Only a Blockhead

May 22

After dark

a solo cricket’s buzz!

Harbinger of sultry summer

 

August 8

Typhoon time out

Temperatures back in the comfort zone

Summer on hold

 

"time out; comfort zone; on hold"

 

As the roads we walk are the roads of our forebearers

The thoughts I have are thoughts bequeathed

Typo

Just got mail from a nephew (Sunday midnight UK time). Describing a triathlon, he said, “The swim was a poo.” I thought he was criticizing in vivid slang, until I realized he’d left the last letter off the sentence and was saying where they swam.

But I like it as slang, though it probably works best if you are British.

If you look down the column on the right of this blog to the last book I read, you’ll see that I thought it was a poo.

--Julian

The Conversation Continues

Joanna Scott's fine essay on the importance of difficult books.

Difficulty is neither a virtue nor an evil. If it is going to earn our patient attention, it must make itself an essential element of a text’s expressive powers. In the adept hands of a masterful writer, demanding techniques enhance rather than impede comprehension, strengthening our abilities as readers. The familiar criticism that difficult literature is elitist assumes that the reading public is not capable of learning more than it already knows. Do we need our athletes to explain the value of testing their limits? It is both logical and democratic to defend those books that test ours. The difficulties of a literary text, just like the subtleties, require educated readers to be appreciated—and that is essential. Education offers the potential for independence and empowerment, so let’s not replace difficult novels with easy ones, or pretend that the two are the same. Let’s not give up on the intricacies of ambitious fiction. Let’s not stop reading the kind of books that keep teaching us to read.

Read the whole thing here.

--David

Found Poem

—David

Self and Others

This is more an observation than a rebut to the article linked by David in the previous post.

Will Self says that “the supposedly difficult language” he uses in his stories and novels “seems to have become more and more offensive to readers.” It’s not the language that’s offensive, guv'nor. It’s the attitude, if you know what I mean. I'll spell it out for you. When you use a word like “milt” you’re saying: I know this word and you don’t, and you should know it because it’s good for you, and if you’re too lazy to look it up, then I’m not interested in trying to communicate with you. The proper response to that kind of arrogance is an Anglo-Saxon expletive followed by “you.” Writing is an act of communication with a reader, so damn right we’re offended when we find that you’re actually masturbating for our apparent entertainment and edification.

Of course Self is right about the richness of English vocabulary. And thanks to modern technology, perhaps there are ways to bring its more arcane elements back into play. Since World War II, there have been continuing official moves here in Japan to limit or abolish Chinese characters in the interests of effective communication. But today, thanks to technology (type in word, out come its kanjis) there are more obscure Chinese characters being used than ever.

So don’t be a wanker, Will. If you write stuff like

I'd observe that English, being a mishmash of several different languages, had a large and exciting vocabulary, and that it seemed a shame not to use it - especially given that it went on growing all the time, spawning argot and specialist terminology as freely as an oyster does its milt.

and you want us to understand, enjoy and learn, give us a click-through definition.

--Julian

"Sally, having swallowed cheese..."

In a recent post, wanting to use the word apprise (inform), I almost used appraise (evaluate) instead. Just one confusing letter’s difference between them.

In a similar vein, a friend wrote that he was awaiting news with baited breath. And noted what a strange expression that was. Intrigued, I investigated, only to find that said breath was in fact bated… which made immediate sense: abated—held in anticipation of the news to come.

Bated/Baited--a common enough mistake. And exploited delightfully in Cruel, Clever Cat, a 1930s poem by Geoffrey Taylor:

Sally, having swallowed cheese

Directs down holes the scented breeze

Enticing thus with baited breath

Nice mice to an untimely death.

 

--Julian

Inspired mistake

Overheard this week in the foreign language room at school:

An English teacher, apprised that his zipper was open, corrected the situation and used it as a chance to teach the idiom “leave the barn door open.”

 Another student arrived just as the explanation was ending, and checked to see if he'd understood: “I see. You left the banana door open?”

--Julian

BA FA

--David

Japanese study aid

 Image: Wikimedia Commons

This should have gone in my Best of 2010 list. But it’s worth posting now in case anyone has a New Year resolution about studying Japanese.

 The news is that the most helpful website for studying nihongo just got even better. Denshi Jisho Online Japanese-English (and English-Japanese) dictionary  http://jisho.org/ recently added diagrams showing the order and direction of the strokes when writing kanji Chinese characters. So now practically all my dictionary and kanji needs are met on this one site. 

 I can’t praise Jisho too highly: If I input a Japanese word in roman letters, it instantly converts what I wrote to hiragana, and to kanji. There’s also a kanji search option using radicals, so when I’m not sure where to look in my (paper) Halpern Kanji Dictionary, I can find what I’m looking for on the site. And when a kanji comes up, there’s in depth information about it… including the new stroke order diagrams.

 One of my New Year resolutions is to expand my foreign language study to include French. Do you have a online French-English dictionary that you recommend?

 --Julian