And, to answer your next question, yes, Dr. The Tensor is the proper form of address. (Um, after I file.)
And, to answer your next question, yes, Dr. The Tensor is the proper form of address. (Um, after I file.)
Given this, the last couple of years we haven't tried to organize a single event, but instead have designated a corner of the hotel lounge as the spot to hang out, if you're so inclined, after the day's activities wind down. I plan to reconnoiter the hotel to find a good spot and announce it here Thursday evening—and unlike previous years, I'm just going to update this post rather than adding additional posts, so watch this space. I see the Hilton has a place called the Urban Tavern, but it apparently closes at 10:30 every night, which is...disappointing. I'll let you know what I find out.
Did you notice the antecedentless "we" in the first sentence of this post? Who, you may ask, are "we"? "We" are a loosely-defined set of linguistics bloggers, language bloggers, and blog readers, along with our colleagues, friends, and others (signifcant and otherwise). Basically, if you're reading this, you're invited. There's no minimum unique-visits-per-week or posts-per-month requirements. (Whew!)
Thanks to Claire and Russell for reminding me about this, and my apologies for taking so long to get around to it. I've been busy, I swear!
[UPDATE: Fritinancy points out that the ADS Word of the Year event is actually on Friday this year. That makes Saturday evening more open than in previous years—maybe we should consider going to dinner after all?]
[UPDATE: Well, I explored a bit. The Urban Tavern is nice, but the tables do seem to be under hostess control, so we can't just wander in and stake one out. The only other alternative I can see is the "lounge" area near the registration desk. It gets of lot of traffic and is kind of noisy, but at least it has wireless. What do you think? Tavern or lounge?
Friday evening is going to be busy: in addition to the ADS WOTY vote, they're apparently giving an award to Language Log at the LSA business meeting. Afterward, I'm planning to attend the computational linguistics session, possibly followed by the grad student mixer (because I'm frankly feeling a little old for grad student mixers). I suggest we focus on a plan for Saturday. Is there any good Chinese food within walking distance?
Oh, and did I see Semantic Compositions wandering around earlier?]
Q: What is the most disloyal dog breed?
A: I sort of understand what people mean when they say a dog breed is "loyal"—it comes when you call and stays by your side—but I'm not sure it makes sense to speak of a dog being "disloyal". What would that mean? It cheats on you with another master, or testifies against you in court, or doesn't back you up when the shit goes down? It's just a dog. If it's not throwing up its own poop on your rug, you're ahead of the game.
Q: Why does some music make you want to shake your butt?
A: This is a case where the way you're asking the question is preventing you from seeing the answer. Instead of asking, "Why does some music make you want to shake your butt?" you should ask "What is it about me that makes me want to shake my butt to some music?" See the difference? (The answer is that you have the Devil inside you, by the way.)
Q: Could you please explain why it is that squirrels are capable of such amazing athletic feats? What is it about their brains and, to a lesser degree, their bodies that allows it? I watch them at my house and have seen some amazing things.
A: Your question contains so many false assumptions it's hard to answer. Squirrels are capable of amazing athletic feats? Then why don't we see any playing professional sports? They have amazing brains? Then why aren't there any squirrel Nobel prize winners? You need to get out of your back yard more.
Q: Why do women like soup? Is it for perceived health benefits? Is it because it's a quasi-comfort food?
A: My friend, if you and I could figure out why women like or don't like the things they do or don't like, we'd be like the Kings of the World. We could use the secret to make literally hundreds of dollars. We'd be hundredaires!
Q: Is it just me, or do all national anthems the world over, no matter how rich and exotic the culture, seem to sound like European marching-band music? Wouldn't one expect China's national anthem be more "plinky"? Shouldn't Iraq's national anthem sound a little more "Arab-y"?
A: In most cases, it's because the rich, exotic culture of the country didn't originally include the concept of a "national anthem". When asked to provide one, at the country's first Olympics, say, its representatives said, "A national what-now?", then had to scramble to have something suitably national-anthemy composed, using every other country's anthem as a model—hence the similarity. As for your proposal for a "plinky" Chinese anthem and an "Arab-y" Iraqi anthem, would it help at all if I point out that you're a racist?
Q: I am an 11-year-old boy and girls in my class harass me constantly and I want to file a restraining order against one of them. Is that possible?
