What would it be like to more uniquely experience the 2009 IdeaFestival before, during and after the four magical days in September? If you want to create with others a deeper and more immersive IF experience….then IdeaFestival 2.0 may be for you.
Are there degrees of uniqueness?
Immersive?
What's in a name? U.S. pork producers are finding that the name of the virus spreading from Mexico is affecting their business, prompting U.S. officials to argue for changing the name from swine flu.
At a news briefing, Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano and Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack took pains to repeatedly refer to the flu as the "H1N1 virus."
At the end of an post about how some people (Sarah Palin) aren't that smart is this paragraph:
We in the "liberal media" are always accused of condescending to the conservatives and smearing them for being all of one mind, I'm actually glad to see that some of them have not drank the Kool-Aid and are thinking out of the box and, dare we say it, acting on principle instead of politics.
The past participle of drink is have drunk.
It's a common mistake but it's still wrong and it makes the previous sentence about, "knowing your shortcomings and limitations, and being able to admit what you don't know, and what you're not qualified to do" kind of funny.
Obama: "We have to anticipate* these problems. Ahead of time."
That made me LOL. Out loud.
*To feel or realize beforehand
At the end of the Obama transcript - But he was somebody who was my pastor, and he married Michelle and I, and baptized my children, and prayed with us when we announced this race, and so I’m disappointed.
There are enough people talking about Obama and his pastor. I would like to express shock and disappointment at something else, "he married Michelle and I". He attended Columbia and Harvard and he never learned when to use the objective form (which he should have learned in elementary school.)
It's not enough to change my voing plans but if it were....
"He was someone that was revered by the faculty and staff and students alike." - Chief Donald Grady speaking about NIU shooter Steven Kazmierczak.
Revere - To regard with awe, deference, and devotion. There have been people that I have know whom I have admired but I can't think of any that I revered.
I'm going to hope that Chief Grady had Latin classes in school and remembers that the root word vereri means to fear or be wary. I hope this is what he meant.
33 Curious Histories and Esoteric Studies from the Library of The People's Almanac is a list of interesting publications. Some are interesting only because they make you ask, why would someone bother writing about that?
One title made me laugh - Why Bring That Up? . It's "A guide to and from seasickness by the medical director of the New York Intestinal Sanitarium."
Another listing had me confused for a moment. (I know, not an unusual state.) The 23rd publication on the list was supposed to be "[t]hirty-three examples of sentences that include all twenty-six letters of the English alphabet." The only problem was that one of the examples given was, "Very careful and exact knowledge should be emphasised in adjudging a quadrant." The British publishers changed "emphasized" to "emphasised" and made the sentence no longer fit the category.
Visit their site for more lists or information about their books.
I was looking at an interesting blog called Slang o' the Day and found "gimped" -
Origin: English Slang
Definition: something which has turned out wrong
Example: You really gimped that toast by leaving it in the toaster for too long.
British slang...these were the ones that got so upset whan Tiger Woods used the word "spaz".
If I had read "gimped" without the definition, and not in context, I would have assumed that it meant "made lame". I don't see how the PC word police can think that "spaz" is necessarily worse. What they really need to see is that there are no "good" or "bad" words. There are words that are impolite or improper in some situations, but the more attention you pay to words, the more power they have.
According to an article in the Telegraph:
Differences between languages could be influenced by the gene groups that speak them, according to a study that marks the first case of a causal link between DNA variations and the features of language.
There's more from New Scientist here.
I keep hearing the phrase "data points". It's being used in conversations that have nothing to do with statistics or plotting data on a graph but instead as a substitute for "information". What's wrong with simply saying "data"? Or even better, if it's a non-technical discussion, "information"?
The correct phrase is "to the manner born" not "to the manor born". It comes from Hamlet:
But to my mind--though I am native here,
And to the manner born--it is a custom
More honor'd in the the breach than the observance.
It's easy to see why the two are confused. The words sound the same and although Hamlet was expressing his distaste with the local tendency towards drunkeness, it is most often used now to describe someone born to wealth or privilege (someone who could have been born in a manor).
