The value of carrots

In recent weeks my students have been learning about the concept of linguistic value (from Ferdinand de Saussure). The differences in value between terms in different languages can have very humorous effects, as I have found on numerous occasions.

I’m currently in the Netherlands on a family visit. Last night we had dinner with my husband’s old school friends, and one of them was telling me (in English) about some dental treatment he had had recently, including some ‘carrot treatment’.

Carrot treatment?

Image from here.

The English word ‘carrot’ is translated by the Dutch word ‘wortel'. But ‘wortel' also means ‘root’ more generally. I found that out a while ago when I was reading a news report or something that mentioned trees being ‘ontworteld’ in a storm. Recognising ‘wortel’ from ‘carrot’ (the first of its meanings that I learnt), I thought ‘upcarroted’? But my husband explained that ‘wortel’ means both ‘root’ generally and ‘carrot’ specifically. The trees were actually ‘uprooted’, then.

So it turned out my husband’s friend had had root canal therapy. In Dutch, as in English, the word for ‘root’ also refers to the roots of teeth, not just plants. It is also used in mathematics (square root, etc) and to refer to the background of something ('my roots are in Scotland'), as in English .

I drew a diagram representing the difference in ‘value’ between the terms in the two languages.

The large rectangle represents semantic space. In Dutch, ‘wortel’ takes up the same semantic space that in English is occupied by two terms, ‘root’ and ‘carrot’. Thus the term ‘wortel’ doesn’t have the same value in Dutch as either ‘root’ or ‘carrot’ in English, although we can say they occupy some of the same semantic space.

Cultural conventions of sympathy

Today I went out in Florence to buy a sympathy card. I went to a number of different card shops and found cards for birthdays, marriages, new babies, retirement, graduation, love - everything but death. I started to wonder (not seriously) if they don’t have the problem of death here in Italy.

Finally I asked a sales assistant if he had any cards for sympathy. My Italian failed me at that point, but thankfully he helped me out by speaking English.

He brought out some small, plain white cards each with a single black stripe across the corner. He said in Italy people usually send these cards. I have learnt since that people often send a flower (or flowers) with the card.

In Australia, sympathy cards usually have soft colours and flowing cursive writing. Unfortunately, many have sappy words that you wouldn’t want to send to anyone. Flowers (roses, lilies, sometimes a whole garden), sometimes doves or butterflies, and swirly abstract shapes are the most common motifs used.

The Italian cards are much more stark. In some ways the semiotic of plain white with a bit of black is very sober and realistic about the finality of death itself.

The floral-ness of the Australian cards is perhaps intended to communicate instead something about the conventions of responding to death, i.e. often by giving flowers. The ugliness of death is hidden behind a curtain of artificial floral beauty.

Bureaucratic Circus

For the best part of the last two weeks, I have spent every weekday morning at one bureaucratic office or other on the infamous quest for the Italian ‘permesso di soggiorno’ - a permit to stay in Italy required of every foreigner who wants to stay for more than 3 months.

Queue of immigrants outside a Questura office (image from here)

I won’t go into all the gory details in this post - the process is still ongoing! When I finally have the permesso in my hot little hand I hope to write something that may be of use to other people like me - Australians married to European citizens who want or need to live in Florence for more than three months.

The relevance of my experience to anyone beyond that narrow designation is questionable at best, because I have heard that every city has a slightly different process you have to go through. It also makes a difference being married to a European citizen (I’m not yet convinced it makes the process much easier) and which non-European country you come from (the kinds of documents you get there and what the system is like).

Inside a Questura office- the one I went to in Florence looks more dingy than this, though! (Image from here)

I have been reading in Genesis where God spoke to Abraham (then Abram) and told him to leave his country, his people and his father’s household and go to the land that God would show him. That land happened to be the ancient land of Canaan.

The other day my husband and I were discussing this complicated process and the seemingly ridiculous documents we have been asked to produce. We reflected on how in days gone by people didn’t have to go through this kind of process, and we thought of Abraham and others in the Bible who had to go to a different country to live. It made me imagine what might have happened if Abraham had had to deal with Italy’s (or probably most countries’) immigration system, assuming Abraham had identification documents...

