Cute Attack

He was using a fork to pick up bits of tortilla from his tray--when he'd lose a piece before it reached his maw he'd say "Almost!"

Happy Birthday

To ME! Thanks, Mom and Dad.

The Story of English (4XY)

The Story of English, by Mario Pei (this edition from 1952), was an interesting, but really long, tour of the English language. From its Anglo-Saxon roots, up through its long period of reckless appropriation of words from essentially any source.

Some of the great metaphors from Beowulf are listed by way of defending the Anglo-Saxon literature from charges of un-sophistication, grimness, and lack of thought-progression, and I found them delightful. The sea is called the "road of whales" or "playground of the winds," and woman the "ornament of the home."

Apparently it was estimated that Shakespeare used a lexicon of about twenty thousand words in his works. Fewer than six thousand appear in the King James version of the Bible. Milton apparently reached eleven thousand. Some interesting scale: comprehensive dictionaries of Anglo-Saxon fall short of fifty thousand words. Not a whole lot! In the 1950s, it was thought that only about twenty thousand English words were in widespread and consistent use... of them, about twenty percent were of Anglo-Saxon origin ,and about sixty (!) percent of Latin, Greek, or French origin!

The word "remacadamized" (basically this means to repave, in a particular way) can be broken down through its prefixes, suffixes and whatnots, and through that process be revealed to be of Latin-Celtic-Hebrew-Greek-English origin. (re-, Mc-, Adam, -ize, -ed, respectively). Similarly, "Torpenhow Hill," a place near Plymouth (in England), means "Hillhillhill Hill."

To return to a hobbyhorse of mine-the personal names of Puritans-here is a doozy: If-Christ-Had-Not-Died-For-Thee-Thou-Hadst-Been-Damned Barebone. For convenience, he was known as Damned Barebone. In the same vein, a man named Breech Loading Cannon fought in the Revolution, and a fellow named Genuine English Tweed in the war of 1812.

In 1646, St. Isaas Jogues related that the 500 souls of (what would be come) New York City spoke eighteen different languages.

Interestingly, the author held out hope in the 1950s, that professionalization of school teachers would not yield a persistent jargon that would find its way into the popular discourse. "Despite PTA meetings and much drum-beating on the part of 'progressive' educators, there seems to be little likelihood that this class jargon wil to any great extent infiltrate the general language." Some examples of the dreaded pedageese? Motivation, frustration, ambivalence, workshop, and K-9.

Excellent Names We Will Not Be Using

Juniper. Prairie.

Capsule Review (0XY & 1XY)

Library: an Unquiet History by Matthew Battles (0XY), was actually very interesting. Overwritten and laggy, but pretty interesting. I enjoyed some of the anecdotes about biblioclasms--the destruction of books and/or libraries. The possibly apocryphal story of the final burning of the library of Alexandria was cute... the Caliph was asked what to do with the books. He replied "If the books agree with the Koran, they are not required. If they disagree, they are not desired. Therefore, destroy them."

Also, the author has an unhealthy obsession with the Widener Library. Just... ick.

The Origins of Knowledge and Imagination, by Jacob Bronowski (1XY) was disappointing. I was hoping for a much better account of epistemology. Or an epistemology. Instead, was treated to a lot of outdated material devoted to the obvious proposition that our sense-impressions are not necessarily in close congruence with reality, and a half-hearted disavowal of reductionism in either science or philosophy. Oddly, the most interesting bit, to my mind, was when he gave account of the McCarran act and the difficulties it created for intellectuals visiting or living in the U.S.

I was led to read a bit about it and found that before he became Prime Minister, Pierre Trudeau was unable to enter the U.S., because of his political leanings. The world was a crazy place when we were all terrified of communism.

Currently I'm reading The Story of English, by Mario Pei (4XY). Pretty good! Frisian!

On Deck

Next to be reviewed are: 0XY and 1XY. They're in the hopper.

Religion (2XY)

This book, The Bible in Translation: Ancient and English Versions, by Bruce M. Metzger, briefly surveys the most important translations of the Bible, from antiquity to the recent modern era (roughly 2000). Its simultaneous brevity and scope (it covers some 59 translations in just under 200 pages) make it the "88 Lines About 44 Women"of Biblical scholarship.

Despite the relative economy of exposition, I learned quite a bit, and enjoyed this one a fair bit. Interestingly, among the first translations of the Hebrew Scriptures into Old Greek, the Septaguint, was later repudiated by Talmudic scholars, who declared that the day on which the Law was translated into Greek was as awful as the day the Golden Calf was cast. They appointed a fast day to remember the day of infamy.

Another important translation, called the Codex Argenteus, dating from the sixth century, was written on purple parchment in silver ink. Only about a half of the leaves remain, but: silver ink. It narrowly survived a watery demise during a shipwreck in the seventeenth century; the protective wrappings served their purpose.

