Exactly like nothing we've ever seen

Undiscovered animal, alien, or a hoax? How about none of the above?



Again with the suspension of ignorance. We don't know what any aliens look like. So to say that this looks like an alien requires that alien be shorthand for what we have imagined or previously suggested that some aliens look like. And undiscovered of course means previously undiscovered. Both of those abbreviations are reasonable and common in conversation.

But it's quite a stretch to say that a hairless sloth is the most bizarre discovery.

Chupacabra = not very coyote-like coyote

We have another chupacabra candidate.



Jerry Ayer pretty much admits that not knowing what to call it is good enough for him. So he might as well call it a chupacabra. And why not? It'll help bring some attention to his taxidermy business.

But the issue of what we expect a chupacabra to be is harder to resolve. From an investigative position I have to say that longer front legs doesn't convince me this isn't a coyote. Some will argue that just looking at it should be enough evidence that it's not a coyote. It doesn't look like one and that's how we decide most animal classifications. This is an OK argument as far as we trust that seeing something provides us with enough information about it to include or exclude it in a class. If we take the time to identify what exactly doesn't look like a coyote, we come up with the same argument. Just more detailed. No fur = we trust it's not a coyote. But long legs? This is why just lookin' can be so easily countered. Because impressions need to survive investigation.

The old saying about looking sounding and... tasting like a duck is really based on an interplay of feature analysis and prototypes. Prototype theory suggests that we have an idea of an ideal duck in mind when we call something a duck. And we know when we see a good example of what we were thinking.¹ Feature analysis works by proposing a checklist of those features common to a set. Proper features might be something like physical characteristics. Size. Shape. Skin/coat type. When distinguishing species, it's safe to say that something [+scales] is not the same species as something [-scales][+fur]. So for any category, feature analysis will suggest that there is a set of features that are necessary and sufficient for classification. So every member of a group is and must be [+F1] [+F2] [+F3]...

But features are tough to lock down. Features like quadriped or biped can be used when categorizing members of some classes. So among other things, a human is [+biped] and a dog is [+quadriped]. But a husky with two legs is still a dog. Even if it was born with two legs. So we can add a set of transitive features. A little mammal born of a dog is also a dog.² Even if it doesn't have some of the features we use to identify dogs. But this is just passing the buck. Such transitive features rely on the premise that the class of one dog is already known. In some cases this is valid. Like the difference between a Ford and a Chrysler.³ But we haven't moved too far with the analysis. We find ourselves stuck with the ultimate feature being tautological. A dog is [+dog].

This question of the chupacabra works by subtraction. The argument is almost explicit that since it's "unlike anything native to Texas" it must be that mysterious chupacabra that we have never before seen. That's not a very strong argument. But we use some of the assumed features of the chupacabra in our analysis. I wrote about this exact topic a couple of years ago.

So now we see that Texas has produced two of what look like the same weird little sucker. And only 130 miles apart. I'll go out on a limb and say that if we find a few more of these creatures that look like bald coyotes with long front legs, a new category will be created. Some name will be suggested. But no one will accept that this is the little monster. The chupacabra will still be an elusive little wingless bat that must remain [+mysterious].

---

1. That's too simple to be very helpful. But we'll move on for the sake of space.
2. One big question here: are we sure it's a dog because when born of a dog it must be a dog, or because we trust that it simply will be a dog?
3. Let's avoid the arguments about quality usually heard in the vicinity of a set of truck nuts and bumper sticker of Calvin taking a leak.

Raisins are dried grapes?!?

The episode "A Little Bit of Knowledge" on This American Life is one of the best ones I've heard yet.

The first story "When Small Thoughts Meet Big Brains" is about those things you find out embarrassingly late. Finding out at age 34 that Nielsen families are not all named Nielsen. Finding out in your 20s that <Xing> on a street sign is not pronounced 'zing.' Thinking that quesadilla is Spanish for 'what's the deal?' or that unicorns really exist.

When I was in high school one of my older sister's friends scoffed when I mentioned reindeer. They're not real she said accusingly. Yes they are I insisted. They're sometimes also called Caribou. Haven't you seen them? I explained that they live in northern regions and they look like a cross between a deer and a moose. Once she saw that I really believed my story she cautiously asked with skeptical realization: And they can really fly?

Last month Heidi Harley mentioned a blinding flash of light upon her realization several years ago

that the speech hesitations spelled "er" and "erm" in British texts are intended to sound just like the hesitations spelled "uh" and "um" in American texts. I'd been reading them internally as [əɹ], [əɹm], and if you'd asked me to read them aloud, that's how I'd have done it, even though never in my life had I heard anyone hesitate with such a noise. What a ninny.

And several commenters chimed in regarding the same surprise.

Lynneguist mentions her own related post from a month before.

