Blog is trivial; also also also also also

Filed under:ICTs, Words & Phrases — posted by squires on 12/20/2006 @ 5:11 pm

I saw this a while back on our alumni magazine, and I didn’t really understand the framing going on.

Like, in what sense is it “trivial” sounding (is it because it’s an abbreviated portmanteau?), and are cultural phenomena usually named by “non-trivial” sounding words? “TV,” “porno,” “swinger,” “circus,” “indie,” “drag bingo”…none of them sounds especially weighty.

Also, a lovely example of “also” from a recent New Yorker Shouts & Murmurs, by George Saunders, in a funny little advice column parody:

Dear Optimist:
A few years ago, I inadvertently declared war on the wrong country. Also, I perhaps responded a little slowly to a terrible natural disaster. Also, those of my friends who are not under indictment seem to be deserting me. Also, the organization of which I am in charge is all of a sudden facing a huge crushing debt. And I still have almost two years left in my job. Advice?
In Somewhat Over My Head
Washington, D.C.

Dear In Somewhat:
Stay the course! Admit to nothing! Disparage your enemies! Perhaps declare another war? Do you have any openings in your Cabinet? Sounds like you could use a little Optimism! What would you pay? Have your people call my people!

Also, I finished my first semester at Michigan yesterday, and it was good.

Paper-titling contest

Filed under:CMC — posted by squires on 12/17/2006 @ 11:17 am

In lieu of anything actually interesting to post, maybe I can satisfy the burning desire for PC-ness that I know is, um, burning within all of you, with a contest. I need a main title for the paper I’m finishing up. Briefly, it’s about language ideologies regarding online discourse and the metadiscursive construction of “netspeak” (or “chatspeak,” or whatever other name one might use) as a folk linguistic artifact. Let me give you the subtitle:

Locating language ideologies in online discourse

OK, so it needs something to go before that, with a colon, in predictable grad student style. The options I’ve come up with so far include ‘OMG she said LOL!’ and ‘AOL doesn’t kill language; stupid people do.’ (I’m analyzing comment threads from this article about “AOL-speak.”) Both of those are kind of silly and the latter is pretty cumbersome.

So put on your creativity hats and fire off those suggestions! A secret prize will (perhaps) be accorded to anyone who comes up with a title that I really like and use.

Also, I did a performance this week of something I’m calling “noisetap,” in collaboration with Ronen Goldstein. In line with the tradition of very occasionally sharing personal, non-linguistics information about myself here, I provide you links to the performance from Thursday night. It also explains partially why posting has been so light and fluffy lately - it’s been an especially busy week.

Generic High

Filed under:So-so Social, Words & Phrases — posted by squires on 12/13/2006 @ 4:13 pm

Apparently (count this as evidence of my poor attempt to *sort of* know what’s going on in the community in which I live) Ann Arbor is looking to build a new high school, and they’re in the midst of heated discussions over what it ought to be named. In line with my posting interesting things but not really commenting on them so much, which always happens during finals, I point you to a discussion about such topics at Ann Arbor is Overrated. The quote that summarizes the ridiculed and ridiculing sentiments:

A committee has met to select a name for the new Ann Arbor high school. They have presented for consideration two names that are oh-so-Ann Arbor. That is Skyline and/or Northcrest. These names should be rejected out of hand. They are weak, bland, meaningless and politically correct.

Honestly? I went to Kickapoo High School, where our mascot was the Chiefs (this was following Cherokee Middle School, mascot Indians), so I actually kind of appreciate the PC, because as a pseudo-ultra-PC-high-schooler, I felt really awful about my high school having fetishized Native American paraphernelia all over the place despite the fact that our school had very few Native Americans and, beyond that, no interaction with Native American communities (which aren’t recognized, at any rate, as tribal nations in the state of Missouri - at least they didn’t used to be; could’ve changed in the past 7 years). If I have a complaint against such names as Northcrest, it’s that they sound like fake names that you’d see on a cartoon high school as part of a cartoon town. (I grew up in Springfield; I should know.)

Best new most prolix syntax sentence ever

Filed under:Sheer Cleverness, Words & Phrases — posted by squires on 12/12/2006 @ 10:54 pm

From an unidentified syntax text:

We shall not, however, adopt his gender-based analysis, since it does not seem entirely natural (given the complete lack of gender morphology with nonpronominal NPs) to attribute gender in English to singular nonpronominal NPs while denying it to plural nonpronominal NPs and since allowing verb agreement to be sensitive to whether or not a NP could potentially be replaced by a visibly gender-bearing pronoun would appear to entail considerable expansion of the set of possible agreement phenomena.

