Euphemistic parallelism . . .

…to coin a term. It denotes how parallelism can be used in structuring phrases to make one very bitter phrase seem as sweet as another phrase, which the bitter phrase parallels.

It's the parallelism inherent in the general names for the two major kinds of retirement plans offered to employees by American employers. The two kinds of plans are 1) the "defined benefit plan," which you can think of as the traditional pension which pays to the retiree a set amount each month from retirement until death; and 2) the "defined contribution plan," typically a 401(k) plan, where employee and employer pay a set amount each month into an investment or savings plan--and how much the retiree receives depends on the value of that account at the time of retirement and after.

"Defined benefit plans" have become much less common, because a retiree is entitled to the money regardless of the pension plan's or employer's ability to keep paying. Think of how defined benefits plans are bankrupting the government of California. But they usually provide constant, reliable income and are therefore good for the retiree. On the other hand, the value to a retiree of the "defined contribution plan" is based on the value of the assets the plan purchased with the contributed funds. So, if the contributions into a defined contribution plan were used to buy Enron stock, or any American stock at all leading up to the 2007 crash, the retiree could get MUCH less than he had been counting on.

The parallel structures of the phrases "defined benefit plan" and "defined contribution plan" make them sound like two sides of the same coin, and like two more-or-less-equal alternatives. But to a retiree, the defined contribution plan is a lot more risky, and all he can be certain of is the amount of today's income he is paying in before he retires. The recent stock market catastrophe has painfully shown that the amount of money paid out after retirement is not certain at all. So that kind of plan needs to be described euphemistically. Hence, the use of euphemistic parallelism.

Can you think of other examples of euphemistic parallelism?

Newfoundland English

Americans recognize that Canadians pronounce their vowels differently, a phenomenon called "Canadian raising." There's more to Canadian English.  In Newfoundland, the easternmost place in the U.S. and Canada, a strange, sing-song and sonorous version of English can be found.  The CBC news magazine-radio show "As It Happens" recently interviewed a "Newfie," who apparently lives in Labrador on the mainland, just north of the island of Newfoundland.  (The province is called Newfoundland and Labrador.)  You can listen to him at their website, starting at the 1:00 mark.

Here's a gem from the online Dictionary of Newfoundland English (2d ed. 1990):

unknown … Of a person, odd, strange, slightly deranged.

… There was a woman down to Gaultois who was a little unknown; she would steep tea but instead of drinking [it] she would throw away the tea and eat the tea leaves.¹

I have observed that Americans pronounce "Newfoundland" something like /NOOF-in-lind/.   I was amazed to discover that Canadian broadcasters say /noof-ind-LAND/. 

Labrador and Newfoundland are linguistically interesting for at least one more reason.  As the North America area (notwithstanding Greenland) nearest to Europe, they received European travelers first (an 11th-century Viking settlement may be visited at the eastern tip of Labrador.)  Mark Kishlansky, A Basque History of the World (2001), discusses how Basque fishermen arrived there early (maybe even before Columbus's voyages) and how some Basque vocabulary may have been adopted by local Indians.

1. The dictionary points out that this usage is known from south Lancaster in England, too, citing Joseph Wright, English Dialect Dictionary (1898-1905, repr. 1965).

"Greenwashing"

… is a neologism based on "whitewashing," to superficially cover over a problem to approve appearances--without solving the problem.  "Whitewashing" is a metaphor based on coating a house or a fence, as in the beginning of the novel Tom Sawyer, with whitewash (which is not paint, but a mixture including water and lime or chalk).

Greenwashing (apparently coined in the 1980s)¹ is a company's attempt to cover for poor environmental practices with minor changes to its business or with a marketing campaign.   My favorite example is the BP logo:

A green sun for a company that primarily deals in oil, and has spewed many millions of barrels of it into the Gulf of Mexico.  BP says that the logo "symbolises a number of things--from the living, organic form of a sunflower to the greatest source of energy...the sun itself."  But it's clearly an attempt to capitalize on customers' interest in environmentally-friendliness, just by changing a picture.


My favorite example of a company that appears NOT TO engage in greenwashing is the Sherwin Williams paint concern:

1. My cursory search for the earliest use of "greenwashing" led to a Time article from 1985, where it means "money laundering."

Historic vs. historical

After the major blackout across the northeastern United States in 2003, which shut down New York City and areas from Ontario and Ohio to New Jersey, I remember the Chinese factories rushed to produce t-shirts that read, "I SURVIVED HISTORICAL NEW YORK BLACKOUT."  I wanted to get one of these, not because I lived through the blackout--I was 90 miles away in Philadelphia, just south of the blackout area--but because of its crazy corruption of English. 

