Scrabble’s Two Letter Words – Lo & Ma

by jmgariepy · August 7, 2014

Behold. Many people assume ‘lo’ is short for ‘hello’, and it can be used that way. But ‘lo’ is really a corruption of the Old English word for ‘look’. You need to be careful with a word like ‘lo’. It’s a common enough word, but it reads as archaic. You can find it written in Beowolf, and the Faerie Queene. You’re more likely to see ‘lo’ printed in a Wizard of Id cartoon, than hear a person hailing a taxi with it (“Lo, what yellowed car moves hence? It is a diesel-propelled passenger chariot, for which I hail!”)

And even when people use the word ‘lo’ in our modern age, they don’t seem sure of how to use it. Otherwise, why would the expression ‘lo and behold’ gain purchase? ‘Lo’ and ‘behold’ are the same words. They’re a pair of synonyms joined together for a touch of the theatric, because the speaker isn’t sure your brain will process one of the two words alone. Writers who write ‘lo and behold’ should learn to edit their work for extraneous and extra words.

“Lo” also happens to be the first Internet message sent in 1969. Leonard Kleinrock was attempting to send the word “Login” using the packet switching method from UCLA to Stanford Research Institute. The system crashed after transmitting the letters L and O, but before G, I and N could be sent. Considering what the Internet would eventually become, the shortened message seems fortuitous. In 2011, Erik Harkin, who works for UCLA Facilities Management Design, slipped a secret code in the shaded tiles leading to the engineering department. It took a couple years, but eventually a computer science major figured out that the off-color tiles read “Lo and behold” in binary and shared his Easter egg on the school message boards. Cute. At least it’s less intimidating than reading “Login” before going to class every morning.

A female parent. Otherwise known as mother, mimzy or mums. While we’re at it, I’m going to bring forward…

A male parent. Otherwise known as father, abbu or papi. Both Ma and Pa get a holiday apiece. But when I suggested a ‘Kid’s Day’ to my parents, it only happened once. And that was because my parents were so amused that I could remember the date (‘”Yeah, sure. We can celebrate ‘Kid’s Day’. It occurs once a year on the 10th of August, which happened to be yesterday.”) that they brought me to a miniature golf course and an ice cream stand when I reminded them of their promise from the previous year. But when I brought up Kid’s Day the next year, they wouldn’t have any of it. “Every day is ‘Kid’s Day’.” Indeed.

‘Ma’ and ‘Pa’ are very old, forming one half of the words ‘mama’ and ‘papa’ respectively. In fact, ‘mama’ or ‘mother’ is one of the twenty-three oldest words in the world, dating back over 15,000 years, and sharing a history with four language families. How is this word so universal? According to Ramon Jakobson, it’s because babies are predictably lazy, and like breasts.

Vowel sounds are some of the first noises babies learn to make with their throat and lungs, and they do it all the time in the form of screaming, much to their parents’ chagrin. After the vowel sounds, babies experiment with simple bilabial consonants that involve closing the mouth and making a noise (/m/, /p/ and /b/ all hit regular rotation at this point.) Since bilabials pose a challenge, babies often open their mouths up while forcing the fricative, accidentally producing one of the easiest vowels to hit (/a/), then close their mouths to make the consonant noise again. And why do babies tend to favor /m/ over /p/ or /b/? Jakobson thinks it’s because that’s the sound you make when you’re trying to speak while sucking on a nipple. Babies are more familiar with that sound, so they replicate it most often.

Meanwhile, The eager and expectant mother, who is waiting patiently for the child to learn its first word, totally flips out when their child reaches this stage of development. The baby learns that mom loves it when it makes this noise and, in a feedback loop, continues to make that noise for her. Obviously, the baby doesn’t know what ‘mama’ is supposed to mean, or that sounds made by the voice contain meaning. We give the baby’s first word it’s meaning. We could have attributed the word to mean ‘love’, ‘talking’ or ‘happy’. But, instead, ancient mothers decided the word was meant for them, not for the baby. Isn’t it interesting that the meaning we give that word is ultimately a selfish desire to be recognized?

Are you a logophile eager to learn more? Why don’t you head on over to the Scrabble’s Two Letter Words Page?