Digital Commons Network^™

Audacious Translation: Learning The Double Bind To Translate Spivak, Susan R. Adams

Scholarship and Professional Work – Education

In Chapter 12 of An Aesthetic Education in the Era of Globalization (2012), Spivak eludes apprehension, spurns comprehension, and resists neat translation as I, an American educator, feebly reaches and grasps to make sense of what is meant by an aesthetic education as Spivak translates the act of translation. Caught and othered in learning the double bind of translation, I find no answers, only new questions as I grope toward ways to conceptualize and to name this moment for language educators:

• Can and should the convenient genie of English as the language of power and globalization be pushed back into …

Observaciones Sobre El Estado Del Sonido Fricativo Palatal Sordo En El Español Salvadoreño., Alexander Quintanilla

Scholarship and Professional Work - LAS

In this work I discuss the current situation in the Spanish of El Salvador of the voiceless fricative palatal sound. The presence of this sound in Pipil, an orginal language already spoken in El Salvador before the Spaniards arrived, favored its maintenance in Salvadoran Spanish. Since Pipil is a language in extinction, some authors believe that this sound is also disappearing in Salvadoran Spanish. However, Pipil is not the only language with this sound that influences Salvadoran Spanish. Thus, we examine the linguistic distribution of this sound in El Salvador, the possible reasons of its maintenance and its implications for …

Computational Analysis Of The Body In European Fairy Tales, Scott Weingart, Jeana Jorgensen

Scholarship and Professional Work - LAS

This article explores how digital humanities research methods can be used to analyze the representations of gendered bodies in European fairy tales, a flexible and pervasive genre that has influenced Western children's education and acquisition of gender identity for centuries. By blending the theoretical and methodological concerns of folkloristics, gender studies, and large-scale scientific research, this article demonstrates the utility of cross-disciplinary collaboration in asking traditional questions of traditional materials with new methods. To facilitate this research, a hand-coded database listing every reference to a body or body part in the 233 fairy tales was created. Analysis revealed strong indications …

Sorting Out Donkey Skin (Atu 510b): Toward An Integrative Literal-Symbolic Analysis Of Fairy Tales, Jeana Jorgensen

Scholarship and Professional Work - LAS

This article debates the merits of fairy tale interpretive frameworks that privilege the psychological and symbolic, versus those that utilize a literal and feminist orientation. Using ATU 510B as a test case, for its intriguing blend of real-world elements and the fantastic, the author suggests that a synthesis of literal and symbolic theories allows for the fullest understanding of the polyvalent meanings of tale, which is particularly problematic due to its depictions of incest. Drawing examples from canonical as well as contemporary versions of ATU 510B, various psychoanalytic and feminist interpretations of the tale type are put to the test, …

On Hearing (Rather Than Reading) Intertextual Echoes: Christology And Monotheistic Scriptures In An Oral Context, James F. Mcgrath

Scholarship and Professional Work - LAS

While recent studies of the New Testament have found the methods of intertextuality and orality studies to be fruitful approaches, there has been insufficient interplay between the two. This article explores the capacity of hearers of texts to pick up on echoes of familiar texts, stories, and songs. Using as an example Paul’s interpretation of Scripture in connection with the topics of monotheism and Christology, the article suggests that, in the absence of explicit and emphatic statements of the difference or distinctiveness of his views, Paul’s allusions to key monotheistic texts would have been understood to indicate Paul’s agreement with …

Announcement: Best Book In Hindu-Christian Studies

Journal of Hindu-Christian Studies

THE Society for Hindu-Christian Studies announces Dualities: A Theology of Difference (Westminster John Knox Press, 2010) by Michelle Voss Roberts as the winner of its award, “Best Book in Hindu-Christian Studies-- Theology and Philosophy (2008-2011).”

Yoga's 'A-Theistic'-Theism: A New Way Of Thinking About God, Gerald J. Larson

Journal of Hindu-Christian Studies

I want to begin with two intriguing quotations. The first is a passage quoted by John Cottingham in his book, The Spiritual Dimension, in which he mentions what C. S. Pierce calls “abductive inference,” or “inference to the best explanation.” The passage is from Simon Blackburn’s book, Think.

Look Back!, A. Ross Eckler

Word Ways

Anagram dictionaries come in two versions, a reduced one consisting only of words containing anagrams (SLEUTH and HUSTLE), and a full one consisting of the conversion of each word in a list to its alphabetic ordering (ESCORT to CEORST), followed by the alphabetic ordering of the converted words.

A Poem, Martin Gardner

Word Ways

A short poem.

The Ladies' Diary, 18th Century English Almanacs, And One Frustrating Enigma, Ronnie B. Kon

Word Ways

In the November 2011 Word Ways, Jim Puder points out that the solution I found in the 1783 Ladies' Diary for Eliza Hurst's riddle ("an oven") could not be correct-not only did it make no sense in the context, but the number of answers given did not correspond to the number of questions asked in the 1782 Ladies' Diary. Jim is absolutely correct.

