Alma was riding past on her horse and knocked on the door to show me a trick.
Betty the horse was very hot. It was 2 degrees today, quite warm for us, and she still has her winter coat.
This is the trick. Alma makes a V sign…
and Betty shows her front teeth:
That’s all. Betty’s very proud of her trick, she did it over and over. V sign…
and front teeth.
Alma said it took five minutes to learn it, with some feed for encouragement. She’s always enjoyed teaching the animals tricks, and they seem to like it too.
Then they galloped away.
A Bad Guide 
I don’t see what all the excitement is about. After all, “V” is a voiced labiodental fricative, so Betty quite naturally shows her lips and teeth. I bet she would add some voice too, with a little encouragement.
Betty the talking horse, you mean? I’ll suggest it. Maybe Alma just needs to blow down Betty’s nostrils and a sound would come out. Easier said than done, of course.
I was referring to Phonetic Betty, the galloping linguist.
A labiodental whinny might be easier to elicit.
Phonetic Betty, the thinking man’s talking horse.
In Austin TX in the ’60s I ran with various crowds of gay people, one of them from the deaf community there. At one point I knew about 300 signs. I remember hardly any of them now – those for “convertible”, “whore”, “father/mother”, “grandfather/grandmother”, “before” and “diarrhea” still spring to mind.
I wonder if Betty could be taught to understand and respond to some gestures that are “spatial” and “iconic” (I just skimmed the WiPe on “sign language” among the deaf), i.e. they sort of mime an action. Something like “go and snort down the back of Crown’s neck when he’s least expecting it”, for instance – something fun.
Grumbly Me’s comment reminded me of an interesting quirk I’ve noticed when USns talk about the language of the deaf, even on sites like the Log and the Hat. By and large, there seems to be an assumption that ASL is the only sign language there is. It’s odd to read discussions of language and languages and see comments that suggest or imply (with varying degrees of strength) that their writer assumes that anybody who signs uses ASL. Grumbly didn’t, of course, but it is an interesting phenomenon. I don’t sign, but NZSL is one of our three official languages, and apparently, it’s already quite different from Auslan, and not much closer to ASL than English is to Italian.
Kiwi Me brings up a good point. When I came to Bonn in the early seventies, I quickly discovered that my Texas sign language (not necessarily “ASL” !) was unintelligible to German deaf people, just as I was unable to understand their signs. For one thing, they spelled with two hands (the “old” method), whereas I used only one. The WiPe article on “sign language” goes into this.
A lot of Americans are rather provincial – I mean that in a neutral, descriptive sense. It comes from living in such a big country, you see – it’s just as hard to reach and learn about an elsewhere, as if you really did live in a pokey village miles from nowhere.
“just as hard to reach and learn about an elsewhere” – understood, just as people from little countries at the top of the world are needy and carry giant, oversized inferiority complexes around for fun. What surprises me about this ASL thing is WHERE I see it, in posts on blogs devoted to language and linguistics by people who are obviously much less parochial than the mythical “average American”. Many of them speak more than one language, and NONE of them assume that there is only one oral language, so in that context, it is a little odd to see the assumption being made.
By “goes into this”, I meant that the WiPe article has a lot to say about the differences between oral and sign languages, not just spelling rechniques:
Thanks – a very good summary. I sometimes wonder if the “Sign Language = ASL” assumption is at all a residual of some lingering perception that Sign Language is not a “real” language. Also, I’d love to know how sign language speakers whisper.
how sign language speakers whisper
I can answer that one: they sign furtively. Deaf people, as a rule, watch out of the corners of their eyes to see if someone else wants to say something. They don’t allow themselves to be distracted by this from their current conversation, but they do see it happening. Just like when whispering in company – others see you doing it, but don’t quite make out what is being said.
I sometimes wonder if the “Sign Language = ASL” assumption is at all a residual of some lingering perception that Sign Language is not a “real” language
Chances are you’re right. I used to think that as well, until I got into the swing of signing.
On an American blog, on a post about cooking I happened to comment that countries other than the US had standard tablespoon measures that were of a different size than the American. This elicited complaints.
P.S. Does your post show Alma as a horse-whisperer, or is some other noun required?
The silliest form of worldliness assumes that people and things are the same everywhere. Tolerance then becomes expectation of homogeneity.
“Tolerance != expectation of homogeneity” – I think I’m going to steal this one, thanks!
Yes, a good point, Stu.
I read a book by the famous horse whisperer, whose name I’ve forgotten. I can’t remember anything about how it works, though I know it does work.
I think that some scientists have tried signing with parrots and apes and it works to some extent. My wife can sign a bit in Norwegian, she has a deaf niece. The language doesn’t even extend as far as Sweden. I think that’s a bit of a mistake, surely the benefit of some homogeneity outweighs the drawbacks? You can always add or adjust dialect words if you’re speaking the same language. The goal of language is communication, after all.
Crown, to get greater geogrphical uniformity into existing sign languages, you would have to tromp in and stamp out the differences. But who’s going to put up with that ? Look what became of Esperanto and Volapük – limp, tattered flags saluted by aging wanks.
Propaganda has to be ubiquitous to be effective. Deaf people either don’t notice it, or can’t soak it up as easily as hearing people. They don’t even have to turn off the TV – it suffices not to glance at it.
The goal of language may be communication, but not mass communication. That came much later – in its current form it was invented by Goebbels using radio and television.
No, no, I’m not asking them to change anything to please me. I’m just saying they ought to have organised it a bit better in the first place. It’s too late now.
I didn’t know Goebbels used the telly. Are you thinking of newsreels? I’m not thinking of mass communication in the sense that I want to take over the world and kill all the Jews. It would be nice if Swedes & Norwegians who are deaf could communicate by signing just as undeaf Swedes and Norwegians can by talking, that’s all.
Anyway, the trains all run on time in Norway. We don’t need a Putsch, plötzlich.
