zunger Review copy provided by Tor Books. Also I have known the author approximately since the dawn of time, though I think it’s fair to say not particularly closely.
Another thing I think it’s fair to say: this is not “another one of those.” While the focus is on two races of anthropomorphic elephant people, there are dozens more anthropomorphic races. (And unlike my complaints about a certain comic series, there is no human savior for the animal folk.) Their story takes place tens of thousands of years in the future–farther out than all but a handful of stories have been set in recent decades.
And the main thrust of the plot deals with koph, a drug that allows its visionaries to talk with the dead by gathering their soul particles from the farthest reaches of the universe. Koph–and its refinements and control, and the wisdom of generations past obtainable with it–is the center, the heart of the book–that and the relationships of the elephant people on the planet from which it is obtained.
So yeah: not another one of those. Quite uniquely itself. There is only the tip of the galactic iceberg here in how the different anthropomorphic species relate to each other and among themselves. There’s room for more, much more, and if this is your style of science fiction, Schoen definitely executes on it.
One thing that surprised me was that I’m used to thinking of Lawrence wearing his linguistics hat, and the linguistics aspect didn’t come into the book until very late. It’s there! So if that’s something you’re looking forward to in a Lawrence Schoen novel, rest assured that it is present! But it doesn’t come in until quite late in the narrative.
Please consider using our link to buy Barsk: The Elephants’ Graveyard from Amazon.
| Originally published at Novel Gazing Redux |
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For best non-fiction book of the year, a late entry swoops in to take first place! That’s right, I am going to select The Conflict Shoreline: Colonization as Climate Change in the Negev Desert, by Eyal Weizman and Fazal Sheikh.
This is an unusual book. It is only 85 pp. of text and about half of it is aerial photos and maps. It covers the history of the Negev desert, the Bedouin, Israeli policy toward the Bedouin, ecology, seed botany, and the roles of water policy and climate change, all in remarkably interesting and information-rich fashion, with a dose of Braudel and also Sebald in terms of method.
For one thing, it caused me to rethink what books as a whole should be. This is one cool book.
To make it stranger yet, this book is Weizman’s response to Sheikh’s The Erasure Trilogy, which is structured as a tour of the ruins of the 1948 conflict. That book is I believe from a Palestinian point of view, and described as a “visual poem.” I just ordered it; note that Sheikh is the photographer for The Conflict Shoreline and thus listed as a co-author.
Some will read The Conflict Shoreline as “anti-Israeli” in parts, but that is not the main point of the book or my endorsement of it. The book however does point out that Israeli policies toward the Bedouin often were prompted by a desire to remove large numbers of them from their previous Negev land and move them into the West Bank and Egypt. I had not known “The village of al-‘Araqib has been destroyed and rebuilt more than 70 times in the ongoing “Battle over the Negev””. The book ends with a two-page evidentiary aerial photo of that village, taken during 1945; other photos of it date as far back as 1918. This is all part of Weizman’s project of “reverse surveillance.”
It is a hard book to summarize, in part because it is so visual and so integrative, but here is one excerpt:
The Negev Desert is the largest and busiest training area for the Israeli Air Force and has one of the most cluttered airspaces in the world. The airspace is partitioned into a complex stratigraphy of layers, airboxes, and corridors dedicated to different military platforms: from bomber jets through helicopters to drones. This complex volume is an integral part of the architecture of the Negev.
And then it will move to a discussion of seed technology, or how Bedouin economic strategies have changed over the course of the twentieth century, and how these various topics fit together. Think of it also as a contribution to location theory and economic geography, but adding vertical space, manipulated topography, rainfall, and temperature to the relevant dimensions of the problem.
Too bad it costs $40.00. Recommended, nonetheless. Here is one review, here is another, the latter having especially good photos of the book’s photos.
Here is a good interview with Weizman, who among other things outlines his concept of Forensic Architecture.
Here is my earlier post on the best non-fiction books of 2015. And here is an earlier post the best books under one hundred pages.
An algorithm’s list of the most influential universities contains some surprising entries. From December …
Where are the world’s most influential universities? That’s a question that increasingly dominates the way the public, governments, and funding agencies think about research and higher education.
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It’s been awhile, but now it’s time for another Book Cover Smackdown! This time around, we’re pitting upcoming H.P. Lovecraft-themed books up against one another.
