words – Observations Along the Road

Words, Words, Words

Posted onSaturday, September 23, 2017Authorcahwyguy

Words, words, words!
I’m so sick of words
I get words all day through
First from him, now from you
Is that all you blighters can do?
(“Show Me” from My Fair Lady, M/L: Lerner and Loewe)

Words, words, words (and their underlying concepts): we use them everyday, but as they say in The Princess Bride: “You keep using that word. I do not think it means what you think it means.” Here are some articles that have passed through my various RSS feeds and sources of late that relate to words/concepts, and their use/misuse:

Words You May Be Using Wrong. This is an interesting summary of a scientific paper that explores 50 terms that people regularly confuse and use wrong. For example, there is a significant difference between asocial and antisocial, and most people use the latter when they mean the former. Envy and jealousy are similarly confused. Race and ethnicity. Serial killers vs mass murderers. Quite an interesting read.
Lost Words That Deserve a Comeback. Here’s another interesting word list: 30 Lost English Words that Deserve a Comeback. We had a good example of such a word in the last few days: dotard (meaning “an old person, especially one who has become weak or senile”). I’m not sure that’s the word I would have used. Sillytonian seems better to me (A silly or gullible person, esp. one considered as belonging to a notional sect of such people). In any case, it is worth reading the list.
Open and Closed Minded. Speaking of Sillytonian people, one of the major complaints about that group is that they are so closed minded (but they would say the same about us). But what does it mean to be open or closed mined. Here’s an exploration of 7 significant ways you can tell open from closed minded. For example, closed-minded people don’t want their ideas challenged. They are typically frustrated that they can’t get the other person to agree with them instead of curious as to why the other person disagrees. Where are you on that spectrum?
Infinities of Infinities. Infinity is a concept that has fascinated me since high school. The math surrounding the concept is so weird: ∞ + ∞, for example, equals ∞. The infinity of all even numbers is the same as the infinity of all numbers. However, for the longest time, we have believed that the infinity of all rational numbers (that is, those that can be represented by a fraction of two integers) was actually smaller than the infinity of all numbers including transcendental numbers (i.e., the real numbers like π that can’t be represented by a fraction). It now appears that we were wrong, and all infinities are equal. I expect this is something we’ll keep seeing come back, because it is in someways counter-intuitive, like the ever-present Monty Hall Problem.

Words, words, words!
I’m so sick of words
I get words all day through
First from him, now from you
Is that all you blighters can do?

P.S.: If you like words, here’s a newly discovered Kurt Vonnegut short story.

Reading, Writing, and Language

Posted onFriday, November 15, 2013Authorcahwyguy

userpic=fountain-pen Intense focus on a current project at work, combined with a migraine-heavy week (possibly the subject of a future post), has led to fewer posts than usual. But fret not. Today’s lunchtime post brings together a number of articles on reading, writing, and language that caught my eye:

How Do You Say… Different pronunciations. Immortalized in the song “You say Tom-ay-toe, I say Tom-ah-toe”, they are everywhere. Here’s an interesting Mental Floss article on the reasons behind three of them, including car-a-mel vs. car-mel. Alas, they don’t touch on my favorite: How do you say “finger” vs. how you say “singer”? Do you pronounce the hard “g”, or the gerund (“ŋ”).
Where Words are Used. Here’s an interesting use for maps: etymology maps, looking at where different words for the same thing are used. They illustrate some interesting divides.
Penmanship or Typography. Here’s an interesting question posed by the LA Times: Should we still teach penmanship and cursive writing? There are arguments for both sides, including the ability to read old handwritten documents. Then again, one could just view cursive as a different font, for there is still a one-to-one correspondence to letters (unlike, for example, Gregg Shorthand).
What Did You Write? Finally, here’s a place where reading cursive comes in useful: Deciphering addresses on letters. Machines have gotten better and better at the job, but humans are still required in the loop.

Recurrent Themes

Posted onWednesday, June 5, 2013Authorcahwyguy

userpic=mood-swings If you’ve been reading my journal for a while, you know there are a number of recurrent themes that catch my interest. Theatre, of course, is just one of them (just booked the rest of June, for example). Words is another. Food. Los Angeles. Politics. … and of course, History. The last one is the unifying theme for this collection of links:

One World. I posted this on Facebook a few days ago, but it is too good not to share further. If you go far enough back in history, the Earth had a single continent — Pangea. Ever wonder what it would look like with modern political boundaries? Wonder no more.
One Language. Two posts about language. First, here are 22 maps that show that American’s don’t speak the same language everywhere. I wonder if they did a map of how we refer to our freeways (or is SoCal unique). Second, an article on the history of the “@” sign — and the many things we call it.
One Bubble Gum. Continuing on the history bent… Bazooka Joe turns 60 this year. You remember Bazooka Joe — he’s the character in the bubble gum you got with your haircuts.
One Mulholland. There was just a big fire up in Santa Clarita this week. Here’s an interesting article on why it should be called the Mulholland Fire.

