December 14, 2006
Nine questions about poetry
Via Household Opera.
1. The first poem I remember reading/hearing/reacting to was...
My mother half singing, half reciting, "Three little fishies." I begged her "Again, Again!" And she was a trooper. But as it is a song that may be a bit of a cheat. Okay, how about this one:
How do you like to go up in swing,
Up in the air so blue?
Oh I do think it the pleasantest thing
Ever a child could do.
&c.
2. I was forced to memorize "The Owl and the Pussycat" in school and........
I still know it.
The Owl and the Pussycat went to sea
In a beautiful pea-green boat.
They took some honey and plenty of money
Wrapped up in a five-pound note.
The Owl looked up at the stars above
And sang to a small guitar,
"Oh lovely Pussy, oh Pussy my love,
What a beautiful Pussy you are.
You are, you are.
What a beautiful Pussy you are."
Pussy said to the Owl, "You elegant fowl.
How charmingly sweet you sing.
Oh let us be married; too long have we tarried!
But what shall we do for a ring?"
They sailed away for a year and a day
To the land where the Bong-tree grows.
There in a wood a Piggywig stood
With a ring at the end of his nose.
His nose, his nose:
With a ring at the end of his nose.
"Dear Pig, are you willing to sell for one shilling
Your ring?" Said the Piggy, "I will."
So they took it away and were married next day
By the Turkey who lives on the hill.
They dined on mince and slices of quince
Which they ate with a runciple spoon,
And hand in hand on the edge of the sand
They danced by the light of the Moon.
The Moon, the Moon.
They danced by the light of the moon.
See? (and that took way too long so please click on at least some of the links.)
3. I read/don't read poetry because....
I certainly read it to teach it. I also read it when I personally know the writers. But I can't say that I keep up with current poets. By a long shot. Part of this is due to training, and part to research interests: I focused on the novel in grad. school, though I did treat songs and popular verse as part of my dissertation and have kept up those interests since. And teaching has certainly broadened my horizons in that respect, as in many others. But to sit down with a book of poetry with no other agenda . . . not very often. Kermitthefrog writes: "I think poetry is like a bath. I wish I had time to take some more often, but my tub is kind of dirty, and it would require effort to clean it. But it's so relaxing once you've stepped in." That's good.
4. A poem I'm likely to think about when asked about a favourite poem is .......
Lots by John Donne. Robert Browning, though he is arguably a fairly un-poetic poet. "The Wife's Lament." Sonnets. And I love the old ballads. But I'm just coming off the pre-1800 intro. survey; ask again in the Spring.
4.5: There are some poets/poems that I don't like or don't understand...
I like punctuation, she says with deliberate obtuseness.
5. I don't write poetry, but...
I used to. The doctors were right; it was just a phase.
6. My experience with reading poetry differs from my experience with reading other types of literature.....
because it's more like decoding, than swimming. Hearing it is another matter: you can't usually ask the reader to stop and repeat; you have to just let the words wash over you and you take what you can. Sometimes listening to poetry seems like one giant Rorschach test.
7. I find poetry...
under every rock. Seriously. All I have to do is walk out my office door and I trip over a poet. I could show you bruises.
8. The last time I heard poetry...
was Robert Moore reading from his new book.
9. I think poetry is...
Primordial. But for most, the impulse is atrophied. Or, more accurately, it has to find a different outlet.
December 13, 2006
One word meme
from Badger, who is more poetic than I:
1. Yourself: here
2. Your spouse: asleep
3. Your hair: sideways
4. Your mother: drifts
5. Your father: naps
6. Your favorite item: cellphone
7. Your dream last night: tiring
8. Your favorite drink: coffee
9. Your dream car: clean
10. The room you are in: boxes
11. Your ex: ferret
12. Your fear: world
13. What you want to be in 10 years: healthy
14. Who you hung out with last night: JB
15. What you're not: dishonest
16. Muffins: orange
17: One of your wish list items: time
18: Time: where?
19. The last thing you did: laundry
20. What you're wearing: pajamas
21. Your favorite weather: sweater
22. Your favorite book: current
23. The last thing you ate: shortbread
24. Your life: yep
25. Your mood: waking
26. Your best friend(s): elsewhere
27. What you're thinking about right now: showering
28. Your car: sticky
29. What you're doing at the moment: duh!
30. Your summer: distant
31. Your relationship status: yes
32. What's on TV: crap
33. The weather: cold
34. The last time you laughed: yesterday
December 5, 2006
She is
November 4, 2006
Marks on paper
At Academic Coach, Mary McKinney posts about the differences between writing something in longhand, and producing it on a computer. Now I have often made comparisons between my own writing in the two modes, and have a fairly nuanced understanding of what sorts of tasks are best accomplished how. But McKinney links to an article in which Shari Wilson discusses the evaluation of students, a wrinkle I had previously not considered. She begins with an anecdote about a student who scored A's and B's with in-class assignments, yet C's and D's on computer-generated essays. After an interesting discussion about the characteristics of each process, she makes the logical conclusion: that instructors need to evaluate their students using a variety of assignments. Luckily for my students I already vary their assignments, though not with much consideration for modes of writing in their own right.
