Lost in Dictation

"Irony" Man

2013-06-11T13:39:00.001-07:00

If you were asked what word in the English language was the most misunderstood or misused, what would you say? Would it be "literally", when it is used in sentences such as, "It was literally raining cats and dogs"? Or would you suggest "like", one of the words that is striving to take the throne away from "um" for the word most used when we are filling time between thoughts. However, the writers from Dictionary.com have nominated another word for the most misused in English, "ironic".

According the their article,

"Often the word “ironic” is misused to remark on a coincidence, such as “This is the third time today we've run into each other. How ironic.”

It is also mistakenly used to describe something out of the ordinary or unusual: “Yesterday was a beautiful, warm day in November. It was really ironic.”

And, unfortunately, it is sometimes used to simply emphasize something interesting. For example, “Ironically, it was the best movie I've seen all year!”"

Another important misuse of "ironic" is when it is used incorrectly in the place of the "sarcasm". The only time when something is really ironic, is when it is the exact opposite of it's literal meaning. A statement such as, "It's been such a good day" would be ironic if you were using it to describe the day you were late to work, wrecked your car, and got soaked in the rain. A sarcastic statement would be something like saying something like, "Wow, your shirt is so nice" to someone who has theirs caught on a nail and ripped, and is obviously embarrassed by it. The main difference between irony and sarcasm, is that with sarcasm, you are deliberately trying to taunt, harass or make fun of someone, while with irony you are not.

To learn more about irony and the different types of it there are, you can go to hotword.dictionary.com/ironic/.

1. http://hotword.dictionary.com/ironic/

2. http://knowyourmeme.com/memes/you-keep-using-that-word-i-do-not-think-it-means-what-you-think-it-means

That is a mouthful

2013-06-04T14:28:00.000-07:00

The German language, which has always been known for its tendency to create long compound words, recently marked the passing of the longest word in its lexicon. The 63 letter long monster, Rindfleischetikettierungsüberwachungsaufgabenübertragungsgesetz, was the German word for a "law for the delegation of monitoring beef labeling". The law for which this word was created was recently repealed, and with it no longer in place, there is no need to keep using the word.

With Rindfleischetikettierungsüberwachungsaufgabenübertragungsgesetz passing out of use, that leaves Rechtsschutzversicherungsgesellschaften, an insurance company that provides legal protection, as the longest German word in use. If you are wondering how in the world you would pronounce Rindfleischetikettierungsüberwachungsaufgabenübertragungsgesetz, you are not alone. Fortunately, the Telegraph out of the U.K. has provided a sample of how it would be said:

1. http://www.theatlantic.com/international/archive/2013/06/-em-rindfleischetikettierungs-berwachung-saufgaben-bertragungsgesetz-em-germany-says-goodbye-to-its-longest-word/276492/
2. http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/europe/germany/10095976/Germany-drops-its-longest-word-Rindfleischeti....html

"You do it your way, and I'll do it mine"

2013-05-28T15:00:00.000-07:00

"Signs, signs, everywhere there's signs" goes the song, and recently a new sign popped up at the Louvre Museum in France. The sign, written only in Chinese, "forbids people from urinating or defecating wherever they want.”

Why was this sign put in place? There doesn't seem to have been a particular incident related to this sign, but one reason may be that some Chinese don't have the same views on their bodily functions as many in the west do. For example, many Chinese parents don't put their babies in diapers, something that, if you were to do in Europe or the US, would get you stares at the least, or visits from the police at worst. Instead, they prefer to put their children in split pants, a type of pants that have an open crotch, and let them relieve themselves in any open area they can find. Also, to many Chinese, it is perfectly normal to spit just about anywhere. Because of this, some tried to curb public spitting before the Olympics started in 2008, so as not to damage China's image to those visiting from abroad.

These differences in cultural issues, and the problems they have caused, have not gone unnoticed by Chinese officials. Recently China passed a new tourism law. The law will give travel agencies the authority to penalize tourists who violate social ethics. Wang Yang, a deputy prime minister from China, said that while many countries had welcomed tourists from his country, the quality of some of them left something to be desired. Yang said: "They speak loudly in public, carve characters on tourist attractions, cross the road when the traffic lights are still red, spit anywhere and some other uncivilized behavior. It damages the image of the Chinese people and has a very bad impact."

While the Chinese are working on the image problem their tourists have caused as they travel, they weren't the first nation to have a negative association with their tourists. For a large portion of the recent past, Americans have been seen as the ignorant tourists. There must be something about gaining superpower status that signals the worst behaving members of that society to go out into the world.

1. http://qz.com/88334/china-is-starting-to-get-embarrassed-about-its-tourists-obnoxious-behavior-abroad/
2. http://www.reddit.com/r/worldnews/comments/1f5ry9/china_is_starting_to_get_embarrassed_about_its/
3. http://www.businessinsider.com/china-is-embarrassed-by-its-tourists-2013-5
4. http://finance.yahoo.com/news/china-starting-embarrassed-tourists-obnoxious-194019907.html
5. http://www.cbsnews.com/8301-505125_162-51379838/how-pg-brought-the-diaper-revolution-to-china/
6. http://www.nytimes.com/2007/04/17/world/asia/17manners.html?pagewanted=2&_r=1&em&;ei=5087%0A=;en=95c25c162ed63e15;ex=1177041600
7. https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjd2j9P9gh0ML3Y6GUJVh59KT8y5GAFgaOEYWwv0_V4hkJ_JrtrvEDyfr5nGpdVfd5NZ8vvtelKmqvEDtZknWHTKUgePjerJge1jGQsbE-yodoJs32onylyXixthuifQVsmeiteEbzmAZK-/s1600/road-signs-and-traffic-light.png

It's a question of instinct

2013-05-07T15:00:00.000-07:00

I saw this on reddit the other day and couldn't help but share. One of my major problems when it comes to English is that I can't remember all of the rules most of the time. Which is embarrassing because I am a native speaker and, other than a few snippets of Spanish, it is the only language I know.

