When the storm named Irene barreled up into Edmeston four weeks ago, I didn't think I'd still be looking down upon the vestiges of her destruction from my upstairs windows. A 50-year denizen of the Connecticut shoreline, I've experienced more than a few timber-tumbling events during that mercurial annual period known as hurricane season.
But come on, in Central New York? Apparently so. My backyard -- with its toppled trees and thousands of dollars in damage and cleanup -- can attest to it. In a stroke of irony, at the time Irene hit us, I was housing friends and relatives from the Connecticut shore who were seeking shelter from the storm. When they could return home, their towns were without power, but none of their properties had sustained as much loss and cost as I had right here. Good night, Irene.
And then came Lee. I watched the dry-bed-turned-raging Mill Creek spewing an occasional overflow onto my Irene-ravaged lawn, but what were these images compared to those on TV and online? Dear God. All those towns south of me along the Susquehanna and her sister rivers could not possibly be in the throes of another Flood of 2006. And yet ... suffice it to say, any self-pity I may have felt about what Irene had left me to deal with vaporized pretty quickly.
Having grown up in a hurricane-prone area, I naturally follow the formation and tracking of tropical storms, and I will never cease to be awed to my knees by the extreme and sudden devastation that weather can deliver. Something I've always wondered: When meteorologists (who know better than anyone the deadly potential of storms) began naming Atlantic hurricanes in the 1950s, why didn't they go with names like Hitler and Mussolini? Instead they made an alphabetical list of girls' first names, like Irene, which incongruously means "peace."
If they were set on girls' names, why not names like Jezebel (the evil wife of King Ahab) or Pandora (the woman of Greek myth who unleashed all the evils upon the earth)? And when boys' names were introduced in 1979, why were the first three "male hurricanes" named Bob ("bright"), David ("friend"), and Frederic ("peaceful ruler")?
The World Meteorological Organization oversees the names of hurricanes, which are predetermined alphabetic lists on a six-year cycle. Names are replaced only when a hurricane is so costly in lives and property that its name is forever retired. Personally I think all the names should be retired and replaced with appropriate names of dastardly meaning or repute -- and leave all the first names of decent, normal people out of it! It's one thing to share a name with a storm that acts up in the Atlantic but never makes landfall. It's quite another to have your perfectly nice name become synonymous with incalculable human suffering and untold destruction. Ask anyone named Camille ("chaste") or Katrina ("pure").
In my lifetime, some 75 hurricanes were catastrophic enough to merit the retirement of their names. These storms claimed tens of thousands of lives, left hundreds of thousands homeless and bereft, and incurred hundreds of billions in structural and environmental damages. And with what monikers were these deadly wreakers of havoc christened? Carol ("melody"), Edna ("pleasure"), Diane ("divine"), Janet ("gracious"), Donna ("lady"), Hilda ("protector"), Gloria ("glory"), Elena ("light"), Joan ("God is gracious"), Gilbert ("trusted"), Roxanne ("dawn"), Isabel ("consecrated to God"), Ivan ("gift of God"), Felix ("happy and prosperous"), Ike ("he will laugh"), Paloma ("a dove") ... well, you get the idea.
If the WMO would consider rewriting their hurricane alphabet with a set of more suitable names, I'd be happy to get them started: Al-Qaida, Beelzebub, Caligula, Dracula, Eichmann, Fagin, Goebbels, Herod, Idi Amin, Judas, Khomeini, Lucifer ... well, you get the idea.
Edmeston resident Christine A. Lindberg, senior U.S. lexicographer for Oxford University Press, is the principal content editor of Oxford's American English dictionaries and thesauruses. Opinions expressed by Lindberg in this column are done so independently, and do not necessarily reflect the policies and practices of Oxford University Press. Have a question or comment relating to the English language? Email languagewithlindberg@gmail.com. Selected submissions will be answered here periodically.
Let's Look At The Language
Names of hurricanes don't match reality
- Let's Look At The Language
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'We'll take a cup o' kindness yet, for auld lang syne'
By Christine A. Lindberg A song that "owns" a particular day of the year is rare.
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Here comes Santa Claus ... where'd he get that snazzy red suit?
