It's a young sport, still in its leather-helmet days.

Another article I've just spotted from the Grauniad of a month ago: The BP spill has poisoned our tongues … our poor, crisp, British tongues.

Aww, don't believe it, arnie. We still love the English accent and the British people. We are not so naive to think that one company (with plenty of U.S. influence) is at fault.

Most of the Americans here have probably heard of red-necked Dr. Laura who finally got pushed from her pedastal. It was all about a word that we've discussed here from time to time: Nigger. I thought Clarence Page had a nice column discussing the issue.

So...what is meant by this?

quote:

"We're slinging large up in the here, homes. Got to re-up. Two G-packs. You feel me?"

According to this article, there is a need for Ebonics translators in the Drug Enforcement Agency (DEA).

No, we don't need translators. We need better teachers of proper English.

And is this a really unexpected development?

Better teachers won't change the fact that AAVE isn't the same as standard English. Yes, translators might be a good idea.

The Boston Globe debunks ten English 'rules': Un-rules.

Hat-tip to You Don't Say.

Moved Reply:

Is the present perfect in British English losing ground to the past simple because of "American influence"? I don't but The Independent seems to think so.

Hat-tip to this article from Throw Grammar from the Train.

I can't figure out how to link to it on my spouse's computer, but the "Jive talk" scene from the movie, "Airplane" comes to mind.

but the "Jive talk" scene from the movie, "Airplane" comes to mind.

The scene in question from Airplane! (link).

quote:

No, we don't need translators. We need better teachers of proper English.

And is this a really unexpected development?

Don't agree...and no.

Nice links, arnie.

They've sent those recalled US rotten eggs to Ireland! http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-n...ern-ireland-11187320

Seems rather loutish to me.

A colleague sent me this Guy Deutscher article from the NY Times on whether language shapes our thinking. Of course, we've discussed that here before, but I very much enjoyed the article. While he acknowledges that just because a language might not have a word about something (ironically for this board, his example is that while some English speakers might never have heard of the German word Schadenfreude), they surely know the concept. He spends a lot of time talking about the difference between English and other languages in obliging you to specify certain information, such as gender; past, present or future; geographic orientation.

He has a book coming out which I am interested in reading: Through the Language Glass: Why the World Looks Different in Other Languages.

Uncle Jerrold and the schwa.

Hat-tip: Glossographia.

quote:

Originally posted by Kalleh:
A colleague sent me this Guy Deutscher article from the NY Times on whether language shapes our thinking.

Mark Liberman has promised to comment on this article.
I mentioned a review of Deutscher's book earlier.

Making light of their headlines? http://articles.baltimoresun.c...nt-page-dictionaries
Well, it IS the Sun - and that's what it does, now isn't it!

That must be this John E McIntyre

English is apparently not just dying; it's dead. That is according to Gene Weingarten in the Wahington Post, anyway.

Here's a new poll released on people's knowledge of religion. Why do you think this is true?

quote:

Atheists and agnostics, Jews and Mormons are among the highest-scoring groups on a new survey of religious knowledge, outperforming evangelical Protestants, mainline Protestants and Catholics on questions about the core teachings, history and leading figures of major world religions.

I have my thoughts, but I'll wait until I hear from you.

I saw that last night, Kalleh, and missed one, according to them. I dispute it, however, since some protestants do not think faith will save one. The old-line Calvinist types think some are damned right from the get-go; the predestination idea.

Here's a weird headline from the Aircraft Owners and Pilots Association email newsletter: Maryland airport lands control tower It had been airborne earlier, I presume.

I don't even get what it means.

quote:

Originally posted by Kalleh:
I don't even get what it means.

quote:

land – verb (used with object)
15. Informal. to catch or capture; gain; win: to land a job.

quote:

Maryland airport lands control tower

The Federal Aviation Administration recently approved building an air traffic control tower at Frederick Municipal Airport in Maryland. American Recovery and Reinvestment Act funds will pay for the $4.8 million project, which will begin immediately. It is expected to be completed in 18 months. The Washington Post/Dr. Gridlock blog/The Associated Press (9/27)

I don't know anything about texting and I've never had any desire to learn. But this article and video could change my mind. There are a lot of deaf people at work and it would be nice to be able to communicate with them.
For deaf, wireless devices a new portal to world

I hadn't thought of that, Tinman, but I should have. I text 2 of my kids who don't have smartphones.

A few days ago I read a book review for The Smart Swarm, by Peter Miller, in the Seattle Times. I came across a word I didn't recognize, stigmergy, coined in 1959 by Pierre-Paul Grassé to mean "the stimulation of workers by the performance they have achieved." While researching the word I came across a video of an interview with Mark Elliot. It starts with the interviewer,Howard Rheingold, saying, "Stigmergy is the name for the phenomenon that Wikipedia and anthills have in common. I wouldn't have know that if I had not happened on the work of Mark Elliott who wrote a very interesting PhD thesis about that."

