Still there

I just sneaked out for a few words..

Everyone has been voting for or against something these days. In Egypt they voted "na3am" (yes) for amending the constitution (can't wait to see if this will actually change anything), and in France they voted "non" for the EU treaty. What is interesting about this whole referendum thing is what I read on BBC news about a sample referendum they run by a few people and how the phrasing of the question produced different results. Compare:

• Should the United Kingdom approve the treaty establishing a constitution for the European Union?

--> 39% yes, 39% no, 22% don't know

• If there were a referendum tomorrow, would you vote for Britain to sign up to the EU constitution or not?

--> 26% yes, 54% no, 20% don't know

So how about trying these versions:

• Is the EU treaty good for the UK?
• Would you vote yes or no for the UK to join the new EU constitution?
• Will the UK benefit from signing up to the EU constitution?
• Don't you think it is not an unreasonable idea for the UK to not join the EU constitution? (do you understand anything? too much negation perhaps? :) )
• In case there is a referendum now and you are supposed to vote immediately, would you approve of the decision for the UK to sign up for the EU constitution whereby a better future for Europe is promised or would you reject this decision on the basis of a particular political or personal stand, that is if you decide to actually vote in the first place? (if the guy doesn't die before you finish asking him this :) )
• Do you give a damn whether the UK joins the EU constitution or not? (ok, maybe not this one :) )

And.. more linguistic stuff: did you ever hear the expression "the linguistic guillotine" before? Obviously, it has something to do with the French and their apathy towards other languages.

Finally, quote of the day:

Beware the lollipop of mediocrity: lick it once and you suck forever.

All the more reason I should go back..

Ok, here goes nothing.. byeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee..

Mai

Where have I been?

Well, I have been in..

...this place, if I could describe this place, portray it, I've tried, I feel no place, no place around me, there's no end to me, I don't know what it is, it isn't flesh, it doesn't end, it's like air...

(Samuel Beckett, The Unnamable)

Mai

More ha ha and he he

Yeh, today I had lots of ha ha and he he. It was Fatima's birthday, my Pakistani flatmate. So the six of us went out to celebrate it at Friday's, bought her gifts, cake, had a great time, took lots of pictures and two short videos (including one in which I speak Greek :) ) and came back with balloons they gave us there. This was the first and last time we all went out together. Soon everyone will go home, and I will be alone again. Seeing the pictures after we came back made me think that those guys are probably the best flatmates I will ever have here, and I also thought that, ten years from now, I will be looking at those pictures and saying: 'yeh, those were my first flatmates in London, I wonder how is everyone doing now?'

Oh.. and the other ha ha he he thing is that I just realised that it goes way back. I am reading nowadays She Stoops to Conquer (1968) by Oliver Goldsmith, and guess what I find:

Diggory: Then, ecod, your worship must not tell the story of old Grouse in the gun room: I can't help laughing at that- he! he! he!- for the soul of me! We have laughed at that these twenty years- ha! ha! ha! (p. 28)

Interesting. So why did he use 'he he' in the first and 'ha ha' in the second?

And, finally, two new expressions:

• I'll be back in the squeeze of a lemon (=quickly)
• We were like chalk and cheese (= not getting along well)

Oh, and did I mention that the word 'bloke' means 'man'? It's very informal though, and I think it's usually used in contexts close to when Egyptian's say 'se3eedy' (someone from upper/Southern Egypt) or 'falla7' (farmer) to mean 'a traditional man'.

Mai

Other Things Being Equal

I just came to know that that Other Things Being Equal is the title of a novel by Emma Woolf (1999). It's available online here http://www.gutenberg.org/catalog/world/readfile?pageno=1&fk_files=39458. Although I am not very fond of reading things online and my back and eyes are already suffering from long working hours on the pc, maybe I'll try (when I have time). After all, with a title like this, the novel should be of interest to anyone involved in linguistics, at least out of curiosity.

Mai

Makes sense?

Aren't random quotations in emails great? I got this today:

"A man talking sense to himself is no madder than a man talking nonsense not to himself"

(Tom Stoppard, Rosencrantz & Guildenstern are Dead)

Well, I prefer to go with the first case.

On a similar note, when you are reading an interesting paper in linguistics, where the author presents new arguments and defends some ideas, then not even half way through she writes:

"If doing so leads the reader to abandon the paper at this point, so be it."

Does this sound a little bit over self-confident? I wonder if the editors of the journal were entirely happy about this.

