Marking done

I finished my marking today, having given out one the lowest marks I've ever given – a 7 out of 100 – to a paper that consisted of a few marginally correct answers in addition to a lot of "No chance" and "Fuck". (I have given out zeroes before, but that was only for cases of plagiarism or non-submission; and at some point someone managed to score a 4.5, but was also given a 10-point penalty for being two days late.)

Because it's against all sorts of regulations (mostly Health and Safety, I think) and also vaguely unethical to post a collection of interesting answers, here's a key to my marking comments as a sorry replacement. I should probably give this out to my students at some point around essay time so that they know what they have to do...

✓ - correct, this is something you get a point for.
✗ - not correct, this is something you would have got a point for if it had been right.
REF - REFERENCE THIS, YOU TOOL!
? - I have no idea what this says or I have no idea what you mean.
?? - I have no idea what you mean, and I'm quite sure you don't either.
! - How many times did I tell you not to write this?
OK - (read: oooo-kay....) This argument is flawed, but there's enough correctness in it that you're getting the point anyway because I'm nice like that.
Hmm - I'm not entirely convinced.
meh - I'm not entirely convinced, but it isn't relevant to the point anyway.
awk - (from awkward) There are better ways of phrasing this.
sp - This isn't spelled correctly.
:) - This is funny, but you probably didn't intend it that way.
:( - I am very disappointed in you.
good - This bit stands out i.e. The rest of your essay is not ____.

I do also write real words.

Wordle

This is fun.

My Ph.D. is about...



My M.Sc. was about...



And my M.A. was about...


Guess what I want to do next...

Dan(c)e

After trying his luck in Edinburgh for about a year — can't quite remember when he randomly turned up out of the blue — HSC will be moving back to Denmark tomorrow. Apparently there's many jobs for him there, and he has an interview in Copenhagen next week. With a bit of luck, and I'll know about that in two to three weeks, I might be joining him there in a little under a year's time, but until then, it's goodbye to the little drunken Dane.

Trip to Aalborg (R 8x32)

1-8 1C cross down RH to 2nd place on the wrong sides, set, and turn RH 1 1/4 times to end 1M between the 3s facing 3M, and 1L between the 2s facing 2L.
9-16 Reels of 3 across the dance; 1C end these in 2nd place on the wrong sides.
17-24 Meanwhile. 1C set, turn RH 3/4 (putting 1M at the top of the set, 1L at the bottom), set, and petronella home to 2nd place. This last petronella is more like a dodge, as supporting couples do: cross RH, set, change places on the side RH, cross LH — ending in the order 312, all on the correct side.
25-32 All circle 6H round and back.

This dance is confusing because (a) it's a 312 progression, which I never do on purpose but most of the dances I write end up with one anyway, and (b) the meanwhile bit is not J.B. Milne. Also, I might not get to dance it tonight. Grump.

Stufi

According to ANP:

The European Commission have brought the Netherlands to the European Court of Justice in Luxembourg over discrimination with regard to student grants. According to Dutch law, students who want to qualify for student grants to study abroad, need to have been legally resident in the Netherlands for at least three of the previous six years. According to the European Commission, this residency requirement is in breach of EU rules about free movement of labour.

AHRC, ESRC, and friends – please take note. Thank you.

More politics (unstructured thoughts)

Three interesting Op/Ed pieces from the Dutch press:

Martin Sommer in De Volkskrant continues the Irish EU referendum theme. Kees Aerts in Trouw discusses the apparent demise of social-democracy in Europe. And Hans Goslinga, also in Trouw talks about difference between old and new people's parties, and why it's important to stick to politics rather than settle on a cross-party business cabinet.

Points that they (more or less) make that I agree with:

• As there is very little that can be done against whatever comes from Brussels, opposition politicians that run on an anti-Europe ticket are misleading the electorate. European integration is at a point where opting in or out of individual treaties and rules and regulations makes very little difference indeed. Empty words, then, all of it.


• One of the old values of social-democracy was cultural enlightenment. Aerts is right that this was probably a top-down process. The idea is levelling upwards, raising the level of the masses, rather than levelling downwards, lowering the level of the elite down to the gross common denominator. Of course you can ask whether this is actually true, seeing as even news and discussion programmes on tv have been turned into "infotainment".


• The masses see Europe as a case of "their rights versus our interests", and are no longer interested in the left-wing intellectual elite's messages about how cool international cooperation is. They feel threatened by globalisation, sometimes rightly so, and put more faith in messages about cultural conservatism, regardless of whether these messages come from traditionally right-wing or traditionally left-wing parties.


• It's probably better to keep talking rather than sidelining politics and give power to a cross-party cabinet of successful academics and businessmen. That idea is probably not even that bad in theory, but in practice, it won't be accepted by the masses who have lost their faith in people with a different outlook in life. Recall the PVV's hate speech against intellectuals with university degrees and designer glasses.