A: It's possible, but it's a sad fact that 11-year-old girls couldn't give a rat's ass whether you have a restraining order or not. I'm afraid you're just going to have to hunker down and make sure your cooties vaccinations are up to date.
Q: It is a common baseball prank to give someone a cream pie in the face during a TV interview. Where do these cream pies come from? Do baseball teams keep cream pies in the dugout?
A: Not just in the dugout! Suppose the interview took place in the locker room or down on the field—there'd better be a cream pie stashed nearby! In fact, every modern baseball stadium has many cream pies secreted throughout the facility. Every base on the field, for example, has a fresh cream pie placed under it before each practice and each game, just in case.
Q: Why don't humans have a mating season?
A: Speak for yourself. I'm in estrus right now.
Q: When and why did the Communist Chinese change the name of their capital "PEKING" to Bazging? Sorry, I don't know how it is spelled. Thank you.
A: If you can't be bothered to look up the spelling of Beijing, why do you expect me to go to the trouble to make up a silly answer? Did you even try googling Peking? These answers don't just grow on trees, you know, Mr. Lazy Pants.
Q: My toaster identifies which of the two slots should be used for making a single slice of toast. Why does it make a difference which slot I use?
A: Good question! Most modern toasters only actually apply heat to one of the two pieces of bread, relying on the principle of sympathetic magic to toast the other. If you place a single piece of bread in the unheated "magic-only" side, it won't get toasted at all, and you may be surprised by a fountain of many-colored butterflies, rainbow game counters, chess pieces, laughing cutlery, tiny chairs and tables, and flying plates covered with exotic fruit.
Q: If one gets a personal e-mail from a very famous or important person, such as the president, or the queen of England, or the Pope, or Paul McCartney, can that e-mail have monetary value? I guess not. It's just an electronic transmission on a screen. There's no original. There's no way to buy or sell it. Seems a shame tho.
A: Dude! Print out that email from the President-for-life of Nigeria and keep it somewhere safe. I'm sure it'll be worth something after he's finished transferring his fortune into your bank account.
Q: Does indoor tanning hurt your tits if you have had a breast silicone implant put in for over 30 years?
A: My mind is reeling at the thought that it took over 30 years just to put in one silicone implant. How did you survive a 30-year surgery? Were you under the whole time? You must be like Tits van Winkle! Aren't you lopsided until the other one goes in? Will that take another 30 years? In any case, you don't have to worry about indoor tanning; it's impossible because there's no sun inside. It's simple science.
Q: Why do all of the deli guys and food cart guys call me "Boss" (well, me and everyone else)?
A: I'm sure you're mistaken, Boss.
Q: I live in Washington, D.C., and we have very long escalators coming out of the Metro. If I grabbed the handrail when I first step onto the escalator and did not let go until I was at the top, my body would be almost prostrate across the steps. As I go higher on the escalator, I have to readjust the hand that is grabbing the rubber handrail. Why can't the companies that make escalators sync the steps and the handrails so that they go the same speed?
A: I can't make a joke here because I've noticed the same thing and I'm totally curious! This is my vote for the question Explainer should answer.
Q: If you were on a boat, what signs do sharks give if they are hungry and will attack versus if they just want to swim around the boat?
A: The easiest way would be to throw something (like a side of beef or a small child) into the water and see if the sharks take any interest. I have to ask, though: have you considered simply not boating in shark-infested waters? I mean, I don't want to cramp your style, but...
Q: How did early man deal with growing toe and fingernails?
A: Early manicures.
Q: If someone with DNA from the Stone Age were born today, would they be normal?
A: Well, since the DNA in chromosomes is copied pretty accurately from parent to child, and we're all descended from people who lived back in the Stone Age... No, never mind, forget I said that. The answer is: no, absolutely not normal, such person would be a freaky-primitive cave man!
Q: I have been accused of assault in Ohio. The woman fell over a box in the hall backward, and my brother opened the door, saw her lying there, and started hitting me. I got him down and held him down. It was all over a fight concerning my niece. What do you think will happen?
A: Well, if can't get your story any straighter than that, I think you're screwed. Your brother hit you because a woman fell over backwards and also because of a fight concerning your niece? I smell a conviction.
