Editing the Minimal Pairs
The minimal
pairs are a valuable notion introduced by modern linguistics to
describe contrastive features that induce semantic shifts in
normal speech. In short, the waiter won’t bring us a fish
when we ask for a dish because |f| and |d| are two
different phonemes, whose small variance makes quite a difference
in the communication process. Such minimal pairs have little
impact on editing, linked as they are to the spoken word.
On the other
hand, there are more subtle pairs that challenge good editing.
The problem may arise when the common root of two words hits the
unexpected. Consider phthisis and phthisic, both
related to pulmonary tuberculosis. In normal pronunciation, the
initial digraph ph is silent. The first sound starts with
th, which is fricative in the main word, |q|,
and voiceless in the derivative, |t|. Simply stated, phthisis
starts with the same sound as thin; the adjective
phthisic, as tin. Small changes of this kind may breed
editing snafus.
More
troublesome are the so-called homophones—words
that spell differently but are pronounced the same. They coax
into the wrong spelling with the lure of the right sound. Who
hasn’t seen principal in lieu of principle even in
good publications? Beware of such pairs. Although very few people
would spell incite as insight or rite as
write, right, wright, quite a few may exchange
counsel for council, feint for faint,
there for their. The electronic speller ignores
such swaps, which call for more heed to avoid the pitfall.
And pitfalls
there are, no doubt. You may have read about the vacationing
heroine who asks a shepherd how he can tell when a sheep is male
or female. “By look if it’s he; by touch if it’s ewe,”
answers the young man. Suppose that the author, charged with exta
voltage during the creative process, would have typed the
homophonic pronoun in lieu of the ovine label: “By look if it’s
he; by touch if it’s you.” Both words sound the
same; both sentences make sense. One wonders how an editor can
prevent slips of this kind.
Although the
range of homophony is not too wide, it may easily deceive with
allographic letters, that is, with two letters that represent
the same sound: for instance, cereal and
serial, chute and shoot,
gibe and jive, site
and cite. The risk is greater when one
homophone equals a part of the other: bloc and block,
cast and caste, lac and lack, pic
and pick, sac and sack, tic and
tick. Obviously, tide and tied consist of the
same letters, sound the same, and have different meanings. Very
few people would interchange their spellings, unless some
intentional effects are pursued. Think of the scientist who was
asked if the moon affects the tide. “It
affects both the tied and the untied,” he replied.
Whereas
skilled editors catch unintended misspelling easily, intentional
misspelling is hard to handle, above all when it carries artistic
value. Two instances deserve special mention. One is Lewis
Carroll’s esoteric quatrain, whose meaning, if any, slithers on
syntactic analogy:
’Twas brillig
and the slithy toves
did gyre and
gimble in the wabe;
all mismy
were the borogroves
and the mome
rath outgrabe.
The other is
by e. e. cummings, a poet allergic to orthographic constraints.
May I leave you with one of his spelling nightmares, which will
fade away after the first careful reading:
as joe gould
says in
his
terrifyingly hu
man man
ner the only
reason every wo
man
should
go to college
is so
that she
never can (kno
wledge is po
wer) say o
if i
’d
OH
n
lygawntuaco
llege