However, not all my grammatical hope is lost. Sometimes I can tell just by looking sometimes that I have made an error somewhere. It doesn't work all the time, and thank God I have spell check, or it would be infinitely worse. I couldn't tell you why something may be wrong, but a lot of the time, it will just look off. When I saw the picture below, I took a little bit of solace in the fact that I may not be the only one whose brain works like that.

1. http://www.reddit.com/r/AdviceAnimals/comments/1dl2nt/this_is_english_basically/

"Yo yo-yo"

2013-04-30T09:02:00.001-07:00

One of the problems with the English language is that it does not have a gender neutral pronoun. Over the years, many have tried to come up with something to use instead of the standard him or her. Back in the 1880s, lawyer Charles Converse proposed "thon", a mix of the words "that" and "one". Other words put forward to fill the gap have been "nee", "heesh", "huh". While none of these ever caught on, a new contender for the gender neutral crown has come from some children in Baltimore. These children have begun using the word "yo" in the place of "he" or "she" to fill the gender neutral gap.

Margaret Troyer, a former teacher, published a paper showing that "yo" was replacing "he" and "she" in every day usage for many of her students. Troyer first noticed the change while she was teaching children in a Baltimore-area middle school. From the NPR article on the story:

"Some examples would be 'yo wearing a jacket,' " Troyer says, referring to her research. "Another example from the paper is, 'Yo threw a thumbtack at me,' which is a typical middle school example."
So Troyer began to study her students. She gave them blank cartoons and asked them to fill in the captions — many of the cartoon characters were androgynous.
Troyer found the kids used "yo" instead of "he" or "she" when they didn't know the gender of the character. But they also used "yo" as a substitute even when they did know the gender.
"They said things like, 'Yo put his foot on the desk.' So it was clear from this that they knew it was a male person, but they were just using 'yo' to refer to the person," says Troyer. "And then in other sentences they would use 'yo' to refer to a female as well."

While the adoption of a new gender neutral pronoun is unusual, Christine Mallinson, a sociolinguist at the University of Maryland, isn't quite sure if it will stick around. "It'll be interesting to see whether they keep that usage as they become adults. Do they keep that in the workplace? If that's the case, it might persist," says Mallinson. "But sometimes slang or linguistic innovations in middle or high school get dropped out as people become adult users of English."

What do you think? Do you think "yo" is here to stay? Did you have any slang or made up words that you or your friends came up with in school that you don't use anymore? Let us know in the comments!

1. http://www.npr.org/blogs/codeswitch/2013/04/25/178788893/yo-said-what
2. http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/8/8f/Us_yoyo_national_2a.jpg

Well, that's to the point

2013-04-09T19:44:00.001-07:00

The German language continues to amaze me with the words they can come up with. They seem to have a knack for combining sometimes complex or long ideas in to just one word, see my previous post about the German word Kummerspeck. Recently, I discovered another interesting German word whose meaning, unlike Kummerspeck, can be very easily deduced, even by a non German speaker.

The English phrase "birth control pill" directly translates directly to the German word Antibabypille. It would seem that who ever came up with the word wanted to make sure there was no miscommunication about what you were being given.

1. http://en.bab.la/dictionary/german-english/antibabypille
2. http://www.dict.cc/deutsch-englisch/Antibabypille.html
3. http://www.reddit.com/r/todayilearned/comments/1bxr7p/til_the_german_word_for_birth_control_pill_is/
4. http://translate.google.com/#en/de/birth%20control%20pill
5. http://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Antibabypille

"Mother may I..."

2013-04-02T15:00:00.000-07:00

In modern English, most people phrase the request for permission to to have or do something by saying "Can I have...?" or "Can I do...?". While this is the generally accepted method, there are those who would say that it is incorrect. For them, the only way to correctly ask if you have permission for a certain action is to say, "May I...?". Which of these is correct?

For many, from a strict grammatical point of view the correct way to ask if you have permission is to say "May I...". Technically, when you ask using the "Can" form, you are not asking for someone else's permission, but wither or not you have the ability to have a certain item or perform a particular action. For example, when you ask, "Can I go to the bathroom", what you are actually asking is if you have the ability to go to the bathroom, not if you have permission to go.

However, as the language has evolved, it is becoming more and more accepted to use "Can I...?" in place or "May I...?". According to the Oxford Dictionaries website, you are fine in using "Can I...?" in normal everyday speech. However, if you wish to appear more formal or polite, the older "May I...?" should be used.

1. http://oxforddictionaries.com/words/can-or-may
2. http://grammar.quickanddirtytips.com/can-versus-may2.aspx

Resistance is futile...

2013-03-27T07:30:00.002-07:00

We have all experienced times when it seemed like the world was out to get us. We can't find our keys even though we know we put them on top of the dresser. The phone is ringing but has seemingly hidden itself in some nearby, but frustratingly inaccessible, pocket dimension. We are running late for work, and the stop light that we know stays red for far longer than needed, turns that hated shade of crimson and mocks us form it's high perch as it doesn't change, even though you are clearly the only car for miles around. Just recently, I discovered that some one came up with a word to describe this feeling. The feeling that, no matter what we do, the inanimate objects of the world are waging a hidden holy war against us, and our sanity, is called Resistentialism.

