language
Spike and spon
The pernicious issue with pangrams
The language itself has been weaponized
It’s quite difficult, to fight back against the seeming wisdom of axiomatic “truths,” when the language itself has been weaponized through the power of pattern. Through rhythm, rhyme, alliteration, and consonance.
The last time I was in England was at the invitation of Nomensa, to give a talk at a conference wherein I encouraged the audience to discard an axiom that I feel has done users of the English language more harm than good through endless and glib repetitions.
Like “Curiosity Killed The Cat,” “You Are Not Your User” sounds so good that we keep on saying it, without appreciating what we’re reifying through repetition. The pleasure of repetition, the pleasure of pattern matching, the pleasingness of Kuh Kuh Kuh consonants on the one hand, and of the round vowelly Yuh Yuh Yuh on the other make these things we say seem true because they sound and feel so good to say.
The fire of oak logs
The fire of oak logs which burned day and night for six months became the focal point of our family life.
...It is inevitable that the English word "home" cannot be translated directly into French. The nearest equivalent in French is the word foyer, the hearth.
Nominalization
The English language provides bad writers with a dangerous weapon called nominalization: making something into a noun.
Instead of affirming an idea, you effect its affirmation; rather than postponing something, you implement a postponement.
"Comprehension checks were used as exclusion criteria” would be better said as “we excluded people who failed to understand the instructions.”
“There is not any anticipation there will be a cancellation” would be better as “I don’t anticipate that I will have to cancel.”
Zombie sounds, unlike the verbs whose bodies they snatched, can shamble around without subjects. That is what they have in common with the passive constructions that also bog down these examples.
The arbitrariness of the sign
A key difference between verbal language and the modernist ideal of a visual “language” is the arbitrariness of a verbal sign, which has no natural, inherent relationship to the concept it represents. The sound of the word “horse”, for example, does not innately resemble the concept of a horse. Ferdinand de Saussure called this arbitrariness the fundamental feature of the verbal sign. The meaning of a sign is generated by its relationship to other signs in the language: the sign’s legibility lies in its difference from other signs.
The demand of a new word
Why are these phonosemantic classes enough, and we need neither more nor less? Why are these consonants enough, and we need neither more nor less? What determines the need for a new word? How is this demand ‘felt’ by a language? How did the metabolic pathways of American English recognize that ‘jerk’ and ‘twerp’ and ‘punk’ and ‘nitwit’ and ‘dork’ and ‘ass’ and ‘goon’ and ‘twit’ and ‘dodo’ and ‘bum’ and ‘nerd’ and ‘dunce’ and ‘turd’ and ‘boob’ and ‘chump’ and ‘bitch’ and ‘bastard’ and ‘prude’ and so on and so forth simply were not equal to the task? We had to add ‘turkey’ and ‘squirrel’ as well?
Scooting over
There is at this point no evidence that acquired characteristics can be inherited. It is held that all changes to a genome are random, and cannot be subject to any higher principle. However, when a word is used in a new context, as it is whenever we say something new, a new sense is permitted. This does affect the phonosemantic structure, the linguistic DNA. Words in the vicinity of this word ‘scoot over’ to make room and allow themselves to be influenced by its philosophy. The language itself is now different.
We must go with them
"You cannot make what you want to make, but what the material permits you to make. You cannot make out of marble what you would make out of wood, or out of wood what you would make out of stone. Each material has its own life, and one cannot without punishment destroy a living material to make a dumb senseless thing. That is, we must not try to make our materials speak our language, we must go with them to the point where others will understand their language."
— Constantin Brancusi
The receiving end
At times it helps to rephrase an observation in line with a perspective from the receiving end of technology. When my colleagues in the field of cold-water engineering speak of "ice-infested waters", I am tempted to think of "rig-infested oceans". Language is a fine barometer of values and priorities. As such it deserves careful attention.
The language of art
Everything points to the conclusion that the phrase 'the language of art' is more than a loose metaphor, that even to describe the visible world in images we need a developed system of schemata.
