An overnegation is a sentence that, containing one negative too many, means the opposite of what was intended. They like to play Spot the Overnegation at Language Log. Here is one I spotted:
http://sports.nationalpost.com/2011/04/05/escobars-10th-inning-homer-caps-jays-rally/
"They’re [grown] to the point where there’s nothing that’s thrown in front of them that’s not insurmountable.”
Thursday 7 April 2011
Saturday 2 April 2011
Logical
When I was youngIt might be the fact that I basically lost tonight's chess game in six moves by mixing up two openings that I know inside out, or it might be the coffee. Either way, I'm in a cosmically bad mood, perfect for finishing off this post I'd saved in my drafts. See, something that really annoys me, always, is the supposed binarism that exists between Logic and Emotion. You know what I'm talking about. You can either be a logical person who makes decisions based on logic, or an emotional person who makes decisions based on emotions. This is BULLSHIT. EVERYONE wants to rearrange the world in ways that they think will result in favourable emotions, and EVERYONE uses logic to do so. If you lose the ability to do one or the other, you are fucked. You will cease to be able to function. If you were a truly logical person, you would never do anything. There is absolutely nothing that you logically must do in order for the planet to carry on existing. In fact there's nothing you can do to stop it from eventually not existing, so there.
It seemed that life was so wonderful
A miracle, oh it was beautiful, magical
And all the birds in the trees
They'd be singing so happily
Joyfully, playfully watching me
But then they sent me away
To teach me how to be sensible
Logical, responsible, practical...
OK, you say, but that's not really how people use the terms logical and emotional is it. When people call themselves logical, or its equivalent "rational", what they're really saying is, look at me, I have the ability to see through your emotive arguments and language and disregard them, for they are worthless. I was inspired to write this rant by a thing on BBC News about the future of nuclear power after Fukushima. The gist of it was: scientists agree that nuclear power should, logically, be perfectly safe. Unfortunately some "emotional" types have seen the scary news from Fukushima, and in a crisis emotion always wins over logic, god damn it! And therefore public opinion is turning against nuclear power. Stupid public, why can't they listen to logic?
Now I'm a fan of nuclear power. I wish more people would have faith in it. But what we have here is not logic vs. emotion, it's two alternative value systems. In one camp, people who believe that the greater good of humanity is best served by expanding our energy-generating capacity to better meet everyone's needs. In the other camp, people who believe that the greater good of humanity is best served by reducing the risk of harm to any individual human to as near to zero as possible. When you look at a nuclear power plant and see it as a risk, it makes perfect, logical sense to campaign for the building of new ones to be stopped. The conclusion follows naturally - rationally - from the premise. If you think the premise is faulty, challenge it. Calling it "emotional" is not challenging it. The more you use "emotional" as an insult, the longer you'll spend sitting in your ivory tower wondering why no-one listens to you.
How 'bout that Barack Obama? He has changed nothing! goes the cry. Everyone who voted for him was taken in by his inspiring rhetoric and forgot to think logically! Piffle. If Obama's policies were a carbon copy of Bush's, he would still be a better president. The image he projects, his persona, has a way of making people feel confident that their country is being run by someone who knows what he's doing. This is a good thing. Even if to certain people it makes no logical sense at all, because their value system doesn't place any importance on such messy, human attributes as inspiration and confidence.
When someone chooses to label themself a "rational person", the way I interpret that, rightly or wrongly, is that they are a dull, black-and-white sort of person who doesn't factor human happiness into their decisions.
(Snarky aside: It also amazes me how much time "rational" people seem to waste. Surely, if you're up there with Dr. Spock in the objectivity stakes, the cognitive dissonance between "I need to be doing X" and "I am not currently doing X" should be more than you can possibly handle? So why have you just sat on your ass for 24 hours playing World of Warcraft and forgetting to eat and not doing X? Oh I see - you felt like it.)
Logical is good. Emotional is good. They are meaningless without each other. Get over it.
Postcript: You know why else I hate "logical good, emotional maybe ok but not really for me thanks?" Because of the number of people who have internalised the moronic old chestnut "men are rational and women are emotional". To the point where "let's be rational about this" becomes a sort of code for "shut up, woman". I know I'm not the only person who feels angry about that one.
By the way, if you decide to leave a comment to the effect that "yes but if you look at the statistics, it turns out men tend to be more logical and women tend to be more emotional" then my very emotional reaction will be to cut off your hair, weave it into a rope and thrash you with it.
Sunday 27 March 2011
Census
Dear Census organisers,
How many visitors are staying overnight here on 27 March 2011?
Overnight? Well there's the homeless Eskimo who's been staying with me for the past 3 months, but since he works the night shift at the fish-packing plant and only sleeps here during the day, he's not going to show up on your census.
What type of accommodation is this?
It's a Tyneside flat. It's one of two flats that look like a terraced house. That's not quite the same as a tenement flat, but it's not a terraced house either. I could put "in a purpose-built block of flats or tenement". Although purpose-built might be stretching it a little too. It's quite likely this place was assembled completely by accident.
What type of central heating does this accommodation have?
Useless.
What is your sex? Male / Female
There's no "Trans / Intersex / Other" option? That's appalling.
Do you stay at another address for more than 30 days a year?
I suppose I do...
What is that address?
OK, so I have a choice of "Another parent or guardian's address" or "Other". What does it mean by "another parent"? The parent other than the one you usually live with? Way to make me feel like a 12-year-old, census.
Do you look after, or give any help or support to family members, friends, neighbours or others because of... problems related to old age?
Yes. I'm 90 years old and suffer from Alzheimer's, and I allowed my great-granddaughter who's studying nursing to interview me as part of her coursework.
