Merriam-Webster added the word “cryptid” to its dictionary, and “Godzilla: King of the Monsters” is hitting theaters, so it seemed like a good time to talk about a few monster words and to answer an important question: Is Godzilla a cryptid? LINKS AND SPONSORS | Feminist Folklore Podcast: https://www.feministfolklore.com/ | Grammar Girl Email Newsletter: https://www.quickanddirtytips.com/newsletters | Graduation Sweepstakes: http://bit.ly/qdtlifeaftercollege | Grammar Girl's AP style webinar: http://bit.ly/GrammarWebinar2019 | GRAMMAR POP iOS GAME | Optimized for iPad: http://bit.ly/iPadGrammarPop | For iPad and iPhone: http://bit.ly/GrammarPopMobile | GRAMMAR GIRL BOOKS | http://bit.ly/GrammarPopBooks | GRAMMAR GIRL IS PART OF THE QUICK AND DIRTY TIPS PODCAST NETWORK | VOICEMAIL: 833-214-GIRL
Merriam-Webster added the word “cryptid” to its dictionary, and “Godzilla: King of the Monsters” is hitting theaters, so it seemed like a good time to talk about a few monster words and to answer an important question: Is Godzilla a cryptid?
LINKS AND SPONSORS |
Feminist Folklore Podcast: https://www.feministfolklore.com/ |
Grammar Girl Email Newsletter: https://www.quickanddirtytips.com/newsletters |
Graduation Sweepstakes: http://bit.ly/qdtlifeaftercollege |
Grammar Girl's AP style webinar: http://bit.ly/GrammarWebinar2019 |
GRAMMAR POP iOS GAME |
Optimized for iPad: http://bit.ly/iPadGrammarPop |
For iPad and iPhone: http://bit.ly/GrammarPopMobile |
GRAMMAR GIRL BOOKS |
http://bit.ly/GrammarPopBooks |
GRAMMAR GIRL IS PART OF THE QUICK AND DIRTY TIPS PODCAST NETWORK |
VOICEMAIL: 833-214-GIRL
Grammar Girl here. I’m Mignon Fogarty, and you can think of me as your friendly guide to the English language—writing, history, rules, and cool stuff. Today I have some interesting listener comments about my recent show on the word “dilemma,” a meaty middle about Godzilla, and a familect story about Sharpies.
You might remember that a couple of weeks ago, I talked about how I believe I was taught the wrong spelling of the word “dilemma” in school, and that this seems to be a somewhat common belief, although it may also be not true. If missed it, you can go back and listen to episode 686. But I got a couple of especially interesting comments that I thought would be fun to share.
The first one is from a listener named Sheldon, who wrote,
“I was shocked to hear your podcast about “dilemna." I'm sure I was taught to spell it with an N. I'm dyslexic and can't look at a word and get the spelling. The only way I can spell words is if the spelling is obvious, or if I've been told a trick to remember how to spell it (or these days [by using] a spelling checker).
I was told that the way to remember how to spell that word was to pronounce the N: dilem-NA. I've been doing that for almost 60 years now.
“Dilemna” was a word I heard often. My father was always "on the horns of a dilemna.” I was familiar with that word when I was [just] a few years old.
And, by the way. My father always had a thing with words. As kids, when we were fighting, he would say, "When you bristle with indignation, don't vocalize so enthusiastically." While other fathers would tell their son to take out the garbage, I was told, "There is an entity of refuse here, longing for relocation in its indefinite domain, the garbage can. Take it out.”
Thanks, Sheldon. I really love that last part. It reminded me of a cheer we did at my high school at football games: Subdue them. Subdue them. Make them relinquish the ball. I’ve seen slight modifications of it online, but never that exact chant we did.
And here’s another interesting comment from a listener about “dilemma.” Julien wrote:
“I share the same story ... but I grew up in France.” Apparently, the word is dee-lemm and it’s spelled with two M’s like “dilemma,” in English, but people often misspell it D-I-L-E-M-N-E, just like our common misspelling in English.
And it seems to be a well documented common misspelling in French. Julien referred me to a Wiktionary page in French which says the misspelling comes from contamination by the word indemne" (which means something like ‘unharmed’ in French and is spelled with an MN instead of two M’s).
Julien says there is even a quote by Benjamin Constant, a famous classic French author.
I had come across something like this in my research, but since I can’t read French, I wasn’t sure and didn’t include it, so thanks so much for the message Julien. I found that pretty interesting!
By Samantha Enslen
In April, Merriam-Webster added the word “cryptid” to its dictionary. And in May, “Godzilla: King of the Monsters” hits theaters. With those two events happening back-to-back, it seemed like a good time to talk about a few monster words and to answer an important question: Is Godzilla a cryptid?
Let’s start with Godzilla. I’m sure you know who he is: that fictional, dinosaur-like monster who walks on two legs, destroys cities, and breathes not fire—but atomic radiation. He first appeared in the 1954 Japanese movie “Gojira.” In the movie, he’s awakened from a peaceful life beneath the sea when he’s dosed with the radiation from an atomic bomb. He destroys the city of Shinagawa and irradiates many of its citizens before finally being destroyed.
