idiot politicians not just homegrown!

It's good to know that people other than Americans can elect or appoint absolute morons to political office. Here, for example, is Martin Mullaney, councilor in Birmingham (UK) and head of that city's "transport scrutiny committee," on why Birmingham is eliminating apostrophes from its signage: "they confuse people. If I want to go to a restaurant, I don't want to have an A-level in English to find it." For those who don't speak British, an "A-level" is roughly equivalent to high school (except in Britain, it usually means you can actually read).

This is mind-boggling. One does not need a high-school degree to comprehend the use of apostrophes. I do not understand why people find them so confusing. (At the bottom of this post, isolated so as not to bore those of you who do know how to use them, is a brief guide to correct apostrophe usage.) The other reasons Mullaney adduces for coshing grammar on the head in Birmingham are equally ludicrous: apostrophes confuse GPS systems and cause people and emergency services to get lost (no, they don't, as the article points out...Mullaney clearly is not a member of the reality-based community), and they are "old-fashioned."

All hail the modern illiteracy!

While it's true that names like "St. Paul's Square" have a slightly fusty (and, to Americans, very British) air, so what? Shall we rename them all as "InterCorporate Way" to be all modern and entrepreneurial?

Sadly, apostrophes' defenders are presented as if they're little old blue-haired ladies fussing over seventeen cats and condemning "strong language" such as "gosh-darned." I suppose there are more important things in the world - but why encourage further ignorance and illiteracy?

(How to use apostrophes: 1. In contractions, to denote missing letters, as in "don't" for "do not," "let's" for "let us," "it's" (only!) for "it is," etc. 2. To denote possession: the object that "possesses" receives an apostrophe followed by an "s" in most cases: the ball of the dog = the dog's ball. If the possessor is plural and ends in an -s, simply append an apostrophe: of a group of politicians, the politicians' idiocy. Some hold that if a singular noun or name ends in -s, only an apostrophe is sufficient, while others argue that -'s is still required. The second option is certainly not wrong, so err on the safe side. 3. Other uses: here's where confusion arises, I think. The main vector of confusion re apostrophes is "it's/its": possessive pronouns do not use apostrophes, even though some of them end in -s and otherwise look like the sort of word formed by adding an apostrophe and an "s." But this confusion is easily clarified: "it's" is always "it is" - remember that, and you're good. Also: some use apostrophes to pluralize letters or numerals or capitalized abbreviations (i.e., "he has 1,000 CD's"). The second, at least, is pointless.)

opportunity missed

A few days ago, I noticed that the Oriental Theater was playing four movies. The order may not be correct as billed on their marquee, but the four movies were The Wrestler, The Reader, Doubt, and Milk.

It is my firm belief that whenever an array of movie titles can be formed into a comprehensible sentence, they should be so arranged; thus it is that this slate of films presents a tragically missed opportunity:

DOUBT
THE WRESTLER
MILK
THE READER

Slang King!

Fans of The Fall know that Mark E. Smith has a peculiar way with language and in particular has a cracked way with song and album titles. So it's no surprise that a long-running thread on Ye Olde Fallnet assembles fake Fall song titles, albums, and even artwork.

Some of my favorites (all peculiar spelling and punctuation is intentional):

