FRIDAY NIGHT IS MUSIC NIGHT - The Simpsons!

I'm off out for lunch with my family tomorrow, so I chose a piece of music to celebrate the family. Tonight, here's a classic piece of music, much beloved and loathed by families as television watchers across the world, representative of traditional family virtues, morals and ethics. Ladies and Gents, I give you... the theme from the world's most famous family: the Simpsons!

POLITICS - Damian Green MP released on bail by police

Here's the latest from The Times....

Mr Green was released and bailed to return to the police station in February. Speaking outside the House of Commons early today, he said: “I was astonished to have spent more than nine hours under arrest for doing my job. I emphatically deny I have done anything wrong. In a democracy, opposition politicians have a duty to hold the Government to account.

“I was elected to the House of Commons precisely to do that and I certainly intend to continue doing so.”

POLITICS - Brown's police state is here

Tory MP Damian Green has been arrested by nine counter-terrorism police officers. Nine of 'em. Did they think the MP might resist arrest?

According to Iain Dale:

His "crime" has been to reveal Home Office statistics and misconduct which they tried to cover up.

Iain Dale has the story here.

Just watching the BBC at 10pm this evening, the BBC being the mouthpiece for the Labour Party, they gave a typically muted response, although I have to concede that they reported comments that the arrest was 'Stalinesque'.

If I remember a-right, it was mentioned that Green was in possession of politically sensitive information. For fuck's sake; he's a politician, sensitive information of a political nature is what he deals with as a shadow minister; if it turns out he wasn't in possession of politically sensitive information, I'd only then be worried!

I'd agree that with the comment that it's Stalinesque. I'd go as far as to say it's Mugabe-esque. Zimbabwe arrests its opposition politicians on a regular basis; are we starting to see the merger of Zanu PF and Labour?

I have the greatest respect for the police, but it is terrible that it may be perceived that the Government are using the police, servants of the public, in this way to silence opposition to the ruling Labour Party.

Bollocks to Gordon Brown. Bring on the next General Election when we can get rid of that fucking useless unelected waste of space. and let 'em arrest me for that opinion thoughtcrime, opposing his regime. I despise Gordon Brown, and if that's going to be a crime, disliking the incumbent Prime Minister, then I'm guilty as charged.

Welcome to Gordon Brown's police state.

Addendum: Despite the criticism over my strong words (John Moorcraft thinks I should indeed be arrested!), I'm not the only one to see the Mugabe/Brown parallels. Guido Fawkes over at his blog has produced the following image....

LANGUAGE - Frankfurt Christmas Market in Birmingham!

Last Saturday Angie and I headed off to the big city, Birmingham, the second city of the United Kingdom, to visit the Frankfurter Christmas Market there. I had a bit of an opportunity to exchange some words in German with the vendors, but really this is a blogpost to just show off a few photos of the lovely day out, so here's a couple of pictures of me, and one of Angie enjoying a cup of hot chocolate.



We can't wait to go back....

BEWARE - SCAM ALERT - Fake British Gas sales calls

And so we return to the occasional blogging series Bloody Customer Services, highlighting how bad some companies can be. I was rudely awoken this morning by a call, purporting to be from British Gas. This is how the call went:

Me: Hello?

BG (with an Indian accent): This is M(indistinct, but it began with a bilabial nasal sound) and this is a sales call from British Gas.

Me: Right, but-

BG: Are you already a customer of British Gas?

Me: If you're calling from British Gas, wouldn't you know already if we are customers of British Gas?

BG: I'm sorry we don't have any information like that. If I could tell you about our deals-

Me: Hang on this is very worrying. British Gas don't know who their own customers are? If I was a customer already you wouldn't know?

BG: No, but if I explain our offer-

Me: No, no, no; this is alarming indeed. You're telling me that British Gas don't have records who their customers may be, so you wouldn't know if I'm a customer already. This suggests two things: either British Gas is extremely lax with their data and is not to be trusted with customers' information, or you're not really from British Gas at all and this is a phishing scam. Either way, I'm ending this call.

I hung up.

So British Gas (if he was actually from British Gas) seem to not keep any records on their customers. Most companies I've worked for have some sort of database of their existing customers, but if British Gas don't, then it's extremely worrying. Does that mean they just make up the bills as they go along? It suggests that it actually is the case.

I should also have addressed how he got my number, but didn't think at the time. We've only had the line for just over a month and we're ex-directory. Only our friends and family have our number at the moment, utility companies would have our mobile numbers. British Gas (if it was them) must be using some sort of automatic number dialler without actually checking any database to see if it's ex-directory or not, which I actually thought was against the law to do.

However, this is not the first suspicious or unusual call I've had from British Gas. About this time last year, someone purporting to be from British Gas with a Glasgow accent tried to sell me satellite television over the telephone. Again it must have a been an automatic random number dialler as the number I was on at the time was also not listed in any directory. I hung up again.

Needless to say, I certainly am not likely to be a customer of British Gas at this stage in my life, as I have quite a number of reservations about them now. I'm sticking with the deal I've got with my current provider for now.

ADDENDUM: From the comments it seems it may indeed have been a scam, and not British Gas at all. I may have been a little harsh about British Gas (although there are others who will disagree with me), so I'm retitling this blogpost to "BEWARE - SCAM ALERT - Fake British Gas sales calls".

FRIDAY NIGHT IS MUSIC NIGHT - There's nothing new under the sun

I've been thinking of having a blogging reboot, maybe tinker with the layout/design again, and one of the first things I'd change is maybe the title on the Friday musical blogposts, music which inspires me. Currently called Friday Night is Music Night, in homage to the BBC 2 Radio show, I was never comfortable with that label, temporary as it was when I came up with the label and copied the idea of doing a musical blogpost on a Friday via a feed from YouTube. I don't really want to come into legal conflict with the outdated monolith that is the BBC over the title, so that's I've been thinking about the name change.

So what to change it to? Something for the weekend came into my head, not original, but presumably not a BBC music show. However, a quick Google search informs me the bloody BBC have got a TV programme called Something for the Weekend, so Friday Tunes? No, the good political blogger Nation of Shopkeepers has got that title also.

So sod it. Friday Night is Music Night it shall remain for now, and I'll retitle the musical blogposts in the New Year. It'll probably be Something for the Weekend, because that's a well known phrase, not owned by the BBC but by the anglophonic public at large.

In the meantime, surf on over here every Friday for a bit of music, or more often if you want to read blogposts about other stuff like politics and languages and linguistics.

FRIDAY NIGHT IS MUSIC NIGHT - Sibelius: "Pelléas et Mélisande - At the Castle Gate"

Time for a musical masterpiece which links in with my passing interest in astronomy. This is particularly poignant as earlier on in the week I blogged about new planets being visibly discovered; however, it was weeks ago that I had chosen this piece of music for the blogpost, so rather timely, what! Most insomniacs will recognise as the theme to the Sky at Night, as presented by Patrick Moore (who plays the xylophone).

5 things... meme

I've been tagged in another meme by Liz, and have not got round to doing it, so here goes.

