A sort of extraordinary exercise in control of voice and facial expressions, in the form of a Judy Garland impression, of all things. From the ever-impressive Amy Walker:

Related to something I could have sworn I’d posted previously, but apparently haven’t: 21 accents in 2 1/2 minutes.

(via BoingBoing)

The most beautiful words.  The most endangered words.  The most policed words.

(via Bookninja, Lifehacker, and BoingBoing, respectively)

The cover story¹ of the July/August edition of The Atlantic hits an interesting note, if one that’s hit with a fair amount of frequency (if not depth). One of the points is that the way our tools² process information affects the way we process information. Which should be obvious enough, but isn’t always.

The article’s focal point is Google, and the internet, and how the fragmenting, attention-scattering nature of the internet rewires our brains, making it more difficult for us to process long, deep passages of text. Nicholas Carr (the author of said article) worries, and sprinkles anecdotes of people who find their reading habits severely impinged upon by their internet browsing habits — people who can no longer delve into long works of fiction, who (as the author) can no longer read tomes they’d regularly re-read in the past; but, also, he is circumspect, and skeptical, and does not burn bridges: maybe it’s bad, and maybe it isn’t.

Reading the article, I couldn’t help but feel that, while my real-world (read: books, magazines, newspapers) reading habits haven’t been impacted by the internet, my internet reading habits have definitely evolved. Finding tasty morsels of facts on the internet has devolved from a thing of learning to a thing for its own sake. Trivia and ephemera are great, but when the fact only exists in memory long enough to lead to another fact, never to be recalled again — well, that’s just silly.

My folder of “read it later” bookmarks is poorly named, because I don’t know that I will. Or wouldn’t have. But conscious effort is intriguing. And maybe it will change.

This could be the beginning of more depth on here, or of nothing at all.

P.S. That’s not to say there will be fewer posts on here about secret iguana-smuggling compartments and such.

Notes:
¹ “Is Google making us stupid?” by Nicholas Carr
² Also: written language; the printing press; clocks.

I AM
81%
JAZZTake the Transformers Quiz

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I am: Kurt Vonnegut For years, this unique creator of absurd and haunting tales denied that he had anything to do with science fiction. Which science fiction writer are you?

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What American accent do you have? Your Result: The Inland North   You may think you speak “Standard English straight out of the dictionary” but when you step away from the Great Lakes you get asked annoying questions like “Are you from Wisconsin?” or “Are you from Chicago?” Chances are you call carbonated drinks “pop.”
Philadelphia
The Northeast
The Midland
The South
The West
Boston
North Central
What American accent do you have? Quiz Created on GoToQuiz

Also, I do not refer to carbonated beverages as “pop”; naturally, all of the other information is 100% accurate.

A handy list of how to pronounce difficult-to-pronounce author’s names.

(via The Millions: “Hard to Pronounce Literary Names Redux.” 26 Aug 2006.)

Or maybe it’s just a table of animal noises in different languages…

But just think, what if it weren’t…?

(link [though not the graphic] via, probably, some other blog I’ve forgotten all about; just imagine the actual citation is right here)

Haha!  Of course it’s not.  But it is, well, interesting: now there’s a blog dedicated to rooting out (or at least pointing out) abuses of the word “literally.”  It’s about time.

Not particularly current or important, but curious and fun nonetheless:

In 1986, Silo (a chain of home electronics stores) ran a television commercial in 23 markets nationwide, offering stereos for “299 bananas.” They never thought anyone would take them at their word; after all, “banana” is a widely accepted, if playful, term for greenbacks. Who could possibly mistake one for the other? Thirty-two customers held the retailer to its unwitting word — they showed up bearing loads of the yellow fruit and demanding the store keep its end of the bargain.

…

Each stereo was exchanged for $40 to $60 worth of bananas, and Silo took in a total of 11,000 bananas. Many of the bananas were donated to Woodland Park Zoo, but there were too many even for the hungry animals.

(Though how widely accepted, exactly, is the use of the word ‘bananas’ as a stand-in for ‘dollars’?)

