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Franklin Knight Lane

Franklin Knight Lane (July 15, 1864 – May 18, 1921) was an American progressive politician from California. A member of the Democratic Party, he served as United States Secretary of the Interior from 1913 to 1920. He also served as a commissioner of the Interstate Commerce Commission, and was the Democratic nominee for Governor of California in 1902, losing a narrow race in what was then a heavily Republican state.

Lane was born July 15, 1864, near Charlottetown, Prince Edward Island, in what was then a British colony but is now part of Canada, and in 1871, his family moved to California. After attending the University of California while working part-time as a reporter, Lane became a New York correspondent for the San Francisco Chronicle, and later became editor and part owner of a newspaper. Elected City Attorney of San Francisco in 1898, a post he held for five years, Lane ran in 1902 for governor and in 1903 for mayor of San Francisco, losing both races. In 1903, he received the support of the Democratic minority in the California State Legislature during the legislature's vote to elect a United States Senator from California.

Appointed a commissioner of the Interstate Commerce Commission by U.S. President Theodore Roosevelt in 1905 and confirmed by the Senate the following year, Lane was reappointed in 1909 by President William Howard Taft. His fellow commissioners elected him as chairman in January 1913. The following month, Lane accepted President-elect Woodrow Wilson's nomination to become Secretary of the Interior, a position in which he served almost seven years until his resignation in early 1920. Lane's record on conservation was mixed: he supported the controversial Hetch Hetchy Reservoir project in Yosemite National Park, which flooded a valley esteemed by many conservationists, but also presided over the establishment of the National Park Service.

The former Secretary died of heart disease at the Mayo Clinic in Rochester, Minnesota, on May 18, 1921. Because of two decades of poorly paid government service, and the expenses of his final illness, he left no estate, and a public fund was established to support his widow. Newspapers reported that had he not been born in what is now Canada, he would have become president. In spite of that limitation, Lane was offered support for the Democratic nomination for vice president, though he was constitutionally ineligible for that office as well.

Early life

Lane was born in DeSable, west of Charlottetown, Prince Edward Island, on July 15, 1864, the first of four children of Christopher Lane and the former Caroline Burns. Christopher Lane was a preacher who owned a farm outside Charlottetown; when his voice began to fail, he became a dentist. The elder Lane, disliking the island colony's cold climate, moved with his family to Napa, California in 1871, and to Oakland in 1876, where Franklin graduated from Oakland High School. Franklin Lane was hired to work in the printing office of the Oakland Times, then worked as a reporter, and in 1884 campaigned for the Prohibition Party. From 1884 to 1886, he attended the University of California at Berkeley, though he did not graduate. Lane later wrote, "I put myself through college by working on vacation and after hours, and I am very glad I did it." He later received honorary Doctor of Laws degrees from the University of California, from New York University, Brown University, and the University of North Carolina. After leaving college, he worked as a reporter for the San Francisco Chronicle. In 1889, he was admitted to the California Bar, having attended Hastings Law School.

Rather than practicing law, Lane moved to New York City to continue his newspaper career as a correspondent for the Chronicle. There he became a protégé of the reformer Henry George and a member of New York's Reform Club. He returned to the West Coast in 1891 as editor and part owner of the Tacoma News. He was successful in driving a corrupt chief of police into exile in Alaska, but the business venture as a whole was unsuccessful, and the paper declared bankruptcy in 1894, a victim of the poor economy and Lane's espousal of Democratic and Populist Party causes. In 1893, Lane married Anne Wintermute; they had two children, Franklin Knight Lane, Jr. and Nancy Lane Kauffman.

Lane moved back to California in late 1894, and began to practice law in San Francisco with his brother George. He also wrote for Arthur McEwen's Letter, a newspaper which crusaded against corruption, especially in the San Francisco Bay area and in the Southern Pacific Railroad. In 1897–98, he served on the Committee of One Hundred, a group which was tasked with drafting a new city charter. The charter required the city to own its own water supply.

California politician

In 1898, Lane, running as a Democrat, was elected to the combined position of City and County Attorney, defeating California's sitting Attorney General, W. F. Fitzgerald, by 832 votes in a year that otherwise saw most offices across the state fall to the Republicans. He was re-elected in 1899 and 1901.

Lane ran for Governor of California in 1902 on the Democratic and Non-Partisan tickets. At a time when California was dominated by the Republican Party, he lost by less than a percentage point to George Pardee. (Theodore Roosevelt won the state by 35 points two years later.) Between 8,000 and 10,000 votes were disqualified on various technicalities, possibly costing him the election. During the campaign, the influential San Francisco Examiner slanted its news coverage against him. Examiner owner William Randolph Hearst later denied responsibility for this policy, and stated that if Lane ever needed anything, he should send Hearst a telegram. Lane retorted that if Hearst received a telegram purportedly signed by Lane, asking him to do anything, he could be sure it was a forgery.

Journalist Grant Wallace wrote of Lane at the time of the gubernatorial campaign:

"That Lane is a man of earnestness and vigorous action is shown in ... every movement. You sit down to chat with him in his office. As he grows interested in the subject, he kicks his chair back, thrusts his hands way to the elbows in his trouser pockets and strides up and down the room. With deepening interest he speaks more rapidly and forcibly, and charges back and forth across the carpet with the heavy tread of a grenadier."

At the time, the state legislatures still elected United States Senators, and in 1903, Lane received the vote of the state legislature's Democratic minority in the Senate election. However, the majority Republicans backed incumbent George Clement Perkins, who was duly re-elected. Later that year, City Attorney Lane ran for mayor of San Francisco, but again was defeated, finishing third in the race. He returned to the private practice of law, and would not again stand for elective office.

Even before the mayoral election, there was support for Lane as a potential Democratic candidate for vice president, though since he was born in what was by then a Canadian province he was ineligible under the Twelfth Amendment to the United States Constitution. In an era when political convention delegates were far more free to make their own choices than they are today, Lane wrote that he had heard that he could gain the support of the New York delegation, which he declined to do. While returning to California from a trip to Washington, D.C., as an advocate for the Hetch Hetchy Reservoir project, he stopped in Austin, Texas, to confer with Democratic leaders and address the legislature. The New York Times saw this as part of a campaign to secure the vice-presidential nomination, and stated that he had been promised help from Texas.

Appointment and confirmation
The railroad companies, which were loosely regulated by the Interstate Commerce Commission (ICC), exercised great power in California because of the lack of alternate means of shipping freight. Lane had taken cases against those corporations in his law practice, and, in his gubernatorial campaign, had argued that they had too much power. In early 1904, Benjamin Wheeler, president of the University of California, suggested to President Roosevelt that Lane would be an admirable choice to serve on the ICC. Roosevelt agreed, and promised to name him to the next ICC vacancy. When that vacancy occurred in early 1905, Roosevelt forgot his promise and instead named retiring five-term Senator Francis Cockrell of Missouri. Wheeler wrote to remind Roosevelt that he had said he would name Lane. Roosevelt apologized for his oversight, but noted that, as he had just been re-elected, "I shall make ample amends to Lane later".

In December 1905, Commissioner Joseph W. Fifer resigned from the ICC and on December 6, 1905, President Roosevelt named Lane to fill the remaining four years in his term. Opposition to the appointment came from Republicans, who pointed out that were the nominee to be confirmed by the Senate, three of the five commissioners would be from the minority Democratic Party. Historian Bill G. Reid, in his journal article about Lane, suggests that Lane's liberal record was a factor in the Senate's hesitation to confirm him. The dispute held up Senate approval. However, Republican Congressman William Peters Hepburn proposed legislation which, though its primary purpose was increased railroad regulation, would expand the Commission by two members. Roosevelt indicated that he would appoint Republicans to the new positions, and opposition to Lane's nomination dissipated. The resultant Hepburn Act was signed by President Roosevelt on June 29, 1906, while his nominee was confirmed the same day and was sworn in on July 2, 1906.

The City of San Francisco suffered a severe earthquake on April 18, 1906. Lane, who was living in north Berkeley while awaiting Senate confirmation, hurried to the city within hours of the earthquake to do what he could to help. Mayor Eugene E. Schmitz immediately appointed him to the Committee of Fifty to deal with the devastation of the earthquake and subsequent fire, and plan the rebuilding of the city. According to Lane's friend, writer Will Irwin, Lane did not content himself with committee work, but personally fought the fire, helping to save much of the Western Addition. In late April, the commissioner-designate took the train east to Washington, where he unsuccessfully fought to obtain Federal money to help the city's recovery.

Commission work
The new commissioner spent the second half of 1906 attending ICC hearings around the country. The Hepburn Act had given the Commission broad powers over the railroads, and the Commission worked to deal not only with past railroad abuses, but to strike a balance between the desires of railroads and those of shippers.

There was a severe shortage of coal in the Upper Midwest in late 1906, especially in North Dakota, and President Roosevelt ordered an investigation. Railroad companies were accused of failing to send cars with coal to that region that could then be used to transport grain from that region to Great Lakes ports. It was alleged the companies were waiting for the lakes to freeze over before sending cars so that the grain would have to be transported by rail all the way to market instead of by water transport. Lane led the inquiry and held hearings in Chicago, and concluded that the car shortage was due to demand for cars further west, and that it would actually cause area railways to lose money since they could not transport the grain to port. In January 1907, he submitted his report to Roosevelt, which set out the causes of the shortage. He found that fifty million bushels of grain still remained on North Dakota farms or in the state's grain elevators, because of lack of space in eastbound railroad cars. He recommended that railroad companies pool their cars with neighboring lines.

The Commission spent much of 1907 investigating the railroads and other companies owned by Edward H. Harriman, holding hearings across the country. In October, Lane determined that the Southern Pacific Railroad, one of Harriman's lines, was engaged in rebating, a practice of effectively giving special rates to favored shippers that had been outlawed by the Hepburn Act.

Lane was reappointed as commissioner by President William Howard Taft on December 7, 1909, this time to a full seven-year term, and was confirmed by the Senate three days later. He was also approached by, as he put it, "a good many people" who urged him to seek the Democratic nomination for Governor of California in 1910. He did not run, remaining an ICC commissioner. Taft designated Lane as a U.S. delegate to the 1910 International Railways Congress. The Congress, which convened every five years, met in Berne, Switzerland. Before adjourning in anticipation of meeting in 1915 in Berlin, it elected Lane to its Permanent International Commission.