Canaan Immigration Officer: Signore, Signora, can I see your passports?
Abraham: Here they are.
CIO: Your passports only give your names as ‘Abraham’ and ‘Sarah’. Do you have a marriage certificate to show that you are married.
Abraham: Certainly. Here-
CIO: Hmmm... This says your names are ‘Abram’ and ‘Sarai’. Do you have a document that certifies your name change? I need to verify that you are the same people as on the marriage certificate?
Abraham: Um, no...
CIO: Under what circumstances did you change your names?
Abraham: God gave us new names.
CIO: Hmmm.... Well, that doest appear to be on this list of valid reasons for name change. I’m afraid I can’t process your request. You will have to go back to your home country and get all the necessary documentation, and then come back and try again.
Abraham: But I’m 75 years old and we’ve walked all the way here from Haran with everything we own.
CIO: I’m sorry, sir. There’s nothing I can do. You have to supply the appropriate paperwork.

Now of course, God himself could have come down with the name change certificates and waved them in the officer’s face, but he sometimes chooses not to act immediately in order to teach us perseverance and patience (James 1:2-4). This is what we have been learning.

The semantics of tragedy

The events of the last 24 hours, with Malaysian Airlines flight MH17 falling from the sky having been shot by a missile over the Ukraine, has raised again the semantic distinction between ‘accident’ and ‘crime’. One tweeter called it a ‘crime against humanity’ because of the ‘tens of AIDS researchers’ killed. Many tweets made reference to ‘the MH17 accident’, while others wanted to steer clear of that nomenclature:

JCH999: Has flight #MH17 been classified an accident now? All media are saying it "crashed" yet I'm pretty sure it was SHOT DOWN. BIG DIFFERENCE!

KJBar: PM on #MH17: 'This is not an accident. This is a crime. It was shot down. It did not crash.' http://tinyurl.com/pnemnfg v @abcnews

   shadowb0lt: Calling #MH17 an "accident" is a bad joke. This is nothing less than an abominable act of war.

sh1bumi: #MH17 recorded talks between Seperatists and Russian Gov: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BbyZYgSXdyw … Shooting was an accident

MarkTregonning: Where is #Abbott's evidence this is not an accident? That Russian-backed forces did it? He may be right-but evidence shld be given.

danielrhamilton: #MH17's crash is looking more like a crime than an accident. If so; what a wicked and evil act. The perpetrators must be found. #Ukraine

A ‘crime’ is “an action or omission which constitutes an offence and is punishable by law” (Oxford). An ‘accident’ is “an unfortunate incident that happens unexpectedly or unintentionally, typically resulting in damage or injury” or “an event that happens by chance or that is without apparent or deliberate cause” (Oxford). These definitions do not rule out an overlap between accident and crime, as the first definition of ‘accident’ could constitute a crime if it is something punishable by law.

Australian PM Tony Abbott was reported as saying adamantly that the MH17 incident was no accident (at least by the second definition above). Rather, he said, “it was shot down. It did not crash. It was downed, and it was downed over territory controlled by Russian-backed rebels. It was downed by a missile which seems to have been launched by Russian-backed rebels.”

Here, apart from in the second sentence, Abbott consistently uses verbs that express processes of deliberate action that require a ‘doer’ (Agent) - to shoot, to ‘down’. Only in the last clause does he specify the Agent: a missile.

A missile does not have its own volition. It must be operated by a human being. But Abbott is careful not to be too categorical about who the human being(s) might have been. He mentions them only as part of the description of the missile (which missile? one that seems to have been launched by Russian-backed rebels). And he chooses ‘seems to have been launched’ instead of ‘was launched’ to allow for the fact that the details of the incident are still quite hazy. He presents it as a suggestion or speculation rather than an assertion.

