Galaxy Cadet: What's Different?

(Galaxy Cadet, 2015)


(Galaxy Cadet, 2009)

From the archives of Baum Media Productions, the Lemming presents something that's apparently not from any of the Galaxy Cadet movies.

The top picture is pretty much the same as the bottom one, but the perceptive reader will notice several obvious differences — and, if the perceptive reader has nothing better to do than keep looking, a few not-so-obvious differences.

There is no prize, no contest, winners will not be announced at the annual Baum Media company picnic; and it is the Lemming's opinion that perceptive readers have better things to do with their time.

But, although there is positively no 'spot the differences' contest — maybe perceptive readers will actually think looking for differences is worth their time. Lemming has been wrong before. Fairly often.

Take "Gormful," for example: who would have guessed that dictionary compilers don't think it's a word? "Gormless," yes; "gloomful," "roomful," and "doomful," Yes. "Gormful," no.

Posts that might be related, and some that aren't:

• "Trial by Error Poster"
  (November 6, 2015)
• "Escape From Klagfinster Poster"
  (September 25, 2015)
• "Double Planets Possible"
  (November 28, 2014)
• "From the Mind of the Lemming: Mr. Chuckles"
  (November 7, 2014)
• "From the Mind of the Lemming: Night Flight"
  (September 26, 2014)

Narcissus-X Proffers Plenteous Provisos

(Narcissus-X, proffering plenteous provisos.)

Periphrastic pleonasms, ostentatious expositors, banished vulgarians! Narcissus-X willingly assists the Lemming, proffering plenteous precepts, purling pearls or pairing purlins by the penguin portal.

Narcissus-X further declares that the Lemming's retreat continues. But fear not for the Lemming! For Narcissus-X is at hand, elevating this banausic blog through profound vaults of obsidian splendor.

Not for naught has Narcissus-X ascended the nadir of nattering Nibelungian nabobs. Had the Lemming sought Narcissus-X, sought artist, sought art, spotted snakes with double tongue, weaving circles round him thrice; then might the Lemming have leaped large lengths of miles.

But time twists and moments pass as pigeons on the grass, alas! Narcissus-X is here and the Lemming's path is knotted through haunts where slithy toves gyre and gimble in the wabe. Mimsy are the borogoves, when the mome raths outgrabe: and many hunt the snark in vain.

Time, tide, and Plato's fifth solid, surely shall return the Lemming to this blog. But not today.

This isn't Shakespeare, but neither is Narcissus-X.

• From the Lemming, selected by Narcissus-X
  • "Remember the Paths"
    (July 24, 2015)
  • "Ashikaga Yoshiakira's Birthday, Independence Day, and All That"
    (July 4, 2015)
  • " 'Let Me See That Map!' "
    (February 6, 2015)
  • " 'We Saved You a Piece' "
    (January 30, 2015)
  • "Pip: Not Your Usual Fluffy Christmas Rhyme"
    (December 5, 2014)
• Profundity and penguins, from Narcissus-X
  • "Narcissus-X and the Gloomy Dane"
    Narcissus-X (August 12, 2015)
  • "Penguin, Penguin, Burning Bright: Narcissus-X Ponders"
    Narcissus-X (September 5, 2014)
  • "Narcissus-X Listens"
    Narcissus-X (July 25, 2014)
  • "Angst and the Artist: Interview With Narcissus-X"
    (May 30, 2014)
  • "Jabberwocks: A Guest Post by Narcissus-X"
    (June 11, 2010)

One Cloudy Day

"Whoever she is, wherever she is from: she can read old Okuz, and claims to understand what this script says."

Previously:

• "Dark Questions and Donoshol"
  (April 24, 2015)
  "She recognized this tablet, which proves little; speaks Bodan and Zemian fluently, but with a strange accent. Then there's her appearance. And why would a barkeep ask what happened to Donoshol?"
• "Familiar Writing"
  (April 17, 2015)
  "The first civilized writing I see here: and it's a strangely-worded house blessing."
• "Interlude: Market Day"
  (April 10, 2015)
  "These are good people. They — — — accept is not the right word. They allow me to have a place among them. For now, that is enough."
• "Hindrance and Hindsight"
  (April 3, 2015)
  "I had hoped curiosity, a thirst for knowledge, would be enough. His fee is — reasonable. Research takes time. It cannot be done while plying his trade. Even if he already has the needed documents, it would take me — how long? A year? Longer? — to save enough. I could have thought of that. I should have thought of that."
• "Looking For Answers"
  (March 27, 2015)
  " 'Searching is best begun by your door.' Where it will end: I may not like that, but at least I will know.' "
• "Remembering"
  (March 20, 2015)
  "Usta, dead. My mother, father, kinfolk: they are gone. I will not forget. I will never forget. I must never forget."
• "Back at the Two Goblets"
  (March 13, 2015)
  "Usta was right. We learn, even from those who do not know."
• "With Humility: and Hope"
  (March 6, 2015)
  "Rest now, seen but unapproachable. Be at peace, and know that I shall never forget."
• "Departing"
  (February 27, 2015)
  "A final duty, and then: home."
• "A Pledge Fulfilled"
  (February 20, 2015)
  "I pledged that what is yours would be returned. It stands by you again."
• "Destination"
  (February 13, 2015)
  "How could it have been so long?"
• " 'Let Me See That Map!' "
  (February 6, 2015)
  " 'Don't worry,' they said. 'We're solid,' they said. 'We've done this before,' they said. 'Trust us, we're experts,' they said."

Dark Questions and Donoshol

"She recognized this tablet, which proves little; speaks Bodan and Zemian fluently, but with a strange accent. Then there's her appearance. And why would a barkeep ask what happened to Donoshol?"

Previously:

• "Familiar Writing"
  (April 17, 2015)
  "The first civilized writing I see here: and it's a strangely-worded house blessing."
• "Interlude: Market Day"
  (April 10, 2015)
  "These are good people. They — — — accept is not the right word. They allow me to have a place among them. For now, that is enough."
• "Hindrance and Hindsight"
  (April 3, 2015)
  "I had hoped curiosity, a thirst for knowledge, would be enough. His fee is — reasonable. Research takes time. It cannot be done while plying his trade. Even if he already has the needed documents, it would take me — how long? A year? Longer? — to save enough. I could have thought of that. I should have thought of that."
• "Looking For Answers"
  (March 27, 2015)
  " 'Searching is best begun by your door.' Where it will end: I may not like that, but at least I will know.' "
• "Remembering"
  (March 20, 2015)
  "Usta, dead. My mother, father, kinfolk: they are gone. I will not forget. I will never forget. I must never forget."
• "Back at the Two Goblets"
  (March 13, 2015)
  "Usta was right. We learn, even from those who do not know."
• "With Humility: and Hope"
  (March 6, 2015)
  "Rest now, seen but unapproachable. Be at peace, and know that I shall never forget."
• "Departing"
  (February 27, 2015)
  "A final duty, and then: home."
• "A Pledge Fulfilled"
  (February 20, 2015)
  "I pledged that what is yours would be returned. It stands by you again."
• "Destination"
  (February 13, 2015)
  "How could it have been so long?"
• " 'Let Me See That Map!' "
  (February 6, 2015)
  " 'Don't worry,' they said. 'We're solid,' they said. 'We've done this before,' they said. 'Trust us, we're experts,' they said."

