A Time To Reflect

charukesi June 12th, 2008

How often have you heard that people spend far too much time in front of their computers and just do not read these days? Adverblog links to this great site created by Colenso BBDO Auckland for the New Zealand Book Council to make reading books more… well, more like reading computer screens.

The home page opens to a windows look-alike where you sign in as guest - and the screen turns into your computer desktop - complete with folders containing different reading genre - I clicked on poetry and found myself reading Brian Turner’s Listening to the river through pie-charts and sales pyramids.

What a superb idea! Definitely go check out readatwork.

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Related reading : from an earlier post

Literary classics become txt msgs - anything to get them to read!

PRIDE AND PREJUDICE : 5Sistrs WntngHsbnds. NwMeninTwn-Bingly&Darcy. Fit&Loadd.BigSis Jane Fals 4B,2ndSisLiz H8s D Coz Hes Proud. Slimy Soljr Wikam Sys DHs Shady Past.Trns Out Hes Actuly ARlyNysGuy &RlyFancysLiz. She Decyds She Lyks Him.Evry1 Gts Maryd.

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charukesi April 10th, 2006

A great post on NY Times on how language makes everything official - the minute there is a word for it, any action or attitude becomes universally recognised and acceptable.

Overly Wired? There’s a Word for It

Was there gridlock before there were automobiles? Was there jet lag before there were airplanes? Who was the first person to say “I Googled it” or “he’s cyberstalking me”? At what moment did a “web log” turn into a “blog”?

[image courtesy : NY Times article]

Lisa Belkin, writing on Dr.Hallowell’s original list of words, adds a few more interesting ones of her own - here are a couple I could identify with immediately…

- Cellopain: the jerk who talks loudly and obliviously on his cellphone in a crowd. There are other words for this person, but they are not printable.

- Logonorrhea: a related condition that renders you unable to use certain online accounts because you can remember neither your screen name nor your password.

Read the entire list here. As an aside, you need to register at the NY Times site and log in to read some of their articles - I would do it except I cannot remember my log in name and/or password. huh? So here is hoping the link I have provided here works!

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Cross-posted on mindspace

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charukesi July 28th, 2005

Kaps from Sambharmafia has this poem which he has sent for a contest - this post is triggered by the discussion on that on his blog.

The gist of his poem is ‘Tamilians have progressed far, while Tamil has been left behind’… I responded to this on his blog with a question - if the Tamilian had clung on to Tamil, would he have progressed this far?

Where I come from is the perspective of widening one’s horizons - not clinging to but moving on - but that does not mean necessarily leaving behind your roots - in this case, language. Kap’s point is about how
1. people find it unfashionable to speak in Tamil
2. children in schools do not even need to learn Tamil as a second ior third laguage

The two are different things - and I think the concern is about the former - I did not, for instance learn Tamil in school - not for one single year in all my school life in Madras - but I speak, read and write the language very well…

As for the other bit, I see this happening all around me - this is not just one language or about one state - ‘vernac’ is just not cool - sure, it is more uncool in some places than others, but there it is.

On the other hand, there is this evolving language of *lish - any local language married with English - Hinglish, Tamlish, whatever… This is more often than not, lingua franca among the young in age and heart…

So where is this post leading? To another related thought I have about how Tamil is coping with this ‘neglect’. I use Tamil here as an example; this discussion is not limited to that language alone…

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Mainstream media has resolved to stick to its guns and maintain the language in all its grammatical sanctity - which, like this sentence means, most people have no clue about what a newsreader is saying on a Tamil news program or a writer in a Tamil weekly. Very often, I (remember I prided myself on knowing Tamil very well) find Tamil news going way above my head.

duh, whajijasay?

The message is clear. Chaste Tamil is where it is at. An ‘exclusive’ strategy.

On the other hand is the language used by presenters of entertainment programs - they bear no resemblance to any language one knows. I strain to listen and understand and find traces of a language I know - but so mutilated in form that it is not easy to even accept it as Tamil - all for the sake of sounding cool and in tune with the times. An ‘inclusive’ strategy.

What is happening here? Is this language schizophrenic? Can any language be, for that matter?

Or is this society’s (as represented by main-stream media) way of coping with seeming erosion in usage of a language? Is this happening with any other Indian langauges as well?

I did some research on the net and found this - Dodson and Jones (1984) document peoples’ emotional involvement behind the maintenance of threatened languages, such as Welsh, “highlighting the assumption that media provision in a minority language will stem the decline in the number of users of that languages” (ibid) Kuo (1984) discussing Mandarin in Singapore shows “the conscious use of television in promoting an additional national languages, which is not used outside the official spheres, to serve as an ethnic and cultural marker of national identity”. (ibid)

Is that why English is becoming less and less formal - with increased usage, the language (and its speakers) do not feel threatened in any way - and it needs to be flexible and friendly enough to welcome and retain all new speakers…

Many rambling thoughts - and many questions, as usual…

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charukesi June 28th, 2005

SK has blogged about Googlinglish, Google’s on-line translator tool - wherein you can translate chunks of texts or the whole contents of a web page into different languages. The translation can be done between English and French, German, Spanish, Italian, Portugese, Korean, Chinese and Japanese. Additionally, it can translate between German and French too..

