Philosophy
The shorter of the short people has become fascinated with curse words. The idea that there are culturally forbidden sounds makes these sounds interesting. As a reuslt, he's invented his own, nork (the sound made by the Siamese elephants in Tim Conway's famous bit). He loves that it is functionally equivalent to words he knows he cannot say, but because it is his word, he can say it. Do we need words that perform the rhetorical functions of swear words? Do they do what no other linguistic entities are capable of doing or are they just short cuts to utterances that could be expressed otherwise?
- Who Owns The Pronunciation Of Names?
The shorter of the short people had a field trip the other day to the Utz potato chip factory (for those not on the east coast of the US, Utz makes the best potato chips in the world). It turns out that the granddaughter of the owner is one of his classmates...
- Team Building: Boggleball
Let's try this again. It's based on those obnoxious corporate team-building exercises where folks have to work together on a task. Last night after dinner, TheWife and the short people and I took the word "basketball" and found 101 words that...
- Whose Speech Act Is This?
The notion of an utterance seems simple enough. I have a thought I want to express. I select words and a tone in which to express it. I say those words in that way. But what if the words aren't yours, but you still say them? Quoting someone else still...
- Silent Letters
The English language is an odd mishmash of German, Dutch, Norse, French, Celtic, and Latin. So many pieces that don't fit together so well have resulted in a language that is really odd. Consider how many words in English have utterly irrelevant letter...
- Four Letter Ethics
As I ready myself to step into the world of the seven second delay, I've been thinking about the ethics of swearing. On the one hand, curse words are just sounds that have been culturally designated as vulgar. To swear in polite conversation is socially...
Philosophy
The Necessity of Curse Words
The shorter of the short people has become fascinated with curse words. The idea that there are culturally forbidden sounds makes these sounds interesting. As a reuslt, he's invented his own, nork (the sound made by the Siamese elephants in Tim Conway's famous bit). He loves that it is functionally equivalent to words he knows he cannot say, but because it is his word, he can say it. Do we need words that perform the rhetorical functions of swear words? Do they do what no other linguistic entities are capable of doing or are they just short cuts to utterances that could be expressed otherwise?
- Who Owns The Pronunciation Of Names?
The shorter of the short people had a field trip the other day to the Utz potato chip factory (for those not on the east coast of the US, Utz makes the best potato chips in the world). It turns out that the granddaughter of the owner is one of his classmates...
- Team Building: Boggleball
Let's try this again. It's based on those obnoxious corporate team-building exercises where folks have to work together on a task. Last night after dinner, TheWife and the short people and I took the word "basketball" and found 101 words that...
- Whose Speech Act Is This?
The notion of an utterance seems simple enough. I have a thought I want to express. I select words and a tone in which to express it. I say those words in that way. But what if the words aren't yours, but you still say them? Quoting someone else still...
- Silent Letters
The English language is an odd mishmash of German, Dutch, Norse, French, Celtic, and Latin. So many pieces that don't fit together so well have resulted in a language that is really odd. Consider how many words in English have utterly irrelevant letter...
- Four Letter Ethics
As I ready myself to step into the world of the seven second delay, I've been thinking about the ethics of swearing. On the one hand, curse words are just sounds that have been culturally designated as vulgar. To swear in polite conversation is socially...