McKinney also links to "The Phenomenology of Writing by Hand" by Daniel Chandler. I am not going to pretend to evaluate it, other than to say that it seemed somewhat schematic (no doubt because of my utter ignorance of the discipline). But some parts are evocative: the description of revision as a physical act, for instance. Many writers who enjoy writing as a "bodily act" are quoted, and it is true, there is certainly pleasure in pens and paper. But for myself, I think I have to some extent transferred created similar pleasures on the computer, with a whole-hearted embrace of geekery. Not the sorts of pleasures the writers quoted in this article describe; to a person, they disdain what Iris Murdoch called that "glass square which separates one from one's thoughts and gives them a premature air of completeness."
I can't agree there. Writing with a computer has expanded the range of my writing incalculably. I love pens and paper, but nowadays they are almost a fetish, or at least a hobby, rather than my main tools.
November 3, 2006
A short while ago
I mentioned that there is an agent poetique at work in the streets of Saint John. This morning I discovered that s/he has left a most beautiful poem, Kay Smith's "Again with Music":
Now that the rain is spent,
Trees and the purple-headed timothy and the tall grasses
Are all netted over with seed pearls.
Far as the eye can reach the sea is pale as a pearl,
The air a pool of stillness,
And so still the wild roses their petals make porcelain faces.
From leaf to leaf a raindrop slips,
Stillness upon stillness.
And sprawling over the living grass and the roses,
A dead apple tree with beauty in its bare bones,
Never to put forth again a pink and white cloud of witnesses,
Suddenly blossoms with yellow birds in its grey limbs,
And is almost alive again with music.
Love, O love, let the birds happen to me.
Let the wild, sweet voices remember me.
Thank you.
November 2, 2006
Terse
Wired commissioned a series of six-word stories; some are pretty cool.
Longed for him. Got him. Shit.
— Margaret Atwood
More below the fold.
(as seen at Melinama and Boing Boing).
Gown removed carelessly. Head, less so.
— Joss Whedon
Corpse parts missing. Doctor buys yacht.
— Margaret Atwood
Starlet sex scandal. Giant squid involved.
— Margaret Atwood
Internet “wakes up?” Ridicu - no carrier.
— Charles Stross
Epitaph: Foolish humans, never escaped Earth.
— Vernor Vinge
It cost too much, staying human.
— Bruce Sterling
We kissed. She melted. Mop please!
— James Patrick Kelly
Lie detector eyeglasses perfected: Civilization collapses.
— Richard Powers
I’m dead. I’ve missed you. Kiss … ?
— Neil Gaiman
Easy. Just touch the match to
— Ursula K. Le Guin
whorl. Help! I'm caught in a time
— Darren Aronofsky and Ari Handel
Help! Trapped in a text adventure!
— Marc Laidlaw
Cryonics: Disney thawed. Mickey gnawed. Omigawd.
— Eileen Gunn
He read his obituary with confusion.
— Steven Meretzky
Bush told the truth. Hell froze.
— William Gibson
Parallel universe. Bush, destitute, joins army.
— Steven Meretzky
October 26, 2006
Robert Moore
is to read from his new collection of poems, Museum Absconditum, tomorrow evening at 7pm at UNBSJ. He is a wonderful, wonderful reader, and anyone who has the chance really ought to come out and hear him.
Here is a poem from the publisher's website:
Rapunzel
An archetype is a hollow thing.
Marina Warner
Home was thick with towers, driven like stakes
into the valley floor. Girls behind each slit of casement.
Queer as larvae. So pale they all but glowed.
Some tethered to looms, some to spinning wheels. Still
others tending vats of moon. The best among us
transubstantial as ghosts, patient before
great plates of mirror.
Secretly we sat for each other, swam in muzzy circles
at the far ends of our telescopes,
mouthing our names,
tapping the bone between our breasts.
Names you had to touch your heart to hear.
October 11, 2006
Old words
Koran, Hambourg, 1694
Some of these links have been hanging fire some time, and others are fresher:
On handwriting: How to Read 18th Century British-American Writing and The Manuscripts of George de Benneville and Abraham Wagner (via Jim Chevalier on C18-L).
Images of books: Torah, Bible, Koran: Books of the Word Exhibit: texte en Français (also via Jim Chevalier on C18-L).
Letters: Electronic Enlightenment: "a new and exciting academic resource providing full critical editions of complete correspondences of major and minor figures of the 18th century."
Beautiful images of Ireland and cooking, in two amazing posts at BibliOdyssey.
Alchemy, the alphabet, and allegory, all at Giornale Nuovo.
Celebrating Women Writers!: "a website that lists information about and books by women authors. As part of The Celebration of Women Writers, I publish online editions of out-of-copyright books by women authors. This blog is used to announce new online editions of books being published by The Celebration of Women Writers."