"Of Their Phalanx! Episode 7#"
"The Flaxen"
1919 Disco Man
Addendum: Rot
Adherents of Debris Field
Aerobics Instructor vs. Zeitgeist
Ailerons Deployed
Are/Am Chaotic
Bar Code Formulate
Batwalk Nacht
Benefiction
Blank Fizog
Burstwich Arse Fiend
Castle Vernacular
Cat Gut Violator
Chamber of Errors
Chipping Machine Ranger (Cut Up)
Claimant IV's Insights
Cogent Discourse Tits Up in Ditch
Cornwall Dross Horse
Cough It Up, Functionary
Crust-Choke!
D. Crypto-Knight
Daft Song
Drag Man in Gdansk
Dream-Coitus w/Cooking Show Presenter
Factotum* If Applic.
Fall Title Authentification Protocol
FD.brimmedfork
Final Represented Qty.
Flaccid Plumber in Accrington Pub
Gallic Trophy-Haulage Inc.
Gaza/Conflate 78
Hairline Plenitude Assessment Board
Ham-Fist
I Cudgel Sky Saxon
I'm an Inter-Mingler
Inasmuch
Krieg Walker-Stassen!!
Larcenist's Last Redoubt
Lost Guitarist in Pudding Shoppe
Manxchester Extent(acle)
MES Channels Dead Poetaster
Met Hasselhoff
My Malt Shuffle
Oblong Vector
Paltry Return on Service Rendered
Peg and Awl Fornicants
Physicks Defied at Last
Pilf en Rectifier
Pist M'Self
Pith of Chasm
PRCLJJ.3 (Oort Cloud)
Ring-Tone Slattern Not Without Appeal
Schlock Cartel (& Its Pitfalls)
Shatner!
Shift-Key Curses
Sloven After Kid Pouch.
Stept-Up! Trail-Forth!
The Hatred of Ombudsman Fowler
Tit Fuck Hash Key 7
Vix. Waned Sheik
Whelk Legion
7'23" Whatever Was Near Mic

I believe these tracks would be assembled onto the following albums:

And Within
Conjoined Twin Emulsifier
Crooked Gap in Eiger
Defeat the Retina - AKA The Exposure of Infinity
Marrow Transplant Rejection Queue
Partisan Slump Chronickle
The Frictionary E.P.

And here are a few of my own:

Shite Natterer (Sans Prefix)
Petomane Horse
The Winch/Whinge Retrograde
I'm Not Fookin Morrissey Am I
Flak Jacket
Drink-Reich Blighter
The Arse Whisperer
Cabin Essence*

* Not a cover...just another song that happens to have this title, which is rather MES-like if you think about it.

Resolved:

Ugliest female name: Gretchen.

Ugliest male name: Jared.

Both sound like characters in epic Vogon poetry. Hearing them aloud is an experience akin to feeling an unidentified something the consistency of hard rubber in your mouth as you're desperately and drunkenly consuming an anonymous burrito in a flickering neon-lit place cockroaches are scared to inhabit.

In other words, ick factorial.

stupid career moves, pt. 372

I read a review (probably in The A.V. Club) of a film called The Reader, which features an actor named David Kross. Now, apparently that's his real name - he's German, and sometimes spells it with the funny capital-B-looking thing Germans use for double S's - but it's positively silly for any actor beginning his career now to use the name "David Kross" even if it's the name he was born with. Because he'll spend his entire career going, no, not David Cross, the stand-up, actor, and co-star of Mr. Show, but David Kross - with a K, the obscure German guy whose agent and manager are clearly woefully uninformed. Almost anything would have been better than "David Kross": "David Krauss," even "David K. Ross," hell even "The Great Grimpen Mire"... But "David Kross" - that's just silly. That's like someone calling himself "Phillip Seymore Hoffmann" or something...

snow story

As anyone paying attention to the weather knows (and anyone living here knows unless they spent the day in a coma), the midwest got socked with more than a foot of snow today. Strong winds meant huge drifts, in places hip-high. So we spent the morning digging out, with touch-up work being required in the afternoon.

We had an event we needed to get to this evening, and it occurred to us that even though most the folks whose houses abut the same alley as we do had cleared the snow from their portions of the alley, too often what happens is the city plows come through on the streets and leave huge mounds of snow along the curbs in their wake, including at the entryways to alleys. (The city doesn't plow the alleys - this sometimes surprises residents of other cities...) So I thought I'd check to be sure we could actually get out.

