It's as Elementary as ABC!

I have a degree in Linguistics. Why, I don't know, although a lot of it has to do with the diagram I saw in Scientific American my freshman year of college, showing the world's language families, and there was Basque all by itself. At that moment I resolved to learn Basque, and I sure did, if all I ever had to say to someone was, "Hello, friend! How much is the beer?" ("Kaixo, laguna! Zenbat balio dut cerveza hau?") And really, what else do you need to say in any language?

Currently I use my Linguistics degree to have weird dreams, like the one where I was telling A-Fooze that the word "Mafia" comes from the acronym "morte alla francia, italia alene" (death to the French, up with Italy!) or something, which is an actual urban myth but seems to have no basis in reality. Just a few nights ago I dreamed I was asking Richard Bonomo why, if there is the word "advenire" in Latin, to arrive (literally "come to"), shouldn't there be "abire," as in go away? Of course I didn't ask him this in real life, because maybe there is such a word. It's like the Cardinary Issue in English: we have the words "cardinal" and "ordinal," and there's "ordinary" ... so where the heck is "cardinary"? Where did it go? Is it out there somewhere with ruthful and ept? This is what linguists think about.

I swear I once heard somewhere that the word "element" comes from LMN, as in the basics. Why not? The world "alphabet" just comes from the name of the first two Greek letters, "alpha beta." Greek has great names for its letters, like "Big O" and "Little O." (o-mega and o-micron) We only get one O in English. Then why do we call Y "why"? I mean, in Spanish and French it's called "Greek i." (i-griega, i-grec) The only descriptive letter name we have is "double u," which is kind of bizarre (a great word, it comes from Basque!) because it looks more like a double v. It does, however, at least sound like a u. And why doesn't H say its own name? In this country we pronounce it "aitch." The Leprechaun, who is originally from Cork, does pronounce it "haitch," which makes more sense... but then he also pronounces the word "sandwich" as "sangwich."

I am not currently working in the field of Linguistics. In most other ways my life is the one I've always dreamed of - living in my own place filled with animals and plants - but I certainly don't have my fantasy career. Linguist? you may ask, and I'd say of course not! In my dreams I play the timbales for a salsa band. But I do get to pretend to be a "professional" musician sometimes, when I get paid tens of dollars to play the mandolin in public, and I get to pretend to be an author by writing this blog.

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