26 July, 2008

21 July, 2008

Word, words, words

Having survived the surgical removal of my wisdom teeth, I remembered to email Dr Ruth Wajnryb, Spectrum's 'Words' columnist about an interesting linguist question that has been bothering me for some weeks:

Recently I had to go into day surgery to have my wisdom teeth removed. A day before the scheduled surgery a nurse called to ask a few questions: 'Do you have diabetes?' 'Do you smoke?' etc. Her last question was 'You haven't had a cold or cough in the past week?' Instinctively I said 'yes', which I then had to explain as 'yes, I haven't had a cold or cough'.

What is the correct interpretation of the negative question? If she had asked 'Have you had a cold or cough in the past week?' I would have answered 'no', so surely asking a negative version of that question should also reverse the answer.


I received the following reply today:

Thank u for ur email. Interesting question. First let me ask u if you're a speaker of an Asian language, because this is a point of grammar that often trips up such a speaker and my reply would be different then compared to if u'd been a native speaker of English. Ruth

Seriously, is this columnist really a linguist? I'm not sure if this is some kind of post-modernist response incorporating SMS language or just a truly bad email.

The first thing that threw me was the use of the 'u' instead of 'you' and yet she's typed out 'you're' in full. The second thing that threw me was the use of 'then' instead of 'than' for the comparative.

I feel three things at the moment:
1) The subs must do a good job with her column;
2) The literate world as we know it is about to end;
3) Maybe this is joke she plays on people to see if they correct her.

20 July, 2008

WYDney

A curious phenomenon: although plenty of mutterings about wasted taxpayer money can be heard reverberating around town with regard to World Youth Day, there's also a strange sense of pride emerging that comes from the fact that, after all, these pilgrims are tourists and we need to show them a good time. Even though it won't necessarily involve sex and alcohol.

15 July, 2008

Jesii of North Sydney

Is the plural of Jesus 'Jesuses' or 'Jesii'?

Anyway, there are three statues of Jesus along the Mount St plaza in North Sydney. One is Jesus in a technicolour dreamcoat, one is greyscale Jesus and the other is 'One Love' Jesus. I keep bumping into all the Catholics who stop to take photos with each of them.

I made the mistake of scheduling a meeting in the city this morning. The top of George Street was blocked to traffic. There was a pilgrim parade instead, which was worse because the crowd wasn't going my way. The parade featured pilgrims grouped in countries with the head of each group displaying their country's flag. It was like the Olympic opening ceremony for Catholics.

This evening I came home to find that the quiet suburb of Waverton had turned into a very loud concert of people covering bad music: CDB, Mary Mary, Mariah Carey and Guy Sebastian - need I say more? It ended with a ferocious fireworks display that I couldn't see, only heard. Fortunately all World Youth Day acoustic activity ceased about half an hour ago. Catholics need to sleep, after all.

Can someone tell me why this event is called World Youth Day?
1) It's not for all the world, only Catholics;
2) It's not just for youth - I would hardly call the Pope a spring chicken;
3) It's not for a day, it's for SIX.

10 July, 2008

On the scene

My mother has always hated Get Smart ("it's a silly show") and now that it's in cinemas everywhere, I think she dreads the revival of the TV series, which is inevitably available on DVD. I've always enjoyed the inanity and have used terms like 'the cone of silence' on many occasions.

Anyway, the point of mentioning her comment was that we couldn't agree on anything to watch at the cinema on Tuesday. She wanted to see Children of the Silk Road, I wanted to see Get Smart so we compromised and saw Mongol instead. It was a bit too long and a bit too bloody, is all I'll say.

What amazes me is the number of films out now which are based on TV shows: Get Smart, Sex & The City, The X Files: I want to believe, The Dark Knight (albeit originally based on a comic book). Then the number of films based on graphic novels, stage shows, character franchises, books, anime... Is there an original idea in this industry?

Am looking forward to The Dark Knight but also have a bunch of others on my list to see: The Orphanage, Wanted, The Square and maybe even Harold & Kumar Escape from Guantanamo Bay.

07 July, 2008

Citizen Pain

So, having just had my three remaining wisdom teeth surgically removed I decided to catch up on some DVD-watching. First on the list, Citizen Kane, which has been nominated as the best movie of all time by... a number of people.

It's good, but not great. Good because some of the film techniques in it are quite striking and contemporary, even for a movie so old. Not great because it is based on the life of Randolph Hearst and so I have to take points off for lack of originality in terms of plot.

By the way, I'm not in much pain - my jaw's a bit achey - but I think it's funny that I have jowly cheeks like Orson Welles.