Uncategorized

I’m surrounded by idioms!

Leave a comment

I may be trying to seize the moon by the teeth, but I’m not hanging noodles on your ears when I say that language idioms are more important than anybody ever thought.

This article from The Guardian discusses what is being learned about idiomatic expressions (like “kicked the bucket,” or “pulling your leg”), and how language scholars are being forced to reevaluate their assumptions on the basis of idiom studies.

Chomsky’s view of language evolution, based on his word-centric, rule-driven generative grammar model of language can’t explain some of the observable properties of idiom use. The specifics get quite technical (it is all about compositionality, what is held in memory and how sentences are constructed). However they aren’t too important, the main point is that idioms and other stock expressions aren’t peripheral language oddities – they are central to how we communicate.

Well, we never miss a chance to rag on (“ragging on” is another idiom) Noam Chomsky whenever we can.

But really, when you think of it, isn’t most of language essentially idiomatic? Except for words like “splash” or “thud,” which sound like the things they describe, most words in every language are pretty arbitrary, it seems to me. So idioms are just ordinary language, dressed up in a clown suit.

Tip: Mirabilis.

Authors

Budd Schulberg, 1914-2009

Leave a comment

Premiere Of Brando At The 2007 Tribeca Film Festival

I’m hearing a lot this afternoon about the death of film director John Hughes. I have no objection to that (although I don’t think I’ve ever actually seen any of his films myself) but I think the really big story should be the passing of novelist and screenwriter Budd Schulberg, who gave us the classic “On the Waterfront.”

“On the Waterfront” is such a great movie that even Hollywood, which never really forgave Schulberg for naming names to the House Unamerican Activities Committee, has to respect it. It’s the kind of movie that couldn’t be made today. A union looks bad. A Christian priest is a hero.

It’s amazing to me to read, on the Wikipedia page, that Schulberg worked with F. Scott Fitzgerald on a screenplay. He turned that strange experience into a novel.

Naturally affected by the experience of helping to liberate Nazi concentration camps in World War II, he was a Communist for a while, but left the party when it tried to tell him what to put in his movie, “What Makes Sammy Run?” He cooperated with the HUAC, earning him many enemies in the business.

And he did a lot of other big stuff. It was quite a life.

Non-fiction

How To Help the Poor

Leave a comment

Joel Belz asks, “Are poor people poor because they’re paying the price for their own personal failures—or because the systems in which they find themselves have been broken and have failed the people within them?” A new book offers a sound, biblical answer.

Blogs, Socials, Bookselling, Publishing, Reading

“Banned Books Week,” episode 743

Leave a comment

I hesitate to call Dennis Ingolfsland, of The Recliner Commentaries, a “fellow librarian,” since he’s the real thing and I’m an on-the-job-trained poseur. But I know enough to recommend this piece about the American Library Association’s “Banned Books Week.”

The fact is that there are no banned books in America. Maybe I missed it but I don’t recall seeing any articles in the Library Journal or American Libraries protesting that other religion and those other countries which really do ban books.

(Picture credit: Jupiter Images)

Publishing

The secret history of Times Roman?

Leave a comment

Do typeface fonts fascinate you the way they do me? Then you’ll enjoy this story from the Financial Times about a HUGE controversy raging now in the typesetting world. Typography expert Mike Parker is promoting a theory that the venerable Times New Roman font was not invented by the man traditional given credit for it. Instead, he contends, it was stolen from the forgotten work of an American naval and aeronautical designer.

…After a lifetime spent in typography, Parker was well aware of the controversy he was getting involved in: typography may present a genteel exterior, but it’s an art form punctuated by bitter rivalries and rampant plagiarism.

The case that Parker makes about the real origins of Times New Roman stands on narrow foundations. The sole piece of surviving evidence for his version of history is a brass pattern plate bearing a large capital letter B. He holds the plate up to show the familiar form of the letter, its characteristic curves and serifs. The point, he says, is that such pattern plates represent a technology that was not used after 1915. The creation of Times New Roman was announced in 1932.

I myself have strong feelings about fonts. In general, I don’t like sans serif fonts (the ones without little tails). My favorite fonts are those in which the capital “J” extends below the baseline.

Tip: Mirabilis.

Publishing

Selling books

Leave a comment

West Oversea

Today, like so many days, was about West Oversea (pictured above, in case you’ve forgotten what the cover looks like).

Our friend Dale Nelson (who is a gentleman and a scholar) posted the first reader review at Amazon.com today. With typical understatement, he compares my work favorably to that of Robert E. Howard and John Buchan. (My publisher tells me, by the way, that the book will soon be available directly on Amazon through their Advantage program. And Christianbook.com says they’ll have it in stock beginning mid-September).

I ordered a dozen copies for our campus bookstore a little while back, and today I sold out the last of them (I then ordered more). I’d already sold a few, but we’re running our annual Summer Institute of Theology just now, and Dr. John Eidsmoe, who wrote a blurb for me, is one of the instructors. He recommended the book to his class, with immediate retail results.

The fellow I talked to at Nordskog, when I called to re-order, told me they’ve been pleased by the “buzz” we’ve gotten on the blogs, and that they’ve had several orders as a result of them. So thanks particularly to our blogging friends.

The Press

Why Most Journalists Are Democrats

Leave a comment

Barbara Oakley, a Fellow of the American Institute of Medical and Biological Engineers, write in a blog on Psychology Today’s site:

Soviet Socialism, as it turned out, was a perverse system that killed motivation even as it made fear as natural as breathing.

Why wasn’t this widely reported in the Western press?

As it turns out, the preponderance of journalists are Democrats. And socialism, with its idyllic, “progressive” programs, has formed an increasingly important role in Democratic policies. Who wants to investigate a possible dark side of your own party’s plank?

… there’s a critically important concept that students of journalism are rarely taught. It’s easy to find any number of targets to write about in capitalist societies with an open press. But totalitarian governments are journalistic black holes.

(via Frank Wilson)

Non-fiction

The 2008 Election: VPs and Racial Politics

Leave a comment

Authors Dan Balz and Haynes Johnson have a book released today on last year’s election, The Battle for America 2008: The Story of an Extraordinary Election. World’s blog points to some details about who John McCain had on his vice-presidential running mates list and how those who vetted Mrs. Palin believed she could be a great VP, though probably not on Day One. “She had knocked some of the broader questions out of the park, [former White House counsel A.B. Culvahouse] told McCain. She would not necessarily be ready on Jan. 20, 2009, to be vice president, but in his estimation few candidates ever are.”

On The Politico, the authors discuss Senator Kennedy’s reaction to former president Bill Clinton’s treatment of candidate Obama.

Book Reviews, Creative Culture