Archive for the ‘Social life’ Category

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At 8

March 9, 2012

Sunday was my grand-daughter Opal’s 8th birthday. Here’s a report on three things from the occasion: numerology; the comics; and perceptions of ethnicity.

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Posted in Linguistics in the comics, My life, Social life, Taboo language and slurs | 13 Comments »

Building 20

January 27, 2012

In the latest (January 30th) New Yorker, an “Annals of Ideas” piece by Jonah Lehrer, “Groupthink: The brainstorming myth”, on brainstorming as a spur to creativity (the evidence indicates that brainstorming without criticism is ineffective; that successful collaborations tend to involve people with strong social connections to one another; and that physical proximity enhances creativity). Lehrer then turns to the example of Building 20 at MIT, a famed “magical incubator” of innovation.

Building 20 (1943-98) was in fact where the linguists hung out at MIT in my days — where the department office and faculty offices were located, where Halle and Chomsky had their (adjoining) offices, and where the grad students shared a big room — and it also housed the Laboratory for Nuclear Science, the Acoustics Lab (which gave rise to the Bose Corporation), the machine shop, ROTC, a piano repair facility, a cell-culture lab, the Ice Research Laboratory, the Tech Model Railroad Club, offices for many people in the Research Laboratory of Electronics, and much more. Not bad for a temporary wooden building hastily thrown up during World War II to house MIT’s Radiation Laboratory.

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Posted in My life, Social life | 7 Comments »

Dreams

January 16, 2012

The Scenes From a Multiverse for today is a cartoon reflection on Martin Luther King’s “I have a dream” speech:

A pointed message for MLK Day.

I recommend watching the 1963 speech, available here on YouTube.

Posted in Linguistics in the comics, Social life | 2 Comments »

Three deaths

January 5, 2012

Sometimes the good die old.

In yesterday’s New York Times, obituaries for three admirable people who died recently in their 90s: the graphic artist Ronald Searle; Gordon Hirabayashi, fierce opponent of the American internment of Japanese-Americans during World War II; and Robert L. Carter, a leader in the legal attack on racial segregation in the U.S..
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Posted in Art/lit/music/film, Death notices, Social life | 5 Comments »

Gravestones

January 4, 2012

(Not about language.)

In my investigations into the Daingerfield family and their milieu, I came across a Graveyards and Gravestones site, with photographs of over 2300 gravestones, and a Find a Grave site, with a huge number of grave records, including many photographs of gravestones, among them four from the Daingerfeld family. No photograph of the grave of the Major (Foxhall Alexander Daingerfield), but I did find two of his sons, James Keene Daingerfield and Algernon Daingerfield, JKD’s son James Keene Daingerfield Jr. (Ann’s father), and Algernon’s son Foxhall A. Daingerfield Jr. (More about Algernon and Fox in a later posting, and some stories about JKD in another.)

First, JKD:

and his son, Keene:

Algernon:

and his son, Fox:

Interestingly, it’s often easier to find a photo of a gravestone than to get information about the life of the person buried in the grave.

Posted in My life, Social life | 3 Comments »

Recognition

December 14, 2011

A Shannon Wheeler penguin cartoon:

(Hat tip to Michael Palmer.) If you’re not a penguin, “they all look alike”. The cartoon’s conceit is that this is true even if you’re a penguin.

Posted in Linguistics in the comics, Penguins, Social life | Leave a Comment »

autistic again

December 6, 2011

A letter (“Consistent we are”) to New Scientist, 11/2/11 from Hans Proebsting, Freeburgh, Victoria, Australia:

Your story “I’m autistic, I don’t care what you think” was interesting (15 October, p 19). I have autism, and I think researcher Keise Izuma got it right. We are more likely than neurotypicals to be consistent in our behaviour, regardless of whether we are observed or not.

Incidentally, terminology has moved on. “Is autistic” is no longer an acceptable expression. The term “has autism” is technically accurate. Autism is what we have, it is not what we are.

The objection is to autistic used as an adjective, in particular as a predicate adjective, on the basis of a presumed association between syntax and semantics. Apparently, Proebsting takes adjectives to convey Aristotelian essences (rather than accidents), consequently objects to autistic on the grounds that autism is not an essential property, and appeals to some wider consensus that these positions are correct.

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Posted in Pragmatics, Semantics, Social life, Syntax | 4 Comments »

The homos vs. the godless

September 22, 2011

(Only a little bit about language, mostly about social attitudes.)

The “Harper’s Index” in the latest (October 2011) Harper’s, p. 15, reports a startling Gallup poll finding:

Percentage of Americans who say that they would vote for a well-qualified homosexual candidate for president: 67

For a well-qualified atheist: 49

Homos over the godless by a considerable margin! (Bad news for non-believing queers, like me, though.)

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Posted in Gender and sexuality, Linguistics in the comics, Social life | 3 Comments »

Undermining the army

July 31, 2011

(With a little bit about language.)

Charles M. Blow, “My Very Own Captain America”, op-ed piece in the NYT yesterday, about the 92nd Infantry Division (the “Buffalo Soldiers”), an all-black unit during World War II:

My grandfather, Fred D. Rhodes, was one of those soldiers.

The division was activated late in the war, more out of acquiescence to black leaders than the desire of white policy makers in the war department who doubted the battle worthiness of black soldiers. It was considered to be an experiment, one that the writer of the department’s recommendation to re-establish it would later describe as “programmed to fail from the inception.”

For one, as the historian Daniel K. Gibran has documented, the soldiers were placed under the command of a known racist who questioned their “moral attitude toward battle,” “mental toughness” and “trustworthiness,” and who remained a military segregationist until the day he died. In 1959, the commander commented in a study: “It is absurd to contend that the characteristics demonstrated by the Negroes” will not “undermine and deteriorate the white army unit into which the Negro is integrated.”

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Posted in Argument structure, Social life | 1 Comment »

American Gothic

July 28, 2011

(Not about language.)

From my friend Max yesterday, a postcard with this famous arresting image by Gordon Parks:

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Posted in Art/lit/music/film, Photography, Social life | 3 Comments »

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