Progress: July 19, 2011

 

Progress: July 17, 2011

 

Progress: July 15, 2011

 

Process: The Vulgar Tongue

My website was used as a source for the expression “tongue rug” on Termium Plus: La banque de données terminologiques et linguistiques du gouvernement du Canada.

Contexte: Le tapis à langues [...] fabriqué de morceaux de feutre ... au Québec et en Suède est similaire à une courtepointe mais formé de langues qui se chevauchent, souvent brodés avec des icônes symboliques. (Cuckoo Grafik)

I was happy to see this inclusion; that the humble rug was given a little recognition despite what Gordon Campbell describes as its utilitarian nature in The Grove Encyclopaedia of Decorative Arts (2006): "Pieces of fabric, cut with one end rounded, were sewn to a heavy foundation. Starting at the outside edge, each row of ‘tongues’ slightly overlapped the previous one, like tiles on a roof, until the centre was reached. Sometimes the ‘tongues’ were decorated with button-hole stitches." (298) Not sure I agree with the term? Though the object is useful in its capacity to recycle discarded materials, can it not also be an object of beauty ?

Out of curiosity, I searched Termium for other expressions: tongue of air (langue d’air); tongue on a buckle (ardillon); tongue in cheek (pince-sans-rire); tongue clucking (claquement de langue); tongue shaped (linguiforme); tongue and slot fixing (fermeture mâle et femelle); tongue twister (virelangue); and tongue land (langue de terre).

Though I had heard the term langue de terre before, I was not familiar with "tongue land". Looking over my maps, it is the perfect term for certain land formations in Quebec. The Legault Peninsula / Presqu’Île des Legaults (LE-8) does ressemble an emerald tongue jutting out into the water of the Outaouais. Other agricultural areas, such as Angers Bridge (A-9) in Sainte-Marie-Madelaine, Montérégie, Québec, recall the patchwork rug by the ordering of their tongue-like, long narrow strips of land, a result of the seigneurial system that was introduced to Nouvelle France in 1627.

 

View Tongue A-9 in a larger map Remnants of the seigneurial system can be seen today in maps and satellite imagery of Quebec, with the characteristic "long lot" (ribbon farm) land system still forming the basic shape of current farm fields and clearings, as well as being reflected in the historic county boundaries along the St. Lawrence River. (Wikipedia)

I also found older expressions in the 1811 Dictionary of the Vulgar Tongue: A Dictionary of Buckish slang, University Wit, and Pickpocket Eloquence by Francis Grose, which was first published in 1785 as the Classical Dictionary of the Vulgar Tongue by Captain Grose. The first edition contained words that were tamed down or edited out in the latter edition. I was able to read both editions online in digitized format (Google), transcribed (Gutenberg Project) and even indexed by keyword.

 

British Library (Learning: Dictionaries and meanings) TONGUE enough for two sets of teeth: said of a talkative person. As old as my TONGUE, and a little older than my teeth; a dovetail in answer to the question, How old are you? TONGUE pad; a scold, or nimble-tongued person. It is all RUG; it is all right and safe, the game is secure. Asleep. The whole gill is safe at RUG; the people of the house are fast asleep.

Throughout the dictionary, the Cant Language is a prevalent term, one that I had not encountered before.

“The Vulgar Tongue consists of two parts; the first is the Cant Language, called sometimes Pedlar’s French, or St. Giles’s Greek; the second, those Burlesque Phrases, Quaint Allusion, and Nick-names for persons, things and places, which from long uninterrupted usage are made classical by prescription.”
— Preface, Classical Dictionary of the Vulgar Tongue (1785)

 

French Canadian wood carving The tongue rug, often no bigger than a doormat, was traditionally displayed in the parlour.

