Few things in life please me more than some good etymologies. So I thought I would just post a few interesting ones that have happened onto my plate in one way or another. And for those who are unfamiliar with etymology, let me start by giving the etymology of "etymology."
Etymology - from the Greek etymon and logos meaning "true sense" and "word;" obviously then, etymologies are the true sense of words
So I hope I will be able to inform you of some interesting word origins that you may have been unfamiliar with. Do let me know your thoughts on this sort of post.
Weird - from the Old English wyrd literally meaning "that which comes," though referring specifically to fate and fortune; gained the current meaning after Shakespeare (and society at large) began referring to the Norns (Norse equivalent of the Fates of Greek myth) as the "weird sisters," obviously intended to show their relation to fate, and often depicted them as strange or terrifying in appearance. I find this one particularly interesting because it not only changed meaning but also changed class from a noun to an adjective.
Lord - from Old English hlaford ("master of the house") but earlier hlafweard, "keeper of the bread" (hlaf=bread, loaf ; weard=ward, guardian, keeper). So the lord of the manor was the fellow who watched over the bread. Everything boils down to food (pun intended).
Lady - similar to the origin of "lord,"originally from Old English hlæfdige, "one who kneads bread." So again, everything comes down to food. The lady makes the bread, the lord protects it. I, of course, mean to make no implications toward gender roles in society today. I think it's sad that I even feel it necessary to make that comment, but that's another blog entirely (and perhaps one not far off).
And now to leave the realm of Angle-land, here are a few interesting ones originating in other lands.
Assassin - from Arabic hashishiyyin, "users of hashish;" from a group of Islamic radicals at the time of the Crusades who would often kill rival leaders after doping on hashish. Interesting tradition.
Pedigree - from Old French pied de gru, "foot of a crane;" in the good old days, genealogical charts used a forked symbol to depict lineage, and it just so happened that it looked a lot like a crane's footprint.
Big - know body nose
Dog - again, nobody knows; I find it wonderful that two simple words like "big" and "dog" just showed up and we haven't got a clue where they came from. That's the sort of thing that I lie awake at night thinking about. You should too.
Just three more to go!
Salient - though many, including myself previously, may think this is a reference to salt (sal is Latin for "salt" and turns up in words like salary because Roman soldiers were often paid in salt) and may think "salient points" are points that are salty, as it were, meaningful, noticeable, or important, this is actually not the origin; rather it is from salire, "to leap" in Latin and the salient point refers to the heart of an embryo, which seems to jump (in what manner it leaps, I am unsure, but old people seemed to think it did); so in that sence the salient points are the heart of the matter just as an embryo is the beginning of the larger form of life.
Brussel sprouts - from the Old French for brusselle sproutte meaning "exceedingly evil" or "unworthy of existence;" for this very reason, the fact that their very name denounces them, I refuse to eat them to this day.
Quintessential - many of us could spot the basic elements of this fellow, quint for "five" and essential for "essence," and that is of course true, but how on earth did this come to mean the most perfect embodiment of something? Well, it comes from the ancient and medieval search for the "fifth element" or "ether," the substance other than the four primary elements (earth, wind or air, fire, water....and the oft-neglected heart, of course, for you watchers of Captain Planet) that permeated all things, also later said to be what God was made of. Alchemists were all about finding this covert stuff - it was evidently fruitless, or so it seems. You can think of their quest as equivalent to how the media depicts the search for Sasquatch, though we all know that he is certainly real and lives in the woods of Michigan's Upper Peninsula. I mean, seriously, everyone knows that except, clearly, the media. But they are always last.
And I guess I'll give you one more since it has just come up.
Sasquatch - from the Native American language of Halkomelem in the Pacific Northwest, sæsq'ec, meaning "Sasquatch"
(A final tribute: "For those of you who don't know, that's Spanish for the niño!" or something like that.)
The Death of Education
Once upon a time in a land far away, there was a boy. Sure, there are boys right now, in a land close by, but there was nonetheless a boy, in a land far away, once upon a time. Every day this boy got up and went to school, at least, most of the time. Sometimes he may have looked a bit disheveled upon arrival, but that is besides the point. Everything was normal. He would go and listen to his teacher, read some dry textbooks, eat, and go to sleep too late. This went on for some time without exception.
Then one day his teacher announced, "Today we will divide up into groups to begin a group project." Once upon another time, this boy had encountered these so-called "group projects" and was not a fan. You see, twice or thrice upon other times (perhaps even tetrice or quintice), the boy had dealt with group projects and those notorious group members with whom we are all familiar. Free-loaders, slackers, pungent persons - they go by a variety of names. However, this group had no members of that type. After the first or second group meeting, the boy was sure this project would turn out better than most. Everyone had attended and seemed eager to help. Life was good.
For this particular assignment, the group was required to turn in a 25 page paper. This may seem a trivial project to those of you in lands nearby, but the boy knew better. In his land there was only one thing to study, and that was business. Everyone believed themselves profound utilitarians. Over the millenia, the arts and humanities, not to mention the sciences, had fallen to the wayside, deemed unproductive, money-sucking, utility-wasting ventures far below the lofty intellects of the citizenry. Unfortunately, the boy enjoyed money-sucking, utility-wasting activities like reading and did not even own a Q-square (very similar to what may be called an X-box in your land). But despite his misguided ventures, he had learned the value of being able to communicate in writing. And the boy knew that his group mates may not regard the skill of writing as important, potentially increasing the time necessary to edit the paper. Thus, he was sore afraid.
Well, each member had been assigned a five page portion of the paper and come time to gather them together, the boy was pleased to find that his fears were unnecessary. All of the partners had produced excellent work, even one of them who has from a land even farther away and did not speak the boy's language natively. "But wait, weren't there five of us?" the boy thought. There were indeed five of them, the others confirmed. One person was missing, and with the last member were the final 5 pages. Now the boy, and the other members, knew the group was flawed after all. No group project reach completion without a problem.
Already annoyed by the tardiness, the other members were further perturbed upon reading the paper, finally produced about a week later. Have you ever seen those funny translations from foreign languages into English? My favorite was a set of instructions to motorists in Tokyo reported by Bill Bryson in his book The Mother Tongue:
"When a passenger of the foot heave in sight, tootle the horn. Trumpet at him melodiously at first, but if he still obstacles your passage, then tootle him with vigor."
Sometimes they make even less sense. In any case, the final five pages were such that the boy and the other group members all thought the entirety had been copied from such a translation. The project, after all, concerned Mintendo, maker of the Q-square, who published most of its information in a foreign language. So the group did have some reason to doubt. Sentences like this were popping up all over the place:
"Everyone knows Mintendo for the icon colorful and full of mushrooms Nario games."
It just didn't seem normal, and everyone agreed, including the non-native speaker.
Perturbed but convinced, the boy and a friend confronted the member gone astray, for no one wanted to suffer the consequences of plagiarism. Sadly, after much discussion and many embarrassing moments, the boy and his friend were convinced that there had been no plagiarism. It was much worse. The member simply could not write intelligibly. The land far away had reached a new low. All those seemingly small budget cuts to literature and the arts had done their deathly deed. Now people might realize just how useful reading and writing truly were.
This experience was just the first of its nature for the boy. In the next few years he had innumerable group projects, and he was continually astonished to realize how unisolated were such occurrences. In truth, many future groups did not even have a majority of people who could construct full sentences on a regular basis. And, I forgot to mention, the boy was at an institution of higher learning, sometimes referred to as college. He left the institution deeply worried about the future of education.
Unfortunately, a strikingly similar, perhaps even completely parallel situation is occurring in our own land. Going through UGA, it was immediately apparent that most students hardly read for pleasure (or for school, to be honest). Especially in the business school, it was difficult to comprehend how some of the students had ever made it through 9th grade literature class, much less gotten into college. Obviously this does not describe everyone, and I had many friends who loved reading, including a few in business. But I nonetheless was left with the impression that many business students cared nothing for reading because they really cared nothing for learning, they merely wanted money.