Five things
5 Things I plan to do before I die:
Get married!
Become a father, then a grandfather in subsequent years (I'm getting broody; the wedding's less than a year away!)
Learn lots more languages
Gain post-graduate qualifications
Finish writing a novel and get paid to write

5 Things I do now:
Blog
Listen to music
HTML
Speak Esperanto
Have ideas for stories and novels and get started on them

5 Things I can't do:
Not blog
Play a musical instrument
XML/Java
Speak Volapük
Finish writing a novel (but there is scope/hope for improvement)

5 Things that attract me in the opposite sex: (in no particular order)
Accent & linguistic background
Not blonde; I just don't find blondes overly attractive
Intelligence (I admit I'm a sapiosexual)
Ability to 'click' with them and have a good conversation (vague I know, but....)
Nice legs and bum

5 Things I say most often:

Are you hungry? (meaning: I'm hungry, I hope you are too, so we can eat)
I'll just be five minutes on the net checking the e-mail
I'll just be five minutes on the net putting up a blogpost
I'll just be another five minutes on the net... don't turn the computer off!
I'd love to do a post-graduate course

5 Celebrities ( or people that should be famous) that I admire:
Ah there could be so many, so difficult to choose... but there are a few who will always make the list, namely the top three (who are in bold)
David Brown, my French teacher at school
The late William James Sidis
David Crystal
Daniel Tammet
Patrick Moore
and if I may be permitted a sixth....
Myleene Klass

5 Favourite foods:
Roast beef dinner
Goulasch
Menudo and lumpiang Shanghai
Currywurst
Xiao Baozi

5 Bloggers who need to do this:
Meh. Whoever fancies taking it from me, I suppose.

ASTRONOMY - Exoplanets discovered!

I enjoy a bit of Science Fiction (SF), and one of the staples of SF is the seeing the unexplored planets, alien species, colonising new worlds, etc. These exoplanets, have been, thus far, fictional.

Back on planet Earth the biggest issue regarding so far is that outside of the Solar System (and whether certain celestial bodies such as Pluto in this Solar System are planets or not is another debate entirely), there had yet to be any planets observed that we may conclusively consider as destinations. There have been technological advances that have been able to detect planets around other stars, as "[t]he search for exoplanets has up to now depended on detecting either the wobble they induce in their parent star or, if their orbits are side-on to telescopes, watching them dim the star's light as they pass in front of it." [BBC]

But now, finally, we have absolute visible evidence of other worlds. As the BBC reports:

Visible and infrared images have been snapped of a planet orbiting a star 25 light-years away....

Being able to directly detect the light from these planets will allow astronomers to study their composition and atmospheres in detail.

The difficulty for astronomers imaging exoplanets is that their parent star's light swamps them - like trying to spot a match next to a floodlight at a distance of a mile."

Let's just look at one of them, Fomalhaut b.

The team estimates that the planet, designated Fomalhaut b, is some 18 billion kilometres (11 billion miles) away from its star [Fomalhaut itself], about as massive as Jupiter and completes an orbit in about 870 years. It may also have a ring around it.

Let's look at the other three planets that have been discovered, around a star called HR 8799.

Christian Marois of the Herzberg Institute for Astrophysics, Canada, and his team used the Keck and Gemini telescopes in Hawaii to look near a star called HR 8799, which is just visible to the naked eye.

The team studied light in the infrared part of the spectrum, hoping to spot planets that were still hot from their formation.

What they found in 2004, and confirmed again this year, are three planets circling the star.

According to a theoretical model that accounts for the light coming from the planets, they range in size from five to 13 times the mass of Jupiter and are probably only about 60 million years old.

The trio have similarities with our own Solar System.

However, these other worlds that have been discovered thus far are likely to be gas giants, and not worlds suitable for landing on and colonising, as the SF romantic dreams might require.

Dr Marois points out that the current methods used in the exoplanet hunt are sensitive primarily to Jupiter-sized planets and larger.

"We thus do not have a full picture," he told BBC News. "The detection of the three planets around HR 8799 does not mean that no planets are orbiting at smaller separations. Other gas giant or even rocky planets could reside there."

I would speculate at this stage that, as gas giants such as those in our own Solar System has satellites (moons), it is likely that rocky globes may be found in orbit around those stars where planets have been discovered, perhaps at the very least in orbit around the planets that we are already aware of.

But for the dreamer and lover of SF, finally, we can see that we have somewhere to go to, to aspire to reach the stars and visit these new worlds!

My thanks to old school chum Michael Doyle for bringing this to my attention.

Addendum: This coming Friday's musical piece on this blog will have an astronomical theme. I'll also have to get the telescope out at some point one evening to see if I can find HR 8799 (Note to self: check if it's possible to see it from this part of the Northern hemisphere first).

LANGUAGE - Learning Spanish

Further to my previous plans to attempt to learn Spanish in a week, I'm now postponing the attempt until late December, as I'll have more time then, as I'll have a few days off.

That's all for now on that.

CREATIVE WRITING - Three good writing links

Today I'd like to post a couple of links to a few writing websites. To illustrate writing, I've taken an image of a scribe's table and chair from the Wikipedia website.

Firstly we'll point your browser in the direction of Craig Duncan's Canon, a writer whom I know of caustic wit, who has just started "blogging" (although he hates that word) and deserves your support. He's mostly publishing poetry on his site at the moment, but he lists other forms of creative writing as his interests. I'm not particularly a fan of poetry myself, but Craig indeed produces some good stuff, so very much so well worth a read.

Next, let's hop over to The One-Minute Writer, with inspirational daily prompts for writers. Their tagline is You have 1,440 minutes a day. Use one of them to write. at the very least it should serve as a reminder for procrastinating writers like me to stop sitting about downloading pictures of obscure texts and actually start to produce texts!

Finally, let's head on over to the website The Writing Pages. An intelligent blog on aspects of writing, including book reviews, it's amazing to note that the writer behind this well-crafted blog is only thirteen years old. If she writes so well at that age, who knows what she's going to go on to produce in the future? I would go out on a limb and predict some sort of major award for her writing by the time she's reached the age of thirty.

Language puzzle

I'm tired today, so don't expect much from me in the way of blogging.

Blogging should resume tomorrow soon, with the usual low high quality blogposts on linguistics and political issues, including writing about Robert Kilroy-Silk on reality TV, maybe a bit more about Newport Castle, and possibly some more stuff on types of discourse in blogging. Possibly not.

In the meantime, here's a linguistics puzzle (I've found the image for this from Wikipedia): look at the image of some text below. Do you know what language this is? What does the text actually say?

Comments section below if you know....



Addendum (17 Nov 2008): I think I'll keep this up until the end of the week before writing a blogpost about the puzzling text and revealing a bit of info about it.

The "Six Things You Didn't Know About Me" Meme

I like doing these quizzy memes, suh as this one found over at Cherie's Place (from whom I seem to be getting a number of memes, she must like them as I do!), but I have to admit I've done this meme before, back last year (2007) on the 11 January. However that time it was only five things, now it's six things to talk about, and there are rules to be copied and pasted this time.

Without further ado, here it is....

First, the rules:
1. Link to the person who tagged you.
2. Post the rules on your blog.
3. Write six random things about yourself.
4. Tag six people at the end of your post and link to them.
5. Let each person know they’ve been tagged and leave a comment on their blog
6. Let the tagger know when your entry is up

Others kept it short and sweet, but as usual, I'm rambling on for ages about stuff, as you will see if you read on....

