North Coast Cafe, South

American Accents

This simple quick quiz located my North American accent precisely.  Try it and let me know if it pegged you too.

American accent quiz

Washoe

Washoe, the female chimpanzee whose use of American Sign Language opened the first studies  of non-human use of language has died of natural causes at the research institute on the campus of Central Washington University.

Washoe, who was born in Africa about 1965, was thought to be about 42 years old. According to Roger and Deborah Fouts who first introduced Washoe to ASL she died Tuesday night.

The Fouts are co-founders of The Chimpanzee and Human Communications Institute.

Washoe knew an estimated 250 words and taught sign language to three younger chimps.

Primate researcher Jane Goodall, in Roger Fouts' book "Next of Kin," noted the importance of the work with Washoe.

"Roger, through his ongoing conversations with Washoe and her extended family, has opened a window into the cognitive workings of a chimpanzee's mind that adds new dimension to our understanding."

 

The Urban Dictionary

Jump the shark was just one of the things I had to look up. Snarky was another. Do you know what spooge means?
Turns out that foamy glob of white stuff hanging out on the corner of Bush's mouth during the last debate was probably not spooge, but who knows?
My new favourite site is the Urban Dictionary

Kerry's 'complicated language'

A Bush supporter I know complained, bitterly, after the presidential debate that despite a generally accepted good showing, Kerry was not presidential material, in part, because of his use of 'complicated language.'

I didn't have any trouble understanding Kerry. Bush on the otherhand seemed incapable to constructing a complete sentence, let alone a group of utterances all relevant to a single point. Even his 'wrong war,' wrong time, wrong place' mantra seems to bolster Kerry's position on the Iraqi invasion.

See this:

Washington — For a pair of Ivy League graduates who studied oratory at Yale, George W. Bush and John Kerry struck just the ideal level of elocution in their first televised debate: They talked as though they wanted to be easily understood by preteens.

"Most Americans, even those who have graduated from high school, still operate at a sixth- or seventh-grade level of language," said Robert Beard, chief executive officer of yourDictionary.com.

The Lewisburg, Pa., firm analyzed a transcript of Thursday evening's 90-minute presidential debate, using the Flesch-Kincaid test that measures the grade level of language.

"Not unexpectedly, John Kerry's language was more erudite than George Bush's, but only slightly," Mr. Beard said. The grade level of Mr. Kerry's language during the debate was 7.3. Mr. Bush was about half a school year behind at 6.8. More

Grammar Gripes

I read today, in the New York Times, about reporters covering a trial about to begin, rush from the courtroom when the proceeding were postponed "dialing their cellphones.

Another gripe is the use of filming, or to film when taping or videotaping is what's happening.

UPDATE: Plastic utensils stuffed in the bag with a take out order are not "silverware."

Time to moderize, guys!

Speaking American Italian

I've long been amused by hearing Americans of Italian descent speak Italian-American regarding food. Drop all final vowels seems to be the rule, along with some nonsense words, like "minga" which seems to be an expression of surprise or astonishment, but is not found in the dictionary--Italian or English. For example, "Minga! that's a salty proshoot." Anybody know the origin of "minga"? I'd like to know.

The Times article

Grammar Gripes

Got a gripe about bad grammar or diction?

I hate it when folks say anxious when they mean eager.

Ditto incredible when very will do.

How about, "I had went to the store when the delivery man came." EEEEKKKK. Like nails on a blackboard.

I worry sometimes about being too prissy, too strict in my annoyance when I hear the English language misued. Any language changes, modifies, flows and adapts to new usage. The misuse of hopefully for instance is ubiquitous.

The Vocalbula Review delves into mysteries of language.

"Hopefully" is an adverb qualifying a verb.

"Hopefully" describes the way (or the spirit in which) the verb is/was performed.

"The grapes looked too high but Aesop's wolf jumped hopefully (he hoped to grasp them)".

Unfortunately the word is abused by those who live in fear of hubris or of "tempting Providence" and such mortal dangers:

where such people at one time never made an appointment without uttering the proviso, "God Willing!" they now utter the cringing (and ungrammatical) "Hopefully".

Nome sane? [Know what I'm saying?]

'Bag ell' or 'bay gell?'

I can remember the days when bagels were so much a regional (NYC) food that it was impossible to get them fresh baked and hard to find frozen in plastic in the supermarket case. (Lenders, remember?)

These days bagels are available everywhere, often, alas, with little resemblance to the original creation.

But what mystifies me most is how the variant pronunciations came about; hence, this special North Coast Cafe poll.

Do you say 'bag-ell" or 'bay-gell'? Or, some other variation?

Snarky Frienemies

I was disappointed Wordspy had no listing for snarky. That's where I found frienemy, a few of whom I've had in my life. But, lest I annoy my readers with my boring anecdotage I won't go there. This entry in Dictionary.com finally helped me hone the description of my mood.

Nifty, Cool & Groovy

Now and then the words "nifty" or "groovy" might drop into a conversation, instantly identifying the speaker as an old fogy or, worse, an old hippie.

But the word "cool" doesn't do that. "Cool" is constant. As a modifier, as the modified, as a noun and as a verb, "cool" has withstood the fleeting nature of most slang.

What is the reason for "cool's" longevity?

And the answer is...