You can use it when you are talking about someone who follows local/family tradition or instead of saying, "it's in his genes".
I was discussing a referral to an ophthalmologist with a doctor last week. He kept pronouncing it "op-thalmologist". What happened to the first "h"? It doesn't bother me when most people use this pronunciation - it fits with the other "op" eye words such as optics, optical, optometrist, or optician - but I really would have hoped that a medical doctor would have known better.
I've heard of a few of these before but most of them, "scroop" for example, are new to me. I'm looking forward to trying to fit them into conversations. "Spraints" is going to be a tough one. I think I'll save it for the next time my kids start talking about something disgusting during dinner.
When people say parents should set an example for their children they should specify "good" example. I blame a lot of problems I create on lack of clarity by others.
Davis, Lucas trade bards over donations
I'll trade you one Shakespeare for a Robert Burns plus another poet to be named later.
How many ways have you heard Hezbollah pronounced during the last week?
Hez-BUH-LAH
Hez-BOOL-ah
Hez-buul-AA
Hez-boo-LAH
Hez-boo-lah
Hehz-boh-LAH
Hiz-BUH-LAH
Hiz-BOOL-ah
Hiz-buul-AA
Hiz-boo-LAH
Hiz-boo-lah
Hihz-boh-LAH
My favorite is Hez-BOWL-ah, rhyming with ebola. (Which is pretty much my reason for preferring it.)
Proper pronunciation - Hezballah/Hizballah/Hizb'allah means "Party of God" so it should be pronounced "hizb allah".
Lake Superior State University 2006 List of Banished Words
The first word on the list is "surreal". I don't remember hearing it used any more often this past year than in previous years and I think the users may be confusing "surreal" with "unreal". If things seem surreal, you need to stop self-medicating. Now.
"Community of learners" is another I haven't heard much but I don't spend a lot of time reading college and university mission statements. It's a better description of a yeshiva school than any college that I'm familiar with.
Also on the list is "junk science". “It's not scientists who are using this phrase so much as the people who practice junk politics.” I like this phrase. It describes things like this. I use it more often to describe "junk reporting" of science. You know, those kinds of articles that tell you that doing X makes you twice as likely to come down with Y. It sounds scary until you research further and find that the risk went from .002% to .004%.
You can see a complete list of "banned" words and phrases from 1976 through 2005 here. Some words/phrases made the list several different years (including one of my personal unfavorites, "myself" when the speaker should say "me). It's an interesting reminder of the things we were talking about and the words we were using over the past few decades.
Hugh Hewitt has posted about the CNN interview with Mary Mapes.
Mapes also clung to her new narrative that those attacking the documents were "anonymous." This is completely bogus, given that Powerline led the charge and all three contributors there were and have always been public.
Maybe her next book will be a dictionary where she gives new definitions to old words. In this case "anonymous" will no longer mean "unknown" but will instead mean "we couldn't find any dirt on them".
I just finished reading the book we're going to be discussing at our next book club meeting. I enjoyed the story but was annoyed by one thing - the use of the first person reflexive pronoun (myself) instead of the appropriate subjective or objective pronoun (I or me). I've just about given up expecting people to use the correct case in everyday conversation, but if you're an author either learn the difference or find an editor who knows. If you're getting paid for writing then words are your tools. You need to know the correct one to use just as you would expect anyone else to know which tool is best for the job you have hired them to do.
Look up acronyms - The database currently contains 471347 acronyms and abbreviations.
Language distribution:
English: 437781 entries
Spanish: 5024 entries
German: 4128 entries
French: 10209 entries
Dutch: 7046 entries
Italian: 5060 entries
Portuguese: 1698 entries
An article about Brooklyn College's School of Education discusses problems some students claim to have with one of the instructors.
The course, which instructs students on how to develop lesson plans that teach literacy, is built around themes of "social justice," according to the syllabus, which was obtained by The New York Sun. One such theme is the idea that standard English is the language of oppressors while Ebonics, a term educators use to denote a dialect used by African-Americans, is the language of the oppressed.