The potential human agents, ‘Russian-backed rebels’, are in turn identified by political affiliation (Russian-backed) and orientation to the law (rebels), rather than by any other feature or characteristic. This is perhaps not surprising as the perpetrators have not been specifically identified. But it is interesting that the action is construed politically, rather than morally. For example, Abbott could have chosen to say ‘a missile which seems to have been launched by irresponsible or careless or murderous individuals’.

Abbott’s construal of the event is as a non-accidental tragedy. An accident would not involve the sense of human volition or the use of processes that imply deliberate action. It may have been accidental in the sense that the perpetrators didn’t mean to shoot a commercial passenger plane, but the action of shooting itself was presumably not accidental. 

But as another tweeter pointed out, the labelling of a significant incident such as this as accident or not often depends largely on political agendas:

dellcam: U.S. agenda dictates response:

* #MH17: Not an accident.

* 4 kids children on #GazaBeach: A terrible accident.

My heart is grieved by this tragic loss of many lives, and I pray that God will bring comfort and peace to the families and friends of those who died and somehow turn this terrible situation to good. But let us not lose sight of other tragic losses of life, whether ‘accidental’ or not, that occur every day in other parts of the world where people don’t have the means, opportunity or ability to get on an aeroplane and go somewhere else.

Reflections on a patron saint

On Tuesday 24th June, Florence celebrated a public holiday for the ‘Feast of St John the Baptist’ (San Giovanni Battista). According to this link, John the Baptist has been the patron saint of Florence since sometime during the 6-8th centuries. Before Florence became ‘Christian’, they had upheld Mars, the Roman god of war, as the city’s protector.

I wondered about the point of a patron saint - spiritual guru? protector? model for living? [See also my post on saints from a few years ago.] Reflecting on the third possibility, it’s not hard to spot some marked contrasts between the life of John the Baptist (JtB) as presented in the gospel accounts and the character of modern Florence, Florentines, and the feast day celebrating their patron saint.

The San Giovanni Battista Baptistry in Piazza del Duomo, Florence

1) JtB hung around in the wilderness (Matthew 3:1, Mark 1:4, Luke 1:80) and wore clothes made of camel’s hair (Matthew 3:4, Mark 1:6). He was hardly the kind of urban, fashion-conscious guy that Florentines seem to value so highly. He did wear a leather belt around his waist, though...

2) JtB ate locusts and wild honey (Matthew 3:4, Mark 1:6) and was not allowed to drink alcohol (Luke 1:15). This would be anathema to Florentines, who love drinking their aperitivi in the piazzas on summer evenings (who could blame them?!), not to mention the excellent local chianti wines with lunch and dinner, and seem fairly committed to eating delicious Italian food. I don’t get the impression that they are very adventurous when it comes to eating other cuisines (if you could call locusts and wild honey ‘cuisine’!).

3) JtB was constantly on about repentance. He told people to ‘repent, for the kingdom of heaven has come near’ (Matthew 3:2) and ‘produce fruit in keeping with repentance’ (Matthew 3:8, Luke 3:8). He also urged people to be baptised (a service he provided himself, hence the name) as a sign that they repented of their sins, so that they could be forgiven (Mark 1:4, Luke 3:3).

In most places I’ve lived, repentance is far from people’s minds (what on earth would I have to repent from? I’m a good enough person, aren’t I?). In Florence, those of the older generations whose lives are still heavily influenced by the Catholic Church are probably more aware of the fact of sin and the way it separates us from God. But they have been told (contrary to the gospel) that they can do penance and achieve forgiveness that way. Among the younger generation, I think it’s more like the case in Australia, but perhaps with more acknowledgement of ‘a God out there somewhere'.

4) JtB was not at all interested in his own fame, but kept telling people someone greater and more powerful was coming after him (Matthew 3:11, Mark 1:7, Luke 3:16, John 1:27). (I think the impressive 35-minute fireworks display on Tuesday night in San Giovanni’s honour would have embarrassed this humble man.) The person coming after him was going to baptise people also, and not just with water but (eminently more impressive) with the Holy Spirit and with fire (Matthew 3:11, Mark 1:8). And he was going to somehow bring judgement also (Matthew 3:12, Luke 3:17).