He tried - The spirit is willing but the flesh is weak

Spanish - El alcohol está dispuesto pero la carne es débil

Back to English - The alcohol is arranged but the meat is weak

No problemo, so long as the booze keeps flowing

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And having read this, I spent a pleasant and constructively useful (for me, ok) morning at the google translator site… Thanks SK, I don’t remember when I last had so much fun without moving from my chair…

I started with - laugh and the world laughs with you, cry and you cry alone

And followed a slightly circuitous English - German - French - English route…

Lachen Sie und das Weltlachen mit Ihnen, Schrei und Ihnen Schrei alleine

Et flaques mondiales avec vous, un cri et vous le cri riez seulement

And world puddle pools with you, a cry and you it cry only laugh

Sure, the way it is raining here, the world can only puddle pools with you…

And the English - Portugese - English version goes
ria e os risos do mundo com você, grito e você grito sozinho
it laughs and the laughs of the world with you, shout and you alone shout

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I was so enchanted that I went on…

Do unto others as you would like others to do unto you
French - Faites à d’autres car vous voudriez que d’autres fassent à vous
And back in English it was - Make with others because you would like that others make with you

Make with me, baby!

And the best was yet to come…. English - German - French - German - English went as follows (ok, I was jobless, I admit)

German - Tun Sie an andere, da Sie möchten, daß andere an Sie tun
French - faites à d’autres, puisque vous voudriez que d’autres font à vous
German - Gemacht an einem anderen Reisebus möchten Sie, daß andere an Ihnen machen
Finally English again - Made at another touring bus you would like that others make at you

Go figure that out… As for me, I am off to find my touring bus…

Update : Srikanth has pointed out this urban legend around “the spirit is willing but the flesh is weak”. Do read it. Also did you know “out of sight, out of mind” English - Russian - English is “blind and insane”?

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charukesi June 22nd, 2005

Language Log writes that British potato farmers want ‘couch potato’ removed from the OED. “The potato industry are fed up with the disservice that ‘couch potato’ does to our product when we have an inherently healthy product,” said Kathryn Race, head of marketing at the British Potato Council, a body set up by the government to run advertising campaigns promoting potato consumption and research issues linked to the vegetable.

What about being ‘in the soup’ - can anything be nourishing for the soul (all you chicken soup - of the book variety - loyalists, what do you say?)
And apple polishing? And related to this, buttering up?
Will the NECC (national egg coordination committee - which promotes the egg as the ‘best square meal in the world’ - take offence at someone being called a ‘bad egg’?
What next? Animal rights activists protesting against ‘pouring cats and dogs’?
And joining hands with pig farmers and the linguists to have ‘bring home the bacon’ removed from the language?

Hey, this is fun… obviously, I could go on and on…

Think of any more?

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charukesi June 13th, 2005

Delightful discovery - through ResearchBuzz - an online dicitonary which gives definitions as limericks.

Not all of them are amusing - as this one for ‘assistance’

“Where is the assistance? There’s naught!”
Cried a man whose whole fam’ly was caught
In tsunami waves vast—
Cataclysmic—too fast
To flee tragedy nature had wrought.

Author : Jane Auerbach, submitted: 05 Feb 2005 - The first words of this quote came from a 28-year-old Indonesian, immediately following the terrible disaster that befell South Asia on December 26, 2004. Despite a massive outpouring of foreign aid, the tsunami destroyed so much local infrastructure that assistance could not quickly reach all who needed it.

But they are all super interesting, and some brilliant - read this one for ‘additive inverse’

Consider a negative 3.
How useful in math can it be?
In addition it will
Make a 3 become nil.
It’s an additive inverse, you see.

Author : Chris Doyle, submitted: 07 May 2005

And you can join the project… Read about it here

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charukesi June 7th, 2005

New Words to Know for 2005 - link through wordlab - about “new words added to the English language in or before 2005, and reflect evolving workplace vocabulary”

I tried to pick out a few favourites from this list but that just didn’t work - so do read the entire list…

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BLAMESTORMING: Sitting around in a group, discussing why a deadline was missed or a project failed, and who was responsible.

SEAGULL MANAGER: A manager who flies in, makes a lot of noise, craps all over everything, and then leaves.

SALMON DAY: The experience of spending an entire day swimming upstream only to get screwed and die in the end.

CUBE FARM: An office filled with cubicles.

PRAIRIE DOGGING: When someone yells or drops something loudly in a cube farm, and people’s heads pop up over the walls to see what’s going on.

MOUSE POTATO: The on-line, wired generation’s answer to the couch potato.

SITCOMs: Single Income, Two Children, Oppressive Mortgage. What yuppies turn into when they have children and one of them stops working to stay home with the kids.