Opress: To keep down by severe and unjust use of force or authority. Cause to suffer.
She is wrong to say that a preference for standard English in U.S. schools is oppression, it's not, it's education. Advocating its use in school and at work isn't the same as requiring its use in all situations.
I like love English. Because of influences of other languages - from early invasions by Germanic tribes, the Romans, the Normans and later during the British colonial period - English has evolved and grown richer. Everywhere speakers of English have gone, they have adopted and adapted new words.
It's a packrat language. Some countries have banned the use of foreign (English) words, regardless of popularity, if they can find a native one that will substitute. English takes in new words...so what if there are already several English words that mean almost the same thing...it's that slight shade of difference that lets the speaker say exactly what he wants to say.
Teaching children to use standard English isn't much different from teaching math. It's a tool. How much you use it depends on what you do in life but isn't it better to have the choice than to remain ignorant of the possibilities?
Trivia section:
According to this there are 866,349 words in the English language. (There are 100,000 in French.)
Loanwords - a selection of words borrowed from other languages.
The Latin abbreviation and the English equivalent for those times when you just can't remember whether you are supposed to use "i.e" or "e.g.".
If you know what a word means but want to know why it has that meaning - Online Etymology Dictionary. (There's also a link to Dictionary.com if you need a definition also.)
blog
1998, short for weblog (which is attested from 1994, though not in the sense 'online journal'), from (World Wide) Web + log. Joe Bloggs (c.1969) was British slang for "any hypothetical person" (cf. U.S. equivalent Joe Blow).
A post in Armies of Liberation suggests replacing the "-gate" suffix used for scandals with “a-QUIDDICK”.
I think this is an excellent suggestion. It seems especially appropriate for when the evidence indicates that somone has done something wrong yet there is little in the way of negative consequences for him/her.
(Link via INDC Journal.)
If you use Google, you're probably familiar with the blue bar at the top of your search results that has a link to definitions of your search terms.
The link used to take you to a dictionary. Now it goes to a page in Answers.com. It still has definitions but also includes encyclopedia and Wikipedia articles. From the Answers.com page you can search web pages, images, news (all through Google), blogs (Technorati), or products (Amazon) for further information.
It looks as though it would be a handy resource when you want a quick answer and not a bunch of web pages.
I watched the PBS program "Do You Speak American?" this evening. One of my favorite PBS shows is the Story of English, a miniseries that was broadcast in the mid-1980s. While tonight's show wasn't quite as good as that, it still had some interesting parts.
On of the things I found the most interesting was a discussion of a short vowel shift that's happening in the Great Lakes area. (More about that here - scroll down until you see the box with "busses" and "bosses".) You can hear it here.
If you're interested in English and its dialects, the show's worth a watch but the Web site has most of the same information and more. The articles and essays are especially good as are some of the special features - check out "Track that Word" if you're interested in slang.
In my last post I said that, "After hearing Edwards say "preventative" instead of "preventive", I don't want to hear anymore complaints about how Bush pronounces nuclear."
Smoke Eater left this comment, "Check this out and click on the third "bell" (what ever the symbol is) for a pronunciation of the word "nuclear"".
I was going to reply in my comments until I realized it was going to be so long that I should make it a new post instead.
I consider "nucular" to be a pronunciation due to dialect rather than to ignorance. (On the other hand, bias against this pronunciation is due to ignorance.) I realize it's not the standard pronunciation of the word but just because it isn't standard or RP English doesn't mean it is wrong.
Preventative instead of preventive is common enough that you will find it in dictionaries. That doesn't make it the preferred pronuciation, just shows that there are enough users of the word to merit its inclusion. The difference is that the mispronunciation of preventive is more widespread while "nucular" is more usual in the southern U.S. (although not limited to there.)