1. I have such a long tongue that I can touch the tip of my nose with it. Some people find it horrifying for some reason.
2. In addition to learning languages, I have also invented languages. My invented languages are (in chronological order) inagalasa, Wessisc, Thishedharha, Chickenese, Nabel and Saiminu. I am probably best known in the constructed languages circles for my language Wessisc. inagalasa (with a small initial i) was written in the days before the web, the early 1990s in fact, and was an clone of Esperanto. I think I still have the manuscript somewhere, as it was typed up on a typewriter. Nabel (online here) similarly is a bad Euroclone. Wessisc was a crude linguistic experiment inspired by the much more elegant Brithenig to see what language would have developed if Anglo-Saxon had not pushed Brythonic Celtic to the fringes, but rather merged with it. Thishedharha was a language I never much developed. It was going to be part of a constructed language playground called Arda, and there was an active conlang e-mail list going for a time, but it just fizzled out after a while. All I developed and have of this language is just a vocabulary list, which I have yet to put online properly. Saiminu was going to be a clone of toki pona, and also never developed much beyond the core vocabulary list, and Chickenese is a joke language.
3. Angie and I have two pet goldfish, named Noy and Coy.
4. I know the identity of the person who wrote the Monkey with A Blue Rosette UK political satire blog.
5. I love salt. I love it with many foods, and people may think I use too much salt, but I don't think that. I think I don't use enough.
6. I dislike cats. Really. I was attacked by my aunt's cat when I was three or four when it jumped on my back, and this has made me dislike cats ever since. Whenever I visit people who own a cat, the cat at the relevant house seems to know this, and in return for my dislike, makes straight for me, always for me, preferring me over a cat-lover, climbing on me and generally wanting to convert me to catism. I'm a dog person myself.

I now tag Ordovicius, Peter Martinovic, Liz, Meghna, Radio and Laura-Rose Saunders!

FRIDAY NIGHT IS MUSIC NIGHT - Mozart: "Die Zauberflöte"

Here's the overture to "Die Zauberflöte" (The Magical Flute) a fabulous work by Mozart. It is a most wonderful piece of music, and truly inspiring. I love listening to this piece, and can just enjoy it over and over.

Happy Birthday to the Prince of Wales

My congratulations to His Royal Highness, Prince Charles, the Prince of Wales, on reaching the wonderful age of 60. May there be many more to come, Your Highness!

LANGUAGE - Frankfurt Christmas Market in Birmingham!

I love the German markets at Christmas time, and word reaches this blog that the annual Frankfurt Christmas market in Birmingham begins today, bringing that bit of Deutschland to Midlands. It's always fun to go visit, and I love the opportunity to practice my German ordering Glühwein and Frikadellen. Schön! I can't wait to go to Birmingham for a bit of shopping and a plate of Pommes and maybe even a Kakao mit Baileys, as well as visit the various wonderful stores we see each year there.

It's on until 23 December, so plenty of opportunity to go again and again!

LANGUAGE - Newport Castle, onomastics, and Newport city identity

It is now in the exploration of language that I return to my hometown, Newport, in south Wales, to explore the the name of the city itself and so touch on the expression of the city's identity through the naming conventions for the urbis. I draw for the following text of this blogpost primarily from an academic study I did in 2007, comparing the castles of Newport with the Ortenburg in Bautzen, Germany. The photo of the castle is my own, taken in August 2007, on a mobile phone.

The role of the castle in Newport's identity is emphasised when one considers the linguistic aspects of the name of the city. The city is called Newport or (rarely) Newport-on-Usk in English, obviously signifying a new port and the city's links to the sea, as Newport originally was recording in 918 as “a mere fishing village with about fifty souls” (J. Matthews, 1910, Historic Newport, Newport-on-Usk, The Williams Press Ltd; p.84).

Casnewydd or (rarely) Casnewydd-ar-Wysg (Newport on Usk) is the Welsh name, harking back to previous naming conventions for the city, such as the Latin Novus Burgus (New Town), English New Castle and Welsh Castell Newydd (New Castle), from which the the current contraction Casnewydd derives (p.85).

For the Welsh aspects of the urban identity, closer ties have been kept onomastically to the castle. There has been some shift in identity in the naming conventions from the castle itself to the port aspect in English, although with the water-gate of the castle, there may be still be a nod to the fortification origin of the name.

In eesence, in English it's a new port. In Welsh it's a new castle. The English name of the city thus portrays a different urban identity to that of the Welsh name, so we have two divergent identities onomastically displayed through the naming of the city, depending on which language you speak.

We will remember them

It's Remembrance Day today, so pray silence for two minutes at 11am.

Blogging tips

Today's blogpost is a recommendation of two advice blogs for those bloggers who want to customise their own blog.

Tips for New Bloggers http://tips-for-new-bloggers.blogspot.com/
Tricks for New Bloggers http://tricks-for-new-bloggers.blogspot.com

Although it has the label New Bloggers on it, it's useful for everyone from inexperienced to experienced bloggers and all in between. I recommend the sites.

Please note however, I will not be held responsible for any negative outcome of actions should you choose to follow my recommendations, such as you accidentally wiping your blog entirely, etc.

LANGUAGE - Blogging and scheduling - delays in discourse

When one considers discourse over the internet, it primarily seems to be a one-way communication; for example if you go to a website for bus timetables the 'conversation' is one-way. You are given the information, but there is little realtime interaction, as you don't usually get to communicate with a bus driver or a timetable scheduler over the web for two-way conversation.

As discussed previously, one method for conducting discourse over the Internet is through blogs and their comments sections. This allows for elements of discourse if the blogger has a comments facility enabled and a blogger can thus court opinion on blogposts. This enables a limited level of two-way conversation, which can be enhanced if the blogger then utilises the comments facility him/herself and engages in dialogue with a commenter.

There are issues with this, however. If the comments settings on a blog require the author's approval before publication of the comments, there can be a particular delay if the blogger is not online, thus leading to an asynchronous dialogue, a dialogue extended over a period of time. If a blogger does not have comment approval switched on, or is able to approve publication almost straight away, it can appear to be sometimes synchronous, and thus have the illusion of immediacy, although a response may not be immediately forthcoming. Discourse would then seem to fall between the asynchronous and synchronous forms of dialogue.

One of the joys of Blogger is that one can write a post, and schedule it to be published at a later date. I've been doing this over the last week or two, writing a number of blogposts at the weekend, and setting them to be published day by day. It came in very useful on US election day, when I prepared a lot of blogposts in advance, and scheduled them to be published throughout the day, when I was actually well away from a computer most of the day, in the mountains of Wales. I have also written and scheduled some time ago my Friday Night is Music Night musical blogposts right into the start of 2009. The effect of this is that I may appear to be online when I'm actually not, as to the casual observer, they would have thought me in front of the computer when a blogpost appears (as in most of the day on 4 November), leading to a false sense of presence. Had they attempted to enter into a synchronous dialogue with me, they may have been misled into thinking I was blogging, and would have been forced into an asynchronous dialogue. For the discourse to continue, the afore-mentioned casual observer would have had to have made an effort to return to this blog to continue a discourse via the comments section.

Those in the high-traffic comments sections of the highly popular blogs such as Iain Dale's Diary do not necessarily seek to enter into discourse with Iain Dale, however, and although I have not checked in depth, I am sure there is a veritable community of commenters entering into dialogue with each other, and not necessarily with Iain Dale.

