I like words.
I spent five years studying linguistics, and I still get a kick out of the way humans can use language to impart so many different shades of meaning. And, at the risk of sounding like a crazy old man (indeed, I increasingly am one) it makes me mad when I see linguistic expression being squashed to make way what is supposed to be easier communication.
I’m always being asked to simplify my language use at work. A lot of the time it’s because the people I’m writing for have low literacy level, or a non-English speaking background, or both, and that’s fair enough. But this week I co-wrote an article for publication in the NT Law Society bimonthly magazine. My boss sent it back to me for editing because apparently I was using technical language that wouldn’t be accessible to the readers.
Language too complicated for lawyers?
The thing is I wouldn’t have said I use particularly complicated English. The odd sentence does get away from me every now and then. But seriously, we’re talking about a profession that produced the following:
For the purpose of smooth transmission of legal cultures and legal thoughts and avoiding unnecessary misunderstanding and cultural conflicts, it is of great importance for us to carefully study the textual structures of laws and especially accurately comprehend the long sentences in the English legal texts, based on which this article attempts to take linguistic characteristics of legal English as the starting point to explore the features of legal translation, especially the difficulties in translating long sentences.
And speaking of legal English, for some reason I’ve started watching Boston Legal again. Last time I got stuck in this series, I started producing language that really was incomprehensible. I’ve managed to avoid that this time around, and instead I’ve started giving some thought to what will happen to me when I do finally cross that hazy line between ‘delightfully eccentric’ and ‘bat-crap crazy’. It’s often assumed that I’ll wander around like Denny Crane, spouting right-wing nonsense and shooting people. But I think, in the end, I’ll end up more like Alan Shore, stalking the halls with all the appearance of a man in control, all the while gradually becoming more and more unstable and yet more and more unstoppable at the same time.
In fact there’s some circumstantial evidence to suggest I may have crossed that line last week some time.
Anyway, I’m sure it’s all perfectly safe. Next weekend Doctor Who comes back. That will be just the balancing influence of sanity I need to get me centred again. I can go back to being a mad man with a box. Without a box.
Alternatively, I could do something other than watching television. But I still have two episodes of Burn Notice waiting for me.
What was I on about again?
Oh yeah: Standard Australian English.
I speak it, bitches. Make of that what… hey look! An anti-cancer themed plush volley ball!
Garry with 2 Rs
22 August 2012
15 August 2012
The Dog-Eat-Giraffe World of Competitive Biscuit Assessment
When it comes to blogging, there’s often a fine line between reality and fantasy; between the concrete and the absurd. Sometimes I blog about real world issues and things that actually matter, at least to me. Other times I just blab out whatever nonsense seems like a good idea at the time. And sometimes when we look at reality closely enough, it turns out that it’s more absurd than the fantasy to begin with.
But does it ever work the other way around? If I spend enough time writing about something ridiculous, can I make it real?
Probably not.
Take Oxfam Girl for example. It didn’t matter how many situations I wrote her into, she remained steadfastly made-up from the day I adapted a random encounter with a chocolate sales girl into a fully-fledged imaginary girlfriend until the day she jumped the shark in Santiago de Campostela. She hasn’t been back since, in this reality or any of the others I inhabit. And on cold winter nights, when the fresh snow is falling over Leanyer and the caribou are singing to each other in the parnsip trees, I really miss that woman.
...
So imagine my surprise when I discovered that a different figment of my disturbed imagination had come to life and started wandering around, handing out prizes.
Biscuit lady is real!
It all started, as these things frequently don’t, at the Royal Darwin Show. My friend had entered a few plates of biscuits into the biscuit baking competition and we were all gathered in the Foskey pavilion for the official judging. The assembled competitors took their seats, and the show councillors introduced the judge.
Not even in my mixed-up delusions of being criticised for ungentlemanliness could I ever have imagined that there existed a person who was as so enthused by baked goods. I mean, I have a passing interest in them, in as much as I enjoy eating them. In fact, it turns out sometime a few years back when I was bored and started editing my blogger.com profile, I even listed “biscuits” as a blogging interest. I’m not sure what I was thinking there.
