Hale and Hearty

Enjoying a visit to Paris, I like to spot words in French that have obviously migrated into English.

Eiffel Tower - just before it was evacuated on August 9th, 2013

This week's word is 'hâlé' (pronounced ah-lay in French), meaning bronzed or sunburnt.  I have no idea how to say the word in such a way as to distinguish it from the more common verb 'aller' meaning 'to go'.  I assume that context is king.

Surely is is the origin of the English word 'hale'.

Surprisingly long . . .

'Abbreviation' is a surprisingly long word isn't it?

Along the same lines, 'typewriter' is the longest word that can be typed on the top row of keys on a QWERTY keyboard.

 By coincidence the length of this post is surprisingly opposite.

Full stops are rude?

I have been hearing some surprising small hints about the teen culture in text messaging.

Did you know that it is rude to finish your message with a full stop?  Apparently this is an indication that the conclusion is a somewhat  pointed remark.

And who would have guessed that a smiley face in the wrong context can be taken as a hint of sarcasm? :)

On asking how we are supposed to know these things, it was not very reassuring to be told "it doesn't matter for you because you are old".  Hmm . . . not all that old!  I don't yet know what I want to do when I grow up!

But apparently I am safe, so if you find me committing either of those offences please forgive my age!  I'll continue with my opinion that it is rude not to punctuate your sentences properly.

Was Einstein an atheist?

"From the viewpoint of a Jesuit priest I am, of course, and have always been an atheist.... I have repeatedly said that in my opinion the idea of a personal God is a childlike one. You may call me an agnostic, but I do not share the crusading spirit of the professional atheist whose fervor is mostly due to a painful act of liberation from the fetters of religious indoctrination received in youth. I prefer an attitude of humility corresponding to the weakness of our intellectual understanding of nature and of our being."  -- Albert Einstein

That's reasonably clear then.  He was an atheist but had more important things on his mind!

Clever humour is the worst kind

I was quietly giggling at the humour and rhetoric of Robin Ince, as I was listening again on episode 154 of The Pod Delusion yesterday.  This was the speech he gave at the March for a Secular Europe two weeks ago in London.

Asked why I was laughing, I said I thought Robin's humour was very clever and interesting.  I shared a couple of his comments and they brought a laugh too.

But then came another comment.  "Clever humour is the worst kind".

And this is one of the things that is wrong with a Christian viewpoint - particularly a Methodist viewpoint where eloquent sermons criticising eloquent speech were a staple of the Sunday services.  I remember being subjected to the 'eloquent speech' sermon often enough myself, while visiting a Methodist Church in Belfast, and at the time I thought it ironic.

What a shame that religious people fear intellectualism so much.

Secularist stars at the NSS conference

As I mentioned earlier, I went to London today for the National Secular Society's conference.  I'll probably write more about it another day, but here's a little comment about each of the speakers.  I should say that the event was attended by nearly 800 people from a range of backgrounds - including at least one gentleman wearing a clerical collar.

Professor Ted Cantle - business-like and well informed.  Being English and male might lead some to wonder how he is qualified to comment about people who are in neither category but I found him convincing.  Multiculturalism is to be replaced by 'interculturalism'. 

Nia Griffith (Member of Parliament), neither English nor male - was an entertaining and informative speaker.  Her best anecdote (of many) was about the Human Embryology and Fertilsation Act.  Constituents were worried that "there'll be centaurs running in the streets".  [Its odd that they will not be cantering or galloping.]

Pragna Patel was more successful than I expected at involving those of us who were not 'Southall Black Sisters'.  [I suppose I'm a little wary of positive discrimination or something - but being white, English and male, I hope you might make allowances for that . . . please?]  Speaking of minority groups who seek favours from the state she said "They use the language of human rights but actually seek to suppress it."  This was echoed by most of the following speakers.  Excellent points throughout the speech and good answers to questions.

Nick Cohen's brilliant speech was one of the highlights of the day.  He acknowledged that journalists and broadcasters were afraid to admit that self-censorship exists.  All like to pose as dissidents in a dictatorship, challenging establishments, transgressing boundaries, but they can't acknowledge that certain topics are just off limits.  He added that 200 years ago you would know that the finest minds in the world also had supernatural beliefs as a broad explanation of the world. Now that is no longer possible.  As soon as you reach some level of knowledge you will know that the greatest minds in the world do not hold supernatural beliefs now.  Religion is no longer able to be involved in high culture.  This makes people defensive and wary of learning.  Religion now knows itself to be intellectually on the back foot.

