an essay on language by Byron A. Marshall, the sage of Pineville, Louisiana

[Gerry Storm]

Aram needs a hearing aid. I used to be able to understand all the words of
songs, even Van Morrison, usually. But I damaged my ears. His responses are
classic for one with impaired hearing. Now without a hearing aid I can
understand none of the words, but with I can understand some, depends upon
the degree of nasality and the key being used by the singer. When the
frequencies most amplified by my aids are up in the mix, it can be painful.

Bob Edwards on NPR drives me crazy, the way he rolls off the ends of phrases
into a swallowed mumble. Some of the women announcers are amplified in the
pain threshhold, but most of them are easily intelligible...when one is
whining in my hot zone, it is almost unbearable...It's a strange world out
there when one loses one's hearing, a much different world.
G

----- Original Message -----
From: Michael Eisenstadt <michaele@ando.pair.com>
To: <austin-ghetto-list@pairlist.net>
Sent: Friday, March 19, 2004 3:21 PM
Subject: an essay on language by Byron A. Marshall, the sage of Pineville,
Louisiana


> ::::   A  MATTER  OF  GREAT   MOMENT  ::::
>   ==========================================
>         "...  And I have some problems with
>          spoken words ..."
>                      --Litwic Wibberstein
>
>
>
> --- Aram wrote, to his friend Jim S:
>
>
> > Jim,
> >
> > I've *never* been able to understand lyrics to
> > popular songs,  or the words
> > to "cheers" the gorls would yell as they twirled
> > their batons. My hearing is
> > fine, but I don't understand some people's speech. I
> > tried to watch "South
> > Park" but had the same problem. In the middle of a
> > furius piano solo, I can
> > spot a single wrong note, but when I was a kid, I
> > dared somebody to do
> > something. He said, "Dares go first". I never heard
> > that before. He had to
> > repeat it three times before I knew what he was
> > saying. Maybe it's because I
> > don't live in "cliche" land. When I hear some meme,
> > I actually parse it. You
> > really can't do that for most memes.
> >
> > Aram
> >
> > PS - I've been waiting a long time to use "meme" in
> > a sentence. I hope I
> > used it correctly.
> >
> > PPS - Remember that song from the 60's called
> > "Mellow Yellow"?
> > They sing, "Call me mellow yellow" followed by two
> > short sounds. Everybody
> > assumes you understand the words, and you're too
> > embarrassed to ax. I just
> > realized recently that those two short sounds are
> > "quite right". Forty years
> > isn't  too long to have that question resolved.
> >
>
>
> ====================================================
> --Aram
>
> ====================================================
>                    A Commentary
>
> I can't understand sung words, either. Maybe this
> explains why my favorite pop singer is Van Morrison.
> NOBODY can understand his words. When I listen to a
> Van Morrison song, at least for once I know I'm not
> alone.
>
> There was an old timey song on a record. It had a
> refrain, something like, "Run Mountain ... chug a
> little hill." As you can see, this is fairly
> inexplicable as it stands. Maybe I've never come even
> close to understanding what they were singing. Call
> this version of the line "A."
>
> Anyhow, there was another way of hearing this line,
> which I now forget. Call it "B."
>
> I started playing this short refrain again and again,
> to decide "scientifically" by close examination of the
> evidence what they were saying.
>
> I discovered that if I imagined in advance that they
> were saying "A", I heard them singing "A." If I
> imagined in advance that they were saying "B", I heard
> "B."
>
>                     *
>
>
> Chomsky one day presented evidence that the stress
> pattern in English, which was reliably heard by
> listeners, wasn't there in the sound waves. He pointed
> out some other evidence which demonstrates that the
> "sound patterns" of the different phonemes aren't
> there in a complete way, nor in the "actual" order, in
> the sound waves.
>
> This led me to my epoch-making, internationally
> recognized (Nobel Peace Prize) discovery about the
> sound system of Swedish. Basically, there isn't any.
> Swedish is an extreme example of a corrupted (or
> debased, the technical term) language. There is no
> correlation at all between the sounds made by Swedes,
> which sound like a group of pigs, and what they
> imagine they were saying. It's all just a bunch of
> snorting sounds, like a group of pigs.
>
> How, then, do Swedes communicate at all? This was my
> question, and the basis for my research and my
> subsequent prize. At first, I thought it possible that
> Swedes don't communicate at all. (The design of their
> battleship, the largest ever built, is some evidence
> for this. When christened and slid down into the
> water, it promptly sank. It is now preserved in the
> major Swedish naval museum.)
>
> However there is evidence that they do manage at least
> a rudimentary form of communication, as if it matters.
>
>
> I was able to pinpoint concrete experimental settings
> which demonstrated, without a doubt, that Swedes
> communicate telepathically. However, it is imperfect
> telepathy at best. For example, the presence or
> absense of a negative is entirely random using
> telepathy, at least among Swedes. There are other
> omissions. Most complex nouns, semantically, cannot be
> communicated.
>
> My work was already becoming familiar in the small
> discipline of "Swedish Studies", highlighted each year
> at the Upsula Conference (which usually takes place in
> London, for the obvious reasons), when a visit by the
> noted filmmaker Ingmar Bergman (the father of Ingrid
> Bergman) provided a vivid and colorful "proof."
>
> He was visiting New York City for a film festival in
> his honor. On the first night, he attended a showing
> of his noted, and supposedly very gloomy, "Through a
> Glass Darkly", which had been provided with subtitles.
>
> It was the subtitles which made the difference. On
> leaving the theater, the noted public figure was
> estatic. "I read the subtitles," he said, in halting,
> but at least effective, English. "For the first time,
> I understand this film. And what I never realize
> before. It is a comedy!"
>
> And he laughed and laughed.
>
> On the other hand, when he saw "Smiles of a Summer
> Night" the next morning, he said, grumpily, "So what's
> so funny?"
>
> The Nobel Peace Prize Award ceremony, incidentally,
> was in English. As a prank, I thought of giving my
> acceptance speech in Swedish. The Nobel committee
> begged me to use Lithuanian instead. Naturally I
> couldn't understand them. I gave my speech in Hindi.
>
>               *      *     *
>
> Aram refers to "Dares Go First." I can understand his
> puzzlement. I'm not sure I understand it either, and
> I'm READING it. Is it really, "dere goes Foist"? Or
> "Dat Slows Wurst?" "Dirm Swirms Foost?" "Dur Swiggles
> Toink?" All sound the same to me. I can't make hoods
> or snails of it.
>
> Kite Rick.
> ====================================================
> --Byron
>
>
> PS. The Carter Family in their Grammy winning pop
> classic "Wildwood Flower" sang of the "pail and the
> leter," or possibly "the Tail and the Leader." Most
> transcriptions of the songs compromise and opt for the
> "Pail and the Leader," I think. This song was not
> original with them, but was a "parlor song" from long
> before, and the words are available. It turns out the
> original words were "the pale virtiginous spinach."
>  ===================================================
>  S%$%S%$%S%$%S%$%S%$%S%$%S%$%S%$%S%$%S%$%S%$%S%$%S%$
>  ===================================================
>
>
>
>
>
>