Suddenly, the chorus of the Michelle Featherstone song acquires new depth and meaning.
But it’s true
I’m still blue
But I finally know what to do
I must quit, I must quit, you
She must be from Innsmouth, and the song actually expresses a secret yearning. Although, really, I would expect more moist chthonian burbling in her voice.
Here, now! Some of my best friends have “The Innsmouth Look”.
OT. I downloaded ‘Expelled!’ (Yarrr, me hearties!)
Jeebus! I can’t get past the Berlin Wall newsreel clips opening.
“I’m a squid. You?”
I am a cuttlefish.
Some thoughts:
Evolution explores ‘the adjacent possible’ so size variations due to the genetic drift part of evolution go in both directions. Also, different genes can regulate head size in infancy and adulthood and be selected for separately.
The systematic increase in birth weight is likely due to environment rather than genes, e.g. better nutrition and massive use of growth hormones in livestock farming, but will still be subject to selection pressure.
Head size and pelvis size again are selected for separately.
Re Mariana, Ann:
Surgery is improving all the time. Soon there will be keyhole cesarians. Also, is there an observable size difference in brazil between rich kids and favelladores?
Finally, Katchcing!! – thanks Cuttlefish OM^2. That was sublime.
Sorry for the mispost. Opera mini browser just refused to put the above where it was meant.
That was goddamned bizarre.
“I must quit, I must quit, you”
I thought for sure she was singing “I’m a squid” which I thought was pretty cool. Duh.
Humph I thought this was going to be about that movie.
As a linguist, I must point out the obvious: The “qu” in “quit” and the “qu” in “squid” do not sound the same. Try this: Pronounce “squid” and mentally remove the “s”. What you get left with is “guid”, not “quid”.
As a linguist you should also recognize the McGurk effect. Conflicting auditory and visual input always resolves in favor of the visual.
By the way, this blog is officially 41% evil, you should be glad to know.
As a linguist, I must recognize that the McGurk effect is not quite what Watercat says it is: It is about the perception of sounds as coming from *faces*, and an audio-visual conflict results in a compromise.
Also, as a linguist, I must recognize that conflicts between linguists and squids are only very rarely resolved in favor of the linguists.
Wow, you must have some weirdass accent. To me, the “qui” in squid, quid, quit, quip, quill, quick, and squick all sound the same – like “kwi”
To my ear anyone talking about sguids would be presumed to have a cold or some other issue.
Note, however, that I’m not American.
Wow, you must have some weirdass accent. To me, the “qui” in squid, quid, quit, quip, quill, quick, and squick all sound the same – like “kwi”
To my ear anyone talking about sguids would be presumed to have a cold or some other issue.
However, I do have some hearing loss and it’s sometimes difficult to distinguish between D and T, F and S, and so on, so “I must quit” and “I’m a squid” actually could sound very similar to me.
Note, however, that I’m not American.
As a linguist, if you aren’t willing to expand the definition of McGurk Effect beyond facial recognition, you’ll have to a)come up with another term, and b)explain exactly how these other things are qualitatively different. All sorts of similar phenomena have been demonstrated, (not with squids:-( where visual input conflicts with sound and the perceiver goes with the visual information. We just call it all McGurk.
If squids were linguists, I think they’d have some really cool grammar to show us.
I believe the McGurk effect actually has to do with youth soccer.
“It is about the perception of sounds as coming from *faces*, and an audio-visual conflict results in a compromise. ”
See Astley, Rick.
Eddie, regardless of where you post your notion of “keyhole” caesareans, you’d still have to explain how they could make an incision significantly smaller than the infant’s skull in both the abdomen and the uterus.
And there’s still all the trauma to the abdominal muscles.
As a random nobody with an interest in linguistics, I would note that the difference in pronunciation between in the aforementioned sounds in “squid” and “quit” is really just the former being voiced and the later being unvoiced. (That’s the only difference between [t] and [d] or [s] and [z]). Given that “squid” starts with an unvocalized consonant and ends with a vocalized consonant, I wouldn’t be surprised if both variations are heard.
In short: NITPICKERS.
I was going to comment on post #8, but #12 got there before me – as a non-american-accented English speaker I concur.
Instead I’ll poison all your fun with this new Bush “end around the separation of church and state” maneuver. I should be used to this by now, but it still raises my blood pressure.
NYTimes: “In a newly disclosed legal memorandum, the Bush administration says it can bypass laws that forbid giving taxpayer money to religious groups that hire only staff members who share their faith.”
