Sunday 6 October 2024

Lonelio Noleoni

 Grass-widder agane this w/e: just me n the sheep

Friday 4 October 2024

Gavagai!

In't language wonderful? We make these sounds with lingua, lips and larynx [Ug Ug beep beep] and other humans (and some dogs) can understand them to carry a particular meaning. Not all other humans, of course; your {family | roomies | co-workers}will probably get your drift; but someone who has just struggled from a leaking inflatable through the grating roar of pebbles which the waves draw back  and onto Dover Beach - maybe not so much? [and every day, as someone with a tin ear, I thank St Fursey I grew up Anglophonic).

It's not fair, or sensible, to ignore that wet Somali refugee because, even if we SHOUT, he can't understand what we want. Not sensible? Because we are making a sorry hames of running things hereabouts and could really benefit from new ways of l◎◎king at the problems that haemorrhage our social capital and aggravate inequity, unfairness and exclusion.

That's why we need linguists (and signers, translators, grammarians); to see what falls through the cracks of communication when people speak to each other. I returned a rental-car the other day and pointed at the nearside front corner
Bob "those scuff marks were on it when I took delivery"
Avis "these alloys?"
Bob "I've no idea, it's your car"
Avis "No: do . you . mean . the . alloy . wheels?"
I'm glad we cleared that up, because extra charges have been anxious-making in the past.

The best ling thing on the internet since sliced infinitives is Lingthusiasm which I've riffed on before. In the latest of nearly 100 episodes they cite a linguistics 101 story about two lads in countryside who have no language in common. A rabbit exits the hedgerow and runs across the field and one man points and says "Gavagai!". What does the other person make of that single word - it matters because establishing the meaning might be the beginning of a beautiful mutually intelligible friendship. Probably "rabbit"?? But could be "fast" or "big-ears" or "I like a lorra shaggin' too" or "mammal" or "fox incommming". 

The Lingthusiasm discussion transitioned from [parts of] rabbit to a handy resource for inter-language comparison. Morris Swadesh (1909-1967), a student of Edward Sapir [of Sapir and Whorf prev]. . . became the GoTo for lexicostatistics and glottochronology. In 1952 he delivered a 215 word list of language universals, to facilitate the comparison of languages - how many members of the Swadesh List have the same root in, say, Hindi and Irish. IF all languages, and this is the hypothesis behind the lists, have a word for [alphabetically] - bird - come - drink - earth - foot - give - hand - know - leaf - many - neck - push - rain - tree - THEN you can be confident that speakers of two languages are talking about the same thing . . . and you can make your comparisons. You may be able to see the connexion with the Gavagai tale. I guess that populating the Swadesh List for a newly discovered language would involve the same sort of non-leading questions as used to fill a Linguistic Atlas: "What do you call the long, tapering, orange-coloured root vegetable with feathery green leaves?"

Anyway. Swadesh recognised / included only 5 colours [wot? no cerise or teal?] because, for e.g., blue is not universal. Here are those colours in 9 different EU languages. What I've done is sort the five words in each language alphabetically. Your task is to match the colours between each pair of languages. Maybe start with EN and Nederlands?

Maybe not so easy? - even when you exclude the two not IndoEuropean tongues = HU and FI. You may express your admiration for those 19thC scholars who wrangled the Indo-European family of languages to appreciate that they were all descended from PIE - a language spoken by central Asian shepherds maybe 5000 years ago. Swadesh Lists for more languages [Hausa Telugu Tagalog Klingon] than you can shake a stick at on wiktionary.

Answers

EN FR HU NL PT CZ FI IS IE
87 red rouge vörös rood vermelho červený punainen rauður dearg
88 green vert zöld groen verde zelený vihreä grænn glas
89 yellow jaune sárga geel amarelo žlutý keltainen gulur buí
90 white blanc fehér wit branco bílý valkoinen hvítur bán
91 black noir fekete zwart preto černý musta svartur dubh
In context, you can believe that yellow and geel and gulur have a common [Germanic] origin. As for black, English has gone rogue by adopting blæc an Old English word for ink. But we keep the standard meaning in swarthy. Also ewe.

