I'm tired of people saying 'that's just semantics' in disagreements as a way to lessen tension. It's basically saying 'oh, it's only a matter of what you meant by those words you said.' Semantics is all about what words mean, so clearly that's going to matter when people talk.
Semantics: a big deal, whether we admit it or not.
That'll be the title of the next book about semantics that I write.
I'll write that one right after my Sue Grafton/Isaac Asimov mashup novel I is for Robot.
Samstag, 15. Januar 2011
Montag, 10. Januar 2011
Lambda is not the same as Alpha
I often wonder how Kia cars are marketed in Greece. After all, their logo uses a Λ instead of an A. Λ is the Greek L. In my head ΚΙΛ sounds like 'kill', although it might be more like 'keel'. I don't know modern Greek.
Anyway, this happens quite a bit all over the place, though usually it doesn't make a pronounceable word. But it's always a little irritating. To me.
Anyway, this happens quite a bit all over the place, though usually it doesn't make a pronounceable word. But it's always a little irritating. To me.
Donnerstag, 30. Dezember 2010
Lay off JFK
People keep blaming John F. Kennedy for "killing" the hat in popular fashion. This is either slanderous or libelous (depending on the medium), because the hat was already in decline in the 1930s (I've seen hat sellers' publications from that decade that had suggestions for convincing people to wear hats again), so I tend to blame Cary Grant more than anybody else. He was charm itself, but didn't look that good in hats, so he didn't wear them much, thus beginning the decline of the dress hat. This opinion is, of course, no better researched than the one I'm discrediting, but at least it's believable. Cary Grant did look a little silly in hats, and there were definitely fewer hats (at least in the movies) in the 1950s already, well before J.F. Kennedy's time in the White House.
JFK definitely wore a top hat to his inauguration, too. So don't believe that ugly rumor either.
JFK definitely wore a top hat to his inauguration, too. So don't believe that ugly rumor either.
Montag, 13. Dezember 2010
"Classic" style
I'm tired of men's style blogs talking about classic style and how wonderful it is. They seem to think that because the suits they wear now might have looked normal in the 1960s, they would look normal in any decade since the modern suit came into fashion. The writers of these blogs are fooling themselves.
I believe I've written before that we're in a time of backward-looking fashion (call it retro if it makes you feel better), and that fashion has looked backward more than forward these fifty years. This doesn't mean that men's style is timeless--today's suits would look silly in any past decade except the sixties--but rather that the drivers of men's fashion have been paying more attention to their rear view mirrors than the road ahead.
These praisers of "timeless" men's style often throw in references to the quite different world of women's fashion, which they see as trend-driven and mindlessly obsessed with the latest thing, whether that thing be figure-flattering or fugly. The worst of these wander into vaguely misogynistic suppositions about the nature of women themselves considering this propensity for following the herd.
What they fail to realize is that they themselves are following the current fashion in menswear: wearing sixties-inspired suits and calling them timeless. The sixties silhouette would not have looked timeless in the seventies or the eighties or the nineties; it would have looked ten or twenty or thirty years out of fashion. The icons of classic cool (Steve McQueen, Marlon Brando, Fred Astaire, Cary Grant) were not concerned with posterity but with the moment, and the only reason they still look good now is that they were so successful at blending what was current and what looked good on them.
I believe I've written before that we're in a time of backward-looking fashion (call it retro if it makes you feel better), and that fashion has looked backward more than forward these fifty years. This doesn't mean that men's style is timeless--today's suits would look silly in any past decade except the sixties--but rather that the drivers of men's fashion have been paying more attention to their rear view mirrors than the road ahead.
These praisers of "timeless" men's style often throw in references to the quite different world of women's fashion, which they see as trend-driven and mindlessly obsessed with the latest thing, whether that thing be figure-flattering or fugly. The worst of these wander into vaguely misogynistic suppositions about the nature of women themselves considering this propensity for following the herd.
