Name of the Day

Xzavier.

His race is "Mu", which I understand to mean he is descended from the proposed "Lost Continent" in the center of the Pacific Ocean whose remnants can be seen in the small islands of the Pacifc, with Hawaii and Easter Island being the Eastern borders and the Philippines the Western.

Of course, according to James Churchward, a leading writer in the realms of hypothetical continents existing before the historical accounts of present man of which there is no geographical, archaeological, or most especially written record, all mankind would in fact be descendants of the Muvites. As such, Xzavier's parents were clearly playing semantic games with the child's racial identification, which is absolutely ridiculous.

Idiomatic != Idiotic

Latin authors do not say "I march," they say iter facio, "I make a way/journey/trip/march" (the same iter as in reiterate, "to go that way again").

This is, of course, absolutely fatuens stupid, and I cannot for the life of me imagine a reason for it. I've even tried to find some article on why they might have done this, but I guess actual scholars have a lot more important things to think about than this. Luckily, however, I realize that if I need a model to explore the development of absolutely insane language constructions, I have no need to look further than my own dear English language.

As such, I can only laugh viciously at the thought of students in two thousand years studying English and trying to figure out why we use the phrase "was like" to mean "said."

Think about it, we totally do.

Fashion 100 years ago in London

Tattooing Is London’s Fashionable Craze, 1910

Interesting article, but I just want to highlight the fact that the author seems to be "The Argonaut" and that is awesome.

(Mis)spelling names!

This is kind of a fun article: Complaint Box | Brittney, Brittny, Brittneigh

It's about how a lovely name like Brittany has been mangled by the unwashed masses to the detriment of not only the poor children named Britney/etc., but to all the normal "Brittany"s, anybody else who is not their parents, and to language in general. I agree with the intentions of this article completely, but it would be remiss of me if I didn't say this fella was full of crap. The primary reason comes in his stunning, sweeping conclusion:

"Misspelling a child’s name won’t make Junior special, creative or unique. Y’s and I’s are not interchangeable..."

My complaint here is that Brittany is a corruption of the Latin (Greek originally? probably) Brittania, describing the islands off France, which later came to also describe the little French peninsula opposite/south of England. Maybe if I had a daughter I would name her Bretagne, because if I really felt a connection to the French-conquerors of my generally Anglo-Celto-Nordic identified ancestors (though the mingling of bloodlines here would make this a needless distinction given any serious study I imagine), why wouldn't I keep the French version of the name? At least they just flat-out changed it instead of committing Mr. Paul Schmitdberger's ultimate, highly Anglo sin of "interchanging y's and i's".

But really, stop giving your kids stupid names. Anglicizing words because we have different spelling conventions for consonant i's is one thing, but most of you are just making crap up and it makes you look at stupid as Mr. Schmitberger's inane little rant.

Reading a test

When reading a test I try to conform the paragraphs to some kind of metrical scheme.

Writing a final

Differences between writing a final paper and writing a final (test... to give):

Student: Stay up until 8AM, grab a nap before class; don't sleep because you're so amped up anyways; unless of course in your final read-through you forgot something, because then you're hosed
Teacher: Stay up until 3AM, you can always finish that last question before printing it up... and if not we just won't have that question will we?

Advantage: Teacher

Student: Print right before going to bed at 8AM; wake up, staple, and go. If you forget a small part, too late now right? And who cares if you get a B (or C?), you've done well the rest of the class right?
Teacher: You think the copier's going to work the day of or the night before the test? Day before printing/copying is a must; than look like a moron when you notice the embarrassing typo that you're not going to fix.

Advantage: Student

Student: Think about the paper a week before. Outline a little two days before. Look at your outline 12 hours before it's due; what were you thinking? Scratch all that and write from the heart, it's more sincere. Edit-as-you-go or spew-then-fix, either way you're really going to be writing this same paper 18 times and taking the best parts from each paper and trying to tie them into a coherent theme.
Test: Grab questions from test bank; modify as needed. Delete first and seventh question, those are stupid. Replace with the exact question you begin or end every class with (ex, "Which state of matter is the least dense?"). One bad question does not a bad test make, and you're kind of a hero for throwing out a freebie.

Advantage: Teacher

Student: You're being graded, but it's all done. Nothing you can do now. Go to bed.
Teacher: Try reading a book for 2 hours while being interrupted every 8 minutes. Take a deep breath as you check the clock when the last person leaves. What time is it? Grade-o-clock! Have fun!

Advantage: Student

Student: *snoring*
Teacher: Okay now time to do final grades

Advantage: Student

Student: -$$$$
Test: +$
Advantage: Teacher

Overall winner: Both at the same time!