Resistentialism is the term created by humorist Paul Jennings in 1948 by mixing the Latin word res (thing), the French word resister (to resist), and existentialism (a kind of philosophy). Although Jennings coined the term as part of his humorous retort against the philosophy of existentialism, the idea has been around for much longer. Charles Harrington Elster in his 2003 article gives several earlier examples of famous writers who, while not having the name for the phenomenon, clearly experienced the effects of of objects under the influence of Resistentialism:

Resistentialism also has a long history in our literature. In his ''Ode (Inscribed to W. H. Channing)'' (1846), Ralph Waldo Emerson saw the resistentialist writing on the wall and proclaimed that ''Things are in the saddle,/And ride mankind.'' In his autobiography, published posthumously in 1924, Mark Twain relates an anecdote about a recalcitrant burglar alarm in his ornate mansion in Hartford. It ''led a gay and careless life, and had no principles,'' he says. ''We
quickly found out that it was fooling us and that it was buzzing its bloodcurdling alarm merely for its own amusement."...

And in J.M. Barrie's ''Peter Pan'' (1911), Mr. Darling is fit to be tied over his ''little brute'' of a tie: ''This tie, it will not tie. . . . Oh yes, 20 times have I made it up round the bed-post, but round my neck, no! Oh dear no! begs to be excused!''

The modern world is filled with all kinds of wonderful things, designed to make almost every aspect of our lives easier. And often, it is those very things that stress us out to high heaven when they inevitably go awry. It is in times such as those we can take a small bit of comfort in knowing that it's not just us as we repeat to ourselves the motto of Resistentialism, Les choses sont contre nous" -- "Things are against us".

1. http://obsoleteword.blogspot.com/2006_04_01_archive.html
2. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Resistentialism
3. http://www.nytimes.com/2003/09/21/magazine/21ONLANGUAGE.html
4. http://shirtoid.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/02/resistance-is-futile.jpg

Lost letters

2013-02-12T20:43:00.000-08:00

If a restaurant or some other establishment wants to add an older, quainter atmosphere to their establishment, the quickest and easiest method is to add "ye olde" to the front of their name. However, what does this phrase mean? In simple terms, "ye olde" is an older antiquated method of saying. "the old". While dropping the "e" off of "olde" over the years is an understandable shortening, how in the world did the "y" in "ye" come to mean the "th" sound? As it turns out, the Europeans are to blame.

Well, the Europeans were not the problem really. Their languages, however, are what is to blame. Originally, English included a letter called the thorn, þ. This letter had its roots in the old runic alphabet, coming from the thurisaz rune.

Now, the rune/letter changed shape many times as it was passed down through the centuries. Going from a þ, which kept the same basic shape of the rune, the letter eventually ended up looking like Ƿ. Now all of this was fine and dandy up until the printing presses first came to England. As most of the European languages didn't contain the thorn, the English printers with a quandary, what were they going to do for the letter thorn?

Fortunately, one bright printer, whose name is lost to history, came up with the solution. In the blackletter, or Gothic script that was popular at the time, the thorn looked very similar to the letter "y". Because of this, printers started simply printing "y" for thorn, and the use of the letter died out. Eventually, English speakers started using the two letters "t" and "h" placed side by side for the "th" sound instead of the "y", and "y", was given a sound of its own.

As often happens, old things become new again and "ye" started to make a comeback as part of "ye olde" being added to the descriptions or names of things to give them an aged feel. However, there was a problem. Instead of pronouncing the "ye" as "the", most were pronouncing it as "ye". While the spelling had come back, it left the rules for how it was supposed to be pronounced behind. While it reality it doesn't matter if you pronounce it as "the" or "ye", at least you know the way it supposed to "be".

1. http://www.kuro5hin.org/story/2002/11/12/31017/737
2. http://www.thefreedictionary.com/ye
3. http://www.ianvisits.co.uk/blog/2011/01/08/the-origin-of-ye-in-ye-olde-shoppe/
4. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/%E1%9A%A6
5. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ye_olde

"Borrowed" Words

2013-02-01T15:00:00.000-08:00

Saw this on Reddit, and couldn't help posting it. With as many borrowed words as English has, it seems like we have done this many times in the past.

1. http://i.imgur.com/wXPREnB.jpg

"Yo, yo yo!"

2013-01-30T15:00:00.000-08:00

Language is a pliable, constantly changing thing. For example, the English of 100 years ago is not exactly the same as the English of today, see my earlier article on the ampersand. While English made the change with the ampersand many years ago, a similar change seems to be happening to the Russian language.

The symbol to the left is the Russian symbol for the sound "yo". This symbol was added to the language in the 18th century and later was championed by Stalin and mandated in schools and in the Communist party's official newspaper. Recently, ë seems to have fallen out of favor with many modern speakers, as well as some Russian language purists who point to the relatively late addition of the letter to the Cyrillic alphabet as a good reason for it's removal.

However, a small group of people have been fighting back in favor of the ë, going so far as to write books in its defense, programming computers to be able to use it, and even going as far as getting monuments placed in two small towns in it's honor. These people call themselves yofikators, champions of the letter ë. Their opponents call them amateurs and sticklers to artificial rules. However some yofikators believe that ë has an opponent from outside of Russia. In December of 2012, one yofikators interview led the CIA to come out and officially deny that they have been working to take the ë out of the Russian language.

