U2
December 12, 2009 § Leave a comment
I just want to say apropos of nothing, that I am completely blown away that U2 would spend $3 million to build themselves a temporary outdoor stadium at the recently disused Hippodrome-de-Montréal. More than that, that they would offer tickets for as low as 30$. And even more than that, that this temporary stadium will seat up to 80,000 people and that U2 sold out two shows on 16-17 July 2010 in next to no time (and no, I don’t have tickets). As the Irish say in such moments, Jay-sus! Up to 160,000 people for two nights to see U2.
One of my students last week tried to argue that U2 were a spent force as a rock band. Apparently, dude was wrong.
I wish I could tie this to some commentary on the strength of the Irish diaspora in Montréal, or something like that. But sometimes, well, a cigar is just a cigar. So, instead, I present you with this video, tying U2’s classic “Sunday Bloody Sunday” back to its original meaning, Bloody Sunday on the Bogside in Derry, Northern Ireland, on 30 January 1972.
On Language
December 3, 2009 § Leave a comment
Russell Smith has an interesting column in today’s Globe & Mail about mistakes in the English language, when the wrong word is used, and the resulting innovation in language. He makes a convincing argument, I must say. And it’s a funny read, too. Essentially, he argues that malapropisms can lead to new meanings, and, in some cases, welcome meanings. For example, he presents us with some examples:
How many times, for example, have you heard someone say that she was “on tenderhooks”? She means tenterhooks, of course – the hooks on the tenter, the device that stretches canvas. Such a stretching would make one anxious and eager for the feeling to end. But there is another, perhaps even more painful image that comes from “tender hooks” – the juxtaposition of the sharp hook and something tender, such as flesh. This is a particularly poetic image because it is the hook itself that is tender: This is the kind of impossible metaphor that surrealist poetry is built on.
Or:
Similarly, when I read that someone’s hair is “tussled,” I can never be really sure whether it’s a simple misspelling of tousled (rumpled) or a clever play on to tussle or fight – a coiffure that’s been roughed up, you might say. When people say they want to “curve their appetite” I know they mean curb, but an interesting idea comes up: the appetite as line to be bent into the desired direction. I also like the overlay of meaning in “boast your confidence.” It comes from boost, of course, or possibly even bolster, but the new connotation of vanity amps up the phrase a little.
He then talks about “eggcorns”, when we use words incorrectly. An eggcorn is apparently a more creative malapropism. Like, for example, Cold Slaw, instead of coleslaw. Or Jade Goody’s famous declaration that she didn’t want to be an “escape goat.” And so on.
Balderdash. Whatever. Smith clearly has not spent a lot of time marking undergraduate papers.
I see malapropisms and eggcorns and I kind of worry. For example, my students oftentimes write that they “should of” done something, rather than “should have.” Or they use “than” instead of “then.” They don’t know the difference between “they’re”, “there”, and “their.” Or “where” and “were.” This kind of thing worries me. Call me old fashioned, call me fussy, whatever. I believe literacy matters. And I get concerned when I come across the sorts of malapropisms I come across marking the average paper.
Language works because it is a universal coding system used by speakers of that language. English-speakers, for example, have a general, universal, understanding of what words mean. We see words and we understand their meaning, we then decode them in order to understand what we are reading or hearing (or speaking or writing). There are times when abbreviations are necessary, such as txting or when we leave short notes for spouses, partners, lovers, roommates, and so on. But these usually accord to a universally-agreed upon system as well. These universally-agreed upon codes are central to communication, of communicating ideas to one another. If we cannot communicate, well, the downside to that is rather obvious, I would say.
And so, when my students display a fundamental misunderstanding of the language they speak, it concerns me. Especially when they are 19 or 20 years old. I read too many sentences like this one: “He than thinked of another solution.” Or “He as did a new program.” These are real sentences I read today in marking a stack of papers. The first one, of course, was trying to say “He then thought of another solution.” The second, harder to decode, meant, “He created a new programme.”
Certainly, it is my job to help students learn these basic facts of communication, but I don’t think that CÉGEP is where they should be learning this. These are basic laws and facts of the English language I understood long before I finished high school. Raising a generation of people who are not fully fluent in their native language is a terrifying thought. Especially when you think about all of the fights and arguments we get into over the course of our lives due to a miscommunication, a word used incorrectly, or heard incorrectly.
On the Mark
November 17, 2009 § Leave a comment
I’m not entirely sure where this site comes from, but The Mark is a new current events/news site heavy on the analysis, and staffed, it seems, by a group of scruffy urban hipsters. All power to them. This site is worth a read and following in the future.
