Category: English Literature

The Story of the Oxford English Dictionary

Posted on by Stephanie Dodaro

In 1998 a book came out that detailed the birth of the first English dictionary which began in 1857.  No joke, there was nothing quite like a “proper English dictionary” before that time. It would take me nearly two decades to discover this book. The book is called The Professor and the Madman: A Tale of Murder, Insanity, and the Oxford English Dictionary by Simon Winchester.  If the title alone did not whet your appetite, then possibly nothing will.  This was yet another lucky book fair find, and I could simply not resist this one.  It is the true story of the making of the famous OED (The Oxford English Dictionary) and of the famous or even infamous men who made it happen.  It is an absolutely awe inspiring story of the dictionary that almost did not happen, the dictionary that men died making never to see completed.   Our main characters are Dr. James Murray, editor of the OED, and Dr. W. C. Minor, main contributor of thousands of entries for the dictionary and permanent inmate at the asylum for the criminally insane.

There are many aspects about this book that I loved.  There are actual dictionary entries reproduced at the beginning of every chapter, almost setting the theme for the chapters themselves.  Chapter 1, for example, begins with the very lengthy listing for “murder”, with all the etymology and changes for the word over the years.  By seeing these entries, the reader gets a sense of the immense project it was to put together a dictionary of such scope.  It was a monumental task.  Even those taking on this task underestimated how long it would take, which in total took about 70 years. I also very much appreciated the author’s language, which is very elegant and sophisticated.  For “word nerds”,  myself included, it can be refreshing to read something so eloquently written, with such academic vocabulary, rich in meaning.

The book retraces the history of both men from childhood and how they found themselves in their individual situations, and to a degree, what made them the men they became, especially in the case of Dr. Minor.  It leads us to the moment when Dr. Minor finds a flier with a call for contributors for the dictionary.  Finding himself with a lot of time on his hands and an extensive library in his cell, he could work and occupy his time and his mind.  It could possibly have proven to be therapeutic in the end.

Photo by Thomas Kelley on Unsplash

Overall the story of these two men, and the incredibly ambitious project they undertook was fascinating, to the point that I even found myself reading little bits to friends who were willing to humor my enthusiasm for this book.  To imagine that this was done mostly by mail, submissions on little slips of paper, handset typeface, and compiled manually, in the mid 19th century makes my head explode.  To think that in Shakespeare’s day there was no English dictionary, to think of having no way to check the meaning or spelling of a particularly strange or unusual or new word, is difficult to imagine.  We take it for granted.

So as you may imagine, I devoured this one not only as a bibliophile, but also a word nerd and lover of historical fiction and etymology.   It is meticulously researched and eloquently retold. Undoubtedly a must read for anyone looking to improve vocabulary (whether English is your native language or not!) and especially for someone who underestimates the importance of and need for a dictionary.

 

How Did English Become So…. Unique?

Posted on by Stephanie Dodaro

Our Magnificent Bastard Tongue, John McWhorter

Rarely can I walk through a bookstore without something catching my eye unexpectedly.  I was not looking for this book in particular and had not even known of its existence when I came across it.  It was particularly serendipitous for me as an English teacher to find this book. I dreaded having to answer the question “Why do we have to say it like that?” or “Why like this and not like that?” and those questions often come up.  Hallelujah! This book answered all of those questions for me!

For the language learner, no other language in the world seems like English.  In fact, according to McWhorter, “[T]he pathway from Beowulf to The Economist has involved as much transformation in grammar as in words, more so, in fact than in any of English’s close relatives.  English is more peculiar among its relatives, and even the world’s languages as a whole, in what has happened to its grammar than in what has happened to its vocabulary.” (Introduction, p. xii)  If you have ever wondered why English grammar is like it is, this book will help you understand.  What really happened to English along the way?   When did verbs lose all of their endings, except for the third person singular?  Many languages have very complicated verb conjugations and a whole pile of irregular ones, as well.  If it is a Germanic language like German, where are all of the noun declensions, case markers?  Why does it not look German-esque at all?   I studied German, briefly, and can say that it is very, very different. English grammar, McWhorter suggests, is quite easy compared to languages with all those things, at least in the beginning.  In my opinion, it is the massive vocabulary that makes English so challenging, not its grammar.

