Twerketai he Kyros.

Fr John Hunwicke, formerly an Anglican, now an Ordinariate priest, considers the task of Latinists turning Pope Francis' homilies into Latin for the Acta. It is just a fantasy. The Holy See has been happy for a while now to produce official documents in languages other than Latin.  St Pius X's Instruction on Sacred Music, Tra le Sollecitudini, was addressed to the Cardinal Vicar of the Diocese of Rome and so written in Italian. The current norms on translation of liturgical texts into the vernacular are contained in Liturgiam Authenticam, issued by the Congregation for Divine Worship and Discipline of the Sacraments in 2001. This replaced the decree of the Consilium for Implementing the Constitution on the Sacred Liturgy (which put together the new Liturgical books), Comme le Prévoit (1969) issued in French.

So it does not seem likely that gangs of Latinists are occupying the empty Papal apartments in the Apostolic Palace. But I was struck by Fr Hunwicke's suggestion of a Greek, and therefore Latin — the Romans often adopted Greek words — translation of "twerking" . (If you do not know what Twerking is, lucky you).

Fr. Hunwicke suggests the name of a salacious dance mentioned in various comedies: the kordax. It is mentioned in many places. Aristophanes has the chorus refer to it in Nubes 540 (English translation here). A scholiast says ἡ κόρδαξ δὲ κωμικὴ αἰσχρῶς περιδινοῦσα τὴν ὀσφῦν  the kordax is a comic dance of shamefully twirling the loins around. The New Pauly suggests (how astonishing that one can get such a book for free on the internet) that the Kordax might have been a solo dance. Twerking by definition requires a partner. Also the word twerking is a participle but κόρδαξ a noun. So a certain amount of, er, tweaking, is required.

 

On a related matter

Fr Gabriel de Chadarévian op provides an account of the requirements for a good preacher. In a footnote he offers a useful definition of kerygma, one of those words one often sees (in theology I mean) but are rarely explained: 

The name, life, the truth, the words and teachings, the signs (healings, exorcisms and miracles), the salvation of Jesus of Nazareth, Son of Man and Son of God, his passion, death on the cross and his bodily resurrection and his return in glory to judge the living and the dead, heaven and hell.

I was amused by the opening sentence.

As a Friar of the Order of Preachers founded in the 13th century, I like to think that I belong to a bloodline of famous preachers and teachers of the Catholic faith, starting with our founder St. Dominic, blessed Jordan of Saxony (his first successor), St. Thomas Aquinas, St. Catherine of Siena, St. Vincent Ferrer, and  Father Henri–Dominique Lacordaire, to name a few.

Unless those are all related to each other and Fr de Chadarévian, he cannot possibly belong to a bloodline of all of them.

Shakespeare as he is spoke

At some point in my Oxford career I latched on to the notion of the great vowel shift , that is the change in pronunciation of the long vowel sounds in English, sometime between Shakespeare's day and ours. I got the idea that the Birmingham accent still used the old pronunciations. So I would regale my colleagues with Hamlet's "To, be or not to be" as pronounced by the members of Slade. How we laughed. The Brummie accent (like American southern accent or the Australian ocker accent) is commonly parodied badly and my attempt – "tu bay oor nat tu bay" – was no better.

A father (linguist) and son (actor) present an attempt to reconstruct the pronunciation (pronun-tsee-ay-tsee-on) of Shakespeare's period.

Not the whole book of Genesis

I am not sure why but NASA's Image of the Day for 26th June 2013 is the famous and beautiful Earthrise photograph taken by the astronauts of Apollo 8, taken on Christmas Eve 1968.

That evening, the astronauts--Commander Frank Borman, Command Module Pilot Jim Lovell, and Lunar Module Pilot William Anders--held a live broadcast from lunar orbit, in which they showed pictures of the Earth and moon as seen from their spacecraft. Said Lovell, "The vast loneliness is awe-inspiring and it makes you realize just what you have back there on Earth." They ended the broadcast with the crew taking turns reading from the book of Genesis.

Good thing NASA"s copy writer remembered to include the "from".  That could have been rather a long reading.

A self-depreciating smile

Charles Dickens, Dombey and Son (1846-1848), chapter xxxvii 'More warnings than one' (first published in number xii of the serial, September 1847), page 554 in the Oxford World's Classics edition.
Edith suffered him to proceed. She looked at him now. As he bent forward, to be nearer, with the utmost show of delicacy and respect, and with his teeth persuasively arrayed, in a self-depreciating smile, she felt as if she could have struck him dead. 

I was listening to this passage on an audiobook and I assumed David Timson must have simply mispronounced the word "-pree-shee-ayte" instead of "-prek-ayte". However, there it is in the text: self-depreciating where one would expect self-deprecating. Of course I expected self-deprecating: depreciation is only what happens to assets for tax purposes.