In an interview in November of 2012, shortly before his death at the age of 80, Viktor Chumakov, who called himself the "Chief Yofikator", was interviewed about his fight to keep the letter ë in the Russian language. Mr. Chumakov stated several reasons for the decline of the letters use, Russian laziness since Stalin's death, opposition by government officials, and lastly,that it was an assault by the CIA. Mr. Chumakov claimed that the CIA was working covertly in the Russian Language Institute, a state run language organization, to bring about the downfall of ë and weaken Russia. "In any country, the alphabet is an instrument to bring order," and "If it isn't respected, everything falls to pieces."

Conspiracy theories are not a new thing. New ones seem to pop up everyday. However what makes Mr. Chumakov's claim different, is that it resulted in an official comment from the CIA, denying any such involvement. According to the CIA, “There is absolutely no truth to this allegation. The Agency supports the practice of good grammar and pronunciation in any language.”

Whether or not the CIA is attempting to remove ë from the Russian language, the cause to keep the letter recently gained an important ally. After receiving a complaint letter about not being able to use the ë on a government form, Education Minister Dmitry Livanov unexpectedly joined the fight to keep the letter. "We absolutely have to fix this problem," Livanov said, "Millions are suffering." While Livanov hasn't announced exactly how he plans to do it, it seems like the ë may have a future in the Russian language.

1. http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/worldviews/wp/2012/12/17/cia-officially-denies-that-it-is-trying-to-erase-a-letter-from-the-russian-alphabet/
2. http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424127887324784404578144972339592016.html

"What's in a name...?"

2013-01-25T10:39:00.000-08:00

While a many of the posts on this website are dedicated to the times when people have language fails, I love being able to post a language win.

The picture above comes from the twitter account of Peter Sagal, the host of Wait wait... don't tell me, a comedic radio program that airs on NPR. The mind behind the ad clearly has a masterful grasp of navigating the treacherous waters of copyright law. While they would have gotten in trouble for just calling it "The Super Bowl party in a box", as the term "Super Bowl" is heavily copyrighted and defended, the restaurant cleverly insulated itself from the wrath of the NFL by just adding the phrase, "big internationally televised professional football" in between "Super" and "Bowl". One can only hope that more people take note and learn from this example.

"You can't handle the truth!"

2013-01-22T15:00:00.000-08:00

Like a lot of people, my wife and I like to keep magazines in the bathroom so that we can read while we take care of business. Last year, my wife bought me a subscription to Popular Mechanics, and since then, it has become one of our bathroom staples. The ads usually go unnoticed by either of us, however,the back cover add of the most recent issue caught my eye.

The top of the ad is as normal as any other:

Notice the tag line, "Tellin' it like it is". It puts forth the aura of machismo just by the spelling. It's so manly it doesn't need a "g". It's also suggests that if you are manly enough, you will tell the truth no matter how hard or bad it may be. And it is with that frame of mind that I noticed what is on the bottom of the ad:

I couldn't help but laugh out loud when I read that. The testosterone fueled message, that being manly enough to fix your own car and solve any mental or emotional problems you may have on your own, all the while chewing on some Grizzly long cut snuff, loses some of it's impact when, with in 6 inches of it, there is a huge warning message. At least the add is "Tellin' you like it is" enough to let you know that the product being advertised can cause the bottom half your face to fall off.

Here is a full picture of the add, so you can see it in all its glory.

"Intercourse the penguin!"

2013-01-17T15:00:00.000-08:00

There f-word is one of the most popular and most offensive words in the English language. In the video to the left, the comedy troupe Monty Python manage to sneak across a reference to it by using one of the more clinical synonyms for the f-word. English, however, is not the only language to have a slang word or phrase like the f-word. Recently, a number of North Koreans have been using their version to strike a small blow for freedom against their new leader, Kim Jong-un.

January 8th is the 30th birthday of Kim Jong-un and as often happens in dictatorial regimes, the citizens of North Korea are being forced to take part in celebrations and other activities to commemorate his birth. While in most cases there is nothing odd or funny about the date of January 8th, according to NKNews.org: "January 8th is pronounced in Korean as ‘ilpal’ (one-eight). But the Korean word for eighteen, ‘sippal’, happens to be a homophone of the swear-word ‘f**king’. Pyongyang residents have decided to take advantage of this pun. They are referring to Kim Jong-un’s birthday as the ‘f**king birthday celebrations’, and compulsory apple-picking days as ‘f**king Apple-Picking Days’." While these jokes are only whispered among close friends, those who really trust those who they are talking to have been using more direct terms to air their grievances. They have been calling Kim Jong-un, " ‘f**king comrade’, ‘f**king Marshal or ‘f**king Kim the Third’."

While we may laugh or cringe at such vulgar language, the mere fact that they are willing to make these jokes is a huge step forward for the North Korean people, even if they aren't willing to make them publicly In the past, Kim's father and grandfather were given an almost god like reverence. It was considered culturally and criminally a big crime to make fun of them. And while many wish the North Koreans would rise up and pursue freedom, those who do may just have to be satisfied with the small baby steps like this for now.

