The 2008 Global Gender Gap Report Is Here! (repeat 2X)

The World Economic Forum has released its annual ranking of gender gaps worldwide. Among other things, it looks at how well countries divide resources and opportunities between men and women.

Its top 20 pioneers:
The United States comes in at #27. That's up four spots from last year, but still below bellwether countries like Sri Lanka and Lesotho!

There are no countries where women rate as high or higher than men with regard to factors like professional opportunities, education, health care, and political/economic decision-making.

Wow.

Rudy Is Not Every Day a Shooter

Rudy Fernandez is Spanish. That means that he isn't aware that when American professional athletes refer to themselves in the third person, they are mocked and skewered. It also explains why today's Oregonian quoted Fernandez as saying:

"Rudy is not everyday a shooter. He's defense. He's passes. He's assists."

Guess what? As a foreign national, Fernandez gets a free pass. Speaking of free passes, here's Fernandez getting an alley-oop from Sergio Rodriguez in the recent win against the Timberwolves.

As reported on OregonLive a while back, Fernandez was asked whom in the NBA he most wanted to go up against. The Spaniard singled out a fellow Spaniard.

"Pau [Gasol]. I've never played against him, only on the same team. I want to put points on your face."

Last Thing: In the first minutes of the fourth quarter against Orlando, Fernandez had three steals, two three pointers, and he drew a charge. Oh, and two assists. (Remember, he's passes.)

"What's Up?" and Other Illegal Interrogatives

In 2002, Judge Alex Kozinski threw out two claims relating to a disagreement over Barbie and the song “Barbie Girl.” In doing so, the judge uttered words that resounded throughout the nation:

“The parties are advised to chill.”

Well, maybe they didn’t really resound THAT much, but I took notice, okay? The introduction of slang into the courtroom can make for a fun mish-mosh of legalese and lingo. Witness Public Defender David Kennedy, whose opening argument in a recent Maryland Court of Appeals was:

“What’s up?”
Wow! Was Kennedy thumbing his nose at authority? After all, the usual lawyerly opening is something like “Mr. Chief Judge and may it please the court, etc.” But Kennedy was up to something! By beginning with “What’s up?” he hoped to jar the judge and jurors out of their lethargy.

It worked, but not in the way intended. Chief Judge Robert Bell told Kennedy that the correct pronunciation is “Whassup?”

Everyone laughed.

The case itself actually revolved around the question of the question “What’s up?” That’s what a police officer said to suspect Maurice Prioleau outside of a residence full of drugs back in 2005.

In response, Prioleau guiltily said, “I’m not going in that house. I’ve never been in that house.” Subsequent investigating showed that he had been in the house, and Prioleau was arrested and sentenced to 20 years in prison.

But the case has been appealed on the basis of that question. As Priorleau hadn't been read his Miranda rights when asked it, his public defender has argued that "What's up?" was an unlawful interrogation posing as an innocent rhetorical question.

Assistant Attorney General Cathleen Brockmeyer disputed this, maintaining that "What's up?" is “certainly not an invitation to incriminate yourself."

Speaking for myself, I rarely need much of an invitation to do just that. (Oh, and the case was still pending last I checked.)

House Speaker: The Large and the Small of It

I’m happy to be corrected, but I believe that Thomas Reed (1839–1902) was the all-time largest Speaker of the House of Representatives. But though Reed was big (nearly 300 lbs.!), he made his points with a small number of words.

Reed's pithiness was on display when a representative during a debate said, “I would rather be right than president,” Reed's response: “The gentleman need not worry. He will never be either.” Burn on him!

Reed once made fun of Teddy Roosevelt's brash nature by saying to the President, “If there is one thing for which I admire you, it is your original discovery of the Ten Commandments.” This forthright wittiness endeared the Speaker to those who appreciated an ability to speak truth to power. (Mark Twain loved him, apparently.)

At the other end of the scale, Nancy Pelosi has got to be the most diminutive Speaker of the House in history. She’s about five feet tall, which may be a sore point. (It’s impossible to find an official listing.) But smaller doesn’t mean cuter. In 2006, Pelosi said, “If people are ripping your face off, you have to rip their face off.” Yikes! So much for being a lightweight.
One More Reed-ism: During a House debate when the “five-minute rule” was in effect, a congressman kept blathering on and on. Reed put an end to that by saying, “You do not understand the theory of five-minute debate. The object is to convey . . . either information or misinformation. You have consumed several periods of five minutes this afternoon without doing either.”

Reed's picture from the Library of Congress. My sources are here.

Linguistic Irritants

Research from Oxford reveals what expressions most irritate Brits. The results are also included in a new book, Damp Squid: The English Language Laid Bare by Jeremy Butterfield. The title stems from the mistake people make using the word “squid” when they mean “squib” (firecracker). I suppose all squids are damp, while only duds are damp squibs.