What they fail to realize is that they themselves are following the current fashion in menswear: wearing sixties-inspired suits and calling them timeless. The sixties silhouette would not have looked timeless in the seventies or the eighties or the nineties; it would have looked ten or twenty or thirty years out of fashion. The icons of classic cool (Steve McQueen, Marlon Brando, Fred Astaire, Cary Grant) were not concerned with posterity but with the moment, and the only reason they still look good now is that they were so successful at blending what was current and what looked good on them.
Mittwoch, 1. Dezember 2010
Name games
I'm tired of my name. My last name is good and I like it. Sometimes I wish it were still spelled with the extra n the way it was before my ancestors came to America, but it really is a noble name.
No, my problem is with my first name. Most places on the internet, I spell it "Dschonn" in an effort to make it unusual, but it's really just my real name, John, filtered through German phonetic orthography. John is not a bad name in and of itself, and I know its complex history, but it's such a very common name and its meaning does nothing to tell me who I should be, since so many diverse people have borne it. It comes ultimately from a Hebrew name, commonly transliterated Yehochanan, which means something like "Yahweh having given graciously" or "Yahweh's gracious gift". This was shortened to Yochanan (it was against the rules to say Yahweh's name, and so I suppose eventually people realized that making it part of a name given to a person might cause it to be spoken at some point), then transliterated into Greek as Ἰωάννης, whence Latin derived Iohannes (My theory is that the Greek name still had an h sound in there, although they couldn't write it because of their alphabet's lack of a letter for that sound, but Latin did have such a letter and they used it. This is based on almost no evidence at all.). This then was spread to the Germanic tongues, who eventually spelled the name with a J, and after a number of generations shortened further in English to John, most likely because of the influence from the Norman French form Jean. The fact that it doesn't start with that y sound anymore is probably also the fault of those crazy Normans.
John has been the name of many, many people. King John signed the Magna Carta (this document was a big deal for England because it gave power to the nobility that had previously been concentrated in the office of the King), but was otherwise such a bastard that since his time nobody who has had the slightest chance of becoming the king of England has been named John (as I recall he only signed it under duress and this duress was necessary because he'd been abusing his power like nobody's business as well as spending too much time trying to catch Robin Hood when anyone could see that Mr Hood was actually the good guy). John Lennon was a musician in a little band called The Beatles. He wrote and co-wrote some pretty catchy tunes. John Smith was an explorer who went to America looking for a way to India and found Pocahontas instead, and if we can believe the movie he looked quite a bit like Colin Farrell. Johnny Depp is an actor with incredible cheekbones and an enviable ability to attract people rather than repel them with his extreme eccentricity. The list goes on.
So I've been considering changing it. I could simply go by Jack (this came from John + -kin, a diminutive suffix, and it evolved through Jankin and Jackin to become Jack), which would be fairly easy to explain, or I could make up a completely different and preferably unique nickname and pretend to new acquaintances that it's what people call me, and hope that the nickname sticks. The problem with this second plan is that such a name is really best given by someone else rather than chosen for oneself, since it should indicate who I am to others rather than who I want to believe I am.
I have played around with Germanic roots to see if I can come up with something with the same etymological meaning as John, but so far I've had no luck. I mean I can put roots together, but I haven't made anything that sounds like anything I'd want to be called.
Anyway, I am pretty sure that the reason I've spent so much time thinking about this is that my situation is so uncertain. I'm unsure about most everything to do with my life, and somewhere in my mind I believe that having a truly unique name will tell me who I am supposed to be. The rest of me tends to doubt that it would work that way, but alternative ideas are in short supply.