How would you describe your national identity? English / Welsh / Scottish / Northern Irish / British / Other, write in
I wouldn't describe my national identity as anything. I wouldn't describe my national identity. It's a silly, divisive concept. Could I get away with "Earthling"?
What is your ethnic group?
One of the choices is "Irish"? But that was a national identity a second ago? You're telling me that Irish is a distinct ethnic group to say, Scottish, but that a Nigerian, a Somalian and a black South African are all just "African"?
Could a British person tick "Any other White background" and write "Caucasian"? Because if Caucasian isn't an acceptable ethnic group on the grounds that the census people won't know whether you could have ticked the British box but didn't, it must be equally unacceptable for say, a Armenian? So they would have to specify that they're an Armenian, whereas a Senegalese CANNOT specify that they're a Senegalese or even a Francophone-African, they just have to tick "African".
Yeah, so earlier when I said this census was making me feel like a 12-year-old, I wasn't talking about the kind that comes in a whisky glass, but I am now.
What is your main language? English / Other, write in (including British Sign Language)
It's a good thing I don't have to write in British Sign Language as my main language, because the row of boxes isn't long enough.
How well can you speak English?
Eh, je ne comprends pas cette question. Ce boîte-ci, "Not at all" - ça veut dire "tres bien", n'est-ce pas?
Last week, were you: [working as an employee, etc]
I'm filling this census in on a Sunday, as per your instructions, so what I was doing last week depends whether I'm one of those people who think the week starts on Sunday.
How do you usually travel to work?
Since I occasionally get a lift to work, and always get a lift home, I use a car for more than 50% of all my to-and-from-work journeys combined. But since you've specified to work, the statistically correct answer is bus.
There are no more questions for Person 1.
That's a shame, I was enjoying that.
How many visitors are staying overnight here on 27 March 2011?
Overnight? Well there's the homeless Eskimo who's been staying with me for the past 3 months, but since he works the night shift at the fish-packing plant and only sleeps here during the day, he's not going to show up on your census.
What type of accommodation is this?
It's a Tyneside flat. It's one of two flats that look like a terraced house. That's not quite the same as a tenement flat, but it's not a terraced house either. I could put "in a purpose-built block of flats or tenement". Although purpose-built might be stretching it a little too. It's quite likely this place was assembled completely by accident.
What type of central heating does this accommodation have?
Useless.
What is your sex? Male / Female
There's no "Trans / Intersex / Other" option? That's appalling.
Do you stay at another address for more than 30 days a year?
I suppose I do...
What is that address?
OK, so I have a choice of "Another parent or guardian's address" or "Other". What does it mean by "another parent"? The parent other than the one you usually live with? Way to make me feel like a 12-year-old, census.
Do you look after, or give any help or support to family members, friends, neighbours or others because of... problems related to old age?
Yes. I'm 90 years old and suffer from Alzheimer's, and I allowed my great-granddaughter who's studying nursing to interview me as part of her coursework.
How would you describe your national identity? English / Welsh / Scottish / Northern Irish / British / Other, write in
I wouldn't describe my national identity as anything. I wouldn't describe my national identity. It's a silly, divisive concept. Could I get away with "Earthling"?
What is your ethnic group?
One of the choices is "Irish"? But that was a national identity a second ago? You're telling me that Irish is a distinct ethnic group to say, Scottish, but that a Nigerian, a Somalian and a black South African are all just "African"?
Could a British person tick "Any other White background" and write "Caucasian"? Because if Caucasian isn't an acceptable ethnic group on the grounds that the census people won't know whether you could have ticked the British box but didn't, it must be equally unacceptable for say, a Armenian? So they would have to specify that they're an Armenian, whereas a Senegalese CANNOT specify that they're a Senegalese or even a Francophone-African, they just have to tick "African".
Yeah, so earlier when I said this census was making me feel like a 12-year-old, I wasn't talking about the kind that comes in a whisky glass, but I am now.
What is your main language? English / Other, write in (including British Sign Language)
It's a good thing I don't have to write in British Sign Language as my main language, because the row of boxes isn't long enough.
How well can you speak English?
Eh, je ne comprends pas cette question. Ce boîte-ci, "Not at all" - ça veut dire "tres bien", n'est-ce pas?
Last week, were you: [working as an employee, etc]
I'm filling this census in on a Sunday, as per your instructions, so what I was doing last week depends whether I'm one of those people who think the week starts on Sunday.
How do you usually travel to work?
Since I occasionally get a lift to work, and always get a lift home, I use a car for more than 50% of all my to-and-from-work journeys combined. But since you've specified to work, the statistically correct answer is bus.
There are no more questions for Person 1.
That's a shame, I was enjoying that.
Friday 25 March 2011
Class
Because income alone is no longer a reliable indicator, here is Hazyshade's Controversial Post-Economic Guide To Determining Your Social Class.
Middle Class
Middle Class
You are genuinely polite, able to put people at ease, and willing to consider everyone’s point of view no matter how bad their grammar is. Your typical pastimes: volunteering at local charities (and giving money to them without telling anyone), shopping online, getting very responsibly pissed with your middle-class friends and waking up in each other's beds to the amusement of all concerned. You read: books (and get your news from the BBC). Your favourite non-car mode of transport: train.
Lower Middle Class
You are a shameless snob who does everything the propah way (the environmentally conscious way if you like to think of yourself as left-wing, or the moral way if ditto right-wing) and spend a lot of your time “nudging” people into doing likewise. Your typical pastimes: admiring your collections of dull ornaments, shopping at proper local boutiques, giving money to charity as visibly as possible to encourage everyone else to follow your example, correcting people’s grammar. You read: either the Guardian or the Torygraph, again depending on whether you like to think of yourself as left- or right-wing. Your favourite non-car mode of transport: bicycle (left) or feet, typically accompanied by dog (right).
