While driving around the other day I passed a building advertising "optometric" services. Optometric? I am very familiar with the the terms "optometrist" and "optometry" (being one of those people who daily sticks little pieces of plastic in her eyes in order to be able to see like a normal person). I know that "optometrist" is pronounced with emphasis on the second syllable (tom).
But how in the world does one pronounce "optometric"??? OP-to-met-ric? op-TO-met-ric? op-to-MET-ric? op-to-met-RIC? Seriously! None of these sounds right. Just try it; they all sound odd and awkward.
While this sparked a brief two minute conversation with my friend which was quickly forgotten, my mind kept whirling. It's been a while since I pondered the topic of emphasis. I love to play with the emphasis in words. And don't get me started on how cool it is that in the English language you can sometimes change a word from a noun to a verb just by changing which syllable is emphasized.
For example:
I RE-cord a re-CORD.
So cool!
And these are the things I ponder as I wander through life...
Oh - and according to dictionary.com it's OP-to-MET-ric (primary emphasis on the OP, secondary on the MET).
Saturday, August 29, 2009
Tuesday, August 25, 2009
She's flying high!
As part of my studies I once took a course in Metaphor and Metonymy. I found the subject matter interesting and engaging, the professor...not so much. Thank goodness for the cute guy that sat next to me during each lecture. There is no way I could have stayed awake without him (Thanks Andre!).
Anyway, back to the topic at hand. For those not familiar with metaphor, and especially metonymy, let me provide some insight(definitions provided by www.dictionary.com):
A metaphor is basically the substitution of one term or idea for another, seemingly unrelated, term or idea which in fact shares some similar characteristic. It's closely related to a similie ("he's as handy as a pocket on a shirt") but more forceful as it is a complete substitution rather than a comparison.
Similar to a metaphor, metonymy is also a substitution, but the two things should be related. In some cases the term or idea must be part of what it is substituting - in other words substituting a part for the whole(synecdoche).
As part of this course we studied how different cultures categorize things (you would need to know how things are categorized and structures within a culture/language in order to fully comprehend metonymy in that language).
Did you know there are actually cultures/languages that have only 3 categories for colors? Black, white, and red. What we English-speakers have a myriad of designations for (mauve, beige, ultramarine, etc.) some cultures only define by 3 labels.
Conversely, while English speakers have very few words to describe "snow", other languages have up to 40 words describing different varieties of snow. I find these things fascinating...
I think the peak(and pique) of my interest during this class came as we studied the subliminal thought processes in some of our most common metaphors. For example, if we look at some of our frequently used metaphors we seem to have a pre-disposed concept that emotions can be categorized in two ways: "up" = "good/happy" and "down" = "bad/sad"
"things are looking up"
"high spirits"
"cheer up"
"his spirits rose"
"he's on cloud nine"
"his spirits soared"
"walking on air"
"head in the clouds"
"riding high"
"lift his spirits"
"boost his spirits"
"He's feeling down"
"low spirits"
"down in the dumps"
"his spirits fell"
"his heart sank"
"depths of despair"
"he's depressed"
"he's really low"
Who knew? Take a look at what you're really saying sometime - you might be surprised.
References from Lakeoff, Kovecses, Yu
Anyway, back to the topic at hand. For those not familiar with metaphor, and especially metonymy, let me provide some insight(definitions provided by www.dictionary.com):
met-a-phor
-noun
1. a figure of speech in which a term or phrase is applied to something to which it is not literally applicable in order to suggest a resemblance, as in “A mighty fortress is our God.”
2. something used, or regarded as being used, to represent something else; emblem; symbol.
A metaphor is basically the substitution of one term or idea for another, seemingly unrelated, term or idea which in fact shares some similar characteristic. It's closely related to a similie ("he's as handy as a pocket on a shirt") but more forceful as it is a complete substitution rather than a comparison.
me-ton-y-my
-noun
A figure of speech that consists of the use of the name of one object or concept for that of another to which it is related, or of which it is a part, as “scepter” for “sovereignty” or “the bottle” for “strong drink” or count heads (or noses)” for “count people”
Similar to a metaphor, metonymy is also a substitution, but the two things should be related. In some cases the term or idea must be part of what it is substituting - in other words substituting a part for the whole(synecdoche).
As part of this course we studied how different cultures categorize things (you would need to know how things are categorized and structures within a culture/language in order to fully comprehend metonymy in that language).
Did you know there are actually cultures/languages that have only 3 categories for colors? Black, white, and red. What we English-speakers have a myriad of designations for (mauve, beige, ultramarine, etc.) some cultures only define by 3 labels.
Conversely, while English speakers have very few words to describe "snow", other languages have up to 40 words describing different varieties of snow. I find these things fascinating...
I think the peak(and pique) of my interest during this class came as we studied the subliminal thought processes in some of our most common metaphors. For example, if we look at some of our frequently used metaphors we seem to have a pre-disposed concept that emotions can be categorized in two ways: "up" = "good/happy" and "down" = "bad/sad"
"things are looking up"
"high spirits"
"cheer up"
"his spirits rose"
"he's on cloud nine"
"his spirits soared"
"walking on air"
"head in the clouds"
"riding high"
"lift his spirits"
"boost his spirits"
"He's feeling down"
"low spirits"
"down in the dumps"
"his spirits fell"
"his heart sank"
"depths of despair"
"he's depressed"
"he's really low"
Who knew? Take a look at what you're really saying sometime - you might be surprised.
References from Lakeoff, Kovecses, Yu
Wednesday, August 19, 2009
The Big, Red Book
Webster's dictionary.
A big(and I do mean BIG), red book. More suitable for use as a step stool or booster seat to a small child than as its intended purpose. Or so you would think.
Not to me. I could(and did) sit for hours with Webster's on my lap reading about all the strange and interesting words in the English language. I blame my mother.
Now what some people would term "encouraging educational exploration" or "providing the child with the tools to learn" my mother refers to as "what you do when you don't know the answer to the question your child asks". No pride or self-deception here. She plainly didn't know how to answer some of my questions, so instead of making up some vague answer or deflecting my questions, she sat down with me and the big, red book and we found the answer together. Never mind that along the way we found a lot of other answers to questions we didn't ask. Or that minutes (and occasionally a full hour) would fly by in which many more productive things should have gotten done.
The unintended consequences? Hours wasted, dinners gone cold, a ridiculous vocabulary, an excellent verbal score on the SAT, a BA in Linguistics, and the inability to quickly look something up in the dictionary.
A big(and I do mean BIG), red book. More suitable for use as a step stool or booster seat to a small child than as its intended purpose. Or so you would think.
Not to me. I could(and did) sit for hours with Webster's on my lap reading about all the strange and interesting words in the English language. I blame my mother.
Now what some people would term "encouraging educational exploration" or "providing the child with the tools to learn" my mother refers to as "what you do when you don't know the answer to the question your child asks". No pride or self-deception here. She plainly didn't know how to answer some of my questions, so instead of making up some vague answer or deflecting my questions, she sat down with me and the big, red book and we found the answer together. Never mind that along the way we found a lot of other answers to questions we didn't ask. Or that minutes (and occasionally a full hour) would fly by in which many more productive things should have gotten done.
The unintended consequences? Hours wasted, dinners gone cold, a ridiculous vocabulary, an excellent verbal score on the SAT, a BA in Linguistics, and the inability to quickly look something up in the dictionary.
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