On July 1, 1911, the ICC ordered a "sweeping investigation" into the activities of express companies, which transported and delivered parcels. Lane presided over a lengthy hearing in New York in November 1911. Fellow Commissioner James S. Harlan noted that after hearing of the abuses of the express system, Lane recommended to Congress that it establish a parcel post service as part of the United States Post Office Department. Parcel post began on January 1, 1913, and was an immediate success.

Early in 1912, Commissioner Lane returned to New York to preside over hearings (begun on the Commission's own initiative) into oil pipelines. While investigating the sale of pipelines to the Standard Oil Company, he grew frustrated with the testimony of a witness who, though secretary of several pipeline companies, could not say who authorized the sales. "I don't want to deal with a clerk or one of your $5,000 a year men. I want testimony from someone who can speak with authority." The Commission held that oil pipelines were common carriers, and ordered the companies owning them to file rate schedules and otherwise comply with the Interstate Commerce Act.

Lane also gave attention to improving the ICC's internal capabilities. Lane and his ally, fellow Commissioner Balthasar H. Meyer, supported increasing the Commission's ability to compute marginal rates, and the Commission engaged noted economist Max O. Lorenz (inventor of the Lorenz curve) for this task. Lane also advocated the creation of a new commission with powers over any corporation engaged in interstate commerce, as the best way to prevent trusts.

Selection by Wilson
In the 1912 presidential election, Lane supported Democratic candidate and New Jersey Governor Woodrow Wilson, though he declined to make campaign speeches on Wilson's behalf, citing ICC policy that commissioners act in a nonpartisan manner. Wilson was elected on November 5, 1912, and on November 21 the commissioner spent much of the day with Colonel Edward M. House, the President-elect's advisor, who would play a key role in selecting Cabinet appointees. The possibility of Lane becoming Secretary of the Interior was discussed, but he indicated he was happy in his present position. After the meeting, Lane had second thoughts, and asked House if he would have a free hand as Interior Secretary. House indicated that were he to prove capable in the position, Wilson would not interfere. Colonel House did not immediately recommend Lane for the job, but went on to consider other candidates, such as former San Francisco mayor James D. Phelan and Wilson friend Walter Page.

At the ICC meeting on January 8, 1913, the commissioners elected Lane as the new chairman, effective January 13. Wilson continued to keep his Cabinet intentions quiet, and Lane noted in January 1913 of those who met with the President-elect in New Jersey, "nobody comes back from Trenton knowing anything more than when he went". On February 16, House met again with him (on Wilson's instructions) to get a better sense of the ICC chairman's views on conservation. According to House's diaries, Lane, while reluctant to leave his position as chairman, was willing to serve in the Interior position if offered. He considered the position the most difficult Cabinet post but was also willing to serve in any other capacity.

As Wilson adjusted his lineup of potential Cabinet appointees, he and House considered Lane for the positions of Attorney General and Secretary of War. Finally, Wilson wrote to him on February 24, 1913, offering him the Interior position, and, although the two had never met, he accepted the post. According to The New York Times, Chairman Lane was selected since he was one of the few California Democrats who had fought the railroads and who was not beholden to Hearst. At the time, it was customary not to make an official announcement of Cabinet appointments until the new president formally submitted the names to the Senate on the afternoon of Inauguration Day, March 4; however, The New York Times obtained the list of Wilson's appointees a day early. The Senate met in special session on March 5, and approved all of President Wilson's Cabinet appointees.

Department activities

The Department of the Interior in 1913 was a hodgepodge of different agencies. Many of them, such as the Pensions Office, Indian Office, and General Land Office had been departmental responsibilities since the Interior Department was organized in 1849. Others, such as the Bureau of Education, the Geological Survey and the Bureau of Mines, had been added later. The Department was also responsible for national parks, the Patent Office, the United States Capitol building and grounds, Howard University, Gallaudet University, St. Elizabeths Hospital and the Maritime Canal Company of Nicaragua, charged with building a canal upon which work had been suspended for twenty years.

Soon after taking office in 1913, Lane became involved in the Hetch Hetchy Valley dispute. San Francisco had long sought to dam the Tuolumne River in Yosemite National Park to create a reservoir that would assure a steady flow of water to the city. Lane had supported the project as City Attorney and continued his advocacy as the new Interior Secretary. The Hetch Hetchy project was strongly opposed by many conservationists, led by John Muir, who said, "Dam Hetch Hetchy! As well dam for water tanks the people's cathedrals and churches; for no holier temple has ever been consecrated by the heart of man." In spite of Muir's objections, Lane was successful: Congress authorized the project after a long and bitter battle.

The new Secretary sought allies in Congress to implement his agenda. One such ally was the new junior senator from Montana, Thomas J. Walsh, whose support was key to the passage of the Hetch Hetchy legislation. While Walsh dissented from Lane's policies on national parks, for example by supporting local control of development in his home state's Glacier National Park, he sided with him on subjects ranging from development of Alaska to reclamation projects. The Interior Secretary advocated leasing, rather than selling, public lands with possible mineral deposits, and Senator Walsh pursued legislation in this area. While the two were successful in providing for coal land leasing in Alaska, a general minerals leasing bill would not be passed until shortly after Lane left office in 1920.

In July 1913, Lane left on a long inspection tour of National Parks, Indian reservations, and other areas under the Interior Department's jurisdiction. Fearful that local employees would control what he was allowed to see, he sent an assistant to visit each site and provide him with a complete report on it two weeks in advance of his arrival. The tour was interrupted in August, when President Wilson asked his Interior Secretary to go to Denver and serve as his representative at the Conference of Governors. Lane did, and then rejoined his inspection party in San Francisco. After several days of meetings there, he collapsed because of an attack of angina pectoris. After three weeks recuperating, he returned to Washington against medical advice to resume his work. Following the death of Justice Horace Harmon Lurton, Lane was considered a possibility for elevation to the Supreme Court; however, Wilson chose another member of his cabinet, James Clark McReynolds.

As Interior Secretary, Lane was responsible for the territories, and advocated the development of the Alaska Territory. While private railroads had been established there, they were not successful, and he pushed for a government-built railroad, which he believed would lead to large-scale population movement into Alaska. In 1914, Congress passed a bill authorizing construction of the Alaska Railroad, which passed the Senate following a two-day speech in support by Walsh. Lane was the first Interior Secretary to appoint an Alaska resident, John Franklin Alexander Strong, as territorial governor. Secretary Lane's vision for the territory was, "Alaska should not, in my judgment, be regarded as a mere storehouse of materials on which the people of the States may draw. She has the potentialities of a State. And whatever policies may be adopted should look toward an Alaska of homes, of industries, and of an extended commerce."

Despite his role in the Hetch Hetchy controversy, Lane was friendly towards the National Park movement, and in 1915 hired Stephen Mather to oversee the parks for which the Department was responsible. Mather, a self-made millionaire and member of the Sierra Club, had written Lane a bitter letter in late 1914, complaining that the national parks were being exploited for private profit. Lane was intrigued by Mather's letter, made inquiry, and found that Mather was well thought of by Lane's friends—and had, like Lane, attended the University of California. Mather's advocacy led to the establishment of the National Park Service in 1916.

In 1915, Lane returned to San Francisco to open the Panama-Pacific International Exposition. The President was supposed to open the fair, but was unable to attend, and sent the Interior Secretary in his place. In 1916, Wilson appointed Lane to lead the American delegation and meet with the Mexican commissioners at Atlantic City, New Jersey about the unstable military situation in Mexico. These negotiations led to the withdrawal of United States troops from Mexico.

The Interior Department had never had a central headquarters, but had worked from offices scattered across Washington, with the bulk of the department located in the old Patent Office building. The Secretary lobbied for a new building for the Department, and, after Congress appropriated the funds, construction went ahead and the building was opened in early 1917. The structure, located at 1800 F Street N.W., now houses the General Services Administration.

Mather, who had been appointed the first director of the National Park Service, began to display apparent mental illness in 1917. His assistant, Horace Albright, reported this condition to Lane. The Secretary chose to keep Mather in his position, while allowing Albright to perform the functions of Mather's job until Mather recovered, keeping all of this secret. According to Albright, Lane was not a conservationist, but did not care to interfere in the decisions of his officials, and so let Mather and Albright have free rein. Lane wrote in 1917:

"A wilderness, no matter how impressive and beautiful, does not satisfy this soul of mine, (if I have that kind of thing). It is a challenge to man. It says, 'Master me! Put me to use! Make me something more than I am.'"

World War I responsibilities
In 1916, Wilson appointed Lane to the Council of National Defense (CND), where he urged cooperation between the private and public sectors. He defused a difficult situation for the CND when it decided to merge its male-dominated state and local organizations with the separate Women's Committee into a unified Field Division. Lane headed the Division, leading a board of five men and five women.

Lane bitterly opposed what he saw as the President's hesitation to commit the country to war. He wrote to his brother George in February 1917:

"... in Mexico, Cuba, Costa Rica, and Europe we have trouble. The country is growing tired of delay, and without positive leadership is losing its keenness of conscience and becoming inured to insult. Our Ambassador in Berlin is held as a hostage for days—our Consuls' wives are stripped naked at the border, our ships are sunk, our people killed—and yet we wait and wait! What for I do not know. Germany is winning by her bluff, for she has our ships interned in our own harbors."

Lane was a strong advocate of preparedness in the prelude to U.S. involvement in World War I. In early 1917, he urged Wilson to authorize the arming and convoying of merchant vessels. Wilson refused, but changed his mind when informed of the Zimmermann Telegram. In a critical Cabinet meeting in March 1917, Lane, with other Cabinet members, urged American intervention in the war.

He helped Thomas Garrigue Masaryk to create Washington Declaration in October 1918.

With Lane's support, the nation's railroads voluntarily united to form a Railroad War Board to meet the emergency. Lane made many effective speeches for the Committee on Public Information. The Secretary penned two brief works for the Committee, Why We Are Fighting Germany and The American Spirit, which were well received and widely distributed. He urged businessmen to make "sacrifices as worthy as those of the men on their way to the trenches". President Wilson reportedly stopped discussing matters of importance at Cabinet meetings because the "gregarious" Lane divulged confidential matters.

Lane was a supporter of the Treaty of Versailles and of the League of Nations. He wrote articles urging, in vain, U.S. ratification of the treaty establishing the international organization.

Later life and legacy
On December 17, 1919, Lane confirmed rumors that had been circulating in Washington for some months that he would be leaving the Cabinet. Secretary Lane stated that he had not done so earlier because of President Wilson's illness. While he gave no specific reason for his departure, The New York Times reported that Lane had found it difficult to make ends meet on a Cabinet officer's salary of $12,000 and desired to make more money for himself and his family.

