[lit-ideas] The Post-Colonial Solecism

Good morning!
 
Sometimes D. McEvoy's ingenuity strikes me. There he is speaking of  
'solecism'. But he seems to be failing to see my _philosophical_ point. Any  
serious student of philosophy (as Grice describes hisself, 'The life and  
opinions of Paul Grice') knows how tricky the word 'thing' is (cfr.  
'thinginess', 
what Geary describes as an "Americanism"). 

If I referred  to German idioms it's because English, you want it or  not, 
_is_ a  'Germanic' language ("Ingvaeonic", to be more specific). The first 
collocations  for '-thing' in quantified expressions ('some thing', 'every 
thing', 'any  thing', 'no thing') are surely _late_. There is the more 
archaic, 'nought' and  'ought', which corresponds more closely to the Latin 
'aliquid' (that gives  Spanish 'algo' for example). 

I don't have a style handbook to hand but I  would guess that some stylists 
would say that 'all is beautiful' should  sometimes be preferred to 
'everything is beautiful'. 'etwas' in German seems to  correspond (the 'was' 
anyway) to the 'quid' of Latin in 'aliquid', something  (Spanish, 'algo').

My emphasis is on the _logical_ form underlying this  or that grammatical 
form. The OED realises the 'vacuity' (if I may thus call it)  of '-thing' in 
those expressions, noting that the expressions should be best  interpreted 
as a 'neuter absolute' (German 'alle').

The expression  'solecism' is an interesting one, and I have discussed it 
elsewhere (actually,  with the Sheffield-based Center for the Study of 
English Dialects, to be  specific). I believe it's sometimes 'mis-used', or 
showing little knowledge of  Homi Babba's post-cultural reflections.

The OED notes that, literally,  'solecism' (Latin soloecism, Greek 
soloikismos) derives indeed from "Soloi" (the  Greeks were rather pretentious 
in 
pluralising their places of residence, cfr.  "Athenai" -- modern "AthenS" -- 
what's wrong with "Athen"?):

The OED  refers to the original 'solecism' as 

"the [...]  dialect among the Athenian colonists at 
Soloi  in Cilicia".

It's interesting this 'colonial' reference. As a signature  line for one of 
his posts, D. McEvoy expresses: 

"It don't mean a t'ing  if it ain't got that t'ing"

attempting at humour (and succeeding).  Anyway, a cursory look at 'thing' 
in the OED notes the inability of Creole  speakers in the Caribbean to 
properly pronounce (if you excuse me the solecism  of the split infinitive) the 
'th-' sound, as in what McEvoy spells 't'ing'.  Actually the OED is referring 
to the plural 'use' of  'thing':

"The plural 'thing', 'ting' in Caribbean  usage [...]
probably rather reflects a more general  tendency 
in Caribbean English to omit plural  inflections."

But that was also the fault of proper English lady, "Little  Bo Peep" ("I 
lost my sheep; the five of them").

Cheers,

J. L.  Speranza
Buenos Aires, Argentina
 
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