|
2003-08-15 18:13 (UTC+1)
From a Guardian review
of the new Robert Lowell: Collected Poems:
Lowell may be one of the last poets one reads aloud.
Good grief. A while ago I quoted the great
linguist Roman Jakobson quoting with approval Val�ry's
definition of poetry as "a prolonged hesitation between sound and
meaning". Seasonally adjusted what have we got? A prolonged
hesitation between obscurity and preciousness?
And don't be fingering me for philistinism - I've put up with a lot
from Ezra Pound for the sake of his ear for metre and sound texture
but I draw the line at chopped-up prose and that's that.
[Permalink]
2003-08-15 14:41
From the Grauniad's post-lunch
coverage of the cricket:
"Given that I am probably the only person in Sweden that is following
your every word," writes Chris Allen, "does this mean you will say
hello to me after the next over just so you can show how international
your audience is? And I know this email is from my Sheffield address
but I'm accessing it over the internet. If you don't believe I'm stuck
out here, working in Sweden, look what my keyboard can do (���) or
ring 00 46 2642*****." [Number redacted - des]
I'd imagine [email protected] would be delighted to hear from
as many Scandewegians as possible to contradict this absurd claim,
even if they're lying through their teeths, don't you?
[Permalink]
2003-08-15 13:57
The British Council,
it say:
What economic benefits does English bring to the UK?
- British English language products are worth over 800 million pounds a
year to the UK
- the total expenditure of the 700,000 visitors to the UK annually to
learn English is over 700 million pounds - possibly over one billion
pounds*
- the English language makes it possible for British companies to
develop markets, sell into them and form commercial alliances; it
brings direct benefits through the supply of English teaching goods
and services.
*Source: The Value of Education and Training Exports to the UK Economy -
Department of Education and Employment, 1998
The Department of Education and Employment doesn't appear to exist. I
emailed the Department for Education and Skills's publications office,
and they're denying everything. The Department of Trade and Industry,
on the other hand, has a web site
of, um, considerable sophistication.
[Permalink]
2003-08-15 09:49 (UTC+1)
That disapproval of Madde (who else?) was from Point de Vue's study
in comparative prinsessology, which promptly turned into a group perv
at li'l Charlotte of Monaco (who is now 17 - American readers may want
to give it another year just to be on the safe side).
Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung, via Courrier International:
L'industrie des langues repr�sente la premi�re source de r�venue du
Royaume-Uni apr�s le p�trole de la mer du Nord.
[The language industry represents the UK's biggest source of income
after North Sea oil.]
It does?! I know that in the summertime the streets of London and
Brighton (and this year Bristol) are cluttered with young men in
loud-patterned trousers talking their native dialect of Foreign to
young wimmins that have done things to their hair that no stout
English yeowimmin would do, but Number 2 in the Revenue Parade?
Blimey! (And when do I get my cut, exactly?)
From CI's Gypsy/Romany/Tsigunes special:
Dans les rues d'Auschwitz, en 1981, on chantait encore l'hyme polonais
tout en crient: "Au b�cher, les enfants rom!"
[In the streets of Auschwitz, in 1981, they were still singing the
Polish hymn while shouting, "To the pyre with the Gypsy kids!"]
[Permalink]
2003-08-14 17:02
Cutting-edge
Psychological "research"
"Just worshipping a celebrity does not make you dysfunctional," New
Scientist quoted [psychlogist James Houran of the Southern Illinois
University School of Medicine] as saying. "But it does put you at risk
of being so.
"There is this progression of behaviours, and if you start, we
don't know what's going to stop you."
Imagine the excitement as they replace the old Harmless
Entertainee/Obsessed Nutter dicotomy with a continuum, based - and
do try not to snigger - on taking the answers to a questionnaire at
face value.
Imagine the feeding frenzy in psychology departments around the world
as it dawns on them that lots of things - from dieting to collecting
soft ("plush") toys to consumption of alcoholic beverages - can be
modelled in the same way!
Now that we've sent that lot packing, let's return to the Knudella's
mastery of Danish - for purely "entertainment-social" reasons, since
we are all of course lively, social, active and adventurous
extroverts, and not at all dysfuncional, Heaven forbid, even if I did
somehow miss that declared all introverts dysfunctional - which is
extensive, according to this ear-witness account:
�Hendes dansk er mere i n�rheden af prinsesse Alexandras end prins
Henriks. [...] Det er klart, at Alexandra taler et bedre dansk, men
hun har ogs� v�ret her l�ngere. Men Mary er meget grundig og
omhyggelig. Hun taler utrolig afslappet. Meget naturlig og s�d pige,�
siger Flemming �stergaard.
