Category Archives: Reading & Writing

Anniversary Post: Air Conditioning

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Willis CarrierIt was 100°F Sunday — with very high humidity. So I really need to talk about Willis Carrier who built the first modern air conditioner on this day in 1902. He actually wrote down the plans four days earlier. His main innovation was to include humility control. That’s the thing: most of the heat in the air is contained in the water vapor. You get rid of that, and it gets cool — fast. In fact, if you want to defog your windows, put the hot air through the air conditioner, and the windows will clear shockingly fast.

This all reminds me of a trip I took to southern China in the summer of 1992. I’m not much good with languages. But it was so hot and muggy, I made people teach me three phrases. The first was “air conditioning.” The phrase for this means literally “cold air.” And the Chinese words are, “Lěng kōngqì” or “冷空气.” The way I remember pronouncing this was, “Lung chee.”

The second phrase was, “Cold beer.” This is, “Lěng píjiǔ” or “冷啤酒.” The way I pronounced it was, “Lung pee-gee-oh.” But I don’t think anyone was ever happy with my pronunciation. The last phrase was simply, “Thank you.” That’s “Xièxiè” or “谢谢.” Most people know how to pronounce this, “Shea Shea.”

So I would walk around Guangzhou repeating over and over, “Lěng píjiǔ. Lěng kōngqì. Xièxiè.” Yes, I put beer first. Priorities are important.

Chattanooga and that “Terrorism” Word Again

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TerrorismBack after Dylann Roof went on his killing spree, I wrote, “Terrorism” Signifies “Us” and “Them,” Nothing More. In it, I reflected on the claim of many fellow liberals — which I’m sympathetic to — that Roof’s murders were acts of terrorism. I hate the word “terrorism.” In modern usage, it means nothing. It is just a signifier to label the violet acts of some people illegitimate while papering over the violent acts of ourselves and those who we think of as being on our side.

So now we have another case that the American media system has no problem calling terrorism: Muhammad Youssef Abdulazeez killed four marines (and wounded three others) at two military installations in Chattanooga, Tennessee. It is hard not to believe that if the perpetrator had been named John Lee Morris, that it wouldn’t be have been call terrorism. And that people wouldn’t be wondering why it was Morris did such a horrible thing. But instead, Abdulazeez did it, he’s a Muslim, there’s no more to talk about it. That’s just the way those people are.

But apart from my general problem with the word and its clear racism, is this a case of terrorism? Glenn Greenwald asked an excellent question about this, The Chattanooga Shootings: Can Attacking Military Sites of a Nation at War be “Terrorism”? In this example, the killing was not indiscriminate. Abdulazeez was killing people in the US military (although he also shot at police who responded to his attacks). That’s not to say that his crimes were any less horrible or that they were justified. It is just to say that his crimes were not indiscriminate and not intending to make the general populace terrorized.

Greenwald provided another, even better example: Martin Couture Rouleau.

Last October in Canada — weeks after the government announced it would bomb Iraq against ISIS — a Muslim man waited for hours in his car in a parking lot until he saw two Canadian soldiers in uniform, and then ran them over, killing one; that was universally denounced as “terrorism” despite his obvious targeting of soldiers.

Again, the issue here is not to claim that these acts are justified. There are all kinds of horrible acts that people commit that are not classified as terrorism. But if the word “terrorism” is to mean anything, then it can’t be applied to just any political violence that we don’t like. But the way that the word is used today, it is even worse than that. It seems to mean nothing more than “violence committed by people with Muslim sounding names.”

This isn’t just about my general regard for words. The use of words have powerful signifying effects on society. By applying “terrorism” only to the acts of Muslims, it tarnishes all Muslims. Nothing could be more clearly racist. No one argued that Dylann Roof’s monstrous act was indicative of his whiteness. Now, I understand, if pressed, people will qualify what Abdulazeez did as the act of a radical Muslim or whatever. But that just highlights the power of words like terrorism. No one thinks about it. It’s a word that is used in an entirely racist manner: people just “know” that a terrorist is a Muslim like they “know” that a welfare queen is black. And these are the assumptions that cripple us as a society.