Years ago, I had a book of letters written to Santa Claus, and I remember that, among all the messages of "bring me this," "bring me that," and "I'll leave you a plate of cookies," one little boy had written, "Dear Santa, Where did you get your snazzy red suit?" I wouldn't be surprised if the author of that question grew up to be either a reporter or a fashion consultant, but in any event, I hope he got an answer to his question.
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Where do I plug in these Electric Prunes?
Those of us who make the family feasts of Thanksgiving and Christmas magically appear on the table know there's nothing magic about it.
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The sometimes-cryptic language of company names
Cream cheese originated in 1872 as the result of William Lawrence's failure to duplicate the French cheese Neufchatel. By 1880, he knew his "accidental cheese" was good enough for distribution, so he packaged it in foil wrappers and called it Philadelphia Cream Cheese.
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Humorist Will Rogers: One of the crown jewels in American language
Defined as "a humorous writer, performer or artist," a humorist could technically be anyone who makes you laugh, but my concept of a humorist is not nearly so broad
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Not quite an 'Ode to Pepé Le Pew' after gross, stinky encounter
My previous column ended with the words "sweet dreams," which are nice if you can get 'em, but sometimes the occasion of slumber time is a few degrees short of sweet.
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What will my dream-doctor say about this orgledream in my head?
I just read a snippet of folklore that tells me "a dream of grasshoppers means that something is confusing you."
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Sometimes an unremarkable day is the one we should cherish the most
Ten years ago today, it was a summery Sept. 10 here in Central New York. The temperature hovered in the 80s and there was an occasional drizzle here and there.
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'Don't miss it, don't even be late' The Great New York State Fair is here
"Our state fair is a great state fair! Don't miss it, don't even be late. It's dollars to doughnuts that our state fair is the best state fair in our state!"
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Some of it's all Greek to me, but mostly it's just herbaceously aromatic
For the past five years, I've been a container gardener (having given up the backyard to my dogs).
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Like gods on the heptagram, so are the days of our week
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'Where have you gone, Joe DiMaggio?' just not the same
When the Baltimore Orioles' third baseman took the field on May 30, 1982, not even Nostradamus could have foreseen that one of the most celebrated streaks in baseball was beginning at that very moment. The player was Cal Ripken Jr., whose 2,131st consecutive game on Sept. 6, 1995, surpassed Lou Gehrig's "unsurpassable" record.
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A frabjous Fourth of July to everyone!
If there's one date in history that every American can cite, it's the day that the Continental Congress gave its nod to the Declaration of Independence: July 4, 1776.
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I wonder if ancient Romans ever put sanctions on that two-faced Janus
Someone recently asked me if I could explain the meaning of the word "sanction.
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June is bustin' out all over!
When "Carousel," the second stage musical by Richard Rodgers and Oscar Hammerstein II, opened on Broadway on April 19, 1945, the audience left the theater in buoyant spirits.
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Go ahead and have a rat on a stick, but please don't call it a lollipop
I recent read that this Tuesday is National Escargot Day. I was unable to find any compelling evidence that this is an official national day for any nation in particular, but it does seem that throughout the U.K. and North America, French restaurants have happily adopted the day as a time to celebrate their garlicky little mollusks.
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Onomatopoeic power of wheatgrass souffle
“The formation of a word from a sound associated with what is named” is the New Oxford American Dictionary’s definition of “onomatopoeia” (Ah-Nuh-mah-tuh-PEE-uh).
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The language of Benjamin Franklin, in whatever name he used
When Benjamin Franklin died 221 years ago this month, the entire Western world mourned, yet his gravestone reads (in full), “Benjamin and Deborah Franklin 1790.”
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There's nothing like a good spoonerism to tickle a bunny phone
The English economist Sir Roy Forbes Harrod (1900"1978) once said that, compared to all the scholars he had known at Oxford and Cambridge, the Reverend William Archibald Spooner (1844"1930) was the most exceptional in "scholarship, devotion to duty, and wisdom." There is no reason to question Harrod's assessment, but that's not exactly the imprint by which Spooner is best remembered.
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'We'll take a cup o' kindness yet, for auld lang syne'
