fountain /’faʊntən/: Of pens, printing, pools, and Prog Rock

For me, one of the saving graces of the Digital Age is that I don’t have to produce written documents that demand any skilled use of a pen. The mechanics of smearing ink onto a piece of paper have always been somewhat of a mystery to me. As a child, I remember distinctly having to practice handwriting as a skill. This was, of course, before personal computers and before even typewriters were available as a mode of writing in schools. I’d sit for hours trying to join letters together in the vain hope of ending up with legible words and sentences. Sadly, despite years of practice, I was never able to rise much higher than “legible if you squint.” The popular myth at the time was that I was clearly going to join the medical profession because all doctors were lousy at writing.

Such was the myth.

By the time I went to Grammar School, I was close to being a remedial writer – although I seemed to be OK with the actual content of my scribblings. And when I finally went to university, I invested in the popular ersatz laptop of the day – the portable typewriter. This at least helped get me past the legibility barrier and I could hand in papers that had been laboriously typed and edited using white correction fluid. There was no DELETE button on one of those babies.

All of which makes it curious that my latest technology acquisition is a fountain pen. And for younger readers, a “fountain pen” is a little like the stylus you might use on a touchscreen device, or even your finger on a smartphone. A “pen” contains a substance called “ink,” which leaves marks on paper called “writing.” Crazy, huh? Why on earth would someone do that when they can use a laptop, desktop, or pop-up on-screen keyboard?

Well, although I can’t write legibly enough for other folks to read, I can write well enough for ME to read – and for notes, jottings, scribblings, annotations etc., it is, is it not, all about me? It’s also the case that even though I am motorically challenged with script, I actually find physical writing preferable to keyboarding.

So for some years, I’ve had a dual system for recording information; high-tech aids such as laptops, Windows-based PDA’s, a Palm Pilot, and now my Droid smartphone, paired with my low-tech Moleskine notebooks and a pencil. I simply chose whichever is the easier at the time.

The new fountain pen is made by A.T. Cross and called the “Sauvage.” It’s in Azurite blue and has a crocodile skin pattern, along with a 14-carat white gold nib. Pretty cool.

Azurite Blue Sauvage pen

The use of the word fountain to describe this type of pen is based on the notion that ink is stored in a reservoir. Now this is also true of a ball-point pen, but the “fountain pen” definition also requires there to be a nib. Ink is drawn through a slit in the nib by the dual action of capillary motion and gravity. There’s a short history of pens at Richard Conner’s Penspotters site.

The OED provides the following definition of a fountain as it was used in the 15th century:

A spring or source of water issuing from the earth and collecting in a basin, natural or artificial; also, the head-spring or source of a stream or river.

The Late Middle English fontayne came from Old French fontaine, which in turn derives from Late Latin fontana, the feminine of fontanus, meaning “pertaining to a fount.” The Latin proved to be a veritable fount for other languages; fontana is found in Spanish, Portuguese, and Italian, and the Welsh equivalent is ffynnawn (I’ll buy a vowel, Bob).

The Latin root font or fontis meaning “spring” is NOT the same as the word “font” that is used in modern typography. Although many of us may not be familiar with using a pen, we are all now skilled at manipulating fonts when producing documents. The fact that fountain pens and fonts are both used for writing doesn’t mean they have the same origins!

The word font was originally written as fount in the 15th century to refer to a “complete set or assortment of type of a particular face and size.”The origin, however, is from the French fonte, which comes from fondre, meaning “to cast or melt.” This relates to the fact that originally, fonts were cast from lead blocks and then place in a printing press. The word foundry comes from the same root. The original British English spelling “fount” has given way to the more common spelling of “font” since digital typefaces appeared on computers.

Lead fonts

During their earlier progressive years, the rock band Genesis brought out their third album, Nursery Cryme, in 1971, and it included the almost 8-minute-long track, The Fountain of Salmacis. This title is taken from Greek mythological story of the nymph, Salmacis, who, attempts to seduce Hermaphroditus, the son of Hermes and Aphrodite, by a pool. The seduction fails, so she leaps on him and cries out to the gods that they never be parted, whereupon the gods respond by fusing the two into one. Hermaphroditus then asks that anyone who baths in the fountain of Salmacis should suffer the same fate – to become a hermaphrodite. And so was born the Fountain of Salmacis.

Salmacis by Francois-Joseph Bosio

The drummer for Genesis at that time was Phil Collins, who only really became a lead singer once Peter Gabriel had left in 1977. Collins then went on to enjoy a tremendously successful solo musical career. As part of that career, he played the lead role in the 1988 movie, Buster, and sang on the soundtrack a remake of the 1960′s hit, Groovy Kind of Love. This was originally done by The Mindbenders, whose lead singer was – wait for it – Wayne Fontana!