Somebody must have “tromped in and stamped out the differences” when inventing and popularizing ASL. How did they do it?
Languages don’t have goals; people have goals. Some people might have no interest in mutual intelligibly with those on the other side of the whatever. Others might have a great deal of interest, for any of a number of benign or malign reasons.
intelligibility
How is possible that none of you, heartless men, exclaimed how wonderful and beautiful are these two girls here!!
Congratulations, Mr. Crown, they are divine.
Trini (my eldest girl who loves horses) and I were very envious of your life there; envious in the best manner, of course.
I didn’t know Goebbels used the telly. Are you thinking of newsreels? I’m not thinking of mass communication in the sense that I want to take over the world and kill all the Jews.
Mass communication is flexible. Goebbels took it far beyond newspapers and books. He is justly famous as an innovative Reichsminister für Volksaufklärung und Propaganda. His first international coup was at the 1936 Olympic Games in Berlin:
Further down in this WiPe article under Highlights:
I first heard about this in the Jodie Foster film Contact from 1997. Later, I read about it in several books by Sloterdijk.
Somebody must have “tromped in and stamped out the differences” when inventing and popularizing ASL. How did they do it?
There was no popularizing, and I don’t know how “standard” ASL is on the ground in America today. On the contrary, from the late 19C up into the 1960s any kind of signing was brutally suppressed by hearing people in the deaf education establishment.:
I remember my deaf friends telling me about that. In Germany, this repression of sign language continued into the 80s or 90s.
Don’t forget “propaganda” came from ecclesiastic Latin. It’s a curious word nearly without evolution in several languages. Catholic Church knows (better than anyone) how disseminate from its seminaries its seeds to sow them all over the world.
The pope’s home turf is called the Holy Seed.
Good pun! That reminded me a bad (and untranslatable) joke with a pun as well:
“- ¿Por qué el Papa lleva siempre un condón en su bolsillo?
– Por si la santa sede.”
Obviously it’s a chat between two people who “sesean”, that is, they change the sound of “c” in “cede” ( from “ceder” = give in [to temptation]) for “s”, like in Sevilla, Cádiz, etc.
It’s possible that Alexander VI, a well-known pope from Valencia, where also there is “seseo”, used this pun.
any kind of signing was brutally suppressed by hearing people in the deaf education establishment.
I think that that battle has been won by now. And I think that ASL is very widespread and standardized in the world of deaf people and teachers of the deaf in the US. That seems like a good thing.
I can imagine that someone who has learned some ASL, has learned something about the history of resistance to it, and has become accustomed to working to correct some popular misconceptions about it, might end up with an attitude that this is the right way; and thus might be all the more startled and resistant to discover that there is a whole other system in place in the UK.
Julia, I hang my head for my heartlessness. Spectacular pictures! I think that my favorite is the one where they are charging off into the woods.
Later I will have to remember to show the pictures to my little girl, who is very interested in both horses and big girls!
Crown, Alma is going off to university in the fall, is that right? How are you and your wife doing with the prospect of “losing” her?
I can imagine that someone who has learned some ASL, has learned something about the history of resistance to it, and has become accustomed to working to correct some popular misconceptions about it, might end up with an attitude that this is the right way; and thus might be all the more startled and resistant to discover that there is a whole other system in place in the UK.
empty, what does “this” mean in “that this is the right way” ? It looks like you are addressing my brief remarks about the history of suppressing sign language in America and Germany. But I neither said nor suggested that I myself believe ASL or GSL to be good, bad, right or wrong. I wrote that the manner in which signing of any and every kind was suppressed over decades made a lot of deaf people very unhappy. That I regard as bad and wrong.
Moving right along, what then does “startled and resistant” refer to ?? The “whole other system of what ? Your comment has so many mights and someones in it that I can’t quite understand it.
Julia, thanks. Of course we’re envious of you, in the best sense, for living in Argentina, where there are many more horses than here. If I were Trini and Alma’s age I would learn to play polo. Alma has a plan to become a “Jillaroo” in Australia – a young woman apprentice working on a sheep station, and riding a horse all day. Betty is a Welsh Cob, class D (the biggest). I’ve forgotten how big she is, somewhere round 145cm, I think – not huge, but she seems big to me compared to Askur, the Iceland pony I ride sometimes. Betty has white socks. I’m not making this up, white socks means white fur around the hooves.
Ø, Alma will be eighteen in March, but after this year she’ll still have one more year of school. In Norway they don’t finish high school until they’re nineteen. It seems awfully old to me. Her best schoolfriend has just gone to off to Korea for a year to live with a family and learn the language; she’ll be twenty by the time she’s finished, almost a “mature” student by the time she gets to college. It doesn’t seem to do them any harm, and it’s probably a good thing to take things easier than they did with us; we had smart kids who were bumped up a year or two and ended up going to university at the age of fifteen, and it often didn’t work out at all well for them. When Alma does eventually go off to school it will depend a lot for us where she chooses, and or gets chosen by. There’s Oslo & Trondheim here, but she’s also considering England, possibly Scotland (Edinburgh), and of course the US (where she has citizenship).
Stu, yes, sorry, I know I was being vague. I was not disagreeing with anything that I thought you had said about the rightness or wrongness of ASL or any other kind of sign language. I was responding primarily to StuartNZ’s:
“an interesting quirk I’ve noticed when USns talk about the language of the deaf, even on sites like the Log and the Hat. By and large, there seems to be an assumption that ASL is the only sign language there is. It’s odd to read discussions of language and languages and see comments that suggest or imply (with varying degrees of strength) that their writer assumes that anybody who signs uses ASL”
I was speculating about the reasons why people might make such assumptions.
By “whole other system” I meant some other sign language just as good as ASL. Perhaps I am being a bit defensive toward USians, looking for an excuse for the insularity observed here. But not the usual excuse about how the US is such a big place that you can easily be oblivious of what’s going on outside. I think the vagueness is indicative of the fact that my thought was that clear even to me.
