From: owner-loud-fans-digest@smoe.org (loud-fans-digest) To: loud-fans-digest@smoe.org Subject: loud-fans-digest V2 #207 Reply-To: loud-fans@smoe.org Sender: owner-loud-fans-digest@smoe.org Errors-To: owner-loud-fans-digest@smoe.org Precedence: bulk loud-fans-digest Friday, June 14 2002 Volume 02 : Number 207 Today's Subjects: ----------------- Re: [loud-fans] the philosophy of punctuation [Jeffrey with 2 Fs Jeffrey ] Re: [loud-fans] the philosophy of punctuation [Jeffrey with 2 Fs Jeffrey ] Re: [loud-fans] movies: Lookin' at the (Big) Vanilla Sky ["jer fairall" <] [loud-fans] Re: the philosophy of punctuation [Holly Kruse Subject: Re: [loud-fans] the philosophy of punctuation On Wed, 12 Jun 2002 Tim_Walters@digidesign.com wrote: > Pretty fancy talk from a guy who thinks the plural of "don't" is "don't's". I > have to admit, though, that he nails me on my semicolon and parenthesis abuse, > and I give him credit for not endorsing the goofball rule that periods and > commas always go inside quotation marks. Of course, we know not whether whoever put up the website is responsible for the apostrophe-bearing plural. I don't suppose it would surprise anyone for me to fess up to serial abuse of dashes, parentheses, and semicolons, would it? I disagree with him about exclamation marks, though. To me, with the exception of reporting shouted dialogue ("Don't touch that live electrical wire! Oh...never mind."), the exclamation mark's faults are similar to those he outlines regarding dashes and so forth. If the content doesn't convey its exclamatory nature, then tossing a screamer at the end won't help. It seems amateurish, somehow, a perception not exactly belied by the fondness of my students for excessive exclamation mark usage. As to the quotation mark thingy with periods and commas, well, logic is on the Brits' side here, but as long as we're arbitrarily using a rule, be consistent and use it. That is, if you insist on putting commas and periods outside quotation marks, then go all out and use 'inverted commas', in the British style, instead of "quotation marks." Who was ranting about "smart quotes" the other day? While I appreciate their gumminess when applied in e-mails, real typography does differentiate between opening and closing quotation marks. When I'm printing things, I always use them, and I'm bothered by printed matter that doesn't do so, unless it's literally typewritten, in which case the writer has no choice. I don't suppose anyone's addressed why this stuff should be at all important? Aside from practicality, that punctuation is at some levels the etiquette of written language, a membership card showing you know and respect the way things are done here, in most cases failure to use punctuation correctly creates ambiguity and friction for the reader. And not the good kind of friction. I suppose some punctuation is arbitrary, like the quotation mark rules above, but most of it does serve to clarify sentence structure and relations among its elements. - --Jeff J e f f r e y N o r m a n matches? The Architectural Dance Society candles? www.uwm.edu/~jenor/ADS.html matches? candles? buns? ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 13 Jun 2002 11:17:53 -0500 (CDT) From: Jeffrey with 2 Fs Jeffrey Subject: Re: [loud-fans] the philosophy of punctuation On Thu, 13 Jun 2002, Jeffrey with 2 Fs Jeffrey wrote: > respect the way things are done here, in most cases failure to use > punctuation correctly creates ambiguity and friction for the reader. As does poor placement of adverbs: that should have been "in most cases failure to correctly use punctuation creates ambiguity..." And the above paragraph makes a good argument against the ludicrousness of anyone's arguments against "split infinitives." The other alternatives are my first version, in which "correctly" can be improperly read as modifying "creates" rather than "use," or awkwardly shoving "correctly" between "use" and "punctuation," which doesn't work at all for me. - --Jeff J e f f r e y N o r m a n The Architectural Dance Society www.uwm.edu/~jenor/ADS.html ::This album is dedicated to anyone who started out as an animal and ::winds up as a processing unit. __Soft Boys, note, CAN OF BEES__ ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 13 May 2002 12:39:20 -0400 From: "jer fairall" Subject: Re: [loud-fans] movies: Lookin' at the (Big) Vanilla Sky > THINGS YOU CAN TELL JUST BY LOOKING AT HER. > > Jer and I are still trying to get people to watch that one. > > Right Jer? Ah yes, my third favorite 2001 film, behind DONNIE DARKO and THE ROYAL TENENBAUMS. Now if only I could find someone else who liked WET HOT AMERICAN SUMMER... Jer np: Buffalo Tom, BESIDES Will nuclear waste be transported through your neighborhood? Speak up! http://www.Care2.com/go/speakup ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 13 Jun 2002 13:15:19 -0500 From: Holly Kruse Subject: [loud-fans] Re: the philosophy of punctuation Paul Robinson is clearly a man after my own heart! And so timely. I just spent yesterday afternoon going over the page proofs of an article by me that's forthcoming in a quite respectable U.K. academic journal and was horrified to see that the copy editor had done some major butchering. She'd taken perfectly acceptable sentences and split them up with periods, turning some of them into sentence fragments. She'd inserted semi-colons into lists in place of commas, and then integrated the following sentences into the sentences with the list with a colon. She'd changed the wording of parallel lists (verb, object) so that they were no longer para- llel. In addition to the punctuation errors she'd introduced into my article, she also did things like change "different from" to "different to" (!) and "studying a racing form" (the article is about horse racing simulcasting and interactive media) to "studying form". The churning feeling that I experienced in my stomach as I read the proofs was not a happy thing. If only I still had her email address, I would forward "The Philosophy of Punctuation" to her. Yesterday I was seriously considering tracking her down so that I could present her with a copy of Strunk and White. (That, however, would involve a trip across the Atlantic for me, and I think that would be overkill.) After reading Robinson's essay, however, I feel less alone in the world. Still peeved, Holly ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 13 Jun 2002 11:23:18 -0700 From: Tim_Walters@digidesign.com Subject: Re: [loud-fans] Re: the philosophy of punctuation >she also did things like >change "different from" to "different to" (!) While the litany of crimes is appalling, it's worth noting that "different to" is standard in the UK. ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 13 Jun 2002 11:38:10 -0700 From: Tim_Walters@digidesign.com Subject: Re: [loud-fans] the philosophy of punctuation >As to the quotation mark thingy with periods and commas, well, logic is on >the Brits' side here, but as long as we're arbitrarily using a rule, be >consistent and use it. That is, if you insist on putting commas and >periods outside quotation marks, then go all out and use 'inverted >commas', in the British style, instead of "quotation marks." But I don't put the punctuation outside (when I do it; in truth, I'm inconsistent, and also abuse parentheses) to be British. I do it because it's more sensible. Single quotes are more logical than double quotes, but they tend to get tangled up with apostrophes. Euro-style chevrons are a good solution, but not very practical in the U.S., and nobody can agree on whether they should point in or out anyway. >punctuation is at some levels the >etiquette of written language, a membership card showing you know and >respect the way things are done here, There's a fine line between a "membership card" and a "shibboleth", though. It's also possible to give the reader too much help although I don't go so far as Gertrude Stein who considered commas to be obsequious. ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 13 Jun 2002 12:11:29 -0700 From: "me" Subject: Re: [loud-fans] the philosophy of punctuation > >commas', in the British style, instead of "quotation marks." > > But I don't put the punctuation outside (when I do it; in truth, I'm > inconsistent, and also abuse parentheses) to be British. I do it because it's > more sensible. i completely agree. after all, the text within the quotes may not have had the need for a comma. therefore, the comma applies more to what is outside the quotes than what is inside them. in the phrase: 'commas', in the British style, instead of "quotation marks." it makes so much more sense to use the first one, if only because the second term he is naming ends with the 's', not with a period. when you get into quotes having to do with speech, it becomes even more ridiculous, IMO, to put punctuation within the marks, UNLESS it is part of the spoken phrase. unfortunately, it's been so completely beaten into me that i do it regardless. "i'm going out," said jenny. jenny didn't pause - the writer did. hence, the comma should be within the realm of the writer's text, not jenny's words. if there's a comma within the marks, i want to know what jenny said after she paused that the writer is not telling us. and just for comparison - and to make us all look good - here are two samples of customer support e-mails i ran across. these are from the reps, not the customers. Thank you for contacting ******. The IP address 66.68.***.