Schreber's Fantastic Beasts: "In 1774 Johann Christian Dan Schreber authored a multivolume set of books entitled Die Saugthiere in Abbildungen nach der Natur mit Beschreibungen. Focusing on mammals of the world, these books were lavishly illustrated with 755 hand-colored plates. There was a slight problem though: in most instances the artists had never seen the animals they were rendering onto paper. Explorers would return from their travels and describe the animals in question to the artists. The end result was that some of the drawings, though representing real animals, looked more like they had come from someone's nightmares." (Via Plep).
October 2, 2006
Poetry to the People!
This is pretty cool. Some anonymous person, some Robin Hood of literary culture, is going around this fair city of ours and stenciling lines of poetry on the sidewalks with a link to self titled, a blog where the full poems can be found. Elizabeth Brewster's "Where I Come From" is a few doors away from where I used to live.
August 9, 2006
And
this story about the $2.13-million grammatical error is going up on my office door.
June 27, 2006
The Stories of English by David Crystal
Originally noticed this book because of its cover (another proverb bites the dust) which features a wonderful drawing by James Gillray, and have been dipping into it at intervals ever since. Such desultory reading tactics often result in a book never being finished, but in this case it works because the material is so overflowing with detail that long digestion is desirable, and the overarching narrative — the chronological development of the various varieties of English, the "stories" of the title — is ingrained so the storyline can never be lost between readings. My reading has been so desultory that I am just now emerging from the Middle Ages, bloody but unbowed and ready for the heady changes of the Renaissance. But I think I might make an effort to focus so that I might at least be through the 18thc before classes start. Moderns be damned; who need ye?
Crystal's "English" is protean; it includes without prejudice all dialects and varieties and recognizes the living nature of the language. This approach should not be so novel at this point but in many respects it still is. Not that I should be so smug, though I doubt I am the only reader to stumble across her own prejudices while reading.
Crystal's authorial voice is delightful: erudite, learned, yet light and humourous, never ponderous. Quite a task, to write about the entire language. How on earth to present ones own narrative voice? His choice is to take us with him and lead us without seeming to, an arm about our shoulders, and it works beautifully.
The book is organized chronologically but with "interludes" in which Crystal pursues some of many possible side roads. The chapters proper are heavily peppered with asides and diversions; these, however, are clearly demarcated and never detract from the overall direction.
Highly recommended for literary scholars and historians of almost any stripe, and for serious readers more generally.
April 14, 2006
Teaching C18 words
A discussion about student malapropisms (eg. "Samuel Richardson is abscessed with sex") on C18-L prompted Kirstin Wilcox to ask for words, the meanings of which have changed over time. She offers some examples and envisions handing such a list out to students. Well, of course Jack Lynch, whom we all admire (in the contemporary sense), got there first: he posted a link to his marvellous "A Guide to Eighteenth-Century English Vocabulary" (PDF). Which I and no doubt many others will make available to students, with gratitude and of course full attribution.
February 10, 2006
Word cloud
Customized tee-shirts use words from your blog. Make your own. From Sharon, who finds the neatest things.
October 23, 2005
Newspeak
Was at a large and relatively important meeting on campus this past week (cagey, ain't I?), and was struck, not for the first time, about the encroachment of business-speak into the academy. But now something else is happening.
An august personage gave a PowerPoint©®™ presentation, a presentation, he informed us, which was organized around "a central metaphor." Now, this august personage does not have an Arts background. And bijesus, he beat that metaphor into the ground. He also spoke, several times, about "developing our [institutional] narrative." Developing our narrative? Metaphors? Did someone do market research and discover how nauseous, how deeply suspicious, business-speak makes those of us in the Humanities? Did some bright light advise a wholesale co-option of a different sort of jargon? Just a spoonful of sugar makes the PowerPoint©®™ go down?
Not that there appears to be too much danger of this trend going too far. Charts, graphics, and slightly ungrammatical slogans with too many qualifiers abound. I recently realized, however, that many of the purveyors of these items know how bankrupt they are. If august personages took to asking for and using the advise of the many, oh, say, literary types, at their disposal, the prospective donors, the boards of this and that, would surely look askance at the results. (I'm not sure who is being more cynical here, them or me. Anyway, what am I saying: what if someone asked me?)
What bothers me the most is not when suits flash their laser pointers — part of the landscape, these days — but when otherwise authentic people say "business plan" when they mean "proposal" or "stakeholders" when they mean "concerned parties." Etcetera. Ad nauseum.
At the same meeting, someone else talked about "soft copies" (i.e. electronic copies). Another used "downloaded" to mean "delegated." The geekspeak was kind of refreshing after all the business-speak. Though the two are already dovetailing all too comfortably. Soon we will be talking about "meat-classrooms" or "realtime instructors."
Oh. Too late, am I?
October 10, 2005
Words
Amardeep Singh points toward this "Celebrity Read" campaign: Coolio holding a copy of Frankenstein? Or Orlando Bloom holding, predictably, The Lord of the Rings.
