SHAKSPER 2001: Re: "What's in a name?"

From: Hardy M. Cook (editor@ws.bowiestate.edu)
Date: 07/10/01 

The Shakespeare Conference: SHK 12.1728  Tuesday, 10 July 2001

[1]     From:   Stuart Taylor <swt1@columbia.edu>
        Date:   Monday, 9 Jul 2001 11:19:55 -0400 (EDT)
        Subj:   Re: SHK 12.1720 Re: "What's in a name?"

[2]     From:   Abigail Quart <arq1@columbia.edu>
        Date:   Monday, 9 Jul 2001 11:40:12 -0400
        Subj:   RE: SHK 12.1710 Re: "What's in a name?"

[3]     From:   Mike Jensen <jensensh@hotmail.com>
        Date:   Monday, 09 Jul 2001 09:21:00 -0700
        Subj:   Re: SHK 12.1720 Re: "What's in a name?"

[4]     From:   Karen Peterson-Kranz <kpetersonkranz@yahoo.com>
        Date:   Monday, 9 Jul 2001 10:33:11 -0700 (PDT)
        Subj:   Re: SHK 12.1720 Re: "What's in a name?"

[5]     From:   Mari Bonomi <pootersox@bonomi.connix.com>
        Date:   Monday, 9 Jul 2001 17:34:16 -0400
        Subj:   Re: SHK 12.1720 Re: "What's in a name?"


[1]-----------------------------------------------------------------
From:           Stuart Taylor <swt1@columbia.edu>
Date:           Monday, 9 Jul 2001 11:19:55 -0400 (EDT)
Subject: 12.1720 Re: "What's in a name?"
Comment:        Re: SHK 12.1720 Re: "What's in a name?"

Kozuka said: 'deconstruction questions ("deconstructs") the fixed bond
between a name ("signifier") and a substance ("signified").'

Hamilton added, '"the arbitrariness of the signifier/signified relation"
is straight from Saussure.š

Hamiltonšs remark is correct, but it should be noted that Kozukašs
conception of a sign (signifier/signified) is not Saussurešs.

Saussurešs starting premise is precisely that a linguistic sign is NOT a
link between a name and a thing (?substance), but is instead a link
between a concept and a sound pattern (not even the sound itself, but
the psychological perception of the sound).  In addition, the link is
"arbitrary" in the sense that it is unmotivated: the signifier has no
natural connection to the signified in reality.  But the link IS "fixed"
by conventional usage.

I cannot comment on how this relates to deconstruction or whether it
'carries back (vis the Nominalist/Realist controversy in the Middle Ages
to Plato' (Hamilton).

However, Saussure also said:

"A language and its written form constitute two separate systems of
signs.  The sole reason for the existence of the latter is to represent
the former.  The object of study in linguistics is not a combination of
the written word and the spoken word.  The spoken word alone constitutes
that object.  But the written word is so intimately connected with the
spoken word it represents that it manages to usurp the principle role.
It is rather as if people believed that in order to find out what a
person looks like it is better to study his photograph than his face."

Perhaps this helps explain some of the disagreement about the value and
types of evidence.  Hamilton and others insist on written texts (or,
indeed "a painting of St. Peter").  I think textual precedent provides
no more than clues as to how a term might have functioned in spoken
Elizabethan English.

[2]-------------------------------------------------------------
From:           Abigail Quart <arq1@columbia.edu>
Date:           Monday, 9 Jul 2001 11:40:12 -0400
Subject: 12.1710 Re: "What's in a name?"
Comment:        RE: SHK 12.1710 Re: "What's in a name?"

Karen:

My handy Slang and Euphemism dictionary says 'to pluck a girl's flower'
means 'to coit; to deflower.'

In Henry VI, part one, scene iv, the Temple garden, our Warwickshire
Will has callow representatives of the houses of York and Lancaster in a
bragging competition to pluck the most roses. Sounds like Will was clear
on the 'vulva' (not 'vagina') meaning of 'rose.'

BTW, since their Wars of the Roses tore England apart, with Warwickshire
(and its Earl) being much in the middle of it, would it really be a
stretch, since Elizabeth I was both England and the Rose of England, to
think Will was accusing both these fine fellows of the rape of England
itself?  Especially since the scene is not derived from his source
material and doesn't really have much reason to be in the play in the
first place?