AJP, I remembered you mentioned that she was interested in Edinburgh (which, by the way, is one of my favorite places on Earth (based on limited experience)). I don’t know why I thought it was imminent.
Our Asa is in his last year and we are expecting to miss him terribly, even though he will only be going about 88 miles away (I just looked it up). That’s, what? 140 km to you.
She should check whether Edinburgh retains its nice wee lodge “Firbush” on Loch Tay. I have fond memories of trekking on a Norwegian pony, sailing and kayaking. It was open to staff, postgrads and undergrads. Or should I check?
http://www.ed.ac.uk/schools-departments/sport-exercise/outdoor-centre/about-us/introduction-firbush
@ Ø I understood that your reply was primarily about my comment, but in your reply you focused on why people who have learned ASL might think it’s the only one. My comment was more about people commenting on language blogs who happily acknowledge the existence of thousands of oral languages but seem to think that there is only one sign language. Whether they are ASL speakers themselves, I don’t know, but in my limited experience, it’s not the deaf who react this way, by thinking their SL is the only one.
Stuart, you wrote above: “I sometimes wonder if the ‘Sign Language = ASL’ assumption is at all a residual of some lingering perception that Sign Language is not a ‘real’ language”. The WiPe passage I quoted about a “bitter fight between those who supported oralism over manualism” continues:
The sign languages in American and Germany that I have come into contact with “mime” some “intuitively recognizable action” only to a very limited extent. From the discussion here I now see that in the past I have not fully worked out the implications of that for myself.
It explains why I never succeeded in learning much sign language in Germany “just like that”. In the ’70s I acquired a two-volume, very expensive dictionary of some kind of standard German SL – dictionary as photo album ! I might as well have bought an illustrated dictionary of Klingon.
Not that many deaf people have crossed my lifelines here in Germany, so I haven’t had to communicate with them by signing, nor did I have much motivation to try “cold”. The same is true as regards Turkish, although tens of thousands of them live in Cologne, and I usually buy vegetables at Turkish groceries and markets where German is spoken only with German customers. I probably know at most 3 words of Turkish.
Amherst? He’s going to be just around the corner from Language; you’ll be able to drop in for tea. I’ve only heard good things about Edinburgh University and city. I sort of hope she applies there, but she still hasn’t decided on a subject to study. To answer your original question, yes, I’m sure we’ll miss her dreadfully even if she just moves to Oslo. We’ll just have to get a hamster.
Ø, how old is your little girl?
Mine are 9 and 12.
AJP, living in a country house like yours, you shouldn’t be envious of our city way of living… Riding is a very expensive sport. My parents are now paying again for Trini’s riding lessons (just one hour a week) but who knows how much time they could afford it!
Playing polo is just unimaginable for us, this is a high high class sport. I’m not claiming we’re poor nor a working class family, but for people who live in the city horses are not an “easy” sport.
Oh no, I thought everybody played polo in Argentina. You have to be rich to play it in England I suppose, or at least have access to three suitable horses, but we thought you all did it – sort of like how we have gardening and watch television. That and the tango. And barbeques.
A friend of mine stretched himself to buy a field and a hoss so that his daughter would spend her teenage years with something other than boys to moon about. Best investment he ever made, he reckons. And if he ever gets planning permission to build on the field, even better.
Jesús: Obviously it’s a chat between two people who “sesean”, that is, they change the sound of “c” in “cede” ( from “ceder” = give in [to temptation]) for “s”, like in Sevilla, Cádiz, etc.
Is this one of those pronunciations that’s confined to Spain?
– He could at least build the horse a stable, dearie. I told Alma about Firbush on Loch Tay, and there was a flicker of interest there for a minute. I think it sounds great, very Norwegian, I’m ready to sign up.
Amherst College, yes, well done, Crown. Did you draw a semicircle around Boston on a map, or what?
It was settled two months ago, sparing him a lot of further essay-writing and sparing him and us the suspense of where will he get in and then when he knows his options how will he choose: he made his early choice and it was mutual.
It’s good for him that the US system is so different in one respect: you don’t have to decide what to study, what to “major” or “concentrate” in, before you apply, or even before you get there, or even before your second year, I suppose.
>A. J. P. Crown
There is also “seseo” in some countries of America. As you know, we “exported” a lot of things from Sevilla and Canarias, words included. For example, you can hear “corasón, sielo” instead of “corazón, cielo” in Cuba, Colombia, etc. Sometimes there are confusions of meanings (you need know the context) because they don’t distinguish, for example, between “abrazar” (embrace) and “abrasar” (burn); if someone says you “abrásame” you won’t think in “burn me” but in “embrace me” unless your interlocutor is a bonze or a masochist.
I just zoomed out to about 80 miles from Boston on google maps, and Amherst popped out. Then I got “directions” from Watertown to Amherst, and it said 88 miles. Sure, I know, get a life. I was having Sunday breakfast, that’s my only excuse. But I remember there are several other well-known schools around there too, it’s probably a great place to be, a proper community. I think the US system of not majoring to start with, and taking a liberal arts degree in college as so many people do, and waiting until grad school to specialize, is excellent, much preferable to the British system for most kinds of people.
Jesús, what’s a bonze?
Oh, no, not at all, polo is a sport for the richest here too.
Tango and “asado” are for anyone (almost)
I can’t understand why the boys and girls must leave their parent’s home to go to college. It might be an interesting experience, but I think I would’ve feel lonely if I had to.
In all Hispanic America the norm is the seseo (we don’t make distinctions between the sound of c/z and s like in most parts of Spain). Good spelling is much more difficult for our kids (and grown ups)
Thank you, asado, I couldn’t think of the word.
A lot of them live together in a ‘dorm’, a university hall of residence, to start with. I don’t think they’re lonely, I think they love it. A little bit of independence and adventure with some security against the outside world.