For a long time the northeastern U.S. had been the center of economic and political power and this created a bias against the more agrarian south, including linguistic discrimination. This discrimination is one of the few that is widely tolerated in our country (although that can depend upon who the speaker is). Imagine if a black politician used the dialect pronunciation "aks" instead of "ask" and his pronunciation was mocked the way Bush's pronunciation of nuclear is.
Bartleby.com has A Practical and Authoritative Guide to Contemporary English that lists words with multiple pronunciations. Most people who read through the list will find at least one word where the standard/traditional/preferred pronunciation differs from the way they usually pronounce it. That doesn't make you wrong or stupid for pronouncing the word that way.
Except for those of you who say "snuck" instead of "sneaked" (which isn't on that list). You're just plain wrong.
Most sources of foreign phrases for travelers are helpful, if somewhat predictable. They will teach you common greetings, how to ask for directions to the restrooms, how to request a single or double bed at the hotel, how to inquire about transportation along with some helpful phrases for shopping or dining.
The Zompist Phrasebook has something a little different. You can learn to say, "It's better in the States.", "How much is that in real money?", "Yessir, you folks certainly have made a mess of this country.", "Can I have fries with that?", and other things that are probably better left unsaid. Phrases are translated into French, Spanish, and German. Other pages in the site have translations into Italian, Russian, Danish, Dutch, and Chinese.
Most are literal translations but one of my favorites was one that condensed the thought a bit.
Impressed as I am with the New Wave in cinematography, I must say that this particular film seemed both pretentious and unsatisfying, and that the director's imagery, though compelling, is no substitute for a true cinematic message.
Mais c'est de la merde, ce navet.
A esto le llamo yo estiércol cinematográfico.
Der Film ist Scheiße.
100 Most Often Mispronounced Words and Phrases in English
The list includes some of my pet peeves: "snuck" (should be "sneaked"), forte (two syllables if you're talking about music - "for-tay", one syllable if you are talking about someone's strong point - "fort"), "often" (the "t" is silent) and "respite" ("re-spit").
The note it has for "whet" is, "In the Northeastern US the sound [hw], spelled "wh," is vanishing and these two words are pronounced the same. Elsewhere they should be distinguished." while other entries that it labels as mispronunciations could be considered Southern U.S. dialect (bob wire should be pronounced barbed wire, for example...although in the south, we know it should be bob wahr.)
Next week is my kids' spring break from school. Wheeee!
Thinking about spring break has made me contemplate running away from home travel. If I were to go somewhere where English isn't the first language the BBC has just the thing to help me prepare, free online language lessons in French, German, Spanish, and Italian. There are also sections on UK languages (Welsh, Gaelic, Irish, and British Sign Language), Chinese, Portuguese, Japanese, and key phrases in 30 languages.
The section of key phrases is printable so you can know how to ask where the restrooms are in languages from Albanian to Ukranian. (My daughter seems to have made it a personal goal to visit every public bathroom. No matter where we go, within five minutes of getting there, she asks to go to the bathroom so you can understand why I find this phrase particularly useful even though I hate public restrooms.)
Another section that's interesting is a list of which languages are spoken in which European countries. There is also a chart showing the relationship of the various languages.
If you are interested in words, the oddities section is worth reading. These are reader contributions of things like words that look or sound the same in two languages but have different meanings:
Ever wanted to call your cat "puss"? Well in Swedish you would have to say kisse. Do you want to give someone a kiss? Well, you have to give them a puss in Swedish. Even more confusingly the word kiss in Swedish means urine! So don't put a kiss at the end of your love letter!
There are long words:
I love long place names and was amazed to find this place in Wales: Gorsafawddachaidraigodanheddogleddolonpenrhynareurdraethceredigion, meaning "the Mawddach station and its dragon teeth at the Northern Penrhyn Road on the golden beach of Cardigan bay." I would love to see that in German! ;) Of course that Welsh placename is a nineteenth-century fabrication, adopted to look good on their railway place boards, whereas a Maori name for a hill in New Zealand is genuine and was in general use. It has 85 letters: Taumatawhakatangihangakoauauotamateaturipukakapikimaungahoronuku-pokaiwhenuakitanatahu, meaning "The brow of the hill where Tamatea, with the bony knees, who slid and climbed mountains, the great traveller, sat and played on the flute to his beloved". New Zealand broadcaster Henare Te Ua says the word celebrates the prowess of the great Maori chief Tamatea who possessed enormous personal power and could eat mountains.
