Archive for: December, 2007

Go To Bed at a Decent Hour

Dec 31 2007 Published by Sarah, etc. under Confession

I’ve been thinking for weeks about a big year ending post, something to wrap it all up and tie everything together. Instead of writing that though, I did a bunch of laundry and went to see Sweeney Todd. And omnibus words post will have to do it and really, that’s how I’d prefer to remember 2007: yay new words.

It was a big year, but it also wasn’t. I have a nephew now, that I didn’t have last year, and he’s the sweetest thing you ever saw. I had some surgery, which went well and continues to go well but for the creeping fear that I could drop dead and the hair loss. Did I tell you my hair was falling out? It is; it sucks.

Mostly life continued to be good. I have a husband and he’s great and infuriating, and mostly great. I have a Doc, and I’ve run out of words for him. I hope everybody has someone like him in their lives. And a Honu Girl.

I don’t have a lot of goals for 2008. I’d like to travel a little and generally be a nicer person. I’d like to do a 5k of some sort, though that’s a very amorphous goal. I’d like to renew my yoga practice, also pretty amorphous. I’d like to write some original fiction; fanfic is all well and good and I enjoy the community of it, but I’m beginning to suspect writing my own stuff might be worthwhile. We’ll see if I have anything to say.

Happy 2008. Blessings on all y’all’s heads.

2 responses so far

2007: The Year in Words

Dec 28 2007 Published by Sarah, etc. under Lexpionage

I’m really glad I started blogging and writing about words, etymology and philology this year. Having a “lexpionage” category and a goal to make at least one post in it a week (not sure why I declared Friday lexpionage day, but there you go) primed me to be more aware of words, both new and known, and how I and other people were using them.

I was going to do a sort of greatest hits post here, where I picked out my very favorites for the whole year, but reading back, every single word was my favorite the minute I read it.

There were new words: lapidate, contumacious, poteen, ceilidh, persiflage, ipsedixitism, chatelaine, tog, macedoine, stearopygus, plash, pleach, supernacular, paronomasy, otiose, gelid, tranche, moiety, osculation, dixiephobia, futureproof, deliquescent, plangent, yetro, diegesis, lustrum, and concatenate.

Old words rediscovered: w00t, cynosure, palimpsest, checkmate, ain’t, pecuniary, implacable, lavaliere, mendacity, snarky, fissioning, mayhem, mugwump, panglossian, and dead reckoning.

And Linguistic concepts: homographic homophonic autantonyms, clitics, tmesis, the rules of the game of cricket, hippopotomonstosesquippedaliophobia, glorious rare punctuation, very dirty words, dysphemisms, flapping, and Dark L.

I just can’t choose. I love it all so much. I love you guys for sharing (or at least tolerating) my enthusiasm. Did you have a favorite word? Or concept? Was this the year you decided to get behind Doc on his Y Is Not A Vowel crusade? It’s not, you know; it’s a semi-vowel.

I’m greatly anticipating all the new words 2008 has. Christopher bought me a copy of The Dord, the Diglot and an Avocado or Two for Christmas, so I might up it to two posts a week, depending on that books contents and what it has to say. And I have lots of other nonfiction on words and word origins I have yet to mine for fun stuff to talk about, so maybe some of that. And there’s already a big list of To Read in 2008. More! Better! Words!

6 responses so far

This Is What We Call “Loot”

Dec 27 2007 Published by Sarah, etc. under Gaming

Christmas has come and gone and what’s left, other than some clutter in the living room, are all sorts of new games. Christopher and I both ask for new computer games every year (despite our devotion to World of Warcraft) and so do my brother-in-law and his wife, Scott and Rachael (whom you all know and love).

Last night the four of us got together and decided to do some exploring of the new games: Tabula Rasa and Hellgate London. Tabula Rasa is an MMO and Hellgate London can be played as one if you like, but we didn’t attempt any serious gameplay-with-others for either game.