(Needless to say, yours is the only social class that still believes the terms left- and right-wing actually mean something.)
Upper Working Class
Upper Working Class
You are a humble worker who takes pride in your work and are content with what you have, while still believing in your own capacity to improve both yourself and your immediate surroundings. You believe in living and letting live. Your typical pastimes: sitting around in pubs, shopping at good old-fashioned out-of-town megamalls, going to sporting events, doing the ironing with the radio on. You read: the Independent/i, or the Sun if you’re in the mood for amusing headlines and/or boobs. Your favourite non-car mode of transport: bus.
Working Class
You are a humble worker who drones on and on about rich bankers, political correctness gone mad, how Britain’s going to shit, and how no-one has any business trying to be something they’re not. Your typical pastimes: looking unimpressed, slagging off your boss, avoiding any physical contact with other working-class people in case it makes you either gay or a cheating scumbag/whore. You read: the Metro, the Daily Mail. Your favourite non-car mode of transport: taxi.
Upper Class
You aren't reading this blog.
Working Class
You are a humble worker who drones on and on about rich bankers, political correctness gone mad, how Britain’s going to shit, and how no-one has any business trying to be something they’re not. Your typical pastimes: looking unimpressed, slagging off your boss, avoiding any physical contact with other working-class people in case it makes you either gay or a cheating scumbag/whore. You read: the Metro, the Daily Mail. Your favourite non-car mode of transport: taxi.
Upper Class
You aren't reading this blog.
Wednesday 23 March 2011
Songs
Inspired by the ubiquitous 30-day song challenge on facebook, it's:
Hazyshade's 30-Minute Song Challenge
Hazyshade's 30-Minute Song Challenge
- 0:01 Your favorite song: Muse - Knights of Cydonia
- 0:02 Your least favorite song: Peter, Bjorn and John - Young Folks (dear GOD, that whistling would sound horrible even if it was perfectly in tune)
- 0:03 A song that makes you happy: Blondie - Sunday Girl (doubly so when I watch the video <3 <3 <3 ^_________^)
- 0:04 A song that makes you sad: Vangelis - Conquest of Paradise (the triumphant bits make the sad bits sadder. And I'm a sucker for Eb minor...)
- 0:05 A song that reminds you of someone: Jerry Herman - It Only Takes A Moment (from Hello, Dolly!) (not telling who)
- 0:06 A song that reminds you of somewhere: Lovin' Spoonful - Summer in the City (New York)
- 0:07 A song that reminds you of a certain event: Ana Johnsson - Don't Cry For Pain (the time I was trying to stay warm in -10C temperatures when the heating was broken by curling up next to the electric heater and this song was looping on a laptop in Gorka's room next door)
- 0:08 A song that you know all the words to: Rush - YYZ (ha)
- 0:09 A song that you can dance to: Whigfield - Saturday Night (by the way, the NUGSS version of the dance is better than the official version)
- 0:10 A song that makes you fall asleep: Radiohead - No Surprises
- 0:11 A song from your favorite band: Moxy Früvous - Darlington Darling
- 0:12 A song from a band you hate: Does this mean "a song you like from a band you hate"? In that case: Metric - Succexy
- 0:13 A song that is a guilty pleasure: Santamaria - Castelos na Areia (although Sunday Girl would be a good candidate too)
- 0:14 A song that no one would expect you to love: Opeth - Death Whispered a Lullaby
- 0:15 A song that describes you: Mika - Lollipop
- 0:16 A song that you used to love but now hate: Hanson - MMMBop
- 0:17 A song that you hear often on the radio Alphabeat - Boyfriend (ok so this is from the last time we had a radio in the office, which was a couple years ago...)
- 0:18 A song that you wish you heard on the radio: Interpreting this one as "something really good that you would never actually hear on the radio": Enigma - Principles of Lust/Sadeness Part I (warning: seriously sexy video)
- 0:19 A song from your favorite album: Belle & Sebastian - I'm a Cuckoo (from Dear Catastrophe Waitress) (album version with better sound but no video)
- 0:20 A song that you listen to when you’re angry: Emerson, Lake and Palmer - Tarkus (uh, warning, it's 23 minutes long ^_^)
- 0:21 A song that you listen to when you’re happy: Yes - Cinema/Leave It [Live]
- 0:22 A song that you listen to when you’re sad: The Specials - Ghost Town
- 0:23 A song that you want to play at your wedding: Josh Groban - You Raise Me Up
- 0:24 A song that you want to play at your funeral: John Stainer - The Mystery of the Intercession (not to make any particular statement, simply because it's my favourite hymn)
- 0:25 A song that makes you laugh: Da Vinci's Notebook - Me Pants Fall Down - NB the song starts at 0:14 and it isn't the whole thing, you'll have to Spotify that.
- 0:26 A song that you can play on an instrument: Steve Howe - Clap (on piano, with difficulty!)
- 0:27 A song that you wish you could play: Rick Wakeman - "Rick Wakeman Keyboard Solo" - there have been other keyboard solos by Rick Wakeman, but this is THE Rick Wakeman Keyboard Solo
- 0:28 A song that makes you feel guilty: Toto - Anna
- 0:29 A song from your childhood: Len - Steal My Sunshine
- 0:30 Your favorite song at this time last year: Sash! - Ecuador
Friday 18 March 2011
DREU
I have invented the Day-Ruining Equivalent Unit to measure the badness of bad days.
1 DREU is the amount of shite that would suffice to ruin your day by itself, even if the rest of the day was utterly average.
(Since the badness of days is a subjective assessment, what qualifies a day as ruined is a subjective measure, to be defined by the individual affected.)