Your mission, should you choose to accept it: Pass artistic judgment!
Tell us:
In the cold spring of 1936, Arthor Crandle, down-on-his luck and desperate for work, accepts a position in Providence, Rhode Island, as a live-in secretary/assistant for an unnamed shut-in.
He arrives at the gloomy colonial-style house to discover that his strange employer is an author of disturbing, bizarre fiction. Health issues have confined him to his bedroom, where he is never to be disturbed. But the writer, who Crandle knows only as “Ech-Pi,” refuses to meet him, communicating only by letters left on a table outside his room. Soon the home reveals other unnerving peculiarities. There is an ominous presence Crandle feels on the main stairwell. Light shines out underneath the door of the writer’s room, but is invisible from the street. It becomes increasingly clear there is something not right about the house or its occupant.Haunting visions of a young girl in a white nightgown wandering the walled-in garden behind the house motivate Crandle to investigate the circumstances of his employer’s dark family history. Meanwhile, the unsettling aura of the house pulls him into a world increasingly cut off from reality, into black depths, where an unspeakable secret lies waiting.
A new terrifying collection inspired by the master of horror H.P. Lovecraft. The Mammoth Book of Cthulhu brings some of the best established and upcoming writers sharing their best Lovecraftian horror.
Despite what it says on the cover, the 25 stories listed for the table of contents include:
So, not sure if this is the final list or an old lineup.
The critically acclaimed cult novelist makes visceral the terrors of life in Jim Crow America and its lingering effects in this brilliant and wondrous work of the imagination that melds historical fiction, pulp noir, and Lovecraftian horror and fantasy.
Chicago, 1954. When his father Montrose goes missing, 22-year-old Army veteran Atticus Turner embarks on a road trip to New England to find him, accompanied by his Uncle George—publisher of The Safe Negro Travel Guide—and his childhood friend Letitia. On their journey to the manor of Mr. Braithwhite—heir to the estate that owned one of Atticus’s ancestors—they encounter both mundane terrors of white America and malevolent spirits that seem straight out of the weird tales George devours.
At the manor, Atticus discovers his father in chains, held prisoner by a secret cabal named the Order of the Ancient Dawn—led by Samuel Braithwhite and his son Caleb—which has gathered to orchestrate a ritual that shockingly centers on Atticus. And his one hope of salvation may be the seed of his—and the whole Turner clan’s—destruction.
A chimerical blend of magic, power, hope, and freedom that stretches across time, touching diverse members of two black families, Lovecraft Country is a devastating kaleidoscopic portrait of racism—the terrifying specter that continues to haunt us today.
Howard Phillips Lovecraft, the American author of “weird tales” who died in 1937 impoverished and relatively unknown, has become a twenty-first-century star, cropping up in places both anticipated and unexpected. Authors, filmmakers, and shapers of popular culture like Stephen King, Neil Gaiman, and Guillermo del Toro acknowledge his influence; his fiction is key to the work of posthuman philosophers and cultural critics such as Graham Harman and Eugene Thacker; and Lovecraft’s creations have achieved unprecedented cultural ubiquity, even showing up on the animated program South Park.
The Age of Lovecraft is the first sustained analysis of Lovecraft in relation to twenty-first-century critical theory and culture, delving into troubling aspects of his thought and writings. With contributions from scholars including Gothic expert David Punter, historian W. Scott Poole, musicologist Isabella van Elferen, and philosopher of the posthuman Patricia MacCormack, this wide-ranging volume brings together thinkers from an array of disciplines to consider Lovecraft’s contemporary cultural presence and its implications. Bookended by a preface from horror fiction luminary Ramsey Campbell and an extended interview with the central author of the New Weird, China Miéville, the collection addresses the question of “why Lovecraft, why now?” through a variety of approaches and angles.
A must for scholars, students, and theoretically inclined readers interested in Lovecraft, popular culture, and intellectual trends, The Age of Lovecraft offers the most thorough examination of Lovecraft’s place in contemporary philosophy and critical theory to date as it seeks to shed light on the larger phenomenon of the dominance of weird fiction in the twenty-first century.