Mai

Rainbow

Wow.. I just spent the last 10 minutes watching a rainbow in the sky. It's awesome. I just realised it has been years probably since I last saw one. Of course, I immediately looked for a 'rainbow' song to fit with the mood and couldn't find anything better or sweeter than Ray Charles saying:

Somewhere over the rainbow
Way up high,
There's a land that I heard of
Once in a lullaby.

Somewhere over the rainbow
Skies are blue,
And the dreams that you dare to dream
Really do come true.

Someday I'll wish upon a star
And wake up where the clouds are far
Behind me.
Where troubles melt like lemon drops
Way up, above the chimney tops
That's where you'll find me.

I know somewhere over the rainbow
Bluebirds fly.
Birds fly over the rainbow.
Why then, oh why, can't I?

If happy little bluebirds fly
Beyond the rainbow
Why, oh why can't I?


Oh, why can't I? But at least the 'dreams' part rings so true.
I love rainbows. :)

Mai

Grammar and liquor?

Here is quote of the weekend:

Let schoolmasters puzzle their brain
With grammar, and nonsense, and learning;
Good liquor, I stoutly mantain,
Gives genius a better discerning.

(Oliver Goldsmith, She Stoops to Conquer, Act I, scene II)

Of course I can only think about this, not do it :)

Mai

Online again

Wooooooohoooooooo.. I am online again. The nicest thing is that today I woke up really early, 8:30 am, and was working on my laptop not expecting any internet action till tomorrow when suddenly everything connected. And of course the first thing I do is blog.

I probably have loads of emails to check, but I can just drop a few comments. Well.. the most important is the disappointment a lot of people, including me, suffered yesterday: Man United lost the FA Cup to Arsenal. The only good thing about this is that I got to watch the match on Aisha's TV. It was exciting, especially with the penalties at the end, and all in all it was good football. But there is always this thing about penalty shoot outs that the better team ends up loosing because of one lousy miss. And I thought the referee liked to talk a little bit too much. Maybe the new American billionaire owner jinxed it, I certainly felt uneasy watching some spectators waving the American flag and chanting "USA.. USA" at the beginning of the match. Anyway, I decided one important thing afterwards: I really really want to go to one of those big matches one day, maybe the FA Cup final next year, which will conveniently be in Wembley? It will defenitely be a great experience worth the 'ridicuously' big sum of money I will have to pay. I know someone will just pay anything and drop everything to come for this, so how about it bro? :) Oh, and preferrably Man United will be one of the teams.

And while Arsenal fans were celebrating yesterday evening, our two Greek Cypriots were also celebrating because Greece won in some singing contest called 'Eurovision'. Technically, it not even their country, but they were ecstatic about it.

Ok.. I need to check a lot of things now, so blog to you later.

p.s.
the cold is a little better, but this cold windy rainy weather is not exactly helping.

Mai

Blogging in Chinese

So everyone's internet is not working except in Room 5 where our Chinese flatmate lives. I just thought to check my emails quickly and on the way drop a blog. The nice thing is that everything on her computer is in .. well, Chinese and the only thing that is written on this page in English is 'Mai's Blog' and then ' 检视 blog' which is ' view blog' :) (I hope the Chinese symbols will appear on everyone's computer).

The weird thing is that when I tried my laptop in her room it didn't work, maybe I missed an email saying that this is 'Chinese Internet Weekend' ?

Mai

Drip drop

You know what is the only thing I hate about walking in the rain (besides of course getting soaked when you are not wearing a rain coat or can't hold the umbrella because of all the shopping bags you're carrying)? It's the way every rain drop becomes a constant reminder that there is a transparent plastic barrier between you and the world, i.e. glasses. I mean, you don't usually see rain drops sticking on people's eyes, do you? This is when I really hate my glasses. But then again, glasses suit highly-intellectual PhD students like me, right? ;-) So, maybe they are not so bad after all.

p.s.
yesterday I thought I had a cold, today.. I know.

Mai

Bad books and bad magazines

In my usual morning online tour, one thing lead to the other and I came across this site http://www-2.cs.cmu.edu/People/spok/most-banned.html listing the 50 most frequently banned books in the 1990s in the US according to a book by Herbert N. Foerstel (1994) Banned in the U.S.A.: A Reference Guide to Book Censorship in Schools and Public Libraries. In this list there were 3 unexpected entries:

1. two of Mark Twain's most famous books The Adventures of Tom Sawyer and The Adventures of Hucklberry Finn.
2. The Catcher in the Rye by J.D. Salinger, which personally I haven't read but heard a lot about and was under the impression that it is considered by many to be a very good read.
3. Lord of the Flies by William Golding, which I studied as an undergrad and think is a very interesting novel.

