Introducing Language in Use

Fun with Language - Exercise 1

What is a sentence?

On BBC Radio 4, there is a very popular panel game programme called ‘I'm Sorry, I Haven’t a Clue’. One of the games in this programme involves asking the panellists to work as a group to generate sentences and the aim for each individual panellist is not to be the person who says the last word in the sentence. Imagine that A, B, C and D are the panellists. Their linguistic creativity might create something like the following:

A1 — One
B1 — One morning
C1 — One morning in
D1 — One morning in May
A2 — One morning in May I
B2 — One morning in May I went
C2 — One morning in May I went to
D2 — One morning in May I went to see
A3 — One morning in May I went to see my
B3 — One morning in May I went to see my elderly aunt
C3 — One morning in May I went to see my elderly aunt who

… and so on.

You could argue that B’s third turn completes a sentence and so B is out of the game. You could argue that C could provide the name of the aunt to continue the sentence or could open a relative clause to explain where the aunt lives or what the aunt has done or something similar or could simply say and to keep the sentence going.

Now it’s your turn. Aim to create the longest sentence possible.

You should also try to play strategically. What might you say in your turn that would force the next player to finish the sentence? Certain constraints can be seen in the example on this site: for example, the choice of the verb went (in B2) compels the next speaker to (start to) create an adjunct rather than a direct object which would have been required if the verb choice in B2 had been acquired or saw or opened.

Linguistic points for consideration:

What is a sentence?
How long can a sentence be?
What are the syntactic constraints that operate as a result of the choice of any individual word by one of the participants?

Fun with Language - Exercise 2

Apostrophes and spellings matter (and not just to prescriptivists!)

It makes sense to ask what a word is and it makes sense to ask what a word means.

It can make understanding oral language difficult if a word is pronounced with an unusual stress pattern or with a different vowel than the one anticipated, a fact which can explain why some people find some regional accents harder to understand than others. It can make understanding written language difficult if a word is spelt in an unconventional manner.

In both oral and written language, the context can help to disambiguate which word is meant.

In oral language we might not hear a difference between its and it’s or between they’re, there and their because the words are homophones (words that sound the same). In written language we might not see a difference when bank means the financial institution or the side of the river – but context will make the meaning clear whether the language is being used orally or in writing.

Now consider the following:

Explain as if to a learner of English as a foreign language who wants to learn to read and write Standard British English, why the underlined words are not spelt or punctuated correctly:
1. Its raining.
2. The dog hid it’s bone under the carpet.
3. The student sited Bloomer et al. (2005) in there essay.
4. Anne pitched her tent on the camp cite.
5. The final seen in the play was most moving.
6. I would of thought of that, if you had given me more time.
7. I'm been harassed at work.
The authors have seen these or similar examples in students’ essays over the years.

All of these examples of authentic language were spotted by one of the authors or by someone known to one of the authors.
- dependen’t
- caulie’s
- I prefer my house’s structurally sound.
How do you react to such examples? The authors know people who are amused by them, who are enraged by them, who despair about the state of the language as a result of them or who regard them as part of the infinite creativity of language change in use.
1. Ask other people what they think and why. Ask your tutor what s/he thinks and find out what your examiners think (ask about examiners’ reports and what they deduct marks for) as this might affect marks on any future assignments that you have to submit.
2. Collect other examples for yourself and for each example that you find, make sure that you can explain clearly (as in exercise 1 above) why the apostrophe or the spelling is non-standard and what the effect of the non-standard use is in relation to meaning.
Linguistic points for consideration:
1. Where do you stand in the debate about standard and non-standard language use?
2. Where do you stand in the prescriptive–descriptive debate?
3. Do you think any of this matters? Why (not)?

Fun with Language - Exercise 3

Lost consonants and errant vowels

Lost consonants

Changing a single consonant in a word can radically change the meaning of the word. Cartoonist Graham Rawle produced a series of cartoons that demonstrate the humour in such changes. Examples from his website include:

He left hospital with his arm in a plaster cat.
Pensioners on low income were finding it hard to exit.
The birds found some wigs and were building their nests.
They were unaware that their conversation could be overhead.