*** Does not work its resolving to page cannot be displayed you need to contact your host provider. Can't process change, until you get back with us. About changing MX recored is you can provide the host name recored, IP address and password for authentication we can make the requested changes. Domain names are deleted from the data base and made available to the public 38 days after the expiration date. It is automatically done by the domain name data base, we cannot put a hold on it. If possible please try a different card, you are quickly running out of time. gah. ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 13 Jun 2002 16:34:11 -0400 (EDT) From: Dave Walker Subject: [loud-fans] Nice Sam Phillips article... ...here: http://www.salon.com/ent/music/feature/2002/06/12/phillips/index.html -d.w. ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 13 Jun 2002 18:31:20 -0400 From: jenny grover Subject: Re: [loud-fans] the philosophy of punctuation me wrote: > > "i'm going out," said jenny. Did I say that? Jen ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 13 Jun 2002 17:43:07 -0500 (CDT) From: Jeffrey with 2 Fs Jeffrey Subject: Re: [loud-fans] the philosophy of punctuation On Thu, 13 Jun 2002 Tim_Walters@digidesign.com wrote: > Single quotes are more logical than double quotes, but they tend to get tangled > up with apostrophes. Euro-style chevrons are a good solution, but not very > practical in the U.S., and nobody can agree on whether they should point in or > out anyway. Yes, as I conceded, single quotes are eminently more logical than double quotes, and I agree with Brianna that the commas/periods inside the quotes make little sense, as the pauses are *not* part of the quoted material (compare use of semicolons, colons, question marks, and exclamation marks with quotation marks: much more sensible). However, it's also more logical to spell "night" n-i-t-e, etc. etc. The point is, at some level language is arbitrary (or at least has the appearance of arbitrariness), and at some point we use conventions simply because it's distracting from our larger point to go out of the way to not use them. That is, if you submitted a manuscript to an editor and insisted that a sentence be printed as you'd submitted it - "I'm putting on a Soundgarden CD", said Jenny. - - the likely response would be that the error you've introduced will be distracting to readers and serves no purpose but to flag your particular preference regarding punctuation. I have a similar reaction to egregious pronoun shifting: people who, in the interests of equal time, use "she" as a generic pronoun (particularly if they alternate it with "he" used in the same situation): Yes, "he" shouldn't be used as a generic pronoun, since it does, in fact, predispose readers toward imagining a masculine presence regardless of whether that's appropriate...but a similar effect arises from "she," and because it's defiantly non-standard, it also has the effect of saying, "Now I'm interrupting my discussion of fourteenth-century haberdashery to make a political point about our current society, which is that one shouldn't make misleading gender-based assumptions." Write that article additionally - leave the haberdashers alone. (My preference, fwiw, is whenever possible to phrase in the plural and avoid the whole issue. My belief is that, in a hundred years, "they" will function much as "you" does today: formerly an exclusive plural, it will then be mute as to number - again, as "you" is today.) About that spelling thing: one reason I'm against "modernizing" spelling in a patently artificial way is that it erases history, and in some cases erases distinctions between homonyms that are useful. Yes, language changes...but that's not the same thing as taking a wrecking ball to it. - --Jeff J e f f r e y N o r m a n The Architectural Dance Society www.uwm.edu/~jenor/ADS.html ::Some days, you just can't get rid of a bomb:: __Batman__ np: Gem _Sunglare Serenades_ ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 13 Jun 2002 19:02:38 -0400 From: jenny grover Subject: Re: [loud-fans] the philosophy of punctuation Jeffrey with 2 Fs Jeffrey wrote: > My belief is that, in a hundred years, "they" will > function much as "you" does today: formerly an exclusive plural, it will > then be mute as to number - again, as "you" is today.) I bet it won't even be that long. It's becoming so generally forgiven, as did words like "orientate" did, which made a seemingly quick leap into the dictionary, that I think it will soon be taught as an acceptible usage. > About that spelling thing: one reason I'm against "modernizing" spelling > in a patently artificial way is that it erases history, and in some cases > erases distinctions between homonyms that are useful. Beyond that, it also erases clues as to word origins, which some of us still like to research and consider in our choices of words. Jen ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 13 Jun 2002 15:55:52 -0700 From: Tim_Walters@digidesign.com Subject: Re: [loud-fans] the philosophy of punctuation >The point is, at some level language >is arbitrary (or at least has the appearance of arbitrariness), and at >some point we use conventions simply because it's distracting from our >larger point to go out of the way to not use them. No disagreement here. ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 13 Jun 2002 16:01:56 -0700 From: "me" Subject: Re: [loud-fans] the philosophy of punctuation From: "Jeffrey with 2 Fs Jeffrey" However, it's also more logical > to spell "night" n-i-t-e, etc. etc. that's only if you buy into the whole silent e thing. other languages have letters for the silent-e-modified result of our vowels. we just don't. too bad for us. i'd honestly rather learn a handful of new letters than try to explain how exactly putting an e on hte end of a word make the vowel sound different. there's no logical reason. it could just as well be a q. and that would make more sense in my book. > "I'm putting on a Soundgarden CD", said Jenny. what is she putting it on? never mind - don't wanna know. > the interests of equal time, use "she" as a generic pronoun (particularly > if they alternate it with "he" used in the same situation): Yes, "he" and here we again come to the fact that english as incredibly lacking when compared to other languages. > the whole issue. My belief is that, in a hundred years, "they" will > function much as "you" does today: formerly an exclusive plural, it will this would be an interesting solution to the he/she thing. that's how i avoid the problem when writing. b ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 13 Jun 2002 18:04:04 -0500 (CDT) From: Jeffrey with 2 Fs Jeffrey Subject: Re: [loud-fans] the philosophy of punctuation On Thu, 13 Jun 2002, jenny grover wrote: > as did words like "orientate" did, which made a seemingly quick leap > into the dictionary, that I think it will soon be taught as an "Orientate"?!? What possible use does that word have that "orient" doesn't cover perfectly well? > > About that spelling thing: one reason I'm against "modernizing" spelling > > in a patently artificial way is that it erases history, and in some cases > > erases distinctions between homonyms that are useful. > > Beyond that, it also erases clues as to word origins, which some of us > still like to research and consider in our choices of words. Yes, that's one of the things I meant. - --Jeff J e f f r e y N o r m a n The Architectural Dance Society www.uwm.edu/~jenor/ADS.html ::Some days, you just can't get rid of a bomb:: __Batman__ ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 13 Jun 2002 19:10:22 -0400 From: jenny grover Subject: Re: [loud-fans] the philosophy of punctuation me wrote: > > > "I'm putting on a Soundgarden CD", said Jenny. > > what is she putting it on? never mind - don't wanna know. Well, considering the construction of my CD players, I would actually be putting it in, but that sounds even worse! Jen ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 13 Jun 2002 16:04:39 -0700 From: Matthew Weber Subject: Re: [loud-fans] the philosophy of punctuation At 06:04 PM 6/13/02 -0500, Jeffrey with 2 Fs Jeffrey wrote: >On Thu, 13 Jun 2002, jenny grover wrote: > > > as did words like "orientate" did, which made a seemingly quick leap > > into the dictionary, that I think it will soon be taught as an > >"Orientate"?!? What possible use does that word have >that "orient" doesn't cover perfectly well? You took the screaming hissy fit right out of my mouth! Matthew Weber Curatorial Assistant Music Library University of California, Berkeley With the jawbone of an ass . . . have I slain a thousand men. The Holy Bible (The Old Testament): _The Book of Judges_, chapter 15, verse 16 ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 13 Jun 2002 16:22:07 -0700 From: "me" Subject: Re: [loud-fans] the philosophy of punctuation from m-w.com: ori7en7tate Pronunciation: 'Or-E-&n-"tAt, 'or-, -"en- Function: verb Inflected Form(s): -tat7ed; -tat7ing Date: 1849 transitive senses : ORIENT intransitive senses : to face or turn to the east ori7ent Pronunciation: 'Or-E-"ent, 'or- Function: transitive verb Etymology: French orienter, from Middle French, from orient Date: circa 1741 1 a : to cause to face or point toward the east; specifically : to build (a church or temple) with the longitudinal axis pointing eastward and the chief altar at the eastern end b : to set or arrange in any determinate position especially in relation to the points of the compass c : to ascertain the bearings of 2 a : to set right by adjusting to facts or principles b : to acquaint with the existing situation or environment 3 : to direct (as a book or film) toward the interests of a particular