The squid/squib error must be much more common in the U.K. than the U.S.

As reported in the Daily Telegraph, the expressions are:

10. “It's not rocket science” (A NASA scientist related that when he and his colleagues got stuck on a problem, someone would invariably say, “It’s not rocket science.” After a beat, someone else would say, “Actually, it is.” Then they would all laugh.)
9. “24/7”
8. “Shouldn't of”
7. “It's a nightmare”
6. “Absolutely” (I plead guilty.)
5. “With all due respect” (While I don’t hear this much, I do use the phrase, “With all due disrespect” at every opportunity.)
4. “At this moment in time”
3. “I personally” (Reminiscent of “I was thinking to myself.”)
2. “Fairly unique”
1. “At the end of the day”

Telegraph readers then responded with their leastest favorite expressions. Lowlights include:

9. “Neither here not there”
7.3 "Unexpectedly Bart!"
3. “I'm gutted”
2. “A safe pair of hands” (Huh?)
1. “Literally” (My family —me included— abuses this ruthlessly.)

Not annoying are the instances when someone (purposely or not) mangles a trope. For example, a certain someone I know has a variety of takes on “six of one, a half-dozen of another.” These include “six from one, then another dozen” and “six plus one... not another baker’s dozen?”

Egg photo by Darcy Babers

How Many Light Bulbs Does It Take to Change a Light Bulb?

This self-referential joke wasn’t Theodore Roosevelt’s favorite, but it could have been:
Q. What is brown and sticky?
A. A stick.*

Writing in the Guardian, Anthony McGowan reflects on this joke for 600-plus words in his article, “Reflective reflections on self-referentiality.” (Sample: How can a stick be like a stick? A stick is not like a stick, a stick is a stick. Something sticklike, but not itself a stick could be "sticky" in this sense. Maybe a bony finger, or a Twiglet. But not an actual stick. So, the whole joke collapses in on itself.)

Best of all, the joke provides a segue-way to the recent news that the stick has been inducted into the Toy Hall of Fame. There, it can join other distinguished playthings enshrined for immortality like the cardboard box (class of 2005).

The stick was singled out as a natural and cheap toy that can be used in a wide variety of creative ways. For example, not only can a stick be a sword, it can also function as a spear, a mace, or a punchline.

Further, Toy Hall of Fame associate curator Susan Asbury said the stick “is generally thought of as lovable and cuddly, even if it can doze off or cry during play.”

Wait, she’s apparently describing the stick’s co-inductee, the Baby Doll there. A crying stick? That's just silly. (It would also make it impossible to "play softly and carry a quiet stick.")

* If you thought “dung” was the punchline, please. That’s the answer to the question, “What’s brown and sounds like a bell?”

Brandon Roy: Untucked (and he brought doughnuts!)

Minnesota Timberwolf (and trick-shot artist) Kevin Love has either coined a phrase or introduced me to a cliché. Asked about being a starter, Love (right, with Kevin McHale) answered, “I just have to keep fighting and working and bringing in my doughnuts and stuff like that.”

More on that later, but in case you missed the Trail Blazers' overtime, cardiac-arrest inducing game against the Houston Rockets, it ended like this: With less than two second to go, Brandon Roy hit a turnaround jumper to put the Blazers up by two. We won! But then Yao Ming immediately scored, was fouled, and hit his free throw. We lost!

But with .8 of a second to play, Roy— oh, just watch it.

Blazers win! Man, Roy really brought the doughnuts on that one. (This also reminds me that the next time I want to celebrate a moment of great import, I need to quickly untuck my shirt.)

The Mood of a Nation (as seen from afar)

As the back of this jacket makes clear, happy day are here again! For those of you residing in Enjoy Time, why not toast your winners with some Ohana sake?

Of course, every election has its downside. To be gracious, let's not forget those whose candidates and causes didn't win. If they are particularly disgruntled, their mood is perhaps reflected by the Malaysian sign below.

For the following five reasons, all signs originate from Engrish.com.

Touch of Bogosity: Doubling Down and Spitting Up

doppelgänger: an apparition or double of a living person.
ORIGIN mid 19th cent.: from German, literally ‘double-goer.’

Perhaps you’ve had the curious experience of seeing your own doppelgänger. Like me, you no doubt found it to be a creepy yet fascinating experience. It’s your mirror image, but slightly twisted in a dark way that exaggerates your worst features and character traits.

All this came to mind when I got a spam e-mail featuring this proto-human. He is, sadly, my doppelgänger. We both work at home, and like me, this prat’s office is at the beach. Hey, a little sand in the fax machine is a small price to pay for good living. (No, I am not stretching for a metaphor there.)

