[Xmca-l] Re: dappled
Greg Thompson
greg.a.thompson@gmail.com
Wed Nov 26 13:52:45 PST 2014
Huw,
I'm grokking your zawn:
http://www.thelandreader.com/glossary/zawn
-greg
p.s. Someone on this listserve pointed me to "grok". Been grokking ever
since. "Grok means to understand so thoroughly that the observer becomes a
part of the observed—to merge, blend, intermarry, lose identity in group
experience. It means almost everything that we mean by religion,
philosophy, and science—and it means as little to us (because of our
Earthling assumptions) as color means to a blind man."
On Wed, Nov 26, 2014 at 2:17 PM, Huw Lloyd <huw.softdesigns@gmail.com>
wrote:
> My poetic sense of dappled is that it is slightly incongruent with 'dappled
> light', dappled suggests to me a softening, such as to damp down and it
> seems to me that its not the light which is dappled but the leaf-strewn
> path etc. Etymologically it seems to originate from 'to spot' which I
> understand to be to darken etc. Conversely spangled refers to the
> brighten with sparkles. Possibly there's some affordance in the softening
> from the "spa" to the "da"...
>
> We've recently adopted a rather classic-looking lurcher with a coat
> streaked with every shade from coal to an aged snow white. Maybe theres a
> term for that admist Hardy, Hopkins and Donne.
>
> That's not much help for question, other than the action-based aspects to
> the words. With respect to the singularity of meaning, I usually simply
> refer to these as technical terms. It'd be nice to be equipped with a more
> precise (technical) word though. :)
>
> In respect of fuzzy threads, If you'd like to know what a zawn or a
> jackstraw is, check out the landreader project:
>
> http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/magazine-27780066
> http://www.thelandreader.com/
>
> Best,
> Huw
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
> On 26 November 2014 at 20:09, Rod Parker-Rees <
> R.Parker-Rees@plymouth.ac.uk>
> wrote:
>
> > Greg to me, not me to Greg but yes.
> >
> > I would agree that sense is multisensory but I am not sure I would say
> > that words evoke this sense. I would argue that it is speaking (and
> > sometimes writing) that evokes this 'thick' sense so it is how words and
> > other signs are 'performed' that is particularly telling.
> >
> > The difficulty with this medium (or one of them) is that most of us don't
> > really know the person whose words we are reading. I am just beginning to
> > develop a sense of who frequent contributors are - what you, Andy, Mike,
> > David, Larry, Vera, Huw, Martin, Haydi, Annalisa and others care about
> and
> > like to write about but this is a MUCH slower process than getting to
> know
> > someone in face to face conversation and this can make it hard going to
> > keep up with the asynchronous and semisynchronous twists and turns of an
> > online 'conversation'.
> >
> > Evoking in writing, to strangers is MUCH more difficult than evoking with
> > full use of a body (and with the ability to monitor the body responses of
> > one's conversation partners.
> >
> > Rod
> >
> > Sent from my Windows Phone
> > ________________________________
> > From: HENRY SHONERD
> > Sent: 26/11/2014 18:43
> > To: eXtended Mind, Culture, Activity
> > Subject: [Xmca-l] Re: dappled
> >
> > Rod,
> > A small point, but important for me, when you say to Greg:
> > Evocative, no?
> > One could argue that the physical forms of language, the signs, in any
> > genre, EVOKE meaning, whereby we, as language users, profile some facet
> of
> > the cognitive, encyclopedic, “ground" which constitutes our semantic
> > structure. I am guessing any effort to posit an actual structure in the
> > mind will provoke concerns in the chat, arguing for dynamic processes.
> But
> > you have to get nouny sometimes! Call it a useful illusion? What I was
> > trying to lay out was an alternative to the “packages” of form/meaning to
> > construe “word”, certainly not what Vygotsky had in mind. I see word
> > “sense” as collateral activation of the word profiled. And, of course, it
> > includes all of the sound symbolism inherent in your kids’ names. Written
> > communication, it seems to me, when done with such care as I see in this
> > chat, gives me an idea of how deep this language-based semantic
> activation
> > goes with experienced readers and published writers.
