Uncle Jazzbeau’s Gallimaufrey

lo masclisme

Now this is the kind of linguistic polemics I’d rather read. Seems that Bill Poser over at Language Log posted what I took to be a nice little ironic observation about the use of a seemingly non-standard definite article in a classic of Catalan nationalism, Lo Catalanisme: motius que’l llegitiman fonaments cientifichs y solucions practicas by Valentí Almirall.

Catalan is dialectally diverse, but one tendency in recent Catalan politics has been the promotion of a standard variety to the exclusion of the other dialects. How ironic that the title of the founding work of the Catalan movement is incorrect in the standard, in which lo should be el.

But, I guess he hadn’t reckoned on Trevor over at Kaleboel getting all worked up over it.

Lo was widely used in the names of publications like Almirall’s and in similarly symbolic texts in the late nineteenth century (e.g., Lo Catalanista, Lo Tibidabo). This was not designed to contravene any standard but to create an archaic (and thus politically correct) ring, lo being the conventional usage in front of consonant-led masculine nouns in olden times.

You go, guys! This is the sort of down-and-dirty kind of linguistic warfare that I long to read. Not any of that how many unification grammars can you fit onto a 256 MB compact flash card. The feud boils on over into the commentary, so be sure not to skip those. (Right now, I feel that Trevor is ahead pointswise, but who knows what the morrow may bring.) Perhaps, linguists can take a page from the IT business community, and act like mud-wrestling CEOs did at the Wall Street Journal “All Things Digital” conference. Among the who kissed whom journalism, you’ve got great tidbits like: “Gates hates Google” and “Ellison hates Gates”. [via Laura at Limon]