No, my problem is with my first name. Most places on the internet, I spell it "Dschonn" in an effort to make it unusual, but it's really just my real name, John, filtered through German phonetic orthography. John is not a bad name in and of itself, and I know its complex history, but it's such a very common name and its meaning does nothing to tell me who I should be, since so many diverse people have borne it. It comes ultimately from a Hebrew name, commonly transliterated Yehochanan, which means something like "Yahweh having given graciously" or "Yahweh's gracious gift". This was shortened to Yochanan (it was against the rules to say Yahweh's name, and so I suppose eventually people realized that making it part of a name given to a person might cause it to be spoken at some point), then transliterated into Greek as Ἰωάννης, whence Latin derived Iohannes (My theory is that the Greek name still had an h sound in there, although they couldn't write it because of their alphabet's lack of a letter for that sound, but Latin did have such a letter and they used it. This is based on almost no evidence at all.). This then was spread to the Germanic tongues, who eventually spelled the name with a J, and after a number of generations shortened further in English to John, most likely because of the influence from the Norman French form Jean. The fact that it doesn't start with that y sound anymore is probably also the fault of those crazy Normans.
John has been the name of many, many people. King John signed the Magna Carta (this document was a big deal for England because it gave power to the nobility that had previously been concentrated in the office of the King), but was otherwise such a bastard that since his time nobody who has had the slightest chance of becoming the king of England has been named John (as I recall he only signed it under duress and this duress was necessary because he'd been abusing his power like nobody's business as well as spending too much time trying to catch Robin Hood when anyone could see that Mr Hood was actually the good guy). John Lennon was a musician in a little band called The Beatles. He wrote and co-wrote some pretty catchy tunes. John Smith was an explorer who went to America looking for a way to India and found Pocahontas instead, and if we can believe the movie he looked quite a bit like Colin Farrell. Johnny Depp is an actor with incredible cheekbones and an enviable ability to attract people rather than repel them with his extreme eccentricity. The list goes on.
So I've been considering changing it. I could simply go by Jack (this came from John + -kin, a diminutive suffix, and it evolved through Jankin and Jackin to become Jack), which would be fairly easy to explain, or I could make up a completely different and preferably unique nickname and pretend to new acquaintances that it's what people call me, and hope that the nickname sticks. The problem with this second plan is that such a name is really best given by someone else rather than chosen for oneself, since it should indicate who I am to others rather than who I want to believe I am.
I have played around with Germanic roots to see if I can come up with something with the same etymological meaning as John, but so far I've had no luck. I mean I can put roots together, but I haven't made anything that sounds like anything I'd want to be called.
Anyway, I am pretty sure that the reason I've spent so much time thinking about this is that my situation is so uncertain. I'm unsure about most everything to do with my life, and somewhere in my mind I believe that having a truly unique name will tell me who I am supposed to be. The rest of me tends to doubt that it would work that way, but alternative ideas are in short supply.
Mittwoch, 17. November 2010
G.K. Chesterton on perception
I found a page of G.K. Chesterton quotations on the internet while looking for a George Bernard Shaw quotation, and they all seemed quite pithy, but I was struck by one because it seems to describe one way in which I differ from most people in my life.
"An adventure is only an inconvenience rightly considered. An inconvenience is only an adventure wrongly considered."
Sometimes I feel like I'd have a lot more adventures if the people around me didn't insist on considering them inconveniences.
"An adventure is only an inconvenience rightly considered. An inconvenience is only an adventure wrongly considered."
Sometimes I feel like I'd have a lot more adventures if the people around me didn't insist on considering them inconveniences.
Dienstag, 2. November 2010
Vintage overload
I have decided that the vintage fad has to stop. That may sound odd coming from one who routinely wears clothing hundreds of years out of style, but I stand by my declaration.
Blogs like Permanent Style and A Suitable Wardrobe often post fashion plates from the 30s, 40s and 50s as inspiration for correct modern business dress. This, to me, is ridiculous. In 1910, any man caught wearing even twenty-year-old fashions would have been laughed at, and yet now it is the height of cool to wear a suit that looks like it could have been made half a century ago. The kicker for me is that the 1960s was itself a retro-styled decade. They called it Neo-Edwardian, because the fashionable silhouettes were borrowed from the Edwardian era fifty years or so before. Which means that when I make and wear a jacket based on late Victorian/early Edwardian (i.e. hundred-year-old) style, nobody really gives it a second glance. Fashion in the fourteenth century had more innovation.