As Lane prepared to leave office in January 1920, he reflected on the postwar world:

"But the whole world is skew-jee, awry, distorted and altogether perverse. The President is broken in body, and obstinate in spirit. Clemenceau is beaten for an office he did not want. Einstein has declared the law of gravitation outgrown and decadent. ... Oh God, I pray, give me peace and a quiet chop. I do not ask for power, nor for fame, nor yet for wealth."

Lane resigned in February 1920, and left office on March 1. He subsequently accepted employment as vice president and legal advisor to the Mexican Petroleum Company, which was run by Edward Doheny (who, after Lane's death, would be implicated in the Teapot Dome scandal), as well as a directorship of the Metropolitan Life Insurance Company.

In a letter to Democratic presidential candidate and Ohio Governor James M. Cox in July 1920, Lane set forth his vision for America:

"We want our unused lands put to use. We want the farm made more attractive through better rural schools, more roads everywhere ... [W]e want more men with garden homes instead of tenement homes. We want our waters, that flow idly to the sea, put to use ... [W]e want fewer boys and girls, men and women, who cannot read or write the language of our laws, newspapers, and literature ... [T]he framing of our policies should not be left to emotional caprice, or the opportunism of any group of men, but should be result of sympathetic and deep studies by the wisest men we have, regardless of their politics ... [W]e want our soldiers and sailors to be more certain of our gratitude ... [W]e are to extend our activities into all parts of the world. Our trade is to grow as never before. Our people are to resume their old place as traders on the seven seas. We are to know other people better and make them all more and more our friends, working with them as mutually dependent factors in the growth of the world's life"

By early 1921, Lane's health was failing, and he sought treatment at the Mayo Clinic. He was able to leave the Clinic and spend the remainder of the winter in warmer areas as advised by his physicians, but soon returned. Lane's heart was in such poor condition that the Clinic could not give him general anesthesia during his heart operation. Lane survived the operation, and wrote of the ordeal, but died soon afterward. According to his brother, George Lane, the former Secretary left no will or estate. The vice-president of Lane's company noted that the Californian had worked 21 years for the Government on a "living salary", and the earnings from the one year of substantial wages had been heavily sapped by illness. Lane's body was cremated, and his ashes thrown to the winds from atop El Capitan peak in Yosemite National Park.

According to newspapers reporting Lane's death, it was said that had he been born in the United States he would have been elected president. Following Lane's death, a memorial committee was formed by Secretary of Commerce Herbert Hoover, former Assistant Secretary of the Navy Franklin D. Roosevelt and former Lane assistant and member of the Federal Reserve Board Adolph C. Miller. The committee established a Franklin K. Lane Memorial Fund, initially dedicated to the support of Lane's widow, Anne Lane, and upon her death to be used to promote causes in which her husband believed. The two future presidents, Miller, and National Park Service Director Mather were among the major contributors to the fund. In 1939, after Mrs. Lane's death, the corpus of the trust (just over $100,000) was transferred to the former Secretary's alma mater, the University of California, to promote the understanding and improvement of the American system of democratic government. Fifty years later, the entrusted amount, still administered by the University, had grown to almost $1.9 million.

In November 1921, Lane Peak in Mount Rainier National Park was named for the former Secretary. Lane was named a National Historic Person on the advice of the Historic Sites and Monuments Board of Canada on May 19, 1938. A federal plaque was affixed to a cairn reflecting that honor near his DeSable, PEI, birthplace. Other tributes to Lane included a World War II Liberty ship, a New York City high school, and a California redwood grove. Lane's patriotic essay "Makers of the Flag" adapted from a speech he delivered to Interior Department employees on Flag Day 1914, continues to be reprinted as a speech and in schoolbooks.

title: Franklin Knight Lane


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Marianna Csörnyei

Marianna Csörnyei (born October 8, 1975 in Budapest) is a Hungarian mathematician who works as a professor at the University of Chicago. She does research in real analysis, geometric measure theory, and geometric nonlinear functional analysis. She proved the equivalence of the zero measure notions of infinite dimensional Banach spaces.

Education and career
Csörnyei received her doctorate from Eötvös Loránd University in 1999, supervised by György Petruska. She was a professor at the Mathematics Department of University College London between 1999–2011, and spent the 2009–2010 academic year at Yale University as visiting professor. Currently, she is at the University of Chicago.

She is contributing editor of the mathematical journal Real Analysis Exchange.

Awards and honors
Csörnyei won a 2002 Whitehead Prize from the London Mathematical Society and a Royal Society Wolfson Research Merit Award that same year. She was also awarded the Philip Leverhulme Prize for Mathematics and Statistics in 2008 for her work in geometric measure theory.

She was an invited sectional speaker at the International Congress of Mathematicians, in 2010.

Csörnyei was selected to deliver the AWM-AMS Noether Lecture at the 2022 Joint Mathematics Meetings in Seattle, Washington. The title of her talk is The Kakeya needle problem for rectifiable sets.

She is included in a deck of playing cards featuring notable women mathematicians published by the Association of Women in Mathematics.

license: Creative Commons - Attribution Share-Alike - https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/

title: Marianna Csörnyei


text:
Marcus Nispel

Marcus Nispel (born 26 May 1963) is a German film director and producer, best known for several high-profile American remakes such as The Texas Chainsaw Massacre, as well as an extensive career in television commercials and music videos.

Early life and career
Nispel was born on 26 May 1963 in Frankfurt. He grew up near McNair Barracks and was able to learn English from hanging out with children of soldiers. At the age of 15, he got a job at a boutique called Hessler and Kehrer. When he had his first interview at an American ad agency, he was asked what do Oreos mean, and he realized the importance of understanding American culture, and how working in advertising helped him understand that. He received a Fulbright Scholarship at the age of 20 and attended Brooklyn College and New York Institute of Technology. He was also an art director for Young & Rubicam. He started a production company, Portfolio Artists Network which later merged with RSA (Ridley Scott Associates) Black Dog Films to form Portfolio/Black Dog. He worked at RSA as a commercial director for several years, resigning in 2000.

Feature career
Nispel was set to make his feature directorial debut with End of Days, but stepped down before shooting due to issues with the budget. In 2002, Nispel signed on to direct The Texas Chainsaw Massacre. He was initially opposed to remaking the film, but Daniel Pearl, the cinematographer for the original film and regular collaborator with Nispel, convinced him to direct. The film was released on October 17, 2003 to negative reviews but was financially successful, grossing $107 million worldwide.

After directing The Texas Chainsaw Massacre, Nispel signed on to direct a psychological thriller called Need, starring Diane Lane. He picked the film as he wanted something 'diametrically opposed to TCM', but it was never released. Throughout the 2000s and into the 2010s, Nispel would direct several more remakes of prominent genre films, such as Friday the 13th (reuniting him with Platinum Dunes, who made Texas Chainsaw) and Conan the Barbarian. In 2015, Nispel directed the ghost exorcism film Exeter, formerly titled Backmask.

Personal life
He is married to singer/songwriter/commercial editor Dyan Humes-Nispel, who has written songs for various artists including Whitney Houston. They have two children.

Filmography
Film

Trailers
 * "Regenerate", a teaser trailer for Resident Evil: Apocalypse (2004).

1990

 * Al B. Sure! – "Had Enuf"
 * Curtis Mayfield featuring Ice-T – "Superfly 1990"
 * Olé Olé – "Love crusaders"
 * Olé Olé – "How Can I Believe You"

1991

 * C+C Music Factory – "Gonna Make You Sweat (Everybody Dance Now)"
 * C+C Music Factory – "Things That Make You Go Hmmm..."
 * C+C Music Factory – "Here We Go (Let's Rock & Roll)"
 * Divinyls – "Love School"
 * Inner City – "Till We Meet Again"
 * Joe Jackson – "Obvious Song"
 * Lisa Lisa and Cult Jam – "Let the Beat Hit 'Em"
 * LL Cool J - "6 Minutes of Pleasure"
 * Mantronix – "Don't Go Messin' with My Heart"
 * Mariah Carey – "Make It Happen"
 * Nia Peeples - "Street of Dreams"

1992

 * Faith No More – "A Small Victory"
 * Lisa Stansfield – "Someday (I'm Coming Back)"
 * Martha Wash – "Give It to You"
 * Trey Lorenz – "Photograph of Mary"

1993

 * George Michael – "Killer/Papa Was A Rollin' Stone"
 * The B-52's – "Good Stuff (The B-52's song)"
 * Billy Joel – "Lullabye (Goodnight, My Angel)"
 * Eternal – "Stay"
 * Hi-Five – "Unconditional Love"
 * Pauline Henry – "Feel Like Makin' Love"
 * Hi-Five – "Never Should've Let You Go"
 * Go West – "Tracks of My Tears"

1994

 * All-4-One – "I Swear"
 * Crystal Waters – "100% Pure Love"
 * Fu-Schnickens – "Breakdown"
 * Gloria Estefan – "Turn the Beat Around"
 * Amy Grant – "House of Love"
 * Jade – "Every Day of the Week"
 * Tevin Campbell – "I'm Ready"
 * Wet Wet Wet – "Love Is All Around"

1995

 * Jimmy Somerville – "Heartbeat"
 * Bette Midler – "To Deserve You"
 * Janet Jackson – "Runaway"
 * Mylène Farmer – "XXL"
 * Mylène Farmer – "L'Instant X"
 * Elton John – "Believe"
 * No Doubt – "Spiderwebs"

1996

 * Scorpions – "You and I"
 * Fugees – "Ready or Not"
 * Lil' Kim featuring Puff Daddy – "No Time"
 * Mylène Farmer – "Comme j'ai mal"
 * Luis Miguel – "Dame"
 * Herbert Grönemeyer – "Bochum (Live)"

1997

 * Elton John – "Recover Your Soul"
 * Spice Girls – "Spice Up Your Life"
 * Bush – "Greedy Fly"

1998

 * Puff Daddy & The Family featuring The Notorious B.I.G. and Busta Rhymes – "Victory"
 * Sunz of Man featuring Ol' Dirty Bastard and Earth, Wind & Fire – "Shining Star"
 * Bryan Adams featuring Melanie C – "When You're Gone"

1999

 * Terror Squad – "Whatcha Gon' Do"
 * Mylène Farmer – "Souviens-toi du jour"
 * Bryan Adams – "Cloud Number Nine"
 * Nobody's Angel – "If You Wanna Dance"
 * Paradise Lost - "So Much is Lost"

2000

 * The Mighty Mighty Bosstones – "So Sad to Say"
 * Ronan Keating – "Life Is a Rollercoaster"

2001

 * The Charlatans – "Love Is the Key"

2006

 * Kyosuke Himuro – "Sweet Revolution"

title: Marcus Nispel


text:
List of rulers of the Ngoni Dynasty of Maseko (Gomani)

List of Rulers of the Ngoni Dynasty of Maseko (Gomani) (Malawi):


text:
Frederick Schule

Frederick William Schule (September 27, 1879 – September 14, 1962) was an American track and field athlete, football player, athletic coach, teacher, bacteriologist, and engineer. He competed for the track and field teams at the University of Wisconsin from 1900 to 1901 and at the University of Michigan in 1904. He was also a member of the undefeated 1903 Michigan Wolverines football team that outscored its opponents 565 to 6.

