Another delicacy about to join the class of regionally protected foods is the Cornish pasty.
As you will see from the picture, it is essentially a meat and potato pie which is meant to be eaten at room temperature. It makes for a wonderful breakfast or blue collar lunch.

I’m intrigued as to what a “genuine” pasty is like, because I have experienced the family version and the UK deli version and they are different. The Evans-McCay family version was cubed pork and cubed beef combined with sliced potato, onion, salt and potato in a full sized pie (did I mention that the recipe was transmitted via a chain of Scottish and Welsh family members?). I was told that the polite thing to do was to leave some pasty for the fairies, especially if you were a mine worker. The supermarket version is enclosed, but appeared to include vegetables such as carrots and peas, which is good but produced a different taste.

The official definition is that a pasty has beef (cubed or minced/ground), sliced potato and onion. So it turns out that the version I grew up with is a little more authentic in terms of flavor, but not pastry form. I’m somewhat relieved actually, but there is a lingering turnip debate in the official definition which I had a heck of a time parsing.

Apparently, the issue is this (as described in UK English):

However the Cornish are unusual in referring to swede as turnip, even though they differ markedly. The former is white with a sharp taste while the latter is orange with a more earthy flavour.

Because of this linguistic quirk, the regulations have been amended to allow either term to be used on the label although only one of the two is allowed in the pasty.

This will mean that genuine Cornish pasties will be allowed to go on sale advertised as containing turnip, but will break the rules if they actually do contain the rogue root vegetable.

If you’re confused, it probably means you’re an American and don’t know what a “sweede” is. After checking a few Internet sources, I have learned that there are two root vegetables with purple skins – a turnip which is white on the inside and a rutabaga which is golden on the inside.

If you go to Wikipedia, you will see that they look very similar on the outside and this leads to a complex linguistic situation. What Americans/Canadians call the rutabaga (apparently a Swedish word) is called a “swede” in the U.K….except when it’s called a turnip (as in Cornwall) or more helpfully a “golden turnip”.

So according to Brussels, it’s OK if a Cornish pasty contains rutabaga/swede/golden turnip, and they can advertise it as containing a “turnip”…but it can’t actually a white turnip. But it reminds me that our family pasty may have had a white turnip option which I normally vetoed. Maybe it was an adaptation to a new dialect?

Postscript – Swedes/Rutabagas also Turnips or “Neeps” in Scotland

FYI – I got this anecdote from Esther Asprey from Aston University in Birmingham

“The situation is similar in Scotland – white turnips are what I as a speaker of Midlands British English simply call turnips, and the word swede is not used. ‘Turnips’ refers primarily to rutabaga – golden turnips. When I moved to Edinburgh I spent half an hour in Tescos looking for ‘neeps’ to make haggis neeps and tatties for Burns Night, having worked out that swede was in fact the vegetable neeps referred to. I did not know however that even Scottish supermarkets label the vegetable a turnip and couldn’t find directions to the swedes. The nonplussed assistant led me to a huge pile of swedes marked ‘turnips’!”

Who knew finding root vegetables could be so complicated?

Postscript 2 – Quahog

This reminds of the quintessential New England tourist dilemma. You go to the New England shore in search of fresh clams from an authentic clam shack, but all you can find are “quahogs”, but of course “quahog” is New England for…clam. Apparently, the term is borrowed from an indigenous New England language.

Looks like Dr. Laura Schlessinger brought us a new N-Word controversy less than a year after John Mayer’s N-word controversy. I know it’s a sensitive topic, and I will state up front that I am white (or of European Protestant descent if you prefer). Both Mayer and Schlessinger had to apologize as they both realized that a white person using this word is very dangerous territory

I realize I am about to wade into the same dangerous waters, but the latest case made me realize that although it’s advisable for a white person to avoid this word, there may be times when it’s legitimate. I’ll tackle these cases one by one.

What I Do

I personally avoid the full mention of the N-word in reference to African Americans at almost all situations – even most of this blog entry, and it’s because I have personally seen other whites using N-word for it’s full negative meaning. I even saw someone praising their terrier for biting the leg of a “N____” (white person’s word). It was truly a repulsive experience to me, and I was just a bystander. I can’t imagine what it would be the subject of such an attack.

