Dejobbed, Bewifed, and Much Childrenised

Remember "Stop Thoughting and Start FedExing"?

Here's another piece of evidence supporting the incredible flexibility of the English language: Dejobbed, Bewifed, and Much Childrenised.

Learning English Through Songs: Bennie and the Jets

The commentary is in green.

Bennie and the Jets (Elton John, 1974)

Hey kids, shake it loose together
The spotlight's hitting something
That's been known to change the weather
The singer is using the interjection "hey" to get the attention of a group of human beings between the stages of birth and puberty. The following imperative is a command for them to collectively cause something ("it") to move back and forth. Whether or not the singer will join in the shaking of the undefined "it" remains unclear from the adverb, "together." He's also making a non sequitur statement about the spotlight hitting something the result of which has been known to create changes in the weather.

We'll kill the fattened calf tonight
So stick around
The singer is now informing the aforementioned children that a baby animal (could be a baby cow, a baby whale, or a baby elephant) which has been made plump will have its life terminated this evening. He's using the killing of said animal to motivate the children to stay where they are.

You're gonna hear electric music
Solid walls of sound
Another reason is cited for why these minors should not leave the scene: they will hear music which is electronically created. This music, based on the following appositive, is akin to multiple architectural partitions characterized by good substantial quality.

Oh, Candy and Ronnie, have you seen them yet
But they're so spaced out, B-B-B-Bennie and the Jets
It's unclear at this point whether the singer is addressing two children named Candy and Ronnie who are part of the group or he is turning his attention to a completely new group of people of which Candy and Ronnie are part. Regardless, he wants to know if Candy and Ronnie have ever seen Bennie and the Jets, two never-before-mentioned entities (one singular and one collective?) who are described as being stupefied or disoriented from, or as if from, a drug.

Oh but they're weird and they're wonderful
Oh Bennie she's really keen
The singer is opining that these two entities are preternatural and strange in character and that they are extraordinarily good. Bennie, in particular, the singer asserts, is finely sharpened.

She's got electric boots, a mohair suit
You know I read it in a magazine
B-B-B-Bennie and the Jets
According to the singer, Bennie has in her possession the kind of protective footwear that is operated by electricity as well as an outer garment of fabric created with yarn made from the silky hair of the Angora goat. It is unclear as to whether she has them on her person at the time of the singing or she merely owns these items. The singer, however, makes it clear that the source of his information about Bennie's personal belongings is a periodical containing a collection of articles (also possible: a receptacle in which anything is stored, especially military stores, as ammunition, arms, provisions, etc.).

The names of Bennie and the Jets are again invoked. Reasons for this are unclear.

Hey kids, plug into the faithless
Maybe they're blinded
But Bennie makes them ageless
The singer is again turning his attention to the same group of minors. This time he calls upon them to use an object, such as a cork or a wad of cloth, to fill tightly a hole of those who are described as disloyal, unreliable, and having no religious faith. He makes a supposition that these people -- into whom the plugging is to be performed -- have been deprived of sight. Bennie, however, is making these people exist forever in an unchanged stage. (The cause-effect of this part of the song is a bit questionable.)

We shall survive, let us take ourselves along
Where we fight our parents out in the streets
To find who's right and who's wrong
The singer is concluding his speech by stating that he and the children (we) will remain alive and continue to function or prosper. He's encouraging them to take themselves to a place where they can contend in battle or physical combat in the public ways (or thoroughfares in a city or town) with the people who have begotten them. The purpose of this hostile activity is to determine which party is being in accordance with what is just, good, or proper and which is not.

The end.


And then we have this version. (h/t @ThaiFoodBlog):

Stop Thoughting and Start FedExing

The Thai language is, in many ways, one of the easiest languages in the world to learn. Its grammatical structure is dead simple, requiring little more than the ability to string uninflected words together in the right order. No conjugation. No tenses. No persons. No genders. No voices. No cases. No morphological changes whatsoever.

True, there are 44 letters and tons of vowels that go all over the place. You also need to be mindful of the tones in order to prevent misunderstanding. But that's about it. How hard is it to learn those two things?

If you think Thai is difficult, try Russian or Arabic.


When you grow up speaking a loosely-structured language such as Thai, the English grammar can present a challenge. I once lived a hellish life trying to master the general rules of English grammar while committing to memory the 100,765 exceptions to those rules. The quality of my life drastically increased only when I stopped caring.

But lately I’ve come to see that somewhere in the midst of the iffy rules and regulations of the English language, especially the American English, lies freedom as vast as an ocean. I just didn’t see it before. Let me explain.

I was there when this happened. A father, whose first language isn't English, was confronting his son, whose first language is English, about something the latter had done.

“Why did you …… blah blah blah …?” The annoyed father inquired. Attempting to justify his action, the son explained, “But I thought I could ….. blah blah blah …!”
“I told you not to …. blah blah blah …!” The father was relentless.
The son stuck to his formula, “But I thought you said I could … blah blah blah …!”

The dialogue continued in this manner for a few more minutes until the father couldn’t take any more of the son’s ignorance plea. Grabbing his temples in exasperation, the father made audible the sentence he made up in his head, “You thought, you thought, you thought, you thought, you thought. STOP THOUGHTING!!!!”