Can’t she catch a cold after sweating like that?
I think so. Alma says she puts a blanket on her when the ride is over. In this case they still had a kilometre’s ride back to the stable.
>A. J. P. Crown
Our “bonzo”, bonze according to Oxford dict. is a Buddhist monk. The most famous (and the first) monk who burned himself was: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thich_Quang_Duc
We also have an expression: “quemarse a lo bonzo” (burn himself like a bonze), that it’s used not only for these monks; for example for two people burned themselves in Morocco in September 2011.
>Julia
“Sesear” is not bad spelling.
Jesús, of course I know that sesear is not bad spelling, but you have to recognize that for us it is more difficult to know how to write any word with c/ z or s because they sound the same. On the contrary, you hear the different sound and spell it as it sounds. For instance, for us “zapato” & “sandía” begin with the same sound /sa/ …
>Julia
Well, I only wanted to stick one’s neck out for* everybody who “sesea”. I was very short with you; I might have written more words. I love how “sevillanos” speak but, for example, the accent of Jaén isn’t very nice for me. Anyway, “leísmo y laísmo” are worse than “seseo y ceceo”.
* “Encontré esto para traducir la expresión: romper una lanza”.
Julia, our girl is 11.
Is it really common in your world for children to continue with their parents when they go to college/university? That’s lovely.
To me it is perfectly normal for them to leave the nest at around age 18, because that’s what we are used to here. It would have seemed odd, and even inappropriate, for Asa to live with us next year, even if he had ended up at one of the places in Boston/Cambridge. To me it would even have seemed a little funny to have him going to college a few miles away (although, as I remarked when the subject came up, he would surely be capable of ignoring us from that distance, since he ignores us very well from right upstairs in his room). I think we sort of take it for granted that it’s good for them to be more on their own at this age.
But my mind always boggles at the thought of sending a child to boarding school at a younger age than that, as has been so traditional in England. We know people who do that here, too, and it’s hard to get my mind, or heart, around it. Hard to imagine wanting that for parent or child. But again, if it’s what you’re used to …
Like most people I’ve known, I felt ready for that separation when I went off to college, ready for a bit of an adventure in independence. Of course some kids do go through at least a brief period of homesickness. It’s on the parental side that I experience this as a painful wrench!
I vividly remember the time, four years after I went to college, when it was my youngest sister’s turn: suddenly my parents’ “empty nest” period had arrived, and to top it off I was going off to England for a year. We all wrote a lot of letters for a while. (This was way pre-internet.)
But I remember there are several other well-known schools around there too, it’s probably a great place to be, a proper community.
Yes, it’s the “Five-College Area”: There’s great big University of Massachusetts, little Amherst College, two fine old women’s colleges called Mount Holyoke and Smith, and the eccentric and experimental Hampshire College. The whole area is known as a hotbed of leftiness, liveliness, and liveability, I believe. Maybe the whole family should move out there.
“But my mind always boggles at the thought of sending a child to boarding school at a younger age than that, as has been so traditional in England” and India. Many Panjabi parents in the small NZ provincial city I call home send their children to boarding school in Punjab, nearly 13,000 kilometres away, sometimes from the age 2-3. Having been raised by a single parent productr of that Indian boarding school mentality, I feel for those kids, even when they come back 3 or years later able to speak read and write 3 languages. .
Oops. Joining in late after a couple hard weeks…
I think it’s very cool to teach your horse tricks. I teach Riley tricks — dumb tricks, really — but she likes the attention and interaction, and I think it keeps her little doggie mind active.
Empty, I went to Amherst — actually began at Smith and then defected. It’s a great school — with a fabulous Russian dept, BTW — in a very cool area. Agricultural (Hadley is the Asperagus Capital of the US, or maybe the world…) but so culturally hip it makes your teeth hurt. When I began at Amherst the college had just started accepting women, and it was still a frat school in many ways. That aspect of the school was kind of disgusting to me at the time — remember the smell of beer and vomit? — but now it’s really pushing student diversity. So I think that socially it’s a better place now, and the academics remain superb.
Thank you, Ø, for your reply. I understand is the way things are in your countries. I see it in movies and series, and perhaps I found it very appealing this way of living in a campus, independent and in kind of world of youngsters. (The most I envy now is the idea of a campus! In Buenos Aires we don’t have this…)
In Argentina only the kids that live far away from the university they choose, left their parents’ home for study. Those, or the ones that can’t stand their parents… Otherwise, the usual age for living away from your parents it’s around 25 (but with the difficult economics we have sometimes this goes up to 30 or more). In fact, actually there’s no norm or “social law” about this. But perhaps the families are used to stay together, living at least in the same area (of course we have many fewer habitable “areas” than you have)
The fact is that the school system is very different. We don’t have those wonderful campus, dorms and (not so wonderful perhaps) fraternity houses. But nevertheless it always seemed odd to me that in such a younger age as 18 or less the kids ought to leave their homes.
I may be stupid… but, even-though I had a great time at university, I also remember the stress and anguish produced by study, exams, dead lines etc, of my years there and I can’t imagine going through this without my family!
You do understand that I’m not really judging nor saying that I believe that one custom or social habit is better than the other, don’t you? I’m sure wonderful people would come from both ways of dealing with the last teenage years (and the opposite is also true).
Stuart, that’s amazing. Was your father sent to boarding school in India, & hated it? I remember absolutely begging not to be sent to boarding school at thirteen, though my uncle had told my mother that it would be good for me. Luckily she didn’t want to.
Mab, I’m sure you’re right about Riley. Alma has taught Topsy several tricks. They both seem to enjoy it. Betty the horse is so pleased with her trick that she does it all the time now without being asked.
Yes, they like the attention (animals doing tricks, I mean). Riley mostly does it for the treats. I should put a sign on her: Will work for food. But she seems to enjoy getting the trick and performing. We’ve been working on the “snake” — when she zips in between my legs when I walk. I know, I know. It’s ridiculous. But hey — we’re having fun.