I believe that a number of things are to blame for this sad state in our nation's colleges, but I will only address a few.
Politicians often refer to the importance of college as a way of improving the productive stock of the nation. Going to college, they say, prepares you for future work and makes you add more to the nation long-term. I only partially agree with that statement. First of all, that is not necessarily true for people who want to be mechanics. We should never forget that many fields simply require different training to be effective, and those individuals are no less important than PhDs. But more importantly, the super-focused approach of colleges these days often ends up hurting the students' ability to think and reason, in my opinion. Business students hardly study anything other than business. Physics students hardly study anything but physics and math. There is so little exposure to the arts and humanities in general that students often end up being completely one-sided. And if they do manage to retain reasoning abilities, they are often boring people with no appreciation for beauty and truth who believe their field to be far superior to all others. Many famous economists, I've noticed, are more than eager to mock the findings of other fields. You can often find them at Ivy League schools, patting themselves on the back while looking disdainfully towards the literature department. (Though I do know some economists who enjoy a good book). Well-roundedness has been abandoned for the cult of the specialist. But despite education trends, insightful knowledge does not restrict itself to one field. Therefore, I believe we are severely restricting our own productivity and learning.
The US also seems to have decided that math and science are more important than other fields, placing special emphasis on these subjects in elementary school through high school. But I feel it is equally important to study literature and writing. Communication of ideas is of extreme value. In fact, it may be of more importance than discoveries themselves. These days in academia, you have to convince your colleagues that your discovery or insight is not only valid but useful. If you are unable to do so, your discovery is doomed to live in dusty basements. You may have discovered a new theory of physics that would revolutionize the provision of energy, but if you cannot communicate its importance, it doesn't matter. And obviously, as my story (with actual quotations from an actual paper) shows, the ability to communicate, even among college students, is often absent.
Although these are just a few symptoms, I believe the underlying problem of improper priorities in education is massive. So maybe read some King Lear tonight, if you haven't in some time, and remind yourself just how excellent language can be. Although solutions may be hard to come by, they start with individual commitment to learning. Posterity will certainly have no reason to love learning if we tacitly convince them that close-mindedness, ignorance, and sloth are acceptable.
For further reading, check out these two articles:
Why We Educate our Children
College Illiterates
Then one day his teacher announced, "Today we will divide up into groups to begin a group project." Once upon another time, this boy had encountered these so-called "group projects" and was not a fan. You see, twice or thrice upon other times (perhaps even tetrice or quintice), the boy had dealt with group projects and those notorious group members with whom we are all familiar. Free-loaders, slackers, pungent persons - they go by a variety of names. However, this group had no members of that type. After the first or second group meeting, the boy was sure this project would turn out better than most. Everyone had attended and seemed eager to help. Life was good.
For this particular assignment, the group was required to turn in a 25 page paper. This may seem a trivial project to those of you in lands nearby, but the boy knew better. In his land there was only one thing to study, and that was business. Everyone believed themselves profound utilitarians. Over the millenia, the arts and humanities, not to mention the sciences, had fallen to the wayside, deemed unproductive, money-sucking, utility-wasting ventures far below the lofty intellects of the citizenry. Unfortunately, the boy enjoyed money-sucking, utility-wasting activities like reading and did not even own a Q-square (very similar to what may be called an X-box in your land). But despite his misguided ventures, he had learned the value of being able to communicate in writing. And the boy knew that his group mates may not regard the skill of writing as important, potentially increasing the time necessary to edit the paper. Thus, he was sore afraid.
Well, each member had been assigned a five page portion of the paper and come time to gather them together, the boy was pleased to find that his fears were unnecessary. All of the partners had produced excellent work, even one of them who has from a land even farther away and did not speak the boy's language natively. "But wait, weren't there five of us?" the boy thought. There were indeed five of them, the others confirmed. One person was missing, and with the last member were the final 5 pages. Now the boy, and the other members, knew the group was flawed after all. No group project reach completion without a problem.
Already annoyed by the tardiness, the other members were further perturbed upon reading the paper, finally produced about a week later. Have you ever seen those funny translations from foreign languages into English? My favorite was a set of instructions to motorists in Tokyo reported by Bill Bryson in his book The Mother Tongue:
"When a passenger of the foot heave in sight, tootle the horn. Trumpet at him melodiously at first, but if he still obstacles your passage, then tootle him with vigor."
Sometimes they make even less sense. In any case, the final five pages were such that the boy and the other group members all thought the entirety had been copied from such a translation. The project, after all, concerned Mintendo, maker of the Q-square, who published most of its information in a foreign language. So the group did have some reason to doubt. Sentences like this were popping up all over the place:
"Everyone knows Mintendo for the icon colorful and full of mushrooms Nario games."
It just didn't seem normal, and everyone agreed, including the non-native speaker.
Perturbed but convinced, the boy and a friend confronted the member gone astray, for no one wanted to suffer the consequences of plagiarism. Sadly, after much discussion and many embarrassing moments, the boy and his friend were convinced that there had been no plagiarism. It was much worse. The member simply could not write intelligibly. The land far away had reached a new low. All those seemingly small budget cuts to literature and the arts had done their deathly deed. Now people might realize just how useful reading and writing truly were.
This experience was just the first of its nature for the boy. In the next few years he had innumerable group projects, and he was continually astonished to realize how unisolated were such occurrences. In truth, many future groups did not even have a majority of people who could construct full sentences on a regular basis. And, I forgot to mention, the boy was at an institution of higher learning, sometimes referred to as college. He left the institution deeply worried about the future of education.
Unfortunately, a strikingly similar, perhaps even completely parallel situation is occurring in our own land. Going through UGA, it was immediately apparent that most students hardly read for pleasure (or for school, to be honest). Especially in the business school, it was difficult to comprehend how some of the students had ever made it through 9th grade literature class, much less gotten into college. Obviously this does not describe everyone, and I had many friends who loved reading, including a few in business. But I nonetheless was left with the impression that many business students cared nothing for reading because they really cared nothing for learning, they merely wanted money.
I believe that a number of things are to blame for this sad state in our nation's colleges, but I will only address a few.
Politicians often refer to the importance of college as a way of improving the productive stock of the nation. Going to college, they say, prepares you for future work and makes you add more to the nation long-term. I only partially agree with that statement. First of all, that is not necessarily true for people who want to be mechanics. We should never forget that many fields simply require different training to be effective, and those individuals are no less important than PhDs. But more importantly, the super-focused approach of colleges these days often ends up hurting the students' ability to think and reason, in my opinion. Business students hardly study anything other than business. Physics students hardly study anything but physics and math. There is so little exposure to the arts and humanities in general that students often end up being completely one-sided. And if they do manage to retain reasoning abilities, they are often boring people with no appreciation for beauty and truth who believe their field to be far superior to all others. Many famous economists, I've noticed, are more than eager to mock the findings of other fields. You can often find them at Ivy League schools, patting themselves on the back while looking disdainfully towards the literature department. (Though I do know some economists who enjoy a good book). Well-roundedness has been abandoned for the cult of the specialist. But despite education trends, insightful knowledge does not restrict itself to one field. Therefore, I believe we are severely restricting our own productivity and learning.
The US also seems to have decided that math and science are more important than other fields, placing special emphasis on these subjects in elementary school through high school. But I feel it is equally important to study literature and writing. Communication of ideas is of extreme value. In fact, it may be of more importance than discoveries themselves. These days in academia, you have to convince your colleagues that your discovery or insight is not only valid but useful. If you are unable to do so, your discovery is doomed to live in dusty basements. You may have discovered a new theory of physics that would revolutionize the provision of energy, but if you cannot communicate its importance, it doesn't matter. And obviously, as my story (with actual quotations from an actual paper) shows, the ability to communicate, even among college students, is often absent.