1. http://www.businessinsider.com/kim-jong-uns-birthday-prompts-pun-2013-1?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+businessinsider+%28Business+Insider%29
2. http://gawker.com/5974144/incredibly-brave-north-koreans-are-mocking-kim-jong+un-on-his-birthday
3. http://www.nknews.org/2013/01/happy-fking-birthday-kid-warrior-lots-of-love-the-people-of-north-korea/

Read them their rights

2012-12-18T08:09:00.000-08:00

Overcrowding is one of the major problems facing prisons today. One solution put forward by some is to instate early release programs. Prisoners who are well behaved or attend classes can sometimes accumulate days to be taken off of their sentence. Such programs vary from state to state and prison to prison. Recently, Brazil announced a novel addition to their early release program. In an effort to both decrease the current prison population and to cut back on recidivism, prisoners committing further crimes once they are released, Brazil has started a program in its federal prisons to allow prisoners to shave days off of their sentence by reading books.

You may be wondering why they are instituting such a plan. Simply put, Brazil needs to make room in their prisons, which recent reports show that they are at 166% capacity, and growing. Under the plan those serving time can cut off four days from their sentence, up to a maximum of 48 days per year, for every book they read and proper book report they submit. However, you may be thinking to yourself, "Giving prisoners time off for just reading and writing, what is that supposed to accomplish?"

The main goal of the program is to give the inmates the chance to gain a different perspective on the outside. “A person can leave prison more enlightened and with an enlarged vision of the world,” said Andre Kehdi, a Brazilian lawyer who leads a book donation program for prisoners. Also, a study in Britain found that long periods of isolation and a lack of mental stimulus can contribute to, "poor mental health and led to intense feelings of anger, frustration, and anxiety.” Not attributes you would like to cultivate in a captive population.

As the project is a new one, it remains to be seen if it will be effective. However, it does focus on one aspect of serving a jail sentence that is often overlooked, rehabilitation. Yes, almost all people in jail deserve to be there, but hopefully through programs such as this, maybe they can be turned into productive members of society while they pay their debt to it.

1. http://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/world/brazilian-inmates-offered-reduced-sentences-for-reading-books/article4385621/
2. http://www.cnn.com/2012/07/14/world/americas/brazil-alternative-sentence-reduction/index.html
3. http://www.csmonitor.com/World/Americas/Latin-America-Monitor/2012/0716/Brazil-s-solution-to-prison-overcrowding-time-off-for-reading-books

"Berry Berry quite contrary"

2012-12-04T15:30:00.000-08:00

Almost everyone loves some kind of berry. Be it blueberries, cranberries, or even grapes, tons of berries are eaten every year. However the term berry can be misleading as some things that are called berries are not, and some that we wouldn't think of as berries, are.

The official definition of berry is, "a fleshy fruit produced from a single ovary". While most "berries" meet this definition, there are some, such as the blackberry, raspberry and the mulberry, that do not. There are five categories of berries that are not berries.

The first category is the drupes. Drupes are, "fruits produced from a (usually) single-seeded ovary with a hard stony layer (called the endocarp) surrounding the seed". Examples of this category are the olive, the plum, the peach, and the bayberry.

The next group is the pomes. While the larger pomes, pears and apples, are never called berries, some of the smaller ones, such as juneberries, carry that name.

The third group of non-berries are the aggregate fruits, which is a fruit that "develops from the merger of several ovaries that were separate in a single flower". Prime examples of these are the blackberry and the raspberry.

The fourth group are what is called multiple fruits. Multiple fruits, are, "the fruits of multiple flowers that are merged or packed closely together." The mulberry is one big example of this group.

The final group of "non-berry" berries are the accessory fruits. These fruits are not made from the ovary, but from other parts of the plant. The biggest example of this is the strawberry.

As for the berries that we wouldn't think of as berries, believe it or not, bananas, pumpkins and watermelons are all considered berries. I guess that goes to show you shouldn't judge a book by it's cover or a fruit by it's name or size.

1. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Berry#Not_a_botanical_berry
2. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aggregate_fruit

"But it sounds like that"

2012-11-29T15:00:00.000-08:00

If you can hear, then it is safe to say you have experienced a mondegreen. A mondegreen is the name given to the what happens when you think you have correctly heard what some one said, but in actuality you have misheard it as something that sounds similar to what they said, but with a completely different meaning. The term comes from when an author misheard the line of a song, "And laid him on the green" as, "And Lady Mondegreen". While experiencing a mondegreen usually effects only listener, there is one famous case where multiple people experiencing mondegreens while listening to a single song brought the full force of the FBI down upon it.

Back in the 1960's, rock and roll was starting to hit it's stride, however the ride was not without it's bumps. Elvis had stirred up massive controversy with his shaking hips on TV, radio DJ's were bringing more and more African American music to the attention of white children and more and more people were starting to worry about rock and roll driving kids to sex and drugs. All of this worry and fear came to something of a head in 1963 when the band the Kingsmen covered the song "Louie, Louie", the lyrics of which are below.

Louie, Louie,

me gotta go.

Louie, Louie,

me gotta go.

A fine little girl, she wait for me;

me catch a ship across the sea.

I sailed the ship all alone;

I never think I'll make it home

Three nights and days we sailed the sea;

me think of girl constantly.

On the ship, I dream she there;

I smell the rose in her hair.

Me see Jamaica moon above;

It won't be long me see me love.

Me take her in my arms and then

I tell her I never leave again.

"Louie, Louie" had been around since the 50's, but it never gained national exposure until the Kingsmen's version became a hit in 1963. However there were several problems with their version of the song. First the quality of the actual recording of the song wasn't the best. The main recording that was released was only supposed to be practice version of the song. Next, the boom microphone used to record the song was so high up, the singer had to stand on his tip toes just so that he could be heard. Also, the night before, the band had done an epic 90 minute "Louie Louie" performance the night before the recording. That certainly didn't help bring any clarity to the lead singer's performance. All in all, the band didn't want to release the version they had, but they were charged for the "practice" session, and they decided to keep it. It was this version that made it big.

