Quote of the Day (Steven Pinker, on How Metaphors Help Us Understand New Concepts)

“Because we aren’t born with vocabulary for everything we might want to talk about, we have to develop new vocabulary for new concepts. And the terms we use have to be transparent enough that other people know what we’re talking about. So if there’s a new virus, for example, if I just call it a blicket, or a dropsy, then I invent the necessary words, but no one knows what I’m talking about. So it’s natural to reach for a metaphor, then people can understand it in terms something similar, which works since people know it’s not literally true, but it would nevertheless give them a leg up in understanding the new term. For example, we talk in mixed metaphors a little bit when we talk about a meme ‘going viral’, when something gets passed on to others, and lots of people who receive it pass it on in turn, and so on, resulting in an exponential explosion. The metaphor is of exponential, viral, replication. That’s the way viruses work. And you understand that even if you don’t know the concept of exponential growth. Even if you don’t remember your high school math, the metaphor allows you to understand the concept.

“In fact, when a metaphor becomes useful enough, it ceases to be metaphorical. People forget its origin and it just becomes a word in the language. It’s actually quite astonishing how much of our language is, or at least was, metaphorical. It’s actually not so easy to find language that wasn’t originally metaphorical.”— Canadian-American cognitive psychologist, psycholinguist, popular science author, and public intellectual Steven Pinker, quoted by Angela Tan, “Interview: Steven Pinker,” Philosophy Now, February/March 2024

The accompanying image of Steven Pinker was taken Oct. 4, 2023, by Christopher Michel.

Joke of the Day (Comic Demetri Martin, on a Silly Phrase)

“'Sort of' is such a harmless thing to say. ‘Sort of.’ It's just a filler. ‘Sort of’ —it doesn't really mean anything. But after certain things, ‘sort of’means everything. Like after 'I love you' or 'You're going to live.'” —American stand-up comic Demetri Martin on Comedy Central Presents, Season 8, Episode 14, original air date Mar. 19, 2004, written and directed by Demetri Martin

Quote of the Day (Steve Martin, on a Way With Words)

“Some people just have a way with words, and other people … oh … not have way.”—Actor-comedian-writer Steve Martin, quoted in “Laugh Lines: Do You Speak American?”, Reader’s Digest, July-August 2016

(Photo of Steve Martin taken by David Shankbone at the premiere of Baby Mama in New York City at the 2008 Tribeca Film Festival, Apr. 23, 2008.)

Quote of the Day (Calvin Trillin, on Why ‘The English Talk So Funny’)

“I think the Europeans are hostile toward the English because the English have some irritating habits--the habit, for instance, of ending sentences with questions that sound like reprimands: ‘You say it's difficult for you to tell because you haven't read the survey? Well, you'll have to read it, then, won't you?’ See how snotty that sounds?

“Why do the English talk so funny? For one thing, they're all hard of hearing. All Englishmen are hard of hearing. That's why they end a lot of sentences with questions--just to check and make sure the other fellow heard what they were saying ... That's why they're always saying, ‘I say!’ It gives the other fellow a warning that they're about to say something, and then he knows to tune in.”—American journalist and humorist Calvin Trillin, Quite Enough of Calvin Trillin: Forty Years of Funny Stuff (2011)

(Photo of Calvin Trillin taken at a discussion at Dartmouth College, February 2011.)

Quote of the Day (James Thurber, on a Medical Situation Often Occurring in Winter)

“There is, of course, a special problem presented by the type of person who looks well even when he doesn’t feel well, and who is not likely to be believed if he says he doesn't feel well. In such cases, the sufferer should say, ‘I look well, but I don't feel well.’ While this usage has the merit of avoiding the troublesome words ‘bad’ and ‘badly,’ it also has the disadvantage of being a negative statement. If a person is actually ill, the important thing is to find out not how he doesn’t feel, but how he does feel. He should state his symptoms more specifically — ‘I have a gnawing pain here, that comes and goes,’ or something of the sort. There is always the danger, of course, that one's listeners will cut in with a long description of how they feel; this can usually be avoided by screaming.”—American humorist and cartoonist James Thurber (1894-1961), The Owl in the Attic and Other Perplexities (1931)

Quote of the Day (Edwin Newman, Sending Up Academese)

“Abraham Lincoln was on the side of the social scientists when he said, ‘God must have loved the people of lower and middle socioeconomic status, because he made such a multiplicity of them.’”—NBC newscaster and language maven Edwin Newman (1919-2010), Strictly Speaking: Will America be the Death of English? (1974).

The fame of TV newscasters tends to be fleeting. I mean, does anyone under the age of 60 know anything about Chet Huntley, let alone remember him? Unless you become known for something else besides intoning the nightly news, you can forget about people recalling you 20 years after you go off the air. Unless, that is, you stake a claim for something outside the broadcast booth.

Edwin Newman—born 100 years ago today in New York City—may have spent more than 30 years with NBC News, and he may have had as high a profile there as you could want: covering the JFK assassination, interviewing the likes of Ingmar Bergman, Muhammad Ali and David Ben-Gurion on Speaking Freely, and moderating the first televised debate between Gerald Ford and Jimmy Carter in 1976, and the second debate between Walter Mondale and Ronald Reagan eighty years later. 

But the obituaries following his death eight years ago gave equal attention to another aspect of his career: two best-selling books from the mid-1970s that described, in teeth-grinding but hilarious detail, how the English language was being roundly abused by politicians, athletes and other celebrities. Strictly Speaking and A Civil Tongue enjoyed well-deserved long runs on the bestseller lists for their delightful skewering of the pompous and pretentious.

Photos like the one accompanying this post may surprise today’s younger viewers: Newman was nothing like a newsman out of central casting. But he spoke and wrote the news with admirable economy.  "He was a consummate professional, a brilliant guy, a brilliant mind, and a joy to work with," remembered Lucy Jarvis, producer of the show The Nation's Future, in an interview for the Television Academy Foundation.

That proved to be an advantage as he sought to demonstrate the need for news to a citizenry requiring information. He was able, for instance, to convince NBC brass that he baseball fans wouldn’t miss a pitch in a playoff game if he would only be permitted to break in to announce the resignation of Vice President Spiro T. Agnew on air, recalled David Hinckley of the New York Daily News in an obit for the newscaster.

The machinations of politicians also motivated his campaign to keep language pure through his books, he told Terry Gross in a 1988 interview for her NPR show “Fresh Air”: 

"I thought that it was the business of anybody in the news business to examine what he or she was told," he said. "And you cannot do that -- you cannot examine what is being told and judge its veracity -- unless you understand language, particularly unless you understand when language is being used in an attempt to mislead you. I took that very seriously."

While taking his work seriously, Newman hardly viewed himself in the same manner. One month after retiring from NBC in 1984, he made a memorable appearance on Saturday Night Live as one of two young rival gang leaders interviewed on the “news show” “Urban Answers”: the polysyllabic Crazy Max of the Insane Unknowns. 

I guffawed as the camera panned to Newman, clad in a blue vest and bandana, intoned to his host about excitable “Little Rat” (Brad Hall), “We’re willing to engage this adversary group in a variety of contests of strength, will and fortitude to underscore our claim.” Then, poker-face, pulling out a switchblade, to Little Rat: “I am prepared to fillet you, if necessary.”

Joke of the Day (Bonnie McFarlane, on Speaking Pig Latin)

“I don’t want to brag, but I do speak pig Latin; I mean, I’m not fluent, but I’m sure if I ever went there, I could get by.” —Canadian-American comedian and writer Bonnie McFarlane quoted in “Laugh Lines: Do You Speak American?”, Reader’s Digest, July-August 2018