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WEBWORDS 25:
ACQ Internet Column October 2006 |
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"'Everybody says words different,' said Ivy. '
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| As forebears go, my Grandfather's Grandfather's father's eccentric little brother, Alexander the Corrector 1699-1770, is just the sort of person you would expect to crop up in the pedigree of a Speech-Language Pathologist fascinated by the diacritic minutiae of phonological analysis and tiny, tiny html tags that leave others yawning. Variously described as a timid Scotsman, a tragic figure, a tormented genius, and barking mad: whimsical and unforgettable, Alexander Cruden led a life bound up with words, the scriptures, and putting people straight. A proof reader by trade, and working alone he took 12 years to write his Concordance to the Bible, an intricately cross-referenced 2.5 million word index, dictionary, and analysis, three and a half times the length of the Bible itself. Over 260 years later it has not been superseded, remaining a standard theological reference that allows scholars to find every instance of each word (save three or four) in the Bible (Keay, 2004). What in heaven's name would this ridiculously egotistical, one-man Wikipedian produce if he came back now with computer? A web site, no doubt. Would he link to Humorous Grammar Rules, McGonagall Online, Cecil Adams or the Devil's Dictionary? Perish the thought! | |||
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His portrait hangs in pride of place in my mother's sitting room at Cruden Cottage. He was always there - in the thick of family repartee in the 10 or more different houses we called home when I was growing up. One visiting British clergyman was so impressed he organised a photograph of himself with his delighted face pressed close the Corrector's. | ||
| That same cleric was a mad wordsmith himself, very keen on the well-turned neologism, and wont to convert West Australian Aboriginal place names into Welsh-sounding ones. Pingethly for Pingelly was irresistible. It's funny what you remember people for. | |||
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Eclectic What better place, other than a bookcase, that is, could there be to find word lovers giving free rein to their wit, passion and silliness than on the Net? Take for example Catherine Ball's joyously eclectic pages, now no longer available, that included the Sounds of the World's Animals, inevitably prompting the question, 'What do speakers of Afrikaans, English, Dutch, German, and, wait for it ... Vietnamese have in common?' The answer? They would all finish the cloze sentence 'A duck says ___' with 'quack quack'. By contrast, only English speakers would end 'A sheep says ___' with 'baah', only the Welsh say 'A pig says soch, soch', and, apparently, rude pussycats in Japan say, "nya nya" - which is not as bad as "Nyaa Nyaa Nuh NYAAAA Nyaa!", or all your base are belong to us, obviously. |
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Useful and fun Among the useful sites for those who work with people who have trouble with words are the ESL Cafe, where Dave Sperling has classified his ESL and EFL content as stuff for teachers, stuff for students and stuff for everyone. ELLLO is the English Language Listening Laboratory Online, and it comprises many listening activities and games. Then there is the Flash Animations for the English Class site, where many of the clips come with comprehension questions. Whet your appetite for hot potatoes with the I had a dream activity in which you have to find 14 differences between Martin Luther King's speech and a transcript of it. The Interactive Quizzes are a project of the Internet TESL Journal and contain many games that are readily adaptable for children and adults with language impairment. Then there are the IPL Language and Linguistics resources, the Using English for Academic Purposes pages that focus on listening comprehension and note taking, the overwhelming megalist that is Word Safari, the BBC's Words and Grammar, and for the origins of words: Wordwizard. Word lovers are not a homogeneous group by any means. Some live for crossword puzzles, others yearn for Scrabble, or their daily blog (I like Karen's) some like their words without pictures and would stay up all night for the fun of My Word via streaming audio. Fusspots, nitpickers, proofreaders and copyeditors appreciate banned for life (devoted to expressions so hackneyed and insufferable that they should be forever banned from news reports), the Plain Language Commission, and of course the Apostrophe Protection Society (which need's you're help). |
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Beyond words When you have had your fill, get creative and come to terms with your inner artist with Mr Picassohead. Take my word for it: it's fun too! |
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Reference Keay, J. (2004). Alexander the Corrector: The Tormented Genius Who Un-Wrote the Bible. London: Harper Collins. |
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Alexander Cruden Alexander Cruden ForeWord Magazine Significant Scots The Arc What Cruden's Concordance looks like! |
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Links and a few WORDS from Caroline BBC Radio 4 Common Errors in English English Lexicon Project Evaluating English Accents Worldwide Introduction to Concordancing Ladle Rat Rotten Hut Loqtus Minimal Pairs for English RP by John Higgins Online Concordancers Routes of English Sir Hans' Stuff Speech Accent Archive Spurl Thesaurus Word Retrieval Activities for Children Word Web Online WordFun ACQiring Knowledge in Speech, Language and Hearing, or ACQ, is Speech Pathology Australia's clinical and professional journal. It provides a forum for the 3,000 plus members of the association, and is published three times a year in February, June and October. Each issue of ACQ has a main theme or topic as well as articles that are not tied to a particular subject area. Its Internet column, Webwords, usually addresses the central theme of the issue of ACQ in which it appears. You can find Webwords in print in the magazine itself, and also here on this site, with live links to featured resources. |
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updated
May 12, 2009
COPYRIGHT © Caroline Bowen ALL RIGHTS RESERVED http://speech-language-therapy.com/webwords25.htm |
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