Well, there was indeed a huge pile blocking the exit to the alleyway, so I once more fired up the snowblower and walked down to the corner. Along the way, the sidewalks of the folks on the corner had had snowdrifts cover what they'd shoveled, so I cleared a path there since it was right on my way. Once I got to the end of the alley, which is normally cleared by the people whose houses are nearest it, I'd gotten as far as clearing two paths each the width of the snowblower when a pickup truck with a plow came by on the street, stopped, backed up into the alley, and cleared out the entryway within a matter of seconds. I waved in acknowledgement of the driver's kindness, he nodded back, and moved on. I saw him a block away clearing out the corner sidewalk curb break.

One nice thing about nasty weather like this: it often brings out the best in people, in this case, neighborliness. I don't know who the pickup guy was (I didn't recognize him or the truck), but it's just a nice thing to do: simple for him, a great courtesy to others.

Similarly, our neighbor noted that his hot-water heater wouldn't work and gave him an error code indicating that the vent was blocked (which it was...with snow) and suggested we check ours. I did, and shoveled it out...and since our neighbor on the other side was clearing snow at the same time, Rose mentioned this possibility to him as well.

So with all the crappy, depressing news that's made me avoid newspapers recently, it's good to get this sort of news instead.

(On an unrelated note: my spell-check flagged "acknowledgement," which seemed odd. I checked...and apparently "acknowledgment" is acceptable as well. I did not know until now that there was another word along the pattern of "judgment"...)

most bizarre house-style typographical preference evar...

So I'm reading an article from The New Yorker on Elvis Costello's talk show (having neither cable nor terrestrial TV, this was a surprise to me), and I discover the following rather peculiar typographical sequence, in reference to '60s singer Billy Stewart, "R. & B. singer."

What? Those periods and spaces are just weird, especially in conjunction with the otherwise abbreviation-friendly ampersand ("R. and B." would be exceedingly odd, but somehow more internally consistent).

And I thought The New York Times' infamous "Mr." or "Mrs." fetish was odd (deployed most infamously in a late-seventies article on Meat Loaf, referring to him, absurdly and comically, as "Mr. Loaf").

salted with winks?

Earlier this week I happened to read a preview of an upcoming concert in the local alternative weekly (I can't remember which band, and I'm unable to find the preview online), and I was struck by the use of an odd mixed metaphor in the writer's description of a particular band's music: he or she described it as being "peppered with nods" to such-and-such a style. I was left pondering how a "nod" could be the sort of thing that "peppers" anything...yet when I searched the phrase to see if I could find the review, I discovered that many writers imagine that nods pepper things regularly.

Peculiar...

grammar among thieves

One of the CDs I pulled out earlier this evening featured a tiny little small-print notice about copyright law. After thanking the listener for having bought the CD, it moves to an increasingly preposterous list of illicit acts: "using internet services to distribute copyrighted music, giving away illegal copies of discs or lending discs to others for them to copy is illegal and does not support those involved in making this piece of music - especially the artist." Well, okay...maybe I can see that with the first point, but the second one? Which copies of discs are "illegal"? And the third...how do I know what my friend is going to do with my CD if I lend it? The philosophy utterly overlooks the fact that fandom is spread by sharing and enthusiasm...you've got to hear this! this is really cool! etc. In record company world, once you buy a CD, you can only let anyone else hear it under carefully controlled situations (hmmm...I'm not entirely sure record companies would even approve of that: shouldn't those other folks buy their own copy?), and certainly CDs cannot be lent freely, nor can copies of tracks be made. Back in the day, of course, people would make cassette tapes for their friends of their favorite songs. How much of my collection of legally-purchased music was bought because I came to know and love the artist's music because a friend made me a tape or CD? I'd guess one-quarter to one-half, at least.

But never mind all that foolish and dubious babble about what's legal and what supports the musician (musicians hate it when people who haven't paid for their music hear it and like it - they just haven't earned it yet, baby). The really offensive part of this little bit of pleading is the next sentence, which reads:

By carrying out any of these actions it has the same effect as stealing music.