Now to magazines, I don't know when the Newsweek appalling charade will end. First, they have sources telling them about the Qur'an being flushed down the toilet in Guantánamo Bay by American interrogators, then they say that no actually this was not entirely accurate, then now they go back to 'we have a source' part. Why would they care to stop this storyline anyway? Just because 17 people died on the way? So what?

And, according to the NYT (http://www.nytimes.com/2005/05/17/politics/17koran.html?th&emc=th), the editor of Newsweek says "In order for people to understand we had made an error, we had to say 'retraction' because that's the word they were looking for." Correction: the words we are looking for are: "we seriously screwed up, we are ashamed of ourselves and we are closing down the magazine because we don't deserve to even exist".

Now, miscellaneous:

Do you think that writing that firey blog yesterday had anything to do with the fire alarm going off at 3 am forcing us all to leave our warm beds and go out in the cold to wait for the brave firemen? I wasn't sleeping anyway but I think now I have a cold. I know it doesn't sound right, but maybe if once it was a real fire not a false alarm I would feel better? Just a small contained fire where no one gets hurt, maybe?

And a new word I learned today, conveniently very linguistic, "haplology" = the accidental omission of one or more repeated syllables or sounds when speaking. Interestingly, this word comes very close to an Arabic word meaning "nonsense" or even "idiocy".

Mai

Firefoxy blog

Do you notice anything different about this post? Does it look more firey or foxy in any way? :) This is my first blog from the Mac and from Trent Park. Firefox is actually very cool, and much better than explorer. I love everything about this Mac, and I love all the sounds of birds and ducks I have been hearing around here all day long.

And this time, I was walking with a duck along the lake. :)

p.s.
now I know it wont be cold around here in winter, it will be freeeeeezing.

Mai

Dude, where does the time go?

Today was the final deadline for all my flatmates' assignments and stuff, so from today they will all be more relaxed and I will be the only one who is more stressed out. Sometimes I just wish it was a month earlier but with the same amount of work I have done already. I have no idea where does the time go, it just flies by and I still have loads to do. A nice debate about this could go like:

A: dude, where does the time go?
B: where does the time go, dude?
A: dude, where does the time go?
B: where does the time go, dude?

I watched this movie "Dude, Where's My Car" like a week ago, and it was just the sort of 'cognitive junk food' I needed. It's a movie about absolutely nothing. But I can't help thinking that someone should do a linguistic analysis of the use of "dude" and "sweet" in conversation. That will be fun. I especially liked the part when a French guy tries to say "I am an honourable man" with his funny French accent which confuses everyone.

Ok, have to get back to work, dude. Sweet.

Mai

Guerra de las Galaxias = Star Wars

Rumour has it that this would be the last Star Wars movie, or as El Mundo http://www.elmundo.es/elmundo/cineclu.html puts it: "el último testimonio de George Lucas sobre los buenos y los malos de la galaxia" (George Lucas' last testimony on the good and the bad of the galaxy). I wonder on what all the Star Wars fanatics out there will thrive, then? I hope they don't take it too personally and start roaming the streets in their Darth Vader and Skywalker costumes creating their own new versions of the story.

p.s.
apparently, it is preferred to refer to the movie in spanish newspapers as "Star Wars-Episodio III. La venganza de los Sith". And, apparently, it is also preferred to say: los "fans" did this, and los "fans" did that, with the quotation marks.

Mai

London Underground: the song

So I was sitting here really annoyed because of this big party going on in the flat next door, someone's birthday, and since my room is the first one I am getting all the noise, from bad loud music to the frequent 'woohoos' and 'go Nancy go' of apprently drunk students (they must be drunk since one came earlier to ask if we have a bottle opener).

But I just got an email from my flatmate that cheered me up. She sent me this song: London Underground. I don't know who's singing, but it's hilarious, with lots of swear words though. It goes like this (without the really bad words):

some people might like to get a train to work
or drive in in a beamer or a merc
some guys like to travel in by bus
but I can't be bothered with the fuss
today I got to take my bike
coz once again the tube's on strike
the greedy bastards want extra pay
for sitting on their ass all day
even though they earn 30 k
so I'm standing here in the pouring rain
where the f*** is my f***ing train
London Underground
they're all lazy f***ing useless *****
London Underground
they're all greedy *****, I want to shoot them all with a rifle

all they say is please mind the doors
and they learn that on their 2-day course
this job could be done by a 4-year old
they just leave us freezing in the cold
what you smell is what you get
Burger King and piss and sweat
you roast to death in the boiling heat
with tourists treading on your feet
and chewing gum on every seat
so don't tell me to mind the gap
I want my f***ing money back
London Underground
they're all lazy f***ing useless *****
London Underground
they're all greedy *****, I want to shoot them all with a rifle

la la la la
la la la la

the floors are sticky and the seats are damp
every platform has a f***ing tramp
but the drivers get their day off when
we're all late for work again
London Underground
take your oyster card and shove it up your *******