Julia, in Russia kids also generally live at home until… well, the joke is, retirement. But when they are studying at the university they usually live at home. Everyone here thought it must have been terrible to go away to school at age 17. But I don’t recall being homesick at all (although I did call every week), and it wasn’t hard to fend for myself (although there wasn’t much of that in the dorm). I think in part there is great emphasis on independence in American upbringing, so we were prepared for it.
That’s funny, we worked on not doing the snake. Alma has taught her to roll over and play dead when Alma goes “pang, pang” and aims at her with two fingers. It’s lucky Tops is bilingual and knows what “pang pang” means.
Does Alma hope to take Betty with her to university?
Julia, I didn’t think you were judging anybody.
mab, I used to have the idea that Amherst College was one of those places with a strong vibe of maleness and perhaps spoiled rich boy, but that does seem to have changed.
When Asa started looking for places not too big and not too far away and academically excellent, Williams College was briefly on the list, but then one of his teachers told him “You don’t want to go there: it’s one of those places where everybody takes a shower five times a day.” I’m not sure what she meant by that exactly (athletes washing off the sweat? frat boys washing off the vomit? uptight upper-class WASPs who just can’t tolerate any messiness or smell in their lives?), but he crossed it off his list. He is so very much not the frat-boy type. And if he took five showers a day he would be spending about four hours a day in the shower.
Once she masters the snake and jumping over my knee, playing dead is next. It’s very cool. Kudos to Alma! Riley is largely a Russian-speaking dog (she already knew some commands when I got her), although she knows “stay” and seems to have figured out “walk.” She also knows the names of virtually all the dogs and their masters and will look for them as soon as I say their names. Once I made the mistake of saying something about Katya (owner) and Nicholas (Chinese Crested) in the apt, and the poor thing ran all over looking for them.
Empty, Amherst always had high academic standards, but there was a boys will be boys wink wink vibe that was very unappealing to this “co-ed.” Bleah. Weird about the Williams students’ purported propensity for showering. Maybe it means “jock school”? In any case, Amherst now has a woman president who is an uncloseted lesbian, so the beer-vomit-frat-crap is a thing of the past. I hope he enjoys the place! It’s also very beautiful, both the campus and the area.
Otherwise, the usual age for living away from your parents it’s around 25 (but with the difficult economics we have sometimes this goes up to 30 or more). In fact, actually there’s no norm or “social law” about this. But perhaps the families are used to stay together, living at least in the same area
Julia, this kind of info is so interesting to me. It’s the kind of thing that you don’t often find out about countries from the media or from films. In Norway it’s pretty common to go away from home for university. They even have a special word, hybel, for the kind of small one-roomed flat for students that a lot of houses here have.
mab, Topsy too has recently learnt to pick out the word “walk” in a conversation. She must be listening to what we say more than I’d realised.
dearie, nothing’s been decided about Betty, we can’t really discuss it until we know where Alma will be. I very much doubt that we would sell her, though. I know Alma would like to take Tops if she went, say, to Edinburgh, but I don’t think it’s going to be practical; Topsy hates being alone for one thing, and I doubt Alma could take her to school every day.
I don’t know what that teacher’s problem was. Showering should always be encouraged. And what did she mean by “one of those places”?
You do know the story of Byron’s response to Trinity’s rule forbidding undergraduates bringing a dog?
He took a bear.
Crown I’m not sure of the exact quote.
Bravo to your mother for not shipping you off against your will.
I see that the UK no longer makes it so difficult to bring a pet into the country. It used to mean months of quarantine.
Crown, unlike the poor Panjabi tykes here, My Dad’s family home was in Quetta, only 1500 kms from his boarding school, so for the ten years he was there, he did get to spend 2 weeks each year at home. I don’t know if he hated it then, but the psychological impacts are still clear 60 years on.
hybel
hovel?
hovel?
This has crossed my mind too. I may even have asked Trond, I can’t remember. This week is half term (winter break) for children in Norway, so we may have to wait until next week for his answer.
Stuart, I’m sorry about your father. Are you sure you can’t show us a picture of his handwriting? I’m quite curious to see it now. Not if it’s too much hassle, though.
It used to mean months of quarantine.
My mother has a stray cat, found somewhere in Brooklyn, that she took with her to England. We picked it up at Heathrow, from the same flight my mother was on, after it had been examined and interviewed by a vet. It seems they’ve calmed down about the rabies. I think this cat had a shot in NY before she left. There’s still a lot of bureaucracy, stamping of forms, payments etc.
after it had been examined and interviewed by a vet
“Is this your cat carrier? Did you pack up all your toys yourself? Are you carrying anything for another cat? Has your cat carrier been with you the entire time you’ve been traveling? Do you have any electrical appliances? Are you now or have you ever been a member of a terrorist organization?”
The answers to most of those questions are self-evident, mab. No cat would do its own packing OR carry anything for any other being, feline or otherwise. And every cat is a member of an organisation dedicated to terrorising humans into subservience.
“Gorilla girlz”.
If Alma wished to establish a reputation at university for being a bit of a “card”, taking a horse might not be the answer.
It’s the kind of thing that you don’t often find out about countries from the media or from films.
AJP, I feel pretty much the same about all we talk around here, at your comfortable, interesting and friendly chat-room.
mab, hahaha, I thought what you just said when I read the cat being interviewed, but I couldn’t have express it as well as you did!
I’m sure the wise cat gave the right answers.
My girls love a film we have in our home collection about a mounting zebra (? Is that correct? I mean a zebra, like the one in dearie’s video, that can be mounted…). It’s not a fabulous thing but it’s charming. Racing Stripes is its name.
