The Dictionary Game

Last night I finally managed to browbeat my mother into playing the Dictionary Game with me.

Many years ago, my mother acknowledged my love of dictionaries by buying me the Oxford English Dictionary Board Game.

Yes, such a thing exists. Yes, I have the "first edition". What else would you expect?

Anyway, since becoming the proud owner of a board game based on the OED, I have had great difficulty convincing people to play with me. To be honest, I can't blame them. The actually "board" bit of the board game is rather boring. It really just serves as an excuse to work with the cards: Spelling and Meaning.

These cards bring me great joy. The Spelling cards give you sample sentences, and you have to spell given words within those sentences depending on what level you are playing. The Meaning cards give you a word and three possible meanings, and you must guess which is correct.

When I was teaching, I used to take the cards in to school at the end of terms as a time filler. I'd split the class into teams and award them points depending on what they got right or wrong. It was, quite frankly, the only way I'd get to play. All of my so-called "friends" refused to play it on games nights. My own mother (who bought be the game) has played it once since she bought it for me, and makes a big show of refusing to play ever since.

Until last night, where she finally conceded to giving me a game.

The thing is, I've noticed the people who play with me seem to see it as an exercise in getting the answers wrong and feeling miserable, rather than just playing with the game and having fun. I'm quite happy to hear a ridiculous word I've never heard of before and attempt to spell it. If it get it wrong, that's part of the game. Everyone else seems to take it personally. Like it's some kind of test at they feel like their failing.

Just play the game, people! Who cares if you get every answer wrong? The next best thing to playing and winning is playing and losing.

Also, I want Oxford to put out versions in other languages. I think it would be a brilliant language learning activity, and I'd love to have a set in German.

Oh, and maybe make the "board" bit less boring.

Alveolar lateral approximant

Commonly represented in English texts by the letter "l", the alveolar lateral approximant (one of the sounds caught up by the more general term "continuant") is formed by touching the tip of the tongue to the alveolar region - that is, the part of the hard-palate behind the teeth - and holding it there while letting the voiced sound escape from the sides of the tongue.

The word "hello" is generally pronounced with an alveolar lateral approximant. Regardless of whether or not one is talking to one's wife on the phone.

Are you listening to me? You know who you are.

It's spelt phonetically

They say this all the time about various languages. "Estonian/Russian/Japanese/Indonesian is spelt phonetically, so you just say it as it's spelt".

What a load of tosh and bunkum. If the words were spelt phonetically, they would be written with phonetic symbols. Even different dialects and regional variations within a language group will pronounce the same letters differently. Even if you say you only have one sound per letter, there's no guarantee it's the same sound I'm thinking of when I look at that letter. And someone in the south may swear that "a" sounds like ɑ, while someone from the north might be willing to come to blows insisting it sounds like ɛ. And, in any case, there's a good chance that the letter will be pronounced differently by the same person depending on whether it is stressed or unstressed.

Letters are not inherently "phonetic". And when someone tells me, in one instance, that the language is spelt "phonetically", and then goes on to tell me that "b" is sometimes pronounced more like "p" in certain words, I just want to shake them and tell them that they are wrong. They should stop using the word "phonetic" in relation to spelling until they actually understand what it means.

Granted, a voiced bilabial plosive and a voiceless bilabial plosive are very similar, and all languages muddle up their "b"s and "p"s on a regular basis - but it's still not the same sound. You don't pronounce that letter the same way in every single instance, which is what you would be doing if the language was, in fact, spelt phonetically.

So, stick a qualifier in that sentence, for Pete's sake. The language is spelt almost phonetically. The language is spelt phonetically to an extent.

No language is actually spelt phonetically. And if it was, we'd probably find a way to mispronounce it anyway. We're not good with prescriptive language. Never have been.

This rant has been brough to you by ˈʃæɹən, who is quite fond of spelling things phonetically, but finds it rather time consuming when using HTML...

What's in a name

Had an interesting discussion with the head of the languages discipline at a party the other night.

I mentioned that I had enrolled in the German programme at UNE for next year, and he wanted to know why. After all, the laguage programme taught at JCU was identical to the one taught at UNE, so why didn't I show some institutional solidarity and enrol through JCU? Well, he didn't actually use the words "institutional solidarity" but it was rather clearly implied in the pained and slightly exasperated expression on his face when he said "why don't you go through JCU?"