Words Words Words

Posted onMonday, June 3, 2013Tuesday, June 4, 2013Authorcahwyguy

userpic=meeting-of-minds I’ve loved words ever since I was at UCLA and took Linguistics 10, which looked at the origins of words. So today’s news chum concerns words, in various forms… and shapes…

Words We Don’t Have… But Need. Here’s a list of 12 brilliant words we don’t have in English… but really should. So while I’m dealing with my kummerspeck (due to the third headache day in a row), I’ll pelinti due to the hot soup I’m eating.
A Long Word Goes Away. Today also saw the retirement of a word: rindfleischetikettierungsüberwachungsaufgabenübertragungsgesetz.Want to know what it means? I guess you’ll just have to read this.
How Do You Spell That? You may have heard that the National Spelling Bee just ended. The winning word? Knaidel. Or is it Knaydel?
History of a Logo. Two little words: “Star Wars”. Quite a story behind the logo.

Music: Welcome to the Club (1989 Original Broadway Cast): “The Trouble with You”

Catching Up: Friday Link Stew

Posted onFriday, June 22, 2012Friday, June 22, 2012Authorcahwyguy

I know, I know. I’ve been quiet all week. That’s because I’ve been busy taking care of my wife (who had shoulder surgery on Tuesday) and dealing with various work stuff… plus there haven’t been a lot of articles that caught my eye. So, while I’m back and work and eating lunch, here are a few that did:

Potential New SoCal RenFaire. The Ventura County Star is reporting that a number of groups are coming together to turn a 150-acre plot in unincorporated Moorpark into the first Nottingham Festival, an event similar to the Renaissance Pleasure Faire held for decades in Agoura and now in Irwindale. The event, planned for 2013, is being organized by Jan Glasband, creative artistic director and co-executive director of the project, who is also the artistic director of the Actors Repertory Theatre of Simi. Working with Glasband are Andrew Elkins and Josie Hirsch. All three live in Simi Valley and have history with Renaissance events. As for the site,the Cassar family of Moorpark, owners of the site, offered it to the nonprofit Simi Valley Cultural Association and Actors’ Repertory Theatre of Simi, which are partnering on the project. The festival will take place the last two weekends of August and the first weekend in September, including Labor Day, in 2013. The plan is to have more than 100 vendors, more than 1,000 costumed entertainers, horse tournaments and events for children and adults. ART of Simi already has a page up, and there is already a Facebook page.
Misusing Language, Part I. A nice article on how people misuse the phrase “begging the question”.
Misusing Language Part II. I posted this to Facebook, but it’s worth reposting. A nice article on how different cultures view colors, and naming colors, differently.
Food for Thought, Part I. Interesting mental floss: How Aunt Jemima changed US Trademark Law.
Food for Thought, Part II. How McDonalds “improves” its burgers for Advertising Purposes.
(ETA) Making The Old New. How to antiquate your new technology. I love it! I especially like the rotary dialer app, the iPad Typewriter, and the iPod BoomBox.

Music:The Music of Smash (Megan Hilty): Let’s Be Bad

Punctuating the Day

Posted onTuesday, November 1, 2011Authorcahwyguy

It’s been a busy day, and I’ve got a lot of stuff to get done this evening. So I’ll leave you with this short item: 14 punctuation marks you never knew existed.

The Debate of the Day: Oxford Comma, Shatner Comma, or Something Else

Posted onThursday, June 30, 2011Authorcahwyguy

OK, folks. Where do you stand on “The Oxford Comma vs. The Shatner Comma”

Quoting from the article:

“The Oxford comma, thought by some to be an annoying punctuation foible, appears in a list of multiple items before the “and.” Here’s how the Oxford comma looks in a sentence: “Scotty transported Spock, Kirk, McCoy, Sulu, and a redshirt down to the planet’s surface.”

[…]

“See, the problem people have with the Oxford comma is that it puts a pause where some think one doesn’t belong. The idea is that “I went to the market to get triple sec, limes and tequila” is better, or more modern, than “I went to the market to get triple sec, limes, and tequila.” And the Shatner comma? It, does, nothing, but, put, pauses, where, they, do, not, belong.”

After all: Who cares about politics? The real debates are about grammar!

Curiouser and Curiouser

Posted onMonday, March 30, 2009Authorcahwyguy

When I was in my last year of undergrad at UCLA, I took Linguistics 10, which looked at the etymology of words. I mention this because earlier today I asked about the word for “three times a year”. The answer was triannual, whereas triennial was every three years. So (I wonder): was there an etymological difference?

Triannual: tri ‘three’ + annual (from the Websters New Millenium dictionary); origin: 1630–40; tri- + annual (per Random House)

Triennial: 1640, “lasting three years;” 1642 in the sense of “occurring every three years,” from L. triennium “three-year period,” from tri- “three” + annus “year”

So, they both seem to be “tri” + “annual” (or annus). So where and how did “-annual” get the sense of part of a year, whereas “-ennial” get multiple years? Further, if that is indeed the case, wouldn’t semiannual therefore be equal to biennial, given that 1/½ = 2? Should it be semiennial?

I’m confused.

[My wife’s response: She knows, but good doctors are expensive.]