(Snopes.com: “Banana Skinned.” [October 20, 2005])

1 Mother
2 Passion
3 Smile
4 Love
5 Eternity
6 Fantastic
7 Destiny
8 Freedom
9 Liberty
10 Tranquillity
11 Peace
12 Blossom
13 Sunshine
14 Sweetheart
15 Gorgeous
16 Cherish
17 Enthusiasm
18 Hope
19 Grace
20 Rainbow
21 Blue
22 Sunflower
23 Twinkle
24 Serendipity
25 Bliss
26 Lullaby
27 Sophisticated
28 Renaissance
29 Cute
30 Cosy
31 Butterfly
32 Galaxy
33 Hilarious
34 Moment
35 Extravaganza
36 Aqua
37 Sentiment
38 Cosmopolitan
39 Bubble
40 Pumpkin
41 Banana
42 Lollipop
43 If
44 Bumblebee
45 Giggle
46 Paradox
47 Delicacy
48 Peekaboo
49 Umbrella
50 Kangaroo
51 Flabbergasted
52 Hippopotamus
53 Gothic
54 Coconut
55 Smashing
56 Whoops
57 Tickle
58 Loquacious
59 Flip-flop
60 Smithereens
61 Oi
62 Gazebo
63 Hiccup
64 Hodgepodge
65 Shipshape
66 Explosion
67 Fuselage
68 Zing
69 Gum
70 Hen night

(Like any other survey-based list of favo(u)rites, it’s arbitrary, of course. And, yes, meaningless, aside from the meaning these words have to the however many thousands of people submitted their favorites. Together, some of the words are delicious surprises. I am a flabbergasted hippopotamus.)

(Guardian: “Mother’s the word,” by David Ward [November 25, 2004])

• Prisons are America’s “primary supplier of mental-health services.”¹
• Make a face. Change it. Craft your new identity. Morphases.²
• Dolphins and humans are fairly similar, brain-wise.³
• Struwwelpeter/Shockheaded Peter, online.⁴
• Tired of original speech? Cliche Finder to the rescue.⁵
• “I think that it could be done.”⁶
• Send me your brains. Sterling Courier Systems, please.⁷
• They have a list. They’re checking it twice.⁸
• Woobie: feel the warmth.⁹
• This is now. 10×10.¹⁰

Sources & additional commentary-type crap:

1. NYT: “A Death in the Box,” by Mary Beth Pfeiffer [October 31, 2004] – Above and beyond this startling factoid, the article is worth a read. While it approaches the subject through the story of one woman, it is by no means a straightforward case-study/human interest type article.
2. Morphases – Go see it—you get to play with faces; it’s fun. (Though shouldn’t that be Morfaces?)
3. Science Blog: “Humans and dolphins: If brain size is a measure, we’re not that different” – Human brains are 7 times larger than you’d expect, based on comparisons to similar-sized animals. For dolphins, it’s 5 times.
4. with pictures, and English translations alongside the original German. Good fun. (link via MeFi)
5. type in a word, find cliched substitutions.
6. CalTech News: “The End of the Age of Oil,” by David Goodstein – adapted from talk
7. Actually, don’t send me your brain. But feel free to check out the New York Brain Bank’s recommended procedure for packing and sending a fresh brain. And yes, the instructions do say “fresh” brain. That’s what the Ziploc bags are for, I guess—keeping the brain(s) fresh. Mmm. Fresh brain. (link via BoingBoing)
8. NYT: “What Wal-Mart Knows About Customers’ Habits,” by Constance Hays [November 14, 2004] – As a matter-of-fact, it’s a database. And Wal-Mart’s checking it waaay more than twice.
9. Double-Tongued Word Wrester defines “woobie” as
   

   a security blanket; a blankie; a favorite toy or object. Also wooby.

10. The pictures that define the times.

In the American Prospect, Harold Koh writes:

In no small part because of its promiscuous failure to ratify a convention with which it actually complies in most respects, the United States rarely gets enough credit for the large-scale moral and financial support that it actually gives to children’s rights around the world. [emphasis added]

I only point this out to be petty and small, as I have no real stake in how words are misused. But promiscuous? There’s really no sense of the word that makes sense in this particular context.

Barring a “creative” use of the word–which is not totally out of the question—I think the author means something along the lines of prominent, or conspicuous (which, when combined, yield something surprisingly close to promiscuous, [promi...]+[...spicuous]= promispicuous).

My point, aside from being small, is also to bring to light the fact that such misuse undermines the presumed validity of the article. I.e., as long as there are no incredibly conspicuous errors, you’re more likely to defer to the author’s opinions, or at least adapt you own viewpoints slightly. Phrases like “national prerogative” and “international adjudications” tend to make you think the author knows what he’s talking about.

And, let’s be honest. I doubt that a simple mistake means the author doesn’t know what he’s talking about. But one simple mistake is all it takes to force the reader to re-evaluate everything the author’s written, at least in that particular article/essay/etc.

When you’re trying to be persuasive, you can’t afford a simple misuse.

(apologies to American Prospect: “On America’s Double Standard,” by Harold Koh [October 1, 2004])

Double-Tongued Word Wrester records words as they enter and leave the English language. It focuses upon slang, jargon, and other niche categories which include new, foreign, hybrid, archaic, obsolete, and rare words. Special attention is paid to the lending and borrowing of words between the various Englishes and other languages, even where a word is not a fully naturalized citizen in its new language.