Sunday, May 24, 2009

#12 - Latin Skills! Do You Have the Right Stuff?


Hey all,
Quentin here! How are you? I hope everything is going right! Ahahaha!!!!! ....... well, you'll think it's funny later...

I am right-handed, in case you didn't know, a characteristic held by 90-93% of the adult population. (according to Wikipedia's article on left-handedness) I've always heard cool etymological stuff about left-versus-right, so I wanted to learn more about it. Let's start with the basics:

The word "right" is a noun which I thought would be hard to define by anything other than saying "that way" while gesturing to the right. At least in the way I'm talking about it now! However, the dictionary had some choice words for me: "denoting or worn on the side of a person's body which is toward the east when they are facing north". [Gasp! Correct me if I'm wrong by I think OED used improper grammar. Shouldn't it be "when he or she is facing north"? Not a big deal usually but it's a dictionary! Clearly the silly men and women behind this atrocity had no jurisdiction to turn me down when I suggested that "aquazyquintic" be put in the dictionary!]

Anyway, The word "right" comes from Old English riht (adjective and noun), rihtan (verb), rihte (adverb), of Germanic origin; related to Latin rectus ‘ruled,’ from an Indo-European root denoting movement in a straight line. The German word for the noun "right" is recht, which simply means "true". This is why we use right to mean both 'correct' and '->'!

On the other hand (*smirk*), the word "left" means "on, toward, or relating to the side of a human body or of a thing that is to the west when the person or thing is facing north." 
"Left" originates from Old English lyft, left [weak] (the left-hand side being regarded as the weaker side of the body). The German word for "left" is link, and the word linkisch has taken on the general meaning of awkward.

This is all well and good, but we don't only use words of Germanic origin when we are talking about handedness. Often, we resort to Latin to get our point across. You may already know this but the Latin word for right-handed is dexter, and the for left-handed it is sinister. No, I am not making these up! Clearly, all you lefties out there are evil (etymologically, anyway). And all you righties out there are skilled at whatever it is you do! Actually, we must keep in mind that these two words in Latin have no connotations themselves. So it is really wrong of me to accuse lefties of evil and extol righties as skilled. But, the words that derive from them do have very strong connotations, let's explore several of them, shall we?

Let's start with the English word sinister, and then move onto other English words!

sinister - giving the impression that something harmful or evil is happening or will happen : there was something sinister about that murmuring voice; wicked or criminal [as I said, it's directly from Latin sinister meaning 'left']

dexterous - demonstrating neat skill, esp. with the hands [directly from Latin dexter meaning 'right'] (note: this can be spelled with or without that second e)

ambidextrous - able to use the right and left hands equally well [Latin roots ambi meaning 'both' and dexter meaning 'right-handed', so if you can use both your hands equally well, you have two rights and no lefts!] (another note: this word has to be, for some reason, spelled without that second e that is acceptable in dexterous, weird.)

gauche - lacking ease or grace; unsophisticated or socially awkward [directly from French gauche meaning 'left']

adroit - clever or skillful in using the hands or the mind [from French à droit meaning 'on the right']

Some good words, right? Very handedness-prejudiced, right? Also, it is notable that the phrase 'having two left feet' (meaning awkward in dancing) comes directly from this etymological pattern. 

There is a plethora of information about the etymology of right and left (not just in English either, in other languages too! Like Swedish!) on that left-handedness wikipedia page. Cool stuff.

Also, if you are left-handed and your name is Dexter, you are an etymological anomaly! And two wrongs may not make a right, but three rights make a left.

See you next time!
Quentin

P.S. 'aquazygoquintic' means the quality or state of factoring newly conceived polynomials of degree five... while underwater?
P.P.S. Found an awesome word! Zygodactyl means having two toes pointing forward and two backward. It's an adjective! Many birds have zygodactyl feet. I propose a figurative meaning of this word: conflicted. As in: Quentin was zygodactyl about whether or not to purchase the pogo stick. Zygodactyl comes from the Greek roots 'zygo' meaning to tie together, and 'dactyl' meaning finger.
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Saturday, March 14, 2009

#11 - Get Rational - I Think We've Given Up on the Labeling Thing

Hello everyone! This is Shira here, gleefully celebrating Pi Day along with a great many others. Although it is too bad we could not post this on 3:14 or 1:59, I still think the day deserves some kind of acknowledgement. Wordsmiths and mathemagicians are not mutually exclusive! Mathemagicians have access to some of the most unique words in our lexicon. As for me, I'm still pretty sure the area under the curve is Subcurvetania.

Pi- it's an irrational mathematical constant, a friend of mine, a kind of Thai oboe, the representation for inorganic phosphate in cellular respiration, and so much more. Add an e to the end and it becomes a delicious desert. Today, though, we focus on the inconstant constant, and just how far it has come.

Pi began its numerical existence in Egypt, but really got rolling with Archimedes, when he determined that it was more than 3.140 and a bit, but less than 3.142 and a bit. Time passed and Lambert and Euler realized hey, maybe this thing goes on forever. At the end of the 19th century, Indiana (as in the state of Indiana!) decided to toss the whole thing and call it even at 3.2; luckily, it didn't pan out (the members of the state senate saw that the whole business might have been a little irrational (I'm sorry. I shouldn't have done that.).). The turn of the century saw Ramanjuan, who developed a dynamic new algorithm that computers are still using today, working it out. Oh yes, they are still plugging away! Professor Kanada at Todai and the Chudnovsky Brothers are still busily working away at that number on home-built computers, in the pursuit of a happy ending. It's very possible that deep within their hearts, all mathematicians dream of ultimate closure-- the last slice of pi.