The OED has the following. First the relevant extracts from the entry for self- :
self-, prefix1. Compounds in which self- is in the objective relation to the second element: a. With nouns of action.
self-deprecation n.
1924 W. HOLTBY Crowded Street xxxv. 260 Don't you think that this self-deprecation of yours was a little like cowardice? 1977 A. GIDDENS Stud. in Social & Polit. Theory ix. 307 Suicide represents an extreme on a range of possible forms of self-aggression, which extends from relatively minor forms such as verbal self- deprecation to actual self-destruction.
self-depreciation n.
1827 J. C. HARE & A. W. HARE Guesses at Truth (1873) 2nd Ser. 503 Self-depreciation is not humility.
Now the entry for the verb Dickens uses, with the quotations removed except one from Our Mutual Friend :
depreciate, v. Pronunciation: /dɪˈpriːʃɪeɪt/
Forms: Also depretiate.
Etymology: < Latin dēpretiāt- (-ciāt- ), participial stem of dēpretiāre (in medieval Latin commonly spelt dēpreciāre ), < DE- prefix 1a + pretium price. Compare modern French déprécier ( Dict. Acad. 1762).
1.
a.
trans. To lower in value, lessen the value of.
b. spec. To lower the price or market value of; to reduce the purchasing power of (money).
2. To lower in estimation; to represent as of less value; to underrate, undervalue, belittle.
1865 DICKENS Our Mutual Friend II. III. ix. 78, I don't like to hear you depreciate yourself.
3. intr. To fall in value, to become of less worth.
In chapter 37 of Dombey and Son, Dickens is using meaning 2.

Finally the entry for the verb we would expect him to use. Note in particular the quotations offered for the "draft additions 1993". I have taken all the entires from the online version of the OED. I assume the additions are not in the print version. Presumably entries 1-5 would have been the "a." since the draft additions are said to be "b. More generally…" I have removed the quotations from the main entry but left those in the appendixes.
deprecate, v.
Pronunciation: /ˈdɛprɪkeɪt/
Etymology: < Latin dēprecāt-, participial stem of dēprecārī to pray (a thing) away, to ward off by praying, pray against, < DE- prefix 1b + precārī to pray.
1. trans. To pray against (evil); to pray for deliverance from; to seek to avert by prayer. arch.
†2. intr. To pray (against). Obs. rare.
3. trans. To plead earnestly against; to express an earnest wish against (a proceeding); to express earnest disapproval of (a course, plan, purpose, etc.).
4.
Etymology: < Latin dēprecāt-, participial stem of dēprecārī to pray (a thing) away, to ward off by praying, pray against, < DE- prefix 1b + precārī to pray.1. trans. To pray against (evil); to pray for deliverance from; to seek to avert by prayer. arch.
†2. intr. To pray (against). Obs. rare.
3. trans. To plead earnestly against; to express an earnest wish against (a proceeding); to express earnest disapproval of (a course, plan, purpose, etc.).4.a. To make prayer or supplication to, to beseech (a person). Obs.b. absol. To make supplication. Obs.
†5. To call down by prayer, invoke (evil). Obs.
DERIVATIVES
deprecated adj. 1768 C. SHAW Monody vii. 61 Why..strike this deprecated blow? 1839 Times 11 July in Spirit Metrop. Conservative Press (1840) I. 158 To persist in such a deprecated and odious innovation.deprecating n.
DRAFT ADDITIONS 1993
b. More generally, to express disapproval of (a person, quality, etc.); to disparage or belittle. (Sometimes confused with depreciate.) Cf. self- deprecation n. at SELF- prefix 1a. Widely regarded as incorrect, though found in the work of established writers. 1897 Daily News 8 Jan. 6/3 It looks rather an attempt to deprecate distinguished commanders of the Commonwealth to please Restoration Royalists. 1927 V. WOOLF To Lighthouse I. viii. 70 He was disposed to slur that comfort over, to deprecate it. 1960 C. S. LEWIS Stud. in Words i. 18 We tell our pupils that deprecate does not mean depreciate or that immorality does not mean simply lechery because these words are beginning to mean just those things. 1965 M. FRAYN Tin Men xv. 80 Trying to shrink into himself, as if to deprecate..his authority and to become as other men.
 So self-deprecation is "widely regarded as incorrect". It is not surprising that the earliest quotation for self-deprecation is almost a century later than the earliest for self-depreciation. Nowadays self-deprecating (or acting in a self deprecating way) is almost a synonym of modest. In fact it means self-cursing. On the other hand to depreciate means to lower the value of. It is one of the perversities caused by income tax that depreciation of assets is something to be sought.

I haven't read Our Mutual Friend so I do not know the context of the quotation. But James Carker who gives Edith the self-depreciating smile in Dombey and Son is far from being a modest man. He puts on a modest front but is always described by the narrator – who recurs again and again to Carker's teeth – as a shark.

It might be that before it was supplanted by self-deprecation, self-depreciation had more of a sense of hypocrisy. Certainly James Carker is a flatterer and a hypocrite.

