Costa Arms
Many of the most stimulating books I have ever read were written more than a millennium ago, but in thinking about old books, and especially in trying to teach them to undergraduates, I often found they benefit from some introductory explication. This essay will have a modest topic—words and things and some of the relationships between words and things. I want to start with a book written by Saint Augustine at the turn of the fourth and fifth centuries. Augustine’s book has a simple and possibly misleading title, De doctrina christiana, On Christian Doctrine. A better title might be Teaching in a Christian Manner. Its subject, to use a very fancy word, is hermeneutics, or the interpretive principles that should inform reading, in this instance the study of the Bible. You might describe it is as a preparatory handbook for people trying to read, understand, and teach the Bible. But its general principles are relevant even to my light-hearted subject: rebus puzzles.
This little book of Augustine’s theories was produced in his role as a Christian theologian—meaning, for him as a student of the Bible—but it has been admired by students of linguistics in general. The terms “semiotics” is a catch-all term for the various kinds of sign systems with which we are familiar, among which human language is obviously prominent. With regard to sign systems in general, Augustine makes a distinction between natural and conventional signs. His book begins with the assertion that all teaching (doctrina) is necessarily about one of two subjects: things and signs, res and signa in Latin. By very rough analogy you might think of res/things as the world of science, and of signa/signs as the humanities. He makes a second binary distinction. There are two categories of signs, natural signs and conventional signs. There is no smoke without fire—that is, smoke “signals” fire in all places in the world. It is a natural sign of fire. But the word fire which, signals the same reality as smoke does, is a word in the English language, its meaning agreed to by convention among English-speakers but by no means “naturally” obvious to those who do not speak English. Other words “for” fire include ignis, pyr, fuego, ogień, brand, and so forth, but they “mean” fire only within the delimited range of conventionally agreed upon shared languages. Despite what many Americans seem to think, simply raising the decibel level of English to a shout does not make it universally comprehensible. Nobody "naturally” knows what the word “fire” signifies.
“Gift” is a pleasant word in English. In German the
lexically identical word means “poison”. So if somebody gives
you a gift, hope it is in Birmingham rather than Berlin. For
there are many distinct human languages. The common
domestic animal we call in English a dog is called a chien
in French, a perro in Spanish, and a hund in German. There
is no universally understood word for dog, not even “bow-
wow”—though there is an actual “bow-wow theory” that
posits the origins of human language in the imitation of
birdsong and animal noises! Human language is a sign
system.
But as someone interested in pictorial as well as linguistic signs, my mind just now turns to a genre of signs in which the pictorial and the verbal are intentionally yoked. I refer to rebus constructions. The word rebus is in Latin the dative or ablative plural of res (meaning things). So a rebus is a verbal construction in, by, or with things The following is a dictionary definition of a rebus: “a representation of words or syllables by pictures of objects or by symbols whose names resemble the intended words or syllables in sound; also, a riddle made up of such pictures or symbols”
Of course, rebus puzzles are founded not merely in language, but in particular languages. Many old aristocratic families in Europe, who often had Latin mottoes, also constructed rebuses as well. Some of these will seem far-fetched to us now. But in theory a rebus can be constructed in any written tongue. In English many common words are homophones—that is, words which, whatever variations they may display in their written forms are indistinguishable in their pronunciation: for example, the first person singular pronoun (I) and the ocular organ (eye). If you wish, you may add the now mainly obsolete expression of assent or agreement, as in “the ayes have it.”
On the south coast of Long Island is the old town of Islip. Its European settlers arrived early, and it claims its civic foundation in 1683. In Old England the Islips were a many-branched family, and there is at least one village of that name I have visited (in Oxfordshire) and some others recorded on maps. The Islip family had several notable branches. I believe that an Islip was one of the last abbots of Westminster Abbey before the dissolution, for example. Today the people who live on Long Island are more likely to call the place “Iz-Lip” rather than “I-Slip,” but check out the official town coat of arms. You do need to know that as a technical botanical term the word slip denotes to a small plant cutting, or leafy twig, especially one made for purposes of grafting.
There is endless fascination, most of it pretty light-hearted, in rebus constructions, which might fairly be described as visual puns, and this thought can bring me to my slightly digressive conclusion. The words name, nomen, and noun are first cousins, and many rebus constructions exploit the relationship. According to the poet Pope puns are the lowest form of humor, but some very witty people have not hesitated to play around with their own names in serious ways. The heraldic shield at the top of this essay is that of the very extensive clan of Mediterranean families called “Costa,” a word with several meanings in several Romance languages. But the primary meaning in Latin is rib. The possibly strange marks on the shield are meant to signify the residual bones of cleanly picked beef or pork ribs! The name was frequently adopted by or forced upon Spanish and Portuguese conversos—Jewish families converting to Christianity by election or by coercion! The English “metaphysical” poets of the seventeenth century are so-called because of the sometimes extravagant “wit” of their linguistic formulations. The greatest of them, John Donne, in what one might call a “rebus-adjacent” poem wrote one of his deepest theological meditations in a deceptively simple three-stanza poem built upon his own surname as past participle, with an implicit pun on the Latin word perfectus. meaning complete, finished, or done.
John Donne: A Hymn to God the Father
Wilt Thou forgive that sin where I begun,
Which was my sin, though it were done before?
Wilt Thou forgive that sin, through which I run,
And do run still, though still I do deplore?
When Thou hast done, Thou hast not done,
For I have more.
Wilt Thou forgive that sin which I have won
Others to sin, and made my sin their door?
Wilt Thou forgive that sin which I did shun
A year or two, but wallowed in a score?
When Thou hast done, Thou hast not done,
For I have more.
I have a sin of fear, that when I have spun
My last thread, I shall perish on the shore;
But swear by Thyself, that at my death Thy Son
Shall shine as he shines now, and heretofore;
And having done that, Thou hast done;
I fear no more.