You're Probably Using the Wrong Dictionary
An Essay by James SomersBook from the Ground: From Point to Point
A Novel by Bing Xu- z-z-z
In Defense of Browsing
An Essay by Leanne ShaptonThe feeling of fortuitous gratitude at coming across unexpected information is something most of us who’ve done any research, have experienced — that kismet of finding the perfect book, one spine away from the one that was sought. In the field of art and image research, this sparking of transmission, of sequence and connection, happens on a subconscious level.
…Why is the vernacular image still being dismissed as ephemera? Why is its study not being prioritized? All languages are alive, but visual language is galactic. Keywords are not eyeballs, and creating rutted pathways to follow is the antithesis of study. A century of visual language, knowledge, and connectivity is marching toward a narrow, parsimonious basement of nomenclature. The NYPL takes a step backward if it models its shelves and research on a search engine. Spontaneity is learning. Browsing is research.
There Is No Word
A Poem by Tony Hoaglandwhat I already am thinking about
is my gratitude for language—
how it will stretch just so much and no farther;how there are some holes it will not cover up;
how it will move, if not inside, then
around the circumference of almost anything—how, over the years, it has given me
back all the hours and days, all the
plodding love and faith, all themisunderstandings and secrets
I have willingly poured into it.Idiolect
A DefinitionIdiolect is an individual's unique use of language, including speech. This unique usage encompasses vocabulary, grammar, and pronunciation.
An idiolect is the variety of language unique to an individual. This differs from a dialect, a common set of linguistic characteristics shared among a group of people.
Tortured phrases
An Article by Holly ElseIn April 2021, a series of strange phrases in journal articles piqued the interest of a group of computer scientists. The researchers could not understand why researchers would use the terms ‘counterfeit consciousness’, ‘profound neural organization’ and ‘colossal information’ in place of the more widely recognized terms ‘artificial intelligence’, ‘deep neural network’ and ‘big data’.
Further investigation revealed that these strange terms — which they dub “tortured phrases” — are probably the result of automated translation or software that attempts to disguise plagiarism. And they seem to be rife in computer-science papers.
Poison sniffers
An Article by Austin KleonChristopher Johnson says “prescriptivists” or “Cute Curmudgeons” — people who are interested in only policing usage and grammar rules — are “linguistic poison sniffers.” They turn language into “a source of potential embarrassment rather than pleasure.”
Johnson sees his job as getting people to love and appreciate language by being curious about and paying attention to “what makes language delicious.”
This reminded of Olivia Laing’s distinction between identifying poison and finding nourishment.
Everywhere you look these days, there are lots of poison sniffers, but very few cooking a delicious meal…
What happened when I stopped using Emojis
An Article by Clo S.In March 2021, I went through a fun self-imposed experiment: no emoji for 2 weeks. Not on social media, not in private messages, not even as Slack or Discord reactions. No emoticon either: the goal was to communicate without illustrations, only with words. I did a semi-rigorous (a.k.a. half-assed) diary study, taking notes on my feelings and behaviour.
What 80% Comprehension Feels Like
An ArticleOne of the major principles of extensive reading is that if a learner can comprehend material at 98% comprehension, she will acquire new words in context, in a painless, enjoyable way. But what is 98% comprehension?
A Visual Inventory
Amassing the archive
I once sent a camera to a client, with a request that she keep a visual diary of her newly completed house. For a number of months she duly sent me one photograph a day, of whatever caught her attention, and it was fascinating seeing the spaces from her point of view.
In part it's simply about amassing the archive, but it's also about understanding the implications of every design decision and bringing this knowledge to bear on new projects. You have to keep pushing the learning process.
The spaces between things
It's easy to underestimate the significance of the spaces between things...as soon as you frame a section of the view with architecture, the eye has a place to rest and previously invisible details come into focus.
An absence at its centre
At first glance, the rocky outcrop reflected so sharply in the still surface of the water looks like the ghostly image of a house. Interestingly, once read this way, the image always seems to have an absence at its centre.
