turnin' japanese, i think i'm turnin' japanese, i really think so...

Your Japanese Name Is...

Ryoichi Yamamoto

Huh. Do you know how they do the conversion? How am I "Yasuo Shimizu"?

Ah. Looks random based on gender. Cf. Irish name generator, whereby I was "Brendan Kavanagh" then "Gill O'Mahony".

Thanks Angelo, I didn't know how they did the conversion. Thinking about it, it's sorta sad that that's all they do to generate a name. It would much cooler if the name was based on the meaning of your name (e.g., David = beloved) or on the sounds (roughly) used to pronounce your name, and constructed so as to fit the phonological rules of the target language. oh well, maybe some day, eh? :)

Your name in Japanese is Deividdo. Hehe.

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sushi documentary

the great tradition of sushi in Japan. Thanks to Louis "Keanu" Nguyen for the pointer! :)

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copytrademarkright

Bob Kennedy's post on phonoloblog brings up the always interesting issue of trademark and copyright. after reading the article, i was as confused as Bob appeared to be. for almost two years now (ever since ICS 131), i have known that copyrights are different from trademarks, yet the author of this article does not make a distinction. so is it copyright or trademark that "kills [a] movie title"?

i agree with what Bob and the United States Patent and Trademark Office(USPTO) say, that "you need to have a product first, and then name it, and then trademark the name". however, just to make sure the rules are the same in Toronto, i looked up how the Canadian Intellectual Property Office(CIPO) defines trade-mark. apparently CIPO distinguishes between copyright and trademark the same way USPTO, and requires "wares or services".

So i see four possibilities of how to interpret the article:

1. the woman heard the word "wannabe" from her husband and labeled a product or service she had developed "wannabe", thereafter trademarking "wannabe".
2. the woman heard the word "wannabe", and copyrighted the word as a literary work.
3. the author of the article is not writing truth.
4. i am misunderstanding how copyright and trade-mark law interact in Canada.

being prideful, i don't think it's the last one. :) i don't know how to figure out which of the other ones it is (without contacting Robin Devine, CIPO, or CP). also, i may have missed another possibility for interpretation. my inclination, though, is to assume the author was writing truthfully, and that there is some fact the article is based on. of the remaining possibilities, i don't see which is more likely because there's no quote of Robin Devine "trademarking" or "copyrighting" the word.

Bob, assuming that the third possibility is not true, points out that this has implications for band names and movie titles. he suggests to the phonolobloggers to trademark names now lest a similar thing happen to one of them. i agree, but of course you have to have a product. the simple way is to put whatever you have up on e-bay for bid, and then submit the trademark application (along with fee)...or is there a better way?

wannabee appears in the canadian trademark office as being in use since the 1980s....
i know i bought this persons products.

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Jesus' Heritage
I mean that the heir, as long as he is a child, is no different from a slave, though he is the owner of everything, but he is under guardians and managers until the date set by his father. In the same way we also, when we were children, were enslaved to the elementary principles of the world. But when the fullness of time had come, God sent forth his Son, born of woman, born under the law, to redeem those who were under the law, so that we might receive adoption as sons. And because you are sons, God has sent the Spirit of his Son into our hearts, crying, �Abba! Father!� So you are no longer a slave, but a son, and if a son, then an heir through God. [ Gal. 4] --sent His Son, born under the law...different than us who were not sent, yet Jews were born under the Law. --curious about the extent of Gal.3 where it says the "Scriptures imprisoned everything under sin": what is the context of "everything" here?