As an example, I'll take a day completely at random, like yesterday:
Losing a travelcard and having to take a half day off work to sort it out: 1 DREU. Coming to the conclusion that I couldn't sort it out because I didn't have the insurance document, and would therefore be out of pocket to the tune of £420: 2 DREUs. Walking 10 miles in the course of a day, ending up physically exhausted: let's say ½ a DREU. Being asked to write a report on a chess match, but getting to South Shields half an hour late mostly as a result of my own incompetence and missing the entire Board 1 game: 1 DREU. Total badness: 4½ DREUs.
Hopefully those people that I moaned at over the course of the day will be reassured to know that there came a point after which I just found the whole experience hilarious :-)
1 DREU is the amount of shite that would suffice to ruin your day by itself, even if the rest of the day was utterly average.
(Since the badness of days is a subjective assessment, what qualifies a day as ruined is a subjective measure, to be defined by the individual affected.)
As an example, I'll take a day completely at random, like yesterday:
Losing a travelcard and having to take a half day off work to sort it out: 1 DREU. Coming to the conclusion that I couldn't sort it out because I didn't have the insurance document, and would therefore be out of pocket to the tune of £420: 2 DREUs. Walking 10 miles in the course of a day, ending up physically exhausted: let's say ½ a DREU. Being asked to write a report on a chess match, but getting to South Shields half an hour late mostly as a result of my own incompetence and missing the entire Board 1 game: 1 DREU. Total badness: 4½ DREUs.
Hopefully those people that I moaned at over the course of the day will be reassured to know that there came a point after which I just found the whole experience hilarious :-)
Monday 14 March 2011
Caps
Do you recognise this logo?
If you walk around in public for any length of time, you'll probably see it on five different heads. It's been made oh so fashionable by the likes of the Limp Biscuits and Mr. Jay Zed.
If you buy one of these caps, you are giving money to the Evil Empire. (Admittedly, they have never actually set a big pile of fossil fuel on fire for the hell of it, or paid third world children a dollar a day to cut rainforests down. Their evilness mostly stems from the fact that I don't personally like them.)
However, if you buy one of these instead
or these
or even these
three things will happen:
Baseball, by the way, is a wonderful game, and cannot possibly be compared to a kind of rounders where they couldn't hit the ball so they made the bats bigger, and then they couldn't catch the ball so they all put massive gloves on...
If you walk around in public for any length of time, you'll probably see it on five different heads. It's been made oh so fashionable by the likes of the Limp Biscuits and Mr. Jay Zed.
If you buy one of these caps, you are giving money to the Evil Empire. (Admittedly, they have never actually set a big pile of fossil fuel on fire for the hell of it, or paid third world children a dollar a day to cut rainforests down. Their evilness mostly stems from the fact that I don't personally like them.)
However, if you buy one of these instead
or these
or even these
three things will happen:
- You will look like a cool, individual kind of person
- You will make the Yankees $10 poorer, which will make them think twice about offering another $100,000,000 contract to some All-Star reserve outfielder who'll keep them qualifying for the playoffs at Toronto's expense every darn year until 2050
- You will allow me to tick off another team on my rather geeky quest to spot all 30 Major League baseball caps outside North America. So far I've got 13: Y*nk**s, Red Sox, Tigers, Astros, Reds, White Sox, Dodgers, Giants (Giants was an interesting one, I could see from behind that the inebriated gentleman peeing on a fence at the Edinburgh Festival was wearing a Major League cap, but to get a glimpse of it from the front required greater nerve than usual), Padres, Angels, Braves, Athletics, Mets. There was also the time when I'm afraid I failed to greet my friend Will with my usual exuberance, because I was double-checking that the young lady on the opposite side of the crossing was actually wearing a Texas Rangers t-shirt. I don't know if I should count t-shirts.
Baseball, by the way, is a wonderful game, and cannot possibly be compared to a kind of rounders where they couldn't hit the ball so they made the bats bigger, and then they couldn't catch the ball so they all put massive gloves on...
Thursday 3 March 2011
Meter
And it came to pass, in the thirty-eighth year of the reign of Queen Elizabeth, that Yakko from the Animanics decided to do to the countries of the world what Tom Lehrer did to the elements of the periodic table, and Yakko's World was born.
Yakko's World is an excellent song, but his map of the world was wrong even before it became out of date. It is of great importance that this song be re-written in accordance with the United Nations' up-to-date list of sovereign nations. For how else will I ever beat Sporcle's Countries of the World quiz? (How could I get Sao Tomé and Principé last time, and miss out Kenya?)
The 6 lines in each verse are divided into 3 rhyming couplets, and each line is approximately a sixfold dactyl followed by a single stressed syllable, with a few optional anacruses... I'll draw you a diagram:
U = stressed syllable
v = unstressed syllable
[U],[v] = optional syllables
colours indicate rhymes
[v] U v v, U v v, U v v, U v v, U v v, U v v, U /
[U] [v] U v v, U v v, U v v, U v v, U v v, U v v, U /
[U] [v] U v v, U v v, U v v, U v v, U v v, U v v, U /
[U] [v] U v v, U v v, U v v, U v v, U v v, U v v, U /
U v, U v v, U v v, U v v, U v v, U v v, U v v, U [v] /
[v] U v v, U v v, U v v, U v v, U v v, U v v, U [v]
I hope you followed that.
This is a pretty inflexible meter - any break in the pattern of U's and v's creates a jolt. The Nightmare Song from Iolanthe is in the same basic meter as Yakko's World, and when a long syllable in the text falls on an unstressed syllable of the meter...
