Retro Spelling Book

September 8, 2009

My friend J. Keith van Straaten kindly mailed me this vintage spelling book:

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I especially enjoyed the introduction; poor spelling is like dingy linen!

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After you learn to spell “menu,” move on to “oleomargarine”!

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We have used “piccalilli” in the spelling bee before — spellers, take note!

Posted by jen | Categories: spelling  | Leave a Comment | | Email This Post Email This Post

Panda Redux

September 7, 2009

Pursuant to the previous post in which pandas were heavily featured: I came across this ad for online degrees, and it raised more questions than it answered:

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I know how I can become a medical billing specialist — just go back in time and make the most boring life decisions imaginable.

BUT HOW CAN I BECOME A PANDA?

OR: HOW CAN A PANDA BECOME A CRIMINAL INVESTIGATOR?

AND: WHY IS THE ACCOUNTANT PANDA LEVITATING?

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An Email From My Mother (Re: Mental Floss Magazine)

September 5, 2009

This is one of the best emails I’ve ever received, if “best” is defined as “I had no idea my mother knew how to deploy the word contiguous or so much about camels.” I asked her permission to post this. The panda headshot below is the photo my mother recently selected to represent herself on Facebook. For more on my mother’s love of pandas, see the video at bottom.

Dear Jen,n795642093_2187.jpg

If you are already in Scotland, where are you staying and how long will you be there?

I just finished the Sept/Oct issue of Mental Floss. I’ve read so many things from it online, that I was interested in reading the actual magazine. It was fun! Such a collection of information about a great variety of things.

There was a quiz at the end of the magazine that had nothing to do with the content of that issue. I got 18 out of 25 correct.

I forgot the meaning of the word cosine.

I didn’t know that it was the Vietnam War had battles named Black Virgin and Parrot’s Beak.

I also had forgotten that New York City, not Philadelphia, was our nation’s captial when Washington was inaugurated.

I didn’t know that it was K.D.Lang on the cover of the first issue of Entertainment Weekly.

I forgot that Barbie turned 50 in 2009, not Etch-a-Sketch.

I guessed (wrong) that it was China that spreads across 11 contiguous time zones, when it’s actually Russia.

I missed a basketball hall-of-famer question about Julius Erving (but who cares?)

I DID know:

Hemingway was the writer who had a bunch of six-toed cats.

The Surgeon General is not a member of the presidential cabinet.

Molasses, vinegar and anchovies are ingredients in Worcestershire sauce.

The color chartreuse is named after a liqueur.

The cuddly creatures that invaded the enterprise were Tribbles.

It was the Raiders who won Superbowls for two different cities.

A bobbin is part of a common household appliance called a sewing machine.

Bloom County is the comic strip created by Berkeley Breathed.

Seven is the measurement on the pH scale that indictates a neutral solution. (I remembered the fact, but don’t remember what it means).

China is the nation that is home to the most two-humped camels. (I are smart)

Wall-E was the top animated film of 2008 in the U.S.

Mellinger is the last name of the founder of Fredricks of Hollywood.

The animals that live in lodges are beavers.

Ulster is now known as Northern Ireland.

Darkness is not one of the books in the Twilight Series.

In a deck of playing cards the “suicide king” is the king of hearts.

Colgate is not an Ivy League school like Cornell, Yale and Dartmouth.

Yemen is the nation that does not border the Persian Gulf. (I guessed).

It was interesting to see what I know….. and what I’ve forgotten. This concludes the entertainment portion of my email.

I hope you’re enjoying your trip.

Love Mom

P.S. By the way, I do weld great power and influence. I really do. I weld it together into a sword and then I wield it.

*Editor’s note: We apparently have a familial inside joke about welding.

Posted by jen | Categories: Mom  | 1 Comment | | Email This Post Email This Post

Surreal ESL Quiz

September 4, 2009

I was looking over some websites about grammar for a project I’m working on when I came across this ESL Quiz, which kind of blew my mind. Here are some sample questions and answers:

Where do you usually eat lunch?
a. On Tuesday.
b. For two hours.
c. Almost every day.
d. With John.

What does “TV” mean?
a. For one hour.
b. Yes
c. Television.
d. For one hour.
e. On Friday.

What did you eat last night?
a. At six.
b. Spaghetti.
c. With my family.
d. At home.

Where’s Mike?
a. At school.
b. At eight.
c. For three hours.
d. No, he isn’t.

How often do you write letters?
a. Two pages.
b. Two times a week.
c. Two people.
d. Two hours.

Where can I buy beer?
a. When you are twenty years old.
b. About two bottles.
c. With Jane.
d. At a liquor store.

