Lexical Gap: Noun for 'Ridiculous'

When we make up new words, our motivation is typically that we have an idea to express but do not have a word for it; thus, we have a lexical gap--a gap where the precise word we are looking for should be. Sometimes lexical gaps are legitimate ones (i.e., our language truly does not have a word to express what we would like to express). Oftentimes, though, lexical gaps are speaker-dependent. There is a word in our language that would work--we just don't know about it, or it doesn't quite sound right for the situation.

For example, the other day I was driving down the road and got stuck behind someone going a good 15 mph below the speed limit. I couldn't go around the car because I needed to stay in the right lane so that I could make a right turn into a parking lot. The car in front of me was already going slow--in and of itself a frustrating experience--but as we got closer to where I needed to turn, the car in front of me kept going slower and slower and slower... until I shouted, "Enough of this ridiculosity!" Yes, road rage gets the best of us. Not only did I shout in my car at the driver in front of me, but I also experienced a momentary lexical gap in my vocabulary.

After my outburst, I started a conversation with myself (I was alone in the car) that went something like this:

Hmm... Ridiculosity doesn't sound like a real word. But what is the noun form of ridiculous? I'm fairly sure we have one because we'd need a noun to describe a ridiculous situation without using complex phrases full of modifiers when one word could sum it all up. The go-to suffix for making nouns tends to be -ness, so is ridiculousness the word I'm looking for? Well, that just sounds ridiculous. There's far too many s sounds in a row for that to be a good word. Ridiculousness... ridiculosity. I like ridiculosity better, but something is telling me ridiculousness is actually the word.

When I got home, I went to my handy Mac dictionary, and--sure enough--ridiculousness is, in fact, the noun form of the adjective ridiculous. However, I think we should start a campaign that any adjective ending in -ous should form its noun counterpart by using the -ity suffix (thus changing the -ous to simply -os when spelling out the whole word). Words like ridiculousness, incredulousness, and marvelousness just sound wrong. Don't ridiculosity, incredulosity, and marvelosity just sound better?

Robert Ornstein's THE RIGHT MIND

When people think of language and the brain, they often refer solely to the left hemisphere of the brain because that is where the identified language centers reside (e.g., Wernicke's Area, Broca's Area). However, it would be a mistake for anyone to think that you need only the left hemisphere to communicate and use language. Robert Ornstein's book The Right Mind reminds us why we need the right hemisphere just as much--if not, perhaps, more--than we need the left hemisphere for things like using language and making logical decisions (both aspects associated primarily with the left hemisphere).

Ornstein's style of writing is not terminology-laden, so even people who have never studied cognitive science or anatomy or neuroscience or [fill in the blank with another relevant field here] will be able to pick up the book and read about the wonders of the right hemisphere. The chapters have fun names to go with the interesting topics like "The Run of Dichotomania," "Wit or Half-Wit?" and "An Avalanche in the Human Brain."

Throughout the book, Ornstein uses examples from psychological and linguistic experiments, patients with brain damage, and general observations to demonstrate that while the left hemisphere may be responsible for language at its core, the right hemisphere is necessary for being able to understand context, which allows us to form the "big picture" of our world. In other words, the left hemisphere helps us see the individual trees, but the right hemisphere allows us to see the entire forest. Through Ornstein's examples, you begin to see that a world without context is one without true understanding.

If you're interested in understand more about how our brains process language, I highly recommend getting your hands on a copy of The Right Mind.

Live on Twitter!

After more than one request, I have turned the fictional "SFALingProf" Twitter account from the posters I've put up around campus into a real one. You can join in on the fun by following me on Twitter, either by clicking on the Follow Me button in the right-hand sidebar or by going to Twitter and searching for my username (SFALingProf).

Why aren't 341 and 438 showing up on the Fall 2010 schedule?

In Fall 2009, I was ecstatic that my colleagues of the Department of English approved all the new linguistics courses I had proposed. Little did I know that the departmental approval would only be the first step in a long journey...

After the department approved the courses, the courses were passed up to the College Council; once they approved the courses, the courses were passed up to the College of Liberal and Applied Arts for approval. After getting approved three times, they got passed again, this time to the Provost and then again to the Board of Regents.

The courses have passed all those stages of approval, and yet they are not showing up on the fall schedule. Why? Because they still have to get a stamp of approval at the state level (and three different state levels, at that).

What does all this mean to you? It means that those linguistics courses with new course numbers (ENG 341: Introduction to Linguistics and ENG 438: Forensic Linguistics) are not showing up on the official Fall 2010 course schedule. But are they going to be offered in the fall? YES!

While 341 and 438 will be offered in the fall, it will most likely be around summer before those courses get all the appropriate stamps and get put onto the schedule. That means you won't be able to register for those courses until then--you can't register for a course not showing up on the schedule.

The poster you'll see around the department to advertise the "missing" courses.

If you are interested in taking 341 and/or 438, please reserve a spot in your fall schedule for the course and register as soon as it appears on the schedule. I will post again (here on this blog) when the courses are officially up, so you can check back here for updated information.