In 1904, Schule won the gold medal in the 110 meter hurdles at the 1904 Summer Olympics in St. Louis, Missouri. From 1905 to 1907, he was employed as the director of the gymnasium and coach of the football and basketball teams at the University of Montana in Missoula, Montana.

Schule also worked as a school teacher in Wausau and Milwaukee, Wisconsin, and as an assayer and bacteriologist in Utah and Chicago. He later worked as an engineer and superintendent for Westinghouse Lamp Company. In 2008, he was posthumously inducted into the University of Michigan Track & Field Hall of Fame.

Early years
Schule was born in Preston, Iowa in 1879. His father, Frederick Schule, was an immigrant from Germany who was employed as a physician. His mother, Sophia Schule, was also an immigrant from Germany. He had four older sisters, Clara, Augusta, Henrietta, and Sophia. At the time of the 1880 United States Census, the family was living in Fairfield Township, Jackson County, Iowa.

University of Wisconsin
Schule began his collegiate studies at the University of Wisconsin, where he was a member of the track and field team from 1899 to 1900. In 1900, Schule won the Big Ten Conference championship in the long jump, becoming the first Wisconsin Badgers athlete to win a Big Ten championship in track and field. He repeated as Big Ten champion in the long jump in 1901 with a distance of 22 feet, 4-4/5 inches.

Schule received a Bachelor of Science degree from the University of Wisconsin in 1901 in bacteriology and chemistry. After receiving his degree, Schule worked as a bacteriologist for the Chicago Sanitary District for five months. He then returned to the University of Wisconsin for post graduate studies and as a fellow in bacteriology. From 1902 to 1903, he taught physics at a high school in Wausau, Wisconsin. He was the Amateur Athletic Union (AAU) champion in 120 yd hurdles in 1903.

University of Michigan
In the fall of 1903, Schule enrolled at the University of Michigan where he studied chemistry. He received a master's degree from Michigan in 1904.

While attending Michigan, Schule was also a member of the 1903 Michigan Wolverines football team coached by Fielding H. Yost. The 1903 football team compiled a record of 11-0-1 and outscored its opponents 565 to 6.

In February 1904, Schule announced that he would also compete for the 1904 Michigan Wolverines men's track and field team coached by Keene Fitzpatrick. At the annual Penn Relays Carnival held in Philadelphia in April 1904, Schule "left the field behind in the [120-yard] hurdle event, and won in the good time of 15 4/5 seconds." Schule also set a world record in the 75-yard hurdles while attending Michigan. Schule's record-setting time was 9-4/5 seconds at an indoor event in Milwaukee, Wisconsin on March 5, 1904.

In June 1904, the University of Michigan's Athletic Board of Control ruled that Schule was no longer eligible to compete for the school in intercollegiate athletics, because he had already competed for four years.

In 2008, Schule was posthumously inducted into the University of Michigan Track & Field Hall of Fame.

1904 Summer Olympics
Schule competed for the United States as a hurdler at the 1904 Summer Olympics in St. Louis. He won the gold medal in the 110 meter hurdle event with a time of 16.0 seconds, beating fellow American Thaddeus Shideler by two yards. Schule also competed in the 200 metre hurdles event and finished fifth. The 1904 Summer Olympics have been called the "Michigan Olympics" due to the fact that University of Michigan athletes (including Schule, shot putter Ralph Rose, sprinter Archie Hahn, and pole vaulter Charles Dvorak) won ten medals, including six gold medals.

Coaching career
After competing in the 1904 Olympics, Schule was employed as an assayer and chemist in Utah from 1904 to 1905. In 1905, he was hired at the director of the gymnasium at the University of Montana in Missoula, Montana. He also served as an instructor and coach at the University of Montana. He was the head football coach from 1905 to 1906 and the head basketball coach from 1905 to 1907. In two season as the head football coach, Schule compiled a record of 4-7 as his teams were outscored by a combined total of 166 to 150.

Later years
At the time of the 1910 United States Census, Schule was living in Washington Township, Buchanan County, Missouri. He listed his occupation as a shoe merchant. He was also identified as a merchant residing in St. Joseph, Missouri in March 1912. Schule later worked a teacher at West Division High School in Milwaukee, Wisconsin.

In September 1918, Schule indicated in a draft registration card that he was living in East Orange, New Jersey, with his wife Flora Randolph Schule (born July 22, 1884, in Nortonville, Kansas). He listed his occupation as an engineer with the Westinghouse Lamp Company. At the time of the 1920 United States Census, Schule was still living in East Orange with his wife Flora. They had three sons, Frederick W. Jr., Robert, and Paul. Schule listed his occupation as an electrical engineer.

At the time of the 1930 United States Census, Schule was living in DeRuyter, New York, with his wife Flora and their three sons. At that time, he listed his occupation as a stock speculator.

At the time of the 1940 United States Census, Schule was living with his wife Flora in Jersey City, New Jersey. He listed his occupation at that time as a superintendent for a lamp manufacturer and also indicated that he and his wife had resided in Owensboro, Kentucky in 1935. In 1942, Schule completed a draft registration card indicating that he was unemployed and living with his wife Flora R. Schule in Jersey City.

Schule spent much of his retirement years in DeRuyter, New York. He moved to Poughkeepsie, New York, in 1960 and died there in 1962. He was buried at the Hillcrest Cemetery in DeRuyter.

title: Frederick Schule


text:
CBC Prime Time News

CBC Prime Time News was a Canadian nightly newscast which aired on CBC Television from 1992 to 1995.

Background
For the previous ten years, the CBC's nightly newscast, The National, had aired at 10 p.m., and was followed by a 40-minute newsmagazine package called The Journal, which was hosted by Barbara Frum. However, following Frum's death in early 1992, the CBC took the opportunity to revamp its flagship newscast.

The CBC's live coverage of the Charlottetown Accord referendum results on October 26, 1992 effectively acted as a soft launch for the show, which formally debuted on November 2. With Peter Mansbridge and Pamela Wallin as equal cohosts of a package which replaced both The National and The Journal, Prime Time News combined news and Journal-style features into a single integrated program which aired at 9 p.m.

Despite the change, The National was not entirely discontinued; concurrently with the change on the main network, the CBC's separate all-news channel CBC Newsworld adopted the title for its own prime time news program.

The program's choice of name also created a conflict with CBC Radio's Prime Time, whose host Geoff Pevere spoke out against the potential confusion caused by the television and radio programs having such similar names.

Ratings performance
Although ratings were strong at first, with its first week seeing a full 30 per cent improvement over The National's average ratings during the previous year, the approach proved unpopular, both within the CBC and with network audiences and critics. The National had been produced by the CBC's news department, while The Journal belonged to current affairs; bringing the two departments together was fractious, and the on-air rapport between Wallin and Mansbridge was visibly tense at times. Critics especially lambasted the debut episode, whose lead story was the last full day of the 1992 United States presidential election, as "an uninspiring collection of newsreading, charts and cutaways to foreign correspondents" more reminiscent of a local television station than a national network with the high reputation of CBC News, and viewer response to the new program's format was highly unfavourable.

Also, because the program aired at 9 p.m., it was competing in one of the most heavily watched timeslots on the commercial networks. Although The National and The Journal had faced commercial competition at 10 p.m., they had been much more successful at carving out their own niche because in that time slot, almost all of the commercial networks were airing drama series. At 9 p.m., Prime Time News had to compete with popular sitcoms such as Cheers, Frasier, Seinfeld and Murphy Brown.

As a result, Prime Time News rapidly dropped off in the ratings, seeing a 12 per cent viewership decline after its first week alone; by the end of the first month ratings were lower than The National. CTV National News concurrently saw its ratings jump 40 per cent, overtaking the CBC in national newscast ratings for the first time in its history, and CBC Newsworld's edition of The National saw viewership gains of 30 per cent over that network's prior prime time lineup, and itself sometimes garnered higher ratings than Prime Time News.

The shift also resulted in significant ratings declines for several other programs, including Man Alive and The Nature of Things, whose timeslots had been shifted to accommodate the new program.

Format revisions
In the fall of 1994, Prime Time News returned to the 10 p.m. time slot, and to a format closer to the old National and Journal. Mansbridge again became the sole anchor of the news portion of the show, and Wallin became the host of a magazine segment very similar to The Journal. However, the show retained the name Prime Time News for the 1994–1995 television season, and Wallin sometimes appeared as substitute anchor of the main news portion when Mansbridge was absent.

Ratings recovered significantly following this shift; by December, the show was regularly drawing fully 95 per cent of The National's former audience.

In April 1995, Wallin was dropped from the program, and was succeeded by Hana Gartner in June. In the fall the newscast officially reverted to the name The National, while the magazine segment became The National Magazine. This format remained in place until The National was again re-launched as a one-hour newscast in early 2001.

title: CBC Prime Time News


text:
Realizational morphology

Realizational morphology or "word-and-paradigm" (WP) was a theory first created by linguist Charles F. Hockett. WP morphology focuses on the whole of a word rather than morphemes or internal structure. This theory also denies that morphemes are signs (form-content pairs). Instead, inflections are stem modifications which serve as exponents of morphological feature sets. It serves as an alternative for the Item-and-Arrangement (IA) and Item-and-Process (IP) Models.

The theory takes paradigms as a central notion. Instead of stating rules to combine morphemes into word-forms, or to generate word-forms from stems, word-based morphology states generalizations that hold between the forms of inflectional paradigms. The major point behind this approach is that many such generalizations are hard to state with either of the other approaches. The examples are usually drawn from fusional languages, where a given "piece" of a word, which a morpheme-based theory would call an inflectional morpheme, corresponds to a combination of grammatical categories, for example, "third person plural".

