Obscure Languages Are Important, Too

The National Enquirer published an article called "Unspeakable Tax Waste" (August 6, 1985) that complained that the Department of Education was wasting U. S. tax dollars providing colleges and universities with funding to teach students "obscure foreign languages" such as "Dinka, which is spoken in the Sudan" and "Telugu, a language of southern India."

To me, this attitude is shortsighted as well as downright ignorant. It might even be called racist.

Language is the gateway to understanding and appreciating other cultures. And since the United States has diplomatic as well as other ties to countries around the world, it makes sense to train people to speak a variety of languages, no matter how obscure. Certainly the people who speak these "obscure languages" don't think of them as unimportant.

The newspaper amNew York (now called amMetro New York) cited in a  November 24, 2014 article the work of Ellen Bialystok, a neuroscientist, on the benefits of bilingual education. She "found that people who are bilingual tend to maintain better cognitive functioning with age and, " continued the newspaper, "are even believed to have delayed onset in Alzheimer's symptoms after diagnosis."

Also the "obscure languages" that the National Enquirer writer disparaged could very well be the source of new words, useful words in English, a language that has adopted many words from other languages.

The Man Who Coined The Word "Gig"

During the early days of the COVID-19 pandemic, when millions of people nationwide were laid off their jobs and had to apply for unemployment benefits from the state and federal governments, there was talk of including people who were part of the gig economy. These individuals, called gig workers, ordinarily didn't qualify for unemployment, because they were not on anyone's payroll. They were freelancers, independent contractors. Due to the unusual circumstances brought on by the pandemic, they got to collect unemployment checks.

That brings me to the origin of the word "gig." While reading a book called Footnotes: The Black Artists Who Rewrote the Rules of the Great White Way by Caseen Gaines (Sourcebooks, 2021), I learned where the word came from. It's "a term," writes Gaines, an award-winning New Jersey-based author and journalist, "[African-American band leader James Reese] Europe coined [in the late nineteen-teens] to describe a one-night performance, which quickly caught on in the jazz community."

Now we know who should receive credit for creating "gig," a word that has become applicable to people both inside and outside of show business.

A TV Script About Aphra Behn, Britain's First Female Playwright

The first time I encountered the name Aphra Behn (1640-1689), Britain's first female playwright, was in a book one of my aunts gave me more than fifty years ago. The book is called English Literature: From the Beginnings to the End of the Eighteenth Century, Volume One by Bernard D. N. Grebanier (Barron's Educational Series, Revised Edition, 1959). (Grebanier was a professor of English Literature at Brooklyn College, in New York City.) I still have the book, although it's no longer in excellent condition, the result of numerous readings.

What brought the book to mind was an article I saw on the website Deadline.com about the unproduced film and TV scripts selected for the Brit List, a list, reported the website, "compiled each year from recommendations by British production companies, talent agencies, sales companies, financiers, distributors and broadcasters."

Out of nearly 300 scripts submitted, 18 were selected. Among those selected was the TV historical drama script Aphra by Jessica Lambert (it received eleven recommendations; a minimum of seven recommendations was needed to be included on the list). 

In the summary, Aphra Behn is described as "a bisexual libertine who lived an incredible double life as a 17th century spy." Professor Grebanier, with obvious distaste and disapproval, called Behn "the author of many novels, plays and poems, nearly all astoundingly indecent for a woman." 

I hope Aphra gets made into a television film real soon. From its description, it sounds like a fascinating script about a fascinating woman.

The New York Public Library Eliminates Overdue Fines

Better Late Than Never by Jenn McKinlay (Berkley Prime Crime, 2016), is part of her series called Library Lover's Mysteries, featuring Lindsey Norris, a young woman who is director of the public library in Briar Creek, a small town on the Connecticut shore.

The Briar Creek Public Library is holding its first annual fine amnesty day event, which brings a flood of overdue books, including one that's twenty years overdue and was checked out by a popular high school  English teacher around the time of her death. The book, after twenty years, is in pristine condition. Was the killer responsible for returning the book? Lindsey, who's also an amateur sleuth, intends to find out.

In the meantime, Ms. Cole, "an old-school librarian," who is "nicknamed 'the lemon' because of her puckered disposition," fervently disapproves of the fine amnesty day.

Ms. Cole comes across to Lindsey as "a punitive sort who enjoyed using fines and shushing to curb their patrons' naughty behavior."

I can only imagine how Ms. Cole, the "old-school librarian," would react to the New York Public Library's recent decision to follow other library systems by doing away with overdue fines altogether. The library felt the fines were burdensome to its low-income patrons and prevented them from adequately using the library and its many services.

Bibliopolitan, A Definition

Sooner or later someone was going to ask me about my Twitter handle--@bibliopolitan. That someone is Jill Davis, who recently became one of my Facebook friends. According to her Facebook profile, Jill lives in Manhattan and is a full-time missionary for the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints (also known as the Mormons).

In an online message to me, Jill wanted to know what a bibliopolitan was. I explained that "A bibliopolitan is my word for someone whose love of books and literature covers a wide range of topics and genres."

Her response was "I love that!"

Remembering Archivist Thomas Wirth (1938-2014)

I recently read on science fiction writer Samuel Delany's Facebook page that Thomas Wirth, who was an independent scholar, book collector, and publisher, had died. His death occurred in October 2014, at the age of 76.

The first and only time I ever saw Wirth in person was in 1990 when he did a talk at the now-defunct Home to Harlem gift shop on 125th Street in Harlem. It was run by Kevin  McGruder, who later became an author as well as a historian and professor.

Wirth's talk focused on Fire!!, a short-lived magazine that Richard Bruce Nugent collaborated on with fellow writers Langston Hughes and Wallace Thurman in 1926, and which Wirth reprinted. (Wirth became friends with Nugent and later was appointed the executor of Nugent's literary estate.)

I mentioned this bit of Harlem Renaissance history in my article about Nugent for In the Life, the 1986 anthology edited by Joseph Beam.

Wirth, it should be noted, is responsible for editing a collection of Nugent's writings called Gay Rebel of the Harlem Renaissance (Duke University Press, 2002) and for the publication of Gentleman Jigger, Nugent's novel, written during the days of the Harlem Renaissance (Da Capo Press, 2008).

From Wirth's online obituary, I learned that he "selected historian Kevin McGruder to assume ownership and administration of The Fire!! Press."

In the seven years since Wirth's death, I haven't seen or heard anything about publications from this press. Let's hope there will be very soon.

Add A Pinch Of Salt And Pepper. And A Teaspoon Of Ammonia?

The novelist Miriam Toews was asked in the New York Times Book Review's "By the Book" Q &  A feature (October 3, 2021) what books she was embarrassed to admit she had not read. Her response: " 'The Mennonite Treasury,' a cookbook my Aunt Mary gave me. A lot of the recipes call for ammonia. For Mennonites its second in importance to the Bible."

If she knew that the recipes called for ammonia as an  ingredient, it's safe to assume she has read some of the cookbook. 

The thing that caught my attention was the use of ammonia in cooking. Anyone who has ever used it for laundry or household cleaning knows it has an overpowering smell. You can only imagine how bad it must taste. How anyone can put ammonia in a recipe and live to tell the tale is a complete mystery.

I would love to contact Miriam Toews about adding this unusual ingredient to a recipe.