 

The Canadian Oxford Dictionary defines “cant” as a language peculiar to a class, profession or sect; to speak jargon. It’s earlier meaning was of a musical nature, one of intonation and of beggar’s whining, probably from the Anglo-Norman cant, song, singing, from canter, to sing, from Latin cantre. In The Vulgar Tongue, cant is defined in a highly negative way: a CANT is defined as “ an hypocrite, a double tongue pallavering fellow” while CANT language is also known as GIBBERISH, that is, Pedlar’s French or St. Giles’s Greek. CANTERS, or THE CANTING CREW is defined as "thieves, beggars, and gypsies, or any others using the canting lingo".

The dictionary is rife with words of foreign origins , such as CHAPERON, CURTEZAN, CURMUDGEON (“a covetous old fellow, derived according to some, from the French term coeur méchant”), FOGEY ("Old Fogey. A nickname for an invalid soldier: derived from the French word fougeux, fierce or fiery"), and SAUNTERER (an idle, lounging fellow, said to be derived from the French sans terre), to name just a few. At the same time, the French language is considered “an outlandish lingo, a foreign tongue; the parlezvous lingo”. E. Cobham Brewer’s Dictionary of Phrase and Fable (1898) defines “Pedlar’s French” as the slang of the Romany folk. He explains that the word Frenchman was a synonym of foreigner. Anyone who could not speak English was labeled so.

Slang is a vernacular vocabulary that is not generally acceptable in formal usage and can included mundane terms (rain check) to obscure sexual practices. For instance, the dictionary reveals that TWIDDLE DIDDLES is slang for testicles.

“We need not descant on the dangerous impressions that are made on the female mind, by the remarks that fall incidentally from the lips of the brother or servants of a family; and we have before observed, that improper topics can with our assistance be discussed, even before the ladies, without raising a blush on the cheek of modesty. It is impossible that a female should understand the meaning of TWIDDLE DIDDLES or rise from tablet at the mention of BUCKINGER'S BOOT. — Preface, Dictionary of the Vulgar Tongue (1811)

Much of the vernacular vocabulary reflects the racism and prejudices of that time, let alone misogynist sentiments. Many expressions seemed to be used to put someone in their place, to assign them to their correct station in life.

PISS-PROUD. Having a false erection. That old fellow thought he had an erection, but his - was only piss-proud; said of any old fellow who marries a young wife

Other words were used in the same way, to silence. The tongue is invariable female.

CHATTER BOX. One whose tongue runs twelve score to the dozen, a chattering man or woman.
CLACK, a tongue, chiefly applied to women, a simile drawn from the clack of a water mill.
GAB, or GOB, the mouth; gift of the gab, a facility of speech, eloquence, nimble tongued; to blow the gab, to confess, or peach.
GLIB, smooth, slippery; glib tongued, talkative.
POTATO TRAP; the mouth; shut your potato trap, and give your tongue a holiday, i.e. be silent.
PRITTLE PRATTLE, insignificant talk, generally applied to women and children.
QUAIL PIPE, a woman’s tongue.
RED RAG, the tongue; shut up your potatoe trap, and give your red rag a holiday, i.e. shut up your mouth and let your tongue rest […]
TITTLE TATTLE, idle discourse, scandal, women’s talk, or small talk
BONE BOX. The mouth. Shut your bone box; shut your mouth.

Many words such as dowdy and drab, at one time harsh judgments of women, have had their meaning watered down in today’s usage. Other words that were once considered slang have been incorporated into general use such as agog, blab, blast, blubber, bouncer, brat, brazen-faced, budge, buff, carouse, chap, chubby, clan, clout, coax, crone, disgruntled, elbow grease, equipt, eves dropper, feint, fidgets, fumble, gawkey, gingerly, glum, grub, hodge podge, jowl, lingo, lush, pimp, pommel, puny, quandary, quota, rigmarole, scamper, scarce, scoundrel, scraggy, seedy, sham, slang, slouch, smut, smirk, sneering, snicker, snivel, spree, swig, tipsey, wheedle, yelp, etc. However, the meaning of many of these words has shifted with time.

