Read This Blog to Filth...

I was helping Clifford – my Northern boyfriend – at the garage where he works when, out of the blue, I turned to him and said: “I’ll read you to filth…”

“What…?” Clifford looked puzzled.

“Would you say that I’ll read you to filth is a sentence of English?”

“Never ’eard it b’for. It don’ mek sense.” 

I’ll read you to filth is often uttered by the queens of Rupaul’s Drag Race (see Drag Queen’s English). The first time I heard it was during the first mini-challenge ‘the library is open’ (s. 02, ep. 07) when Jujubee, hands on hips, pledged: “I’m not nervous. I’ll read a bitch. I will read you to filth."

…to filth, I suppose, means ‘utterly, to the bitter end.’

Rupaul’s Drag Race only aired in the UK in 2009, on E4, and no further season was aired on a British channel. It was natural that Clifford, born and bred in West Yorkshire, never heard of reading as ‘the drag high art form of shrugging off insults’ (see DragQueen’s English: Vogue).

As a non-native speaker of English myself, I understand Clifford’s reaction to I’ll read you to filth.

Reading, by the way, is one of the highlights of RPDRace in terms of English language. Each instance of reading in RPDRace becomes a fertile soil for linguistic strangeness. Here are some interesting ones taken from the ‘library’ mini-challenge.

Jujubee reading (throwing shade)

Season 2:

2.1 “Ms Tyra, was your barbecue cancelled? Your grill is f***** up.” Jujubee.

(grill referring to teeth)

2.2 “…legendary you think you are? Legendary… looks like leg.en.dary” Jujubee. 

(leg en dary

is homophone to

leg 'n' dairy).

Raven reading (throwing shade)

2.3 “You got a grill that could put Black’n’Decker out of business.” Raven. 

2.4 “You wanna call me a top model mommy? Bend over and take it like a man! I’ll be your top… model.” Raven.

Season 3:

Yara Sofia reading (throwing shade)

3.1 “It’s not because you’re Asian. It’s because I need some patian to deal with you!” Yara Sofia. (Yara pronounces ‘patience’ as patian purposely, and patian rhymes with Asian).

3.2 “Is that your teef or your feet?” Yara Sofia. (Yara pronounces ‘teeth’ as teef purposely).

Manila Luzon reading (throwing shade)

3.3 “Your blue contacts are so creepy, that it makes my skin itchy itchy itchy-pa’lante!” Manila Luzon. (Manila makes a reference to a phrase in Spanish used by Sofia: ‘echa pa’lante’)

3.4 “It’s Dinner time Delta, and you are serving body-ody-ody” Manila Luzon.

3.5 “I know you call yourself top model, but I think Tyra Banks and I would agree… you’re just fashion roadkill.” Shangela.

Season 4:

4.1 “Dida Ritz, I don’t know if that’s hot couture or hot coutorn ’cause there’s holes in that shirt.” Dida Ritz.

4.1 “Jiggly Caliente, BMW... Body Made Wrong.” Latrice Royale.

Each instance falls in different categories (which will be dealt with in future posts) of strangeness: while 3.4 has an unusual echo (body-ody-ody), 4.1 has a modified word or neologism (coutorn), etc.

Also, the degree of linguistic strangeness among these instances varies. And some may even disagree that they’re strange at all - comments welcome.

As I'm looking forward to the season 5 (January 28), next post will be on the top runways readings involving strangeness on RPDRace.

Appy Nu Year!

It’s a new year off course. Twenty thirteen! We’re living the future. And nothing spells future better than SPELLING DEVIATION.

Appy Feet shop at Meadowhall in Sheffield

Now, when SMS (Short Message Service), email, and Facebook are part of our daily lives, when we are constantly communicating with others using a computer keyboard or mobile keypad (virtual or not), spelling deviation is an undeniable trend. Actually, this is the most ordinary type of deviation one may find in English. 'Sox' - Stall at Doncaster Market 'YULE' - Sign in Front of The Library pub at Headingley Ln_Leeds To explore spelling deviation in English properly I’d have to start a blog exclusively on the topic. So, within the limitations of a single post, I invite you to observe pics of signs with spelling deviations that, perhaps, reveal tendencies for a new Standard. Stalls just a few metres from each other at Doncaster Market These two stalls, at Doncaster Market, sit just a few metres from each other. In the left ice cream and dough nut are spelt as two separate words each, whereas in the right ice cream is spelled as one word, and the spelling of dough nut is simplified to donut. Standard spell is a question of convention and formalisation for reasonable use of writing in society.  OK Comics: Livraria no Thorton's Arcade (Briggate_Leeds  Spelling deviation is generally an issue of practicality and economy – i.e. communicate a word with less effort, omitting the spell of unheard consonant or vowels sounds.  Example of this is the spelling of Daughter as Dotter in the title of Mary Talbot's book.  'Quiz Nite' The Centurion pub at Vicar Cross_Chester  Nite is a word that has its own entry in the Concise OED, under the label ‘informal’, as “a non-standard spelling of night”.   'Midnite' & 'Coffee 'n' cake' - Café at Headingley Lane_Leeds  And Nite seems to be quite favoured in signs - at least, this is the evidence I've got in the North.

