yurri's shared items in Google Reader

Пастух из Уэльса и Армянский вопрос

2009-07-19T20:05:57Z

Газета, политика,рубрика, журнал, Армения

Bumper Sticker für Schuhe

2009-07-19T14:34:25Z

Neuer “Urban Fashion Trend”, völliger Blödsinn oder vielleicht doch eine schöne, subversive Aktion? Entscheidet selbst… Auf jeden Fall scheinen sich jetzt die ersten Sticker für Schuhe zu verbreiten: Die “Bumper Sticker” parodieren die in den USA verbreiteten Autoaufklebern mit Sprüchen wie “Ich halte auch für Kaugummis”, “My other shoe is a rollerskate!” oder “How is my walking? Call…”. Apropos: Schöner kleben! Nicht vergessen, der Stickeraward 2009, läuft gerade wieder - und bis zum 30. August können wieder Eure schönsten, verrücktesten, wildesten und bösesten Klebearbeiten einreichen! Via

Central Park

2009-07-19T09:55:00Z

APOKALIPS - Prove You’re Human

2009-07-18T20:25:32Z

APOKALIPS - Prove You’re Human

Video: Paperclips do magnetic dance on train

2009-07-15T10:26:05Z

Electromagnetism leaking through the floor of a Kobe train causes paperclips to dance. (Watch video.)

The video — shot on the Rokko Liner in Kobe, Japan — shows how paperclips on the floor react when the train accelerates and decelerates. The magnetic pull, which is produced by the electric current that drives the motors located under the floor, apparently poses no harm to the human body, though it could damage credit cards, mobile phones, or other electronic devices if left on the floor. The Kobe New Transit Company, which operates the Rokko Liner (as well as the Port Liner, which uses similar trains), says extra shielding is being installed for good measure.

[Source: Kobe Shimbun via Watashi to Tokyo]

AfterElton.com - The Wire's Michael K. Williams on Playing Gay

2009-07-19T16:21:23Z

Shared by yurri
Don't like Omar (not gay) (not homophobic). You know, Robin Hood didn't snitch to Sheriff of Nottingham to deal shortly with his enemies.

Actor Michael K. Williams talks about playing gay stick-up artist Omar Little on The Wire, facing homophobic reactions, and what's coming up on the fourth season.

Very Canadian!

2009-07-19T02:28:00Z

Talking about coffee...

...and bills.

Manga-style illustrations by Shohei Otomo

2009-06-29T09:01:58Z

Ballpoint pen artist Shohei Otomo mashes up old and new in bold illustrations spiked with heavy doses of manga-style gore and perversion.

Sunglassed Geisha

Boss Batter

Onsen Ping Pong Geisha

Gurgling Heart

Extermination of Giant Carp

Portrait of a Far East Hoodlum - #1

Okiku Doll

SM Geisha

See Shohei Otomo’s website for much more. (Many images NSFW.)

[Via: Bouncing Red Ball]

knuttz_lincolnescapefromla.jpg

2009-07-18T16:12:04Z

Shared by yurri
!!!!!!

The 10 Tweetmandments

2009-07-13T15:30:20Z

Also very funny: God texts the Ten Commandments from McSweeney’s.

Moses: New blog post: “Making it to the Promised Land: 10 things every Israelite should know” — please Digg. http://bit.ly/SCOyP

London underfoot

2009-07-18T10:18:24Z

fivelinks

2009-07-17T04:00:00Z

fivelinks

There are a lot of bus routes in London. More than 600 of them altogether. Now a brand new website called What Bus has traced all of those routes on a Google Map. Could be useful. You can click around London and discover what buses pass by. You can enter a postcode and find the nearest bus route (or ten). And you can even see a map of each individual single bus route all by itself (like the 100 here) (just amend the end of the URL to see anything else) [It's not perfect, and it's not perfectly accurate, but it looks great fun to play with]

There are a lot of bus routes in London. More than 600 of them altogether. Ben is attempting to travel on every single one, end-to-end, and then write about them on his blog called Route1to499. So far he's managed 32 different routes, and met both the bus driver from heaven and the bus driver from hell. Good luck Ben. [The write-ups are more descriptive and anecdotal than factual and purist. I suspect most of you will prefer it that way]

Would you buy a book where a bloke walks across London in a straight line from one side to the other, twice, at right angles, and then writes about it? Maybe not, which is why no publishing company has yet taken Paul up on his London Cross idea. Rather than let 75000 words go to waste, he's uploaded the full south-north bit onto his website. And if some literary agent ever takes the bait, he might go back and finish the west-east bit. [Worth dipping into if you live near Beddington Farm, Larkhall, Crouch End Hill or Oakwood] [nobody took up the option on his Brighton Cross either]

London Open House isn't until mid-September, but it's never too early to reserve yourself an Annual Event Guide so that you can book a place on the rare must-see tours. [Guide due to be published in mid-August] [hang on, it costs how much?!] [nearly doubled in price since last year, ouch]

