House of Eratosthenes

I’ve long had a theory percolating away in my cranium about the English language. That’s about all I can do with it, since the theory, while refutable, is not provable. Until it’s directly refuted, I have found it occasionally worth mentioning because it explains what is baffling to so many people, but it’s a bit involved and weighs somewhat on the listener’s capacity to pay attention. So perhaps if I spell it out here, this will ultimately be revealed as a more proper forum, down here in the blogging “basement” where it can hang around, dehydrate, molder just a bit, while I see fit to link to it. Or not.

One of the virtues of this theory is that it explains not only what is baffling about the English language, but also about software engineering; not only the challenges that arise when one coordinates a team effort to build something new, but why it is we’re surrounded by so much stuff already built that…that…well, you know…

Perhaps I should just dive into it.

The many observed and mostly-unexplained inconsistencies involved in the English language come from two simple causes. One, the language was defined & refined back in the olden days, obviously before the Internet. Of course, there were other things back then to serve as precursor substitutes for the functionality of the Internet — but, not the Internet’s ability to offer up some sort of instantly accessible, centralizing “Oracle” resource, like for example a time server. The language, therefore, accumulated all its various permutations through an implementation of what we in software engineering call the Stovepipe Antipattern.

Publishers acted like software developers. Publishers, and dictionary-editors. They processed a bit until ambiguities arose, and then they coped a bit. Process, cope. Cope, process. They didn’t work completely in these “stovepipes” while settling their encountered ambiguities, in fact I’m sure they were more conscientious about the necessary coordinating than today’s software engineers, even when today’s software engineers are trying hard. But they did all their “networking,” of course, within walking distance. If an encountered question was truly perplexing, it would be escalated as high as any other pressing question…but, again, within walking distance. All the way to the (local) top: Some old gasbag. The senior senior editor guy, whose WordsCarriedGreatWeight^tm. That gasbag, in turn, would create the problem.

He, of course, did not enter the question on some listserv, or search engine. In resolving the thorny problem, he drew from his massive personal experience — and that’s all. How else could it have been done? So he would have had to have harkened back to his previous experience, which was after all the commodity he possessed that drew all these other professionals to him, seeking his counsel. Perhaps back to when he was just a freckle-faced copy boy running around on the publishing-house floor…when some answer had been produced to the thorny question. By that previous generation’s local senior gasbag.

And that previous, generations-past old codger who “had” the answer; was he giving the question the attention it commanded later? Almost certainly not. Ambiguities, I’ve noticed, have a way of becoming visible only after the passage of time. It’s pretty often people discover they’ve been wrestling with them without realizing it, offering up the “right” answer that is so certainly and so unanimously right, only because no one has ever questioned it. So this old codger whose WordsCaarriedGreatWeight^tm would “answer” the question, once and for all! — locally. Which would create a wrinkle, because if there was an ambiguity in that publishing house, there almost certainly was another encounter with the same ambiguity over in some other publishing house, which in turn relied on the vast accumulated wisdom of some other old duffer with big bushy gray eyebrows in which you could hide cigarette lighters. And he, I think, within the same timespan would resolve the same question. Differently.

It’s undeniable, isn’t it? To deny it would mean to presume the questions did not arise, which would be daffy. Or, that they arose, and were settled, conveniently, exactly once per generation, with one single answer for each — just as daffy. We can test that. At least, if we have spent any time in a career that deals with words. How many places have you worked in which someone was wondering where to put the ‘M’s in “commemorate”? Or why the word “inflammable” exists? From such tests, we postulate that the same questions must have arisen in many different places, within relatively the same span of time. And we know for a fact they didn’t have any convenient or expeditious ways to coordinate the answers.

We further know, without a doubt, that this “Ask Yoda” method must have worked — but only for the immediate need, just to resolve the pressing issue so the day’s work could be completed. Just to get an answer. Acquire the best and most informed opinion that might be acquired…within a few footsteps.

James Bond is NOT a Code Name A cultural grudge or two, brought on by previous historical events, can do wonders to keep these “right” answers to a common question anchored in opposite directions, even after the discrepancy has come to light. This is easy to prove, if one is honest about one’s own passions. I have no problems admitting I’d like to chuck an extra crate or two of tea into a harbor, whenever my browser settles on the idea that I’m some sort of cockney or canuck writer and starts underlining words like “honor” or “theater” as if they’re misspelled. It’s human nature to arouse a little bit of ire about it, as in “THIS way’s right, that way’s wrong…fuck those people.” One does tire of seeing the same idea re-presented over and over again, when one “knows” how wrong it is. I’ve just about had my fill of this idea that “James Bond” is just a code name, and lots & lots of different characters in the franchise have been having these adventures using the moniker. Fuck those people who keep coming up with this bad, wrong, terrible idea.