Although these are just a few symptoms, I believe the underlying problem of improper priorities in education is massive. So maybe read some King Lear tonight, if you haven't in some time, and remind yourself just how excellent language can be. Although solutions may be hard to come by, they start with individual commitment to learning. Posterity will certainly have no reason to love learning if we tacitly convince them that close-mindedness, ignorance, and sloth are acceptable.
For further reading, check out these two articles:
Why We Educate our Children
College Illiterates
Kangaroo Singing
I think at this point it's safe to say I am a non-denominational Christian. I grew up Baptist, later attended a Messianic Synagogue, went to a Methodist campus ministry, partnered with a Catholic church on a yearly basis, was the music director at a Baptist church, and am currently attending an Anglican church. So now all I'm missing are the crazy snake handling churches, and I plan to continue to avoid them. Each of these places of worship had unique aspects that I enjoyed, and, equally, they all had weaknesses as well. Coming to England, I knew there was a decent chance I would end up in an Anglican church, given their ubiquity. And as I have already shared in my "Oxfordian Paradox" post, one of the things I anticipated most was the rich and unique musical heritage of the Anglican church, one example being Evensong. It's old, being originally Catholic, but also new, being fundamentally non-Catholic. But as we all know, many churches have modernized not only in technology and methods, but also in music.
By way of explanation, let me give you a bit of musical background. As an undergrad student I took two years of music theory (good idea). Unfortunately for me, who was just taking the courses for fun, music theory is considered the weed-out class for music. So on top of being fairly difficult at times, it was also scheduled at 8 in the morning every day of the week (bad idea). Nonetheless, it was wonderful, both in terms of skills acquired and friends made. But that is completely irrelevant to my story; I just thought I'd tell you.
So getting back to it, in music theory we learned "proper" technique for writing music. One of the principle tenets of writing a good melody is that it be simple. If you turn on the radio and hear some of the popular songs at the moment (or at basically any moment in history, for that matter), they will all have relatively simple melodies. This fact, of course, is to make them easy to sing. If you can't sing along to it, it simply won't become popular. Likewise, in classical music, some of the most memorable and popular tunes are unbelievably simple. The challenge is to have enough variety to make it interesting while still keeping it easy enough to sing along to.
Well, I was surprised to find that modern church music here completely ignores this rule. Normally I would be hesitant to say this is a bad thing: many of you know I am prone to mocking the ridiculous simplicity and repetitiveness of certain popular Christian songs (one in particular that I despise says the word "Jesus" over thirty times in a row with the exact same tune each time, except every fourth "Jesus" - woo hoo). And while I don't necessarily mind the apparent English approach to praise songs, I do find it comical. Let me give you a run down of one of these songs.
The words are printed in the bulletin without any music, so I have no idea how the tune goes (it's too bad no one uses hymnals anymore; they often include better bass lines than I could naturally think of). The singers are up on stage, the music starts, and we're off! Things are going well for about four words; the melody rises one step higher per word. Then, out of nowhere, SQUEAK, the entire congregation cracks their voices straining for some absurdly high note, and then we are immediately back down to the normal pattern. We continue a few more words, and just as I am catching on to the pattern of the next line, ..... , the crowd goes silent, the melody having suddenly dropped so low that only James Earl Jones could hit it. Both extremes having been used up, I figure I am safe for the next line. How foolish of me. Right at the start of the next line: SQUEAK,.....,SQUEAK and then into a usual pattern. To put it mildly, it is completely impossible to follow.
In case you find my words obscure, here is a visual interpretation:
"praise the LORD all ye People - YES praise THE LOOOOOord HALleluJAH!!!!!"
This week at service, one song was so crazy that my wife and I couldn't help laughing every time we came to one of the random jumps. My theory is that they want to give you a feeling of accomplishment when you have finally learned to predict the awkward jumping. Either that or they think we are all kangaroos.
Oh, and I forgot to mention, for all ye music majors out there, the songs seldom end on the tonic, and I mean seldom. That's another big no-no for making singable melodies.
So that's pretty much it. Generally, I like to find some sort of application or moral or something to end my stories, but I don't think there is one. Sometimes, there's just a story, nothing else. But to indulge you, I tried. My best attempt produced this, and with it I will close:
Never exile your criminals to a big unexplored island; they will end up having cooler wild animals than you do, you'll get jealous, and your culture will reflect your jealousy for time immemorial.
I mean, really, how cool are kangaroos? Not to mention platypi. Australia rocks.
By way of explanation, let me give you a bit of musical background. As an undergrad student I took two years of music theory (good idea). Unfortunately for me, who was just taking the courses for fun, music theory is considered the weed-out class for music. So on top of being fairly difficult at times, it was also scheduled at 8 in the morning every day of the week (bad idea). Nonetheless, it was wonderful, both in terms of skills acquired and friends made. But that is completely irrelevant to my story; I just thought I'd tell you.
So getting back to it, in music theory we learned "proper" technique for writing music. One of the principle tenets of writing a good melody is that it be simple. If you turn on the radio and hear some of the popular songs at the moment (or at basically any moment in history, for that matter), they will all have relatively simple melodies. This fact, of course, is to make them easy to sing. If you can't sing along to it, it simply won't become popular. Likewise, in classical music, some of the most memorable and popular tunes are unbelievably simple. The challenge is to have enough variety to make it interesting while still keeping it easy enough to sing along to.
Well, I was surprised to find that modern church music here completely ignores this rule. Normally I would be hesitant to say this is a bad thing: many of you know I am prone to mocking the ridiculous simplicity and repetitiveness of certain popular Christian songs (one in particular that I despise says the word "Jesus" over thirty times in a row with the exact same tune each time, except every fourth "Jesus" - woo hoo). And while I don't necessarily mind the apparent English approach to praise songs, I do find it comical. Let me give you a run down of one of these songs.
The words are printed in the bulletin without any music, so I have no idea how the tune goes (it's too bad no one uses hymnals anymore; they often include better bass lines than I could naturally think of). The singers are up on stage, the music starts, and we're off! Things are going well for about four words; the melody rises one step higher per word. Then, out of nowhere, SQUEAK, the entire congregation cracks their voices straining for some absurdly high note, and then we are immediately back down to the normal pattern. We continue a few more words, and just as I am catching on to the pattern of the next line, ..... , the crowd goes silent, the melody having suddenly dropped so low that only James Earl Jones could hit it. Both extremes having been used up, I figure I am safe for the next line. How foolish of me. Right at the start of the next line: SQUEAK,.....,SQUEAK and then into a usual pattern. To put it mildly, it is completely impossible to follow.
In case you find my words obscure, here is a visual interpretation:
"praise the LORD all ye People - YES praise THE LOOOOOord HALleluJAH!!!!!"
This week at service, one song was so crazy that my wife and I couldn't help laughing every time we came to one of the random jumps. My theory is that they want to give you a feeling of accomplishment when you have finally learned to predict the awkward jumping. Either that or they think we are all kangaroos.
Oh, and I forgot to mention, for all ye music majors out there, the songs seldom end on the tonic, and I mean seldom. That's another big no-no for making singable melodies.
So that's pretty much it. Generally, I like to find some sort of application or moral or something to end my stories, but I don't think there is one. Sometimes, there's just a story, nothing else. But to indulge you, I tried. My best attempt produced this, and with it I will close:
Never exile your criminals to a big unexplored island; they will end up having cooler wild animals than you do, you'll get jealous, and your culture will reflect your jealousy for time immemorial.
I mean, really, how cool are kangaroos? Not to mention platypi. Australia rocks.
Follow the JP Survey?
Just to point it out, notice that I have a new gadget in the side bar --->
I would appreciate it, if you read my blog regularly, if you would signify the fact by clicking the link to "follow" my blog. It would just be a nice thing to know how many folks enjoy the Survey.
Thanks!
I would appreciate it, if you read my blog regularly, if you would signify the fact by clicking the link to "follow" my blog. It would just be a nice thing to know how many folks enjoy the Survey.