Contributors: Jessica George; Brian Johnson, Carleton U; James Kneale, U College London; Patricia MacCormack, Anglia Ruskin U, Cambridge; Jed Mayer, SUNY New Paltz; China Miéville, Warwick U; W. Scott Poole, College of Charleston; David Punter, U of Bristol; David Simmons, Northampton U; Isabella van Elferen, Kingston U London.
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Here’s the cover and synopsis for the upcoming novel Invasive by Chuck Wendig.
Here’s the synopsis.
Hannah Stander is a consultant for the FBI—a futurist who helps the Agency with cases that feature demonstrations of bleeding-edge technology. It’s her job to help them identify unforeseen threats: hackers, AIs, genetic modification, anything that in the wrong hands could harm the homeland.
Hannah is in an airport, waiting to board a flight home to see her family, when she receives a call from Agent Hollis Copper. “I’ve got a cabin full of over a thousand dead bodies,” he tells her. Whether those bodies are all human, he doesn’t say.
What Hannah finds is a horrifying murder that points to the impossible—someone weaponizing the natural world in a most unnatural way. Discovering who—and why—will take her on a terrifying chase from the Arizona deserts to the secret island laboratory of a billionaire inventor/philanthropist. Hannah knows there are a million ways the world can end, but she just might be facing one she could never have predicted—a new threat both ancient and cutting-edge that could wipe humanity off the earth.
A little cryptic…but the cover kinda gives a little bit away, doesn’t it? Still sounds interesting, though!
Book info as per Amazon US [Also available via Amazon UK]:
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Right now, you can get the eBook versions of Ellen Datlow’s The Best Horror of the Year Volume 5 for the low, low price of $1.99!
This price is available on the following platforms: Amazon Kindle, Barnes & Noble/Nook, Apple/iBooks and Google Play.
Here’s the description:
Darkness, both literal and psychological, holds its own unique fascination. Despite our fears, or perhaps because of them, readers have always been drawn to tales of death, terror, madness, and the supernatural, and no more so than today when a wildly imaginative new generation of dark dreamers is carrying on in the tradition of Poe and Lovecraft and King, crafting exquisitely disturbing literary nightmares that gaze without flinching into the abyss—and linger in the mind long after.
Multiple award-winning editor Ellen Datlow knows the darkest corners of fiction and poetry better than most. Once again, she has braved the haunted landscape of modern horror to seek out the most chilling new works by both legendary masters of the genre and fresh young talents. Here are twisted hungers and obsessions, human and otherwise, along with an unsettling variety of spine-tingling fears and fantasies. The cutting edge of horror has never cut deeper than in this comprehensive showcase of the very best the field has to offer. Enter at your own risk.
Still on the fence? Here’s the table of contents:
No telling how long this great deal will last, so grab it now if you want it!
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The third showing of of the new Star Wars shouldn’t be more special than the first. After all, for the first showing, our family got tattoos.
But the third time we saw the movie, we had an unexpected guest – a random kid.
I saw the kid shuffle past me – eight years old tops, clutching his Darth Vader doll to his chest. He bounced in the seat between his Mom and Dad, doing that thing that young kids do of explaining the old Star Wars films to his parents as though he was reliving the movies just by talking about them again.
Clearly, it was his first time seeing the film he’d been dying to see.
And as the reels rolled, that kid tried his best to be polite – he kept his voice low, and the only reason I heard him is I was two seats down. Gini, three seats down, only heard him once.
But he was reacting through the whole damn film.
He made a choked squee when the credits rolled – he knew the words “Luke Skywalker.” He laughed at the right snark lines. He cheered for BB-8. He burst out with a quiet “That’s the Millennium Falcon!” when it came on screen, explaining to his mother what the Millennium Falcon was even though yes, Mommy clearly knew.
And near the end, when the dark stuff happened, he moaned in terror. He cried, out, once, at a very bad moment – and that’s when Gini heard him, and that’s when Mommy had to hug him and Daddy had to pat him on the head and tell him things would be all right.
Because he was young. He didn’t know. He was willing to let the movie take him wherever it wanted him to do, and he was not jaded, he just surfed down it with no expectations…
And every since one of his reactions tracked to mine. When I pumped the fist, here was this small child biting his knuckles. When I feared for our heroes, he squirmed. As I fell in love with these new characters, so did I.