Shop at Sunbridge Road_Bradford

’n’ or ’n, is another example that has a formalised entry in the Concise OED as a contraction of and.

Naturally, there are types of spelling deviation which actually points to a different type of linguistic deviation. 

LEASAGNE is a perfect example.

Outdoor em Bradford Interchange_2011

But this is topic for a future post.

Ho Ho Homo... It's Xmas!

It's Christmas time. For me, of course, it was time to walk around the city of Leeds in search of examples of peculiarities in English which related to the festive season. Here are some examples.



Sign in front of the VIADUCT Bar (Lower Briggate - Leeds)

 

Shop at Queens Arcade (Briggate Leeds)

  

New Ice Age film advert at Shopping Quarter (Lands Lane - Leeds)



Gourmet Burger Kitchen advert (East Parade - Leeds)

Boy, was I happy with the examples I found. But I was even happier on Christmas day. I was walking up Lower Briggate to try and find some more pictures when I was approached by a gentleman who invited me for a Christmas dinner at Fibre. It was Terry George himself!

So, gladly for me, it was no time for Bah! Humbug! And nothing could feel warmer than having turkey, pie with cream, and other Christmas delights in the company of other Queens.

Hum... Turkey!

Future contestant of RuPaul's Drag Race

Queens and their Crowns

Pole Dancing Queen

Yes, I felt at home.





Got a Big Head?

The new UK top hit of Britney Spears had just started to boom in the dance floor at the Queen’s Court. Clifford, my partner, had finally managed to get attention at the bar.

“Oh my God, ah av’ to go.” I shouted. Clifford was already grinning at me because he knew I was dying to dance that song. But before I made a dash, I caught sight of the sign

Sign at the Bar of Queen's Court (Leeds)

I immediately remembered how odd those words were for me when I first read them. That’s because when I first read that sign, Clifford was in that right same spot, also ordering a stout. Naturally, he couldn’t hear me over the noisy background of Queen’s Court. So I pointed to the words BIG HEAD.

I knew that big-headed, as an adjective, is used to mean that someone thinks he or she is very important – it’s a synonym to arrogant, conceited. But big head didn’t make sense in that context.

Clifford, like usual, helped me.

“Oh… it’s the frothy foam on top of the beer. We call it HEAD.”

“Ah…” I read the sign again.

‘got a BIG head? If you think the head size on your beer is too large we will gladly top up your glass.’

“Is it a new use of HEAD?”

“No, no. It’s been around since I was seventeen.”

Well. Definitely not a new use of HEAD.

I lost myself in that memory, reminding how a word like HEAD can have its meaning bent to so many contexts. When I came to myself again I was in the dance floor completely in trance by the sound of Scream and Shout.

“…You are now rocking with will.I.am and Britney bitch…”

Rip-Off Food, Rip-Off Meaning

Rip-Off was a word that I learned when I started working at Millie’s Cookies.

“It’s one cookie for eighty-nine p and five for two ninety-nine.” I’d say to each customer when they asked me “how much it cost”.

“It’s a rip-off!” The younger customers would often utter, stressing the word rip-off.

Though the price of the cookies at Millie’s was a bit salty, I knew it was worth its cost. Alas, some foods aren’t worth even the meaning of their own label. This is what I learned by watching Rip Off Food (BBC ONE, aired 29 Oct 2012).

This is a matter of linguistic strangeness because while the label of a can (or package) defines a meaning regulated by law, the content of the can may not be what is actually defined in the label. In practical terms this is what happens…

How much chicken should a soup have to be labelled Chicken Soup? Rip Off Food shows that 0.5% of chicken powder is enough. It’s also show in the programme a Pasta ‘n Sauce Chicken & Mushroom that contains 1% of mushroom and 0% of chicken – the word chicken is justified in the product because is has chicken flavour. Flavour is a word that attributes different meanings to a product.

 

Under the regulations, a label that shows Chicken Flavour doesn’t have to contain any trace of chicken in it. In this sense the word flavour actually has a literal meaning – chicken flavour, is just flavour, but no chicken.

  

But if the suffix ed is added to the word flavour, then a label showing flavoured means that the product is derived from the real thing.

Now, if you think that cream in ice cream always means milk fat, think again. Rip Off Food shows that there are foods that don’t contain any of the main ingredients they’re commonly known for. That’s how ice cream may not contain any cream whatsoever. Ice cream may contain vegetable oil, whey protein, sugar, emulsifiers, flavouring, and not a drop of cream in it, and still be legally labelled ice cream.

Still, other products like creamed potatoes, cream crackers, and butter beans, describe a dairy characteristic, even though there’s no dairy product in them.

“Neat-picky” you may say.

Indeed. Not even in formal dictionaries words and their meanings always seem to correspond logically. Bad, for example, means good, excellent, and such meaning is recognised in the Concise OED. Again the examples presented in Rip Off Food are evidence that the language we come across ordinarily is indeed – like David Crystal hypothesised – strange (see post 1).