Complete silence befell the room. A few seconds later, we all burst out laughing. What makes it funny is that, "stop thoughting" made perfect sense to all involved; "Stop thinking" would have been grammatically correct, but it would not have conveyed the intended meaning.

From that day forward, I have come to see the English language in a totally new light. Ah, the freedom of being able to mess up the grammar royally while making perfect sense.

Still not appreciative of the freedom of English? How about this? Any noun can be verbalized. It’s not always right, appropriate, or even allowed. But it rarely fails to communicate. In addition to the verbalization of nouns, there is the nominalization of verbs. As if that wasn't enough fun, there is also a huge assortment of prefixes and suffixes at your disposal with which you can use to create pretty much anything you want.

Here's an example. Let's create all kinds of stuff with the brand name FedEx.

I am going to FedEx a package to my cousin.
This is because he said to me that he wanted the package FedExed to him.
While my cousin is an avid FedExer, there are times when he under-FedExes for various reasons. But even in the state of hypoFedExation, he still outFedExes anyone in the state of Illinois.
In fact, his over-FedExing has earned him the title, John the FedExist, in the family.
I guess if he could recruit a bunch of FedExists, he could totally become their archFedExist.
Me? I am an ex-FedExer. Hard to believe, because, in the old days, I FedExed so much I was once accused of hyperFedExing. But I'm now a UPS girl. Of course, I know that being kind of FedExish in their operation, UPS is a FedExoid; I just like their delivery guys' brown uniform.

Sure, my highly FedExous cousin has relentlessly tried to FedExize me, but it has never worked on this non-FedExer. My anti-FedExism is just as strong as his ultra-FedExism. Needless to say, I'm totally immune to his fervent FedExization.

It's kind of annoying. Why would you try to FedExate anyone? What are you, a FedExeer? Keep that up and people will think you're inflicted with FedExosis or something.

But I don't know. I mean, one of these days if the brown guys lose my packages, I may allow myself to be beFedExed by my FedExotic cousin. After all, I can see some of his points.
But if that happens, who knows how long that will last? In theory, that which is beFedExable can be deFedExable also. That means if I can be beFedExed, then I can also be deFedExed, right?

I love English. Do you?

Learning English Through Songs: A Horse with No Name

The commentary is in green.

A Horse with No Name (America, 1972)

On the first part of the journey
I was looking at all the life
There were plants and birds and rocks and things
There was sand and hills and rings
During the initial stage of his journey, the singer was looking at various forms of living beings both in the animal and plant kingdoms. Geological objects and unidentified miscellaneous items were also being observed.

The first thing I met was a fly with a buzz
And the sky with no clouds
The heat was hot and the ground was dry
But the air was full of sound
The singer chanced upon a type of buzzing insect while noticing the absence of clouds in the sky. He also made a redundant statement about the heat being hot. The ground appeared parched, he says, and the atmosphere was audible.

I've been through the desert on a horse with no name
It felt good to be out of the rain
The singer is now reporting that, at that point, he had been traveling through a wilderness on a nameless equestrian animal, and that being away from the rain made for a good feeling.

In the desert you can* remember your name
'Cause there ain't no one for to give you no pain
The singer is now stating what he perhaps believes to be gnomic truth through the use of the impersonal "you." Cause: There is nobody who inflicts pain upon anyone (in the desert) --> Effect: one can remember one's name in the desert. This statement could be a deeply sublime statement of truth; it could also be a non sequitur statement.

La la la la la
La la la la la
La la la la la
La la la la la
The horse-borne singer is now uttering a series of the untranslatable particle "la." The purpose of this remains unknown. It is quite probable that this is a joyous expression of the lack of pain previously referred to. It could be his way of avoiding the question as to what exactly he was talking about in the previous verse.

After two days in the desert sun
My skin began to turn red
The singer is reporting that he was experiencing a severe case of sunburn two days into the journey.

After three days in the desert fun
I was looking at a river bed
The singer is reporting that he was noticing the bed of the river three days into the fun-filled journey.

And the story it told of a river that flowed
Made me sad to think it was dead
The bed of the river gave him the impression that this used to be a river that once flowed and was now dead. This depressed him.

You see I've been through the desert on a horse with no name
It felt good to be out of the rain
In the desert you can* remember your name
'Cause there ain't no one for to give you no pain
As if he wasn't sure whether we believed him the first time, the singer is now reiterating the point he has made previously, i.e. he was experiencing no pain because 1. being out of the rain gave him a good feeling, 2. there was no one in the desert to give him, or anyone else for that matter, any pain (this is also the reason why one can remember one's name when one is wandering in the desert).

La la la la la
La la la la la
La la la la la
La la la la la
This is just a repeat of the unintelligible expression of joy.

After nine days I let the horse run free
'Cause the desert had turned to sea
After having wandered the desert for nine days, the singer is telling us that he parted way with the horse. The animal, he said, became useless now that the desert had become a sea.

There were plants and birds and rocks and things
There was sand and hills and rings
In the midst of a drastic change in scenery, certain things remained the same. The singer recalled seeing the same geological objects he had seen prior to the miraculous transfiguration of the desert.

