Month: November 2016

A2A by Z-Kat. Marc Ettlinger’s is the definitive answer:

Marc Ettlinger’s answer to Why do people use “Nope” even though “No” is easier to say and shorter to spell?

—but I was a research assistant for a guy who worked on labiovelars, and I’ve mentioned it here. (No doubt Z-Kat saw the comment.)

So supplemental to what Marc said:

A glottal stop is easily confusable with p, t, or k. But in the case of no, the confusion is going to be even more pronounced.

/w/ is a labiovelar glide. That means that the breathing passage is constricted in two places: at the lips, and at the velum (back of the tongue).

A glottal stop constricts—in fact, it blocks outright—even further back in the oral cavity than the velum.

What happens when you say a very abrupt “no!” ? You get a /w/, followed by a glottal stop: [nowʔ].

Now, what happens if you either produce or hear the /w/ and the /ʔ/ as the one sound?

The labiovelar glide turns into a Voiced labial–velar stop : [ɡ͡b] . The combination is pretty common in West Africa; e.g. Laurent Gbagbo (this one’s for you, Habib Fanny). The combination also turns up as an allophone in Vietnamese, for final -uk. My Vietnamese colleague was rather puzzled at my boss getting her to keep saying the Vietnamese word for bee, or whatever it was.

The labiovelar stop is not a common feature of English. So people may hear or pronounce [nowʔ] as [nowɡ͡b], or [nowk͡p]; but they can only make sense of it within English as [nowp].

Hence nope. And then, by analogy with nope, yep, and more recently welp.

An A2A on subject matter I have no personal experience of, from Mary Gignilliat.

This is going to be another one of those “only because you A2A’d me and I like you” questions. If you keep them coming though, I’m going to have to start calling you Mezza.

(Mezza is, believe it or not, the Australian slang form of Mary. We’re a weird mob.)

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The answer is not going to break new ground over what everyone else has said; it’s a synthesis. I’m going to take the same approach to it I take to other questions I have no personal experience of, like say Will the Norn language see a successful revival in Orkney and Shetland? I’ll try to work from first principles.

Why do heterosexual men express interest in anal sex?

Is it because of increased access to porn due to the internet? Is it a dominance thing? Is it a latent homosexual issue? Fetish? Is it a bucket list item? Is it the position?

• For some men and women, the fact that it is pleasurable is in itself enough. It is, to be blunt, an accessible orifice, and one that is amenable to sexual stimulation. For other people, it is too painful, or too gross.
• But the pleasure or lack of it is not the only principle at play. If it was, then porn, dominance, latent homosexuality, fetish, bucket list, and for that matter grossness—they would all be irrelevant, if the only consideration were up to nerve endings and pain vs pleasure. Obviously there are cultural considerations at play. Obviously there is a cultural semiotics of anal sex.
• One consideration: it’s non-procreative penetration. Its use in cultures as a non-procreative alternative for heterosexuals is longstanding. That means that its availability as an option is culturally long-standing.
• There are taboos around anal sex. One reason for it is the propinquity of excretion, which would have led to both concerns about hygiene (a concern readily mitigated, I am informed), and more diffuse cultural barriers.
• Let’s recall the second reason for the taboo, though, which is probably more pervasive. Sodomy was enjoined against in many societies, and the enjoinder had legal effect in some states of the US up until Lawrence v. Texas. Recall that sodomy includes not just anal sex, but oral sex. The taboo was precisely the fact that both are non-procreative.
• Many people are attracted to taboo activity around sexuality. The word for that is kink. Of the sundry flavours of kink, anal sex is presumably one of the more benign. Hence the not actually apocryphal at all “Where’s the most exotic place you’ve had sex?—That’d be in the butt, Bob”: ‘Up the Butt, Bob’
• The position and pain threshold may well have associations with dominance. I don’t know enough to pass opinion on that. I’m less convinced there’s been porousness from homosexual anal sex as a practice; the pervasiveness of homophobia in Western society seems to me an argument against.
• As to porn: it’s as much effect as cause; I’d argue it’s even more. Yes, porn has raised awareness of all sorts of kink in the general community; but I hardly think anal sex was in the same category as, say, bukkake, as an activity that has propagated primarily via porn. There was a lot of anal sex around pre-porn. Especially in traditional societies, as non-procreative sex.
• It is true, as Jeremy Markeith Thompson has noted, that anal sex is a focus of porn and is glamourised. But that’s part and parcel of the taboo nature of anal sex; and porn trades on kink. At any rate, kink in porn is subject to acute inflation. Yes, bulletin boards can excitedly comment about starlet X’s first anal scene. But then it’s her first threesome. Or interracial. Or bukkake. Or BDSM. Or whatever they come up with next.

