---- While a princess is a good thing to behold, Grice wrote five books.
-- The above, as Grice notes, trades on the 'incomprehensible' of much of our speech. He saw that as a breach of what he termed, the 'co-operative principle'. First, it is not true that Grice wrote five books. At the moment of utterance, the utterer is supposed to be saying the _truth_. If the apodosis is false, anything can follow.
"The other confusion here", he notes, "is the 'while'": "for, what does the fact that a princess is a good thing to behold, connect, and in what way, with the apodosis?"
The implicature however is obvious enough: she _was_ a natural blonde.
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"While" is also a bad choice because it can refer to duration:
ReplyDelete"While the Princess ate apples, Grice wrote five books."
"whereas" is the way to go.
Of course, as Ogden Nash knew, the subordinate clause structure is needlessly complex:
Candy is dandy
But liquor is quicker.
(So, have some madiera, m'dear.)
Or madeira, even. One reason to give up all hope on entering Hell is that, whereas the place is full of musical amateurs (GBS tells us), there are no proofreaders there.
ReplyDeleteWhat an excellent comment. I missed you!
ReplyDelete---- Indeed, "Whereas". But you'll agree that "Grice Kelly" has a nice ring to it, and it's a diamond one. I was always fascinated by the princess. Her maiden name was Kelly and it was not a fake one. She was from Akron, Ohio, like Quine!
--- She _was_ a thing to behold. And her two daughters are charming: Carolina and Stephanie. I cannot see why people in Buenos Aires are ever fascinated by them!
------- You are correct about the 'while'. Hyper-correct, even!
And the madeira thing is a gem. I once wrote about it for The Buenos Aires Herald. We were discussing, for the Good Living Supplement, ed. by my friend Dereck (sic) Foster, on songs on alcoholic beverages: I provide a few others.
--- In any case,
She became Princess Grimaldi. All this is Ligurian, so it touches my heart.
---- I'm fascinated by the fact that Italy's greatest hero was a Frenchman. Well, he was born in Nizza (And Bertrand Russell was a Taffy).
When Bertrand Russell was born, Monmouthshire was part of England. Now it is part of Wales. The implicature is obvious: Whereas I ate apples and 98% of the interrogatees think that "Russell was English" is true, I think it is _false_.
(On the other hand, myself, born on the pampas is truly an Italian, so go figure).
---- (The fact that Russell spoke no Welsh is immaterial).
But back to Nizza: when I was in Rome I loved the Garibaldi statue in Trastevere. The word was indeed "Nizza": it was a Greek colony originally, and means of course, "Victory", "Nike".
When I was researching London streets (well, I was browsing the London street atlas) I was amused that a street in Woolwich was called "Speranza". I thought, "Surely that's mine and I should claim the rights". The Woolwich Board wrote back,
"Sir,
The street is _not_ yours. It belonged
to a man called "Hope", now deceased. When
Garibaldi visited the area in 1889, the
locals thought it a good gesture to
Italianize the thing.
Have a good day."
--- Ah well.
Akron, Ohio? Try Philadelphia (where or near I lived for nearly forty years). Her father was a big deal in town. One of the two drives along the Schuylkill river was renamed for him after his death.
ReplyDeleteWikipedia confirms, so it must be true.
Oops. You are right. Those must be nice drives (short for driveway, where you park? No -- this is _scenic_.).
ReplyDeleteI expect "Schuylkill" has nothing to do with "kill". I'm fascinated by Native American etymologies of toponyms. There is a Killingworth in Connecticut. (I happened to know someone from the area). I find out it's originally "Kenilworth", as per the stately home of England.
Drive names are fascinating, too. I suppose a few places are named after her in Monaco, too.
--- I think he as a 'brick layer', the big deal. At least that was part of her inverted snobbery about her.
And don't you hate it when they say, "No connection to Gene Kelly." Of course there WAS a connection!
(I know the feeling when the G. R. Grices of UEA/Norwich wrote back: No connection with _your_ Grice).
I'm pretty sure Schuylkill is Dutch - Hollander Dutch as opposed to Pennsylvania Dutch. A "kill," I believe is a river or stream, smaller than a zee, although the Schuylkill is certainly a for-real river. In New York, we have a place called "Fresh Kills," which sounds really creepy.
