Tag: language

K is for Keys

Music touches on a few aspects of the word key.


I have become fascinated with the word key. It’s a short word, worth 10 points in Scrabble, but it has so many meanings. Reference.com shows some four dozen definitions. And while some are interlocking, most of them address some sort of structure.

There is that metal thing that moves a bolt that I tend to hate because I tend to misplace it. I have a couple of duplicates of my house keys, one outside the structure – no, it’s not under the mat – just in case. Someone told me a long time ago that the number of keys one has related to how important they were. The most important person I ever knew, by that definition, was my elementary school janitor.

Then there’s “something that affords a means of access”, such as the key to happiness. The word shows up at least a half dozen times in the Bible in this context, including Luke 11:52 (New International Version)- “Woe to you experts in the law, because you have taken away the key to knowledge. You yourselves have not entered, and you have hindered those who were entering.” Lawyer bashing has a rich tradition.

“Something that affords a means of clarifying a problem,” I would contend, would include the pronunciation key in the dictionary, the answer key to an exam, and like entities.

Things that look like keys, such as the islands known as the Florida Keys, or a part of the floor in basketball. Or something that is the center of things, something that’s important, such as the key to figuring out a mystery; Pennsylvania is the Keystone State.

Music touches on a few aspects of the word key. The keys on the piano or other instruments, like the keys to a calculator or computer keyboard, are the items that are touched; singer Alicia Augello Cook changed her last name to Keys in honor of piano keys. But the key is also “the principal tonality of a composition: a symphony in the key of C# major.”

Stevie Wonder recorded the 1976 Grammy album of the year, Songs in the Key of Life. It featured the big hits I Wish and Sir Duke, but also this minor hit As.

I came across this list of songs containing the word key. Thought I’d pick a few:
Way Over Yonder In The Minor Key-Billy Bragg & Wilco, featuring Natalie Merchant; a Woody Guthrie lyric completed by Bragg.
Key To The Highway-B.B. King and Eric Clapton.
Brand New Key-Melanie (live). “Don’t go too fast, but I go pretty far.”

ABC Wednesday – Round 8

Editing literature and the N-word Questions

As usual, The Daily Show addresses the Mark Twain controversy well.


You’ve probably heard about someone wanting to take the works of Mark Twain and republish them, replacing the word N@$$%! with the word “slave”. I think this is pretty lame as I have previously indicated.

Yet, while I’m not crazy about the word, I’m less bothered by it when it’s 1) used in historic context or 2) to make a particular point. Film critic Roger Ebert got into some hot water using the word recently. He didn’t bother me, but some of the comments I’ve seen in response to his use – “well, he has a N@##%! wife” – seems to justify my general antipathy for the word.

Should Huck Finn and other works of Mark Twain be edited to remove a word current sensibilities might find offensive? If so, how should such a book be labeled?

When, if ever, are racially charged words acceptable? There’s a John Lennon song that I believe is making a larger point of social commentary.

As usual, The Daily Show with Jon Stewart addresses this well. NSFW, if the use of N@##$! might get you fired.

A is for ai, ay, eigh

I have noticed that there are a lot of ei or eigh words that have homonyms – words spelled alike but sound differently that DO have a more instinctive spelling.


Someone, responding to a previous blogpost in which I suggested that English could be a tricky language to learn, disagreed with me; he thought it was quite easy. Unfortunately, I don’t know what his native language was; perhaps if it were Chinese, with all of those symbols and differing pitches, that might be the case. Maybe my thinking comes from being in the midst of trying to help the Daughter with her spelling homework each week that I find it rather challenging to explain WHY certain words are spelled as they are.

For instance, one rule she’s learned is: “When two vowels go awalking, the first one does the talking.” Well, yeah, that’s quite true, except when it isn’t.

Take the sound of the long A: One of the reasons why children have so many spelling problems is because of their shaky knowledge of how to spell many of our long-vowel words.

The big problem with long vowels is that there is more than one way to spell the same sound. For example, long a can be spelled simply a as in apron, agent or April; or a-consonant-e, as in ate, page, or fame; or ai as in rain, waif, or maid; or ay as in day, gray, or play; or ei as in vein or rein; or eigh, as in eight or weight. Notice that in ei and eigh, there is not an a in sight. I imagine the French influence on the language is responsible.


Of course, local pronunciation may render a long A into a short A such as the potayto/potahto tomayto/tomahto issue, well documented in the Gershwin song Let’s Call The Whole Thing Off (version by Louis ARMSTRONG and Ella Fitzgerald).

Common Spellings of the Long A Sound.

If one considers ai, ay and a-consonant-silent e as standard, then I have noticed that there are a lot of ei or eigh words that have homonyms – words spelled alike but sound differently that DO have a more instinctive spelling, such as

aweigh-away
deign-Dane
eight-ate
feint-faint
heir-air
lei-lay
neigh-nay
reign/rein-rain
sleigh-slay
vein-vain/vane
veil-vale
weigh-way

Now, the EI sound DOES show up in another convention: “I before E except after C or when the sound is AY as in neighbor and weigh.” Also not as true as it might be.

So I have a question for you, especially, but not limited to the non-native speakers. What aspect of the English language did/do you find most difficult in terms of pronunciation and spelling?
***
We remember The Fonz most from giving a single or double thumbs up while saying his signature catchphrase “Aaaaayee!”


ABC Wednesday – Round 8

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