OK, here endeth the lesson.

Here’s one.

Chie Hama. She was doing an MA in my linguistics department, under A/Prof Janet Fletcher. I’ve googled Chie; she’s now tutoring down the road at RMIT, but RMIT doesn’t give its casual tutors much of a web presence.

Chie Hama came to Australia from Japan. Chie swore to us blind that she did not really learn English in Japan. Having read about how the official teaching of English works in Japan, I’m not surprised.

Chie was adamant that she learned English in Australia. She had completely fluency, but I totally believe her.

Because she spoke English with every little quirk of inflection and mannerism of A/Prof Janet Fletcher.

“Yaaaaah… so we’re to test the…. okaaaaaaay? Yaaaaah.”

It was like listening to a recording.

Gender dysphoria.

Next!

Modern Greek.

“What” (τι) questions will have σκατά “shit” inserted after it: τι κοιτάζεις “what are you looking at” > τι σκατά κοιτάζεις “what shit are you looking at”.

The more generic intensifiers are στο διάολο “to the devil”, for interrogative sentences, or ρε γαμώτο “for fuck’s sake; literally hey, I fuck it”, for other sentences.

Τι κοιτάζεις > τι στο διάολο κοιτάζεις “what the hell are you looking at?

Πότε στο διάολο θα έρθει “when the hell will he get here?”

Κοιμήσου ρε γαμώτο “Sleep, for fuck’s sake”.

Ρε γαμώτο, νόστιμο είναι το φαΐ “Fuck, that food is tasty”

Γαμώτο has the historical linguistic distinction of being an ossified piece of mediaeval Greek, in which the “it” follows rather than precedes the verb (γαμώ το); in Modern greek, “I fuck it” would be το γαμώ. Because it is an ossified piece of mediaeval Greek,

• people treat it as an exclamation: Voula Patoulidou, Olympic gold medalist at the 100m hurdles, exclaimed Για την Ελλάδα ρε γαμώτο θα τρέξω, και για κανέναν άλλο! “I’m running for fucking Greece, and nobody else!” And her patriotism was widely held to excuse her profanity. Για την Ελλάδα ρε γαμώτο “For fucking Greece” was a catchphrase for several years afterwards.
• people also treat it as a noun: the expression το γαμώτο της υπόθεσης “the ‘fuck it!’ of the issue is…” corresponds to “the catch is…, the rub is…”: it’s the part of an issue that makes you exclaim “for fuck’s sake!”

This is an answer that a Ukrainian friend of mine came up with for Australia; it applies just fine to this scenario too.

Actually, what the hell: I’ll link to her since she has a Wikipedia entry: Maria Tumarkin.

No, Maria’s Ukrainian Jewish ancestors were not directly involved in the genociding, literal and cultural, of Australian Aboriginals. Just like my Greek Orthodox ancestors weren’t.

But she, and I, are beneficiaries of it. And we should acknowledge it.

And (to add my own 0.02 AUD): guilt is not the point. The point is not to contribute to making it even worse.

Interesting question. I’m going to go a little meta on this.

Disclaimer before I do. I had kept it anonymous, but what the hell. Yes, I have donated.

The divine Lady X has put up this question (hey Mary!). The question is risky: it involves a named Quoran, it can potentially be construed as insincere by moderation, and it can invite adverse ad hominem comment. I think the question is fine: the discourse has been quite civil so far, and people with dissenting views have not been shouted down, but heard out.

I’m interested in the question of why I chose to donate. A little self-indulgent of me to do so, perhaps, but Lady X asked, the question is the community’s now, and I get to give an answer.

