Now and Hen
English has a nifty system of correlative adverbs for place and time. Let’s make a table! Note the alternation of wh, th and h.
| Interrogative | Far Deixis | Near Deixis | |
| Location | where | there | here |
| Goal of Motion | whither | thither | hither |
| Origin of Motion | whence | thence | hence |
| Time | when | then | now |
But what is that at the lower right? A blemish, a weed in our garden! By analogy, we would expect the word “hen” instead of “now” in that slot. And to make our fantasy come alive, here it is, temporal “hen” in use:
Holofernes: Sirrah, what have we to lunch to-day?
Famelicus: Cornish hen.
Holofernes: Hem. And hunger’st?
Famelicus: Most hungrily.
Holofernes: Well, well. We’ll to table by and by.
Famelicus: Would it were hen!
Well, as we all know, desire for regular language bespeaks a soggy, funless nature. I would venture to guess that Famelicus is only saying “hen” because that rule-bound pedant Holofernes taught him to. Holofernes is not cool like the rest of us! I think the Ol’ Dirty Bastard said it best: “Ooh baby I like it raw.” Perhaps he was subtly mocking Holofernes, referring to this very feature of English?
Latin has some similar stuff: “unde” is whence, “inde” is thence, and that i/u interchange occurs in some other pairs of words. Keep reading uncle Desultor, and I’ll tell you all about it when I find out more.
December 10th, 2003 at 10:55 am
Huh, I would think increased use of the world “hen” would make our lives more fun. Although the dialogue certainly demonstrates the dark, twisty paths such rigid adherence to pattern takes us down, especially if you eat a lot of Cornish hen.
I’m reminded of a similar correlative system frequently employed by me. This is of course “tha -izzy/-izzle.” For example:
“Snjoseph in tha hizzy [house]! Gonna stizzle [stay] insizzle [inside] ’cause ya can’t stop tha drizzle [drizzle]!”
You can see this is a very versatile device for MCs (like myself). One problem, though: what to do with “fizz”? “Fizzy” is fine, but “fizzle” can get you in trouble.
“All these hos wanna ride in my Hizzle! /
I take ’em to the crib ’cause they know I’m tha shizzle /
Pour the Cristal, I know you love to watch it fizzle!”
Oops! The honeys don’t want to drink flat champagne! It doesn’t matter how many diamonds you put in the glass.
December 11th, 2003 at 2:00 pm
Oh God! I feel your situation most acutely and sympathetically, for I have myself been cruelly betrayed by word-formation of this sort. And diamonds were of no help at all. You, as a real MC, will no doubt regard my amateur foray
into riming in the lowest light imaginable. I’m but a common “sucka MC”. But I flatter myself to think that my mistakes are themselves not entirely
uninteresting, and that they may provide a moral lesson to others like myself,
to leave it to the pros.
When I first heard Hip-Hop (in July 2002) I was much taken by its Vigour – I
felt the beat to bump, to invade my shoulders, fingers, hips, toes and “Desi,” says I, “thou’lt master this art, thou’lt be famed!”
So I went and bought a Little Black Book for my rimes (they say that is the very thing to do), and in a storm of creative joy, a lucubratory fulmination, I penned them. For months, all I did was write rimes, eat, drink, void and swive. Now, creative seclusion is for me a fruitful modus operandi, but I am no
less subject to its risks than anyone else. I made the lamentable mistake of
confusing “izzle” with “ivel”, and as you’ll see I used this to very ill effect.
Rimes written, come January of this year, I had enough material. I walked eight miles in the snow and ice (an ill-luck weather – walking those eight miles felt
more like running an hundred!) to Open Mike Night. The rapper before me was a melancholical sort of fellow, whose rimes were lugubrious and
over-contemplative, so I thought to get the party moving with this Bawdy:
Come to my crib and be my ho
And we shall taste all joys unprude.
What’s crescent, la, we’ll let it grow
And when that thou beest well bedew’d;
Then spread thou out that divine snivel
We’ll milk the yard until it’s drivel.
I couldn’t get any further. They called me wack. I’ll never rime again.
January 16th, 2004 at 1:38 pm
ah, that brighten’d my day.
March 15th, 2010 at 11:49 am
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