Final question: is this really a question of a change from politics of left versus right to politics of intellectuals versus non-intellectuals? Are they all that different? And should we care?

Politics

I was reading up on some of the issues around last week's referendum in Ireland about whether or not to ratify the Treaty of Lisbon. The quickest way to get to some relevant links of course is to look up the referendum on Wikipedia, which was made even easier by there being a link to the article on the Wikipedia front page. (Which for me functioned as a reminder that I was meaning to read some more about it.)

Two things.

I was amazed and slightly appalled that one of the people active in the "NO to Lisbon" campaign was Nigel Farage, leader of the UK Independence Party. This is not an Irish party that is rallying for Irish independence from the UK – of course, they managed to kick out the Brits somewhere between 1916 and 1949, depending on how you define independence. No, it is a British party (in fact, mostly an English party) rallying for the European Union to stay out of British politics. But apparently it is alright for UKIP themselves to butt into Irish politics. I can understand that UKIP are evangelical about their "No to EU" message, fair enough, but if you want other countries to stay out of your politics, maybe you shouldn't get actively involved in another country's politics either.

The other thing is that the same Nigel Farage has said that the referendum was like a corrupt election in Zimbabwe or Afghanistan. Part of this is probably sour grapes, but it is a bit awkward to just disregard the outcome of the previous referendum (2008) and try again just because you didn't like the result. This reminds me of a talk at the Sociolinguistics Symposium in Amsterdam, where one of the keynote speakers pulled off exactly the same trick: the first set of experiments didn't show what we wanted it to show, so we re-did them, and then we liked the results better. Maybe the Irish should have waited with a new referendum – at least the two EU referenda in Norway were twenty years apart and there was enough change in both the electorate and the political situation in Europe to warrant trying again.

I also have thoughts about referenda, the provision and processing of relevant information, and the political landscape in general, but they are for some other time.

Metro maps

I'm a big fan of the stylised maps often used by metro and railway companies, where geography is made secondary to conveying information, and as a result, the world is just a little bit more typographically pleasing. So obviously different levels of my geekery got together in rejoicing over this map:



Not a true metro or train map, although the buses go through plenty of tunnels, and the 300, 400, and 410 services even go under the sea for a bit. Another bit of the geek in me is happy that there seems to be some underlying systematicity in numbering the bus and ferry connections, although it could have been done a little bit more elegantly.

Robot musicians don't like me

Last weekend, me and CS went to the last day of the Cybraphon exposition, a strange robot contraption that can make music on lots of different instruments inside a 1920s-style cupboard. It was designed by two people from the department, Simon and Ziggy-who-is-really-Barry. In the middle of the top shelf of the cupboard is a sort of barometer that indicates the Cybraphon's mood. Supposedly the music it plays depends on its mood, but of course if you only go and see it once, you can't tell...

The mood-o-meter goes from "desolate" to "delirious". When we came in, the Cybraphon was moderately happy. I can't remember exactly what the mood-o-meter said, but if it's really 1920s British it would have been something along the lines of "chirpy" or "jolly". However, the minute we positioned ourselves in front of the Cybraphon, its mood went down to "indifferent".

Thanks.

But also, likewise. Simon and Ziggy's previous contraption was a whole range of chimes and xylophones and things hidden in the bushes in one of the big greenhouses at the Botanic Gardens. They were connected to motion sensors, so certain things would play if you were standing near a certain plant. You could move around the greenhouse and make things happen. The Cybraphon doesn't have this interactiveness – at least, no direct interaction between the thing and the spectators. Apparently it takes its mood from how many people write about it positively on the internet. So sorry Cybraphon, I'm going to go ruin your day now: you weren't as good as the Botanics set-up.

Boredom alleviated

Troublesome Threesomes (S 3x40)
To alleviate Emma's boredom in India.

1-8 1C set, then cast to face 1st corners. Set to 1st corners, turn them RH to face 2nd corners.
9-16 Set to 2nd corners, turn them LH to end in lines across the dance. Set and link for three to end 2-1-3 on opposite sides.
17-24 All dance 6-bar reels of three on the sides, 1C dancing in and to their right to start. End with 1C turning RH to face 4th corner positions (these are 1st corner people).
25-32 Set to corners, turn them LH to end in lines across the dance. Set and link for three to end 2-1-3 on own sides.
33-40 1C dance half figures of 8 around 2nd corners, cross RH and cast one place out their own sides to end 2-3-1.


St Catherine of Siena (S 8x32)
To alleviate my own boredom on a Saturday afternoon.

1-8 1C cross RH, cast two places (2C, 3C step up), cross LH, cast up one place (3C step down).
9-16 1L with 3C (down), 1M with 2C (up), dance reels of 3 across the dance. End in 2nd place on own sides.
17-24 Dance eight bars of rights and lefts for three couples: all cross RH, then change places LH on the sides or on the 2nd corner diagonal, all cross RH, then change places LH on the sides or on the 2nd diagonal.
25-32 Set, then circle 6H to the left only (two-thirds round) back to own sides in the order 2-1-3.