π is a good friend of ours, giving us words like περιφέρεια (periphery). Some words that start with pi that you might enjoy:
I. Pimiento: a tasty kind of cherry pepper.
II. Piquant: the word you might use to describe a particularly scrumptious pimiento.
III: Piton: the apparatus you might hang from if you were consuming a piquant pimiento while rock climbing.
IV: Pithy: either full of pith or how you might be described if you made a strikingly intelligent commentary on pi while consuming piquant pimientoes on a piton.
V: Piracy: when your fellow piton-suspended friend steals your pithy, piquant pimiento-born thought and either sails the seven seas with it (cutlasses involved?) or puts it on the internet (assumedly swashbucklingly).

Finally, Quentin, who I hope will use his keen intellectual insight to polish up this post, is himself a supreme mathemagician. He has discovered a bunch of approximations of pi, far superior to the twenty-two-over-seven you may be familiar with. Check it out here: http://piapprox.blogspot.com/! Shira out.

[Update #2 - dang, I had this whole update typed up but my browser crashed, oh well... heh, I think I'll push "Save" now.]

P.S. Love swashbucklingly.... that adverbial form is exquisite.

I don't know what needs polishing here except my approximation blog, which is bordering on defunct, might want to fix that. Hey, if the Coolest Person Ever is reading this they would click on the link above, get the hang of how to make an awesome approximation, send it to quentinandshira@gmail.com, and would be acknowledged as the coolest person ever.... just sayin'

Some "pi" words here to share. I might not be cool enough to amalgamate as nicely as Shira did, but, hey, let's try:

Pichiciego - a species of armadillo (in fact the smallest species of armadillo) also known as the Pink Fairy Armadillo. 

Piña Colada - a rum-based cocktail (enjoyed by PIrates and PIchiciegos) 

Piccolo - a small flute, often played by pirates and pichiciegos while drinking piña coladas (getting caught in the rain... okay, this is getting a bit too bizarre)

Happy π day everyone, sit down with a nice circular slice of pie and measure its circumference and diameter. Take the ratio if you're cool enough...

Deliciously/Sincerely,
Quentin & Shira
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Friday, February 13, 2009

#10 - I didn't do it! A.K.A. Guilt: The Game



Hey all (And Happy Friday the 13th!),

Before I walk through any ladders made of broken mirrors, let's cut to the chase...

I've been thinking about guilt. Guilt is kinda an annoying thing. There's being guilty, and then there's feeling guilty. Guilt is a word of largely unknown etymological origin, which has a few definitions:

1: the fact of having committed a breach of conduct especially violating law and involving a penalty ; broadly : guilty conduct
2 a: the state of one who has committed an offense especially consciously 
b: feelings of culpability especially for imagined offenses or from a sense of inadequacy : self-reproach
3: a feeling of culpability for offense

(from Merriam-Webster online Dictionary)

I think its a bit weird that we use this one word to express both the state of culpability (nice fancy word for deserving of blame) and for feelings of regret and remorse. I mean, when you're in a courtroom pleading guilty to a crime, you might be admitting that you did it, but that doesn't mean you regret it. Note for any Supreme Court Justices reading this blog post: change verdicts from guilty and not guilty to include degrees of remorse. So instead we will have 4 verdicts: Guilty without Regret, Guilty with Regret, Not Guilty without Regret, Not Guilty with Regret. 

That last one is, of course, the most rare plea/verdict meaning "I didn't do it but I wish I had."

Guilt is also pretty annoying because declaring someone guilty by no means makes it so. I mean, if you caught someone in the act or have undeniable evidence and knowledge, that's one thing (see the last 4 posts for thoughts about Knowledge), but it is entirely another when you are asking 12 people to decide the culpability of someone, and once they do, that's it. Don't get me wrong, I'm not trying to take down the Judicial System or anything (And you people who are saddened by this, don't worry, Project Delta Judicium is still in motion *wink*), I just think it's kinda weird that a jury declaring something so makes instantly true where it wasn't necessarily true before. Like innocent until proven guilty and all that, if you're guilty, you're guilty until proven guilty, aren't you? And if you're innocent, you might be innocent until "proven" guilty - oh my god I just realized I've created the concept of quantum guilt... what an awful thing. I am a terrible person. Sorry.

I just started thinking about the difference between feeling guilty and actually being in a state of guiltiness, and now I kind of got a bit off track...

OK, maybe that was the wrong way to think about things like this, I was just thinking out onto the page. Let's try the word approach to attack this. And it seems that we've attacked declaring guilt enough, so let's go the other way and talk about declaring innocence - freeing people from blaming as opposed to placing it:  



Here are the words I've been thinking about, I want you to think how these words fit together. They are (supposed) synonyms which one could do to declare innocence. I want you to examine (even if you don't know the definition, just think about how it looks/sounds) what you think the connotations of each word is. I'll tell you how I think about each of them and what the dictionary says they imply. (Note: if you are playing along you cannot use any of the 9 words in your definitions... that's no fun!)

