The syntax, and I am the judge in 1988 who wrote the mathematical interface on all 5,000 languages proving that language is a linear equation in algebra certifying that all words have 900 definitions through this mathematical algebraic formula and over the course of the past 21 years have developed an accuracy level in the syntaxing of language sentence structure to prove the correct sentence structure communication syntax language is required in a court system.
— Language Log » All words have 900 definitions?
Flaming Tusk releases their first LP, Old, Blackened Century
Most of you are probably familiar with my metal band, Flaming Tusk. In which it is probably old news to you that we have finally released our first full-length record, Old, Blackened Century, on the internet.
We originally recorded this album in September of last year. We’ve spent the subsequent time mixing, mastering, and waiting around arguing over album titles, but it’s finally ready. The record—unlike the previous one, the Abigail EP—was recorded professionally by rock impresario Tom Beaujour at his palatial Nuthouse Recording studio in Hoboken, New Jersey, and then mastered by Kim Rosen at Knack Mastering. So, it sounds brilliant.
We’ve released the record on the Radiohead-style pay-what-you-will model. The whole record is being hosted at Bandcamp, which has a great and thorough service. You can stream any track, at full quality, as many times as you want. You can also download the whole thing in a variety of formats for any price you want to pay.
Some Notes on the Content
Old, Blackened Century contains approximately 50 entire minutes of music, which concern themselves with a variety of topics relevant to today’s fast-paced world. See if you can match the song name with its subject matter!
- Anathema
- Cillaighfearn
- No Smiles
- I Nap in Blood
- Ichor
- Instability
- My Red Sun
- Icy River
- A mass grave coming to life.
- A warrior washing his blood-stained hands and reflecting on the many he has killed.
- Dying, alone, in a jungle in Vietnam.
- A heretic.
- A tribe of people dessicating and dying in the desert.
- Chemotherapy.
- All-consuming, impotent, quotidien hate.
- Shipwrecked sailors being consumed by beasts of the depths.
The last thing I wanted this to turn into was anything but a headache.
— My Boss, Continuing Adventures in Over-Negation
Pneumatic, Psychic, Sarkic has moved: Catch it at its new time!
Some of you might know that in 2005 I electronically released an album of compositions of mine that I had recorded on my computer. That album, Pneumatic, Psychic, Sarkic has been hosted on my own server ever since. It’s got a new, better home now, though: the same place we keep the Flaming Tusk album Abigail, Bandcamp. Now that my record is hosted there, you can download—for free—versions of all the tracks, in any format you can think of, at full quality, with embedded album art, a web streaming interface, the whole package. It’s great. And I get to see who listens to it. The whole thing can be found at http://music.apodion.net.
So go listen, then. Let me know what you think. I picked it up for the first time in a long time when I was making the transfer, and I still think some of the tracks hold up pretty well.
To say a French word in the middle of an English sentence exactly as it would be said by a Frenchman in a French sentence is a feat demanding an acrobatic mouth; the muscles have to be suddenly adjusted to a performance of a different nature, & after it as suddenly recalled to the normal state; it is a feat that should not be attempted; the greater its success as a tour de force, the greater its failure as a step in the conversational progress; for your collocutor, aware that he could not have done it himself, has his attention distracted whether he admires or is humiliated.
— H. W. Fowler
Language is funny.
Someone on Hacker News, while discussing languages, said, ‘I suspect “human language” has a very specific meaning among linguists.’ I responded, “‘human language’ actually means very little among linguists. If he were being very precise he’d say “natural language”,’ which I think is true. after all, if your professional context is almost always natural language—and you are not a xenolinguist—you probably wouldn’t have any semantically-invested terminology to distinguish among species.
But now I’m thinking about the analogous case, which would be asking a programmer, ‘So, what language are you thinking of using for your next project?’ and receiving the answer, ‘Uh, English. duh.’
Which is making me giggle.
A little while ago my friend posted on the internet a little extemperaneous rant about the state of the Green industry. After another commented that he could easily hear that rant read in our friend’s voice I suggested that everybody should record themselves reciting it. It wasn’t too long till our international comrades started contributing foreign-language translations, and so it was suggested that I record a Yiddish version. So I did my own translation and recorded it.
The original:
You know, if this job has taught me anything it’s that the green movement is a bunch of meaningless, self-congratulatory bullshit; a way for over-educated yuppies to make money off of one another while getting to pat one another on the back for having a social conscience. For every good idea that’s going to effect positive change, there are 30 assholes who have added a leaf to their business cards and want to sell you environmentally-friendly convention materials like handbills and banners and loads of other bullshit so you can attend these insufferably smug, self-satisfied GO GREEN conventions where you will try to sell your own marginally less-wasteful products to other people who have spent oodles of money on promotional materials, as well. If this is what environmentalism looks like, our planet is effed in the a.
My translation*, in Latin letters for easier following along:
Her, oyb ot di arbet hot mikh epes gelernt, iz es az di “grine” baveygung iz a hayfl onzinendike, zikh-baykhl-patshndike bobkes; s’iz an oyfen far iberdertsoygene Yopinikes zikh tsu makhn di grobe koze, un beys-mayse konen zey zikh oykh eyner dem tsveytn a knipl ton in bekl farn yandes. Far yedn a gutn gedank vos ker baytn di velt tsum gutn, faran draysik paskudnyakes vos hobn tsugegebn a grin bletl tsu zeyere vizit-kartlekh un viln dem oylem-goylem farkoyfn natur-frayndlekhe konferents-materyaln, azoy vi bletlekh un fones un nokh a sakh shmokhtelyakes kedey az me zol kenen bayvoynen di nit-tsu-fartrogn zikh-tsufridene, zikh-tseshaynendike GEY GRIN tsuzamenforn, vu me vet pruvn tsu farkoyfn eygene oyf a hor veyniker oysbrengerishe skhoyre mentshn vos hobn aleyn gants oysgepatert zeyer gelt oyf pirsemvarg. Oyb der environmentalizm zet beems azoy oys, iz undzer planet ongemakht in tokhes arayn.
* With invaluable editing provided by my lerer, Yankl-Perets
And they say that Yiddish literature is dead.
Learn about syllepsis, then refuse to stop employing it
The quickly-growing-essential How to Write Badly Well had a particularly linguistically rich entry today. I will only give you a choice quote so as not to spoil it:
As he ran a red light, the conversation back in his mind and away from his troubles, he couldn’t help but feel…