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language is important

recently there's been some discussion on the attempted passage of bills that make English the official language of West Virginia and the United States. (the odd thing is that the latest version of the West Virginia bill does not reflect what AP news, but i'm sure there's a valid reason.) what interests me is how the debate has largely been framed, and how both sides view the issue. from what i gather, people against english-only do not want legislation because of the possible disparagement of other languages in the United States, which is arguably already bad enough, and because it's un-American (1). people for legislation have cited economic, cultural, and communicative concerns for having one official language. while this guy surely offers a simple solution, i don't know if everyone will agree on it, and you can't blame him for speaking up.

for me, all languages are cool! i like learning about how different (and similar) human languages are, and when i get the chance, i like learning other languages than my native English. do i see multilingualism as valuable? certainly. i hope that everyone in the Unites States learns more than one human language. yet at the same time, i am confronted with a particular aspect of this country's history: from its inception (as far as i am aware, and please correct me if i am wrong!), government documents have been in English. without a doubt, many of the aristocratic founders of this country were polyglots, yet they had used English as the primary means of communication (which i think can be attributed to being an accident of history, since the States' territories were British colonies). i agree with S.I. Hayakawa that "bilingualism is fine, but not for a country", and i suggest that this may have been the intuition of the founding fathers. on the other hand, i don't think the founding fathers would have wanted the widespread monolingualism in the U.S. today, but i still maintain that they would have wanted pertinent government documents in one language.

over and over in my linguistics classes, i have heard the same thing: "no language is better than another". my understanding of this mantra is that you can express anything in any language, and in large part i agree. however, to understand what a given text says, i think it extremely beneficial to be fluent in the cultural tradition of the language used. do i fluently speak late 18th century English, the language of the Constitution, specially the Bill of Rights? hell no! that is an unfair expectation for any resident of the United States today. but i do think it is a fair expectation to learn the cultural tradition and the language receiving and transmitting the tradition (2). frankly, i see it as short-changing anyone by providing them the U.S. civilian life without its cultural and lingual tradition. the understanding of this tradition and the ability to read and understand the "law of the land" allows for true liberty in the U.S., since a person can refer directly to their acceptance and understanding of the tradition (and laws) to support their rights. so while essentially "no language is better than another", in the case of the United States, i believe the English language is the best language to understand immediate cultural and civil tradition. for any country, to don the civil garb of citizenship, i think it requisite to have the cultural tighty-whities and the lingual shoes (3).

now the status quo suggests to me that, for the most part, there is no need for legislation. if a state or this nation wants to enact such legislation, i think it is not inherently detrimental, but my biggest concern is the possibility of lingualism: harsh and derogatory attitudes towards another language and its usage is unacceptable to me, and i hope the reader agrees. yet the possibility for more lingualism is just that, a posssibility. the possibility for short-changing someone living here in the U.S. is possible and real. therefore, i'm stuck between a rock (pro English-only) and a hard place (against English-only) when discussing this issue. i think it's an important issue the United States continues to deal with, and i hope the population comes to a consesus soon.

(1) whatever that means, but it sure sounds meaningful, and that's why i think we all like to use it. return to text

(2) this does not necessitate abandoning one's own cultural, lingual, and civil traditions. at times, it's hard for me to forgive my maternal grandfather for doing this. i love going to Little Saigon and Chinatown in LA, and i greatly hope that those who are taking part in the economic tradition this nation offers are doing justice to its linguo-cultural and civil traditions.return to text

(3) the shoes allow you to move around and show your garb, and, when duty calls, to show your tighty-whities. return to text

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labiodental flap description

I read about the introduction of the labiodental flap to the IPA a month or so ago over at Phonoloblog, and I finally read the NY Times article linked to by Language Log. The best part (for me) was Geoff Pullum's description of the symbol representing it:

The new symbol had been recommended by a fellow linguist, Geoff Pullum, who described it "as if a fishhook R had been slammed leftward into a lowercase v so hard its vertical had merged with the right leg of the v, and the dangly bit had been left hanging there like the drain pipe out of an upstairs toilet in a partially demolished building."

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Working Like a Dog

I received an e-mail from one of my friends recently that discussed how to be lazy. He also attached a comic strip that wasn't on the site but went along with the idea of being lazy:

I googled to try to find the origin of the word, but couldn't find anything authoritative. So I looked at the dog entry in the OED, and while I didn't find the idiom itself, I found an idiom which I think is the closest to the intended meaning:

g. to lead a dog's life: i.e. a life of misery, or of miserable subserviency; so to lead a person a dog's life.

It made me think of how much we pamper our pets (in the United States) compared to previous ages. If we still used animals instead of machines for manual labor, the comic wouldn't make much sense because most people probably wouldn't see animals just lying around doing nothing. Fortunately (for the animals' and humor's sake) that isn't the case.