Such minor changes can occur in writing about linguistics. One of the authors was originally entertained but is now somewhat wearied by sentences such as ‘the coma must be moved for the sentence to make sense’ in student essays.

1 Think of other pairs of words where only one consonant changes and to see if there is any humour to be derived from the difference.

Errant vowels

Vowel changes can be similarly entertaining.

One of the authors was so grateful (for entertainment while marking) to the (must remain) anonymous student who wrote in an essay ‘The farmers left their bollocks in the fields’. The author knows that this was an accidental typo but it still provides enormous entertainment and food for thought.

The same author found a business report more entertaining when reading that ‘moral is very low among the staff’.

2 Think of pairs of words where only one vowel changes and to see if there is any humour to be derived from the pair.

Just change one –

In essays on linguistics, many students confuse compliment with complement. Go to a good dictionary to find out the meaning of each word and go to Introducing Language in Use 2/e (Chapter 7) to find out which word (and therefore which spelling) you should be using in syntactic analysis.

Then make sure you are clear about the difference in meaning between:

preposition and proposition

comma and coma.

and from other registers:

plea, pleas and please

your and you’re

there, their and they’re

bit and byte

its and it’s

to, too and two

dam and damn

of and off.

Linguistic points for consideration:

the rules of spelling
words are fun and language is infinitely creative.

Fun with Language - Exercise 4

Old words, new meanings

On BBC Radio 4, there is a very popular panel game programme called ‘I'm Sorry, I Haven’t a Clue’. One of the games in this programme involves asking the panellists to invent new meanings for old words. This game has been very successful and some of the contributions to the radio show have been published in The Uxbridge Dictionary of English.

You could try this game with linguistic jargon. For example:

phoneme might be an instruction to ring the speaker (divide the two syllables in a different place)
phonemic might be an instruction to ring Michael(convert the three-syllable word into a two-syllable word)
recursion might be the act of cursing for a second time (think of the meaning of the morphemes).

Now see what you could make of:

diacritic
ethnologue.

Of course, this is really only any fun if you know the linguistic meaning of the word in the first place.

Linguistic points for consideration:

words can be divided into morphemes in relation to meaning but there is often more than one way to divide a word
words or morphemes that sound the same do not necessarily have the same meaning.

Fun with Language - Exercise 5

Punctuation matters

These examples come from Eats, Shoots and Leaves which is itself an example of how punctuation can change the meaning of a written text. The title of the book is the punchline of a joke about a panda in a bar. Work out the difference in meaning between:

eats, shoots and leaves
eats shoots and leaves
eats shoots, and leaves.

Adding the comma can not only change the meaning but clarifies which meaning is intended by the writer.

Similarly consider the following:

Woman, without her man, is nothing.
Woman, without her, man is nothing.

Punctuate the following letter in two ways such that there are two completely opposed meanings: one says that Jack is the love of Jill’s life; the other says that Jack is the last person that Jill would ever want to meet again.

dear jack I want a man who knows what love is you are kind generous thoughtful people who are not like you admit to being useless and inferior you have ruined me for other men I yearn for you I have no feelings whatsoever when we’re apart I can be forever happy will you let me be yours jill

Then:

Work out how many sentences there are in this text – this will lead you to think about what a sentence is.
Work out how you decided where to put the punctuation in the text – which in turn will have informed your decision on where to put the sentence breaks – which in turn will help you work out what is a sentence.
On what grounds have you decided that each sentence is a sentence?
Work out how many words there are in this text.

Then see if you can write another sequence of words that can similarly be changed in meaning, simply by changing the punctuation.

Before you leave this page, consider the title ‘Punctuation matters’, which is syntactically ambiguous. Identify the two syntactic structures, either of which (or both) could be understood by the reader and either (or both) of which could have been intended by the writer.