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0376105/
And, look, Crown: you may have thought we play polo everywhere here, and that’s not true, but what it is true is that Buenos Aires is more like a rollercoaster
We’re absolutely not getting a zebra. Forget it, that’s right out. They are rather sweet. The girl looks a bit too big for that one, they’re not much bigger than Shetland ponies. You’d be better off getting a white horse and painting black stripes.
Julia, we went on one of those things that turns you upside down and hurls you at the earth. I’d rather play polo than do it again.
My children and I are spending their vinterferie at a friend’s hytte near Røros. I have no reason to complain about that, but since I’m without my books and with only an unreliable wi-fi connection from my pc, I won’t do any research. But as far as I remember, the first element of hybel is derived from the same root *(s)kew- “cover; roof” as ‘house’ and ‘hut’, No. skur and skjul, and, indeed, the Lat. origin of ‘cover’. The second part is an old word for “dwelling”, from the same root as by and bø.
As it happens, today was the opening of the traditional annual market Rørosmartnan, with a parade of some 70 horses and sleds from Norway and Sweden, some having travelled for two weeks and 400 km carrying tradional goods along the old roads. I’m sure there are some beautiful photos on the ‘net.
Sounds like they’re related, then. Thank you.
Rørosmartnan. My wife’s always trying to get me to go to Røros when we’re at our hytte.
EtymOnlDict says “hovel” is of unknown origin.
“EtymOnlDict says “hovel” is of unknown origin”: like Basque, then?
“I s’pect I growed. Don’t think nobody never made me.”
Like everything, if you go far enough back.
The OED says, of hovel,
So that’s kind of what Trond said.
A høvel in Norwegian is a plane for shaving wood (or cheese).
Stu, have you been in Frankfurt? Did you see the brokers celebrating carnival in their brokers’ outfits?
Topsy – A ragamuffin young slave girl. When asked if she knows who made her, she professes ignorance of both God and a mother, saying “I s’pect I growed.
I’ve heard my mother quote that. I didn’t know that it came from there, nor the dog connection.
They’re so self-deprecatingly ironic and post-post, dressing up as sharks and pirates like that. Carnival is over in Cologne, finally. It’s OK for kids and the masses, but not for old grumps.
There may be a godless dog in the novel, I can’t remember.
No, I know you don’t do dressing up anymore. Nor do I, but I like to see others do it. No matter how ironically it’s intended I don’t have to take it that way if I don’t feel like it; that’s post-.
That’s one of the things I like about you (or rather your internet persona, one can’t be too careful): you are full of the milk of human kindness, and don’t mind spilling it right and left. My dugs done dried up.
Maybe I should get a parrot after all – taking it for walks (flies ?) would give me some much-needed exercise, and I could pat little children on the head for practice.
A cat, Stu, the perfect pet is always a cat!
But perhaps a dog would get you more little children.
>Julia
Off-board
“Me alegro de ver su comentario, lo que me hace pensar que no ha sufrido el accidente de tren de BA.”
Así es, Jesús, estamos todos bien. Muchas gracias por tu comentario en mi blog también (fue conmovedor tu interés). ¿Me tratás de usted? Que eso no se repita! =)
Yes, we’re glad you are ok, Julia!
Thanks, Stu. Cats are no good if you’re allergic, but then nor are parrots or people. Best to stick with dogs and or goats.
How horrible – I only find out about the news from A Bad Guide. I had no idea about the rail crash. I am glad you are all well away from it, Julia; and sorry for those who werent.
Does anyone remember why William Morris was called Topsy? I knew once, but I’ve forgotten. I’d dress up for Carnestoltes if offered a possibility. But as what? I also wish I knew why everywhere else it is Tuesday that is “fat” but in Catalunya it is Thursday (dijous gras). We are ornery here, I guess. (I had no idea València was newly “occupied” until I saw it on FaceBook.)
>Julia
OK. “Es una norma de educación que me enseñaron mis padres. Suelo tratar así, en general, a desconocidos (si no son mucho más jóvenes que yo) y a conocidos hasta que me llaman la atención (tu caso); incluso a compañeros mayores (y se enfadan :-) ). Es más fácil en inglés con el “you”, aunque éste en mi cabeza es siempre “usted” y quizá por eso no te habías fijado hasta ahora.”
Does anyone remember why William Morris was called Topsy?
It says in various places that he was first called it by Burne Jones, because his curly hair was unruly, like that of the Topsy in Uncle Tom’s Cabin (and our Topsy too). So they called each other Ned & Topsy. I didn’t know that either. All the Topsy facts are being revealed today. Was the Uncle Tom one the first Topsy or do they go back further, perhaps to the Icelandic sagas? Is there a Topsy in Don Quixote, perhaps?
Then, you use “Topsy” meaning sb. who has unruly hair, a kind of word that came from the eponymous character, don’t you?
Regarding Don Quixote, I fear he isn’t there. However, there is a man, Absalom, in the Bible, well-known because of his abundant hair that was, in a way, the cause of his violent death, although his hair isn’t unruly. Maybe, in a free version, you can read: “Topsy, the third son of David…”
I used to have this idea that topsy was a plant, another name for gorse or furze. Whin is another word for that, I now find. But not topsy. I’m just wrong wrong wrong. It made so much sense: “grew like topsy”. Oh well.
Julia, so sorry about the horrible train accident! I’m glad you and family/friends are okay.
Pause.
How odd this is. Here I am in Moscow, and when I saw the report, my first thought was: I hope Julia’s okay! What we do here is curious, isn’t it?
Back to our regularly scheduled Topsying.
Grumbly, if you aren’t allergic, consider a dog. Do you work at home? I do, and there was one Thursday when I stopped to think when I had last left the apartment… and realized it had been Monday. Yikes. I have a park across the street that I used to run in, but never strolled in. So I got Riley and now I get three walks worth of exercise every day. Along the way I picked up about 20 new friends. In addition to the devoted dog friend, that is. I used to think that cats were the perfect pets for translators, but now I see that a dog, who forces you out the door to clear your mind, is The Translator’s Friend.
