Geoff Coupe's Blog

Reflections on life at “De Witte Wand”…

Category: Language and Reference

  • Tsujigiri

    Wandering down the byways of the Internet, one comes across some interesting terms, and reminders of history…

  • The Active Denial System

    And talking about denial, here is news about a new weapon, which has been given the odd name of the Active Denial System. Steven Poole over at Unspeak points out some of the other Orwellian language used by the military to describe it. As he says, the definition of a non-lethal weapon seems to be one which only kills people by accident.
     
    Doubtless it won’t be long before the trickledown effect ensures that the weapon becomes available to criminals and security forces. Then we can probably look forward to reading about it being used to restrain a student trying to gain entry to his university library like this – tasers will be soo last century…

  • The Unsynthesised Manifold

    Hands up those of you who know that the unsynthesised manifold is a concept from Kantian philosophy? According to Professor Germaine Greer, if you read the Guardian, you should have had your hand in the air. Apparently, professor Greer wrote the following in a Guardian article in October:
    "The first attribute of the art object is that it creates a discontinuity between itself and the unsynthesised manifold." 
    As a result, she has been awarded a Golden Bull award by the Plain English Campaign, who clearly felt that Professor Greer’s pronouncement was, shall we say, less than crystal clear English language.
     
    Most reasonably educated Guardian readers would, I faintly hope, have recognised the phrase "unsynthesised manifold" as an English version of a basic concept in Immanuel Kant’s Critique of Judgment, first published in English in 1790 and familiarised in Britain by the work of Coleridge and just about anybody else who writes about aesthetic theory. The expression endures because in more than 200 years no one has found a better way of rendering the idea, although its content continues to evolve with changes in our understanding of brain function and the mechanics of perception.
    Erm, sorry Germaine, I failed the test. I am a Guardian reader, and I consider myself somewhat educated, but "manifold" to me usually carries connotations with exhausts and engines. I did science, not aesthetics, at school and university. I trust that this does not make me a bad person… 

  • Getting The Message Across

    I’m currently watching the series of videos made of the Beyond Belief conference. Session 3 had a rather nervous and hesitant presentation by Professor Joan Roughgarden, which caused something very interesting to happen. Richard Dawkins was asked to respond off the cuff to what he had just heard. He did so in his usual "take-no-prisoners" approach, and the body language of Roughgarden displayed very clearly her level of discomfort, and I would infer, her feeling of being under personal attack from Dawkins.
     
    Later in the session, astrophysicist Neil deGrasse Tyson comments on his own reactions to Dawkins’ speech. Tyson was seated at the back of the room, and he was also able to observe the reactions of the audience. Tyson observes that Dawkins’ "commentary has a sharpness of teeth" that he did not expect and "I felt you more than I heard you". I have to say that I had a similar reaction. He makes the very good point that Dawkins is "Professor for the Public Understanding of Science at Oxford, not the Professor for Delivering Truth to the Public." I think Tyson is on to something here, though it pains me to say it. I sometimes think that our American friends go too far towards "respecting sensitivities", and spend endless hours treading on imagined eggshells, but I do agree with Tyson that the manner of saying can help enormously with the reception of the message. I just feel more aligned with Dawkins at the "blunt speaking" end of the spectrum.
     
    Tyson’s comments have been extracted from the complete video of session 3, and are shown in a shortened video here. Dawkins, to his credit, accepts the rebuke, but can’t resist an impish anecdote to show that he is not the worst practitioner of the take-no-prisoners approach.
     
    This is the first time that I’ve seen Tyson, and I must say I am impressed at his capabilities as a communicator. Another attendee refers to him as "Father Neil", and there is something about his manner of delivery that reminds me of a good old-fashioned preacher, albeit one without the fire and brimstone, but filled with the ability to extol the wonders of a most marvellous universe.
     

  • Graphic Falsehoods

    In which Neddie takes a trip to Hell, and returns with Edward Tufte’s autograph on a particularly nasty piece of graphic falsehood. By virtue of his insight into how to tell a story by the use of graphical language, Tufte is a hero of mine; but I share Neddie’s relief that I was never actually one of his students.

  • Tag Clouds

    Tags are metadata keywords that are applied to things. And a Tag Cloud is a collection of tags, often with the most frequenty-used tags being highlighted in some fashion. For example, here’s the tag cloud for my library, and the tag cloud for my photographs.
     