So in other words, although a blogger may appear to be online because a blogpost pops up, they might not be due to scheduling blogposts. This is evidence of asynchronous discourse by internet, when there is a hint that semi-synchronous discourse might be possible.

Then and now.... (1980 & 2008)

1980


2008


Look out for the next picture in another 28 years, in 2036.

100 Questions

I stole this from Radio Clare.... I too love stuff like this.

ADDENDUM: Some if this is of an adult nature. Don't read on if offended.

1.EVER BEEN GIVEN AN ENGAGEMENT RING?
No, but I've given an engagement ring. Angie said yes in March this year!

2. LONGEST RELATIONSHIP?
I've been with Angie for over six years at the time of writing.

3. LAST GIFT YOU RECEIVED?
A good friend bought me dinner the other day, and Angie bought me a can of Sarsi recently.

4. EVER DROPPED A MOBILE PHONE?
Hang on, I'll answer that in a minute. I just have to pick up my phone off the floor. Again.

5. WHEN’S THE LAST TIME YOU WORKED OUT?
I was trying to work out the budget to pay the bills, but if you mean exercise, does running for the bus count?

6. THING(S) YOU SPEND A LOT OF MONEY ON?
Books. Undoubtedly. Books.

7. LAST FOOD YOU ATE?
Toast. I had a pint of tea, too!

8. FIRST THING YOU NOTICE ABOUT THE OPPOSITE SEX?
The tone and accent. If she doesn't look local and speaks with a non-Anglophonic accent, I know it's time for linguanautics.

9. ONE FAVORITE [sic] SONG?
Hyperballad, by Björk.

10. WHERE DO YOU LIVE?
I live in a traditional shire town in the West Midlands. Angie doesn't want us to give out our location, so I respect that. I used to live in Cardiff.

11. HIGH SCHOOL YOU ATTENDED:
St. Julian's, Newport. An interesting place. I went back there recently, with mixed feelings.

12. CELL [sic] PHONE SERVICE PROVIDER:
Vodaphone. Interestingly, voda is the Czech word for water, ensuring numerous jokes with Angie about throwing mobile phones in the Vltava river when we visited Prague.

13. FAVORITE [sic] SHOP:
Probably Waterstones, but you can get some bargains in second-hand charity bookshops.

14. LONGEST JOB YOU HAD:
I worked at 118118 for over three years. The less said the better.

15. DO YOU OWN A PAIR OF DICE?
Somewhere, yes. I've got a four-sided die too, which is a lovely tetrahedron shape.

16. DO YOU PRANK CALL PEOPLE?:
No. Having worked at 118118, I've heard it all before.

17. LAST WEDDING YOU ATTENDED?:
Angie's friend got married in January; lovely wedding service, lovely evening too. There was a power-cut in the whole village, meaning food was served by candle-light. The lights and power came back on just in time for the speeches!

18. FIRST FRIEND YOU’D CALL IF YOU WON THE LOTTERY:
Maybe not a friend, but my parents.

19. LAST TIME YOU SAW YOUR BEST FRIEND(S):
I saw Andrew "Smurf" Murphy, who I'd count as my best friend in late October. I saw my other half (and I'm sure she'd qualify as my best friend) two minutes ago when she wanted to check something on the web.

20. FAVORITE [sic] FAST FOOD RESTAURANT:
Jollibee!!!

21. BIGGEST LIE YOU HAVE EVER HEARD?
"I love you." - an ex.

22. BLONDES OR BRUNETTES?
Brunettes.

23. WHAT IS THE ONE NUMBER YOU CALL MOST OFTEN?
Calling home or Angie or my parents.

24. WHAT WAS YOUR FIRST JOB?
Very briefly selling windows over the phone. That's not on the CV, because I don't count it as employment, just a session of torture I endured.

25. WHAT WERE YOU DOING BEFORE YOU FILLED OUT THIS SURVEY?
Vacuuming the carpet.

26. IF YOU COULD GET PLASTIC SURGERY WHAT WOULD IT BE?
I wouldn't. I just wouldn't. I'm all right as I am.

27. WHY DID YOU FILL OUT THIS SURVEY?
I love doing this sort of stuff; it's actually an act of self-exploration, discovering things about yourself.

28. WHAT DO YOU GET COMPLIMENTED ABOUT MOST?
This blog. Although I also apparently have a fit arse.

29. WHAT WOULD YOU DO IF ALCOHOL BECAME ILLEGAL?
Google home brewing.

30. HOW MANY KIDS DO YOU WANT?
Three. One of each.

31. DO YOU WISH ON STARS?
Yes. It works.

32. DO YOU LIKE YOUR HANDWRITING?
Not really, as I can't read it sometimes.

33. WHEN DID YOU LOSE YOUR VIRGINITY?
I don't remember the precise date, but I remember it was a Saturday night in the late 1990s; it was a threesome, and that's all I'll be publishing on the web about that!

34. IF YOU WERE ANOTHER PERSON, WOULD YOU BE FRIENDS WITH YOU?
I honestly don't know. You'll have to ask my friends.

35. DO LOOKS MATTER?
Not always. I had a stunning girlfriend at one point, but she had a really shallow personality.

36. HOW DO YOU RELEASE ANGER?
I play Age of Empires II or Risk II on the laptop.

37. WHERE IS YOUR SECOND HOME?
Work not included, it would either be my parents' house, or enjoying a drink with some Brothers whom I know.

38. DO YOU TRUST OTHERS EASILY?
Oh yes; I can be naïve sometimes, and I'm glad I'm not involved in politics anymore, as some manipulative bastards took advantage of that.

39. DO YOU USE SARCASM?
Sometimes. I simply can't be bothered to think of a sarcastic remark to that.

40. HAVE YOU EVER BEEN IN A MOSH PIT?
I tried to start one in NASA discotheque in Beijing. Some friends misunderstood and we ended up doing the Conga.

41. WHAT ARE YOUR NICKNAMES?
Linguanaut, or Buttmonkey. About ten years ago, I was known as Damon International. Addendum: I just remembered, Angie sometimes calls me Pangit, a Tagalog word meaning ugly.

42. WHAT’S YOUR FAVORITE ICE CREAM FLAVOR [sic]?
Walnut at the moment.

43. HOW MANY WISDOM TEETH DO YOU HAVE?
I dunno.

44. CAN YOU COOK?
Oh yes. Back in a minute, have to put the roast beef on.

Back. Dinner will be served in a couple of hours.

45. WHAT CAR DO YOU DRIVE?:
I don't. Angie's got a silver Peugeot.

46. BEST DATE YOU’VE EVER BEEN ON?
Any one with Angie.

47. LAST TIME YOU CRIED?:
This morning. I was thinking about linguicide, whilst reading David Crystal's Language Death.

48. MOST DISLIKED FOODS:
Fish. And eggs.

49. LONGEST SHIFT YOU HAVE WORKED AT A JOB?:
18 hours. At 118118.

50. FAVORITE [sic] MOVIE(S)?
Goodbye Lenin, Alexander (Oliver Stone), The Lord of The Rings films, The Phantom of the Opera, Underworld, Underworld: Evolution, The Quiet American, The Time Machine

51. CAN YOU SING?
Only in a group, when my voice is drowned out by others.

52. LAST FIGHT?
About doing the vacuuming (see Q25). I lost.

53.ONE THING YOU NEVER LEAVE THE HOUSE WITHOUT:
Books.

