Career caution

Lessons on the precarious nature of a career in baseball in the Boston Globe (italics mine):

The Sox hit some lean years in the 1990s, when Wayne Britton (1993-2001) was scouting director, first under Gorman, then Duquette. But at the time, it didn't look that way. Not when the Sox boasted not only Rose and Pavano but pitchers Andy Yount, a Clemens clone from Texas; Juan Pena, a 27th-round pick out of a Miami community college; Chris Reitsma, a strong-armed Canadian; and first-rounders Josh Garrett and John Curtice.

''Andy Yount was as good a pitching prospect as I'd ever seen, the whole package," said Bob Schaefer, a special-assignment scout with the Braves who at the time was the Sox' farm director. ''Pavano had better stuff than Rose, but Rose was the better pitcher -- he held runners on, threw to both sides of the plate with movement. And Pena, he probably had the best package of all, compared to Rose and Pavano, good breaking stuff and perfect control.

''I thought they might all be 20-game winners."

Yount, grieving at a gravesite over the death of a friend, squeezed a bottle too tight, the glass shattering in his pitching hand and severing tendons, effectively ending his career. Pena, in another freak injury, was struck on the pitching elbow by a line drive and never recovered. He won his only two decisions with the Sox. Curtice, a good-natured but flaky lefty out of the same high school as Michael Cuddyer of the Twins, was sent to a fat farm to get in better shape, wound up hurting his arm, and washed out. Reitsma was traded and now is the Braves' closer. Garrett never made it; he's working in a Fort Myers bank as an investment counselor.

Portmanteau

A portmanteau is a word coined by Lewis Carroll to describe a word that is a blend of two other words. Examples include:

• breathalyser: breath + analyser
  
• Chunnel: Channel + tunnel
  
• emoticon: emotion + icon
  
• televangelist: television + evangelist
  

Of course, my favorite is gerrymander, a combination of "Gerry" and "salamander".

These type of words come to mind after reading the Letters section of New Scientist, where it was pointed out that "velcro" is such a word. I had always assumed it was an abbreviation or an acronym, but strangely enough, it's a portmanteau word, derived from the French no less:

[f. F. vel(ours cro(ché hooked velvet.]

Who said French wasn't a vital, modern language?

"We will fight in France, we will fight on the seas and oceans..."

It's not quite Churchill, but Red Sox owner John Henry attempted to inspire Bill James to join the organization with the following langauage (from the Boston Globe):

We're engaged in this epic, long-term battle/saga with the New York Yankees. We are determined to achieve what no long-suffering, die-hard Red Sox fan believes can actually happen. Wherever we go across the nation, Red Sox fans come out in large numbers. They're all waiting to be delivered. It's not an exaggeration. Short of war, there has not been a bigger quest since King Arthur's days. We've joined together, we're having a lot of fun and it's just beginning here.

Needless to say, James was persuaded and the Sox reached the Promised Land in 2004. Opening Day is only 3 days away...

"What a gimoke"

To me, a great etymological mystery is the origin of the word "gimoke." I'm not even sure what it means. I think I first heard it when my father used it. It's a derogatory term, I know that much. I wonder if it's just a word used in New England. Since my father used it (and I don't think he's one to pick up current slang), I assume it's a word that is at least as old as me (that would be 33 years). The only thing I found online is an entry in the Urban Dictionary:

A person who has graduated from college but still acts like a freshman.

This is derogatory enough, but it's not like it's the OED or anything; it still doesn't say anything about its origin. Maybe I'll never know.

The Elements: World Tour

With the help of Wikipedia I find that I have a long way to go to complete an "elemental world tour" (bold denotes where I've been):

