possessive phrases
http://plouffie.wordpress.com/2006/02/23/bob-solow/ plouffie said:

Dr Solow was my economic growth professor (Mark Machina)'s teacher for economic growth back in his grad school days at MIT...

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Sex:1, Masturbation:0

From the Register, scientists now have evidence that masturbation isn't as good as sex. Was there ever any doubt? Seriously, for those who don't believe anything unless it's "scientifically proved", it's good for them (I don't think I know anyone like that, btw), but I hope most people have already realized this without scientific evidence. (As a side note, I like the euphemisms in the article: I had never heard of "The Beast with Two Backs" before today.)

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tack the duck on the track

I was invited by my friend, Hart Woolery, to join thefacebook group I Wanted Sex/Money/Power From Hart When He Becomes Rich/Famous, So I Joined This Group (you must have an account to view it). Knowing I belonged to that group, I visited the group's page, and noticed the following in the announcement box: If you want to be an officer, state your title and if He is not too busy feeling grand and powerful, He will dismount from His high horse to anoint you. Also, not explicitly stated, but implied in the title of this group, those who join are also entitled to (in the place of sex/money/power): vast tracks of land, camels, virgin nubiles, and my grandmother's phone number.

Maybe I'll ask for the title of The Blob, my title during our first year RA'ing together. But anyway, the thing I first noticed was the presence of an eggcorn. It reminded me of the first time I ever heard "tract of land". My dad is a surveyor and when I was 11 or 12 I remember asking him about why it is called a "track". He then explained that it's spelled differently, and ever since I've had the fortune of knowing the difference between the two. :) I decided to google "track|tracks of land" and found a good amount of hits (20,600). In comparison, the query "tract|tracts of land" gave 734,000 hits. I figure that a "track" of land reminds people of "track and field" or a railroad track.

Anyway, this got me thinking about some other ct >> ck changes that might be from eggcorns. pact >> pack has already been shown, but there are a couple that I noticed just recently. one of them is tact >> tack. "he|she has no tack" had only 46 ghits, while "he|she has no tact" only has 592 ghits. among the hits for "he|she has no tack", only 8 were actually shown by google, a few being:

• She has NO TACK. Seriously. She makes fun of her kids when they are going through puberty. found here
• He has no tack and speaks without regard for the cosequences of his statements. found here
• Again the conversation ends with hermione going off angry and ron still clearly clueless that he has no tack :D found here

Another one I noticed was just today, as I was out surveying with my dad in Joshua Tree. There are two things my dad says can fix almost anything: duct tape and twine. altho' i knew "tract" from "track" by the time i was a teenager, i didn't know "duct" from "duck" until the end of high school. I blame this on the Duck Products company, which makes a major brand of duct tape called Duck tape. Ken Lakritz was the first to notice that this might be an eggcorn, but no one has given it a full entry on the eggcorn database. When I looked at the OED Online, it gave "duck" as the probable original:duct tape orig. N. Amer. [perh. an alteration of earlier *duck tape s.v. DUCK n.3], a strong cloth-backed waterproof adhesive tape, originally used for sealing joints in heating and ventilation ducts, and (later) for holding electrical cables securely in place, now in widespread general use esp. to repair, secure, or connect a range of appliances, fixtures, and equipmentThis site, by answering who invented duck tape, seems to give a good explanation on why it wouldn't fit the eggcorn category. So, unfortunately, because of OED and this site, I don't think there's any solid evidence to support it being an eggcorn. :(

[update: tact>>tack was already in the Eggcorn Database, with the chief usage being "take another tact".]

I didn't have comments configured a day ago, but Chris Waigl wrote to me the following:

You describe precisely why "Duck/duct tape" isn't in the Eggcorn Database. There are still some obscure corners in the etymology, but one thing it isn't is a simple eggcorn.In any case, the Duck brand came into this fairly early on. And all three of the gaffers/sound technicians of my acquaintance swear that Duck tape is the correct, traditional use. Not that this makes them right, but it's an additional complexity. And all three of the gaffers/sound technicians of my acquaintance swear that Duck tape is the correct, traditional use. Not that this makes them right, but it's an additional complexity.

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US Troops Taught Iraqi Gestures

The picture next to this article made me think about how often images and text don't go mesh well: I think it's a no-brainer deciphering that kind of body language.