The shirt really meant to say "the historic New York blackout."  "Historical" generally describes anything having the quality of history--the historical borders of the German Empire; historical population statistics.  Things that are historical have come and gone.  "Historic," however, refers to a special, even epoch-making quality: the historic election of Ronald Reagan or of Barack Obama.  See, for instance, the entry in Eric Partridge, Usage and Abusage (rev. ed. 1994). 

I'd call a classic car an "historic car," but not an "historical one."  You care about the car (if you care) because it's old and special.  New York State makes the error on its license plates.

Not so humerus

Margaret suggested to me that the point of one's elbow is called the "funny bone" because it's near the end of the upper-arm bone, the humerus. "Humorous" … "funny bone" …

The pun is thought-provoking as an etymology. I happen to think it's a coincidence: First, most people don't know the Latin name humerus, leaving few who would be eager to propagate the pun. Second, there is a regional American term "crazy bone," meaning "funny bone"; "crazy bone" obviously developed without being based on a pun; if "crazy" could be used without needing a pun, why couldn't "funny?"

If I'm right and Margaret is not, her etymology might be what's called a false etymology. If you think false etymologies are interesting, also look at the Wikipedia article on the distinct phenomenon of folk etymology.

By the way, the scientific term for the funny bone is apparently "olecranon."

Vermawnt slang!

I spent ski season in Vermont this year and picked up some funny lingo. Up here, soft-serve ice cream is a "creemee." A local who does his venison shopping during hunting season is a "woodchuck."

Even stranger: In Vermont, and from upstate New York through Maine, a "camp" isn’t just a collection of tents and lean-tos—it’s a real house. You might not live in it year-round, but it has plumbing and electricity. Most Americans would call one a "cabin," but "camp" is used and understood up here. "Camp" can mean a pretty big place--

"Van Patten Camp, Charlotte,¹ 1896. William Van Patten built his impressive summer camp on a cliff overlooking Converse Bay on Lake Champlain." Paul A. Bruhn, compiler, Vermont's Historic Architecture: A Second Celebration (1985).

"Camp" in this sense is listed in speech and in casual books for areas from New York to Maine in the Dictionary of American Regional English, and in Louisiana and Georgia too from the middle of the twentieth century.

The “kee-imp,” as Vermonters pronounce it, is on every lakefront. Places that are pleasant and accessible are kind of expensive, so the owner of a lakefront farm can raise a lot of money selling off his lake shore in long, narrow strips. Sometimes a parcel with ten feet of lake frontage will extend 50, 100, 150 feet back to the public road that gives the "camp"-owner access. The "camp" home will be perched right on the water, and much less than a stone’s throw from the neighbors.

Is "camp" slang? I don’t think so—it’s a regional, proper word for what it denotes. It’s used commonly in speech and in books, and it even comes up in court decisions in Vermont,² although I couldn't locate it in the statutes of any state. ("Camp" appears, in them, only to refer to temporary summer tent camps and hunting camps in their commonly held senses.)

It happens that, in South Africa, a "camp" is "a fenced enclosure for grazing, equiv. of paddock," from the Afrikaans kamp. Jean Branford, A Dictionary of South African English (1991).

1. Charlotte, Vermont, pronounced “shuh-LOT.”

2. For instance: “There is a camp or cottage and outhouses located on the lot in question.” Montgomery v. Branon, 278 A.2d 744 (Vt. 1971); “At the sentencing hearing, defendant used the term ’seasonal dwelling’ to describe the structures at issue in his burglary convictions. On appeal defendant refers to the buildings as ’summer camps.’ In either case, defendant recognizes that the buildings were used as dwellings when seasonally appropriate.” U.S. v. Fredette, 15 F.3d 272 (2d Cir 1994)(reviewing a Vermont case).

"To rapture"

The surprising snafu for Robert Camping and his followers illuminates the verb "to rapture."  It means to carry a Christian believer to Heaven in the "rapture" or "Rapture" so that he avoids the pains of the "Tribulation" at the end of the world. I'm used to the verb "enrapture"--to seize someone's attention, to make someone rapt; but for me "to rapture" has the specific meaning of taking someone up to Heaven.  Use of "rapture" to mean "enrapture" is attested in dictionaries, but I'd bet that meaning is on its way out.  The word is from the Latin "rapere," meaning to "seize" or take away.  In an old-fashioned English use "to rape" meant to kidnap or carry off, among other things.  The Oxford English Dictionary suggests the sexual meaning of rape came later, by transference; a Latin word for that was "stuprare," and if you look up the English words "stuprate" and "stupration," you will find them.