(Shamelessly competitive aside: I posted on it about 20 months ago.)

Ray Girvan comments

For me, the epihany was recognising that the disapproving "Tut, tut", "Tch, tch" or "Tsk, tsk" said by comic-book characters represented a dental click. And yet, at least jokingly, people do say "Tut, tut" sometimes.

And in his own comment languagehat announces his own blinding flash of light caused by another comment mentioning Eeyore as a donkey's bray.

These blinding flashes of light are not worth hiding. It's great to admit that you've just learned something. It can be a little embarrassing but so what. It sounds a lot worse to say that you've always known everything that everybody your age knows. It's obvious that you're both bragging and lying.

So:

Just a couple months ago I learned that there were no rooms in ancient Rome just for throwing-up called vomitoriums (vomitoria?). Buffy informed me.

I had my B.A. in English before I learned that the Norman Invasion was not just another name for the Roman Invasion.

I completed my minor in psychology, had secondary ed certification in 2 states and had taught it for 3 years before I realized that I had been flipping the roles of the ego and the superego.

About 2 years ago I realized that in Old English writing, <ea> was probably a simplification of <æa> and was pronounced with an initial [æ] not [e]. (I know! Right?)

There are more. Many more. But I think you need to admit some now.

--

Oh yes. The real gem in the episode of This American Life: the prologue suggests that people who say a lot about a topic they barely understand sound like a magazine: Modern Jackass. The magazine doesn't exist of course, but people who don't admit ignorance are in abundance.

Nancy Updike: You know my mother sends me information about um partially hydrogenated oils. And then when somebody says Wait why is partially hydrogenated oil bad again? and I say Well It's an unstable compound. Which it is. It's oil to which hydrogen has been added in order to make it solid at room temperature. That I know. That's a fact.

Ira Glass: And why would that be bad Nancy?

Nancy: Well that's where we get into Modern Jackass territory. It's unstable and your body … your … your … you know … it … there … there's an extra hydrogen atom that can interact with uh … things …

I really hope calling Modern Jackass catches on. But so help me -- if one of you puts it in the comments...

Lexical chop shop

I don't follow slang and coinages as closely as some others do, so I'm often pleasantly surprised to come across a word for the first time that has a fairly well-establish role in the lexicon.

So there's a Church of Stop Shopping out there and it's headed by the flailing and annoying Reverend Billy who says of his credentials as a minister: "Well I didn't go to the Yale divinity school...But we've got a church. And we do...perform weddings and baptisms and funerals". And like every good evangelist he's using fear to change minds and inspire souls. What is the catastrophe he warns against? Well this one is new to me: shopocalypse.

Okay so he's doing it tongue-in-cheek...I hope. You never know. It is a nice nod to the perils of consumerism that many acknowledge. But that discussion isn't so interesting to my linguistic self. The word has potential. That's somewhat interesting. Here's what else I notice.

I'd likely pronounce shop as either [ʃap] or [ʃɑp]. In the word shopocalypse the first syllable is unstressed. Vowels in unstressed syllables like to neutralize -- so instead of shop ([ʃap]) + apocalypse ([əpɑkəlɪps]) = [ʃaˈpɑkəlɪps] we get a neutralization of [a] to [ə] for [ʃəpɑkəlɪps].

And such a vowel change is predictable and expected. This might make the portmanteau sound less like shop+ocalypse and more like sh+apocalypse but the spelling (and some common sense) indicates that shop is intended.

Well I can still wonder if the [p] which has now become an onset consonant is the [p] taken from the coda of shop or if it's the [p] taken from the second syllable onset of apocalypse? I'll say it's the [p] of apocalypse only because it's aspirated.

Now the coda /p/ is certainly allowed to change and this could be simple allophonic variation. But I have this weird obsession with portmanteau balance. There's this tiny part of my brain that attaches theories of justice and equality to issues that make me seem crazy if I say too much about them. (Those of you who know my "balance and symmetry" issues might recognize this.) I don't like it when two words are combined and only one of them loses a segment.

I could write about 6 pages on what shopocalypse has going for it and against it in this regard. Phonemically there's some equality but phonetically apocalypse has an unfair advantage. The spelling favours shop because its entire bank is represented even if we grant that the [p] is 'taken' from apocalypse. It's not a great portmanteau on the 'balance' regard. A word like 'liger' (lion+tiger) is pretty good because neither word is completely present. But it's not perfect because lion loses at least 50% of it's letters--maybe 75%; and tiger loses at most 40% of its bank--as little as 20%.

Maybe I've said too much. And I can see some of you slowly backing away.

The chupacabra in all possible worlds....

Phylis Canion of Cuero Texas found this ugly little beast dead on the side of the road. She's been calling it the legendary chupacabra and she's waiting for DNA testing to prove that it's...uh...not a dog?