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strife
Awhile back I looked up strife and got the following definition: The action of striving together or contending in opposition Now I only know "to strive" in the sense of "exert one's energy" or something similar, and strife only in the sense of "contention", and so the preceding definition seemed contradictory to me.

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revised place name rules (orphaned)

San Diego: S.D. San Dee

Juvenile Hall: Juvy/Juvee

Recreation Intramural Athletic Complex: RIMAC (i pronounce it 'ree-mack')

Middle Earth Lounge MEL

Student Activity Center The SAC

UC Los Angeles UCLA (spelled out or pronounced 'uck-la')

UC Berkeley Cal

California Cali

Southern California SoCal

Northern California NorCal

San Luis Obispo SLO (pronounced like 'slow')

Palm Springs area (from Yucca Valley, which is higher in elevation and also north of Palm Springs) down below

San Gabriel Valley or San Fernando Valley area The Valley

Dana Point Killer Dana D.P.

Jack in the Box: Gag in the Bag, Jack in the Crack

Las Vegas: Lost Wages

JC Penney: Jacques-Penn? (with a French accent)

Wal-Mart: Wally-world

Sierra Summit: Sierra Scummit

Caf? Ventanas: Coffee Windows (negative) Caf? V Ventanas Craptanas (negative)

Tapioca Express: TapEx

Black's Beach: Black's

Cane's Bar and Grill: Cane's

The Onyx Room: Onyx

La Jolla Shores: Shores

Tijuana: T.J.

Pacific Beach: P.B.

Santa Monica Beach and Venice Beach: Muscle Beach

Arrowhead Pond: The Pond

Garden Grove: Garbage Grove

Conveying sentiment about place: play with prosody

1. Translate the name to another language that conveys the speaker's regard for the place (e.g., Jacques-Penn?, and Coffee Windows).
2. If mimicking the prosodic structure, change a few sounds of the original (e.g., Gag in the Bag, Jack in the Crack, Lost Wages, Sierra Scummit).
3. Keep the first syllable of the placename and add a couple syllables, with the stressed syllables copying the first syllable's first sound (e.g., Wally-world).
4. Keep the first syllable of each word (e.g., TapEx).
5. Keep one word (e.g., Black's, Cane's, Onyx, Shores).[1]
6. Create an acronym[2]. If it produces a pronouncable sequence, spelling out the acronym is optional.

1. first syllable of one or more morphemes
2. the first two syllables of the place name

[1] This is actually taken from the Hypocoristics Database (rules 6 and 7), but I said keep one word because it may turn out that a middle word can be kept for SoCal English. [return to text] [2] Taken from the Hypocoristics Database (rule 10). [return to text] [3] Taken from the Hypocoristics Database (rule 9). [return to text]

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Tag, you're it

So I was tagged by Angelo last week. I figure I might as well continue the tag game :)

Remove the blog in the top spot from the following list and bump everyone up one place. Then add your blog to the bottom slot, like so.

1. Anastasia
2. Haligweorc
3. King Alfred
4. sauvage noble
5. unobe.com/blog

Next select five people to tag.

1. Jayson Whelpley
2. Hart Woolery
3. T.J. Tallie
4. Jen Chen (she rhymes)
5. Benson Lee

Angelo: I read the post from the bottom-up, sorry :( But here are my answers anyway.

What were you doing 10 years ago?

Wow. Ten years ago. That was half-my-life ago (give or take a few years). Alright, well, ten years ago I was in eighth grade. I was having a fun time doing club soccer and riding BMX with my friends after school (both of which would abruptly end on March 22 because of a broken leg). I also had just transferred to a different English class and was enjoying the new atmosphere (I hated my former teacher). Valentine's Day was coming up, but since I wasn't that interested in girls (probably because Shawna Cooper ripped up my childish love letter to her in 4th grade), I think I was mostly focusing on learning as much as a I could about languages called HTML and C. (I received a C compiler from my friend's dad, and was working my way through figuring out how to program, compile and link in C, and looking at C coding examples from a Dr. Dobb's Journal CD archive. No, it wasn't the best way to learn, and yes, I wish I had someone around to teach me.) Around the same time, I was building up animosity toward my mom because of stupid little things (oh, hindsight). It has taken 5-6 years to tear it down.