Also from Amardeep: "In Praise of 'Balderdash' (And other words for 'nonsense')."
Language Lab reports English-Teaching Robots (via The Mumpsimus).
Dylan Thomas audio: "Do not go gentle into that good night" (via PCL Linkdump).
September 3, 2005
Word wizardry
A link-rich post at Blue Tea: the Thinkmap Visual Thesaurus, the Omnificent English Dictionary in Limerick Form, and more. An example from the latter: Adonic verse by S. A. McBurnie:
First a dactyl, then spondee or trochee;
Make it solemn, not bouncy or poky.
If you're struck with the urge
For composing a dirge
An Adonic verse suits: it's not hokey.
Brazilian Visual Poetry and other wordy links at growabrain.
2005 FAUX FAULKNER WINNER: "The Administration and the Fury: If William Faulkner were writing on the Bush White House" by Sam Apple (via cyrenity [28/7/05]). But read it; it explains a lot.
June 28, 2005
Shocking quiz results!
Your Slanguage Profile |
| Canadian Slang: 100% |
| Victorian Slang: 50% |
| Aussie Slang: 25% |
| British Slang: 25% |
| Prison Slang: 25% |
| Southern Slang: 25% |
| New England Slang: 0% |
I have to say, a good portion of these questions made no sense to me: either I had never heard the term — what on earth is a "chav"? and what is having "good grapes" on someone? — or my definition was not among the possible answers: in my world, "jerry" is WWII era U.K. slang for German, a "blue bottle" is a fly, and a "billie" is a billie-club. On the plus side, "timbit" is included. Hence my score. Thanks to Sharon, who speaks 75% prison slang, for the link.
May 4, 2005
Across the finish line!
Just entered the final grades for my last course. Hasn't really sunk in yet. Huge load fallen etc. etc. Though I have a pile of other pressing things, all due yesterday. Still, hope to get back to my usual level of posting pronto. Just after I go and have a nice nap. Just for a little while.
Meanwhile, for your perusal: Idioms illustrated by fourth graders (via BoingBoing) and heroes of atheism mugs and tea-towels (via things magazine). Major sellers, it would seem.
And, Mark Woods reminds us that it is the thirty-fifth anniversary of Kent State.
April 18, 2005
LGF quiz
Late German Fascist? or Little Green Footballer? You be the judge. From General J.C. Christian via Echidne.
I scored 85%. Mainly by separating the quotes by levels of literacy. Piece of cake.
April 5, 2005
Poems from prose
Click for larger view.
This will be old news to some, but I have just discovered it: A Humument (link from compton crop circle): artist Tom Phillips makes or samples, or "plunders" poetry from a copy of W.H. Mallock's three-decker A Human Document (1892). Each and every one of 370 pages. Fascinating and beautiful, though it looks as though at least one book was harmed (Ray Davis tells us why we shouldn't cry). And here are a selection of critical essays and commentaries on the work, and the Tom Phillips website. Some quick history. Why Mallock? And you can buy it, for US$395 plus.
Ray Davis has made available Maddock's apparently better known The New Republic: according to Davis, "the work of a clever and vindictive student, a vicious mimic with little experience of life outside home or school." If I link it, that surely doesn't mean I actually have to read it, does it? I'd rather bask in Phillips's work:
Click for larger view.
[NB. They're not all yellow. I just like yellow.]
March 17, 2005
Fun with words
Three ways to recycle those letters (and they do pile up):
Visit the Web of Letters (via Mirabilis),
spell words in letters made of book-covers (Warning! Resource-intensive. Via BoingBoing), or
spell with flickr photos (original source mislaid).
January 21, 2005
Fun with words
Hobbit paleontologists from the wonderfully named Improbable Research (via Krista).
This works on so many levels. All it needs are a few ex-wives (from G Zombie).
What's your Scrabble score? (via CatalogueAnnie).
September 28, 2004
Well, here I was thinking
"holy f***, I haven't posted today, I'm really falling down on the f***ing job, etc. etc." and then I read this post from Weez which links to this fanf***ingtastic site and, well, there you are. A post.
August 26, 2004
Pink and blue
The Jinker Boy has discovered the categories of "boy" and "girl," though he uses them with his own inflections:
Me: Is Phyllis a boy or a girl?
Jinker Boy: Gel.
Me: Is Lauren a boy or a girl?
JB: Barbie gel.
Me: What's a Barbie girl?
JB: Liddal gel.
Me: Is Daddy a boy or a girl?
JB: Boy.
Me: Is Mummy a boy or a girl?
JB: Boy.
Me: Mummy's a boy? Why?
JB: Because I love it.
Me: Because you love Mummy?
JB: Yis.
Me: But you love Phyllis and she's a girl.
JB: [pause] Yis.
Me: Is Mummy a boy or a girl?
JB: Boy.
June 20, 2004
Words
Neologisms a Dictionary of Findable Words and Phrases (via Languagehat). Many of these are technological, but some are not:
Haemosexuality: The sexual basis of the vampire relationship.