1. Absolution
2. Acquittance
3. Amnesty
4. Exculpation
5. Exemption
6. Exoneration
7. Forgiveness
8. Pardon
9. Vindication

Didja think about each of them?
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...DID YOU REALLY LOOK AT THEM OR ARE YOU LYING TO ME WHY WOULD YOU DO SUCH A THING
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...JUST KIDDING I LOVE YOU :)
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My connotations (Without looking at a dictionary):

1. Absolution - When I hear this (or the word absolve) I think of being completely freed from guilt and blame. It has religious connotations even in non-religious context. Someone should probably be guilty to be ABSOLVED.
2. Acquittance - A very formal and official freeing from guilt (perhaps superficial?).
3. Amnesty - Hmm... not totally sure here. Seems formal and official like #2, but also seems to me to be a deeper freeing from being guilty.
4. Exculpation - Hmm... fancy word. I always remember the definition of this as "free from blame," and I guess that has slightly different connotations than "declare not guilty." I'm gonna go with declaring one innocent to the point where one is not blamed at all anymore.
5.Exemption - More of an excuse than a freeing from guilt. With an EXEMPTION, guilt does not even apply.
6. Exoneration - Another fancy one! I'd wager that this has strong connotation of innocence and complete lifting off the weight of the shoulders of the former-accused.
7. Forgiveness - This word is so very different than the others. When you FORGIVE someone, not only are you freeing them from guilt, but you are acknowledging their wrongdoing (you don't forgive innocent people) and saying that it is okay... that they should just learn from thir mistakes.
8. Pardon - most like #2, a formal, not very deep, acknowledgement of innocence
9. Vindication - Quite deep free from blame and guilt. I'd say it's most like #6

Whew. That was harder than I thought it'd be. How do you think it went?

Here are the connotations according to Oxford English Dictionary:

1. Absolution - the most general term, meaning to set free or release - not only from guilt or blame - but from duty, obligations, or penalty of an offense
2. Acquittance - release someone from a specific and formal accusation of wrongdoing
3. Amnesty - an official pardon (hey! OED broke the rules of my game!) for people who have been convicted of political offenses
4. Exculpation - show or declare that someone is not guilty of wrong doing
5. Exemption - less to do with guilt and punishment and more to do with duty and obligation
6. Exoneration - relief in a moral sense, from a definite charge so that not even the suspicion of wrongdoing remains
7. Forgiveness - the most magnanimous of all. It implies not only giving up the idea that the offense should be punished, but also relinquishing any feelings of resentment or vengefulness
8. Pardon - refers to actions of the government, specifically refers to release from prosecution or punishment
9. Vindication - similar to #6 (Yay!), "off the hook", usually due to the examination of evidence

Hey, not bad! I'd say that 4 and 6 were the only ones where I missed the part of the connotation that makes each word unique. Although, remember that just because OED says it doesn't mean that that's the way it always has to be used! So, if you were far off, just think about the differences and maybe try and justify your thoughts! Maybe you had a colloquial definition that OED isn't kool enough to know! Like maybe:

"Aw man! You just got EXCULPATED so hard!"
Ok, well... maybe not that.

Happy connoting!
Quentin

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Sunday, January 11, 2009

#9 - Knowing



(This is the final installment of the story from post #8)

"WAIT!!", you cry as your bother heads for the edge. He turns his head to look back and sees you hurdling towards him. He doesn't slow down at all, however, and is about to reach the edge when he sees, out of his downward peripheral vision,  a small jagged rock. It was too late. As his left foot got caught, just for a split-second, underneath the sharp stone, he winced. His body proceeded to launch forward, briefly airborne, before thrashing to the ground. He rolled right onto the edge and then slowly slid off.
You stumbled to the edge and looked down and saw a small speck falling towards the piraña pool. You heard a soft "plop," and stared down for a few seconds. The waters started to get rougher as the ripples attracted the attention of hundreds of pirañas. You closed your eyes, hard. You had no idea what was even happening; you turned away, shocked. You glanced at the relaxed nylon rope strewn about the ledge.
"Why isn't the rope taut?" you thought.
"Did the knot give way?" you asked. 
In fact, it didn't. The knot was still holding firmly around the the waist of your brother. Having been quiet for several moments out of fear, he let out a piercing scream, half in terror, and half in pain. You lunge to the edge to see your brother hanging on to a small branch that extended from the ledge, about five feet below you. Tears streaming down his face, shirt torn up, and without a left shoe, your brother dangled; he was too far down for you to reach without falling off yourself.
"Hellllllllllllp!!" he cried.
You started to panic. Your brother was alive, but you knew he couldn't hang there for long. You had to do something, and fast. You looked around. You didn't see anything that seemed like it would help, only your brother's backpack, the rope, a bunch of rocks, and you were sitting atop the craggy ledge. You stepped back. Took a couple breaths and yelled, "How were you planning to get yourself up?!?"
"I don't.... I don't... know..." your brother gasped, struggling to speak. You could hear the branch crackling, and twisting around. You knew it wasn't going to hold for long. It was just like your brother to do something so utterly rash and destructive that he would find himself in such a situation, but you could hardly believe that it was actually happening. 
"Hold on!!" you yelled. You needed a moment to think. You wished you were back in your room, sitting leisurely at your desk with a pencil and a blank sheet of paper, free from the distractions of the world. You soon realized, however, that this was no such time. You didn't need thought... you needed action. You saw your brother's backpack and noticed that the arm straps had snap-in buckles, and suddenly it came to you. 
"I'll get you right up, just hold on for one minute!" you shouted. 
"Huh, uh... uh.... ok..." your brother said, fighting even to breathe. 
You ran over to his empty bag, picked it up and started filling it with rocks. Lots and lots of rocks. You hardly knew what you were doing, you felt like you were acting out of instinct rather than analysis. You knew that you could barely lift your brother, so you filled the bag with the heavy rocks strewn about the ledge until you couldn't even lift it. 
"I can't... it won't... I... can't hold..." He let out an almost resigning cry.
"YES YOU CAN!! YOU'RE GONNA BE FINE!!" you vociferated. 
Then, pushing it over to the edge, you slid the bag over to the section of the rope that was laxly hovering over the air. You detached the arm buckles of the back pack, fed the rope through, and then re-attached the buckles. Then, with one more hard push, you sent the bag flying off the edge, taking that section of the rope with it. But horror quickly hit you as you realized the error in your plan, the rope wasn't going to pull your brother up like a counterweight like you had thought, it was going to pull him down like... well... like a bagpack full of rocks. But you had one last chance. It hit you that you could take the part of the rope that was in between your brother and the bag and get it around that large boulder, it would work like a counterbalance. You sprinted to that part of the rope, which, in any moment, would be pulled downward like the rest of the rope. You grabbed it, sprinted back to the boulder, and, just as you began to feel resistance from the rope being yanked down by the bag, you threw it over the top of the boulder. The rope landed exactly at the equator of the mighty rock, and cracked hard against the boulder with tautness. You didn't know it, but at that same moment, you're brother's hand slipped. But just at the right moment, the force of the bag sent an impulse through the rope, which went around the boulder and reversed his acceleration, the rope was severed right at the boulder in the process. He was flown up over the ledge, thrown right towards the boulder that you stood in front of... and you caught him. You heard a soft "plop" as the bag of rocks hit the piraña pool. Your brother was gasping for air, tears in his eyes, just like you...