I can see his point. I mean, the JCU course isn't just identical to the one taught at UNE, it is the one taught at UNE. JCU outsources it's course content from UNE, so anyone studying languages through JCU is actually doing the UNE course with local tutors. If I had enrolled through JCU I'd be doing the exact same course, only JCU would get the funding and numbers for it. Given that it's a regional university and the Language programme is somewhat endagered, every single enrolment counts.

I tried to explain that the problem is one of nomenclature. Going through UNE, I can do a Diploma of Languages, while doing the exact same subjects through JCU would only get me a Diploma of Arts. I already have a Bachelor of Arts through JCU - I don't need a Diploma of Arts on top of that. Besides, the word "Arts" is largely meaningless. The fact that I majored in English literature is not inherently evident in the name. I could have majored in architecture or politics for all anyone knows (or cares). I'm at a point where I want the name of my degree to mean something. A Diploma of Languages means something. A Diploma of Arts doesn't.

I didn't try to explain to him that I'm also put off by the whole outsourced content thing. Modern Languages clearly isn't one of JCU's core concerns. On the other hand, UNE has a reasonably good reputation for languages - especially via distance education. Even if it is the same course content, I feel happier about going through UNE.

Once upon a time, JCU actually had a proper language department which actually had it's own curriculum, language lab and resource centre. Heck, they even dedicated an entire building to English and Modern Languages. That was almost fifteen years ago, when I was sorely tempted to put a Bachelor of Languages through JCU down as my first choice on my QUTAC form. Amazing how much things can change in a decade.

What keeps you awake at night

It’s not so much the fact that I can’t get to sleep at night that bothers me. It’s more the things I’m thinking about that, for some unearthly reason, are keeping me from dozing off.

If I was worried about something I had to do tomorrow, well that would be all well and good and expected. Especially if what I was doing, instead of sleeping, was coming up with a solution to a problem that I could then put into action the next day.

No, these are the kinds of thoughts that keep me awake at night:

“Were the servants in the opening scene of Romeo and Juliette Capulets or Montagues? I think they were Capulets, but I can’t remember. I could get up and check – the play is just in the next room. No, I’m not consulting Shakespeare in the middle of the night. It’s just stupid. Benvolio survived that play, didn’t he? Did he pull a Horatio? I can’t remember if he was in the last scene. I. Will. Not. Check…”

"Actually, I think you probably could do a mash-up between I Could Have Danced All Night and The Thong Song. You'd just have to keep playing ICHDAN under the Thong song as a counterpoint, and then you could have it slowly take over..."

Toasty

The experiment continues, and has so far proven successful at every instance.

I maintain that anything vaguely bread-like and made of flour can be “revived” by toasting it. Would it otherwise be stale and unappetising? Toast it. Suddenly it becomes nice, warm and crunchy.

I have found this to work with pancakes, flapjacks, scones, waffles, buns of assorted shapes and flavours, and now doughnoughts (and, yes, I insist on spelling them doughnoughts).

Try it yourself the next-time you have some bread-like thingy that’s just a little too stale to comfortably eat.

Oh my sweet potato salad!

Um, okay.

If, like me, you have some issues with contortionists (I maintain human beings should not be able to do that), then you might find this clip... er... challenging:



It starts off as a second-rate Andrews Sister's style music hall number. It ends as one of the freakiest things I've seen in a long time.

Stop asking me for money

When it comes to charity, I'm a bit like a swing voter. I don't have a particular charity I devote my money and attention to (although I am partial to making people aware of World Bicycle Relief) - I just occasionally donate money to whoever takes my fancy at the time.

What the charities do after that point dictates whether or not I consider giving them money again. Take, for instance, World Vision and Medicins Sans Frontieres. Both of them responded to my giving them money by sending me mail roughly every month asking for more.

Now, for some reason, this has put me right off both charities. It's probably related to the fact that I'm okay with giving money to buskers, but hate giving it to beggars. I'm happy to see you doing something and give you some money towards that, but if you turn to me with your hand out and say "I need money, give me some!" I'm likely to ignore you or tell you to go away.

And, it has to be said, that although I'm reasonably sure they have different funds going towards their operating costs than they do going towards their charitable endeavours, whenever I get another glossy begging letter in the mail my immediate reaction is "surely, if they spent less money on stationery and postage, they would have more money to help people - is this what they spent my donation on?" Because, quite frankly, I feel like I've contributed to their letter campaign, rather than their field work.

