I have just finished marking every last exam for all 206 of my lovely 101 students. It took days and days, but it’s done. The thrill of the achievement is just enough to distract me from realising that it took a good solid week out of my thesis time.

One of the questions I marked (over and over) was about infixation, where a morpheme is stuck inside a root. You’re likely to see this kind of thing in a language like Indonesian or some of the Polynesian languages. We don’t use it much in English, except for the occasional expletive infixation like abso-fuckin’-lutely.

But I was thinking about another possible example: a whole ‘nother, which, despite the word boundaries, seems a bit infixish to me.

The Texas state board of tourism missed an opportunity years ago to elevate the saying to official status. They came out with a tourism slogan: “It’s like another whole country.” I just know someone wanted to make it ‘a whole ‘nother’, but someone on the grammar squad nixed it. They screw everything up.

Good morning, brothers and sisters. I’d like to speak this morning on a rather sensitive topic which represents a great evil in our society. I speak of… the problem of hot dogs. There are many people, both in and outside of the church, who eat hot dogs — a habit that will cause the spiritual destruction of those who engage in it.

Church leaders have warned us repeatedly of the dangers of hot dog eating. It is a pernicious evil. The hot dog industry is a multi-billion dollar business, and its influence in our society is only getting stronger. Hot dogs can be found at this moment in grocery stores, restaurants, and even in those little booths with wheels on the streets of our cities. There are many websites on the Internet devoted to it.

Some people argue that such hot-doggery is harmless, and that it is a sign — indeed, a symptom — of a healthy pluralistic society where many foods are available.

As a result, “people don’t seem to have a sense of outrage,” laments author Andrea Dworkin. “They don’t seem to care.”

Some people think they can get away with a little hot-dog eating once in a while, but the risks are great. It enslaves the eater, and promotes a harmful view of food.

Hot dogs are an addiction. People who use hot dogs may find themselves craving another hot dog days or even years later. Scientists now think that when people eat hot dogs, it triggers the release of ‘hot-doggo-toxins‘ — pleasure-inducing chemicals — in the body that cause the user to return helplessly for more. It has also been found that a great many criminals have hot dogs stored in the fridge when arrested.

I have heard anecdotally of a married couple like many in the church. They had been members of the church for many years, and had served faithfully. Then their world was turned upside-down when the husband confessed to his wife that for years he had had a problem with hot dog eating. She was angry and hurt. Though never consuming hot dogs herself, she felt feelings of guilt and shame. Sad to say, his hot dog habit was ultimately responsible for the dissolution of their marriage.

How can we avoid this threat? Stay away from situations where you may be tempted by hot dogs. Keep the refrigerator in a public place. As a parent, you should know what your children are eating.

Hot dogs are a threat to the spiritual well-being of those who eat them, those who make them… and those who smell them. Thank you.

As people age, hearing gets worse, especially the top end of the hearing range. So there’s a new high-pitched ringtone that people with young ears can hear. Old farts can’t hear a dang thing.

So which are you? Old fart, or young fart? I’m pleased to report that I can still hear it, although I did have to crank the speakers pretty loud. But, as Dan Jurafsky points out, that’s not surprising — the ability to hear high tones is largely a function of volume.

The tone is ready for the downloading on the NPR site. Give it a try and post your (approximate) age and result in comments.

I’ve mentioned the ongoing expropriation of the word ‘purity’, and here’s the latest manifestation:

Apparently Christian kids who promise not to have sex get to wear ‘purity rings‘. (Oops, my mistake. It’s just the girls. It doesn’t seem to matter if guys have purity. Wonder how that works.)

Obviously, as a linguist I realise that semantic shift happens. And if the meaning of ‘purity’ narrows down to only a sexual meaning, then my job is to describe, not prescribe.

And yet — I’m not content to leave the word-manglers to it. This shift is motivated by the hatred of sex evidenced by so much of authoritarian Christianity. They want to talk about sex, but they don’t want to say the words!

Just imagine the father-daughter chat: “Princess, I’d like to talk to you about fucking. Please don’t bang anyone until you’re married. The Lord has promised blessings for those who only root their marriage partner.”

So they talk about it using any other terms they can (morality! virtue!) and as a result, a lot of fine words become useless for anything else. The words become — how to say — slutty.

It’s easy to decry this tendency at the hands of the word sluttifiers. But I have a way to take back the word ‘purity’. The first thing is to get the word out of the clutches of the Evangelical Right. And to do that, we have to redefine the word so they’ll drop it like a rock. So hear me out:

These virginity pledges have dismal success rates, right?