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/10/18/washington/18discrimination.html?_r=1&hp&oref=slogin
Andy
As a random linguist with an interest in nitpicking,I didn’t even notice this before; but ‘squid’ and ‘quit’ both have unvoiced [k], not voiced [g]. Sorry, Abby. Phonological rules of English won’t allow initial [sg-]. If that combination happened the voicing would assimilate leftward, making [s] come out as a [z]; but English doesn’t have any words that start with [zgw–], thank god. So ‘squid’ and ‘quit’ should both be [sk], barring some weird accent. Or, more likely, looking at the printed “guid” makes you say [gwid] even when your brain is thinking [kwid]. McGurk strikes again!
**Apparently say British speakers say [gw–] but Americans don’t.
“**Apparently say British speakers say [gw–] but Americans don’t. ”
Not this one, nor anyone he knows…
The same site says that the Discovery Institute is 51% evil, 10% more evil than Pharyngula.
Michael #10
“Also, as a linguist, I must recognize that conflicts between linguists and squids are only very rarely resolved in favor of the linguists.”
But surely that depends on how cunning the linguist is.
LOL! I don’t know how much faith I’d put in it tho. The most evil I found was 67%, for the Lolcat Bible(?!). The Lolkoran was only 31%–the same as Fox News.
What is all this talk about “evil”. To the atheist, things just are the way they are because they are the way they are and thats what people do.
“Do as thou will.” Nietzche the Syphillitic.
As a linguist, I cunningly guess that you gots no sense of humor.
hijack.
Since we have some linguists here; and some non American English speakers here…
Why do the English pronounce an [er] at the end of every word that ends in an [a]?
Americer
chiner
indier
It’s annoying. Stop it.
thanks.
Phonological rules of English won’t allow initial [sg-]. If that combination happened the voicing would assimilate leftward, making [s] come out as a [z]; but English doesn’t have any words that start with [zgw–], thank god. So ‘squid’ and ‘quit’ should both be [sk], barring some weird accent.
I was thinking that was the case, but I tried sounding out both and it seemed at least possible. It could be my crazy Vermont accent.
Now let’s talk about whales ;-)
Posted by: Evolving Squid (#11/12):
BRAVO!
I know that this is irrelevant to the current topic, but I’ve found an interesting poll from the American Family Association:
Do you think Barack Obama is qualified to serve as President of the United States?
Note though, that you have to be an American citizen for this (makes sense!), and you have to give your contact info.
I AM NOT… AN ANIMAL!
I AM A HUMAN BEIN… *ink* *flee*
The “Gematriculator” rates this text from its own page as 50% evil:
(Selection bias used in accordance with standard religious statistical analysis techniques)
Mmmmmmm-mm, linguini with calamari. Bring it on, and don’t skinp on the garlic!
JC, that “-er” thing happens here in the good old USA too, or are you too young to remember JFK and the crisis with “Cuber”? Took me most of my 8th-grade year to get used to the nun who called me “Veronicer,” myself. I wanted to tell her I’d never learned how to veronic, or that I was the veronicEST, or something.
McGurk my left tentacle. This is clearly a Mondegreen.
@JC #25: some varieties of English are rhotic, some are not (pause for the inevitable “erotic” joke). Most Brit speech is not. Most American speech is. Rhotic speakers “intrude” an R between vowels, and some in word-vowel-final position. Many non-rhotic speakers leave Rs out even between vowels. As a child I had a friend named Burton and my parents thought he was called Button. In college I met a guy I was sure was “Fost” – short, I figured, for Foster – but he turned out to be a Forrest instead. Eeyore is Hee-haw in Cockney.
Example of both types abound. It’s just a dialect thing – like rhyming Dawn, Don, John, and Sean (or not), or Mary, merry, and marry. Try not to be so easily upset by sounds (as opposed to words) and you’ll be happier.
For me, it’s not so much getting upset as not being able to understand what is being said. I find rhotic speech quite difficult to understand, as I do a number of accents (for example: South Newfoundland, Ottawa valley, some parts of “The South”, Edinburgh area).
With east London, it’s not so much the sounds I have problems with as the slang.
The only accent that upsets me is New York because even the most educated person who has a deep NYC drawl sounds like an uneducated bumpkin and it makes me want to grab them by the head and scream “SPEAK PROPERLY!”
It’s obviously a question:
I’m a squid. You?
Hey linguists, it’s not the voice but the aspiration, no? Both should be unvoiced, but in ‘squid’ the [s] takes the edge off (say both whispering, unvoiced, and see if I’m wrong).
I don’t even know what this post was about. I guess it doesn’t matter.