| Lancette Arts Journal Founded in 2000 |
NON-Fiction Book Reviews From our Archives |
Winter/Spring 2002 |
A Devil's Dictionary of Business Jargon by David Olive, Key Porter, 199 pages, hardcover, $21.95
Exploring Manitoulin by Shelley J. Pearen, University of Toronto Press, 228 pages, softcover, $22.95
When Old Scratch plays with words
By Alidė Kohlhaas
When David Olive decided to create a dictionary of business jargon and called it "A Devil's Dictionary", he did not have "a printer's devil" in mind. A printer's devil used to be someone who ran errands in a printing office and if he applied himself, could learn the business from scratch. Olive had in mind Old Scratch, who gets up to devilish tricks, in this case with our language. The author uses considerable wit in his definition of words and phrases that must surely have been inspired by the devil. What feverish brains created the business jargon that gives odd meanings to some very good words, or creates odd combinations of words, or places prefixes before words that make little or no language sense?
Olive is to be admired for his ability to write his little dictionary with tongue in cheek. There are times when this writer loses all sense of humor on hearing or reading such preposterous inventions, not so Olive. Even if he applies his own humorous, sarcastic interpretations of this jargon, he is by no means far off when he describes how some words are applied in the business world and, I will add, the civil service. Just think of the word that has crept into English in the past decade: pre-owned. What does that really mean, and what is it supposed to mean? Olive doesn't actually list this monstrosity in his dictionary, but he give us its current replacement: pre-loved. He describes it thus: adj. Cloying version of "pre-owned", a come-on in the classified ads for used luxury items. This is an example of the
*****
Manitoulin Island, a place where history and scenery mingle
A few years ago we spent a delightful, almost enchanting summer vacation on Manitoulin Island. We were almost tempted to move there, but better sense prevailed because as one gets older it might not be so easy to cope with the heavy snowfalls that can pile up the white stuff nine feet or more in the winter. The memory, though, of this vacation ensured that I could not resist reading Shelley J. Pearen's Exploring Manitoulin, which has now come out in its third edition.
For those, who do not know where or what Manitoulin Island is, here is a brief geography lesson. It lies in Lake Huron, the second largest of the five Great Lakes that are in the centre of North America and are shared by Canada and the U.S.A. Manitoulin lies in that part of Lake Huron known as Georgian Bay (named so for King George IV). It is a Canadian island and distinguishes itself from other islands by being the world's largest in a freshwater lake. It is 129 km (80 miles) long and varies in width from 4 km to 48 km (2.4 to 30 miles) and covers an area of 2,766 sq. km (1,068 sq. mi). That makes it larger than the island country of Malta (consisting of four islands), of which the main island, Malta, is a mere 24 km long and 17 km . . .
Copyright © 2002-10 CamKohl Arts Productions