Other examples might be Language Matters (originally considered as a title for the textbook) or Quality Matters.

Reference

Truss, L. (2003) Eats, Shoots and Leaves, London: Profile Books.

For ‘Punctuation matters’ use prologue from Crystal, D. (2006) The Fight for English: How Language Pundits Ate, Shot, and Left Oxford: Oxford University Press to get to issues that need considering and cautious optimism for the future.

Fun with Language - Exercise 6

Startings and finishings

Add as many items as possible to each of the following lists and explain (using precise linguistic terminology) what the pattern is and therefore why your chosen items continue the list:

book, king, great, tyre, enormous, sugar …
make, kernel, elevate, teardrop, opportune, near …
I, on, the, four, alive, sleepy, coinage, elephant …
hoof, phalange, judge, jerk, cuddle, levitation, knee …
scene, below, obfuscate, dictionary …
my, many, minimum, maximalize, memorisation …

If it is impossible to continue a list, explain why. The linguistic points listed below might help you in your explanations.

Of course, now you can try any of these activities in any other language that you know. The same linguistic points will be valid for consideration.

Linguistics points for consideration (these questions all relate to the examples of English given above):

Which individual letters can start and finish a word? Can all letters come at the end of a word? Can all letters come at the beginning of a word?
Which pairs of letters can start and finish a word? Can all pairs of letters start or finish a word? Which ones can appear in either position?
What about three-letter clusters? Can they come equally well at the beginning or end of a word?
How many letters are there in a word? Are there any constraints on which letters can appear in single-letter words or two-letter words?
What sounds (as opposed to letters) can start and end a word? The word jerk ends with the sound [k] and therefore the word cuddle (which begins with [k]) is an acceptable next word in the sequence. Similarly, the word knee begins with [n] (not [k]) and therefore is an acceptable word to follow levitation.
How many syllables might there be in a word? What is a syllable?
The final list combines issues of how many syllables there are in a word as well as keeping the first letter of each word constant.

Now create some similar rules for yourself and see how many words you can create following those rules.

Fun with Language - Exercise 7

So much to say – and think about!

Read the following text, which one of the authors received by email one day:

A Yorkshireman's wife dies and the widower decides that her headstone should have the words "She were thine" engraved on it. He calls the stone mason, who assures him that the headstone will be ready a few days after the funeral.

True to his word the stone mason calls the widower to say that the headstone is ready and would he like to come and have a look.

When the widower gets there he takes one look at the stone to see that

it's been engraved "She were thin". He explodes: "'ell’s bells man, you've left the bloody "e" out, you've left the bloody "e" out!"

The stone mason apologises profusely and assures the poor widower that it will be rectified the following morning. Next day comes and the widower returns to the stone mason: "There you go sir, I've put the "e" on the stone for you".

The widower looks at the stone and then reads out aloud:"E, she were thin".

a) Identify any Yorkshire dialect features there are.

b) Identify textual features which make this a text, as opposed to a random collection of sentences.

c) One letter can make such a difference in writing – as in thin and thine.

Consider the following pairs:

prostrate prostate
preposition proposition
consumption consummation

One of the authors has noticed items from each pair used where the pair-word should have been used.

check the meaning of each word in each pair.
why do you think the author in question is comfortable using the prescriptive term should in relation to the use of each word?
In this pair, separate and separable it is not strictly just one letter that makes the difference. Why do you think one of the authors was surprised (amused?) to read in one email that ‘a separable email would supply the necessary password’?

Fun with Language - Exercise 8

What does it mean?

What might these notices mean (seen by one of the authors)?

REAL EYES

REALISE
OWN

ONE

Suggest a context for where these notices might have been seen.

Fun with Language - Exercise 9

Did I read that sign right?

Such collections as these regularly circulate round the web. Use your linguistic and/or encyclopaedic knowledge to explain the humour in each.

