Four Somethings
Multilingual footballers, name pronunciation, Dad jeans & the Saskatchewan shuffle c/o Leslie Jamison's "Splinters"
Every Christmas (I know, it’s nearly March but bear with me), I say I want to adhere to the four-things gift-giving rule with my children: something you want, something you need, something to wear, something to read. Every year, I fail miserably. I have no idea where I first heard this but it seems like a nice, somewhat minimalist and organized way of giving gifts in a consumerism-driven world. Plus, it is catchy. In the spirit of these four (some)things, I am starting what I hope will be a regular feature of this newsletter. It is my version of the links/scroll newsletter I love so much. And yes, there may be some loose interpretation of the four somethings, and sometimes, even more than four! I will keep it mostly connected to language and/or motherhood, but at times, there may also be an outlier.
Something You Want:
My son has turned us into a football (soccer)- loving family. We are devoted fans and he is an expert on all things football. It is incredible and I love it. When our team (yes, we have “our team”) recently acquired a player who was born in the UK to Albanian parents, I went down a dark Google hole looking for evidence of this player’s multilingualism, especially as he was born in the UK and therefore, English is likely his dominant language. I found an old video of him speaking Albanian and showed it to my son, making a fuss about how cool it is that this player, although he was born and grew up in the UK, is proficient in his heritage language. So the want here is to have more professional athletes flexing their multilingual skills (I know many already do) but more importantly, dispelling myths and calling out ignorant and xenophobic messages because some of the comments on an English interview with this player posted online are so predictable and annoying: For example, “Wow, his English is really good!”
Something You Need:
I shared a post this week from one of my favourite accounts over on Instagram, The Language Nerds, about how we need to simply ask how to pronounce someone’s name if we are unsure instead of making it weird and awkward. It resonated with a lot of people. As you can imagine, I have heard many versions of my name over the years and although someone mispronouncing my name doesn’t bother me as much as it used to when I was a kid, I am always pleasantly surprised when someone does get it right on the first try. Also this week, I noticed for the first time a signature at the bottom of an email from a fellow linguist that had a link to how to pronounce her name. I clicked and it took me to a company called Namedrop:
We believe that no one should have to hear a broken version of their name. So we made it easy for you to share your name with the world, in your own voice. Simply record your name as it's meant to be said, and get your personal name link.
I love this as then, there really are no excuses. (I am also annoyed I didn’t think of it myself!) Something I talk about a lot in my book is to always remember the onus is not solely on the person with the hard-to-pronounce name, or also, what you might consider a “strong accent”. When entering into an interaction or communication with someone, each interlocutor shares the burden of listening and understanding. This is especially important when we think of “accents”. In spoken languages, the listener is responsible for understanding just as much as the speaker is responsible for being understood. There is a lot more about this in the book!
Something to Wear:
Circa 1998, I had the perfect pair of super, and I mean, super wide-leg, dark denim Levi’s. I copied a very cool girl named Nadia I worked with at a restaurant in my hometown as she looked so cool in her pair and was generally, just really cool. I wish I knew what happened to those jeans. If I had my photo albums from that time in London, I would share a pic but sadly they are in storage at my parents’ home. When skinny jeans became a thing, I hesitated and could only manage straight leg as skinny just felt wrong for me except maybe when tucked into big winter boots I wore in Canadian winters.
But I will boast that I was an early adopter of high-waisted jeans: a pair of dark wash, wide-leg 3.1 Phillip Lim bought a size too small because they were heavily discounted. I loved those jeans even though they gave me a stomach ache every time I wore them. And so, I am very much into the return (again?!) of super wide-leg denim and have acquired a few pairs already (again). But I draw the line at low-waist anything (I didn’t even go there the first, or second, time) and have stayed true to the high waist.
I wrote about the moniker “mom jeans” a few times already and how the name signifies the de-sexualized mother, often in middle-age with “disappearing buttocks”. As I previously noted, “mom jeans” is a great example when slang becomes part of our every-day vernacular and I love these examples especially in fashion. But I am happy report, I now own a pair of Levi’s Baggy Dad jeans that are equally de-sexualized! More “Dad” styles please.
For more on wide-leg jeans, and everything denim of course, head over to Jane on Jeans by
Herman’s weekly newsletters are truly the best especially for denim lovers like me. I am thrilled to hear she also has a new column in Vogue called Jean Files.And if you are not into big jeans, I also loved, as I always do, this interview by Leslie Price with the author of After School
, a good reminder if a style isn’t for you, no pressure:Yeah, I was thinking about that recently too. I was feeling self-conscious that my jeans were not baggy enough. And then I was like, this is a crazy thought. My jeans fit me perfectly. I love these jeans. They're just 501s. When I was in high school, did my mom wear the same jeans I was wearing? Hell no. She didn’t, because she was an adult. Why would she do that? I live in Williamsburg, Brooklyn, so I do [see] young people in cool clothes. But I try to quiet that voice as much as possible.
And this: “Woman Unsure If Jeans are Perfect Size or 11 Sizes Too Big is pretty great courtesy of, of course, Reductress.
Final note on jeans, although the style is not for me, I saw so many chic women in long denim skirts around Seville this past weekend.
Something to Read:
Leslie Jamison’s new book, Splinters: Another Kind of Love Story came out yesterday. I have yet to read it in its entirety but loved the excerpt in The New Yorker a few weeks ago, especially this part:
If you don’t already know, I grew up in Saskatchewan but had no idea Jamison also had roots there. I loved the idea of a “Saskatchewan Shuffle” so much and also write about that swaying motion, the body language of mothers, in my book. If you aren’t familiar with Jamison, I also recommend her essay collection, The Empathy Exams (coincidentally I also worked a standardized patient at a hospital many years ago and played different characters for med students – something that also comes up in the context of language in my book).
That is it this week for the four somethings. Thank you for reading.
Oooh, I enjoyed this immensely. Baggy Dad jeans! I can't. Too good.