Anyway, yes, the English language is broken in lots of ways. So it necessarily follows that it’s a real tragedy it has become dominant, right? Wrong. I said at the beginning, there were two causes of these many fractures. The above paragraphs explain just one cause. The other cause is, simply, that the English language was used, and therefore, abused. Had another language achieved dominance, the same questions would have surfaced in the same publishing houses with that other language, and it would have been exposed to the same abuse, just as you find more bugs in a software system when you run more tests on it.

Check out The Professor and the Madman, by Simon Winchester. It describes the process of putting together the Oxford English Dictionary — largely the work of a one lone “gasbag” such as you describe. Bonus: he was in a hospital for the criminally insane, serving a life sentence for murder. Make of that what you will… especially when politically and culturally loaded terms seem to be the most subject to this infuriating distortion.
- Severian | 11/07/2015 @ 07:05
If you’re excluding the word “ignorance” in the above, you’ve done so FAR too politely.
I’m going to pick on one of your “for examples”…well… for example. The Old gas bag.
“It’s pretty often people discover they’ve been wrestling with them without realizing it, offering up the “right” answer that is so certainly and so unanimously right, only because no one has ever questioned it.”
None of the CURRENT batch of folks in the room, having been bestowed “credentialed” in some way, have ever been exposed to, or even made AWARE of, centuries of previous “questioning the premise”.
*sigh* This is why I go On-and ON-and ON ad nauseam about Aesop’s Fables, Brothers Grimm, Bible/Torah/Koran (all minus the “because God said so” bits), OED. ALL, biased on MY part, choices for examining “issues”, but certainly recognizing that “issues” have been previously examined, challenged, experimented with (reproduced via peer review?) weighed, measured, found wanting -or regretted by
folks “down the road.
Language? How much “complex” economic/humanities/Social justice/ Law/ software dynamics, nomenclature can remain simply “explained”, in ANY culture’s language, by ….say….”One pregnant rat in in a grain storage silo”, from a (ie labor) “investor’s” perspective?
- CaptDMO | 11/07/2015 @ 07:39
“…largely the work of a one lone “gasbag” such as you describe.”
I seem to recall that the professor described in “The Professor and the Madman” was known for EXCRUTIATING research, citations, from multiple sources, on foldy uppy bits of paper. As one of many such folk, HARDLY worthy of credit for “largely by” accolades (although well respected as one of the best).
I’m not convinced his situation applies to the “gasbag” endearment our host describes.
But, I COULD be wrong, (shameless puffery trigger warning) let me reread the copy in my library! (snort)!
I was envious when I read that. Cloistered in a (well appointed) asylum. Imagine Burgess Meredith in post apocalyptic world (Twilight Zone? ) where
“At LAST! I FINALLY have TIME!”, um…only without breaking his only glasses.
ONE of the reasons I have a hair across my butt in referring to OED, and denouncing …say, “Wiki”.
- CaptDMO | 11/07/2015 @ 14:37
[…] House of Eratosthenes discusses the “Gasbag Theory” […]
- Sorta Blogless Sunday Pinup » Pirate's Cove | 11/08/2015 @ 07:19
I just had to say…if you had actually asked Yoda, “Right he would have been, not.”
- P_Ang | 11/09/2015 @ 16:12
Oh, and I do own a copy of “The Professor and the Madman.” I concur with Professor Severian, and wave my bushy eyebrows in deference to his honor…

If grey hairs are truly a sign of wisdom, that’s gotta be one of the WISEST guys I know! 😛
- P_Ang | 11/09/2015 @ 16:14
Awww…ya big kiss -up P_Ang.
However, in reconsideration, I’ll concur, only to the point of downgrading the rent-seekers “(snort)”,down past an economics (harrumph), and ultimately to a mere academic (sniff).
- CaptDMO | 11/10/2015 @ 06:49

Leave a Reply

You must be logged in to post a comment.

Recent

Items of Interest

Monthly Archives

What They Say

Links

Gasbag TheorySaturday, November 7th, 2015

Gasbag Theory
Saturday, November 7th, 2015