54. FAVORITE [sic] ITEM
Books

55. LAPTOP OR DESKTOP COMPUTER?:
I have a crap-top (the screen is duff, so have to use a monitor linked to it; in essence it's now a desk-top as it's clearly not portable), so mostly use Angie's laptop. I would so like an Asus eee, however.

56. DO YOU SMOKE?
NO NO NO NO NO NO NO!

57. SLEEP WITH OR WITHOUT CLOTHES?
Without, normally.

58. WHO SLEEPS WITH YOU EVERY NIGHT?
As Angie's working nights a lot at the moment, I'm on my own.

59. DO LONG DISTANCE RELATIONSHIPS WORK?
They can as long as there's regular contact and honesty.

60. HOW MANY TIMES HAVE YOU BEEN PULLED OVER BY THE POLICE?
None.

61. DO YOU LIKE COFFEE?:
No. It makes me faint.

62 HOW DO YOU LIKE YOUR EGGS?
Ugh. I don't. See Q48.

63. DO YOU BELIEVE IN ASTROLOGY?:
Absolutely not.

64. LAST PERSON ON YOUR MISSED CALL LIST?:
My Dad.

65. WHAT WAS THE LAST TEXT MESSAGE YOU RECIEVED?:
Angie, to say she got home okay.

66. NUMBER OF PILLOWS?:
In theory, two and a half, but Angie steals them all usually if we're together at night.

67. WHAT ARE YOU WEARING RIGHT NOW?:
Slippers, red bermuda shorts, and a T-shirt from Intramuros.

68. CAN YOU PLAY POOL?:
Very badly.

69. DO YOU LIKE MAPS?
I am a cartophile. I love 'em.

70. WHAT IS YOUR FAVORITE SEASON?:
Winter.

71. WHAT TIME DID YOU WAKE UP THIS MORNING?
10:47am

72. BEST THING ABOUT WINTER?:
Clear nights to stargaze.

73. LAST TIME A COPPER GAVE YOU A TICKET?:
Never

74. DO YOU THINK PIRATES ARE COOL OR OVERRATED?:
Aye, that they arrrrrr.

75. WHAT ARE YOU DOING THIS WEEKEND?
Tidy the house.

76. WHAT DO YOU WANT TO BE:
In five years time, I want to be married, a parent, have an MA, possibly looking to do PhD, have a managerial position, and be a published author.

77. WHAT’S YOUR BIGGEST REGRET?
Not having worked out sooner what bastards certain people were in my life.

78: HAVE YOU EVER BEEN IN LOVE?
Yes.

79. ARE YOU SMILING?:
Yes. I've just had an idea.

80: DO YOU PREFER TO SMILE WITH A TOOTHY GRIN OR A CLOSED MOUTH?
Closed.

81. DO YOU MISS SOMEONE RIGHT NOW?
Yes. My nephews. Good kids.

82. IF YOU COULD GO ANYWHERE IN THE WORLD WHERE WOULD IT BE?
Either National Bookstore in the Philippines followed by a trip to Jollibee with the family, or somewhere in Germany.

83. DO YOU HAVE A HIGH SEX-DRIVE?
Yes. I refuse to answer this question.

84. DO YOU HAVE A CRUSH?:
Yes. Click to find out more.

85. NIGHT OR DAY?
I love the night.

86. PLAY AN INSTRUMENT?
I'm pre-empting a certain friend of mine who reads the blog, by typing the "pink oboe", but in all seriousness, no. I'd like to play the organ (no jokes) though.

87. DID YOU GO ON VACATION LAST MONTH?:
Yes. To Newport.

88. DO YOU HAVE SISTERS/BROTHERS?
Two sisters.

89. HAVE YOU EVER BEEN TO JAIL?
No.

90. DO YOU WISH YOU COULD SEE ANYONE IN PARTICULAR RIGHT NOW?
There are some old friends that I would like to meet up with again, but I'm quite all right with Angie in the next room, so no.

91. FAVORITE [sic] SPORT?
On the blog I stole this list from, Radio Clare wrote: "Isn’t that an oxymoron?!" and I heartily agree.

92. YOUR HAIR COLOR [sic]?
Dark brown, with a worryingly increasing amount of white hairs in the mix.

93. YOUR EYE COLOR [sic]?
Grey/green.

94. DO YOU WEAR GLASSES?
Yes. I have done for over two decades.

95. YOU LIKE SUSHI?
No. I like other Japanese foods though.

96. LAST THING YOU WATCHED
The Remembrance Sunday footage on BBC1.

97. FAVORITE [sic] DAY OF THE YEAR?
December the 15th.

98. ARE YOU TOO SHY TO ASK SOMEONE OUT?
Not any more.

99. STRANGEST PLACE HAD SEX?
Kitchen. But that was a long, long time ago.

100. WHAT ARE YOU GOING TO DO AFTER THIS SURVEY?
Facebook.

Anyone else want to give this survey a go, over at their own blogs?

POLITICS - Obama thanks the voters

We will remember them

Sometimes you just don't need text in a blogpost.

POLITICS - Obama on the Titanic

POLITICS - LANGUAGE - political blogging and comments sections and policies as a means of discourse

I've just been dipping into David Crystal's Language and the Internet (Second Edition) (2006, Cambridge University Press) and I find that one of the differences between the first and second edition is that in particular for this blog, in the first edition in 2000 Crystal was unaware of blogs (and admits so on page 238). Crystal goes on to give a very brief rundown of what blogging actually is and language use in relation to blogs (p.238 - 247). Something that comes up in his text is the unique character of blogging, as well as the reliance on networking and connectivity of blogging in order to be successful as a blogger, and this got me thinking. Some blogs are professional, corporate blogs carrying information on a product or service, some are multi-authored, and "[m]ost are under the control of a single user, who therefore manages the direction and content of the site... and gives it a distinctive personality." (p.240) One of the more interesting things that would be worthy of study is whether language used in blogging approaches more the traditional styles of writing found in published books, or whether the style of language generally used in blogging is closer to spoken usage. I would speculate at this stage that it very much depends on the blogger, although Crystal comments that "[b]log pages can also display many features typical of spoken language" (p.31), and I would predict that this may be set to increase through vlogging across the web.

There are also some aspects that the blogger has less control over, such as the comments section. Blogging as a medium of communication is here to stay, no doubt about it, and the linguistic elements of blogs may be something I would like to explore academically in the future, particularly the comments sections of blogs where dialogue can be created, something which is not possible in the traditional form of diarying. There are many discourse levels taking place in a blog, and a functioning comments section on a blog permits a two way discourse, as touched upon in Pippa Wagstaff's recent article on using the comments section to carry out a discourse (with help from Matt Wardman).

If I do post-graduate study, I'll probably do something to do with language or linguistics, so this may perhaps be something to examine: evidence of pro-active discourse in the comments sections of UK political blogs, particularly as some of the most active political blogs such as Iain Dale and Guido Fawkes seem to thrive particularly in the comments section.

There are naturally variables in this to be considered, including trolls, spam-comments, and what approach different blogs have towards their individual comments policies. One might presume that on appearanceGuido has a free-for-all policy in his comments section, but in fact he has a sophisticated comments policy, Iain Dale has a no-swearing policy, for example, some ban particular commenters (Iain Dale has banned Tim Ireland), whilst other blogs are perfectly open and will allow anything, and haven't developed a comments policy.