But oh my sweet carotid arteries, this woman could define an objective (well…) standard for the assessment of ANZAC bikkies, using such properties as flavour, shape, relative crunchiness (a controversial area, to be sure), syrupiness and even colour. She could tell you just by looking at them which biscuits were ineligible for the competition because they weren’t biscuits at all but were, in fact, cookies. Although, when pressed by a certain outspoken stunt linguist there present to explain exactly what the difference between a biscuit and a cookie was, she did struggle to articulate it, which leads me to suspect it might all be a complete sham. Apparently one of the assorted biscuit plates was disqualified because they were actually meringues.
Meringues? What the hell? That’s like being disqualified from best-in-show because it turns out your German Shepherd is actually a giraffe. Anyway, the real live biscuit lady judged each plate by slicing off a hilariously small piece of each one and trying them all, and then supplying various comments on the inherent biscuitful quality of each one.
Seriously, if they were paying this woman in anything other than biscuits, then it’s the greatest con since the time me and ten of my mates stole everything out of the vault of the Bellagio Casino.
Or was that…? Never mind.
As far as I’m concerned, the only difference between a biscuit and a cookie is what continent you’re eating it on. One of them goes “OOOOOOOOOOHM NOM NOM NOM NOM NOM, OOOHM, NOM NOM NOM NOM,” and one of them doesn’t.
I don’t even want to think about what noise the Meringue Monster would make. Make of that what you will.
Garry with 2 Rs
P.S. She came second. They were some nice biscuits.
But does it ever work the other way around? If I spend enough time writing about something ridiculous, can I make it real?
Probably not.
Take Oxfam Girl for example. It didn’t matter how many situations I wrote her into, she remained steadfastly made-up from the day I adapted a random encounter with a chocolate sales girl into a fully-fledged imaginary girlfriend until the day she jumped the shark in Santiago de Campostela. She hasn’t been back since, in this reality or any of the others I inhabit. And on cold winter nights, when the fresh snow is falling over Leanyer and the caribou are singing to each other in the parnsip trees, I really miss that woman.
...
So imagine my surprise when I discovered that a different figment of my disturbed imagination had come to life and started wandering around, handing out prizes.
Biscuit lady is real!
It all started, as these things frequently don’t, at the Royal Darwin Show. My friend had entered a few plates of biscuits into the biscuit baking competition and we were all gathered in the Foskey pavilion for the official judging. The assembled competitors took their seats, and the show councillors introduced the judge.
Not even in my mixed-up delusions of being criticised for ungentlemanliness could I ever have imagined that there existed a person who was as so enthused by baked goods. I mean, I have a passing interest in them, in as much as I enjoy eating them. In fact, it turns out sometime a few years back when I was bored and started editing my blogger.com profile, I even listed “biscuits” as a blogging interest. I’m not sure what I was thinking there.
But oh my sweet carotid arteries, this woman could define an objective (well…) standard for the assessment of ANZAC bikkies, using such properties as flavour, shape, relative crunchiness (a controversial area, to be sure), syrupiness and even colour. She could tell you just by looking at them which biscuits were ineligible for the competition because they weren’t biscuits at all but were, in fact, cookies. Although, when pressed by a certain outspoken stunt linguist there present to explain exactly what the difference between a biscuit and a cookie was, she did struggle to articulate it, which leads me to suspect it might all be a complete sham. Apparently one of the assorted biscuit plates was disqualified because they were actually meringues.
Meringues? What the hell? That’s like being disqualified from best-in-show because it turns out your German Shepherd is actually a giraffe. Anyway, the real live biscuit lady judged each plate by slicing off a hilariously small piece of each one and trying them all, and then supplying various comments on the inherent biscuitful quality of each one.
Seriously, if they were paying this woman in anything other than biscuits, then it’s the greatest con since the time me and ten of my mates stole everything out of the vault of the Bellagio Casino.
Or was that…? Never mind.
As far as I’m concerned, the only difference between a biscuit and a cookie is what continent you’re eating it on. One of them goes “OOOOOOOOOOHM NOM NOM NOM NOM NOM, OOOHM, NOM NOM NOM NOM,” and one of them doesn’t.
I don’t even want to think about what noise the Meringue Monster would make. Make of that what you will.
Garry with 2 Rs
P.S. She came second. They were some nice biscuits.
