23 Emotions people feel, but can’t explain

1. Sonder: The realization that each passerby has a life as vivid and complex as your own.
2. Opia: The ambiguous intensity of Looking someone in the eye, which can feel simultaneously invasive and vulnerable.
3. Monachopsis: The subtle but persistent feeling of being out of place.
4. Énouement: The bittersweetness of having arrived in the future, seeing how things turn out, but not being able to tell your past self.
5. Vellichor: The strange wistfulness of used bookshops.
6. Rubatosis: The unsettling awareness of your own heartbeat.
7. Kenopsia: The eerie, forlorn atmosphere of a place that is usually bustling with people but is now abandoned and quiet.
8. Mauerbauertraurigkeit: The inexplicable urge to push people away, even close friends who you really like.
9. Jouska: A hypothetical conversation that you compulsively play out in your head.
10. Chrysalism: The amniotic tranquility of being indoors during a thunderstorm.
11. Vemödalen: The frustration of photographic something amazing when thousands of identical photos already exist.
12. Anecdoche: A conversation in which everyone is talking, but nobody is listening
13. Ellipsism: A sadness that you’ll never be able to know how history will turn out.
14. Kuebiko: A state of exhaustion inspired by acts of senseless violence.
15. Lachesism: The desire to be struck by disaster – to survive a plane crash, or to lose everything in a fire.
16. Exulansis: The tendency to give up trying to talk about an experience because people are unable to relate to it.
17. Adronitis: Frustration with how long it takes to get to know someone.
18. Rückkehrunruhe: The feeling of returning home after an immersive trip only to find it fading rapidly from your awareness.
19. Nodus Tollens: The realization that the plot of your life doesn’t make sense to you anymore.
20. Onism: The frustration of being stuck in just one body, that inhabits only one place at a time.
21. Liberosis: The desire to care less about things.
22. Altschmerz: Weariness with the same old issues that you’ve always had – the same boring flaws and anxieties that you’ve been gnawing on for years.
23. Occhiolism: The awareness of the smallness of your perspective.

That

Charles Dickens and the Linguistic Art of the Minor Character

Choti 

I am sure you will love these names :) and specially since you are called as Miss Posh because you have such an extensive vocabulary, you will love how wonderfully this article has been drafted and the words she uses. Amazing, eh? I loved the names.

JSTOR Daily where news meets its scholarly match

Charles Dickens and the Linguistic Art of the Minor Character  May 4th 2016, 15:46, by Chi Luu Allow me to introduce Mr Plornishmaroontigoonter. Lord Podnsap, Count Smorltork, and Sir Clupkins Clogwog. Not to mention the dowager Lady Snuphanuph. As for Serjeant Buzfuz, Miss Snevellicci, Mrs. Wrymug, and the Porkenhams… who the dickens are all these people? Why do they have such weird names? Chi Luu is a peripatetic linguist who speaks Australian English and studies dead languages. Every two weeks, she’ll uncover curious stories about language from around the globe for Lingua Obscura. They are the best of names, they are the worst of names, from an age of onomastic wisdom and hypocoristic foolishness, an epoch of… well you get the picture. You may recognize this raggle-taggle cast of minor characters, in all their rich variety, as stemming from the fevered imaginings of one Charles Dickens. Yes, Charles Dickens: the former child factory worker, law clerk, social justice activist, wannabe actor and famed (though not always appreciated) author of some very long novels from a more verbose Victorian age. Also, Charles Dickens: linguistic innovator. Even the lowliest, most fleeting minor character in a Dickens novel, regardless of wealth or education, can have an individual personality and humanity.

Which is your favourite word out of this list?

So Bongo shared this link with me. This is a list of words that somebody put together based upon twitter suggestions. 32 of them. Out of which, I don't know the following:

I love the word Vellichor…but if you truly ask me which word do I love the best? then it would be this word

What would happen if we removed the silent letters?

silenc – visualization from Kenneth Aleksander Robertsen on Vimeo.

The History of English in 10 minutes

Ineptocracy (in-ept-oc-ra-cy)

New Word

Ineptocracy (in-ept-oc-ra-cy) System of government where the least capable to lead are elected by the least capable of producing, and where the members of society least likely to sustain themselves or succeed, are rewarded with goods and services paid for by the confiscated wealth of a diminishing number of producers.

The space between the words

This is so fascinating. I didnt know what was the background to the spaces between words till I read this post. I quote from the wiki entry:

Scriptio continua ("Continuous script" in Latin; also scriptura continua) is a style of writing without spaces or other marks between words or sentences. In the West, the oldest Greek and Latin inscriptions use word dividers, but these are rare in the later periods when scriptio continua becomes the norm (in Classical Greek and late Classical Latin). ^[1][2] By around 1000 AD, alphabetical texts in Europe are written with spaces between words. Scriptio continua is still in use in Thai, other Southeast Asian abugidas, and in languages that use Chinese characters (Chinese and Japanese) though with sentence breaks. Modern Chinese differs from ancient scriptio continua in that it does at least use punctuation, although this was borrowed from the West only about a century ago. Before this, the only forms of punctuation found in Chinese writings were punctuations to denote quotes, proper nouns, and emphasis.