What were you doing 1 year ago?

A year ago I was freaking out about what I was going to do after I graduated from college. I was enjoying my classes immensely (all Ling classes!), and was taking "time off" from dating Margret to sort some stuff out (once again, hindsight reveals it wasn't the best thing to do). I was living with four other guys: Richard Ahn, Vincenzo DiNicola, Kyle Maxwell, and Louis Nguyen. I've never been good and telling people when I'm getting frustrated. I usually bottle it up and try to internalize it, hoping it will go away, and last year was no different. Thankfully, I don't think any of the guys hold that character weakness against me, and were patient while trying to understand how to help. That was my first year living off-campus, and I was having a good experience overall. I was also learning Zapotec, an indigenous language from Oaxaca, Mexico, but not putting enough time into it to see results I was satisfied with :(

Five snacks you enjoy:

1. CheezIts (but am trying to not give in as much anymore)
2. (fresh) whole tomatoes
3. honey-roasted peanuts (from Trader Joe's)
4. Reese's peanut butter cups
5. Mochi

Five songs you know all the words to:

1. You by Switchfoot
2. Bohemian Rhapsody by Queen
3. Ultra Violet (Light My Way) by U2
4. Brown Eyed Girl by Van Morrison
5. In The Light by dcTalk

Five things you would do if you were a millionaire:

I'll answer this question sorta like Angelo, and say what I'd do if I had a million to blow

1. Invest in stocks (~10k)
2. Buy gifts for family and friends for the next 4 years (~40k)
3. Give money to some charities (including my sis ;)) (~150k)
4. Travel the world for a year (~200k)
5. Invest in real estate (buy a house, and other land) (~600k)

Five bad habits:

1. Biting nails
2. Stirring things with my index finger (my friend Jen Chen reminded me how unsanitary this is)
3. Getting involved in too many things at once
4. Eating few but large meals (family history of diabetes)
5. Not keeping it touch with those I care about (no news is *not* good news to others)

Five things you enjoy doing:

1. Running (exercising, in general)
2. Reading
3. Programming
4. Guitaring
5. Helping others

Five things you would never wear again:

1. Hammer pants
2. My friend's sister's pink dress
3. Bra (not a bro)
4. Size 28 jeans
5. Speedo

Five favorite toys:

1. iBook
2. Mac Mini
3. Soccer ball
4. Legos
5. iShuffle

Angelo added another category, which I'm feeling up to answering:

Five things you have in common with your tagger:

1. We procrastinate
2. We have learned Latin (he by far better than I)
3. We live in southern California
4. We have Apple hardware :)
5. We blog about stuff related to linguistics from time to time

that was a memorable time in that house. we had our moments from the bizarre introduction (sorry about giving you that "who the heck are you?" look) to video games to surfing to sushi to exquisite parties. our conversations are among the most significant i've had. no worries, bro. even though i'm out here on the other side of the country, it doesn't mean i've forgotten. to the good times of the past, and to the brilliant times of the future. trogdoooooooooooooooooooooooooooooor!

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well-chosen words, methinks

Today's word of the day from dictionary.com is spoony. Yesterday's was concupiscence (many a spoony lad probably has that today). Both those words seem awfully calculated, considering what today is. I wonder if Trojan or Hallmark is behind all of this...or maybe it's just a programmer having fun.

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First Bay Trip

I went to the Bay Area for my first time about a month ago, and man is it a cool place! [1] Having lived in SoCal and being used to the late and at times inconvenient mass transit, I was quite impressed with the practicality and efficiency of BART. Anyway, the main area that I was so amazed at was downtown San Francisco, which I visited for a whole 8 hours. I went there with Margret (I was staying with her family while I was up there) and we met up with Kirk in SF at the Civic Center. We meandered through Chinatown and Little Italy, and then walked up all the way to Coit Tower.

We decided to go all the way up to the top of the tower, in hopes to get a nice view of San Francisco. The top of the tower gave us beautiful views of our surroundings, and, coincidentally, also allowed Kirk to be right next to a man who proposed marriage to a woman (who happily agreed)! It was pretty cool, because then we all just looked on as they hugged, had a terse but affectionate kiss, and went back to enjoying the view. Since Kirk and Margret brought digital cameras, they took pictures (*cough* which I still haven't received copies of *cough*) of the views (and I believe the newly-engaged couple).