Q: I wonder what's going on with Obama's eyes. When he made his keynote address to the Democratic Convention in 2004, I noticed his eyes had a bit of a pretty eyes makeup look. I concluded that it was just the makeup they put on him for the TV cameras. But then yesterday on TV I saw some older footage of Obama and again his eyes had that same pretty look. This was before he was nationally known. I looked carefully and I think that look comes from having long eyelashes. I mentioned this to some other people and they noticed it too. But so then where did those long eyelashes go? Maybe eyelashes get shorter with age. Do they? BUT also I'm wondering if Obama has had his eyelashes shortened. If he has had them shortened, I think that's an excellent idea. Because that long lashes pretty eyes look actually doesn't look so good on a man. At least not if he's running for president.
A: As a man burdened with long, pretty eyelashes, I've been on the receiving end of this kind of thing a thousand times. You're just going to have to accept the fact that you've fallen deeply in love with the President-elect. It's a harmless crush, and here's no shame it it, but try not to let it interfere with your other relationships. (Though if my history's any guide, you'll be sighing wistfully at pictures of Obama for at least a year. At least you'll be in good company.)
Q: During this weekend's football playoff game in Green Bay, the temperature at kickoff was 0 degrees, and by the end of the game was -4 degrees. When players get injured in such weather, do they bother putting ice on the injury? Wouldn't that warm up the injury to 32 degrees?
A: Yes, that's right. In warmer climes, injured players are usually carried off the field on a stretcher, taken indoors, and treated with ice. In cold weather, injured players are simply stacked like cordwood by the side of the field where the cold will preserve them until they can be taken to a vet.
Q: Burma's dictator has a chestful of bullshit medals. What's up with that, Explainer?
A: Hostile much? Well, tough guy, I think if you're going to question Than Shwe's military record, you should man up and do it to his face. I suggest you avoid phrases like "bullshit medals". Good luck!
Q: If there is so much oil in the Middle East, could one missile (such as the ones used to penetrate bunkers and caves) explode deep underground and hypothetically blow up a few countries?
A: You have a vivid imagination, but I think we can safely conclude that if such a thing were possible, the Middle East would already be a smoking crater. It's not like there's been any shortage of bombs and missles going off there in the last few decades.
Q: How can personal coaches justify coaching athletes who are much better than they ever were? If they know so much about how to win, why aren't they competing?
A: You are absolutely right, every cocky jackass in his first season in the NFL or NBA. Feel free to ignore your coach.
Q: Can men eat the Activia yogurt that is advertised exclusively to the modern woman in khakis? Will it have the same internal regulatory effects on the male system that are promised for the female bowels? If not, why not?
A: Activia yogurt is equally healthy for both women and men in khakis. You'll experience all the internal regulatory effects that a woman does, as I can personally testify. Why else do you think I'm in heat right now?
Q: Can an average person not in politics get a pardon from the president of the United States? (Possession of forged instrument, October of 1989.)
A: Seriously, don't they have lawyers where you people are from? You really want to get your legal advice from some pseudonymous goofball on the Internets? And what's a "forged instrument", anyway? Like a wrought iron saxophone?
Q: Is the stomach normally full of air like a balloon, or is it squeezed flat by the other organs, like a balloon with no air that spreads open as food and water come in? Are the other organs squeezed and compressed like a squeezed sponge, or are they like a sponge not being squeezed? What about the intestines? Are they squeezed flat normally, or are they open like one of those long balloons that magicians make animals out of? I'm trying to get a picture in my mind what the inside of the body normally looks like.
A: Do not try to picture in your mind what the inside of the body looks like. No merely human mind can contain such dangerous, disturbing knowledge and remain sane.
Q: Please explain the method of formation and origin of black holes. Are they located at the Bermuda Triangle area and why there?
A: I'm not doing your homework for you. If you want to know the true facts about the Bermuda Triangle, you'll have to watch In Search Of like everybody else.
Q: Who made up the rule that if you wore a shirt all day, went home, and washed it, you can't wear it the next day?
A: That's a self-serving myth spread by the shirt industry, also known as Big Shirt. You can wear shirts for as many days as you like. You don't even need to wash them—that's another lie spread by the detergent cartel, a.k.a. Big Soap.
