The Jerusalem US Consulate is...Soliciting?

Really, here, and as a Gender Coordinator:

Such use of language.

Next, they'll be intercoursing with the public?

^

How Does One Pronounce Meme?

I was always puzzled by the term "meme".

I do have trouble, at times, correctly pronouncing fancy words.

I have now seen this, p. 49 here:

The new replicators are called “memes,” a term Dawkins fashioned from a Greek root with an eye towards the French word “meme” (same) and rhyming with the name of the original replicators, gene...

But I have studied French and I do know that that word is pronounced as "m & ms", the candy.  Like the first syllable of "feminine".  The well-know phrase: "plus la change, plus la meme chose".

So why pronounce it like "seam" or "beam"?

^

I'm At Urban Dictionary

My definition has been accepted by Urban Dictionary:-

kill confirmation

the act of approaching a person shot and possibly only wounded and from close-range, shooting again, even repeatedly, to assure death.

Israel's High Court accepted the appeal of journalist Ilana Dayan. Dayan and Telad were ordered to pay the officer, knows as Captain R., NIS 300,000 for showing footage and airing audio tapes that suggested he had made a "kill confirmation" of 13-year-old Iman al-Hams near an IDF fortification in Rafah in the Gaza Strip in 2004.

^

Is There Such A Thing As A "Chassidic Winter"?

My brother-in-law sent me this, a sign at the Rest Stop on the Northway North - Clifffon Park and it comes with a Yiddish explanation:

which informs religiously-observant Jews, who read Yiddish, that is, that the water fountain cannot be used for the ritual washing of hands before eating bread and that the washing sink is in the Succah.

And since we're on to linguistists, sort of, here's another poster from a Hareidi neighborhood:

It publicizes a "one-time sale" of winter coats of "Chassidic Winter Coats" which I have encircled.

But those familiar with Hebrew grammar will discern that there's a funny error, I think.

The adjective "Chassidic" which is describing, I presume, the coat, is in singular form rather than plural.  In that form, it is really describing "Winter".

Is there such a thing as a "Chassidic Winter"?

Anyone have a more intelligent thought?


^

Spelling Error Caught

How do you spell "neighborhood"?

Spotted at new square at the street before the Inbal Hotel at the junction of Yitzhak Elhanan, Martin Luther King and Dubnow Streets.

^

A Fractured English Manual

It's just before Pesach and my son picked up some peelers for us as we needed to take one from the Pesach cabinet for everyday use. One of the new ones was from China (the other two from Switzerland and yes, we toivled them).

Here's the cardboard it came on:

But then, I turned it over (okay, so I am an inveterate reader).

Amazing.  Seems they simply used Google Translate and some of the expressions and syntax are hysterical not to mention unmentionable words.  Enjoy:

^

Most Creative Headline

In Ma'an::

Israeli official warns Hamas to stop projectiles

Those "projectiles" are actually mortar shells, rockets and missiles.
 
And they kill, injure, destroy.
 
^

Spelling Error, Oops

Located at bottom of Shlomtzion HaMalka Street in Jerusalem.

From Hebrew To Black Harlem to Black Atlanta

Ilana sent me this:

Theories about the origin of "copacetic" abound. The tap dancer Bill "Bojangles" Robinson believed he had coined the word as a boy in Richmond, Virginia. When patrons of his shoeshine stand would ask, "How’s everything this morning?" he would reply, "Oh jes’ copacetic, boss; jes’ copacetic." But the word was current in Southern Black English perhaps as early as 1880, so it seems unlikely that Robinson (born in 1878) could have invented the term.

Another explanation is that the word is from the Hebrew phrase "kol be sedher," meaning "everything is in order." Possibly it was coined by Harlem blacks working in Jewish businesses. The word’s popularity among Southern blacks, however, points to its originating in one of the Southern cities in which Jewish communities thrived, such as Atlanta.

Summation of Summation

Here's Hillary's English:

This is also a man – (applause) – who summated the 14,400-foot Mount Rainier, one of the most difficult climbs in the continental United States.

But what is the definition of summate?

Well, here it is:

sum·mate
v. sum·ma·ted, sum·ma·ting, sum·mates
v.tr.
To sum up: summate a legal argument.
v.intr.
To form or constitute a cumulative effect.

This adds:

transitive verb : to add together

As a lawyer, Mrs. Clinton probably used it often, to sum up a case.

But to mean: to reach the summit?

Or did a State Department transcripist misspell it instead of summitted?

But then we have submitted.

English is complicate at times.

I Didn't Know That

This sign had me stumped:



I admit it. I didn't know what a snow globe is.

Okay, I know that I am Jewish but I know a lot about Christianity and Islam and all sorts of things. But the term didn't click in.

This is a snow globe:


Those glass things containing a Christmas scene (and other themes as well) that when you shake it, 'snow' appears to fall. Try this for fun.