ReplyDeleteThe river does run through Manayunk and Conshohocken, good Native American place names. Philadelphia also has a suburb called "King of Prussia." I have no idea what that's about.
Yes, Jack Kelly - who I believe was an Olympic rower - was a brick mogul.
(No research went into on this comment, so it could all be wrong.)
He had a lot of class, and the looks. His daughter's royalty thing never went into his head, or over his head, "or nothing".
ReplyDeleteShe must be one of the most perfect faces that existed in nature. I'll see if I can check out if her Mother was just as beautiful. It takes TWO to produce such a beauty.
O. T. O. H., Rainero was not -- and if there's something solemn, and 'elegant' in Stephanie (more so than Caroline) is the pure Kelly blood.
Oddly, the current prince speaks English with a Pennsylvanian touch to it.
ObG: Graziella, in Italian, must mean "full of gratia".
The other day I was checking online for things for my blog and found this lovely example:
Who are you sleeping with, nowadays?
Myself, mostly.
--- You mean, not always. "Mostly" _means_ not always.
This is from Dennis Potter's Singing Detective.
Horn used it in his talk in Swizzerland (sic) and he is kind enough (he is kind simpliciter, but the 'enough' tail rears its ugly tail) to add,
"gratia J. L. Speranza"
-- which got me thinking: if the 'a' in gratia (the second one) is ablative and long, shouldn't that be Speranzis, in the genitive? I'm glad he is just trying to shorten the rather clumsky, "with thanks to ... for this", or something).
JLS
"Speranzis"? Why not Speranzae? Why settle for bronze when you can go for the gold, declensionwise?
ReplyDeleteOh my god -- That's so beaooootiful. Indeed Speranzae.
ReplyDeleteOr ... wait. Shall have the correct symbol too:
gratia J. L. Speranzæ.
-- or something.
-- But shouldn't "Speranzae" implicate that "Speranza" is a Latin word?
ReplyDelete-- I think you ARE right, though.
But one wonders:
what about
Gratia Liza Minelliii?
"Sperantia" was possibly Latin (never written though, or if written -- think toilet -- never found the graffito. With volcanoes and things, what can you expect).
Sperantiae?
will think about it.
think of neuter declension, with ntia as neuter plural. So we need the plural neuter genitive now. Or something.
To think that "Speranza" is feminine is synchronically to simplify what is a diachronic mystery if not miracle.
Etc.
And to motivate you:
ReplyDelete"I have to refer here to a couple
of examples I have been collecting
from various places:
"Kelly was a brick mogul"
(gratia L. J. Krameri)
and don't be suprised he discovered a few species that bear his august name!
Etc.
Well, with two years of high school Latin under my belt, I hardly feel qualified to pontificate maximally. But here goes.
ReplyDelete1. I like sperantia, sperantiae better than sperantium, speranti (and its sperantia, sperantiorum)
2. I would not touch Liza Minelli with a 10-inch pole.
3. Kramer would be third declension - Krameris.
Was "beaoootiful" meant to mimic a Philadelphia accent? If so, bravo! If not, you'll be interested to know that it does.
Good.
ReplyDeleteSo, what´s the rule.
Do we _know_. I know it was brute (brutish) of me to even _suggest_ "Speranzis" which does not make any kind of sense.
Speranzus, Speranzi, maybe -- but then I´m not Speranzus.
"-is" works wonders with "Kramer", "Krameris".
Have you googled this?
And again, with "Grice"?
gratia
is perhaps not a good idiom, after all. But later.
You are right that all words ending in "-er", as Kramer, are third declension. And indeed, if you go by the "-a" in Speranza it´s exactly like "rosa, rosae".
And indeed "sperantium" sounds ugly and would confuse
"gratia J. L. Sperantium"
I recall I once entered a joint thing with Horn. But they dropped the "Speranza" and had me listed as "J. L." only. He would joke, ""Lasciate ogne Speranza voi, ch'intrate", indeed.""
When I wrote to J. Field of OED3 about this or that word (erotetic or alethic, I forget), she wrote: "Apparently, "erotetic" was first used, the OED files have it, by a Romanian by the name of Sperantia. Any relation?". Ah well
And what _does_ Kram- mean in German? (I should know).