Just…whoah. That’s 77 words. That’s a lot of words. Also? WordCount. Word. (The conspiracies are particularly funny.)

Also? again

Filed under:Words & Phrases — posted by squires on 12/11/2006 @ 9:40 am

This movie marquee in Ann Arbor is, I think, interesting with regards to the “also” phenomenon (see here).

It seems and would’ve done just fine here, and probably would’ve seemed more normal. Maybe they were out of N or D letters? At any rate, it has the effect (to me) of boosting Borat’s prominence even more than has already been done by its topmost placement - Shut Up and Sing is like an afterthought.

Across the sea with intelligence, civilization, and conversational prowess

Filed under:So-so Social, Words & Phrases — posted by squires on 12/10/2006 @ 11:20 am

Just when I was thinking I was about to complete the weekend without finding anything whatsoever interesting enough to post about, the NYT comes to the rescue with this story, which seeks to answer the age-old question: Are Brits really wittier than Americans, or do they just sound that way? If they just sound that way, what is it about their dialect that does it?

NO sooner had her words been reported in the British newspapers then she frantically took them back, saying that she had been misunderstood and misquoted. But the question remains: was Gwyneth Paltrow on to something when she noted (or didn’t) that “the British are much more intelligent and civilized than the Americans,” and that “people here don’t talk about work and money; they talk about interesting things at dinner”?

Whether Britons are objectively cleverer and more amusing than Americans, or whether they just sound that way, is one of the deep mysteries of British life for expatriates like Ms. Paltrow, who lives in London with her husband, the British rock star Chris Martin, and their children, Apple and Moses.

Britons seem to have the advantage of accent: their exotic pronunciation can make even dubious observation sound like unimpeachable truth. They are also experts at the art of speaking coherently and with authority on topics they know little or nothing about. “Every Englishman can talk for 15 minutes on any subject without a note,” Norman Mailer has been quoted as saying.

Aside from the linguistic things, it’s noted that British dinner parties (referring above to Paltrow’s comment) include copious amounts of alcohol that many American dinner parties do not; this surely affects both the fluidity of conversation and the likelihood that attendees may view it as more “interesting.”  But there are also social norms that have an impact: apparently Britons think it rude to talk about work, for fear of alienating anyone, so it’s not just that they have more “interesting” things they want to talk about.  And, Britons aren’t afraid of confrontation in ways Americans are; hence the House of Commons shouting matches all Americans love - hence perhaps also why I appreciate BBC interviews with political figures for their quadrupled candor compared to American broadcasters.

But then we come to the  Brits’ appreciation for “conversation” as an “art form.”  This is something that’s come up a lot the past few years (and probably before; I just started noticing it), and I’ve noticed it partly in relation to perceived decreases in valuable conversation due to the internet.  These observations frustrate me, because I simply don’t see this as the case.  Or maybe I’m just not sure what definition of “conversation” is being used such that Americans’ interaction doesn’t achieve it, or Americans don’t value it.  It just seems like another one of those “things were better before television” sort of claims, which isn’t founded on any real phenomena.

OK, so the article didn’t actually probe any more into the British English issue, which is what I was looking forward to.  There’s probably a host of studies somewhere I’m not conversant with, which discuss this very issue of how British English comes to be so iconic of positively valued traits like cleverness, intelligence, and authority. But I have other studies to talk to now, so I must leave this topic for now.  Bollocks, I know.

Of wind and wonder

Filed under:Media, Sheer Cleverness — posted by squires on 12/6/2006 @ 11:26 pm

I cannot resist doing a headline roundup of this story.

Strong wind downs plane

Woman’s tail wind downs jetliner

In-flight flatulence coverup sparks emergency landing

Flatulent passenger grounds flight

Flatulent Flyer Grounds Jet

Flatulence leads US jet to divert

Her seat in first-gas section KOs flight

Lit Matches Prompt Emergency Landing (stay classy, WaPo!)