Now, that could really blow up a plane.

You Could Just Plotz

Plotz is Yiddish for getting all worked up.

I thought of it when I received this from A.Word.A.Day with Anu Garg:

ploce
MEANING:
noun: The repetition of a word or phrase for rhetorical emphasis or for extended meaning.

But its pronounciation is: (PLO-see)

Shucks.

If it was pronounced (pläts) it would be plotz which is an intransitive verb meaning:

Informal to be overcome with emotion; give way to excitement, anger, delight, etc.

Etymology: < E Yiddish platsn, lit., to burst, explode < MHG platzen

Cause and Effect

a) My mail:

from Yisrael Medad
to ben.schott@nytimes.com
date Fri, Dec 4, 2009 at 2:07 PM (4 days ago)
subject Heavage is back, or out

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB125980303001573939.html

b) His post:

December 7, 2009, 12:00 pm

Heavage

A dubious portmanteau for male cleavage – an exposed (and often buffed) chest.

“Man cleavage – plunging necklines slit open to reveal chest hair, pectoral muscles, maybe more – is back,” Ray A. Smith announced in The Wall Street Journal:

Until recently, male décolletage was an androgynous fashion affectation limited mainly to sporadic appearances on European runways. But the look, including deep V-necks and scoop-neck tops, hit the U.S. in full force at New York’s September Fashion Week, turning up at shows by Duckie Brown, Michael Bastian and Yigal Azrouël.

Noting actor Mehcad Brooks’s preference for a less-is-more-approach to attire, Smith commented:

Other fans of the look include actors Jude Law and Ed Westwick, who’ve been snapped showing off their man cleavage – or “heavage,” as one style writer dubbed it.

“Harper’s Bazaar’s Stephen Gan is working the new male cleavage in a low-cut T-shirt; it’s called ‘heavage,’” tweeted Hilary Alexander, fashion director of Britain’s Daily Telegraph newspaper, in early October while at a runway show in Paris.

(The term has previously been used to describe amply-chested women, when the portmanteau presumably was heave+cleavage rather than he+cleavage.)

c) My comment:

Well, if we’re playing around, would seevage serve as a neuter term for what men and woman display between their necks and pupik? (based on the principle that if someone is obviously taking pains to display their wares, it’s quite alright to stare)

I'm a Co-Vocabularist

Read the last lines of Paul Schott's post:

November 27, 2009, 7:02 am

Palinized

A term used to describe the vilification of female Republicans (as well as other associations with Sarah Palin).

Discussing sexism in the media, Julia Baird observed in Newsweek:

Now an ugly new term has entered the lexicon: being Palinized, usually intended to mean being viciously attacked for being female and Republican. GOP Rep. Michele Bachmann wrote in a letter to supporters that she did not want to be “Palinized” with personal attacks or “liberals’ scorn.” Former beauty queen Carrie Prejean claims she has been “Palinized” by the “liberal media” for her anti-gay-marriage views. And now Palin thinks she has been Palinized by NEWSWEEK, for last week’s cover image of her looking fit and posing in running shorts, even though she has been photographed and filmed more than once in aerobic gear (most recently on Oprah just a few days ago).

Palinization has been used in a variety of ways since Sarah Palin’s vice-presidential nomination:

· In September 2008, spectacle wearers hoping to emulate the “soccer mom” look reportedly asked opticians to “Palinize” them.

· At a Democratic fund-raising concert in October 2008, Bruce Springsteen joked that the audience ought not to expect the highest quality performance: “Palinize your expectations,” he quipped.

· Some observers discussed the Palinization of the McCain campaign – noting his concessions to the Christian Right.

· In December 2008, commentators suggested that Caroline Kennedy’s senatorial campaign managers had Palinized her, observing that her media appearances – like Sarah Palin’s – were carefully stage-managed.

· Other usages can be found in the Urban Dictionary.

(The co-vocabularist Yisrael Medad recently emailed Schott’s Vocab another Palin-related term, used in The Washington Post: Palinista – a Palin supporter.)

If You Don't Like Someone, You Can Call Them...

I found these terms in a letter discussing Ben Johnson and his critics, among others, of Gabriele Bernhard Jackson of the Department of English, Temple University, Philadelphia:

“thou thin-bearded hermaphrodite”,
“‘copper-faced rascal",
“my Saracen’s-head at Newgate”,
“you brown-bread-mouth stinker”,
“saffron-cheek sunburnt gipsy”,
“low-minded pigmy”,
“hungry-face pudding-pie-eater”,
“my ningle”.