” Here I am in Moscow, and when I saw the report, my first thought was: I hope Julia’s okay! ” Exactly, my reaction, here in NZ, too. As soon as I got internet back up today, I came here to check. So glad you and yours are OK, Julia.
As soon as I got internet back up today
?
mab, what you’re supposed to do when out walking is listen to audio tapes of famous actors and writers reading books. I’ve been thinking of trying it. I’ve been trying to persuade Stu to get a dog for ages, but he’s just not enthusiastic. They call parrots “flying dogs”; I think it’s because they’re very loyal, or something. Sleep all day, growl and chase cats.
There’s a topsy turvey tomato planter. Perhaps you were thinking of curly kale?
I should have thought of the Bible, Jesús.
Thank you all very much!
The accident is even more horrible because it was like an announced catastrophe: I mean, the calamitous state of our trains (which were very good decades ago) has been denounced by many experts, but the government did nothing. The companies that hold the train lines are friends of the power, Nobody really supervise the millions of $$ they receive by the State and how they use it… It’s outrageous, really.
But leaving that aside if we can, I must say I’m very touched (is this a corny expression?) by your concern. I feel the same about you. Our host have managed to create a very friendly environment here, don’t you think? It’s our merit too, of course.
¡Besos para todos!
Not corny. There’s a similar problem with the trains in Britain. Thatcher sold them off to private investors who have no incentive to maintain them properly. They are in a terrible state and it’s very expensive to travel on them. They used to be so nice.
“They used to be so nice.” Not in the late 70s they weren’t, they were vile. But I remember fondly the excellent pie cart at Carlisle station in the early 60s .
By the by, it wasn’t Thatcher.
Ah, I’d left by the late 70s. I loved the old trains. Who was it, then? Major John Major?
>A. J. P. Crown
Yes, you should have thought, paraphrasing a quote of excellent movie “The Shawshank Redemption”: solution is within.
Julia, it’s the same in Russia — the whole country is an accident waiting to happen because all the money for repairs etc goes into various pockets, and owners give bribes to get safety approvals. So boats sink, planes crash, rockets don’t make it into orbit, and the roads are horrendous. I am very sympathetic (and sure I’d feel right at home in Argentina.)
Mr Crown, I resist the listening-to-something and walking bit. I have turned into a fanatical anti-multi-tasker. But I do listen in the car (sitting in traffic jams).
The main problem with parrots is that they live FOREVER. With the big ones you need to provide for them in your will. A friend has had hers for 26 years and he’s still a young fellow. Nasty tempered, too. Well, hers is. I’ve met some nice ones, but their claws always give me a turn.
It’s the beaks you have to worry about. They’re like crocodile jaws. I’d like a pet crow, but I don’t know how to go about employing one.
Yes, mab, things in Russia and Argentina are pretty much the same in these matters. I know it very well: my brother and his family lives in Saint Petersburg.
Crown, I’m sorry, but if you knew our trains, you would be ashamed of comparing them with the British ones. Very ashamed!
It was Spring here this afternoon. After lunch we went into the back garden and sunbathed. The drought has been so severe that our chair legs did not sink into the lawn.
I’d like a pet crow, but I don’t know how to go about employing one.
I have heard they’re all booked up way into next year, as consultants for intelligent-animal documentaries on TV.
I’m not sure if I ought to be ashamed because they’re better or worse than the trains in Argentina. Some of the British ones are pretty awful, dirty & cramped, others are just very expensive, it varies according to the company. Norway has fairly nice trains and they run on time. Anyway, I’m very ashamed about the whole thing.
We’re having a slightly warmer spell, it’s about 6 C. Our chair legs don’t sink because the ground’s still frozen.
I believe you that crows have all gone into television.
Crows are bright, but the clear winner in avian smarts, according to many tests, is the kea. http://bit.ly/wOIJZL It’s reassuring to know that at least some NZers are bright.
Oh, I want a kea! They look to me as a perfect mix of hawk and parrot.
Have you noticed its scientific name: Nestor notabilis. ¿why Nestor? For Nestor the old wise of Greece?
Crown when you happen to see one of our city trains you would understand why I said what I said…
We all enjoyed the video too. Lovely birds. Thanks very much, Stuart.
Julia, there are lots of BA subway pictures on wikipedia. This looks very nice. This too – pretty much like the New York or Paris underground. Very clean and shiny, like the stations. I like the pink velour seats. This driver is still a learner, I suppose, but the station looks delightful compared to most public transport I can think of.
There are a lot of dumb people hoping to find “other intelligent beings out there”. But there are enough intelligent beings right down here, if you only look. No need to scan the skys for mystery messages.
I bet the crows are impressed with our ability to interact intelligently with them, as we have being doing only over the past 20 years or so. They too may have had to revise an age-old belief that we were not worth their attention. But now we supply them with food and games !
Haha. Well put. I think we see animal intelligence much too anthropomorphically – how well their brains imitate our own, in other words, rather than looking for clues about how we might improve our own behaviour by being like them – but I can also see the good side of being anthropomorphic and it’s still fun to watch them do stuff like this.
In a lay-by in the NZ Alps we were once entertained by a one-legged kea which was well-known for its artfulness. Also we’ll-known for assaulting cars.
oops, well-knownx2.
Nothing wrong with people having anthropomorphic thoughts – what other kind could they have ?? But also nothing wrong with crows having corvinomorphic whatevers.
Does it not suffice for a man to know that he is a man not a crow, and that a crow is not a man ? I don’t understand why invidious or pedagogic comparisons are always being made between animal species. Why do so many people yearn for a doctrine of superiority to other animals (“speech”, “rocket science”) ? Is it really “learning” from other animals when what we get for ourselves in that connection is unavoidably anthropomorphic ?