There are other similarities, but I can’t bring myself to list them. This man is so bogus, he’s in a bogosity-zone. And that b-zone served as a painful reminder of this TV ad, one that, until now, I’ve successfully repressed for years. You’ll spot my doppelgänger easily enough; he’s my spitting image… and I spit on him.

But for an evil-shadow-twin, he does play the guitar pretty well!

Verba Non Grata

Like a lot of people in the U.S., I woke up this morning thinking about the status of Latin in England’s towns. This concern stems from recent news that the Bournemouth Council has banned the use of nearly 20 Latin words and phrases from the mouths and pens of its local employees. The terms in question:
In addition to these, Salisbury has also banned ergo and QED (quod erat demonstrandum), and Fife has excommunicated ex officio (oh, good one!). While classics scholars have been soiling themselves and concocting the perfect Latin phrase to express their outrage, a spokesperson from the Plain English Campaign (a group that's appeared here before) praised the move:

“[It] is important to remember that the national literacy level is about 12 years old and the vast majority of people hardly ever use these terms. It is far better to use words people understand.”

Hmm. Instead of segregating Latin words out from English as sui generis (unique and unable to classify), why not be more inclusive? After all, don’t ALL the words in our dictionaries make English e pluribus unum? (Mea culpa. Mea maxima culpa.)

Simply Weird

Reversing the candidate's races is a cute trick; now that I see it, I'm wondering what took so long! While Obama's hair is a bit freaky, the real problem is that the graphic designer who depicted McCain needed to do more fine tuning of the fine tones.

The ad agency Grey New York is responsible. Tor Myhren, its chief creative officer, said, "This is a non-partisan image. We wanted to address the race issue straight on." (Was Myhren tempted to say that the agency was addressing the issue "head on"?)

Traversing Literature: From Amusingly Overrated to LOL to Laughable

Election Special: The New York Times recently asked the all-important question: What is the most "lol" novel of all time? The editors of the Book Review section named their top vote-getter: Lucky Jim.

Said editors clearly have egg white in their veins. Kingsley Amis’s satire of neurotic intellectuals and English academic life is the funniest novel EVER? [Amis, below.] Heck, The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao is a better comic novel than Lucky Jim, and it's NOT a comic novel! Still, it certainly made me laugh... when I wasn’t cringing or reaching for my Spanish dictionary. (And off the top of my head, both Motherless Brooklyn and Catch-22 are much funnier than Lucky Jim.)

Writing in the Guardian, Diane Shipley noted the dearth of recognition in the Times for funny female authors. Shipley’s list of possibilities (Nancy Mitford, Jane Austen [above], Marian Keyes) left out Dorothy Parker, but then Parker's longer works were less well known than her withering one-liners and morbid poems. Examples?

Regarding a book she had not enjoyed, Parker wrote, “This is not a novel to be tossed aside lightly. It should be thrown with great force.” And as to poetry:

It costs me never a stab nor squirm/To tread by chance upon a worm./“Aha, my little dear,” I say,/“Your clan will pay me back some day.”

Wait, I know what woman author is the funniest: Ayn Rand! I’ll never forget my astonishment at reading the much bally-hooed tandem of Atlas Shrugged and The Fountainhead. But I guess that "lol" and "laughable" aren’t really the same thing, are they?

Last Thing: Hmm, I thought this entry would somehow turn into an "election special," but it has failed to do so. :)

Sacré Bleu! Nicholas Batum Is Infuriated

Nicholas Batum is hopping mad, and I don’t blame him. The Portland Trail Blazer hails from a country that understands the importance of an engaged citizenry. After all, the voter turnout for the French presidential election of 2007 was 84%! That crushes the usual U.S. voter turnout numbers, though perhaps this year will be an exception.

But based on an Oregonian poll of the Trail Blazers voting, perhaps not. The on-line version of the article doesn’t have these specifics of player preferences:
McCain: Joel Przybilla
Obama: Jarryd Bayless, Channing Frye, Greg Oden, Travis Outlaw
Decline to State: LaMarcus Aldridge, Shavlik Randolph
Foreign Nationals: Rudy Fernandez, Sergio Rodgriguez (Spain), Batum
Will Not Vote: Brandon Roy, Steve Blake, Ike Diogu

"Will not vote"? How about "Does not care"? Brandon Roy said he won't vote for personal reasons. And Steve Blake stated that he never votes, but that he always supports whomever wins.

Arg. The only thing curbing my shame for these guys is the fact that they’re both class acts… who both need to think a LOT harder about what it means to be a responsible citizen. To get the bad taste of disengaged millionaires out of my mouth, here's a highlight reel of Batum against the Spurs this weekend. (How much do you want to bet he voted last year?)