:)

Mai

David Bowie, again

So I was reading this paper "The effect of Genre on Referential choice" when I found this example:

• Oh he was brilliant in that no one in the whole world could have played that part except David Bowie.

mmm... maybe there is a sign here. Apparently, there is a mysterious connection between David Bowie and linguists. I think I should start listening to him, you know, since I am trying to be one ;-)

Mai

Come away with me

A lot of things have been getting on my nerves today, mostly related to the beauty of living in student's halls where all sorts of noises can stop you from working or reading or sleeping. So, for the past hour or less I've been trying to relax a bit, sitting by my window just as the last rays of light were fading. And you know what? I think this was probably the first time in my life I look up to the sky and find 5 airplanes flying at the same time in different directions. I got a bit emotional and started thinking I want to be on one going home. The musical background helped too, as Norah Jones was softly saying "Come away with me into the night, Come away with me and I will write you a song..". I also started thinking about all those people on those planes, each going to his or her destination, some starting a journey, some returning home, .. And throughout the rest of the album The Nearness of You I must have seen a dozen more planes. Finally, again:

So all I ask is for you
To come away with me in the night
Come away with me

Well, back to reality, I should start thinking now of dinner and work.

Mai

MAC is BACK

So I went to Trent Park for the second time today, and this time I saw a rabbit. Cool.

But do you know what's even more cool? That I will be working on a MAC at the graduate research room on campus. I worked for a while on a Mac before some years back, and I just love the sense of power a Mac gives you. I wanted to print something quickly today, but of course it took me a while to remember everything. But it's great, one more reason for me to like Trent Park more than Tottenham.

On the academic side today, I was kind of relieved and more stressed out at the same time. Relieved because I finally got to write down the main points I want to deal with in my thesis, which Billy said were good, so I got a sense of direction of what I want to do. But I am more stressed out now because I realise this is just the beginning of the more serious part: writing my own version of this extremely long and complicated story. And of course this only means more sleepless nights of work work work. But I think I am enjoying it anyway. Wish me luck everyone.


p.s.
one of my flatmates asked an interesting question today: Why do we say, for example, that Estee Lauder is the sister company of Clinique? Why not brother? And wouldn't it sound strange to say, for example, that Lea Brothers is the sister company of so and so? Interesting, isn't it?

Mai

Revelation in the morning: P.H.D

Yes, it's 6:19 am and I am still awake. I know dad how much you want me to go back living like normal people, i.e. sleeping at night and waking up in the morning, but I can't help it. Some days I just start seriously working late and I end up staying all through the night. At least I am getting work done.

However, I also have another explanation for this weird system. And, oddly enough, this explanation does not even come from our language or our culture. It comes from Urdu. My Pakistani flatmate told me today, I mean yesterday, what do they say P h D means in Urdu:

P h D = Phira Huwa Deemagh
........=twisted (be) mind :)

So, being a PhD student I am officially declared to have a twisted mind :) This explains a lot, doesn't it? And isn't it nice to have this kind of revelation at this point of my work? And isn't it nicer to tell you about it at 6:19 am?

Ah well, I'll go now and try to rest my twisted mind for a while. Good night, .. mm I mean good morning, ...mm.. forget it, I'm just going.

Mai

Step 1, step 2, step 3..

So I got a pedometer (or a stepometer or whateverometer you want to call it) today. It's a nice little invention that you are supposed to wear all the time to count the number of steps you make. It also measures the distance you walk and the calories you burn. On the pack it says:

"Over 30 years ago it was identified that doing 10,000 steps a day was an ideal way to reap the benefits of physical activity without the need for additional excercise."

First, I hope I can make the 10,000 steps which sound A LOT to me. Second, I wonder what was the idea like 40 years ago? Was it a different number of steps or was it that you do need additional excercise anyway?!! And third, I keep thinking: does it count if I keep moving my legs while sitting? :)

Step 30, step 31, step 32...