Happily, the correct answer has now been found, but in the process I learned a fair amount about 18th century British almanacs, some of which strikes me as being worth sharing.

Front Cover And Publication Information, Volume 45, Number 4

Word Ways

Front cover and publication information for this issue, including a table of contents

Colloquy

Word Ways

A collection of responses to previously published articles.

When The Name And The Game Are The Same, Richard Lederer

Word Ways

At the 2012 London Olympics, Usain Bolt, the jet-propelled Jamaican dash man, retained his title to as the fastest man ever to sprint upon our planet. The surname BOLT is wonderfully spot on and target perfect for a human flash, the electrifying holder of world records in the 100- and 200-meter dashes.

Eye Spoonerisms, . Anil

Word Ways

Spoonerisms by definition swap sounds, but when written they are often ANAGRAMS that also swap letters, like Spooner's alleged "a wining shit" for "a shining wit". EYE SPOONERIMS are word pairs that swap letters and look like Anagram Spooners but don't swap sounds.

Mapping Mercator, Walt Quader

Word Ways

I had finished my work for the day and had an idle afternoon ahead. So I said to my computer, "Darwin, let's play with 'Mercator' in a word way. Mercator was born 500 years ago."

Kickshaws, David L. Silverman

Word Ways

A collection of linguistic kickshaws.

Number Names With A Snowball Letter Distribution, Eric Harshbarger, Mike Keith

Word Ways

The spelling out of numbers in English words is a frequently studied topic by logologists. For example, it has long been known that the numbers 0, 1, 2, 4, 5, 6, 8, 10, 40, 46, 60, 61, 64, 80, 84, and 5000 are the only ones whose written-out names are heterograms (no letter of the alphabet occurs more than once).

Instructions To Authors

Word Ways

Instructions to authors wishing to contribute to Word Ways.

Further Transposals From The Dictionary Of American Regional English, Darryl Francis

Word Ways

In the November 2010 issue of Word Ways, I offered 100 transposals from the Dictionary of American Regional English (volumes I-IV, covering the letters A-Sk). Examples included: ambleshoo / smoothable, clearstone / tolerances, gallinapper / apparelling, presmuterian / serpantarium, and sidegodlin / disloigned.

"Get Out Of Your Cave And Smell The Coffee!" Many More Mixed Metaphors And Malaphors, Dan Hauptman

Word Ways

Not long ago, I volunteered to help a worthy cause as a consultant, pro bono. But the experience proved disappointing and frustrating. The panjandrums ignored or rejected my advice. Relating the sad tale to my friend, I griped: "They're turning me away even though I'm offering them gold on a silver platter!"

Anagram Quiz 8, . Anil

Word Ways

A Quiz.

Eggshells-1, Steve Kahan

Word Ways

An eggshell is what remains when two different pairs of identical consonants are removed from a word. Consequently, E S H E is an eggshell which results from the exclusion of two "G"s and two "E"s from the word EGGSHELL.

Ain't Ain't The Same No More, Glenn G. Dahlem

Word Ways

In a recent conversation with a British friend, he and I reflected on evolution of various English words. Both history and geography are factors in changing word definitions, we decided. For example, in England, the word "dame" means a distinguished lady, while in America, it's come to more or less mean any woman. Our conversation drifted to changes in respectability or grammatical correctness of given words. That topic leads to the inevitable--"ain't."

Answers And Solutions

Word Ways

Answers and solutions to the puzzles contained in this issue.

Palindromes From Perth, Jeff Grant

Word Ways

In July this year my wife Pat and I traveled to Perth in Western Australia (WA) to spend a fortnight with our daughter and her husband. While there, I jotted down a few short palindromes, some more fanciful than others.

The Magic Asteroid, Jeremiah Farrell

Word Ways

A game.

Wacky Words And Steiner Systems, Simon Norton

Word Ways

I suspect that many readers will have noticed that all the vowels (including Y) occur at odd positions in the alphabet (let's call them odd letters). This led me to think of the set of words using only odd letters.

The Protean Pastern, Richard Lederer

Word Ways

Scientifically, a PASTERN is the part of the horse's foot between the fetlock and the top of the hoof. In his influential Dictionary of the English Language, Samuel Johnson famously misdefined the word as "the knee of the horse." When a woman asked Dr. J to explain why he had botched the definition, he replied, "Ignorance, Madam. Pure ignorance."

Numerical Rhymes, Susan Thorpe

Word Ways

The end of the word CONTRAVENE rhymes with the end of "ONE HUNDRED AND SEVENTEEN" (117). The alphabetical total (a=1, b=2 etc) of CONTRAVENE is 117. That is the Numerical Rhymes game! I start off with numbers ending in "1". The "seventies" ...37, 47, 57, etc. were the least friendly, producing no well-known words. The relevant words are given in upper case.

Self-Contained Words, Solomon W. Golomb

Word Ways

How empty is the word empty? Since it contains MT, pronounced 'empty" (in the form of eMpTy), it is "self contained", so empty may not be empty after all.