TOILET OUT OF ORDER. PLEASE USE FLOOR BELOW

In a laundromat: AUTOMATIC WASHING MACHINES: PLEASE REMOVE ALL YOUR CLOTHES WHEN THE LIGHT GOES OUT

In a London department store: BARGAIN BASEMENT UPSTAIRS

In an office: WOULD THE PERSON WHO TOOK THE STEP LADDER YESTERDAY PLEASE BRING IT BACK OR FURTHER STEPS WILL BE TAKEN

In an office: AFTER TEA BREAK STAFF SHOULD EMPTY THE TEAPOT AND STAND UPSIDE DOWN ON THE DRAINING BOARD

Outside a secondhand shop: WE EXCHANGE ANYTHING – BICYCLES, WASHING MACHINES, ETC. WHY NOT BRING YOUR WIFE ALONG AND GET A WONDERFUL BARGAIN?

Notice in health food shop window: CLOSED DUE TO ILLNESS

Spotted in a safari park: ELEPHANTS PLEASE STAY IN YOUR CAR

Seen during a conference: FOR ANYONE WHO HAS CHILDREN AND DOESN'T KNOW IT, THERE IS A DAY CARE ON THE 1ST FLOOR

Notice in a farmer’s field: THE FARMER ALLOWS WALKERS TO CROSS THE FIELD FOR FREE, BUT THE BULL CHARGES.

Message on a leaflet: IF YOU CANNOT READ, THIS LEAFLET WILL TELL YOU HOW TO GET LESSONS

On a repair shop door: WE CAN REPAIR ANYTHING.(PLEASE KNOCK HARD ON THE DOOR – THE BELL DOESN'T WORK.)

Fun with Language - Exercise 10

Accents

Why are these only amusing if you know something about a Yorkshire accent?

A Yorkshire man takes his cat to the vet.

Yorkshireman: ’Ayup, lad, I need to talk to thee about me cat.

Vet: Is it a tom?

Yorkshireman: Nay, I've browt it with us.

A Yorkshireman’s dog dies and as it was a favourite pet he decides to have a gold statue made by a jeweller to remember the dog by.

Yorkshireman: Can tha mek us a gold statue of yon dog?

Jeweller: Do you want it 18 carat?

Yorkshireman: No I want it chewin’ a bone yer daft bugger!

Bloke from Barnsley with piles asks chemist ‘Nah then lad, does tha sell arse cream?’

Chemist replies ‘Aye, Magnum or Cornetto?’

Fun with Language - Exercise 11

Owed to a spellchequer

Please click on the link below to view this poem:

http://www.davidpbrown.co.uk/poetry/martha-snow.html

Rewrite the text using standard English spelling.
What is the linguistic basis for this owed?

Fun with Language - Exercise 12

Puns

A friend of one of the authors sent the following list of puns one morning.

In each case, explain the humour in linguistic terms using the technical language wherever possible.

Group 1

What makes these puns similar?

Those who jump off a bridge in Paris are in Seine.
Dijon vu – the same mustard as before.

Group 2

What makes these puns similar?

A man’s home is his castle, in a manor of speaking.
A man needs a mistress just to break the monogamy.
Condoms should be used on every conceivable occasion.
Time flies like an arrow. Fruit flies like a banana.
She was engaged to a boyfriend with a wooden leg but broke it off.
A lot of money is tainted – taint yours and taint mine.

And now lots more to enjoy, to explain linguistically:

A hangover is the wrath of grapes.
Does the name Pavlov ring a bell?
Reading while sunbathing makes you well red.
When two egotists meet, it's an I for an I.
A bicycle can't stand on its own because it is two tired.
What's the definition of a will? (It’s a dead give away.)
In democracy your vote counts. In feudalism your count votes.
A chicken crossing the road is poultry in motion.
Santa's helpers are subordinate clauses.
If you don't pay your exorcist, you get repossessed.
With her marriage, she got a new name and a dress.
The man who fell into an upholstery machine is fully recovered.
You feel stuck with your debt if you can't budge it.
Local Area Network in Australia – the LAN down under.
Every calendar’s days are numbered.
A boiled egg in the morning is hard to beat.
He had a photographic memory that was never developed.
A midget fortune-teller who escapes from prison is a small medium at large.
Once you've seen one shopping center, you've seen a mall.
Bakers trade bread recipes on a knead-to-know basis.
Acupuncture is a jab well done!

