scotchneat.ca

I am a logophile. So, I was looking forward to reading Origins of the Specious: Myths and Misconceptions of the English Language by Patricia T. O’Connor and Stewart Kellerman.

I like O’Connor’s approach (it’s her voice used in the book), since she knows her stuff but comes down firmly on the side of “the English language is changing and will always change, so we might as well get used it”, and she’s not afraid to tell sticklers to relax.

There were a lot of etymologies and word stories in this book that I already knew about (perhaps making me a word snob already, hmmm). In any case, there were a few items that I either chuckled at or realized that I had to revise my own misconceptions.

• Best street name (though it’s been renamed since): Gropecuntelane. If you guessed it was a red light district of sorts, you’d be right.
• The annoying quotation usage of the word “like” (as in She was like, I don’t know. And I was like, dude!) is a perfectly acceptable though recent development of the language that is here to stay.
• The more proper pronunciation of “comptroller” is “controller” (the first spelling being an introduction into the language as an illegitimate spelling in the 15th century. O’Connor prefers the “pure” pronunciation, but I think she contradicts her advice elsewhere in the book to keep things simple, so if it says “omp”, then you probably should pronounce it.
• “Female” has nothing to do with “male”. It’s etymology is from the Latin “femella”, whereas “male” comes from a different Latin root: “mascalus”. So no need to try to revise it as femyn or any other thing (except, I guess, “femella” if you want).
• “Grandfather clause” has racist origins. It got started as a Jim Crowe law in the south, a group of laws requiring poll taxes and literacy to be able to vote, with an exception being if your ancestors were able to vote before the Freedom Act, and this right to vote could be passed down to sons, grandsons, and so on. Great way for illiterate whites to be able to vote, but not so much the black people of the time.
• “Moot” means both “of no interest” and “debatable” or “worthy of discussion” (actually, the older meaning of the two).  Only one example of many where we allow a word to hold opposite meanings.
• One last one, and one where I disagree with the authors: “they” as a singular pronoun. As they note, “they” was used as “he” or “she” or a singular person as early as the 1300s (Chaucer, even), but then it was restricted to the plural use after that and for a long time. In a departure I don’t really understand, since she argues for a democracy of language most other times, O’Connor is left at the end not wanting to use the singular “they” and concluding that we need another word to get around the awkward “he or she”. “They” is perfectly suitable to my mind, and if it has a pedigree for that usage from old times, all the better.

The style of writing in the book is accessible, and I like that they give anecdotes about how word citations are found in obscure newspapers, popular culture, and so on.

If you like words, you’ll probably enjoy the read.

Amendment to my top tv shows of the past decade: please add The Wire. As described by numerous critics, “the best television series of all time.”

This show is a love story for the city of Baltimore and its people. But it’s love like paint varnish. Each of the 5 seasons focuses on a different aspect of the city – the drug “game”, the dying port and its unions, the schools, the government and the media. Always intertwining stories of diverse characters and motives and good intentions and social mobility – I called it “Dickensian” after watching S2, not realizing that it would become an explicit trope in later seasons. Taking a step back though, I wonder if the better comparison is with George Eliot’s Middlemarch. Like Dickens for adults.

Expect to be treated like a thinking person. Expect to laugh your ass off. Expect to have sudden urges to talk Bo’more in business meetings, though I don’t recommend it (Don’t be getting up in my shit, muthafucka). Expect to cry. Expect to love the bad guy and be royally pissed off at the hero. Expect to not want to believe that this is really what it is, while knowing this is the closest you will ever get to seeing how it really is.

And, I think what David Simon and Ed Burns want from us? To give a fuck when it ain’t our turn to give a fuck.

A taste below. Spoilers!

(more…)

A woman in Houston got a little perturbed and she shot someone with an arrow in her office. Definitely not good, but check out what happened right after (bold and italic for emphasis) – it was freakin’ standoff in there! I don’t know whether to be happy she was stopped or freaked out at the armaments.

HOUSTON – Authorities say a 30-year-old woman entered a Houston office and fired an arrow into a worker’s chest, and that police later shot and wounded her.

Police say Julie Parker entered the Texas Components Corp. office Monday afternoon armed with a bow, arrows and toy gun, and fired an arrow into 55-year-old Armando Silva’s chest.

Houston police spokesman John Cannon says two office workers then drew their own weapons and confronted Parker.

Police say officers shot Parker several times after she turned on them with the bow.

Investigators have not determined a motive.

Parker was hospitalized in critical condition Tuesday. She is charged with aggravated assault with a deadly weapon.

Silva was in hospitalized in good condition.

(Link courtesy of Mike’s Bloggity Blog)

• Is it because they are working such long hours that they drop where they are when there’s 5 minutes of snoozing to be done?
• Is this a cultural thing? Like hockey?
• Should we infer from this that China is a very safe place to live – I mean, no fear of pickpockets or someone drawing an evil curly mustache on your face? (okay that last thing happened to me once when I was passed out, but still, one should be concerned)
• Why choose such hard surfaces, like a meat counter or a rock?

It fit much better when he was a baby

“Sleeping Chinese” (link courtesy of The Morning News)

Our Dumb World, or the Onionized Google Atlas

Majel Roddenberry died in her sleep – we’ll miss her as the voice of the Enterprise but word is that she got her stuff done for the new Star Trek movie already, so it’ll be great to hear her there.

I loved her best as Troi’s cougariffic mother in TNG.

Usually I flick right by cnn.com for obvious reasons, but I stopped tonight because Wolf was interviewing a Canadian man who was in the Oberoi in Mumbai and managed to escape and then get to the airport and safety.

Jonathan Ehrlich may be “just a businessman” who escaped terrorists who would have enjoyed killing him, but his responses to Wolf’s questions were articulate and honourable and thoughtful.

Wolf asked him about whether or not he felt that terrorism was going to be a problem before he went. He said no, but that it didn’t matter. He said that we cannot not go, because then they win. The minute we are too afraid to go there, they win. Mumbai is New York, and New York is Vancouver, and Vancouver is a small town in Texas. Doesn’t matter where you are, we are all alike. He doesn’t want the beautiful, friendly people of Mumbai to suffer beyond what these people are doing.

Wolf asked him about being Jewish. He said they have been singled out throughout history, but that they’re strong and that they will make it through this again. And he again encouraged people to book a ticket to Mumbai, to show that they cannot win.

He also emphasized that what the terrorists were looking for were Westerners, whether you’re left or right, liberal or conservative or democrat or republican, in the eyes of the men who carried out the massacre, you would have been fair game.

Ehrlich’s ability to get across a sensibility of inclusion and a calm and quietly strong perspective, despite his own personal experience and the decided slant of the station on which he was being interviewed, was a surprisingly beautiful thing.

Okay, it’s down to the wire. Obama has a comfortable lead in some states, a small one in others, and is behind in a few too.

The rest of the world knows where they think the vote should go (and not surprisingly, Canadians have voted more than any other country on this site). But maybe that kind of thing will cause a rush of contrarians south of the border who’ll vote McCain out of spite. How the nation can be anywhere close to voting for another Republican administration is outside of my boggling abilities, but since I’m unable to vote, I stand on the side holding my breath like millions of other people.

First, I hope that everyone who can vote, votes. The US has a very low voter turnout, and I hope that’s not the case this time. Even if I disagree with the outcome, it is their democratic right to choose the leader that they want for their country. But, please please please Obama supporters, don’t assume it’s in the bag and therefore you don’t have to cast a vote to achieve the outcome you want. Every single vote matters.

Underwater movie in the Galapagos. Gorgeous.