This morning, while waiting in the barn for today’s Zoom yoga session to start, I gathered up a few word books in the general realm of American English and one fell open to a map of isoglosses, which immediately called to mind a song written Donkey’s Years ago by my dear friend Ken Stallcup, who said that he got one good song out of every career. I quarried the mind for all that I could remember of the text as I lay on the mat, and here it is (there might be verses I haven’t remembered, indeed I hope there are…):
\n
Anthropologist pen in hand
\nNow you’re standing here on my land
\nYou to me are but a passing breeze
\nKroeber, Lowie, Leach and Levi-Strauss
\nand even Malinowski have stayed in my house,
\nNow that you’ve got your data, where’s my pay?<\/p>\n
Dialects run along isogloss bundles
\nLeaving little wavy lines across the land
\nAnd everybody knows they must be documented carefully
\nFron the Andaman Islands to the Rhenish Fan<\/p>\n
\nAcademics flow in a circular motion
\nHurrying and scurrying across the Earth
\nWith money from Ford and it’s all very interesting
\nBut other than that, tell me what is it worth?
\nOther than that, tell me what is it worth?
\n<\/center>
\nI’m contemplating a heap of books on American English and on dialects thereof and trying to figure out how to make an efficient and interesting summary of their whats and whys, via comparisons and tasty extracts. How is one to make sense of these riches, thousands of pages of words and analysis and commentary, difficult of access and best consumed in sporadic tastings, not in epic bouts of reading? The collection or more exactly collocation would be perfect for bit-by-bit consumption in the Locale of Easement, but for the unwieldy format of the Large Book. A cleverly designed hinged or rolling desk might be the solution, but would perhaps not meet with universal enthusiasm if constructed and installed as a fixture in the Smallest Room. Perhaps a Dictionary Alcove built onto the side of the house…<\/p>\n
\nAt work upon several future posts in these realms.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
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