THIS, is what you were missing...

(I hope you enjoyed it! I may be adding an epilogue later, but for now I suggest that you (and I will as well) contemplate the events of this little story)

Certainly yours,
Quentin
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Thursday, January 8, 2009

Post Zero Point One - Hello Again!

Shira and Quentin here. Reunited and it feels so good. Reunited 'cause we understood. WORDS.

Shira here first. My sincere apologies for not writing for the ever. Although words are fun, calculus is less fun. The area under the curve is simply "Subcurvetania."

Quentin here. I kinda took our nice little word blog and made it into this crazy story (that, as of today, has yet to be resolved - but will be soon), but today marks our return to wordy awesomeness.... or something. 

Exciting things that have happened- I went to Argentina. It turns out that they have portmanteaux in Spanish, too; in place of saying America del Sur all the time, they just say Mercosur. Nice!

And I have learned the wonders (and blunders) of the life of the college student! Fun, indeed. 

I am very sure that life is fun when you only have five god damn classes a day. If you could see my eyebrows they would be angry eyebrows. Okay. Aside from my apathy and worldly travels, I have picked up a bunch of new words, and finally unlocked the Post As Just Shira Skill (normal difficulty under five minutes with no continues). So we will see how that goes.

Well, things kinda went downhill this semester when I had to travel back in time to make sure my parents got together so I would continue to exist, but that's a story for another time. Anyway...

Anyway we still have the car so we plan to have plenty of adventures. Our next planned exploit is to take the car to go interview Webster and Shakespeare, then pit them against one another in an ultimate cage match to the death.

I hope our delightful cogency hasn't scared you, and I'll leave you with these words:

prestidigitation! - slight of hand, or magic tricks performed as entertainment

zeitgeist! - the defining mood or spirit of a particular period of history as shown by the ideas or beliefs of the time [e.g. the zeitgeist of the late 1960s]

doppelgänger! - an apparition or double of a living person

humuhumunukunukuapua'a! - a species of trigger fish that is also known as the reef triggerfish, this is it's hawaiian name

bagel! - a bread roll in the shape of a ring, traditionally made of yeasty wheat dough which is then baked (some bagels are made with extra ingredients/toppings, raisins, poppy seeds, or everything!)

See you soon!
Quentin and Shira
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Thursday, October 16, 2008

#8 - A leap of faith?


(Continuing on Post #7... There's some good words in the mix, so enjoy)