Anniversary Post: Rosetta Stone

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Rosetta StoneOn this day in 1799, the Rosetta Stone was rediscovered. It contained more or less the same text in ancient Egyptian hieroglyphs, the ancient Egyptian script language Demotic, and ancient Greek. It was a big deal, because no one at that time could read hieroglyphs. So it was important in the rediscovery of that language.

Written in 196 BC, it established the cult of the King Ptolemy V for all the world. He was in his ninth year as king — a position he took at the age of five. Apparently, his father died. To avoid any problems, his father’s favorites killed his mother and more or less took control with Ptolemy V as a puppet. But they too were soon murdered. You know how these things go.

The Rosetta Stone was original displayed in a temple to celebrate Ptolemy’s divinity, I assume. It was later used as a building material for Fort Julien, which was built in the 15th century. But in 1799, the French found themselves in control of the fort. Pierre-François Bouchard was an engineer with the French Army, and he was put in charge of rebuilding the fort. Lucky for us that he was. When the stone was found, he immediately saw it for the important artifact that it was. And he saved it.

Eventually Fort Julien was taken by the English in 1800. They took the Rosetta Stone back home and it has been there ever since. Happy anniversary Rosetta Stone!

Anniversary Post: Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland

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Alice's Adventures in WonderlandOn this day in 1862, legend has it, Lewis Carroll rowed a boat up part of the River Thames with Robinson Duckworth and the three young Liddell girls, one of whom was ten year old Alice. And during that trip, he started telling the story that would be published three years later as, Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland. I don’t like the contrast: while Lewis Carroll was busy creating one of the most charming stories of all time, across the great big ocean, hundreds of thousands Americans were being killed because a small number of white men wanted to continue to own human beings.

There was a table set out under a tree in front of the house, and the March Hare and the Hatter were having tea at it: a Dormouse was sitting between them, fast asleep, and the other two were using it as a cushion, resting their elbows on it, and talking over its head. ‘Very uncomfortable for the Dormouse,’ thought Alice; ‘only, as it’s asleep, I suppose it doesn’t mind.’

The table was a large one, but the three were all crowded together at one corner of it: ‘No room! No room!’ they cried out when they saw Alice coming. ‘There’s plenty of room!’ said Alice indignantly, and she sat down in a large arm-chair at one end of the table.

‘Have some wine,’ the March Hare said in an encouraging tone.

Alice looked all round the table, but there was nothing on it but tea. ‘I don’t see any wine,’ she remarked.

‘There isn’t any,’ said the March Hare.

‘Then it wasn’t very civil of you to offer it,’ said Alice angrily.

‘It wasn’t very civil of you to sit down without being invited,’ said the March Hare.

‘I didn’t know it was your table,’ said Alice; ‘it’s laid for a great many more than three.’

‘Your hair wants cutting,’ said the Hatter. He had been looking at Alice for some time with great curiosity, and this was his first speech.

‘You should learn not to make personal remarks,’ Alice said with some severity; ‘it’s very rude.’

The Hatter opened his eyes very wide on hearing this; but all he said was, ‘Why is a raven like a writing-desk?’

‘Come, we shall have some fun now!’ thought Alice. ‘I’m glad they’ve begun asking riddles.– I believe I can guess that,’ she added aloud.

‘Do you mean that you think you can find out the answer to it?’ said the March Hare.

‘Exactly so,’ said Alice.

‘Then you should say what you mean,’ the March Hare went on.

‘I do,’ Alice hastily replied; ‘at least — at least I mean what I say — that’s the same thing, you know.’

‘Not the same thing a bit!’ said the Hatter. ‘You might just as well say that “I see what I eat” is the same thing as “I eat what I see”!’

‘You might just as well say,’ added the March Hare, ‘that “I like what I get” is the same thing as “I get what I like”!’

‘You might just as well say,’ added the Dormouse, who seemed to be talking in his sleep, ‘that “I breathe when I sleep” is the same thing as “I sleep when I breathe”!’

‘It is the same thing with you,’ said the Hatter, and here the conversation dropped, and the party sat silent for a minute, while Alice thought over all she could remember about ravens and writing-desks, which wasn’t much.

