A BABBLING BROOK?

A brook that babbles? Or should I write "babels"? Does a brook really speak all the languages of the folks at the famed Tower of Babel? Ref. Genesis 11:1–9

Growing up with three languages, sometimes four!

Kind of fun, growing up with three languages, oh, and sometimes a fourth!  English and Turkish downstairs with Mummy and Daddy (Mummy had forgotten her Armenian when she was five because her grandmother came to live with them, a grandmother who knew no English and no Armenian -- only Turkish -- more on that subject in the future), English and Armenian upstairs (Uncle Paul had been able to study Armenian in school in  Marash before the war broke out), and English, Armenian and Turkish on the third floor where Grandma Yepros and Grandpa Movses resided . . . oh, and English, Armenian, Turkish and French when cousins from Paris arrived!

In fact, when Marash Girl was quite young, the older generation (her grandparents' generation)  either knew no English, or spoke heavily accented English, and hearing that evidence of life outside of these United States promised  a world of adventure for Marash Girl.

Esh Mart

The Marash event this past Sunday caused much reminiscing in the home of Marash Boy and Marash Girl. Marash Boy was remembering the expression used both by his Uncle Ed (who walked out of Marash during the famous snow storm) and his father-in-law Peter (who rode out of Marash on a "jackass", as Peter would love to put it, in 1920).  The two of them loved to use the word "eshmart".  Marash Girl always thought that they were calling some one "smart" imitating the "old country" accent, as they were wont to do on occasion.  But Marash Boy reminded Marash Girl that this was a play on words, a play on words that depended on one's knowledge of English and Armenian and the accented English spoken by Armenians from the old country.

So what does eshmart (or usmart) mean?  Well, for one, it means smart (with an Armenian accent). And if you know Armenian, and if you knew Peter and Ed, you would know that they were making fun of someone that everyone thought was smart, but that they knew was "esh mart", literally a "jackass man"!

How many languages can you speak?

"What difference does it make how many languages you can speak if you have nothing meaningful to say!"    Vahan Topalian speaking to Marash Girl
in the 1960's in Newtonville, Massachusetts.

The Ugliest Word in the English Language

Remembering a film she watched in her high school English class,  Marash Girl would like to share with you the words of Carl Sandburg:

"What is the ugliest word in the English language?"

"Exclusive!"

Marash Girl would agree!  Would you?

It's raining down south!

Southeast of Boston, that is.  Rain, rain, go away, come again some other day, Marash Girl wants to play on Martha's Vineyard!

Let's see, now.  In junior high school, Marash Girl and her compatriots would warn each other with the words, "It's snowing down south!"

Do you guys have any idea what THAT meant?

It was the warning that someone's slip was showing!

What's a slip, you ask?  No, not a slip of the tongue.  No, not a slip on the ice.

A slip was a silk or cotton or rayon underskirt that all women would wear (before the 1960's) so as not to reveal the shape of their legs should a light shine through their skirts from behind (or in front), or worse yet, should the wind blow!

An Alderman by any other name . . .

Marash Girl received the following email today from Newton's Alderwoman (formerly known as Alderman) Emily Norton.

Call Me Councilor… City Councilor.  I am pleased to report that by a vote of 19-5, the Board of Aldermen voted last week to amend the City Charter to change our titles from “Alderman” to “City Councilor.” We also scrubbed the charter of other gendered references, such as changing “Chairman” to “Chair” and “School Committeemen” to “School Committee members.” The measure now must be filed by our State representatives and passed by the Legislature as a home rule petition.

Marash Girl has many questions.  
1)  What shall we do with the word "human"?

2)  Juliet (in Shakeseare's ROMEO & JULIET) states, 

"What's in a name? That which we call a rose
By any other name would smell as sweet. . ." 

or not, as the case may be. . . 

3) Do we really need gender references scrubbed?  Marash Girl kind of likes being known as Marash Girl and not Marash Writer or Marash Person or Marash Descendant or Marash Adult or Marash Writer or Marash Chamur . . . You get the point.

Your thoughts?

"I'd give my eye teeth to be able to do that!"

What does that mean? asked Marash Girl's daughter.  Why would you give your eye teeth?  Clear from the context as to the meaning of this expression, but very unclear after much research as to the origin of the expression.  Any takers out there?