The ocean is a desert with its life underground
And a perfect disguise above
The singer is opining that the ocean (which he saw?) was in actuality a desert with subterranean life. This, he says, is not apparent to the eye as it has been perfectly modified in both its manner and appearance in order to prevent recognition.

Under the cities lies a heart made of ground
But the humans will give no love
The singer is now apparently changing the subject to what he believes to be lying under multiple unidentified cities, i.e. a heart that is made of one of these materials listed in the noun section of this page. He contrasts the previous statement with the fact that multiple unidentified human beings will not generate a deep, tender, ineffable feeling of affection.

You see I've been through the desert on a horse with no name
It felt good to be out of the rain
In the desert you can remember your name
'Cause there ain't no one for to give you no pain

La la la la la
La la la la la
La la la la la
La la la la la
...
vide supra

*People can't decide whether it's "can" or "can't" here. The Water Buffalo says, when in doubt, err on the side of positivity.

Nominalization in English Can Be Tricky

Nominalization = Turning a verb or an adjective into a noun.

The process is fairly straightforward for the native speakers of English. You take a verb or an adjective and make a noun out of it.

In some cases, this can even be done without any morphological changes.
For example:
A - How could you insult (verb) him like that?
B - What?! You've got to be kidding me. That was an insult (noun)?! It was supposed to be a compliment!

There are no morphological differences between "insult" as a noun and "insult" as a verb. Other than the context, the only thing that sets the two apart is the accent shift: ínsult (n) vs. insúlt (v). Other examples include conduct (n) vs. conduct (v), progress (n) vs. progress (v), etc.

Most of the time, though, you see some changes. Speakers of English as an additional language (SEALs) with fairly advanced level of English competency are well aware of the various prefixal morphemes employed in the process of transforming adjectives and verbs into nouns.
dependent (adj) vs. dependence (n)
distant (adj) vs. distance (n)
generous (adj) vs. generosity (n)
remove (v) vs. removal (n)
depress (v) vs. depression (n)
consume (v) vs. consumption (n)
pronounce (v) vs. pronunciation (n)

Advanced SEALs are even aware of the trickier shifts in pronunciation and/or spelling in the process of nominalization - something that even some native speakers of English have not mastered.
Examples:
halve (v) vs. half (n)
bathe (v) vs. bath (n)
advise (v) vs. advice (n)
marinate (v) vs. marinade (n)
prophesy (v) vs. prophecy (n)

However, some SEALs, especially those in the basic level, often have a hard time with some verb-noun pairs that are etymologically related or morphologically similar but not used to denote the same meaning.
For example, consider these two verb-noun pairs:
deliver (v) vs. delivery (n)
deliver (v) vs. deliverance (n)
The first pair mostly occurs in the context that involves the post office or men in brown uniform driving around in brown trucks; the second pair is used a lot in religious texts. Most native speakers usually take this for granted until they hear someone who speaks little English talk about the miraculous delivery of the children of Israel from the hands of the Egyptians or how impressed they are with their UPS guy for the timely deliverance of their Amazon package.

Right part of speech; wrong word choice.

What about this pair: ignore (v) vs. ignorance (n)? This is a case of words of related etymology which have come to have different meanings in the current usage of the English language. You don't think this should present an issue for SEALs, but it sometimes does. Well, you've got appear/appearance, accept/acceptance, etc., right? So don't be surprised if a SEAL says to you, "Brad has been telephoning me every night and I've been ignoring him. Do you think he will understand that my ignorance of his calls means I'm not interested?"

Sometimes, mistakes stem from making a noun out of the wrong part of speech. I have witnessed several occurrences of misnominalization. Have you heard of the noun, "participance"? Here's how it came into existence:
We have three words here: participate, participation, participant. A participant of X is one who participates in X. Or you can say that one's participation in X makes one a participant of X. As mentioned above, nominalization stems from either a verb or an adjective. In this case, it is clear to those who know English well that participation (n) is the result of the nominalization of its verbal counterpart, participate. It would be silly to nominalize "participant" for it already is a noun.

What makes it tricky for some beginner SEALs is that the word "participant" looks a lot to them like an adjective even though, intellectually, they may know that it is a noun. There's something about the ending -ant that opens in some SEALs a floodgate of recollections of nouns ending with -ance which have been built on adjectival bases ending with -ant, e.g. distant-distance, vigilant-vigilance, important-importance. It may not make sense to you, but to some of us something like, "the host of the event was very encouraged by the enthusiastic participance of all participants," sounds perfectly fine.

Reliant-reliance. Arrogant-arrogance. Compliant-compliance. What else? Fire hydrant-fire hydrance.

In case you're wondering, this post was inspired by a letter I'd received from a friend in Czech Republic who solemnly shared with me his feeling about wanting to stay in one place for a long time instead of moving around wherever work would take him: "In my childhood, I and my parents moved to many places very much, and I always thought to myself that in my adultery I would not do the same."

Can you retrace his steps leading to "adultery"? This is very easy if you were once a beginner SEAL.

There's more to be said about this topic. But this is all for now.