Morpheme-based theories analyze such cases by associating a single morpheme with two categories. Item-and-Process theories, on the other hand, often break down in cases like these, because they all too often assume that there will be two separate rules here, one for third person, and the other for plural, but the distinction between them turns out to be artificial. Word-and-Paradigm approaches treat these as whole words that are related to each other by analogical rules.

Words can be categorized based on the pattern they fit into. This applies both to existing words and to new ones. Application of a pattern different from the one that has been used historically can give rise to a new word, such as older replacing elder (where older follows the normal pattern of adjectival comparatives) and cows replacing kine (where cows fits the regular pattern of plural formation). While a Word-and-Paradigm approach can explain this easily, other approaches have difficulty with phenomena such as this.

title: Realizational morphology


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Compound (linguistics)

In linguistics, a compound is a lexeme (less precisely, a word or sign) that consists of more than one stem. Compounding, composition or nominal composition is the process of word formation that creates compound lexemes. Compounding occurs when two or more words or signs are joined to make a longer word or sign. Consequently, a compound is a unit composed of more than one stem, forming words or signs. If the joining of the words or signs is orthographically represented with a hyphen, the result is a hyphenated compound (e.g., must-have, hunter-gatherer). If they are joined without an intervening space, it is a closed compound (e.g., footpath, blackbird). If they are joined with a space (e.g. school bus, high school, lowest common denominator), then the result – at least in English – may be an open compound.

The meaning of the compound may be similar to or different from the meaning of its components in isolation. The component stems of a compound may be of the same part of speech—as in the case of the English word footpath, composed of the two nouns foot and path—or they may belong to different parts of speech, as in the case of the English word blackbird, composed of the adjective black and the noun bird. With very few exceptions, English compound words are stressed on their first component stem.

As a member of the Germanic family of languages, English is unusual in that even simple compounds made since the 18th century tend to be written in separate parts. This would be an error in other Germanic languages such as Norwegian, Swedish, Danish, German, and Dutch. However, this is merely an orthographic convention: as in other Germanic languages, arbitrary noun phrases, for example "girl scout troop", "city council member", and "cellar door", can be made up on the spot and used as compound nouns in English too.

For example, German Donaudampfschifffahrtsgesellschaftskapitän would be written in English as "Danube steamship transport company captain" and not as "Danubesteamshiptransportcompanycaptain".

The meaning of compounds may not always be transparent from their components, necessitating familiarity with usage and context. The addition of affix morphemes to words (such as suffixes or prefixes, as in employ → employment) should not be confused with nominal composition, as this is actually morphological derivation.

Some languages easily form compounds from what in other languages would be a multi-word expression. This can result in unusually long words, a phenomenon known in German (which is one such language) as Bandwurmwörter ("tapeworm words").

Compounding extends beyond spoken languages to include Sign languages as well, where compounds are also created by combining two or more sign stems.

So-called "classical compounds" are compounds derived from classical Latin or ancient Greek roots.

Formation of compounds
Compound formation rules vary widely across language types.

In a synthetic language, the relationship between the elements of a compound may be marked with a case or other morpheme. For example, the German compound Kapitänspatent consists of the lexemes Kapitän (sea captain) and Patent (license) joined by an -s- (originally a genitive case suffix); and similarly, the Latin lexeme paterfamilias contains the archaic genitive form familias of the lexeme familia (family). Conversely, in the Hebrew language compound, the word בֵּית סֵפֶר bet sefer (school), it is the head that is modified: the compound literally means "house-of book", with בַּיִת bayit (house) having entered the construct state to become בֵּית bet (house-of). This latter pattern is common throughout the Semitic languages, though in some it is combined with an explicit genitive case, so that both parts of the compound are marked, e.g.

ʕabd-u l-lāh-i

servant-NOM DEF-god-GEN

"servant of-the-god: the servant of God"

Agglutinative languages tend to create very long words with derivational morphemes. Compounds may or may not require the use of derivational morphemes also.

In German, extremely extendable compound words can be found in the language of chemical compounds, where, in the cases of biochemistry and polymers, they can be practically unlimited in length, mostly because the German rule suggests combining all noun adjuncts with the noun as the last stem. German examples include Farbfernsehgerät (color television set), Funkfernbedienung (radio remote control), and the often quoted jocular word Donaudampfschifffahrtsgesellschaftskapitänsmütze (originally only two Fs, Danube-Steamboat-Shipping Company captain['s] hat), which can of course be made even longer and even more absurd, e.g. Donaudampfschifffahrtsgesellschaftskapitänsmützenreinigungsausschreibungsverordnungsdiskussionsanfang ("beginning of the discussion of a regulation on tendering of Danube steamboat shipping company captain hats") etc. According to several editions of the Guinness Book of World Records, the longest published German word has 79 letters and is  Donaudampfschiffahrtselektrizitätenhauptbetriebswerkbauunterbeamtengesellschaft ("Association for Subordinate Officials of the Main Electric[ity] Maintenance Building of the Danube Steam Shipping"), but there is no evidence that this association ever actually existed.

In Finnish, although there is theoretically no limit to the length of compound words, words consisting of more than three components are rare. Internet folklore sometimes suggests that lentokonesuihkuturbiinimoottoriapumekaanikkoaliupseerioppilas (airplane jet turbine engine auxiliary mechanic non-commissioned officer student) is the longest word in Finnish, but evidence of its actual use is scant and anecdotal at best.

Compounds can be rather long when translating technical documents from English to some other language, since the lengths of the words are theoretically unlimited, especially in chemical terminology. For example, when translating an English technical document to Swedish, the term "Motion estimation search range settings" can be directly translated to rörelseuppskattningssökintervallsinställningar, though in reality, the word would most likely be divided in two: sökintervallsinställningar för rörelseuppskattning – "search range settings for motion estimation".

Semantic classification
A common semantic classification of compounds yields four types:

 * endocentric
 * exocentric
 * copulative
 * appositional

An endocentric compound (tatpuruṣa in the Sanskrit tradition) consists of a head, i.e. the categorical part that contains the basic meaning of the whole compound, and modifiers, which restrict this meaning. For example, the English compound doghouse, where house is the head and dog is the modifier, is understood as a house intended for a dog. Endocentric compounds tend to be of the same part of speech (word class) as their head, as in the case of doghouse.

An exocentric compound (bahuvrihi in the Sanskrit tradition) is a hyponym of some unexpressed semantic category (such as a person, plant, or animal): none (neither) of its components can be perceived as a formal head, and its meaning often cannot be transparently guessed from its constituent parts. For example, the English compound white-collar is neither a kind of collar nor a white thing. In an exocentric compound, the word class is determined lexically, disregarding the class of the constituents. For example, a must-have is not a verb but a noun. The meaning of this type of compound can be glossed as "(one) whose B is A", where B is the second element of the compound and A the first. A bahuvrihi compound is one whose nature is expressed by neither of the words: thus a white-collar person is neither white nor a collar (the collar's colour is a metonym for socioeconomic status). Other English examples include barefoot.

Copulative compounds (dvandva in the Sanskrit tradition) are compounds with two semantic heads, for example in a gradual scale (such as a mix of colours).

Appositional compounds are lexemes that have two (contrary or simultaneous) attributes that classify the compound.

Noun–noun compounds
All natural languages have compound nouns. The positioning of the words (i.e. the most common order of constituents in phrases where nouns are modified by adjectives, by possessors, by other nouns, etc.) varies according to the language. While Germanic languages, for example, are left-branching when it comes to noun phrases (the modifiers come before the head), the Romance languages are usually right-branching.

English compound nouns can be spaced, hyphenated, or solid, and they sometimes change orthographically in that direction over time, reflecting a semantic identity that evolves from a mere collocation to something stronger in its solidification. This theme has been summarized in usage guides under the aphorism that "compound nouns tend to solidify as they age"; thus a compound noun such as place name begins as spaced in most attestations and then becomes hyphenated as place-name and eventually solid as placename, or the spaced compound noun file name directly becomes solid as filename without being hyphenated. German, a fellow West Germanic language, has a somewhat different orthography, whereby compound nouns are virtually always required to be solid or at least hyphenated; even the hyphenated styling is used less now than it was in centuries past.

In French, compound nouns are often formed by left-hand heads with prepositional components inserted before the modifier, as in chemin-de-fer 'railway', lit. 'road of iron', and moulin à vent 'windmill', lit. 'mill (that works)-by-means-of wind'.

In Turkish, one way of forming compound nouns is as follows: yeldeğirmeni 'windmill' (yel: wind, değirmen-i: mill-possessive); demiryolu 'railway' (demir: iron, yol-u: road-possessive).

Occasionally, two synonymous nouns can form a compound noun, resulting in a pleonasm. One example is the English word pathway.

In Arabic, there are two distinct criteria unique to Arabic, or potentially Semitic languages in general. The initial criterion involves whether the possessive marker li-/la ‘for/of’ appears or is absent when the first element is definite. The second criterion deals with the appearance/absence of the possessive marker li-/la ‘for/of’ when the first element is preceded by a cardinal number.

Verb–noun compounds
A type of compound that is fairly common in the Indo-European languages is formed of a verb and its object, and in effect transforms a simple verbal clause into a noun.

In Spanish, for example, such compounds consist of a verb conjugated for the second person singular imperative followed by a noun (singular or plural): e.g., rascacielos (modelled on "skyscraper", lit. 'scratch skies'), sacacorchos 'corkscrew' (lit. 'pull corks'), guardarropa 'wardrobe' (lit. 'store clothes'). These compounds are formally invariable in the plural (but in many cases they have been reanalyzed as plural forms, and a singular form has appeared). French and Italian have these same compounds with the noun in the singular form: Italian grattacielo 'skyscraper', French grille-pain 'toaster' (lit. 'toast bread').

This construction exists in English, generally with the verb and noun both in uninflected form: examples are spoilsport, killjoy, breakfast, cutthroat, pickpocket, dreadnought, and know-nothing.

Also common in English is another type of verb–noun (or noun–verb) compound, in which an argument of the verb is incorporated into the verb, which is then usually turned into a gerund, such as breastfeeding, finger-pointing, etc. The noun is often an instrumental complement. From these gerunds new verbs can be made: (a mother) breastfeeds (a child) and from them new compounds mother-child breastfeeding, etc.

In the Australian Aboriginal language Jingulu, a Pama–Nyungan language, it is claimed that all verbs are V+N compounds, such as "do a sleep", or "run a dive", and the language has only three basic verbs: do, make, and run.