"Parev, arev!" "Բարեւ արեւ!"

"Grandpa Peter" used to love to tell the story of an Armenian friend from Marash who would always greet him with the words, "I don't say hello to that sun up there, but I say hello to you!"

Marash Girl wonders if that was an expression left from ancient days when Armenians worshipped the sun and folks would greet the sun with "Բարեւ"!  Even the greeting 'Parev' (hello in Western Armenian) appears to be a coming together of the two words good (pari) sun (arev) . . .

Tinking? Just rip it out!

Remember "a tinker, a tailor, a knitter, a sailor"?  No?  That's because Marash Girl just made up the last two words in the old nursery rhyme in order to introduce you to a new concept -- no, not a new concept, a new word -- no, not a new word, but an old word applied to an old concept that makes knitting more complicated than it need be!  According to a recent internet posting, tinking for the knitter means knitting backwards, a method of undoing stitch by stitch a row of knitting in order to repair an error that has been made (most likely by you) earlier in the row.  For Marash Girl (and, yes, you can assume here that Marash Girl knits), if the error occurred near the beginning of the row, it's easier just to rip out the whole row, error automatically corrected, (sort of like erasing a line of writing that doesn't sound right rather than trying to correct one word in the line)  and replace the stitches recently removed from your needle back on to the needle, or, continuing the metaphor of writing, simply starting from the end of the last sentence and rewriting the whole sentence. [Would that we could do this with our lives, right?]  Tinking probably has its origins in the word tinkering, the act of trying to repair something.  You Latin scholars out there:  have fun with waxing eloquent on this one!

Cat got your tongue?

Continuing to read  Sherman Alexie's INDIAN KILLER, Marash Girl was caught short by the following (page 29): the main character, John Smith, "knew that priests had cut out the tongues of Indians who continued to speak their tribal language."

Confirmation of a parallel circumstance among Armenians in the Ottoman Empire comes from the unexpected source of "Yahoo Answers". "The most confusing and curious names are those based on some trait of an ancestor. Typical examples are Topalian 'son of the cripple', Dilsizian 'son of the tongueless one' . . . Many of the origins of these names are unclear unless one understands the original context. As an example, Dilsizian indicates that an ancestor had his tongue cut out by the Turks for using the Armenian language."  

Marash Girl's father, Peter, was haunted by the memory of the tongueless man he would see walking through the marketplace in Marash -- his tongue had been cut out for speaking Armenian (rather than Turkish). Peter's mother, Grandma Yepros, would never allow Peter to speak Armenian in the streets of Marash -- her children had to speak only Turkish outside of the home.  The family spoke Armenian inside their home only.  [Somewhat related is the fact that Peter's brother, Paul, often told of having to hide his Armenian books by sitting on them whenever the Turkish gendarmes entered his classroom to make sure the teacher was teaching the class in Turkish.]

Marash Girl knows from her oral history interviews, particularly an interview with Miss G. who was born in Marash and orphaned during the genocide (the audiotaped interview stored  at the Armenian Library and Museum of America, Watertown, Massachusetts,) that the missionaries in the Armenian orphanages punished the children for speaking Armenian --  the Armenian children were told that they must speak only Turkish, as that was their new language -- they needed to forget Armenian!

Asking an Armenian historian friend, Marash Girl was scolded and told that the historian had never seen evidence that such tongue-cutting had ever occurred.  Marash Boy, as well, refused to believe tongue-cutting ever happened.

Myth? Legend? History? Reality?

Did the Turks ever cut out Armenians' tongues for speaking Armenian? Asking that question of Mashtots Professor of Armenian Studies at Harvard University elicited the following response:  Why, yes, I have seen numerous historical citings of such behaviors.

Que lastima!  Marash Girl had hoped that it was all a bad societal nightmare.