group 4 : to cause the axes of the molecules of to assume the same direction i think they used the secondary definition of 'orient' to justify (ha - pun intended) the validation of the word 'orientate'. - -- "Drag me, drop me, treat me like an object." - -- - ----- Original Message ----- From: "Matthew Weber" To: "nice when we want something" Sent: Thursday, June 13, 2002 4:04 PM Subject: Re: [loud-fans] the philosophy of punctuation > At 06:04 PM 6/13/02 -0500, Jeffrey with 2 Fs Jeffrey wrote: > >On Thu, 13 Jun 2002, jenny grover wrote: > > > > > as did words like "orientate" did, which made a seemingly quick leap > > > into the dictionary, that I think it will soon be taught as an > > > >"Orientate"?!? What possible use does that word have > >that "orient" doesn't cover perfectly well? > > > > You took the screaming hissy fit right out of my mouth! > > > Matthew Weber > Curatorial Assistant > Music Library > University of California, Berkeley > > With the jawbone of an ass . . . have I slain a thousand men. > The Holy Bible (The Old Testament): _The Book of Judges_, chapter > 15, verse 16 ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 13 Jun 2002 16:30:15 -0700 From: Matthew Weber Subject: Re: [loud-fans] the philosophy of punctuation At 04:22 PM 6/13/02 -0700, me wrote: >from m-w.com: > >ori7en7tate >Pronunciation: 'Or-E-&n-"tAt, 'or-, -"en- >Function: verb >Inflected Form(s): -tat7ed; -tat7ing >Date: 1849 >transitive senses : ORIENT >intransitive senses : to face or turn to the east > >ori7ent >Pronunciation: 'Or-E-"ent, 'or- >Function: transitive verb >Etymology: French orienter, from Middle French, from orient >Date: circa 1741 >1 a : to cause to face or point toward the east; specifically : to build (a >church or temple) with the longitudinal axis pointing eastward and the chief >altar at the eastern end b : to set or arrange in any determinate position >especially in relation to the points of the compass c : to ascertain the >bearings of >2 a : to set right by adjusting to facts or principles b : to acquaint with >the existing situation or environment >3 : to direct (as a book or film) toward the interests of a particular group >4 : to cause the axes of the molecules of to assume the same direction > >i think they used the secondary definition of 'orient' to justify (ha - pun >intended) the validation of the word 'orientate'. I'm surprised to see how old the first citation is, but I still think "orientate" is redundant and graceless. Matthew Weber Curatorial Assistant Music Library University of California, Berkeley With the jawbone of an ass . . . have I slain a thousand men. The Holy Bible (The Old Testament): _The Book of Judges_, chapter 15, verse 16 ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 13 Jun 2002 20:05:58 -0400 From: "Paul Seeman" Subject: RE: [loud-fans] the philosophy of punctuation "i'm going out," said jenny. jenny didn't pause - the writer did. hence, the comma should be within the realm of the writer's text, not jenny's words. On the other hand...Jenny didn't just pause, she completed her thought. Doesn't this demand a full stop? "i'm going out.", said jenny. This is just silly. Remove the comma, though, and the thing still looks strange: "i'm going out." said jenny. Maybe the interior comma pulls double duty in this case. First off, it works nearly the way a period would, to mark a break or pause in Jenny's quote. But it also relates jenny's quote to the rest of the sentence in much the same way that an external comma would have. Not quite perfect on either score, but close enough from where I'm sitting. P ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 13 Jun 2002 20:12:06 EDT From: AWeiss4338@aol.com Subject: Re: [loud-fans] Nice Sam Phillips article... In a message dated 6/13/02 4:34:41 PM Eastern Daylight Time, marmoset@freeke.org writes: > http://www.salon.com/ent/music/feature/2002/06/12/phillips/index.html > > -d.w. > Yes it is, and I recomened the books the interviewer, Ken Foster, wrote too. Andrea ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 13 Jun 2002 20:17:00 -0400 From: "Paul Seeman" Subject: RE: [loud-fans] the philosophy of punctuation However, it's also more logical to spell "night" n-i-t-e, etc. etc. From 1934 to 1975 the Chicago Tribune did just that: in its pages through became thru, though became tho, freight became frate, etc. And that wasn't even owner Robert McCormick's goofiest idea: he once tried to ban babushkas. In Chicago. P ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 13 Jun 2002 20:24:29 -0400 From: "Francis J H Park" Subject: Re: [loud-fans] the philosophy of punctuation (oh-so-NS) Jeffrey... | "Orientate"?!? What possible use does that word have | that "orient" doesn't cover perfectly well? I heard "orientate" beaten to death as a student