Since parts of the song were hard to understand due to the low quality, it is no wonder that rumors began to spread as to the the actual content of the song. While the actual lyrics of the song are very tame, the rumored versions were anything but. Below is one version of what some people thought was actually being sung:

Louie, Louie,

grab her way down low.

Louie, Louie,

grab her way down low.

A fine little bitch, she waits for me;

she gets her kicks on top of me.

Each night I take her out all alone;

she ain't the kind I lay at home

Each night at ten, I lay her again;

I fuck my girl all kinds of ways.

And on that chair, I lay her there;

I felt my boner in her hair.

If she's got a rag on, I'll move above;

It won't be long, she'll slip it off.

I'll take her in my arms again;

tell her I'd rather lay her again.

The lyrics above were not the only dirty version that circulated, with the above and several others being passed around by teenagers thinking that those were the actual lyrics. Eventually, a parent managed to come into possession of a version of the lyrics like the one above and the poo, as we say, hit the fan.

As the song was gaining more and more traction over the nation's airwaves, it is no wonder that some parents eventually brought "Louie Louie" and its supposed lyrics to to the government and complained. What followed was a nearly three year long investigation by the FBI. Anyone and everyone who had anything at all to do with "Louie Louie" was brought in and questioned. Acting on one rumor that to hear the profane version of the song, you had to play the record at a different speed than it was recorded the FBI tried playing the record at any and every speed they could, but they still could not hear any clear profanity. Eventually they gave up, saying that they were, "unable to interpret any of the wording in the record."

"Louie Louie" went on to be covered many more times, eventually becoming one of the most covered songs in history. If the false controversy around it accomplished anything, it may have cemented in the minds of some parents and concerned citizens the darker side of rock and roll. Unfortunately rock and roll would sometimes go on to live up to those expectations.

Sources:
1. https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgqvXukKL3CwOwp8-d3_t1YXZiQrZiM8nyjJ-lFPOIdKxvhP9NPYdV9SJ5ITfaAta5PqzBzqsczJZVkuf0wlyBx27A3VVVSDVgdTKHThV8dP-D2kbRTmKi7kFVllobCJXvqNpID9z6wKG-9/s1600/hard+of+hearing.jpg
2. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mondegreen
3. http://www.fun-with-words.com/mala_mondegreens.html
4. http://www.snopes.com/holidays/christmas/humor/mondegreens.asp
5. http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/Mondegreen
6. http://www.snopes.com/music/songs/louie.asp
7. http://www.thesmokinggun.com/documents/funny/lascivious-louie-louie
8. http://oldies.about.com/library/weekly/aa091602a.htm
9. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Louie_Louie

Look me in the eyes...

2012-11-27T13:57:00.000-08:00

It has been said that the eyes are the windows of the soul. No matter if you believe that or not, you can tell a lot about a person by just looking at their eyes. Often people will inadvertently give away a lot of information through their eyes, and during the Vietnam war, one American POW used just his eyes to pass purposely pass information back to officials back in the US.

Jeremiah Denton was an American naval aviator whose plane was shot down over North Vietnam in 1965, and was captured, becoming a POW. In 1966 Denton, as part of his incarceration, was forced to participate in a press conference by the North Vietnamese. As American intelligence experts watched the press conference, they noticed that Denton was blinking a lot more than most people would. They also noticed that there seemed to be a pattern to the way that he was blinking.

As they studied the video, it was eventually discovered that Denton was blinking in Morse Code. While he was speaking, Denton repeatedly blinked out the message T-O-R-T-U-R-E in Morse code. He did this to try and pass on the message to his superiors that he and other American service men were being tortured while they were being held by the North Vietnamese. Denton said, "In case they fitted words into my mouth, that were apologetic on my part. In other words, faked it. I would at least let them know I'd been tortured by the T-O-R-T-U-R-E."

While his act gave the Americans important info as to the state of their men who had been captured, it didn't lead to him being released any earlier. Denton remained a POW until he was released with many of his fellow prisoners in 1973. However during his time as a prisoner, he was promoted to captain and was given the Navy Cross, among other honors.

1. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BgelmcOdS38
2. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jeremiah_Denton
3. http://www.batesline.com/archives/2009/02/torture.html

What does that mean?

2012-11-08T15:00:00.000-08:00

Some languages are better at illustrating certain ideas better than English. For example, it can take a whole sentence to let some one know in English that you have been gaining weight because you are depressed or overly emotional. The Germans however have been able to take this thought, and condense it into a single word:
Kummerspeck.

Kummerspeck is a word that is made up of two other German words. The first is kummer, which is german for grief. The second part of the word, speck, is the German word for bacon. So if you were to translate kummerspeck literally it would mean "grief bacon".

If you think about it, this combination makes complete sense. Bacon tends to be a really fatty food, and if you eat a bunch of it because you are emotional or grieving, then you are bound to gain weight. If English had more stuff like this, maybe it would be easier to get across what we are trying to say.

1. http://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/Kummerspeck
2. http://images.cheezburger.com/completestore/2009/9/15/128975413506387435.jpg

"What did she say...?"

2012-11-06T15:00:00.000-08:00

It has been said that having a child lets you see the world through their eyes. While that is true, what they forget to tell you is that, given the extra time and experience you've had on the planet, you know there are times and places you can't say certain things. Young children no nothing of this concept. To them if they can say a word, they will say it and enjoy saying it, no matter the external situation. The first example my wife and I had of this was when our one year old decided that she wanted to sing the word "poop" over and over in the middle of the church service. While most agreed that it was cute and funny, which looking back on it it was, it was extremely mortifying to my wife and I setting there at the time.