Q: I live in Chicago, where taxi drivers are constantly talking on their phones. To whom are they talking?
A: You might expect me to say "each other" here, but that's clearly impossible. Why would one cabby talk to another? What would they say? "Hey, I'm driving this super-charismatic passenger around, but he's got such pretty eyelashes that I'm too intimidated to try to strike up a coversation!" "Me too! Tee-hee!" No, that can't be right. They must be receiving orders from Skynet or something. I'll look into it further and let you know.
Q: Why do cockroaches flip over on their backsides when they die? I sprayed RAID into a hole in my wall the other day, and by the next morning I found six cockroaches laid out on my floor, all flipped over and all very dead!
A: Again, I am not your lawyer, and these questions are not covered by attorney-client privilege. If you want to confess to ethnically cleansing all the cockroaches in your house, call your local police department.
Q: Why do the women gymnasts walk around between events with that goofy arm-swing gait?
A: You know that trick where you stand in a doorway trying to spread your arms out for 30 seconds, then when you stand away your arms sort of magically lift out to the sides? Well, gymnasts during a meet have been similarly straining their arm muscles, only times like a million, so they can't help waving them about goofily.
Q: I am 79 years old. I bring this up first to help explain my question. In the late 1930s or early 1940s, I was looking through an old stack of Life magazines, and there was a picture of an old couple sitting on the porch of a cabin (or shack) up in the mountains somewhere in Appalachia, with the notation: "The King and Queen of America?" The small article with the picture stated that if George Washington had become king of the U.S., these two would (under the usual custom) be our king and queen. I have thought of this from time to time, even doubted it. (It might have been part of the propaganda of the time, the Depression years, that we were all equal, etc.) I am dimly aware that George Washington had brothers, and that it is possible that the descent is known. As I remember, it was a lovely picture, the old couple looking out over a valley, with mist, and smoking their corncob pipes. Can you find the picture? Can you tell me whether there was truth in the assertion?
A: So you're 79 and you've never heard of a library? I call bullshit. The Tensor wasn't born yesterday. What's your real game?
Q: Why are pandas names doubled? Ling Ling, Tuan Tuan, Yuan Yuan.
A: This is a process known as "reduplication". In some languages, you can double a word to change its meaning. So Ling Ling doubles the root ling meaning 'language', producing a reduplicated word meaning 'linguistics'. (It's true!) Similarly, Yuan Yuan means 'a lot of Chinese currency', and Tuan Tuan of course means 'a two-legged horned bipedal animal native to the ice planet Hoth'.
Q: Are the frequently used "jaws of life" really necessary or just big-boy toys for rescuers?
A: Congratulations, you've seen through the charade. First responders are always wasting public funds on such frivolous items as their so-called "helmets", "bandages", and "fire hoses". What's that supposed to be, a hose that shoots fire? How dumb do you think we are?
Q: How long can humans live when they are caught on fire? For example, when a car crashes and explodes turns into a gulf of flames, but humans are alive.
A: Wait, you're planning to crash your car into the Gulf of Flames? Are you the same guy who asked the question about lighting the Middle East's oil on fire? In any case, the upper limit limit on the life expectancy of burning humans is not known, though it's at least twenty-four years. That's how long it's been since Bruce Springsteen memorably cried out, "Oh, oh, oh, I'm on fire", and he's still alive today, more or less.
Q: Hi, I am Anna. I am only 11 years old! My friend told me about this black hole, and I have gotten really scared. I don't want to die! I thought if it didn't happen today, it wasn't going to happen. I did not know nothing about it happening in Spring! I find it unfair that scientists are making a machine that could possibly destroy the entire human race. Me and my friends have cried about the black hole, and I find it really upsetting. There has been barely nothing about it on the news. I am so nervous. I just think I am too young to die—is there any way we could stop it happening?
A: Anna, don't be scared! The black hole the scientists are making is way down in the Bermuda Triangle, so there's no way it could hurt you in...oh, you live in Miami? Wow, that's not good. Miami's going to have a front row seat when the Big Mistake goes down. Seriously, it's gonna be Ground Zero for the apocalypse. So I take it back—go ahead and panic. Also, FYI, I looked it up and there's no such thing as "too young to die". Hope this helps!
