Links

I've added a number of links to the column on the right. Big deal, eh? To me, it is though--I'm happy to have learned how to do so.

Trompe l'oeil

3703 students: From the wordsmith.org word-a-day service:

trompe l'oeil (tromp lye) noun

1. A style of painting in which objects are rendered in extremely realistic detail, giving an illusion of reality.

2. A painting, mural, etc. made in this style.

[From French, literally "fools the eye", from tromper (to deceive) + le (the) + oeil (eye).]

"Good trompe-l'oeil work is magical. It persuades you that the subject of the mural is real, that you are indeed seeing a view of smoking Mount St Helens, or a formal baroque garden glimpsed through a filigree-screen gateway, or a stretch of beach on a windy day."
Stephen Anderton; When We Practise to Deceive; The Times (London, UK); Jan 4, 2003.

There, in an extreme form, is the project of the "beautiful illusion" that William Carlos Williams rejects. WCW on Shakespeare: "He holds no mirror up to nature but with his imagination rivals nature's composition with his own."

In memory of Alan Speer

Alan Speer died Sunday at a swim meet in Michigan. He was 34, a Charleston kid who grew up into a witty, learned man. He knew more about film than anyone, and I mean that just about literally.

My wife Elaine, who taught Alan flute, was close to him and remembers a story that he once told her. In his high-school days, Alan went to Turkey as an AFS student and, of course, learned Turkish. Years later, in his grad-school days, he was riding in an elevator when the two other passengers, both young women, began giggling and talking about how cute he was. Here's the good part: they were talking in Turkish, never imagining Alan could understand them. He stood there taking it all in, and when the elevator stopped at his floor, he turned to them, said something in Turkish, and left. I wish I could remember what it was he said (Elaine can't either). "I heard every word"? "Thank you"? "I agree with you completely"?

Whatever it was, I'm sure it was smart and funny and kind, like Alan himself.

Alan's writing on film is plentifully available online. His webpage for his film criticism, Cinemadox, can be found by clicking here.

Focus groups and language

My dad sent me a clipping from the Bergen Record (a NJ newspaper) that shows focus groups in action. The writer, Peter Grad, is writing about semantics and Social Security:

[W]e learned that the White House is banning the use of the term "privatization"--the key principle behind its push to overhaul Social Security--because focus groups distrust the word in the wake of Enron and other corporate scandals. Instead, the administration is encouraging the use of the phrase "personal accounts," a friendlier, warmer and fuzzier term.

A number of news stories have posited the same rationale behind the push for Social Security "reform" rather than "privatization."

Lost in translation

Another item from Peter Grad (whose articles for some reason are largely unavailable online):

Linguist Christopher Moore scans the globe in search of words that are not easily translatable into English. In the Republic of Congo, for instance, he found ilunga, which 1,000 translators deemed the world's most untranslatable word: As best as they can describe it, it means "a person who is ready to forgive any transgression a first time and then to tolerate it for a second time, but never for a third time."

There is also the Czech litost (pronounced lee-tosht), meaning "a state of torment created by the sudden sight of one's own misery."

And the beautiful French idiom esprit de l'escalier, which refers to the clever reply one thinks of only afterward, in this case, on the way down the stairs after having made a remark in an upstairs room.

Ah, language!

Grad's article was inspired by a story on National Public Radio, which you can read about and listen to here.

Paying attention to distractions

From an article by Katie Hafner in in today's New York Times, "You There, at the Computer: Pay Attention":

Humans specialize in distraction, especially when the task at hand requires intellectual heavy lifting. All the usual "Is it lunchtime yet?" inner voices, and external interruptions like incoming phone calls, are alive and well.

But in the era of e-mail, instant messaging, Googling, e-commerce and iTunes, potential distractions while seated at a computer are not only ever-present but very enticing. Distracting oneself used to consist of sharpening a half-dozen pencils or lighting a cigarette. Today, there is a universe of diversions to buy, hear, watch and forward, which makes focusing on a task all the more challenging.

For the full article, click here.

[To read the Times, use mediajunkie as your name and password. For more names and passwords to enter free sites that require registration, go to bugmenot.]

The Nuts and Bolts of College Writing

Recommended to all college writers: The Nuts and Bolts of College Writing, by Michael Harvey. A mere 100-odd pages, it's the clearest, most helpful presentation of sound writing advice I've seen. And at $4.95 (plus $3.00 shipping), it's a bargain.

You can read about it here.

Leddy Ceramic Tile

For whatever reason, Google no longer finds the link to a post that mentioned my now-retired dad's tile business, Leddy Ceramic Tile.

I would like for Leddy Ceramic Tile to be part of the online world. So this post is dedicated to making that happen. My hope is that anyone looking for "Leddy Ceramic Tile" will find it here. Leddy Ceramic Tile. Leddy Ceramic Tile. Leddy. Ceramic. Tile.

How to improve writing (no. 5 in a series)

Words in a memo inviting faculty to a discussion of mentoring:

The facilitator of the focus group will be [Name].

Here are the sorts of nouns that writers turn to to dress up what they have to say.

Focus group comes to us from the worlds of market research and political analysis, where people are chosen to form a cross-section of a much larger population. If people are showing up without being selected, they might have a wonderful conversation, but they won't form a focus group.

Facilitator is a noun without clear meaning. To facilitate is to help bring about or make easier. So what might a facilitator in this context do? Send invitations? Encourage people to attend? Reserve the room? Arrange for refreshments?

How might things be said in clear, precise language?

[Name] will lead the discussion.

An active verb instead of to be; four words instead of eight; six syllables instead of thirteen. Over 50% off!

Link » Other How to improve writing posts, via Pinboard

Happy New Year

Tomorrow is the first day of the Chinese New Year. Happy New Year. 2005 is the Year of the Rooster.

For more about the Chinese calendar, click here.