I recall my student mate, "Graziella Chichi". She got her PhD on Aristotle´s ch. viii of the Topics. Her bedsite book was one Kramer. A German philosopher who had written against Kant´s hypothetical imperative. I recall how offended our professors of moral philosophy (Osvaldo Guariglia) was when Graziella, out of the blue, said, "Should I pronounce this as /kra:mer/ or as /kreimer/?". Guariglia cannot say two words in English, but I love him.
I had another teacher -- this one taught me philosophy of language: Rodolfo Gaeta. He kept pronouncing "Gilbert Ryle" alla French: /dzilbert/. Sure enough, when I paroted out the thing for my sotto voce examination, Ryle had miracuously turned French for me too.
Yes. My parody was on Mock-Turtle song. "Beaootiful soup", but yes, I´m glad it mimicks the Pennsylvanians, etc.
There are a couple of wiki hits for "Krameri", notably a very nice parot. Etc.
ReplyDeleteOops. Parakeet.
ReplyDeletePsittacula krameri -- apres Austrian naturalist Wilhelm Heinrich Kramer.
Etc.
Must say I love birds, bird names, and parakeets in particular. From wiki:
ReplyDelete"Kramer studied in Vienna, and then practiced medicine in Bruck, close to the capital, for at least 14 years. He published in 1756 a work entitled
"Krameri
Elenchus Vegetabilium et Animalium
per Austriam inferiorem Observatorum"
-- the first work to adopt the binomial nomenclature of Linnaeus (1707-1778)."
"In this book, Kramer created the name "pratincola" for the Collared Pratincole which was adapted in Engl. by Thomas Pennant (1726-1798) in 1773."
"It is probably for him"
"and POSSIBLY Too"
-- some writers are so cautious it hurts.
"that Giovanni Antonio Scopoli (1723-1788) dedicated Psittacus krameri (today Psittacula krameri) in 1769."
"He is also known as an entomologist." (i.e. a student of insects). (I mean, this wiki can be a bit condescending).
Vide:
Pierre Cabard et Bernard Chauvet (2003). L’Étymologie des noms d’oiseaux, Belin (Paris), collection Éveil nature : 590 p.
There´s also "Umbra Krameri" in Scopoli, 1777.
ReplyDelete-- and the bulimulus which we should all protect:
ReplyDelete"Bulimulus sp. nov. "krameri" is an undescribed species of tropical air-breathing land snail, a pulmonate gastropod mollusk in the subfamily Bulimulinae. ... Its natural habitat is subtropical or tropical dry forests. It is threatened by habitat loss.
[edit] References
Parent, C. 2003. Bulimulus sp. nov. 'krameri'. 2006 IUCN Red List of Threatened Species. Downloaded on 6 August 2007.
I'm told "Kramer" means shopkeeper in German. It's interesting, as my family roots are Eastern European as far as I know. (My father's father abandoned his family, so no one knows his history.)
ReplyDelete"beaoootiful" is not Pennsylvanian; it is Philadelphian. In western PA, they have a whole 'nother accent. The Phila sound moves south through Delaware and Baltimore rather than West to Pittsburgh.
Have you seen "Inglourious Basterds?" A linguist's delight I should think.
Well, before checking with this, I did check with online, and find that
ReplyDelete"Kramer" means "cram"-mer
-- i.e. "crammed" with delights, etc.
--- The bus was _crammed_ etc.
There is an online for the genealogy. One Kramer writes that it may mean either:
i. someone who carried (I forget what) in his "cram" or back-pack
or
ii. someone who carried _eggs_ in his cram or back-back.
Since I was interested in the 'kram-' thing, rather than on what the original Kramer was packing (ah, pieces of cloth was the (i)), I now see what the name means.
--- No, did not see the Ingloriuous Basterds. Did see "Sherlock Holmes" the other day: NOT a linguist's delight!
Thanks for expl. on PA vs. Philadelphia. Etc.
"Cram" incidentally, it's an English surname, too. But I did not check for ultimate etym. for 'cram' or indeed 'kram'.
Etc.