Thanks!
Philosophy of Economics
This will be very brief, unlike my usual posts. Over the past week, I have realized just how much economists assume for the sake of their models and many times I have found myself questioning their validity. So for those of you who enjoy philosophizing, here are a few issues and questions to think about. I would love to hear your opinions (so please post them) and I may offer some of my own as time goes on. Along with the assumption, I will try to briefly explain why it is needed.
Assumption 1 - pleasure is the best way to measure utility - economists use this idea ALL the time to measure how much a person values some goods or choices or anything really. It is absolutely fundamental to economics. My question regards its implications about human nature. Does it make sense even in the case where people do something out of goodwill to their own financial or even physical detriment? Do people really get pleasure by choosing to be ascetic or taking a bullet? Essentially, many economists would argue that every choice is founded on hedonism, even those done for the good of others. They say that rational people would only give to charity, for instance, if it made them feel good. Therefore, all charity and generosity is based on selfishness. It's all about me. Hmm.
Assumption 2 - knowledge is infinite - certain growth models incorporate a variable that essentially says that as people's knowledge increases, they are able to become more efficient and innovate more, and it becomes possible to permanently increase an economy's growth rate. However, the models also assume that as the world's total knowledge increases (not each individual's knowledge, the total sum of all things known), it becomes easier to make new innovations. The idea is that, for example, if I know algebra, calculus will be a lot easier for me to learn than before I knew algebra. So the more that is known, the more can be discovered. However, if knowledge were finite, if there were a point when everything was known (even if it was really far away), then more knowledge would mean it was harder to make new discoveries. If you are searching for 100 hidden marbles in a field and 99 have already been found, the chances of finding a new marble are much lower than if all 100 were still out there. Hmm again.
As a note on that one, it is also insanely difficult to measure knowledge as a value since it takes so many forms and all knowledge is not as productive as other knowledge (the 'discovery' of the computer chip was more productive than the 'discovery' of the electric razor). That makes things interesting. I have a very strongly held belief about the infinity or finity (which is not a word but should be) of knowledge, but I will withhold it for now.
That's all for now. I might put more up as time goes on depending on the response to the post. Hope you all enjoy philosophizing; or I at least hope you find the questions somewhat interesting. If not, don't tell me. I'm very fragile.
Assumption 1 - pleasure is the best way to measure utility - economists use this idea ALL the time to measure how much a person values some goods or choices or anything really. It is absolutely fundamental to economics. My question regards its implications about human nature. Does it make sense even in the case where people do something out of goodwill to their own financial or even physical detriment? Do people really get pleasure by choosing to be ascetic or taking a bullet? Essentially, many economists would argue that every choice is founded on hedonism, even those done for the good of others. They say that rational people would only give to charity, for instance, if it made them feel good. Therefore, all charity and generosity is based on selfishness. It's all about me. Hmm.
Assumption 2 - knowledge is infinite - certain growth models incorporate a variable that essentially says that as people's knowledge increases, they are able to become more efficient and innovate more, and it becomes possible to permanently increase an economy's growth rate. However, the models also assume that as the world's total knowledge increases (not each individual's knowledge, the total sum of all things known), it becomes easier to make new innovations. The idea is that, for example, if I know algebra, calculus will be a lot easier for me to learn than before I knew algebra. So the more that is known, the more can be discovered. However, if knowledge were finite, if there were a point when everything was known (even if it was really far away), then more knowledge would mean it was harder to make new discoveries. If you are searching for 100 hidden marbles in a field and 99 have already been found, the chances of finding a new marble are much lower than if all 100 were still out there. Hmm again.
As a note on that one, it is also insanely difficult to measure knowledge as a value since it takes so many forms and all knowledge is not as productive as other knowledge (the 'discovery' of the computer chip was more productive than the 'discovery' of the electric razor). That makes things interesting. I have a very strongly held belief about the infinity or finity (which is not a word but should be) of knowledge, but I will withhold it for now.
That's all for now. I might put more up as time goes on depending on the response to the post. Hope you all enjoy philosophizing; or I at least hope you find the questions somewhat interesting. If not, don't tell me. I'm very fragile.
Paranoia
"Welcome to HSBC, the world's local bank. Please enter your account number followed by hash to ensure quick service."
Beep-beep-beep-beep-beep-beep-beep.
"Now please enter your sort code, followed by hash."
Beep-beep-beep-beep.
"For your own security, please enter your date of birth"
Beep-beep-beep-beep-beep-beep.
"And to verify your information, please enter the first, fourth, and next to last digits of your security code."
Beep-beep-beep.
"Now please say the magic word, followed by the first fifteen digits of pi, and spell the name of the capital of Kazakhstan."
....
....
"We're sorry; we did not understand the answer. Please try again."
....
....
"For your own security, we are unable to continue with this transaction, please hang up and call again."
Click.
So went my most recent call to my bank here in the UK. It was really a shame because I know pi to 10 digits. But setting up the account was just as painful as dealing with the automated service. You see, establishing a bank account in the UK is something akin to convincing Joseph McCarthy that you have never said anything disparaging about the United States or its leaders. To be blunt, everyone is absolutely paranoid about security here, both in the financial sector and at the University. Coming from the US, where bank accounts are given out like buy-one-get-one-free coupons to Domino's, it was quite a disagreeable experience to set one up here. Let me give you a brief history of my adventure.
Two days after arriving in the UK, I received in my pidge (pigeon hole, aka college mail box) a letter from the registrar establishing that my wife and I really had a residence in the UK. So we took the letter and our passports to the bank, where there was a 45 minute wait (we were told to leave and come back to check on our progress). Upon our return, we went in to see a fellow who got us accounts. But, of course, there was a fee, because we weren't from the UK. And we couldn't have a joint account because we were not from the UK, and therefore, not real people until we had been living in the UK for at least a year. And we couldn't have credit, for the same reason. And we couldn't have checks, just a debit card, because they didn't feel like giving us checks that day. But nonetheless, we were pleased to have accounts only two days after arriving; we too had already heard of how troublesome it was. So all things considered, our banking experience was going well. The banker told us we would receive our debit cards and PINs in the mail shortly.
About a week later, we received two letters that looked like junk mail. Upon opening them, we were surprised to find each of our debit cards and a note that read "We have disguised this letter to appear usual, for your own security" or something to that effect. Fine with me, though I chuckled a bit. A few days later we received a more obviously worthwhile letter containing the PINs. The way it worked, for our own security of course, was to punch out this little portion at the bottom of the page with black and white static all over it. That area was actually two pieces of paper that separated to reveal (get excited) absolutely nothing.
Perplexed by the apparently empty paper, we pondered what to do. Then, to our joy, we noticed something very faintly written on the paper, almost invisible (and that is no exaggeration). There, with a background of static, was the lightest gray printing revealing a number (aha! you thought I would inadvertently tell you what it was!), 1234. (Aha! fooled again, for that is only a fake!) I kid you not; I really thought the sheet was blank. And it was a good thing they wrote out the numbers in words as well as digits because I honestly could not make out the digits. But of course it was for our own security.
Well, in any case, I was glad to be done with the set-up. Unfortunately, I received another letter the next day. It read, "the date listed on your address verification is incorrect; please go to the nearest HSBC branch with one of the documents listed on the next page to correct the problem." Too bad I didn't have any of those documents. And what did that mean anyway? The date was wrong with my address? So I went back the next day, and asked to see someone. Well, "it's lunch time," said the receptionist, so the wait would be at least an hour. It was two. But I finally got in and showed the banker the same documents I had before. Although the problem is difficult to explain, I will try, because it is really unbelievably stupid and you must hear it.