in a variety of Green Polyester Industry courses. As I heard: (The most common usage) "Allow me to orientate you to my sand table. This is north..." "Orientate the main gun to the 12 o' clock position..." I always thought it meant "orient to the east." Would that mean "occidentate" means "orient to the west?" Do I occidentate myself to the Bright Center of the Loud-Fans? Francis J. H. Park http://home.sprintmail.com/~durandal - -- The price of freedom is eternal vigilance. - ----- Original Message ----- From: "Jeffrey with 2 Fs Jeffrey" To: "nice when we want something" Sent: Thursday, 13 June 2002 19:04 Subject: Re: [loud-fans] the philosophy of punctuation | On Thu, 13 Jun 2002, jenny grover wrote: | | > as did words like "orientate" did, which made a seemingly quick leap | > into the dictionary, that I think it will soon be taught as an | | | > > About that spelling thing: one reason I'm against "modernizing" spelling | > > in a patently artificial way is that it erases history, and in some cases | > > erases distinctions between homonyms that are useful. | > | > Beyond that, it also erases clues as to word origins, which some of us | > still like to research and consider in our choices of words. | | Yes, that's one of the things I meant. | | --Jeff | | J e f f r e y N o r m a n | The Architectural Dance Society | www.uwm.edu/~jenor/ADS.html | ::Some days, you just can't get rid of a bomb:: | __Batman__ ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 13 Jun 2002 20:09:58 -0700 From: John Cooper Subject: RE: [loud-fans] the philosophy of punctuation C'mon--you're telling me that for 41 years, the voice of Chicago conservatism spelled "freight" as "frate"? I don't believe that my Mt. Prospect grandparents would have continued their subscription! And I don't remember the headline as "DOOEY DEFEETS TROOMEN". >However, it's also more logical >to spell "night" n-i-t-e, etc. etc. > >From 1934 to 1975 the Chicago Tribune did just that: in its pages through >became thru, though became tho, freight became frate, etc. And that wasn't >even owner Robert McCormick's goofiest idea: he once tried to ban babushkas. >In Chicago. > >P ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 13 Jun 2002 23:41:54 -0400 From: Stewart Mason Subject: RE: [loud-fans] the philosophy of punctuation At 08:09 PM 6/13/2002 -0700, John Cooper wrote: >C'mon--you're telling me that for 41 years, the voice of Chicago >conservatism spelled "freight" as "frate"? I don't believe that my >Mt. Prospect grandparents would have continued their subscription! >And I don't remember the headline as "DOOEY DEFEETS TROOMEN". Believe it or not, that story is at least partially true. Col. Robert McCormick, the Trib's owner-publisher, had a bee in his bonnet about simplified spelling, and as far as anyone can tell, abominations like nite, thru and donut are pretty much directly attributable to his obsession with using those spellings in his paper, which at the time had the largest circulation in the country. I remember a probably-apocryphal story from one of my tech writing professors about McCormick: A large boat went down in a storm on Lake Michigan. In accordance with his standards, the editors put up a headline that read "Frater Sinks." McCormick looked at the mock-up and said "Make it 'Ship.'" S ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 13 Jun 2002 22:50:40 -0500 (CDT) From: Jeffrey with 2 Fs Jeffrey Subject: Re: [loud-fans] Nice Sam Phillips article... On Thu, 13 Jun 2002, Dave Walker wrote: > ...here: > > http://www.salon.com/ent/music/feature/2002/06/12/phillips/index.html This has happened to me twice at Salon's site: an ad placed RIGHT FUCKING OVER the text of the article. The only way I could read it was to cut & paste it. Bastards. (It's a shockwave thingy...in this case, for Absolut. I'm using Netscape 6.2 - IE no longer works on my messed-up machine...) ------------------------------ Date: Fri, 14 Jun 2002 00:05:22 -0400 From: "John Sharples" Subject: Re: [loud-fans] Nice Sam Phillips article... Jeff: >This has happened to me twice at Salon's site: an ad placed RIGHT FUCKING >OVER the text of the article. The only way I could read it was to cut & >paste it. >Bastards. (It's a shockwave thingy...in this case, for Absolut. I'm using >Netscape 6.2 - IE no longer works on my messed-up machine...) Funny you should mention. The ad placed correctly when I checked the article, and I thought that its ghostly look was nicely apropos to the "Ghost of Pop" thing... Great article, anyway. Thanks, Dave! Does anybody else here own DIE HARD 3 just for Sam's (mute) scenes? Just wondering. (Hamlin need not respond, because...