In that darkened theater, he was me.
He was seven-year-old Ferrett, falling in love with R2 and Threepio for the first time, reaching out to be Luke, frightened of Vader – at some point, my parents took me to the theater for the first time and saw me fall in love with a series that would last forever.
That was not a movie I saw; it was a window, opened up to 1977 when that great celluloid rolled somewhere in Norwalk, Connecticut, and young Ferrett’s eyes flew open with amazement – and they never closed. Ever.
He was me. I was him. We were all immersed in that great love of fandom, that structural fandom where you see something and it becomes a part of who you are, so deep that when my wife suggested I get the New Jedi Order permanently inked on my flesh, we didn’t even blink because Star Wars was in my bones, it was in my brain, it was in my heart…
Why not my skin?
And we were linked, he and I. He’d never know me, but I knew him, and he would know this.
He would carry this love. I could see it in his eyes, glazed with the reflections of great stars.
When the credits rolled, the boy sat there reverently, watching the credits. I tapped what I presumed was his father’s arm and said, “Hey. I just wanted to tell you… that boy’s reactions made that film for me.”
He smiled.
“Funny thing is, these were the films we watched when we were kids,” he said, encompassing his wife with a gesture. “But six months ago, we started playing the films for him in preparation for this day, and… he loves it. He loves it more than we do.”
He does. And he did. And, God willing, he will.
Thanks, kid.
May the Force be with you.
Always.
Cross-posted from Ferrett's Real Blog.
This entry has also been posted at http://theferrett.dreamwidth.org/516726.hhttp://languagelog.ldc.upenn.edu/nll/?p=2
Speaking of getting schlonged….
It is well-known that many Chinese characters with a female radical (nǚ 女) have pejorative or negative meanings:
Joe, "Sexist Chinese Characters Discriminate Against Women " (chinaSMACK, 1/28/10)
Koichi, "Kanji Hates The Ladies " (Tofugu, 6/05/12)
Dali Tan, "Sexism in the Chinese Language", NWSA Journal, 2.4 (Autumn, 1990), 635-639
David Moser, "Covert Sexism in Mandarin Chinese," Sino-Platonic Papers, 74 (January, 1997), 1-23.
Here are some examples:
jiān 奸 ("evil; treacherous; traitor; illicit sexual relations")
jiān 姦 ("adultery; debauchery; rape")
nú 奴 ("manservant; slave")
jí 嫉 ("envy; jealousy")
dù 妬 ("envy; jealousy") — cf. jídù 嫉妒 ("envy; jealously"); dù 妬 and dù 妒 are interchangeable
yín 婬 ("lewdness")
xián 嫌 ("suspicion; ill will; resentment; quarrel; dislike")
nǎo 嫐 ("frolic; play / flirt with") — the character has a man sandwiched between two women
niǎo 嬲 ("frolic; play / flirt with; tease; pester"; Cant. nau1 "get angry; take offence; detest", niu5 "tease; pester") — the character has a woman sandwiched between two men
lán 婪 ("greedy; covet[ous]; avaricious")
pīn 姘 ("have an affair; illicit sexual relations")
yāo 妖 ("monster; devil; goblin; witch; phantom; bewitching; coquettish; strange; weird; supernatural")
jì 妓 ("prostitute")
chāng 娼 ("prostitute")
biǎo 婊 ("prostitute")
piáo 嫖 ("visit a prostitute; whore")
Of course, not all characters having the woman radical are negative. Indeed, one of the characters for "good" is composed of the elements "woman" + "child": hǎo 好 (a word, if not the character, that everybody learns within the first week of beginning Mandarin).
xìng 姓 ("surname"); note that some of the oldest Chinese surnames, such as jiāng 姜 and jī 姬, have the woman radical, indicating a matriarchal society
wēi 威 ("force; might; power[ful]; dominate; pomp")
zī 姿 ("appearance; gesture; looks; posture" [often of a majestic sort])
tuǒ 妥 ("proper; appropriate; settled; ready; satisfactory")
In general, the relatively fewer Chinese characters with a "woman" radical that have positive meanings tend to be from the earlier layers of the script. (N.B.: Not all older characters with the "woman" radical have positive meanings.)
For the remainder of this post, I will focus on two notorious characters with woman radicals that have been prominently featured in the news recently, which is what prompted me to write this post.