McWhorter tells a very animated tale of English through the ages, from the Viking invasions to Norman invasions, then Latin.  He can be quite humorous in his retelling of the history of the language, making it a rather enjoyable read. However, it is an academic text in which he explains the grammar and  history, which are at the heart of his study. However, the read is worth it because it is so important to understand why the language is the way it is.  This is especially important for me in teaching and explaining it.   He will show that the evolution of English is more than just the simple borrowing of words.  There was real grammatical evolution happening by the Welsh and Cornish, later the Vikings, who never managed to speak it well and thus how we lost most of the grammar that had remained by that time, and finally, this is what we are left with.  He will also explain that what is considered a grammar mistake by some grammarians is illogical.  His arguments for these are hard to refute.

There is only one part with which I did not quite agree.  He feels that grammar and language do not shape our thoughts or the way we see the world.  I have read other articles to the contrary and have tested this theory on many students in my years teaching.  I still read the chapter to see his arguments, but I have not been convinced by this part.  Maybe you will be, or maybe you will also not be convinced.  If you want to read the other side of the argument, ask me for links to two really well written articles.

One of the most interesting chapters is the last one, discussing what happened to English before it was actually English (Proto-Germanic), the changes to the language as it evolved as spoken by non-native speakers.

This book is cleverly written, entertaining, if not occasionally heavy and thick with grammar and sophisticated vocabulary, a very academic read, but worthwhile indeed.  I would highly recommend this for serious language learners, linguists, English grammar or writing teachers and lovers of historical linguistics. It is definitely a book I plan to review again and again.

Uniquely Louisiana French (and English!)

Posted on by Stephanie Dodaro

Uniquely Louisiana French, and Part Two of Louisiana English à la française!

In the exciting follow-up to my article from last year, I want to share some of the things that I have recently  learned are “uniquely Louisiana French” expressions.  As may already be evident by now, we speak a bit differently here, even in the way we use English.  However, some of our French expressions are also unique to this area and not used anywhere else in the French-speaking world, which by the way is big, involving over 40 countries!

Français à la Louisianaise

Café du Monde by Chelsea Audibert on Unsplash

Last time, I mentioned our use of a 19th century word, banquette, which here is the sidewalk, and now the French of L’hexagone use differently (the meaning now refers to a small bench).  Yet another expression that we use, that no one outside of New Orleans uses, is vieux carré, meaning “old square”.  We call the old historical part of our city, the downtown area, this way, even though it is more like a rectangle really, a set of original streets laid out in a grid pattern, 14 by 8 blocks, a configuration which hasn’t changed since 1725.  It is a logical way to call the area, and yet we equate it with meaning “the old city” or “the historical district”.  That does not quite work the same way in Europe, where old, historical cities were built in a different way, with more winding roads and starbursts.  If we were to use this term with French speakers in Europe or elsewhere, they will likely wonder what we mean by it.  

Another (possibly) obvious New Orleaneanism is our motto: Laissez les bons temps rouler.  This is a likely translation, from English into French this time.  We say “let the good times roll” in English, but in fact this is not a sentence one would likely say in French.  For as my dear Philippe says, “good times don’t ‘roll’ in French”.  Refer back to Part One of this series, times “pass” in French.  We can “passer un bon temps”, but not roll it.  It had never occured to me after all these years in Louisiana that this would not be possible to say in French. Imagine my surprise!

