Chris Says: May 25th, 2008 at 9:02 am
As a graduate student in linguistics, I hereby challenge you to provide a citation for “linguistic studies that suggest that velar consonants are funnier than alveodentals”.
My first impression is that the claim is preposterous and false, but I’m willing to follow-up on any citation you can provide.
Funniest joke in the world?: Brad Neese: Living Large in Oklahoma Says: May 25th, 2008 at 5:56 pm
[…] McNamee examines “The World’s Funniest Joke“: […] according to research conducted a few years back at the University of Hertfordshire, […]
Gregory McNamee Says: May 26th, 2008 at 10:13 am
Chris, as someone who holds a graduate degree in linguistics, let me turn it around: I challenge you to prove the theory wrong. There’s a thesis or dissertation in there somewhere.
(Snide is a pretty funny word, come to think of it, and it’s all fricative and nasal and interdental, not a velar element in sight.)
Anyway, here’s a source that, as I recall, cites further studies, followed by a dissertation by a pretty funny guy.
1. “The power of ‘k’ has become comedy lore. . . . Hard consonant sounds, especially K sounds, which include C [and] Qu . . . tend to make words sound funnier. The comic Wendy Liebman told me that she’s always trying to write a joke that ends with ‘kayak.’”–Tad Friend, “What’s So Funny?: A Scientific Attempt to Discover Why We Laugh,” The New Yorker, November 11, 2002
2. “Fifty-seven years in this business, you learn a few things. You know what words are funny and which words are not funny. Alka Seltzer is funny. You say ‘Alka Seltzer’ you get a laugh . . . Words with ‘k’ in them are funny. Casey Stengel, that’s a funny name. Robert Taylor is not funny. Cupcake is funny. Tomato is not funny. Cookie is funny. Cucumber is funny. Car keys. Cleveland . . . Cleveland is funny. Maryland is not funny. Then, there’s chicken. Chicken is funny. Pickle is funny.”–Neil Simon, “The Sunshine Boys”
Chris Says: May 31st, 2008 at 9:16 am
Gregory, thanks for following up. I have not been able to find Friend’s article, unfortunately. Even though The New Yorker has many of his article available in their archive, they do not have that particular one, as far as I can tell.
“as someone who holds a graduate degree in linguistics”, you must know that languages differ in their phonological inventories. Do you believe that a Comanche speaker finds words with K inherently funny? Tagalog speakers? Quechua speakers?
Wikipedia has a web page called “Inherently funny word” which cites Neil Simon as well as H.L. Mencken as early example of this idea. But surely you must understand my skepticism. This is anecdotal lore at best. My first guess is that this ‘funny K words’ tradition is rooted in Yiddish humor, and is not universal by any stretch, but your claim was couched in phonetic descriptions that are universal (”alveodentals”).
This reminds me of sound symbolism, the idea that certain sounds have inherent meaning. While it may be the case that certain sounds or phoneme clusters come to be loosely associated with a related set of words (/fl/ = “flat” in flip, fly, flat), this association is typically historical and cultural, not inherent.
My guess is that any “scientific” study which found K words to be funnier than others had serious methodological flaws, probably in its population.
Monday, June 2, 2008
Sunday, June 1, 2008
CIVILIZATION
If you have to explain a joke, the old saw has it, then it’s not funny.
It could even be dangerous to do so. For instance, take this gem of English-language humor: A horse walks into a bar. The bartender says, “Hey, buddy, why the long face?” It’s just the sort of jape that a time-traveler would employ in conversation with, say, Genghis Khan, who would probably boil said voyager alive as just punishment for the groans that would ensue after an interpreter (never mind the differences between modern English and the Mongolian of centuries past) explained the idiom “to have a long face.” (On that note, this philosophical statement: Genghis Khan, but Immanuel Kant.)
Now try this one: A bee is flying alongside another bee. He notices that his fellow apian is wearing a yarmulke. “What’s with the headgear?” he asks. “You want I should be taken for a WASP?” comes the reply.
Certainly it can be socially and politically daring to explore the workings of a joke, as Albert Brooks discovers in the course of his not-so-funny movie Looking for Comedy in the Muslim World. (On that note, this unobligatory aside for the benefit of the Iranian site that regularly hijacks this blog: Q: How many members of the Council of Guardians does it take to change a light bulb? A: None, because there are no light bulbs in the Middle Ages.) And as for the joke-dissecting that goes on in the exquisitely foul film The Aristocrats—well, you’ll just have to see it for yourself.
Jokes cannot kill, with all respect to the brilliant lads of Monty Python, one of whose sketches concerns a joke developed by British intelligence against the Nazis, a notoriously humorless bunch who nonetheless expire in spasms of laughter. Nazi scientists attempt to retaliate, as Hitler roars before an adoring crowd, “My dog has no nose!” The crowd shouts back, “How does he smell?” “Awful!”