Because of this, I really cannot regard that word with any neutrality – not even the quasi affectionate -gga form used in the African American community. The good news is that I rarely hear adults using the N-word with that connotation, and most regard it as wrong. But that doesn’t mean the African-American community has forgotten it’s original use. It was just within my lifetime, and I am not exactly close to retirement.

It’s a raw wound, and it is still used by whites in the original context including a very enraged Mel Gibson. So…no N-word for me except very carefully later in this blog.

Use Among African-Community

We all know from hip-hop culture that the N-word can be used by African-Americans among themselves. In fact, it is fairly common for a culture to adopt an outside derogatory term within the group partly in defiance, partly in humor. For instance, an English major with spina bifida commented that wheelchair bound friends would call themselves “gimps.” And, I have literally heard Hispanic people call themselves “Spic”, Italian-Americans call themselves “Wop” and Polish-Americans call themselves “Pollock”. In fact, one Polish-American grandfather apparently explained to his shocked granddaughter – “Well I am one.”

Do I plan to use these terms in casual conversation? Absolutely not. I do however sometimes use the term “chick” and even “bitch”…because I am a woman. Do I appreciate it when men use those terms? No I do not. They are still somewhat outside.

The principle is fairly simple – a community is free to appropriate a derogatory term and use it among themselves, but it’s not OK for the original perpetrators to use. It’s actually fairly simple, and I believe most whites understand this rule (except for the ridiculously obtuse), but the John Mayer and Dr Laura cases show where there are interesting fails.

And for the record, many African-Americans object to this use of the N-word...because the original use was so offensive and degrading.

John Mayer Fail

I actually think John Mayer knows this rule, but for some reason thought he was exempt. His context was that he thought he had a “hood pass”, presumably higher than average acceptance within the African-American community, but then he decided to elaborate as follows:

“[Hood pass] is sort of a contradiction in terms, because if you really had a hood pass, you could call it a n*gger pass.”

To his chagrin, Mayer discovered that his hood pass was not an all-access pass, and most of us – African American and non-African American could have told him that.

Actually, I will now divulge that I went to a high school with a higher than average proportion of African American students (about 50%). I loved my high school and got along well with different communities, but I would still NEVER use the N-word, and neither would any of my white classmates. We all knew that no white person in our high school can ever get THAT much of a “hood pass” (LOL in fact). (Postscript: I don’t ever recall any of my African-American classmates using the N-word in my hearing either. A less than respectable African-American was actually a “Yo!”).

And even if I had a “hood pass” back in suburban Baltimore (continuing to LOL), it’s not really transferable. I suspect few if any of my Penn State colleagues would know that I was a high school with that demographic. Tragically, my teenage exposure to the hip-hip classic Roxanne, Roxanne and 80’s bamboo/doorknocker earrings (as seen on Hip Hop Closet.com) is not written on my forehead. (And yes I had more meaningful interaction with the African American community than that).

As far as anyone in central PA is concerned, I am what my initial appearance says I am – a WASPy white chick with a Ph.D. I do miss the days of my high school when we were brave enough to impolitely challenge some stereotypes – we just knew that there were certain nuclear terms/topics to avoid.

Dr. Laura Fail

The Dr. Laura situation is a more interesting one. Like John Mayer, she quasi-realizes that there a “Whites don’t use the N-word” rule, and she sort of follows it, but she doesn’t understand it. Her use came up when she was discussing the situation of an African-American woman in a mixed race marriage. The lady’s problem was that her husband’s WHITE friends kept using the N-word in her presence (so not cool).

Dr. Laura then asks how offensive this is, commenting “Turn on HBO, listen to a black comic, and all you hear is nigger, nigger, nigger.” At this point, I will defend (somewhat) Dr Laura and point out that she is quoting what probably happens on some HBO shows. She was not herself using that term to insult anyone. It’s also not really a “rant” as news outlets insist on calling it. She was trying to state a point of view which you can agree or disagree with. She even thanks the caller when she hangs up.

Dr. Laura’s mistake was that she underestimates the negative impact of a white person using the N-word in any context. In fact she asks “I don’t get it. If anybody without enough melanin says it, it’s a horrible thing. But when black people say it, it’s affectionate. It’s very confusing.” (Dear Dr. Laura – It’s not that confusing. Imagine your husband’s friends using the term “broad” or “chick” all the time and the distinction should be clear).