Maryam Namazie was next but I'll come back to her later.

Peter Tatchell delivered a fine speech as usual.  He emphasised that the enemy was organised faith itself, not necessarily the faithful people.  The clerics are the main threat and it is time we said so.  Afterwards someone commented that he had foundered a little when questioned about the ordinary faithful essentially lending support to the religious leaders, and about funding for improvements to human rights.  I think that was a reasonable assessment.

Richard Dawkins came last - I can listen to him any time.  He was advertised as the keynote speaker for very obvious reasons.  The first half of his talk was excellent, with comments on dealing with potentially violent people "I fear you because you are mad but don't confuse fear with respect."  Actually telling people that they are "behaving like a spoilt brat having a temper tantrum" might not be the best advice.  He spent some time on American politics, obviously with the impending election in mind.  Christian scriptures are genuinely ancient. The Book of Mormon is not ancient but ludicrously anachronistic [and he explained why, in some detail, and with great wit]. Many of the core beliefs are measurably more preposterous than claims of Christianity.  At least it is arguable that Jesus existed. All of that was delivered with his usual verbal dexterity.  The less I say about the second half of the speech, his confusing satire about Tony Blair, the better, but Richard is not a stand-up comedian by profession.

Now back to the real star of the show.  It is clear why Dawkins was the keynote speaker, but the only one of the day to get a standing ovation, along with the longest applause, was Maryam Namazie.  Her speech was exactly what you would expect from her, and on the basis of the four times that I have heard her, she delivers it to the same high standard every time she speaks.  She combines a passion for justice with a deep understanding and knowledge of the subject.  It will be hard to do justice to her but in a few days I will write more about what she said.

Aside from that - it was a great day out and I met a lot of very interesting people who had travelled much further than I had to attend.  Hello to anyone among them who is reading this.  I expect all my readers to try to attend next year if geographically feasible.  Thanks to Terry Sanderson and crew for organising it all at a very reasonable price and reaching out to so many people.

Small note: published hurriedly on the day of the event.  Please forgive the larger number of typos than usual.

Update!  Most of the talks have now appeared on the Pod Delusion Extra site - although at the time of writing (2012-09-30) the best one is still awaiting permission.  Hopefully we can all hear the words of Maryam Namazie soon.

Paula Kirby on feminism in 'the movement'

I know that one of my favourite writers, Paula Kirby, is not a great reader of blogs, but since the rest of my readers are, and I know Paula wants her views on this topic to be heard by more people, I feel that it is my duty to bring your attention to them.

As she said on Facebook recently:

"My views on the question of women in Secularism are, I think, fairly well known. But I have mostly been keeping them to myself over the last year, in the hope that the nonsensical furore would die down of its own accord and we'd all be able to go back to doing what we're SUPPOSED to be doing: promoting science and rationality. But clearly that hasn't happened: on the contrary, the situation has deteriorated still further, and has recently reached depths that even I wouldn't have thought it capable of. Since keeping quiet has done nothing but create the false impression that most people in the movement think the way the mob do, I have decided that it is time to speak out. There comes a point where I cannot and will not simply stand by and watch in silence.

I know this is a divisive issue. I know some of my FB friends will love what I have written, others will hate it. But let me say this very clearly: I mostly use FB for fun, for chilling, for relaxation. I will have no FTB/Skepchick-style comments on my FB wall. If you hate what I've written and want to say so, or abuse me, or whatever, you have every right to do so - but do it on your wall, not mine. If you want to unfriend me, that's fine too. Thank you.

Well said Paula!

Just to decode some of the terminology:

• 'Nonsensical furore' - a fuss stirred up by certain women in the skeptical/secular/atheist movement over the last year or so, discouraging women from attending the conferences because of alleged discrimination and because the men present might be sexual predators.  (Google for 'Elevatorgate' and 'Rebecca Watson' for more details - although I'm not necessarily saying that she is to blame for all this.)
• 'FTB' - Free Thought Blogs, where some of the antagonists have their say, and perhaps get rewarded in cash for doing so.
• 'Skepchick' - probably something to do with a 'personality' called Rebecca Watson.  A few of her friends and fellow Skepchicks (oh how I hate that word!!!) might not agree with her.
• FB - Facebook (of course)

Now I strongly recommend you to go to this address to read the letter that Paula wrote, called Sisterhood of the Oppressed.