All the same, according to research conducted a few years back at the University of Hertfordshire, the funniest joke in the world, the one that most easily travels across cultures, is about death. It goes something like this:
Two hunters are out hunting. One of them falls over and seems not to be breathing. His friend calls 911* and cries, “What do I do?” “Well, first, let’s make sure he’s dead,” says the operator. There is silence, and then a shot rings out. The hunter returns to the phone and says, “Okay, now what?”
It’s a good joke, to be sure. But curiously, the jokes that seemed to work the best on the cross-cultural charts were just over 100 words long, with the optimum number being 103. The full version of the hunters joke tips in at 102 words, lending credence to the notion that a strange numerology is at play. Couple that with linguistic studies that suggest that velar consonants are funnier than alveodentals and sibilants and such (thus “kayak” is a funny word, “yellow” and “sassy” not so much), and we have the beginnings of a formula. Back to the drawing board, then….
Oh, and breaking news, to return to the Python front: The Norwegian blue parrot, it appears, really did exist. Where’s that time traveler now that we need him?
* Or whatever emergency number is appropriate to the locale where the joke is being told.
Responses to “Peter Lorre: The Ghostly Echo of a Gentleman”
Did Peter Lorre come into this world with a sinister sneer fully formed on his lips? Was he at heart a sniveling, treacherous, conniving creep? Not at all, though from the moment American moviegoers set eyes on him, Lorre was a favorite of directors and screenwriters looking for just the right touch of evil—and audiences believed that he was evil indeed.
Born László Löwenstein on June 26, 1904, in a small but prosperous town in Hungary, Lorre moved to Vienna as soon as he could. He later said that he had studied there with Sigmund Freud, but about his early years we can only guess, since Lorre invented details of his past as he invented the characters for which he would become famous. What is certain is that he started out poor, a habitué of smoky coffeehouses who ate so seldom that, he remembered, “I am the only actor, I believe, who really had scurvy.”
Still, he survived, and he rose from small parts in strange “therapeutic” dramas to become a regular player in some of the city’s leading theaters. He graduated to film earning renown for his portrayal of a serial killer in Fritz Lang’s classic M (1931). Still young, but already a seasoned player by virtue of theatrical work with the playwright Bertolt Brecht in Berlin, Lorre so completely inhabited the part that, in no time at all, he was—or so he claimed—offered “dozens of villainous roles.”
Work is work, Lorre knew, but he also recognized the danger inherent in being typecast. Besides, he really wanted to do comedy. Still, he went off to London for a turn in Alfred Hitchcock’s The Man Who Knew Too Much, and then, in time, to America, having wisely escaped from Germany a step ahead of the Gestapo.
No sooner did he arrive in Hollywood than Lorre found himself in a familiar role, that of the psychopathic killer in Mad Love (a.k.a.) The Hands of Orlac. He brought a curious pride of workmanship to the grade Z part, believing that it was his job to introduce “a new kind of villainy to the cinema.” Filmgoers noticed the man billed as “America’s strangest sensation,” and in time he was indeed bringing a new kind of villainy to the screen, now as the high-voiced, worldly, but definitely bad likes of Joel Cairo in The Maltese Falcon and Ugarte in Casablanca, in which he uttered the memorable line, “You know, Rick, I have many a friend in Casablanca, but somehow, just because you despise me, you are the only one I trust.”
From there, alas, the road led downward. It didn’t help that Lorre was addicted to various substances, or that he despised himself, or that he had few friends, or that he was politically suspect during the days of the blacklist, or that he was consistently underpaid almost everywhere he worked and was “chronically short of money and long on bad luck.” From Casablanca to The Patsy is a long fall, and Lorre knew it. Being praised as one of the greatest actors in history but reduced to supporting Fabian could hardly have cheered him.
Peter Lorre died of a stroke on March 23, 1964, intestate and insolvent, not long after having pitched a remake of M. The studio head declined, fearing there would be no market for it, at which point, as Stephen D. Youngkin remarks in his careful biography of Lorre, The Lost One, the actor probably wondered whether “he should have stayed in Europe and faced Hitler.”
Yet Lorre lives on in curious ways: slyly traced by Robin Williams’s genie in Aladdin, appropriated by a breakfast cereal, hijacked to serve as the voice of a demented Chihuahua in a cartoon series and as the inspiration for a particularly weasel-like species of aliens in a popular space opera. Those ghostly echoes are apt, but the man who made them was an actor, and a man, worthy of more enduring monuments. The best of his films will do nicely.
TECHNOLOGY
When the Associated Press posted an article on April 16 about Tricia Walsh-Smith and her public tirade on YouTube, the world had the chance to see the angry side of a crumbling marriage straight from their PCs. In a tearful and furious YouTube video, actress and playwright Tricia (”Bonkers”) Walsh-Smith publicly lashed out against her husband, Broadway theatre executive Philip Smith, in a steady spate of negative and personal details about their failed sex life and marital woes. With the growing use of Internet sites such as YouTube, MySpace, and personal blogs, (it is estimated that one in every ten Americans have Internet blogs), many scorned spouses are using the Web to tell their side of the marital saga in a compulsive stream of rageful and embarrassing posts.
