"Gostak", a meaningless

noun In grammar, a noun is a word that represents a concrete or abstract thing, like living creatures, places, actions, qualities, states of existence, and ideas. A noun may serve as an Object (grammar), object or Subject (grammar), subject within a p ...

, occurs in the phrase "the gostak distims the doshes", which exemplifies how it is possible to derive meaning from the

syntax In linguistics, syntax ( ) is the study of how words and morphemes combine to form larger units such as phrases and sentences. Central concerns of syntax include word order, grammatical relations, hierarchical sentence structure (constituenc ...

of a sentence even if the

referent A referent ( ) is a person or thing to which a name – a linguistic expression or other symbol – refers. For example, in the sentence ''Mary saw me'', the referent of the word ''Mary'' is the particular person called Mary who is being spoken o ...

s of the terms are entirely unknown. It is an example of a

nonce word In linguistics, a nonce word—also called an occasionalism—is any word (lexeme), or any sequence of sounds or letters, created for a single occasion or utterance but not otherwise understood or recognized as a word in a given languag ...

. The phrase, coined in 1903 by Andrew Ingraham became popularised through its quotation in 1923 by C. K. Ogden and I. A. Richards in their book '' The Meaning of Meaning'', and has since been referenced in a number of cultural contexts.

History

Coined in 1903 by Andrew Ingraham, the sentence became more widely known through its quotation in 1923 by C. K. Ogden and I. A. Richards in their book ''The Meaning of Meaning'' (p. 46). Ogden and Richards refer to Ingraham as an "able but little known writer", and quote his following dialogue:

Deriving meaning

This can be seen in the following dialogue: :Q: What is the gostak? :A: The gostak is what distims the doshes. :Q: What's distimming? :A: Distimming is what the gostak does to the doshes. :Q: Okay, but what are doshes? :A: The doshes are what the gostak distims. In this case, it is possible to describe the

grammatical In linguistics, grammaticality is determined by the conformity to language usage as derived by the grammar of a particular speech variety. The notion of grammaticality rose alongside the theory of generative grammar, the goal of which is to formu ...

and syntactical relationships between the terms in the sentence — that ''gostak'' is a noun subject, ''distimming'' is a

transitive verb A transitive verb is a verb that entails one or more transitive objects, for example, 'enjoys' in ''Amadeus enjoys music''. This contrasts with intransitive verbs, which do not entail transitive objects, for example, 'arose' in ''Beatrice arose ...

, and ''doshes'' is a plural

direct object In linguistics, an object is any of several types of arguments. In subject-prominent, nominative-accusative languages such as English, a transitive verb typically distinguishes between its subject and any of its objects, which can include but ...

— even though there is no fact of the matter about what a ''gostak'' or ''distimming'' or ''doshes'' actually are.

Cultural references

The phrase appears in a number of subsequent cultural contexts including:

Science fiction

Miles Breuer wrote a story, published in ''

Amazing Stories ''Amazing Stories'' is an American science fiction magazine launched in April 1926 by Hugo Gernsback's Experimenter Publishing. It was the first magazine devoted solely to science fiction. Science fiction stories had made regular appearance ...

'' for March 1930 and now considered a classic, title
"The Gostak and the Doshes"
whose protagonist travels to an alternate Earth in which the phrase is a political slogan, one that induces sufficient umbrage throughout the populace to declare justified, righteous war. The protagonist attempts to discern the meaning, but every definition he receives is some rewording of the phrase. Other writers have picked up on the reference, notably

David Gerrold David Gerrold (born Jerrold David Friedman; January 24, 1944)Reginald, R. (September 12, 2010)''Science Fiction and Fantasy Literature, Volume 2'' Borgo Press p. 911. Archived at Google Books. Retrieved June 23, 2013. is an American science fict ...

Interactive fiction

The phrase is the namesake of an

interactive fiction Interactive fiction (IF) is software simulating environments in which players use text Command (computing), commands to control Player character, characters and influence the environment. Works in this form can be understood as literary narrati ...

game called ''The Gostak'', written by Carl Muckenhoupt. Most of the text of the game is in an entirely unknown language (fundamentally English in syntax and grammar, but with much of the vocabulary and even idiomatic constructions changed) which the player must decipher, not only to understand the game's text but also to type commands in the same language. For example, the game opens with the following text: ''The Gostak'' won the 2001 XYZZY Awards for Best Use of Medium and Best Individual Puzzle.

References

External links

{{wikisource, The Gostak and the Doshes
Entry for ''The Gostak'' in the IFDB
Semantics