At any rate, there is a section on The Mark that looks at the future of the city in the 21st century. It has become pretty much commonplace to refer to the 21st century as the urban century; the world’s population recently passed the tipping point and we are a predominately urban species now. Of course, in the industrialised west, this mark was reached in the 20th century. Canada, incidentally, was one of the first predominately urban nations in the world. The Mark’s section on the future of the city is hosted by former Vancouver Mayor, and Premier of British Columbia, Mike Harcourt, and has brought together a pretty impressive array of news and analysis on Canada’s cities, as well as analysis on our collective future. Worth checking out.
Bring on the Brand New Renaissance
November 17, 2009 § Leave a comment
For Canadian males of a certain vintage, being a fan of the Tragically Hip is compulsory for maintaining citizenship. It’s true, we can get deported for denouncing the Hip. At the very least, you can get mocked, made fun of, and ostracised for suggesting they’re not all they’re cracked up to be. Even a relatively innocuous statement like noting they’ve kinda fallen off in recent years can get you in trouble, as I learned a decade ago in Ottawa. But once, back in the 1990s, the Hip were it. They defined Canada, beyond hockey, beer, and healthcare. And they had a song called “Three Pistols,” ostensibly about the disappearance of iconic Canadian painter Tom Thomson in Algonquin Park in Ontario in 1917.
There is a line in that song about bringing on the brand new Renaissance, and this is what I thought about when I read an article in the The Times yesterday about all the money flowing out of Middle Eastern nations into sport, in particular, European sport. Brazil and England played a football friendly in Qatar this week (won, not surprisingly, by Brazil, 1-0). Manchester City FC is owned by Sheikh Mansour bin Zayed Al Nahyan of Abu Dhabi. A Middle Eastern consortium is also sniffing around Liverpool FC, which is buried under massive debt brought on by the club’s current American owners. And, as The Times points out, the Middle East is host to not one, but two Grand Prix races. Britain is in danger of losing its F1 race, and Canada actually did lose its last year, though it’s apparently returning to Montréal this coming year.
Bahrain, Abu Dhabi, Qatar, United Arab Emirates, and other small, wealthy Middle Eastern nations, no larger than an Italian city-state during the Renaissance, really, have sought to diversify their economies away from an over-reliance on oil money, and sport has become their ticket to diversification. All fine and good, no doubt (though there are all kinds of environmental issues involved in the over-development of these city-nations).
But what I find interesting about these Middle Eastern cities appealing to the Wayne Rooneys, Kakas, Tiger Woods, Robinhos, Lewis Hamiltons of the world is that it is entirely reminiscent, culturally-speaking, to the Italian Renaissance. In 15th and 16th century, cities like Florence (under the rule of the Medici), Genoa, Venice, and Milano, competed with each other, inviting famous artists and writers to take up residence. The artists would then be subsidised by the rulers, and charged with producing great art, including and especially public art, to be displayed on the public square, or in the church. Other installations and works of art were for the private collections of the likes of the Medici. But then these cities could use their great art, and the reputations of their artists-in-residence as a means of claiming greater prestige than their neighbours and rivals. This competition between Italian city-states drove the Italian Renaissance, which itself drove the Renaissance northwards and across Europe in the 15th and 16th centuries.
In the Middle East, rather than Leonardo, it’s Robinho called in. Sporting evens in the Middle East not only bring in scads of cash for the local economy, they bring in prestige. The F1 series is the most prestigious racing circuit in the world. And it stops in the Middle East twice, in Abu Dhabi and Bahrain. Drawing the greatest football team in the world (Brazil) to play a friendly against the resurgent English side also brings prestige, as does having Tiger Woods design a golf course, as he has done in Dubai.
Qatar is pondering a run at hosting the World Cup in 2022, whilst Dubai is measuring a bid for the 2020 Summer Olympics. Not surprisingly, these are the world’s two largest sporting events, and come not only with economic stimulus for the local economy, but prestige and honour as well.
The Times article rather overlooks the prestige factor here, focussed as it is only on the financial aspects of these sporting events. That is only part of it. The buying power of these Middle Eastern city/nations is only worth so much, the prestige and honour of hosting F1 races, international football friendlies, the World Cup, the Olympics is not to be overlooked, nor is the tourism money. People want to go to Dubai to play on Tiger Woods’ golf course.
[Cross-posted, in slightly different format, at Current Intelligence].
Matthew Barlow 