Tabula Rasa looks cool, a little like a graphics intensive version of Unreal Tournament 2004. It’s hoss, though, and Christopher kept insisting that Scott turn the resolution down from 1600×1200 to 1280×1024 to get a good frame rate. Hellgate London was dim and dark and hard to navigate at first, more than a little like Painkiller. Then I realized that there wasn’t much in the way of choice and I should just follow the path and shoot the zombies and I’d be good, so that’s what I did. All the while watching the “tips” flash onto the screen in huge capital letters right at my eye line (like WoW raid warnings without the bonging-noise and the hilarious demands that all the Paladins cast Salvation) saying things like, “SEE THAT? PICK THAT UP? THAT’S WHAT WE CALL ‘LOOT’?” Loot, you say? What is this “loot”?

As is often the case, we had most of the fun setting up a couple characters. I built a ranged fighter called Xin Gan and Scott built a grunt of some sort called Elroy Butman because “Elroy Ironmonger” was taken (?!) already. The Hellgate interface gave me relatively few choices (face, skin, hair, height and build) and we were all let down that I couldn’t build myself a Blaster/Mage with enormous hooters. The Tabula Rasa interface let Scott pick quite a few choices (face, hair, facial hair, glasses, height, build, skin and five different pieces of armor). Scott chose to give Elroy a serious pornstache, which made Rachael ask, “Is there a chest hair slider?”

I only made it through the first board and one and a half missions of the Hellgate tutorial, but it was enough fun that I’ll continue to play a little while, though I don’t know that I’ll begin paying for the additional content. That’s an experiment that I’m eager to see in practice– a single game offering both MMO and single-player content. I spent most of the evening watching Scott shoot aliens, and I’d like to try Tabula Rasa, which is closer to pure shooter than I’ve played in a long, long time. The account there is free for a month with a 3-day buddy pass, so I’ll get an opportunity sometime in the next month.

Both are very pretty, with great graphics that don’t pig the system too seriously. I’ll get into more detail once I’ve had some more experience with both. If I can do that while not neglecting my new Blood Elf hunter, Serpenatrix, and her pet velociraptor, Butterbeer.

7 responses so far

Just Another (Boxing) Day

Dec 26 2007 Published by Sarah, etc. under Geekery

Another Christmas has come and gone and Marcie has wished me a Happy Boxing Day. I wished her one back. The really good part– neither of us actually celebrate Boxing Day. Much of the rest of the English speaking world is having a big time today– sports and picnics (I like contemplating Christmas in the Southern Hemisphere) and big, big sales.

Are there any Americans that celebrate it? Some little enclave of commonwealth-ness that does something special today, not including just taking the day off work and going to the movies?

When I was a little kid, I always wondered what “Boxing Day” on the calendar meant, but never asked anybody. At one point, I think I just assumed that it was an entire day given over to cleaning up the boxes from all your Christmas presents. So few minutes to make a mess on Christmas, and a whole day to clean it up!

One response so far

Good Tidings of Great Joy

Dec 21 2007 Published by Sarah, etc. under Lexpionage

Today’s lexpionage is very very happy words, like these, written some couple thousand years ago by a guy called Luke:

An angel of the Lord appeared to them, and the glory of the Lord shone around them, and they were terrified. Bu the angel said to them, “Do not be afraid. I bring you good news of great joy that will be for all people. Today in the town of David a Savior has been born to you; he is Christ, the Lord.”

It’s not a whole lot of words, there. But it’s one of the most transformative statements ever made, even if we aren’t always able to comprehend life before Christianity. Christ, from the Greek christos, and Hebrew masiah means “anointed one.” Bethlehem, transliterated from the Hebrew beth lehem or lechem depending on what letter you want to use, is literally, “House of Bread.” The Bread of Life, born in the house of bread as the anointed savior of all mankind.

Such a simple couple sentences so packed with meaning. When you study Hebrew, one of the first things you begin learning, especially if you’re studying the Old Testament, are the names for God. Most of which are plural. I can remember sitting thinking about that and wondering and having a classmate, who prided himself on his agnostic arrogance look over at me and another Christian sitting on the other side of the table going, “Oooh, polytheism!” Kenny, my fellow Christian, and I looked at each other and both said, “Trinity” at the same time. God’s nature is unchanging and eternal. “Jesus” is the Greek form of “Joshua” which is a variant of the traditional YHWH, or Yahweh which means “salvation” and “help.”

