A busy week means light posting. Not that there isn’t a lot to talk about.

Bush is trying to ‘clarify’ how far he can hurt people before it’s classified as torture. Reminds me of the eternal question of my youth, “How far can you go with a girl and still be considered ‘morally clean’?” But I never asked anyone that question because they’d know I was trying to get away with as much as I could. Heh heh. And Bush is the same. He’d love to go ‘all the way’, but then he’d be in trouble. And you don’t respect the person you’re torturing the next day. I guess the answer is “Listen to your heart, and if you feel good about it, then that means it’s true.”

Never mind. I’m running a Quiz Night tomorrow, and here are some easy questions to whet your appetite.

1) What is the 2nd highest mountain in the world?
2) What was the name of Napoleon’s first wife?
3) How many strings are there on a ukulele?
4) Which ocean is named after a mythical city?
5) Who was the first man to orbit the earth?
6) How long before other countries decide to try some fair-play torture on Americans?

Oh, sorry.

A new talking animal story has hit the news. And what’s the latest species to magically develop the gift of speech? A cat? A lemur? A paramecium?

No, this time it’s an elephant.

Let’s rank the headlines from worst to best.

Elephant Speaks Human Language in Seoul
No, he does not. Human language requires skills that even intelligent animals do not show.

South Korean elephant knows eight words
And how do they know that? Were there any attempts to test the elephant to see if sounds and concepts were linked?

Park workers said it’s unclear if Kosik knows the meaning of the sounds he makes.

Oh. I guess it would help if the headline writer read the article first.

South Korean amusement park showcases ‘talking’ elephant
Scare quotes? That’s better, but mimicking isn’t the same as talking.

First Parrots, Now Elephant
This might be okay, if they meant “First, parrots were mistakenly thought to have language ability, and now an elephant has been mistakenly attributed with the same skill.”

South Korean Elephant Mimics Human Sounds
Now we’re getting somewhere. This headline gets it right. Elephants can imitate sounds, including trucks, but imitation a language does not make.

Talking Elephant Surprises Scientists
Aarg! That’s worse! No scientists are even mentioned in the article! And ‘talking’ is too strong a term.

You can click the link for an audio clip, if you want to hear for yourself. But beware of uncritical reporting mixed with specious statistics:

Spectrograms show that Kosik’s voice frequency is very similar to his keeper’s when he makes human sounds with 94% accuracy!

What journalist uses exclamation points in a news story?

International Talk Like a Pirate Day it be. Ya harr.

If ye be unsure how t’ speak pirate, a few tutorials there be.

One movie at YouTube

And Chris the Pirate Ninja is always helpful.

Arrrr.

There are two great disappointments in life I have learned to live with. One, the Smiths are never getting back together. And two, Al Gore is not running for president in 2008. Not happening.

And yet…

Although saying he has no plans to run for president in 2008, former vice president Al Gore has nonetheless left the door ever so slightly ajar. It’s a good bet that door will swing open a good bit wider come next May.

That is when Gore is scheduled to publish his next book. With no fanfare, he signed a few weeks ago with Penguin Press to write “The Assault on Reason.”

As described by editor Scott Moyers, the book is a meditation on how “the public arena has grown more hostile to reason,” and how solving problems such as global warming is impeded by a political culture with a pervasive “unwillingness to let facts drive decisions.”

I like the tone of the book. All my life I’ve been surrounded by people who said, “If it feels good, then it’s true.” And now that I’ve learned enough about reason to see why that’s not good enough, they’re shocked. Bring on the facts! I’ll be interested in the book.

But the possibility of another Gore run? Tantalising. Too good to be true. Strangely hope-inspiring.

Having Gore tour Australia reminded me of what it was like to have grown-ups in charge. Can you imagine? People who have thought carefully about solutions to problems, and who are educated enough to use sound reasoning to tell good ideas from bad. It seems a million years away from this new-Dark-Age religiosity. Let’s have more scientist, less priest.

“I shouldn’t have to say this, but you’re not allowed to obstruct each other’s breathing.”

Do other dads have to say these kinds of things?

I get phone calls. This one was from a woman who was writing a book and needed some free editing advice. She probably thought: I need someone who knows about language. Maybe I should ask a linguist! And usually that would be a good idea, especially since linguists are generally knowledgeable people of sound understanding, and good to talk to. Unless it’s about a prescriptive grammar question, which makes us feel cranky.

Here’s the question: is this sentence okay?

The beginner in tatting can use this book to improve their technique.

My first thought was: Cheese it, lady, I’m a linguist, not an editor. You need the bowtie people over in English. We describe, not prescribe.

But I didn’t say that. I just explained that there are three schools of thought on the matter:

1) Some people don’t like that sentence because ‘beginner’ is singular and ‘their’ is plural. Shun those people.

2) Some people think the sentence is fine because it sounds fine. Or at least, it sounds better or less cumbersome than the alternatives of ‘he or she’ and so on. English doesn’t really have a good solution yet. This is why I’d like to fast-forward two hundred years to see what people finally decided to do. 3D real-time Google Maps walkthroughs? Feh. Just let me hear some English!

3) “Why don’t you just avoid the whole problem and rewrite the sentence?” I asked. Like this:

Beginners in tatting can use this book to improve their technique.

“Oh, I don’t want to rewrite anything,” she said. “It’s at the printer’s. But I was worried that someone would say it was wrong.”

After a moment, I said “If anyone gives you any flack about it, just tell them a linguist said it was okay.”

“Oh, thank you!” she said. She was happy, and I’d done my pro bono for the day.

Oh, and tatting is what you do when you make lace. There — that’s two.

Growing up with religion can really mess people up if done badly. Perhaps even if done well. But I’m feeling a bit positive today, so I want to ask a question: In what way did your religious upbringing make you a better person? This is not to make excuses for a prior belief system, or to absolve it of responsibility for your messed-up-edness, but to recognise the good even in the maybe not-so-good.

I’ll start.

One of the things Mormons have to deal with is that they have very clear restrictions on their actions, and not everyone will respect that. So one of the things I had to do growing up was learn to be different. I learned how not to do whatever anyone suggested (e.g. smoking, drinking, or drugs), not to need other people’s approval so much, and stand apart a little because of my value system. I think that’s important to do, no matter what your value system is.

Okay, so instead of needing people’s approval, I was trying for the approval of a non-existent being, but I didn’t know that at the time.

How about you?