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Xan
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Reposted by Xan
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"You, Too, Can Speak Gaelic" by Isaac Asimov appeared on page 72 of the March 1963 issue of FANTASY IN SCIENCE FICTION.

Might the entire text of this science article be found in the vast halls of Archive.org? Yes. Yes, it might.

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Fantasy & Science Fiction v024n03 (1963 03) (PDF) : Free Download, Borrow, and Streaming : Internet Archive
Fantasy & Science Fiction v024n03 (1963 03) (PDF)
archive.org
December 4, 2024 at 6:35 AM
Reposted by Xan
beamjockey.bsky.social
Are you acquainted with "You, Too, Can Speak Gaelic," one of the all-time great Isaac Asimov science essays, one explaining chemical nomenclature, during the course of which he deploys one of the all-time great Asimov anecdotes?

"Of course! It's dactylic tetrameter!" is only one minor highlight.
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Image of a page of text. Part 1 of quote from Isaac Asimov's article. It is for that reason, then, that you can come up to a perfectly respectable compound which, to all appearances is just lying there, harming no one, and find that it has a name like para-dimethylaminobenzaldehyde. (And that is rather short, as such names go.) To the average person, used to words of a respectable size, this conglomeration of letters is offensive and irritating, but actually, if you tackle it from the front and work your way slowly toward the back, it isn't bad. Pronounce it this way: PA-ruh-dy-METH-il-a-MEE-noh-ben-ZAL-duh-hide. If you accent the capitalized syllables, you will discover that after a while, you can say it rapidly and without trouble and can impress your friends no end. What's more, now that you can say the word, you will appreciate something that once happened to me. I was introduced to this particular compound some years ago, because when dissolved in hydrochloric acid, it is used to test for the presence of a compound called glucosamine and this was something I earnestly yearned to do at the time. So I went to the reagent shelf and said to someone, "Do we have any para-dimethylaminobenzaldehyde?" And he said, "What you mean is PA-ruh-dy-METH-il-a-MEE-noh-ben-ZAL-duh-hide", and he sang it to the tune of the "Irish Washerwoman". If you don't know the tune of the "Irish Washerwoman" all I can say is that it is an Irish jig; in fact, it is THE Irish jig; if you heard it, you would know it. I venture to say that ifyou know only one Irish jig, or if you try to make up an Irish jig, that's the one. It goes: DUM-dee-dee-DUM-dee-dee-DUM-dee-dee-DUM-dee-dee, and so on almost indefinitely. For a moment I was flabbergasted and then, realizing the enormity of having someone dare be whimsical at my expense, I said, "Of course! It's dactylic tetrameter." "What?" he said. Image of text, part 2 of quote from Isaac Asimov's article. I explained. A dactyl is a set of three syllables of which the first is accented and the next two are not, and a line of verse is dactylic tetrameter when four such sets of syllables occur in it. Anything in dactylic feet can be sung to the tune of the "Irish Washerwoman." You can sing most of Longfellow's "Evangeline" to it, for instance, and I promptly gave the fellow a sample: "THIS is the FO-rest pri-ME-val. The MUR-muring PINES.. and the HEM-locks-" and so on and. so on. He was walking away from me by then, but I followed him at a half- run. "In fact," I went on, "anything in iambic feet can be sung to the tune of Dvorak's 'Humoresque." (You know the one- de-DUM-dee-DUM-dee-DUM-dee-DUM-dee-DUM-and so on forever.) For instance, I. said, you could sing Portia's speech to the "Humor- esque" like this: "The QUALITY of MERcy IS not STRAINED it DROPpeth AS the GENtle RAIN from HEAV'N uPON the PLACE beNEATH." He got away from me by then and didn't show up at work again for days, and serve him right. However, I didn't get off scot-free myself. Don't think it. I was haunted for weeks by those drumming dactylic feet. PA-ruh-dy-METH- il-a-MEE-noh-ben-ZAL-duh-hide-PA-ruh-dy-METH-il-a-MEE-noh— went my brain over and over. It scrambled my thoughts, interfered with my sleep and reduced me to mumbling semi-madness for I· would go about muttering it savagely under my breath to the alarm of all innocent bystanders. Finally, the whole thing was exorcized and it came about in this fashion. I was standing at the 4esk of a receptionist waiting for a chance to give her my name in order that I might get in to see some- body. She was a very pretty Irish receptionist and so I was in no Image of text. Part 3 of quote from Asimov. hurry because the individual I was to see was very masculine and I preferred the receptionist. So I waited patiently and smiled at her; and then her patent lrishness stirred that drum-beat memory in my mind so that I sang in a soft voice (without even realizing what I was doing) PA-ruh-dy-METH-il-a-MEE-noh-ben-ZAL-duh-hide . . . through several rapid choruses. And the receptionist clapped her hands together in delight and cried out, "Oh, my, you know it in the original Gaelic!" What could I do? I smiled modestly and had her announce me as Isaac O'Asirnov. From that day to this ·I haven't sung it once except in telling this story. It was gone, for after all folks, in my heart I know I don't know one word of Gaelic.
December 4, 2024 at 6:28 AM