Auslautverhärtung

Hij is fijn.

2008 - A year in Facebook statuses

January 2008
02/01 Remco is een onnozele en naïeve dwaas. Blijkbaar. Kijk, dán komen we ergens.
03/01 Remco is snowless but extremely cold.
04/01 Remco is back.
09/01 Remco is wondering how many pop culture references will fit into one presentation.
11/01 Remco is going into the weekend.
12/01 [edited out for fear of litigation]
13/01 Remco is zuurkoolschotel. Vindt iedereen lekker.
14/01 Remco is afraid Lauren is becoming physically victorious.
17/01 Remco is glad Lauren is ill, so she won't become physically victorious. (Instead, I will.)
17/01 Remco is, yes.
19/01 Remco: eppur si muove.
27/01 Remco is doing something right now.

February 2008
06/02 Remco is wondering what silly things people have decided not to eat this year. Sigh.
09/02 Remco is not (really) ill. (And hoping that if I write that it'll become true!)
12/02 Remco is going to torture the Ling 2 students with some Dutch. Rood, goot, groot. Good luck!
13/02 Remco is back to work.
19/02 Remco is marking. Joy!
21/02 Remco is glad THAT's over.
22/02 Remco is going to mark in t'Toon.
24/02 Remco is glad that THAT's over too.
25/02 Remco is despairing. Do they not have any clue at all?
25/02 Remco is getting less and less convinced.
28/02 Remco is done marking. Happy days are here again!

March 2008
08/03 Remco is weekending.
10/03 Remco is ill and sniffy.
10/03 Remco is disappointed, but determined to adjust levels of couldn't-care-lessness accordingly.
11/03 Remco heeft heel wat respect verloren voor Rob de Nijs. Van Francis Cabrel blijf je af! Grr...
12/03 Remco is getting better.
13/03 Remco is excited about getting to tour the DSB, Dirk Scheringa Be- eh... Dugald Stewart Building.
18/03 Remco is doing data entry in 8-bar phrases.
19/03 Remco is making the science a fun.
20/03 Remco rider ut or Fraklandet med dyre dros i sadel / blæs i luren Olivant på Ronsarvollen.
22/03 Remco is sitting in a railway station / got a ticket for [his] destination...
23/03 Remco is where the heart is.
24/03 Remco is terrible at keeping in touch.
30/03 Remco is taking a (very rainy) day off.
31/03 Remco is finding Monday morning radio uninspiring for work. Can we ban the EO?

April 2008
01/04 Remco is wondering why all interesting SS17 sessions are at the same time?!
01/04 Remco is thinking Dutch MPs should get lessons in logic, debating, and rhetoric.
02/04 Remco is in Mokum, representin' the Burgh.
06/04 Remco is back from Mokum, having represented the 'Burgh.
07/04 Remco is wireless.
08/04 Remco has received fanmail.
09/04 Remco is wondering why Facebook's targeted advertising is talking about "5 Tips to Lose Belly Fat."
12/04 Remco is thinking it's a bit odd that Facebook is now *proposing* people as my friends.
13/04 Remco is back. All rejoice.
15/04 Remco is wondering.
17/04 Remco had never heard ze Pope speak English before. Vat a choke!
18/04 Remco is, once again, marking.
19/04 Remco has processed lots of meat and assorted veg into (1) pasta sauce, (2) goulash, and (3) moussaka. Too bad cooking doesn't make me hungry.
20/04 Remco can't count. Which is a problem when marking, frankly.
21/04 Remco is disappointed in you.
28/04 Remco's facebook status has expired.

May 2008
02/05 Remco has expired now as well. (Just like his Facebook status last week.)
03/05 Remco has not expired, but is just reduced to clear. (Thank you. I think.)
07/05 Remco has no inspiration for a status.
09/05 Remco will be lunching outside, thank you very much.
09/05 Remco feels like a Friday afternoon.
10/05 Remco feels like a Saturday afternoon.
12/05 Remco's status is outdated.
12/05 Remco est partout où tu regardes: dans les moindres recoins de l'espace, dans le moindre rêve où tu t'attardes.
15/05 Remco and Lauren are sitting next to each other on the office sofa, communicating old-fashionedly by e-mail.
15/05 Remco has reorganised his folders with articles, and reshuffled the letters of the alphabet in the process.
17/05 Remco. Dus.
17/05 Remco: rien qui mérite qu'on en parle, rien d'inquiétant.
22/05 Remco is amused by the wealth of academic publications on Eurovision block-voting.
26/05 Remco suddenly finds the long-awaited absence of undergraduates in the University Library rather quite eerie.
27/05 Remco is enjoying phonetic transcriptions: [kut], [fok] and other such fun times.
27/05 Remco has assisted casually. Score!