One fart is all it takes to land a plane…

Flier’s trumps ground plane

Three strikes and you’re out

A stinky flight

Bodily Function Odors Force Emergency Landing

Woman Lights Matches On Plane To Cover Smell

Gust of wind forces jet tomake emergency landing

Air pressure was fine, but they still wanted the masks

Don’t let Flatulence Spoil Yours or 99 Others Travel Plans (a press release for flatulence deodorizer)

Plane Grounded by Flatulence

FLATULENCE FORCES PLANE LANDING

Woman Under Fire After In-Flight Flatulence

Terror threat? Er, no … it’s BO (I think this was before they realized it was actually a specific kind of body odor.)

Farts spark emergency landing (my fave)

Passenger’s high winds down jet

Bodily function forces emergency landing

Flatulence, not turbulence, forces plane to land

Gassy woman diverts passenger flight

Passenger’s “Natural Gas” Forces Plane Landing

Embarrassing moment forces emergency landing

And, here’s your obligatory Farts on a plane pun. Oh, and here are some videos of farts on a plane. And, also this parody video of Farts on a Plane based on Snakes on a Plane.

This kind of fodder is perfect for finals time.

Peeves on Facebook

Filed under:CMC, So-so Social — posted by squires on 12/4/2006 @ 1:28 pm

One of my friends on Facebook, my news feed informs me, recently joined the group The Facebook Ministry of Spelling and Grammar (no idea if that link will at all work). You gotta see this:

Oy. So far it has 48 members. But it turns out that’s nothing - a search for “grammar” in Facebook groups turns up 500+ results, including “Grammar” does not just refer to correct punctuation, you stupid people, Grammar Nazi’s (sic), Grammar Gods, and I Will Judge You By Your Grammar (and that’s just in my networks!). “Spelling” turns up also 500+, including People In Favor of Spelling Things Correctly, Advocates for the correct spelling of the word “WEIRD”, and Coalition for Better Spelling In Facebook Profiles. It’s funny that the very demographic often purported to be so flippant about written conventions is, it turns out, at least partially very concerned with such conventions.

“Valley Girl” is still a salient social category?

Filed under:So-so Social — posted by squires on 12/2/2006 @ 12:16 pm

According to this Dear Prudence letter in Slate, yes - linguistic markers and all (bold mine):

Dear Prudence,
My 27-year-old daughter seems like a high schooler because of her vocabulary, mannerisms, and inability to comprehend what’s socially acceptable. She talks with a Valley-girl accent and says things like “eeww” if you mention babies, sick people, etc. Her younger siblings are more mature than she is and don’t like hanging out with her because she boasts about her inappropriate behavior and makes embarrassing remarks to their friends. She does not realize that these things, along with her over-the-top clothes and makeup, make people dismiss her as a dumb bimbo. (She thinks everyone loves her or is just jealous!) She wasn’t the brightest student, but did finish college and has always been able to support herself, although I am concerned about her inability to keep a long-term position. I love her to death and am happy that she’s responsible enough to take care of herself and seems to enjoy her life, but the lack of progress in her maturity at 27 really worries me. I’m embarrassed by others’ reactions to her (something she obviously doesn’t pick up on) and don’t know what to say to my friends. If I offer guidance, she says I’m critical. Any suggestions?

—Valley Girl Mom

I wonder what all is included in the “Valley-girl accent,” especially given that both like and uptalk (sentence-final rising intonation?) seem to be very common in the American population at large now.  It’s interesting that whatever that “accent” is taken to be, its primary association for this person is with immaturity, rather than lack of intelligence or some kind of party-girl attitude or unearned wealth (these are MY stereotypes of “Valley girl”).  Maybe “Valley girl” has shifted from referencing a particular social character based on social characteristics to referencing a character based on age?  Or did “Valley girl” always REALLY mean “girl”?  Or does it reference a lifestage that one is expected to outgrow sooner rather than later?

Linganth goes online

Filed under:Adminlike, So-so Social — posted by squires on 12/1/2006 @ 11:26 am

Leila Monaghan of Indiana University has started a community Linguistic Anthropology blog.

Linguistic anthropologists and other scholars of language and culture are invited to join the Blog team and post their work or comments or point towards the work of others. Comments are welcome from all…Organizers and participants in sessions and conferences who would like to post their own and their colleagues work are particularly welcome.

Though I’m not sure how many linganth type of people read PC, it might be of interest to others who don’t know much about linganth, too. (thx Joshua)