Almost But Not Quite Revenant

Found in Canada's Globe & Mail:

Brendan Flanagan at Angell Gallery

$2,000-$12,000. Until Oct. 10, 890 Queen St. W., Toronto; 416-530-0444

The title of painter Brendan Flanagan's new exhibition, now at Toronto's Angell Gallery, is Revenant - a word, that, despite its wide use in popular culture, I nevertheless had to look up. One quick Google, however, reveals that the word primarily means "a folkloric corpse that returns from the grave."

Revenant is apparently also a comic horror film, a video game, a record label, a character in some other video game called Soul Calibur III, a comic book (2000-08), and the title of the 13th episode of a TV series called Legend of the Seeker.

So along comes this young, Toronto-based painter (Flanagan is 26) and, fuelled by the clattering, oozing, gibbering throng of the zombie-esque, walking-dead just over his shoulder, proceeds to paint these hectic, disturbing, chromatically shrieky paintings...

(Kippah tip: SL)

Now, as you of you know, a revenant is someone who returns to his/her ancestral home after a long absence. That's the true primary definition:


rev·e·nant: (rĕv'ə-nənt)
1. One that returns after a lengthy absence.

rev·e·nant (rv-nnt)
n.
1. One that returns after a lengthy absence.

rev·enant (rev′ə nənt)
noun
a person who returns, as after a long absence

And being in Canada, he could find the word used in this March 16, 1999 judgment of a Supreme Court case and there's no ghost there:

27291 - CITY OF SEPT‑ÎLES v. CANADIAN UNION OF PUBLIC EMPLOYEES, LOCAL 2589, LABOUR COURT, 2862‑3775 QUÉBEC INC. AND SERVICES SANITAIRES DU ST‑LAURENT INC.

Droit du travail ‑ Droit administratif - Accréditation - Contrôle judiciaire - Concession partielle d’une entreprise - Entretien ménager - Transmission des droits et obligations selon l’art. 45 du Code du travail, L.R.Q. 1977, ch. C-27 - Rétrocession et concessions successives d’entreprise - Transfert de l’accréditation visant les employés affectés à l’entretien ménager lors d’une première concession d’entreprise par Ivanhoe inc., conformément à l’art. 45 - Fin du contrat - Ivanhoe confiant ensuite à quatre nouveaux entrepreneurs l’entretien ménager - La Cour d’appel a-t-elle erré en refusant d’intervenir pour casser les décisions des instances inférieures qui ont conclu à l’application de l’art. 45 à des contrats de fourniture de services, revenant ainsi à la notion fonctionnelle de l’entreprise qui avait été rejetée dans U.E.S., local 298 c. Bibeault, [1988] 2 R.C.S. 1048, et dans Lester (W.W.)(1978) Ltd. c. Association unie des compagnons et apprentis de l’industrie de la plomberie et de la tuyauterie, section locale 740, [1990] 3 R.C.S. 644...

[Labor law - Administrative law - Certification - Judicial review - Operation in part by another of an undertaking - Janitorial Services - Transfer of rights and obligations under s. 45 of the Labor Code, RSQ 1977, c. C-27 - Surrender and successive operation by others of an undertaking - Transfer of certification for janitorial employees under s. 45 when initially Ivanhoe operation of transferring to another undertaking - Termination of contract - then Ivanhoe Assigning janitorial services to four new contractors - Whether the Court of Appeal erred in Refusing to intervene and quash the lower court decisions holding that s. 45 applied to contracts for services, Thus returning to the functional concept of an undertaking, Which was dismissed in UES, Local 298 v. Bibeault, [1988] 2 SCR 1048, and Lester (WW ) (1978) Ltd.. v. United Association of Journeymen and Apprentices of the Plumbing and Pipefitting Industry, Local 740, [1990] 3 SCR 644]

I refer you all to this post where I explain and insist that the meaning of revenant, of returning after a lenghty absence to a rightful legacy, should be applied to those Jews who have moved back into areas of their ancestral homeland, Judea and Samaria, the Golan and previously Gaza and other territories.

On Grammar

After 40 years in Israel, instead of being bi-lingual, I am slowly but surely becoming semi-literate.

I am forgetting my English vocabulary and my grammar has been, well, just ask the person who criticizes it. And Hebrew, while very good, is still dominated by ann Anglo accent.

So, in reading On Language today - and we are all mourning Bill Safire's demise - I was quite happy to read this:-

For instance, I have occasionally been informed that my use of the word stupider, as opposed to the somewhat ungainly phrase more stupid, makes me sound . . . plus stupide. I used to cringe in shame and embarrassment when this was pointed out to me, until I discovered that Ezra Pound also used the word stupider, in a letter that he wrote to William Carlos Williams in 1920: “If you weren’t stupider than a mud-duck you would know that every kick to bad writing is by that much a help for the good.” And so now, rather than feel like an uneducated boor when someone calls me out for my use of this word, I can tell my antagonist that I am referencing Pound.

and this there:-

Clifton Fadiman wrote that “correctness, of course, is a schoolmarm’s hallucination; there are more double negatives in Shakespeare and Chaucer than on New York’s 10th Avenue” (and this was written back in the early 1950s, when 10th Avenue had more double negatives than bistros). In the event that a corrector corners you and attacks your use of a word or phrase for which you do not have a historical precedent that you can draw to mind, do not despair — you can always claim that Shakespeare used it thusly. If you are lucky your nemesis will believe you, but even if he has doubts, he will now be more concerned with looking for this mistake in his unabridged collection of the Bard’s work than in tormenting you.

