{"id":149,"date":"2003-12-09T11:44:22","date_gmt":"2003-12-09T15:44:22","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blogs.law.harvard.edu\/desultor\/2003\/12\/09\/now-and-hen\/"},"modified":"2003-12-09T11:44:22","modified_gmt":"2003-12-09T15:44:22","slug":"now-and-hen","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/desultor\/2003\/12\/09\/now-and-hen\/","title":{"rendered":"Now and Hen"},"content":{"rendered":"

<\/a><\/p>\n

English has a nifty system of correlative adverbs for place and time. Let’s make a table! Note the alternation of wh<\/i>, th<\/i> and h<\/i>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n\n\n\n
<\/td>\nInterrogative<\/b><\/td>\nFar Deixis<\/b><\/td>\nNear Deixis<\/b><\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
Location<\/b><\/td>\nwhere<\/td>\nthere<\/td>\nhere<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
Goal of Motion<\/b><\/td>\nwhither<\/td>\nthither<\/td>\nhither<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
Origin of Motion<\/b><\/td>\nwhence<\/td>\nthence<\/td>\nhence<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
Time<\/b><\/td>\nwhen<\/td>\nthen<\/td>\nnow<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/table>\n

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:<\/p>\n

Holofernes: Sirrah, what have we to lunch to-day?
\nFamelicus: Cornish hen.
\nHolofernes: Hem. And hunger’st?
\nFamelicus: Most hungrily.
\nHolofernes: Well, well. We’ll to table by and by.
\nFamelicus: Would it were hen!<\/p>\n

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?<\/p>\n

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<\/i> about it when I find out more.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

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 […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":25,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-149","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/desultor\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/149","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/desultor\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/desultor\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/desultor\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/25"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/desultor\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=149"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/desultor\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/149\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/desultor\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=149"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/desultor\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=149"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/desultor\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=149"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}