The Hatter was the first to break the silence. ‘What day of the month is it?’ he said, turning to Alice: he had taken his watch out of his pocket, and was looking at it uneasily, shaking it every now and then, and holding it to his ear.

Alice considered a little, and then said ‘The fourth.’

‘Two days wrong!’ sighed the Hatter. ‘I told you butter wouldn’t suit the works!’ he added looking angrily at the March Hare.

‘It was the best butter,’ the March Hare meekly replied.

‘Yes, but some crumbs must have got in as well,’ the Hatter grumbled: ‘you shouldn’t have put it in with the bread-knife.’

The March Hare took the watch and looked at it gloomily: then he dipped it into his cup of tea, and looked at it again: but he could think of nothing better to say than his first remark, ‘It was the best butter, you know.’

Alice had been looking over his shoulder with some curiosity. ‘What a funny watch!’ she remarked. ‘It tells the day of the month, and doesn’t tell what o’clock it is!’

‘Why should it?’ muttered the Hatter. ‘Does your watch tell you what year it is?’

‘Of course not,’ Alice replied very readily: ‘but that’s because it stays the same year for such a long time together.’

‘Which is just the case with mine,’ said the Hatter.

Alice felt dreadfully puzzled. The Hatter’s remark seemed to have no sort of meaning in it, and yet it was certainly English. ‘I don’t quite understand you,’ she said, as politely as she could.

‘The Dormouse is asleep again,’ said the Hatter, and he poured a little hot tea upon its nose.

The Dormouse shook its head impatiently, and said, without opening its eyes, ‘Of course, of course; just what I was going to remark myself.’

‘Have you guessed the riddle yet?’ the Hatter said, turning to Alice again.

‘No, I give it up,’ Alice replied: ‘what’s the answer?’

‘I haven’t the slightest idea,’ said the Hatter.

‘Nor I,’ said the March Hare.

Alice sighed wearily. ‘I think you might do something better with the time,’ she said, ‘than waste it in asking riddles that have no answers.’

‘If you knew Time as well as I do,’ said the Hatter, ‘you wouldn’t talk about wasting it. It’s him.’

‘I don’t know what you mean,’ said Alice.

‘Of course you don’t!’ the Hatter said, tossing his head contemptuously. ‘I dare say you never even spoke to Time!’

‘Perhaps not,’ Alice cautiously replied: ‘but I know I have to beat time when I learn music.’

‘Ah! that accounts for it,’ said the Hatter. ‘He won’t stand beating. Now, if you only kept on good terms with him, he’d do almost anything you liked with the clock. For instance, suppose it were nine o’clock in the morning, just time to begin lessons: you’d only have to whisper a hint to Time, and round goes the clock in a twinkling! Half-past one, time for dinner!’

(‘I only wish it was,’ the March Hare said to itself in a whisper.)

‘That would be grand, certainly,’ said Alice thoughtfully: ‘but then — I shouldn’t be hungry for it, you know.’

‘Not at first, perhaps,’ said the Hatter: ‘but you could keep it to half-past one as long as you liked.’

‘Is that the way you manage?’ Alice asked.

The Hatter shook his head mournfully. ‘Not I!’ he replied. ‘We quarrelled last March — just before he went mad, you know–‘ (pointing with his tea spoon at the March Hare,) ‘–it was at the great concert given by the Queen of Hearts, and I had to sing

“Twinkle, twinkle, little bat!
How I wonder what you’re at!

You know the song, perhaps?’

‘I’ve heard something like it,’ said Alice.

‘It goes on, you know,’ the Hatter continued, ‘in this way:–

“Up above the world you fly,
Like a tea-tray in the sky.
Twinkle, twinkle–“‘

Here the Dormouse shook itself, and began singing in its sleep ‘Twinkle, twinkle, twinkle, twinkle–‘ and went on so long that they had to pinch it to make it stop.

‘Well, I’d hardly finished the first verse,’ said the Hatter, ‘when the Queen jumped up and bawled out, “He’s murdering the time! Off with his head!”‘

‘How dreadfully savage!’ exclaimed Alice.

‘And ever since that,’ the Hatter went on in a mournful tone, ‘he won’t do a thing I ask! It’s always six o’clock now.’