Before the advent of the codex (book), Latin and Greek script was written on scrolls. Reading continuous script on a scroll was more akin to reading a musical score than reading text. The reader would typically already have memorized the text through an instructor, had memorized where the breaks were, and the reader almost always read aloud, usually to an audience in a kind of reading performance, using the text as a cue sheet. Organizing the text to make it more rapidly ingested (through punctuation) was not needed and eventually the current system of rapid silent reading for information replaced the older slower performance declaimed aloud for dramatic effect

I was recently in Salisbury and saw the copy of the Magna Carta at the Salisbury Cathedral. Here’s what it looks like. But this has spaces between words.

But here’s an example of a much older book, the codex suprasliensis. No gaps there.

Nor in here, the Codex Alexandrinus

Mind you, the Dead Sea Scrolls were ok with spaces.

Got to be language specific. Here’s an old old Sanskrit MS dating back to the 11thc.

no spaces there either. Fascinating stuff.

Measuring the fog of prose

I love this. Did you know there is actually an index which measures how impenetrable is your prose? Its called as the Gunning Fog Index devised by Robert Gunning. The formula tallies the words in each sentence, and the syllables in each word and then estimates how difficult it is to read that text.

Here are examples from wikipedia: Brilliant:

Passage from the nursery rhyme Rock-a-bye Baby

The following paragraph has a Gunning Fog Index of 3.1.

Rock-a-bye baby, on the treetop.

When the wind blows, the cradle will rock.

When the bough breaks, the cradle will fall.

And down will come baby, cradle and all.

Analysis

• There are 31 words in four sentences.
• There are no complex words.
• 0.4 ((31 / 4) + 100 (0/31))
• 0.4 x ( 7.75 + 0)
• Fog index = 3.1

Passage from the Wikipedia article on "logorrhoea"

The following paragraph has a Gunning Fog Index of 16.6.

The word logorrhoea is often used pejoratively to describe prose that is highly abstract and contains little concrete language. Since abstract writing is hard to visualize, it often seems as though it makes no sense and all the words are excessive. Writers in academic fields that concern themselves mostly with the abstract, such as philosophy and especially postmodernism, often fail to include extensive concrete examples of their ideas, and so a superficial examination of their work might lead one to believe that it is all nonsense.

Analysis

• There are 86 words in three sentences.
• The 11 italic words are considered complex.
• 0.4 ((86 / 3) + 100 (11/86))
• 0.4 x ( 28.67 + 12.79)
• Fog index = 16.6

Passage from the Wikipedia article on "The English Language"

The following paragraph has a Gunning Fog Index of 24.4.

As a result of the military, economic, scientific, political, and cultural influence of the United Kingdom from the 18th century, and of the United States since the mid 20th century, it has become the lingua franca in many parts of the world, and the most prominent language in international business and science. It is used extensively as a second language and as an official language in the European Union and many Commonwealth countries, as well as many international organisations.

Analysis

• There are 79 words in two sentences.
• The 17 italic words are considered complex.
• 0.4 ((79/2) + 100(17/79))
• 0.4 x ( 39.5 + 12.79)
• Fog index = 24.4

[edit]The same passage simplified

The following paragraph has a Gunning Fog Index of 7.07.

English has become the standard language around the world. This was the result of many factors. In the 1700s, the British affected English with the army, economy, science, politics and culture. In the mid-1900s, the United States caused change. It is the most used language in world business and science. It is a famous second language and an official language in most of Europe and in Commonwealth countries. It is also the case in groups around the world.

Analysis

• There are 79 words in seven sentences.
• The 5 italic words are considered complex.
• 0.4 ((79/7) + 100(5/79))
• 0.4 x ( 11.28 + 2.5)
• Fog index = 7.07

 

I have to admit that the first time I hit this problem of incomprehension was when i was reading epistemology during doctoral level coursework in Manchester. And you dont really have to use big words to get me seriously confused but some are really painful. I give you an example from my name sake, Roy Bhaskar.  I quote:

Indeed dialectical critical realism may be seen under the aspect of Foucauldian strategic reversal of the unholy trinity of Parmendean/Platonic/Aristotlean provenance; of the Cartesian-Lockean-Humean-Kantian paradigm, of foundationalisms (in practice, fideistic foundationalisms) and irrationalisms (in practice, capricious exercises of the will-to-power or some other ideologically and/or psycho-somatically buried source) new and old alike; of the primordial failing of western philosophy, ontological monovalence, and it's close ally, the epistemic fallacy with it's ontic dual; of the analytic problematic laid down by Plato, which Hegel served only to replicate in his actualist monovalent analytic reinstatement in transfigurative reconciling dialectical connection, while in his hubristic claims for absolute idealism he inaugurated the Comtean, Kiekegaardian and Nietszhean eclipses of reason, replicating the fundaments of positivism through its transmutation route to the superidealism of a Baudrillard. (Plato, etc. p.215)

Words who give you a big warm hug and cuddle

words giving you a big huge hug. Look at the pic on the right hand side of the blog :) same, eh?