Stretching just a little, the bass player with The Mindbenders was Eric Stewart, who went on to form the successful 70′s band, 10cc. However, just before 10cc became 10cc, they were known as Hotlegs, and one of their first songs was called Waterfall - another fountain link!

I suppose I could also mention that the first two lines of Stacy’s Mom by Fountains of Wayne are;

Stacy can I come over after school
We can hang around by the pool…

But now I really am taking it too far… perhaps.

Read Full Post »

New World Record for Hands-Free Typing about Pirahnas

At 1:00 pm on Friday, January 28th at the Assistive Technology Industry Association conference and exhibition,  Hank Torres set an official Guinness world record for typing hands-free. Following an accident over 20 years ago, Hank has been paralyzed from the shoulders down and therefore has to use alternative methods for using computers.

For the world record, Hank used a computer fitted with a piece of software called Swype® and a special input device called the Tracker® Pro. This is a ball that sits on top of a display that uses reflected light from a small dot placed on a person’s forehead or attached to glasses.

TrackerPro Headpointer

The test phrase is;

The razor-toothed piranhas of the genera Serrasalmus and Pygocentrus are the most ferocious freshwater fish in the world. In reality they seldom attack a human

Hank managed to do this in an official time of 83.09 seconds, which is faster than you might think when you consider that it has to be done without using you hands. In practice, Hank got it down to about 77 seconds but when you have an audience of a few hundred people watching, along with an official adjudicator from Guinness holding a stopwatch, it’s a little stressful!

If you want to get a feel for the challenge, try typing the test phrase yourself using your regular keyboard and see how long it takes. You also have to get it exactly the same, with “Serralsamus” and “Pygocentrus” capitalized and “razor-toothed” hyphenated. If you make a mistake, you can go back and correct it but to achieve a record, nothing less that perfect is acceptable.

Now try doing it again with a single finger. And now hold a pencil in your mouth and try tapping it against the keys. Not so easy, eh?

The test phrase was initially used in test of the ability to use cell phones to generate messages. Based on the notion that an SMS message is limited to 160 characters, the phrase contains exactly 160 when you include spaces and punctuation.

A second design feature was that the phrase had to be cognitively challenging but not impossible. Something like “the quick brown fox jumped over the lazy dog” is now so familiar to people that it is not a cognitive challenge – you don’t have to think about it.

The use of words like genera, Serrasalmus and Pygocentrus add challenge because they are low-frequency words, and low-frequency words always make us ponder just a little bit more. And for those who are pondering, genera is the plural form of genus, which is Latin for “birth, race, or stock.” This in turn derives from the Greek γένος meaning “to beget” or “to be born.” Going even further back into the mists of language, Sanskrit has a similar-meaning word, jánas, making this a very old word indeed.

Pygocentrus has a much more interesting history. The Greek word pygo (πυγο) means “rump” or “bottom” or more simply, “rear end.” The suffix centrus comes from the Greek kendros, which means “a sting.” So it’s literally “a sting in the tail.”

Pirahna - Serrasalmus sanchez

Serrasalmus has the first element, serra, from the Latin meaning “saw,” as in a saw with jagged edges and teeth. The salmus is also Latin and means “salmon” – the same thing you can enjoy with lemon butter and capers or simply lightly grilled and served with tasty brown rice. So the family of Serrasalmus is made up of saw-toothed salmon. Try slipping this into your next dinner engagement! You could toss in that salmon itself is probably related to the Latin verb salire, which means “to leap,” but then you would start to come across as a know-it-all so best to hold that back for another day.

Meanwhile Hank’s challenge to all comers is to beat his record before he beats it himself. Having established a new benchmark, the game is, as they say, afoot. Or is that “ahand” – without hands?

Read Full Post »

symbol /’sɪmbəl/

The recent kerfuffle regarding the non-burning of the Koran is an object lesson in the more depressing aspects of human nature. Ironically, one of the very things that makes us human and distinct from animals that simultaneously makes us intolerant and aggressive. That’s the ability to use symbols.

A Koran

In modern usage, the OED defines a symbol as:

Something that stands for, represents, or denotes something else (not by exact resemblance, but by vague suggestion, or by some accidental or conventional relation); esp. a material object representing or taken to represent something immaterial or abstract, as a being, idea, quality, or condition.

Language is an example, par excellence, of symbolic behavior. When we use the word “dog” to stand for a four-legged animal that barks and wags its tail when happy, the word itself is just an arbitrary collection of sounds. There’s no inherent relationship between the word and the object it represents, which is why different languages can have different words for the same thing. Thus, the French have a “chien, ” the Spanish have a “perro,” the Turks have a “kopek,” and the Chinese have a “gau.”