Wednesday 2 October 2024

Other ways of being

I gorra new Podcast: Mindscapes run by Sean Carroll where he "hosts conversations with the world's most interesting thinkers. Science, society, philosophy, culture, arts, and ideas." I should be okay for a while because it's been running since 2018 and 290+ thinkers have given an hour of their time to the project. Sean Carroll was trained a cosmic physicist [PhD Harvard 1993] but has also been one of those Public Intellectuals like Steven Pinker. Cosmology is hard and physicists in search of new challenges were definitely the grit that niggles at the start of the rise and rise of molecular biology in the 1950s. Carrol has read Erwin Schrödinger's What is Life? for example and has ideas about evolution because he's read widely in the field and is interested in Life, The Universe and Everything including the antics of the diverse inhabitants of this our small blue planet.

Mindscapes 269 featured Sahar Heydari Fard on "Complexity, Justice, and Social Dynamics". She has not read Erwin Schrödinger's What is Life? but she is up to speed on, say, punctuated equilibria and other key issues in the evolutionary philosophy. So her convo with Carroll was quite high-falutin' but pretty interesting, not to say gripping. The question addressed was what tools are available to document and support change in society. Like 1950s physicists brought their ways of seeing to DNA, proteins and evolution in the 1960s; so with social dynamics today: maybe we don't need to re-invent the wheel if established complexity theory can be mobilized to make models to get our heads around really hard problems (and unintended consequences) in society. 

One of the biological theories that the philosophical physicist and the philosophical economist cite with approval is Wright's idea of adaptive landscapes. Acknowledging that the Perfick is the enemy of the Good enough. They like the idea of local optimum solutions that may not be The Answer but are pretty good in a particular place and time. But Wright's landscape is barely a theory, let alone a testable hypothesis - it's a metaphor! But Fard riffs off on the idea to imagine an actual landscape of communities all trying to get along with the cards they have been dealt - a maybe sharing some of Things That Work with other similar communities to save them having to re-invent the wheel er blackjack table [Mixed metaphor morass alert!].  But that's okay: matter a damn where the ideas come from; just seize those which seem useful. The podcast set my poor mind off in a number of different directions. 

① One was to reflect on our Kindred Neanderthals who kept on keeping on for 200,000 years - through climate changes the like of which we haven't yet experienced - sharing, propagating and using a very basic set of technological tools: chipped stones, tanned hides, sharp sticks and red fire. The Blob has asked, rhetorically, where do the ideas come from? in science. For reasons unknown, Neanderthals don't seem to have budged much on the implemented ideas front for a hella long time.

② I was talking to my neighbour Local Solar the other day. He asserted that he was, like me, def'ny a morning person. But he recognised that night-owls had their place too. He reckoned the distinction went back to when the common ancestor of Us and Neanderthals had just come down from the trees. It was desirable that someone in the clan should be awake to tend the fire (and keep watch for cave-bears). Groups which segregated for larks and owls [as we do for green eyes and brown], retaining some of each type, survived better while less bioclock diverse parties left the stage. I'd never heard that argument before and I've no idea if it's even testable scientifically. But I love the idea that we are selected to be diverse rather than identical (to a fallen angel?)

③ Carroll and Fard were also asking how stable societies can nevertheless embrace change. For hundreds of years Han Chinese carried out foot-binding on their infant girls. Then in the space of one generation, about 100 years ago, the practice was shoved into the dustbin of history. This collective decision worked where Edicts from Manchu Emperors in the 1600s had been brushed aside. How come? Lots of other cultural norms in that society - some of which seem weird to us - continue as before. When we came back to Ireland in 1990, it was still pretty darned white, pretty darned catholic and pretty darned bacon & cabbage. In 1996, when we moved to the deepest rural midlands, our nearest neighbour confessed that they'd just tried frozen pizza for the first time - induced to do so by their teenage daughter. Now there is a Chinese take-away in Borris (pop ca. 800), not to mention Polskie sklepy, black and amber GAA players and Grand Theft Auto. 