I know the justification is that people who have already sent them money are more likely to send them more - but, darn it! I don't want to sign up for another six months of begging letters. I possibly would give you more money if you just left me alone.

So, as much as I actually like what Medicins Sans Frontieres does, and would happily continue to support them, I'm not going to. I'll give my money to a charity that doesn't send me a letter every month saying how much it needs my $100 donation.

World Vision was worse. They started doing these horrible gimmicks like sending you a packet of seeds and asking you to send them back with money. That really ticked me off, because I felt like they were trying to manipulate me. You don't want to steal things from a charity, and keeping something they asked you return felt a bit like stealing...

Please, people. Send me something maybe every six months to tell me what fantastic work you are doing, and I'll probably feel like I want to be a part of it. Send me a letter telling me how much you would like me to send you money, and you may as well push me away. It has the same effect.

German Grammarpod

I've discovered this resource recently, and it's brilliant:

http://germangrammarpod.blogspot.com/

It's woman called Laura giving shortish (10-25 minute) lessons on German grammar.

In her blurb she mentions that no one seemed willing to talk about German grammar until she got to the university level, and she found that very frustrating - the lack of grammar, that is. Now she works as a translator, and wanted to teach German but gave it up - partly because standard practise is to ignore grammar.

German Grammarpod is her way to get the need to share the grammar of the language out of her system, an I have to say I salute her for it.

I'm a fan of grammar, myself. I honestly believe you can't really know a language without it - I have no idea how people hope to learn a languge (even their own) if they don't know what a verb is, and therefore can't understand that you have to move it to the end of a sentence in this circumstance, or that it always comes directly after the subject in that one...

Someone is bound to take umbrage at this. There are a ridiculous number of people who think grammar is some how elitist, and people don't actually need it, and you should just use a language without trying to analyse it... I don't get that mindset at all. To me, it's like saying you don't need to know how a car works in order to drive it. Well, maybe you can drive around for a while without knowing why turning the steering wheel makes the car go where you point it. Maybe you don't need to know why putting petrol in the car is important, as long as you do it. However, the fact remains that cars don't operate on magic, and knowing how they work and why is not a bad thing. If I know why my tyres need a certain amount of pressure, I'm going to be extra conscientious to make sure they don't get too low.

I like knowing how language works. I think you can use it more effectively when you do. A big part of that is grammar.

So I'm really enjoying these podcasts, obviously. Laura clearly loves knowing the nuts and bolts of German, and she explains it in a way that is easy to absorb. Some times you listen to podcasts and they weren't really written for people who are just listening - like whoever recorded them was more familiar with computers than radio. Laura's episodes have a comfortable, radio-like feel to them and you can happily listen to them in the car.

I recommend it for anyone learning German who wants a nice, clear overview of different grammar points.

Kveekerid

Ja, ja. Ich wisse. Es ist Deutsche Woche und ich habe dieses Post Titel im Estnisch geschrieben. Whatevs, dude.

I've been reading a bit about Quakers lately, and I have to say the more I learn about Quakers and the more I learn about Estonians, the more I wonder why there isn't a massive Quaker movement in Estonia. There's a mini-Quaker movement, from what I can tell, but measured in handfuls, rather than hundreds. You'd think Quakerism and Estonians would be a good fit.

I mean, this is a religious movement that prides itself on being pragmatic and simple. Quakers hold the principles of truth and conscience as first and foremost, and don't really give a wet slap about anything else. They value plain speaking and plain living, and their worship session consists of not talking to people for stretches of time.

They pooh-pooh fancy pants churches with their symbols and litergies, prefering instead to have a plain room with simple furniture (or even be outside amongst the trees), where they can sit quietly and contemplate deep things. And they don't believe they should say anything unless they have something worthwhile to say - something that would benefit the people hearing them.

Pragmatic, taciturn, to the point and with an instictive mistrust for paraphernalia. If this doesn't sound like a stereotypical Estonian, I don't know what does. Plus, I can see how a people who still prefer wood-fired heating (because you can't trust electricity) and mowing grass by hand could get on board with the simplicity thing.

So why isnt' there a big Quaker movement in Estonia? Kus on kveekerid?