One of the fields filled in when applying for the account was called "customer from" and required a date; obviously this should be the date the account was established. Well, the date listed was the day we established our account. However, the banker informed me that really the date needed was the day we entered the UK, as stamped on our visas. So we pulled out the visa and inspected. "Ah, I see," says the banker, "I probably would have mistaken that for a 25 as well, but it really says 23." But she didn't change the date to 23. Instead, she asked for the letter from my college, which I produced. "Oh good!" she says, "the date listed here matches the date 25, so I'll just copy this and we'll be fine." Now the confusion seems to have been the college letter (I had two copies, one dated 24, one dated 25). She continued, "See, we just need the letter to match the date in the account." So apparently, since I had used the one dated 24 when setting up the account on the 25th, this was bad. You MUST establish your account on the same day you receive the letter. What if I had been sick that day? Too bad. So anyway, the verdict is this: the field "customer from" doesn't mean "customer from" and the banker can use any number of different criteria to establish what date needs to match what. It doesn't matter if it makes any sense at all. And they can also say that the date must match the visa and then immediately change their mind and say it must match the letter.
So it took me two hours to change the date related to my address, whatever that means. And oh, just to emphasize it, they didn't change the date.
The University is just as bad. Back in the States at university, we had one username and one password to access everything we needed. Here I have three different usernames and six passwords to access different systems. This, of course, is on top of the eight or nine passwords I already have for banking and email and all the rest. Put PINs, security codes, secret questions, and lock combinations on top of that and I have at least 20 numbers to remember on a regular basis. And of course, they encourage these all to be different and want you to change each of them every eight weeks but never write them down. It has been so overwhelming that at one point I thought my wife's computer was not working for about a week simply because I had mixed up some of the passwords. But it is for my own security, so I guess I should just cope.
But I refuse! I am very inclined to believe that all these superfluous usernames and passwords actually cause more harm than good. If everyone working in business in the UK is in the same situation, I cannot imagine how many millions of calls are sent off to India every year just to verify identity and recall a forgotten password. And given wait times here, I'm sure the time wasted is enormous. Sure there's a credit crunch and identity theft is on the rise, but this is just excessive. To be honest, I am absolutely astonished that London ever became a center of banking given the experience I have had with the financial system here. It is set up to maim and kill, not to provide the means for easier transactions. But at least I have my debit card; I have friends who have been here as long as I who still cannot access their funds. Craziness.
So my next big challenge is to conquer the phone banking service. Luckily, I have some parallel training in my current studies. See, in economics things often happen magically. You start with some equation, derive another one, and then poof, the magic number steps in and you have a really pretty answer. So as I practice my wizardry on other people's hypothetical money, perhaps I will gain the skill to answer the bank's automated phone service. Until then, though, I'll just work on learning the next five digits of pi.
Beep-beep-beep-beep-beep-beep-beep.
"Now please enter your sort code, followed by hash."
Beep-beep-beep-beep.
"For your own security, please enter your date of birth"
Beep-beep-beep-beep-beep-beep.
"And to verify your information, please enter the first, fourth, and next to last digits of your security code."
Beep-beep-beep.
"Now please say the magic word, followed by the first fifteen digits of pi, and spell the name of the capital of Kazakhstan."
....
....
"We're sorry; we did not understand the answer. Please try again."
....
....
"For your own security, we are unable to continue with this transaction, please hang up and call again."
Click.
So went my most recent call to my bank here in the UK. It was really a shame because I know pi to 10 digits. But setting up the account was just as painful as dealing with the automated service. You see, establishing a bank account in the UK is something akin to convincing Joseph McCarthy that you have never said anything disparaging about the United States or its leaders. To be blunt, everyone is absolutely paranoid about security here, both in the financial sector and at the University. Coming from the US, where bank accounts are given out like buy-one-get-one-free coupons to Domino's, it was quite a disagreeable experience to set one up here. Let me give you a brief history of my adventure.
Two days after arriving in the UK, I received in my pidge (pigeon hole, aka college mail box) a letter from the registrar establishing that my wife and I really had a residence in the UK. So we took the letter and our passports to the bank, where there was a 45 minute wait (we were told to leave and come back to check on our progress). Upon our return, we went in to see a fellow who got us accounts. But, of course, there was a fee, because we weren't from the UK. And we couldn't have a joint account because we were not from the UK, and therefore, not real people until we had been living in the UK for at least a year. And we couldn't have credit, for the same reason. And we couldn't have checks, just a debit card, because they didn't feel like giving us checks that day. But nonetheless, we were pleased to have accounts only two days after arriving; we too had already heard of how troublesome it was. So all things considered, our banking experience was going well. The banker told us we would receive our debit cards and PINs in the mail shortly.
About a week later, we received two letters that looked like junk mail. Upon opening them, we were surprised to find each of our debit cards and a note that read "We have disguised this letter to appear usual, for your own security" or something to that effect. Fine with me, though I chuckled a bit. A few days later we received a more obviously worthwhile letter containing the PINs. The way it worked, for our own security of course, was to punch out this little portion at the bottom of the page with black and white static all over it. That area was actually two pieces of paper that separated to reveal (get excited) absolutely nothing.
Perplexed by the apparently empty paper, we pondered what to do. Then, to our joy, we noticed something very faintly written on the paper, almost invisible (and that is no exaggeration). There, with a background of static, was the lightest gray printing revealing a number (aha! you thought I would inadvertently tell you what it was!), 1234. (Aha! fooled again, for that is only a fake!) I kid you not; I really thought the sheet was blank. And it was a good thing they wrote out the numbers in words as well as digits because I honestly could not make out the digits. But of course it was for our own security.
Well, in any case, I was glad to be done with the set-up. Unfortunately, I received another letter the next day. It read, "the date listed on your address verification is incorrect; please go to the nearest HSBC branch with one of the documents listed on the next page to correct the problem." Too bad I didn't have any of those documents. And what did that mean anyway? The date was wrong with my address? So I went back the next day, and asked to see someone. Well, "it's lunch time," said the receptionist, so the wait would be at least an hour. It was two. But I finally got in and showed the banker the same documents I had before. Although the problem is difficult to explain, I will try, because it is really unbelievably stupid and you must hear it.
One of the fields filled in when applying for the account was called "customer from" and required a date; obviously this should be the date the account was established. Well, the date listed was the day we established our account. However, the banker informed me that really the date needed was the day we entered the UK, as stamped on our visas. So we pulled out the visa and inspected. "Ah, I see," says the banker, "I probably would have mistaken that for a 25 as well, but it really says 23." But she didn't change the date to 23. Instead, she asked for the letter from my college, which I produced. "Oh good!" she says, "the date listed here matches the date 25, so I'll just copy this and we'll be fine." Now the confusion seems to have been the college letter (I had two copies, one dated 24, one dated 25). She continued, "See, we just need the letter to match the date in the account." So apparently, since I had used the one dated 24 when setting up the account on the 25th, this was bad. You MUST establish your account on the same day you receive the letter. What if I had been sick that day? Too bad. So anyway, the verdict is this: the field "customer from" doesn't mean "customer from" and the banker can use any number of different criteria to establish what date needs to match what. It doesn't matter if it makes any sense at all. And they can also say that the date must match the visa and then immediately change their mind and say it must match the letter.
So it took me two hours to change the date related to my address, whatever that means. And oh, just to emphasize it, they didn't change the date.
The University is just as bad. Back in the States at university, we had one username and one password to access everything we needed. Here I have three different usernames and six passwords to access different systems. This, of course, is on top of the eight or nine passwords I already have for banking and email and all the rest. Put PINs, security codes, secret questions, and lock combinations on top of that and I have at least 20 numbers to remember on a regular basis. And of course, they encourage these all to be different and want you to change each of them every eight weeks but never write them down. It has been so overwhelming that at one point I thought my wife's computer was not working for about a week simply because I had mixed up some of the passwords. But it is for my own security, so I guess I should just cope.