["Her Danish is more like [natively Anglophone] prinsess Alexandra's
[i.e., good] than prins Henrik's [famously less good]. [...] Clearly
Alexandra speaks better Danish, but she's also been here longer [than A. - Henrik has been around like forever]. But
Mary [Knudella] is very thorough and careful. She speaks
unbelievably relaxedly. Very natural and sweet lass," said Flemming
�stergaard.]
(NB: I'm going to use "lass" to translate (dk) pige and (se)
tjej until somebody comes up with a better suggestion, which
"girl" isn't.)
Prins Henrik! Sort it out, old chap, for Goodness's sake - ill-shod
street urchins are openly mocking you!
[Psychology via Anna Louise, Knudellaspr�kvetenskap via Birgitte, hair
by Lynette, sarcasm model's own.]
[Permalink]
2003-08-14 14:18
[Part II - the Germans got there first]
The Danish word for the day is
��lt�rstig�,
meaning "beer thirsty", which is the condition the late heatwave has
thrust upon the stout yeomen and yeowimmins of England's yellowy-green
and not-that-pleasant-at-the-moment land.
Selv om bryggeriarbejdere p� Carlsberg-Tetleys anl�g i Northampton i
det centrale England har k�mpet for at f�lge med eftersp�rgslen, er
det alligevel n�dvendigt at bestille ekstra forsyninger af pilsner�l
fra koncernens hovedkvarter i K�benhavn.
[Even if the brewery workers at Carlsberg-Tetley's campus in
Northampton in central England have battled to keep up with demand, it
has still been necessary to order in extra supplies of pilsne ale from
the business's headquarters in Shoppingharbour.]
[via Birgitte, tak]
[Permalink]
2003-08-14 11:20
We reread back issues of Point de Vue, of course! We are many things at
Desbladet, but we are not fickle. Our reward, on this occasion, is
Point de Vue's explanation of the context of Knudella's fiskekutter outburst:
De plus en plus Danoise, la jeune femme n'a cess� de progresser dans
la langue d'Andersen. Et � Skagen [un charmant petit port de peche
dans le nord du Danemark], elle a appris un nouveau mot �fiskekutter�,
ce bateau de p�che typiques de la r�gion.
[More and more Danish, the young lady has made continual progress in
the language of Andersen. And at Skagen [a charming little fishing
town in the north of Denmark], she learned a new word �Fiskekutter�,
the fishing boat typical of the region.]
Please to try your nice Danish fishing town with fiskekutter, the
traditional and typical of Danish glorious history and cultual -
Knudella swears by it. (We cannot rule out the possibility that la jolie
Tasmanienne thinks it is actually swearing, of course.)
[Permalink]
2003-08-14 10:23
coup� [kupe] s.m. 1. (transport) coup�; 2. (dancing)
coup�; 3. (herald.) coup�
[The Concise Oxford French-Engleesh Dictionary.]
Thanks!
[Permalink]
2003-08-13 18:16 (UTC+1)
G K Chesterton:
Art consists of limitation ... The most beautiful part of every
picture is the frame.
Tinka:
The peritext contains various paratextual categories - so many that I
fail to remember more than three, actually. You have the material
peritext which is typography, colours, spacing, layout and (possibly)
the browser; The iconic peritext which includes illustrations and
cover design; The verbal peritext includes table of contents,
blurps/reviews, marginalia.. All of these things can be subdivided -
I've done work on categorising various iconic peritexts, for instance.
Me:
I don't know much about web design, but I know what I lynx.
(Only loosely related but entirely heart-felt rantette, now that I
have a new and improved vocabulary in which to express it:
Indifference to accessibility and contempt for non-targetted browsers
used to be the hallmarks of the professional web designer -
Javascript, anyone? - but the widespread use of Moveable Type
templates based on the abomination that is layout-oriented CSS has
made inaccessibility accessible to a wider audience than ever before!
Don't be left behind! Learn to leverage your stylistic
synergies with Paradigms of Paratexts: Productivity-Paralysing
Practices, coming soon from the von Bladet press.)
[Permalink]
2003-08-13 15:44
A
speech recognition system for American Sign Language, hoorah. Or not:
But the idea of turning sign language into speech annoys some deaf
people who see ASL -- used in the United States and English-speaking
Canada -- as part of their unique culture.
"Some feel that being deaf is not a deficiency," said Andy Lange,
president of the National Association of the Deaf. "It's simply
another way of life and the deaf should not use artificial means to
overcome a loss of hearing."
For added hilarity, reread the above substituting "French" for
"deaf". (Yes, "loss of hearing" doesn't work either, I know, but.)
Incidentally, the fact that sign languages have pretty much all the
symptoms of a phonological layer despite a completely different
sensory substrate should really put in its place the fuss about the
implications of Chinese tones for the languagey goodness of our spicy
brains, as previously reported, cool
though it surely is to have Colour Pictures of these things at work.