Good news on the logophilia and biblophilia in Arab Lands

See here.

There was a special stand for the foundation of Dubai’s Sheik Makhtoum, who has launched a project to subsidize the translation and publications of 1,000 books a year into Arabic.
The Abu Dhabi Authority for Culture and Heritage has launched a parallel project, called Kalima, to subsidize the translation and publication of Arab works into other languages.

All this to be taken with a grain of piquant salt!!!

The power of words

Now this I liked:

A blind boy sat on the steps of a building with a hat by his feet. He held up a sign which said: 'I am blind, please help.' There were only a few coins in the hat.
A man was walking by. He took a few coins from his pocket and dropped them into the hat. He then took the sign, turned it around, and wrote some words.
He put the sign back so that everyone who walked by would see the new words.

Soon the hat began to fill up. A lot more people were giving money to the blind boy. That afternoon the man who had changed the sign came to see how things were. The boy recognized his footsteps and asked, 'Were you the one who changed my sign this morning? What did you write?'
The man said, 'I only wrote the truth. I said what you said but in a different way.'

What he had written was: 'Today is a beautiful day and I cannot see it.'

The Relational Ontology of Amartya Sen's Capability Approach: Incorporating Social and Individual Causes

What does this mean? Sweet Epona and Mother of God, why are you forcing people to write this? Makes my eyeballs itch and hair hurt. Somebody should point them to the Plain English Campaign. I understand this is academic writing but they are not talking about anything technically complex. It is talking about basic development and social aspects. Does this have to be so difficult? Can you understand this? Why am I feeling so stupid?

The Relational Ontology of Amartya Sen's Capability Approach: Incorporating Social and Individual Causes

Authors: Matthew Longshore Smith ^a; Carolina Seward ^b (Show Biographies)

Affiliations:

^a International Development Research Centre (IDRC), Ottawa, Canada

^b Canadian Department of Health, Ottawa, Canada

Published in: Journal of Human Development and Capabilities, Volume 10, Issue 2 July 2009 , pages 213 - 235

Abstract

While Sen has written extensively on the social factors of capabilities, the exact nature of these social factors and how they interact to form and influence capabilities is contested and unclear. Consequently, how to coherently integrate social components into capability research remains a concern for those attempting to put the capability approach to practical use. This paper proposes one approach to understanding and integrating the social nature of capabilities. Building upon two recent contributions by Martins, we argue that underpinning Sen's notion of capabilities is an ontological conception of a relational society. In this perspective, an individual's capabilities emerge from the combination and interaction of individual-level capacities and the individual's relative position vis--vis social structures that provide reasons and resources for particular behaviors. Crucially, this conception of society is predicated upon a contextual notion of causality that is flexible enough to incorporate both individual and social causes into social analysis.

Keywords: Capability approach; Causality; Ontology; Relational society; Social theory

Kindling the e-book revolution?

In the dim and distant past, I have used the Palm Pilot as well as the Sony Clie before as my e-book reader but after having moved to a blackberry which did my PDA bits, I never could get back to getting an e-book reader. In an ideal situation, if the blackberry can give me windows functionality, a very good camera (5-6 MP) and some kind of e-book reader capability, I would be happy. Just one device to carry around, but in the meantime, I either had to read on my laptop or on my home pc.

 

But recently, on holiday in the USA, I was gifted a kindle by my brother in law and his sister. This is one of the best gifts one could have hoped for and I immediately started drooling over it.

 

 

The Kindle comes in an attractive box, it looks like a book itself. Nice packaging. Something that you can easily plonk into your bookshelf without any issues, looks pretty neat, those letters and symbols floating around?



The package is clipped closed with a rubber band and opening it shows you the kindle on the right and a storage compartment on the left which contains the leather case, the charger, USB cord and the manual.



Took it out, charged it up (see the white charger? shades of Apple?). This was in the USA and I have an amazon.com account. So when I powered it up, it asked me for my amazon.com account, put that in and viola, I was up and running.