But I refuse! I am very inclined to believe that all these superfluous usernames and passwords actually cause more harm than good. If everyone working in business in the UK is in the same situation, I cannot imagine how many millions of calls are sent off to India every year just to verify identity and recall a forgotten password. And given wait times here, I'm sure the time wasted is enormous. Sure there's a credit crunch and identity theft is on the rise, but this is just excessive. To be honest, I am absolutely astonished that London ever became a center of banking given the experience I have had with the financial system here. It is set up to maim and kill, not to provide the means for easier transactions. But at least I have my debit card; I have friends who have been here as long as I who still cannot access their funds. Craziness.
So my next big challenge is to conquer the phone banking service. Luckily, I have some parallel training in my current studies. See, in economics things often happen magically. You start with some equation, derive another one, and then poof, the magic number steps in and you have a really pretty answer. So as I practice my wizardry on other people's hypothetical money, perhaps I will gain the skill to answer the bank's automated phone service. Until then, though, I'll just work on learning the next five digits of pi.
Perplexing Plurals
Imagine if you will a lovely little restaurant in a small Georgia town just outside Athens and the University of Georgia. Located on the main street of Watkinsville, Le Maison Bleu is excellent, or so I hear. I have never actually been to it, but many friends attest its tastiness. This I do not doubt because it exhibits the one trait absolutely required to be considered a high class institution: all the menu prices are listed as whole dollar values without decimals. Beware the supposedly fancy restaurant that still lists price to the .99; its glamour is likely less than the owner believes. (This is not to say that the food is inadequate at such restaurants. Some of the best food is found in little hole-in-the-wall locales, but it is nice to be pampered from time to time.) In any case, there you are, about to enjoy artsy sea bass lined with a drizzle of port reduction and a single asparagus atop it all when all of a sudden, a raging Frenchman storms through the door. Lest I give the wrong impression, let me preface this story with the fact that my experience with the French has been quite positive with the exception of one particularly perturbed receptionist. But regardless of my leanings, I certainly would not want to be in the way of this restaurant ravaging, beret wearing, thinly mustachioed Parisian. Indeed, this is one of the dreadful French elite (or rather, élite, for fear of upsetting him). He wreaks havoc all the way up to the hostess and demands to speak with the owner at once. Your dinner peace having been blemished already, you decide to listen in.
"Zis iz an outrage!!" the vituperative man exclaims.
"Please, sir, if you would like to discuss a problem, we are more than welcome to help, but let's do keep our voice down."
"Ah refuze to lo-ware ma voice when zis blazphemy haz been pearpatrated againzt ma language, ma country, ma-self!"
"What is the matter, sir? But please let's quite down."
"You zilly English rezt-ai-raunteurz, it iz not 'Le Maison Bleu'! It iz of corze 'La Maison Bleue'!"
You see, this man, scourge of France, is a member of l'Académie française, that accursed institution responsible for the destruction of the French language. To be fair, the man was right. Our friends in Watkinsville fell short, not even bothering to look up the gender of the main word in their restaurant title. This true story, recorded word for word by myself without a hint of exaggeration or stereotyping, shows how inflexible the French language is. According to this ridiculous group, new words acquired by the French are often discarded as "not French enough for French," thereby rendering especially useful words like le parking and le weekend officially defunct. Sure, they don't sound especially French (actually they do when pronounced by a Frenchman), but language is intended to change. English, for example, used to be something akin to German and Icelandic, completely indistinguishable from what it is today. But partially because of groups like the Académie, French is no longer the lingua franca of business and international relations (oh the irony), and English has stepped in to fill that void as America has risen to economic power over the past two hundred years.
All this being said, as I was beginning to write a completely different post earlier, I happened to include the word passerby in the opening paragraph. Ardent logophile that I am and being prone to jump from one thought to another at the slightest provocation, I thought how wonderful was the plural of said word. How often does one get the pleasure of negating all the usual grammatical rules for pluralization by inserting an "s" into the middle of a word to make it plural? Lovely. Despite the rebellious excitement that stirs in me each time I say passersby, it does actually conform to English grammar. The rule is this: one pluralizes nouns, not modifiers. By is merely describing the passers, and just as we would not say "the purples eggplant" to pluralize "the purple eggplant," so we should not say passerbies. This case, however, is fairly well known and many people would say passersby if they thought about it for a second.
What about these words, though: spoonful, cupful, attorney general? Although it is grammatically correct to say spoonsful, cupsful, and attorneys general, most people would simply add an "s" to the end of each word to pluralize it. In fact, I don't think I have ever heard anyone use anything other than spoonfuls. In looking around for interesting factoids, I ran across another fellow's blog talking specifically about football time outs and whether it was actually correct to say time outs or if it should be times out. While he concludes that time outs is correct, as do I, I disagree with his reasoning. He says that since it is a two-word construction, requiring both words to make sense, that you should just add an "s" to the end of it. I think his point is correct, but I do not think it holds for time out. I will explain using another example in his blog.
Earlier in the post he condones attorneys general as a correct plural since general simply describes attorney. While I think grammarians would agree, I do not. I am inclined to think that attorney general is actually a two-word construction, especially since we took the phrase from French as a single unit. If it were two separate parts we would not put the adjective after the noun in the French manner but would rather say general attorney. So firstly, I think it should be attorney generals because it is a two-word construction, and I think that is a good example of the rule that he wishes to apply to time out. But I do not think time out is the same since it is like passerby with two distinct parts that are logical. "Time that is out of play" = "time out" seems analogous to "passer who is walking by" = "passerby." So it makes since that "times that are out of play" = "times out" since "passers who are walking by" = "passersby." Therefore, I think grammatically it should be times out, but that makes absolutely no difference to me, because I like time outs better, and that is the point.
So after all this quasi-technical ado, it comes down to the fact that English is quite willing to change and the change betters our language. After all, football would seem utterly less rough and manly if all the announcers went around saying spoonsful, cupsful, and attorneys general (for they do often ramble to unrelated topics). "I would like two spoonsful of sugar in my tea whilst I wait for the attorneys general of the nearby towns to take their seats. Then we shall commence with this brutish game which I loathe to see. Viewers are certainly in for savagery today, Bob." So while times out may accidentally come out of the mouth of an announcer from time to time, I'm sure it will die out soon. And since "incorrect" grammar is definitely rough and manly, I'm all about it. As one wiser than I once said, "I love grammar," and I completely agree, but it's fun when grammar changes. Then maybe in five hundred years people will look back on our current tongue as a foreign language, just as we do on that of our forebears. Perhaps they will have an even more rebellious way of pluralizing time out. The thought gives me shivers.
"Zis iz an outrage!!" the vituperative man exclaims.
"Please, sir, if you would like to discuss a problem, we are more than welcome to help, but let's do keep our voice down."
"Ah refuze to lo-ware ma voice when zis blazphemy haz been pearpatrated againzt ma language, ma country, ma-self!"
"What is the matter, sir? But please let's quite down."
"You zilly English rezt-ai-raunteurz, it iz not 'Le Maison Bleu'! It iz of corze 'La Maison Bleue'!"
You see, this man, scourge of France, is a member of l'Académie française, that accursed institution responsible for the destruction of the French language. To be fair, the man was right. Our friends in Watkinsville fell short, not even bothering to look up the gender of the main word in their restaurant title. This true story, recorded word for word by myself without a hint of exaggeration or stereotyping, shows how inflexible the French language is. According to this ridiculous group, new words acquired by the French are often discarded as "not French enough for French," thereby rendering especially useful words like le parking and le weekend officially defunct. Sure, they don't sound especially French (actually they do when pronounced by a Frenchman), but language is intended to change. English, for example, used to be something akin to German and Icelandic, completely indistinguishable from what it is today. But partially because of groups like the Académie, French is no longer the lingua franca of business and international relations (oh the irony), and English has stepped in to fill that void as America has risen to economic power over the past two hundred years.