[R]esearch by Columbia and Yale Universities found while those who pledge chastity may delay first sex, 88 per cent of them eventually break the promise, and are then less likely than non-pledgers to use contraception.

So, Stage 1: everyone start using the word ‘purity’ as a euphemism for sex. As in:

– I was wondering if you might like to get together and promote ‘purity’ tonight.
– I’ve never had ‘purity’, but I’m curious.
– That girl is what we call ‘pure’.

People already think of sex when they hear ‘purity’, so it’ll be easy to nudge it over to prurience.

After the abstinence crew stop using the word in disgust, we can talk Stage 2: Rehabilitation.

Who’s with me?

Final observation from the article:

A MORI poll for The Observer found a fifth of British teenagers had had underage sex. The average age of losing virginity was 17. Almost a third of women questioned wished they had waited longer.

What they mean, of course, is that a whopping two-thirds of women polled thought they’d waited just about long enough.

I had an occasion to visit a Montessori school today; Oldest Boy is going to need to transfer out of the local Steiner School and go secondary soon. Where did the time go? Oh, yeah, I was doing a PhD.

The differences between Montessori and Steiner are like those between Mormons and Jehovah’s Witnesses — virtually indistinguishable to outsiders, but adherents to either system think they’re almost opposites. We liked Montessori, but we were put off by the focus on doing the tasks the right way. And in fact, whenever Oldest Boy’s Montessori friends would come over, they wouldn’t just play with toys, they’d sit down and very concertedly play with the toys until they had finished playing with the toys. Eventually we plumped for Steiner, but it was close.

To help you sort out the two, I present the facts about both systems, pulled from their own pamphlets.

A lot of my collection comes from the 80s when I started collecting CDs, and they’re starting to show up in the playlists. My fault, really, for feeding every last one of them to the computer to be mp3ed. Now I’m stuck with them. Our possessions are our joy and our curse. One reason why I’m not going through Vinyl Conversion Hell. Some things are better left in the box.

Here are the five for today:

A Rush and a Push and the Land is Ours by The Smiths Album: Strangeways, Here We Come
Was there ever a finer band than the Smiths? Reams have been written about the dour/jangly songwriting team of Morrissey and Marr, but sometimes you just have to go on a Smiths phase and hear the songs again to remember how well-constructed and engaging they are (except for ‘Barbarism Begins at Home’). This song opens their last album, where things were just starting to get interesting. Guitars were making way for other instruments, different styles of songs were cooking, and then Johnny Marr ended it by leaving the band and never doing anything worthwhile again ever. “Oh, but don’t mention lerv. I’d hate the pain and the strain again.”

Primitive Heart by Cocteau Twins Album: Tishbite (Single 2)
There were two singles for Tishbite, each with their own b-sides. This track comes from the rarer one. A lovely single from the band before their breakup. Not as dreamy perhaps, but still easy on the ears. Also, it’s fun to say ’tishbite’. What is a tishbite? Elijah was one, I know that much.

The Ritual Echo by Bill Nelson Album: Sounding the Ritual Echo (Atmospheres for Dreaming)
Continuing on the floaty thing. Bill Nelson, rock guitar virtuoso from Be Bop Deluxe, reworked his sound in the early eighties, producing song after song of soft and intricate soundscapes on antiquated analogue equipment. These songs worked into a five-album set known as ‘Trial by Intimacy’. I remember spending many afternoons in the undergrad days looking from my 6th floor dorm window, gazing out onto the foggy valley below. This was the soundtrack.

Fooled by a Smile by Swing Out Sister Album: It’s Better to Travel
This whole album from Swing Out Sister was a perfect slice of Art Deco Paris-in-the-thirties tongue-in-cheek jazz-pop that could really evoke the hyphens like few before or since. The production was smooth, the horns and strings sassy and precise, the instrumentations full of angles and chords. Great vocals too. A very assured debut.

We Care a Lot (Original Version) by Faith No More Album: Who Cares a Lot? – Greatest Hits
Just as Nirvana wasn’t Nirvana until Dave Grohl joined, Faith No More wasn’t really Faith No More until Mike Patton. But this is still a fine song from the early days that answers the musical question “To what extent does Faith No More care?” I seem to remember an early review in Spin that didn’t really review the album, though it did take the piss out of Kim Carnes, for some reason.

Will we hear some newer stuff next time, or is Daniel’s iTunes Library so clogged with 80s stuff that it resembles KROQ’s playlist? Tune in next time and find out.