It's easy enough to set words to music in a way that matches long vowels with stressed syllables and short vowels with unstressed syllables. Being sensitive to the lengths of the consonants in between those vowels and their effect on the rhythm - "gold clocks, cross", for example - is harder. There's a line from Yakko's World that I think is beautifully constructed: "Switzerland, Austria, Czechoslovakia, Italy, Turkey and Greece". No consonant clusters between words (thanks to Austria beginning and ending with a vowel). "Switz" and "Czech" are both slightly heavier than "Aus" which creates a secondary stress pattern.
The only imperfection is that there is no consonant either on the end of Czechoslovakia or at the start of Italy, so the final -a of the former is stretched out to microscopically more than its natural length. (Yakko puts a glottal stop in there rather than singing "Czechoslovakia, Ritaly", to which I say: hosanna in excelsis.) I might have chosen to replace Italy with, say, Germany for that reason - but that would sacrifice the pleasant alliteration of T's between Italy and Turkey, so I probably wouldn't.
Alas, I can't half-inch this line wholesale into Hazyshade's World, because Czechoslovakia is no more. Tangentially, this is a double shame because it was one of two countries that were perfect double dactyls (U v v U v v) all by themselves, and therefore very useful for a certain form of poetry also called the double dactyl in which six of the eight lines are double dactyls, exactly one of which must be a single word, for example:
Yakko's World is an excellent song, but his map of the world was wrong even before it became out of date. It is of great importance that this song be re-written in accordance with the United Nations' up-to-date list of sovereign nations. For how else will I ever beat Sporcle's Countries of the World quiz? (How could I get Sao Tomé and Principé last time, and miss out Kenya?)
The 6 lines in each verse are divided into 3 rhyming couplets, and each line is approximately a sixfold dactyl followed by a single stressed syllable, with a few optional anacruses... I'll draw you a diagram:
U = stressed syllable
v = unstressed syllable
[U],[v] = optional syllables
colours indicate rhymes
[v] U v v, U v v, U v v, U v v, U v v, U v v, U /
[U] [v] U v v, U v v, U v v, U v v, U v v, U v v, U /
[U] [v] U v v, U v v, U v v, U v v, U v v, U v v, U /
[U] [v] U v v, U v v, U v v, U v v, U v v, U v v, U /
U v, U v v, U v v, U v v, U v v, U v v, U v v, U [v] /
[v] U v v, U v v, U v v, U v v, U v v, U v v, U [v]
I hope you followed that.
This is a pretty inflexible meter - any break in the pattern of U's and v's creates a jolt. The Nightmare Song from Iolanthe is in the same basic meter as Yakko's World, and when a long syllable in the text falls on an unstressed syllable of the meter...
"In your shirt and your socks, the black silk with gold clocks, crossing Salisbury Plain on a bicycle"...the line is a devil to sing intelligibly at speed.
It's easy enough to set words to music in a way that matches long vowels with stressed syllables and short vowels with unstressed syllables. Being sensitive to the lengths of the consonants in between those vowels and their effect on the rhythm - "gold clocks, cross", for example - is harder. There's a line from Yakko's World that I think is beautifully constructed: "Switzerland, Austria, Czechoslovakia, Italy, Turkey and Greece". No consonant clusters between words (thanks to Austria beginning and ending with a vowel). "Switz" and "Czech" are both slightly heavier than "Aus" which creates a secondary stress pattern.
The only imperfection is that there is no consonant either on the end of Czechoslovakia or at the start of Italy, so the final -a of the former is stretched out to microscopically more than its natural length. (Yakko puts a glottal stop in there rather than singing "Czechoslovakia, Ritaly", to which I say: hosanna in excelsis.) I might have chosen to replace Italy with, say, Germany for that reason - but that would sacrifice the pleasant alliteration of T's between Italy and Turkey, so I probably wouldn't.
Alas, I can't half-inch this line wholesale into Hazyshade's World, because Czechoslovakia is no more. Tangentially, this is a double shame because it was one of two countries that were perfect double dactyls (U v v U v v) all by themselves, and therefore very useful for a certain form of poetry also called the double dactyl in which six of the eight lines are double dactyls, exactly one of which must be a single word, for example:
Hankety-pankety
Boy in a blanket, he’s
Off on a goose-chase to
Look for a star,
Incontrovertibly
Journeys through Faerie
Strip off the blanket to
See who you are.
Even worse, it's been replaced by Slovakia and the Czech Republic. The Czech Republic is a trochaic country. (It would fit perfectly into Modern Major General/Elements Song.) If you try to shoe-horn it into a dactylic meter, you either understress Czech or overstress lic - or find an entirely different solution...? There are other countries as awkward and more, which makes this more of an intellectual and artistic challenge than just finding the countries that rhyme (of which there aren't really enough. Anyone reading this blog who's thinking of building a new Pacific island and declaring it independent, would you consider calling it Trance, or maybe Blurkey?) and then filling in the blanks.
Enough waffle: let me sketch out this thing, and if I think I've done anything particularly clever with it, I'm sure I'll let you know. I just like talking about poetic meter - it's a sort of fascination of mine, partly because modern poets seem to think the study of it rather beneath them.
Enough waffle: let me sketch out this thing, and if I think I've done anything particularly clever with it, I'm sure I'll let you know. I just like talking about poetic meter - it's a sort of fascination of mine, partly because modern poets seem to think the study of it rather beneath them.
Clap Progress Report: dropped plectrum through sound hole.
Saturday 26 February 2011
Clap
I'm going to try to learn this.
It's Clap by Steve Howe and it's one of the hardest things in the acoustic guitar repertoire.
I should mention at this point that I'm a truly awful guitarist. I have difficulty with the most basic barre chords. This is why I've decided to take drastic action. No time shall be wasted learning easy songs and working up to the harder ones, while secretly thinking I'm the bee's knees because I can play Scarborough Fair without looking at the strings. No, to get my technique to the point where I can play Clap, I must play Clap.