Let’s try a sample dialogue:

Where do you usually eat lunch?

Sandwich.

What does TV mean?

Yes.

What did you eat last night?

With my family.

Where’s Mike?

No, he isn’t.

How often do you write letters?

Two people.

Where can I buy beer?

Sandwich.

Who’s on first?

Yes.

Posted by jen | Categories: Jen says  | Leave a Comment | | Email This Post Email This Post

The World’s Only Blog Post About Jessica Alba and the Grammatically Correct Usage of Compound Adjectives and When to Hyphenate Them

September 3, 2009

I have recently been apprised by the celebrity press that Jessica, Cash, and Honor Do Their Weekend Thing in LA. Resultantly, I would like to discuss compound adjectives and when to hyphenate them.

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Say you want to modify a noun with two adjectives:

My, what a large, rigid Maypole you have there.

I am trying to make my mark on the small women’s hosiery industry.

I’m late to a dalliance with a smoking hot librarian.

In the first example, both large and rigid modify Maypole. No problems here.

In the second example, small, women’s, and hosiery all modify industry. The meaning here is ambiguous — is the women’s hosiery industry the thing that’s small, or are we discussing the industry that sells hosiery for small women? We may use a hyphen to express either of these things, by writing small women’s-hosiery industry and small-women’s hosiery industry, respectively. Looks weird, right? Well, it’s better than not knowing whether you’re applying for a job selling myriad pantyhose to legions of petite ladies, or peddling middling quantities of sundry hose to a clientele ranging from small to zaftig.

A similar and classic example (I can’t remember where I read it) of the problems caused for want of a hyphen involved an unfortunate newspaper headline about an ORANGE JUICE SALESMAN. Poor guy got a little too much beta-carotene? The fix for this is, of course, ORANGE-JUICE SALESMAN.

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And finally, the sartorial adventures of the Alba-Warren clan. It’s just a chic striped dress. The dress is both chic and striped. The stripes are not themselves what is chic. Truly. If you were describing the stripes themselves — a thin-striped dress, a red-striped dress — a hyphen would be needed.

Incidentally, we do not want a comma in between chic and striped, because they are non-coordinate adjectives. A good test for coordinate versus non-coordinate adjectives is to see if you could reverse the order of the adjectives and still have the phrase make sense — if so, use a comma; if not, don’t. For instance, the smoking hot librarian (who arguably could also be a smoking-hot librarian) of my third example above is entirely different from a smoking, hot librarian. One is sexily literate; the other is carcinogenic.

Also incidentally, “grammatically correct” (in the post title) and “sexily literate” (above) are both examples of adverbs modifying adjectives, which is a completely different topic wholly unrelated to Jessica Alba.

Posted by jen | Categories: celebrities, grammar  | 1 Comment | | Email This Post Email This Post

Edinburgh: Not Shy About the Toilets

September 2, 2009

Scotland is an English-speaking country. It’s not hard to figure out how everything works. Nothing is terribly exotic, save the occasional offal-based meal. However, people will hesitate for just a moment after you ask about the “ladies’ room.” In Scotland, it’s really just the “toilets.”

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Many Americans find this discomfiting. While it is certainly the case that the vast majority of those requesting a ladies’ room intend to perform a biological function of some sort while there, we would like the plausible deniability provided by the possibility that perhaps we simply wish to wash our hands before eating, or freshen our makeup, or — to employ a classic — powder our noses.

I am reminded of a story I read in the book Innumeracy, by John Allen Paulos. One problem with polling people about their sexual behavior is that many people, even when completing an anonymous survey, feel the need to lie, perhaps not truly believing that the survey is anonymous. If you want to track the spread of swine flu by asking how many people French kiss underage piglets, your numbers may represent substantial underreporting.

One way around this is to take a large sample size and ask each of the participants to flip a coin, and keep the results of the coin flip to himself. If the result is heads, the participant simply answers “yes” to the question; if the result is tails, he answers truthfully. Hence, someone who French kisses underage piglets may report a “yes” answer — with the plausible deniability that, of course, his coin may have come up heads.

Interpreting the results is simple. In a large enough pool, we can safely assume that 1/2 of the coins came up heads, and therefore half of the people answered yes. So, if there are 1000 people, throw out 500 of the “yes” answers. If you have 100 yes and 400 no answers left, we may safely conclude that 1/5 of people French kiss underage piglets. (This method is effective, of course, because we don’t need to know which people engage in this porcine suaviation — simply how many do so).

Also, that woman on the sign is seriously pear-shaped.

Posted by jen | Categories: Edinburgh  | 4 Comments | | Email This Post Email This Post

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