Translation is tough, make no mistake: in the translating the King James Bible the translators utilized many English words for the same Hebrew or Greek words, without necessarily taking into account the denotations! An interest in "equity" led to katargeo, appearing twenty-seven times in the New Testament, is rendered as eighteen English words. The opposite problem also occurred: the translators made the word "trouble" represent a dozen different Greek words; "bring" took on the duty of translating thirty-nine Hebrew words; "destroy" served for forty-nine Hebrew words: weaksauce

Time prohibits much of a recounting here, but I also learned about the remarkable Julia E. Smith and her Bible: impressive lady!

Finally, there was a neat tabular accounting for changes between the Revised Standard Version and the New Revised Standard Version. In order to reduce ambiguity, for example, Psalm 50:9 was changed to "I will not accept a bull from your house" from the delightful "I will accept no bull from your house." I know I think the latter would be better: the Psalmist as Shaft.

Social Sciences (3XY)

This book, People and Politics: an Introduction to Political Science, by Herbert Winter and Thomas Bellows (DDC = 32W.XYZ) , was terrible. Puerile and poorly written, it is easy to understand why it took so very long to read (even leaving aside the fact that I've only been reading a few minutes a day in the evening). The few passages and footnotes worthy of... well... note, are noted below.

Paul Goodman, "The First American Party System" in William Nesbitt Chambers and Walter Dean Burnham, eds., The American Party Systems: Stages of Political Development (New York: Oxford University Press, 1967), does not refer to some awesome entertainment manual compiled by George Washington.

From a British MP's letter to a constituent:

You know, and I know, that I bought this constituency. You know, and I know, that I am now determined to sell it, and you know what you think I don't know, that you are now looking for another buyer, and I know, what you certainly don't know, that I have now found another constituency to buy.

About what you said about the excise [tax]: may God's curse light upon you all, and may it make your homes as open and free to the excise officers as you wives and daughters have always been to me while I have represented your rascally constituency

Robert Bendiner, Obstacle Course on Capitol Hill (New Your: McGraw-Hill Book Company, 1964). An obstacle course on Capitol Hill would be rad. I'm picturing something like Double Dare, with legislators rooting through slime to get at the phone numbers of wealthy donors.

For your amusement

Eavesdrop D.C. is frequently quite funny. Today's post is particularly hilarious.

Fun Times

Got back from Ft. Benning this afternoon. It was pretty neat. For part of the exercise I was in the gunner's seat in a Bradley fighting vehicle. Fired off a bunch of rounds of its 25mm Bushmaster cannon--and its 7.62mm coaxial medium machine gun--at some old tanks down range. Here's a picture: (photo by Spc. Rodney L. Foliente, 4th Inf. Div. PAO, here)

Also exciting was firing the M240B light machine gun, pictured above.

Super cool, and kicking like a mule, the .50 cal M107 sniper rifle was a lot of fun. I put my shots where I was aiming, at 450 meters. Here's what that lovely lady looks like. It was highly amusing.

Dewey Decimal System? You Bet We Do!

The Dewey Decimal System is a library indexing method developed in the 19th century by Melvil Dewey. You know the one--a three digit number followed by a decimal sign, some more numbers and possibly a few letters. The first digit sorts the books broadly into categories: Generalities (0XY), Philosophy and Psychology (1XY), Religion (2XY), Social Sciences (3XY), Language (4XY), Natural Sciences & Mathematics (5XY), Technology (6XY), The Arts (7XY), Literature & Rhetoric (8XY), and Geography & History (9XY).

Of course there are deeper levels to this rabbit warren. Each of those classes is subdivided and then divided some more. This attempt to classify all knowledge is, of course, flawed. However, it gives me an idea: read your way 'round the library!

I made a foray to the nearby branch of the Alexandria public library last weekend to assess the plausibility. I checked out the following volumes:

1. Library: an Unquiet History, by Matthew Battles. DDC = 02W.XYZ
2. The Origins of Knowledge and Imagination, by Jacob Bronowski. DDC = 12W.XYZ
3. The Bible in Translation: Ancient and English Versions, by Bruce Metzger. DDC = 22W.XYZ
4. People and Politics: an Introduction to Political Science, by Herbert Winter and Thomas Bellows. DDC = 32W.XYZ
5. The Story of English, by Mario Pei. DDC = 42W.XYZ
6. The Astronomer's Universe: Stars, Galaxies, and Cosmos, by Herbert Friedman. DDC = 52W.XYZ
7. The Tower and the Bridge, by David Ballington. DDC = 62W.XYZ
8. Elements of the Art of Architecture, by William Muschenheim. DDC = 72W.XYZ
9. A History of English Literature, by William Neilson and Ashley Thorndike. DDC = 82W.XYZ
10. The Borgias, by Ivan Cloulas. DDC = 92W.XYZ

Now, be it known: finding books that represent the classes is not necessarily straightforward. For one thing, I decided that I might want to do more than just the ten books. I might want to do the full century. Another: the library's holdings are limited, and not all librarians classify the same book in the same way; some books can be shelved as multiple classifications. They didn't even have Life of Samuel Johnson, which I really wanted to get for the 92W.XYZ classification, as 92W.XYZ is the clearest opportunity for biography--and I've never read it! Last: if you are willing to specialize a bit, you need to remember that the different subclasses aren't necessarily analogous maps into the classes.