So Merry Christmas. I wish you great joy for the Feast of the Anointed, the Bread of Life, and Savior.

2 responses so far

Just in Case You Missed It

Dec 20 2007 Published by Sarah, etc. under Fandom

The Torchwood series two trailer:

Why yes, that is James Marsters. Again, if you don’t get BBC America, you’re welcome at my house.

6 responses so far

Lacking in Domestic Genes

Dec 19 2007 Published by Sarah, etc. under Speechifying

Lately I’ve started reading a few blogs every day that are dedicated to design and decorating and similar domestic pursuits. Sometimes there’s a large DIY component, sometimes there’s not. And I’m not entirely sure what the impetus was for starting to pursue reading them except that I like to daydream about mid-century modern furniture and one thing led to another.

What’s really got me curious, though, is how angry they make me. I know I should stop reading them, cos they just get me worked up, but I can’t quite yet. And I’m not sure if I’m angry because I’m jealous– I have neither the time nor the money to create a life with that much delicacy and twee; or if I’m angry because there seems to be an unspoken thesis that the form is as important as the function.

I’m not stating my case very well, but I’m still trying to work out why, when I look at a cotton throw pillow that costs $100 and comes with a 1500 word creation narrative, I’m overcome with a scorching sense of contempt. And I don’t like feeling that way. A wise man once told me that contempt is the only emotion that you can’t come back from and I believe him. It’s a motherfucking throw pillow!

I know that when things are nice you feel better. I can believe it, too. Maybe my problem is that I’m pretty well the least domestic person I know and have the decorating sense of your average frat boy. My idea of a nice room would be white walls, all black furniture, a black and white rug with words on it, black and/or white tables, and white drapes. No accessories, no knickknacks, nothing extra but books. Maybe a throw pillow; a green one.

I think form should follow function. It’s not an end unto itself. Or I can’t understand it as an end to itself. Anybody else get real worked up about this sort of thing? To the point of being rendered inarticulate?

One response so far

Relax, We Understand You

Dec 18 2007 Published by Sarah, etc. under Lexpionage

It’s time for looking back on 2007, and Merriam-Webster has declared w00t the 2007 Word of the Year, zeroes and all. The Ars Technica article seems to chalk this up to people with enough free time to flood ballots with something that’s a purposeless interjection. Well, okay. Really, I like their remarks:

In other news, Roflcopter and lollerskates were shut out. Again.

Other people get even more worked up. At Postmodern Conservative, Mr. Poulous calls it “cultural degradation” and goes on to say:

You ass. Let me be blunt. Online gamers are not cool people. Making up the word ‘w00t’ is not cool. Making up the word ‘w00t’ is like being in eighth grade and writing the word ‘WaReZ’ on stuff. This should not be emulated in the real world, much less actively recruited into it. A more efficient way of representing the alphabet is texting ’4′ instead of ‘four’, or ’2moro’ instead of ‘tomorrow’. That’s cool.

I’m going to drastically disagree with him. As an uncool online gamer who does type and say “w00t” in all its variations, texting “4″ for “for” and “2moro” drives me up the fucking wall. Let’s not inappropriately mingle our parts of speech. An interjection like w00t (and I agree with BoingBoing that they’ve made it a backronym; it has no native meaning beyond “hooray”) can support a certain amount of orthographic tomfoolery. Other parts of speech, like nouns, should remain unmolested. It’s so much harder to punch in “to” than 2? That’s one punch. One keystroke if you’re lucky enough to have a phone with a QWERTY keyboard. Put on your big boy or girl panties and live with never getting those two seconds back.

W00t is fun. W00t is a bit of zetigeist for the history books, which is what all these lists and votes are about anyway. I’ll still type it, unironically, when a team I’m on has done good things. Sometimes with zeroes, sometimes with os, sometimes without a “t,” something with “-hoo” on the end, for that little something extra. w00t is the word of the moment, for our time and place; it is, as the kids say, awesomesauce.

5 responses so far

Maybe I Am a Sucker

Dec 17 2007 Published by Sarah, etc. under Confession, Speechifying

I’ve been thinking about social contracts a lot since last night. Here I mean the unspoken, or nonspoken, ways in which we relate to other people, and how malleable they can be, and how difficult it is when they’re violated, even out of desperation.