Just nine years before this movie was made, the cities of Hiroshima and Nagasaki had been bombed, closing the final chapter of World War II. Godzilla thus serves as both a symbol of nuclear holocaust and a metaphor for the devastation these bombings caused.
By the way, you might have noticed I pronounced the name of the 1954 movie as “go-JHI-ra,” not “god-ZILL-uh.” That’s because “Godzilla” is an anglicized version of the Japanese word “Gojira.” And “Gojira,” in turn, is a combination of two other words: “gorira,” meaning “gorilla,” and “kujira,” meaning “whale.” Regular Grammar Girl listeners might recognize this as a portmanteau—words like “spork” and “smog” that combine two parts of others words to make something new.
Now, when I picture Godzilla, I don’t necessarily think, “Wow, he kind of looks like a gorilla and kind of like a whale!” But I can see where the filmmakers were coming from.
“Gojira” was one of the first examples of what’s called a tokusatsu kaiju movie. Let me break that down.
“Tokusatsu” is a Japanese word meaning “special effects.” It tends to refer to live-action movies that were made in the 1950s, ’60s, and ’70s. CGI hadn’t yet been invented back then, and special effects were pretty remedial. Think of men wearing monster suits, flying saucers being dangled on a string, and stop-motion monsters made of clay.
“Kaiju” is a Japanese word meaning “strange beast”; in other words, what English speakers would call a monster. Super-powerful kaiju are sometimes called “daikaiju.” The “dai-“ prefix refers to their great power or stature.
Godzilla would be considered a daikaiju. His colleagues Rodan and Mothra would be too. (And by the way, if you’ve never seen these monsters, Rodan looks like a giant pterodactyl. Mothra looks like … I am not making this up … a pretty cute giant moth.)
Some of the very first depictions of kaiju can be traced all the way back to the third century BC. They come from a book of Chinese mythology called “The Classic of Mountains and Seas,” also translated as the “Guideways through Mountains and Seas.” The kaiju in that book include a turtle with a bird’s head and viper’s tail, and a goat with nine tails, four ears, and eyes on its back.
Let’s finish up with the question of whether Godzilla is a cryptid. Cryptids are strange beasts: yeti, chupacabra, and the Loch Ness monster would all fall in that category.
But cryptids are creatures that some people actually believe to exist — even though their existence has never been proven.
The word “cryptid” has the root “crypto-,” which comes from an ancient Greek work meaning “hidden, concealed, or secret.” We can see that root in words like “cryptic,” meaning mysterious; “cryptogram,” a message written in code; and “cryptarch,” a secret ruler.
In short, as much as we enjoy seeing Godzilla on the big screen, I don’t think any of us believe he actually exists. That means that although he’s a kaiju, he’s not a cryptid.
That segment was written by Samantha Enslen who runs Dragonfly Editorial. You can find her at dragonflyeditorial.com or on Twitter as @DragonflyEdit.
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Before we get to our familect story, if you want to know when I have a new webinar available, if you want to get easy links to all the new Grammar Girl articles every week, or you want to see my latest book recommendation, you need to subscribe to my free email newsletter. Just go to QuickAndDirtyTips.com, click the “subscribe” link at the top, tick the Grammar Girl box and enter your email address. Then, once a week, you’ll get all the latest Grammar Girl links and news. That’s the subscribe link at the top of QuickAndDirtytips.com.
And now, here’s Sheila.
“Hi, Grammar Girl. My name is Sheila from California, and I am calling to share my familect story. So a few years ago, my dad was getting ready to retire, and he was looking for new hobbies to do with the spare time, and decided to give adult coloring books a try. Now instead of just using the many art supplies we already had in the house, he decided to order $90 worth of Sharpies online. My mom and my sister and I thought this was kind of excessive, but he really just did not think it was a big deal at all. So now my family uses the phrase “Sharpie money” to describe an amount of money that's somewhat significant in a way that makes it seem smaller than it really is. Especially if we're encouraging someone to splurge on something. For example, if my sister wants to go to Disneyland but isn't sure she wants to spend $130 on a ticket, I might say “Only $130? Come on, that’s Sharpie money.” Thanks so much for doing the show. I love it a lot, and I will keep listening. Bye.”
Thanks, Sheila. I don’t know why, but I love that story.
If you’d like to share your familect story, the story about a word that your family and only your family uses, you can leave a voicemail at 83-321-4-GIRL, and be sure to tell me why your family uses the story because that’s always the best part. That’s 83-321-4-GIRL, and you might hear your story on the show.
I’m Mignon Fogarty, better known as Grammar Girl, and author seven books including the New York Times bestseller, “Grammar Girl’s Quick and Dirty Tips for Better Writing." And thanks to my audio producer, Nathen Semes. This show is part of the Quick and Dirty Tips podcast network, and you can find articles that go with each episode at QuickAndDirtyTips.com. That’s all. Thanks for listening.