In the Wall Street Journal today there was a great article about the Dictionary of American Regional English. The man responsible for this dictionary cataloging American regionalisms, Frederic Cassidy, died in 2000 at age 92, having gotten to the Os. [Does that remind you of another big dictionary that is being written?] Finally Volume V is being published, to finish off the dictionary.

It intrigued me to hear that there are 174 names for dust bunnies (sound familiar, Alaskans?)...from frog hair to cussywops to woofinpoofs to ghost manure. I've got to say, I rather like the latter.

Funny, most of our dust bunnies seem to have dog and cat hair. And we never find any playboy bunnies under the couch! Oh, welllll... They're probably all at Proofreader's house.

Dust bunnies aggravate but playboy bunnies suck.

I wonder if Huge Heifer knows that bunnies are coprophages?

I came across the term "cowboy caviar" and looked it up to find this.

Does anyone have the book cited, the "Dictionary of American Regional English?" It sounds good!

I rather like cussywops.

Does anyone have the book cited

I have the first two volumes. It is a great reference dictionary.

I think I will buy it then.

I have the first two volumes of gthe Historical Dictionary of American Slang, which has apparently decided not to go beyond "O" for some reason.

Oprah probably paid them to stop there.

On a MacDonald's cup today: piping cold.

Is that phrase actually possible?
Here is the entymology of piping hot, which seems to be the only legitimate connection with piping.

Clearly piping cold doesn't work.

Was it on a cold cup or what kind of a cup?

piping cold

It seems ordinary enough to me that piping (which has changed a lot over its tenure as an English word) can come to mean 'very' rather than 'extremely hot'. If you insist on the latter meaning, then you have the faux horror of a tautology. That to one side, I liked the term.

Isn't it McDonald's that describe their apple pies on their menus with the standing epithet piping hot?

I'm rather less accepting than zmj of the use of piping to mean "very". One might as well say "boiling hot".

I suppose it could be an attempt to convey the fact that the cup can be used for hot or cold liquids, but I suspect I'm attributing too much to either McDonald's or their patrons' intelligence. If it is such an attempt, it failed miserably.

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quote:

Originally posted by arnie:
One might as well say "boiling hot".

Indeed one might.

One might as well say "boiling hot".

At least the meaning of boiling is obvious to a speaker of English from the meaning of a verb to boil. Piping is not so transparent in its meaning.

quote:

Originally posted by BobHale:

quote:

Originally posted by arnie:
One might as well say "boiling hot".

Indeed one might.

AARGHH! I made a mess of that, didn't I? I meant to say "boiling cold".

I like zmj's point that if you complain about piping cold, it follows that piping hot is redundant, because the meaning of "hot" is already part of piping. Therefore, piping hot is Wrong.

It seems to me that McDonald's is using language creatively to get attention.

This message has been edited. Last edited by: goofy,

I meant to say "boiling cold".

FWIW, I have seen liquid nitrogen boiling, and it's damned cold.

McDonald's is using language creatively to get attention.

Shades of the "what do you want good grammar or good taste" Winston's ad campaign of the '60s. Too bad Micky Dee couldn't invest a little time and money in making their product better.

quote:

FWIW, I have seen liquid nitrogen boiling, and it's damned cold.

Relative to the ambient temperature but, for its state, it's hot.

quote:

Relative to the ambient temperature but, for its state, it's hot.

Well, I'm no physicist, but I understand that water will boil in a vacuum.

Relative to the ambient temperature but, for its state, it's hot.

Yes, but when I say a liquid is hot, I mean relative to my mouth. I don't think I would say piping cold myself, but I thought it was a cute conceit. I doubt that it will have an impact on the language in the long run.

Peevers seem to believe that all language change is bad and that bad language somehow infects otherwise goodly speakers causing them to say bad things, etc. And that in the end, bad language will devolve to the point that nobody can say or write anything, which is preposterous. Old English is a entirely different language from Present-day English, but it is no less good or expressive or what-have-you. French is not Latin, especially it is not bad Latin. It's just another language that happens to be related to Latin.

piping cold
Going back to this, I saw a similar usage today in my paper, reported as a "Cute things children say" item.

A six-year-old, in a car with his mother on a foggy day with snow on the ground, remarked that it was "pitch white".

He's obviously not heard of the black tar-like substance so mistook the word "pitch" to be a sort of intensifier.

Oh, I kinda like "pitch white."

Of course, there is this.