Because last night a homeless man knocked on our door and asked for food.

My personal policy when it comes to people who panhandle, or beg, or whatever you want to call it, is to help them get whatever object they’re asking for. But if they just ask for money, I ignore. If people hold signs that say, “Will work for food” I will go and buy them a sack of food– enough for several meals. If someone asks me for money for coffee, I go and buy the biggest coffee I can. This is how I deal with a tricky, uncomfortable part of the social contract.

So when this man showed up last night and Christopher answered the door, he sort of growled at me to stay put. But I really couldn’t. I suspect it has to take an enormous amount of courage to knock on a door, especially in a dodgy neighborhood like ours, to ask for food. But I went outside and listened to him and then fixed him plenty of food to take with him.

It would’ve been a happy, Christmas-y story, I think, had it ended there. But it didn’t. As I was giving him what I’d prepared– all of it would keep and last him for several meals– he started asking for cash. There was a whole additional story, about how he needed to get to Smithfield and couldn’t walk, which I felt obligated to listen to, as he was standing on my porch showing no sign of leaving. He managed to take a breath eventually and I said, “We’re not cash people.” That put a quick enough end to it. I don’t know how a few dollars might have helped him get to Smithfield, but I had no dollars to give.

And I felt bad about that. And that made me feel bad and angry. Why should I feel guilty for not being a cash person? Is it a “give an inch; take a mile” thing or did I turn the “sucker” sign over my head on when I handed him a big bag of food? If I’d given him five dollars, would he have asked for something else? I comforted myself by deciding that he had been the one to violate our contract. I tacitly supported his first minor violation by giving him what he asked for. And you may think that I am obligated to provide for him, in that case, but I only agree with you to an extent. To continue past that point, to attempt to extend our transaction, soured me for the whole experience.

Christopher’s afraid we’ll get a reputation now, as a house you can go to to get food. There are worse reputations we could have, I suppose. Again, I have no problem giving people food if they need it. I’m worried that we’ll become a house you can go to and just keep on asking.

4 responses so far

It’s Like, Like

Dec 14 2007 Published by Sarah, etc. under Lexpionage

I’ve had a moment or two lately, listening to acquaintances talk where I’ve been overcome with fear: do I sound like that? In everyday, informal conversation, I tend to speak pretty colloquially. And yeah, I say things like “shiny” or answer the phone “ahoy ahoy” and that probably irritates the hell out of some people, but most people get on with their lives. What I’m afraid of now, is that I say “like” too much.

There was a big conflation of “like” related events recently, so my paranoia is entirely situational, but stick with me. At one point this week I looked at someone and realized she’d described an entire event by saying, “It’s just like, you know, you know? It’s like, I’m like, you know.” It took three minutes to get all of that out and at the end I wanted to say, “No. I don’t know. Tell me. Use adjectives.” Another person, in the same situation, related a conversation by situating the players with the word “like.” She’d say, “I’m like… and she was like… so I’m like… and she was like….” It was like Chinese water torture. It was hard to type “like” in the previous sentence even though I know that that’s a simile.

And then reading Language Log, I saw this referenced: Don’t Sound Stupid, Stop Saying Like*. And then the feeling descended. God, I thought. Do I sound that ignorant? And then I tried to take my mind off it by wondering whether or not this particular form of speech (could you go so far as to call it a dialect?) does have a certain currency. Does the sound of it jar me because I’m not involved in any communities where this manner of speaking would gain me entry? Just like my use of “shiny” is a verbal marker of my community affiliations, is the excessive use of “like” (with or without “you know”) a means to mark their personal communities? I can’t be sure, because the speaks were from vastly different backgrounds, part of, so far as I understand it, radically different communities and about 20 years apart in age– both adults.

I’m gonna like, mull this over some more. And try to excise “like” from my vocabulary unless I’m actually like, creating a simile. And that could just as easily be achieved with “as,” you know? Really, you all have to slap me if I get like this, okay? Scream, “Sarah! Adjectives!”

*Yes, comma splices also make you sound stupid. It’s linguistic metahumor!

4 responses so far

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