> > Henry
> >
> >
> >
> > > On Nov 26, 2014, at 10:26 AM, Greg Thompson <greg.a.thompson@gmail.com
> >
> > wrote:
> > >
> > > Rod!
> > > We had the exact same realization - before we added a fourth child
> (she's
> > > an outlier), our son pointed out to us that all three kids had the
> exact
> > > same three vowels (a, o, i)! This was totally non-intentional on our
> part
> > > as well. And no, there aren't a ton of a, o, i names out there -
> > something
> > > we discovered with our fourth. (with the fourth, we were running low on
> > a,
> > > o, i girl names since we had used up a third a, o, i girl name with our
> > > third child's middle name; we contemplated "Fiona" but in the end we
> went
> > > with an a, e, i name that has other poetic resonances with the others
> > even
> > > if it lacks the exact same vowels - that time we did indeed think about
> > it).
> > >
> > > I think this points to an important quality of meaning - it is highly
> > > non-intentional in its form and structure.
> > >
> > > A second point follows and speaks to Andy's question - the nature of
> the
> > > structure is not always apparent to speakers but we can nonetheless
> > > reproduce it. We were reproducing a, o, i in names without knowing it.
> > >
> > > It is for this reason that we can understand a passage such as this:
> > > "“Her antiquity in preceding and surviving succeeding tellurian
> > > generations: her nocturnal predominance: her satellitic dependence: her
> > > luminary reflection: her constancy under all her phases, rising and
> > setting
> > > by her appointed times, waxing and waning: the forced invariability of
> > her
> > > aspect: her indeterminate response to inaffirmative interrogation: her
> > > potency over effluent and refluent waters: her power to enamour, to
> > > mortify, to invest with beauty, to render insane, to incite to and aid
> > > delinquency: the tranquil inscrutability of her visage: the terribility
> > of
> > > her isolated dominant resplendent propinquity: her omens of tempest and
> > of
> > > calm: the stimulation of her light, her motion and her presence: the
> > > admonition of her craters, her arid seas, her silence: her splendour,
> > when
> > > visible: her attraction, when invisible.” "
> > >
> > > Or a phrase like this:
> > > “The sea, the snotgreen sea, the scrotumtightening sea.”
> > >
> > > Evocative, no?
> > >
> > > David?
> > > -greg
> > >
> > >
> > >
> > >
> > >
> > >
> > >
> > >
> > > On Tue, Nov 25, 2014 at 11:44 PM, Rod Parker-Rees <
> > > R.Parker-Rees@plymouth.ac.uk> wrote:
> > >
> > >> This conversation has been playing on my mind - Henry's comments about
> > >> language in the other thread (Fate. Luck , Chance) tied in closely
> with
> > my
> > >> own ideas about the ways in which language is dappled with varieties
> of
> > >> knowing. There are meanings which we can be pretty confident most
> > speakers
> > >> of a language will know and recognise but then there are also
> > etymological
> > >> remains which nuance the meaning of some words and word families and
> > then
> > >> there are the 'Bouba' and 'Kiki' effects of connections between the
> > >> physical act of speaking and the felt meaning of sounds/words. What
> > >> particularly interests me is the middle ground of word families which
> > have
> > >> a resemblance which most speakers will recognise but which very few
> will
> > >> 'Know'.
> > >>
> > >> Dapple belongs to one such family - words which suggest repetition by
> > the
> > >> addition of the '-le' suffix (spark - sparkle, crack-crackle, drip
> > >> -dribble, dab-dabble) and this family includes words like dapple and
> > >> freckle, drizzle and giggle which are clearly members of the family
> but
> > >> whose lineage has faded (who knows what a dap, freck, driz or gig
> might
> > >> be?). I suspect that perished might also belong, at least in part, to
> a
> > >> family of 'dying fall' words which share the 'ished' ending (finished,
> > >> demolished, extinguished, famished). I tried to think of more positive
> > >> examples but could only come up with 'nourished' (I'm sure I will be
> > proved
> > >> wrong on this!).