One way to make change in the way we live now is to present lots of options and give some of them a go. Immigrants? Bring 'em on!

Monday 30 September 2024

Dobré ráno Marek

The Grape is gorn and we're back in the Republic of Yaris. There are about 60,000 different used cars for sale in Ireland today. There are too many variables (marque, model, year, drive-train, clock-Km, colour, price) of uncertain weighting to get The Best car. But, as an evolutionary biologist, I don't want Perfect, I rather want Good enough. One way of reducing the choice to manageable proportions is by brand: Audi Bentley Chevy . . . Renault Škoda Toyota. And the rest is fairly straight-forward, constrained by money and size and what is available at this location today. I am not one to piffle about: so long as it goes and won't leave me or mine stranded, a decision can be made today. 

The day after The Grape was given a terminal diagnosis, which was not wholly unexpected, we went to the nearest Toyota dealer and said "Sell me this pencil us a car; any car, so long as it's black Yaris". They had about 20 on the forecourt. Half of them older stick-shift petrol like my '06 little red Yaris and half newer [petrol+battery] hybrid models. We were conducted round the stock by a charming New Irish fella from the other end of the EU. After a bit of tire-kicking, I was ready to take the '21 Red Hybrid but was prevailed upon to sleep on the decision. Our contact was off on family business the next day.

But early on the day after that, I sent him a txt "Dobré ráno, Marek, we're coming in at 0900hrs to pay for the '21 Red Yaris Hybrid 212KK456". When we reconvened at 9am, that [rather low mileage] car had been sold, and the other '21 had been keyed over the w/e and was being de-scratched, so we could either go newer for more money or vice-versa. While we dithered, Marek went to his supervisor and secured us another €500 on the trade-in: he was really touched that my text had started with G'day in his mother-tongue. We have a multi-cultural society now, I prefer to lean in to it rather than set fire to vacant hotels. We can all play nicely and use DeepL translator to spice up the comms.

It took a tuthree days to get the paperwork sorted. When I returned to take delivery Marek was off-site again. I nevertheless left him a pot of '23 Marmalade with a tag "Děkuji vám, Marek. In Ireland after a large transaction (like a horse), it is traditional for the buyer to return a luck penny to the seller . . . but you  can't eat pennies. Bob & TB". And that's how we acquired a NightSkyBlack Yaris Hybrid with a once-round-the-world mileage. God bless her and all who sail in her. 20 minutes after taking delivery I parked under tree to go shopping. Bird shat of my windscreen! A baptism of sorts.

Hint - automatic: do NOT use left foot ever - ask me how I know.

Friday 27 September 2024

The apparel oft proclaims the man

Costly thy habit as thy purse can buy,
But not expressed in fancy; rich, not gaudy,
For the apparel oft proclaims the man
. . . Polonius advises

Half a life-time ago, in advance of a career-changing interview, we went into Next in Newcastle upon Tyne and came out 45 minutes later with a woolmark charcoal gray double-breasted suit. I didn't get the job, but the suit has done me ever since for weddings, funerals, christenings and interviews. Being exactly average in size has made life easier for me to find things that fit. And being frankly Scarlett about the apparel details certainly helps.

One of the useful things I was taught in graduate school in Boston was that wearing a jacket and tie [a charcoal gray suit might be a teensy bit OTT in academia] for an interview shows that you care enough about the job to step over that very low bar! For all other public/formal events, not wearing a suit is making a statement and so making it more about you than the situation probably deserves. Exceptions made if you are, like, The Corpse: then it's your last chance to be the subject of gossip.

People have said that I brush up well. But that's largely about being average size, so my pants legs come to the shoe but no further. And I inherited a wide variety of ties from my Da (HMS Dolphin, Royal Engineers, Old Eton etc. to none of which he was 'entitled') and have picked up more snazzy designs as gifts along the way.