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(w)reckless driving

this evening, Marget and i went to Wal-Mart to pick up some planters for her daffodil bulbs. on our way there (from UCSD), we went on the 52 to the 15 (to Aero Drive). when i missed getting on the 15 from the 52, she mentioned how she was glad that I didn't swerve frantically in an attempt to get on the 52, recounting a story of her first drive in college:

after her parents had helped her move in, she went out with a couple friends to a philipino party. her friend who was driving was talking on the cell phone and going 80, and when he realized he was going to miss the right turnoff, swerved across three lanes to make it. she said she was scared for her life, and she began to wonder if all SoCal drivers were that bad. (living here for a couple years has made her realize that not all of us are bad.)

anyway, on our way back from Wal-Mart, i once again missed the optimal turnoff (this time from the 15 to the 52), and blamed it again on my feeling sick. so i ended up getting off on miramar, and traffic was moving at a nice pace. however, a bit past the marine base, the car in front of us was suddenly braking. naturally i thought, "what the heck is up with this guy?", thinking he was from out of state (the easiest way for me to blame a bad driver, similar to how NorCal peeps blame SoCal'ers). it turned out, however, that a car, with its left blinker on, was stopped in the fast lane at the intersection with a green light. there was a "left turn/u-turn lane", so i was wondering why they weren't in the right lane. my mind immediately jumped to thinking that the driver of the stopped car was from out of town. the cars behind us almost piled up, but fortunately nothing happened. when i got over into the other lane and passed the stopped car, i looked over and found that it was an older couple in the stopped car. although i hadn't cursed them or anything, i felt bad for their predicament and the apparent frustration they had caused the other drivers (including me).

anyway, after going by my townhouse, we headed up Gilman Drive (two lanes each way) to go to her place on campus, and our third near-wreck happened. someone in a jeep, parked along the curb, came into traffic and almost hit me (who was in the left lane). fortunately, with me slowing down and swerving a bit, the driver realized that i was there and got back in the right lane. that is when Margret said, "we could have been in a wreck with all these wreckless drivers," or something of the sort. that's when i thought about wreck and reckless.

i decided to see if anyone (according to google) jotted down wreckless for reckless, enough to constitute an eggcorn. since the verb to reck is never used by anyone that i know, it seems like wreckless for reckless would be a reasonable eggcorn for someone to produce, especially since wreck is usually never far away. then i looked at the Eggcorn Database and noticed that Ken Lakritz had just commented on it a few days ago! anyway, it seems that an eggcorn is never far away, no matter the occassion. :) i'll try to post it as an eggcorn later this week if someone doesn't do so first, but i'm not sure what category (citational, questionable, or genuine) i would put it in.

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WordsEye

while waiting for something to happen today, i decided to browse some feeds of sites i subscribe to. my first (and last) stop was lemonodor - a mostly lisp weblog. the first post was cited Jim Thompson about WordsEye, software that will be presented at LispNYC tomorrow:

WordsEye allows untrained users to spontaneously and interactively create 3D scenes by simply describing them. By using natural language, ordinary users can quickly create 3D scenes without having to learn special software, acquire artistic skills, or even touch a desktop window-oriented interface. Creating graphics with natural language gives a new sense of power to words and suggests applications in education and creative play as well as the creation of visual art itself. WordsEye relies on a large database of 3D models and images to depict objects and surface textures. WordsEye is written in Common Lisp and runs on Linux.

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tip of the day

When I fired up TextMate, what I use for web development, this is what greeted me: First of all, how awesome is that?! My towel's hanging in my room (about 6 feet from where I'm typing), and I have a six-pack of Mississippi Mud in the fridge. Now if only I remembered the peanuts...