English “New Orleans Style”

Moving on to more English expressions that are unique to New Orleans, and possibly with French roots, there is the very colorful way that we order our sandwiches.  Here in New Orleans, we order our sandwiches “dressed”, which means served with lettuce, tomato and mayonnaise.  I always wondered why non-locals looked perplexed at the question.  Does no one else out there order their sandwiches dressed?  (Please tell me in the comments section below!) If not, what do they say, then, when they want all the usual stuff on it?  After much research and discussion with French speakers, we came to the conclusion that there is a culinary equivalent, “habiller” (to dress), used when preparing poultry or other things, by removing innards, feathers, etc.  It would seem that the idea is to “dress it up”, in other words, “make it pretty”.  It sounds like a logical conclusion to me; although, I doubt that the French order their sandwiches “habillés”.  

Photo by Bruce Warrington on Unsplash

A student of mine once asked me if there was some French correlation to the expression used locally for putting away the dishes, which here is “save the dishes”.  I think it is possible that it could have come either from the translation of  “garder” (to keep or save, for example “garder la  maison”, to take care of the house) or from “ménager” (“to keep, save, manage” as in “ménager son bien” manage or conserve one’s fortune”).  Le ménage is the household, and let us not forget that faire le ménage means to clean or sweep or tidy the household.  I can not say for sure where the Louisiana expression came from, but I hope some of my readers can shed some light on this for me.

When we want to say “over there”, in Louisiana we say “up the road” as in “my friend lives up the road a bit.”  It is more or less the same in French, en haut de la rue.  Additionally, when we want to say “that day or week in the past”, we say “that week there” just like in French, ce jour-là, cette semaine-là, (literally that day there, that week there).

There’s one that I cannot determine yet, but may add an update here if I can get some information from those of you who are locals out there.  In French to say the day of the week, it is either aujourd’hui c’est.. (today is..) and the name of the day of the week, or nous sommes… and the day.  This last one translates as “we are… “,  as in “We are Monday.”  Do any Louisiana locals say that?  I have a feeling that it is something that may be said here, but I cannot be sure. 

This last one was recently brought to my attention (Thanks, Faye!).  When we “pass by your house” here in Louisiana, we may also say that we are not “going to get down”. That is our way of saying that we are coming by to see you, but not getting out of the car.  That also comes directly from the French who use the verb descendre (literally: to descend, go down) to say “get out of (a car or bus)”.

I love the charming, colorful way that people speak here.  It is like its own foreign language in America, centered on this little tiny space in the deep South, on this tropical island, the northernmost city of the Caribbean.  French is so integrated into our daily lives here that we are not always even aware of it. When I have pointed out some of the similarities in the way we speak here to the French my students are learning, they are often amazed. It is in our blood, in our lifestyles, and it is a vital part of our identity. 

Vieux Carré street sign
by Naveen Venkatesan on Unsplash

If there is anything to add, please write to me in the comments.  If you have any questions about local Louisiana expressions that you think might be of French origin, also please write me here and I can look into it for you!

I Heard the Owl…

Posted on by Stephanie Dodaro

I Heard the Owl Call My Name, but Margaret Craven

This is a classic which I first read during my bachelor’s program in the spring of 1995.  I have since read it several times with some of my ESL students, and each time we did a very close read, discussing themes and topics along the way. With every new reading, I am reminded of how deeply philosophical it is, how it emphasizes the strength and importance of community, and how a village is really like an extended family.  I am moved every time by the reading. This is really the kind of book that a person might reflect upon from time to time for years to come, and a great book to enjoy at a time like this, so isolated and separated from our own communities.