Familiar Writing

"The first civilized writing I see here: and it's a strangely-worded house blessing."

The story so far:

• "Interlude: Market Day"
  (April 10, 2015)
  "These are good people. They — — — accept is not the right word. They allow me to have a place among them. For now, that is enough."
• "Hindrance and Hindsight"
  (April 3, 2015)
  "I had hoped curiosity, a thirst for knowledge, would be enough. His fee is — reasonable. Research takes time. It cannot be done while plying his trade. Even if he already has the needed documents, it would take me — how long? A year? Longer? — to save enough. I could have thought of that. I should have thought of that."
• "Looking For Answers"
  (March 27, 2015)
  " 'Searching is best begun by your door.' Where it will end: I may not like that, but at least I will know.' "
• "Remembering"
  (March 20, 2015)
  "Usta, dead. My mother, father, kinfolk: they are gone. I will not forget. I will never forget. I must never forget."
• "Back at the Two Goblets"
  (March 13, 2015)
  "Usta was right. We learn, even from those who do not know."
• "With Humility: and Hope"
  (March 6, 2015)
  "Rest now, seen but unapproachable. Be at peace, and know that I shall never forget."
• "Departing"
  (February 27, 2015)
  "A final duty, and then: home."
• "A Pledge Fulfilled"
  (February 20, 2015)
  "I pledged that what is yours would be returned. It stands by you again."
• "Destination"
  (February 13, 2015)
  "How could it have been so long?"
• " 'Let Me See That Map!' "
  (February 6, 2015)
  " 'Don't worry,' they said. 'We're solid,' they said. 'We've done this before,' they said. 'Trust us, we're experts,' they said."

A 'Bookish' Librarian, Art, Words, and a Rambling Lemming

Giuseppe Arcimboldo's The Librarian, painted in 1566, currently residing at Skokloster Castle, Sweden.

If artists paint what they see, Giuseppe was deranged; which has little to do with "Home on the Range;" although spending too much time where the antelope roam might.

On the other hand, maybe his paintings are incisive social commentary; or clever puzzles; or maybe he was essentially not in madness, But mad in craft. Bill had a knack with words: like when Hamlet said "unpack my heart with words," and it's funny how unpack sounds like knack, except that first k is silent, and the Lemming's train of thought jumped the track, which also rhymes with knack.

Which reminded the Lemming that Giuseppe Arcimboldo painted a quartet of seasons: Spring, Summer, Autumn, and Winter, except they came about ten years apart: the first two and the last two, that is; and October is in autumn, followed by November and December, which got those names because they're the eighth, ninth, and tenth month; but that was when Romans only had ten months in a year, since winter didn't count. Sort of.

That was a long time ago, or maybe not so much. It depends on your frame of reference, and the Lemming definitely needs sleep.

Allegedly-related posts:

• "From the Mind of the Lemming"
  (January 6, 2012)
• "Gingerbread, Fruitcake, and Eggnog Nightmare #2"
  (December 23, 2011)
• "Museum of Modern Art: MoMA isn't a Japanese Cartoon Character"
  (December 7, 2011)
• "Color Theory, Color Wheels, and a Nifty Bracelet"
  (October 12, 2011)
• "Alexander Calder, Mobiles, and Encouraging the Kids"
  (July 22, 2011)

Holiday-Themed Nebulae: Caldwell 92 and IC 2118

(From NASA/STScI Digitized Sky Survey/Noel Carboni, used w/o permission.)

"Witch Head Nebula

"As the name implies, this reflection nebula associated with the star Rigel looks suspiciously like a fairytale crone. Formally known as IC 2118 in the constellation Orion, the Witch Head Nebula glows primarily by light reflected from the star. The color of this very blue nebula is caused not only by blue color of its star, but also because the dust grains reflect blue light more efficiently than red. A similar physical process causes Earth's daytime sky to appear blue."

The Witch Head Nebula is either left over from a supernova, or not. Either way, from Earth's angle it looks like the ethically-challenged stepmother in Snow White or Hansel and Gretel, sort of. Some of those tales are downright Grimm.

The way light gets scattered by tiny particles is why Earth's sky and the Witch Head Nebula look blue. It's called Rayleigh scattering, not to be confused with the Raleigh Bicycle Company, Sir Walter Raleigh, or Sir Walter Scott.

Sorry about that. The Lemming's catching up on sleep, or fighting a cold, or in a puckish mood. Oddly, "pawkish" isn't in dictionaries, although the Lemming's seen and heard it used. Definitions aboud for gawkish, hawkish, mawkish, peckish, perkish, rakish, and the aforementioned puckish: but nary a peep about "pawkish."

Somewhere in Earth's sky there must be a nebula that looks like Little Bo Peep or her sheep, and that's another topic.


(From Hubble Space Telescope, NASA, used w/o permission.)

"Hubble Celebrates Its Seventeenth Birthday with the Birth of a Star

"...one of the largest panoramic images ever taken with Hubble's cameras. It is a 50-light-year-wide view of the central region of the Carina Nebula where a maelstrom of star birth - and death - is taking place....

"...The immense nebula contains at least a dozen brilliant stars that are roughly estimated to be at least 50 to 100 times the mass of our Sun. The most unique and opulent inhabitant is the star Eta Carinae, at far left. Eta Carinae is in the final stages of its brief and eruptive lifespan, as evidenced by two billowing lobes of gas and dust that presage its upcoming explosion as a titanic supernova.

"The fireworks in the Carina region started three million years ago when the nebula's first generation of newborn stars condensed and ignited in the middle of a huge cloud of cold molecular hydrogen. Radiation from these stars carved out an expanding bubble of hot gas. The island-like clumps of dark clouds scattered across the nebula are nodules of dust and gas that are resisting being eaten away by photoionization...."
NASA (March 24, 2007)

Like most other things in the sky, the Carina Nebula has quite a few names and catalog numbers. Depending on who's writing, it's Caldwell 92; or the Eta Carinae Nebula, Grand Nebula, Great Nebula in Carina; or NGC 3372.

A nebula by any other name wouldn't smell as sweet, and the Lemming is not going to go into a Shakespearean frenzy.

Points of interest in the Carina Nebula include the Homunculus Nebula. There we go with a Halloween theme again. Sort of.

The word homunculus first showed up in 16th century alchemical records. These drastically undersized human-like critters are sort of related to the mandrake plant, except they don't really exist. That's the Lemming's story, and he's sticking to it.

Mystic Mountain is another scenic spot in the Carina Nebula, and not to be confused with an amusement park in Jamaica, or a ski resort in Pennsylvania. The latter are both on Earth, which may be obvious. Then again, maybe not.