Posting a fundraising request on Quora is a very risky thing to do. Jordan Yates, bless her, has shown awareness of this, and has been careful about how she’s positioned the fundraiser. Not everyone I know is OK with it (including people I respect), and that’s to be expected. I think the argument against it is unfair, but I’m not interested in changing the minds of people who think so; and, I suspect deep down, neither does Jordan.

I like Jordan. I don’t know Jordan as well as I do a lot of people on Quora. I have close friends here, and she’s not one of them. She has close friends here, and I’m not one of them. But I like to think I’m one of those people she recognises and smiles good morning to as she logs on in the morning, just as I do when I see her. If not, well, whatevs. She doesn’t have to upvote my cartoon of her. 🙂

(You know about the cartoon, right? I love youse women? The one where she looks nothing like she actually looks?)

Are there worthier causes than Jordan? On the actuarial scales of human misery, sure, Jordan isn’t in Raqqa. Or, for that matter, Jordan. I give my obol to Medecins Sans Frontiers; but yes, I could give more to more “deserving” folks.

Nor did I donate to invest in the future of American education. Not my country. There’s severe teacher attrition in Australia; I don’t know if it’s the same in America; but in case it is, I don’t want Jordan feeling beholden to a bunch of us if things don’t work out, and she has to go to plan B. I’m on plan C or D by now in my life, and having to switch plans feels awful enough already.

Ultimately? Jordan’s part of my community. She adds some value to my life. I have a distant but true respect for her, and how she grapples with things in her charming, dorky way. It has so pleased me to send a tip her way. Because she needs it, and because I like her voice, and because I trust that she will exercise the best judgement she can.

And at the end of the day, because it has so pleased me.

Quora has a mechanism for auto-asking questions like that. Question patterns by Jay Wacker on The Quora Blog ; Quora Question Patterns blog.

We are assured by Quora that any such auto-asked questions out of Quora will indicate a Quora Bot as their author; e.g. Quora University Question Author.

If you don’t see a Quora bot as the author, as you’ve pointed out, then they are regarded as spam by the community.

A welcome question, Clark. Quora Inc does not have an opinion. The Quora community does. Actually, it has several. The question Is there a considered etiquette on Quora as to whether you ask questions anonymously or not? is a free-for-all.

I like this as a list of what topics make sense to ask about anonymously:

Tom Musgrove’s answer to Why does Quora allow anonymous questions?

If you’re asking a question anonymously about, I dunno, chord progressions in Liszt, you will get people annoyed about you being anonymous. (Some people do that because they don’t want to admit eponymously to ignorance. I don’t get that, but that’s me.)

If you’re asking a question anonymously about why you’re being mistreated by Quora moderation, so noone has any way of checking what the hell happened, you will get pitchforks.

If you’re asking about things that could compromise your safety or your privacy, you will get a sympathetic ear from the critical mass of Quorans who are not assholes.

A2A Habib le toubib qui demande les questions difficiles.

I’m in a kind of strange place with Quora lately; I’m going to talk about it in another queued up A2A. As part of that, I’m going to be talking more personal stuff; and I’m going to resent myself for not talking enough sciencey stuff. Anyone with questions with the words Greek or linguistics in them, please A2A them to alleviate my guilt.

Mistakes? I’m going to skirt close to McKayla’s answer on this one. I wouldn’t redo them, because here I am. I’m not really happy about where I am, but they were all difficult situations that I could only make the best choice I was equipped to at the time, knowing that I’d have regrets either way.

I can second guess my past self about them, but I choose not to. I’m hard enough on myself already. A Hungarian saying I picked up via Esperanto has stuck with me, from the time of the first set of choices: bedaŭroj estas hundaj pensoj. Regrets are a dog’s thoughts.

(No, it doesn’t make sense in Esperanto either. It just means regrets are pointless.)

Or as Cavafy put it: C.P. Cavafy – Poems – The Canon

For some people the day comes
when they have to declare the great Yes
or the great No. It’s clear at once who has the Yes
ready within him; and saying it,

he goes forward in honor and self-assurance.
He who refuses does not repent. Asked again,
he would still say no. Yet that no—the right no—
undermines him all his life.