After hiking up to Coit Tower and down, we were more than ready to mangia [2]. On Kirk's suggestion, we went to Pomodoro's to eat, and it was pretty good food. I can't remember what I ordered, but I remember it tasted good. Kirk (he was sort of the guide that day) then took us to this place to get gelatto, and then finally to Cafe Trieste. The gelatto was good, but since I don't drink coffee, I can only take it on faith that it really does make good coffee.

We then decided to head up to Pier 39 to look at the shops. The only shop that we went in was a babushka shop. The shop had some pretty big babushkas, and some of them were based on past Russian leaders. There were also these signs (which Kirk had never noticed before) telling a bit about the history and facts of Pier 39. One of the signs talked about how the pier had to be totally re-done with a cement substratum, which saved it from eventual condemnation by making it much safer.

From there we went to Ghirardelli Square, which wasn't that exciting: good chocolate, but not much else going on. Oh yeah, I forgot to mention that we're doing this all on foot, so our legs were getting a good work out by walking everywhere. Anyway, so on our way back from Ghirardelli Square, we went to Lombard Street. Lombard Street doesn't have anything that makes it really cool, save its crookedness, and that was enough for me.

From Lombard Street, we walked back down to Little Italy and went to ? Bookstore. Kirk and I immediately tried to find the language section, and Kirk dived into a book on Old English. I, on the other hand, just looked at the titles, and kept interrupting Kirk with a "Oh, look at this!" and a "Wow, this looks cool!". In the meantime, Margret was in another section of the store, and I didn't ever find out what she was flippin' through. We stayed there for about 1/2 hour, and since we weren't buying anything we decided to jet.

By this time it was getting dark, and so we headed back down to the Montgomery BART Station. We had decided to meet up with Ben Strong for a bit, so we had arranged to meet him in San Jose where he lives. Now Margret lives in Milpitas and so we had taken the BART from Fremont. Kirk, on the other hand, lives in Turlock so he had taken the BART from Dublin/Pleasanton. Therefore we decided to go to Fremont, drive to San Jose to meet up with Ben, and then drive to the Pleasanton station to drop off Kirk at his car. However, the direct line to Fremont was no longer running, so we had to hop on the Dublin/Pleasanton line, then transfer to the ?Richmond to Fremont line.

On the the Dublin/Pleasanton line, we had a good conversation with a parent about the relationship between them and their teenager. All of us agreed that teenagers don't realized how much their parents mean to them, and only realize it afterward; it's just tough for the parent to get survive those teenage years where the teenagers act stupidly. The parent was really nice, and we had a wonderful talk about their little son, who was with them too. The kid was very inquisitive and didn't seem to be causing his parent too much trouble.

Well, when we finally met up with Ben, it ended up being at the Denny's where Margret worked last summer. Her brother's girlfriend was our waitress, and we had a good time having a night breakfast and catching up with Ben. He's working at Stanford in a lab, and he's doing much better than he was doing when he first started it about a year ago. It really was good to see him so happy, and he's just one of those people who just makes me laugh every time around him. Anyway, he had to wake up early the next morning to catch a flight to San Diego, so we left after about an hour of chillage.

The other days I was up there I spent with Margret and her family: going to Boomer's (great company, but nothin' new for me), to Marine World (good rides and attractions, and Margret's family is tireless!), and to church (good homily). Nothin' came close to amazing me more than downtown SF did, and since I think this entry is way too long already, I'm stopping.

[1] I know, it's quite pathetic that I've lived in Cali for my whole life and never been to the Bay. However, I have been to NorCal in general: I went to Hume Lake once a year during high school, except for one year when I went to California Golden Boys State which was held at CSU Sacramento. I also went to the Monterey Aquarium with my family after freshman year of college, so that counts too, right? return

[2] Sadly, this is one of the only things I have that point to my Italian heritage (my last name is the only other one I can think off of the top of my head). I actually didn't know "mangia" wasn't English until I came to college and my friends didn't understand when I said, "Anybody wanna mangia?" Of course, I know it's not the right conjugation in Italian or anything like that, but like I said, it's one of the few things that I point to part of my heritage. return