With all those attorneys on the RIAA payroll, there's simply no funding left for proofreaders, it seems...

And you know what? To paraphrase Emma Goldman (sort of): If you won't proofread, I won't be part of your counterrevolution.

he is the Japanese sandman?

I'm a bit of a collector of phrases - sometimes for their content, often for their sound. An excellent example of the latter (which I could easily imagine Zippy the Pinhead repeating three times...) came up in class today.

One of my students was showing off the various ringtones on her phone, one of which was an obscure (particularly to my students) '80s song. I couldn't ID that song, but I mentioned the bit of trivia that the guy who did the contemporaneous "Science!" song (only a few heads nodded as I imitated Magnus Pyke...) was also a pioneer in ringtones: Thomas Dolby, according to his Wikipedia entry, "found[ed] Retro Ringtones LLC ... which produces the RetroFolio ringtone asset management software suite for companies involved in the mobile phone ringtone business."

In other words, I said, he was a ringtone tycoon.

Ringtone tycoon! Ringtone tycoon! Ringtone tycoon!

oh hell now all the bottle-rocket freaks will come here...

It's November...and so the insane folk who dedicate themselves to posting an entry every day (just don't look at how many entries I had last November...) desperately dig into the bloggers' bag of tricks. And who am I to question?

Without further ado, a list of amusing phrases Googled to get readers here (however briefly):

beastliness in government
beaufort scale joke drunk
"dance based on child abuse"
deleting every other letter
donkey puns
grammar self centered (hey!)
how delete every site you have looked at or done
how to draw an umbrella
message bird
9 years old not this not this mountain quiz very
porky pig--"th-th-th-that's all folks!" --followed by the loony tunes theme music
pornstar ben harper
"rino christ" (the horn player on several releases from Les Disques du Crepuscule)
song never whistle urinal
spelling of word architecual
13 hours war house font
tinnitus photon machine
tootle the train communism
unfunny jokes (hey!)
vampire milk
warning narcs can dance too
woman shoots bottle rockets out her vagina
words only containing the letters m,i,s,p

Welcome to the Palindrome

Have you heard the one about how Obama chose his running mate so that their names, together, would sound the first line of a hymn to a weapon deified? "O Bomb abidin'..."

Okay, that hasn't happened yet...but I wouldn't be surprised. What's also amusing is that such lame punning on candidates' last names has been indulged in by Republicans...in the likely subconscious form of Sarah Palin choosing the odd verb, one which almost sounds like her last name, "palling" (as in "palling around with terrorists"). Somehow, working together a decade ago with a man who, when Obama was 8 years old, advocated violence in the anti-war effort, constitutes "palling around with terrorists." I love the plural, by the way...I mean clearly Obama spends most of his off-hours hanging out with every terrorist on the block, shooting hoops and passing arugula-haters.

I wonder if Palin, in her "pro-life" stance, has ever met with any of the folks who winked at or even applauded the murder and terrorization of abortion providers. And I wonder why, even though every homegrown terror group of note over the last two decades has been right-wing (Oklahoma City, anti-abortion, arguably Waco), this flimsy accusation of "terrorist" against a man who once worked with a man who's worked with both Democrats and Republicans on various educational issues has any media traction at all.

particularly amusing for our British friends

you say tomato, I say too meta, let's call the whole thing off

We went down to Ikea in Bolingbrook, Illinois today to buy furniture for the bedroom in our remodeled second floor, and across the road from the store was a big-box store with the puzzling name "Outdoor World."

Consider the rather dizzying series of regresses implicit in that name. It's indoors, and it's not a world, but it's called "Outdoor World." The actual "outdoor world" is, well, outdoors from this store. Odder yet - the world we use to refer to nature, the wild, and so on - "outdoors" - carries its differentiation from the built, the artificial, the human-made, in the notion of "doors" (which side of them you're on) - that is, in claiming to name the natural, the unmediated, its very name requires its opposite to be thought of first, as preceding the "natural" in some way.