I wasn't able to access Elliott's thesis, Stigmergic Collaboration: A Theoretical Framework for Mass Collaboration, because when I tried I got a message, "Reported Attack Page!" I did find another article by him, Stigmergic Collaboration: The Evolution of Group Work, and I was able to access his blog. The thesis is a further development of his article.

From The OED Online:

quote:

stigmergy [ad. F. stigmergie (P.-P. Grassé 1959, in Insectes Sociaux VI. 62), f. Gr. {sigma}{tau}{iota}{gamma}{mu}-{goacu}{fsigma} pricking + {elenisacu}{rho}{gamma}-{omicron}{nu} work: see -Y3.]

The process by which the results of an insect's activity act as a stimulus to further activity.
1959 tr. P.-P. Grassé in Insectes Sociaux VI. 79 The stimulation of the workers by the very performances they have achieved is a significant one inducing accurate and adaptable response, and has been named stigmergy.
1965 Symp. Zool. Soc. Lond. XIV. 128 Experimental evidence would seem to be desirable before accepting stigmergy as the explanation of all co-ordinated constructional behaviour.
1981 Atlantic Monthly July 49 There is a similar phenomenon in entomology known as stigmergy.

Hence stig{sm}mergic a.
1970 G. ORDISH tr. R. Chauvin's World of Ants i. 41 At some point there seems to be a brake on the stigmergic process when the stimulation has gone beyond a certain stage.
1971 E. O. WILSON Insect Societies xi. 229/2 Stigmergic responses are evidently major elements in nest construction by social insects.

After I had seen the YouTube video, I clicked on another link that looked interesting, Ants subterranean structures revealed, and from there to Ants have Pets.

This message has been edited. Last edited by: tinman,

Have you had your cockroach brains today?

Cockroach brains, coming to a pharmacy near you

Not really a newspaper, but this headline gives one pause for thought in more ways than one:

Samoan clerics finger homosexuals over global warming.

Is Tinman's link related to yours, arnie? Are they getting the cockroach brains from Samoan ministers?

Do yu think you could pass this test?

More than ten inches? Uh, no...

Update on Guy Deutscher's article - Above on September 4th I posted a NY Times article by Guy Deutscher about how language might shape the way we think. I guess the Internet has been blazing ever since that article came out. Here is today's NY Times article on the subject. While Deutscher doesn't admit it, it is highly likely (to me, anyway) that he copied some of Dr. Lera Boroditsky's work (a Stanford psychology professor). In her recent article in the WSJ (and an article on edge.org) she cites the same two examples that Deutscher uses ("the ant on your southeast leg" and difference between feminine German bridges and masculine Spanish bridges). Were I the professor of a student who did that without a cite, I'd have doubts. However, Dr. Deutscher said he didn't read Boroditsky's article.

The question discussed was how important are citations in journalism? We know they are essential in academia, but they can bog down a newspaper article. Here is the author's (Arthur Brisbane) solution, and it seems reasonable to me:

quote:

Space concerns in the popular press make this kind of extensive scholarly citation impractical. But I would suggest that The Times make much better use of its Web site to supplement articles like these, using links and citations in an electronic setting where space concerns don’t exist.

Some will argue that it is unsound to provide different versions of journalism in print and online. I would say instead that an electronic supplement to stories like this one is a good use of the digital medium’s distinct properties, and one that offers a solution to a significant problem for scientific subjects in the popular press.

In all fairness to Deutscher, Boroditsky did not do the original work on this. She too used others' work when writing. I wonder if the WSJ got any complaints. For example, Deutscher credited an earlier researcher, Dr. Levinson, while Boroditsky didn't.

Lastly, I wonder why the Times doesn't use Dr. in their article; all mentioned had PhDs, and they used Ms. or Mr. God forbid, if they were physicians, they'd not use Mr. or Ms. Medicine does not have sole ownership of the word doctor.

Do PhDs wear white coats?

quote:

Originally posted by Proofreader:
Do PhDs wear white coats?

Butchers do.

This year's IgNoble awards.

Here are some interesting comments for that NY Times article cited above: Comments. I probably should have started this as a new thread because it adds depth to several discussions we've had here before. Three of the comments stated the the article was remiss in not citing the Sapir-Whorf hypothesis

As for the PhD/doctor question, I am going to write the public editor. It's probably their "policy" to just call medical doctors "doctor," but I'll find out.

