About amn’t I, aren’t I and am I not, of course there are no right or wrong answers about language in the sense in which there are right and wrong answers in Arithmetic. “Good English” is whatever educated people talk; so that what is good in one place or time would not be so in another. Amn’t I was good 50 years ago in the North of Ireland where I was brought up, but bad in Southern England. Aren’t I would have been hideously bad in Ireland but very good in England. And of course I just don’t know which (if either) is good in modern Florida. Don’t take any notice of teachers and textbooks in such matters. Nor of logic. It is good to say “more than one passenger was hurt,” although more than one equals at least two and therefore logically the verb ought to be plural were not singular was!
What really matters is:–
1. Always try to use the language so as to make quite clear what you mean and make sure your sentence couldn’t mean anything else.
2. Always prefer the plain direct word to the long, vague one. Don’t implement promises, but keep them.
3. Never use abstract nouns when concrete ones will do. If you mean “More people died” don’t say “Mortality rose.”
4. In writing. Don’t use adjectives which merely tell us how you want us to feel about the thing you are describing. I mean, instead of telling us a thing was “terrible,” describe it so that we’ll be terrified. Don’t say it was “delightful”; make us say “delightful” when we’ve read the description. You see, all those words (horrifying, wonderful, hideous, exquisite) are only like saying to your readers, “Please will you do my job for me.”
5. Don’t use words too big for the subject. Don’t say “infinitely” when you mean “very”; otherwise you’ll have no word left when you want to talk about something really infinite.
Thanks for the photos. You and Aslan both look v. well. I hope you’ll like your new home.
With love
yours
C.S. Lewis
via Letters of Note: C. S. Lewis on Writing.
Goon a Great Fuckin Movie::Ain't It Cool News: The best in movie, TV, DVD, and comic book news.
There are movies out there that I call, in the parlance of TRUE ROMANCE’s Clarence Worley, “Great Fuckin’ Movies.” DIE HARD’s a GFM. So’s RIO BRAVO. So’s HEAT, and ROCKY, and PREDATOR, and Carpenter’s THE THING, and so on. They aren’t necessarily awards winners, but when you’re done, you sit back, with a satisfied sigh, itch firmly scratched, and say to no one in particular, “That was a Great Fuckin’ Movie.” Well, GOON is a Great Fuckin’ Movie. It delivers on every level – humor, emotion, action, and terrific acting from none other than Seann William Scott, who has just made the performance of his career so far. And I’m not even a hockey fan.
via Ain’t It Cool News: The best in movie, TV, DVD, and comic book news..
rePost::Economics in the Crisis – NYTimes.com
The failure of economicsThe best you can say about economic policy in this slump is that we have for the most part avoided a full repeat of the Great Depression. I say “for the most part” because we actually are seeing a Depression-level slump in Greece, and very bad slumps elsewhere in the European periphery. Still, the overall downturn hasn’t been a full 1930s replay. But all of that, I think, can be attributed to the financial rescue of 2008-2009 and automatic stabilizers. Deliberate policy to offset the crash in private spending has been largely absent.And I blame economists, who were incoherent in our hour of need. Far from contributing useful guidance, many members of my profession threw up dust, fostered confusion, and actually degraded the quality of the discussion. And this mattered. The political scientist Henry Farrell has carefully studied policy responses in the crisis, and has found that the near-consensus of economists that the banks must be rescued, and the semi-consensus in favor of stimulus in the initial months mainly because the freshwater economists were caught by surprise, and took time to mobilize was crucial in driving initial policy. The profession’s descent into uninformed quarreling undid all that, and left us where we are today.And this is a terrible thing for those who want to think of economics as useful. This kind of situation is what we’re here for. In normal times, when things are going pretty well, the world can function reasonably well without professional economic advice. It’s in times of crisis, when practical experience suddenly proves useless and events are beyond anyone’s normal experience, that we need professors with their models to light the path forward. And when the moment came, we failed.
via Economics in the Crisis – NYTimes.com.
Film::Three Little Words (film) – Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Just saw this at TCM
Three Little Words (film)
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Three Little Words
Three Little Words VHS cover
Directed by Richard Thorpe
Produced by Jack Cummings
Written by George Wells
Starring Fred Astaire
Red Skelton
Vera-Ellen
Arlene Dahl
Music by André Previn
Harry Ruby
Cinematography Harry Jackson
Distributed by Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer
Release date(s) July 12, 1950 (U.S. release)
Running time 102 min.
Country United States
Language English
Three Little Words is a 1950 American musical film biography of the Tin Pan Alley songwriting partnership of Kalmar and Ruby and stars Fred Astaire as lyricist Bert Kalmar, Red Skelton as composer Harry Ruby, along with Vera-Ellen and Arlene Dahl as their wives, with Debbie Reynolds in a small but notable role as singer Helen Kane. The film, released by Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer, was written by Academy Award winning screenwriter George Wells, directed by Richard Thorpe and produced by Jack Cummings. Harry Ruby served as a consultant on the project, and appears in a cameo role as a baseball-catcher.
This warm and engaging[1] film was one of Astaire’s favourites, [2] possibly because of the nostalgic vaudeville connection. As Hollywood film biographies of the period go, it takes fewer liberties with the facts than usual, and Astaire and Skelton’s onscreen portrayal of the partnership is considered psychologically accurate,[1] and is complemented by a mutual chemistry, some quality acting by both, and some fine comedy touches by Skelton.[2] Unusually for Hollywood songwriting biographies of this period, two of the songs, “Thinking of You” and “Nevertheless”, became major hits on the film’s release, reaching first and second place respectively, in the U.S. charts.
