Philip Newton

I love you

2009-07-02T16:31:34Z

I'm amused that there's an island called the I love you... I mean, Isle of Ewe.

Eskimo words for snow

2009-07-02T15:05:51Z

There are some people who believe that Eskimo have some large number of words for snow, and/or that this is somehow significant.

Someone on a mailing list just pointed out that English has nearly 100 terms for different clouds (though many of those are a basic noun combined with a more specific adjective).

I wonder whether English speakers are obsessed with clouds, then.

Gifted?

2009-07-01T04:38:00Z

I suppose every parent thinks that their child is the smartest kid ever to walk this earth.

The BabyCenter newsletter this week had a bit about gifted children and a link to a column about how to tell whether your child is gifted.

Amy didn't really seem to match any of the criteria there—which is, I suppose, a relief as well, since giftedness often brings its own share of problems with it.

I still think she's pretty clever, though :)

UN General Secretary demands an end to violence in Iran

2009-06-23T14:12:13Z

While skimming my friends page, I saw a headline from a news source saying that the "UN General Secretary demands an end to violence in Iran".

Well, that's good to know. Perhaps he should also demand other things, such as equal rights for everyone or fair elections or enough to eat for all or something. For all the good that "demanding" something does.

Weather

2009-06-19T16:16:12Z

The weather is really nice here right now.

White clouds are drifting across the sky and you can often see blue patches; the sun occasionally shines into the courtyard.

Apparently, it's pouring with rain at home.

Mornington Crescent, De-Luxe Edition

2009-06-15T12:41:57Z

Via dotaturls: Mornington Crescent, De-Luxe Edition!

Antihistamines

2009-06-15T08:41:55Z

The cetirizine (generic Zyrtec/Reactine) tables that my doctor had prescribed me ran out.

Stella offered me her Xusal tablets, which she said she didn't need, since abstaining from milk products helped her allergies quite a bit.

I was a bit confused at finding that the active agent was "levocetirizine" and wondered whether it was the same as cetirizine. Now that I've checked Wikipedia, apparently, it's the active enantiomer of cetirizine.

When I asked the doctor's assistant this morning, she said that they were different active agents, and that furthermore, levocetirizine required a prescription while cetirizine was available OTC, but that if L-c. helped me I could go on taking that.

I decided to buy another 50-box of c., though, partly because I was unsure due to the fact that the recommended dose of c. is 10 mg while for L-c. is only 5 mg (though that makes sense if c. is a 50/50 mixture of L-c. and D-c.), and partly because Stella only had 20 left so I'd run out eventually anyway.

Anyway, when I went down to the chemist's to pick up my prescription nose spray (which I'm close to running out of) and asked for cetirizine, she asked me which company I'd like it to be from and I said I didn't care.

She brought me HEXAL brand c., which surprised me a bit since on the display shelves, they had ratiopharm brand c. on display with a sign saying that it was on sale—but she said that HEXAL brand was on sale, too, and was cheaper than ratiopharm brand. Oh well, whatever, should be all the same.

The ironic thing was that she gave me a free packet of paper handkerchiefs with it, which had advertising for ratiopharm brand c. on it....

Another Amyism: become

2009-06-11T07:27:03Z

Heard this morning: "And Jana becomes the bear spoon".

I found this one especially adorable because I know that this is a mistake I used to make, too.

In first grade, we used to have to write little stories about "what I did on the week-end", and I still remember being corrected after having written "I became my pocket money" once. (Fortunately, the teacher knew enough German to know where that came from.)

How not to spell things phonetically

2009-06-10T11:18:57Z

(Inspired by this comment)

How not to spell "Waceys" phonetically: "W as in 'why', A as in 'are', C as in 'cue', E as in 'eye', Y as in 'you', S as in 'sea'". ("Wait, was that 'why are cue eye you sea', YRQIUC?")

0.02% of perl is my fault

2009-06-10T10:57:30Z

I just saw a journal entry of Léon Brocard's in which he says that 0.02% of perl is his fault, and giving the breakdown for all those who contributed at least 2 lines to the perl interpreter according to a script he found.

According to the results in that entry, I contributed 491+4 = 495 lines, or 0.02%, to the current version of perl.

I'm rather surprised that the number was that high; I wonder what my contributions were.

(I seem to recall submitting a bug about the Y2K testing code which got things wrong—looking for '19' being tacked to the end of a variable rather than onto the beginning IIRC—but other than that I'm not sure what I contributed.)

An unpleasant surprise

2009-06-05T18:19:42Z

We had rented a car to go and visit my sister in Wuppertal for the christening of her little boy.

This evening, we decided to go shopping and buy some more heavy things (mostly drinks) since we had the car already.

When we moved the back seats a bit forward in preparation for putting more things into the boot (US: trunk), Stella got an unpleasant surprise: there were a bunch of peanuts that had fallen behind one of the seats.

Stella didn't want to ride in a car that had peanuts in it because of her allergies, so Amy and I headed off to a filling station. I filled up the car (since I would need some more petrol anyway for the long trip tomorrow) and vacuumed the car. Then we met Stella at ALDI.

She inspected the area and pronounced my efforts sufficient, and thanked me for doing that for her.

We were both annoyed that the car hadn't been cleaned completely, *especially* of such an allergen. Though to be honest, that part of the car was only visible (or accessible) if you move the seats forward most of the way.

We're not going to return the car now, but we'll make sure to mention it when we do bring it back on Tuesday.

In the spirit of "tap water" coming from "faucets"

2009-06-05T10:31:16Z

John Wells just pointed out in an aside in an article on his "vortaro-blogo" that

Americans mail letters (using the US Post Office), but we Brits post them (using the Royal Mail).

"That are you and this am I"

2009-06-03T11:54:48Z

Inspired by this entry and, more specifically, muckefuck's comment on it: I was reminded of another Amyism.

She'll say things such as "That are you and this am I", when pointing to a picture she's drawn. Fine by German grammar, where the verb agrees with the right-hand side (I suppose that's the grammatical subject?), but not in English, where you'd say "That's you and this is me" or "That's you and this is I", depending on how prescriptive you were being.

When Euphemisms Attack

2009-06-02T14:18:10Z

The Straight Dope attacks the question of why a "restroom" is sometimes called that when its primary purpose is not for resting, and ends with a quote which I simply have to share with you:

My own personal anecdote: At age seven or so, our daughter told us, very seriously, that the dog had “powdered his nose on the living room carpet.” It took us a moment or two to figure out what the hell she meant.

The Sims 3

2009-05-30T18:48:22Z

So... Stella was looking at some promotional videos from The Sims 3, and I had read a brief review of the new Prima Game Guide, and together, they kind of whetted our appetites. So I caved and we've ordered the game.

We had considered ordering two copies, so we could play simultaneously, but we're not even sure how well our computers will handle the game, plus we usually play at different times, so we went with one copy for now.

I also ordered the English Prima Guide, though they don't have it in stock right now.

Stella said that if the game is good, we're going to sell our Sims 2 stuff while they still fetch decent prices, which is a bit :'(... we shall have to see. And whether I even play the old game at all. (I remember playing Sims 1 once after having Sims 2 for a while... it really wasn't what I had remembered, and after that I had no more qualms selling our old discs :D)

Ah well. We shall see.

The things you learn: omitting the apostrophe in German

2009-05-26T18:42:38Z

Apparently, it's allowed to omit the apostrophe when the "e" in "es" is omitted: "Mir gehts gut. Er macht sichs gemütlich. Nimms nicht so ernst."

Huh. I would've thought the apostrophe was obligatory there, but quoth Duden (Richtiges und gutes Deutsch, s.v. "Apostroph"):

Der Apostroph steht häufig, wenn Buchstaben am Anfang eines Wortes ausgelassen werden und das Wort dadurch schwer lesbar oder missverständlich ist. [...]

Man kann ohne Apostroph schreiben, wenn die Kurzform des Prononems es mit dem vorangehende Wort (Verb, Pronomen, Konjunktion) verschmilzt. iese Verbindungen sind im Allgemeinen nicht schwer lesbar. Der Wortzwischenraum wird in diesen Fällen nicht gesetzt.

Mir geht’s / gehts gut. Er macht sich’s / sichs gemütlich. Nimm’s / Nimms nicht so ernst.

Huh.

Oh, and Duden also says that according to the new orthography, no apostrophe need be used when a final -e in certain verb forms is dropped:

Ich find das schön. Ich lass es bleiben. Das hab ich nicht getan. Küss die Hand! Hab ich nur deine Liebe!

And the apostrophe is explicitly not to be used in general ("in der Regel") with common short-form imperatives ("allgemein üblichen verkürzten Imperativformen (Befehlsformen)"):

[...] bleib!, geh!, trink!, lass!, leg den Mantal ab!, führ den Hund aus!

I wasn't sure about the apostrophe rules there, so that was interesting to know.

But the "es" rule? That's one I never would have guessed. At least apostrophe-dropping is optional there, rather than mandatory.

The art of telemarketing

2009-05-26T18:01:54Z

I just got a call from a research company on behalf of Enterprise Rent-a-car, where I had rented a car over the week-end.

The lady said she had a few questions for me and would I have a few minutes to answer them? I said sure.

She asked me how satisfied I was with the overall experience and how likely it would be for me to choose Enterprise again when I wanted to rent another car. Short and sweet, though the enumeration of the possible answers after each question I found a bit annoying.

But afterwards, she said that my answers were valued and that they were helpful for Enterprise, and thanked me for my time. Which would have made a better impression on me had it not sounded as if she was reading from a script.

Scripts are fine. Sincere appreciation is also fine. But "appreciation" from a script just doesn't cut it somehow. The way she read them off, they sounded like empty words—or shall I say, like words that weren't hers.

I think that was the most insincere bit: that it sounded as if she was reading them off a sheet of paper or off a computer screen and saying them because she was expected to say them, but without feeling and without giving the impression that the emotion expressed in them originated from her.

I suppose that's part of the art of telemarketing: making it sound as if you're speaking naturally and you're really interested in the customer's business, not reading formulaic phrases off a script that someone designed to make customers feel good. (Because lady: they don't if it's so obvious that you're not putting any life into them.)