I.
wàng 妄 ("absurd, foolish, reckless; false; untrue; preposterous; presumptuous; rash; extravagant; ignorant; stupid; wild; frantic; frenetic", etc., etc.) — all pejorative and defamatory meanings
This is an old character, occurring already in the bronze inscriptions (first millennium BC).
The character wàng 妄 readily forms various terms and collocations, all of which are negative in their connotations:
妄称 妄动 妄断 妄念 妄求 妄取 妄人 妄生穿凿 妄说 妄图 妄为 妄下雌黄 妄想 妄言妄听 妄语 妄自菲薄 妄自尊大
Source: zdic
(the bottom of the zdic page gives links to all of these terms and expressions with links that provide full explanations and English translations)
The above list is mainly for specialists in Chinese. Here I will only illustrate one item, namely, wàngyán 妄言 ("speak arrogantly; wild talk"). Some examples of its usage may be found here, here, and here.
This is also a popular expression in Japanese, where it is pronounced mougen もうげん.
2.
Already noted above, jiān 姦 ("adultery; debauchery; rape") is one of the most sensitive characters with a "woman" radical that has been prominent in the news lately. In fact, 姦 amounts to the "woman" radical to the third power, since it consists of three "woman" radicals.
"Beijing just banned an art exhibition on violence against women, but you can view the work here" (Quartz, 11/27/15)
"China: Authorities ban art exhibition on violence against women" (Artsfreedom, 12/1/15)
"A Feminism Exhibition Banned in Beijing" (WideWalls)
Gender discrimination in the Chinese character "姦" (article in Chinese).
The exhibition, "姦", the Cultural Code of Gender Violence, was banned by the PRC government (article in Chinese).
In the early days of the PRC, the government changed some characters for the names of minority ethnic groups so that they no longer had "bug" (chóng 虫) or "dog" quǎn犭/ 犬) radicals in them because they were thought to be pejorative. A makeover of the Chinese script that would remove the "woman" radical from derogatory characters would be even more radical, as it were.
[Thanks to Michael Carr]
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1. “…military robots transformed into sleigh-pulling reindeer…”
2. Paul Krugman on whether the technological slowdown in ending.
3.”The Wall Street Journal’s survey of economists shows they largely don’t practice what the naysayers preach: 51 of 54 respondents said they bought loved ones gifts; the other three initially said they didn’t, but later admitted they did.” Story here.
4. “Can drones compete with this truck?” And were one million drones gifted today? How many were sent by drone? Next year?
5. Putin perfume.
6. What do Beijing residents think of Christmas?
http://whatever.scalzi.com/2015/12/25/my-c
http://whatever.scalzi.com/?p=27716
As most of you know, at this point in my life I don’t ask for Christmas gifts, largely because if there’s something I want, I go out and buy it. That said, I do appreciate Christmas gifts that are thoughtful and have me as a person in mind. Like the jar pictured above, a gift from my wife Kristine.
The story behind it? Well, the short version is that, among other things, there are petty, shitty people out there, and from time to time they turn their pettiness and shittyness in my direction. Thing is, my life is excellent and my work and career is secure, and both in a way that none of their pettiness or shittyness will ever materially affect, so, really: Who gives a fuck? I understand they want me to give a fuck, because when you’re petty and shitty all you have is trying to make other people feel even for a moment like you are all the time, but: No. My jar of fucks to give to these people is empty.
I mentioned this to Krissy recently, and so for Christmas she got me an actual jar of fucks to give. And as you can see, it is indeed quite literally empty. It’s going to stay that way for the foreseeable future. This is a fabulous gift from my wife, and a physical reminder that, to paraphrase Eleanor Roosevelt, petty, shitty people can’t make you feel as petty and shitty as they are without your consent. Personally speaking, I’ve got better things to do.
I also got a sweatshirt from my mother-in-law. Which is very nice! Thanks, Dora!
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May your day be merry and bright.
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We’re taking a bit of a break today. You should, too.
Here are some fun videos to help you relax.
Finally, a touching short film with an important message for all of us.
Happy Holidays from SF Signal!