In her New York Times article on April 18, “When The Ex Writes a Blog, The Dirtiest Laundry Is Aired,” Leslie Kaufman states that, for the blogger, writing can be therapeutic. And she suggests that, for the reader, blogging can be infectious. Kaufman writes that bloggers who share their personal gripes about marital indiscretions sometimes have between 10,000 and 55,000 regular readers; and the percentage of users with personal blogs has quadrupled in five years.
All of this poses the question: Has the Internet facilitated a new type of confession where ill-advised or uncontrolled statements and emotions can be aired, if not supported and even validated?
In the professional world of psychotherapy, private emotions are explored and expressed in a “controlled environment” where the listener is a trained and willing participant in the patient’s journey of self discovery. Whether it be through behavioral techniques, interpersonal feedback or psychodynamic questioning, the therapist hears the patient’s confessions and offers appropriate dialogue to promote healthy decisions and optimal functioning. But when the listener is an audience of 55,000 anonymous eaves droppers (many with their own personal gripes and emotional wounds), cyber-rage may lead to ineffectual choices and misguided validation.
And what becomes of the children who read about, or listen to, their parents’ personal traumas on line? The public maligning of marriage, most often one sided, is not a healthy way to co-parent children who are already enduring their parents’ relationship struggles. (And children who harbor guilt or personal responsibility for their parent’s fights are particularly at risk.) In this new public arena, boundaries become blurred and unfair allegiances are borne out of a need for a parent’s emotional validation in “the heat of the moment.” And once written, or spoken, they can not be taken back. Instead, cyber-confessions can be book-marked, printed, and saved for personal posterity: perhaps to be used as fodder for the next generation of psychotherapy patients.
In her New York Times article on April 18, “When The Ex Writes a Blog, The Dirtiest Laundry Is Aired,” Leslie Kaufman states that, for the blogger, writing can be therapeutic. And she suggests that, for the reader, blogging can be infectious. Kaufman writes that bloggers who share their personal gripes about marital indiscretions sometimes have between 10,000 and 55,000 regular readers; and the percentage of users with personal blogs has quadrupled in five years.
All of this poses the question: Has the Internet facilitated a new type of confession where ill-advised or uncontrolled statements and emotions can be aired, if not supported and even validated?
In the professional world of psychotherapy, private emotions are explored and expressed in a “controlled environment” where the listener is a trained and willing participant in the patient’s journey of self discovery. Whether it be through behavioral techniques, interpersonal feedback or psychodynamic questioning, the therapist hears the patient’s confessions and offers appropriate dialogue to promote healthy decisions and optimal functioning. But when the listener is an audience of 55,000 anonymous eaves droppers (many with their own personal gripes and emotional wounds), cyber-rage may lead to ineffectual choices and misguided validation.
And what becomes of the children who read about, or listen to, their parents’ personal traumas on line? The public maligning of marriage, most often one sided, is not a healthy way to co-parent children who are already enduring their parents’ relationship struggles. (And children who harbor guilt or personal responsibility for their parent’s fights are particularly at risk.) In this new public arena, boundaries become blurred and unfair allegiances are borne out of a need for a parent’s emotional validation in “the heat of the moment.” And once written, or spoken, they can not be taken back. Instead, cyber-confessions can be book-marked, printed, and saved for personal posterity: perhaps to be used as fodder for the next generation of psychotherapy patients.
Responses to “Reform the Olympics: Pick a Spot and Stick With It”
Give up, the “Games” are gone beyond repair, if they ever truly were games in the first place, given there martial connotations. The ‘Games’ recent prominence owes as much to politics as it does to sport. Inextricably bound up in the Cold War mentality they bizarrely became an index of Western superiority (or misgivings about such) vis-a-vis the old Soviet system. This crude nationalism has carried over somewhat in the post-Soviet era but it’s required an extra measure of PR spin and commercial enterprise to fill the void lefy by the titanic symbolic struggle of the West vs. the “commies” as played out in the puffed up pagentry of the Olympics. War by other means, the old martial signifiers in modern guise. Perhaps China can fill that void to create a new Us vs. Them paradigm, even if they would rather not. The modern Olympics were never very popular in smaller countries that had only token representation. They have mainly been hyped up in rich nations were the advertising revenues are most lucrative and the participation greatest. The TV rights for America are more costly than for all of South America and Africa put together. Amusingly, Americans tend to treat the Olympics as a ‘team’ sport, totaling up the number of medals collected to see if we “won”. The “tawdry boosterism of the modern Games” is exactly what has made them so popular in the U.S. and a few other rich countries. Ideally, in a nation of philosophers, perhaps it would be different. But don’t expect the “Games” to change much until the society does.
OLYMPICS
Since the original Greek games began at Olympia in the 8th century B.C., the celebration of sporting excellence has been tied to the struggle for power.
The athletic events themselves were militarized: footraces run both naked and in armor, wrestling, javelin-throwing, chariot races, and especially the pankration, a sort of bloody, mixed-martial-arts free-for-all, were explicit tests of martial prowess. And although the official rewards for victory at Olympia were meager–mere crowns of leaves–Greek city states offered big rewards to their champions, including cash, property, and free meals for life (then as now, sponsorship was the thing). The games were a celebration of beauty and athleticism; they were also a chance to earn bragging rights over neighbors and rivals.
But if the political tensions that have overshadowed the modern Olympics are nothing new, their paralyzing effects are a result of the way the games have become a boondoggle machine for the business and government interests of host cities.
The upcoming Beijing games represent only the latest stage in a trend that has transformed the games from festivals of peace into advertising campaigns. The question of whether China is prepared to assume a position of power in the world community–or, on the other hand, whether the world is ready for China–is one of the vital issues of our time. But whether the Olympics is a useful venue for working through such controversies is another question altogether. The protesters lining the course of the torch aren’t wrong to do so–far from it; by seizing the opportunity of hosting the games, China also assumed the responsibility of engaging in civil dialogue with the world community. But the possibilities of the games themselves do suffer as a result.
The original games at Olympia in Greece were also a religious festival consecrated to Zeus and a host of other gods, including Gaia the Earth goddess and Eileithyia goddess of birth. As such they were also about origins, and about what unites us all despite our bloody-minded divisiveness. The tawdry boosterism of the modern Games gives the lie to all this.
One solution: do as the Greeks did, and consecrate a single spot to host the Games in perpetuity.
Such a site ideally would be beyond politics, and would embody a meaning that all human beings could embrace. We could do worse than to choose a location in Africa, where the prestige and economic power of the Olympics could be put to real and good use. Location-scouting should begin in the Great Rift Valley, emblematic of the origin of our species, where a locale could be found in view of Mount Kilimanjaro (below), whose diminishing crown of snow would remind athletes and spectators that our common hopes and strivings are larger than local ambitions and partisan concerns; there’s a world hanging in the balance.
The athletic events themselves were militarized: footraces run both naked and in armor, wrestling, javelin-throwing, chariot races, and especially the pankration, a sort of bloody, mixed-martial-arts free-for-all, were explicit tests of martial prowess. And although the official rewards for victory at Olympia were meager–mere crowns of leaves–Greek city states offered big rewards to their champions, including cash, property, and free meals for life (then as now, sponsorship was the thing). The games were a celebration of beauty and athleticism; they were also a chance to earn bragging rights over neighbors and rivals.
But if the political tensions that have overshadowed the modern Olympics are nothing new, their paralyzing effects are a result of the way the games have become a boondoggle machine for the business and government interests of host cities.
The upcoming Beijing games represent only the latest stage in a trend that has transformed the games from festivals of peace into advertising campaigns. The question of whether China is prepared to assume a position of power in the world community–or, on the other hand, whether the world is ready for China–is one of the vital issues of our time. But whether the Olympics is a useful venue for working through such controversies is another question altogether. The protesters lining the course of the torch aren’t wrong to do so–far from it; by seizing the opportunity of hosting the games, China also assumed the responsibility of engaging in civil dialogue with the world community. But the possibilities of the games themselves do suffer as a result.
The original games at Olympia in Greece were also a religious festival consecrated to Zeus and a host of other gods, including Gaia the Earth goddess and Eileithyia goddess of birth. As such they were also about origins, and about what unites us all despite our bloody-minded divisiveness. The tawdry boosterism of the modern Games gives the lie to all this.
One solution: do as the Greeks did, and consecrate a single spot to host the Games in perpetuity.
Such a site ideally would be beyond politics, and would embody a meaning that all human beings could embrace. We could do worse than to choose a location in Africa, where the prestige and economic power of the Olympics could be put to real and good use. Location-scouting should begin in the Great Rift Valley, emblematic of the origin of our species, where a locale could be found in view of Mount Kilimanjaro (below), whose diminishing crown of snow would remind athletes and spectators that our common hopes and strivings are larger than local ambitions and partisan concerns; there’s a world hanging in the balance.
ARCHEOLOGICAL ROADBACK
Do the bombs, bullets and rockets that continue to kill and maim Israelis and Palestinians mean the peace process is doomed? The ferocious violence of late has given Israeli and Palestinian leaders an excuse to walk away from the negotiation table, putting the most recently imposed timetable for peace in jeopardy. But there is cause for hope.
Beyond the glare of news-camera lights and outside the halls of government, Israelis and Palestinians have taken matters into their own hands. Groups of experts are working together to create the ideas and seek out the information on which a final peace agreement might be based.
This is true for some of the core issues – Jerusalem and refugees. It is also true for archaeology. The discipline is deeply imbedded in the conflict and culture of the region. For Israelis, it is a major source of scientific evidence for their claims to ancestral biblical lands. For Palestinians, archaeology raises concerns about sovereignty – they want sole control of all archaeological material recovered inside the borders of a future Palestinian state.
Balanced against the desires of both sides are the dictates of the Hague Convention and international law. If these are applied to the final peace agreement, Israelis will need to repatriate thousands of objects they believe were produced by their ancestors.
Archaeology needs to be considered carefully in future peace negotiations because of its symbolic importance and the economic potential of tourism to ancient sites. But neither the Israeli government nor the Palestinian Authority has engaged in significant preparations for negotiations concerning archaeology.
To fill this void, we initiated the Israeli-Palestinian Archaeology Working Group (click here for a video of the group’s activities), comprised of leading local experts who represent the interests of their respective sides. Our purpose is to determine what archaeological material is disputed and to formulate recommendations for policymakers. We have the support of the U.S. Institute of Peace, our respective universities (USC and UCLA) and private donors.
After three years of intensive meetings, this group produced a detailed document with over 70 sets of recommendations. Based on the Israeli-Egyptian peace agreement framework, we recommend that archaeological material removed from within the borders of the future Palestinian state (however defined by the politicians) after the 1967 war should be returned.
However, we recommend that this repatriation be delayed by five years after signing a formal peace agreement in order to enable the completion of documentation, research and scientific publication of repatriated artifacts. We also recommend that research access to sites and artifacts be guaranteed to scholars and the public regardless of their nationality or cultural identity.
Finally, we recommend that Jerusalem – with its great symbolic importance to Christians, Muslims, and Jews throughout the world – be specially protected. The archaeological heritage of greater Jerusalem must be considered as a single, undivided historical unit, and preservation of Jerusalem’s cultural heritage must supersede national boundaries.
The ancient cultural heritage of Israel and Palestine is important not only to those two peoples as they struggle to achieve peace but also to many outside the region. If no plan is made and archaeology’s symbolic value is ignored, ancient sites and artifacts will remain a source of contention and the prospect of an enduring peace will fade dramatically.
Beyond the glare of news-camera lights and outside the halls of government, Israelis and Palestinians have taken matters into their own hands. Groups of experts are working together to create the ideas and seek out the information on which a final peace agreement might be based.
This is true for some of the core issues – Jerusalem and refugees. It is also true for archaeology. The discipline is deeply imbedded in the conflict and culture of the region. For Israelis, it is a major source of scientific evidence for their claims to ancestral biblical lands. For Palestinians, archaeology raises concerns about sovereignty – they want sole control of all archaeological material recovered inside the borders of a future Palestinian state.
Balanced against the desires of both sides are the dictates of the Hague Convention and international law. If these are applied to the final peace agreement, Israelis will need to repatriate thousands of objects they believe were produced by their ancestors.
Archaeology needs to be considered carefully in future peace negotiations because of its symbolic importance and the economic potential of tourism to ancient sites. But neither the Israeli government nor the Palestinian Authority has engaged in significant preparations for negotiations concerning archaeology.
To fill this void, we initiated the Israeli-Palestinian Archaeology Working Group (click here for a video of the group’s activities), comprised of leading local experts who represent the interests of their respective sides. Our purpose is to determine what archaeological material is disputed and to formulate recommendations for policymakers. We have the support of the U.S. Institute of Peace, our respective universities (USC and UCLA) and private donors.
After three years of intensive meetings, this group produced a detailed document with over 70 sets of recommendations. Based on the Israeli-Egyptian peace agreement framework, we recommend that archaeological material removed from within the borders of the future Palestinian state (however defined by the politicians) after the 1967 war should be returned.
However, we recommend that this repatriation be delayed by five years after signing a formal peace agreement in order to enable the completion of documentation, research and scientific publication of repatriated artifacts. We also recommend that research access to sites and artifacts be guaranteed to scholars and the public regardless of their nationality or cultural identity.
Finally, we recommend that Jerusalem – with its great symbolic importance to Christians, Muslims, and Jews throughout the world – be specially protected. The archaeological heritage of greater Jerusalem must be considered as a single, undivided historical unit, and preservation of Jerusalem’s cultural heritage must supersede national boundaries.
The ancient cultural heritage of Israel and Palestine is important not only to those two peoples as they struggle to achieve peace but also to many outside the region. If no plan is made and archaeology’s symbolic value is ignored, ancient sites and artifacts will remain a source of contention and the prospect of an enduring peace will fade dramatically.
Responses to “The Lost Art of Following Instructions”
What’s the first thing everyone always does when they get a new toy? Throw away the directions, right? How many times have you gotten a new widget, taken one look at the bulky user’s manual printed in five different languages in minute detail with elaborate illustrations and then immediately pick the device up and begin pressing all the buttons and learn by doing, the old-fashioned heuristic way. Now, like a fuddy-duddy university professor you could spend a few minutes or hours dissecting all that is right or wrong or ambiguous in such instruction manuals or you can just get on with it in the time-honored way of learning by doing that kids have been using for generations. That is after all, how many of these recipes came about in the first place, as people experimented and then put the results - at least the successful ones - down on paper for the benefit of others, should they so choose to avail themselves. Which is fine and often a very helpful guide to novices in attempting something new; but not an inviolable edict that must be rigidly adhered to at the cost of active experimentation. The real irony with regard to cooking is not that its a lost art in most homes because of lack of cookbooks or understanding of terminology but for changes in society which have given rise to prepackaged convenience foods and eating-on-the-run. Gen Y is more likely to be holding down two jobs and gulping down junk food. This is something agribusiness and a highly concentrated food production industry has encouraged and greatly profited from as there is a much higher margin in this wasteful, energy-intensive form of food distribution than in bulk products requiring labor-intensive home preparation. This is in fact the model that corporate food chains are exporting to ‘third-worlders’, too, with the blessing of the IMF and WTO. Extropolate these social and economic trends to other realms and there’s plenty for oldsters and youngsters to worry about other than pedantic hand-wringing over stodgy instuctions for conformity.