Let’s call it “getting thoughts while watching crows”. It just hit me that Wallace Stevens already knew this:
II
I was of three minds,
Like a tree
In which there are three blackbirds
V
I do not know which to prefer,
The beauty of inflections
Or the beauty of innuendoes,
The blackbird whistling
Or just after.
I wonder whether the same urges are there that one finds in people of one town looking down on those in another. Crows can fly high and look down on everybody
Thanks for the Wallace Stevens. Ted Hughes wrote about crows, or about crows as men.
@dearieme – EVERY kea is well-known for assaulting cars. Here’s a couple about to get busy at the Homer Tunnel lay-by, quite possibly the same one you mentioned. It’s (in)famous for the frequency and relative savagery of “kea bites car” stories.
Q: How did the Zen monk order a hamburger at MacDonald’s ?
A: “One with everything”
My Grumbly self, do you remember this Log article on that joke?
http://languagelog.ldc.upenn.edu/nll/?p=3199
StuNZ, no, I don’t read the Log. I had just heard the joke in the 2007 film Next with Nicolas Cage and Julianne Moore. As usual on TV here everything is dubbed in German, but the joke works just as well: Eins mit allem.
I just checked out the linked fotos. My first thought was: God must have intended for keas to assault cars, seeing as how he gave them such paintwork-devastating talons. And so they have clawed their way up the pole of fame and notoriety.
As this video shows, http://youtu.be/OMLpPoOeays, they are most interested in things of a rubbery sort of texture. the blades of windscreen wipers, the seals of the windscreen and doors, shoes, boots, anything of that nature that those fearsome beaks can get stuck into. I think the person who recorded the video had it right when he said they do it just for the hell of it. Our Dept of Conservation went up in my esteem when it responded to one barrage of complaints about this behaviour with “they were here first”
I think that’s a car kea.
Magnificent job by the photographer. They are notoriously hard to track down..
people of one town looking down on those in another
The Norwegian artist/author Kjell Aukrust has a character, Solan Gundersen, who is born in the neighbouring and rival parish of Aukrust’s native Alvdal. He proudly says «Kjem’n frå Tynset trivs’n overalt» “If you’re from Tynset, you’ll be happy anywhere”
In the version I know, the customer asking for the — hot dog, maybe? — says “Make me one with everything”.
Ø – that’s the phrasing in the version used in the Dalai Lama interview on Language Log, too.
I’m afraid I’ve told this fairly boring story before, but in case I haven’t:
Several years ago I took my daughter and another little girl for a short walk up and down a hill, and we ended up at a trailside nature museum. Besides seeing various reptiles and skunks and so on in cages, we found that we were just in time for a presentation. A volunteer, a man retired from I don’t know what line of work, was addressing a room full of children and parents on an unspecified topic. He had a big black box with him, from which loud scrabbling noises issued from time to time. After allowing the suspense to build, he asked us what we thought might be in there. I suggested that it might be something in the crow family, maybe a raven. He looked a little sorry that I guessed right. But it sounded like a bird, and it sounded large, and it somehow sounded intelligent, and I had a hunch that a hawk or an owl was less likely to be so bent on escape than a member of the Corvidae.
I love those videos. All our parrots have liked to sit in the bookcases and nibble the edges of books. Sissy & Tango, the little ones, used to sit on top of the windows and nibble the rubber insulation. They loved it. They didn’t eat it, it would be in a pile underneath when they flew away. I wonder if it’s just exercise for their beaks, a kind of chewing gum that they require.
You haven’t told that story before, Ø. He should have been delighted when you guessed it was a raven. He was obviously a stranger to show business.
“I wonder if it’s just exercise for their beaks, a kind of chewing gum.” Thanks, Crown! I was wondering the same sort of thing about keas, but know so little about birds I assumed it wasn’t worth mentioning. Nice to know I was not the only one to think that.
Well, they’re not using it for nests (do parrots make nests?). I was thinking that the alternative is that they like to eat rubber, and I don’t think they do. Rubber’s an important source of tyres and erasers, but not vitamins, or anything like that, is it? Condoms, maybe.
>A. J. P. Crown
Vitamins? I don’t know. But, don’t forget latex allergy because of proteins.
I didn’t know about latex allergy. Luckily it doesn’t seem to affect parrots.
>A. J. P. Crown
Latex allergy affects, above all, health workers (because of gloves, of course : -)): between 7 and 17% compared to 1% of rest of people. Someone has died for using one condom. Fortunately, vinyl exists.
On the other hand, and about birds, I like agapornis. My son had one that he brought up nearly since it was a hatchling and it recognizes him as its “mother”. These birds are very docile and are called inseparable.
Someone has died for using one condom. Fortunately, vinyl exists.
The hole in the middle of a 33 1/3 rpm record is rather small, though. Abstention would be less fraught.
>Grumbly Stu
You know that the hole of a CD (made by polycarbonate; incidentally: there’s a lot of bisphenol A in the lakes, rivers, etc. of USA) is bigger although isn’t big enough either.
>Grumbly Stu
Following the joke, it was more “cave-dwelling” to use the old records made by slate. I’ve seen some although I only had vinyls (45 and 33 rpm although my record player also had 78 rpm).
Spain is a better place to have parrots than Norway. If they decide they want to fly away at least they won’t freeze. Maybe your son’s agapornis would like a friend, another agapornis?
It (she) had a “husband” an even put some eggs, but bad. Incidentally, it coitus is very long and they seem mammals.
Finally she drowned in a bucket during a free moment in our kitchen. Then the male also died.
coitus is very long and they seem mammals
Agaporn.
Agaporn.
Agaporn in the kitchen.
I knew Linde for it double-column (but not a dystile*), although he wasn’t an architect.
* Curiously, this word in google.com takes to Zalamea de la Serena (Badajoz), the village where there is one. I knew it for this place.
Ooh, AGA! AGA made a beautiful ad some 15 or 20 years ago, using André Bjerke’s poem Ballongen som fløy. Not being MMcM, I haven’t been able to find the clip anywhere.