All this being said, as I was beginning to write a completely different post earlier, I happened to include the word passerby in the opening paragraph. Ardent logophile that I am and being prone to jump from one thought to another at the slightest provocation, I thought how wonderful was the plural of said word. How often does one get the pleasure of negating all the usual grammatical rules for pluralization by inserting an "s" into the middle of a word to make it plural? Lovely. Despite the rebellious excitement that stirs in me each time I say passersby, it does actually conform to English grammar. The rule is this: one pluralizes nouns, not modifiers. By is merely describing the passers, and just as we would not say "the purples eggplant" to pluralize "the purple eggplant," so we should not say passerbies. This case, however, is fairly well known and many people would say passersby if they thought about it for a second.
What about these words, though: spoonful, cupful, attorney general? Although it is grammatically correct to say spoonsful, cupsful, and attorneys general, most people would simply add an "s" to the end of each word to pluralize it. In fact, I don't think I have ever heard anyone use anything other than spoonfuls. In looking around for interesting factoids, I ran across another fellow's blog talking specifically about football time outs and whether it was actually correct to say time outs or if it should be times out. While he concludes that time outs is correct, as do I, I disagree with his reasoning. He says that since it is a two-word construction, requiring both words to make sense, that you should just add an "s" to the end of it. I think his point is correct, but I do not think it holds for time out. I will explain using another example in his blog.
Earlier in the post he condones attorneys general as a correct plural since general simply describes attorney. While I think grammarians would agree, I do not. I am inclined to think that attorney general is actually a two-word construction, especially since we took the phrase from French as a single unit. If it were two separate parts we would not put the adjective after the noun in the French manner but would rather say general attorney. So firstly, I think it should be attorney generals because it is a two-word construction, and I think that is a good example of the rule that he wishes to apply to time out. But I do not think time out is the same since it is like passerby with two distinct parts that are logical. "Time that is out of play" = "time out" seems analogous to "passer who is walking by" = "passerby." So it makes since that "times that are out of play" = "times out" since "passers who are walking by" = "passersby." Therefore, I think grammatically it should be times out, but that makes absolutely no difference to me, because I like time outs better, and that is the point.
So after all this quasi-technical ado, it comes down to the fact that English is quite willing to change and the change betters our language. After all, football would seem utterly less rough and manly if all the announcers went around saying spoonsful, cupsful, and attorneys general (for they do often ramble to unrelated topics). "I would like two spoonsful of sugar in my tea whilst I wait for the attorneys general of the nearby towns to take their seats. Then we shall commence with this brutish game which I loathe to see. Viewers are certainly in for savagery today, Bob." So while times out may accidentally come out of the mouth of an announcer from time to time, I'm sure it will die out soon. And since "incorrect" grammar is definitely rough and manly, I'm all about it. As one wiser than I once said, "I love grammar," and I completely agree, but it's fun when grammar changes. Then maybe in five hundred years people will look back on our current tongue as a foreign language, just as we do on that of our forebears. Perhaps they will have an even more rebellious way of pluralizing time out. The thought gives me shivers.
Oxfordian Paradox
Sunday night I attended my first Evensong, the Anglican equivalent of Catholic Vespers and the night Mass mashed together into one. Never having been to a service in a cathedral, I was rather impressed. Even though the Oxford Cathedral (which is the Christ Church chapel) is one of the smallest cathedrals in Europe, it was still marvelous. The service consisted of a variety of prayers and songs and chants, all of them quite lovely. But after about half an hour, I found myself contorting into strange shapes to relieve my back from such perpendicularity. Wooden benches with backs don’t allow much spine curvature, it seems, and my slouching habits simply did not get along with the pews. And it was a bit difficult, as a newcomer, to sing along with the hymns since the words and the music were separated on the page. But despite these minor grievances, the service accomplished a major achievement that I found noteworthy: it did not contradict itself. Hard wooden seats, slightly difficult songbooks, low lighting: all these things felt quite appropriate for the setting. Worship cannot be too comfortable. This service, among the many things I have done so far, was completely true to itself. Other aspects of Oxford are not quite so.
I love my college. St Antony’s is a true community. Sure, it’s not the oldest college around; it’s not even well situated. But everyone is so extraordinarily friendly that I think it is well worth it to have less history and sub-prime real estate (though hopefully not a similar mortgage!). My venerable college, however, suffers from a fatal flaw, a cancer: it builds ugly buildings. If you check out St Antony’s website, the main building pictured is the Lodge, housing the porters’ area, the library, offices, etc. It’s a nice building; though not as stately as Balliol, Christ Church, or Magdalen, it is still lovely. But there is a terrible secret; she has the name Hilda Besse. (Be afraid; be very afraid!) This hideous concrete monstrosity is a sad excuse for architecture. Almost entirely concrete, the Hilda Besse building looks like a discarded design for a trash compactor that the artist neglected to paint because it was so hopeless. And what’s worse, it is a protected building! Yes, this building, to architecture what a polka dotted leisure suit is to fashion, cannot be altered in any way - something about what lovely symmetry it has I think. Sadness overwhelms me when I think that £2 million (or so I hear) is spent every year in upkeep of this eyesore because its faulty design cannot be fixed. Tragic.
But, I wouldn’t be too upset just about Hilda. Hilda is a wonderful name, after all, and the place provides good food for a cheap price and a rather comfortable common room. I’m sure I will have many good times in Hilda’s company. So I was prepared to forgive St Antony’s of its grievous sin until I read more on the website. It seems my college is determined to continue its tradition of awful building designs. In the coming years will be built a new Middle Eastern Studies Centre, which will look like a space-age corset turned on its side, connecting the lodge and the Hilda Besse. Woe to us all. So there we have contradiction number one: extreme, almost laughable contrasts in architecture. Although my college does seem to be a nucleus of this bipolarism, it can be seen elsewhere too. And may I point out, just to be clear, that I really love my college and all its members; but I very much think it a shame that the lovely old convent that forms the center of the college should be disgraced by such shameful “modern” buildings in its company.
But my feelings on architecture aside, Oxford has plenty of other contradictions running through its veins, and there are a number of pleasant and comical ones. For instance, compared to the States, England is full of environmentalists to the hilt. This I have no problem with, for most of them are quite reasonable and are simply concerned that people take simple steps to make the Earth a better place (like recycling and other easy tasks). When you go to the local grocery (Sainsbury’s), the cashier always asks if you want bags, assuming that most people will present a reusable bag rather than continue hurting the local dale by using plastic. And there are a number of green clubs and societies available to promote green initiatives. But despite all of the greenery, the University every year chops down at least 660 trees to publish one single, completely worthless edition (if you ask for my calculations, I will provide them – they are based on Oxford figures and information from conservatree.com – the estimate is quite conservative). This, my friends, is the veritable Examinations Regulations book, published annually and given to every single new student. Weighing in at about five pounds, this 1100 page masterpiece contains the rules and regulations of every single degree offered at Oxford, both undergraduate and graduate. If you want to use Akkadian as your language for a degree in Oriental Studies, or if you want a postgraduate certificate in the Provision of Healthcare to Homeless People, now you can quickly discover the proper coursework and requirements. In this weighty tome, the specifications for my degree (an MPhil in Economics) take up less than two full pages, and my program’s induction told me everything I needed to know anyway. So it really is worthless. Unless, of course, you sell it on ebay for $150 to a tourist wanting an authentic piece of Oxford (I have it on good evidence that this has occurred). In any case, to all you environmentalists out there, you have a new target; until it is abolished, though, we can all chuckle at the ridiculous contradiction that is the Exam Regulation book.
There are yet other contradictions: for me, a Southern boy, to see such a green landscape (the color, that is) while feeling such cold weather is quite the paradox. Then there is the fact that I just returned from the common room, where tea is had whilst watching the Simpsons most every evening. And of course there is the most obvious of them all, the modernity surrounding the medieval buildings. Whether it is the bus system or the cell phones or the always fashionable British youth, Oxford is a cauldron of the ages. And that is precisely what will bring me back to visit after my degree is complete. This is a city that is always changing but always the same; it is an ever-aging body with an ever-progressive mind. And I admit there is a draw to those ridiculous buildings that spring up from time to time. It reminds us that old buildings do not imply solely old notions in their denizens. And as much as I think the old notions of architecture are better than the new, this is not the case in all fields and I would be foolish to forget it. So I raise my glass to this city of past and present; may it have an unforeseeable future.
