Friends, Notifications, And the Void

Posted by Victor Mair

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Kim Jong-Un has a mission to eliminate bourgeois, foreign, and southern terminology. This story in the Daily Mail by Sabrina Penty, citing the Daily NK, is hardly scholarly, but it gives some examples, and there are other stories online. The Metro in the UK reported that "I love you" (discovered in a love letter during a routine Big-Brother check by the Socialist Patriotic Youth League) was subject to severe state criticism. "Hamburger" has to be called something else (dajin-gogi gyeopppang [double bread with ground beef]) in Korean. "Karaoke" is too Japanese (try "on-screen accompaniment machines" instead). But the most interesting ban was on the phrase "ice cream" ("aiseukeurim 아이스크림). Kim wants it replaced by eseukimo. But doesn't this show that the dear leader is weak on etymology?  Isn't it transparently a Koreanized borrowing of English eskimo?  

"Eskimo" raises all sorts of questions:

Attested since 1584, from French Esquimau, ultimately from an Old Montagnais term. Ives Goddard's theory, accepted by most linguists today, is that it derives from Montagnais ayaškimew (“snowshoe-netter”). An older theory, defended by John Steckley due to its greater acceptance in Native oral traditions, but discredited^[3] by linguists, is that it derives from a term meaning "eater(s) of raw meat".

(Wiktionary)

Usage Note: Eskimo has long been criticized as an offensive term, and many Americans either avoid it or feel uncomfortable using it. In Canada, where Eskimo is especially frowned on, the only acceptable term is Inuit, and Americans have generally come to prefer this name too, knowing it to be a term of ethnic pride. But it is not always understood that Inuit cannot substitute for Eskimo in all cases, being restricted in proper usage to the Inuit-speaking peoples of Arctic Canada and parts of Greenland. In southwest Alaska and Arctic Siberia, where Inuit is not spoken, the comparable term is Yupik, which has not gained as wide a currency in English as Inuit. While use of these more specific terms is generally preferable when speaking of the appropriate linguistic group, none of them can be used of the Eskimoan peoples as a whole; the only inclusive term remains Eskimo. · The claim that Eskimo is offensive is often supported by citing a popular etymology tracing its origin to an Abenaki word meaning "eaters of raw meat." Though modern linguists speculate that the term may actually derive from a Montagnais word referring to the manner of lacing a snowshoe, the matter remains undecided, and meanwhile many English speakers have learned to perceive Eskimo as a derogatory term invented by outsiders in scornful reference to their neighbors' eating habits. See Usage Note at Inuit.

(American Heritage Dictionary 5th ed.)

See also Wikipedia for extensive notes on "eskimo" as an exonym, recent theories about its etymology, and examples of its usage,

One thing is certain, eseukimo. doesn't mean "ice cream", except in the dear leader's febrile mind.

Selected readings

• "In North Korea, it's a dire crime to speak like a South Korean, part 2" (7/3/23)
• "In North Korea, it's a dire crime to speak like a South Korean" (4/21/23)
• "Hockey language divergence between North Korea and South Korea" (2/11/18)
• "Some remarks from North Korea on language" (Pinyin News [12/13/07])
• "Ban loan words, says North Korea" (Pinyin News [12/19/08])
• "'Bad' borrowings in North Korean" (12/3/16)
• "Is Korean diverging into two languages?" (11/6/14)
• "Is Korean diverging into two languages?, part 2" (5/4/22)

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Posted by Mark Liberman

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Breffni O'Rourke sent a link to a current news story with the headline "'Ludicrous' professors cannot be appointed – ATU President". It starts:

The inability of Technological Universities to appoint professors is causing significant regional imbalance that needs to be urgently addressed, according to the President of Atlantic Technological University (ATU), the largest university outside of Dublin.

Reading the full article, we learn that 'ludicrous' is quoted from ATU president Dr. Orla Flynn's complaint about the fact that "the greater Dublin region has approximately 370 professors", while bureaucratic sluggishness (or regional prejudice?) means that "There are zero in the north west and in other regions of Ireland":

"It’s ludicrous to think that we can’t appoint professors to lead the research programmes associated with those programmes like every other university in Europe".

So the professors in question are not ludicrous — in fact they don't exist.

As usual, we need to note that the headline is not the responsibility of the journalist who wrote the story, in this case  Shane Ó Curraighín.

The obligatory screenshot:

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Posted by Mark Liberman

https://languagelog.ldc.upenn.edu/nll/?p=71244&utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=word-of-the-week-curtfishing

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From Astral Codex Ten:

Something is off about this Bay Area House Party. There are . . . women.

“I’ve never seen a gender balance like this in the Bay Area,” you tell your host Chris. “Is this one of those fabled ratio parties?”

“No – have you heard of curtfishing? It’s the new male dating trend. You say in your Bumble profile that you’re a member of the Dissident Right who often attends parties with Curtis Yarvin. Then female journos ask you out in the hopes that you’ll bring them along and they can turn it into an article.”

“What happens when they realize Curtis Yarvin isn’t at the party?”

“Oh, everyone pools their money and hires someone to pretend to be Curtis. You can just do things. Today it’s Ramchandra.”

Curtfishing obviously plays off of catfishing:, which Wikipedia tells us

refers to the creation of a fictitious online persona, or fake identity (typically on social networking platforms), with the intent of deception, usually to mislead a victim into an online romantic relationship or to commit financial fraud

There's more fun stuff in the "Bay Area House Party" article, so by all means read the whole thing, despite its length. And then there's

[previously in series: 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7]

Update — The origin of the term "catfishing", discussed in 2013 by Ben Zimmer and Aisha Harris, is not obvious. At least, my guess would have been wrong. They refer to a 1913 work that starts this way:

Before the hustling days of ice and of "cutters" rushing to and fro between Billingsgate and our fleets of steam-trawlers on the Dogger Bank, most sailing trawlers and long-line fishing-boats were built with a large tank in their holds, through which the sea flowed freely. Dutch eel-boats are built so still, and along the quays of Amsterdam and Copenhagen you may see such tanks in fishing-boats of almost every kind. Our East Coast fishermen kept them chiefly for cod. They hoped thus to bring the fish fresh and good to market, for, unless they were overcrowded, the cod lived quite as contentedly in the tanks as in the open sea. But in one respect the fishermen were disappointed. They found that the fish arrived slack, flabby, and limp, though well fed and in apparent health.

Perplexity reigned (for the value of the catch was much diminished) until some fisherman of genius conjectured that the cod lived only too contentedly in those tanks, and suffered from the atrophy of calm. The cod is by nature a lethargic, torpid, and plethoric creature, prone to inactivity, content to lie in comfort, swallowing all that comes, with cavernous mouth wide open, big enough to gulp its own body down if that could be. In the tanks the cod rotted at ease, rapidly deteriorating in their flesh. So, as a stimulating corrective, that genius among fishermen inserted one catfish into each of his tanks, and found that his cod came to market firm, brisk, and wholesome. Which result remained a mystery until his death, when the secret was published and a strange demand for catfish arose. For the catfish is the demon of the deep, and keeps things lively.

Update #2 — The OED is not convinced. Its "additional sense" for catfish (added 2023):

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