this week, and yes, they are simply to distinguish the words in the written form. ("How on God's green earth do I emphasise the ú in aún??? Without sounding like a cow in pain?")
Amid all this elaboration, what always strikes me as faintly (or clearly) ridiculous is that, in a gendered language, there is no gendering of 'his' and 'hers', perhaps Spanish shied away from such a base notion as utility...
I might be about to receive instruction on how 'sus' can be supplemented with 'tuyos' 'tuyas' etc, but isn't that more for things physically close to hand rather than all cases...
ReplyDelete"The consensus seems to be that the implicature is "conventional" rather than 'conversational', but, I tell you, it IS a bother! (on occasion)."
ReplyDeleteAgain, my girlfriend's input on this was that the formal Ud. (Vosotros not used in Guatemala) is capable of being polite or withering, depending on the context, as it relates basically to perceived distance between speaker and the person addressed. It is an instrument of intentional politeness or rudeness, then, a scalpel in the hands of the socially ruthless!
Yep. Gender things should possibly provide a Gricean ratio (of sorts).
ReplyDeleteSurely the anthropological 'theory' should go:
"The sexism of a society is measured by the ratio of the third-person-feminine-plural (if they have it) and my cat."
----
It _is_ odd that Spanish does not distinguish between 'his' and 'hers' or 'its' for that matter. I think the Romans to blame: 'suus'.
The should be another ratio for 'power' and 'solidarity':
"The solidarity of a Society is measured by the ratio of its informal and informal pronouns."
--- Yes, "Usted" can be used ironically.
English is pretty rich, there too. There's of course the 'thee' and the 'thou' which is _very_ solidary. So Solidary it _hurts_. I only _recently_ found out that when they say
"Our Gracie"
-- i.e. Grace (Stan)Field(s), born Oldham, Lancashire.
the 'our' is a sort of vocative, as in
"Come on, our Gracie, give us a kiss". Etc.
---- I'll try and think of other Gricean ratios.
I don't think I would KNOW, off the top of my head, the arbitrary thing about "aun" versus "aUn". It would seem to be the _same_ word.
ReplyDeleteIn the case of "se" and "sE", the diacritical mark (only graphic, of course) marks _different_ words:
'se' can be the reflexive pronoun, third person:
She is looking at herself in the mirror.
Se mira al espejo.
(I'm stating to sound like an authoritative grammar teacher -- HATE it!)
but it can be the first person of "know"
I know the earth is flat.
SE que la tierra es plana.
or the imperative second person for 'be': be good.
be good.
SE buena.
I suppose the squintessence of a Society is measured by the ratio of the diacritical otiose and the saciety of food, or something (to echo Smollett).
I propose as a corollary of Kramer's observation, i.e. towards the generalisation. I was googling, "is measured by the ratio" and got this, from an online source:
ReplyDelete"Productivity ... is measured by the ratio of what was produced (or sold) to what was required to produce (or sell) it measured in physical units, or at constant prices (this is an efficiency ratio, i.e. productive efficiency!)."
"is measured by the ratio".
gain
------
effort
right?