    Tag clouds can be used to show aspects about the things being tagged that might not at first be apparent. For example, here’s a particularly interesting use of a tag cloud that varies over time. The collection that has been tagged is a collection of speeches made by US Presidents, dating from 1776 to the present day. By moving the slider to alter the date, you can see which are the key words (the Tags) used in a speech made at the time.

  • British Accents

    And continuing on the theme of language, Jason Kottke has found a clip of Peter Sellers demonstrating his mastery of British accents…

  • English Is A Patient On Life Support

    Dr. Crippen is having a Victor Meldrew moment. I can well understand why. The Essence of Care programme has clearly laboured mightily, and doubtless at enormous expense, to produce a load of management-speak – otherwise known as twaddle and tripe.

  • He’s Cross, But I’m Livid

    I mentioned the bad naming skills of a restaurateur in Mumbai recently. Banterist now has a post on his blog that includes a photograph of the offending restaurant.

    And I am angry and appalled, I tell you. Not about the name, which merely serves to draw attention to the bad judgement of the restaurateur. But look again at that photograph – the bloody apostrophe is in the wrong place. Damn you, it should read Hitler’s Cross, not Hitlers’ Cross. Hitler may be cross, but I’m absolutely livid. Where is Lynne Truss when you need her?

  • Unspeak Spotted

    Steven Poole, over at his Unspeak blog, dissects the latest pronouncements of Donald Rumsfeld. I’ve just started on Poole’s book, also called Unspeak. So far, it’s proving a terrific read, and full of clear examples of how language is used to push agendas sotto voce.

  • Unspeak

    I’ve long been fascinated by the use of language to influence. Probably because, growing up, I became aware of the dissonances implicit in phrases such as "homosexual lifestyle" or "sexual preference" (as though I chose to be gay) or the none-too-subtle putdowns in adjectives associated with being gay: "abnormal", "deviant", "sinful", etc. (when I didn’t think I was anything but normal – different, yes, but not abnormal, and certainly not "deviant").

    George Orwell, of course, drew attention to the political use of language with Newspeak in his novel Nineteen Eighty-Four, a dystopia that seems to be becoming more relevant with every passing year.

    And today, through a chance reference on Crooked Timber, I discovered Steven Poole’s Unspeak, where Poole comments on the uses of language to influence and deceive. Very interesting and worth a visit. And he’s got a book out as well! By the way, check out his video on the Amazon web site. My, hasn’t he got a hairy chest?

  • Pause for Reflection

    Thank you Nicholas for this, hitherto unknown to me, fact.

  • Double Dutch

    Last month I mentioned the confusion being caused by the introduction of a new version of the official guide to spelling Dutch. I see that Geraldine Coughlan, a BBC News correspondent in The Hague has a story on the same subject. It’s a good read – and I’m relieved to learn that she, like me, finds that she speaks Dutch with lots of mistakes.
     
    Since we are both members of the EU, we have it easy – we don’t have to learn Dutch as a condition of entry here. I find that actually somewhat discriminatory – why should we escape what is imposed on those from outside the EU? Just another of the not-so-subtle ways in which the Dutch authorities, despite the tradition of tolerance, manage to put certain types of allochtonen (foreigners) firmly in their place.
     
    And now the latest news is that Rita Verdonk, the minister for Integration, wants to make it compulsory for Dutch to be the only language that should be spoken on the streets. I always thought she was slightly mad – this seems to confirm that she’s now officially barking. Presumably tourists will be issued with a permit on entry to allow them to carry on conversing in their native tongue?
     
    Update: The Language Log has a good entry on the Verdonk proposal. She’s definitely barking.
     
    Update 2: Dear god, would-be immigrants from outside the EU will have to take a language test that will a) be administered over the phone, b) rely on voice-recognition technology (there’s no human examiner involved) and c) cost the applicant 350 euros for each test. Rita obviously has far more faith in voice recognition technology than I have. This is Dutch we’re talking about – a language that is notoriously difficult to pronounce. I’ve lost count of the number of times that I’ve said something to a Dutch person and got a blank response. After two or three attempts at repeating myself, comprehension finally dawns on them, and the bastards then have the gall to say: "oh you mean…" and parrot back exactly the same words that I’ve just been saying to them… And I’ve been here for 22 years. Heaven knows how someone who has never even set foot in the country is going to cope with a test given over the phone with some smug little voice recognition system humming away at the other end. It’s probably Rita’s plot to stop immigration from non-EU countries entirely.