Related posts:

• "Vistas in Orion"
  (August 23, 2013)
• "Blue Planet, Glass Rain"
  (July 12, 2013)
• "Betelgeuse, Stellar Wind, and Exploding Eggs"
  (February 8, 2013)
• "WR 104: Gamma Ray Bursts and a Musing Lemming"
  (January 4, 2013)
• "Looking Down on the Auroras"
  (June 21, 2010)

Lemming Tracks: Writing and POOP

Somewhere between the era of poodle skirts and the advent of DLL files, the Lemming did time in academia.

The Lemming never let getting an education interfere with learning, and that's another topic.

Along the way, one question continued to perplex the Lemming: why, in the name of all that's sane and coherent, couldn't academics write?!!

Actually, learned savants could write: but apparently believed that a writer's job is to obfuscate, producing text that's clear as mud.

Or, as an academic might put it:

"Sesquipedalian exposition primary comprised of prolix utterances tends toward deficiencies of a cognizable nature."

Seriously: would folks read a thousand words of that unless they had to?

Writing, Communication, and All That

The Lemming wasn't particularly good at passing tests. Maintaining a "B" average depended on the Lemming's term papers.

Good research skills and understanding the subject are important for college students. But the Lemming also realized that some poor sap had to read his term paper, plus maybe hundreds of others: all on pretty much the same subject.

Once in a while, there's no way to express an idea except by utilizing polysyllabic utterances in protracted prose. But shorter words and simpler sentences generally do just as well. Humor helps, too, and that's almost another topic.

Being Sententious: Good News; Bad News

"Sententious" means at least two things:

1. Abounding in or given to pompous or aphoristic moralizing
2. Concise and full of meaning
   (Princeton's WordNet)

The first definition isn't, in the Lemming's considered opinion, a good way to write. Not if you're trying to communicate. Maybe some folks like that sort of tedious stuff: but not, the Lemming thinks, many.

The second definition is what the KISS principle is about: "Keep It Simple, Stupid." Or, for the more polite folks, KIS.

Avoid POOP

And now, a plea from the Lemming to writers: don't write POOP.

This acronym has been used before, but the Lemming doesn't mean Perl Object Oriented Programming or Pipe Organ Owners and Players.

The Lemming's contribution to the world's cultural and lingustic treasure is: Pretentiously Opulent Overblown Prose.

Wait a minute. That didn't come out right.

Related posts:

• "Another Blogger's Readers Opine on Writing"
  (June 25, 2011)
• "BTW: Avoid Clichés Like the Plague"
  (June 14, 2011)
• "Five-Star Hotel Press Release - That's Readable!"
  (February 6, 2011)
• "Five Writing Mistakes: And Why Bloggers Should Avoid Them"
  (November 30, 2010)
• "Writing For Blogs: Pretty Good Advice, and a Seven-Point List"
  (June 14, 2010)

Filberts, Fardels, and a Rambling Lemming

"Then & Now: From Filberts to Hazelnuts"
The Agriculture Quarterly, Oregon Department of Agriculture

"Did you know that the entire U.S. hazelnut crop is grown in the Pacific Northwest? Most U.S. grown hazelnuts are produced in Oregon's Willamette Valley with a small portion coming from Whatcom County, Washington. Hazelnut trees experience an alternate year bearing cycle which accounts for much of the fluctuation in yield from year to year, but the market is generally considered strong and the Oregon hazelnut industry is healthy and growing....

"...The Oregon Filbert Commission was established in 1951. Oregon Filberts were mostly sold in the shell to local consumers. In 1950, Oregon harvested 5,350 tons of filberts for a value of $1,872,000...."

Don't bother looking for the Oregon Filbert Commission. It's not there any more. Or, rather, it's operating under an alias.

They changed the name to the Oregon Hazelnut Commission in 1994. Folks in Europe like filberts, but they call them hazelnuts. Tomayto, tomahto, not that filberts have anything to do with Fred Astair. Apart from starting with the letter "f," that is, and the Lemming has more to say about filberts and fardles.

Filberts, French, and "Ph"

We call hazelnuts filberts because nois de Filbert means "nut of Philibert" in Old French. Saint Philibert's feast day is in late August, which is when hazelnuts ripen. Philibert's name got a "Ph" somewhere along the line, but the hazlenut didn't. (the Free Online Dictionary)

Or maybe we call those things filberts because filu means many and beraht means bright in Old High German. Then again, maybe not.

The Lemming ran into something about Old High German, red currants, and St. John, too: so maybe there is an Old High German connection, although red currants aren't hazelnuts and St. John's feast day is in June.

None of that has much do do with Fred Astair, filberts, or what the Lemming was looking for, which is a picture of filberts.

Life is Just a Bowl of - Filberts?!

(Bowl of hazelnuts, Vicki Nunn, via Wikimedia Commons, used w/o permission)

"Hazelnut"
Wikipedia

"...In 1995, evidence of large-scale Mesolithic nut processing, some 9,000 years old, was found in a midden pit on the island of Colonsay in Scotland. The evidence consists of a large, shallow pit full of the remains of hundreds of thousands of burned hazelnut shells. Hazelnuts have been found on other Mesolithic sites, but rarely in such quantities or concentrated in one pit..."

The Lemming finds Mesolithic nut processing fascinating. Your experience may vary.

A Fardel by Any Other Name

"Fardel"
Wiktionary

"A corruption of Middle English ferthe del (literally 'fourth part'), equivalent to fourth +‎ deal. Cognate with Dutch vierendeel ('a fourth part, quarter'), German Viertel ('a quarter, fourth'), Danish fjerdedel ('a quarter'), Swedish fjärdedel ('a fourth, quarter')...."

"...From Middle English fardel, from Old French fardel ('pack, bundle'), from Spanish fardel, diminutive of fardo ('pack, bundle'), from Arabic (fardah, 'a package')...."

A bag of filberts could be a fardel, but that's probably not what Shakespeare had in mind when he wrote this Brobdingnagian sentence for Hamlet:

"To die,-to sleep,-
To sleep! perchance to dream: ay, there's the rub;
For in that sleep of death what dreams may come,
When we have shuffled off this mortal coil,
Must give us pause:11 There's the respect
That makes calamity of so long life;
For who would bear the whips and scorns of time,
The oppressor's wrong, the proud man's contumely,
The pangs of despised love, the law's delay,
The insolence of office, and the spurns
That patient merit of the unworthy takes,
When he himself might his quietus make
With a bare bodkin? Who would fardels bear,
To groan and sweat under a weary life,
But that the dread of something after death,
The undiscovered country, from whose bourn
No traveller returns, puzzles the will,
And makes us rather bear those ills we have
Than fly to others that we know not of?"
("Hamlet," Act III Scene 1, Shakespeare, via Gutenberg.com)

That heading, "A Fardle by Any Other Name" would be funnier, if "a [blank] by any other name" came from Hamlet. Hamlet isn't particularly funny, by the way. By the time it's over King Hamlet, Polonius, Ophelia, Rosencrantz and Guildenstern, Gertrude, Hamlet, Laertes, and Claudius are dead: variously poisoned, stabbed, or drowned.