It's not that she sounded bored with her job or anything; it was just a neutral delivery.

Meta-limerick

2009-05-25T09:10:23Z

From Wikipedia:

There once was an X from place B,
That satisfied predicate P,
He or she did thing A,
In an adjective way,
Resulting in circumstance C.

Bad pickup lines

2009-05-22T18:00:38Z

I just got trouted (well, salmoned), with an opener of "Catholicism is for pussies".

That ought to get some conversations going, I suppose. (Which is the point of those bots, as I understand it.)

IKEA

2009-05-22T17:55:10Z

Today, we decided to go and rent a car.

Stella asked whether we could just call them and get a car immediately, and I said, sure, that should be possible as long as they have cars left.

So I called them and they even still had a Fox (Stella's favourite car) and I had them pick me up.

Then since we had the car already, we drove over to IKEA. (I took the day off as a "bridge day" following the Ascension Day public holiday yesterday.)

Yay. IKEA is always fun. And Stella got her swivel chair: one like mine, but with a pink seat rather than a black one. We didn't find it in the shelves, but I asked the chap at the desk on the off-chance that they had them on another shelf somewhere (I've seen it where similar models were not in adjacent slots but separated by quite a bit), and he printed out a receipt for us to pick it up at a counter after paying for it. So yay! They had it in stock, just not out in the self-serve area.

Amy can ride a bike now!

2009-05-22T12:54:02Z

We decided to get Amy a proper bicycle now.

She wanted a blue one, because blue is her favourite colour. Fair enough. But she also wanted one with dolphins on it! This we couldn't promise.

But. Stella found a blue bicycle with dolphins on it, in Amy's size! So we got her that.

And after only a few days, she could already ride without assistance. (I'm certain that her experience with the balance bicycle helped.)

She needs help getting started (getting on and getting moving), but once she's under way, we can let go. And she still needs to learn to brake properly (using the hand brake or ... what do you call it in English? backpedalling? where pedalling backwards brakes instead. Rücktrittbremse.); right now, she still brakes using her feet, like she had to do with her balance bicycle (or her Bobby car), which had no brakes.

Still! Progress.

And for those of you who would like an image, here you go:

Namensvetter

2009-05-16T17:47:45Z

I wrote a Postcrossing card to a Chinese today, and mentioned the Chinese name a Chinese at school had given me.

Today, it arrived and in his reply, the person said that there's a singer bearing the same given name as mine! Only his name has the #3 most popular family name rather than mine (#5 most popular, 2006 numbers, according to Wikipedia).

The things you learn: Zimbabwe

2009-05-15T08:20:26Z

Apparently, Zimbabwe is syllabified not Zim.bab.we but Zi.mba.bwe in the original.

Has anyone just lost The Game?

2009-05-14T08:31:54Z

Occasionally, I see people mention that they just lost The Game.

These always amuse me, since I've never considered playing. But some other people seem to take it fairly seriously.

I suppose it's schadenfreude, really, because I imagine that to them, it's not a joke. But still. I find it funny when someone, through a public announcement that they have lost The Game, cause other people to lose, too, and declaim so publicly.

(Am I being too callous? I suppose I really don't know how seriously people take it, or what emotions surround losing.)

Walk with Amy :: Allergy test

2009-05-11T08:37:43Z

Yesterday afternoon, we went on a walk with Amy (we on foot, Amy on her balance bicycle).

We saw a couple of young girls (maybe 11 or so), who obviously overheard me speaking English to Amy.

At one point, one the girls approached me and asked timidly, "Do you have the time, please?"

I pulled my mobile phone out of my pocket and showed it to her (my screensaver is a full-screen digital clock): 16:02. I said, "kurz nach vier".

She seemed a tad flustered and asked me whether I was English; I said yes.

After we went on, Stella commented to me that the girl must have screwed up all her courage in order to approache me; I chuckled and said that I had felt the same thing. Especially since she not only spoke to me in her (presumably school-learned) English but must also have been prepared to understand the response!

Afterwards, I wondered whether I had done her a disservice by answering her in German; I suppose that depends on whether she really wanted to know the time (unlikely, in hindsight, given that her friend had a mobile phone on her that she had used to snap some pictures with, and which presumably had the right time) or whether she wanted to practise her English or impress her friend. Ah well.

A bit later on, while coming back from the big meadow where Amy could ride her balance bicycle to her heart's content without having to worry about cars, Amy failed to stop when we called to her to stop, so I ran after her and picked her up and we went home, with her on foot rather than on the balance bicycle.

I later asked Stella whether I had been too strict but she said no; I think that when the parents say, "Stop!" or "Wait!" that the child has to listen immediately and not treat it as a joke, because it could be something serious.

This morning, I had a prick test for allergies. She only tested seven substances (salt solution; histamine; two kinds of mites; grasses; rye; and birch), four of which developed into huge wheals/welts. Fortunately, after the doctor looked at them, the assistant put some Fenistil (topical antihistamine? not quite sure what it does) on them and the itching went away. But I still have big bumps there now, an hour later.