I am aware of the Dunning-Kruger effect. (In a clamshell: rank beginners don't tend to realise just how rank their beginnerness is.) Though I recognise my own utter lack of ability, I may well be failing to recognise my lack of ability to improve my ability. Even while consciously taking this very possibility into account. That would be a sort of Hofstadter's corrolary to the Dunning-Kruger effect. Or maybe it wouldn't, but there's certainly an isomorphism in there somewhere.
My progress so far? You see the point seven seconds into the video where the chords start changing rapidly, the first two being a G shape and a C shape, both at the 7th fret (hence, barre chords)? Today, I've been practising moving my pinky finger quickly from the top string to the fifth string while keeping the barre in place and trying not to accidentally mute the top string with my great fleshy palm. The other two fingers of the C shape... I'll add those later.
I might add a Clap Progress Report onto the end of a few future posts. It probably won't take up too much extra space.
It's Clap by Steve Howe and it's one of the hardest things in the acoustic guitar repertoire.
I should mention at this point that I'm a truly awful guitarist. I have difficulty with the most basic barre chords. This is why I've decided to take drastic action. No time shall be wasted learning easy songs and working up to the harder ones, while secretly thinking I'm the bee's knees because I can play Scarborough Fair without looking at the strings. No, to get my technique to the point where I can play Clap, I must play Clap.
I am aware of the Dunning-Kruger effect. (In a clamshell: rank beginners don't tend to realise just how rank their beginnerness is.) Though I recognise my own utter lack of ability, I may well be failing to recognise my lack of ability to improve my ability. Even while consciously taking this very possibility into account. That would be a sort of Hofstadter's corrolary to the Dunning-Kruger effect. Or maybe it wouldn't, but there's certainly an isomorphism in there somewhere.
My progress so far? You see the point seven seconds into the video where the chords start changing rapidly, the first two being a G shape and a C shape, both at the 7th fret (hence, barre chords)? Today, I've been practising moving my pinky finger quickly from the top string to the fifth string while keeping the barre in place and trying not to accidentally mute the top string with my great fleshy palm. The other two fingers of the C shape... I'll add those later.
I might add a Clap Progress Report onto the end of a few future posts. It probably won't take up too much extra space.
Wednesday 23 February 2011
Games
In response to Ralph Pocketwatch, this is a complete list of every single video game that I own:
Theme Hospital (1997)
Commandos: Behind Enemy Lines (1998)
Imperialism II: Age of Exploration (1999)
Caesar 3 (1999)
SimCity 3000 (1999)
The Sims (2000)
Command and Conquer: Red Alert 2 (2000)
Black and White (2001)
Sonic Mega Collection Plus (2002)
Lemmings Revolution (2004)
Singles (2004) - it's supposed to be like the Sims but with added sexytimes. Don't judge me.
Football Manager 2007 (2006) - fine, you can judge me now :-P
Out of the Park Baseball 8 (2007)
What can we tell from this? Apart from the fact that, since the majority of them were first released over a decade ago, I'm clearly not that into modern games, and since there are only 13 of them, all for PC, I'm clearly not that into video games in general. I seem to big on creating, simulating and preserving (Lemmings) rather than charging around and destroying. First person shooters? Not so much. The only game where you get to directly control the firing of a gun is Commandos, and it's considered a last resort when all your distractions and booby traps have failed. And it's third person. I'm much more at home sneaking some kind of “units” around a map, pointing them at an object and saying, hey unit, go interact with that object in some way. An extension of the general principle behind chess, you could say.
There are other games that I play when I'm at the family home. FIFA 10, Madden NFL 10, NHL 2K11 (National Hockey League - that's the icy, violent variety of hockey played in North America, not the grassy, violent variety played in the Home Counties) and Wii Baseball. Me and my brother are particular fans of NHL 2K11 at present. And there's Guitar Hero, of course.
So I'll edit my earlier statement: I'm clearly not that into modern single-player games. I suppose that recently, my reaction when I've felt the urge to kill some time by myself in an activity that won't reeeally contribute anything to either my skills or my understanding of the world, is that I should maybe go interact with my girlfriend instead. (Then again, I'm quite happy sitting and reading my Kindle for five hours and making no attempt to distract her from her studies, so maybe it is just the games themselves that don't appeal.)
But multi-player games, I enjoy a lot. Multi-player games based on competitive physical sport, even more so, because cheering for your own players and hurling abuse at your opponents adds to the social experience, which is what I really want from a video game. I've played NHL 2K11 by myself, but only in training mode, and only so that I would improve to the point where my brother wouldn't hand me my arse on a plate every single game. Guitar Hero I will admit to playing slightly more than was strictly necessary to sharpen my competitive skills. But as a result, my left hand is noticeably faster around a piano keyboard that it used to be, so I'll call that a win.
I like games I can play in little chunks, too. One song in Guitar Hero, or one hockey match - and then, crucially, not feel like I'm under any pressure to come back and "complete" something, like I would be if I'd beaten the first mission of an Allied campaign. I think this is how casual gaming is defined by the people who define such things.
And then there's chess. Chess ticks the multi-player box, the abstract strategy box, and the little-chunks box - in particular, 1-minute internet chess. 1-minute internet chess is the reason I didn't get to bed until 2am the other night when I had work in the morning. If you find yourself losing a game of 1-minute internet chess, don't worry, you'll be out of your misery in a maximum of 120 seconds and then you'll have a new game to focus on. It's the ultimate in (so-called) casual gaming. Having said that it ticks the multi-player box, 1-minute internet chess is honestly not that much of a social experience - the conversation usually extends to pulling emoticon-faces and occasionally getting cussed out by some punk.