Silicon Spires: Oxford. Term denotes the high-tech software and biotech companies establishing on the edge of Oxford, often as university spin-offs
MadInkBeard: a blog dedicated to the idea of formal constraints in writing (via Languagehat). And be sure to check out greenfairydotcom for "Dusting My Bookshelves - A Villanelle" and a shopping trip described in haiku:
Eighties revival
Neon green and yellow stripes
Strangely attractive
The OED in limericks: (via MadInkBeard). Here is the definition for Abyssinia:
I was speaking with my girlfriend Lavinia
In a country southeast of Sardinia.
I said, "You'll allow
"It's 'Ethiopia' now."
Then I added "So long. Abyssinia!"
On that note...
June 14, 2004
SF, not sci-fi
Mark Cheney links to an interesting discussion at Norman Geras' blog about terminology: sf or sci-fi? And if the latter, how is it pronounced ("sigh-fie" or "skiffy") and what does it mean? Myself, I'm a little schizoid about it: if I'm talking to a non-reader I might say "sci-fi" in order to be plain, though I prefer the term "sf" because it is more inclusive. Mind you, I've grown into that; some years back a PhD student from Australia was visiting Toronto as part of her research and she and I met up. I was having dinner at the home of her host and used the term "sci-fi." My new colleague's mother, who was also there, immediately said, "She said 'sci-fi.' Why won't you let me say it?" Some blushing and blustering, and then we all had coffee.
More recently, the amazing la gringa complemented me on my "skiffy" interests, and I didn't clue that she probably meant "colourful, sometimes entertaining, junk," to quote The Encyclopedia of Science Fiction (via Graham Sleight via Norman). For some reason I thought "skiffy" had something to do with squirrels (squirrels+Skippy). Anyway, a complement is a complement.
Other sf news:
Edwardians on the moon: The Apollo Prophecies by Kahn & Selesnick (from the ever-wonderful Giornale Nuovo; also noted by the equally wonderful Matthew Cheney). Amazing installation photography which uses "the narrative techniques of Italian fresco cycles of the early Renaissance."
Cory Doctorow writes that Ian McDonald's new "Bollywoodpunk" novel, River of Gods, is brilliant. And new, from the sounds of it. That's good enough for me.
June 11, 2004
Linked links
Three book links:
Altered Books: the site of the International Society of Altered Book Artists (via moleskinerie).
Pop-up and Movable Books, part of the University of Delaware Library's "world of the child" collection (via Plep).
Fancy limited edition of Neal Stephenson's Quicksilver , list price $ 200.00. But as they say at the Literary Salon, while it's tempting, think of all the not-so-fancy books you could buy with that money!
Segue into SF links:
China Miville's next novel, Iron Council, due out July 27, takes us, according to the editors, "back to the decadent squalor of New Crobuzonthis time, decades later." (Thanks to The Agony Column). Miville is also one of the authors represented in the anthology Cities: The Very Best of Fantasy Comes to Town, out this past April.
Segue into dead languages:
"Yoda speaks like Anglo-Saxon" (courtesy of Mirabilis).
Blogging in Latin (via Household Opera).
(Clever how I did that, wasn't it?)
May 14, 2004
Klingais
Qov, who posted the haiku of yours truly not so long ago on her Klingon language blog (story here), has hit the big time. She's off to Cannes for the International Film Festival courtesy of the producer of Earthlings: ugly bags of mostly water (mentioned here earlier). Her worry?
I'll get to have the dizzying fun of going back and forth between Klingon and French, trying not to produce bizarre Klingais sentences. There are a couple of Klingon verb prefixes similar to French pronouns, and that might trigger accidental code-shifting.
I've always thought that Klingon sounded more Germanic than anything else; the idea of Klingais (or Frangon, as one commenter wrote), is indeed dizzying. I will look forward to Qov's reports about her trip (though they will likely not be in English!).
(news from Tenser, said the Tensor).
May 2, 2004
SF links
Crib notes for Kubrick: 2001 explained. Very well done. Don't know, though, if they intended to underscore Kubrick's presentation of "humanitiy" as blue-eyed males or just uncritically reproduced it. Via Plep.
"'Where in the multiverse...?': researching the vocabulary of science fiction for the OED": update on the OED sf project. Via Boing Boing.
"The Factwhore Proposition" by Charles Coleman Finlay, a story about the commodification of knowledge work, at Futurismic. Heads up from Boing Boing.
April 28, 2004
WTF?
Text messaging used on exams? In the OED?? Via
Keywords
April 13, 2004
More Googlebombing
Why type Jew Jew Jew Jew Jew Jew Jew Jew Jew Jew Jew Jew Jew Jew Jew Jew Jew Jew Jew Jew Jew Jew Jew Jew Jew Jew Jew Jew Jew Jew Jew Jew Jew?
Addendum (12:22am): Times of India article about why Google won't pull the offensive listing.
Update (14/4/04): Just typed in "Jew" in Amazon.com's new search engine, A9.com, and the notorious site is nowhere to be seen.