Now you and your brother are walking down the long road toward Know ledge. You can barely process what's going through your own mind, let alone your brother's.
"You're seriously going to jump off that ledge." You say incredulously.
"Sure, with this nylon rope I got from the garage."
"Stop smiling, this isn't funny anymore."
"It kinda is."
"Why?!"
"Dramatic irony... you think you can know everything by deducing it all. You don't realize that you wouldn't be anywhere if it weren't for five things."
"I know what you're gonna say... the senses, right?"
"Exactly. Just think about a world in which we could not see, hear, taste, smell or feel. It would be a pretty boring world. At least, I think so."
"Sure it would be boring. But the thing is that our senses really can't be trusted. When it comes to knowledge - certain knowledge - we can only trust what we can show deductively."
"Oh really?"
You thought for a second. Then you came up with what was sure to hurt his contention:
"Yeah, I mean, I could reproduce the answer to a question a million times using deduction. But no matter how many times you observe something, you can never guarantee that it will happen the next time, can you? The sun has risen every morning, does it mean that it has to rise tomorrow? Every time you drop something it has fallen. Does that mean it will fall the next time? It certainly doesn't. There is no logical reason why we can assume that past observations will hold in the future. For centuries people thought the Earth was flat. They were so sure because of what they saw. And yet, they were still wrong. The past is easy. It's the future that is hard. How do you know that your observations aren't leading to erroneous conclusions, or resting on incomplete data? How can you rely on what's passed in order to justify what you think will happen? In order to make any sort of general conclusion using induction, you have to make a leap of faith."
"Watch me."
You didn't realize it, but while you were intently arguing your point, you both had
arrived at the ledge. He set his stuff down and intently started to rummage through a bag of various things he had brought. The nylon rope was stretched out along the craggy ledge. A small segment was even hovering over the side.
"What if that leap is in a life or death situation? It's certainly quixotic of you to think that your observations will always lead you to the right conclusions."
"Hey, I never said my observations would always lead me to right conclusions." He said as he began tying the rope around the bottom half of a gigantic boulder near the edge.
"Then how can you risk your life knowing that? And doesn't that show that deduction is better since it can, after all, guarantee the right conclusions?"
Your brother paused. He then finished tying an intricate knot around the rock. He paused again as if in deep thought. You thought he wasn't going to respond. It seemed like he had no response he could give. After all, how could he put so much confidence into something he knew was fallible? He proceeded to tie an extra special knot around his waist. A knot that made you think of Alexander the great and the Gordian Knot that he once boldly cut. 
"This amount of rope seems about right," your brother said, completely ignoring the question posed to him. He took a couple steps out towards the edge of the ledge. You saw the wind intermittently blowing his hair from side to side, as if it were desperately gasping for air, as you almost were. Your brother then said,
"The thing is, you don't see how we all need induction every day. Without it, we wouldn't be able to function at all. If we were all to suddenly question everything we we had ever seen, we would never make progress. What if every morning I checked extensively to make sure their wasn't a bomb in my cereal box. Well, that would certainly slow my morning down quite a bit don't you think? What if I was always thinking about the possibility of something not falling when dropped? I would never be able to make any conclusions at all. Always hinging on something which has never been disproved and has always been shown to be true slows down progress. In many cases, progress grinds to a halt because of it. When you solved that problem about how many meters of rope someone would need when jumping of the ledge, you yourself assumed that the person would in fact fall. We need induction." He took another step forward. The wind picked up. "Induction. Experiment. Experience. This is how we learn." He looked around. He seemed confident, like he was doing calculations in his mind about the impending drop and they were all checking out.
"One thing I don't get though..."
"Yeah?"
"Why do you still choose experience over theory, when-"
"Because" he interrupted you, "as I see it, a theory is no good to us if we can't put it into practice. And also, as philosopher David Hume once said, 'The most lively thought is still inferior to the dullest sensation.'"
There was momentary silence, only broken by the pitter-pattering of feet against dirt. He was running for it. Prepared to take the leap, when...
"WAIT!!"

The conclusion is up next. See you soon. (How's that for a cliffhanger?)

Faithfully,
Quentin
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Wednesday, October 1, 2008

#7 - Still on the 'ledge (with a ledger, a pen, and an idea)

Salvete! (Latin for hello [to more than one person])
Let's keep at this and continue on post #6...

Let's say that you're sitting down at your desk. You have your eyes closed, a writing implement, and a something to write on (perhaps your trusty 'ledger?) You're thinking about what would happen if you jumped off a cliff... with a nylon rope tied around your waist (phew, you had me worried for a sec). But the cliff is over a pool filled with lots of hungry pirañas [Oh my god, *gulp*, you know how much I hate.... diacritical tildes! Why can't you just spell it 'piranha'?!? Then it will be less scary!] [NO!]. You want to know exactly how long your rope should be (knowing that the nylon rope stretches a bit with respect to a factor that is a quality of the rope) so you can just barely touch the top of the pool. Well, you do all these calculations and you logically deduce that your rope should be x meters long. Hooray! You just gained some knowledge. Not just any knowledge, a priori knowledge.

A priori (pronounced 'ah pre-or-ee') is an awesome word/phrase that describes reasoning or knowledge that proceeds from theoretical deduction as opposed to experience.

A priori comes directly from Latin and literally means, "from what is before."

Then there's you're little brother. While you're slaving away working to logically deduce knowledge and prove things to be true, he's outside doing just any old random thing - observing the stars, throwing objects in the air, digging for a passageway to China. Stupid brother, he's out doing all these things to see how they work, when you could just show him how they work using your pencil and your trusty 'ledger. He also has a 'ledger for some reason. You don't know why he needs it, he's just taking down any old notes, he's not doing any calculations or logical deductions - he's just writing down what he sees. When he observes a phenomenon regularly and repeatedly, he infers from these particular instances a general conclusion. You do have to concede, however, that his methods for observation are pretty scientific. He is quite good at inducing knowledge. Not just any knowledge, a posteriori knowledge.

A posteriori (pronounced "ah poh-steer-ee-or-ee") is another awesome word/phrase that describes reasoning or knowledge that proceeds from observation or experiences - empirical as opposed to theoretical.

A posteriori comes directly from Latin and literally means, "from what comes after." 

