[Multilingual Monday] Allocutive Forms, Plus A Name Bonus!!

[aadroma]

In the last Multilingual Monday I discussed the complexity of verb forms in Basque, and it was pointed out that I had skipped a verb form -- for good reason, as it gives today's topic: the allocutive form. Basque is the olny language I know of -- please correct me if I'm wrong! -- that contains these special verb forms

Comments

[morimur]

You reminded me of this:

The name "Susanin" has become an ironic cliché in the Russian language for a person who leads somewhere claiming to know the way, but who eventually proves not to.

[ from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ivan_Susanin ]

I remember using this often, growing up. It had two main uses, as a humorous one, when someone would get us lost while maintaining that he or she new the way and as a disparaging remark when discussing where our political leaders got us.

[anonymous]

Caesar's wife, Uncle Tom, Judas (or Judas Priest as an expletive). What's the line between allusion and vocabulary? For instance, calling somebody an Iago isn't quite free of reference to Othello, I think, but calling somebody Judas isn't a NT reference. Of course there are also names that have been entirely subsumed by their meaning, like chauvinism and bigot, both of which are derived from Renaissance Frenchmen, as I recall, or Bowdlerize, after the Rev. Thomas (?) Bowdler and his Family Shakespeare. It's odd that I can't offhand think of a clearly eulogistic use of a name. Of course these words mostly come from ruminating on the general field of treachery, which may have especial tendencies to use exemplary names as substitutes for the plain word. After all, calling somebody a traitor is, I think, per se libel, but I doubt calling somebody a Benedict Arnold would be

[gorkabear]

In our gay slang, we use a lot of such names. Take this

[muckefuck]

Awesome, Raja! Since I never learned the hi forms, I never learned about allocutivity either. It's somewhere between an ethic dative and the speech levels of Korean (which operate independently of and combine freely with honorifics)--more like the former in form, and more like the latter in use.