Archive for March, 2015

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NEG + because

March 25, 2015

From yesterday’s NYT:

[Philadelphia police commissioner Charles H.] Ramsey has emerged recently as a national figure in the policing debate. He leads President Barack Obama’s policing task force, which recently made recommendations on how to improve trust between law enforcement and minorities. “I wasn’t selected because the president thought we had the perfect police department,” he told reporters Monday.

The crucial point is this quote from Ramsey:

(1) I wasn’t selected because the president thought we had the perfect police department.

Out of context, (1) is ambiguous, between a reading in which NEG has scope over the because clause:

(1a) It wasn’t because the president thought we had the perfect police department that I was selected.

and a reading in which the because clause is outside the scope of NEG:

(1b) It was because the president thought we had the perfect police department that I wasn’t selected.

Given the context in the story — Ramsey was in fact selected — (1a) must be the reading Ramsey intended, and I’d expect readers of the sentence in context would not even have noticed that it had another interpretation.

(more…)

Posted in Ambiguity, Context, Pragmatics | Leave a Comment »

Construction toys

March 25, 2015

Chatted yesterday with Ned Deily about Erector sets and Meccano, and he mentioned Girder and Panel construction toys, which I hadn’t heard of but which he had enjoyed as a kid; they came along a bit late for me, though I had played with earlier construction toys: Meccano, Tinkertoy, Erector, and Lego.

I’ll start with Girder and Panel and then go back to the beginning.

(more…)

Posted in Names, Play, Toys | Leave a Comment »

Detweiler?

March 24, 2015

This morning’s name was, annoyingly, just a surname: Detweiler. I had the feeling that it was the name of a character in a film or tv show, possibly a detective (but that might just be from the shared det– in detective and Detweilerˆ).

Well, you wouldn’t believe how many Detweilers a Google search pulls up! But none of them in the first hundred pages seemed at all familiar to me. (Remember that the question is why the name popped up in my memory.)

Posted in Names | 7 Comments »

UberPenguins

March 24, 2015

Passed on by Michael Palmer, this set of penguin images from the uber humor site (offering “funny pictures, quotes, pics, photos, images, videos of really very cute animals”):

Ah, but what’s the story?

Posted in Humor, Penguins | 2 Comments »

Where do you get your facts?

March 24, 2015

From an opinion piece “Why Movie ‘Facts’ Prevail” in the NYT on February 15th by psychology professor Jeffrey M. Zacks:

This year’s Oscar nominees for best picture include four films based on true stories: “American Sniper” (about the sharpshooter Chris Kyle), “The Imitation Game” (about the British mathematician Alan Turing), “Selma” (about the passage of the Voting Rights Act in 1965) and “The Theory of Everything” (about the physicist Stephen Hawking).

Each film has been criticized for factual inaccuracy. Doesn’t “Selma” ignore Lyndon B. Johnson’s dedication to black voting rights? Doesn’t “The Imitation Game” misrepresent the nature of Turing’s work, just as “The Theory of Everything” does Mr. Hawking’s? Doesn’t “American Sniper” sanitize the military conflicts it purports to depict?

You might think: Does it really matter? Can’t we keep the film world separate from the real world?

Unfortunately, the answer is no. Studies show that if you watch a film — even one concerning historical events about which you are informed — your beliefs may be reshaped by “facts” that are not factual.

(more…)

Posted in Memory | 1 Comment »

Elise Partridge

March 24, 2015

The story starts with this poem about X in the April 2nd issue of the New York Review of Books:

X, a C.V.

I stand, legs astride, a colossus—
or dancer in fifth position, wide port de bras.
Polymorph strayed into English,

sometimes pronounced like Americans’ z,
in French I’m often silent; in Pirahã the glottal stop;
a fricative in Somali.

Vector, Cartesian axis,
chromosome, bowling-strike. Pirate-map cynosure;
at a letter’s close, a kiss.

I do plebeian duty in tic-tac-toe,
range marble façades. Paired with y, I dodge—
variable incognito.

I lend myself to comets of cryptic orbit,
ally with rays that pierce time’s edge.
I’m default sci-fi planets.

In my Roman hours,
I was ten.—Later, the name of millions:
those never granted an alphabet’s power.

Then I read the contributors’ notes in the NYRB.

(more…)

Posted in Death notices, Language play, Poetry | Leave a Comment »

Peeps time in Japan

March 23, 2015

As Easter approaches (April 5th this year), Peeps naturally come to mind (substantial posting on Peeps here). Peeps are endlessly versatile; here’s Grace Kang on Serious Eats, taking Peeps to Japan, in the form of Peepshi (Peeps sushi):

(Hat tip to Beth Linker.)

Yes, they’re appalling. But cute.

Posted in Holidays, Language and food, Portmanteaus, Silliness | Leave a Comment »

The end of March

March 23, 2015

Today’s Frazz:

Ok, buh-bye is indeed an iamb, but it’s not a lamb. Anyway, the end of March is eight days away.

Posted in Formulaic language, Linguistics in the comics, Poetic form | Leave a Comment »

More male dancers

March 23, 2015

Back on the 10th, I posted on a beautifully muscled and athletic male ballet dancer (and his dance belt). Now some follow-ups, starting with a couple of photos from Mike McKinley (balletomane and former Trock) — another ballet dancer, one with extraordinary musculature, and a male pas de deux (as a bonus, naked) — which led to Matthew Bourne and his paired male dancers.

(more…)

Posted in Dance, Gender and sexuality, Language and the body, Language of clothing | Leave a Comment »

Purses on the runway

March 23, 2015

[This posting links to a definitely X-rated video, not for kids or the sexually modest.]

A very odd video on the Bilerico website, posted by Bil Browning on March 18th, with the commentary:

I’m sure this is meant to be shocking or titillating, but a better word to describe it is “creepy.”

Male models strutted their stuff naked during a fashion show in Madrid. From the eerie music to the looks on the models’ faces, there’s nothing that says “sexy” about this parade of penis. Not only does it completely distract people from the purses, I can’t even tell you the name of the designer. The person who uploaded the video didn’t bother to include that info.

(Hat tip to Mike McKinley.)

The models’ faces are utterly affectless (as they are in many fashion shows), and they make no eye contact with the audience.

The models have bodies of quite a range of types (though all of them are fit; they are male models, after all) — but with a very narrow range of races/ethnicities. The receptacles they are carrying are all white, but they too are of a range of types, ranging far beyond purses.

And yes, not at all sexy, even for phallophiles. But funny — Browning seems to think inadvertently, but it could have been intentional.

Posted in Gender and sexuality | 3 Comments »

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