It’s not surprising that her caller took offense to Dr. Laura’s somewhat flip attitude towards the use of that word and reacted negatively. The truth that Dr. Laura DOESN’T get it and went on to what I consider a far more offensive statement – “Don’t take things out of context. Don’t double N — NAACP me.”

Just because a person is reacting to the N-word doesn’t mean you have to drag the NAACP into it.

A Legitimate White Use?

Well I did do something dangerous and used the full form of the N-word in a quote, even though I am not African American.

That is, I don’t entirely agree with the African-American caller’s premise that “I know what the N-word means and I know it came from a white person. And I know the white person made it bad.”

It’s true that whites should use the term with most extreme caution (which neither Dr Laura or John Mayer did). But the Dr. Laura quote of a quote raises the question where the line between etiquette and censorship is drawn. Is it OK for a white linguist to make commentaries on taboo terms? As a linguist I would hope so, because the alternative is that the usage of taboo terms is never examined. As ugly as they are, we may need to understand WHY they get used so that we can solve the problem.

If I am offending anyone because I am a white using this word just for once in an academic setting, I apologize for offense. But sometimes a bridge between communities has to be built and sometimes it’s not a pretty bridge, just a rickety rope across a chasm.

And as for John Mayer and Dr. Laura, I believe they now know how volatile the use of that term is. Future generations may be able to view the N-word more calmly, but we are definitely not there yet.

Whenever a new cultural phenomenon like texting sweeps through suddenly, it can be very difficult to find a calm, data-based source of information. One that is neither prophesizing doom or saying that texting will change the fabric of the universe. The book Txtng: The Gr8 Db8 by David Crystal, the author of several linguistics books written for the non-specialist audience, fills in this gap for the texting (aka SMS) quite nicely.

As a linguist, any new communication medium is bound to be interesting, but the interest isn’t so much the new abbreviations as the behaviors surrounding texting, both from the texters and those who react negatively to texting. That’s not to say that Crystal overlooks abbreviations.

Crystal provides an in-depth guide to different texting abbreviation conventions in English and other languages, but he also points out that 1) the concept of abbreviation is nothing new and 2) one reasons they occur simply because the interface of a numeric keypad is so cumbersome. On the other hand, Crystal notes that there is little evidence that texters confuse texting with formal writing. In fact, he quotes several teens who scathingly dismiss the idea of using texting language on a school assignment as utter lunacy (“Duh”). Crystal also demonstrates that fears for the demise of English accompany every new communication technology from TV to e-mail.

Behavior

In terms of behavior, the book provides a good summary of what we know. One of the chapters asks “Who texts?”, and the answer is quite a lot do it, especially outside the United States. In fact, he remarks that texting in the U.S. actually lagged behind other areas in Europe and Asia, particularly the Phillipines, where the service is relatively low cost in comparison to voice. (Note: The same is not true in the U.S. Here texting is a huge profit center for phone carriers, one reason I have never texted, although I respect those who do).

In terms of WHAT is tbeing exted, Crystal acknowledges that most of the data is anecdotal because few people are willing to allow researchers open access to their personal texts. Data is collected either via survey or from random quotes. One interesting pattern that does emerge is that text messages both concise but self contained. That is, an effective message needs to convey the full meaning in one text chunk. Unlike chat, a sender cannot assume a recipient will reply. According to one study, SMS messages are actually longer than chat lines even though there is a 160 character limit.

Literacy

As you might expect, there was much discussion of the impact of texting upon literacy, but Crystal regards texting as having a mostly positive impact. First some educators have noted that texting does provide another outlet for writing. Although most messages seem off the cuff, the reality is that the sender does have to consider length and how it will be read by the recipient.

And new literary genres are being born such as SMS poetry and the offshoot Twitterature in which Hamlet tweets “2bornot2b”. I myself have always been amazed at how quickly Darth Vader and Batman adopt new communication channels.

Are there any adverse consequences to texting? Of course. One is the danger of repetitive motion injury (aka “Blackberry thumb”), and another is texting/phoning while driving (or driving a train in Boston). The third is that people do text in (ahem) inappropriate situations including religious services and apparently at least one funeral. One the main motivations for texting is boredom as well as conveying information. Sometimes popular culture gets it right.

