In a couple months, millions of Americans will ask the question:
“When is the 4th of July?“. The week, in Mexico and across the
United States, I wonder who’s asking “When is Cinco de Mayo?‘
[Last year, f/k/a celebrated on May fourth.]
Why do so many news broadcasters — from PBS‘s Jim Lehrer
to ABC‘s Elizabeth Vargas — end their show by saying “we’ll see
you here tomorrow”? Yes, the transitive verb “see” does have many
meanings, but not one of them is “be watched by you.” Giving
the broadcasters the benefit of the doubt, I suppose they might
mean “we’ll perceive or visualize you being in our audience.” But,
that’s stretching it.
– Prof. Yabut Language Rule of Thumb: If you are in the
business of communicating with words, try really hard
not to take a common word and use it in a way that is
the exact opposite of its most common meaning.
– The f/k/a Gang swears never to use the phrase “we’ll
see you here tomorrow.” We might say: “Come back
and let our StatCounter perceive your presence.”
– Maybe Mark Liberman at Language Log can explain (or,
more likely, explain away) this language problem for us.
updates (May 1, 2006): Scroll down to the little microphone at our
sunday buffet post (April 30, 2006) for our response to Prof. Mark
Liberman’s heroic attempt at Language Log to answer our plaintive
question about “see you here tomorrow.”
And, see Mark Kay’s supplemental post at Language Log (May 1, 2006),
which focuses on the “here” rather than the “now.” and explains that the
broadcasters are trying to maintain “the pretense of a face-to-face encounter.“
Prof. Kay (who is an expert in the fascinating field of color naming) concludes:
“It seems like a pretty harmless fiction: “I’m right there in your living
room, so I’m entitled to refer to your living room as ‘here’.”
Your Humble Editor must be overplaying the humilty pretense around here.
I sure hope that readers, including the Language Log professors, didn’t
come away from my original question above thinking that I wasn’t aware of
the pretense and manipulation that were the purpose behind the “harmless
fiction” of saying “see you here tomorrow.” My concern is with the resultant
deterioration in what I believe should be the primary purpose of non-fictional
and non-literary language: the accurate representation of reality. (Perhaps,
my legal and consumer-advocacy background makes me particularly sensitive
to manipulation of words aimed at the public. Haiku’s dedication to what is
actually being perceived by our senses surely increases that sensitivity.) Enter-
tainers, such as Mark’s example of Hank Williams, are expected to use pretense
in creating their product and enticing return customers. Are journalists?
Why would we want to make excuses for people who pride themselves on being
real journalists and presenting facts, when they are twisting the customary meaning
of words, merely to get the viewer to have warm fuzzies and return the next night?
It is not as if there are no easy, accurate alternative phrases that would also create
a feeling of intimacy or immediacy. Even if there weren’t, this member of the news-
broadcast audience just wants the facts — and wants words (especially those that
are used frequently) to have reliable meanings. As we stated at the top of this blurb:
None of the dictionary meanings of the phrase “see you” is “to be seen by you.” At
least, not yet.
After all our preaching, why oh why, would anyone name
their weblog The Blogs Blog, and compound the error with the tagline –
“Blogging the Blogs of the web” ? Talk about needing to go hug a toilet
bowl.
for pointing to this humble weblog yesterday. However, and
despite not wanting to look a gift link in the mouth, it was
sort of strange for this weblogiverse old-timer to read this
post:
ethicalESQ is a new blog by David Giacalone,
who promises a blog with practical treatment of
ethics issues.
We’ve had so many birthdays by weblog standards, that
the Gang plans to let our 3rd pass by unmentioned in about
four weeks.
Are the participants in today Bloggership Conference (via TaxProf)
at Harvard Law School following the ABA’s very useful guidelines for
Participating in a Dialogue? [Aside: 3L Epiphany has an interesting
interview with Judge Richard G. Kopf (U.S. District Judge, Nebraska) on
legal weblogs as secondary sources of legal authority. via Inside Opinion)
lawyers>? And, was the first result — our post discussing the article
“Court TV’s 15 Most Memorable Movie Lawyers” (Hollywood Heat, by
Daniel Green, May 12, 2005), at all helpful?
protagonist? How about a female law professor-weblogger?