Photo by Keith Lazarus on Unsplash

Based on a true story, it is the life of a priest, Mark, who unbeknownst to him is dying, of what exactly the reader never knows.  Due to this unfortunate news regarding the young vicar, the bishop decides to send him to his most difficult parish, the remote Native American village of Kingcome, in the Pacific Northwest.  The bishop knows that Mark has a lot yet to learn and wants to help him do so as quickly as possible because he does not have a lot of time left.  The post will be a challenging one for Mark, and even the trip to arrive there is arduous. He will have to go from one boat to an even smaller boat upriver, through mountains, not to mention the harsh climate he will have to endure, the isolation, and the task of understanding or getting to know the villagers.  However, Mark is wise and patient.  He knows the value of waiting and keeping silent, listening.  Over time he learns more about them, while never fully understanding them, as even he admits. He does in the end, however, end up being respected and even loved by the villagers who mourn his passing in the traditional ceremonial way.  

Here is a place of myth, of old legends, where the river is life itself, linking all the other villages, the only way in or out, where the boat he drives becomes an extension of himself.  From chapter one we learn the meaning of the title, which also is a legend in which the owl will call the name of the man about to die.  Here nature is One with man, and they are all connected, and even dependent on each other.  We learn of the slow and steady bond growing between him and another Indian named Jim, of how important that bond becomes, of how much he has influenced the villagers and how much they have influenced him.  In fact, their influence on him was so great, Mark could not imagine returning to his world.  He was a changed man.  He would never again belong to the modern world, and worried a lot about when the time would come that he would have to return there.  

Photo by Danika Perkinson on Unsplash

This book reminds me of the importance of stillness, or the simpler way of life, of how isolated we have become, in our own worlds separated from society. In the village they suffered together through the rains and the harsh winters, helping each other, sharing food, but in this modern society we have built for ourselves, we suffer alone.  The villagers seek to preserve their traditions and rites through dances and stories, but we throw away the old and replace it with new and shiny.  The only other man in the village not a Native American was the teacher, who stayed apart from the others. At the death of Mark, he was unable to open the door to join the others, thinking that, “To join the others was to care, and to care was to live and to suffer.”  (158)  We shy away from death, hide it behind closed doors because the reality is scary.  We hide from life too often because being a part of it means risking loss, which is scary.  Yet, death is a part of life in the village, and everyone shares in it, takes part in the responsibility of it.  It is the cycle of life and a part of everyone and everything in the village.  

It is on the short list of books that have made me emotional.  I ended up absolutely loving the characters, especially Jim, Mrs. Hudson, Marta, and Keetah.  They are charming and caring and wise. This book is inspiring and philosophical, a truly memorable book to remind us of the essential things of life.  

***** This book is available for English Book Club**** See Courses for details.

New Orleans, my love..

Posted on by Stephanie Dodaro
New Orleans Carrollton area

Andrei Codrescu is an essayist, novelist, poet and professor at Louisiana State University.  He is also a regular speaker on National Public Radio, and such a brilliant speaker! I first came to know him from an audio selection in the material used where I was teaching ESL in Houston.  I then discovered this book, New Orleans, Mon Amour, a collection of his essays, at the LSU bookstore. I completely fell in love with his style and his writing. His voice, his humor, his way of seeing things are all completely endearing.

He is Romanian by birth, but moved to America and eventually to New Orleans, his adopted city, around 1985, the year the essays in this collection start.  The essays are grouped by periods, chronologically, except for the first which is a kind of preface. In his essays he talks about everything from his being a newcomer and his amazement of the environment, his fascination with the cuisine, his observations of our festivals, the heat, the humidity, the spices.  He talks about his favorite spots, his corner bar, his first Mardi Gras, the first time he had crawfish. Over time he will even talk about the politics of the city and its corruption, elections, and crime. No stone is left unturned. For me, it is interesting to see my city from an newcomer’s point of view on the inside. 

What I love about his writing is his very poetic way of describing things.  He makes even the most mundane occurrence seem significant and often hilarious. When trying to choose a new book to work with one of my students, I picked this from the shelf for consideration.  I flipped open randomly to the page entitled: Alligators. I read a few lines and immediately began to laugh out loud!  He is languishing in the heat, lying in his hammock “with [his] mouth open, waiting for a ripe fig to fall off the tree into it.” All the while he is looking in the direction of a drainage ditch near LSU, when he observed an alligator, that apparently all the students know.   His description of the scene is absolutely perfect, and anyone who has been here can imagine it.  