It's a bummer if you were hoping to do a Jakobsonian one-size-fits-all
phonological feature system, but even then the !Kung (etc.) clicks
were surely going to be fiddly.
[Permalink]
2003-08-13 11:28
Having recently mentioned the tendency of
bits of continental Yoorpean countries to become bits of other
continental Yoorpean countries as time (and often blood of course)
flow by, I was especially delighted to find this BBC
sequence
of maps showing the many geopolitical developments perpetrated during
the 20th century.
Some have frothtastically likened the EU to a continuation of Mr
Hitler's project; others to the unlamented USSR and its buffer zone of
vassel states; and the dribbling
rain-dancer
men call "Pope" has demonstrated that his grasp of politics is in no
way inferior to that of meteorology in his sustained campaign to
declare it the rebirth of the Holy Roman Empire, with himself in the
role of Holy Roman but of course.
Certainly one cannot fault the ambition of such bold attempts to
annexe the future in the glorious or otherwise name of the past, but really.
That's a nought out of ten for imagination, persons.
OK, Bold New Yoorp, Take Five, places everyone. Make-up, could you
please do something about Mr Pope's dribbling? And lose the
tanks, would you, Marjorie darling, remember what the focus-group said
- they're sooo twentieth century.
[Permalink]
2003-08-13 09:45
"Lobster" is probably my favourite word to say in the whole world, so wheee!
An aquarium in Norway has offered a 1,000 Norwegian Kroner ($137)
reward for every American lobster caught in Norwegian waters in an
attempt to prevent a transatlantic crustacean invasion
(Mumble mumble, bloody rootless cosmopolitans, coming over here,
taking our spawning grounds. Didn't ought to be allowed, it's a
diabolical bleeding liberty is what it is...)
[Permalink]
2003-08-12 15:53 (UTC+1)
via Dave
Barry (and which of you keeps depositing the Florida-based
funnyman's site in my referral logs? Nobody's going home until you
own up!), comes
welcome news:
German brewers are reassuring thirsty consumers there is no imminent
danger of beer running out, despite rumors that surging demand in the
summer heat has exceeded the supply.
Phew! I haven't been so worried since the great norska �l-strejk of
terrifying memory.
Note, however, that there has, so far as I have seen, been no
corresponding reassurance about sausage stocks...
[Permalink]
2003-08-12 13:45 (UTC+1)
But first, are you tactful?
And have you ever been tactfilled?
Not necessarily rude, but diplomatic,
Well, I have
["Are You Tactful?", The Johan von Bladet Experience.]
Here we go again:
De tyska tidningarnas bevakning av den svenska kungafamiljen blir allt
mer h�nsynsl�s.
Varje vecka rapporteras nya "skandaler" och v�rst ansatt �r
prinsessan Madeleine.
[The German "news"papers surveillance
of the Swedish royal family is becoming more and more inconsiderate.
Every week new "scandals" are reported and prinsess Madeleine is
hardest-hit.]
Saying things like "Kung Carl Gustaf �r inte prinsessan Madeleines
pappa" ("King Carl Gustaf isn't prinsess Madeleine's daddy") about
the lovely beige prinsess, whose daddy
is of course the king, is very rude, and "V�ninnan d�d -
prinsessan Madeleine skyldig?" ("The dead friend - is prinsess
Madeleine guilty") is just plain nasty.
Elisabeth Tarras-Wahlberg (for it is she!) denounces the stories as
"hopkok av osanningar", and quite right too. Given the precedent of
said scandalbladets' disgraceful treatment of Mette-Marit, though, it
seems unlikely that the ritual exclamations of loathing and disgust
are going to make much of an impression, and short of a libel suit or
a pan-Yoorpean press standards ombudsperson (ideally one with some
teeths, unlike the Briteesh example) it is fairly clear that there'll
be no end to such nonsenses.
[linkage via Anna Louise, tack.]
(Those keen on kungliheterna may wish to note that I have a Prins
Henrik article pending for when I've chewed through the Danishness.
Why can't he do interviews in franska, which we would both surely find
easier?)
[Permalink]
2003-08-12 10:33 (UTC+1)
I'm sure many persons of unquestionable mental health will be delighted to learn from lah-di-dah DN that the global surstr�mming(fermented herrings, yum yum) accessibility problem is shortly to become a thing of or pertaining to the past: Trots att exporten g�r tr�gt jobbar branschen h�rt med att hitta nya v�gar ut i v�rlden. Snart kommer det att vara m�jligt att prenumerera p� surstr�mming. [Although exports are going slowly [surely not?! - des], the industry is working hard to find new ways out into the world. Soon it will be possible to subscribe to yummy fermented herringy goodness.]
