Wednesday, July 14, 2010
Random items
(1) While waiting for a bus this morning, I was taken aback by a wildly old-fashioned sight: a car with a suit hanging on the clothes-hook. The car was a late-90s Buick sedan, and the driver was just what you'd expect ... dapper old guy, probably a high-class salesman. Those clothes-hooks over the rear doors were already obsolescent when I was young. Nobody used them. If I had bothered to think about it, I would guess they had been discontinued by 1980. Apparently not.
(2) I'm still on the Repooflican mailing list, having been a loyal Repooflican from 1994 to 2003. Today I got this fund-raising letter:
Note the cute "1040" appearance of the numbers, the IRS-like format of the envelope, and the warning about "authorized employee representative". Gave me a momentary heart palpitation, which is undoubtedly the goal. Really dumb marketing. If I were still inclined to vote brand-R, this letter would switch me to D. Take a month off my life? I'm damn sure not going to pay you for the experience!
(3) Localeths. It's sort of interesting to live in a place like Spokane that outsiders often mispronounce. You can tell immediately whether a radio ad or a politician is in NYC or actually knows the place. When an ad for a concert gives locations and times for "Spokain and Cower d'Aleen", you know for sure it's NYC.
Some localeths are more subtle, in the domain of stress rather than simple pronunciation. Upper Sandusky, Ohio for example. Locals stress the second syllable, almost like "A person dusky". Or Havre de Grace, Maryland, with a unique intonation that tickles my ears for some reason. "Havver" gets the major stress as you'd expect, but "dee" and "Grace" are exactly equal in length and force. Rhymes and scans with "Have her keep pace."
(4) The protocols and standards that made the Web possible are called HyperText Transfer Protocol and HyperText Markup Language. Both have been submerged by other layers to some extent, and the word Hypertext has been totally lost in the shuffle. We should use Hypertext to describe the 'stuff' that the Web is made of, but we don't. If you said "Well, guess I'll read some hypertext for a while..." you wouldn't be understood. ¶ 9:29 AM
(2) I'm still on the Repooflican mailing list, having been a loyal Repooflican from 1994 to 2003. Today I got this fund-raising letter:
Note the cute "1040" appearance of the numbers, the IRS-like format of the envelope, and the warning about "authorized employee representative". Gave me a momentary heart palpitation, which is undoubtedly the goal. Really dumb marketing. If I were still inclined to vote brand-R, this letter would switch me to D. Take a month off my life? I'm damn sure not going to pay you for the experience!
(3) Localeths. It's sort of interesting to live in a place like Spokane that outsiders often mispronounce. You can tell immediately whether a radio ad or a politician is in NYC or actually knows the place. When an ad for a concert gives locations and times for "Spokain and Cower d'Aleen", you know for sure it's NYC.
Some localeths are more subtle, in the domain of stress rather than simple pronunciation. Upper Sandusky, Ohio for example. Locals stress the second syllable, almost like "A person dusky". Or Havre de Grace, Maryland, with a unique intonation that tickles my ears for some reason. "Havver" gets the major stress as you'd expect, but "dee" and "Grace" are exactly equal in length and force. Rhymes and scans with "Have her keep pace."
(4) The protocols and standards that made the Web possible are called HyperText Transfer Protocol and HyperText Markup Language. Both have been submerged by other layers to some extent, and the word Hypertext has been totally lost in the shuffle. We should use Hypertext to describe the 'stuff' that the Web is made of, but we don't. If you said "Well, guess I'll read some hypertext for a while..." you wouldn't be understood. ¶ 9:29 AM