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paper chase

the internet has been slow for my entire neighborhood, so our cable provider decided to give everyone premium service for a month. my roommies and i normally only have the basic plan, so we're probably going to be using the TV more than we usually do this next month. tonight, i was flipping through channels after watching Groundhog Day and Death Becomes Her (both having to do with death and eternal life, oddly enough), and i stopped at the beginning of a movie in letterbox format. i didn't know what it was, but the words "Harvard Law School" flashed on the screen, and so i thought it might be interesting.

i watched for a good half hour, and was excited when i found out there weren't going to be any commercial breaks. it seemed like it was going to be a pretty good movie, so i decided to figure out the name of it by googling some of the characters' names. it turns out i was watching The Paper Chase (1973).

altho' i'm not planning on going to law school, it made me think about my plans on going to grad school. i felt that the movie was saying that you could get all the knowledge, be the best thinker, get the best grades, but still be nothing. just having knowledge and just thinking about problems will not satisfy the "irrational" (as one of the characters labels it) dimension of humans. knowledge and thinking are not like human relationships: the former are one-way streets while the latter are two-way streets. the movie seems to praise a life that sees the usefulness of knowledge and thinking, but prioritizes human relationships above them both. overall, i liked the movie, since it made me consider my expectations for graduate school and my priorities in life. i recommend it, especially since it tackles human interaction in many different contexts (among friends, companions, colleagues, a professor and their students, and lovers).

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you really got a hold on me
The famous song by Smokey Robinson has much to do with social psychology. Social psychology attempts to explain social phenomena, and a major social phenomenon is attitude. An attitude, in social psychology, is defined as as enduring evaluation of people, objects, or ideas. Sure, there are different levels to which an attitude can be affected by society, but attitudes are more malleable than you probably suppose. However, before I go off on a tangent, let me summarize the main types of attitudes, and how they interact with one another. The first is called cognitive based and is an attitude based primarily on people's beliefs about the properties of an attitude object. An instance of a cognitive based attitude is when you think of a car in terms of its utility, effectiveness (maker, model), cost, etc. and not in terms of "how it makes you feel". The second attitude is affectively based and is defined as an attitude based more on people's feelings and values than on their beliefs about the nature of an object. For most people (myself included), I think that their attitude toward spiders is of this type, since it is mostly determined by popular perception of this eight-legged freaks. The last kind of attitude is called behaviorally based: an attitude based on observations of how one behaves towards an attitude object. For me, the attitude toward drinking water is of this type: I do it a lot, so "I guess I like it". Now that we have the groundwork laid of the different types of attitude, the real fun begins...but I'm late for class, so I'll finish it some other time.

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butterfly bonanza

it all started two weekends ago, actually. i was on my way to Yucca Valley with my dad, and while going up Highway 62, after Painted Hills and before the Morongo grade, the attack began. a multitude of butterflies were attempting to cross the highway, heading west. that stretch of highway is divided (2-lane each way), so the butterflies, if they made it without getting clobbered, got a little break of about 40 ft. in the middle of traffic. by the time we got to the grade we probably had hit more than 100 butterflies. i figure there was an average of about 50 cars every ten minutes, so about 5,000 butterflies may have not been fit enough to survive every ten minutes (good ol' Darwin). we didn't see any coming back through the same area around 5pm (after a beautiful day in the desert!), so the butterflies may have already stopped traveling for the day.

up 'til then, i had only seen such a horde of butterflies one other time in my life. i think it was about 15 years ago, so i must have been around 7 or 8 years old. my family still was living up in Yucca, and it had to have been either the summer or a weekend, because me, my older brother, and my older sister were home the whole day. it was a hot day, too, since i remember coming indoors every once in a while for a glass of lemonade or sun-steeped tea. anyway, the occasion of tons of butterflies going across our backyard gave my brother the idea (who i followed faithfully) of getting a tennis racquet to swat the flies for hours. of course, when i tell most people i did this, they usually get a pained look on their face, feeling sorry for the butterflies: kids don't only say the darndest things, Bill.

but that brings me to two days ago, when the butterflies came in a swarm to La Jolla (coming from the south), and were constant companions all the day on campus. my friend, Jen Chen, posted about it, and it reminded me to write about it, since ever since i saw the butterflies two weeks ago, it's been jogging my memory of when the last time butterflies swarmed in my life. for those who are in the LA area, you might get the same experience, but i don't know how the butterflies will manage in so urban an area.

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