June 2008
01/06 Remco is a bit boring, and very much bored.
03/06 Remco likes even-numbered chapters better. Die, you evil odd-numbered chapters! Die! Die! Die!
06/06 Remco is still not extremely fond of odd-numbered chapters.
06/06 Remco is tired and bored. Of odd-numbered chapters, and in general.
07/06 Remco s'arrange pour éviter les miroirs.
09/06 Remco is back to the evil odd-numbered chapters.
09/06 Remco is wondering whether it would be possible to turn the light off at night, so that he can get some *&^/5*@ sleep. Thank you.
09/06 Remco maybe shouldn't have eaten a bag of Haribo Happy Cola bottles.
10/06 Remco har slet ikke noget tøj på; det er der ingen andre der kan se. (Hmm... using song lyrics for status updates may not be the smartest thing I've ever done.)
11/06 Remco - plus loin que la nuit et le jour.
11/06 Remco is statusless.
12/06 Remco is back from his first meeting of the day (and it's only 9am).
12/06 Remco thinks Calvin is right: there is actually nothing in the Monopoly rule book about not robbing the bank. Stuff that, Hobbes! (Quite literally, actually.)
12/06 Remco sjunger: du kan stå under mitt paraply, du kan stå under mitt paraply-ply-ply, ja, ja, ja...
13/06 Remco het 't charisma van 'n blokske Lego.
16/06 Remco is in the office. His motivation must be somewhere else. Did it move to the new building already?
16/06 Remco zit bovenop het duin. Het is wel 100 meter hoog. Zo hoog zat werkelijk nog niemand. En hij ziet Engeland.
17/06 Remco wonders whether the 25 mins spent getting the laptop power cord he'd forgotten count as work or procrastination?
17/06 Remco is cutting, condensing and red-penning. Chapter 3.2 went from 8500 to 4500 words. Result.
18/06 Remco doesn't like the speed he swims at.
19/06 Remco is going to actually do some work today. (And fortunately, "some" is a very vague quantifier.)
19/06 Remco is Editing Central. From 7500 to 3800 words. Result again. (Total: from 16000 to 8300.)
19/06 Remco is wondering whether the *new new new* pink entrance hall to AFB is intended to let us get used to the colour scheme in the new bulding?
20/06 Remco kept his calm in the face of a raging tornado.
22/06 Remco is a domestic god. And wirelessly connected!
25/06 Remco knows everything there is to know about fire. And, has crates - will move.
26/06 Remco thinks writing introductory crap is NOT INTERESTING.
26/06 Remco is going to bed.
27/06 Remco is wondering, is this the bloody St Gotthard?!
27/06 Remco is wondering who all these people are Facebook claims I should know.
27/06 Remco is wondering who all these people are Facebook claims I *may* know. (Geez, what is it with you people!)
30/06 Remco did not get around to opening the file 'thesis.tex' today. Better luck tomorrow.

July 2008
01/07 Remco is actually working!
01/07 Remco is pleasantly surprised to find another publication to his name. (You'd have thought the journal would at least tell me?)
03/07 Remco is wondering how typographically blind you must be to mistake ramshorns for a voiced velar fricative. Not very, guessing from the frequency of this mistake.
03/07 Remco (a) managed to kill time until 7.45pm, and (b) now knows that it takes TWO packets of Sainsbury's cheesecake mix to fill his cake tin.
04/07 Remco thinks Vivaldi at 8am was a nice surprise. Yay for the Marathon Interview! :)
04/07 Remco agrees that (disgusting) Pringles are not (proper) crisps, but doesn't see why they therefore are exempt from taxes. Evil inferior crisp conspiracy, I tell you!
04/07 Remco heeft nu wel genoeg van de hik, thankyouverymuch.
04/07 Remco was van de hik haf, maar heeft hem nu weer terug. *Hik*.
05/07 Remco, tja.
06/07 Remco is acquiring lots of knowledge that is essentially pointless.
07/07 Remco isn't convinced it's been a very good day today.
08/07 Remco is amused that Dutch radio plays songs in Schwyzerdütsch (and hopes he's spelt that right).
10/07 Remco is definitely going to be an Important Person in the second semester next year.
16/07 Remco is enjoying broadcasts of the Tour 1958 on RTL, 1968 on NOS, and 2008 on both.
17/07 Remco is happy iCal Day everyone!
18/07 Remco could do with fewer faulty parts, and would like to remind the people in charge that he is not a French car.
20/07 Remco was at Sarah's wedding ceilidh, and was suitably impressed by La Linda's moves on the dancefloor.
21/07 Remco thinks July is not the proper time of year to get a stinkin' cold. Also, hence, in no state to work. Snif.
24/07 Remco can see the irony in fire doors being wedged open by fire extinguishers.
24/07 Remco wonders what would happen if the Gendarmerie would search *French* cyclists. Putains racistes.
25/07 Remco is continuing yesterday's theme. WTF is AG2R doing in 2nd place in the Teams Classification?
28/07 Remco says, Góða Ólavsøku!
29/07 Remco sings, "Hóast kavin liggur tjúkkur nú yvir bø og ong, so er tað sum í tropunum í okkara dupultsong."
31/07 Remco has internet in the new building!

