Why Can't 'a Wife' Walk Down the Street?

Ever since the sentence 'a girlfriend was walking down the street' appeared to me unbidden in a hazy late-night half-sleep, I've been trying to understand what makes certain relationship words sound so weird as the subject of a sentence. Consider:

• 1a."I saw a boyfriend enter the store."

• 1b. "A wife selected zucchini from the produce section."

• 1c. "The dog chased a husband down the street."

My immediate thought is that these relationship words, girlfriend/boyfriend/wife/husband, need a pair to make sense. The sentences are immediately made more acceptable by adding on another member:

• 2a. "I saw two boyfriends enter the store."

• 2b. "A wife selected zucchini from the produce section and handed it to her husband."

• 2c. "The dog chased a husband and wife down the street."

Compare also the words 'mother' and 'father'. Both of these need another member to make sense ('child'), but it is actually quite acceptable to use them by themselves, in the indefinite.

• 3a."I saw a lonely dad at the playground."

• 3b. "A mother was excitedly waiting in line for coffee."

Hmm, what if we compare with another relationship word, 'friend'?

• 4a. "A friend entered the store."

• 4b. "I saw a friend select zucchini from the produce section."

The effect is interesting - I read these sentences differently from the ones above. The implication is very strong that this is my friend, not somebody who is a friend to someone else and not me. Meanwhile, sentence sets 1 and 2 don't have the implication that the boyfriend, wife, or husband have any relation to me at all. While the feeling is uncanny, you do get the intended meaning, which is "somebody who is male who is in a committed relationship entered the store." If you try to force the same distant reading on the 'friend' sentences, you get the same quirky feeling.

I suspect part of it is custom - we almost never have need to refer to someone's paired-off status without mentioning the pair. On the other hand, people talk about the behavior of mothers and fathers separate from their children often. And to refer to a stranger as a friend of some unmentioned other person, but not you, is something we almost never need to do. Don't we assume, rightly or wrongly, that everyone is a friend of someone else?

This obviousness comes into play with 'daughter' and 'son':

• 5a. "A daughter came into my store."

• 5b. "A son selected zucchini from the produce seciton."

Everyone is someone's child, so this construction that foregrounds someone's status as a son or daughter is simply unneeded.

The Carpenters Take On Californian Accents

The "Oldie but goodie" soft rock/pop/middle-of-the-road band "Carpenters" seems to have been tinged by nostalgia since it began. Active from 1969 to 1983, the band was fronted by Karen Carpenter, a singer with a contralto voice as well as an underutilized drumming talent. Her brother, Richard Carpenter, was also in the band, and provided harmonies and occasional lead.

The siblings were late baby boomers, with Karen born in 1950 and Richard in 1946. They were born in Connecticut but grew up in Los Angeles, California. Despite this, they provide a comical attempt at imitating a Californian accent. When covering the song "Fun Fun Fun", they decided to pay homage to the original band (The Beach Boys) and their Californian roots by imitating some kind of 'surfer' accent. Richard takes lead on this song and gives us these deviations from his typical accent:

æ-tensing, where the sound 'an' and 'am' become diphtongs. Richard tries an exaggerated version: "Well she got her daddys car and she flew to the hamburger st[ɪa]nd now"

Just a line later, he forgets his commitment to the accent and uses a pure æ instead:

"Seems she forgot all about the library like she told her old m[æ]n now"

But he remembers by the next line that he's playing a character:

"Goes cruising just as fast as she [kɪan] now"

The song is abridged, so we cut to the final verse, where he shows us one more trick - u-fronting, or at least his attempt at it.

"We got a lot of things to d[ɪu] now"

There is, otherwise, not much to say about the Carpenters. Karen preserves the COT-CAUGHT distinction. This may be something she preserved from her New England uprising, as elder baby boomer Brian Wilson (of Beach Boys fame), who was born and raised in California, already has the merger.

"Can't laugh and I can't w[o]lk, finding it hard even to t[o]lk"

She also distinguishes between 'w' and 'whine' - the WINE-WHINE distinction - on Desperado:

"[h]wy don't you come to your senses"

This is an affectation, as she doesn't keep this consistently.

"You must know [w]at I'm going through"

Otherwise, there is little of sociolinguistic interest on the Carpenters' songs. They, especially Karen, stuck to the conventions of beautiful singing for their time. Noticeably, despite dipping their toes into rock, Karen doesn't affect a Black American accent to the extent most rock groups did. An example of that will be covered in a future post.

Cute Linguistics Gifts

I find the holiday gift-giving season very stressful (and societally-mandated seasonal gift-giving in general). After watching several YouTube videos on gifts for specialized hobbies, I wondered what kind of linguistics gifts you could give someone. It's not a very materially-focused hobby, after all. So here's an attempt at something you could conceivably gift someone who likes linguistics which they could enjoy. None of these links are sponsored (though if that sort of thing doesn't bother you, let me know - I'm not against getting some kind of actual revenue efrom this blog).

Amateur/Beginner

For the aspiring historical linguist in your life, "The Story of Our Language" by Henry Alexander is old (1960s), but is an accessible introduction to how modern English developed from Old English. It can be purchased very cheaply on the secondhand market.

"Introducing Linguistics: A Graphic Guide" is a wonderful little intro that covers multiple subfields of linguistics and is pocket-sized.

"Language Myths" by Laurie Bauer and Peter Trudgill covers a variety of Linguistics 101 topics and myths like "In the Appalachians They Speak Like Shakespeare", "Maori is an inferior language because you cannot use it to discuss astrophysics," "kids are ruining English."

John McWhorter's linguistics books tend to be aimed at a broad audience. Of the ones I've read, the closest I can think of relating to historical linguistics is "Words on the Move: Why English Won't—and Can't—Sit Still (Like, Literally)". I think it covers some aspects of language change.

Deep in Linguistics Sauce

Lingthusiasm is a podcast focused on linguistics. You can gift someone in your life a subscription to Lingthusiasm, if you know they're a podcast type. If you're not into podcasts, they still have you covered with linguistics paraphernalia. I own the 'liquids for your liquids' bottle. It's a simple, lightweight aluminum watter bottle with no fancy features, but the people at work always ask me what the symbols mean, and then I get to explain liquids to everyone. There's also one with glottal consonants on it, if those are more your style. I also have the mask, but I would not recommend it as a serious COVID mask - it is not fitted to the face so air escapes out the side, and the polyester jersey has a tendency to stick to your nostrils and make it hard to breathe.

William Labov's Principles of Linguistic Change. This is a 3-volume set, but it's helpful for anyone interested in the variety of features that motivate language change. You can read it straight through if you're a maniac or just keep it as a reference work. If you know there's a particular subfield your friend is interested in, you can just buy one of the volumes (e.g. cultural factors is volume 3).

If you're passionate about linguistics, what kinds of gifts would you consider thoughtful and fun? What about something for a younger person who's just getting into linguistics?