A special kind of compounding is incorporation, of which noun incorporation into a verbal root (as in English backstabbing, breastfeed, etc.) is most prevalent (see below).

Verb–verb compounds
Verb–verb compounds are sequences of more than one verb acting together to determine clause structure. They have two types:

trɔ dzo
 * In a serial verb, two actions, often sequential, are expressed in a single clause. For example:

turn leave

"turn and leave"

In Tamil, a Dravidian language, van̪t̪u paːr, lit. "come see". In each case, the two verbs together determine the semantics and argument structure.

Serial verb expressions in English may include What did you go and do that for?, or He just upped and left; this is however not quite a true compound since they are connected by a conjunction and the second missing arguments may be taken as a case of ellipsis.

De rabia puso rompiendo la olla
 * In a compound verb (or complex predicate), one of the verbs is the primary, and determines the primary semantics and also the argument structure. The secondary verb, often called a vector verb or explicator, provides fine distinctions, usually in temporality or aspect, and also carries the inflection (tense and/or agreement markers). The main verb usually appears in conjunctive participial (sometimes zero) form. For examples, Hindi निकल गया nikal gayā, lit. "exit went", means 'went out', while निकल पड़ा nikal paRā, lit. "exit fell", means 'departed' or 'was blurted out'. In these examples निकल nikal is the primary verb, and गया gayā and पड़ा paRā are the vector verbs. Similarly, in both English start reading and Japanese 読み始める yomihajimeru "read- CONJUNCTIVE -start" "start reading", the vector verbs start and 始める hajimeru "start" change according to tense, negation, and the like, while the main verbs reading and 読み yomi "reading" usually remain the same. An exception to this is the passive voice, in which both English and Japanese modify the main verb, i.e. start to be read and 読まれ始める yomarehajimeru lit. "read- PASSIVE-(CONJUNCTIVE) -start" start to be read. With a few exceptions, all compound verbs alternate with their simple counterparts. That is, removing the vector does not affect grammaticality at all nor the meaning very much: निकला nikalā '(He) went out.' In a few languages both components of the compound verb can be finite forms: Kurukh kecc-ar ker-ar lit. "died-3pl went-3pl" '(They) died.'
 * Compound verbs are very common in some languages, such as the northern Indo-Aryan languages Hindustani and Punjabi, and Dravidian languages like Tamil, where as many as 20% of verb forms in running text are compound. They exist but are less common in other Indo-Aryan languages like Marathi and Nepali, in Tibeto-Burman languages like Limbu and Newari, in Turkic languages like Turkish and Kyrgyz, in Korean and Japanese, and in northeast Caucasian languages like Tsez and Avar.
 * Under the influence of a Quichua substrate speakers living in the Ecuadorian altiplano have innovated compound verbs in Spanish:

from anger put breaking the pot

'In anger (he/she) smashed the pot.'
 *  Botaremos matándote 'We will kill you.' (Cf. Quichua

huañuchi-shpa shitashun

kill-CP throw.1PL.FUT
 * Likewise in Hindi:

 * Compound verb equivalents in English (examples from the internet):
 * What did you go and do that for?
 * If you are not giving away free information on your web site then a huge proportion of your business is just upping and leaving.
 * Big Pig, she took and built herself a house out of brush.

 * Caution: In descriptions of Persian and other Iranian languages the term 'compound verb' refers to noun-plus-verb compounds, not to the verb–verb compounds discussed here.

Parasynthetic compounds
Parasynthetic compounds are formed by a combination of compounding and derivation, with multiple lexical stems and a derivational affix. For example, English black-eyed is composed of black, eye, and -ed 'having', with the meaning 'having a black eye'; Italian imbustare is composed of in- 'in', busta 'envelope', -are (verbal suffix), with the meaning 'to put into an envelope'.

Compound adpositions
Compound prepositions formed by prepositions and nouns are common in English and the Romance languages (consider English on top of, Spanish encima de, etc.). Hindi has a small number of simple (i.e., one-word) postpositions and a large number of compound postpositions, mostly consisting of simple postposition ke followed by a specific postposition (e.g., ke pas, "near"; ke nīche, "underneath").

Examples from different languages
Arabic:
 * معلمو الفيزياء muʕallim-uu l-fiizyaaʔ 'the physics teachers': معلمو muʕallim-uu 'teachers' + الفيزياء fiizyaaʔ 'physics'
 * إبرة المخدر ʔibrat l-muxaddir 'the anaesthesia needle': إبرة ʔibrat 'needle' + مخدر muxaddir 'anaesthesia'

Chinese (traditional/simplified Chinese; Standard Chinese Pinyin/Cantonese Jyutping):
 * 學生/学生 'student': 學 xué/hok6 learn + 生 shēng/sang1 living being
 * 太空/太空 'space': 太 tài/taai3 great + 空 kōng/hung1 emptiness
 * 摩天樓/摩天楼 'skyscraper': 摩 mó/mo1 touch + 天 tiān/tin1 sky + 樓 lóu/lau2 building (with more than 1 storey)
 * 打印機/打印机 'printer': 打 dǎ/daa2 strike + 印 yìn/yan3 stamp/print + 機 jī/gei1 machine
 * 百科全書/百科全书 'encyclopaedia': 百 bǎi/baak3 hundred + 科 kē/fo1 (branch of) study + 全 quán/cyun4 entire/complete + 書 shū/syu1 book
 * 謝謝/谢谢 'thanks': Repeating of 謝 xiè thank

Dutch:
 * arbeidsongeschiktheidsverzekering 'disability insurance': arbeid 'labour' + ongeschiktheid 'inaptitude' + verzekering 'insurance'.
 * rioolwaterzuiveringsinstallatie 'sewage treatment plant': riool 'sewer' + water 'water' + zuivering 'cleaning' + installatie 'installation'.
 * verjaardagskalender 'birthday calendar': verjaardag 'birthday' + kalender 'calendar'.
 * klantenservicemedewerker 'customer service representative': klanten 'customers' + service 'service' + medewerker 'worker'.
 * universiteitsbibliotheek 'university library': universiteit 'university' + bibliotheek 'library'.
 * doorgroeimogelijkheden 'possibilities for advancement': door 'through' + groei 'grow' + mogelijkheden 'possibilities'.

Finnish:
 * sanakirja 'dictionary': sana 'word' + kirja 'book'
 * tietokone 'computer': tieto 'knowledge data' + kone 'machine'
 * keskiviikko 'Wednesday': keski 'middle' + viikko 'week'
 * maailma 'world': maa 'land' + ilma 'air'
 * rautatieasema 'railway station': rauta 'iron' + tie 'road' + asema 'station'
 * kolmivaihekilowattituntimittari 'electricity meter': 'three-phase kilowatt hour meter'

German:
 * Wolkenkratzer 'skyscraper': Wolken 'clouds' + Kratzer 'scraper'
 * Eisenbahn 'railway': Eisen 'iron' + Bahn 'track'
 * Kraftfahrzeug 'automobile': Kraft 'power' + fahren/fahr 'drive' + Zeug 'machinery'
 * Stacheldraht 'barbed wire': Stachel 'barb/barbed' + Draht 'wire'
 * Rinderkennzeichnungs- und Rindfleischetikettierungsüberwachungsaufgabenübertragungsgesetz: literally cattle-marking- and beef-labeling-supervision-duties-delegation law

Ancient Greek:
 * φιλόσοφος philósophos 'philosopher': φίλος phílos 'beloved' + σοφία sophíā 'wisdom'
 * δημοκρατία dēmokratíā 'democracy': δῆμος dêmos 'people' + κράτος 'rule'
 * ῥοδοδάκτυλος rhododáktylos 'rose-fingered': ῥόδον rhódon 'rose' + δάκτυλος dáktylos 'finger' (a Homeric epithet applied to the Dawn)

Icelandic:
 * járnbraut 'railway': járn 'iron' + braut 'path' or 'way'
 * farartæki 'vehicle': farar 'journey' + tæki 'apparatus'
 * alfræðiorðabók 'encyclopedia': al 'everything' + fræði 'study' or 'knowledge' + orðabók 'dictionary' (orða 'words' + bók 'book')
 * símtal 'telephone conversation': sím 'telephone' + tal 'dialogue'

Italian:
 * millepiedi 'millipede': mille 'thousand' + piedi 'feet'
 * ferrovia 'railway': ferro 'iron' + via 'way'
 * tergicristallo 'windscreen wiper': tergere 'to wash' + cristallo 'crystal (pane of) glass'
 * pomodoro: pomo d'oro = apple of Gold = tomatoes
 * portacenere = porta cenere = ashtray

Japanese:
 * 目覚まし（時計） mezamashi(dokei) 'alarm clock': 目 me 'eye' + 覚まし samashi (-zamashi) 'awakening (someone)' (+ 時計 tokei (-dokei) clock)
 * お好み焼き okonomiyaki: お好み okonomi 'preference' + 焼き yaki 'cooking'
 * 日帰り higaeri 'day trip': 日 hi 'day' + 帰り kaeri (-gaeri) 'returning (home)'
 * 国会議事堂 kokkaigijidō 'national diet building': 国会 kokkai 'national diet' + 議事 giji 'proceedings' + 堂 dō 'hall'

Korean:
 * 안팎 anpak 'inside and outside': 안 an 'inside' + 밖 bak 'outside' (As two nouns compound the consonant sound 'b' fortifies into 'p' becoming 안팎 anpak rather than 안밖 anbak)

Ojibwe/Anishinaabemowin:
 * mashkikiwaaboo 'tonic': mashkiki 'medicine' + waaboo 'liquid'
 * miskomin 'raspberry': misko 'red' + miin 'berry'
 * dibik-giizis 'moon': dibik 'night' + giizis 'sun'
 * gichi-mookomaan 'white person/American': gichi 'big' + mookomaan 'knife'

Spanish:
 * ciencia-ficción 'science fiction': ciencia, 'science', + ficción, 'fiction' (This word is a calque from the English expression science fiction. In English, the head of a compound word is the last morpheme: science fiction. Conversely, the Spanish head is located at the front, so ciencia ficción sounds like a kind of fictional science rather than scientific fiction.)
 * ciempiés 'centipede': cien 'hundred' + pies 'feet'
 * ferrocarril 'railway': ferro 'iron' + carril 'lane'
 * paraguas   'umbrella': para 'stops' + aguas '(the) water'
 * cabizbajo  'keeping the head low in a bad mood': cabeza 'head' + bajo 'down'
 * subibaja   'seesaw' (contraction of sube y baja 'goes up and down')
 * limpiaparabrisas 'windshield wiper' is a nested compound: limpia 'clean' + parabrisas windshield, which is itself a compound of para 'stop' + brisas 'breezes'.