We didn't realize at the time, but that was a prelude to what was coming next. Since that time in church, our daughter has grown both physically and mentally, picking up new skills and words faster than we can keep track of. Last week, our now 15 month old startled us by saying, with some force, the word "f*ck" over and over again. The first time we heard, it my wife and I looked at each across the living room with shocked expressions and I said, "What did she say?".

We were initially at a loss about what she was actually saying and what she wanted. Our first thought was to try and keep her from saying it again. We realized though that, if we made a big deal out of it, she would want to say it all the time. Fortunately, as I write this, she has only said it among family, and not in public. I dread the judgmental looks when she eventually does though. As best as we can tell, when she says that, what she is really asking for is a fork. Although at first we thought she was talking about a truck.

With the above in mind, when I saw the following bad product idea at howtobeadad.com I laughed, and in a completely selfish moment, almost wished it was real.

It also made me realize that we were just beginning to enter our daughter's language related parental embarrassment phase. While how it would work is planned out, I think it would, more often than not, back fire. What they have listed under side effects would probably, inadvertently, be the main output of such a toy.

They have plenty of even funnier things @ howtobeadad.com, so check them out.

1. http://www.howtobeadad.com/2012/11966/bad-product-idea-10-peter-pottymouth-proper-pronunciation-wheel

Cheap Impulses

2012-11-01T10:00:00.000-07:00

My wife and I saw this the other day at Michael's and I couldn't help but share. Take a look at the picture below and see if you can see anything that could be unintentionally untoward.

I wouldn't blame you if you couldn't see it at first, I didn't either. It wasn't until my wife pointed out what the yellow tags say that we both got a laugh.

Usually adult impulses cost a lot more than 50 cents. Although the spelling level tends to be about the same.

"He has ceased to be!"

2012-10-25T17:00:00.000-07:00

The dead parrot sketch is one of the most famous sketches produced by the British comedy group Monty Python. In it a man tries to convince a clerk that the parrot the he was told was asleep when he bought it, was, in fact, dead. While Monty Python is known for their absurd sense of humor, sometimes real life imitates their art in strange ways. At least that must be the way a man in India felt we he found out that he had been declared dead by his government while he was still very much alive.

The fact that dead sometimes doesn't really mean dead came as a shock to Lal Bihari when in 1976 he discovered that, according to government records in his native India, instead of walking around on top of the ground, he was supposed to be six feet under it. In a bid to take over a small parcel of land, his uncle had bribed officials to declare Bihari as deceased, so that the land could be signed over to him. One would think that simply being alive would be more than enough evidence to prove that you are not dead. However, the wheels of the Indian government, unfortunately like most, turn slowly, and while he waited, one of the first things Bihari learned about being one of the dead among the living was that he was not alone.

While he was working on his case, Bihari discovered that there were other people who like him were alive, but were officially dead. Many of them were "dead" because, like Bihari, a relative had bribed an official in order to take over their land. The reason that this became such a problem was that as the population exploded in India, the land that was there was there was being split up between more and more inheritors. Some families were left with no more that a basketball court size parcel of land to make their living on. Under pressure, some started having distant relations and other members of their family that couldn't defend themselves, such as absentee land owner's (as Bihari was), widows, the elderly and anyone else who was vulnerable declared dead. Once that was done, the land that once belonged to their family members was signed over to them.

Seeing that there were others like himself, Bihari created the Uttar Pradesh Association of Dead People. The group hoped draw attention to themselves and have the government declare that it's members were in fact alive. Bihari tried everything he could think of to get attention for himself and his group. He organized public funerals for himself and others, ran for parliament, kidnapped the son of the uncle who had him declared dead , threatened to commit murder, insulted the judges he was called before, threw leaflets at legislators and more. Bihari tried everything he could do to get his name on the official records. In an attempt to gain some profit from the whole ordeal, Bihari tried to get his wife a widow's pension. He was denied, as the officials who had and continued to declare him dead, refused to declare his wife a widow. Finally, after 19 years, those same officials declared Bihari alive in 1994.

While he was understandably pleased to have his status corrected Bihari was also pleased with what he started with his Association of Dead People. ''In pursuing my battle, I had developed quite an identity,'' he recalls proudly. ''I became the leader of a movement. I knew I had other dead people to save.'' And while many of the members of the Uttar Pradesh Association of Dead People are still officially deceased, by 2004 4 of it's members had managed to have themselves declared alive.

1. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lal_Bihari
2. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Association_of_the_Dead
3. http://www.time.com/time/world/article/0,8599,2054133,00.html
4. http://www.nytimes.com/2000/10/24/world/azamgarh-journal-back-to-life-in-india-without-reincarnation.html?pagewanted=2&src=pm

Boom Shaka Laka

2012-10-23T19:16:00.000-07:00

Unless you have been extremely gifted by the gods, chances are that you have had something break down on you once or twice in your life. When that happened, did you ever have the desire to smack or beat it to try and get it to work? If you have, then you, like many of us, have had the urge to perform untrained percussive maintenance.

Percussive maintenance is the name given to the art of beating on something until it works. The most famous example of this is the one provided by the Fonz from Happy Days. In the show, the character of the Fonz used his expertise to fix a jukebox among other things. While you may be tempted to believe that this mystical fix is fictitious, there are numerous examples of percussive maintenance working in real life.