April 8, 2004
Steve Jobs: "Who writes software in French!?"
Plep links to "Resisting Cyber-English" by Joe Lockard (Bad Subjects 24 [Feb. 1996]), an article that is no doubt even more pertinent eight years on. Lockard concludes,
...the overwhelming predominance of cyber-english establishes, through language/class, a monologic and declamatory relationship with the other-than-anglophone world rather than a dialogic and supple relationship. Maintenance of online language/class structures recapitulates offline English-only monologism, which has encountered historic resistance. For those seeking alterity, the character of trans-language software has been configured by marketability rather than communicative needs. Grassroots non-anglophone cyber-access and empowerment hover temptingly at the horizon, but remain vastly distant.
He does offer a sliver of hope, however, in the final paragraph:
In practical terms, English rejectionism in cyberspace without any acceptable substitute is a self-defeating exercise in purposeless autonomy. That leaves anglophones pursuing Gramscian 'badness' in the paradoxical binds of a double consciousness, an awareness of the repressive effects of cyber-english even as we benefit from its use. Double consciousness, fortunately, is a very productive site of practice.
April 5, 2004
Googlebomb against fascism
This in from Crooked Timber: apparently the first site that comes up when one does a Google search for "Jew" is an anti-semitic hate site. Help correct this by including the word Jew on your blog or website, linked to the Wikipedia entry at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jew.
Addendum (2:48): Liz at mamamusings suggests links to "Who is a Jew" in addition to/instead of the Wikipedia link.
March 25, 2004
Noam Chomsky has started a blog
here.
Link from Crooked Timber.
March 23, 2004
Famed throughout the Alpha Quadrent
The alert (or extremely bored) among my readers may have noted the new blurb from Qov added to the kudos for this site (only some of which are taken out of context) at the bottom of the sidebar. Qov has a Klingon-language blog called bo logh, and she commented on my daring posting of my Klingon haiku. I'm so glad she did; not only did she translate the poems into Klingon, but she translated them back into English (check out the comments to my original post). She then contacted me to tell me that she was writing an entry on the poems for her own blog, which she posted earlier today. (It is very disconcerting to see phrases such as "bo logh Ho'mo' Miriam Jones, chongqu'! maq 'ej loS bommeyDaj ngo' 'agh.") She thoughtfully sent me an English translation of her post, which I include below the fold.
This whole exchange has been fascinating. And in at least one case I much prefer "writhing" to "rustling" in the first poem the exercise has improved on the originals. I had always admired the dedication of those who learnt Klingon, but I now have a new level of appreciation of it as a language albeit a synthetic one with its own structures. (Here is a previous entry from Languagehat on the subject. In English.)
From Qov's email of 17 March, 2004:
Because Miriam Jones admires bo logh, she proclaims it "so cool" and displays her four old poems. While considering Klingon ideas, she uses English to compose the poems. If you count the sound groups in the song lines, there are five sound groups in the first line, seven sound groups in the second line and five sound groups again in the third line. If that system is followed, it's called Haiku. Customarily Haiku considers animals, vegetation or the forest world. This system was devised in Japan.
Miriam Jones seems slightly ashamed of her poems but I'm glad she dared to reveal them.
(targhs mating, in English)
As a Klingon would apparently like Miriam Jones poems, and as the task is easy, I translated them.
(targhs mating, in Klingon)
For Haiku, a whole world has to take form because of a few words. The next poem definitely succeeds. It made me laugh, too.
(mosquito netting, In English)
I hope my translation succeeds, too.
(mosquito netting, In Klingon)
Usually if someone admires Klingon, they are a scientist or a programmer. But as I started to read Miriam Jones journal I realized that she is an English teacher. She reads eighteenth century manuscripts. She didn't seem to be a technician. Perhaps she likes bo logh purely because she understands the task of learning a language? It's a rare situation. But suddenly I saw it. She reads Heinlein. She enjoys science stories and uses them for her lessons. She has a poet's spirit and a scientist's mind, too.
Addendum to this last: I was perusing Qov's site though it's all Klingon to me when I noticed the word "Mormon" sticking out like a smooth forehead. Followed the links, and sure enough, there are various people out there translating the Book of Mormon into Klingon. Not sure what Qov had to say about that, but file it under, "unexpected sub-groups in fandom."
Addendum (1:59pm): Found the Book of Mormon, the Tao Te Ching, and the poetry of Edgar Allen Poe, all in Klingon.
March 22, 2004
Owlet vocabulary
It's been so long since I've done any linguistics, and even if I could remember the notations I doubt I could reproduce them on this keyboard. But I can say that I am in awe of his Nibs' ability to introduce the most amazingly drawn-out diphthongs whenever he encounters a vowel. He loves vowels; he chews them and rolls them over his tongue; consonants are trickier, but he is game to try.