That phrase is from another Shakespeare play: one with a slightly lower body count. Only Mercutio, Tybalt, Paris, Romeo, and Juliet get poisoned or stabbed. Lady Montague dies of grief.

Juliet says "a rose ... by any other name" in "Romeo and Juliet." It's part of this rather nice soliloquy:

"What's in a name? That which we call a rose
By any other name would smell as sweet."


Toward the end of that play Juliet impersonates a corpse, Romeo says "Here's to my love" and drinks poison, Juliet wakes up and stabs herself - and this is romantic?!

Not-totally-unrelated posts:

• "The Grand Panjandrum"
  (April 26, 2013)
• "Flabbergasted: What's a Flabber, and How Does One Gast It?"
  (October 21, 2011)
• "Oil Painting: Brushes from Flat and Fan to Filbert and Rigger"
  (September 3, 2010)
• "A Filbert: by Any Other Name - - -"
  (August 6, 2010)
• "Shakespeare, Butterflies, the Gilded Age and an Actress's Shoulder Blade"
  (September 17, 2009)

Friday and a Rambling Lemming

Some lawyers are long-winded, but a mistral isn't that kind of wind: although a mistrial might happen during a mistral, although that's silly since although a mistrial seems to be a "mistrial" in French, when it's not a erreur judiciaire, but a mistral is French too, a French wind that's strong and happens in winter.

The Lemming definitely needs more sleep.

Posts, related or maybe not so much:

• "The Grand Panjandrum"
  (April 26, 2013)
• "That's No Carp! That's a TENCH!"
  (January 20, 2012)
• "Lemming Tracks: Due to Lack of Interest, Monday has been Canceled"
  (June 6, 2011)
• "Weather on Titan: New Season, New Knowledge"
  (March 20, 2011)
• "A Thought for the Day: About Cheese"
  (January 8, 2011)

The Grand Panjandrum

"Official" is one thing. "officious" is something else. Some folks are officials, but not officious. Others are officious but not in an official capacity.

Some folks look forward to Friday because the next day they'll be away from the officious official who runs the office: for two days, anyway.

That brings the Lemming to the word panjandrum. That's:

• A person who is important or influential
  • Often overbearing
  (Princeton's WordNet)
• An important or self-important person
  (The Free Online Dictionary)
• A powerful personage or pretentious official
  • Origin:
    Grand Panjandrum, burlesque title of an imaginary personage in some nonsense lines by Samuel Foote
    First Known Use: 1856
  (Merriam-Webster.com)

And now, for those whose life would not be complete without reading it:

• "The Grand Panjandrum"
  Samuel Foote, via an 1820 novel and Wikisource (1755)

Here's the 1820 version:

"So she went into the garden to cut a cabbage leaf, to make an apple pie ; and at the same time a great she-bear coming up the street, pops its head into the shop. 'What! no soap?' So he died, and she very imprudently married the barber; and there were present the Picninnies, and the Joblillies, and the Garyulies, and the grand Panjandrum himself, with the little round button at top; and they all fell to playing the game of catch as catch can, till the gunpowder ran out at the heels of their boots."
(Samuel Foote, via Maria Edgeworth)

Allegedly-related posts:

• "Gaylord: A Car, Another Car, a Company, a Town, and a Block of Wax"
  (November 18, 2011)
• "Flabbergasted: What's a Flabber, and How Does One Gast It?"
  (October 21, 2011)
• "Pickles Aren't Always Pickled"
  (October 18, 2011)
• "Sesquipedalian!"
  (April 3, 2010)
• "What's a Vook about Hopping Rotochutes with Gigavision, Spying on a Shootout?"
  (January 14, 2010)

New Domain Suffixes: "Dot-Whatever" Coming (Fairly) Soon

"Web 2.0: New Internet domains may include '.lol,' '.bank"
Associated Press, via FoxNews.com (June 13, 2012)

"If Google has its way, you won't need 'Google.com' to do your searches. You can simply go to '.Google.'"

"New York City wants Internet addresses ending in '.nyc,' while several companies and groups are looking to create '.doctor,' '.music' and '.bank.' Google Inc. is also seeking '.YouTube' and '.lol' -- the digital shorthand for 'laugh out loud.' Others are looking to attract non-English speakers with suffixes in a variety of languages....

So far, this looks pretty good. With so many 'dot com' addresses, the Internet - well, the Web, anyway - is probably due for some new ways to say 'this is where I am' in cyberspace. Look at the names we've got for "street," besides "street," of course. Like:

• Avenue
• Boulevard
• Court
• Drive
• Lane
• Place
• Road
• Terrace
• Trail

Of course, there's the problem that some cities have, where newcomers get lost trying to find 123 Mockingbird Lane; or was that Mockingbird Drive; Mockingbird Place? - all of which are in about the same part of town.

What, No .BYOB?!

"...Some 2,000 proposals have been submitted as part of the largest expansion of the Internet address system since its creation in the 1980s. These suffixes would rival '.com' and about 300 others now in use. Companies would be able to create separate websites and separate addresses for each of their products and brands, for instance, even as they keep their existing '.com' name. One day, you might go to 'comedy.YouTube' rather than 'YouTube.com/comedy.'

"The organization behind the expansion, the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers, will announce a full list and other details in London on Wednesday....

For all the Lemming knows, .byob actually is in the list of new "...It'll take at least a year or two, however, for the first of these new suffixes to win approval and appear in use.

"Some of them never will if they are found to violate trademarks or are deemed offensive. Others will be delayed as competing bidders..."

For all that the Lemming knows, .byob (Bring Your Own Bottle) may be one of the new domain name suffixes. If it is, the Lemming suspects that some of America's more tightly-wound citizens will raise a fuss. You'd think we'd have learned from Prohibition, and that's another topic.

'Offensive' is in the Eye of the Beholder

The Lemming hopes that the folks at ICAN use common sense when handling complaints about 'offensive' suffixes. With so many of the world's 7,000,000,000 or so citizens having Internet access, the odds are pretty good that someone's already offended by ".com" and ".org."

Since those are still with us, the Lemming figures the folks at ICAN have at least a little sense.

Serenity and a Dreaming Lemming

Surely by now some frightfully earnest fellow has complained about the crass commercialism of ".com," or the oppressive overtones of ".gov" - and yet, ICAN retained those suffixes. Perhaps that sort of restraint and inner serenity will flow into other channels.

The Lemming has a dream that one day online communities will shine with friendship, compassion, and rational exchange of ideas.

The Lemming has a dream that one day reporters and columnists will no longer write angst-laden articles about the dreadful consequences of something new.

The Lemming has a dream that - oh, never mind. The Lemming's just dreaming.