But this was considered good news (Luke 3:18), probably because the one who did come after John was Jesus. When John saw him, he said ‘Look, the Lamb of God, who takes away the sin of the world!’ (John 1:29), and later testified that Jesus was ‘God’s Chosen One’ (John 1:34).

May the people of Florence honour their patron saint by listening to his words and considering his call to repent and seek forgiveness, especially now that the one who can take (and now has taken) away sins - Jesus Christ, the Lamb of God - has come.

San Giovanni Battista fireworks over the Ponte Vecchio in Florence

The semiotics of street numbers

Around the world people have come up with different ways to organise the numbering of buildings. Growing up in Australia I assumed it was logical that you would use a numbering system where the numbering started at one end of the street and had even numbers on one side and odd numbers on the other side. That way, if you needed to find number 22, you would know which side of the street to walk along and which direction to walk in (once you could work out which end of the street you were at).

In Uganda, we didn't have the chance to test out very many neighbourhoods so I'm not sure what the system was. Generally they use ‘plot' numbers, but I'm not sure if these were arranged in numerical order or not. Google maps doesn't tend to show plot numbers and only some of the addresses Google shows for businesses on the map include the plot number.

When I went on exchange to Japan many years ago, the street address had something like 5-33-1 and then the area name, and I never worked out what the numbers meant. This Wikipedia page gives some explanation, but I'm still confused! Apparently most Japanese streets don't have names; rather, building numbers are worked out by blocks.

Here in Florence (and this may or may not be the same for Italy in general), I thought the system was the same as in Australia. There are building numbers shown clearly by means of a number tile attached to the wall of the building, and they increase in twos, with odd and even numbers on opposite sides of the street. But I sometimes saw in addresses something like '52R', and wondered what the 'R' meant. I learnt that it stands for rosso, meaning 'red'.

Someone explained to us that at some point in time, some of the larger buildings were divided up and different entrances were added as more apartments were created, or a large building that had a garage at street level sold the garage to someone so that it needed to become a separate address. The new entrances were then numbered with red number tiles arranged sequentially according to the red numbers in that street. (In Australia we would use the letters a, b, c, etc to indicate new subdivisions at the same street number.)

The original numbering system uses blue number tiles and is numbered in the same way as the Australian system. So now what you see is two different numbering systems side by side in the one street. Often the numbers appear out of order, as in the picture below (59, 65R, 61), but once you know the difference between the red and blue numbers, it makes sense.

Since learning this, the semiotics of the number tiles have become clearer. I had thought that the differences between number tiles was due to the style preferences of the building owner. In Australia, whoever owns or designs the building chooses how they want to indicate the number (or not). Now I could see that the blue number tiles are basically the same throughout the city (with some minor differences) - they are larger and have a glossy glaze. The red number tiles are usually smaller, with a matt finish and the number in recess (although occasionally they are red versions of the blue tiles, in the picture at the top). I also noticed that the tiles tend to be placed at a reasonably consistent level on the wall, with blue number tiles relatively higher and red number tiles relatively lower (unfortunately, neither of the pictures here shows this tendency!).

So there are different semiotic systems for identifying buildings - numbers, colour, letters, number placement - and perhaps none is particularly more or less logical than the others (although the Ugandan one is still a bit of a mystery!).

Carving up the world

We have now been in Italy for just over a month, having moved here for my husband to take up a research position for one year. I have slowly been picking up some Italian (hoping to pick up more, more quickly!) as I go to the local market most days and interact with the market stall holders. The market stall holders know me now and try to help me learn new words. The other day it was interesting to learn from the butcher that the word for 'thick' in Italian is the same as the word for 'tall' (alta/o). I think it's also the word for 'deep’.

It's interesting because the concepts of height and thickness are differentiated in English but not in Italian. That aspect of our experience of space is divided up differently in the two languages. This is a concept I was trying to teach my students recently - the concept of linguistic relativity and how different languages make sense of experience in different ways.

