Page 13 - Language Facts

Eskimos don’t have 50 words for snow.

No pun intended, the misconception started as a minor mistake and was victim to the snowball effect. It began because of Franz Boas. In 1911, Boas wrote The Handbook of North American Indians. 

He discussed how there are many different terms different cultures and languages have for the “same thing.” Using English as an example, think of how many terms we have for water: rain water, salt water, fresh water, rain, foam, wave, lake, puddle, pond, river, lagoon, waterfall, etc. All of them refer to different things that can all be generalized as water. 

In fact, you could probably back up a claim that English has 50 terms for water (please, don't attempt to list them in the comments). Boas gave four examples like these for how the Eskimos referred to snow: “snow on the ground,” “falling snow,” “drifting snow,” and “snow drift.” 

This work was left alone until Benjamin Lee Whorf made a small mistake with the facts in the 1940’s. He said that we have the same word for all kinds of snow (despite the fact that we use terms like hail and sleet) and that Eskimos use many words for snow. 

In 1958, Roger Brown quoted Whorf, further distorting the truth and increasing the number. After Roger Brown, nobody went back to Boas’ original writing and the reality became more and more distorted (here, the snowball effect) until Lanford Wilson claimed there are 50 words for snow in the Eskimo language in 1978, unintentionally spreading the mistruth we know today. 

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Ever made fun of someone with a non-sensical Chinese tattoo? The Chinese have been doing the same with English words!

People in the U.S. have been getting tattoos of Chinese characters for years. They make us feel mysterious and the symbols seem exotic to us. Sometimes, they don’t even make sense. Well, it has become trendy to do the same thing in China. 

Lately, many Chinese have been getting tattoos of American words or phrases. They are exotic and unique looking to them. Some are just getting tattoos of their favorite star’s name like “Jolie” or “Pitt.” Tattoos have been a long tradition in Chinese culture.

However, the Communist government ruling in China today strongly frowns upon the practice. It has only been in the past five to ten years that tattoo parlors have been springing up all over China. 

They import their ink and needles from Europe and often locate themselves in residential areas. A tattoo costs on average a factory worker’s monthly salary! Many college aged people are getting tattoos in China, but doctors, professors, and bankers are jumping on board, too.

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The Javanese alphabet, when recited in order, forms a poem.

The Javanese are an ethnic group native to the Indonesian island of Java. They are the largest ethnic group in Indonesia with a staggering 85 million people. Most Javanese call themselves Muslim. The Javanese people are known for their rigid social interactions and mannerisms and Javanese etiquette held high. Today, they seem to be more relaxed, though. 

Interestingly, the Javanese are thought to have originated in Taiwan, travelling through the Philippines and arriving on the island of Java. They are influenced by the Indian culture, as well. The Javanese alphabet is very unique. The alphabet itself tells a poem and a perfect pangram. 

The poem is a story about a Javanese mythology about how the people became a civilization on Java. The poem translated says “There were two messengers, they had animosity among each other, they were equally powerful in fight, here are the corpses.” The myth came from the Javanese King Java Aji Saka.

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"Basket case" used to refer to quadruple amputees.

Today, we use basket case to mean someone who is crazy, or psychologically hopeless. It turns out the actual definition can be traced back to World War I. The phrase first came along as a slang term during World War I. It referred to quadruple amputees, or those who had lost all four limbs. 

The reason for this is that soldiers who lost all their limbs were carried away in baskets. This wasn't because of a shortage of stretchers, but because if they had been carried on stretchers, they would have been too prone to falling out. 

To be fair, this wasn't a very common occurrence. But since then, the definitions have broadened to refer to anything whose function is impaired. Still, the most common usage is in mental illness, specifically in cases where someone is incapable of behaving naturally. 

Basket case has also referred to a country that can't pay its debts, an abandoned vehicle stripped of its parts, or simply an eccentric person. 

Though the term was never exactly politically correct, thanks to the euphemism treadmill we mentioned in an earlier article (http://www.omg-facts.com/Language/What-we-consider-politically-correct-tod/51508), calling a quadruple amputee a basket case is today pretty rude.

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The phrase “bury a hatchet” is inspired by a North American Indian Tradition!

On top of hunting and farming, the Natives also helped us create this beloved cliché. To “bury the hatchet” means to create peace. The thought is that when hostilities are no longer needed, weapons, like the hatchet, can be disposed of as well. 

When negotiating peace, the North American Indians would actually practice what we preach. They buried all of their weapons-their scalping knives, clubs, tomahawks-into the ground. 

Apart of just showing good faith, this would also make it impossible for the fighting to continue. Thus came the popular expression; burying the hatchet. However nowadays, the idea of “burying” the hatchet seems counter-intuitive to most people, they would rather dig up the old ones. 

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