09 August 2012
Nobody Does It Better
We all have our vices: those things that we know are either useless or bad for us, but which we just can’t get enough of.
Chief among mine are James Bond films: I love them, but I don’t know why. I’m so pumped for the new one in November (Q is back! Yes!). The characters are shallow; the plots are either ridiculous or non-existent, the portrayals of both masculinity and feminity belong squarely in a different millennium and to top it all off – he’s English. But I still love a good Bond film. Even a bad one can make me smile.
I could spend a whole post discussing why, but I don’t intend to do that this time around. This post is dedicated to the peculiar cultural observations I made during last week's concert by the Darwin Symphony Orchestra.
The concert was all the best music from Bond films: Goldfinger, Thunderball, The Spy Who Loved Me, they were all there, right alongside the immortal theme tune, obviously. The concert was awesome, with flyovers, Aston Martins and a conductor dressed as Blofeld, complete with stuffed cat. I was in my element, but I was mildly disturbed by the conversations I had to have with the friends I was there with, who admittedly were a bit younger than me but who should still have known better.
F1: I don’t even know how the James Bond song goes (Turns out she’s only seen Casino Royale)
Gw2Rs: What?
F2: Everyone knows how it goes: duh-duh-doooooo, duh-duh-dooo, duh-duh…
Gw2Rs: That’s the Mission: Impossible Theme.
F2: Oh. How does James Bond go?
MC: (describes the plot of Goldfinger, with special emphasis on the SPECTRE lair)
F1: That sounds a lot like the lair from Austin Powers.
Gw2Rs: Does it really?
F2: What did he say the character’s name was?
Gw2Rs:… Pussy Galore
F1: Really? That’s ridiculous.
Gw2Rs: …
F1: How come they’re playing the LJ Hooker ad?
Gw2Rs: It’s … you … ugh.
Needless to say, I have now added over twenty more titles to the list of films that I have to sit down and watch with these kids. But given that F1 fell asleep during the Matrix (how is that even possible? The gun shots alone…) I find I have no choice but to give in to sub-cultural despair, consoled only by the fact that, even if no-one else is, at least I’m still awesome.
Make of that what you will
With 2 Rs – Garry with 2 Rs
Chief among mine are James Bond films: I love them, but I don’t know why. I’m so pumped for the new one in November (Q is back! Yes!). The characters are shallow; the plots are either ridiculous or non-existent, the portrayals of both masculinity and feminity belong squarely in a different millennium and to top it all off – he’s English. But I still love a good Bond film. Even a bad one can make me smile.
I could spend a whole post discussing why, but I don’t intend to do that this time around. This post is dedicated to the peculiar cultural observations I made during last week's concert by the Darwin Symphony Orchestra.
The concert was all the best music from Bond films: Goldfinger, Thunderball, The Spy Who Loved Me, they were all there, right alongside the immortal theme tune, obviously. The concert was awesome, with flyovers, Aston Martins and a conductor dressed as Blofeld, complete with stuffed cat. I was in my element, but I was mildly disturbed by the conversations I had to have with the friends I was there with, who admittedly were a bit younger than me but who should still have known better.
F1: I don’t even know how the James Bond song goes (Turns out she’s only seen Casino Royale)
Gw2Rs: What?
F2: Everyone knows how it goes: duh-duh-doooooo, duh-duh-dooo, duh-duh…
Gw2Rs: That’s the Mission: Impossible Theme.
F2: Oh. How does James Bond go?
MC: (describes the plot of Goldfinger, with special emphasis on the SPECTRE lair)
F1: That sounds a lot like the lair from Austin Powers.
Gw2Rs: Does it really?
F2: What did he say the character’s name was?
Gw2Rs:… Pussy Galore
F1: Really? That’s ridiculous.
Gw2Rs: …
F1: How come they’re playing the LJ Hooker ad?
Gw2Rs: It’s … you … ugh.
Needless to say, I have now added over twenty more titles to the list of films that I have to sit down and watch with these kids. But given that F1 fell asleep during the Matrix (how is that even possible? The gun shots alone…) I find I have no choice but to give in to sub-cultural despair, consoled only by the fact that, even if no-one else is, at least I’m still awesome.
Make of that what you will
With 2 Rs – Garry with 2 Rs
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