Related(?) posts:

• "Microsoft, Windows, Internet Explorer, 'Mere Anarchy is Loosed Upon the World,' and All That"
  (May 11, 2012)
• "Twitter Censorship: Choosing Half a Loaf?"
  (January 30, 2012)
• "Lemming Tracks: SOPA, PIPA, and 'Rules are for the Little People?' "
  (January 17, 2012)
• "The Internet 'Shattering:' Oh, the Horror! Or, Not"
  (January 9, 2012)
• "Olympic Committee Rules for Social Media: Common Sense; or Signs of a Vast Conspiracy of Space Aliens?"
  (June 27, 2011)

New York City Metropolitan Museum of Art Makeover, et Les Mots Français (Mais Oui!)

Ah, l'éclat, le mot français, le côté prétentieux! C'est magificent!

Now that the Lemming has got that out of his system, here's some fairly interesting news from the shining center of all universes. (Ask any New Yorker.)

Getting a Plaza with Pizzazz?

"Met Aims to Build Itself a Museum-Quality Plaza"
Carol Vogel, Art & Design, The New York Times (February 7, 2012)

"More than 40 years after its last makeover, the plaza in front of the Metropolitan Museum of Art is showing its age: the fountains are leaking, the sidewalk is crumbling, and the trees are dying. Overcrowding on the institution's grand front steps - one of the most popular meeting places in Manhattan - often causes bottlenecks for visitors trying to get to the front door.

"Now an ambitious plan is in the works to transform this four-block-long stretch along Fifth Avenue, from 80th to 84th Street, into a more efficient, pleasing and environmentally friendly space, with new fountains, tree-shaded allées, seating areas, museum-run kiosks and softer, energy-efficient nighttime lighting...."

En France, l'un des mots pour passerelles est allées.

The Lemming is grateful that there weren't more les mots français strewn around the article. Les gens continuent d'utiliser des mots français dans un effort pour paraître socialement supérieur? Incroyable!

Dropping back into the low-class habit of picking one language, and sticking with it, the Lemming continues.

"Allées" is one of the French words for "walkways," by the way.

Hey! This Makes Sense!

"...'Our first priority is to create an appropriate entrance to the greatest encyclopedic museum in the world, one that is attractive and welcoming rather than austere and forbidding,' said Thomas P. Campbell, the Met's director and chief executive. At the moment, he added, 'the plaza is a frying pan in the summer and a wind tunnel in the winter.' The museum will stay open during construction, although parts of the sidewalk may be closed at times...."

The article didn't have the most promising lead paragraph. Apart from some unnecessarily obfuscatory erudition, the complaint seemed to be that "one of the most popular meeting places in Manhattan" had:

• Leaky fountains
• Dying trees
• Crumbling sidewalks

On top of all that, this popular place was overcrowded.

The Lemming thought that someone in the Big Apple might have gotten tired of the riffraff cluttering up the entrance to the Met. Not knowing Museum Mile first-hand, the Lemming assumed that folks hung out on or near the steps of the Metropolitan Museum of Art because they liked it there. Even if the place wasn't in like-new condition.

From what Thomas P. Campbell says, it looks like the hoipolloi have picked a remarkably uncomfortable spot to spend time in. Which makes the Lemming wonder why so many folks enjoy spending time there.

Let's hope that the 'new and improved' Met entrance leaves some room for the lower 90 percent. Or that there's a viable alternative to the steps of the Met.

Paris, New York City, and Victorian Niceties

"Niceties?!" No, that doesn't mean 'modest flannel nighties." Niceties are "conformity with some esthetic standard of correctness or propriety," or "a subtle difference in meaning or opinion or attitude." (Princeton's ) The second definition is sort of like "nuances," but with one more letter.

If the Lemming's memory serves, socially ambitious Americans used to make sure that folks heard them using French words. That was the 19th century, when America was still dealing with unfinished business from the colonial days. It took a major war to sort that out, and that's another topic.

Back then, France was sort of like today's New York City: a big, important place. And Paris - well, it was PARIS.

That was then, this is now.

By the last half of the 20th century, gratuitously shoving French into a sentence had gotten to be a joke. Think Miss Piggy, of the "Muppet Show."

More than a decade into the 21st century, either "allées" is what just simply everybody says when they mean "walkways:" Or someone didn't get the memo about changing their calendar. Or maybe there's something else going on.

Anyway, if the Metropolitan Museum of Art let groundskeeping and maintenance slide, and the place is as hideously uncomfortable as Mr. Campbell says it is: maybe tearing out what they've got and starting over makes sense.

Not-entirely-unrelated posts:

• "Houston, Texas; Civic Pride; Futuristic Architecture; and Admiral Horatio Nelson"
  (February 1, 2012)
• "Ohio City Dusting Off 1978 Restoration Plan"
  (December 21, 2011)
• "Minneapolis Skyways: Warm Winter Walking"
  (November 9, 2011)
• "New York City: 18th Century Ship Dug Up"
  (July 17, 2010)
• "Architects, City Planning, Le Corbusier, Pulp Fiction, The Masses, The City of the Future, and Me"
  (December 16, 2009)

That's No Carp! That's a TENCH!

"Tench Information"
Fish Farm UK
("Home of Staffordshire 'Supa' Carp")

"Tench
"The Tench or Doctor Fish (Tinca tinca) is a freshwater and brackish water fish of the cyprinid family found throughout Eurasia from Western Europe into Asia. It normally inhabits slow-moving freshwater habitats, particularly lakes and lowland rivers.

"Ecology
"The Tench is most often found in still waters with a clay or muddy substrate and abundant vegetation. This species is rare in clear waters across stony ground and is absent altogether from fast-flowing streams. It tolerates water with a low oxygen concentration, even being found in waters where Carp cannot survive. Tench feed mostly at night on algae and benthic invertebrates of various kinds that they root up from the bottom.

"Breeding takes place in shallow water usually among aquatic plants where the sticky green eggs can be deposited. Spawning usually occurs in summer and as many as three hundred thousand eggs may be produced. Growth is rapid and fish may reach a weight of 0.11 kg (0.25lb) within the first year.

"Morphology
"Tench have a stocky, carp-like shape, olive-green skin, darker above and almost golden below. The caudal fin is square in shape. The other fins are distinctly rounded in shape. The mouth is rather narrow and provided at each corner with a very small barbel...."

The tench isn't likely to be in the news. This unassuming fish doesn't shoot members of Congress, or occupy Wall Street. Not that any fish are likely to do that sort of thing.

It isn't endangered.

The tench isn't even particularly pushy. Which, applying the "nice guys finish last" principle, should have doomed it to extinction.

So why is this humble fish so successful?

It's durable.

The tench isn't one of your delicate critters. It will survive conditions that would kill a carp. And that's saying something.

Heat, Cold, Salt, and the Tenacious Tench

...Tench can survive water temperatures as high as 30 to 35°C [86° to 95° in Fahreneheit], oxygen concentrations less than 1 ppm, and salinities up to 12 mg/1. Although tench from northern Europe can apparently withstand temperatures close to freezing, California tench, being descended from south European populations, may not be able to withstand such low temperature. The optimum temperatures for growth seem to be between 12 and 30°C.