August 2008
06/08 Remco is wondering when it'll stop raining!
06/08 Remco is not camping. http://www.foksuk.nl/nl?cm=79&ctime=1217541600.
07/08 Remco is wondering whether he can be bothered throwing a dinner party this weekend.
08/08 Remco thinks that people who pretend their Mac is a Windows machine probably deserve all that's coming to them.
10/08 Remco has had quite enough of getting wet all the time.
18/08 Remco is watching Weg met BNN. For obvious reasons.
19/08 Remco has fucking had enough. Edinburgh should follow Montréal's lead and build an underground part to the city.
20/08 Remco vindt rookworst gewoon heel erg lekker.
20/08 Remco is thinking Radio Kòrsou FM needs to update their jingle. Although I suppose "diskualifikashon" is not in my Papiamentu dictionary.
21/08 Remco is going to have lunch.
21/08 Remco is going to see a Fringe show.
22/08 Remco is not more like Emma than Emma is, although the evidence may have been diluted by torrential rain.
22/08 Remco is wondering whether Lionel Ritchie actually pays tax over all those things that purportedly belong to him.
23/08 Remco vindt boterbabbelaars met mintsmaak wel erg vreemd.
23/08 Remco has new shoes, and thus sore feet.
29/08 Remco is watching Weg met BNN again. Same reason.
30/08 Remco is wondering whether to interpret James' latest exploits as a new high or a new low.
31/08 Remco is amazed to see swaths of neds attentively watching a classical music concert.

September 2008
01/09 Remco is thinking, at least at the end of a short story people can be dead.
04/09 Remco is thinking that the tech support people really should come to ask me how their systems work...
09/09 Remco is looking at http://www.fontblog.be/brummi-alphabet.
10/09 Remco is glad he's not a supporter of the Bulgarian women's ice hockey team.
11/09 Remco has spent the past two and a half hours reading German Academese, and could do with a break.
11/09 Remco is thinking about figurative language (wuFcZatQnmo).
13/09 Remco should perhaps buy a Gekkur ticket.
15/09 Remco is surprised that no one's reacted on his status yet and asked what on earth a Gekkur is.
15/09 Remco is officially old now. Not a single person has offered him Snapfax this year.
17/09 Remco is Etelis coruscans. You have been warned.
19/09 Remco is cleaning the kitchen very thoroughly, so the entire house is now a mess.
20/09 Remco is settling for simply clean, thoroughly clean is too much work.
22/09 Remco is surprised to find levels of despair change so much from week to week.
22/09 Remco needs a new bag after an unfortunate incident that involved raspberries.
23/09 Remco has submitted the postdoc application and can now resume actually finishing the PhD.
24/09 Remco gelooft het allemaal wel.
24/09 Remco doesn't like being a notnice person.
25/09 Remco is wondering what Penny will wear for her presentation tomorrow, and is preparing to be surprised.
26/09 Remco is only eight weeks away from 21 November 2008.
30/09 Remco is disappointed that Innerrhoden and Ausserrhoden let the team down.

October 2008
01/10 Remco is sure winter's on its way. The spontaneous nosebleeds announcing its return have started...
01/10 Remco is sleeping. Well, almost.
02/10 Remco is making deadlines and not going insane. Yay.
06/10 Remco is in need of a new status.
06/10 Remco is not going to Beirut any time soon.
07/10 Remco hat KBA und KI.
07/10 Remco thinks it's a stroke of brilliance to say that Superman and Clark Kent are in complementary distribution, and they're allopersons of the same perseme.
10/10 Remco is suing 堅い天候の会社 for false advertising. Superdry my arse.
10/10 Remco's wall is becoming more and more of a mystery.
11/10 Remco is showing signs of old age.
11/10 Remco would say /'lansbantʃ/ but /lɑnts'bɑŋki/ is probably closer. Remco 0, 't Oog 1.
12/10 Remco is still fixing data entry stuff.
12/10 Remco has finished for the day.
13/10 Remco is ready for a brand new day.
13/10 Remco hopes his examiners won't find Chapter 5 as boring as he finds it.
14/10 Remco is quite amused by the idea of Iceland replacing North Korea on the Axis of Evil.
15/10 Remco has broken his no-food-at-the-desk rule big time. Bloody evil Chapter 5.
16/10 Remco is still chapterfiving, although the end (which is the beginning) is in sight.
18/10 Remco now has lots of data to be chaptersixing next week, but first should finish chapterfiving tomorrow.
19/10 Remco is windswept.
19/10 Remco n'est rien qui mérite qu'on en parle (rien d'inquiétant).
21/10 Remco is fabulous. Says Craig.
23/10 Remco is wordformationing in Faroese. How about "kaffistovuspurningarkappingarvinnaralið"?
24/10 Remco has just poked himself.
25/10 Remco. What can I say...
26/10 Remco is wondering where the wind and rain have suddenly gone.
26/10 Remco: Ah, there.
26/10 Remco denkt, je zal toch in Noord-Groningen zitten zonder stroom.
27/10 Remco is impressed by the Kentucky auctioneer that talks like a banjo.
27/10 Remco ligt voor op schema.
29/10 Remco is trying to find things for £1.50 per gram.