NASA, believe it or not, seems to be a big promoter of percussive maintenance. One particularly great example is from the Apollo 12 mission to the moon. The following is a conversation between astronaut Alan Bean and a member of the support crew on Earth, Edward Gibson:

Gibson: There’s no change down here, Al. (Pause) That’s coming in there, now, Al. Okay, what change did you make?

Bean: I hit it on the top with my hammer. I figured we didn’t have a thing to lose.

Gibson: Skilful fix, Al.

Bean: I hit it on the top with this hammer I’ve got. (Responding to Gibson) Yeah, that’s skilled craftsmanship.

That isn't the only example from NASA. During Apollo 16, a malfunctioning alarm light kept blinking until commander John Young tried kicking it. When he reported success, the response from Earth was "It's an old American custom: kick it if it doesn't work." More recently, astronauts Robert Curbeam and Sunita Williams spent quite a bit of time shaking and pushing a solar panel into its case so they could move it to a different location on the International Space Station in 2006

The people at NASA aren't the only ones who've used percussive maintenance, the people at Apple have as well. Back in the early days of Apple, they released a computer called the Apple III. They hoped that it would give them inroads into the business market. However, the computer had one small problem, over time, the computer would heat up and that heat would cause the connections between the components to become loose and caused the owners of the Apple III no small number of headaches. Eventually it was discovered that if you picked up the computer about two to four inches off of the desk and dropped it, that would re seat the components and the computer would be back in working order.

While many people in the past have used percussive maintenance to their benefit, beware when using it on modern machines and components. Most modern components tend to be on the delicate side of things and unless you know exactly what you are doing, you may just end up with something that is broke worse than it was. Any one can hit a broke machine, but unless you know where exactly to hit it you might want to hold off.

1. http://blogs.unimelb.edu.au/sciencecommunication/2010/09/21/just-give-it-a-good-whack/
2. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Percussive_maintenance
3. http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/PercussiveMaintenance?from=Main.FonzarelliFix
4. http://www.hardwaresecrets.com/printpage/Inside-the-Apple-III/1563

Knock Knock!

2012-10-18T22:16:00.000-07:00

In modern English, the phrase "knocked up" is a less than proper way to say that a woman has gotten pregnant. However, during the industrial revolution that phrase had a completely different meaning.

Timeliness has always been important, and never more so than since the start of the industrial revolution. Sure the machines were there, but if no one was there to run them, they did their owners little good. In order to ensure that they were awakened early enough to be on time for work, many people who lived in the heavily industrialized areas of England relied on the services of their neighborhood knocker-up man.

The knocker-up man was a man that would go from house to house, knocking on doors and windows to "knock-up" the occupants. Since no one had alarm clocks at this time this would be how you could ensure that you would get up on time. For a small fee each week, the knocker-up man would go up to your door and beat on it with his truncheon until you awoke and opened the door. If you preferred him to knock on your window, he would use a bamboo rod to tap on the glass until you awoke.

Often times, he knocker-up men were older gentlemen, but women and police who were already in the area on patrol were known to be knocker-up men to earn a little bit more. The knocker-up men weren't always independent Many plants and mills employed knocker-up men for just their workers.

As time moved on, eventually the knocker-up men were all put out of work as alarm clocks made their way through society. However, while the job has moved on, some people still retain the less modern usage of the phrase. In some smaller hotels in England, the desk clerks sometimes ask their lodgers if they would like to be knocked-up in the morning. Understandably this has been known to cause some confusion.

1. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Knocker-up
2. http://www.mentalfloss.com/blogs/archives/48753
3. http://www.cottontown.org/page.cfm?pageid=1291&language=eng
4. http://www.reddit.com/r/todayilearned/comments/11mido/til_that_before_alarm_clocks_were_invented_there/c6nrwq2

Ahoy! Ahoy!

2012-10-16T21:52:00.000-07:00

All over the world, the word, "Hello" will often be one of the first words spoken when a phone call is answered. It comes so natural to many of us, that we often say it without thinking. A friend or someone from your family calls, and the first thing they ask usually isn't, "How are you?" or, "How's the kids?" or even, "Can I borrow some sugar?", it's, "Hello?". There even seems to be some sort or unspoken rule that any other greeting lies somewhere in between being rude and angry. Out of all the greetings that we have, why was this word picked as the one we use to answer the phone?

It looks like the person who can take the credit for getting all of us to answer the phone with a, "Hello?" is Thomas Edison. Back in 1877, Edison was helping to bring the telephone system to Pittsburgh, Pa. when he produced the first account of, "Hello" spelled that way in the English language. Edison wrote a note to one of his partners suggesting that instead of having a bell ring on the telephone, the person calling would just shout, "Hello!" as, according to Edison, that word in particular could, "be heard 10 to 20 feet away". The word, "hello" seems to be derived from the word, "hullo" which was a slang word used to express that you were surprised as well as to call attention to something. Edison's spelling of, "Hullo" as, "Hello" seemed to stick at his Menlo Park research lab, and from there it spread as they worked on improving and expanding the telephone system.

While it took time for, "Hello" to become the commonplace greeting, there was another greeting favored by the creator of the telephone, Alexander Graham Bell. Bell favored the greeting, which never really took off, of, "Ahoy! Ahoy!". That's something to keep in mind if you ever get tired of saying, "Hello", maybe, "Ahoy! Ahoy!" could be used on talk like a pirate day?

1. http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=7xXSw07zrio
2. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hello
3. http://www.collectorcafe.com/article_archive.asp?article=800&id=1507
4. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thomas_Edison