By coincidence, in the run up to my last jacket&tie outing - to #1 Grafton St! - I found myself listening to Sean Carroll, public intellectual, in conversation with Derek Guy, internet personality, about the Theory and Practice of Dressing Well. Guy has been in some twitter-spats about suitings; and blogs about apparel on Die, Workwear. I R old; I R The patriarchy; I had a very expensive education including a very old fashioned uniform - so I don't need advice about neckties and buttons. Most of that is about signalling status to people who care; like wearing a gold ring in your left (gay) or right (pirate) ear. eeee but I do have a lot an hour and a bit of time for an enthusiast.

I liked very much the two-sidedness of Derek Guy's coin. One side knows and cares about the difference between a four-in-hand and a half-windsor. The other is very emphatic that he/we should never judge someone's worth by their clothing. Chances are, you've been wrapping your neck in a four-in-hand since you were in national school without knowing the name, like M. Jourdain and prose. Nevertheless, Derek Guy's advice seems sound: if you dress to fit [your bod and the social surroundings] then you'll possibly feel less awkward and it will be easier for everyone to have a fun and/or productive time.

Wednesday 25 September 2024

Deputy State Pathologist

The Blob has been running for nearly 12 years; recently cranked down from daily to MoWeFr[Su]. Now that I R retire, it is no longer an everyday story of Institute folks and I must poke elsewhere for copy. Most days, before breakfast, instead of a cold bath [so Protestant, so Yesterday], I glance at the RTE front-page to check that I haven't missed something important. We've come a long way from the BBC dressing a chap in evening clothes for 9 o'clock to solemnly announce "There is no news tonight". RTE will fill their page with stuff regardless of whether there is any news. But it would take a momentous recent upheaval elsewhere to stop RTE giving headlines to an Irish murder or a multi-victim car-crash. 

For 20 years 1998-2018, the reports on Irish mayhem would mention the presence of Dr Marie Cassidy, the [Deputy] State Pathologist. Before she was appointed DSP in 1998, one man carried the can, now there are seven pathologists on pay-roll (currently all women for what that's worth). Jack Harbison, Cassidy's mentor and predecessor, wasn't camera-shy and State Pathologists have become celebs in Ireland. This is not the norm in other jurisdictions.

When Cassidy retired in 2018, as well as the Dancing with the Stars gig and a part on Cold Case Collins [nodding sagely R], she also sat down to write her memoir Beyond the Tape which was published in 2020. It required big font and 1.5pt line-spacing to get it to fill 300 pages and justify the £16 sticker price. Not knocking it for being short; it does the job. The gruesome is presented but not lingered over and the books spares us the smell and the flies, so we can get a sense of how grim-but-necessary tasks are carried out professionally. One thing that helps front-line workers get through is gallows humour and a good bit of that leaks into the pages of the book. 

One aspect of the professional demeanour of Marie Cassidy is that she tries very hard to be non-judgmental and dispassionate. It's not helping grieving relatives if the forensic pathologist goes all weepy on them but neither is pretending to be a robot. Also (by her own account) while Cassidy works hard and meticulously to bring decades of experience to bear on resolving the cause of death, she is not prone to over-egging the pudding. She will stand up in court to say that the evidence is equivocal or insufficient. And I also detect a degree of compassion for the perps. It's not helpful to anyone if state professionals are judge and jury and St-Peter-At-The-Gate for The Accused. Humility and a l o n g list of wrongful convictions require uncertainty about The Facts.

This is the 4th forensic biography I've reviewed after Mark Spenser's Murder Most Florid, Patricia Wiltshire's Trace, and Unnatural Causes by Richard Shepherd. The last has the greatest overlap with the Cassidy book. Shepherd eventually unravelled. It's probably true that gallow's humor isn't enough to secure the mental health of all workers at the forensic coal-face. I only read Beyond the Tape because The Beloved browsed it off the library shelves especially for me. I won't be reading Marie Cassidy's first essay into fiction with The Body of Truth (2024) but I daresay the whodunnit members of my family - who are legion - will give it a go.