A bright idea came into Alice’s head. ‘Is that the reason so many tea-things are put out here?’ she asked.

‘Yes, that’s it,’ said the Hatter with a sigh: ‘it’s always tea-time, and we’ve no time to wash the things between whiles.’

‘Then you keep moving round, I suppose?’ said Alice.

‘Exactly so,’ said the Hatter: ‘as the things get used up.’

‘But what happens when you come to the beginning again?’ Alice ventured to ask.

‘Suppose we change the subject,’ the March Hare interrupted, yawning. ‘I’m getting tired of this. I vote the young lady tells us a story.’

‘I’m afraid I don’t know one,’ said Alice, rather alarmed at the proposal.

‘Then the Dormouse shall!’ they both cried. ‘Wake up, Dormouse!’ And they pinched it on both sides at once.

The Dormouse slowly opened his eyes. ‘I wasn’t asleep,’ he said in a hoarse, feeble voice: ‘I heard every word you fellows were saying.’

‘Tell us a story!’ said the March Hare.

‘Yes, please do!’ pleaded Alice.

‘And be quick about it,’ added the Hatter, ‘or you’ll be asleep again before it’s done.’

‘Once upon a time there were three little sisters,’ the Dormouse began in a great hurry; ‘and their names were Elsie, Lacie, and Tillie; and they lived at the bottom of a well–‘

‘What did they live on?’ said Alice, who always took a great interest in questions of eating and drinking.

‘They lived on treacle,’ said the Dormouse, after thinking a minute or two.

‘They couldn’t have done that, you know,’ Alice gently remarked; ‘they’d have been ill.’

‘So they were,’ said the Dormouse; ‘very ill.’

Alice tried to fancy to herself what such an extraordinary ways of living would be like, but it puzzled her too much, so she went on: ‘But why did they live at the bottom of a well?’

‘Take some more tea,’ the March Hare said to Alice, very earnestly.

‘I’ve had nothing yet,’ Alice replied in an offended tone, ‘so I can’t take more.’

‘You mean you can’t take less,’ said the Hatter: ‘it’s very easy to take more than nothing.’

‘Nobody asked your opinion,’ said Alice.

‘Who’s making personal remarks now?’ the Hatter asked triumphantly.

Alice did not quite know what to say to this: so she helped herself to some tea and bread-and-butter, and then turned to the Dormouse, and repeated her question. ‘Why did they live at the bottom of a well?’

The Dormouse again took a minute or two to think about it, and then said, ‘It was a treacle-well.’

‘There’s no such thing!’ Alice was beginning very angrily, but the Hatter and the March Hare went ‘Sh! sh!’ and the Dormouse sulkily remarked, ‘If you can’t be civil, you’d better finish the story for yourself.’

‘No, please go on!’ Alice said very humbly; ‘I won’t interrupt again. I dare say there may be one.’

‘One, indeed!’ said the Dormouse indignantly. However, he consented to go on. ‘And so these three little sisters — they were learning to draw, you know–‘

‘What did they draw?’ said Alice, quite forgetting her promise.

‘Treacle,’ said the Dormouse, without considering at all this time.

‘I want a clean cup,’ interrupted the Hatter: ‘let’s all move one place on.’

He moved on as he spoke, and the Dormouse followed him: the March Hare moved into the Dormouse’s place, and Alice rather unwillingly took the place of the March Hare. The Hatter was the only one who got any advantage from the change: and Alice was a good deal worse off than before, as the March Hare had just upset the milk-jug into his plate.

Alice did not wish to offend the Dormouse again, so she began very cautiously: ‘But I don’t understand. Where did they draw the treacle from?’

‘You can draw water out of a water-well,’ said the Hatter; ‘so I should think you could draw treacle out of a treacle-well — eh, stupid?’

‘But they were in the well,’ Alice said to the Dormouse, not choosing to notice this last remark.

‘Of course they were’, said the Dormouse; ‘–well in.’

This answer so confused poor Alice, that she let the Dormouse go on for some time without interrupting it.

‘They were learning to draw,’ the Dormouse went on, yawning and rubbing its eyes, for it was getting very sleepy; ‘and they drew all manner of things — everything that begins with an M–‘

‘Why with an M?’ said Alice.

