Posts from — February 2012

"American English … has more words for the same things than ever before," reports Jennifer Schuessler in the New York Times (2/24/12). "Instead of the language narrowing and becoming more standard, it’s actually becoming more various," says William Kretzschmar of the University of Georgia, editor of the Linguistic Atlas Project. Both word usage and pronunciation have always varied by region, obviously. It’s a phenomenon that’s been under study for 50 years and is captured in a multi-volume set, the Dictionary of American Regional English — the fifth, and final volume of which is due out next month. "It’s a great and extremely comprehensive project that really shows more than we’ve ever known about American dialect," says Jesse Sheidlower, editor of the Oxford English Dictionary.

The late Frederic G. Cassidy initiated the project, which between 1965 and 1970, involved sending some 80 University of Wisconsin students to "1,002 carefully selected communities across the country, many of of them traveling in retrofitted Dodge vans nicknamed Word Wagons. Armed with a 1,847-item questionnaire and newfangled portable reel-to-reel tape recorders, they inquired about local ways of talking about everything from their weather and kitchen items to courtship and commerce," for example. It took more than ten years to produce the first volume, with the next three published "at roughly five-year intervals."

Joan Houston Hall, chief editor, "acknowledges that the extremes of regional speech are narrowing," although the number of entries is growing thanks to "the flood of newly available digital sources." Linguists say that "the interactions that most powerfully shape our speech are still local and face to face," although social media — as well as the regional dictionary itself — "may be helping to blur the very distinctions it celebrates." In the meantime, we can marvel over "170-plus synonyms for dust bunnies — otherwise known as curds, fooksies, ghost manure, gollywogs" and "rebolees." Ghost manure! That’s a good one. The dictionary currently includes 60,000 terms, and a digital edition is set to be published in 2013.

"As Paris is to fashion … so are young women to linguistic innovation," reports Douglas Quenqua in the New York Times (2/28/12). The way some girls talk is "often seen as markers of immaturity or even stupidity," but linguists say they use vocal "embellishments in much more sophisticated ways than people tend to realize." Carmen Fought, a linguistics professor at Pitzer College says young women use certain inflections "as power tools for building relationships." Take, for example, "uptalk," or the habit of posing statements as questions. A 1991 study by University of Pennsylvania linguist Cynthia McLemore "found that senior members of a Texas sorority used uptalk to make junior members feel obligated to carry out new tasks. (‘We have a rush event this Thursday? And everyone needs to be there?’)."

Over the past 20 years, uptalk has spread across boundaries of both age and gender. "I’ve heard grandfathers and grandmothers use it," says linguist David Crystal of Bangor University in Wales. Linguist Penny Eckert of Stanford says one of her students observed Jamba Juice customers and "found that by far the most common uptalkers were fathers of young women. She theorizes that it’s "a way of showing themselves to be friendly and not asserting power in the situation." Linguist Mark Liberman of University of Pennsylvania says that "women tend to be maybe half a generation ahead of males on average" when it comes to verbal innovation. Currently on the horizon is the so-called "vocal fry, also known as creaky voice," which "has been gaining popularity among women since at least 2003."

The vocal fry is "a raspy of croaking sound injected (usually) at the end of a sentence." According to Ikuko Patricia Yuasa of Berkeley, the vocal fry is used to sound "more authoritative" but is also "used to communicate disinterest." As Mark Liberman explains: "It’s a mode of vibration that happens when the vocal cords are relatively lax … So maybe some people use it when they’re relaxed and even bored, not especially … invested in what they’re saying." The vocal fry apparently actually originated with British men, going back as far as 1964 "as a way to denote their superior social standing," which is, like, totally ironic. Then again, a 2011 study "found that while young people tended to use ‘like’ more often than older people, men used it more frequently than women."

A mathematical concept can explain why our favorite movies hold our attention, reports Holly Finn in the Wall Street Journal (2/25/12). It is quite surprising, given our allegedly shrinking attention span, that we’re willing to sit through movies running two hours or more: “Sixty percent of us will abandon an online video by the two-minute mark. But the top 10 grossing films of all time run an average of 135 minutes.” Of this year’s nine Oscar nominees for best picture, “just three are under two hours” (granted, the winning film, The Artist, clocked in at just 100 minutes).

It’s possible that we’ll stay put simply because of our investment in tickets and popcorn. Or maybe it’s “the combined sensory deprivation (no light, no internet, no talking) and sensory overload (surround sound! bloody battles! 3-D!).” The big screen alone, and its ability to make us feel like we’re in the movie, certainly helps. However, a scientific paper, Attention and the Evolution of Hollywood Film, “shows how movies — and moviegoers — benefit from the mathematical concept 1/f (one over frequency). This wave pattern occurs everywhere in nature, from engineering to music, though no one knows why.”