November 2008
01/11 Remco is not happy with a certain person in Obar Dheathain.
03/11 Remco can now count the days on hands and feet.
04/11 Remco will be dealing with data today.
05/11 Remco really can't do with getting ill at this point.
08/11 Remco only has 16 assignments left to mark. (And if the people who haven't submitted yet please could wait until after Thursday so they get an automatic 0, thank you).
09/11 Remco is Ifigenia Papageorgiou, according to one of his students. Who failed the assignment.
09/11 Remco is still in the office.
09/11 Remco is no longer in the office, but enough uni work left to do at home, so don't worry.
10/11 Remco is making even more funky graphics.
10/11 Remco is back to writing.
10/11 Remco should log off from Facebook and get back to work.
10/11 Remco has six chapters, and eleven days left. Please note the comma.
11/11 Remco's swipecard is denying him access to his office, and Ken Vogel is going to die a slow and horridly painful death.
12/11 Remco doesn't like Facebook's ungrammaticality. You have been poked by: X poked you!
13/11 Remco has more fingers than days.
14/11 Remco ist antimüllindiegegendschmeißistisch.
15/11 Remco is ziek. Maar niet getreurd, hoofdstuk 3 wacht.
15/11 Remco "Je bent voor polarisatie of tegen, het is wíj of zíj."
18/11 Remco is so fed-up with badly designed forms in this University that he's considering offering to redesign all of them for free.
19/11 Remco is in conclusion.
19/11 Remco noticed a smell of weed coming from where the builders were having their smoking break, and is wondering how it affects the DSB's structural stability.
20/11 Remco thinks that not winning the pub quiz is possibly a good thing, with this type of questions anyway.
20/11 Remco has written a book.
24/11 Remco, wat moet je dáár nou weer mee?
25/11 Remco has too many things to remember.
25/11 Remco is pondering what would have happened should Scotland have gone ahead with their plans to annex Iceland.
27/11 Remco is aware that this is only the first bout of unreasonable weather we've had this winter, but that doesn't make it any more comfortable.
28/11 Remco had a good idea for a funny status, but forgot.
29/11 Remco doesn't understand people who wait sheepishly at a traffic light, but don't push the button.
29/11 Remco gaat pad in 't gat eten.

December 2008
01/12 Remco... La neige sur Liè... Édimbourg! Yay!
01/12 Remco - zönder snei wordt 't ok wol old en nij.
04/12 Remco has an aim in life again.
05/12 Remco is happy his brother's friend's taxi got delayed in Mumbai last week...
08/12 Remco gaat de laatste week in.
08/12 Remco is being a cookie monster once again.
08/12 Remco is out of cookies. Proofreading again to procrastinate on Chapter 5...
08/12 Remco veit'ki um hann tímar meir.
09/12 Remco veit'ki um hann orkar meir.
09/12 Remco wants a doctor's note, 'cause he's sick of Chapter 5.
09/12 Remco is sore.
10/12 Remco veit'ki um hann klárar meir.
10/12 Remco is watching the PM Questions in an attempt at procrastination.
10/12 Remco can work right through political debate.
11/12 Remco veit'ki um hann orkar meir.
11/12 Remco is collecting Out-of-Office Auto-Replies.
11/12 Remco thinks he's finished Chapter 5, Incarnation 2.
11/12 Remco is considering €1.14 for £1, and reduced VAT, and is concluding Christmas shopping.
13/12 Remco is dealing with comments and ignoring the goblins.
13/12 Remco - hej ho det er helt okej!
14/12 Remco er heilt liðugur. (Vónaliga veruliga hesuferð...)
15/12 Remco has submitted. Celebratory apple pie in DSB common room.
17/12 Remco is marking frenzy. So far, not impressed.
18/12 Remco is a mug. But, a mug in the best Linguistics department in the UK. Fact.
19/12 Remco was slightly more successful at christmasshoppingspreeing second time round.
25/12 Remco wants everyone to have a happy Christmas.
28/12 Remco heeft een luie kerstvakantie.
29/12 Remco is planning to become a nice person again in 2009.
30/12 Remco wonders whether "authentic" TV drama paints an accurate picture of UK youth life, and what that would mean.
31/12 Remco is objecting to the Dutch Word of 2008 on phonotactic grounds. Otherwise, happy new year, everybody!