New Orleans French Quarter
Photo by Caleb George on Unsplash

I realized very quickly that this book is perfect for anyone who wants to understand this city, its citizens, the culture and history of New Orleans and even for locals who want to enjoy an outsider’s view on the city.  It allowed me to observe things with fresh eyes, seeing things that I no longer noticed due to familiarity. It is also a perfect book to work with ESL students because it is divided into short essays making it manageable in an hour-long lesson.  Yet at the same time they are still fun to discuss and eloquently written. An English learner will learn culture and history while developing vocabulary and language skills beyond just academic essay style.

It is a wonderful text for any college-age or adult learner of English wishing to improve her reading and comprehension skills.  Even more than that, it is a brilliant book for the lover or New Orleans, anyone who has traveled here, lived here or who has dreamed of visiting one day.

**** Available as a ESL Book Club course**** See my Services page for details!!

Oh! A mystery of Mono no Aware

Posted on by Stephanie Dodaro

Oh! A Mystery of Mono No Aware, by Todd Shimoda

Another of the beautifully created books by Chin Music Press.  

Only very rarely have I ever purchased and read a book more than once. The first time I recall doing just that is with Phantom of the Opera.  The second, when my copy of Oh! was damaged in storage. I felt compelled to buy another because it was simply too beautiful a book to keep a damaged copy.  When my new copy arrived, I decided to read it again. It had been years since I had read it the first time. This is a deeply philosophical book involving the journey of a man seeking emotion in his life.  He feels as if he is simply going through the motions in life, in a boring job, in a loveless relationship, devoid of any meaning.  He feels numb, unable to sense strong emotion or to grasp feeling from the things he sees around him.  He drops everything to move to Japan in search of something but he knows not what.  

The narrator starts teaching in a language school but gets laid off because he did not have the proper visas for work.  It was there that he had met professor Imai, one of his students. He learns from the professor about mono no aware, a very complicated Japanese concept mostly applied to poetry and one that most younger Japanese do not understand anymore, involving an emotional response (usually sadness) to things around us.  A classic example of this is the Japanese cherry blossom, very beautiful flowers that bloom and fall in a very short period of time.  We have very little time to appreciate them before they are gone.  Mono no aware makes us respond with Oh!

Cherry blossoms in Japan

When professor Imai learns of the narrator’s search for feeling, he starts a series of tests for the narrator, sending him on little quests to check his responses to things.  This eventually leads the narrator down a very dangerous path where a curiosity of Aokigahara forest grows inside him, thrusting him deeper and deeper into the dark corners of Japan and leading him straight into the arms of Tokyo’s suicide clubs, wherein lies “the ultimate mono no aware experience at the moment before death”.  Little does the narrator know, the professor has some dark corners in his life too. They are both searching for answers and seeking to understand mono no aware.  I developed a real sympathy for the main character, and when I learned more about him, for the professor too.  They are both tragic characters who found each other at an important stage in their lives to help each other.  There is definitely something of a father-son relationship between them that I found touching.  The final chapters reach such an urgent climax that I found myself holding my breath or gasping in shock.  

It is a captivating book that is terribly hard to put down.  Each chapter flowed so smoothly into the next, or left me at such a cliffhanger that I never could quite find a place to put it down, leaving me reading late into the night.  Between chapters are “exhibits”, or explanations of complicated Japanese concepts on poetry and art and culture, mostly dealing with and expanding upon various definitions of mono no aware.  The ten or so pages in front and back have beautiful paper and art from the writer’s wife.  The book is art itself.  It is literature; it is a travel journal; it is philosophy.   It is a thought-provoking and emotional read that reminds us to stop and smell flowers, stop and look at the way the sun filters through the trees, stop to listen to the birds.  

