This is an extremely necessary event. Governments and religions are trying to pass laws to prevent you from saying anything that would offend someone’s religious sensibilities. Such laws prevent the free and open exchange of ideas, and are often used against religious minorities. That’s why it’s important to take up your right to express even disrespectful views on important topics.
Something really unexpected happened on this week’s podcast: we got an email right in the middle of it! It was so unexpected that we brought everything to a halt and read it out loud. Then it happened again. Would that all our Talk the Talk episodes were so interactive!
We were talking about Indigenous languages, and a new governmental report with recommendations that challenge the monolingual assumptions of many Australians. Along the way, I talked about Julia Gillard’s assertion that learning English is some kind of Australian civic duty, like voting or something. I think I might have used the term ‘linguistic fascism’.
If you like Good Reason for the atheism, but not so much for the linguistics, then this episode of Talk the Talk might be for you. It’s about blasphemy, the recent Muslim film riots, and the need for Blasphemy Day (which is September 30 — get your costumes early!).
It’s a little soap-boxy, but I said what I wanted to say: The right to question — and even ridicule — religious ideas is important. There needs to be a way of saying, “This is a bad idea.” It’s wrong to give up that right just because it will hurt someone’s feelings. If someone is willing to resort to violence and murder when their ideas aren’t treated with kid gloves, then this is an admission that their ideas aren’t defensible using regular means, and are invalid. Muslims, I’m looking at you.
On the other hand not all religious people lose their shit when they get sent up. Even though I have no love for the Mormon Church, I do cite them as an example of how to respond to criticism and mockery.
It was fun to be a bit blasphemous on the radio, and it was fun to watch Jess Allen squirm more and more throughout the interview. The look on her face when she heard “Hasa Diga Eebowai” for the first time was truly priceless — I wouldn’t trade it for anything.
One-off show: Here
Subscribe via iTunes: Here
Show notes: Here
Soon after I started the Red Pen last year, I wrote a column blithely declaring myself a prescriptivist. I’m a copy editor, I said, and copy editors are supposed to be prescriptivists.
A linguist from Perth, Australia, scolded me via email. It was OK for me to be a prescriptivist if I couldn’t help myself, he wrote, but I shouldn’t contaminate others with my beliefs.
I apologized for contaminating him and offered to send a bar of soap.
No need, he replied. “I’ve already boiled my computer.”
Yes, that would be me. She continues by pointing out the need for prescriptive rules, at least in the editing sphere (and I can agree with that), but she does allow that some of the rules editors live by do seem a little arbitrary.
As a copy editor I’ve perpetuated many of [these rules]. I truly regret it, because these aren’t rules of good writing. They’re baloney.
So how does a careful 21st-century copy editor tell baloney rules from good practice?
I thought this was such a good question that I wrote a response, and I’m very pleased that she’s run it as a guest column on her blog:
It’s mostly about using the Google Ngram Viewer to find patterns in what writers actually do.
So, for instance, what about Laura’s idea that “comprised of” is always wrong? Let’s take a look at the data and see what authors really do. We head to the Google Ngram Viewer, look up the search term “is comprised of, comprises“, and:
Looks like ‘comprises’ has the edge. The data breaks in Laura’s direction. Does that mean it’s wrong to say “The committee is comprised of…”? Not really. What it means is that if you’re trying to decide which to use, you’ll be safer going with the choice that many other writers have chosen. Doing it that way will help your writing fit into a body of work, seem more appropriate, and be less distracting.
It’s fine for editors to run a tight ship so their publications appear the way they want. But now it’s easy for them to look at real language data so their pronouncements will have more validity than just their own opinion. Descriptivism informing prescriptivism? Could be a paradigm shift.
I don’t usually read training manuals for fun, but Apple’s Genius Guide does have some interesting tips. Not just how to talk about computers, but how to read people, more or less.
Jonny Hopper’s in the chair today, taking over from Jess Allen. You have to check him out — the man has a great voice.
One-off show: Here
Subscribe via iTunes: Here
Show notes: Here
PZ Myers once said that things would be better if people treated religion as an enjoyable hobby, sort of like knitting.
(This clip was part of a hit piece, so ignore the desperate music.)
Miss Perfect (my girlfriend-partner-fiancée) says that a more apt comparison would be quilting, because quilters are a bit more intense about it, it’s more socially involved, and they’ve evolved rules and customs about their quilting, sort of like a religion.
Crafty metaphors are okay, but after some reflection, I realised that I feel the same way about people who do religion as I do about people who do drugs.