"a-mah-no" = "tomorrow"
"meeeew-zik kwaass" = "music class"
"Saad-yi" = "Sally"
"paaar-di" = "party"
"So fuuuuddy" = "That's funny"
"happy bird-ay" = "happy birthday" (also "candle"; "flame")
"Oowl-lix" = "Alex"
Addendum (23/3/04): How could I forget "Boom-ba" for "Grandpa"? And upon reflection, "happy bird-ay" is more "appy dird-day."
March 20, 2004
Our house is a very very very fine house
From Boing Boing: a link to a new "shelter" (why does that term irk?)1 magazine, Atomic Ranch, dedicated to "modest postwar houses," modernist architecture and decor, "real people, real houses."2 Our (very fine) house was built in 1961. We moved here from a Victorian town house three and a half years ago and have not yet effected the full transition into the twentieth century. Perhaps Atomic Ranch will goad us to finally replace that claw-footed bookcase?
1 I suppose it is designed to include all sorts of homes, from houses to apartments to lofts to condos to cottages, but since "shelter" implies a very basic animal need, and also includes tenements, cardboard cartons, and the basement at the Sally Ann, its use by luxury magazines (including magazines for "real people, real houses") is particularly grating. I don't know what to suggest as an alternative, because I also dislike "home" in this context (see following).
2 They actually use the word "home," but since the discussion is about the material, "house" seems more appropriate. "Home," as in, "you have a lovely home," has always struck me as pretentious and somehow Victorian. Presumptuous and prescriptive. Sententious. And have I said that it bothers me? Home is where the heart is; what can a casual visitor presume to know about another's home? The house, of course, is sitting there for all to see.
March 14, 2004
SF in the OED
Continuing in the tradition so lovingly described by Simon Winchester in The Professor and the Madman and The Meaning of Everything, the OED has called for volunteers to help amass citations for sf terms. Here is the website for the project, and here is an interesting graph indicating the dates of the origins of sf terms: notice the bump in critical terminology in the 1980s and 90s. Fandom came into its own in the 1950s and has stayed influential.
Jesse Sheidlower in the OED Newsletter writes that sf is an excellent candidate for this sort of web-based initiantive because,
The vocabulary is largely self-contained; SF terms tend to occur in SF and nowhere else, while, say, political language can be found anywhere and everywhere. The fans are particularly committed, often have linguistic interests, and are computer literate.
I would be interested to see if, and how often, sf terms have migrated into general use. I'm thinking of the influence of sf on technology, and would imagine a parallel dynamic in words themselves? For example, "morph," which Mark Lieberman notes has been traced to Mark Bourne's story "Being Human" (1993), is in wider use now.
Story from Language Log via Languagehat.
March 13, 2004
Shakespeare Lite
Chuck wouldn't use the phrase "dumbing down," but I will. And no, it's certainly not the students who are dumb...
Here is a link to a story about translations of Shakespeare into contemporary English being used in Georgia.
Tut, I am in their bosoms, and I know wherefore they do it.
Julius Caesar (V.i)
I know how they think, and I understand why they're doing this.
Same scene, "No Fear Shakespeare" translation.
And you too, Brutus?
Jargon redux
Via Tom Runnacles at Crooked Timber, Buzzword Bingo!, for those days when you just can't leverage your way to the bleeding edge and visualize that synergistic paradigm. (Though put your hands up if you found a word or two that you have been known to use, upon occasion, yourself...)
A few links from the comments section:
The Web Economy Bullshit Generator
The gobbledygook generator
Colloquium Bingo at The Lounge
File under "this is so cool!"
A recent post at languagehat points to two blogs in Klingon, bo logh and jIqel's Journal.
Perhaps I should post some of the Klingon haiku I wrote (in English, I'm afraid) back in my slasher days. Perhaps after I get tenure. Or lose my job, whichever comes first. Of course, coming out as the worst sort of geek could speed that latter process.
Oh, what the hell!
The targs are mating,
I hear them rustling nearby
in the autumn leaves.
The suns burn my back
as I bury my enemy;
He shouldn't have laughed.
The springtime landscape
reminds me of your body:
I want to plow it.
Under mosquito netting
we lay, exhausted. My love,
don't eat the insects.
Gender and voice
Here, via feministe, is an intriguing post from PinkDreamPoppies at Alas, a Blog, about the gendering of written language: the ways in which we gender it, as readers; the ways in which it is shaped by the gender of the writer. Pop quiz: What gender is PinkDreamPoppies? If you answered, "female," why, you'd be wrong. The post also mentions that gender-in-writing test that I mentioned sometime ago; a number of other women also report being identified as male. Be sure to read the comments, too.
March 12, 2004
Hi, Hir, Hirs, Hirself
An interesting conversation begun at long story; short pier and picked up at languagehat and Tenser, said the Tensor about non-gender-specific pronouns (or the need for them. Or not) in English. Various references to the pioneering work of sf writers in addressing the issue, such as Iain M. Banks, Ursula LeGuin, and Samuel Delany. Like many of the commentators, I have become quite comfortable with "they," as in, "Everyone should bring their texts to class" rather than "his or her books," but while this usage is more and more accepted, it is not yet universal, despite its extensive pedigree back to the fourteenth century. One of the commentators at languagehat points to a fascinating site called Jane Austen and other famous authors violate what everyone learned in their English class which has a useful section on the singular "they"/"their"/"them"/"themselves" construction. And who dare argue with Shakespeare
There's not a man I meet but doth salute me,
As if I were their well-acquainted friend.