So one day you're all fed up with him and his non-deductive ways:
"Hey, little brother! Get over here!"
"Sure...what is it?"
"How can you honestly expect to gain knowledge while you're outside all day?"
"How can YOU honestly expect to gain knowledge while you're inside all day?"
"Hah, I've learned dozens of things in the last half-hour with nothing more than logical deduction!"
"Well, anything you learn from that, I can learn with nothing more than my senses and observations!"
"Oh yeah? Well how about this: I just showed that you would need exactly x meters of nylon rope to jump off that cliff down the road in order to exactly touch the top of the piraña pool! Show that with your precious observation!"
"You mean that ledge? KNOW Ledge?"
"Yeah I do..."
"Well, okay." And he smiles.
"Okay?"
"Okay." And he smiles some more.

Man this is getting interesting! Part 3 coming soon...

Certainly yours,
Quentin

P.S. Recently learned that 'a priori' and 'a posteriori' have alternate pronunciations I did not know about. Listen to them here and here.
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Monday, September 22, 2008

#6 - I'm on the 'ledge (STTA)


Hey ally. (typo - that was supposed to be 'all', not 'ally', but you're probably not an enemy of mine... so I'll leave it)

Shira and I sincerely apologize, as the last couple posts haven't been the most uplifting. (Although, I have to admit, 'catacomb' is endlessly fun to say.) I'll try to right this ship.

And yeah, I've been quite busy. But it has all been in the pursuit of KNOWLEDGE! And that is what I want to talk about for a bit, if you'll indulge me to do so, here's a Something To Think About:

Wow, knowledge. Quite a lofty thing to talk about, don't ya think? In fact, no ledge is loftier than knowledge. It's a pretty craggy ledge - not smooth at all - lots of small and sharp rocks with millions of pebbles and grains of thought sprinkled all over it. Of course, the ledge gets windier and rougher as you approach the edge of the ledge. As you go out farther and farther, you have more of an impulse to turn back. This impulse gets intense at a faster and faster rate as you continue. Each step is more arduous than the previous one, and there's always another step to take.

The one weird thing about this ledge is that no one has ever seen the end of the ledge. Some people argue that there isn't an end to it. Others rebut, "Well, it isn't a ledge, then, is it?"

Some people seem to think that there is only one way to make your way out to the edge of the ledge. Of course, this is not true. Very few paths have been mapped out extensively; and only a handful have been identified as possible routes at all. Even these are nothing but prospective routes. Who is to say that a certain route won't lead to a dead end. After all, no one has seen the end or even knows if one exists.

Many more people seem to think that they must follow paths that have already been marked and mapped out. This is, of course, completely false. There's no guarantee that you will end up where you want to go by following a path, whether it is marked or unmarked. In fact, think of the first person to traverse the path you're on. Did that person follow any marked path? No, they certainly did not. They followed their own path; they stepped in to uncharted waters. You need to find the way down to the edge of the ledge that's yours and yours alone. After all, we have only explored a small subset of the possible paths.

On that introductory note (heh), I want to talk about how we come to know and the words (yes, words! hooray for a blog post that talks about words!) that describe them.

Philosophers tend to agree that we gain knowledge through three fundamental operations of the mind: intuition, deduction, and induction.

Intuition is when we see directly that something is the case or that an immediate thought is absolutely necessarily true. Intuition does not require reasoning.

Deduction is when we move through a series of intuitions to obtain a conclusion that is necessitated (albeit indirectly) by our base intuition. Deduction is reasoning.

Induction is when we take a specific example of something and infer a general conclusion from it. This is also reasoning.

It is interesting to think about when you are deducing knowledge and when you are inducing knowledge...

You know, I was going to continue and give some examples, but I have quite a bit more to say; and I think this is enough to chew on for a bit. Think about it for a while and look for part 2 soon.

Yours by mathematical induction - today, the next day, and the day after that, on to ∞,
Quentin
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Thursday, September 4, 2008

#5- A Grave Misunderstanding (CW)


We might get back to the bare bones on this one.
Hey, Shira here. Quentin and I are both SUPER BUSY. It is not even funny. The only way we could be busier is if we were faithful to the etymologist's code, which dictates that we battle octopus aliens with laser whips while searching Atlantean catacombs for new and exciting words and word history. (We are not quite busy up to standards because instead of laser whips, we use bats and sticks. Lasers are more expensive than you'd expect.) So here I present to you a cop-out, which I guess is pretty lame. My apologies.


So! Cool words. Nice. Okay. So I decided to choose a series of cool-sounding words that all center around a final resting place. "Shira," you say, "that is eXtremely morbid and not just a little creepy! What is up with you? Did your dog die?" To which I reply: "Reader, my dog did not die. I just think that for something so ubiquitous, there are a lot of cool words that mean 'tomb'. So this time we will deal."


Crypt- No, it's not Unix. A crypt is defined as a stone vault beneath the ground of a church. A crypt can be a reliquary, where relics such as bones of saints can be stored. From the Greek kryptos, meaning hidden. Hey, it's like Kryptonite is the hidden material... I totally just understood that! Hooray!

Mausoleum- the plural of mausoleum is mausolea! (I get very happy when words end with -um and pluralize to -a.) Mausolea are above-ground buildings that store the tomb of the deceased within. They are, as a rule, pretty fancy looking. They are usually crafted from marble or some other stone, but can have all sorts of decorations, like... tapestries. The word mausoleum comes from the first recorded mausoleum-haver, who was a Persian governor named Mausolus.