This message has been edited. Last edited by: Kalleh,

The 6th comment mentions Olivia Judson and Steven Strogatz. Olivia Judson is an evolutionary biologist and science writer and Steven Strogatz is a professor of applied mathematics at Cornell University. Both write for the Opinionator Blog on The NY Times opinion page. (Olivia Judson blog; Steven Strogatz blog).

quote:

Recent research illustrates how writing by hand engages the brain in learning. During one study at Indiana University published this year, researchers invited children to man a "spaceship," actually an MRI machine using a specialized scan called "functional" MRI that spots neural activity in the brain. The kids were shown letters before and after receiving different letter-learning instruction. In children who had practiced printing by hand, the neural activity was far more enhanced and "adult-like" than in those who had simply looked at letters.

I've always learned better when I write during my studying. However, people do learn differently. I recently reviewed an article for a journal where the author wrote about Kolb's learning theory. Here are the different learners that he has identified:

Diverging
o combination of Concrete Experience and Reflective Observation
o Feeling and Watching
o Like to gather information, good at brainstorming, interested in people, see
different perspectives, prefer group work, open minded.

Assimilating
o combination of Abstract Conceptualization and Reflective Observation
o Watching and Thinking
o Concise logical approach, ideas and concepts more important than people,
prefer lectures, reading, time to think

Converging
o combination of Abstract Conceptualization and Active Experimentation
o Doing and Thinking
o Solve practical problems, prefer technical tasks, like experimenting and
simulation, less interested in interpersonal issues.

Accommodating
o combination of Concrete Experience and Active Experimentation
o Doing and Feeling
o Hands on, attracted to new challenges and experiences, rely on others instead of
doing own analysis, action oriented, set targets work hard in teams to achieve
tasks.

Interestingly, the objective of this article (and research) was the importance of peer support when learning. Yet, converging and assimilating don't really benefit from peer support. It rather shot her theory.

Which kind of learner are you?

Accommodating for me. Being an ADD type, it's necessary for me to have more than one mode of input working in order to get something new to stick in my memory. My brain's constantly shooting off this way or that, so staying focused is best accomplished multi-modally. Show AND tell.

I think I am more accommodating, too. That's why I don't learn in computer classes when they just talk about it. I have to click around myself before I learn.

I never took notes. I find it amazing that people can listen and write at the same time.

Interesting, neveu. I'd have been dead meat with no notes. I think it all depends, though, on the resources faculty provide.

I took notes, though I didn't go over them much. I had a hard time reading them. Just the act of writing them down seemed to help me remember. But you're right, neveu, you (or at least I) can't write and listen at the same time. Both take concentration and one can't help but detract from the other. Maybe that's why I didn't get such good grades.

I think it just depends on your learning style. I learn much better if I actively participate with my hands...be it practice the nursing procedure, set up a computer program, or take notes during lectures. I took notes and I went over them, highlighting the important information, along with reading to fill in where I missed or didn't understand something. I often, depending on how hard the class was, created "cheat sheets" then, which included the important information. I am not sure why I called them "cheat sheets" because I didn't cheat with them. I just learned from them.

P.S. I was talking with Shu today and arnie on the chat. I think we should start a forum on newspaper, magazine or Internet articles (including Blog information) so that each time we find something we'd start a new thread. I think sometimes great discussions get lost here because someone posts an interesting article but people don't have a chance to comment on it because the next person comes in and posts another. If there were separate threads, we could comment on each of them. Thoughts?

I came across a print ad today, then saw a video ad for this car. At first I could not believe that a company would name their car "Mediocrity". I was right.

Two things popped into my mind as I read the commentary on the Mediocrity ad. Unfortunately they kept going through and fell out the other side, so I have no idea what those two things were. Uhhh, oh, yeah - "Le Car!" Not a Typhoon, not an Eagle, not anything with the spillings of a can of alphabet soup, like WRX or GTI or XJS, just "The Car" - just your basic four wheels, four seats, four cylinders, and four speeds. Thus did Renault presciently precede the Subaru ad. By the way, who knows what "Subaru" means? Their emblem is a clue, unlike the Mercury emblem which depicts a hockey puck and three miniature hockey sticks.
http://www.google.com/imgres?i...3qAw&ved=0CEAQ9QEwBg

The other thought stuck tight when it came around again: Fred Meyer. The writer gripes about the homogenization of book stores, and by inference all stores. Fred Meyer here in Portland began that trend in the 1930s with his "one stop shopping" idea that seems to have caught on a bit too well http://www.fundinguniverse.com...Company-History.html

Interesting article, Proof. If you think about specialties in medicine, they often bring you the best...but the left hand often doesn't know what the right hand is doing.

quote:

...but the left hand often doesn't know what the right hand is doing.

Sounds like a case for Oliver Sacks to write about.