[3]-------------------------------------------------------------
From:           Mike Jensen <jensensh@hotmail.com>
Date:           Monday, 09 Jul 2001 09:21:00 -0700
Subject: 12.1720 Re: "What's in a name?"
Comment:        Re: SHK 12.1720 Re: "What's in a name?"

Not that I have an understanding of Mr. Taylor's character, I assumed he
would get nasty about this:

>More than 2 weeks ago, I called into question the assumed omnipotence of
>written evidence (or proof) in discussing questions such as whether or not
>the word Peter is likely to have suggested penis to an Elizabethan
>audience watching R&J.
>
>In response, Mike Jensen has repeatedly asserted his appeal to >authority
>(books, peers, and 'every scholar he knows.)  Now he
>takes the positions of cheerleader and referee.  It seems to me that the
>only 'level to which he will not go' is an ad rem >argument.  Given his
>rigid reliance on "textbooks" and "textual >precedent" one might wonder,
>does this fellow kiss by the book?

You should try it sometime.  It's a heck of a book.

Mr. Taylor continues to make personal attacks and snide remarks.  Fine.
It gives everyone the opportunity to access the kind of person he is, as
do my comments about him offer an assessment of me.  Show of hands?

As to the observation about being a cheerleader, thank you.  I am proud
of it.  I am proud to know the difference between a good argument and a
bad argument, and to have some awareness of the tools of good
scholarship.  I am glad I know what tools have worked in the past, and
to have the critical thinking skills to consider when these tools should
not be abandoned.  I am most proud that I give encouragement to those
who deserve it.  Uh, I do realize that was intended as an insult, but
that is your limitation, Mr. Taylor.

As a referee, I am a failure.  If the players do not respect the
referee, then he or she is powerless.  Since your response has been to
smear me with contempt, I have failed.  This will not keep me from
trying to point out the strengths and flaws of arguments, no matter how
ugly you get about it.  Actually, you just encourage me when you make
personal attacks on myself and others.  Bad strategy.

As to my sitting on the sidelines, I was going to get into the
Indo-European origins of the languages you analogue, but Robin Hamilton
did it with more and better details than I have in my head.  Since my
time it given to other projects and a no-end-in-sight life crisis just
now, I was relieved to leave it to someone more capable.  I gladly
accept the criticism that I am less capable than Robin on this, because
it strikes me as a great big *So what?*.

As is usual with a personal attack, you have not managed to defend your
arguments, or discredit mine.  You have merely tried to discredit me,
but have only discredited yourself.  You feel you dismissed my point a
couple of weeks ago by calling "into question the assumed omnipotence of
written evidence (or proof) in discussing questions such as whether or
not the word Peter is likely to have suggested penis to an Elizabethan
audience watching R&J."  But obviously you have not convinced many
people to abandon this precedent.  It is time tested, and makes too much
sense.  Possibly that means it is time for everyone to agree to
disagree, but know that linguistic use will be held to a higher standard
than you feel is fair.  That will not change.

By the way, I have trouble squaring your statement in the paragraph
above with this one:

>I didnšt know that linguistic history had been
>deemed irrelevant;  if it has, just when and why did this happen?

Perhaps you mean something different than historical precedent when you
use the expression >linguistic history<?

>Now, to come to evidence and inference.  Hamilton says, "The penumbra of
>the debate isn't (at least for me) over the nature of evidence, but as to
>how to treat this evidence
>-- the inferences we make from and around this, the interpretative
>strategies we bring to bear."  I agree, in
>part. What we do with "evidence" is an important matter.  But if one is
>going to make claims about what kinds of evidence pertain or which kinds
>satisfy a standard of proof and what kinds do not, then the nature of
>evidence is necessarily part of the debate.

Well, we agree on that, but it is problematic to downgrade precedents
that persuade virtually everybody, and go on your merry way as if they
no longer matter, and if fact get nasty to people who do not go along
with you.  A part of that was the point of my last message, BTW, so it
does interact with you, doesn't it?