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Donald Trump rally 12/21/2015, Grand Rapids, Michigan:
l- let me just tell you
I may win, I may not win
Hillary
that's not a president
that's not- she's not taking us to the-
everything that's been involved in Hillary has been losses you take a look
even her race to Obama
she was going to beat Obama
I don't know who'd be worse
I don't know
how does it get worse?
but she was going to beat- she was favored to win
and she got … schlonged, she lost, I mean she lost
Mr. Trump's choice of terminology caused a certain amount of discussion, so he replied:
When I said that Hillary Clinton got schlonged by Obama, it meant got beaten badly. The media knows this. Often used word in politics!
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) December 23, 2015
One result has been more linguistic analysis in the non-linguistic media than we've seen in a long time.
Justin Wm. Moyer ("Donald Trump's 'schlonged': A linguistic investigation", Washington Post 12/22/2016) recruited some expert analysis:
In an email to The Washington Post, Harvard University’s Steven Pinker, a noted researcher on language and cognition, pointed out that Trump, using a term that comes to English via Yiddish and Middle High German, may simply have been trying to say something else.
“Given Trump’s history of vulgarity and misogyny, it’s entirely possible that he had created a sexist term for ‘defeat’ (as far as I know there is no such slang verb in Yiddish),” Pinker wrote. “But given his history with sloppy language it’s also possible that it’s a malaprop.”
Trump’s problem? He’s a gentile who, linguistically, may have wandered too far from home.
“Many goyim are confused by the large number of Yiddish terms beginning with ‘schl’ or ‘schm’ (schlemiel, schlemazzle, schmeggegge, schlub, schlock, schlep, schmutz, schnook), and use them incorrectly or interchangeably,” he wrote. “And headline writers often ransack the language for onomatopoeic synonyms for ‘defeat’ such as drub, whomp, thump, wallop, whack, trounce, clobber, smash, trample, and Obama’s own favorite, shellac (which in fact sounds a bit like schlong). So an alternative explanation is that Trump reached for what he thought was a Yinglish word for ‘beat’ and inadvertently coined an obscene one.”
Over at Talking Points Memo, Josh Marshall engaged in 3,000 words of ethnographic investigation ("The 'Schlong' Revisionist Analysis We've Been Waiting For?", 12/23/2015; "Trump Doubles Down on "Schlong", New Truth Movement Emerges", 12/23/2015):
Since our initial post we have had a number of TPM Readers (generally men born between 1940 and 1952 in Queens and Long Island) who have clear testimony about what we might call the "Trump/Schlong" usage (aging Jewish male readership finally comes in handy!).
For instance, TPM Reader BR explains the following …
I also grew up on Long Island at the same time as Trump (born in 1949). I too remember "got shlonged" as a common expression (usually in sports) with no sexual overtone. My only criticism of Trump's usage would be that in my recollection the term applies to a team, not an individual. "We got shlonged" sounds right, "I got shlonged" totally wrong. "He got shlonged" doesn't seem as right as "they got shlonged," but the difference isn't as clear-cut to me.
I also think that the everyone probably has the etymology wrong. The more likely etymology is from Yiddish & German schlingen, meaning to devour food. (I know the verb from the Yiddish song "Un az der rebbe zingt" with "Un az der rebbe esst, shlingn alle khasidim," although the version I see on the internet is different.) The simple past tense of this word in German (that tense doesn't exist in Yiddish) is schlang.
So not only did Trump not make the word up, not only is it not vulgar, but it may not even come from Yiddish.
[…]
It seems clear to me – based on BR's testimony and ones from at least half a dozen other people – that in the 1950s in Queens and the near-adjoining parts of Long Island "schlonged" was a known phrase, often used in sports references, and at least from the youthful memories of our witnesses could be used without the users having a strong conscious sense of any sexual meaning behind it. The frequency with which it is remembered as being mainly a sports metaphor is notable. […]
At the same time, from emails, Facebook discussions and other sources I've seen numerous Jews, people with deep familiarity with Yiddish, saying they have never, ever heard the phrase used in this way.
We have another account from TPM Reader BD who grew up in this general area in the 60s and 70s, in other words a good ten to twenty years after the putative Queens/Long Island schlong era.