Tu/vous distinction

The tu/vous distinction is very salient in Dutch. Younger people are probably more inclined to say 'je' (tu) to more people than older people, and of course that's a reason that the language and the country are both going to the dogs. Not like in the polite good ol' days, anyway. This means that any choices for 'je' or 'u' (vous) in the media are very important, and most interviews begin with some metalinguistic comment about choosing 'je' "because we've known each other for quite some time".

This morning VPRO's Marathon Interview with Marjolijn Februarie started with the question

"Heeft u liever dat ik 'je' zeg of heb je liever dat ik 'u' zeg?"

A nice and balanced way around the problem.

She chose 'je', by the way.

These boots are made for verbin'

Now, if the average 18-year-old wouldn't find Nancy Sinatra the antithesis of cool, here would be an awesome way to illustrate the concept of word-formation through noun-to-verb and adjective-to-verb conversion:

You keep lying, when you oughta be truthin'
and you keep losin' when you oughta not bet.
You keep samin' when you oughta be changin'.
Now what's right is right, but you ain't been right yet.

Truthin' is not actually Nancy Sinatra's fault. The verb truth (well, treuþen) was attested before 1300, says the OED (subscription needed). Since 1300, we've had four meanings that are now obsolete, and we're on to meaning 5, 'to bring to truth, adjust accurately', with the only example from 1881. Nancy does not seem to be saying "You keep lying, when you ought to be setting things right" though, but rather "when you ought to be telling the truth". Meaning 6.

Samin' is not attested in the OED as a verb. This one is also quirky semantically. Most adjective-to-verb conversions are semantically to do with becoming whatever the adjective is. "The new lands begin to green with vineyards" or "The white frock which she had so carelessly greened on the damping grass" (see also meaning 5 in the OED for truth). But this one is not about becoming the same in an inspired bout of Gleichschaltung, it's about staying the same.

Nancy Sinatra would be a welcome change from the ever-present Jabberwocky, though...

Not to be confused

Restoration: eat that, Cromwell!
Restauration: eat that, Cromwell!

Not a typo you want to make in your PhD.

Street signs

Autism Warning!

Right. So one of my obsessive "must find out" things of the past couple of weeks is the design of street signs in Edinburgh (and in fact many other places in Britain). Mostly, I wanted to find out what font the black-on-white serifed capitals were. For some reason, I like subtle designs with preferably serif capitals.

Most of the street signs in Edinburgh look like this:



It turns out that the font was custom designed as part of the whole street sign design by David Kindersley (1915-1995), a (mostly) Cambridge-based stonecutter and type designer. The stone-cutting background is one of those things that you don't know, but doesn't surprise you when you find out. (A similar design is the font Trajan, which was based on carved inscriptions on Trajan's Column in Rome.)

I particularly like the R:



Whenever you try looking anything up on the internet, you learn a whole lot more than you originally intended. First, Kindersley was an apprentice of Eric Gill (of Gill Sans fame), who in turn was taught by Andrew Johnston (who designed the font for the London Underground).

And now that we're in London, there's a particularly famous street sign design there too:



Apparently only in Westminster, but there's a fair number of famous streets in that part of town – not so much Hop Gardens, but streets like Abbey Road, Downing Street, and Baker Street (with complimentary Sherlock Holmes silhouette in the top right of the street sign). The Westminster street signs are so iconic that the borough have now obtained all copyright to the design and are ready and willing to enforce it...

(Univers Condensed Bold, by Adrian Frutiger, by the way; the signs were designed by Sir Misha Black (1910-1977).)

A bit closer to (my brother's) home: street signs in Amsterdam, more well-done public typeface designing. Amsterdam street signs feature the sans-serif font described in the national norm NEN 3225:1962, which designer Sem Hartz had some influence on apparently. (This design is common throughout the Netherlands, apart from the district indication, although it's now being replaced by Gerard Unger's ANWB-Uu.) (Also, public typeface design by committee, where have we heard that before?)



For more on Amsterdam street signs, this is nice.

Question
Is it necessary to include an indication of the town district on street signs? I suppose it does have a certain je ne sais quoi, but it's probably completely redundant information. Most people will know where approximately they are. But then, street signs are probably for people that don't know where they are. For those people, some extra information could be useful. But should the information then take the form of a borough/district name (which would be meaningful to people) or a postcode (which, well, would not really...)?

CLUNY GARDENS
EH10

or

CLUNY GARDENS
Morningside

Which is better?