And phrases:
English - I have other fish to fry! French - J'ai d'autres chats à fouetter ! I have other cats to whip!
The cats have been naughty today (as usual) so that last one was particularly appealing.
I read two news articles in a row that used the word "ironically". I couldn't see the irony in either of them. I checked Google News using "ironically" as the search term. Many of the articles used it as a substitute for "coincidentally" or "oddly enough". Don't news rooms have style guides or editors anymore?
I don't pay much attention to things like that in blogs or casual conversations. I do expect more from someone who gets paid for writing. I could lower my expectations, but then I'd have one fewer thing to complain about.
A quiz based on results from the Harvard Computer Society Dialect Survey says I'm: "76% (Dixie). That is a pretty strong Southern score!"
(0% is pure Yankee and 100% is pure Dixie.)
I originally posted a link to the survey in August 2002. I remember answering questions for the survey. (Does that skew my quiz results?) There are results for terms and pronunciations in each state. For most of the questions, my answers for each were the same as the majority of Kentuckians who took the survey.
Too Cool Cole in NRO says:
Though he often relies on subtle word games and puns, at times Cole comes right out and puts his politics on the table. After the 2000 election, Kenneth Cole Productions, Inc. ran an ad that showed the intersection of Bush Avenue and Cheney Lane alongside a road sign that read "Dead End." Implausibly, Cole says that "the message really wasn't meant to be political, it was meant to talk about how we'd put in office someone who had gotten less votes than the next person and kind of addressing our frustration with the process." In other words, Cole's candidate didn't win, and he wasn't happy.
I'm not going to complain about the ad itself, it's his opinion and he has every right to be a wrong-headed jerk say it. I am not going to quibble about the number of votes nor suggest that he doesn't understand the Electoral College. My complaint is about the term "less votes."
Vote is a count noun. You can attach a specific number to it. When you have a count noun, you use "fewer". If you have a noun where you can't attach a number to it, you use "less". For example, I have fewer dollars than (soon to be knighted) Bill Gates. I (along with several whole countries) have less money than Bill Gates.
The signs over the express checkouts at groceries (10 items or less) bug me too but I've decided they're written that way because many of the people who use them (why does it seem that when I'm in a hurry I'm always behind someone with 20 or more things?) can't count anyway.
(Link to the NRO article found via Mark Nicodemo.)
About a week ago I wrote that I like blogs that had some humor in them. I admire people who can come up with funny things to say because I'm so bad at it. Usually when I say something that I think is funny, all I get are blank stares...I imagine the response is the same when I write something that I find humorous.
For example, I had read an article about a woman in Texas who wanted a statue of a panther removed because it represents paganism.
Castillo said she would also not be bothered by a statue of a steer, because Fort Worth is nicknamed "Cowtown," but that a "cat-type animal brings more sinister symbolism."
My comment was that cats can't be sinister because they're so dexterous. That still cracks me up but I've had to explain it everytime I've tried telling it to anyone else.
Others may question my mental stability but at least I amuse myself.
I was reading Julie Burchill's column about her leaving the Guardian. It's a good article, go ahead and read it if you haven't already done so.
As you might have heard, I'm leaving the Guardian next year for the Times, having finally been convinced that my evil populist philistinism has no place in a publication read by so many all-round, top-drawer plaster saints. (emphasis mine.)
...if there is one issue that has made me feel less loyal to my newspaper over the past year, it has been what I, as a non-Jew, perceive to be a quite striking bias against the state of Israel.
An I the only one who thinks this is an ironic choice of words? (Hint: Palestine is the Greek form of the word Philistine.)
There may be is philistinism at the Guardian, but it wasn't coming from her.