1. Asking my parents for permission for things, way past puberty.

I was sheltered. My parents felt under siege in a strange land with strange mores. I was a good kid, and I didn’t want to disappoint them. I was brought up in filial piety; I smarted at it and kicked back at it plenty, and I’ve had twenty years of extended (though rather sedate) teenage rebellion to compensate for it. My mistake wasn’t getting my rebellion done, when it could have done the most good for my personal development.

Asking if I could go to Madagascar for the World Esperanto Youth Congress: no, you’re fifteen, what nonsense is this. Asking if I could be a composer when I grew up: no, we’ve seen films, they all died paupers. Asking if I could date at 15: no, you have your studies to attend to.

I don’t blame them: they were doing the best they knew how to in a strange land with strange mores. I don’t blame them for wanting to pass on their mores, and I don’t blame them for looking out for my interests the way they knew best. I don’t blame me for acceding; I didn’t see a real alternative. Not the way I understood the world.

But yeah, it stunted me. Lastingly, I guess. Yeah, it was a mistake.

2. Not following all the way through with academia.

I sleepwalked through my undergrad in engineering, spent at least a year on Internet Relay Chat (yes, I am that old), and then stumbled on linguistics. There weren’t enough movies out about linguists, let alone them dying paupers; so I didn’t get critical mass of objections about enrolling. I finally had something that gave my life purpose. I finally had something I could invest in and dedicate myself to. I finally had a community around me; in fact, I finally had friends. I also finally ran off to join the circus.

I got the PhD, and then I got the heartbreak.

I’ve posted about some of the heartbreak at What is your personal experience with obtaining a linguistics degree? The mistake was, I loved linguistics, but I made the choice not to continue it as a profession.

Was it a mistake? Well, not really. I saw people being strung along as Teaching Assistants for decades. I saw that my earlier mistake, studying what I cared about rather than what was fashionable, guaranteed I was unemployable. (Yet that was no mistake either: I wasn’t going to give up four years of my life to follow some other bastard’s passion.) I saw that the academics all around me were miserable, treating research as drudgery, had no life and little passion, and were looking for a way to get out.

And, perhaps most critically, I wasn’t prepared to leave Australia and spend the rest of my life hunting for the next tenure-track gig, like some modern day wandering minstrel. I knew myself—not just what I’d been brainwashed to be: what I actually was. I needed to lay down roots. I needed a sense of place.

That broke my heart. That delayed me entering into something like a career by a decade, and it took maybe another decade for me to make peace with it. (By which time half the peers that stuck with it either got out or were kicked out.)

That Cavafy poem? He titled it Che fece… il gran rifiuto.

He left out two critical words in the Dante verse he was quoting. Che fece per viltade il gran rifiuto. He who made the grand refusal—through cowardice.

Was I a coward? Yeah. But I was also being me.

3. Standing on principle, and losing everything.

I have not really spoken publicly on this much yet, out of a vanishing hope it might yet be reversed. It doesn’t look like it, but I’ll still be a little cryptic. Those who know me know exactly what I’m talking about.

I did the grand refusal, but I kept going on the side with something related, that maintained a sense of mission for me. It made me a world expert, though few knew about it, because of the circumstances. It gave me a body of work to take pride in. It gave me meaning.

But it was work for hire, and work for hire is always at the discretion of the hirer.

After close to two decades, I was unhired a few months ago. I relinquished the body of work, and my body of work is now being unravelled, strand by meticulous strand.

I was unhired, so far as I can tell, because I stood up for myself for a change, and wasn’t a coward, and produced charts and worksheets to defend myself. And escalated my complaint as far as I could. Which never is that far.

Was it a mistake to not be a coward? Yes. There’s a gaping hole there, 17 years’ worth scooped out of my chest. I’ve been malingering here on Quora to make up for it, but that’s not how you make up for it.

And yet again, no, it wasn’t a mistake. I made, again, an impossible choice, and made the best choice I could. I chose 14 years ago that I’d rather have my heart smashed into pieces, than be someone’s bitch. I chose this year that I’d rather have my heart hollowed out, than be falsely terrorised.

But spare your slaps on the back, guys. No, I don’t feel happy about it. That poet from Alexandria was right, even if he messed around with Dante to say it.

Yet that no—the right no—
undermines him all his life.