Mooncussers . . . the land pirates of Cape Cod

Sleeping in a house along New England's Cape Cod seashore with a window opening on to the dunes, nightly listening to the moan of the fog horn, brought to mind the mooncussers, the land pirates of Cape Cod.  Land pirates, you ask?  How can that be?  Dastardly deeds were indeed committed along the rocky coast of New England.    Living in the early days along the Atlantic Ocean,  in a time when lighthouses were few and far between, mooncussers had no need to go to sea to eek out a living.  Mooncussers simply awaited a moonless night, a night when ships were headed into port,  stood on the rocky outcroppings so common to the New England shore, waving lanterns, providing a light in the darkness, a light which would lead ships to certain destruction, a light which would lead mooncussers to certain wealth.  And why the name mooncusser?  If the moon was shining, the ships could circumvent the rocks and arrive in safe harbor, thus depriving the land pirates of certain wealth, and providing the mooncussers with good reason to cuss the moon.

Mark Twain, Language and Lickings!

A 10 year old addresses his uncle:

If you don't stop that, I'm going to lick you!

Why are you going to lick me? asks his uncle.

Because you're being mean.

Lick me with your tongue like you would an ice cream cone?

Yes!

But why? asks his uncle, laughing.

Tom Sawyer would give a good licking to anybody who annoyed him!

Marash Girl credits ABC Joan Metz for this true story!

Preparing Dinner for 10? Hungry? Yapan Yemez!

Marash Girl's mother-in-law, an Armenian woman who survived the genocide, taught Marash Girl much, as mother-in-laws are wont to do, and often with the simple expressions that she had carried with her from Marash.  One of her oft-repeated aphorisms was, (upon sitting down at the dinner table), "Yapan yemez," which means in English,  "The person who makes it doesn't eat it."  Now why is that? Marash Girl often wondered, until one day she found herself sitting down for dinner with no appetite and saying those very words:  "Yapan yemez!"  As with all such expressions, the phrase has multiple meanings, and is often meant to be humorous or ironic.

Why does the person who makes it not eat it?

1)  The cook has been 'tasting' the meal while preparing it, to correct the seasonings, or simply to fend off hunger! (Marash Girl's situation last night!)

2)  The cook knows what went into the dish and it turns her/his stomach to even think of eating it!

3)  The cook hates eggplant, but the rest of the family loves it.

4)  There was not enough to go around, so the cook made do with bread or leftovers while preparing the meal for the family and guests.

5)  There was very little food, and the cook (if the cook is a member of the family), wants everybody to eat their fill before s/he eats the leftovers while s/he cleans up in the kitchen.

Please contribute your thoughts as to the possible meaning of the expression 'yapan yemez' in your comment below!

WBUR, Wicked Good Words and Auntie Nouritza

Wicked Good Words: From Johnnycakes to Jug Handles, a Roundup of America's ...By Mim Harrison

Sometime in September, WBUR interviewed (by phone) the author of the recently published book, WICKED GOOD WORDS, a book recording the regional use of words and expressions in the United States.  (Yes, we thought that with television, regionalisms would have gone "out the window", to use a regional expression!)  Marash Girl was pleased to recognize those expressions that were unique to New England.  (Rather, I should say that Marash Girl would have been ashamed not to recognize those expressions, as Marash Girl has lived in New England almost all of her life!)  She was so intrigued with the interview that she purchased the book and immediately began to read it.  Unfortunately Marash Girl left her copy of WICKED GOOD WORDS on an end table in Chatham without having finished reading the book.  Now all she has to rely on while writing this blog is her memory, so here goes.  

For Marash Girl, the two most intriguing expressions from New England were "package store" and "mooncusser".  Do you know what either of these expressions mean, or the history behind them?

Package Store:  No, in New England, this is NOT a UPS store.  Read on . . . After prohibition, because there was still a social stigma attached to drinking alcohol, folks were reluctant to have it known that they were purchasing even wine.  Thus men would head out the door, calling behind them, "I'm going to the package store!" and the obliging New England liquor stores would package up the alcohol -- be it wine, whiskey, or beer -- in plain paper wrapping, making honest men of the drinking New Englanders!

Mooncusser:  During the 18th and 19th Century, on dark nights along the rocky coast of New England, land pirates would head out to the beach (the rocky beach, that is) with lanterns to lure ships onto the rocks into certain destruction, and then, once the ships crashed onto the wrocks, he pirates would pillage the goods that the shipwrecks were carrying.  If the moon was out that night, the pirates could not commit their dark deed and therefore  they would cuss, or swear at,  the moon; hence the New England land pirate came to be known as a mooncusser.

Going beyond New England to Texas and Louisiana, Marash Girl found the expression "dirty rice".