Now, I like old stuff. I make some of my own clothes, and I draw inspiration almost exclusively from the distant past or from fantasy films (which are also inspired by the past, but in a way that's different from retro fashion). I like learning about old languages that nobody speaks anymore. I like having the kind of facial hair not seen in public office or the financial sector for over a century. I have been told that I was born anywhere from a few decades to a few centuries too late. BUT. I like these things for their novelty. My homemade clothing is based on costume. I don't really want those times to come back; I just like the look of parts of them. And I certainly never wanted all the cool people to be wearing what I want to wear.
I sound even to myself like a whiny hipster complaining about mainstream society ruining what was once cool (see my previous post for my views on hipsterdom), but the real root of my problem with this whole thing occurred to me on Halloween: if all I wear is costume-type stuff, then whenever I want to wear a costume, it feels no different from wearing my normal clothes. I have always loved Halloween because it allowed me to dress up like and pretend to be someone I'm not. I've always been slightly uncomfortable in my own skin, and so being someone else for a day was incredibly exciting. Now, though, despite having all this crazy stuff to wear, it's not exciting because I wear it all the time. So it turns out that I have ruined Halloween for myself.
When I started sewing, I never intended to wear what I made day-to-day; I intended it to be costume. I'm not saying I won't keep dressing oddly; I'm a hipster and a nerd and that works for me. I just don't believe the cool people should like the same strange and esoteric things I do. Fifty years of retrospective fashion is long enough. It's time for a change.
Blogs like Permanent Style and A Suitable Wardrobe often post fashion plates from the 30s, 40s and 50s as inspiration for correct modern business dress. This, to me, is ridiculous. In 1910, any man caught wearing even twenty-year-old fashions would have been laughed at, and yet now it is the height of cool to wear a suit that looks like it could have been made half a century ago. The kicker for me is that the 1960s was itself a retro-styled decade. They called it Neo-Edwardian, because the fashionable silhouettes were borrowed from the Edwardian era fifty years or so before. Which means that when I make and wear a jacket based on late Victorian/early Edwardian (i.e. hundred-year-old) style, nobody really gives it a second glance. Fashion in the fourteenth century had more innovation.
Now, I like old stuff. I make some of my own clothes, and I draw inspiration almost exclusively from the distant past or from fantasy films (which are also inspired by the past, but in a way that's different from retro fashion). I like learning about old languages that nobody speaks anymore. I like having the kind of facial hair not seen in public office or the financial sector for over a century. I have been told that I was born anywhere from a few decades to a few centuries too late. BUT. I like these things for their novelty. My homemade clothing is based on costume. I don't really want those times to come back; I just like the look of parts of them. And I certainly never wanted all the cool people to be wearing what I want to wear.
I sound even to myself like a whiny hipster complaining about mainstream society ruining what was once cool (see my previous post for my views on hipsterdom), but the real root of my problem with this whole thing occurred to me on Halloween: if all I wear is costume-type stuff, then whenever I want to wear a costume, it feels no different from wearing my normal clothes. I have always loved Halloween because it allowed me to dress up like and pretend to be someone I'm not. I've always been slightly uncomfortable in my own skin, and so being someone else for a day was incredibly exciting. Now, though, despite having all this crazy stuff to wear, it's not exciting because I wear it all the time. So it turns out that I have ruined Halloween for myself.
When I started sewing, I never intended to wear what I made day-to-day; I intended it to be costume. I'm not saying I won't keep dressing oddly; I'm a hipster and a nerd and that works for me. I just don't believe the cool people should like the same strange and esoteric things I do. Fifty years of retrospective fashion is long enough. It's time for a change.
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