“questionDudeS” How much clout does Blawg Review have in the world of legal
weblogs? So many people link to each new edition of Blawg Review, that it
appears The Blawg Republic had to reverse its policy of ignoring f/k/a links,
as of the day we hosted Blawg Review #52. Here are the facts:
As explained on May, 24, 2005, in “free speech in the Blawg Republic,”
BR had stopped listing new f/k/a posts on Feb. 11, 2005, the day after
I left a Comment at Bob Ambrogi’s website questioning the usefulness
of their service. Then, shortly after I wrote the “free speech” piece, all
of the links to f/k/a postings were removed from the Blawg Republic
Legal Ethics page, and only the actual name of the weblog and its tagline
remained. However, I hosted Blawg Review #52 on April 10, 2006, and
dozens of weblogs pointed to #52 and f/k/a. The next day, the Blawg
Review editor wrote me to say he noticed that the Blawg Republic started
picking up my posts again on April 11, 2006.[Yes, it is very hard to write about BR and BR and not get the
names mixed up. In this post, I have only used the initials “BR”
to refer to Blawg Republic — I think.]I hope mature heads at BR decided a little constructive criticism is a
fairly stupid reason to ostracize a weblog. We’ll see. Meanwhile f/k/a
is the only weblog listed on Blawg Republic‘s Legal Ethics page that
has posted in many weeks. And, it’s nice to see that we can still pretty
much fill up its Top Blawg Posts page just by pointing other weblogs.
Last question: Why have we waited so long to thank everyone
who said such nice things about BR#52 and f/k/a in general? We have
no good excuse — not even a note from our doctor (and believe me, Mama
Giacalone raised us all to be more polite). Here’s an official Very Big Hug
and Thankyou to all those who pointed to Blawg Review #52! Special thanks
go out to JD Hull at What About Clients? On days when making a weblog
seems too much of an effort, I shall click on this post from WAC? and keep
on typing, with a smile.
update question (April 29, 2006): Why are so many people so upset about
a Spanish version of our National Anthem, the Star-Spangled Banner? Eric
Bakovic at Language Log has a very interesting discussion of the “value” of
singing the new Spanish version, “Nuestro Himno” (“Our Anthem”). Eric
presents translations, and analyses of quotes from dissenters like G.W. Bush
and Francis Scott Key’s great-great-grandson George Key.
more: Ben Zimmer at Language Log adds an interesting twist
to this story. Using a better source than Washington Post‘s
David Montgomery, Ben says:
“I don’t know which ‘musicologists’ Montgomery consulted,
but Wikipedians have had better luck finding other foreign-
language versions of the anthem. So far contributors to the
Wikipedia page for “Nuestro Himno” have turned up examples
in German, Yiddish, Samoan, French, and Latin. Not only that,
they discovered a number of other Spanish versions reproduced
on the website of the U.S. State Department. (Will this page be
removed now that President Bush has declared that the anthem
“ought to be sung in English”?)
(5 PM): As promised, poetry from our ever-questioning,
always-insightful Honored Guest Pamela Miller Ness:
Beach picnic
sharing our bread
with the one-eyed gull
Landing on the lintel
a pigeon and its shadow
become one
after her death
composing roses
instead of words
Packing
Mother’s library
I tuck
the ribbon I gave her
into a new book.– from unrolling the awning, (Grand Central Station Tanka Cafe, 2003)
Alzheimer’s ward
again father counts
the afghan squares
“beach picnic” & “landing” from her sequence “A Flutter of Wings“
“after her death from “where the lily was,” a haiku sequence (2003)
“alzheimer’s ward” – bottle rockets II:1; A New Resonance 2
“packing” – tanka from Simply Haiku (Vol. 2: 3)
