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

[Wayne Johnson]

OK. Smart people.  Who knows all the words to Louie, Louie? (sp?  Can't be
sure about this, can we?)

wj
----- Original Message ----- 
From: "Michael Eisenstadt" <michaele@ando.pair.com>
To: <austin-ghetto-list@pairlist.net>
Sent: Friday, March 19, 2004 5:21 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."
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