*we know*.) JS ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 13 Jun 2002 23:19:11 -0500 From: Miles Goosens Subject: [loud-fans] like a stolling rone NPR had a piece on the new editor of ROLLING STONE today, some guy lifted from softcore men's mag FHM. The guy they interviewed for the piece wasn't anyone from ROLLING STONE, but THE NATION's Eric Alterman. Alterman somehow got through the piece without mentioning FHM's emphasis on pictorals of scantily-clad female stars. In fact, when asked to describe the type of mag that FHM, STUFF, MAXIM, et al, are, he said "magazines designed to sell to 12 year old boys, like MAD used to." Huh? While I'm sure that FHM would like to sell to as many teenage boys as possible, I sure don't remember a Victoria Principal lingerie shoot in MAD when I was 12! Even more amazingly, Alterman got through the interview without blaming FHM or the decline of ROLLING STONE on Ralph Nader. later, Miles "Why can't Texas just act normal, like Manq or Shagoon?" - - identify the source of this quote, win a mix CD-R ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 13 Jun 2002 23:15:39 -0500 (CDT) From: Jeffrey with 2 Fs Jeffrey Subject: Re: [loud-fans] the philosophy of punctuation On Thu, 13 Jun 2002, me wrote: > From: "Jeffrey with 2 Fs Jeffrey" > > However, it's also more logical > > to spell "night" n-i-t-e, etc. etc. > > that's only if you buy into the whole silent e thing. other languages have > letters for the silent-e-modified result of our vowels. we just don't. too > bad for us. i'd honestly rather learn a handful of new letters than try to > explain how exactly putting an e on hte end of a word make the vowel sound > different. there's no logical reason. it could just as well be a q. and > that would make more sense in my book. See, this is the problem when computer programmer-type people start talking about the language. ;) They're entirely too logical - but language isn't - at least not in a direct, task-solving way. Agreed, there's no "logical" basis for the silent -e thing - I'm not a linguist, so I can't explain how it evolved exactly, but at one time it was pronounced (generally a sort of schwa sound - just imagine Mark E. Smith singing all words that end in silent e, and you'll be about there). We could all learn to use the IPA (International Phonetic Alphabet) and learn all these wiggy new characters - but here's where one problem arises, namely whose English gets to be standard? I mean, I pronounce "dance" with a short a (a lot of my fellow Milwaukeeans will nasalize it intensely), and many of our British Loudfans will pronounce it with a broad a (so it almost rhymes with "fonts"): does everyone just spell it exactly as they pronounce it? So it's come to be generally understood that (I'm gonna use ^ for any consonant) a word spelled ^i^ has a short i (if there were a word "pid," 99% of use would rhyme it with "bid"), and a word spelled ^i^e has a long i (i.e., "nide" rhymes with "ride"). English spelling is, in fact, more regular than you might think - it's just a tremendously complex regularity, with imbrications every which way depending on which sorts of sounds occur with which. FOr example, my ^i^ rule does *not* work if that second vowel is g or r: both of which distort the vowel (for g, tightening it: compare the vowel in "bike" with that in "buy": the first is tighter & shorter). The other problem w/applying logic to spelling is that pronunciations change and evolve over both time and space (*why* those wacky Brits pronounce things so funny, and why Shakespeare could have words obviously intended to rhyme that, in current speech, do not do so). So any "logical," phonetic system of spelling will become just as illogical and arbitrary-seeming as current spelling in a couple of hundred years. (Although I'm guessing that mass communication slows down linguistic change: everyone in America knows what yr standard radio/tv announcer accent is - for that matter, so does the rest of the English-speaking or - -knowing world.) > > "I'm putting on a Soundgarden CD", said Jenny. > > what is she putting it on? never mind - don't wanna know. Actually, she was putting it on in the manner that Bob Dylan put on the press in the mid-sixties...alas, being inanimate, the CD couldn't appreciate her wit. Of course, neither could those journalists...pity the poor "science student"... (Incidentally, in my example above, I had a hard time coming up with ^i^ words that weren't either already English words or obvious homophones thereof ("nic" pronounced like "Nick" etc.). A pretty basic English sound-pattern, then - I think more basic than any other ^@^ combo (where @ is any vowel).) ------------------------------ Date: Fri, 14 Jun 2002 00:37:43 -0400 From: jenny grover Subject: Re: [loud-fans] the philosophy of punctuation Jeffrey with 2 Fs Jeffrey wrote: > > "Orientate"?!? What possible use does that word have > that "orient" doesn't cover perfectly well? Absolutely