September 2009

Fantastic, marvellous and tremendous

29 Sep, 2009  2 Comments

Fantastic, marvellous (US marvelous) and tremendous are three of modern English’s great intensifiers. There are many intensifiers in English (for example: fairly, quite, rather, so, too, very). They are adjectives or adverbs that heighten (or lessen) the meaning of a word or phrase:

Mr Black is quite important.

Scott is very late.

Grant is just too clever.

But my big three, the super-intensifiers, are fantastic, marvellous and tremendous (there are quite a few more big ones such as wonderful and miraculous but they share their meaning with marvellous – there are others of course, such as extraordinarily, extremely).

These intensifiers, although they serve to magnify meaning, still retain vestiges of their original meanings, which you must understand when you use them. The original meanings became less literal and more metaphorical, then, perhaps, the words became quantifiers where they simply meant very big amounts of something and then they lost any meaning at all. Here are some notable quotes that show a range of meanings:

John Betjeman (British poet 1906-1984)

And is it true? And is it true, / This most tremendous tale of all, / Seen in a stained-glass window’s hue, / A Baby in an ox’s stall?

Franklin P. Jones (an American businessman 1887-1929) said:

Experience is that marvelous thing that enables you to recognize a mistake when you make it again.

Jim Morrison (American singer and song-writer 1943-1971) said:

Those first few songs I wrote, I was taking notes at a fantastic rock concert going on in my head.

Tremendous has two main meanings: is extremely large in amount, extent, or degree; enormous; or capable of making one tremble; terrible. It also, of course, has an important role as an intensifier as Betjeman uses it here. In his usage from a poem of the 1950s he means neither a large tale nor a trembling one. He is using tremendous solely as an intensifier – it has lost its real meaning.

Marvellous, was once synonymous with miraculous and wonderful in referring to the creations of God. Marvellous, according to most dictionaries has several meanings (here according to the Macquarie Dictionary): to excite wonder, surprising, extraordinary; excellent, superb; and improbable or incredible.

The use of marvellous in the quote from Jones is in the role of intensifier but it still hints at a mix of the literal meaning of marvellous with an ironic twist.

Morrison’s use of fantastic in fantastic rock concert, is the most precise use of any of the words. Fantastic, has been around in English since the 14th century and has maintained its original meaning of existing only in imagination, (originally from Greek phantastikos for able to imagine) alongside its popular usage as a superlative, synonymous with our other super-intensifiers.

The subtleties in the meanings of the super-intensifiers mean that they are not always interchangeable. Betjeman could not have used fantastic or marvellous (or indeed miraculous or wonderful) to describe his tremendous tale because he was attempting to highlight its truth not its supernaturalness.

On the other hand, Jones could have used any of the super-intensifiers to make his point. His marvellous thing could have been a fantastic or a tremendous thing.

Morrison had no choice but to talk about his fantastic rock concert. His concert was not tremendous or miraculous but a fantasy played out in his imagination.

So although our fantastic, marvellous and tremendous words can be used as super-intensifiers you must be aware of their meanings and use them very carefully.

Zugzwang

13 Sep, 2009  No Comment

Somewhere between zounds and zulu in the dictionary you may find zugzwang. It is a recent migrant from German and has not quite made it into all English language dictionaries. But it is a very useful word, particularly in chess circles, and has a spelling that makes Scrabble players squirm with delight.

Zugzwang is a chess term for compulsion to move. It describes situations where players are forced to weaken their position by making a undesirable or disadvantageous move. In chess there is not the option of passing or not moving.

It comes from the German words Zug, meaning to pull or move and Zwang meaning compulsion.

Arthur Bisguir, a chess grand master described the word:

Zugzwang is like getting trapped on a safety island in the middle of a highway when a thunderstorm starts. You don’t want to move but you have to.

Ten great things a brochure can do for you

1 Sep, 2009  No Comment

  1. Tell everyone what you do
  2. Remind your customers about your products and services
  3. Tell your customers what special deals you have
  4. Tell everyone why they should buy from you
  5. Show everyone how great you are
  6. Introduce you to new customers
  7. Explain how to find out more about you
  8. Explain how to contact you
  9. Build your relationships
  10. Create customer loyalty

Paradise renamed

1 Sep, 2009  No Comment

And the Lord God planted a garden eastward in Eden; … And out of the ground made the Lord God to grow every tree that is pleasant to the sight, and good for food; the tree of life also in the midst of the garden, and the tree of knowledge of good and evil. (Genesis 2:9)

The concept of paradise has fascinated religious and spiritual people from our earliest history. The concept of a paradise both as an earthly place and as a heavenly destination has also inspired musicians, poets and writers.

Virgil’s Aeneid describes his hero discovering the Elysian Fields, the Roman heavenly paradise:

… they came to the happy place, the green pleasances and blissful seats of the Fortunate Woodlands. Here an ampler air clothes the meadows in lustrous sheen, and they know their own sun and a starlight of their own.

But from where has the word, paradise, come? This word that evokes a heavenly place of abundance, peace, beauty and serenity has a long and fascinating history but its origins are rather more earthy.

Zoroastrianism, the ancient religion of Persia (now Iran), encouraged its followers to tend their own gardens. Xenophon, a Greek mercenary who worked for the Persian army, on his return to Athens wrote about the pairidaeza, the large garden parks of the Persian nobles, and took the word into Greek.

The Old Persian word pairi-daeza meant a walled orchard (pairi – around and diz – to make or form). Ancient Hebrew took pardĂ©s from this and the Greeks took a similar form paradeisos (from peri around and dheigh to form or build), which became the Latin paradisus.

The Hebrew pardes was used in the Old Testament and when it was transcribed into Greek as part of the Christian Bible the Greek form paradeisos was used.

From the Greek to the Latin was a small step. The Latin form became the word to describe both the earthly and the heavenly paradises.

The Latin chant, In paradisum (into paradise), is sung during the Catholic burial service, or sometimes as part of a Requiem Mass, to accompany the dead to their heaven.

In paradisum deducant te Angeli (May angels lead you into Paradise)

This gradual change of meaning is an example of melioration, where a word’s meaning improves over time. The word has travelled over a millennium and a half, across several languages and religions. The change took 1,500 years, the word developing from a walled orchard, to the Garden of Eden, to heaven, and then to a heaven-like place. It has travelled linguistically through Ancient Persian, to Hebrew, to Greek, and to Latin before arriving in English. It has Zoroastrian roots, Pagan and Jewish parentage before it arose in Christianity.