When there are thunderstorms about, like there were in London last night, you can keep an eye on where they are using the lightning radar at Upminster Weather. Refreshes automatically every minute, and covers most of the UK (and the near continent). [Warning, it's a bit applet-heavy] [bookmark it now, ready for next time the sky flashes]

five blogsyoumightlike
if you like telly: thecustard.tv
if you like topnotchdesign: Design Assembly
if you like clickylinkstoinformativestuff: things magazine
if you like closeupphotographsofLondonsfinerdetails: Jane's London
if you like detailedreportsonwalksroundtheoutskirtsofLondon: London underfoot

one gameaboutrabbits
Rabbit Wants Cake! [pre-record a series of moves, then play them back and see if the rabbit reaches the cake] [if he doesn't, tweak your moves until he does] [I can't turn the music off, but I can get to level 10]

moon_tiny.jpg

2009-07-18T09:24:30Z

adverb placement

2009-07-07T21:42:00Z

American-translator-in-Holland David wrote some time ago to say:

I've noticed that Americans often place adverbial phrases that set the scene at the start of the sentence:

At the time, I was not very interested in his work.

British writers, in contrast, are more likely to put the adverbial element in the middle of the sentence, or at the end.

I was not, at the time, very interested in his work.
I was not very interested in his work at the time.

I believe all these word orders are available in both dialects; it's a question of preference, at least in formal writing.

Indeed, all of these are available in either dialect, and Algeo's British or American English reports that some temporal adverbials occur in medial position more often in BrE than in AmE--though they most often occur in initial or final position in main clauses. He lists during the week, earlier in the week, last night/year, now, this afternoon, today and yesterday as more often occuring medially in journalistic BrE than AmE. Now, I haven't the wherewithal to do a big search, but I searched for at the time in the Guardian on-line and the Chicago Tribune on-line, and counted the first 30 main-clause-modifying at the times in each paper according to whether they occurred at the beginning, middle or end of a past-tense clause. I didn't count at the time when it was part of a longer phrase like at the time of his confinement (because the length of a clause might make it more likely to hang out at the end of the clause), and I limited myself to past tense clauses. My results:

newspaper
beginning
middle
end
Guardian (UK)
10 6 14
Tribune (US)
13 4
13

The moral of the story is: if there is a difference, we're going to have to look at a lot more sentences to build up enough steam to see a significant pattern.

But I do want to note that when these adverbials occur sentence-initially, they are much more likely to be followed by a comma in AmE than in BrE. Searching the Guardian and Tribune sites again and just looking at sentence-initial At the time, 27 out of 30 Tribune instances are followed by a comma, while only 13 of 30 Guardian ones are. (You might protest that this depends on the style sheet of the newspaper and the vigilance of its [AmE] copy editors/[BrE] sub-editors, but note that each of these searches included blogs and readers' comments as well as newspaper text.) In general, British readers find AmE writing too littered with commas, while overly-literate punctuation-dependent AmE readers like me (I presume there are less punctuation-dependent readers who aren't terribly bothered) find themselves having to start sentences over again because we assume that the adverbial phrase hasn't ended yet, but then it doesn't develop into anything bigger. So I read:

At the time he...

And because there isn't a comma to stop the adverbial, I wait for the he to develop into a relative clause that modifies time (e.g. At the time he ascended to the throne, he was only 17). It doesn't matter to my reading mind that a that-less relative clause is not a likely thing to happen after a pronoun after at the time, I HAVEN'T HAD A COMMA YET! THERE ARE NO BRAKES ON THIS THING! I DON'T KNOW HOW TO STOP!!!

But back to word order.

Adverbials like at the time or last night tell you when something happened, and contrast with adverbs of frequency (always, often, never, etc.), which usually occur in a medial position in either dialect. However, the dialects differ in the placement of these with respect to auxiliary verbs. To quote Algeo "American has a higher tolerance for placement before the first auxiliary". So, either of the following is grammatical in BrE or AmE, but the second is more likely to occur in AmE:

She is usually at work before 9. (BrE or AmE)
She usually is at work before 9. (more likely in AmE)

Now, it's more likely in AmE than BrE, but usually is not more likely in AmE than is usually. As Algeo says, AmE just has a 'higher tolerance' for it. I've just searched for always, usually, and never in my blog posts and found that I've never put them before the auxiliary--except when I used examples because I already wrote about this phenomenon a bit with never. (I thought I was sounding familiar to myself...)

Another adverbial order difference that Algeo notes concerns adverbs of possibility, like certainly or probably. Searching in the Cambridge International Corpus, he found the following, expressed in 'instances per ten million words':

BrE

AmE
has certainly
22.7
13.4
certainly has
11.7
22.2
has probably
21.2
14.5
probably has
8.8
18.6

So, again, one can say either in either dialect, but He has certainly left his mark is more likely in BrE and He certainly has left his mark is more likely in AmE. Of course, this works with auxiliary verbs other than has as well.