ENG 341: Introduction to Linguistics MWF 10:00-10:50

ENG 438: Forensic Linguistics TR 9:30-10:45

I realize this delay is a bit of a pain (okay, more than just a "bit" of a pain), but please don't disregard these courses because of the hiccup in getting them on the official registrar's schedule. We are really excited to be offering so many linguistics courses in the fall and appreciate all the student support we are getting. Please help spread the word about these "invisible" courses so that they will fill when they make their way to the schedule.

Forensic Linguistics and the Facebook Killer

For anyone asking what forensic linguistics is or what forensic linguists do, you should watch Dr. John Olsson's YouTube video. His video documents the types of comparisons and critical analysis necessary to work with forensic linguistic investigations of language use.

Watching the video will give you a sense of what types of information you can get from language, the types of conclusions you can draw about language use, and how critical analyses of language can help in investigations.



You may have noticed that Dr. Olsson's conclusion was that Chapman "could not be excluded from the authorship of the later texts sent from the teenager's phone." On the surface, that may sound like a vague conclusion, yet it was important to the case. Why do you think such a conclusion was important? Furthermore, why do you think it would not be possible for Dr. Olsson's conclusion to be that Chapman was definitely the author of the text message?

If this video sparks interest for you, you might want to think about taking ENG 438: Forensic Linguistics in the fall.

Good for a Laugh

As everyone at SFA is getting ready for a five-day weekend, I want to send you home with a linguistic jewel straight from the headlines:

I can't take credit for this Leno-worthy headline. Thank you to SPOGG for finding and posting such a headline.

English is a great language for humorous headlines because of its ability to flout ambiguity. The ambiguity in the headline above is one caused by the word package, which as you all undoubtedly know has more than one meaning (and the intended meaning is not the first one we English speakers tend to think of). That type of ambiguity is semantic (or lexical) ambiguity--it is ambiguous because a word/phrase has more than one meaning.

Sometimes, though, sentences (or headlines) are ambiguous because the structure is ambiguous: "Children Cook & Serve Grandparents" (this was a headline featured on Jay Leno). The ambiguity starts with the verb cook, which could take a direct object (I cooked the turkey) or could appear as an intransitive verb (I cooked). The ambiguity then continues with the verb serve, which could take an object that is being served (I served the turkey to my guests) or could take an object indicating the servees (I served the guests). When you put the two together, it's literally a recipe for disaster for a headline.

Another famous ambiguous headline is from WWII: "The Fifth Army Push Bottles Up Germans." What kind of ambiguity do you think that is?

As you're on a break, peruse newspapers and send me any fun headlines you find--I'll feature them in a blog posting.

Note on Course Schedules

First, I'd like to thank everyone who participated in the poll on the choices for courses in Fall 2010. Every choice got at least one vote, so it's nice to know we're thinking of course options that students are actually interested in. I'm not all that optimistic in the poll counter's ability to compile statistics, though; if anyone else bothered to add up the percentages, you noticed that 170% of the votes were accounted for. Hmmm... I may not be a mathematician, but that sounds a little suspect.

The two more advanced linguistic courses being offered in the fall are Forensic Linguistics and Psycholinguistics (which is being run as a Topics in Linguistics course). You may have seen the posters floating around LAN and Ferguson to that effect (I'm including the poster images in this blog post--some people seem to like my posters and have been stealing them off walls... Please leave them up until after registration has ended!).

Second, some of you may have looked at the online version of the fall schedule and noticed that two linguistics courses are missing for the fall: ENG 341: Introduction to Linguistics and ENG 438: Forensic Linguistics. Those courses are being offered under brand new numbers, so the numbers for those courses don't exist in the school's system quite yet. Our department chair is hard at work to fix the situation, so please don't worry if you don't see those two courses on the schedule. They are indeed on the departmental schedule of courses to offer in the fall--there are just extra steps the department has to take to get them recognized by the school's scheduling system since the course numbers are new ones.

Third, I am quite pleased with the amount of response I've been getting from students about the fall courses; however, I'd like to remind you all that the fall courses can only be offered if students actually register for them. As registration draws nearer, please remember that only courses that fill can run. If you're excited about a course offering, tell other students about the course; if you know a student who might be interested in a linguistics course, tell them what's being offered. In other words, please help spread the word around campus.

While I am only advertising Introduction to Linguistics, Forensic Linguistics, and Psycholinguistics through posters, there will also be three sections of ENG 344: Structures of English offered for those students who need that course.

And, finally, I don't want to forget to mention the summer courses being offered.

There will be a section of Structures offered for each Summer Session, and during Summer Session I, we will be offering our first ever (as far as I know) graduate-level linguistics course.

In the next few weeks, I'll be doing as much as possible to promote these courses to make sure they fill, and I'll also be promoting the new Linguistics Minor to make students aware of that option. I've even considered wearing one of those sandwich board signs with linguistics posters on them around campus... but I think that might be a tad too conspicuous (even for me).