I grew up on Long Island too, 20 minutes from the Queens border. I’m not Jewish but between friends and my father, who was a former shabbos goy, I've heard and used Yiddish all my life. Schlong has, in LI/Queens usage, no meaning other than penis. I don’t really remember hearing the verb schlonged much if at all, but even if it was commonly used the connection to penis is unmistakable. Yes, it would be a milder way of saying “fucked."
And Barbara Morrill at Daily Kos does some OED-style historical lexicography ("Donald Trump says 'schlonged' is an 'often used word in politics' … is he right?", 12/23/2015):
[A] Nexis search of the word “schlonged,” from 1990 through December 20, 2015, turns up a number of instances of the use of the word. Five, to be exact.
There was a 2007 episode of The Man Show where, during a segment on pornography, there was a deep discussion about “spunk,” “neanderthal women pleasuring the wooly mammoth,” “delightful vaginas of yesteryear,” along with their “donkey-schlonged male counterparts” (which are apparently “angry, purple and veiny”).
There was a 2010 review of an undoubtedly charming cable TV show called Hung, that followed the adventures of a “formidably schlonged sports coach.”
Then there was a 2011 episode of NPR’s now-defunct Talk of the Nation, where host Neal Conan, speaking on the death of Geraldine Ferraro, noted that she was the first woman to run for vice president on a major party ticket, but “that ticket went on to get schlonged at the polls.”
In a 2014 article about the death of Phillip Seymour Hoffman, his role in Boogie Nights, where he played a “gauche gay boom operator with a crush on long-schlonged superstar, Dirk Diggler” was cited.
And finally, there’s a 2014 gossip column talking about a participant in a British reality TV show who was described as “pint-sized and long-schlonged.”
So there you have it. It’s just an often used, common political expression … assuming you’re discussing the size of a candidate’s penis or a woman losing an election to a man.
You can extend the lexicographical investigation yourself, via Google Books or other resources. Meanwhile, Donald Trump has dominated the Christmas news cycle without spending a penny on publicity:
Update — I somehow managed to miss Ben Zimmer's contribution to schlongology, "The Full History of Political 'Schlongings'", Politico 12/22/2015:
While the expression is rare, it has in fact shown up in earlier political contexts, typically from New Yorkers like Trump. The Post notes that Neal Conan, host of NPR’s Talk of the Nation, said in a 2011 broadcast that the 1984 Democratic ticket of Walter Mondale and Geraldine Ferraro “went on to get schlonged at the polls.” And on Fox News in 2006, Dick Morris warned that President George W. Bush was “going to get schlonged” in the midterm elections.
Long before that, the phrase made an appearance in New York City collegiate politics. The Daily Mail uncovered a 1967 article in the student newspaper of the City College of New York in which Ellen Turkish, a candidate on the losing slate for student council, said, “We got schlonged.” (As Ellen T. Comisso, she would go on to a distinguished career as a political scientist.)
[…]
Will Trump suffer any long-term political fallout over “schlong-gate”? His polling numbers do not seem affected even by his most outrageous statements, so his latest choice of words likely won’t matter, at least in the short term. But over time, his vulgarisms may paint him as rhetorically unpresidential, and he could be the one getting schlonged in the polls.
In any case I think we can guaranteed an uptick in schlong sightings — for example, Brad Delong's 12/23/2015 series of tweets on why "The Federal Reserve's 2%/Year Inflation Target Was a Mistake", which being concatenated read:
Back at Jackson Hole in 1992, LHS’s and my point that an inflation target much less than 5%/year had the strong drawback of making it likely that we would have nasty experiences at the zero lower bound was countered. It was countered by people saying that even if adverse shocks did drive the Fed to the ZLB sometime, such excursions to the ZLB would be rare and short. Confidence in the durability of the “Great Moderation”, and the consequent belief that we did not need to worry about what might happen in what @ojblanchard1 calls “dark corners” was, in retrospect—and some of us thought in prospect—very wrong. It was, I think, a major element in what led the economics department to put itself in a position where it got itself schlonged by reality since 2005 or so…
Network scientists have discovered how social networks can create the illusion that something is common when it is actually rare. From June …
One of the curious things about social networks is the way that some messages, pictures, or ideas can spread like wildfire while others that seem just as catchy or interesting barely register at all. The content itself cannot be the source of this difference. Instead, there must be some property of the network that changes to allow some ideas to spread but not others.
