gottahavacuppamocha

I bought a French-English/English-French dictionary today. As expected, there were several to choose from. I know the Academie Français is the official arbiter of the French language (in France at least), and they make a dictionary that is probably the equivalent of the OED, but I don’t know if it has any bearing on the dictionaries I was browsing through today. The French language is spoken in several countries, not just France, and in each new location it continued evolving separately from the original. This happens to other languages as well, English being an example. From what I understand, speakers from different countries can still speak to one another, but there maybe words or references that escape various conversants.

Most dictionaries are either prescriptivist or descriptivist. Language academies, like the Academie Français recommend (prescribe) words and how they are used, so their dictionaries reflect this. Descriptivist dictionaries describe how language is actually used. If a new word (neologism) comes out and seems to have wide acceptance and staying power (not a fad), then it might be included in a descriptivist dictionary. Language is dynamic, borrowing words from other languages, coming up with new words, and giving new meanings to existing words.

While browsing through the dictionaries I came upon the idea that a dictionary isn’t complete without a few swear words, especially “fuck“. The idea is that swear words and slang words are words that people actually use, so a dictionary that tries to encompass all the words in a given language would also cover these. This is more likely to happen in a descriptivist dictionary than a prescriptivist one. “Fuck” is a versatile word with many definitions, so it stands to reason that if a dictionary is trying to be fairly complete, it would include at least one of the definitions. This also goes for multi-lingual dictionaries.

Based on my own experience, I think people who use multi-lingual dictionaries a) have a foreign word and they want to know what it means in their language, or b) have a word in their own language and they want to know what the foreign language equivalent is. Suppose someone from another country comes to the US and is reading an article. They took English language classes, so they know enough English to follow the article. They come across the word “fuck”. The language classes didn’t cover this word. They don’t know what it means. They might derive some meaning from the context, but they might not. If the person pulls out a multi-lingual dictionary, they would want it to be there so they would know what it means.

Standing in the bookstore, I came up with the idea that swear words can be an indicator of a dictionary’s quality. Dictionaries that include vulgarities can be seen as fairly comprehensive since they describe words in colloquial use. Dictionaries that do not include swear words could be seen as lacking. The appropriateness of such words in general is another debate altogether, but it’s impossible to deny they exist. If a person writes or utters a word, and their audience understands the meaning of the word, communication has taken place. That is the nature of language.

As a side note, I think it might be an interesting topic for a paper, maybe even a thesis – The inclusion of swear words as an indicator of quality in a multi-lingual dictionary.

Feeling like I was spread thin last semester, I decided that for Fall I would only take one course instead of two. The general idea is that some people consider two grad level classes to be full-time attendance.

In May I registered for Second Language Acquisition, which is a requirement on top of sounding interesting. Although I haven’t officially submitted an application for the Master’s programs yet, I did a little investigating on doctoral programs in Linguistics offered by IU in Bloomington. One of the requirements is that a potential candidate know two languages other than their native tongue, and one of them should be a Latin/Romance language. To me that means French, Spanish, Portuguese, Italian, and Latin, though their may be others. Of those, French, Spanish, and Latin are taught at IUPUI, along with some other non-Latin based languages. Today, on more-or-less of a whim, I registered for Beginning French.

When I worked in the clinic, I sometimes thought it would be nice to take Spanish – maybe even get the department to pay for it. However, since I wasn’t sure if they would actually go for it, I decided if I had to pay for any language classes, I would take something I wanted. I took Japanese in the past and have forgotten most of it. I’m still not sure why I decided on French. In this day and age in the US it makes more sense to take Spanish. Maybe I subconciously decided that Spanish has less cachet than French, since it is spoken by more people. Anyway, I’m signed up for French, so that’s what I’ll take. Maybe I’ll do a minor in it.

After I signed up, I looked online to see what the books will cost and I got some sticker shock. The required text with CD’s and workbook comes to about $150 new and $125 used. There is also a recommended CD set for $50 new and $35 used. On the upside, the materials can be used for one or two subsequent French courses.

I think it might be interesting to take a foreign laguage course at the same time I tak Second Language Acquisition. I can use SLA to gauge how I am learning French, and I can use the French class to gauge how appropriate the SLA course is.

It’s been awhile since I went and saw a movie, so I went and saw Transformers. When I was growing up, I was never one of those kids to wake up at the crack of dawn on Saturday to watch cartoons. I watched cartoons, but I wasn’t big on waking up early. The Transformers cartoons and the various sequels came around after I was getting out of watching cartoons. Not being a huge fan of them, I wasn’t sure about the movie.

At various places online, I read that some people were horrified when they heard Michael Bay was directing. He directed The Rock and Bad Boys, which were pretty good, IMHO. However, he also directed Armageddon with its over-the-top acting, and Pearl Harbor, which I didn’t see, but heard bad things about it. Considering this and considering I had no history with the cartoon series, I figured the movie would be okay, but not great. And I was right.

On the plus side, the effects are fantastic. On the down side, that’s about all there is. Michael Bay can certainly direct action movies, and the action in this movie is astounding, but the story is a little thin. Basically, the story is about a war between the Autobots (good) and the Decepticons (evil). Both sides are looks for something called the All Spark, which is an ancient cube from which all life springs. It was lost due to the war and just happend to end up on Earth. Since both sides are looking for it, the war naturally comes to Earth. While it was explained that if the Decepticons get it, they will use it to take over the universe, it didn’t mention what would happen if the Autobots got hold of it. It seems like all they want to do with it is keep it away from the bad guys.

Optimus Prime is head of the Autobots, while the Decepticons are led by Megatron. Strangely, Megatron doesn’t really make an appearance until near the end of the movie, just in time for the big finale/fight sequence. Hugo Weaving does the voice of Megatron, but you wouldn’t know it because the robot voices are so sythesized it’s hard to tell there are actors behind them.

GM must have paid a good amount of money for all the product placement, since most of the Autobots are in disguise as GM products (Optimus Prime being a Peterbilt, IIRC). Most of the Decepticons take the form of military vehicles, but one of them is a Ford Mustang police car. I thought if GM paid for all these recognizable vehicles to be GM products, why wouldn’t they have the police car be a GM product also. Then it dawned on me that it’s because it’s supposed to be a bad guy. I wouldn’t doubt if GM paid for the police car to be a Ford, so audiences would think Ford = Evil.

Overall, it was what I expected: lots of action, visually rich, minimal plot. In this movie, the plot supports the action rather than the action supporting the plot.

One thing unexpected, but generating some buzz on the Internet is one of the previews. J. J. Abrams (director of the TV show Lost) has a movie coming out in January. I didn’t see a title, but the preview has something to do with a large city, and something creates a large explosion/earthquake, then howls. I don’t know what it is, but for some reason I was wondering if they are remaking Godzilla. I guess we’ll find out later this year.