THE LOST ART
I am going to tell a tale out of school, having just emerged from teaching a couple of university courses in the past semester, that will speak to my ever-encroaching fuddy-duddyism: As time rolls on, it seems, the notion of following a simple instruction is becoming an ever more exotic proposition.
Granted, writing instructions can be difficult. The proper sequence must be honored, nothing can be left out, timing is everything, and nothing can be taken for granted. Consider these provisional instructions for preparing a bowl of cold cereal:
Remove box of cereal from pantry.
Remove bowl from cupboard.
Remove container of milk from refrigerator.
Place desired portion of cereal in bowl.
Add milk to cereal in bowl. The amount of milk will vary according to personal taste.
Eat cereal.
(Optional: Return milk to refrigerator. Return cereal to pantry. Wash bowl or place in dishwasher.)
Now, we could spend a few paragraphs dissecting all that is right, all that is wrong, and all that is ambiguous in these instructions. The point is, the art of putting a sequential procedure down on paper or its moral equivalent is a difficult thing indeed. It is no easier in other media, though there are some fine examples of simple, elegant instructions delivered visually, such as this gem from Japan, showing how to fold a T-shirt.
Apply the difficulty to something more complex, such as using a piece of software or assembling a bicycle (or writing a term paper, for that matter), and the possibilities for miscomprehension grow exponentially. The burden falls on the giver of instructions to be as clear as possible, a quality that is to be prized where it can be found. (It will not be found in those instructions for assembling the bicycle, I fear.) The burden also falls on the person following the instructions, the requisite demand being—well, to follow the instructions, which is also to be prized where it can be found.
Thus the irony that, as first-worlders become ever more familiar with exotic kinds of foods, they become less capable of following a recipe. Reports Candy Sagon of the Washington Post, words such as “braise,” “dredge,” and “simmer” are scarcely to be found in cookbooks these days, for they are as Greek to younger consumers, brought up without training in the home kitchen and in a time when home-economics courses are being cut in the interest of saving schools a dollar or two. So it is, the Sagon piece reports, that a recipe for butterscotch cookies from the 1930s could say, “cream together thoroughly the sugar and butter,” whereas today the instruction reads, “Using your mixer, beat the butter and sugar.” I have visions of a Gen Y chef holding a mixer and smashing it down repeatedly on those poor ingredients, in the manner of Joe Pesci in Martin Scorsese’s film Casino, but perhaps those instructions are clear enough. On the other hand, perhaps they’re not.
[Unobligatory interlude: A party unknown whose server would appear to lie within the borders of the Islamic Republic of Iran regularly steals my postings, along with those of other contributors to this blog. Since that party does not appear to read the stolen material, I propose to counter with embedded subversions that, inshallah, will some day bring the wrath of the medieval mullahs down upon the heads of the guilty. Thus this interlude, in which I say to the hijacker(s): May you misread the recipe so that the senn pest fills your taftoon with both unwanted crunchiness and unseemly rheological qualities.]
Extrapolate the generation gap in following cooking instructions to other realms—freeway driving, filing taxes, performing heart transplants—and voila! there’s yet more for oldsters to worry about. (Add two cups of angst and bring to a boil.) Yet, ever the optimist, I like to think that this condition also offers new opportunities for the clear deliverers of comprehensible instructions among us. Onward! (1. Point feet forward. 2. Proceed….)
Granted, writing instructions can be difficult. The proper sequence must be honored, nothing can be left out, timing is everything, and nothing can be taken for granted. Consider these provisional instructions for preparing a bowl of cold cereal:
Remove box of cereal from pantry.
Remove bowl from cupboard.
Remove container of milk from refrigerator.
Place desired portion of cereal in bowl.
Add milk to cereal in bowl. The amount of milk will vary according to personal taste.
Eat cereal.
(Optional: Return milk to refrigerator. Return cereal to pantry. Wash bowl or place in dishwasher.)
Now, we could spend a few paragraphs dissecting all that is right, all that is wrong, and all that is ambiguous in these instructions. The point is, the art of putting a sequential procedure down on paper or its moral equivalent is a difficult thing indeed. It is no easier in other media, though there are some fine examples of simple, elegant instructions delivered visually, such as this gem from Japan, showing how to fold a T-shirt.