The Japanese are alleged to be crazy about the stuff, of course.
[Permalink]
2003-08-12 09:41
Via Mimi,
this magnificent German phrasebook:
Hier sind Schl�pfer in verschiedenen Farben. Sind sie haltbar?
"Here are panties in different shades. Are they durable?"
Imagine how you'll smirk when you discover the other touristes have been
fobbed off with undurable panties!
Sehen sich die Bewegungen dieses Pferds im Zeitlupentempo an.
"Look at the movements of this horse in slow motion."
The long winter evenings will simply fly past!
Humanit�re Gesichtspunkte werden wohl stets den milit�rischen
Notwendigkeiten weichen m�ssen.
"Humanitarian considerations will probably always have to yield to
military necessities."
This space intentionally left blank.
[Permalink]
2003-08-11 13:36 (UTC+1)
Not, apparently, having had the benefit of Birgitte's wisdom,
Expressen makes the crassest of
schoolchild
errors in an article on Kronprinsess Vickan and Prins Henrik of
Daniel's nuptuosity, in doubt about which the tabloids are certainly
not. (And quite right too, given that Expressen got the
scoop on this unambiguous announcement:
Hur l�nge ska vi beh�va v�nta p� kronprinsessans br�llop?
- Det kan jag inte svara p�.
[How long must we wait for your kronprinsessship's wedding?
I really couldn't say.])
Anyway,
Prins Daniel av Sverige och drottning Victoria.
S� kommer de att heta.
[Prins Daniel of Sweden and Queen Victoria.
That's what they're going to be called.]
Not round here they're not, Expressen, and that's a promise.
[Permalink]
2003-08-11 13:19
We've had to dust off the rarely-used east wing of the chateau von
Bladet, since my mother is currently on a tour of the west of England
and popped by for the Bloon
Siesta, with lauches (it can be too hot, too windy, or too
foot-and-mouthy to permit these, so you can imagine), "night glows" to
music and fireworks.
We sat on (a rug on - we are very cultivated) the same patch of grass
in the shade for about six hours on Saturday, and it was really quite
pleasant with a nice book on the history of the EU to while away the
more bloonless moments.
Yesterday we scored a major coup in bluffing our way into W****
Hice, being the most impressive Victorian edifice the National Trust
has yet saved for a greatful (or bewildered, in my case) nation,
hurrah. Built by a celebrated Victorian birdshit magnate (I kid you
not, calling it "guano" is fooling nobody) and as ugly and
self-important as you could wish for, or otherwise selon le
case. The founder of the dynasty was mates with Brunel; one of
the descendents had a job teaching the fuzzy-wuzzies [update] Seth Africans about the
geopolitical implications of the Maxim gun in the Boer war, don'cha
know, [only it seems to have turned out that they already knew, which is hardly sporting, what?]; when the last lord W**** (before the current one - the dynasty
plods on) died the estate came up for auction, et cetera.
The Victorian age is actually very interesting - the mix of vulgarity,
snobbery and actually doing stuff (omelettes were made; eggs
were broken; I am not condoning nastiness, of which I firmly
disapprove, of course) of the successful persons of the era is a
striking contrast to today, when the height of England's ambition is
to preserve the architectural atrocities of the defunct for posterity.
Our (volunteer) guide (retired glass-merchant and magistrate, former
methodist lay preacher, member of the Conservative association of
North Somerset, but a jolly good egg nonetheless) pointed out many
carvings and refered to the first (I think) Lord W**** as a Very
Great Man, on account of as how he did a lot for charity, presumably.
(He mostly built a lot of churches, and insisted the servants attend a
pre-breakfast prayalong, which you will be relieved to hear is not the
case at the chateau von Bladet, where we take la la�cit� very
seriously indeed.)
[Permalink]
2003-08-11 09:15 (UTC+1)
It's all kinds of everywhere
this
story, in which the lovely Swedish kronprinsess is seen attending
a wedding
Grundlagen svarar inte p� vilken titel Daniel kan f�
Snart blir det f�rlovning mellan kronprinsessan Victoria och
hennes pojkv�n Daniel Westling
[The constitution doesn't say what title Daniel should get.
The engagement of kronprinsess Victoria and Daniel Westling will be
announced shortly.]
Sweden needs you, Varied Reader! Can you think of a good
name for a prins-consort-elect? (Aftonbladet! Hold a competition,
for heaven's sake!)
A competition that is now running is BT's very tasteful
Guess the
Date of Kronprinsfred's big day, a mere six months after this
bladet floated a similar idea. Our
lawyers will be talking to their lawyers, without doubt.
[Permalink]
previous,
next, latest
|
|
|