Drawing a frame
The panels of tessellating hexagons have been laid to stabilize a path running through what remains of the nave of Rievaulx Abbey. They demonstrate the impact of drawing a frame around anything, even if that frame is nothing more than a plastic cell and the subject an area of grass. I like the way the path simply peters out to either side, with no sharply defined boundaries.
Economy of line
With a composition as disciplined as this, everywhere you point the lens feels like a natural frame. The visible architecture comprises simply three walls, two benches, and the top of a flight of steps. It is a perfect expression of economy of line, with the dark green backdrop of the trees acting as a foil for the light grey concrete and granite.
The smallness of human life
The smallness of human life is graphically expressed in this graveyard, in the low stubs of the headstones dwarfed by the towering tree trunks. Perhaps unexpectedly, the effect of this monumental contrast of scales is a feeling of comfort — the secure tranquility of a final resting place overseen by these massive forms, whose benign nature seems to be underlined by the little wooden nesting box on the central tree.
Attenuation and repetition
The distortion here is produced by the movement of a car, on a road near La Ina in Andalusia. My eye is always drawn to attenuation and repetition and the stratified view here exhibits both characteristics to such a degree that the image appears stretched. The extended parallels of the power lines are layered above the repeating arches of the viaduct and the low mass of the roadside barrier.
The aesthetic potential of flaws
The archaeological quality of this section of exposed wall provides an example of the aesthetic potential of that which is flawed or broken.
Cantilevers of bronze
Set close to the surface of the water, the visible structure is made of only two materials — vertical cantilevers of bronze set between horizontal treads of dark grey granite.
A single material
There is something very appealing about a form constructed in a single material.
Of the plainest variety
It is unusual to find such mismatched elements on a single facade as this fine stonework coexisting with these stained and rotting shutters, on a house in the fortified town of Feltre, in the northern Italian province of Belluno.
Where considerable labour lies behind the cutting and fitting of the stone, the timber planks have been left in their raw state, with no paint or carved decoration. Even the iron hinges are of the plainest variety.
Stacking the rails
Stacking the rails in an interlocking zigzag configuration creates a self-supporting structure that is easy to repair and to take apart. This traditional construction method also has the advantage of requiring few tools, since no holes have to be dug for posts and there is no requirement for nails.
White walls
When people say that white walls are cold and characterless, I wonder whether they have ever stopped to look at one. It's not just about the drama of light and shadow, although I love the fragment of the ghost chair in this picture, but the way the smallest nuances of texture and tone come alive in certain conditions.
The precise construction of relationships
This flight of steps runs up the outside of a Modernist house in Switzerland. What is striking here is the precise construction of relationships. The gaps between steps allow crisp lines of light to fall on the darkly shadowed wall, reinforcing the subtlety of the dialogue between granite and the concrete, which has been bush-hammers to expose the stone aggregates.
In the lee of the sills
The first thing you register here is the dramatic inconsistency in the coloration of the timber cladding the house in Haldenstein: the natural hues of the wood survive only in the lee of the sills, like re-growth along the parties of a head of dyed hair. But a second glance takes in the precision of the cuts made to accommodate the window and the fact that the pine is used in seamless lengths.
An Escher-like quality
There is an Escher-like quality to these flights of steps, but it is the intricate net of shadows created by the roof structure of this sky-lit sculpture gallery, falling across a succession of vertical planes and reflecting back on the surface of the glass, which commands attention. Slender metal bars set crosswise between the rafters add their own animating rhythm. It all makes for a very complex visual arena in which to view art.
Monumental structures
These disused gas cylinders occupy a site on the outskirts of Stockholm. For the first ten years after moving to London, the view west across the train tracks was of a similar pair of monumental structures, transfigured by every sunset. One has since been dismantled to make way for the expanding national and international railway stations.
The character of a light box
In certain conditions, the white walls at home take on the character of a light box. In traditional Japanese architecture the intensity of atmosphere has a lot to do with the way natural light is filtered through the shoji paper panels, suffusing the interior spaces with subdued light, calming the spirit and sharpening the senses.