"Tench are rather sluggish in their movements and are not very aggressive towards other tench or towards other fishes (Sterba, 1959), earning them the reputation of 'Physician of Fishes' (Walton, 1653)..."
("Inland Fishes of California," Peter B. Moyle, (2002), via Google Books and University of California Press, page 210)

Tench: a California fish? This European import is in North America, too. So, is it an "invasive species?" That's a good question: but apparently, not. Not in the 'beware the tench' sense, anyway.

Doctor Fish Gets Around

"Tinca tinca"
USGS (United States Geological Service)

"...Distinguishing characteristics were given in Berg (1949), Scott and Crossman (1973), Muus and Dahlstrom (1978), Wheeler (1978), and Page and Burr (1991). Identification keys that include this species and photographs or illustrations were provided in a few published state fish books (e.g., Whitworth et al. 1968; Moyle 2002; Wydoski and Whitney 1979; Woodling 1985; Bond 1994). A name used in some of the early literature for this species is Tinca vulgaris.

"Size: 84 cm.

"Native Range: Most of Europe, including the British Isles, and parts of western Asia (Berg 1949)...."

"...States in which this species has been stocked or reported include Alabama (Baughman 1947); Arizona (Baughman 1947; Courtenay et al. 1991); Arkansas (Baughman 1947); California (Shapovalov 1944; Kimsey and Fisk 1964; Skinner 1972; Moyle 1976a; Wydoski and Whitney 1979; Courtenay et al. 1984, 1991; Dill and Cordone 1997); Colorado...."

Briefly, it's in 38 states. That the USGS knows of.

"...In the 1940s this species was reported to be a nuisance because of high abundance in certain parts of Maryland and Idaho (Baughman 1947). The diet consists mainly of aquatic insect larvae and molluscs (Scott and Crossman 1973). Moyle (1976a) considered it a potential competitor for food with sport fishes and native cyprinids...."

A cyprinid isn't a space alien from Star Wars. It's what ichthyologists call "soft-finned mainly freshwater fishes typically having toothless jaws and cycloid scales." (Princeton's WordNet)

Interestingly, "ichthyologist" is a word, but "ichtheologist" apparently isn't. That'd be someone who studies the worship of iches. Which is spelled itches, and that's another topic.

Tench: More Than Just a Fish

Here's a few of the world's Tenches, past and present:

• John Tench
  • An actor from North America
• Tench (SS-417)
  • U. S. Navy Submarine
• Tench
  • Artist on DeviantArt.com

And those are other topics.

Other fishy posts:

• "Save the - Goldfish?!"
  (June 16, 2011)
• "Aerators in Minnesota Lakes: Good for Fish; For People, Not So Much"
  (January 6, 2011)
• "(Some of) Minnesota's Fishing Seasons Open"
  (May 15, 2010)
• "Piscatorial Pursuits - It's Not What You May Think"
  (February 27, 2010)
• "Family and Fishing: a Personal Blog"
  (August 30, 2007)

Flabbergasted: What's a Flabber, and How Does One Gast It?

"Flabbergasted" really is a word:

"flabbergasted"
Merriam-Webster Dictionary

1. Affected with sudden and great wonder or surprise
2. Filled with amazement or wonder

The M-W lists quite a few synonyms for flabbergasted, which the Lemming has combined into one whacking great list. Just in case you have an aversion to saying "flabbergasted," although the Lemming can't imagine why:

• Agape
• Aghast
• Amazed
• Appalled
• Astonished
• Astounded
• Awed
• Awesome
• Awestruck
  • Also awestricken
• Bewildered
• Bowled over
• Confused
• Dazed
• Dismayed
• Dumbfounded
  • Also dumfounded
• Dumbstruck
• Horrified
• Marveling
  • Or marvelling
• Openmouthed
• Overwhelmed
• Shocked
• Stunned
• Stupefied
• Wide-eyed
• Widemouthed
• Wondering

"Widemouthed" is not, of course, to be confused with the largemouth bass, or the wide mouth frog protocol, which has little or nothing to do with Protocol (1984).

"Flabbergasted:" Where it Came From

"flabbergasted"
Online Etymology Dictionary

"1772, mentioned (with bored) in a magazine article as a new vogue word, perhaps from some dialect (in 1823 flabbergast was noted as a Sussex word), likely an arbitrary formation from flabby or flapper and aghast...."

Words and a Blogging Lemming

A reasonable question at this point is: SO WHAT?!! The Lemming's noted what some odd word means, and where it comes from: but what value does that information have?

Knowing what flabbergasted means probably won't make the difference between picking a winning lottery ticket, and merely delaying other customers at a convenience store checkout. Memorizing that list of synonyms probably won't guarantee social acceptance and success in the Stock Market. Not even if you can recite it backwards.

A student is unlikely to find "define 'flabbergasted,' and use it in a sentence" on the next test. Particularly in biology class. That would be flabbergasting.

However, the Lemming thinks that knowing what words mean, and where they came from, has value from a 'quality of life' point of view. It's fun to discover that "flabbergasted" goes back to the 18th century, and may have originated in Sussex. Of course, the Lemming enjoys reading dictionaries: so your experience may vary.

Vaguely-related posts:

• "Pickles Aren't Always Pickled"
  (October 18, 2011)
• "BTW: Avoid Clichés Like the Plague"
  (June 14, 2011)
• "What's With 'Buffalo Buffalo Buffalo Buffalo Buffalo.' "
  (April 7, 2011)
• "Space Shuttle Discovery, Names, James Cook, and a Little History"
  (February 21, 2011)
• "Lemming Tracks: a Recovering English Teacher and the Dean's Spellchecker"
  (January 12, 2011)

Pickles Aren't Always Pickled

The Lemming's working on tomorrow's post, which has to do with architecture and design: business-as-usual, with the Lemming's new schedule. Naturally, a discussion of a remarkable skyscraper and cultural issues brought the Lemming's train of thought to pickles.

For the Lemming, that sort of thing is "natural." Your experience may vary. And probably does. Which is another topic.

Where was the Lemming? Posts. The day after today. Architecture. Pickles. Right.

Pickling is what you can do with cucumbers, watermelons: just about anything edible, and some things that aren't. But that's not the sort of pickle the Lemming was thinking of.

Definition time! The Lemming's a recovering English teacher, which might be why there are so many of these digressions into what words mean - and even why they mean what they mean now, and didn't mean the same thing a few hundred years ago. Which is another topic.

Here's what "pickle" means:

• Pickle, noun
  1. Vegetables (especially cucumbers) preserved in brine or vinegar
  2. Informal term for a difficult situation
• Pickle, verb
  1. Preserve in a pickling liquid
     
  (Princeton's WordNet)

Will knowing that "to pickle" something means preserving it in a pickling liquid enable you to bring about world peace, end hunger, and win the lottery? Probably not. Will knowing that a pickle can be a preserved cucumber or a difficult situation that has nothing to do with vegetables, vinegar, or brine bring you success in your career, an acne-free complexion, and brighter, whiter teeth? Almost certainly not.