SWIPEOUT: An ATM or credit card that has been rendered useless because the magnetic strip is worn away from extensive use.

IRRITAINMENT: Entertainment and media spectacles that are annoying but you find yourself unable to stop watching them. The Anna Nichole show or the Bachelor is a prime example.

PERCUSSIVE MAINTENANCE: The fine art of whacking the heck out of an electronic device to get it to work again.

ADMINISPHERE: The rarefied organizational layers beginning just above the rank and file. Decisions that fall from the adminisphere are often profoundly inappropriate or irrelevant to the problems they were designed to solve.

404: Someone who’s clueless. From the World Wide Web error message “404 Not Found” (meaning that the requested document, like the person’s brain, could not be located).

GENERICA: Features of the North American landscape that is exactly the same no matter where one is, such as fast food joints, strip malls, subdivisions.

OHNOSECOND: That minuscule fraction of time after you hit the “send” button during which you realize that you’ve just made a BIG mistake.

WOOFYS: Well Off Older Folks.

Have any of your own?

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charukesi May 18th, 2005

The new anthropology group blog - Savage Minds has this cartoon from Language Log.

And there is lots of further reading on this on Language Log. Geoffrey Pullum here pooh poohs the idea of language - and the words it contains - defining worldview - or is it the other way round? While here , Mark Liberman talks about The Eskimos, Arabs, Somalis, Carrier… and English.

How can our language not reflect our worldview and priorities?

Everyone has read about how many words the Eskimos have for snow - possibly the most important (or unescapable) thing in their lives. I also read in Outlook Traveller long ago that in the Polish version of Scrabble, the letter Z has a value of only 1 (I remember being dismayed at this - is nothing sacred in the world any longer?).
So, if there is a Welsh version of Scrabble, the highest value would be for the vowels….. imagine a 10 for A and 8 for I. If you don’t know what I mean, try this for size : Llanfairpwllgwyngillgogerchwyrndrobwllllandysiliogogogoch…… this mouthful and a half is the name of a village in Wales….. for a name of this size, count the number of vowels….. If you are interested, the name translates ‘St Mary’s church in the hollow of the white hazel near a rapid whirlpool and the church of St Tysilio of the red cave’.

And what do we have?

A few hundred words to descibe each relationship - there is no single simple one word for say, aunt in Hindi - she is either your mother’s sister (elder or younger ? there are different words or different suffixes at the very least!) or your father’s sister - or your father’s brother’s wife. And I could go on ad infinitum.

And then there is god in bhagwan, ishwar, khuda…

Think about how over-rated the concept of love is - how many words exist for it in common discourse - pyar, mohabbat, prem, ishq (have I already run out of words - I need to watch more Hindi movies and more often).

And how under-rated we would like the world to believe we consider sex - I do not know of the Hindi word for sex (acknowldging embarrased ignorance here) - in Tamil, the closest word translates roughly into ‘physical relationship’… There, that is what we think of sex - keep it in its place there…

I agree with Pullum when he says - Why do people say these things about languages they purport to care about, and do absolutely nothing to check up on whether the things they are saying are even remotely close to the truth? Why is everyone so given to bullshitting about language and thought, even about the language of their own countrymen?

I am sure if we consult a linguist as he did, we would be able to come up with a list atleast as long as the one Pullum has put together in Irish. But then, if we have to consult a linguist or some kind of an expert to find a word for a normal act - and if the word (s) is not in popular use, then what is the point?

(Let us however not use this opportunity to act experts and leave all our favourite words in my comments section. Thank you)

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charukesi May 17th, 2005

Do you enjoy reading from a monitor as much as you do from a page? Personaly, I have never been able to sit through an e-book - ok, so I am old fashioned - I still enjoy reading letters much much more than e-mails…

Read this - College Libraries Set Aside Books in a Digital Age
(Link through Blog of a bookslut)

Students attending the University of Texas at Austin will find something missing from the undergraduate library this fall.

By mid-July, the university says, almost all of the library’s 90,000 volumes will be dispersed to other university collections to clear space for a 24-hour electronic information commons, a fast-spreading phenomenon that is transforming research and study on campuses around the country.

The University maintains that the books are only being ‘moved’ (as opposed to what, destroyed?) to make way for better systems - easier and round-the-clock access to students…

Can books ever be replaced?

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(Please notice I have very reluctantly placed this post under ‘Technology’ - where else will it fit? Under ‘Society and Development’? No, I should think)

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charukesi April 3rd, 2005

A publisher acquaintance from Bangalore has written to me asking for creative ways of sales promotion for hius new venture - his publishing venture is just a year old and focuses on original English writing from india - they have recently featured their publications at the recent London Book Fair…

His is a small business which cannot afford conventional advertising/ marketing channels - also, I believe that they may not be the best for a category like books. He believes that blogging can be an innovative and cost effective tool for promoting his new books and ask for ideas.

Please leave your comments and suggestions that I may pass on to him…

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