> > >>
> > >> The point is that words have many shades of meaning and association
> but
> > >> ALL of these depend on the fact that these shades are shared. Some may
> > be
> > >> shared only within a very small group (and than gives them a special
> > >> cachet) such as those which a family preserves from the mis-speakings
> of
> > >> children. It is the fact that we know that we share our knowledge
> which
> > >> converts knowing into understanding and I would argue that the knowing
> > >> together aspect of con-sciousness is absolutely essential (our
> thinking
> > is
> > >> an internalised form of our social interactions and we learn to think
> > >> together in our 'own' heads).
> > >>
> > >> I was honestly surprised when I realised that all three of my children
> > >> have names which include the same two vowels (my daughter is Sophie)
> > and no
> > >> others. This was not planned, in fact Sophie's name was chosen by her
> > >> brothers (which might explain their preference for a name similar to
> > >> theirs) but this has constructed a family resemblance which doubtless
> > gives
> > >> these vowels a different 'feel' for us.
> > >>
> > >> I have to say how much I love the thinkles which dapple this forum!
> > >>
> > >> All the best,
> > >>
> > >> Rod
> > >>
> > >> -----Original Message-----
> > >> From: xmca-l-bounces@mailman.ucsd.edu [mailto:
> > >> xmca-l-bounces@mailman.ucsd.edu] On Behalf Of Ed Wall
> > >> Sent: 26 November 2014 03:41
> > >> To: ablunden@mira.net; eXtended Mind, Culture, Activity
> > >> Subject: [Xmca-l] Re: dappled
> > >>
> > >> Just a note, the term 'perished silk' is reasonably common term (and
> > >> possibly older than 'perished rubber') although not given space in the
> > OED.
> > >> It refers, it seems, to a sort of worn and faded look.
> > >>
> > >> Ed
> > >>
> > >> On Nov 25, 2014, at 8:36 PM, Andy Blunden wrote:
> > >>
> > >>> David, thank you very much for your patient and extended response to
> my
> > >> question. At the very great risk of even further humiliating myself, I
> > want
> > >> to say that you have nonetheless failed to give a satisfactory
> response
> > to
> > >> my enquiry.
> > >>> Firstly, all the stuff about my name is misplaced. Although there are
> > >> several Andy Blundens around, "Andy Blunden" is a proper noun and is
> > >> therefore not listed in the dictionary any more than David Kellogg or
> > Seoul
> > >> are listed. In the sense in which Vygotsky rightly said "All words are
> > acts
> > >> of generalisation" "Andy Blunden" is not a word; its referent is an
> > >> specific entity. But in any case, my enquiry was meant to be about
> > >> adjectives, not nouns proper or otherwise.
> > >>> As to "dappled" I was gloriously wrong there, but it was "perished"
> > >> which set my mind going in the first place, and I cast around for
> other
> > >> examples, and our lovely back garden which has far too many trees for
> > its
> > >> tiny size reminded me.
> > >>> But let me try this single instance, which is after all, all I need.
> > >>> Meaning 2b in the OED of "perished" is "*b.* Of rubber or a similar
> > >> material, or an article made from it: having lost its characteristic
> > >> elasticity and become weak, sticky, etc." dating from 1922.
> Admittedly,
> > >> meaning 2a is "*a.* Of a material object or organic substance:
> decayed,
> > >> rotted; damaged, in a poor physical state" dating from 1587. So
> > etymology
> > >> aside, the writers of the dictionary recognise that in 1922 "perished"
> > was
> > >> given a new, specific meaning.which generalises only to the extent
> that
> > any
> > >> rubber or rubber-like object may "perish."
> > >>> So I fully accept that being a word of the kind I am asking about is
> > >> never going to be a cut-and-dry matter, but it still seems to me that
> my
> > >> enquiry was not entirely nonsensical. :) It was great how Rod
> responded,
> > >> because the reflections which led me to ask about it was actually that
> > such
> > >> words have great literary, rhetorical and poetic potential. The Gerard
> > >> Manley Hopkins poem confirmed this in spades, with not only dappled,
> but
> > >> pied, brindle, fallow, freckled.