‘Why not?’ said the March Hare.

Alice was silent.

The Dormouse had closed its eyes by this time, and was going off into a doze; but, on being pinched by the Hatter, it woke up again with a little shriek, and went on: ‘–that begins with an M, such as mouse-traps, and the moon, and memory, and muchness — you know you say things are “much of a muchness” — did you ever see such a thing as a drawing of a muchness?’

‘Really, now you ask me,’ said Alice, very much confused, ‘I don’t think–‘

‘Then you shouldn’t talk,’ said the Hatter.

This piece of rudeness was more than Alice could bear: she got up in great disgust, and walked off; the Dormouse fell asleep instantly, and neither of the others took the least notice of her going, though she looked back once or twice, half hoping that they would call after her: the last time she saw them, they were trying to put the Dormouse into the teapot.

‘At any rate I’ll never go there again!’ said Alice as she picked her way through the wood. ‘It’s the stupidest tea-party I ever was at in all my life!’

I can just hear the snarky reply, “Well at least they weren’t pedophiles!” But I think it is clear that Carroll was no such things. But it hardly matters. The work is what it is. And what it is, is great. So happy birthday to the beginning of Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland, even if it is just a legend!

Split Infinities and the People Who Use Them

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A Dictionary of Modern English UsageThe English-speaking world may be divided into (1) those who neither know nor care what a split infinitive is; (2) those who do not know, but care very much; (3) those who know and condemn; (4) those who know and approve; and (5) those who know and distinguish.

1. Those who neither know nor care are the vast majority, and are a happy folk, to be envied by most of the minority classes. “To really understand” comes readier to their lips and pens than “really to understand”; they see no reason why they should not say it (small blame to them, seeing that reasons are not their critics’ strong point), and they do say it, to the discomfort of some among us, but not to their own…

4. Just as those who know and condemn the split infinitive include many who are not recognizable, since only the clumsier performers give positive proof of resistance to temptation, so too those who know and approve are not distinguishable with certainty. When a man splits an infinitive, he may be doing it unconsciously as a member of our class 1, or he may be deliberately rejecting the trammels of convention and announcing that he means to do as he will with his own infinitives.

—Henry Watson Fowler
A Dictionary of Modern English Usage

Frank Gets a Job — Learns Valuable Lessons

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Technical WriterWell, dear readers, I have started a new job of sorts. It is freelance writing — technical stuff with no byline. And it seems like it is going to be consistent work. But it has been getting in the way of my constant stream of frankly curious wisdom. Not that you would notice, because I haven’t missed any scheduled articles yet. But right now it is 5:30 pm on Saturday and I am just starting to write the last article for tomorrow. [Update: this was originally scheduled for Sunday evening, but got pushed back. -FM] Normally, I’m a bit further ahead than that. In fact, I prefer to stay two days ahead. And I hope to get another half a day’s writing in by the time I go to sleep. I can do that because I have nothing that anyone would mistake for a life.

None of this means that anything is going to change on Frankly Curious. I like the current publishing schedule, and I’m going to try to stay with it. What else am I going to do? What would I pull out? As it is, I’d rather be publishing eight articles per day — every two hours from 5 am to 7 pm. But if I publish some short articles or miss scheduled article, just assume all is well and I am just making money. (It is my current wish to get enough money ahead so I don’t have to pay for my checking account. Such are the simple pleasures of my life!)

It’s been interesting to do this kind of technical writing. In one way, it isn’t different from what I write here (especially in the Computer/Meta category) or over on Dirt Cheap Computers. But I have to play it straight there. Here I have what is charitably called “Style!” I can be cheeky and opinionated. For example, I’m likely to just authoritatively tell you what to do. If I wrote an article about CMS, I would just tell you to use WordPress because it works really well and there is such a huge base of users that problems are fixed quickly and there are always people around to help you. But in this work, I would have to write something like, 10 Most Popular Content Management Systems Online. (Note: I didn’t write that and it is not from the company I am working for.) That is an excellent and useful article, but not a lot of fun to read or write.