Note the quotation from the Hare brothers' Guesses at Truth (ser. stands for series not, as I thought, sermon – both brothers were Anglican clergymen). This is a miscellany of "detacht thoughts", consisting of a series of longer and shorter "Maxims, Aphorisms, Essays, Resolves, Hints, Meditations, Aids to Reflexion, Guesses". Those are both quotations from the opening (not strictly a preface, the work proper begins in a following paragraph), which explicitly connects their work with (inter alia) that of Solomon. It is meant to be like the wisdom literature in the Bible. Its nearest modern analogue might be The Little Book of Calm (et hoc genus omne) which used to occupy the space around cash registers in bookshops, which is now held by great works of literature rewritten as tweets. Anyway the full maxim, printed between two horizontal lines, after and before unrelated matter, reads as follows (on page 295 of the edition at Google books):
Self-depreciation is not humility, though often mistaken for it. Its source is oftener mortified pride.
The quotation from Giddens in the entry on self-deprecation is interesting (saying that there is a "range of possible forms of self-aggression, which extends from … verbal self- deprecation to actual self-destruction"). It represents the philosopher's urge to put everything on a continuum. It is not as though someone modest about his achievements has simply got off the train earlier (so to speak) than the suicide. If I am right about self-depreciation having a sense of hypocrisy (which is certainly not the case with self-deprecation) then perhaps Giddens is accidentally reimporting that sense into the replacement word.

At some point depreciation became a technical term used by accountants and therefore self-depreciation became a nonsense. It might even be an effect of the easier spelling of self-deprecation.

But what would I know? I never took a course on lexicography or linguistic theory.

Three metaphors for the price of one

On 4th December 2012 the SMH published A new monarch for Australia? from the AAP. The article discusses the expectations of the child of the Duke and Duchess of Cambridge.

Although the only way to abolish the Australian constitutional monarchy short of armed revolution is by referendum, and although the Australian people have never voted Yes to a proposal to which they have already voted No, and although the Australian people voted No to a republic in the referendum of 1999, still for some reason our local monarchy-abolishers are supposed to be relevant.
But Australian republicanism might affect the extent of the new baby's ultimate dominion. Republican fever has gone off the boil since the defeat of the 1999 referendum, but is expected to resurface after the end of Elizabeth II's reign.
We have the metaphor of republicanism as a disease causing fever (couldn't agree more), which is now like a cooking pan taken away from the heat while simultaneously a submerged creature of the sea (a Kraken perhaps?). Doug Conway is "AAP Senior Correspondent".

Really?

Jerry Seinfeld used the word really a lot, hence this scene from 30 Rock:

Neil Genzlinger attacked the word in The New York Times:

I’m not talking about “Really?” as a request for more information or an expression of surprise. I’m referring to the more recent, faddish use of it: delivered with a high-pitched sneer to indicate a contempt so complete that it requires no clarification.

Jerry Seinfeld responded(Via The Times Is On It).

"He used an adjective"

A profanity in Dickens.

Charles Dickens, Barnaby Rudge (1841), chapter 31. Joe Willetts has run away to join the army. As luck would have it he meets a recruiting serjeant at an inn.
"You're a gentleman, by G—!" was his first remark, as he slapped him on the back. "You're a gentleman in disguise. So am I. Let's swear a friendship."
Joe didn't exactly do that, but he shook hands with him, and thanked him for his good opinion.
"You want to serve," said his new friend. "You shall. You were made for it. You're one of us by nature. What'll you take to drink?"
"Nothing just now," replied Joe, smiling faintly. "I haven't quite made up my mind."
"A mettlesome fellow like you, and not made up his mind!" cried the serjeant. "Here—let me give the bell a pull, and you'll make up your mind in half a minute, I know."
"You're right so far"—answered Joe, "for if you pull the bell here, where I'm known, there'll be an end of my soldiering inclinations in no time. Look in my face. You see me, do you?"
"I do," replied the serjeant with an oath, "and a finer young fellow or one better qualified to serve his king and country, I never set my—" he used an adjective in this place—"eyes on."
"Thank you," said Joe, "I didn't ask you for want of a compliment, but thank you all the same. Do I look like a sneaking fellow or a liar?"
The serjeant rejoined with many choice asseverations that he didn't; and that if his (the serjeant's) own father were to say he did, he would run the old gentleman through the body cheerfully, and consider it a meritorious action.

Naming South Australia

Somebody was asking I was boring somebody about Adelaide names. Tim Blair attributes the observation of the peculiarities of the names of Adelaideans to Alex Buzo. Examples (some of them spoofs, d'uh): Bright Greene, Pullen Hare, Falkland Waugh, Clayvel Badcock, Steele Hall. Blair also passed on a method of creating your own name for when you move to that bright thrusting city of the late 1950s. All this comes up again because somebody thinks South Australia should change its name (note to non Australians, Adelaide is the capital of the state of South Australia). Naturally Blair is on the case.

The last word in wills and testaments

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We are all Americans now

(And not in a good way.) From Vatican Insider:
She could have been Britain’s First Lady but she chose to become a Benedictine nun. 44 year old Laura Adshead dated British Prime Minister, David Cameron, from spring 1990 to summer 1991. In 2008, after seeing her life slip more and more deeply into a spiral of gossip, alcohol and drugs, the dazzling blond decided to take her vows as a Benedictine nun, becoming Sister John Mary.
Did anyone tell this "First Lady"?