But it's chess, and therefore automatically worthwhile. Unlike Ralph, I never grew out of my chess obsession. Being good at chess confers real-life brownie points in a way that being good at Football Manager doesn't. In fact in my brain, taking part in the chess subculture by running the Northumbria league and website is a seamless extension of taking part in it by pushing the pieces around. (Perhaps "chess subculture" is a future blog post.) I love chess to such an extent that I quite frequently hate it.
Other, similar board games that I've had the opportunity to become absorbed in, I mark down because they're not chess. The likes of draughts, Othello, Scrabble, mahjong, OSECA - losing at them is dead boring, but learning how to play them well would use the same parts of my brain as chess, and they're not chess, so in general I give them the swerve. Similarly, tabletop RPGs: the role-playing is fun, but I'm not turned on by either the mechanics or the fantasy settings and I don't want to spend the time becoming good enough at them to enjoy them more. That and the fact that they go on for freakin' ever.
So to summarise: suggest me a game that I can play with my brothers, is a simulation of something or involves creativity, can be put down after 10 minutes, and is the complete opposite of chess?
Theme Hospital (1997)
Commandos: Behind Enemy Lines (1998)
Imperialism II: Age of Exploration (1999)
Caesar 3 (1999)
SimCity 3000 (1999)
The Sims (2000)
Command and Conquer: Red Alert 2 (2000)
Black and White (2001)
Sonic Mega Collection Plus (2002)
Lemmings Revolution (2004)
Singles (2004) - it's supposed to be like the Sims but with added sexytimes. Don't judge me.
Football Manager 2007 (2006) - fine, you can judge me now :-P
Out of the Park Baseball 8 (2007)
What can we tell from this? Apart from the fact that, since the majority of them were first released over a decade ago, I'm clearly not that into modern games, and since there are only 13 of them, all for PC, I'm clearly not that into video games in general. I seem to big on creating, simulating and preserving (Lemmings) rather than charging around and destroying. First person shooters? Not so much. The only game where you get to directly control the firing of a gun is Commandos, and it's considered a last resort when all your distractions and booby traps have failed. And it's third person. I'm much more at home sneaking some kind of “units” around a map, pointing them at an object and saying, hey unit, go interact with that object in some way. An extension of the general principle behind chess, you could say.
There are other games that I play when I'm at the family home. FIFA 10, Madden NFL 10, NHL 2K11 (National Hockey League - that's the icy, violent variety of hockey played in North America, not the grassy, violent variety played in the Home Counties) and Wii Baseball. Me and my brother are particular fans of NHL 2K11 at present. And there's Guitar Hero, of course.
So I'll edit my earlier statement: I'm clearly not that into modern single-player games. I suppose that recently, my reaction when I've felt the urge to kill some time by myself in an activity that won't reeeally contribute anything to either my skills or my understanding of the world, is that I should maybe go interact with my girlfriend instead. (Then again, I'm quite happy sitting and reading my Kindle for five hours and making no attempt to distract her from her studies, so maybe it is just the games themselves that don't appeal.)
But multi-player games, I enjoy a lot. Multi-player games based on competitive physical sport, even more so, because cheering for your own players and hurling abuse at your opponents adds to the social experience, which is what I really want from a video game. I've played NHL 2K11 by myself, but only in training mode, and only so that I would improve to the point where my brother wouldn't hand me my arse on a plate every single game. Guitar Hero I will admit to playing slightly more than was strictly necessary to sharpen my competitive skills. But as a result, my left hand is noticeably faster around a piano keyboard that it used to be, so I'll call that a win.
I like games I can play in little chunks, too. One song in Guitar Hero, or one hockey match - and then, crucially, not feel like I'm under any pressure to come back and "complete" something, like I would be if I'd beaten the first mission of an Allied campaign. I think this is how casual gaming is defined by the people who define such things.
And then there's chess. Chess ticks the multi-player box, the abstract strategy box, and the little-chunks box - in particular, 1-minute internet chess. 1-minute internet chess is the reason I didn't get to bed until 2am the other night when I had work in the morning. If you find yourself losing a game of 1-minute internet chess, don't worry, you'll be out of your misery in a maximum of 120 seconds and then you'll have a new game to focus on. It's the ultimate in (so-called) casual gaming. Having said that it ticks the multi-player box, 1-minute internet chess is honestly not that much of a social experience - the conversation usually extends to pulling emoticon-faces and occasionally getting cussed out by some punk.
But it's chess, and therefore automatically worthwhile. Unlike Ralph, I never grew out of my chess obsession. Being good at chess confers real-life brownie points in a way that being good at Football Manager doesn't. In fact in my brain, taking part in the chess subculture by running the Northumbria league and website is a seamless extension of taking part in it by pushing the pieces around. (Perhaps "chess subculture" is a future blog post.) I love chess to such an extent that I quite frequently hate it.
Other, similar board games that I've had the opportunity to become absorbed in, I mark down because they're not chess. The likes of draughts, Othello, Scrabble, mahjong, OSECA - losing at them is dead boring, but learning how to play them well would use the same parts of my brain as chess, and they're not chess, so in general I give them the swerve. Similarly, tabletop RPGs: the role-playing is fun, but I'm not turned on by either the mechanics or the fantasy settings and I don't want to spend the time becoming good enough at them to enjoy them more. That and the fact that they go on for freakin' ever.
So to summarise: suggest me a game that I can play with my brothers, is a simulation of something or involves creativity, can be put down after 10 minutes, and is the complete opposite of chess?
Friday 18 February 2011
Nerves?
I thought I'd comment on this, which was followed by this.
For the link-phobic: Grammy reporter Selene Branson garbles broadcast in bizarre fashion, appears to be inventing words, goes on Twitter later to claim it was "just the nerves". Without paying any heed to the battalions of blogonauts who've already diagnosed her with a medical dictionary's worth of complaints, how can I tell there's more to it than that?
