Hitler's handedness

I found this site making fun of Tea Party activists, and posted about it on the facebook. I picked the "Obama is right-handed just like Hitler; that's why I'm voting Tea Party" one as a thumbnail. People seemed not to quite get the joke, so I said something like "it's funny because Obama's a lefty", and somebody else said they thought Hitler was too, so I had to go looking. That's when I found this. It's an insightful analysis of the current political climate that uses a non-issue like handedness to illustrate the craziness of the most vocal far right. It is the same idea, but more detailed and with the other hand. But the fact remains that Obama doesn't write with the same hand Hitler did.

By the way, this post is not in the typeface I want it in, but the controls seems to have stopped working entirely. There goes my consistency.

Louis Armstrong was kind of a nerd

The New York Times on language

When I was reading the article I mentioned in my last post, I found a link in the sidebar of the New York Times website to a discussion of the way a person's language affects their world view. I forgot about it in my zeal to spread the "emerging adulthood" idea to my loyal readership (hi, you two!). It would have stayed forgotten, too, if my father hadn't reminded me of it by telling me about a radio program that dealt with the very same ideas. So you may thank my dad for your current ability to click on this link.

Also, while I was looking for that article (it wasn't as easy to find as the first time), I found a goodly number of other articles about language, mostly elucidating a gripe about modern trendy or erroneous terms or usage. On occasion, however, there is a book review that is really interesting beyond a superficial delight in pointing out the linguistic foibles of others. For example: this review of Our Magnificent Bastard Tongue makes it look like exactly the kind of book I've been yearning for. My interest in language was first sparked by an article about the history of the English language, and I've been wanting to learn more about the subject ever since. This book appears to offer "the untold history of English", which I hope means that it will tell me (when I inevitably obtain it) about those strange quirky corners of the language that have undeservedly gone unnoticed in the general excitement over Latin and Greek and Norman French. I'm pretty excited about it.