none whatsoever, and it makes me shriek as much as you, but it was such a common (ignorant) mistake that it actually has made it into the dictionary as a word. Has "irregardless" made it in yet? Jen ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 13 Jun 2002 23:45:05 -0500 From: Miles Goosens Subject: Re: [loud-fans] the philosophy of punctuation At 12:37 AM 6/14/2002 -0400, jenny grover wrote: >Jeffrey with 2 Fs Jeffrey wrote: >> >> "Orientate"?!? What possible use does that word have >> that "orient" doesn't cover perfectly well? > >Absolutely none whatsoever, and it makes me shriek as much as you, but >it was such a common (ignorant) mistake that it actually has made it >into the dictionary as a word. Has "irregardless" made it in yet? Dunno. I'm still fighting Warren G. Harding's "normalcy" (and Times of National Crisis always mean that public officials will say it 1,567,348 times). And it may be mentioned in that article or earlier in this thread (I haven't made it all the way through either yet), but "try to" seems dead and gone. Everyone says "try and," even BBC announcers. later, Miles ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 13 Jun 2002 23:38:47 -0500 (CDT) From: Jeffrey with 2 Fs Jeffrey Subject: [loud-fans] questions re making CD-Rs Okay, I've had my CD burner for a few months now, and I've been reasonably successful in making decent sounding CDs. A few questions, though: One thing that hasn't worked so well is my attempts to balance the (perceived) levels of various tracks on mix CDs. I have a couple of options: Nero's burning software has a little checkbox whereby it supposedly normalizes all the tracks, and gives you the option of doing so either by using RMS (and you can set the level) or % of maximum volume. I would have thought that RMS would work better for what I was trying to do, but I failed to account for some rather "hot" tracks that ended up distorting (presumably if I'd set the level lower, that wouldn't have been a problem)? Those of you who are more experienced with these puppies might help me out if you're so inclined. (Two examples of problems: I've noticed that heavily compressed tracks inevitably sound louder, even after they're supposedly "normalized" to not sound louder than the surrounding tracks. And I haven't checked, but...Miles, did Momus intentionally put the voice way the hell louder than everything else on "Who Is Mr. Jones?"? And is it just plain weird to have two ?s in a row like that, even though it seems necessary...one of those punctuation weirdnesses that I'm not sure how to work with?) Also (and understanding better how this works might also help me understand the first issue), I discovered in making a mixdown of all 4 discs of the Flaming Lips' _Zaireeka_ that I couldn't just mix them all together w/o adjustments in volume levels: everything would distort if I did so. Instead I worked by ripping the corresponding track from each volume of the set (disc 1, disc 2, etc.), cutting the volume in half, mixing two tracks at a time, cutting the volume of the resulting mix in half, and repeating w/the other two tracks. (Say, 1+2, then 3+4, then the first one with the second one...) This seems needlessly complicated - but the results did sound pretty good, and at a reasonable volume level. (Incidentally, re Coyne's notes about how every CD player tracks differently, and therefore how the tracks were intentionally designed to exhibit slippage & sound different each time: well, maybe so - but the lengths of the tracks were not identical from disc to disc either (i.e., track 1 disc 1 might have been 4:32.58, while track 1 of disc 2 might have been 4:32.56), so I suspect some intentional futzing about to force variations in synchronization.) - --Jeffrey with 2 Fs Jeffrey J e f f r e y N o r m a n The Architectural Dance Society www.uwm.edu/~jenor/ADS.html ::You think your country needs you, but you know it never will:: __Elvis Costello__ ------------------------------ Date: Fri, 14 Jun 2002 00:55:38 -0400 From: "John Sharples" Subject: Re: [loud-fans] the philosophy of punctuation Jen: >Absolutely none whatsoever, and it makes me shriek as much as you, but >it was such a common (ignorant) mistake that it actually has made it >into the dictionary as a word. Has "irregardless" made it in yet? Yes. Sadly, tragically, shockingly....the answer is, "yes." I lost a bet in 1981 about that one, and I've never forgiven Webster's since. It doesn't really matter that the editors added something like "only used in common parlance by true assholes" or something to that effect, I hate those bastards to this day. Oh, and by the way, hoping the Mets drill that dirtbag Clemens this weekend, a very grumpy, JS ------------------------------ End of loud-fans-digest V2 #207 *******************************