(Comedy of Errors IV.3)
or the King James Bible?1
Let nothing be done through strife or vainglory; but in lowliness of mind let each esteem other better than themselves. (Philippians 2:3)
1 Almost half finished Adam Nicolson's God's Secretaries: The Making of the King James Bible. Very readable, though subtlety is sometimes sacrificed for the sake of the narrative. A little before my period, though, so I am not the best judge.
13/3/04: typo corrected. Sorry, languagehat.
March 11, 2004
Borders
From wood s lot: some very funny bumper stickers. My favs:
Bush in '04: A Thousand Pints of Lite
Bush/Cheney '04: Because FREEDOM can't suppress itself
Bush/Cheney '04: Don't switch horsemen mid-apocalypse
Bush/Cheney '04: Hey, look over there!
And, two articles on "Euro-lish."
February 12, 2004
A couple of things...
My new
arrived today and I'm too excited mucking around with it to think straight, but here are a couple of things:
Brian Weatherson at Crooked Timber writes about gender neutral language and why it's okay to use "they" for the singular.
The Books Every Educated Person Should Read post is up to 216 comments and 8 follow-ups. People cannot resist lists. (Or offering advice.)
Maud Newton links to Based on the Book, a "compilation of over 950 book titles, short stories, and plays that have been made into motion pictures" using IMDB.
feministe has a lyrical post on, among other things, putting young children to bed.
February 1, 2004
Speling
Mark Woods at wood s lot links to an article by Stephen Henighan in Geist called "Bad Spellers." Henighan decries the haphazard ways in which writers, editors and publishers conformor fail to conformto Canadian usage.
Thought for the day (and very appropriate just now, as people have started to drive over the Kennebecasis River in force, here in Saint John): Henighan writes,
In the Ottawa Valley village where I grew up, grade four girls from families with modest formal schooling would chant, Ice is a noun so when practice is a noun you write it with ice. This dictum enabled them to disentangle licence from license and spell defence correctly. Such seemingly trivial ditties are the bricks and mortar of a culture.
I fear that we were very backward, in Hamilton.
In the post immediately below, Woods links to Ronald de Sousa's "The Day of the Condour or How to be a Propour Canadian Spellour."
January 29, 2004
PC
An old comrade of mine used to say that you could tell a lot about a person by what immediately came to mind when the term "PC" came up: a personal computer? the [late lamented] Progressive Conservative party? President's Choice? or "political correctness"? And in the latter case, how do they inflect the term? With reactionary irritation? Or with the wry irony of the leftist congniscenti?
John Quiggin has a thoughtful post over at Crooked Timber which begins,
In my experience there is a close to 100 per cent correlation between the stated belief that society is suffering from a decline in "civility" and a willingness to proclaim that we are all being oppressed by "political correctness."
Along with Ted K., however, "I ascribe more power to language than he does." Though John is correct when he writes, "I doubt that changes in speech will, of themselves, produce changes in attitudes." The question here, perhaps, it the relationship between language and action. Neither happen independently or in isolation, nor is there a direct causal relationship between them, as in "I was obliged to call my grade four teacher Ms. Krabappel and now I have a progressive analysis of gender oppression." But hey, it can't hurt. And it's only civil.
And, along with Ted K., I'd like to thank John for the following:
I find people who think that being "politically incorrect" is exceptionally brave and witty to be among the most tiresome of bores.
An old and close friend of mine, while young, had an extensive corresspondence with several others, one in particular, in which they played out their own witty bravery. Well, said friend is now dead and his papers have been sent to the National Archives. My own corresspondance to him was merely jujeune, so I have nothing to fear (well, not much) when the papers are unsealed, but that is not the case for everyone. Of course, they were all young. But how excruciating to have to defend one's decades-old "wit."
The comments to John's post are also worth a read. I was given pause by Keith M. Ellis's:
I use the terms pro-choice and pro-life. I do this, interestingly enough, out of a sort of pcism: thats what both sides wish to be called .. and I think both terms are accurate. Thats what each side thinks theyre fighting for. But since pcism is identified with leftism and the pro-choice position is also identified with leftism, I suspect that many of my fellow pro-choicers are annoyed at my use of the term pro-lifeperhaps they consider it politically incorrect. And, indeed, strictly speaking, it is. If its about politics and not civility.
Okay, now I'm in a pickle, but I think I see a way out. A tad Sophistical, but a way out nonetheless: I will indeed call someone "pro-life" if that is part of their name, as in the Pro-Life Alliance or some such. But not as a general description of their politics. Good grief, what's next? Calling Newt Gingrich "moral"?