edited by:
Joseph Bradley Hill & Hannah Machover
does understanding lyrics hinder or enhance the listening experience? ----- how do you transcribe abstract vocals? ----- does punctuation exist in music? ----- (& how do you sound a bracket?) ----- fortuitous mishearings, blurting utterances, the limits of transcription ----- the bounds of language ----- the tail end, the caboose of phrase ----- no soap, radio ----- featuring Cocteau Twins, Lady Mondegreen & The Loch Ness Monster.
Read on for prompts and editors' notes for this article:
As a fan of Cocteau Twins I don't watch Elizabeth Fraser sing for fear of understanding exactly what she's saying ----- she masked her feelings through these jumbled words and languages, creating new ones in the process ----- should we decipher them or leave them as they are? ----- also, how can abstract sound be transcribed? ----- does punctuation exist in music? (& how do you sound a bracket?)
Artists and writers are known for creating words ----- many need to construct their own as the perfect ones don’t exist to describe what they are thinking or feeling ----- the public carries these forward into use through proliferation in an essential development of our language ----- it is also a form of myth-making for the listener ----- there are infinite interpretations available until the lyric is stamped in front of them.
Some great neologisms by musicians and authors alike include: Eminem’s “stan” (stalker fan) -----The Beastie Boys’ “mullet” (!) ----- Dr. Seuss’ “nerd” ----- John Milton’s “pandemonium” ----- Lewis Carroll’s “chortle” ----- & especially Sylvia Wright’s “mondegreen” ----- a noun used to describe the result of mishearing a word for another word or phrase, especially spoken aloud ----- Wright was inspired by the commonly misheard line of “Lady Mondegreen’ from “laid him on the green” in Scottish ballad The Bonnie Earl O’ Moray.
“I gained so much from [inventing language]. I didn’t expect it to be such a fulfilling experience, at first it was an avoidance tactic. More than that. But I must have given myself permission along the way that I was really gonna go for it and not worry about people’s opinions.” ----- Elizabeth Fraser ----- in conversation with John Grant ----- 2017
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In German, you can compound words infinitely to create new meanings ----- known as ein zusammengesetztes wort (a set-together (compound) word) or ein Bandwurmwörter (tapeworm word) ----- the longest (defunct as of 2007) example being Rind-fleisch-etikettierungs-überwachungs-aufgaben-übertragungs-gesetz (without the dashes) = “the law concerning the delegation of duties for the supervision of cattle marking and the labelling of beef” ----- a couple favourites are Der Kummerspeck (literally grief-bacon = excess fat from emotional over-eating) & die Eselsbrücke (literally donkey-bridge = a memory device/mnemonic) ----- Mark Twain called them "alphabetical processions".
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Do does the inclusion of um utterances in sentences reduce the meaning of them? or are they simply a waste of reading time ----- how much should a subtitler edit out of a conversation? ----- how long should you pause when reading ... and ..... ?
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Even when writing something that seems like complete gibberish, avoiding language is difficult ----- take an excerpt from Edwin Morgan's The Loch Ness Monster Song (from From Glasgow to Saturn (Carcanet, 1973)):
"Hovoplodok – doplodovok – plovodokot-doplodokosh?
Splgraw fok fok splgrafhatchgabrlgabrl fok splfok!
Zgra kra gka fok!
Grof grawff gahf?"
---- "grof" means "count" in Slovenian & “rough/coarse” in Dutch ----- “zgra” (игра) means “game” in Bulgarian ----- “fok” means “degrees” in Hungarian ----- “doplodovok” (доплодовок) means “supplements” in Russian ----- “plovodokot” means “the pipeline” in Macedonian or “fruit cat” in Russian ----- how could you approach a legitimate translation of gibberish?
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The International Phonetic Alphabet (IPA) represents spoken sounds in letters ----- variations in symbols indicate the sounds in different locations in your mouth ----- a paragraph set in IPA can also look a LOT like musical notation with the rests and ties arching over and under the letters ----- the word bridge in IPA (/bɹɪd͡ʒ/) has a tie very similar to that which connects musical notes ♩⁀♩‿♩
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“We have had people on the Internet who have written translations and they obviously have a natural talent for writing. Their interpretations are so beautiful that sometimes I have preferred what they have written to what I actually sang, it has been much more eloquent. Those people are not so precious about Cocteau Twins and just enjoyed using their talent and it is lovely to witness. But some people are very…It seems that some people are convinced they know us better than we know ourselves, and that we ought to listen to them. They want to steer us and they are very precious about us and they do not want other people to have us. If you really love something, then you have to let it go and endorse everything about it that attracted you to it in the first place.” ----- Elizabeth Fraser ----- BOYZ ----- 1995
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In the 1970s, Italian pop singer Adriano Celentano created a song called Prisencolinensinainciusol, which aimed to mimic the American singing voice for the Italian audience without using any discernible words. The result is a gibberish fanfare and top 10 hit in Italy, Netherlands and Belgium.