Is this the mythical chupacabra? It depends on what your definition of is is. Or maybe just your definition of chupacabra. If you mean an odd looking creature with protruding teeth about the size of a small dog--then sure. This is a chupacabra. If you mean a small animal that hunts chickens and is rarely seen--then maybe this is a chupacabra. If you mean the very species of animal that has actually committed rampant goaticide and chickicide and has inspired many tales of demonic blood-sucking creatures from Puerto Rico, Mexico, the U.S. and several other countries--then...well...this and coyotes and wild dogs and foxes and jaguars and panthers and some snakes and birds of prey and mischievous humans are all 'el chupacabra'. Maybe even rats.


Legends are fascinating semantically because they are defined by their Prototypical Properties and yet they are extremely flexible because they often have no well-examined extension by which to create a Typical Denotatum. Necessary Conditions are almost impossible to impose because each speaker has merely chosen which of the Necessary Conditions make up the intention. And extensions are almost always ephemeral and partial. Sightings are merely instances of faith that investigation will not reduce a collection of properties to those belonging only to the extension of another already attested intention.

So Canion really can't expect that the DNA tests will prove that her creature is a chupacabra. There is no extension of that animal or its DNA that can serve as a standard for Necessary Conditions. So far she can only hope that the DNA is not limited to the same properties that are necessary and sufficient to denote the DNA of a dog or some other animal--probably canine. But even if the DNA does limit this to a canine of some sort all is not lost. It might turn out that the chupacabra was a nasty little mutt all along. That would require that some of the previously argued conditions of the chupacabra be discarded.

Because if by chupacabra you mean this



Then no. This is not the chupacabra.

(photos by Eric Gay/AP)
(drawing from here.)

Unplanned speech events

Friday morning we headed over to the Purdue box office to buy tickets to see His Holiness the 14th Dalai Lama of Tibet when he visits to Purdue in October. After we bought our tickets a friendly WLFI (channel 18) cameraman stopped us and asked if we cared to talk to him. I suggested that Buffy would be the best on camera.

This is what you'd want to see on camera.









Not this. Am I right?



But Buffy can be timid and I'm always a fool so I agreed to speak to the camera to prove it.

If I would have made sure to relax before answering the questions I could have come up with something better than How often do you get a chance to hear something different? or why not take any opportunity to hear his message and learn from his wisdom?

What do I think he's going to tutor me? Sheesh.

I remember two of the questions I was asked.

1. Why do you want to see the Dalai Lama?
2. What is the cultural significance of this type of event?

In normal comfortable conversation this is how I would have answered those questions.

1. Jim Gaffigan was sold out so I thought I might as well.---Then I would crack up laughing and I would say---What do you think? He's the Dalai Lama. He's put more time into understanding and sharing a philosophy of charity and peace than I've been alive. It'd be arrogant of me not to try to go.

2. Cultural significance? I don't care if this is going to be a Big Event. Let's not try to predict the effect of his visit on anything but the individual. OK?

But instead I'm sure I came across like Beavis.

Let him that is without syntax...

I'm not sure how this works with blog etiquette. I've been following what Mr. Verb has been saying lately about peevologists and I've been thinking about prescriptivism more broadly lately. I left a comment on one of his posts and I realized that this is becoming my cherished issue lately. I believe deeply in what I said (notice how important that "in" is to the statement") so I'm going to include it in this post with some minor changes. I ask you to pardon me for recycling.

According to Mr. Verb peevologist was coined by The Word's Jan Freeman. It is now an emerging term for those to whom we've long given other labels. Grammar Nazis, Grammar Police, Language Mavens (who are little more than picky pundits)...These are the people who try to make you believe that your natural and comfortable and best-known spoken language is false language--broken language--lazy and stubborn and destructive. The heaviest billy-clubs are swung by army of elitists who believe they can judge you into submission.

Vee haf vays of making you talk correctly.

What label works best for these people? There are some who work to teach and convince. We'll call them English teachers. They don't often complain about usage but they point out their students' mistakes. They usually work to indoctrinate their students into a new pattern of writing. The ambitious ones look to change their students' speech.

But there are others who simply like to complain. I would argue that they like being part of an remnant that uses 'correct' language and they rarely suggest methods by which a uniform change in speech can be accomplished. They call attention to those forms that annoy them and they simply call them bad and tell us what they prefer. Sometimes they try to support their views by logic or efficiency. But they don't value instruction. They believe a word to the wise is sufficient--which of course makes all who persist 'unwise.' How convenient. They don't care how language--real language--works.

I like that peevologist captures the intention of 'these people' to dwell on their peeves and constantly talk about them.