Unlikely beacon

From the BBC News website, a story about replica whale jawbones that are to be put on top of North Berwick Law, as a replacement for the old whale jawbones that rotted away and were airlifted to Health & Safety in 2005:

David Berry, East Lothian Council's leader, said: "From originally being a beacon for homecoming sailors, the jawbones on top of the Law have come to be a symbol of North Berwick, recognised by visitors and locals alike."

A beacon, eh?

So imagine you're a sailor from North Berwick, sailing home. Oh look, there's Bass Rock, that iconic massive piece of volcanic rock infested with guano and covered in birds. Nope, no idea where I am in relation to North Berwick yet. Oh and see, there, on the shore, the perfectly conical hill that just must be North Berwick Law. A nice view, but am I anywhere close to North Berwick yet? Beats me. But wait! What's that on top of that unique conical hill exactly opposite the white rock? Give us the binoculars, will you? Ah, yes... I spy with my little eye... a set of incredibly ickle whale jawbones. Finally I know that we're getting close to North Berwick now!

Or am I being too cynical now?

Føroyar í globaliseringini

One of the recurring sketches in E elski Førjar, the Faroese version of Little Britain, is a spoof television show called Føroyar í globaliseringini (The Faroe Islands in Globalization), where a slightly-too-slick presenter played by Sjúrður Skaale interviews a Faroese person who has had a major role in some important global event. Such as the guy who shouted "Liverpool! Liverpool!" at the FA Cup final, or the girl who as-good-as-knows Brad Pitt because she lives in Seattle, which is quite close to where Brad lives. (Tveir tímar, tað er jú púrasta einki! says Skaale.)

But just like Vicky Pollard wouldn't have been funny if there weren't millions of real-life Vicky Pollards around, there must be a real-life version of The Faroe Islands in Globalization. And yes, they really do think they have a hand in global events. Did you know that Spain beat Italy in yesterday's Euro 2008 quarterfinals with Faroese help?


(Original article)

Book Blog: Purchases

The most recent purchases:

• Christopher Brookmore, Attack of the unsinkable rubber ducks


• Steven Pinker, The stuff of thought: language as a window into human nature


• John O' Farrell, An utterly impartial history of Britain: or 2000 years of upper-class idiots in charge


• Walter Moers, The 13 1/2 lives of Captain Bluebear: a novel

Particularly intrigued by the last one.

Less recent additions:

• Paul Torday, The irresistible inheritance of Wilberforce


• Alexander McCall Smith, The careful use of compliments


• Alexander McCall Smith, Love over Scotland


• Herman Pleij, Komt een vrouwtje bij de drukker: over gezichtsveranderingen van de literatuur uit de late Middeleeuwen

And for a re-read:

• Jean-Paul Sartre, Les jeux sont faits

The list of books still unread is getting to quite scary levels. I need more sunny Saturday and Sunday afternoons out in the Meadows, probably, or alternatively a lot of travel. Also, I need to actually make a blog post on the rare occasions that I've actually finished a book. (The fact that I've just finished the Wilberforce book and am not planning on writing a post on it just yet doesn't bode well...)

Down South

Native-speaker intuition from Scots and Scottish English speakers wanted.

What exactly is the meaning of "Down South"?
I have the impression that the general meaning is 'England', but I also have the impression that the picture is a little bit more complex than that.

• Is the default meaning 'London and surroundings', if no further information is specified?


• Does Northern England qualify as Down South? (Places like Manchester, Liverpool, etc.)


• Does the English Far North qualify as Down South? (Places like Newcastle, Berwick, Carlisle, etc.)
  
  
  • If people say they are going Down South, and it turns out they went to Manchester, Newcastle or Carlisle, would you think they had lied to you?
  
  


• Is Wales part of Down South?
  
  
  
  • If you were going to Wales by land (i.e. through England), are you going Down South?
  
  
  • If you were going to Wales by air (i.e. not through England), are you going Down South?
  
  
  • Is a conversation "How was your trip down south?" "I didn't go down south, I went to Wales" grammatical?
  
  


• Do even the Borders qualify as Down South? (I don't think they do, but if Berwick does, then where does it end?)

Perspective

Part One
Somewhere in the Haymarket area. This was a while ago already, but it's a bit of a faff getting photos off my phone onto my computer. (SonyEricsson don't like Macs, obviously.) I think this is a very nice example of how the English language doesn't quite make complete sense. If the road is open, it's closed, and if it's closed, it's open. Whichever way you look at it.



Part Two
Inside Appleton Tower, where you can't see Appleton Tower, but where you can see the new Linguistics and English Language computer teaching lab. Unlike the outside, which is falling to bits, or the view out, which is the netting that is supposed to keep the bits falling off the outside from hurting people, the inside is a true feast for the eye:



Apart from the Logitech keyboards and Microsoft mice, of course. Apart from the price, what's wrong with the proper stuff?

But then there was a little bit of cognitive dissonance here:



Oh dear.

Also: want! (But don't bother with the dual boot.)