Though of course Twitter took its name from an existing word for bird chatter, it is nonetheless eery to stumble upon such a contemporary word in the world of social media in a dictionary that is more than 200 years old.

TWITTER, all in a twitter, in a fright; twittering is also the note of some small birds, such as the robin, etc.

What sort of slang and vernacular vocabulary will social media generate for future dictionaries?

Progress: July 9, 2011

 

Process: Stitching Time

 

Over the summer months, I’ve been stitching tongues on cotton and linen with alpaca wool. I have never had particularly strong sewing skills so it is more of an idea of a tongue rug. Nonetheless, I enjoy the process. This time consuming activity leaves room for recollection, for meditation.

My decision to use words as icons was a good one. While numbering the tongues did not particularly help stir up memories, a few choice words for a waypoint  (lucie, gravel, bikinis, camero, heather) invariably brings up the experience like it was yesterday — even 10 years after the first bike trip (LE-3). I use the word experience because not only do I remember the physical environment of this trip  — how it was hot and I was annoyed by the flies, how the road was gravely in parts, how there was not much to look at as houses were few and far between — I can also recall my emotional state. I clearly remember my inner thoughts while cycling to my destination: my bruised ego at having to cycle with an old bike with a rusty, rattling chain; the anxiety about the thought that I was going the wrong way; the disappointment that the lake in question was a tourist destination once I reached Lac Legault. I can even remember the line I traced on the map by my passage. More of a scribble than an exact cartographic representation. Ten years from now when I look at the tongues, will the word-icons trigger the same memories?

Did traditional tongue rugs hold similar memories through iconic decoration or the choice of materials (the discarded clothing of loved ones for instance)? In comparison, my tongue rug seems to be more of a template, a blueprint; there is no meaning in the choice of materials nor is there any (sadly) skill or craftsmanship in its making. It is more about the time spent stitching the pieces; the hours spent reflecting on time and place.

 

Progress: July 5, 2011

 

Progress: July 2, 2011

 

Progress: June 30, 2011

 

Process: Griffintown sladdakavring

UNESCO designated April 18th as the International Day for Monuments and Sites in 1983. Heritage Montreal, in collaboration with ICOMOS Canada, brought together several partners to highlight this year’s theme, the Cultural heritage of water in Montreal. Parks Canada put on a conference about the Lachine Canal National Historic Site at Brasseurs de Montréal. While on the guided tour of the canal and its basins, admittedly a cold and wet experience as it rained buckets the entire time, I discovered that The Canada Jute Company used to occupy the building situated at 1744 William Street, which was built in 1889. Specializing in the making of industrial bags in jute and cotton, The Canada Jute Co. was incorporated in 1882 and amalgamated into The Canadian Bag Company in the 1900s.

The proximity of the Ogilvie Flour Mill on rue des Seigneurs (built in 1890, and later occupied by Montreal Woolen Mills), prompted me to wonder if Canada Jute Co. provided the mill with jute bags for its flour and middling products? A material that is considered a waste product along with the bran, middlings or weatlings (in French, remoulage or issues), is obtained in the commercial wheat milling process and was commonly used to feed livestock as a high-protein supplement.

 

Lake of the Woods Tongue Rug, c. 1930 Reverse view of the burlap bags from Lake of the Woods Milling Company Ltd.

 

At first, I wondered if there was a Griffintown connection to my sladdakavring? Did The Canadian Bag Company fabricate the middling bag that is stitched on the back of my tongue rug? Upon further investigation, I realized that it is more plausible that the maker of the rug simply lived on a farm or maintained a small stable on their property because Ogilvie Flour Mills only bought Lake of the Woods Milling Company in 1954, while the tongue rug is dated around 1930. It will be difficult to determine the origin of the rug given that middlings were sold all over Canada and the United States to feed livestock.