I wonder if Jacques Derrida ever did any bass fishing?

advanced point-missing, pt. 3,761

Some years ago I read an article somewhere on a company whose specialization it was to clean up after grisly, violent crime scenes. I hadn't really thought of it before - but I suppose not only is there unfortunately a market for such services, it would seem to require certain kinds of specialization other than just watching Pulp Fiction too many times.

So I wasn't that surprised when, a few blocks from our house, I saw a van parked with signage painted on it indicating it belonged to such a company. The irony lies in the text of the signage, which claimed that the company's task was to help "overcome the trauma of violent death" or similar phrasing by recuperating the physical crime scene.

Okay...but did anyone stop to think that survivors of a violent crime, or suicide, etc., might not want to have such a vehicle parked outside their house thereby advertising (to passing bloggers, say) that such an event had affected their household? I don't think most such people want to put up a billboard advertising their pain; it seems ironically insensitive of this company not to recognize that.

an editor who auto be replaced

Minor snurkage.

Since I come from a state that once elected a man named Homosexuallord Nelson senator (he was the founder of Earth Day) and which has a town called Homosexuals Mills, this item makes me happy, cheerful, and carefree.

Or homosexual, if you prefer.

(My favorite comment is a few down from the top: one "Stew Mulligan" asks, "is this the same site that refers to our current white house administration as George Vagina and Penis Cheney?")

gee baby g

I've always found it curious not only that lower-case "g" has two rather distinct formal variants (as does lower-case "a") but that the variant generally found in serif fonts (and in many sans serif fonts) is quite possibly the most elaborate typographic form in the Roman alphabet. Take a look: the loop of the top part of the letterform extends from the top of the letter's x-height to between half and two-thirds of the way down to baseline (depending on typeface), after which a rather indecisive descender cuts left, veers right, then closes in on itself (or nearly so). Oh, and if that's not enough, the upper right portion of the top loop has grown an ear.

Unsurprisingly, even this particular variant form varies quite a bit from typeface to typeface. (My example is Bodoni.) The relation between the two loops, in size and relative position, the elaboration of the "ear," whether the lower loop is open or closed - all differ depending on typeface.

In some typefaces, the "double-story" lower-case "g" rather resembles a face in profile, with glasses and hair flowing back from the forehead and the mouth open. What is this character saying? It's obvious: "Yo, G."

myBandZnameIz43

Once upon a time, someone (either Don Marquis or E.E. Cummings) figured out that if you futz around with the typography of your name, it will appear more distinctive in relation to other names. This was true then - but since every teenage poet and corporate brander has come to the same conclusion, we're now faced with a situation in which non-standard typography is nearly standard.

How standard?

One of the bands whose mailing list I'm on (The Hidden Messages) entered an "unsigned band" contest sponsored by Intel. Of the 265 bands listed, nearly one-third (78) displayed their names either in ALL CAPS, all lower-case, featuring InterCapitaliZation, runtogetherasifit'soneword, or with superfluous numerals tacked8 on4. I didn't count lower-cased or all-capped entries if they appeared to be only e-mail addresses, nor did I count intercapitalization when it's standard (surnames like "McDonald") or numbers that were relevant to the makeup of the act (such as the Bob Smith 3 if it had three members).

The breakdown:

All caps: 12
Non-standard lower-casing: 25
Non-standard intercapitalization: 9
Words run together: 23
Superfluous numerals: 9

There are some double-dippers. I think the champion is an act called (take several aspirin now; wait until they take effect to read on) ill-a-noiZe. They should have been "ill-a-noiZ3" if they'd wanted the crown for real, though.

Punctuation Patrol!

Saving the world from typos, one apostrophe at a time! If only they had their own theme music...

phrase of the week

If there's a better phrase in its blunt imaginary gravity and earthedness than "pig iron," I'd like to hear it.

Pig iron.

Pig iron!