The thug and the slut
Granted, this extended metaphor occurs in a piece that is both playful
and artful. But still, but still... this is surely the
summer's loopiest grammar/meaning metaphor:
The structure of
language lurks below the meaning of words. Chomsky wrote,
"Colorless green ideas sleep furiously." This grammatical
sentence illustrates that grammar and meaning have about as much
relationship to one another as strangers on a blind date. Grammar
is the towny. This dude, this thug, knows the ins and outs of the
place by heart. He runs the show, and he practically owns the
territory. His date just blew into town. She's all fluttery
in this gaudy multipart outfit she copped at various exotic bazaars and
flea markets. Half the time she's got no idea what she's saying,
but she's easy, in actual fact a slut willing to go along with just
about anything.
Oh my.
[Priscilla Long, "Genome Tome: Twenty-three ways of looking at our
ancestors" (The American Scholar,
Summer 2005), p. 34, the end of section 11, "The Grammar Gene", on the
innateness of grammar]
When I try to work out the details of Long's thug-and-slut metaphor, my
head threatens to explode. Like, Meaning has no idea what she's
saying? I would have thought that that's pretty much
ALL
she had an idea about. And how come Grammar's the one with all
the information?
Someone should investigate the ways in which the grammar/semantics
distiction is personified. Grammar is often cast as a fussy
schoolteacher (a schoolmarm, in particular: Miss Fidditch) or some
other kind of authority figure, a legislator or judge or priest (almost
surely male). But grammar can also be seen as empty form, which
on its own produces mere chatter without substance -- a female
stereotype. Meaning, in contrast, is configured either as
substantial and significant (so: agentive and male) or as "natural",
even earthy (so: passive and female). You can get pretty much any
assignment of the sexes to the two actors, Grammar and Meaning.
(Though the fact that grammar almost always gets mentioned first, as in
the passage from Long, suggests that it's more likely to be personified
as male.)
The thug-and-slut story is, I guess, a version of the male authority
figure (wielding the authority of the streets) vs. the passive, pliant
female. But it's still loopy.
As a grammarian, it tickles me to see myself cast as a classic Bad Boy,
the tough hoodlum with a sneer on his face (top of the world, Ma!), but
then I dissolve into giggles because the picture is so far from my
actual presentation of self. And I guffaw while trying to
visualize the semanticists of my acquaintance -- David Beaver (of this
parish), Stanley Peters, Barbara Partee, David Dowty, Angelika Kratzer,
Hans Kamp, Sally McConnell-Ginet, Gennaro Chierchia, and so on -- as
Women of Easy Virtue, dressed eccentrically in thrift-shop clothing and
willing to go along with just about anything (they have always depended
on the kindness of strangers).
I'm not quite done quoting Long, though. It gets weirder.
Here's her entire section 12, "Grammar Gene Mutation":
Courtly cows dispense with
diphthongs. Chocolate-covered theories crouch in corners.
Corners rot uproariously. Refrigerators frig the worms.
Catastrophe kisses the count of five. A statement digests its
over-rehearsed rhinoceros. Bookworms excrete monogamous
bunnies. Blue crud excites red ecstasy. All this during the
furious sleeping of colorless green ideas.
Yes, a fresh contribution to the poetry of "colorless green ideas sleep
furiously" (ca. 21,100 raw Google webhits, including its own Wikipedia
entry). From which "frig" stands out. I would have written
"fuck", but no doubt that wouldn't have been acceptable to
The American Scholar; the kissing,
excretion, and excitement to ecstasy are quite enough, thank you.
(Dorothy Parker, surely apocryphally, to Norman Mailer, who was obliged
to use "fug" in
The Naked and the
Dead: "So you're the young man who can't spell
fuck?")
zwicky at-sign csli period stanford period edu
Posted by Arnold Zwicky at August 6, 2005 01:50 PM