I love my college. St Antony’s is a true community. Sure, it’s not the oldest college around; it’s not even well situated. But everyone is so extraordinarily friendly that I think it is well worth it to have less history and sub-prime real estate (though hopefully not a similar mortgage!). My venerable college, however, suffers from a fatal flaw, a cancer: it builds ugly buildings. If you check out St Antony’s website, the main building pictured is the Lodge, housing the porters’ area, the library, offices, etc. It’s a nice building; though not as stately as Balliol, Christ Church, or Magdalen, it is still lovely. But there is a terrible secret; she has the name Hilda Besse. (Be afraid; be very afraid!) This hideous concrete monstrosity is a sad excuse for architecture. Almost entirely concrete, the Hilda Besse building looks like a discarded design for a trash compactor that the artist neglected to paint because it was so hopeless. And what’s worse, it is a protected building! Yes, this building, to architecture what a polka dotted leisure suit is to fashion, cannot be altered in any way - something about what lovely symmetry it has I think. Sadness overwhelms me when I think that £2 million (or so I hear) is spent every year in upkeep of this eyesore because its faulty design cannot be fixed. Tragic.
But, I wouldn’t be too upset just about Hilda. Hilda is a wonderful name, after all, and the place provides good food for a cheap price and a rather comfortable common room. I’m sure I will have many good times in Hilda’s company. So I was prepared to forgive St Antony’s of its grievous sin until I read more on the website. It seems my college is determined to continue its tradition of awful building designs. In the coming years will be built a new Middle Eastern Studies Centre, which will look like a space-age corset turned on its side, connecting the lodge and the Hilda Besse. Woe to us all. So there we have contradiction number one: extreme, almost laughable contrasts in architecture. Although my college does seem to be a nucleus of this bipolarism, it can be seen elsewhere too. And may I point out, just to be clear, that I really love my college and all its members; but I very much think it a shame that the lovely old convent that forms the center of the college should be disgraced by such shameful “modern” buildings in its company.
But my feelings on architecture aside, Oxford has plenty of other contradictions running through its veins, and there are a number of pleasant and comical ones. For instance, compared to the States, England is full of environmentalists to the hilt. This I have no problem with, for most of them are quite reasonable and are simply concerned that people take simple steps to make the Earth a better place (like recycling and other easy tasks). When you go to the local grocery (Sainsbury’s), the cashier always asks if you want bags, assuming that most people will present a reusable bag rather than continue hurting the local dale by using plastic. And there are a number of green clubs and societies available to promote green initiatives. But despite all of the greenery, the University every year chops down at least 660 trees to publish one single, completely worthless edition (if you ask for my calculations, I will provide them – they are based on Oxford figures and information from conservatree.com – the estimate is quite conservative). This, my friends, is the veritable Examinations Regulations book, published annually and given to every single new student. Weighing in at about five pounds, this 1100 page masterpiece contains the rules and regulations of every single degree offered at Oxford, both undergraduate and graduate. If you want to use Akkadian as your language for a degree in Oriental Studies, or if you want a postgraduate certificate in the Provision of Healthcare to Homeless People, now you can quickly discover the proper coursework and requirements. In this weighty tome, the specifications for my degree (an MPhil in Economics) take up less than two full pages, and my program’s induction told me everything I needed to know anyway. So it really is worthless. Unless, of course, you sell it on ebay for $150 to a tourist wanting an authentic piece of Oxford (I have it on good evidence that this has occurred). In any case, to all you environmentalists out there, you have a new target; until it is abolished, though, we can all chuckle at the ridiculous contradiction that is the Exam Regulation book.
There are yet other contradictions: for me, a Southern boy, to see such a green landscape (the color, that is) while feeling such cold weather is quite the paradox. Then there is the fact that I just returned from the common room, where tea is had whilst watching the Simpsons most every evening. And of course there is the most obvious of them all, the modernity surrounding the medieval buildings. Whether it is the bus system or the cell phones or the always fashionable British youth, Oxford is a cauldron of the ages. And that is precisely what will bring me back to visit after my degree is complete. This is a city that is always changing but always the same; it is an ever-aging body with an ever-progressive mind. And I admit there is a draw to those ridiculous buildings that spring up from time to time. It reminds us that old buildings do not imply solely old notions in their denizens. And as much as I think the old notions of architecture are better than the new, this is not the case in all fields and I would be foolish to forget it. So I raise my glass to this city of past and present; may it have an unforeseeable future.
Heroic Epithets
There are certain traditions that I’m glad died out. The plague, for instance, was a very bad tradition. I’m also not really into human sacrifice, blowing one’s nose onto one’s necktie, or chucking toilet refuse into the street (though the gentlemanly tradition of walking nearest the road when ambling down the sidewalk with a lady survives as a remnant of the refuse tossing tradition: since upper floors often jutted out over the street, the person closest to the street was most likely to be struck by falling missiles). Indeed, some traditions were fated to go, and I wish them well.
However, and I’m sure Ivan the Terrible would agree, official epithets and superfluous suffixes are traditions that never should have bitten the dust. Whether it is Æthelred the Unready or Hroth, Dragon Slayer of Ripgaard, those catchy and appropriate little additions make all the difference. The medieval chic-ness (if anything medieval is chic) is staggering, leaving opponents with inferior names utterly unprepared for the speedy death rendered unto them by their well-named superiors. I know ordinary old JP Waldroup would be too busy trying to understand the implications of the name Culwych, Ogre Thrasher of Cardiff, to protect himself from the undoubtedly potent onslaught soon to follow cordial introductions on the battlefield. It’s a bit unfair really.
So in order to make up for our epoch’s lack of heroic epithets, I have devised a table by which we can all add appropriately vexing and completely gratuitous titles to our everyday names. All you have to do is match up the first letter of each of your names with the appropriate entries in the table below. For instance, I, JP Waldroup, would become JP Waldroup, Mosquito Eradicator of Rotterdam, much more intimidating than before. Make sure to pronounce things dramatically too. Don’t just say mosquito, say moe-SKI-toe. It adds a whole new dimension. I have included a variety of ridiculous and more serious entries to keep it interesting. I hope you enjoy; do post your new names (and take them to heart). Perhaps we will vote on the best ones.
However, and I’m sure Ivan the Terrible would agree, official epithets and superfluous suffixes are traditions that never should have bitten the dust. Whether it is Æthelred the Unready or Hroth, Dragon Slayer of Ripgaard, those catchy and appropriate little additions make all the difference. The medieval chic-ness (if anything medieval is chic) is staggering, leaving opponents with inferior names utterly unprepared for the speedy death rendered unto them by their well-named superiors. I know ordinary old JP Waldroup would be too busy trying to understand the implications of the name Culwych, Ogre Thrasher of Cardiff, to protect himself from the undoubtedly potent onslaught soon to follow cordial introductions on the battlefield. It’s a bit unfair really.
So in order to make up for our epoch’s lack of heroic epithets, I have devised a table by which we can all add appropriately vexing and completely gratuitous titles to our everyday names. All you have to do is match up the first letter of each of your names with the appropriate entries in the table below. For instance, I, JP Waldroup, would become JP Waldroup, Mosquito Eradicator of Rotterdam, much more intimidating than before. Make sure to pronounce things dramatically too. Don’t just say mosquito, say moe-SKI-toe. It adds a whole new dimension. I have included a variety of ridiculous and more serious entries to keep it interesting. I hope you enjoy; do post your new names (and take them to heart). Perhaps we will vote on the best ones.
More coming soon!
Hello readers! It has been too long, but alas, it will be yet longer. I should have internet connection in my flat starting this Wednesday, so you can expect me to be posting again regularly after that. Check back soon for the latest!
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