In other business:
The folks at myGengo, a translation company, have put a mini-review of SbaCL on their 'translation resources' pages, so here is some free publicity for them in return. (I've not used them, so can't vouch for anything, but it looks like an interesting concept.)

pet, stroke and limerick winner

2009-06-30T19:26:00Z

One of my newer internet addictions is Ross Horsley's My First Dictionary, which is wicked in every sense of the word. One must (if one is me) pause here to note that the 'excellent' sense of wicked is originally AmE. Several of my UK students have assumed that they'd have to explain this trendy BrE slang to me, but I was saying wicked pissa cool with my Bostonian university mates before my current students were even born. (I had a Master's degree by the time my youngest students were born. Who is going to cure me of this senescence?) MFD makes me feel incredibly uneasy and extremely amused at the same time. I don't know if that's a good thing, but I like it.

This dose of MFD, from 26 June, raised a lot of discussion of BrE versus AmE in the comments:
The comments at MFD were mostly about (mostly BrE) pussy versus (mostly AmE) kitty and the use of having as a light verb in the first sentence. But what struck me, because Better Half strikes me with it all the time, is the use of stroke for where AmE speakers would use the (originally Scottish English) verb pet. So, when I say to Grover Are you petting the kitty cat? Better Half is not far behind with Stroking! Stroking the cat! (He tolerates kitty, no doubt because of the nudge-nudge, wink-wink effect of pussy.) I'm starting to say stroke in this context, in the interest of marital harmony and getting my own back later, but to my AmE ears, it sounds a bit more, um, sexy. This, of course, makes not a lot of sense, since (orig. AmE) (heavy) petting is about (probably orig. AmE) feeling people up. But why should English and my feelings toward(s) it start making sense at this late date?

At any rate, I thought an introduction to a very funny website would work as an introduction to our very funny limerick competition. As promised, the judging involved a panel of my friends, whom you may know through their SbaCL-character alter-egos: the Blinder, Maverick, the Poet--and of course Better Half. (With the exception of the ubiquitous last judge, the links take you to their first appearances on the blog.) I asked each to send me their three favo(u)rites, assuming that the cream would rise to the top and there would be a clear front-runner. But there was too much cream. A few got two votes, thus limiting the field a little for my final judging. It came down to Dunce's Rubber and Richard English's Hooters, re-published here:

An eager young Yank on the make
Thought he'd finally had his big break.
She asked for a rubber
but she wasn't a scrubber.
Just had to erase a mistake.

My girl has a fine pair of hooters
Attractive to gentleman suitors.
But don't rush too far
They're both on her car
And she toots them to warn slow commuters.

My decision comes down to the fact that one of these poets had other efforts in the judges' top threes. So, congratulations, Richard English! Your copy of Britannia in Brief will be on its way to you soon, and the authors have asked to reprint the winner on their blog. (Let us know if that's not ok with you!)

On a last humorous note, British-Canadian singer-songwriter Luke Jackson (shouldn't he have a hyphenated name?) has sent me a link to the video for his song 'Goodbye London'. This animated treat might strike a chord for the American exchange students out there who've headed back home.

Irish Republican Prisoners - Ireland : citynoise.org

2009-07-18T08:41:05Z

Citynoise.org: a place where people gather to post stories, narratives and photos about favorite cities. All submissions are welcome!

Paris free Wifi

2009-07-13T03:26:26Z

If you come to Paris, bring your laptop! In every part of Paris, there are many free wifi-access points via “Paris Wi-Fi”. In many public spaces, such as parks, gardens, city halls, librairies and museums you can go online wireless for free. In these spots our Paris Spotters wrote about where you can get free WiFi: Parc de [...]

a08_19188085.jpg

2009-07-18T08:34:12Z

Shared by yurri
I'm the one bearing helmet.

My neighborhood

2009-07-15T15:51:00Z

I have to tell you I really love my neighborhood. A few weeks ago after working on the computer for a few days non-stop, I decided to get away from the screen and go outside to DRAW. I walked around downtown New Rochelle for about a half hour and discovered a really happening fruit market. The music was pumping, there were tons of people, and I knew I found a new place to draw!

Visit my blog to see more of my drawings!

Good News, Cambridge Heath Road E2 - My lovely niece was born at...

2009-07-17T07:00:00Z

Good News, Cambridge Heath Road E2 - My lovely niece was born at around 6pm yesterday. Congratulations Alex and Hari (from Auntie Emily)

newspaper	beginning	middle	end
Guardian (UK)	10	6	14
Tribune (US)	13	4	13

	BrE	AmE
has certainly	22.7	13.4
certainly has	11.7	22.2
has probably	21.2	14.5
probably has	8.8	18.6