But the Lemming likes to know what words mean: and maybe you do, too. Or, not: which is also okay. Although that brings up the question of why you read this much of the post. And that is yet another topic.

Allegedly-related posts:

• "Prescriptions, Panic, and Points to Ponder"
  A Catholic Citizen in America (September 14, 2011)
• "Sesquipedalian!"
  (April 3, 2010)
• "Prayer, Medicine and Trusting God"
  A Catholic Citizen in America (March 4, 2010)
  Particularly
  • Prayer, Trusting God, and Using My Brain
• "What's a Vook about Hopping Rotochutes with Gigavision, Spying on a Shootout?"
  (January 14, 2010)
• "Impress Your Boss, Amaze Your Friends: With Two Dozen (minus one) Words"
  (February 11, 2009)

BTW: Avoid Clichés Like the Plague

"The war on clichés - raising awareness for bloggers"
The hermeneutic of continuity (June 14, 2011)

"(The 'raising awareness' bit was a joke.) John Rentoul has a good list of clichés that are best avoided ('banned' in his article.) I admit to having used one or two of them and will try to do better. Sometimes these phrases might be used in jest such as 'a raft of measures' which I think is a funny way to describe a list of things that people are intending to do to pretend that they are solving a problem.

"Is it better to read blogs or books? This is a futile discussion since people can read and write both. Many bloggers become better writers simply because they write so much: I am sure that my own writing has improved over the past few years. Bloggers are also instantly punished in their comment boxes for mistakes in spelling and grammar (there are not so many pedants in punctuation.)

"If you write regularly, it is worth taking the time occasionally to consult some guides to good, clear English."

The post's author says that a set of writing rules made by George Orwell is "still valuable:" and the Lemming's inclined to agree. Pretty much. Here's that Orwell list:

• Never use a metaphor, simile, or other figure of speech which you are used to seeing in print.
• Never use a long word where a short one will do.
• If it is possible to cut a word out, always cut it out.
• Never use the passive where you can use the active.
• Never use a foreign phrase, a scientific word, or a jargon word if you can think of an everyday English equivalent.
• Break any of these rules sooner than say anything outright barbarous.

Are these rules set in stone? For starters, that's a cliché. For the most part, that's a good, common-sense set of rules for coherent writing. The 'never use passive' point, for example.

On the other hand, "never" isn't a term the Lemming likes using where written communication is concerned.

Here's a short selection from the list of 100 clichés that Mr. Rentoul assembled, with the Lemming's opinion. The Independent is a United Kingdom publication, so this list almost certainly applies to British English, but it's probably useful on the west side of the Atlantic, too.

• 1. It's the economy, stupid.
  • That's still in use??
• 7. Learning curve.
  • Also "paradigm"
    • See #72
• 9. Celebrating diversity.
  • When humorists make cracks, it's time to quit:
    • 'De more you have, di verse it gets'
• 23. Apologies for lack of postings.
  • Unless the explanation is useful or funny
• 31. IMO, IMHO, LOL, ROFL and so on. I mean, whose opinion is it going to be? Genuinely witty abbreviations, however, are permitted, for example, QTWTAIN, YYSSW, IICRS (Questions to Which the Answer is No; Yeah, Yeah, Sure, Sure, Whatever; Iraq Inquiry Coverage Rebuttal Service).
  • The Lemming uses "in the Lemming's opinion" quite a bit
    • For clarity
    • To distinguish from facts or opinions of others
• 55. Exponential or exponentially used to mean big or a lot.
  • Unless the progression really is exponential
    • It's a very specific term
• 71. Fairly unique.
  • Something is unique - or not-unique
    • Might be okay in a literary use
      • Sort of like "he's fairly dead"
• 72. Paradigm shift. Or anything to do with a paradigm.
  • Somebody's still using "paradigm?!!"
• 76. Real people and the real world. In real time.
  • Unless the author actually means "in real time"
    • It's a rather technical term, though
• 100. The suffix -gate added to any news theme supposedly embarrassing to a government.
  • Anything else hinting that the writer thinks it's still 1974
  (John Rentoul, Eagle Eye, The Independent (UK))

The other 9/10 of the list is, in the Lemming's opinion (!) worth reading. And thinking about.

On the other hand (arguably (!) another cliché), if something in that list is positively the best word or phrase to express an idea? The Lemming thinks it's probably okay.

Not-completely-unrelated posts:

• "Palavering About Palaver"
  (June 4, 2011)
• "How to Lose Friends and Alienate People With Email: 10 Easy Points"
  (February 24, 2011)
• "Five Writing Mistakes: And Why Bloggers Should Avoid Them"
  (November 30, 2010)
• "How to Write Better: 100 Posts"
  (July 16, 2009)
• "Eschew Obuscation, and Other Good Writing Advice"
  (June 4, 2008)

---

A tip of the hat to @FatherTF, on Twitter, for the heads-up on this post.

Palavering About Palaver

Palaver means:

• Noun
  • Flattery intended to persuade
  • Loud and confused and empty talk
• Verb
  • Speak (about unimportant matters) rapidly and incessantly
  • Influence or urge by gentle urging, caressing, or flattering
  • Have a lengthy discussion, usually between people of different backgrounds
  (Princeton's WordNet)

Some of the words and phrases WordNet uses as examples of a palaver or of palavering are

• Blab
• Blabber
• Blandishment
• Blarney
• Cajole
• Cajolery
• Chatter
• Clack
• Coax
• Empty words
• Empty talk
• Gabble
• Gibber
• Hot air
• Inveigle
• Maunder
• Piffle
• Prate
• Prattle
• Rhetoric
• Sweet-talk
• Tattle
• Tittle-tattle
• Twaddle
• Wheedle

All of which have little if anything to do with parsley. Which is another topic.

Not-completely-unrelated links:

• "What's With 'Buffalo Buffalo Buffalo Buffalo Buffalo.' "
  (April 7, 2011)
• "Lemming Tracks: a Recovering English Teacher and the Dean's Spellchecker"
  (January 12, 2011)
• "Intermittent Alliteration: Interested?"
  (January 8, 2011)
• "Zanzibar, Wisconsin, Minnesota, and Words"
  (October 25, 2010)
• ""Rattle" is Akin to Middle Dutch Ratel"
  (October 18, 2010)

Language - Not Hard-Wired After All, (Not Very, Anyway)

The Lemming's going heavy on the excerpts in this post - mostly because this is a fascinating article. In the Lemming's opinion.

Your experience may vary.

What jumped out at the Lemming in this Wired Science article was that the old assumption - that human beings are more-or-less hard-wired for language - doesn't, quite, hold up when languages are run through a massive statistical analysis.

On the other hand, there does seem to be a sort of 'preferred pattern.'