One nice thing about doing this kind of work is that it brings me back to the days when I first was starting on the commercial internet. I created my first website in 1993 — but that was when I had my very own IBM RS/6000 right on the internet and so I ran httpd and created some pages. In early 2000, I was no longer at a college and so I had to sift through endless options in terms of hosting companies and various bits of software to run on it. It was very confusing and it would have been helpful to have some guidance. Today, the technology available is so much greater. But so is the help. It’s nice to be part of that, even though I wish I could write things like, “You’re thinking of serving your own videos?! Are you crazy? Why don’t you just go buy a ball-peen hammer and see how many whacks it takes to crack your skull?” Like I said: “Style!”

Another good thing about this work is that it is very educational. Even when it comes to stuff I already know well, there is nothing like having to explain it to others for making it clear to yourself. Also: I’m being asked to write about things that I don’t know much about. Who knows? It may end up changing the kind of stuff we do here, because most of the work that I am currently doing is for people who have websites like Frankly Curious — with or without the “Style!”

Car Shows and Father’s Days

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No touching Impalas unless your [sic] in the nude!!It was Father’s Day today, and so I spend part of it with my father. And we spent it as we usually do, over at the Father’s Day car show that they have here in Santa Rosa. My father — like many men of his generation — is very interested in cars. He has restored a 1950 Buick. It’s the car with a grill that looks like it is going to eat you. Personally, I’m not that fond of it. I’m not that fond of any cars. They are just noisy, smelling things that create no sense of romance in me.

My disinterest is not a generational thing. I know a lot of people my age who have much the same feelings about more modern technologies like computers and phones. I also don’t care about these things. It’s not that I feel above people who are into these things. I have my own fascinations, as regular readers of this website will know. For example, if there were a puppet exhibit every year, I’d definitely go. Or a conference on Don Quixote, I’d look forward to it every year. But let’s face it: these car folks are not “my people.” I mean, good God, they spend tens of thousands of dollars restoring old cars!

What I noticed about myself as we walked along is that I’m attracted to colors. “Oh, there’s a pretty car!” And all that means is that it’s red or orange or some shades of green. And I kind of like little boxy cars from the 1950s and 1960s. But mostly, I look at the convertibles and think, “What a death trap! Why isn’t there a roll bar on that?!” My father’s 1950 Buick had to have seat belts added because they didn’t come with the car. Of course, even if you don’t die in a collision, you might die from the CO emitted by the inefficient combustion.

But at one point, I came upon this late 1950s Chevrolet Impala that sums up car shows to me. In the back seat was a sign instructing people, “No Touching.” I understand. People spend a lot of money on these things. Then again, it isn’t like they are Modigliani paintings. They are old devices that have been cleaned up good. What’s the point of having them if you can’t, you know, use them. But the other aspect is the coarse — and implicitly sexist — joke: only nude people in that car!

The kicker is that it has a grammar error, “No touching Impalas unless your [sic] in the nude!!” Again, I’m not placing myself above these people. They are just different. They care about cars and I care about at least getting the grammar right on a professionally printed sign. It’s a clash of cultures. Clearly, I think mine is superior or I wouldn’t have it. But I know that isn’t an objective truth. And regardless, what’s most important is to spend a little time with dad, even though he would surely see me as some kind of space alien if he weren’t so used to me by now.

Ted 2 Steals My Eddie’s Father Reference

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The Courtship Of Eddie's FatherI saw a television commercial for Ted 2. I didn’t see the original film and I have no interest in seeing this one. It reminds me of ALF. It is this idea that if you have a puppet, you don’t need to make its personality charming. In Ted you have the bear who is annoying and then you have Mark Wahlberg who is a nonentity. You know who he is, right? He’s the Wahlberg who isn’t Donnie or Robert. But as a Seth MacFarlane film, I’m sure that it will be by turns hilarious and offensive. Whatever. That’s what people want and I was born in the wrong century. I’m okay with that.

But in the commercial, they are using the Harry Nilsson song “Best Friend.” And when I heard it, my heart sank. In “The Post-Postmodern Comedy Hour,” I use a parody of The Courtship Of Eddie’s Father. I hate that! I wrote the first two episodes of it three years ago. And here these people are stealing my thunder. Of course, maybe it’s obvious. The whole point of using The Courtship Of Eddie’s Father is to highlight the the power dynamic. Although it makes a lot more sense in my case because Darren (the puppet) is a child. Ted, as far as I can tell, is just Peter Griffin in a bear costume.