I don’t choose to do drugs (substitute ‘religion’ if you wish) — it’s not my thing — but I have some friends who do. I don’t really mind that they do. I don’t like it, but I guess it’s their choice. Actually, I bet I have some friends who do it, but I don’t even know who they are because they’re not hardcore into it, and it doesn’t interfere with their lives. On the other hand, I do have some friends whose abuse is kind of messing them up, and I feel bad about that.
Is it a healthy habit? Not at all, but I guess it normally won’t harm someone who goes easy on it. I absolutely think it should be kept away from kids, when they’re just learning to use their brains.
I really don’t mind if there are a few people in society who indulge, but society just won’t work if everyone’s into it all the time. And there’s no way that people who use it should be making the rest of us subsidise their habit, or make us to start using it ourselves, no matter how great they think it is. And I’m certainly not going to pay it any undue respect.
If someone realises that they have a problem, and it’s taking over their life, we should have ways for them to get help. Otherwise, as long as they’re cool about it, I can treat it like a private, mildly undesirable pursuit that some people enjoy.
EDIT: A reader is taking me to task for lumping all drugs in together. So fine, it just extends my metaphor.
Just like some drugs are more or less addicting, and some are more or less harmful, we could say the same thing about religions. Maybe casual cannabis use is like default Catholicism — mostly harmless with light use. Don’t get too deep into it though.
Scientology could be like cocaine, or perhaps crack. I hear that stuff’s addictive.
Evangelical mega-churches? Meth.
What about Mormons? Unitarians? Put your pharmaceutical comparisons in comments.
I’m learning all kinds of things about Jess Allen, the Tuesday host of RTRfm’s Morning Magazine. Like I never knew that she likes mice. Good thing I brought this topic, then: the fabulous singing mice of Costa Rica!
Watch as the male singing mouse lifts his head to the sky and belts forth a mighty…
Very tantalising, ¿no?
So we talk about some research involving mice, genetics, and sexual selection. Lots of fun.
One-off show: Here
Subscribe via iTunes: Here
Show notes: Here
When I was a young Mormon kid, the one thing the other kids would ask me is, “So, you can’t drink Coke?” That was the one thing they knew about the Church.
As a believer, I always thought this idea was a misreading of the “Word of Wisdom” — the Mormon revelation that forbids “hot drinks”, including coffee or tea. However, based on the prevailing mood of the membership, I had to allow that it was an extremely common misreading.
Now, it seems that the LDS Newsroom has clarified.
On Wednesday, the LDS Church posted a statement on its website saying that “the church does not prohibit the use of caffeine” and that the faith’s health-code reference to “hot drinks” “does not go beyond [tea and coffee].”
A day later, the website wording was slightly softened, saying only that “the church revelation spelling out health practices … does not mention the use of caffeine.”
I’m not sure if this is a policy clarification, or a full-on revelation — the LDS Newsroom seems to be in charge of church doctrine now. But whatever. The Mormon Church can arrange things how it likes.
What’s kind of surreal to me, though, is that if this is how an omniscient being wants to communicate his will to his people, he’s not a very good communicator. Why so much confusion and ambiguity for fifty years? Let’s follow the path:
In 1833, god gives a revelation to Joseph Smith. It forbids alcohol, tobacco, and “hot drinks”, and places restrictions on meat, but it’s explicitly not a commandment.
Over the next two centuries, Mormons expand and modify the Word of Wisdom. It becomes non-negotiable, and grows to somehow include caffeinated beverages, at least in the imagination of much of its membership. Prohibitions on meat, meanwhile, are ignored. God, apparently, doesn’t feel the need to intervene.
Now, after decades of limbo, the LDS Newsroom clarifies. It says caffeinated drinks are okay, contradicting other church leaders.
Can we agree that this is a dumb way for an omniscient being to communicate? It’s ambiguous, imprecise, and incremental. But consider: While it seems very unlikely that a god would need to use this method for imparting his will, it is exactly the kind of system that humans would use.
Walking around with an American accent is fine, but if you’re not in America, it can make you a little self-conscious sometimes. Unless you’re me, in which case you just go ahead and talk to people anyway, even on the radio. Even so, accent has an impact.
For today’s show, the lovely and talented Jess and I talk about some recent work showing that thinking in a foreign language forces you to think more analytically and keeps you from reflexively firing off opinions based on instinct. May be worth trying.
There’s other stuff about accent, and how imitating someone’s accent aids comprehension. And, of course, a shout-out to Mr Neil Armstrong, who faced his final frontier last week.
One-off show: Here
Subscribe via iTunes: Here
Show notes: Here
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