My current comments policy (subject to future revision) is as follows:

If comments are made here anonymously, or if they contain defamatory remarks about me or my family, they will not be published, unless they are deemed to be of suitable merit. I retain the right to disallow any comments written on this blog in the comments sections.

The policy has come a fair way since the orginal policy which was to disallow any anonymous comments, as exemplified in my actions here, where I disallowed a copy-and-paste of Liberal Democrat propaganda by an anonymous commenter.

I'll let you in on a little secret: these days I generally allow anonymous comments to pass, as long as they are not offensive, are not veiled advertising (as has happened a few times recently; I deleted those comments), and have a positive contribution to make to the original blogpost, and are not a mindless effort to reproduce and cut-and-paste the Lib Dem (or other parties; it's usually the Lib Dems who do it here) manifesto in an attempt to drown the blog's comments in party political propaganda. I'll also in particular allow practically any comment by two very good friends of mine, Andrew Murphy and John Moorcraft. They pretty much have free reign in my comments section, on the grounds that if I give them enough rope.... well, actually they'll probably tie me up in knots with it. (Going off on a tangent: I actually offered Mr Murphy co-editting/co-blogging rights to this blog once when it was a more politically focused blog, but he never took up my offer. It'd be interesting to see what Mr Murphy would do as a blogger, and I would quite encourage him to take it up, as he is quite eloquent and I believe he would become quite a highbrow blogger; whereas we've all seen what drivel Dr. Moorcraft consistently produced always wittering on about West Ham, his blogging only occasionally punctuated with some non-sporting worthy and fascinating political titbits, particularly about CF; only joknig John!)

Your comments, dear reader, on a potential blogging study are particularly welcomed....

Addendum (7 Nov 2008): Something just struck me; there would be an absolute goldmine of linguistic data if one were to examine discourses on Facebook and other social networking sites, where discourses come much closer to the spoken language than on a blog.....

FRIDAY NIGHT IS MUSIC NIGHT - John Philip Sousa: "Stars and Stripes Forever"

With the US election earlier this week, the musical offering this Friday is a wonderful piece by the composer John Philip Sousa, the uplifting Stars and Stripes Forever.

Hamster on a piano

I don't feel like posting anything particularly sensible at the moment, so here's a fun video I found on Zaftig's blog.

Jonathan Ross - "Why Do I Say These Things?"

Jonathan Ross's new book is called "Why Do I Say These Things?"

You know, Jonathan, we all were wondering the same thing....

POLITICS - the USA is not the only country today

With the world focused on election number crunching in the USA, now that Obama has indeed won the election, I thought I'd bring you links to a few BBC news items from elsewhere in the world, lest we not forget the rest of the planet.

One of Osama bin Ladin's sons is requesting asylum in Spain.

A priest and two nuns beat up a restauranteur in Italy.

Baghdadophobia - the fear of dying in Baghdad.

Brazilian aircraft maker Embraer has reported a 70% fall in profits.

Regional leaders will hold a summit on Sunday in the latest effort to break the political deadlock in Zimbabwe.

A ferry has sunk in the Philippines, killing 39 people.

China and Taiwan have signed landmark agreements to improve direct trade and transport links.

POLITICS - Obama and McCain are both SINISTER people

Yes, both candidates for the US presidency, Obama (and the way the news is going tonight, the future president) and McCain are both sinister. And so am I.

Four of the last five, and five out of the last seven, US presidents have been sinister. President Jimmy Carter was not, and incumbent George W. Bush is not, even though people think Bush is certainly sinister.

What the hell am I on about?

Obama and McCain are both left-handed, and the term sinister is another (neglected) way of expressing this. Other political lefties include Bill Clinton, Ronald Reagan, Osama bin Ladin, Bush Senior, Fidel Castro, and Angelina Jolie (Goodwill Ambassador for UN Refugee Agency).

Lefties were once much persecuted and forced to swap to their right hands, with opinion amongst some stating that lefties are of the Devil, and perhaps the word sinister (from the Latin sinister meaning left or unlucky) has contributed to this. One fascist teacher at primary school attempted to force me into being a rightie but failed after one day. When I lived in China, not only was the fact that I could use chopsticks a marvel, but also of great interest and attracting lots of stares was that I was doing it left-handed!

However, apparently being left-handed is a sign of creativity and shows that the left-handed, trapped in a world where most things are the other way round and set up for righties, are forced to think outside the box, and anyway, they say that only lefties are in their right minds!

I read somewhere as well it's got something to do with better language skills too, which may account for my linguistic interests, but I can't be bothered to search right now to substantiate this half-remembered fact. It's late.

Anyway, whoever wins tonight, it'll be a leftie, and thus a representative of a section of society once very much neglected.

More news stories on the left-handed behaviour of the two candidates here and here.

POLITICS - The Obama Effect

POLITICS - Nope to Obama

POLITICS - Obama will be tested if he wins

POLITICS - Some thoughts on Sarah Palin

Text taken from TheoSpark.net.

Q. What is America 's first line of missile interceptor defense that
protects the entire United States ?

A. 49th Missile Defense Battalion of Alaska National Guard.


Q. What is the only National Guard Unit on permanent active duty?

A. 49th Missile Defense Battalion of Alaska National Guard.


Q. Who is the Commander in Chief of the 49^th Missile Defense Battalion
of Alaska National Guard?

A. Governor Sarah Palin, Alaska


Q. What U.S. governor is routinely briefed on highly classified military
issues, homeland security and counter terrorism?

A. Governor Sarah Palin, Alaska


Q. What U.S. governor has a higher classified security rating than
either candidate of the Democrat Party?

A. Governor Sarah Palin, Alaska


Q. Oh my! What will we ever do? Obama told us she is too unqualified to act if we came under attack. So, what will we do?

A. Call Bill Ayers, Rev. Wright, and Rev. Pfleger and ask them to pray for President Obama to talk to the attackers and ask them to please stop.

LANGUAGE - POLITICS - Election Day in America is November 9th (if you speak Spanish)

A previous note on language on this blog warned of the perils of translating incorrectly. News now reaches the blog that with the election in the United States today on the 4th of November, an incorrect translation has occurred, advising voters in Spanish language election material that the election is going to be held on 9th November instead.

I quote....

[Source]

Wrong date for Election Day in Westchester Spanish mailing

The Associated Press

Updated Monday, November 3rd 2008, 5:03 PM

WHITE PLAINS, N.Y. — The wrong date for Election Day was printed in the Spanish-language section of a letter sent to thousands of suburban voters, officials said Monday.

Westchester County made automated calls to voters in eight municipalities over the weekend in an attempt to correct the mistake, but one Hispanic official said she worried that some voters might be confused.

"I think most people do know when Election Day is, but if you get an official letter from the Board of Elections that tells you another day, you might be confused," said Grace Heymann, director of the Westchester Hispanic Coalition.

"I would especially worry about first-time voters," she said. "We have been working hard to get out the vote, and we are getting some questions because of this letter."

The mailing, about the availability of ballot marking devices used by disabled voters, was in English and Spanish. The Spanish section said Election Day was Nov. 9 instead of Nov. 4.

Reginald Lafayette, a commissioner with the county elections board, said 500,000 copies of an almost identical letter went out before the Sept. 9 primary and was used as a template for the November election letter, which was also supposed to go to all registered voters in the county.

"We instructed the printer to change the date from Sept. 9 to Nov. 4, but the 9 didn't get changed," Lafayette said.

"We actually caught it when most of the letters were still on the truck (to the post office). We called the post office and said, 'Don't mail those,' but as many as 20,000 were sent out."

"It wasn't even a letter we had to send out," he said. "We thought we were being proactive in a good way and now this is getting so much attention. Mistakes happen, we regret it, and we apologize."

Heymann said she did not believe the mistake was anyone's attempt to disenfranchise Hispanic voters.

"I do accept that it was an error," she said. "I'm just worried because I'm not sure they called everyone."

County spokeswoman Victoria Hochman said calls in English and Spanish were made this weekend to correct the mistake.

She said the erroneous mailing — and the calls — went to voters in Cortlandt, Mamaroneck, Mount Kisco, Peekskill, Scarsdale, New Rochelle, White Plains and Greenburgh.

The office of U.S. Attorney Michael Garcia would not directly address the error on the letter but noted that since 2005, Westchester has been under a federal consent decree ensuring that Spanish-speaking voters get bilingual assistance at the polls.

Federal monitors will be available throughout Election Day, the office said.

For reference, the numbers in Spanish from one to ten are as follows:

1. uno
2. dos
3. tres
4. cuatro
5. cinco
6. seis
7. siete
8. ocho
9. nueve
10. diez

POLITICS - Obama reveals secret Acorn election plan today

It's election day for the position of President of the United States of America, and this blog can exclusively reveal Obama's policy for anyone registered via Acorn who is found voting Republican today. Below is Obama confronting someone registered thus who voted for McCain....



And despite my previous comment that I wasn't supporting a candidate for the US elections, I'm today changing my mind and am now advising the readers of this blog in the USA to vote for McCain.

Numerous images used today have been taken from recent posts at TheoSpark.net.

Music and diagrams (8)

LANGUAGE - Learning Spanish: more on cognates

Further to my previous post about employing cognates to help, here's a link to a page which further clarifies using cognates to aid the process of learning the Spanish language, and helps to identify loads of 'em. Learn Spanish Cognates.

Also interesting is the free online course at Learn-Spanish-online.de, and a list of Spanish tongue-twisters too!

And just to illustrate this blogpost, here's a picture of Gran Vía, in Madrid.

Music and diagrams (7)

LANGUAGE - More badly translated Welsh....

What was I saying about badly translated Welsh being the future of the Welsh language?

Further to previous discussion about the sign above, where Swansea Council proudly proclaims in Welsh an area to be a "wank away zone", they have now well and truly balls'd it up in Abertawe (Swansea for you Anglophones) with the following:



As reported by Wales Online, and originally brought to my attention by Hen Ferchetan, the Welsh text in no way corresponds with the English. The Welsh reads: "I am not in the office at the moment. Send any work to be translated."

What is it with the signs division of Swansea Council? Do they ever check anything?

Music and diagrams (6)

LANGUAGE - learning Spanish vocabulary by finding cognates

I'm currently looking at attempting to learn Spanish in a week as previously mentioned. It's a brave and foolhardy thing to attempt, trying to learn a tongue in a minimal amount of time, but firstly I want to do it again to see if I can succeed where I previously failed at learning a language quickly, and secondly I will be using this opportunity to see if I can identify methods for improving my acquisition of languages. Even my failed attempt brought to light potential improvements.

Rather than going in completely cold, with no knowledge of the background of the language as I did for my attempt to learn Swahili in a week, I'm reading around the subject, getting a better feel for the Spanish language and culture before actually commencing learning. I feel it is important to skirt about the language to get to know a bit more about it, as it means I will not be going in completely blind and will have a better idea of what I'm letting myself in for this time.

In addition to preparing for a week of learning Spanish, I'm also currently looking at techniques for learning quickly, so recommendations that are free, no cost involved, will be welcome.

One particular method for building vocabulary is that I've found myself doing is firstly looking at the origins of English words. This may not be clear immediately why I do this, but let me explain. English is a Germanic language, but with the majority of English vocabulary coming from Romance languages, there are many clues for word relationships and cognates with Romance languages. The words originating from Romance languages are not always easy to spot at first, but with practice it becomes easier. There is a convenient list on how to spot clues in words for many of the Romance-origin words in English in The Loom of Language by Frederick Bodmer (The Merlin Press, 1987 [1944]), and I cite from pages 240-1:

1. The combinations CT, TI (pronounced sh) and SC, e.g. action and scale.
2. Words containing the sound ʒ represented by the French J of jeu (game) or G of rouge (red), e.g. vision or treasure.
3. Words beginning with J and G pronounced as J in jam, e.g. gentle, giant, jacket.
4. Nearly all words containing OI, e.g. boil, moisture, soil.
5. All words in which OU stands for long u, e.g. group, soup, tour.
6. Words beginning with CH followed by a (where ch = tsh), e.g. challenge, change, charm.
7. Words with final GUE, initial QU, and final QUE, e.g. fatigue, quarter, brusque.
8. All words in which final S and T are mute, e.g. debris, bouquet.
9. Nearly all words ending in -ANT, -ENT, e.g. agent, merchant, student.
10. Most polysyllabic words with end stress, e.g. buffoon, campaign, élite.

Having identified a Romance derived cognate, I will then be able to set about learning the Spanish word. I therefore try to link words which have some clear relationship. Another crucial language learning technique I use where links are not so obvious, is to also look for regular sound changes to help build vocabulary.

Let us consider for example the English verb to write. To write is of Germanic origin, but the Latin verb is scribere (to write). The English cognate is thus the verb to scribble, which although not meaning exactly the same, is semantically in the same ball-park to help learning. So we've got our hook to hang the learning on, namely the English cognate, scribble. In Latin's daughters Italian, French, Spanish and Portuguese, we have Italian scrivere, French écrire, Spanish escribir, and Portuguese escrever. From this we can deduce that Italian words do not add an e to the beginning whereas the others do, and the S sound is lost from French. These examples are lifted from the above mentioned book by Bodmer.

This is just a rough rule of thumb however, and application of it may only find cognates, which are not always the closest translations in English of the Spanish (or Portuguese/French/Italian) word, but can and do help in the recall and memorisation.

This is also giving me an insight into the Spanish language and its relationship with its neighbours and other languages, giving me better appreciation about the language before I even start a week of intensive Spanish study.

When's the start date? Sometime soon, to be determined. Comments and suggestions welcome.

Addendum (25 Feb 2009): Although I said comments and suggestions welcome, I should note that I welcome comments from genuine people who have a genuine linguistic interest in Spanish.

I don't welcome spam and attempts to blitz me with advertising to sign me up to expensive courses. I've received a number of targeted e-mails from people who've read this page and e-mailed me privately advertising, thinking that because I'm expressing an interest in learning Spanish, it's a free-for-all on my e-mail inbox. To them, I would like to invite them to fuck off. Your targeted e-mails show you've indeed read this site but nothing apart from this blogpost. If you're that interested in me learning Spanish and you have bothered to read this blog, you'll know to leave me alone at the moment because even if I signed up for your bloody courses, my vision is now severely limited so I wouldn't be able to read the course materials anyway.