Fabulous the first time, maybe better the second.  5 stars!!

**** Book available as an ESL Book Club course*** See my Services page for details !

The Alchemist

Posted on by Stephanie Dodaro

The Alchemist, by Paulo Coelho

This is a book that has been recommended to me on multiple occasions by several good friends.  Flying home to visit my family a few years ago, I stopped in a magazine shop at the airport.  They had a really nice looking anniversary edition of this book for sale.  I picked it up and started to read the first pages and the inside cover with the synopsis.  I was absolutely intrigued; it did in fact sound like something that would have interested me.  It would take me a few more months to catch up on the other books that I was simultaneously reading, so that I could eventually get to this one.  Finally I could not resist any longer.  I read this book in record time!  I was completely absorbed in it, and was reading passages out loud to anyone who would listen.  

It is hard to categorize this book.  It is at the same time a travel book, a philosophy book, a self-help book and a novel all in one.  It is inspiring, thought provoking, and full of wisdom.  The language over-all is simple, but it speaks to me because I feel as if I did a lot of what the boy did and had some of the same experiences. The boy dreams of travel, of visiting places other than the small farming town he knows.  He becomes a shepherd, so that he can travel around and see more of the world.  One day he has a dream of hidden treasure to be found near the Egyptian Pyramids.  He visits a gypsy to find out the meaning of the dream because, as we learn from her, dreams are the language of God.  She tells him that he must go there to find his treasure.  

Then he meets a man who calls himself a king.  He tells the boy to give him 1/10th of his herd of sheep, and he will in exchange tell him how to find the treasure.  The boy thinks about it for a while and then decides to trust the king and gets very important advice about his Personal Legend, what he has always wanted to accomplish, about the Soul of the World, and he also learns that if he wants something badly enough, all the universe conspires in helping him achieve it.  The king told him all he had to do was follow the omens.  The king also advised against giving up on his dream. He will hear this advice on other occasions when he is at risk of giving it all up, and it is powerful advice which I think everyone needs to hear.  

“To realize one’s Personal Legend is a person’s only real obligation,” the king said.  And so the boy is off on his adventure.  It was not an easy journey to the Pyramids, and it takes an exceptionally long time, and there is a lot of adventure along the way.  On several occasions he finds himself ready to give it all up, but something always pulls him back.  He goes through many trials and successes and finally ends up exactly where he is supposed to be. Along the way he meets a crystal merchant, whose life he changed forever, an Englishman, a beautiful woman with whom he falls immediately in love and for whom he once again wants to give it all up, and finally the Alchemist.  It is the Alchemist who will finally set him on the path to being able to find his treasure, convinces him that he cannot give up for risk of resentment and losing his treasure forever, and he repeatedly tests him to see if he’s ready.  

 

Some of the most important messages in this book which I could certainly apply to my life are, “People need not fear the unknown if they are capable of achieving what they need and want”, “when you can’t go back, you have to worry only about the best way of moving forward,”  and “people are afraid to pursue their most important dreams because they feel that they don’t deserve them, or that they’ll be unable to achieve them.”  This of course is but a small sample of the wisdom in this book.  So much of it was noteworthy!  

What I realized is that despite the popular saying, you really can go home again!  He had to travel all the way to the Pyramids of Egypt only to find out that what he had been looking for all his life was right where he had started.  However, along the way he had had amazing experiences that he would never have known if he had not gone in search of something.  It is a lot like what I have done in my life, and now I know that I had been following the omens, and fulfilling my Personal Legend.  When I allowed myself to believe that sometimes taking the long way home is the only way home, I set off on an adventure to Japan to finally find my way home to New Orleans.  I had no idea what I was seeking there, or what I would find.  What I would in fact find was what I was really meant to do with my life.  Along the way, I saw and did amazing things that I would never have had the opportunity to do before, and may never again.

This is a book I could read over and over again.

**** This is an English Book Club selection. See Courses page for details.****