Tamil:
 * In Cemmozhi (Classical Tamil), rules for compounding are laid down in grammars such as Tolkappiyam and Nannūl, in various forms, under the name punarcci. Examples of compounds include kopuram from 'kō' (king) + 'puram' (exterior). Sometimes phonemes may be inserted during the blending process such as in kovil from 'kō' (king) + 'il' (home). Other types are like vennai (butter) from 'veḷḷai' (white) + 'nei' (ghee); note how 'veḷḷai' becomes 'ven'.
 * In koṭuntamizh (Non-standard Tamil), parts of words from other languages may be morphed into Tamil. Common examples include 'ratta-azhuttam' (blood pressure) from the Sanskrit rakta (blood) and Cemmozhi 'azhuttam' (pressure); note how rakta becomes ratta in Tamil order to remove the consonant-cluster. This also happens with English, for examples kāpi-kaṭai (coffee shop) is from English coffee, which becomes kāpi in Tamil, and the Tamil kaṭai meaning shop.

Tłįchǫ Yatiì/Dogrib:
 * dlòotsǫ̀ǫ̀ 'peanut butter': dlòo 'squirrel' + tsǫ̀ǫ̀ 'dung'
 * eyakǫ̀ 'hospital: eya 'sick' + kǫ̀'' 'house'
 * dè gotłeè 'kerosene': dè 'land' + gotłeè 'its fat'
 * dǫ łèt'è 'bannock': dǫ '[Aboriginal] people' + łèt'è 'bread'

Germanic languages
In Germanic languages (including English), compounds are formed by prepending what is effectively a namespace (disambiguation context) to the main word. For example, "football" would be a "ball" in the "foot" context. In itself, this does not alter the meaning of the main word. The added context only makes it more precise. As such, a "football" must be understood as a "ball". However, as is the case with "football", a well established compound word may have gained a special meaning in the language's vocabulary. Only this defines "football" as a particular type of ball (unambiguously the round object, not the dance party, at that), and also the game involving such a ball. Another example of special and altered meaning is "starfish" – a starfish is in fact not a fish in modern biology. Also syntactically, the compound word behaves like the main word – the whole compound word (or phrase) inherits the word class and inflection rules of the main word. That is to say, since "fish" and "shape" are nouns, "starfish" and "star shape" must also be nouns, and they must take plural forms as "starfish" and "star shapes", definite singular forms as "the starfish" and "the star shape", and so on. This principle also holds for languages that express definiteness by inflection (as in North Germanic).

Because a compound is understood as a word in its own right, it may in turn be used in new compounds, so forming an arbitrarily long word is trivial. This contrasts to Romance languages, where prepositions are more used to specify word relationships instead of concatenating the words. As a member of the Germanic family of languages, English is unusual in that compounds are normally written in separate parts. This would be an error in other Germanic languages such as Norwegian, Swedish, Danish, German and Dutch. However, this is merely an orthographic convention: As in other Germanic languages, arbitrary noun phrases, for example "girl scout troop", "city council member", and "cellar door", can be made up on the spot and used as compound nouns in English too.

Russian language
In the Russian language compounding is a common type of word formation, and several types of compounds exist, both in terms of compounded parts of speech and of the way of the formation of a compound.

Compound nouns may be agglutinative compounds, hyphenated compounds (стол-книга 'folding table', lit. 'table-book', "book-like table"), or abbreviated compounds (acronyms: колхоз 'kolkhoz'). Some compounds look like acronym, while in fact they are an agglutinations of type stem + word: Академгородок 'Akademgorodok' (from akademichesky gorodok 'academic village'). In agglutinative compound nouns, an agglutinating infix is typically used: пароход 'steamship': пар + о + ход. Compound nouns may be created as noun+noun, adjective + noun, noun + adjective (rare), noun + verb (or, rather, noun + verbal noun).

Compound adjectives may be formed either per se (бело-розовый 'white-pink') or as a result of compounding during the derivation of an adjective from a multi-word term: Каменноостровский проспект 'Stone Island Avenue', a street in St.Petersburg.

Reduplication in Russian is also a source of compounds.

Quite a few Russian words are borrowed from other languages in an already-compounded form, including numerous "classical compounds" or internationalisms: автомобиль 'automobile'.

Sanskrit language
Sanskrit is very rich in compound formation with seven major compound types and as many as 55 sub-types. The compound formation process is productive, so it is not possible to list all Sanskrit compounds in a dictionary. Compounds of two or three words are more frequent, but longer compounds with some running through pages are not rare in Sanskrit literature. Some examples are below (hyphens below show individual word boundaries for ease of reading but are not required in original Sanskrit).
 * हिमालय (IAST Himālaya, decomposed as hima-ālaya): Name of the Himalaya mountain range. Literally the abode of snow. A compound of two words and four syllables.
 * प्रवर-मुकुट-मणि-मरीचि-मञ्जरी-चय-चर्चित-चरण-युगल (IAST pravara-mukuṭa-maṇi-marīci-mañjarī-caya-carcita-caraṇa-yugala): Literally, O the one whose dual feet are covered by the cluster of brilliant rays from the gems of the best crowns, from the Sanskrit work Panchatantra. A compound of nine words and 25 syllables.
 * कमला-कुच-कुङ्कुम-पिञ्जरीकृत-वक्षः-स्थल-विराजित-महा-कौस्तुभ-मणि-मरीचि-माला-निराकृत-त्रि-भुवन-तिमिर (IAST kamalā-kuca-kuṅkuma-piñjarīkṛta-vakṣaḥ-sthala-virājita-mahā-kaustubha-maṇi-marīci-mālā-nirākṛta-tri-bhuvana-timira): Literally O the one who dispels the darkness of three worlds by the shine of Kaustubha jewel hanging on the chest, which has been made reddish-yellow by the saffron from the bosom of Kamalā (Lakshmi), an adjective of Rama in the Kakabhushundi Rāmāyaṇa. A compound of 16 words and 44 syllables.
 * साङ्ख्य-योग-न्याय-वैशेषिक-पूर्व-मीमांसा-वेदान्त-नारद-शाण्डिल्य-भक्ति-सूत्र-गीता-वाल्मीकीय-रामायण-भागवतादि-सिद्धान्त-बोध-पुरः-सर-समधिकृताशेष-तुलसी-दास-साहित्य-सौहित्य-स्वाध्याय-प्रवचन-व्याख्यान-परम-प्रवीणाः (IAST sāṅkhya-yoga-nyāya-vaiśeṣika-pūrva-mīmāṃsā-vedānta-nārada-śāṇḍilya-bhakti-sūtra-gītā-vālmīkīya-rāmāyaṇa-bhāgavatādi-siddhānta-bodha-puraḥ-sara-samadhikṛtāśeṣa-tulasī-dāsa-sāhitya-sauhitya-svādhyāya-pravacana-vyākhyāna-parama-pravīṇāḥ): Literally the acclaimed forerunner in understanding of the canons of Sāṅkhya, Yoga, Nyāya, Vaiśeṣika, Pūrva Mīmāṃsā, Vedānta, Nārada Bhakti Sūtra, Śāṇḍilya Bhakti Sūtra, Bhagavad Gītā, the Ramayana of Vālmīki, Śrīmadbhāgavata; and the most skilled in comprehensive self-study, discoursing and expounding of the complete works of Gosvāmī Tulasīdāsa. An adjective used in a panegyric of Jagadguru Rambhadracharya. The hyphens show only those word boundaries where there is no sandhi. On including word boundaries with sandhi (vedānta=veda-anta, rāmāyaṇa=rāma-ayana, bhāgavatādi=bhāgavata-ādi, siddhānta=siddha-anta, samadhikṛtāśeṣa=samadhikṛta-aśeṣa, svādhyāya=sva-adhyāya), this is a compound of 35 words and 86 syllables.

Sign languages
Also in sign languages, compounding is a productive word formation process. Both endocentric and exocentric compounds have been described for a variety of sign languages. Copulative compounds or dvandva, which are composed of two or more nouns from the same semantic category to denote that semantic category, also occur regularly in many sign languages. The sign for parents in Italian Sign Language, for instance, is a combination of the nouns 'father' and 'mother'. The sign for breakfast in American Sign Language follows the same concept. The words eat and morning are signed together to create a new word meaning breakfast. This is an example of a sequential compound; in sign languages, it is also possible to form simultaneous compounds, where one hand represents one lexeme while the other simultaneously represents another lexeme. An example is the sign for weekend in Sign Language of the Netherlands, which is produced by simultaneously signing a one-handed version of the sign for Saturday and a one-handed version of the sign for Sunday. In American Sign Language there is another process easily compared to compounding. Blending is the blending of two morphemes to create a new word called a portmanteau. This is different from compounding in that it breaks the strict linear order of compounding.

Recent trends in orthography
Although there is no universally agreed-upon guideline regarding the use of compound words in the English language, in recent decades written English has displayed a noticeable trend towards increased use of compounds. Recently, many words have been made by taking syllables of words and compounding them, such as pixel (picture element) and bit (binary digit). This is called a syllabic abbreviation.

In Dutch and the Scandinavian languages there is an unofficial trend toward splitting compound words, known in Norwegian as særskriving, in Swedish as särskrivning (literally "separate writing"), and in Dutch as Engelse ziekte (the "English disease"). Because the Dutch language and the Scandinavian languages rely heavily on the distinction between the compound word and the sequence of the separate words it consists of, this has serious implications. For example, the Danish adjective røykfritt (literally "smokefree", meaning no smoking allowed) if separated into its composite parts, would mean røyk fritt ("smoke freely"). In Dutch, compounds written with spaces may also be confused, but can also be interpreted as a sequence of a noun and a genitive (which is unmarked in Dutch) in formal abbreviated writing. This may lead to, for example, commissie vergadering ("commission meeting") being read as "commission of the meeting" rather than "meeting of the commission" (normally spelled commissievergadering).

The German spelling reform of 1996 introduced the option of hyphenating compound nouns when it enhances comprehensibility and readability. This is done mostly with very long compound words by separating them into two or more smaller compounds, like Eisenbahn-Unterführung (railway underpass) or Kraftfahrzeugs-Betriebsanleitung (car manual). Such practice is also permitted in other Germanic languages, e.g. Danish and Norwegian (Bokmål and Nynorsk alike), and is even encouraged between parts of the word that have very different pronunciation, such as when one part is a loan word or an acronym.