Anticipating that I might decide to do the full hundred, or at least give it a real shot,I chose to arbitrarily go with the W2.XYZ call number, but one could chose others, or not worry about the division.

What do you think?

UPDATE: Also, I read Moneyball, by Michael Lewis, recently: pretty good. I'm reading Thinking in Time: the Uses of History by Decision Makers, by Richard Neustadt and Ernest May: really pretty neat.

That Went Better Than Expected

At Susan's urging, I located a group of people that plays pickup soccer in the area; this morning I went to play. There was nobody there when I arrived (on time), but folks trickled in pretty regularly after about five minutes.

We played three-on-three for a bit, and then four-on-four when some more folks arrived. I was very tired after the first half hour of play, though it was not so bad. I was definitely not the worst player there! I haven't played since (I think) Spring of 2000! My big toe and its pad (on both feet) are blistered! I think I'll go back next weekend!

More Books

Susan reminded me that I forgot a book in the last update: Making Money, by Terry Pratchett, which was amusing, as his books always are. I recently read a few of the Stephanie Plum novels by Janet Evanovich--they're funny but pulp. There was also another Carl Hiaasen book--Double Whammy; I enjoyed it. I'm reading Bacardi and the Long Fight for Cuba: The Biography of a Cause, by Tom Gjelten; it is a tough slog, so far.

Diploma

Pretty cool.

Metro Accident

Tom's fine. It was a nasty wreck, but one far from where he rides the train for work, on a different line and everything.

Cute

Leo was curled up on Soren's changing table, watching the little rugrat play with his toys. I discovered this because Leo's high-volume purrs were audible through the baby monitor as I was cleaning the kitchen; the sound made me suspect catly misbehavior, so I investigated.

Recent Reading

• Outliers by Malcolm Gladwell--ok, interesting vignettes.
• Basket Case by Carl Hiaasen--very funny.
• Friday Night Lights by H.G Bissinger--bad writing, engrossing story.
• No Cry Sleep Solution by Elizabeth Pantley--we've made a lot of progress.
• Spin by Robert Charles Wilson--slow start, gets engrossing.
• Consider The Lobster by David Foster Wallace--really good. The footnotes get a bit obnoxious after a while.
• Dragon Wing by Margaret Weis and Tracy Hickman--fun. The system of magic is based on quantum mechanics. Sort of.
• Sandworms of Dune by Brian Herbert and Kevin J. Anderson--ok, an interesting premise.
• A Short History of the 20th Century by Geoffry Blainey--not bad so far. Reading it during my commute.
• The One Percent Doctrine by Ron Susskind--it is horrifying and terribly written. Reading it before bed.

UPDATE: Susan was right. Also: Snow Falling on Cedars by David Guterson--pretty darn good though he should watch it with the perving. Fool by Chris Moore--amusing as always. The Life and Times of the Thumderbolt Kid by Bill Bryson--affecting.

Really, California?

Okay, I just cannot tolerate it anymore. The fact that Californians passed Prop. 8 in the first place, okay. I can understand that. There are conservative parts of California. Well I don't understand it, but at least it was a legal, clean, vote. But the for the courts to uphold it-that just flabbergasts me. Since when is it okay for a majority to take away rights from a minority? I guess that in 2009 we really aren't as progressive as we thought. I mean this is America people, we should have equal rights for everybody! Not just every other person or those who fit the religious standards that we are supposed to be protected from with the first amendment. But I guess that doesn't matter either. I mean, I feel like being gay is my Scarlet Letter. And don't get me started on Oregon. We have Portland, we have Eugene...centers of community and cultural diversity. How could this happen? And does this mean that really there are more homophobic people here in Eugene than I initially thought? Gay people are just the new "other", some ubiquitous sub culture that mainstream culture hates for no real basis, just pure stupidity and all hatred. The saddest part to me is that when gay people are finally treated equally, there will just be a new "other".

Words

Your evil twin is someone who looks just like you, but more sinister. Your dopplegansgster is someone who looks just like you, but with saggy pants and bling.

Is That Even Allowed?

At the training course I went to last week, I saw a woman--a civilian employee of the US Army--reading "Atlas Shrugged."