Also, I do something interesting with it. The thing that I remember from The Courtship Of Eddie’s Father was Eddie and Tom’s philosophical conversations at the end of each episode. So I thought it would be funny to parody these. Steve (the Tom character) is kind and understanding, but Darren (the Eddie character) is a narcissistic puppet. So the first episode has the following typically circular conversation:

Steve is riding a bike on a city street. Darren is sitting in the child seat. They both have helmets on.

Darren: Steve?

Steve: What is it, little buddy?

As they ride, the light at the intersection ahead turns red.

Darren: What does it mean to be great?

Steve: What? Why do you want to know?

Steve slows the bike to a stop at the intersection. At the corner on the left is a woman with her young son getting ready to cross the street. Steve turns toward Darren and continues to talk.

Darren: I wanna be great. If I’m not already. I am though, right?

The mother and son cross into the crosswalk.

Steve: I don’t know, Darren.

Cross traffic cars pass by in front of the bike.

Darren: You don’t know if I’m great? That can’t be. You don’t know what greatness is?

Steve: No. It’s just that greatness means a lot of things.

As the mother and son reach halfway across the street, the boy notices Darren and points at him.

Boy: Look mom!

The mother hushes her son.

Darren: As it applies to me. That’s all I care about.

The mother and son reach the other side of the street and continue down the sidewalk. The cross traffic stops. The light changes to green.

Steve: I’m still not clear on it.

Steve accelerates the bike into the intersection.

Darren: Jeez! If everyone applauds when a man walks in the room, is he great?

Steve: I suppose.

Darren: So I’m great!

They turn left into the driveway in front of an office building.

Steve: People applaud when you enter a room?

Darren (gravely): Pretty much.

Steve gets off the bike and walks it up to the front of the building and to a bike rack.

Steve: Who applauds when you enter a room?

Darren: Well, you for one.

Steve: I applaud when you enter the room?

Steve starts to lock up his bike.

Darren: Oh, yeah!

Steve: I have no memory of ever doing that.

Darren: Probably do it subconsciously.

Steve looks away from his work and stares at Darren.

Steve: And why do I do that? Do I say?

Darren: No. I figure because of my greatness.

Steve shakes his head and goes back to his work.

Steve: And why are you so great?

Darren: Don’t ask me! I’m not the one applauding.

I doubt there is anything like that in Ted 2. For one thing, Darren appears to be nothing like Ted. But I’d like to claim my own take on The Courtship of Eddie’s Father. The second episode involves a discussion of artifice. Each conversation involves the theme of the episode. And then the episode ends with Darren getting some comeuppance for his plotting against Steve throughout the episode. There is probably a very limited audience for “The Post-Postmodern Comedy Hour,” because it is the absolute perfect representation of the kind of entertainment that I want to see. It includes the supposed writer of the show locked in a cage on the set.

I’ll bet that’s not in Ted 2!

Anniversary Post: Uncle Tom’s Cabin

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Uncle Tom's CabinOn this day in 1851, the first part of Harriet Beecher Stowe’s Uncle Tom’s Cabin was published in the abolitionist newspaper, National Era. Today, the novel has kind of a bad reputation because of the stereotype of an “Uncle Tom” — the “dutiful, long-suffering servant faithful to his white master.” But this and other stereotypes of African Americans are a reflection of the enormous influence that the novel had. It was an extremely important novel that galvanized northern thought against slavery.

What I never knew was the extremely negative reaction that the novel got in the south. In fact, it started a whole genre of novels called Anti-Tom literature. According to Wikipedia, during the ten years after the novel’s publication “between twenty and thirty anti-Tom books were published.” What’s shocking about these books is that Stowe actually went pretty lightly on the institution of slavery. Most of the slave owners are presented as decent people who are reluctant. There’s really only one slave owner who is clearly evil and I don’t think even he is indicative of just how bad slavery actually was.