Now I start feeling like a nag when I call attention to claims about usage that disagree with me. And when any fact is asserted that I haven't accepted I feel an odd duty to my belief to speak up. Human nature. And don't their arguments deserve as as much attention as mine?

The distinction as I see it is in the object of intended influence. I hope to share (defend?) the view of language as a system that always has been and always will be dynamic. The view. I'm not defending language because it doesn't need my puny fists. It'll take care of itself.

I know plenty of copy editors that are fully aware of their role as menders of one text at a time and who don't claim to be guardians of language. They are not peevologists. They don't feel attacked by mistakes and they don't hope to change all language into one register. They respect decorum and they trust that most users do so as well as they do.

The peevologists are looking to change something that will not change. They seek a power that is not theirs and they express frustration based on a sense of entitlement that is not only arrogant but irrational. They hope to change the rotation of the earth and live with that constant frustration, throwing stones at every sunrise and sunset.

I'm now planning the syllabus for the history of the English language course that I will be teaching this fall. My objective: convince my students to put down the rocks and enjoy the colours.

Facts of the Apostles

I was recently reading the J-h-v-h's Witnesses textbook/handbook/manifesto Reasoning From the Scriptures. It's a fascinating look at one group's rhetorical strategies. The book instructs the evangelist on techniques for broaching the subject of belief and faith with people who may fall into one or several of various categories: Those who don't believe in a god, those who believe in a different god, those who have a negative view of the J-h-v-h's Witnesses, those who are receptive, those who say they are busy, those who believe they have already dealt with and shooed the Witnesses away...

Well I've been thinking and reading about disagreements lately. I love a good verbal navigation through the eddies and tides of different opinions. And if the discussion gets heated and the volume starts to rise I'm still happy to forge on.

But why do I brace myself when religion surfaces? Several weeks ago I exchanged ideas regarding the salvation doctrine in Christianity. It was a short discussion that very quickly veered off course and ended abruptly. As I think back on it, what happened was a simple realization that our accepted facts are different.

Is it possible to continue a discussion when the accepted facts are avowedly different? I would say so - but it requires a brief window argument - an argument within an argument to clarify terms and premises - then a return to see where the views are discurrent. To abandon this strategy too early leads to the Bill O'Reilly habit of "Well - I say you're wrong so I guess we'll have to agree to disagree." It's a cop-out.

This form of retreat ignores one vital concern of any discussion - the belief of the implications of the facts. The Socratic method of trapping your opponent is brutally aware of the importance of implicative - or "thus" formulation. You get the other to agree that if X then Y. And you can best lure them in by saying "Okay - Y is not likely. You don't believe Y. But is there any way that you will accept Y? Oh - you'll accept Y if X? Well then . . ."

Anticipating this loophole the adroit arguer effectively asserts X. The other has already promised to agree. Because of the implication of a fact.

The J-h-v-h's Witnesses obviously believe there is a key implication to fact regarding the shape of the structure on which Jesus was hung to die. They believe there is a key implication of the fact that birthday celebrations are never mentioned in a positive light in the Bible.

Last week I also read The Marked Bible by Charles L Taylor. This novel-ish book claims to tell a story of a young rebel who leaves home then finds a Bible marked by his mother. And he turns back to a life of goodness.

No plot. No character development. Nothing but a set of pawnish players whose changes come about through epiphany, and the preachers who answer their questions - questions that are very obviously planted by an author with an agenda.

I'm also bothered by the assumption of what the argued facts implicate. It begins with a portrait of a young man who rejects his parents' teachings. And the young man is evil because of what he rejects. I almost have to give this author credit for making sure that the young man is really evil - he doesn't rely on mere apostacy; he stresses that the young man has become a drunkard a gambler and a criminal. I refrain from commendation because I'm tired of the post hoc ergo propter hoc argument so common in religious upbringing.

This book assumes from the very beginning several implications of facts and goes through in a very systematic way to argue and defeat challenges to the final claims about the Seventh-day Adventist religion. The greatest disservice that a book like this does is to ignore any challenges to the primary assumptions.

And here I find I'm bracing myself because of how I believe many of my acquaintances would view me if they knew my accepted facts. A friend of mine recently "came out" religiously (no jokes about being on his knees people - he just revealed some agnosticism about common and fundamental church beliefs). His coming out was received just like it is in its more usual context. Some were supportive. Some asked questions at arms distance. Some were upset and worried. I imagine their various thoughts would have sounded like this:

"Has he always been agnostic?"
"What was he thinking when we had that discussion in the locker room that one time?"
"Can I trust him now? Will his skepticism rub off on me?"
"To be honest I think we're all skeptical to a degree."
"What's important is that he knows we'll always love him."

Each of these thoughts focuses on a fear or an assurance about what can now be predicted. And for some people, more important than the entire history of the friendship is the new future they see simply because of cherished and rejected facts.