Catacomb- an underground maze with niches for graves. But hey, you knew what a catabomb is, right? There are catacombs free to view in Rome and Paris. The one in Paris has skulls everywhere you look. It is a unique experience to walk through subterranean halls lines with skulls, other bones, and inscriptions in Latin that have been mostly worn away by the elements.

Cinerarium- this word refers to a place where ash remains are kept. So an urn is a cinerarium, from cinis in Latin meaning ashes.

Ossuary- you can probably break it down. An ossuary is a place where bones (and bones alone!) are kept. This is a really good Scrabble word, because people always challenge it and it is pretty easy to form. On the flip side, its components are not very high-pointing, so balance.

Sepulcher is my absolute favorite of these words. It comes from ancient Jewish traditions, where they would be carved into rock faces. ABSWANTSAM, just so you know- the English spell this word as sepulchre, which I find is quite a lot more classy. On a side note, Sepulchre is a common French last name. (Why do I keep talking about France? Quentin is rubbing off.) It kind of worries me. I met a Pierrick Sepulchre, and he had no clue as to the macabre origins of his surname. WhooOOOoo! Ghostly noises!


Okay, so I think I am just about done for now. Shira out!
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Sunday, August 24, 2008

#4- It (kinda) all makes sense now! (CW/EE)


Yo! Quentin is here and is actually pretty busy at the moment (and all surrounding moments), but I had to take a sec and mention a word that is endlessly interesting to me: denouement. 

I would normally give you my take on this very cool word, but instead here is a great description of the word that I would like to share. It is from the twelfth book in Lemony Snicket's A Series of Unfortunate Events, titled The Penultimate Peril. I'm keeping it free of spoilers for anyone interested in reading or in the process of reading this fantastic series. Enjoy!

"Denouement" comes from the French, who use the word to describe the act of untying a knot, and it refers to the unraveling of a confusing or mysterious story, such as the lives of the Baudelaire orphans, or anyone else you know whose life is filled with unanswered questions. The denouement is the moment when all the knots of a story are untied, and all the threads are unraveled, and everything is laid out clearly for the world to see. But the denouement should not be confused with the end of a story. The denouement of "Snow White," for instance, occurs at the moment when Ms. White wakes up from her enchanted sleep, and decides to leave the dwarves behind and marry the handsome prince, and the mysterious old woman who gave her an apple has been exposed as the treacherous queen, but the end of "Snow White" occurs many years later, when a horseback riding accident plunges Ms. White into a fever from which she never recovers. The denouement of "Goldilocks and the Three Bears" occurs at the moment when the bears return home to find Goldilocks napping on their private property, and either chase her away from the premises, or eat her, depending on which version you have in your library, but the end of "Goldilocks and the Three Bears" occurs when a troop of young scouts neglect to extinguish their campfire and even the efforts of a volunteer fire department cannot save most of the wildlife from certain death. There are some stories in which the denouement and the end occur simultaneously, such as La Forza del Destino, in which the characters recognize and destroy one another over the course of a single song, but usually the denouement of a story is not the last event in the heroes' lives, or the last trouble that befalls them. It is often the second-to-last event, or the penultimate peril.

The series is full of wonderful passages like that one, dealing with words, phrases, and idioms as such. And even though it is advertised mostly as a children's series, as you can see, it can be full of delightfully dark humor and packs a literary punch to just about anyone.

Conclusions: read! words are fun! (did you notice the denouement of this post came right before the end?)

Have a great week,
Quentin
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Wednesday, August 20, 2008

#3- Why the Long Phrase? (MV)

(Shira says hello! She's also trying something she doesn't do very well with HTML, so can you mouse over and then click the little 'comic' text you see below? She will get the hang of this eventually...)






Hey, it's Shira. Undeniably, liquorice is a hard snack to follow. At this time, Quentin is probably occupied with eXtremely important Quentannic activities. I'll bare my grandiloquent heart and soul to you, and discuss just what goes into making words words.

So what is Manifest Vocabulary? The truth is, I just made up a cool phrase to define a phenomenon that already exists- the coining of neologisms. My lifestyle is eXtreme enough to require new and exciting phrases- I'm always just surviving explosions, leaping off of buildings, and kicking away tribal natives on my way to fantastic ancient treasures in sealed temples and/or crypts.

Neologism breaks down easily (new, word) so you know that is means any new word created to describe a concept or invention which no term currently in use can define. But when Quentin or I do it, we will be manifesting vocabulary. Hardcore vocabulary. Vocabulary the likes of which the world has never before experienced. You use a lot of neologisms all the time, especially if you go on the computer, or watch the telly, or use appliances. Look around you, and you will probably see at least five objects for which there were no words two centuries ago.

Manifested vocabulary comes most frequently in some of these forms:
Portmanteau/Blending- creating blog from web log. This is not to be confused with compunding, which gives us words like blogosphere.
Derivation- creating blogger by agglutination, the addition of suffixes.
Zero Derivation- creating the verb to blog in order to describe the action of blog posting.
Alteration of the Lemma- enough screwing around in speech or message boards can change the core word into something like blag.

I think we can get to backronyms, retronyms, and back-formation in a bit.

My favorite form of manifest vocabulary, however, is Word Theft. This is when we take a word from another language and twist it to fit our own insidious needs. This can occur through calques, loanwords, or hybrid words, which are special and scientifically engineered in super-secret underground labs. German in particular, with its extremely sexy philisophical nature, is a big victim of word purloinment. We get really long and unpronouncable words that existentialism majors like to use, such as Weltanschauung, and also words that find their way more easily into conversation, like kindergarten or sauerkraut. On the other hand, we calqued in the word pineapple from wallflower dialect Dutch, which just goes to show that there is no accounting for taste. (I think?)