New Word: Goldstoned

goldstoned
 
–adjective Slang.

1. attacked for acting in a presumed criminal manner, in particular of abusing human rights and of performing war crimes, - in a manner and fashion which is unfair, based on questionable testimony, framed in radical and progressive political ideology and predicated on a perverse interpretation of law, all the while divorced from reality, principles of self-defense and the requirement of a state to protect its civilian population from terror.

2. deriv. dazed from such an attack, for example: "I am goldstoned from the things you say about me".

Origin:

2009 following the excoriation of Israel and its Operation Cast Lead in Gaza by Justice Richard Goldstone in his UN Human Rights Commission directed Fact-finding Mission.



--------------
For reference:

- The Goldstone report reflects the massive influence of NGOs, with more
than 500 direct citations from highly politicized groups that lack
credibility, many of which are funded by European governments.
- The reliance on statements, publications, and submissions from these
NGOs is inconsistent with the claim to have conducted a “fact finding
mission.” By adopting the flawed methodologies and false claims from the
NGOs, Goldstone renders his entire report and its conclusions invalid.
- NGOs and Goldstone maintain a symbiotic relationship: The NGO network
actively promoted the Goldstone inquiry, supported claims of a “balanced”
mandate, and attacked Israel for not cooperating.
- In turn, Goldstone bolstered NGO credibility by relying on their
publications, ignoring biases and false claims, praising their “high
professional standard,” and defending them against “repression” from the
Israeli government.

Highlights of the detailed reports include:

- Details on European government funded NGOs that shaped a major portion
of the claims and allegations targeting Israeli in the Goldstone.
- Goldstone and other members of the commission have close links to HRW,
Amnesty International, PCHR, and other politicized NGOs. Staff researcher
Sareta Ashraph has been involved with pro-Palestinian NGOs and “lawfare”
campaigns.
- The report adopts NGO misinterpretations of international law,
including the claims that Gaza remains occupied and that Israel does not
have a right to self-defense.
- NGO statements that did not fit Palestinian narrative were distorted or
ignored, in order to maximize the condemnations of Israel.

A Question of Grammar

In a story about a metal detectionist searching for historical finds in the ground, the fellow

...said that on the day of his discovery he reworked a mantra that he regularly used for good luck. “I have this phrase that I say sometimes — ‘Spirits of yesterday, take me where the coins appear’ — but on that day I changed ‘coins’ to ‘gold.’ I don’t know why I said it that day, but I think somebody was listening.”

Should that have been "...take me where the gold appears"?

Or is the use of gold there as a collective noun?

Tongue-tied Biden

A piece on

...the growing collection of Bidenisms. The precise definition of Bidenism, like a Bidenism itself, is murky. Some Bidenisms are the sort of miscellaneous verbal or policy gaffes that are made by every politician. But the best ones — the statements that are uniquely Bidenistic — exemplify the bluster, excess verbosity, and fake charm of dumb-politician stereotypes,..Bidenisms have one or more of the following characteristics:

—They are awkward, inappropriate, or both.

—They either can be interpreted as insulting or are deliberately so.

—They are often followed by a self-deprecating joke, intended to placate anyone offended, which is just as cringe-worthy as the original statement.

—They frequently are self-aware — that is, the vice president knows he is committing a Bidenism as he says it.

...here are some of our favorite Bidenisms, in no particular order:

"I have not bent the law, but I have let imagination take hold in some places where I think it's consistent with the spirit of the law. … Is that the best way of saying that? Yes, … I should stop." September 3, 2009

''I exaggerate when I'm angry, but I've never gone around telling people things that aren't true about me.''—Responding in the New York Times to uproar over his telling a campaign event questioner that he was smarter than said voter (around that time he released a statement admitting much of what he had said about his academic record was not true), Sept. 21, 1987

"Since 1994 with the Gingrich revolution, just take a look at Iraq, Venezuela, Katrina, what's gone down at Virginia Tech, Darfur, Imus. Take a look. This didn't happen accidentally, all these things."—Blaming Republicans for having "wallowed in the politics of polarization," New York, April 19, 2007

"A successful dump!"—Explaining his whereabouts (dropping deadwood at the dump) to the reporters outside his home, Wilmington, Del., Aug. 20, 2008