OK, so for the first couple seconds, everything looks natural. Hearing herself mispronounce "heavy" takes her by surprise, and she corrects it. So far so good. Look at her reaction to "burtation". She doesn't realise that it's not a word. It's not until "daris... darison" that she thinks holy crap I can't control what I'm saying. That's when the momentary look of panic crosses her face, and her broadcasting training takes over and tells her: Bail Out.
"Let's go..." is automatic. Muscle memory controlling tongue muscles. But then... where are we going? Brain input required. She knows who we're going over to, because she doesn't hesitate, and she doesn't "uh". Instead she states it clearly and confidently, and using completely the wrong syllables.
Public speakers throughout history have been making nervous screw-ups, recognising them as such and apologising. I went on stage that time at the Ryton festival knowing exactly what I was going to say, and as soon as I opened my mouth my mind was blank. I was nervous. I was suddenly hyper-conscious of every possible way to get it wrong. The absolute last thing I was going to do was string pseudo-random phonemes together in the hope that they'd form words. (I bailed out.) My lack of experience in public speaking, perhaps? OK, take Miss Teen USA South Carolina. Now that's what it sounds like when someone is just talking until they think of something to say. And there's not a burtation in sight. Nerves make you sound... nervous. They don't detract from your ability to tell whether what you've said isn't what you meant; they enhance it.
Serene Branson wasn't nervous. She just lost the ability to tell whether what she was saying was what she was trying to say. It's a neurological thing called aphasia.
And I can sympathise, as a fellow sufferer. In my case, it's never affected my speech. But have you seen thsoe tsets on the inrtneet wrehe tehy jmulbe up the mldide lterets of all the wdros, and you can still read it because your brain recognises the word as a whole? When I get my classic migraines, I can't do that. (Not even with words spelt correctly.) I have to look at each letter in turn, like a four-year-old learning to read, and think what sound it makes, and try and hold all the sounds in my short term memory while I form them into a word. It's a nightmare - by any normal standard, I've lost the ability to read. I'm suffering from a particular manifestion of aphasia called alexia.
(You may consider this as proof that synthetic phonics is a packet of bollocks: I couldn't possibly comment...)
Inhabitants of the internet accusing Ms Branson of being drunk: Please shush.
Ms Branson: I recognised the look in your eyes when you realised you were fighting against your own brain. Please listen to your physician.
For the link-phobic: Grammy reporter Selene Branson garbles broadcast in bizarre fashion, appears to be inventing words, goes on Twitter later to claim it was "just the nerves". Without paying any heed to the battalions of blogonauts who've already diagnosed her with a medical dictionary's worth of complaints, how can I tell there's more to it than that?
OK, so for the first couple seconds, everything looks natural. Hearing herself mispronounce "heavy" takes her by surprise, and she corrects it. So far so good. Look at her reaction to "burtation". She doesn't realise that it's not a word. It's not until "daris... darison" that she thinks holy crap I can't control what I'm saying. That's when the momentary look of panic crosses her face, and her broadcasting training takes over and tells her: Bail Out.
"Let's go..." is automatic. Muscle memory controlling tongue muscles. But then... where are we going? Brain input required. She knows who we're going over to, because she doesn't hesitate, and she doesn't "uh". Instead she states it clearly and confidently, and using completely the wrong syllables.
Public speakers throughout history have been making nervous screw-ups, recognising them as such and apologising. I went on stage that time at the Ryton festival knowing exactly what I was going to say, and as soon as I opened my mouth my mind was blank. I was nervous. I was suddenly hyper-conscious of every possible way to get it wrong. The absolute last thing I was going to do was string pseudo-random phonemes together in the hope that they'd form words. (I bailed out.) My lack of experience in public speaking, perhaps? OK, take Miss Teen USA South Carolina. Now that's what it sounds like when someone is just talking until they think of something to say. And there's not a burtation in sight. Nerves make you sound... nervous. They don't detract from your ability to tell whether what you've said isn't what you meant; they enhance it.
Serene Branson wasn't nervous. She just lost the ability to tell whether what she was saying was what she was trying to say. It's a neurological thing called aphasia.
And I can sympathise, as a fellow sufferer. In my case, it's never affected my speech. But have you seen thsoe tsets on the inrtneet wrehe tehy jmulbe up the mldide lterets of all the wdros, and you can still read it because your brain recognises the word as a whole? When I get my classic migraines, I can't do that. (Not even with words spelt correctly.) I have to look at each letter in turn, like a four-year-old learning to read, and think what sound it makes, and try and hold all the sounds in my short term memory while I form them into a word. It's a nightmare - by any normal standard, I've lost the ability to read. I'm suffering from a particular manifestion of aphasia called alexia.
(You may consider this as proof that synthetic phonics is a packet of bollocks: I couldn't possibly comment...)
Inhabitants of the internet accusing Ms Branson of being drunk: Please shush.
Ms Branson: I recognised the look in your eyes when you realised you were fighting against your own brain. Please listen to your physician.
Saturday 12 February 2011
Blog!
I told Laurelinde that I wouldn't be starting a personal blog, so I had to start a personal blog, and I told Ralph Pocketwatch that Wordpress >> Blogspot, so I had to start it on Blogspot, otherwise I would be predictable, and that's worse than being the Beatles.
I don't intend to feel guilty about not updating this thing, so please expect one new post every six years, and consider anything over and above that a special bonus just for you.
Yes, this post counts towards that schedule.
I don't intend to feel guilty about not updating this thing, so please expect one new post every six years, and consider anything over and above that a special bonus just for you.
Yes, this post counts towards that schedule.
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