When I first settled down in the Sud-Ouest in 2007, I walked the Griffintown and Point St. Charles Heritage Trail to explore the area. Hailing from an industrial city in Northern Ontario, I've always appreciated the singular beauty of 19th & early 20th century industrial architecture. I’ve been walking and biking through Griffintown on a daily basis as I started working at the Board of Montreal Museums Directors.

 

 

Curious about the area's architecture, I consulted McGill University's Industrial Architecture of Montreal website. The BMMD building situated at 333 Peel and William was once the garage of the William Dow Brewery Co., built in 1929 by the architect Louis Auguste Amos.

 

Engraving: Commercial trademark of William Dow & Company, Montreal, India pale Ale John Henry Walker (1831-1899) © McCord Museum

 

I also recently stumbled upon a heritage study of 55 buildings in Griffintown — residential housing, institutional, commercial and industrial buildings — on the Committee for the Sustainable Redevelopment of Griffintown website. Planification détaillée du secteur Griffintown: analyse du cadre bâti was produced by the consulting firm Patri-Arch (Martin Dubois and Catherine Séguin with David B. Hanna and Atelier B.R.I.C.) for the Bureau du patrimoine de la toponymie et de l’expertise du Service de la mise en valeur du territoire et du patrimoine for the City of Montreal in March 28, 2007. I decided to create a map using the study’s heritage sites as a starting point, in order to find my bearings while on my meanderings to and from work.

 

View Griffintown Heritage Buildings in a larger map

 

It was fascinating to see the transformations over time: from the photos taken during the study's 2006-2007 time period, to the Google Street View photos taken in 2009, to seeing the actual sites now, two years later, on my daily walks. I was frankly relieved to see that all the sites were still in existence with all the construction sites in the area. One of the study's suggestions was to design a series of informational plaques for these heritage buildings, a timely idea especially with all the recent real estate developments; from the well-known landmarks to the more modest dwellings, it is important to remind the passer-by of the varied history of this neighbourhood. The study certainly opened my eyes to the area’s industrial past and the key historical figures who helped shape the community.

 

Griffintown Police Station no 7, The Griffintown Tour by G. Scott MacLeod, 2001

 

I also found G. Scott MacLeod's website The Griffintown Tour, which showcases a series of drawings of key sites in Griffintown, namely Police Station no 7 situated at 219 Young Street. Built in 1875, it is now used as a rehearsal space for the Centaur Theatre Company. I recently enjoyed a guided tour of the building. Urban Occupations Urbaines, in collaboration with the Centaur Theatre and Heritage Montreal presented Alison Loader's Ghosts in the Machine, an inquiry into the death of Mary Gallagher. I was impressed on many levels by this work.

I found the site-specific nature of her work a key component to the multimedia installation. The historical signification of the building for the Irish population at the time and the "residue" of a 135-year-old space added to the experience: the creaking of the floorboards, the smells and the general atmosphere. I appreciated the fact that there were multiple entry points, that is, each person would have a different experience based on their vantage point of the projections; each person, depending on when they entered the installation, would experience the narrative differently as there was no beginning nor end to the audio loops. One was free to creep up to see an image on the cylinder, to walk around the distorted projections or to simply sit down and listen. The imagination of the visitor — his or her ability to fill in the gaps — is another important component of this piece. The image of a nude figure with an axe for example, becomes a skewed image of some sort of animal galloping in a monstrous manner. Closer investigation is needed to determine what one is looking at or what one is hearing as the audio of the three circular areas overlap. The piece is interactive in that it demands work; visitors need to spend time with the installation to put together the pieces, to reassemble the bits of information that they are hearing and seeing. This process of reconstitution mirrors the multiple points of view at the time on the crime (the beheading of Mary Gallagher) as well as the societal biases around women and class that came to corrupt the justice process in finding her killer.

It would be interesting to have a permanent exhibition of Lauder's work in Griffintown much like the Silophone project in the Old Port.