If you are a regular reader of Something Surprising, and understand my views about equality - that I'm all for it - you will almost certainly like it.  You will also understand why I have not spoken about it before, except in oblique references.  This is the type of topic that men can never be right about.  Whatever a man might say, one of 'the accused' might take issue with, and indulge in cherry-picking of sentences to turn it back on the man that wrote it.

This is why Paula's robust and feminine approach has to be lauded.

Now you might see why I thought she might be a candidate to be the fourth horseman in a recent post.

Small note: You might also imagine that this is linked to my small note that nobody called Rebecca was on the list.

George Bernard Shaw - on cynicism

"The power of accurate observation is commonly
called cynicism by those who have not got it"

Thought for the day!  I will adopt this as a motto for life and for this blog now.

Everyone is searching . . .

I run Google Analytics on the Something Surprising blog and it tells me a bit about how my visitors found me.  Strangely enough, I even believe some of it (although not quite all).  It is more like a weather vane than a weather forecast, but a great service, and free, and informative.

Sometimes it is entertaining to see what search terms had been used in Google to get to Something Surprising.  Here are a few of them.

First - some slightly surprising ones - but bear in mind that I specialise in surprising things, so it should not be too surprising:

• what is the motto of the french navy? -- I gave a humorous answer here
• quite a night at the erawan -- Yes, I really covered that too
• smell the rectum of a whale in the most expensive of perfumes -- and this one
• bin laden homeopathy -- Yes, this one too.
• was william lane craig ever defeated? -- Oh yes!  Definitely!  But he would never admit it.
• lake with hole in the middle - here, and, frankly, quite a scary picture
• absurd irrational things -- Hmmm.  I generally prefer rational.  But . . . speaking of absurd and irrational

Some of the search terms are indeed absurd and irrational, and you might wonder how anyone could put all these words together in any single place:

• apollo 18 rock spiders
• dinosaur and unicorn receive a text message
• devonian hogmanay
• how can i convince myself that homeopathy works -- Hint:  It doesn't.

Some of them are theistic or simply naive (and ignorant)

• do unbelievers know right from wrong? -- How many guesses do you think you might need?
• can you convert an atheist -- Into what?
• are Christians on to something -- Yes, nearly their third millennium of waiting for the second coming.
• real reason dinosaurs became extinct noah arc -- No I think there was a different reason.
• why did god create science -- Perhaps so that it could confuse the believers?
• what do unbelievers see -- Erm?  Which way are they looking?

A few of them are more like statements of opinion than search terms:

• "jesus fish eating darwin fish" with the flying spaghetti monster in turn attacking the "jesus fish".
• muhammad is a narcissist, a pedophile, a mass murderer, a terrorist, a misogynist, a lecher, a cult leader, a madman a rapist, a torturer, an assassin and a looter." former muslim ali sina offered $50,000 to anyone who could prove otherwise based on islamic texts. the reward has gone unclaimed -- Who could possibly disagree?

And a few are slightly disappointing - I try not to be demotivational but have obviously failed.

• demotivational pictures natural beauty
• demotivational woman strong independant until things get a little bit di
• offensive jesus demotivational

But I just loved these

• why astrological predictions fail at times -- As if they succeed at other times?
• flat world ocean elephants turtles
• giant texas sinkhole keeps growing
• goldilocks and the three bears learning outcome
• how to make a fake fish tank
• have the russians been on the moon -- What? All of them?
  
• impossible discoveries
• uses of unstable isotopes: peaceful uses
• zombie compound fortification -- I think I can be sure I never touched on this topic

What fun!

Up with which I will not put!

First reported in Plain Words (1948) by Sir Ernest Gowers, it is said that Winston Churchill once made this marginal comment against a sentence that clumsily avoided a prepositional ending.

"This is the sort of English up with which I will not put".

What a good job he never read the following sentence as it ends with a surprising FIVE prepositions!

"What did you bring that book that I didn't want to be read to out of up for?"