Does it make me a bad person that the first question that occurred to me upon reading about this was, "Hmm, what would be the best way to get a G1 user to screw themself over?"? Here's my suggestion, which uses chat:
This only works with people who know Unix, though—a non-tech-savvy person can only respond, "Hell if I know". Can we come up with things that we can reliably get a non-geek to type? Here's a thought: if you can get someone to type "<enter>yes [anything]<enter>" (which must happen all the time in messaging and chat) it will start up the Unix yes command, which will run forever and peg the processor. I'll bet that runs down the battery really fast. Fun!
This leads me to today's quiz. Which of the following members of the band X is not using a stage name?
Answer after the jump. No peeking!
Improbably, the answer is Donald J. Bonebrake. On the drums, yet! I would have guessed John Doe, which after all has to be somebody's name in real life. Exene, it should be noted, is almost using her birth name, Christine Cervenka, she's just performed the X-for-Christ subtitution familiar from Xmas.
X picked a pretty clever band name back in the old days, but it's a pain in the neck to search for on the 'net. For your convenience, here are a few of their songs. If you've never heard of them before, you're in for a treat. (Just in time for Halloween.)
(That's Ray Manzarek of the Doors producing, BTW.)
True story: X played at a dance at my Catholic, all-boys high school. Don't ask me how—somebody knew somebody. I was on crutches, having had orthopedic surgery a couple of months before. As I crutched around the back of the crowd at the dance, which was really more of a concert considering the amount of dancing not going on, I saw a girl with a cast on her lower leg, also on crutches. As the band finished a song, I suavely hobbled up next to her, caught her attention, smiled, and asked, "Want to dance?" She responded with what I can only describe as the FOAD look. And not in an edgy punk rock way, either, just a garden-variety high school shoot-down.
It was a shame, really—that "want to dance" line has to be right up there on the list of funniest-in-context things I've ever said. Remind me to tell you some day about the time I alluded to "Great Balls of Fire" during a testicular doppler ultrasound...
[Now playing: "Make the Music Go Bang" by X]
Here are the results, according to Google:
Month gHits july 2270 august 1660 september 779 june 580 march 543 december 526 may 421 october 366 april 365 february 173 november 119 january 113
This distribution forms a nice, nearly smooth curve over the course of the calendar year:
With the exception of March and December, the further away a month
is from the actual date of Christmas, the more likely it is to occur as
a filler for it's like Christmas in X, presumably because the further away a month is, the funnier it is to contemplate Christmas occurring in that month. The peak is skewed a bit later than May June, the true calendrical opposite of December, perhaps because hotter months seem less Christmassy then colder months. It's easy to see why December is an exception to this rule—because corner cases are even funnier than incongruity—but why is March? I've poked around a bit in the search results for the phrase "it's like Christmas in March", and I don't see any obvious pattern. It doesn't appear to be the name of a movie or anything. Anybody have a guess?
[Now playing: "Breathless" by X]
[Update: At Squid's suggestion, here are the results for just like Christmas in X (i.e. no it's):
LABEL gHits july 16700 august 4960 june 4710 september 3910 may 2860 march 2230 december 1490 april 1440 november 988 october 769 january 583 february 526
The distribution is nearly the same, with bumps at March and December:
I should mention, by the way, that I fixed a couple of instances in the original post where I said I'd searched on it's Christmas in X—in fact, as in the title of the post, the original pattern was it's like Christmas in X. Oops!]
Dance magic, dance
...
Jump magic, jump
...should instead go:
Pants, magic pants
...
Junk, magic junk
Note the commas. If you have no idea what I'm talking about, I can only suggest that you probably didn't see the movie on the big screen. Boy, that was a lot of information about David Bowie.
(For those of you keeping track, yes, this the second "The I Believe" post in a row that's about the lyrics to David Bowie songs. Will this trend continue? No man can say...)
(From this Language Log post.)
It's a measure of how much more dignified a writer Mark Liberman is than I that he did not follow this sentence up with, "Hell, it was more than throbbing, it was downright engorged. It was turgid with activation, I tell you what." I think this calls for a CafePress bumper sticker that says "Joe Biden's Network for America"—it's what all the fashionable linguists are displaying on their cars this election season.
Hmm. I really ought to post something. Wonder how I'd go about doing that? Maybe there's a button or something.