Compounding by language

 * Classical compounds
 * English compounds
 * German compounds
 * Sanskrit compounds
 * Arabic compound

title: Compound (linguistics)


text:
Antal Szerb

Antal Szerb (1 May 1901, Budapest – 27 January 1945, Balf) was a noted Hungarian scholar and writer. He is generally considered to be one of the major Hungarian writers of the 20th century.

Life and career
Szerb was born in 1901 to assimilated Jewish parents in Budapest, but baptized Catholic. He studied Hungarian, German and later English, obtaining a doctorate in 1924. From 1924 to 1929 he lived in France and Italy, also spending a year in London, England, from 1929 to 1930.

As a student, he published essays on Georg Trakl and Stefan George, and quickly established a formidable reputation as a scholar, writing erudite studies of William Blake and Henrik Ibsen among other works. Elected President of the Hungarian Literary Academy in 1933, aged just 32, he published his first novel, The Pendragon Legend (which draws upon his personal experience of living in Britain) the following year. His second and best-known work, Utas és holdvilág (Journey by Moonlight) came out in 1937. He was made a Professor of Literature at the University of Szeged the same year. He was twice awarded the Baumgarten Prize, in 1935 and 1937. Szerb also translated books from English, French, and Italian, including works by Anatole France, P. G. Wodehouse, and Hugh Walpole.

In 1941 he published a History of World Literature which continues to be authoritative today. He also published a volume on the theory of the novel and a book about the history of Hungarian literature. Given numerous chances to escape anti-Semitic persecution (as late as 1944), he chose to remain in Hungary, where his last novel, a Pirandellian fantasy about a king staging a coup against himself, then having to impersonate himself, Oliver VII, was published in 1942. It was passed off as a translation from the English, as no 'Jewish' work could be printed at the time.

During the 1940s, Szerb faced increasing hostility due to his Jewish background. In 1943, Szerb's History of World Literature was put on a list of forbidden works. During the period of Communist rule, it would also be censored, with the chapter on Soviet literature redacted, and the full version would only be available again in 1990. Szerb was deported to a concentration camp in Balf late in 1944. Admirers of his attempted to save him with falsified papers, but Szerb turned them down, wanting to share the fate of his generation. He was beaten to death there in January 1945, at the age of 43. He was survived by his wife, Klára Bálint, who died in 1992.

Work
Szerb is best known for his academic works on literature. In the ten years before the Second World War, he wrote two monumental works of literary criticism, characterized by a brilliant and ironic style intended for an educated reader rather than an academic public.

In addition, Szerb wrote novellas and novels that still attract the attention of the reading public. The Pendragon Legend, Journey by Moonlight and The Queen's Necklace, for instance, fuse within the plot the aims of the literary critic with the aims of the novel writer. The author gives importance to the exotic in these novels, with a meta-literary outlook. In these three novels, the stage of the narrative action is always a Western European country: leaving quotidian Hungary allows the writer to transfigure the actions of his characters.

The Pendragon Legend
In his first novel, The Pendragon Legend, Szerb offers to his readers a representation of the United Kingdom and its inhabitants. England and, in particular, London, hosted Szerb for a year and not only suggested to him new and interesting directions for his research, but also offered him the background for his first novel. The Pendragon Legend is a detective story that begins in the British Museum and finishes in a Welsh castle. The author provides a non-native's look at the country, in a way that is consistent with the parody genre.

In The Quest for the Miraculous: Survey and Problematic in the Modern Novel, Szerb claims that among the literary genres he prefers the fantasy novel. It fuses the quotidian details of everyday life with the fantastic feats that he calls “the miracle”. In the case of The Pendragon Legend, this allows the reader a cathartic experience through the adventures of the Hungarian philologist who serves as the protagonist of the novel.

Journey by Moonlight
Utas és holdvilág (literally, "Traveler and Moonlight"), published in 1937, focuses on the development of the main character, Mihály - a bright and romantic, albeit conflicted, young man who sets off for a honeymoon in Italy with his new wife, Erzsi. Mihály quickly reveals his bizarre childhood experiences to her over a bottle of wine, alluding to a set of seemingly unresolved longings for eroticism and death which Erzsi seems to only vaguely comprehend. The plainspoken disharmony between the newlyweds leads to Mihály's detached self-recognition: he is not ready to be Erzsi's husband. He then leaves his wife for his own journey through the Italian countryside and eventually Rome - figuratively tracing the sparkling fanaticisms of his juvenile imagination, even rekindling bonds with changed (and some unchanged) childhood friends - all among the impressive foreign landscapes and peculiar liveliness of its inhabitants. Szerb celebrates the exotic cult of Italy, the leitmotif of thousands of writers from the past and present, relaying his own travel impressions of Italy through the mind of his eccentric protagonist, Mihály. Szerb explores the altogether interrelatedness of love and youthfulness within bourgeois society.

The Third Tower
Szerb also published an interesting diary, The Third Tower, recounting his travels to the cities in the north of Italy - Venice, Bologna, Ravenna. Before going back home, he visited San Marino, Europe's oldest state, and Montale (San Marino) inspired the title of the book. The diary is divided into paragraphs which alternate descriptions with his personal thoughts.

Selected bibliography

 * A magyar újromantikus dráma, 1927
 * A harmadik torony, 1936
 * Az udvari ember, 1927
 * William Blake, 1928
 * Az angol irodalom kistükre, 1929 ("An Outline of English Literature")
 * Az ihletett költő, 1929
 * Magyar preromantika, 1929
 * Vörösmarty-tanulmányok, 1929
 * Cynthia, 1932
 * A magyar irodalom története, 1934 ("History of Hungarian literature")
 * A Pendragon-legenda, 1934
 * tr.: The Pendragon Legend, ISBN 1-901285-60-X, 2006
 * Szerelem a palackban, 1935 (short stories)
 * tr.: Love in a Bottle, ISBN 978-1-906548-28-5, 2010
 * Budapesti útikalauz marslakók számára, 1935
 * tr.: A Martian's Guide to Budapest, ISBN 978-963-14-3329-6, 2015
 * A harmadik torony, 1936
 * tr.: The Third Tower: Journeys in Italy, ISBN 978-178-22-7053-9, 2014
 * Hétköznapok és csodák, 1936 ("The Quest for the Miraculous: Survey and Problematic in the Modern Novel")
 * Utas és holdvilág, 1937
 * tr.: The Traveler translated by Peter Hargitai, Püski-Corvin Press NY, NY, USA. 1994. ISBN 0-595-278-78-7
 * tr.: Journey by Moonlight, ISBN 1-901285-50-2, 2014
 * Don't say... but say..., 1939
 * A világirodalom története, 1941 ("History of World Literature")
 * VII. Olivér, 1943 ("Oliver VII," published under the pseudonym A. H. Redcliff)
 * tr.: Oliver VII ISBN 978-1-901285-90-1, 2007
 * A királyné nyaklánca, 1943
 * tr.: The Queen's Necklace, ISBN 978-1-906548-08-7, 2009
 * Száz vers, 1943/1944 ("100 poems")

Translations
English
 * The Traveler (1994) ISBN 9780915951215 (earliest translation of Utas és holdvilág)
 * Journey by Moonlight (2002) ISBN 1906548501, 9781906548506
 * The Pendragon Legend (2006) ISBN 1-901285-60-X (another translation published 1963)
 * Oliver VII (2007) ISBN 978-1-901285-90-1
 * The Queen's Necklace (2009) ISBN 978-1-906548-08-7
 * Love in a Bottle (2010) ISBN 978-1-906548-28-5
 * Journey by Moonlight (2014) ISBN 978-1-590177-73-0
 * The Third Tower: Journeys in Italy (2014) ISBN 978-178-22-7053-9
 * A Martian's Guide to Budapest (2015) ISBN 978-963-14-3329-6
 * Traveler and the Moonlight (2016) ISBN 978-1-4917-8928-5

Czech
 * Pendragonská prisera 1946
 * Pendragonská legenda 1985
 * Tyran 1998

Dutch
 * Reis bij maanlicht 2007 ISBN 978-90-4170-624-9
 * Reis bij maanlicht 2005 Audiobook ISBN 978-90-77858-04-2
 * De Pendragon Legende 2006 ISBN 978-90-5515-662-7

Finnish
 * Pendragonin legenda 2008 ISBN 978-951-796-513-2

French
 * La légende de Pendragon 1990 ISBN 2-7401-0000-0
 * Le voyageur et le clair de lune 1992 ISBN 2-7401-0035-3

German
 * Die Pendragon-Legende 1966
 * Die Pendragon-Legende 1978 ISBN 3-87680-773-5
 * Die Pendragon-Legende 2004 ISBN 3-423-24425-9
 * Der Wanderer und der Mond 1974
 * Reise im Mondlicht 2003 ISBN 3-423-24370-8
 * Das Halsband der Königin 2005 ISBN 3-423-13365-1
 * Marie Antoinette oder Die unbeglichene Schuld (older translation of Das Halsband der Königin) 1966
 * Oliver VII 1972 (published in East Germany)
 * Oliver VII 2006 ISBN 3-423-13474-7
 * In der Bibliothek (translation of Szerelem a palackban) 2006 ISBN 3-423-24562-X
 * Die Suche nach dem Wunder (translation of Hétköznapok és csodák) 1938

Hebrew
 * מסע לאור ירח 2008 ISBN 978-965-07-1601-1

Italian
 * La leggenda di Pendragon 1989
 * Il viaggiatore e il chiaro di luna 1999

Polish
 * Legenda Pendragonow 1971
 * Podróżny i światło księżyca 1959

Slovak
 * Prázdny hrob 1972

Slovenian
 * Legenda o Pendragonu 1980
 * Potnik in mesečina 2011

Spanish
 * El collar de la reina 1941
 * El viajero bajo el resplandor de la luna 2000
 * La leyenda de los Pendragon 2004
 * Óliver VII 2018 ISBN 978-84-948280-2-7

Serbian
 * Putnik i mesečina 2009 ISBN 978-86-7979-284-6
 * Legenda o Pendragonu 2010 ISBN 978-86-7979-326-3

Swedish
 * Legenden Pendragon 2010 ISBN 978-918-570-534-4

Turkish
 * Dünya Yazın Tarihi 2008 ISBN 978-975-298-361-8
 * Yolcu ve Ayışığı 2016 ISBN 978-605-969-120-8

title: Antal Szerb