Mai

What do I do when I am bored?

ε ι α....σ ο υ
(ya) ....(so)
Hi


τ ι....κ ά ν ε ι ς ?
(ti) (kanes)
How are you?


κ α λ ά ,.....ε υ χ α ρ ι σ τ ώ
(kala) ......(ifkharisto)
Fine, thanks.

ξ έ ρ ω ...τ ο ...ε λ λ η ν ι κ ό ....α λ φ ά β η τ ο
(exero)....(to) ....(elliniko)........(alfavito)
I know the Greek alphabet


ε ν τ ά ξ ε ι,.....δ ι ε β α σ ε....τ ω ρ ά
(endaxi) .........(thievase) ......(toraa)
ok, study now.


Is this cool or what? And my Greek Cypriot teacher says I have a very good pronunciation, and I learn fast. Not bad for a natural-born linguist ;-)


Mai

Arab take on elections

On Al Jazeera Arabic site today www.aljazeera.net/ there is a poll asking whether you think the Iraq issue was marginalized in the elections in the UK or not. Surprisingly, the results showed that 83% think it was. mmm... I don't think so. I think Labour's loss of almost a hundred seats certainly proves that it had the biggest effect it can, given that many people here think Labour has done really well on internal affairs. Also one major sign is the fact that big anti-war people like Robin Cook and George Galloway won. Perhaps many Arabs hoped that something like what happend in Spain would happen here, at least to compensate for the re-election of Bush, but.. Anyway, I enjoyed following the elections Thursday night live on the BBC site, it was very exciting. Oh, and in case you're wondering, a Conservative won for Enfield constituency.

Ok.. I went for a little walk about half an hour ago, stacked up on my supply of chocolates and biscuits and now will begin working again.

Mai

Getting used to things

I read this quote in one of the emails I got today:

In mathematics you don't understand things. You just get used to them.
John Von Neumann

I think we can say that about a few other things as well. For me, logic (and formal semantics) would be the first to come to mind.

p.s.
does it strike you as a bit odd that someone who is a genius in mathematics would say that? I mean, if he doesn't understand mathematics, then who does?

Mai

Come on.. Labour?

Oh.. and today was election day. Everyone is saying that Labour has the best chances of winning anyway, mostly because the alternatives are much worse. Anyway, I am glad it's over, because I was starting to get sick of seeing Blair with a wise smirk on his face on those big posters Conservatives had put everywhere with the sentence "Imagine 5 more years of him". Well, it's probably not his best angle.

p.s.
on my way home, an old man was walking with 3 dogs calmly, then out of the blue he went: "Come on Labour, f*** the Tories" :) Some people can be real fanatics.

Mai

Haha or hehe?

Here is an intersting remark. In the world of online chatting on msn or yahoo messangers back home, when someone says something funny and you want to say you're laughing without using an emoticon, you would usually say "haha". But, when I came here I noticed that everyone says "hehe". I wonder what could be the explanation? Could we say that from the cognitive psycholinguistic bilateral dynamic perspective, using "haha" actually encodes the meaning of laughter, and entails that you make more noise when you laugh, while conversationally implicating that you are not afraid of people seeing your teeth when you open your mouth to say "haha"? On the other hand, saying "hehe" could be said to encode the same thing, but entails that you make less noise and conversationally implicates that you are too lazy to open your mouth. :)

Ok, I know, I am loosing it. Reading too much in the past few days messed up my mind. Besides, who cares how you express laughing? After all, 'life is not all haha heehee' :) But wouldn't it be nice if it was? :)

p.s.
there is actually a show on TV called 'life is not all haha heehee', I just saw the posters of course (living a TV-less life, remember?)

Mai

Scary?!!

Ok, so I haven't blogged in two days, that's a first. I just had too much to do and too much to think about. Anyway, I have something really interesting for you this time. I had the nicest short conversation with someone in the staff room on campus today. It went like this:

(Me sitting reading, someone walks in)

Sara: Hi..
Me: Hi..
Sara: Do I know you?
Me: mmm... no
Sara: (smile) Oh..
Me: (smile) We can still say hi, right?
Sara: (laugh) Sure.. I'm Sara
Me: Mai
Sara: Do you teach here?
Me: I am a PhD student actually.
Sara: (hand over mouth, raised eyebrows, wide open eyes) Huuuuuuuuuuuuuh.. GOOD LUCK.
Me: (perplexed, scared look) ........ thanks???!!!!

(Sara walks out)

So, how am I supposed to feel now? Thanks A LOT Sara.

Mai