  • The Importance of Language

    I hadn’t come across this one before, but thanks to Scott over at Adventures – the Next Chapter, I give you a Dutch advert for learning English. Though to be honest, I don’t think there are too many grandparents who are as innocent as this left in the Netherlands these days…

  • The Interrobang

    I don’t think I’ve ever had cause to use this character – and I don’t think I’ve ever seen it in the wild, either.

  • The Dutch Media Are Revolting…

    … against the introduction of the new spellings in the Dutch language. The Dutch Language Institute published the latest official dictionary of the Dutch language in October. As from next August, it is supposed to become the basis of the language of the government, public authorities and schools. But now, a powerful section of the Dutch media, including the leading newspapers, have rebelled and announced a boycott. They are objecting to what they see as abitrary changes in spelling. Suzanne Weusten, deputy editor of the Volkskrant is reported as saying: "Doubtless there are rules [for the changes], but who in godsname can remember them all?" Folkus Jensma of the NRC Handelsblad adds: "We already make enough mistakes in the paper, with this new spelling it will only get worse". 
     
    Speaking as someone who has extreme difficulty with the language as it now stands, I suspect that I will be echoing the sentiment of Folkus Jensma.

  • AskPhilosophers

    You ask. Philosophers answer. What a good idea – and it has an RSS feed as well. Philosophy enters the 21st century.

  • The Weapon of Language

    The metadata of language fascinates me. The way in which the choice of particular words and phrases reinforces particular ideas or modes of thought. I suspect that my fascination for it was shaped by the experience of growing up gay at a time when the language used to describe people like myself was unrelentingly negative. I began to realise that there was a dissonance between the language used to describe people like myself and my own experience from the inside.
     
    I was reminded about this by an interesting article in The Guardian today about how the British Armed Forces dealt with "the problem" (see, there’s the metadata in action) of gays and lesbians in their ranks during the 1950s through to the 1990s.
     
    The language used at the time is so very revealing (I’ve highlighted the key metadata words): "a nest of homosexuals", "the homosexual cannot exist in isolation; he must have an accomplice, and usually several – in this lies his greatest threat to the service; given suitable conditions the evil multiplies alarmingly" – written in the 1950s. "[lesbianism] was not properly acknowledged as a problem until 1956", the "abnormal woman who enters the service already perverted" – written in 1971.
     
    And just in case you think that this sort of language has died out, I refer you to judge John Freeman’s ruling in the case of a gay asylum seeker. Freeman (what an ironic name) has refused the man’s appeal to stay in Britain and has ruled that he must be returned to Iran – where, of course, homosexuals are still executed for being homosexuals. In his ruling, Freeman wrote: "He [the asylum seeker] says he fled when he realised a member of his coterie  had been arrested by them, apparently leaving an incriminating video in their hands, showing unseemly activity on the part of this appellant and others." (my emphasis on the metadata). Freeman also writes of "engaging in buggery" and describes the apellant’s sexuality as "a predilection". With attitudes like these, it is small wonder that Stonewall has concerns about the case.

  • Ambiguous Icons

    Duck and Cover lives – the US Department of Homeland Security has created another set of pointless icons. Luckily, we have a professor of semiotics on hand to decode their true meaning.
     
    (hat tip to Echidne)

  • NationMaster

    One of the great things about the Internet is just how much reference data is being put on line these days. Organisations such as the OECD, the UN, governments, industry bodies – the list goes on and on.
     
    The downside is just how much data there is out there, and tracking down information from that mass of data is increasingly time-consuming. But I came across what looks to be a very useful site: NationMaster. The organisation behind the site has compiled data from such sources as the CIA World Factbook, United Nations, World Health Organization, World Bank, World Resources Institute, UNESCO, UNICEF and OECD. The site has easy to use tools to provide comparisons between nations, using over 4,600 different statistics.
     
    It’s a terrific resource, and one which will be up alongside Wikipedia in my bookmarks.