Apply the difficulty to something more complex, such as using a piece of software or assembling a bicycle (or writing a term paper, for that matter), and the possibilities for miscomprehension grow exponentially. The burden falls on the giver of instructions to be as clear as possible, a quality that is to be prized where it can be found. (It will not be found in those instructions for assembling the bicycle, I fear.) The burden also falls on the person following the instructions, the requisite demand being—well, to follow the instructions, which is also to be prized where it can be found.
Thus the irony that, as first-worlders become ever more familiar with exotic kinds of foods, they become less capable of following a recipe. Reports Candy Sagon of the Washington Post, words such as “braise,” “dredge,” and “simmer” are scarcely to be found in cookbooks these days, for they are as Greek to younger consumers, brought up without training in the home kitchen and in a time when home-economics courses are being cut in the interest of saving schools a dollar or two. So it is, the Sagon piece reports, that a recipe for butterscotch cookies from the 1930s could say, “cream together thoroughly the sugar and butter,” whereas today the instruction reads, “Using your mixer, beat the butter and sugar.” I have visions of a Gen Y chef holding a mixer and smashing it down repeatedly on those poor ingredients, in the manner of Joe Pesci in Martin Scorsese’s film Casino, but perhaps those instructions are clear enough. On the other hand, perhaps they’re not.
[Unobligatory interlude: A party unknown whose server would appear to lie within the borders of the Islamic Republic of Iran regularly steals my postings, along with those of other contributors to this blog. Since that party does not appear to read the stolen material, I propose to counter with embedded subversions that, inshallah, will some day bring the wrath of the medieval mullahs down upon the heads of the guilty. Thus this interlude, in which I say to the hijacker(s): May you misread the recipe so that the senn pest fills your taftoon with both unwanted crunchiness and unseemly rheological qualities.]
Extrapolate the generation gap in following cooking instructions to other realms—freeway driving, filing taxes, performing heart transplants—and voila! there’s yet more for oldsters to worry about. (Add two cups of angst and bring to a boil.) Yet, ever the optimist, I like to think that this condition also offers new opportunities for the clear deliverers of comprehensible instructions among us. Onward! (1. Point feet forward. 2. Proceed….)
an interesting article
Here’s an interesting article about some “uncontacted” tribes of indigenous people in Brazil. Officials there think that there are perhaps 68 such tribes that, they say, have chosen to have little or no contact with outsiders. In part such a decision is understandable, for the immediate result of such contact in the past has often been devastating epidemic disease and sometimes violent conflict with unsympathetic Brazilians conducting illegal timbering or mining operations.
An organization called Survival International estimates that there are about 100 tribal groups worldwide that have made a similar choice. My question: To what degree can such a choice be an informed one? In terms of the intellectual and informational gulf separating the options, it might be compared to asking a three-year-old to decide on his funeral arrangements.
Thirty-five or so years ago some anthropologists announced their discovery of a “lost tribe” of primitive people living in the Philippines. The Tasaday, as they were called, numbered only a couple of dozen and were said, loosely, to have a Stone Age culture – living in caves, gathering wild foods, and using only the simplest of tools, which notably included no weapons. The announcement provoked a great sensation in the West, and it took almost no time for various self-appointed spokespersons for the Tasaday to proclaim what ought to be done for or about them. It was perfectly clear to a great many of these bien pensants that what the Tasaday needed above all was to be protected from contamination by the 20th century.
It was proposed that the region around the Tasaday caves be declared a reserve, off-limits to outsiders (except, of course, for anthropologists). In this way the Tasaday could continue to preserve their idyllic lifestyle, which seemed to consist of lounging about, eating frogs and grubs and wild fruits, and, above all, remaining innocent of the very notion of conflict. And, not so much discussed in public, in this way, too, the anthropologists would have a nicely convenient exhibit to visit and study and opine about, a place where, as Roger Sandall has written, they might “vainly rummage about in the great ragbag of primitive cultures, seeking means of personal redemption or models for their political or ideological hopes.”
Setting aside the subsequent and still unresolved controversy over whether the Tasaday were genuine or a hoax, what is interesting about the case is the casual assumption by so many inhabitants of developed nations, anthropologists and laymen alike, that this primitive life was in some mysterious way superior to their own. The idea of the “noble savage,” invented largely by Jean-Jacques Rousseau as a reaction against the sometimes smug rationalism of the Enlightenment, has persisted in a variety of forms. Perhaps the most seductive of them is the “children of nature,” which so enchants sentimentalists and which the supposedly peaceful Tasaday so easily epitomized.
The discovery of the Tasaday, it’s worth noting, followed by only a few years the brief efflorescence of hippie culture. One branch of that culture followed a similar pattern of peaceful foraging, though in an urban setting and with an extension of the meaning of “foraging” to include panhandling. Another branch looked to the land and fostered communes that tended to favor 19th century costumes while trying to reinvent medieval agriculture.