The concept is that our attention span waxes and wanes, “on a spectrum from random to predictable,” but graphed over time 1/f is “the finely balanced seesaw in between.” An analysis of “160 popular movies released between 1935 and 2010 … discovered a distinct move toward 1/f on the screen … with clusters of shots of varying length interspersed with shots of varying length.” So, while our “great wired world bends our brains to its whims … the film world is bending to ours. As out of sync as we often feel in this accelerated age, movies know what we need … we sit down, lock into a film’s rhythm, and get lost in it.”

A new documentary looks at a decades-old debate over the true meaning of Stanley Kubrick’s 1980 film, The Shining, reports Robert Ito in the New York Times (1/29/12). Room 237, by director Rodney Ascher, interviews “professors and historians, fanboys and artists, many of whom have posted their theories online.” Two of the most popular theories are that the film is about the holocaust and that it is about genocide of the American Indian. A third theory has it that the film is a confession about Kubrick’s alleged role in faking the moon landing.

One theorist, who subscribes to the holocaust interpretation, notes the film’s “many references … to 1942,” the year the holocaust began. It appears as the number on a shirt and is the number of times Shelley Duval swings a bat at Jack Nicholson. At another point, “Summer of ’42” plays on the television. An American Indian genocide theorist meanwhile points to the Indian chief logo on cans of baking powder, as well as a scene where Nicholson “hurls a tennis ball repeatedly against an Indian wall hanging.”

The moon-landing-hoax angle meanwhile is premised on the idea that Kubrick helped NASA fake it, and the Shining is his confession. Evidence includes the "hexagonal design" on a hotel carpet, said to be patterned after an "aerial view of the Apollo launching pad." Rodney Ascher thinks the Shining continues to fascinate because "it is a compelling work of art that acts as a kind of mirror, especially for thoughtful people, who see aspects of themselves that are among the most precious things they have experienced." The two-hour film’s name, by the way — Room 237 — "is a reference to a haunted room" in the hotel in which The Shining is set.

Old-school definitions of hacking are slipping away. By John Gerzema. Lost in the hype of the next, latest, greatest release of virtually any tablet wannabe is the fact that Microsoft has continued to build on its quite attractive figure of eleven million Kinects in market and growing. The product’s remarkable user experience is responsible, in part, for its success.

Nike’s shift "into the digital realm … marks the biggest change in Beaverton since the creation of Just Do It, reports Scott Cendrowski in Fortune (2/27/12). "There’s barely any media advertising these days for Nike," says brand consultant Brian Collins. Indeed, Nike’s spending on print and television advertising "dropped by 40% in just three years, even as its total marketing budget has steadily climbed upward to hit a record $2.4 billion last year." Nike has also reduced its "reliance on top-down campaigns" featuring mega-stars or signature shoes.

Instead, Nike’s focus is on "a whole new repertoire of interactive elements that let Nike communicate directly with its consumers." Leading the way is Nike Digital Sport, a new division launched in 2010 that "aims to develop devices and technologies that allow users to track their personal statistics in any sport in which they participate." Most prominent is the Nike+ running sensor, developed with Apple, that not only lets users track their performance but also provides Nike with data that helps it "forge a tighter relationship with them than ever before."

Users upload their data to nikeplus where they can "store and analyze the data, get training tips and share workouts with friends." This also allows Nike to "study its customers’ behaviors and patterns." Nike Digital Sport is now working across all divisions to bring its brand of "chip-enabled customer loyalty" to "all of Nike’s major sports." As a followup, Nike is introducing FuelBand, a wristband that "calculates its user’s exertion levels" throughout the day. David Carter of USC’s Sports Business Institute is a fan of Nike’s digital ventures, saying the company has its "finger on the pulse of what its customer is looking for."

Everything began to change for Alaska Airlines when its chief executive picked "a new measure of success," reports Matthew Kaminski in the Wall Street Journal (2/4/12). Shortly after Bill Ayer took the CEO job at Alaska Airlines in 2002, he called a meeting with management guru "Jim Collins, Costco founder Jim Senegal, Starbucks chief Oren Smith and others to talk about their approaches to business." At the time, most airlines "focused on the number of new markets, or the number of new planes or passengers to justify debt-financed investment."

Based on this brainstorm session, “Alaska latched on to a different measure: cost per available seat mile, a standard efficiency measure of what an airline spends to do business. As of 2003, Alaska was at 8.73 cents. It set a target of 7.25 cents, a savings goal of $300 million.” Bill Ayer said he had no idea how he would get there, but was convinced that it was the way a good company would look at things. One thing he did was outsource “heavy maintenance and baggage handling, forcing steep staff cuts.” Another was to “put all staff in the bonus pool,” so everyone gets a cut based on a combination of company earnings, customer satisfaction, cost discipline and safety record.