 

 

Can you see the little round button on the right hand side? looks like a wheel? It is a wheel and click mouse. The lone channel on top of the wheel with a small silver pointer running up and down is the main guidance mechanism. Pressing it brings up a context sensitive menu, you can go to the Kindle Store (I am in the UK, so the wireless network doesnt work, but in the UK, you can subscribe to newspapers, blogs, magazines and the lot, brilliant stuff).

 

It seamlessly connected to the Amazon.com website via the wireless cellular link, showed me my purchases and recommendations, and so on and so forth.

I did a download for my son and it was again seamless, a chapter came down, he read it and it was quite easy.

 

As I would be in the UK, I would not be able to connect wirelessly, so have to do the USB business. So connected to Many Books, a site with free books in kindle and mobipocket format books and downloaded the top 10.

 

Here's the Count of Monte Cristo book. Pretty crisp to read. There are 2 buttons on the right, for next page and back. On the left, there are 2 buttons, back page and next page.

 

 

You can change the text size, this is the default big ass size, which I reduced as soon as I could. The battery life is amazing. I have been carrying it around for the past week in India without charging and have read it for about 15 hours now, and the charge meter has rarely shifted. Oh! yes, I did have a problem with it, it froze at one point. But being a good old windows user for a long period of time, simply opened the kindle's back flap, got out my trusted paper clip and gave the reset button a damn good shove. Obviously nothing happened. Still frozen. So swore at it, banged it on the desk, prayed to Ganesh, poked the reset button for 5 seconds and it worked.

 

I have downloaded the mobipocket creater to convert my e-library to the mobipocket format. The Kindle comes with 200MB of built in memory which is good enough for about 100-150 books, I guess. I have few cd's full of scanned and downloaded and free and gifted and and and books and every weekend, there is a pleasurable time reading and converting those books. There is also a slot for an SD card, where you can store music and additional books if you need, although I dont see the need for it. I use my mobile phone to listen to music.

 

All in all, very neat device, very hardworking and rugged (have dropped it, travelled with it jammed in my backpack for 1 week, swore at it, read it in the bog and in the dusty environs of Gurgaon, no problems) and is quite well readable in all angles and lighting.

 

And yes, you can read this in the bath, you have to be careful, of course, dont drop the thing into the bath, but then, you would not do that to a paper book either, would you? Some drops of water did splash on it, but a simple wipe took care of that. Only quibble? It just doesnt smell the same, but you can annotate and clip away to glory..

 

Oh!, the screen saver is just brilliant, the images that it throws up are very amazing, old authors, old wood cut impressions of printing presses, exotic and strange word definitions, very good. Good first impression. Anybody who is a logophile and/or a bibliophile would love this.

 

Technorati Tags: Bibliophilia,Logophilia,Reviews

Balancing your books budget

A fascinating article and an even more lovely set of comments which talk about where to get second hand books. I love the idea of second hand books. Unlike food or cars, a second hand book contains exactly the same words and there is no diminution of quality. Also, given the fact that I was dirt poor once, the idea of getting something cheap is wonderful.

If I think about it, I would say that 50-60% of my library relates to second hand books, and I have got most of them from charity shops. I used to purchase heavily from e-bay as well, but ever since I got hit by fraud there, I have now moved to Amazon and have already built up a stonkingly big wish list. One day when I retire...I will have a leather couch in front of a fire and be surrounded with books and a magic cup of tea which never runs out...

Technorati Tags: logophilia

Another very sad library story

Libraries and books are dear to me. So whenever I read about bad libraries, it makes me wince. When I read about how Iraq's antiquities were totally raped, it was bad. But the Americans did try to make amends, they tried to pump in huge amounts of money to improve the infrastructure which was destroyed by decades of sanctions, war and terrorism. So far so good. One very big initiative was to improve their law libraries in 2003 to 2005.

What happened to it after 3 years? Here, read this and weep. And this was the best of the lot. Long way to go, very long way to go. I would have lost my patience but Haider is obviously made up of braver stuff.

Technorati Tags: Library,Logophilia,Iraq

Good news on the logophilia and biblophilia in Arab Lands

See here.

There was a special stand for the foundation of Dubai’s Sheik Makhtoum, who has launched a project to subsidize the translation and publications of 1,000 books a year into Arabic.
The Abu Dhabi Authority for Culture and Heritage has launched a parallel project, called Kalima, to subsidize the translation and publication of Arab works into other languages.

All this to be taken with a grain of piquant salt!!!

Porn for Logophiles

A beautiful series of photographs of libraries

All this to be taken with a grain of piquant salt!!!

A graveyard of books

This set of photographs hurt.

Technorati Tags: Logophile,Russia

My books have arrived!

I went overboard in purchasing books in India in December 2007 (see my little librarian?)

But there were too many to carry so we got some of them mailed. And the rest arrived today. So I am off drooling over those!

Technorati Tags: Logophile,India