Dogs

In a different example, very young children play with boxes and use them as cars, boats, houses, hats, and any other number of objects, simply because they can. Little Frank can use a stick as a sword, an airplane, a wand, or a guitar; a chimp uses a stick as… well, a stick. Some folks might want to debate this on the basis that some studies seem to suggest that chimps demonstrate evidence of symbolic understanding, but it’s hardly overwhelming and of limited magnitude when compared to the almost limitless symbolism that rattles through the brain of homo sapiens.

As an extension of the ability to use objects symbolically is the tendency to create taboos – and more specifically, taboo objects. This is no more obvious than in religious mythology. For Christians, a small piece of bread – called a “host” – can be magically transformed into the body of Jesus Christ. For Catholics, abuse of a consecrated host is viewed as being a mortal sin, which ranks as an 8 or 9 on the “Sin Scale” and can lead to the desecrator ending up spending the whole of eternity burning in the flames of Hell: All for messing with a piece of bread. In less enlightened times, offenders could be tortured and beheaded for host desecration – which is relatively mild when compared with eternal damnation.

John Martin, 1841, "Pandemonium"

And pity the poor pig, an animal that for no particular reason whatsoever is shunned by Jews and Muslims as being unclean. Not for them the guilty pleasure of a freshly made hot bacon sandwich with a dash of Worcestershire sauce. Meanwhile, for Hindus, anything that comes from the humble cow is to be avoided. Other taboo foods include bats (non-kosher), cats (too cute), fungi (the International Society for Krishna Consciousness say they “excite passions”), rabbits (OK for Sunni Muslims, not for Shias), lettuce (according to one branch of Islam, the lettuce is evil), and humans.

The thing about taboos is that they carry with them an awful lot of emotional baggage. Not only do humans have the capacity to create symbols but they also imbue them with powerful feelings. Symbols are also, for the most part, culturally specific, and difficult to understand from an outside perspective. Although it’s easy to pass them off as “primitive” or “stupid,” even the “sophisticated” cultures have their quirks. Your average American would almost choke if you suggested putting cat or horse on the menu at the local bar, yet other countries have no taboo against it. After all, what’s the difference? Why should we be OK to eat pigs and sheep and cows but balk at horses?

And how about flag burning? Take a large piece of cotton, paint some stripes in red and white across it, and them dab some stars in the corner. Now set fire to it. It’s just painted cloth, right? But it was only four years ago that there was a vote on whether or not to criminalize the burning of the US flag. So how “civilized” or “sophisticated” is a country that wants to lock people up for setting fire to something akin to a bed-sheet? And next time you’re on a trip that involves flying to a hotel, try asking to sit in seat 13 or book a room on the 13th floor. There’s a good chance you’ll be unable to do either of them because even in the 21st century, the number 13 is taboo in many countries.

It’s really, really, really hard for people to see past symbols. Once a symbol takes on a taboo status, all reason goes out of the window and the emotions take over. Be it a piece of colored cloth, a collection of pieces of paper bound together, or a ham sandwich, someone, somewhere, is going to hold it in reverence and even be prepared to kill others to maintain that sacred state.

In fact, the word symbol was originally used strictly in a religious sense to refer to;

A formal authoritative statement or summary of the religious belief of the Christian church, or of a particular church or sect; a creed or confession of faith, spec. the Apostles’ Creed.

This use can be traced back to Saint Cyprian, the Bishop of Carthage, who was born around 208 CE. He used the Latin word symbolum to refer to the baptismal creed. This was because accepting baptism was a mark that differentiated a Christian from a heathen, and the word symbolum means “mark.”

St. Cyprian of Carthage

In fact, it can traced further back to the Greek σύμβολος meaning “mark,” “ticket,” or “token.” This in turn comes from the prefix, sym-, which means “together” followed by bolos meaning “a throw.” So the underlying notion is of things thrown or put together, which can then be compared using a token. This evolved over the centuries to refer to a token (or symbol) that can be compared with another object (or sign).

In 1590, Spenser used the word in The Faery Queen in its current sense of a representation:

That, as a sacred Symbole, it [sc. a blood-stain] may dwell
In her sonnes flesh.

Shakespeare also used it in Othello in the sentence, “To renownce his Baptisme, All Seales, and Simbols of redeemed sin.”

Yet paralleling this was its continued use to refer to any object regarded as sacred, especially the bread and wine of the Christian eucharist as representing the body and blood of Christ:

After the prayer..the symbols become changed into the body and blood of Christ, after a sacramental, spiritual, and real manner. (John Evelyn, 1671, Letter to Father Patrick).