>I think that the use of "predominantly written texts dating from the
>sixteenth century, either in their entirety or excerpted in
>dictionaries" involves a good deal more inference than has been
>acknowledged.  A documented prior occurrence of a wordšs use "proves"
>only that a) someone used the word that way at least once in the past,
>and b) someone wrote down that use of the word.  To go from those two
>"facts" to statements about whether the particular use of the word was
>widespread at a contemporary or later time, necessarily involves a fair
>amount of inference.
>
>Consider that:  1) there are words that have been in use for at least 25
>years that do not appear in the OED,  2) there are idioms and slang
>expressions that were widely popular 25-30 years ago are which are now
>unheard and are unknown to currently young writers, 3) one can find
>documentationš of slang expressions which are not and will likely never be
>part of common usage.  I would guess that these phenomena also
>occurred in the early modern period.  Such phenomena complicate
>assertions about what constitutes common parlance in a period, and
>compromise the exalted and unquestionable status of written "evidence."

Actually, people are working hard to capture the very expressions you
say they will not.  There was an article in the New York Times a year or
two ago about the man heading the effort.  Having mentioned that, I'll
go partly along with you.

Yes, the OED is flawed.  There are also words where earlier precedents
have been found than the OED records.  That does not make it useless.
The lack of reference for Peter with the meaning penis in the OED can
not be used as evidence for the opposite, certainly.  (You don't do
this, but in trying to make its absence in the OED irrelevant, you seem
to walk right up to the edge of that cliff.)  Yes it is POSSIBLE Peter
was so used, and it has been unrecorded, but a lack of evidence is still
a LACK of evidence.  It proves nothing, and that's the point.  There is
no proof, just a slew of linguistic parallels for which Peter is
uniquely lacking in precedent.  I think everyone agrees with you about
the parallels, and even about the POSSIBILITY that Peter was a euphemism
that went unrecorded.  What we don't agree about is asserting with your
assurance that Peter had this use without backing it up with the
precedents that are extant for the parallel words.  This has been stated
before, only to be met by your now expected jeers.

Let's put it like this.  If you could find a 16th century precedent, the
debate would be over.  That makes it a powerful argument.  What you have
in not nearly as powerful.  Now go ahead.  Say something else nasty.

Mike Jensen

[4]-------------------------------------------------------------
From:           Karen Peterson-Kranz <kpetersonkranz@yahoo.com>
Date:           Monday, 9 Jul 2001 10:33:11 -0700 (PDT)
Subject: 12.1720 Re: "What's in a name?"
Comment:        Re: SHK 12.1720 Re: "What's in a name?"

Robin Hamilton picked up on exactly the point which I had been trying
(not so effectively, it seems) to make in my earlier post to this
thread.  Others did not. For example,

"On roses, etc: Published documentationš (as if this were necessary or
sufficient (or accurate)) that rose is a synonym for vagina..."

Thank you for the documentation and references.

Clearly there are metaphoric and symbolic comparisons made between roses
and female genitalia in any number of texts.  Also, there are metaphoric
and symbolic comparisons made between *other* flowers and genitalia, or,
as Robin pointed out, virginity.

BUT...the key word here is "symbolic."  I was asking about whether it
was in fact accurate to say that "rose" is (or even was) a "synonym" for
vagina.  Symbols and synonyms are not the same thing.  At least they
weren't the last time I checked.

On the Greek roots of "orchid," yes, in its Western etiology the name of
the flower is connected with male body parts.  In other cultures and
other languages, the name of the flower does not necessarily derive from
the Greek.  I will have to delve into my Kosraean and Pohnapeian
dictionaries (the cultures which I was thinking of when I made the
comment), but I believe that the signifier for the flower we call an
orchid is NOT related to testacles in those languages.  Again, an
example of how perceptions, even of the body, vary from culture to
culture.

For a superb discussion of how cultural preconceptions influenced how
early modern observers perceived the body, and even *what* they
perceived in and about the body, check out Thomas Laqueur's *Making Sex*
(Harvard UP, 1992).

Please accept my apologies for any previous lack of clarity.

Cheers,
Karen

[5]-------------------------------------------------------------
From:           Mari Bonomi <pootersox@bonomi.connix.com>
Date:           Monday, 9 Jul 2001 17:34:16 -0400
Subject: 12.1720 Re: "What's in a name?"
Comment:        Re: SHK 12.1720 Re: "What's in a name?"

Two rather simplistic questions for S. Taylor:

1.  Other than suppositions based on looking backward from a 21st
century perspective, what evidence can anyone adduce for the use of a
given word...ANY word!... other than written (hence preserved) textual
evidence?

2.  On what authority/ies is that list you posted based?  So far as I
can tell by following the link, it's a site maintained by a computer
consulting firm; I'm not clear on the connection between a list of words
under the heading Vagina or Penis and this company.

Mari Bonomi

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