* americium – The Americas
* berkelium – city of Berkeley, California, home of the University of California
* californium – state of California and University of California, Berkeley
* copper is probably named after Cyprus
* darmstadtium – Darmstadt, Germany
* dubnium – Dubna, Russia
* erbium – Ytterby, Sweden
* europium – Europe
* francium – France
* gallium – Gallia, Latin for France. Frenchman Lecoq de Boisbaudran, who was the discoverer of the metal, named it after his country and also subtly for himself. Lecoq (rooster) in Latin is gallus.
* germanium – Germany
* hafnium – Hafnia, Latin for Copenhagen
* hassium – Hesse, Germany
* holmium – Holmia, Latin for Stockholm
* lutetium – Lutetia, Latin for Paris
* magnesium – Magnesia prefecture in Thessaly, Greece
* polonium – Poland
* rhenium – Rhenus, Latin for Rhine
* ruthenium – Ruthenia, Latin for Rus'
* scandium – Scandia, Latin for Scandinavia
* strontium – Strontian, Scotland
* terbium – Ytterby, Sweden
* thulium – Thule, a mythical island in the far north, perhaps Scandinavia
* ytterbium – Ytterby, Sweden
* yttrium – Ytterby, Sweden

Thule will be a tough one, being mythical and all. Maybe this place will have to do.

This would give one the following map of countries visited:

Babel Fish fun

Translating an recent IceCube abstract to Chinese using Babel Fish:

IceCube is a 1 km$^3$ neutrino observatory being built to study neutrino production in active galactic nuclei, gamma-ray bursts, supernova remnants, and a host of other astrophysical sources. High-energy neutrinos may signal the sources of ultra-high energy cosmic rays. IceCube will also study many particle-physics topics: searches for WIMP annihilation in the Earth or the Sun, and for signatures of supersymmetry in neutrino interactions, studies of neutrino properties, including searches for extra dimensions, and searches for exotica such as magnetic monopoles or Q-balls. IceCube will also study the cosmic-ray composition.
In January, 2005, 60 digital optical modules (DOMs) were deployed in the South Polar ice at depths ranging from 1450 to 2450 meters, and 8 ice-tanks, each containing 2 DOMs were deployed as part of a surface air-shower array. All 76 DOMs are collecting high-quality data. After discussing the IceCube physics program and hardware, I will present some initial results with the first DOMs.

and then translating the Chinese back into English yields some amusing results:

IceCube is in 1 km$^3$ the corpuscle observatory is built in the study the corpuscle production in the active outer space star cluster nucleus, the Gamma ray explodes, the supernova is remaining, with many other astrophysics origin. In perhaps the high energy the corpuscle sends the signal ultra to leave the frequency the energy cosmic rays origin. IceCube and will study many particles physics topic: The search for soft and weak annihilates in the Earth or the sun, with is the supersymmetry signature in the center corpuscle interaction, center the corpuscle product research, including the search extra dimension, with searches exotica for example magnetic monopoles or the Q ball. IceCube and will study the cosmic-ray constitution. In January, 2005, 60 integers character styles optics module (DOMs) had deployed in the south pole ice in the depth scope from 1450 to 2,450 meters, with 8 ices tanks, 2 DOMs deployment which respectively contained showers the array as superficial part of air. All 76 DOMs collects the high quality material. In discusses after the IceCube physics program and the hardware, I will propose some primitive results and first DOMs.

Somehow "neutrino" became "corpuscle".

"what you say!"

I'm not sure what happened (must be spam), but the collaboration mailing lists to which I'm subscribed recieved the following from a Xhiang Dongdiang via a yahoo account:

is dom has TOT personality distribution FUN with doug.
Ubut histogram is come from LOOT look strange, has
peek at 90 degree. what you say!

Many of the words do mean something (in context of the collaboration) but certainly not strung together in such a baffling way. Funny results though.

Hell of a start, Julian

Man oh man, reliever Julian Tavarez makes quite an impression (no pun intended) in his Red Sox debut:

Crapula: a perfectly "crumulent" word

From the Washington Post I learn that "krapula" is the Finnish word for hangover. I found this a bit unusual at first because if I remember correctly, Finnish is not even an Indo-European language, and "crapula" is a relatively obscure English word meaning the same thing ("crapulent" being the adjective). I suppose it's not implausible the Finns picked up the word from their neighbors. Its origin, according to the OED is obscure but nevertheless comes from the Latin, via the Greek.

[L. crapula excessive drinking, inebriation, intoxication, ad. Gr. drunken headache or nausea, the result of a drunken debauch. In adopting the Gr. word, the Romans seem to have put the cause for the result; both senses are found in the English derivatives.]

Whatever its origin it's an almost perfect word for what it describes. Truly, when one feels crapulent, one "feels like crap". Coincidence?