And from 1620, the word was already being used to refer to any “…written character or mark used to represent something; a letter, figure, or sign conventionally standing for some object, process, etc.” (OED). Certainly in the worlds of physics and mathematics, the prime meaning of symbol is as an element in an equation.

Bu the psychological reality of symbolism is so ingrained into ourselves that we forget it’s there. Part of the reason it’s so difficult to identify something as symbolic is that symbols can become transparent and, in a sense, disappear. And when a symbol is also taboo, it is extremely hard to see past it, which in turn makes it almost impossible to diffuse the emotional component. Knowing and understanding that the “Old Glory” is in reality a bundle of colored threads doesn’t stop some people from feeling angry when it’s burning. And knowing that a Koran is just a bundle of printed pages doesn’t stop some people from going on a riot and killing people.

But cheer up! It is possible – with a little willpower and perception – to see through symbolism, and even ignore it altogether. Once, when asked about what his The Old Man and the Sea “meant,” Hemingway said;

There isn’t any symbolism. The sea is the sea. The old man is an old man. The boy is a boy and the fish is a fish. The shark are all sharks no better and no worse. All the symbolism that people say is shit.

And Freud came out with the classic;

Sometimes, a cigar is just a cigar.

Sometimes, a cigar...

Read Full Post »

The Beatles Loved Love

Beatles

By way of a change from my regular posting of word etymologies, I’m going to present an analysis of the vocabulary of Beatles’ song titles. I was prompted by a posting on the OUP Blog by Gordon Thompson entitled The Beatles and ‘Let It Be,’ and because I’ve always been struck by the simplicity of the lyrics used by Lennon and McCartney – whether they planned it or not. For example, consider lyrics of the song, Love Me Do. For educational purposes (and I say that so I can claim Fair Use under Section 107 of Title 17 of the US Copyright Law) I’ve reproduced them below in their entirety:

Love, love me do.
You know I love you,
I’ll always be true,
So please, love me do.
Whoa, love me do.

Love, love me do.
You know I love you,
I’ll always be true,
So please, love me do.
Whoa, love me do.

Someone to love,
Somebody new.
Someone to love,
Someone like you.

Love, love me do.
You know I love you,
I’ll always be true,
So please, love me do.
Whoa, love me do.

Love, love me do.
You know I love you,
I’ll always be true,
So please, love me do.
Whoa, love me do.
Yeah, love me do.
Whoa, oh, love me do.

Using one of my favorite pieces of text analysis software, Concordance, I found that the song contains only 20 different words (types, for you linguist types) out of 108 words used (tokens). Of those 108 tokens, love scores 24 times, which is 20% of the song. For the curious, here’s the actual frequency list:

LOVE 24
DO 14
ME 14
YOU 9
WHOA 5
ALWAYS 4
BE 4
I 4
I’LL 4
KNOW 4
PLEASE 4
SO 4
TRUE 4
SOMEONE 3
TO 2
LIKE 1
NEW 1
OH 1
SOMEBODY 1
YEAH 1

What’s also interesting is the prevalence of pronouns – which I suggest (pending more analysis) is a common feature of Beatles’ songs. You have I, you, and me way up there, and the indefinite pronouns someone and somebody making a significant contribution to the sample. I suspect that the frequency of use of indefinite pronouns in the Beatles’ lyrics is statistically higher than that of the normal lexicon – but that’s another investigation.

So I found a list of all the Beatles’ song titles – or enough to be what seems a reasonable representation – and subjected them to the Concordance software followed by some number work using Excel. And it became clear that love was an important topic for the Fab Four.

Out of the 565 different words used, the word love was used 22 times, coming in a number seven on the “Top Ten” word list. And for the curious, the “Top Ten” words, which accounted for 20% of all the words used, are, in reverse order;

• 10. IN
• 9. OF
• 8. MY
• 7. LOVE
• 6. ME
• 5. TO
• 4. I
• 3. A
• 2. THE

and the number one;

YOU

In truth, the word I should really be counted as being higher because if you add in the contractions I’m and I’d, then you see I nudge ahead of you.

But going back to the obsession with love, if you look at other published word lists, the Beatles clearly did use it with a much greater frequency than is normal. The British National Corpus (BNC) ^[1] has love at number 644 and the Lancaster-Oslo-Bergen (LOB) ^[2] corpus ranks it at 250th place.

So maybe is it true that all you need is love.

References

[1] Leech, G., Rayson, P. and Wilson, A. (2001). Word Frequencies in Written and Spoken English: based on the British National Corpus. Longman: London.

[2] Hofland, S. and Johannson, K. (1984). Word frequencies in British and American English. The Norwegian Computer Centre for the Humanities: Longman.

Read Full Post »