It may well be that the Age of Aquarius is already sunk sufficiently into the past to seem quaintly primitive and thereby attractive to modern youth of a certain Romanticist turn of mind – no cell phones, no iPods, no FaceTube. Such is the speed of change in our day. What seems not to change is the proclivity of certain privileged types to exercise their freedom of choice to relinquish, or at least to affect disdain for, their good fortune, and at the same time to presume to take over that same choice for others. Plans for the Tasaday reserve collapsed in the morass of Philippine politics, but I’m confident no one ever asked the tribe if it would like to live in a zoo.
And these cousins of ours in Brazil – to what purpose, exactly, do we encourage their remaining in the Stone Age while we await news from our chemistry laboratory on Mars?
An organization called Survival International estimates that there are about 100 tribal groups worldwide that have made a similar choice. My question: To what degree can such a choice be an informed one? In terms of the intellectual and informational gulf separating the options, it might be compared to asking a three-year-old to decide on his funeral arrangements.
Thirty-five or so years ago some anthropologists announced their discovery of a “lost tribe” of primitive people living in the Philippines. The Tasaday, as they were called, numbered only a couple of dozen and were said, loosely, to have a Stone Age culture – living in caves, gathering wild foods, and using only the simplest of tools, which notably included no weapons. The announcement provoked a great sensation in the West, and it took almost no time for various self-appointed spokespersons for the Tasaday to proclaim what ought to be done for or about them. It was perfectly clear to a great many of these bien pensants that what the Tasaday needed above all was to be protected from contamination by the 20th century.
It was proposed that the region around the Tasaday caves be declared a reserve, off-limits to outsiders (except, of course, for anthropologists). In this way the Tasaday could continue to preserve their idyllic lifestyle, which seemed to consist of lounging about, eating frogs and grubs and wild fruits, and, above all, remaining innocent of the very notion of conflict. And, not so much discussed in public, in this way, too, the anthropologists would have a nicely convenient exhibit to visit and study and opine about, a place where, as Roger Sandall has written, they might “vainly rummage about in the great ragbag of primitive cultures, seeking means of personal redemption or models for their political or ideological hopes.”
Setting aside the subsequent and still unresolved controversy over whether the Tasaday were genuine or a hoax, what is interesting about the case is the casual assumption by so many inhabitants of developed nations, anthropologists and laymen alike, that this primitive life was in some mysterious way superior to their own. The idea of the “noble savage,” invented largely by Jean-Jacques Rousseau as a reaction against the sometimes smug rationalism of the Enlightenment, has persisted in a variety of forms. Perhaps the most seductive of them is the “children of nature,” which so enchants sentimentalists and which the supposedly peaceful Tasaday so easily epitomized.
The discovery of the Tasaday, it’s worth noting, followed by only a few years the brief efflorescence of hippie culture. One branch of that culture followed a similar pattern of peaceful foraging, though in an urban setting and with an extension of the meaning of “foraging” to include panhandling. Another branch looked to the land and fostered communes that tended to favor 19th century costumes while trying to reinvent medieval agriculture.
It may well be that the Age of Aquarius is already sunk sufficiently into the past to seem quaintly primitive and thereby attractive to modern youth of a certain Romanticist turn of mind – no cell phones, no iPods, no FaceTube. Such is the speed of change in our day. What seems not to change is the proclivity of certain privileged types to exercise their freedom of choice to relinquish, or at least to affect disdain for, their good fortune, and at the same time to presume to take over that same choice for others. Plans for the Tasaday reserve collapsed in the morass of Philippine politics, but I’m confident no one ever asked the tribe if it would like to live in a zoo.
And these cousins of ours in Brazil – to what purpose, exactly, do we encourage their remaining in the Stone Age while we await news from our chemistry laboratory on Mars?
Core sector grows 9.6% as steel, cement hold ground
Driven by finished steel and cement production, core infrastructure industries grew by a healthy 9.6% in March 2008, although the overall growth of industry was a mere 3% in the same month.Even though the growth of six core industries- crude oil, cement, electricity, coal, petroleum refinery products and finished steel-in March this year was less than the 10.5% a year ago, it was encouraging, given the dismal industrial growth.So far as the whole of 2007-08 is concerned, growth in these six areas declined to 5.6% in fiscal 2007-08 from 9.2% in the previous year.In March 2008, three of the six core industries, however, performed badly as crude oil production declined by 0.35%, petroleum refinery output remained stagnant and electricity generation grew by just 3.6% in March compared to 8%a year ago.It was mainly finished steel and cement, which pushed up the growth of six infrastructure industries in March. Finished steel production grew by 21.8% from 16.6%, while cement output rose by 9.3 from 5.5%.Coal production growth dipped by 9.3 from 10.6% during the month. HDFC bank Chief Economist Abheek Barua said, "The growth in core industries will partially offset the negative sentiment built around the IIP"."However, the overall performance is skewed toward just two sectors - cement and steel," he said, adding that this reflects the chronic problem that should be addressed."Measures like cut in interest rates offer a temporary solution," Barua said, pointing out that there are problems of funding and policy in these sectors which hopefully will get addressed.
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