Noncompositional

This morning I was watching some shows on the Food Network, and since I simply can’t pay attention to language, I noticed a couple of interesting linguistic treats that a couple of the hosts did.

First, on one show Calorie Commando, the host Juan-Carlos Cruz) was creating a low-calorie and low-fat version of potato latkes that did not contain potatoes but zucchini and summer squash. As he got to the part where he talks about how important texture is in cooking, he said

The ‘T’ in ‘taste’ stands for ‘texture.’

I took a double-take at that one - you’d think that the x that is the initial letter in [word] stands for [word]. I suppose this is like the ‘P’ in pool that rhymes with ‘T’ that stands for ‘trouble.’ (Though I suppose if Harold Hill said The ‘T’ in ‘trouble’ stands for the word whose initial rhymes with ‘T,’ that is ‘pool’, he wouldn’t have got much scamming done.) But in all seriousness (that stands for silly), the practice of associating words by their initial letters is an interesting one, as is the larger association of attributing significance to spellings of certain words for rhetorical effect (there’s no ‘I’ in ‘team’, and so on). I wonder if something similar happens in Chinese languages, either with pronunciations or radicals. I’m fairly sure that this sort of thing is done in Japanese, but I can’t bring any examples to mind.

Next, on the show How to Boil Water, co-host Tyler Florence was giving instructions for making a caramel sauce, and on the bottom of the screen a “helpful tip” (or whatever it was called) popped up, and it read:

Use a larger pot than you think - it will boil over.

First, let’s assume that this was not an unintentional omission, nor due to space limitations. This is an example of the omission of a verb’s argument which has a definite interpretation (called by some DNI, for ‘definite null instantiation’, and ‘null anaphora’ by others, IIRC). When you can do this is generally lexically-specific. Some easy-to-understand examples include This looks similar [to X], Can I have some more [(of) X], This is enough [for X], and He retaliated [against X] for the attack.

With comparatives, like larger, there standard of comparison is often not linguistically expressed since it is obvious in the discourse context. This time, however, the standard is expressed in a subordinate clause - but the subordinate clause itself is missing something! Furthermore, it is not missing the standard interpretation, namely, X-er than you think it is. Instead, what the advice says is to use a pot that is larger than you think might be necessary (for making the sauce) (given your previous experience with bringing liquids to a boil).

Well, I suppose it could be telling people to use a pot that is deceptively small - only problem is, how do you maintain the mistaken knowledge about the size of the pot and still manage to select it? (note: the tip is not use a pot larger than you thought (it was when you acquired it))