I can understand why the African American community turned against the novel. And even today, no one mistakes it for good writing. But it does have to be seen in its historical context. Of course, there’s always a chicken and egg aspect to these kinds of things. Was the novel hugely successful because the north was finally done with slavery, or was it the novel that moved public opinion? I suspect that it was both. And that at least makes Uncle Tom’s Cabin a hugely important novel.

Happy anniversary Uncle Tom’s Cabin!

A Grammar Lesson from Dilbert

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Grammar - DilbertThis is from the 18 May 2015 Dilbert comic strip. It highlights one of my favorite bits of grammar: the implied verb predicate. I’m sure that’s not its actual name, but that describes it. In the panel, Alice uses a common construction, “I hate Mondays more than Garfield.” What Alice clearly means is, “I hate Mondays more than Garfield hates Mondays.” Wally, of course, intentionally misunderstands her to mean, “I hate Mondays more than I hate Garfield.” Wally does this to make Alice angry, although she hardly needs the help.

In that construction, there is no way other than context to know the meaning of the sentence. But when pronouns are used, the meaning is clear. If the subject is used, the meaning is Alice’s intent: “I hate Mondays more than he hates Mondays.” If the object is used, the meaning is Wally’s interpretation: “I hate Mondays more than I hate him.” The problem is that people rarely get this right.

Almost no would write, much less say, “I hate Mondays more than he.” It sounds both pretentious and incorrect. So people will almost always say, “I hate Mondays more than him,” even though they clearly don’t mean that they hate Mondays more than they hate Garfield. It’s hard to know what to do.

A few years back, I wrote, How Good is Scott Turow? It was about a single line of dialog from his novel, Innocent. A character says, “I know a lot more than him.” It is apparently meant to convey that the speaker knows more than his father knows about computers. But it literally means that the speaker knows more about computers than he knows about his father. And that is also true. It’s brilliant!

But I don’t actually think that Turow is such a great writer that he realized what he was doing. I figure he just wrote the sentence the way people speak. And the way people speak is to throw objects at the end of sentences. So instead of thinking of the sentence as a shortened version of a clearer sentence, they think of it as an analogy to a sentence like, “I love her.” So what is one to do?

In speaking, I don’t give it a second thought. People already think I’m a pedant, so I say it the wrong way. But in writing, I can’t do that — at least when I notice the problem. (I’m sure people can find tons of examples where I messed this up; this site isn’t copy edited.) So I just add the extra text, “I hate Mondays more than he does.” That way, I get the best of both worlds. It’s right and it sounds right.

Anniversary Post: Dracula

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DraculaOn this day in 1897, Bram Stoker’s Dracula was first published. Vampires have always been a problem for me. Call it the caribou problem. As you may remember, the caribou of North America were starving to death because there were no predators to thin the herd. So wolves had to be reintroduced to save the caribou from their success. But imagine if every caribou killed turned into a wolf. Very soon, there would be no caribou and only wolves and then there would be no wolves because they would all starve to death. This is the kind of thing that I think about with regard to Dracula.

I’m also not that keen on the epistolary novel. Even when Stoker wrote it, it was coming to be obsolete. Really: what is the point of it anyway? It is a literary affectation that doesn’t seem to provide much of anything in exchange. But people at the time certainly seemed to like the novel (those who read it anyway). And it is still quite popular, but I think that has more to do with Bela Lugosi than Bram Stoker.

It’s hard for me not to compare Dracula with Frankenstein. And as much as it is possible to discern a theme for the mess of the former, it does not appeal to me. In an important sense, the two novels are opposites. Frankenstein presents a monster created by the society itself. The fault lies with the society that cannot deal with an outsider. Dracula presents a monster as an external contagion; the fault most definitely does not lie with the society for rejecting the outsider.

Thus, even though Dracula appeared three-quarters of a century later, its humanity had regressed. Frankenstein is a liberal — even radical — allegory of our treatment of the “other.” Dracula is a conservative allegory about how we must be fearful of the “other.” It is a story that would be welcomed by Pamela Geller and other bigots both more and less extreme. It would be welcome by them, that is, if they understood it.

Still, Dracula is a good adventure story. And if you love the British Empire and hate Romanian gypsies, well, you can hardly go wrong. That’s especially true if you don’t have anything better to do, like drink… wine?

Happy anniversary Dracula!