words, words, words

Q. How do you pronounce this word: fiancée?

A. Paul Fussell says in the book Class that emphasizing the last syllable is middle class and "ridiculous" (Fussell sees the American middle class as being defined primarily by its embarrassing and futile efforts to appear more upper class—pretentiousness, in other words), whereas Bryan Garner says in A Dictionary of Modern American Literature that emphasizing the last syllable is "U" and emphasizing the second syllable is "Non-U" (meaning upper class and not upper class). Merriam–Webster puts the emphasis on the last syllable, Dictionary.com thinks the last and the middle are both legitimate but puts the last-syllable pronunciation first, and the OED puts the emphasis on the first syllable.

So it looks as if one of the following is true: (1) Fussell was confused (he did seem to think that fiancé was a middle-class term for boyfriend), (2) Fussell was blinded by a prejudice against properly pronounced French (it seems he may not know how to pronounce any French words himself, as evidenced by his listing the middle-class pronunciation "craypes" for crêpes as an example of people's showing off their correct French pronunciation), (3) Fussell was right that the upper class did or does pronounce the word with the emphasis on the second syllable, although the fact that Garner and the OED agree on it makes me doubt that, or finally (4) Fussell, who did not say how the word should in fact be pronounced (only how it shouldn't), agrees with the OED, feeling that the word should be pronounced FEE-on-say rather than fee-on-SAY, and wouldn't like fee-ON-say either.

Now is as good a time to any to mention to people that a man never has a fiancé unless he's gay. Or I guess unless he's pretending to be gay, as in this summer's eagerly awaited art-house crossover film, Brokeback Mountain 2: Reverse Cowgirl. [Note: This joke does not actually make sense.]

Crêpes.

Q. How about banal? How do you pronounce that one?

A. The OED lists the rhyming-with-anal pronunciation as "older" and wants us to pronounce the word instead as buh-nahl (with the second syllable rhyming with the A in palm), Merriam-Webster prefers that the word rhyme with canal but also acknowledges the OED's preferred pronunciation and the rhyming with anal, and Dictionary.com likes it in this (descending) order: canal, rhymes-with-anal, OED. So I'd say the OED pronunciation is fine and dandy if that's what you already say, but the preferred American pronunciation seems to be the one that rhymes with canal.*

The Panama Canal.

Q. What does autological mean?

A. Huh, that's sort of a random question. A word is autological if it has the property it denotes. For example, polysyllabic, being itself polysyllabic, is autological because it can be used to describe itself. Other examples include, unhyphenated, pronounceable, abstract, nonpalindromic, and adjectival.

The opposite is heterological: the word monosyllabic is polysyllabic and therefore not autological, but/therefore it is heterological. (Most words are going to be heterological: like hairy and well-dressed.**) Got it?

Q. Yeah, actually I knew that.

A. What, are you testing me?

Q. No, I have a question about the word and wanted to sort of, you know, set it up first.

A. Is the question whether autological is autological?

Q. Why, yes! That's exactly what I was going to ask.

A. Well, let's take a look. First let's see whether heterological is heterological. That question is basically a restatement of Russell's Paradox and therefore maybe more the domain of Dr. Math, but as my old grandpappy used to say, "Fuck Dr. Math!"

Hairy and well dressed? Fuck Dr. Math.

1. Again, a word is heterological if and only if it cannot reasonably be used to describe itself. For example, psoriatic is heterological if psoriatic is not itself psoriatic. (And since no word suffers from any kind of skin disease, psoriatic is therefore heterological.) To put it as a general rule, any word W is heterological if W is not itself W.
2. Therefore, heterological is heterological if heterological is not heterological.
3. Uh-oh!

If something is true only if it is false, then you have run into a kind of feedback loop like the one caused by the statement, "This statement is false": if it is false, then it is true, in which case it is false, in which case it is true, in which case it is false. In which case it is true.

Yes?

So heterological cannot be heterological if it is heterological, but then if it is not, then it is. Which means that it is not.***

Q. What about my question, which was whether autological is autological?

A. I've been told that this question is simple and poses no logical problems at all, and yet somehow I find it to be something of a mindfuck. Maybe I'm just sort of dumb.

Let's see:

1. A word is autological if and only if it can reasonably be used to describe itself. For example, psoriatic is autological if psoriatic is itself psoriatic. (And since no word suffers from any kind of skin disease, psoriatic is therefore not autological.) To put it as a general rule, any word W is autological if W is itself W.
2. Therefore, autological is autological if autological is autological.
3. Um...?

"Is pentasyllabic autological?" means "Is pentasyllabic a word that has five syllables?"—so all you need to do then is count the syllables. (Answer: yes, therefore pentasyllabic is autological.) But "Is autological autological?" translates into "Is autological a word that has the property it denotes?"—so what do we do then? It appears that we have simply asked the question again with no addition of information: it is if it is.

My sense is that there's no way to "unpack" the question: it's like some kind of logical fractal. Am I missing something?

The Sierpinski Gasket

Tune in next week for more...Random-Ass Bunkum!™

* Note: Alt85 fave the American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language is left out here because I actually wrote most of this in like 2005, in an e-mail. Yeah, you heard me: in an e-mail. (This is actually what I think about, and how I think about it! Save me!)

** It's useful to limit these to adjectives. In fact it may be the case that autological and heterological are necessarily adjectival...not sure about that.

*** So it is.^a

^a So it isn't.***