---

Thousands of Years, Thousands of Languages: Few Common Structures

"Evolution of Language Takes Unexpected Turn"
Brandon Keim, Wired Science, Wired (April 14, 2011)

"It's widely thought that human language evolved in universally similar ways, following trajectories common across place and culture, and possibly reflecting common linguistic structures in our brains. But a massive, millennium-spanning analysis of humanity's major language families suggests otherwise.

"Instead, language seems to have evolved along varied, complicated paths, guided less by neurological settings than cultural circumstance. If our minds do shape the evolution of language, it's likely at levels deeper and more nuanced than many researchers anticipated.

" 'It's terribly important to understand human cognition, and how the human mind is put together,' said Michael Dunn, an evolutionary linguist at Germany's Max Planck Institute and co-author of the new study, published April 14 in Nature. The findings 'do not support simple ideas of the mind as a computer, with a language processor plugged in. They support much-more complex ideas of how language arises.'..."

---

"Human Mind?" or "Human Brain?"

The Lemming prefers to distinguish between the brain - the complicated network of neurons, blood vessels, and connective tissue about our eyes and ears - and the mind - the way that the we use the brain.

Then there are the folks who say that you're not really there - you just think you are, but actually it's just your brain fooling you into thinking you exist. The Lemming was never 'intelligent' enough to take that sort of thing seriously, though - besides, that's another topic.

Back to the article.

---

Hard-Wired for Language? It's Complicated

"...One school of thought, pioneered by linguist Noam Chomsky, holds that language is a product of dedicated mechanisms in the human brain. These can be imagined as a series of switches, each corresponding to particular forms of grammar and syntax and structure...."

"...Unlike earlier linguists, however, Dunn and Gray had access to powerful computational tools that, when set to work on sets of data, calculate the most likely relationships between the data. Such tools are well known in evolutionary biology, where they're used to create trees of descent from genetic readings, but they can be applied to most anything that changes over time, including language.

"In the new study, Dunn and Gray's team created evolutionary trees for eight word-order features in humanity's best-described language groups — Austronesian, Indo-European, Bantu and Uto-Aztecan. Together they contain more than one-third of humanity's 7,000 languages, and span thousands of years. If there are universal trends, say Dunn and Gray, they should be visible, with each language family evolving along similar lines.

"That's not what they found.

" 'Each language family is evolving according to its own set of rules. Some were similar, but none were the same,' said Dunn. 'There is much more diversity, in terms of evolutionary processes, than anybody ever expected.'


(Nature, via wired, used w/o permission)
"Comparison of trends in Austronesian and Indo-European languages (Nature)"

"In one representative example of divergence (diagram above), both Austronesian and Indo-European languages that linked prepositions and object-verb structures ('over the fence, ball kicked') tended to evolve preposition and verb-object structures ('over the fence, kicked ball.') That’s exactly what universalism would predict.

"But when Austronesian and Indo-European languages both started from postposition, verb-object arrangements ('the fence over, kicked ball'), they ended up in different places. Austronesian tended towards preposition, verb-object ('over the fence, kicked ball') but Indo-European tended towards postposition, object-verb ('the fence over, ball kicked.')..."

The researchers figure that random chance, "cultural circumstance," or maybe something else, has something to do with the differences between languages. The Lemming figures they're probably right - given the broad swath of possibilities cited.

A little more seriously: It's the Lemming's impressed that the researchers didn't take their conclusions beyond the data they'd collected - and their analysis of that data.

---

Hard-Wired for Language? What They Didn't Find

"...There is, however, still room for universals, said Pagel. After all, even if culture and circumstance shapes language evolution, it's still working with a limited set of possibilities. Of the six possible combinations of subject, verb and object, for example, just two - 'I kicked the ball' and 'I the ball kicked'- are found in more than 90 percent of all languages, with Yoda-style 'Kicked I the ball' exceedingly rare. People do seem to prefer some structures...."

"...People do seem to prefer some structures...?" Maybe not consciously - but the Lemming would be mightily surprised if the hardware in our heads didn't make it easier to put ideas in one order - and not so much in another.

As for metaphysical stuff like the meaning of life and all that? The Lemming doesn't expect to find such things answered in a statistical analysis of languages. What the Lemming expects from this study - and the more in-depth analyses planned by Dunn and his team - are insights into how people use language. And, maybe, how we organize information: how, in one sense of the word, we think.

That expectation comes from the Lemming's view of science. It's like the fellow said: the task of science "was and remains a patient yet passionate search for the truth about the cosmos, about nature and about the constitution of the human being."^sup And that is another topic, for another blog. (A Catholic Citizen in America (October 30, 2010))


Slightly-related posts:

• "What's With 'Buffalo Buffalo Buffalo Buffalo Buffalo.' "
  (April 7, 2011)
• "Friday, Rome, Language, and Boudicca of the Iceni"
  (October 29, 2010)
• "A New Language in India: New to Outsiders, That is"
  (October 7, 2010)
• "Babies and Language: What We Hear is What We Cry?"
  (November 8, 2009)
• "Language, Verbs, and How Our Brains Work"
  (October 17, 2007)

---

¹ From:

• "Address of His Holiness Benedict XVI to Participants in the Plenary Session of the Pontifical Academy of Sciences"
  Benedict XVI (October 28, 2010 )

What's With 'Buffalo Buffalo Buffalo Buffalo Buffalo.'

"A History of the Sentence 'Buffalo buffalo buffalo buffalo buffalo.' "
William J. Rapaport, Department of Computer Science and Engineering, Department of Philosophy, Department of Linguistics, and Center for Cognitive Science, State University of New York at Buffalo, (May 4, 2008)

"In 1972, I was a graduate student in the Department of Philosophy at Indiana University. One of my professors, John Tienson (now [2006] at the University of Memphis), in a course on Philosophy of Language, gave the following example of a grammatical sentence: Dogs dogs dog dog dogs....

"...Several of us students found the plural "-s" endings to lack a certain aesthetic simplicity, and we searched for a better word. I came up with

"Buffalo buffalo buffalo buffalo buffalo.

"I.e., buffalo who are buffaloed by other buffalo themselves buffalo still other buffalo.

"However, my fellow graduate students and I were not satisfied. So I concocted:

"Buffalo buffalo Buffalo buffalo Buffalo buffalo Buffalo buffalo Buffalo buffalo.

"The syntax of the following sentence is close to the previous one:

"Boston mice [that] Boston cats 'Boston-chase' 'Boston-eat' Boston cheese...."

The page starts with a link to ""Buffalo buffalo Buffalo buffalo buffalo buffalo Buffalo buffalo", Wikipedia (accessed May 4, 2008). For OCD folks, that's eight buffalo - or three Buffalo and five buffalo.

And the Lemming's pretty sure you've heard the one about the fellow who's CDO - OCD with the letters in alphabetical order, the way they're supposed to be.

That's it for today. And the Lemming still hasn't gotten around to that water-powered spaceship.