It takes a bit of practise to say that!  There is your challenge for the day.

The 'Gish Gallop'

Until the last 2 or 3 months I had never noticed the term 'Gish Gallop'.  That is not to say that I was unaware of the debating technique, either in writing or in person.  I'm sure we have all seen it happen, where one of the contributors to a debate tries to drown their opponent with a stream of barely relevant drivel in order to prevent the opponent from getting a word in.  In a parliamentary context, the technique of 'filibustering' is used for a similar purpose.

Duane Gish is an American biochemist and a prominent member of the creationist movement.  Gish has been characterized as using a rapid-fire approach during a debate, presenting arguments and changing topics very quickly.

Eugenie Scott, executive director of the (US) National Center for Science Education, has dubbed this approach the "Gish Gallop," describing it as "where the creationist is allowed to run on for 45 minutes or an hour, spewing forth torrents of error that the evolutionist hasn't a prayer of refuting in the format of a debate".  This is the context in which the term is most often heard. 

She also criticized Gish for failing to answer objections that his opponents did actually manage to raise. 

The technique is far from rare, and far from acceptable.  The solution to the problem is very clear in the formal debates.  It is obvious that it is the job of the chair of the debate to give both parties an equal opportunity to make their argument and it appears to me that the gish gallop is a sign of failure to keep control of the debate.


Small note:  Have you ever noticed this being used in the comments on blogs?  :))

Friggatriskaidekaphobia and Unix time

Its Friday the 13th - an unlucky day according to some.  But of course every day is unlucky for some and my superstition filter is working harder today than most others.  I'm ready to point out the logical fallacies in people's anecdotes about the day - and no doubt they will grumble at me for doing so.

Apparently it is only since the 19th century that this day has been considered particularly unlucky although people were already wary of Fridays in the 14th century.  Every year we have at least one of them, and some years we have three.

Not wishing to fuel world-wide friggatriskaidekaphobia - the fear of Friday the thirteenth - I have chosen one surprising but entirely harmless story for the day.  As regular readers will know, I am an (amateur) user of the Ubuntu operating system, which is a member of the Unix/Linux family. 

'Unix time' reached 1,234,567,890 seconds on Friday, February 13, 2009.

I expect you feel that your life is now enriched!

And one more thing!

Blogger is back in operation again, today Friday 13th!

You might have noticed that there was no post yesterday, for the first time since I started writing on 11th January.  It seems that blogger caused worldwide outrage by going into read-only mode for a couple of days.  Those of us who use it regularly started to feel withdrawal symptoms and today turned out to be a lucky day after all. 

Whatever all the other users say, I think it is a little churlish to complain when the service is (after all) entirely free and extremely reliable.  Where would you get better value for money than this?

Tittle

As promised yesterday . . .

A tittle is the dot on a lower case i or j. It first appeared in the 11th century. Some languages (e.g. Irish) omit the tittle from the i.

[My mother used to use it as a term of derision if she didn't believe a story that was being told to her.  "Tittle" she would exclaim.  Haven't heard her use the term for a while now.]

Norwegian Wood

The Norwegians had a unit of length called a 'tomme' or 'thomla' based like the inch on the length of a man's thumb.  However, being 26.1mm, the tomme was 3% longer than an imperial inch (25.4mm) and the reason is not due to error.

There has historically been a large trade in timber between Norway and UK. When wood dries it contracts by 3%, so if it is cut to 4 by 2 tommes it ends up as dry timber at 4 by 2 inches.

Of course the millimetre has taken over now in both countries, and spoiled a good bit of history, but not spoiled a good story.

i before e except after c

The difficulty of spelling English words containing i and e is clarified by this simple rule. Isn't it?

In fact is has been estimated that there are 923 exceptions to this rule and have i before e after a c. About 21 times more words break the rule than obey it.

Another version of the rule seems to be much more reliable, and rarely seems to fail. Try "i before e except after c, but only if it rhymes with key".

Dyslexia

Q.  How does it change many dyslexics to take a light bulb?

(A.  Just read the question carefully this time and smile!  The smile is the best answer.)

Allodoxaphobia

This is a good word for someone starting on a new blog!  It means "the fear of other people's opinions" or "the fear of getting into arguments with people".  I suppose I should be old enough to have recovered from that!