Now go and find some more – keep your eyes and ears open all around you!

Fun with Language - Exercise 13

Children and language: Taalk propa? Hadaway wi ye: Am a rita, and A kno the commin langwij cums from the hart an sole, and must neva be forgot

Read the following article and decide how far you agree with the head-teacher and how far you agree with the writer of the article:

http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2013/feb/08/taalk-proper

Fun with Language - Exercise 14

Grammar, Syntax and Palladian Villas.

Grammar and syntax are abstract concepts. Perhaps considering the terms in another context might help in understanding them.

One of the authors was on holiday in Italy and was attracted by a game about architecture of Palladian villas (what are these? Use your favourite search engine to find out). Now read the following information about The Villa Game:

The Villa Game is a construction game which will help those who use it to comprehend the method of design used by Andrea Palladio. The concept of the game was developed by Howard Burns who has shown that that one of the reasons underlying the extraordinary good fortune of the works of Palladio (use your favourite search engine to find out more) is that they are based on a ‘design methodology’ in which it is possible to identify a ‘grammar’ of pre-established forms and proportions and a series of conceptually predetermined elements creatively combined according to a specific syntax.

Spotting the terms grammar and syntax used in such a different context from that of language seemed an appealing way of explaining an abstract idea to students.

Look at the picture of the parts of the game (below) to identify the predetermined forms that can be used in the architecture. Label each as best you can – and thereby create a technical language for construction of Palladian villas.

Look at the Villa Rotonda (below) and identify where and how different elements have been used.

to relate architecture to language
1. how does the villa compare to a text?
2. how do the pre-established forms compare to word classes?
3. how does the creative combination of forms compare to the creative combination of words, phrases and sentences?

The Villa Game,

concept: Howard Burns

design: Mouro Zacchetta

made by Contin srl – Laboratorio del legno, 2005

For more information about the Villa Game, visit

http://www.cibicworkshop.com/design/andrea-palladio-the-play-of-combinations/

We are grateful to the Palladio Museum at the Palazzo Barbarano in Vicenza for permission to us the photographs on this webpage.

Fun with Language - Exercise 15

Mobile dog grooming parlour

This van provided more entertainment for one of the authors when walking round York one morning. Explain the author’s amusement in linguistic terms.

Fun with Language - Exercise 16

York’s mobile expert

Language is fun – why did this raise a smile when one of the authors was walking round York?

Explain the amusement linguistically.

Fun with Language - Exercise 17

No bread is left in this van overnight

Intertextuality occurs in many varied places. Explain how it works in this case.

Fun with Language - Exercise 18

Word class changes add to the fun of this text. Explain.

when I was a wee wee tot

my mother would take me from my wee wee cot

and put me on my wee wee pot

to see if I would wee or not

and when she saw that I would not

she took me from my wee wee pot

and put me in my wee wee cot

and there I wee weed quite a lot.

Fun with Language - Exercise 19

‘Mind’ by Michael Rosen

This is a poem written by the former Children’s Laureate, Michael Rosen. Before you read the poem, think about the title. What do you think the poem will be about?

This poem was written in response to the birth of Prince George of Cambridge (third in line to the throne in the UK) in July 2013 and to the media coverage of the event.

You can read the poem here: www.guardian.co.uk/books/2013/jul/25/saturday-poem-mind-michael-rosen

Now consider:

What makes this text a text?
What do you think the poet thinks about the media coverage?
The poet does not tell you directly what he thinks so how do you know? How does he use language to give you his opinion indirectly?