An operational overhaul improved the airline’s on-time record, while streamlining its fleet to include only Boeing 737s saved on maintenance costs. Today, you can look at "any industry metric — on time arrival, customer satisfaction, full planes, consistent profitability, passenger growth — and you’ll find Alaska near the top." Alaska’s cost per available seat mile now stands at 7.6 cents — not the goal, but pretty close. Bill Ayer says it’s all in the profitability, which enables a longer-term view. Analyst George Hamlin agrees: "They seem to be running a business, rather than an airline."

"Mead is a beverage whose popularity comes around like clockwork — every two or three thousand years," says David Meyers of Redstone Meadery in a New York Times piece by Michael Sanders (2/8/12). At its most basic, mead is a "wine made with honey instead of grapes." Because of that, growing numbers of mead-makers are treating their craft like wine-makers — or in some cases beer-makers. Mark Beran of the Medovina Meadery, for example, speaks of honey and terroir, based on when and where the honey is collected.

"First, there are dandelions and maple trees blooming, clover and apple blossoms, so it’s very light spring honey," he says. "By the end of the season you might have five or eight or even more boxes of honey, and you can see the progression of the floral diversity through the summer in the transition from the first box to the last box … Summer is medium honey from alfalfa, then in the fall you get darker, richer flavorful wildflower honey." Mark says he uses early honey for the lighter mead and later, darker, honey for more traditional, heavier mead.

David Meyers of Redstone Meadery also adds a brewer’s touch. "We’re kind of like the Joe Lieberman of beverages," he says. "We’re an independent in the alcohol industry, but we caucus with the craft-beer guys." Redstone’s specialties include carbonated mead, sometimes sold in kegs. Sam Calagione of Dogfish Head meanwhile doesn’t bother with labels, other than the Midas Touch brand he puts on his brewery’s "honey-based fermented beverage." It is "based on ingredients found in 2,700-year-old drinking vessels supposedly found in the tomb of King Midas." Sam says Dogfish sold some 45,000 cases of it last year.

Cigarettes may have been banished from the cocktail lounge, but smoke is now finding its way into the cocktails, reports Robert Simonson in the New York Times (2/15/12). Certain cocktails have always had a certain smoky quality, courtesy of "mezcals and peaty Scotches." But some mixologists are literally introducing smoke into their creations. At Mistral Kitchen in Seattle, Amber Johannson uses a "smoke gun" to fill a decanter with fumes before adding a mixed drink and then pouring it over ice.

Columbia Room in DC serves a drink called Ghost Dance, in which "aromatic sweet grass … and a star anise pod are set smoldering under an upturned glass. After the vessel has been thoroughly ‘rinsed’ with the vapors" the drink "is completed with Calvados, Fernet-Branca and simple syrup." Smoker’s Delight, at bar PX in Alexandria, VA involves making a kind of sweet, tobacco tea that’s then mixed with bourbon, honey syrup and lemon. Its creator, Todd Thrasher, says he came up with the concept "for his business partner, who had just quit smoking."

Some say the smokiness has a subliminal appeal. "The first thing you think about is camping," says mixologist Derek Brown of Rogue 24 in DC. "It has an emotional impact." Eben Freeman of the Altamarea Group raises a certain primal aspect: "I’m sure that people will argue it’s some sort of caveman reaction," he says, while also suggesting that the American palette has become somewhat overloaded "so you need stronger and stronger flavor experiences." Ethan Terry of AQ in San Francisco offers yet another explanation: "There’s not a lot of smoke in bars anymore," he says. "These drinks take you back a little bit. It makes it feel a little more like a bar."

“Athletes with circus in their soul and trampolines on the wall hope to establish a sport that rewards the imagination,” reports Erik Olsen in the New York Times (1/30/12). These athletes call themselves "bouncers" and specialize in the wall trampoline, where they "hurl themselves off a wall … land on a trampoline, snap back toward the wall and send themselves outward again." The sport has its roots in circus arts — it is taught at the Quebec Circus School – but its bouncers hope to elevate it into an X Games sport, perhaps held "in conjunction with skateboarding contests" that brim with a similar kind of "freestyle energy."

"It’s about learning where you are in space," says Cypher Zero, owner of New York Circus Arts. "If you don’t know how to fly, you’re maybe not in the right discipline." The other challenge is that the wall trampoline has no rules, unlike the "specific moves and guidelines" that constrain the traditional trampoline. "In traditional trampoline, it’s almost like you need to be in the army to perform because it’s so strict," says bouncer Oli Lemieux. "This is much more freestyle. That’s why I like it." However, bouncer Julien Roberge "acknowledges that there must be an organized way to judge an event."

Julien and trampolinist Ignacio Adarve have taken a stab at judging criteria. "It’s actually very subjective for the judge," says Julien. "If you do something that looks cool and people like it, then that’s awesome. You can win with a great new move." He would like to see "three judges, one each for difficulty, style and height, with the style judge giving out the highest number of points." Julien thinks this will help promote innovation. So far, the sport is mainly popular in Canada, although the Circus School in Florida and the Werks Shop in Las Vegas, teach it.