Big Surprise

What really surprised me? Believe it or not, the non-English abbreviations. There are nativized abbrevations such as Spanish dnd for ¿dónde? “where” and 100pre for siempre “always” (or cien+pre).

But, I was shocked at how many English conventions had been adopted whole sale, up an including the use of 2 for the syllable /tu/. For instance, a Spanish texter might write ers2 for ¿Eres tú…? “Are you…?” Even English “k” is being introduced to replace “qu” in both Spanish and Italian texting (although just “q” may also be used).

Finally, there’s the phonological information you can gather whenever writers switch to an informal phonetic based spelling. Abbreviations such as aora for ahora “now” show that there is a silent h and iwal for igual /igwal/ > [iɣwal] show that some /g/ are either silent or near silent. I guess those abbreviations are more interesting than I first thought.

Postscript: Other Sources

One researcher Crystal draws heavily on is Naomi Baron. She also has a book called Always On about social computing. I haven’t had a chance to read it yet, but it will also be on my list. And I always recommend danah boyd (all lowercase) who has done ethnographic research on teens and the use of different communication tools.

This is an New York Times article from April 29, 2010 on a CUNY effort to record endangered languages with speakers who have settled in New York city.

New York and other large cities have long welcomed immigrants from different communities who often form their own neighborhoods. The same is true for speakers from many endangered languages who may be forced to leave their native lands either due to poverty or political oppression. According to the article, some languages now have more speakers living in New York than in the original homeland.

The City University of New York (CUNY) is now organizing an effort to document some of these languages. Amazing how we’ve managed to overlook this amazing resources all these decades.

Once a year, the Linguistic Society of America convenes in its annual conference, and at that meeting, the American Dialect Society votes on the “Word of the Year”. And once the year, major news outlets in the U.S. announce this “word”. For the record, this year the “Word of the Year” is tweet (i.e. sending a message on Twitter), and the “Word of the Decade” is Google (i.e. searching for something on Google).

I think both choices are entirely appropriate, and accurately reflect the rapid spread of different Internet technologies. Personally, I had never heard of Google until early January 2000 (before that it was all Alta Vista and Yahoo). And now…it’s a verb. Wow.

But I also had a more interesting revelation. The main criteria (or “criterion” for the prescriptivist crowd) for selecting a word is utter cultural saturation. The OUP Blog from the Oxford University Press states it thus when announcing their own choice for Word of the Year (unfriend):

“[Unfriend] has both currency and potential longevity,” notes Christine Lindberg, Senior Lexicographer for Oxford’s US dictionary program. “In the online social networking context, its meaning is understood … Unfriend has real lex-appeal.”

That’s the obvious part, but for me the interesting part is that a really good “Word of the Year” has to be so ubiquitous it has already become a cliche (or cliché). The reason “tweet” is such a perfect choice to me is that its slightly ridiculous (and ever so slightly nauseating) to hear on a repeated bases…just like previous winners such as “soccer mom”, “sub prime”, “metrosexual” and “red state/blue state/purple state”. The Word of the Year is almost like a yearbook photo, one that will be humorous to revisit a few decades from now.

Ironically, the promotion of a word as “Word of the Year” may almost be a sign that it’s cresting the hype curve. When you hear a tech word like “tweet” hit the nightly news, you know that Twitter has both hit the mainstream and is about its lose its hip status with the cool tech crowd. If you’re not a fan of tweeting, don’t worry. I predict it will fade into the background of other communication tech like phones, voice mail and answering machines. At that time, I feel we will be using it much more sensibly than we do now – no more messages about eating fries being posted in public.

That’s not to say that the “Word of the Year” isn’t important. This type of popular culture phenomenon is something that is notoriously track the development of. Who was the first to say “unfriend” or “Google”? Was it a programmer or a teenager online? We will probably never know, but at least we will have a record of when it hit the airwaves.

Twenty years from now, we may indeed be still using words like “Google” and “unfriend”, but they will have become truly embedded into the language, like Kleenexes, faxing and Fridgidaires. Well I better sign off and tweet this blog post now.

P.S. My favorite candidate this year wasn’t one I heard much – Kanye (the act of interrupting someone’s speech while he or she is in the spotlight…after Kanye West’s moment at the MTV Awards). Alas it was not nearly used enough to merit “Word of the Year”.