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nicknames for places

The other day I was thinking about nicknames I've heard for certain places. Below are some examples of what I've heard either growing up or here at UCSD. Jack in the Box: Gag in the Bag, Jack in the Crack

Las Vegas: Lost Wages

JC Penney: Jacques-Penn? (with a French accent)

Wal-Mart: Wally-world

Sierra Summit: Sierra Scummit

Caf? Ventanas: Coffee Windows [update: Ventanas (neutral) Craptanas (negative)]

Tapioca Express: TapEx

Black's Beach: Black's

Cane's Bar and Grill: Cane's

The Onyx Room: Onyx

La Jolla Shores: Shores

Tijuana: T.J.

Pacific Beach: P.B.

Santa Monica Beach and Venice Beach: Muscle Beach

Arrowhead Pond: The Pond

Garden Grove: Garbage Grove

Altho' some of the above nicknames only change a letter or two, the change is significant, since it adds or changes the meaning. Searching for "nicknames for places" on google came up with the Hypocoristics Database. I actually got a lot of pointers from that website, and I hope to write up a rule system for SoCal English (if there is one). For now, I noticed some rules:

1. Translate the name to another language that conveys the speaker's regard for the place (e.g., Jacques-Penn?, and Coffee Windows).
2. If mimicking the prosodic structure, change a few sounds of the original (e.g., Gag in the Bag, Jack in the Crack, Lost Wages, Sierra Scummit).
3. Keep the first syllable of the placename and add a couple syllables, with the stressed syllables copying the first syllable's first sound (e.g., Wally-world).
4. Keep the first syllable of each word (e.g., TapEx).
5. Keep one word (e.g., Black's, Cane's, Onyx, Shores).[1]
6. Take the acronym[2]
7. Take the last (few?) syllables and add "The"[3]

If I keep finding more nicknames and rules to account for them (notice I don't have a rule to account for T.J.), then I'll probably just make another page to keep a better record of them, similar to The Eggcorn Database or the Hypocoristics Database.

[1] This is actually taken from the Hypocoristics Database (rules 6 and 7), but I said keep one word because it may turn out that a middle word can be kept for SoCal English. [return to text] [2] Taken from the Hypocoristics Database (rule 10). [return to text] [3] Taken from the Hypocoristics Database (rule 9). [return to text]

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Poland hall designer suicide bid

I was trying to decipher the meaning of the headline before I looked at the article, and just couldn't. Now that I read it, that use of 'bid' still doesn't make any sense to me.

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Uriah's heap

Uriah was one of David's "thirty mighty men", yet still David instigated Uriah's death because David desired Bathsheba (the daughter of Eliam, another of the Thirty). [2 Sam. 11 & 2 Sam. 23]. Unless, of course, these are two different guys named Uriah. But if the Uriah who was one of David's "thirty mighty men" was also the husband of Bathsheba, and David had him killed, it's quite an egregious act. David would not only have gotten another man killed, but one that he knew fairly well, just so he could a) have Bathsheba for himself or b) hide his affair with Bathsheba.

It made me think of how insidious people are at times, myself not excluded. It made me think of what lengths I go to get my way, and also how artful I have become so that I don't step on anyone's toes in the process, and in the end fail to get my way and to not step on others' toes. Sometimes life just doesn't go as we hoped it would. For David, he first tried to get Uriah to go to his house to make it appear that Uriah caused Bathsheba to be pregnant. When Uriah didn't do what David expected him to do, he then devised a plot to put Uriah to death during a battle. After this plot was successful, and David apparently didn't seem worried about the matter anymore, Samuel was told by God to confront David. The result was David confessing his guilt (for killing an innocent man) and being very expressive in his remorse.

From all of this, I think it's safe to say David was very passionate. He was passionate with Bathsheba (producing a child), he was passionate about getting Uriah killed to cover his affair with another's wife, and he was passionate in realizing his wrongdoing. David was in a sense more human than I: he expressed who he was, even when the expression was evil. That is the lesson I think I see here, and what I want to learn. Maybe the "I" should be "we" above: maybe there are others who feel they've walled off reality between themselves and others, just as I feel I have, for the sake of saving face. At any rate, I'm going to practice being honest with others. It might be easy for others, but at many times it has been hard for me.

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