"Dirty rice. A Cajun rice dish that involves chicken gizzards, and therefore gives the rice a brownish tinge.  That's your so-called dirt." (from Wicked Good Words)

The definition immediately brought to mind Auntie Nouritza, Marash Girl's mother-in-law's sister!  Marash Girl prided herself on making pilaf like her own mother (who was an Aintabtsi -- see earlier blogs on Aintab), but Auntie Nouritza prided herself on making pilaf that was pure white.  What was the difference?  Marash Girl made pilaf using turkey or chicken broth rather than water for the required liquid.  Then a young bride, Marash Girl proudly carried her freshly prepared pilaf to the table, perfect it was in flavor and color, only to have her new mother-in-law's eldest sister dismiss the pilaf with the words, Kirli Pilaf (Dirty Rice)!  Tough words for a new bride to hear!

If you want the Marash Girl's recipe for "Kirli" pilaf, please comment below, and Marash Girl may deign to share it with you!

Some Thoughts on Big Wheels

Walking around the track at the 'Y' today, Marash Girl remembered her father's laughing definition:  He who walks in circles shall be called a 'Big Wheel'.

Going to Freedictionary.com, Marash Girl read their definition of big wheel: "An important or influential person. In use since 1950, this term is thought to have come from the mechanics’ expression to roll a big wheel; ‘to be powerful or important.'"

What that dictionary doesn't mention is that this expression was used, at least in the fifties, in a derogatory manner, as in, "He thinks he's a big wheel!"

Marash Girl's father was amused by folks who thought they were important.
(see post on Robert Burns poem, A Man's A Man For A' That)

He joked about people who prided themselves on "travelling in the right circles", circles of folks who had money and were too proud of it.   Peter often reminded us of the woman who told her son, "Dghas, park the car in front of the church so everyone can see that we drive a Cadillac!"

But by the late 1960's, things had changed.  Big Wheels were simply tricycles that little kids could ride!

The Dead Man's Float

"So you want to learn to swim but you're afraid of the water?  No problem!  Just try the Dead Man's Float!  It's easy!"

The other day, as Marash Girl was walking from the post office, she passed a sign at the end of the street around the corner from her house reading Dead End.  It got her to thinking about all the deads in the English language, and particularly, (since she's been swimming lately), the Dead Man's Float (known in modern parlance as the Front Float).  Marash Boy had recalled earlier this week that when we were growing up, the first thing children were taught during swimming lessons was the Dead Man's Float. . . Why would any child want to learn to swim if they first had to try to do something called a Dead Man's Float?

On a lark, I checked the free dictionary (on line) which listed the following popular expressions in the English language which incorporated the word dead (see below), but the one they missed is the one that affected almost every child growing up, almost every child that ever tried to learn to swim in the 1920's, 1930's, 1940's, 1950's, 1960's and 1970's:  the Dead Man's Float!

a dead duck a dead end a dead letter a dead ringer for a dead weight at a dead end be a dead cert be a dead loss be a dead ringer for be as dead as a dodo be as dead as a doornail be brain dead be dead and buried be dead from the neck up be dead from the waist down be dead in the water be dead meat be dead on feet be dead to the world be half-dead be the dead spit of beat a dead horse bring to a dead end catch dead to rights come back from the dead come to a dead end cut dead dead ahead dead and buried dead and gone dead as a dodo

dead as a doornail dead broke dead cat on the line dead center dead certain dead drunk dead duck dead easy dead from the neck up dead giveaway dead in or an animal's tracks dead in the water dead letter dead loss dead meat Dead men tell no tales dead of winter dead on dead on arrival dead on feet dead serious dead set against dead to rights dead to the world dead wood dead wrong drop dead Drop dead! drop-dead drop-dead date drop-dead gorgeous

faint dead away flog a dead horse give up for dead have dead to rights in a dead heat in the dead of night It's ill waiting for dead men's shoes knock dead knock them/'em dead leave for dead Let the dead bury the dead more dead than alive Never speak ill of the dead on dead center over my dead body Over my dead body! play dead raise from the dead rise from the dead roll over and play dead silent as the dead stone dead stop dead in tracks stop one dead in tracks take for dead taken for dead the dead hand of wake the dead would not be caught dead would not be seen dead wouldn't be caught dead