Really, it's Hog Season

Homer was right, it is a wonderful, magical animal.

Touchy

Never failing to entertain, French President Chirac (link)

stormed out of the first session of a European Union summit dominated by a row over French nationalism because a fellow Frenchman insisted on speaking English.

President Chirac and three of his ministers walked out of the room when Ernest-Antoine Seillière, the leader of the European business lobby UNICE, punctured Gallic pride by insisting on speaking the language of Shakespeare rather than that of Molière.

When M Seillière, who is an English-educated steel baron, started a presentation to all 25 EU leaders, President Chirac interrupted to ask why he was speaking in English. M Seillière explained: “I’m going to speak in English because that is the language of business.”

Without saying another word, President Chirac, who lived in the US as a student and speaks fluent English, walked out, followed by his Foreign, Finance and Europe ministers, leaving the 24 other European leaders stunned. They returned only after M Seilière had finished speaking.

The meeting was furnished with full interpretation services, and anyone in the room could speak or listen in any of the 20 official EU languages. Embarrassed French diplomats tried to explain away the walk-out, saying that their ministers all needed a toilet break at the same time.

More rear-guard actions are described:

Jacques Delors, the former President of the European Commission, used to ban journalists from posing questions in English in the press room.

When President Chirac had a one-to-one dinner last year with President Bush, he insisted on speaking his mother tongue the whole time, even though the US President could understand him only through an interpreter.

At one UN summit where there was no translation, President Chirac pretended not to understand questions in English and demanded that Tony Blair, who speaks French, act as his interpreter.

President Chirac has announced plans to start a French version of CNN to promote culture. He was furious when its managers disclosed that most of the output would be in English because otherwise few would understand it.

Crossword success

Finally yesterday I solved the Sunday NY Times crossword. This success can likely be attributed to figuring out many of the longer clues that have to do with title (often by way of bad puns). "For Purposes Of Comparison" contained such dubious gems as "quakier state", "dressier drawers", "bittier pill", "cockier spaniels", and "boxier shorts". Groan.

Hog season

There must be something in the air these days, as two recent stories about hog hunting have appeared. The first follows Red Sox pitchers Mike Timlin and Tim Wakefield on a wild pig hunt in Florida. The other, a piece in the NY Times Magazine wherein the author tries hunting for the first time (wild pigs in Northern California). He self-conciously avoids venturing into Hemingway territory (for the most part), and at one point really captures how one feels in the woods when hunting:

...my ears and eyes started tuning in — everything. It was as if I'd dialed up the gain on all my senses, or quieted myself to such an extent that the world itself grew louder and brighter. I quickly learned to filter out the static of birdsong, of which there was plenty at that early hour, and to listen for the frequency of specific sounds — the crack of branches or the snuffling of animals. I found I could see farther into the woods than I ever had before, picking out the tiniest changes in my visual field at an almost inconceivable distance, just so long as those changes involved movement or blackness. The sharpness of focus and depth of field was uncanny, though, being nearsighted, I knew it well from the experience of putting on glasses with a strong new prescription for the first time. "Hunter's eye," Angelo said later when I described the phenomenon; he knew all about it.

I found a shaded spot overlooking the wallow and crouched down in the leaves, steadying my back against the smooth trunk of a madrone. I rested my gun across my thighs and got quiet. The whoosh of air through my nostrils suddenly sounded calamitous, so I began inhaling and exhaling through my mouth, silencing my breath. So much sensory information was coming into my head that it seemed to push out the normal buzz of consciousness. The state felt very much like meditation, though it took no mental effort or exercise to achieve that kind of head-emptying presence. The simple act of looking and listening, tuning my senses to the forest frequencies of Pig, occupied every quadrant of mental space and anchored me to the present.

Deer hunting in winter in Western Massachusetts I've also found myself feeling this way. Arriving at your spot before light, you sit there and just listen and look as the sun comes up. The stars start to fade into the coming daylight, as do the lights of the town down below the mountain. Being there in the forest you feel like a part of it. Your senses are almost overloaded and you truly do reach a sort of meditative state. This state is broken by the appearance of deer if you're lucky and the rush of adrenalin is even more pronounced coming out of your recent state of quiet. It's a unique experience.