In recognition of his acting performance here, Fred Astaire was awarded the first Golden Globe Award for Best Actor – Motion Picture Musical or Comedy in 1951.
via Three Little Words (film) – Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia.
rePost::What are the best sources on how to be a good teacher? — Marginal Revolution
1. Give a damn.
2. Get to the point when you speak.
3. Expect something from them.
4. Teach to the students who are interested in learning.
5. At all levels, do not overestimate the attention span of your audience.
6. Do not be afraid to be idiosyncratic, provided you adhere strictly to #2.
via What are the best sources on how to be a good teacher? — Marginal Revolution.
Quote:: Seems to me .. that OSB successfully implements just two patterns::The Emperor’s New Service Bus – Transentia
Seems to me (cynic that I am) that OSB successfully implements just two patterns: the “sell copies of Weblogic” pattern and the “extract lots of money from customers” pattern.
Season 4 of Breaking Bad
Was busy the past few months and between family/friends, and rss feeds/books/series the former tends to win.
This makes for less blog posts, books read, programs done, and movies/television seen.
I actually watched the first two episodes of season 4 as it was being shown last year. I’ve been a fan since all the “The Wire” comparisons finally pushed me to watch the show and although I still love “The Wire” the most and believe that I haven’t seen a show that can match it Breaking Bad is an awesome show that deserves all the comparisons. The individual episodes of Breaking Bad if taken on its own have a higher entertainment value but when you take the arc from start to end is where The Wire is the stronger show.
Finished episodes 3-12 in about 10 hours.
The show was great and was only boring a handful of times. The tension was there although sometimes the circumstances make suspension of disbelief necessary.
rePost::Mr. Kim vs. the World Bank::Why Nations Fail – Why Nations Fail by Daron Acemoglu and James Robinson
The nomination of Jim Yong Kim by President Barack Obama to be the next President of the World Bank is generating plenty of controversy.
Lant Pritchett categorically stated that his nomination was a “terrible idea”.
William Easterly has already accused him of being anti-growth (see also here).
Perhaps all of Mr. Kim’s critics prefer the status quo where the World Bank is run by ex-warmongers (Robert McNamara), bankers (James Wolfensohn) or career civil servants (Robert Zoelick). Wait wasn’t that the World Bank that they loved to criticize?
Now President Obama came up with a radical idea: why not appoint someone with a track record in solving the problems of poor people in developing countries? Before turning to any of Mr. Kim’s theoretical books (quotes from which can be easily taken out of context), you should first check out Partners in Health, the extraordinary organization he started in 1987 with Paul Farmer, Todd McCormack, Thomas J. White and Ophelia Dahl.
via Why Nations Fail – Why Nations Fail by Daron Acemoglu and James Robinson.
Praise for Effort::James Cameron Completes Record-Breaking Mariana Trench Dive
Andy Bowen, project manager and principal developer of the Nereus, an ROV that explored Challenger Deep in 2009, said a manned mission also has the potential to inspire public imagination in a way a robot can’t.
“It’s difficult to anthropomorphize machines in a way that engages everyone’s imagination—not in the same way that having boots on the ground, so to speak, can do,” said Bowen, who’s not an expedition member.
Biological oceanographer Lisa Levin, also at Scripps, said that the DEEPSEA CHALLENGE program’s potential for generating public interest in deep-ocean science is as important as any new species Cameron might have discovered.
“I consider Cameron to be doing for the trenches what Jacques Cousteau did for the ocean many decades ago,” said Levin, who’s part of the team but did not participate in the seagoing expedition.
At a time of fast-shrinking funds for undersea research, “what scientists need is the public support to be able to continue exploration and research of the deep ocean,” Levin said.
(Video: Cameron Dive First Attempt in Over 50 Years.)
Perhaps referring to his friend’s most recent movie, expedition physician MacInnis called Cameron a real-world “avatar.”
“He’s down there on behalf of everybody else on this planet,” he said. “There are seven billion people who can’t go, and he can. And he’s aware of that.”
For his part, Cameron seems sure that the DEEPSEA CHALLENGER will be exploring the depths for a long time to come. In fact, he’s so confident in his star vehicle, he started mulling sequels even before today’s trench dive.
Phase two might include adding a thin fiber-optic tether to the ship, which “would allow science observers at the surface to see the images in real time,” said Cameron, a National Geographic Society explorer-in-residence.
via James Cameron Completes Record-Breaking Mariana Trench Dive.
Learned Today::Gemütlichkeit – Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Gemütlichkeit
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Gemütlichkeit (German pronunciation: [ɡəˈmyːtlɪçkaɪt] ( listen)) is a German abstract noun that has been adopted into English.[1] It is a derivation of gemütlich, itself the adjective of Gemüt the German word for “heart, mind, temper, feeling” expressed by (and cognate with) English mood.
Gemütlichkeit describes an environment or state of mind conductive to a cheerful mood and peace of mind, with connotation of a notion of belonging and social acceptance, of being cozy and unhurried. The current meaning of the word derives from its use in the Biedermeier period. By the second half of the 19th century, it also became associated with a set of traits supposedly unique to Germans and German culture.
via Gemütlichkeit – Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia.