meshugginah posts

[Matthew P Wiener]

Jules Siegel wrote:

>>I doublechecked with native speakers and one language teacher.  It
>>is not an ignorant error, although it is commonly "corrected".  [MW]

>How about attributing these "experts"?

Why?  They are nobody anyone on the list would know, and in general I
do not bandy about third party names in face of potential second party
abuse.  The language teacher in particular is a polyglot, he regularly
speaks Yiddish with native speakers, and has published a dictionary on
yeshivish.

>I don't know who told him this stuff but I think he didn't explain the
>context properly or you got the answer wrong. You might say meshugineh kopf
>(crazy head) but only a goy would ever say this makes me meshugineh...and
>only out of ignorance.

Only a goy?  You mean, like George Washington?

I'll ask the teacher again more precisely.  It may be as you say vis-a-vis
the grammar, or it may be that this is something that the grammarians have
prescribed as an "error", to no avail.  (Sort of like how they say "It is
me" or "I will go" are allegedly incorrect, but nobody listens to them,
except some foreigners.  As an example, Samuel Beckett's French, when he
was not abusing language itself, was always textbook perfect, but native
speakers did not always agree.)

Also, he did tell me that, once borrowed into English, the adjectives are
indeclinable.  That's a much trickier question, and certainly prescriptive.

>I think that original quotation reveals Pynchon's ignorance of spoken
>Yiddish and his reliance on library research rather than real-life
>experience.

Yes, Pynchon has no real life experience regarding Washington's goyishness,
but I hardly count that as a fault in his research.  I assume that he has
heard goyim use "meshuggeneh" in that context, and therefore, so does the
long dead goy in the book.

>	     I could point out many similar discrepancies in Vineland and
>Gravity's Rainbow.

I recall (it's been a long long time) that Slothrop's German was slightly
wrong, but I've always assumed this was deliberate.  His use of kabbalah
was as accurate as his sources (as in, poor), but so what?

>		    His worlds are invented worlds. They have their own
>internal logic and integrity but they don't show a lot of fact-for-fact
>congruence with the real worlds that people seem to want to see reflected
>in them.

I wouldn't know about that.  I just enjoy his books, as given.  He
certainly teases some readers with his astonishing range of facts.
That's their problem, not mine.

>This isn't a problem for most readers, but if you actually lived in
>Northern California and the dope-dealing scene, as both Anita and I
>did, then you find Vineland very difficult to take. The language is
>invented. No one talked that way. If you don't know how they did
>talk, this is no big deal.  If you do, it's quite annoying and
>ultimately makes it impossible to enjoy the book.

I was in Berkeley at the time, but that probably doesn't count, being
cloistered with the math geeks.  As is, I read VINELAND shortly after
Boyle's BUDDING PROSPECTS.  I noticed the language shift, but did not
care in the least who was more accurate.  I assumed Pynchon's use of
language was overdone and comic.  I couldn't have cared less if anyone
actually talked that way or not.

I mean, my enjoyment of certain Brits is not hampered by their bad
American imitations.  I do not confuse the accent of Star Trek's
Scotty (is that his name, the engine room guy?) with the real thing
--I just assume that a few hundred years from now, why not?
--
-Matthew P Wiener (weemba at sagi.wistar.upenn.edu)