In English we want to make a distinction between the concept of height (how far something stands vertically above the ground, as with a person or a building), thickness (similar to tall-ness but it doesn't have to be vertical; perhaps better described as how far between the two opposing edges of something, as with a sponge or a coat), and depth (how far something extends down towards its lowest point, as with the ocean or a baking tin). You can see how they are all quite similar concepts. But there is a subtlety that we can discern if we think about why we use three different words to refer to them rather than one.

So now I know to ask for 'taller/deeper/thicker' pork chops rather than 'bigger' ones.

A picture's worth a thousand words?

Recently I saw the film 'The Book Thief', based on the book by Australian author Markus Zusak. Perhaps you saw it too. I enjoyed it despite the grim moments, and especially loved the wonderful characters and warm, quirky humour. But I had read the book, and there was something missing - as there often is when the book becomes a film.

When I read the book, I was struck by the many fascinating turns of phrase, the way words seemed to have been carefully chosen to stop you in your tracks as you were reading so that you would pay attention to the description and let it sit with you.

Here's an extract from the first chapter:

Of course, an introduction.

            A beginning.

Where are my manners?

I could introduce myself properly, but it’s not really necessary. You will know me well enough and soon enough, depending on a diverse range of variables. It suffices to say that at some point in time, I will be standing over you, as genially as possible. Your soul will be in my arms. A color will be perched on my shoulder. I will carry you gently away.

At that moment, you will be lying there (I rarely find people standing up). You will be caked in your own body. There might be a discovery; a scream will dribble down the air. The only sound I’ll hear after that will be my own breathing, and the sound of the smell, of my footsteps. (p.4)

The sections in bold are what I'm talking about - words put together (the technical terms is 'collocations') that are quite unusual, often because the verb typically calls for a particular kind of noun to be the 'do-er' or the 'done-to', but the noun chosen is of a different kind that would not normally be considered a good fit. It's not enough just to put a noun with a verb - under normal circumstances, you have to choose the right kind of noun with particular semantic properties in order for it to work well with the verb. But in literature, the writer can exploit and subvert these conventions in order to make very particular or vivid meanings.

'A color [excuse the American spelling] will be perched on my shoulder.' 'To perch' is a particular kind of verb that generally calls for a very tangible thing to do the perching - for example, a bird is the thing you would usually expect to find perched on someone's shoulder. Sometimes a building is said to be perched on a cliff top or other precarious position. But a 'colour' - that is certainly not a tangible thing. Colour is an abstract quality. So we can differentiate between two categories of nouns - concrete and abstract. Some verbs need a concrete noun, whereas others can take either abstract or concrete.

I'm still not sure what it means for the narrator (spoiler alert: the narrator is 'Death') to say that a colour will be perched on his shoulder. Perhaps Zusak means for us to be confused there - after all, we can't yet know what it will be like when we die. Or perhaps he's trying to make 'colour' more tangible here by its association with the verb 'to perch'.

A similar thing is happening with 'a scream will dribble down the air'. With the verb 'to dribble', we expect the thing that dribbles to be concrete, and more specifically, something liquidy. You can see now how specific the requirements of the verb can be in terms of what kinds of nouns are 'allowed' to hang around with it. But 'a scream'? - it's neither liquid nor concrete.

Likewise, the phrase 'down the air' subverts our expectations. We expect that if something dribbles, it will dribble down a tangible surface, such as a wall or window. But 'the air' is not a surface and so the whole clause jars you as you read. As I ponder it, I get a very vivid image of the way the sound of the scream might make an initial impact and then gradually die away, leaving some kind of mental or emotional trace, as liquid dribbling down a surface leaves a trace.

I expect it would be very difficult, no matter how good the screenplay, to capture in film the meanings made by these unusual collocations. There are lots of these examples in the book where abstract things are collocated with verbs that usually require concrete things, and the thing about abstract things is that they are abstract. That is, they are harder to convey in the visual medium of film, without using the original wording somehow in spoken or written language as part of the film. A picture may be worth a thousand words; but where the words precede the picture, there may be no picture worthy of the words.  

References

Zusak, M. (2008) The Book Thief. Sydney: Picador/Pan Macmillan.