> > >>> Perhaps I ought to have phrased my question in terms of adjectives
> > >> which, when used, evoke a specific kind of referent, only implicit in
> > the
> > >> adjective? Remember in West Wing, when the candidate calls his
> opponent
> > >> "sprightly" - cleverly praising his fitness while reminding us that he
> > is
> > >> an old man. That's what I was interested in.
> > >>> Andy
> > >>>
> > ------------------------------------------------------------------------
> > >>> *Andy Blunden*
> > >>> http://home.pacific.net.au/~andy/
> > >>>
> > >>>
> > >>> David Kellogg wrote:
> > >>>> So, as Andy must realize by now, his question has to be
> > >>>> de-metalinguist-icized. The original question is, do we linguists
> have
> > >>>> any meta-linguistic term (that is, a term about terms, a
> terminology)
> > >>>> to describe the situation where a word has a single, unique
> referent?
> > >>>>
> > >>>> Before we can answer this (and I'll do my best) we have to determine
> > >>>> whether any such situation ever exists. That is, is there a
> situation
> > >>>> where a word meaning (which is, Vygotsky tells us, always and
> > >>>> everywhere an act of generalization) has a unique referent? Here the
> > >>>> answer appears to be no, since generalization always presupposes
> that
> > >>>> you are taking one context of situation and applying it to another.
> > >>>>
> > >>>> You might say that a proper noun like "Andy Blunden" is an exception
> > >>>> that proves the rule--Andy is always Andy, no matter what situation
> we
> > >>>> put him in, and the longer period of time we take the more general
> the
> > >>>> generalization "Andy Blunden" becomes. But this is not so, both
> > >>>> externally and internally: externally, speaking of the name in
> context
> > >>>> as a whole, Andy the supposed Referent of the name changes as he and
> > >>>> we age. Internally, speaking of the structure of the name itself
> > >>>> alone, we notice that "Andy" specifies which Blunden in the Blunden
> > >>>> household we mean.
> > >>>>
> > >>>> This suggests that "Blunden" is more general than "Andy"--and on the
> > >>>> other hand if we google the name we find that in the English
> language
> > >>>> as a system, "Andy" is far more general than "Blunden". Needless to
> > >>>> say, names and nouns are quite a bit more unique in their supposed
> > >>>> referents than verbs--we have proper nouns which are supposedly
> closer
> > >>>> to Andy's ideal of a unique referent than common nouns, but there is
> > >>>> no such thing as a proper verb describing a unique and unrepeated
> > >>>> singularity: all verbs are common verbs.
> > >>>>
> > >>>> But we can de-metalinguistic-ize still further. We can ask whether
> > >>>> there is a situation where a word meaning has a concrete referent.
> Do
> > >>>> word meanings always indicate, not some thing in the world (the sort
> > >>>> of thing that Andy was calling "matter"), but rather some
> > >>>> generalization we make about it?
> > >>>>
> > >>>> Here the answer appears to be yes, but once again it's really a
> matter
> > >>>> of degree. At one end of language we find grammatical morphemes like
> > >>>> the "~ed" in "dappled" and "perished" are more grammatical than
> > >>>> lexical. That is, they have the three grammatical properties
> Halliday
> > >>>> calls "closure", "generality" and "proportion". They come from a
> > >>>> closed set of morphemes--a user of English has a lot of freedom, but
> > >>>> those freedoms do not include the freedom to invent a new past tense
> > >>>> morpheme and have it adopted into the language. They are
> general--you
> > >>>> can apply them to a wide variety of verbs across the system. And
> they
> > >>>> are proportional, because every time you do this you achieve more or
> > >>>> less the same effect.
> > >>>>
> > >>>> In contrast, you find that the roots of the words "dapple" and
> > >>>> "perish" are more lexical than grammatical. That is, they are not
> > >>>> closed class words--you are free to invent new words and to make big
> > >>>> changes to the pronunciation of old ones, as Gerard Manley Hopkins
> > >>>> reminds us with his use of "sprung rhythm". They are not general;
> they
> > >>>> apply to much narrower and more local, more restricted situations
> > >>>> (though never unique ones, as Hopkins reminds us insistently with
> his
> > >>>> use of the plural). And of course they are not
> proportional--"dapple"
> > >>>> means one thing applied to ponies and another applied to mackerels
> > >>>> (and I find the idea that for Andy the prototypical meaning of
> > >>>> "perish" has to do with rubber tells us rather more about Andy than
> > >>>> about rubber).