Music and diagrams (5)

IMPRESSUM, Legal stuff, Copyright, etc. and all that

Copyright and Responsibility

© Damon Lord

The content of this blog is protected by copyright laws. Words, opinions and texts written by me here are solely my own unless otherwise stated, and are not to be taken as representative of any companies, organisations, bodies and groups I support, work for, am a member of, or am associated with.

I occasionally use images and feeds which are not my own; where possible I try to source them from a free and open source in the public domain, such as Wikipedia. Where this is not possible I may source them elsewhere on the web. No copyright infringement is intended, and if a transgression may have been made by the blog or its author in usage of an image, I will endeavour to rectify most soonest by attribution, removal, or replacement as necessary.

No responsibility, eligibility, culpability, sustainability, humility, intelligibility or liability is accepted by Damon Lord for the content, quality or availability of external links, sites, or feeds.

Damon Lord takes no responsibility for the content of other individuals, such as by contributors to feeds from other sites or contributors to the comments facility on this site.

Comments policy

If comments are made here anonymously, or if they contain defamatory remarks about me or my family, they will not be published, unless they are deemed to be of suitable merit. I retain the right to disallow any comments written on this blog in the comments sections.

Nothing even vaguely unkind about Angie or my family or that could even be construed that way, and preferably be nice about the Tory Party as well.

Don't go identifying the field of business, company, or location of company I work for, as that is guaranteed to get your comment rejected.

My decision on publishing comments is final.

If your comment is chosen to be published, remember that all comments are moderated, so it will take time for your comment to come up, so wait until when I next moderate them.

These rules may be subject to change at any time, with no obligation on my part to notify the reader of any changes. However, this webpage will host the most recently updated version of the comments policy.

Credits

This blog was mostly written on location on Planet Earth.

This blog would not have been possible without the assistance of my family, Angie, Andrew Murphy (all for friendship and support), John Moorcraft (for getting me started blogging in the first place), and numerous others.

Disclaimer

No Saussurean paroles were harmed in the making of this blog. Several cans of beer freely and nobly gave their lives to the cause, and a few laryngeal phonemes were strangled for fun afterwards, however.

Contact Me

Need to contact me? My e-mail address is: linguanaut (AT) linguanaut.co.uk Replace (AT) with @

About me

Numerous other blogs are incorporating into their pages an About page, so I thought I'd give it a go as well. This section contains parts reproduced from another blogpost, but has been greatly expanded upon. Normally, having published a blogpost, I then leave it without making any further major edits, but this blogpost is subject to future revision.

About Damon Lord

I am British and Welsh (in that order) and originate from Newport in south Wales. Apart from Newport, I've variously lived in Bangor, Beijing, and Cardiff. I now spend my time either living in a quaint shire town in England, with my wife Angie, or sweating in the constant heat of the Philippines. I do not state which English town, as Angie requests that I do not give out our location, and I respect her wishes. I work full-time in an office. I graduated from the Open University, BA (Hon) Humanities with English Language, with a 2:2 classification, and also hold a diploma in English Language Studies from the Open University.

About this blog

I write about a number of topics, mainly whatever catches my interest. This can include languages and linguistics (including looking at various aspects of the English language), writing, blogging, astronomy and politics.

I hold by a policy on the web that I do not discuss my current employment on this blog, so don't ask.

About Damon Lord's writing

I enjoy writing, particularly writing fiction, but don't spend as much time on it as I should. I consider blogging to be an extension of the writer's craft. Writing is an intrinsic means of self-expression, so I am grateful to John Moorcraft, PhD, who introduced me to blogging. In addition to keeping the blog going, I have the personal ambitions of finishing writing a novel, as well as writing a book at some point on a yet-to-be-decided aspect of linguistics or on a particular language. Subsequent publication of the afore-mentioned to-be-written tomes would be a bonus. I had a story accepted and published in a book at the age 16, but my publications since then have been mainly online.

About Damon Lord's languages

I love languages. Communication is a mysterious and attractive field, and primary to this I feel are languages and linguistics. My journey into languages began when I was a very young child, as my grandmother had been to New Zealand, just before I was born. She had various things she'd brought back, including records (33rpm vinyls, remember those?) and books on Māori haka, with illustrations of how to 'dance' the haka, and the words in Māori.

My next encouter with language was in school. I never had the chance to learn Welsh, Welsh language lessons were brought in later, but learned to pronounce it from books and roadsigns, but don't speak Welsh. I wasn't the best at French, but I was enthusiastic, but I wanted to try another language in my free time, to be that ittle bit different. At the time, I was enamoured with the Icelandic singer Björk, so naturally, I spent time with the only two books in the library in my hometown on Icelandic. I got nowhere with it, and a man who was to have a great influence on my acdemic life, my then French teacher, David Brown, suggested Esperanto to me, and thus really opened up the linguistic world for me to fall in love with it. I got into Esperanto, got into David Crystal’s “Cambridge Encyclopedia of Language” (another major influence) and finally ‘got it’ with regards to language. Subsequently the excursion into understanding how language worked through Esperanto got me into other languages, and I was soon studying on a Fast Track ab initio course in German from scratch to A-Level standard in two years. My thanks are eternal unto to Frau Beynon and her staff in the languages department at Crosskeys Campus, Gwent Tertiary College (now Coleg Gwent).

My interest in languages has not remained still, but rather widened. I’ve studied numerous languages to various levels, and even got qualifications in some, although apart from English, I have never managed to get any language qualifications to a level that employers find attractive due to personal circumstances. Essentially, I could not afford to continue a German degree at Cardiff University and transferred my studies to do Humanities with English Language through the Open University, which I completed in 2007, graduation ceremony in 2008, and I am currently considering post-graduate studies.

A life in languages? Yes, but I don’t get much opportunity to exercise my skills at the moment. I go on learning, however, having heard tell that Johann Martin Schleyer, the inventor of Volapük, could speak 85 languages, and it’s become a personal goal to speak 86 languages, to beat Schleyer’s total.

About the word Linguanaut

I coined the word linguanaut sometime ago(meaning: an explorer of language, or one who adventures in linguistics), inspired by the French internaut (web-surfer), to describe myself, and registered it as a neologism with the Langmaker website http://www.langmaker.com/db/Linguanaut. Its use has since spread. Others have described it as a surfer in the sea of languages, which I think is a beautiful description. Sometime after coining the word, I discovered that someone else, presumably independently, also coined the term “linguanaut” and runs a good website at http://www.linguanaut.com. Seeing that was gone, I got myself www.linguanaut.co.uk to point to this blog, and also more recently www.linguanaut.tk.

About Damon Lord's politics

I have been interested and involved in the past in politics, and was an active supporter of the UK Conservative Party and thus in the early days of the blog political issues were heavily the focus of my writing. The political nature of the blog is still reflected in the fact that it is perceived by some to be a political blog, but it has diversified, and although it now has primarily a linguistics focus, I still dabble in the odd political blogpost or two from time to time. There is no reason not to doubt that I will be involved again in politics in the future, but due to being currently disillusioned with politics, I do not get involved on the front-lines of politics and more. Although nominally conservative (with a small C) and I vote for the Tories, I am no longer a Conservative (with a large C, denoting membership of the Tory Party). I have other non-political focuses at the moment anyway.