My deity! I just can't stop talking! Before I crush everyone with the wall of words (perhaps it is too late), let's dish up today's piping hot Manifest Vocabulary.

nookish (adj) prn nʊkɪʃ. Nookish, not to be confused with bookish or nookie, describes the state of chips or crackers if you leave them out for a couple of hours and they lose all their crispy-crunchiness. It is as if they have become air soggy. As if, in fact, they have become nookish.

"Wait!" you cry out. "That was far too mundane for such an exotic lead-in!" Mundane the word may be, but it fills a slot previously vacant. If you ever leave corn chips open and come back in three hours or so, you now have the perfect thing to say!

Thanks for reading. That was quite an eyeful, wasn't it? Many apologies. Hope you enjoy and keep reading us! Shira shalom.
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Monday, August 18, 2008

#2 - For Those with a Sweet Tooth (EE)


Hey y'all. Quentin here with my first post on the Atlas. Let's jump right into some eXtreme etymology! Why? So we can talk about candy and words! A delectable combination!

The word licorice originates from Middle English, originally coming from the Greek roots glukus (sweet) and rhiza (root). As a result, when a true etymologist would like to get a taste from the licorice tray, he politely asks his butler, "Could I trouble you for bit of sweet root?"

Actually, I'm lying...... licorice doesn't come in trays. It comes in brightly colored bags!! (It also apparently comes in the different colors of the rainbow.) *shrugs*

I imagine a conversation such as this one:

"Here's your sweet root, sir, at your command."
"Thank you Jeeves, but I am sorry to point out that there are no indigo licorices here."
"This one is purple, sir; it's just about indigo."
"NO IT'S NOT! I wasn't even going to point out the lack of violet twists, but now I'll have to. And purple isn't even in the rainbow!"
Then he runs into his conservatory and cries all over his boomerang collection... good times.

Oh those etymologists...

Anyway, here's the rough idea of the different metamorphoses the word licorice has undergone:

glukurrhiza (Greek)
liquiritia (Latin)
licoresse (Old French)
licorice (now)

Also, this is an exciting day because it is the first of a new segment that will occasionally show up in the blog! Introducing Awesome British Spellings Which Are Not The Same As Mine! (Acronym: ABSWANTSAM, pronounced Abs Want Sam)

ABSWANTSAM:

Licorice is spelled liquorice in the United Kingdom, as our UK friends enjoy their words best when they are truest to their Latin roots. Their spelling is much cooler and makes a lot more sense than ours here in the US. I'm jealous.

C U Around,
Quentin
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Saturday, August 16, 2008

#1 - A Goodbye Hello (EE)

(Shira in.)

So maybe I'll say hello with goodbye. This is eXtreme etymology, coming at you. Since it's my first venture into the world of Bloggy McBloggerson, though, don't expect razor wit just yet.

The word 'goodbye' in English comes from an Middle English phrase, namely "God be with ye[you]". While that has become truncated into the meaningless "goodbye" and even further to "bye," the word in other languages retains its original form. Spanish-- adios, literally "to God". French, for a final farewell-- adieu. Portuguese-- adeus. You can see where this is going. So why did English crunch up its heavenly farewell? I can't seem to imagine, although English has a tendency of abbreviating where possible. The great thing about this is that if you ask Spanish speakers about adios, they don't realize it's two words smashed into one. Then again, we English speakers mostly have no inkling of the conception of goodbye, so maybe I should apologize.

Also, if they play Hello Goodbye for that Target advert one more time, I might choke someone.


(Shira out.)
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Thursday, August 14, 2008

Post Number Zero

Both Quentin and Shira are here talking to you... now.

*S So we decided to make a blog about words because they are pretty awesome. Wouldn't you agree? I like the idea of Manifest Vocabulary- the practice- nay, art- of inventing new words to suit phenomena as they arise. These new words can be portmanteaux of existing words, e.g. Apple Laptop --> Apptop (isn't it cool that portmanteau pluralizes with an x) or just new words entirely.

*Q Shira, don't forget that some words that already exist can be pretty awesome too, e.g. dragoman - an Arabic interpreter or guide. I mean, just look at it.... DRAGOMAN!! It's so cool!

*S I also like the ways words have come about- like extreme etymology. Etymology so extreme, in fact, that the extreme is spelled eXtreme. (Henceforth, all appearances of the word eXtreme will be spelled so.)

*Q Thanks for that, Shira.

*S While Quentin is being a branch in the swamp, I think we've pretty much wrapped it up for the exciting introduction. Have your eyeballs melted yet?

*Q Yes... yes they have. Also, sorry for making you seem hyper, Shira, and I will join you in christening this very eXtreme blog. I hope all of you (if any) out there will join us in our endeavor to understand, play with, stretch, and squash the English language. Please, if you wish to make a comment, make said comment immediately. We promise we won't make fun of you and give you a silly hat to wear in the corner of the room while everyone around you points and laughs and says, "My, that is a silly hat."

*S Well, now they're not going to. Way to go, Captain Gymshorts.

*Q Bye for now, but see you soon. Also, that is only my name on Wednesday evenings after 9.

Au Revoir Mes Amis,
Q&S

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