> > >>>>
> > >>>> And this is where the thread on "dappled" and "perished" meets the
> > >>>> thread on "Fate, Luck, and Chance", and begins to form some answer
> to
> > >>>> Vera's and Martin's twenty thousand dollar question on how
> > >>>> consciousness develops. If we go back in time to the moment when
> Andy
> > >>>> was an infant, we can imagine that Andy engaged in infant activities
> > >>>> like ostension and indication. Because the objects the infant Andy
> is
> > >>>> picking up and holding are completely new, we can imagine that in
> his
> > >>>> undifferentiated consciousness they are in fact singularities. He
> > >>>> doesn't use words to indicate them (because in order to do this he
> > >>>> would have to generalize), but his act of picking up and holding do
> > >>>> have unique referents.
> > >>>>
> > >>>> We can't call this consciousness as we know it (which is why we
> cannot
> > >>>> say that "Andy Blunden" refers to any singular context of
> situation).
> > >>>> But we can certainly call it consciousness, and we can even see
> > >>>> fossils of this primitive undifferentiated consciousness in Andy's
> > >>>> adult language (e.g. his use of "he he", which is what we call in
> > >>>> Korean "ouiseongeo", that is words that only mean their
> sounds--Korean
> > >>>> also has a category of "ouitaeeo" which are words that only describe
> > >>>> the sound of the way actions look, such as "hurly burly" or "hanky
> > >>>> panky"). And that, in my humble de-metalinguisticized linguist's
> > >>>> opinion, is the origin of consciousness.
> > >>>>
> > >>>> My original question on Fate, Luck, and Chance was--it seems to
> > >>>> me--related. "Luck" is the way I (as an individual) generalize
> > >>>> unrelated chance events. But "fate" is the way we (as a speech
> > >>>> community) generalize the notion of "luck".
> > >>>>
> > >>>> David Kellogg
> > >>>> Hankuk University of Foreign Studies
> > >>>>
> > >>>> On 26 November 2014 at 01:38, HENRY SHONERD <hshonerd@gmail.com>
> > wrote:
> > >>>>
> > >>>>> I am coming late to this, but I think "collocation" would be of
> > >> interest. Wikipedia has some good stuff on that.
> > >>>>> Henry
> > >>>>>
> > >>>>>
> > >>>>>> On Nov 25, 2014, at 12:00 AM, Andy Blunden <ablunden@mira.net>
> > wrote:
> > >>>>>>
> > >>>>>> I have a trivial question for the linguists on this list.
> > >>>>>> Do you have a word for words like "dappled" and "perished" (or
> > dapple
> > >> and perish) which can describe only one thing (shade and rubber
> > >> respectively)?
> > >>>>>>
> > >>>>>> Andy
> > >>>>>> --
> > >>>>>>
> > >>
> ------------------------------------------------------------------------
> > >>>>>> *Andy Blunden*
> > >>>>>> http://home.pacific.net.au/~andy/
> > >>>>>>
> > >>>>>>
> > >>>>>
> > >>>>
> > >>>>
> > >>>>
> > >>>
> > >>
> > >>
> > >> ________________________________
> > >> [http://www.plymouth.ac.uk/images/email_footer.gif]<
> > >> http://www.plymouth.ac.uk/worldclass>
> > >>
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> > >
> > > --
> > > Gregory A. Thompson, Ph.D.
> > > Assistant Professor
> > > Department of Anthropology
> > > 880 Spencer W. Kimball Tower
> > > Brigham Young University
> > > Provo, UT 84602
> > > http://byu.academia.edu/GregoryThompson
> >
> >
> > ________________________________
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> > http://www.plymouth.ac.uk/worldclass>
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