The origins of languages are buried deep in time and teasing out why they have the features they do is not easy and hence often speculative. For those of us whose language is English, one mystery is the way things are spelled, which is a source of humor for comedians like Eddie Izzard.
Arika Okrent says that English is unusual in the level of weirdness of its spelling
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I have described before that I think a good philosophy to live by is “Try not to be a jerk”. While it is more limited in scope and not as elegant or high-minded as some of the more well known ones like treating others as you would like them to treat you, it has the advantage that jerk behavior is easily recognizable in pretty much every situation and thus can be more easily avoidable if one wants to.
So naturally my attention was caught by this article that had the title How to Raise Kids Who Don’t Grow Up to Be Jerks (or Worse). It consists of an interview with Melinda Wenner Moyer, the author of a book that discusses how to raise children to not be jerks. (The book’s title is actually How to Raise Kids Who Aren’t Assholes which is pretty much the same thing.)
Moyer says that the key is helping children develop a theory of mind.
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I hadn’t heard the terms ‘yips’ and ‘twisties’ until reading some of the many articles following Simone Biles’s withdrawal from her events at the Olympics. This article explains what the terms mean.
People who watch the types of sports that are broadcast on a regular basis are more familiar with the yips than the twisties because generally, we only gather to watch champion gymnasts compete every few years. However, people mainly associate the yips with uncharacteristically poor performance on fields or courts leading to errors and low scoring.
However the twisties, which involves a sudden loss of spatial awareness mid-air, can result in serious injury, possibly even death. Most of us heard about it for the first time after other athletes came forward to defend Biles from attacks accusing her of a weak mental fortitude, citing feats from past Olympic medalists as evidence that pushing through physical pain is what makes a champion a champion.
The shocking news that gymnast Simone Biles has withdrawn from her events at the Olympics due to mental health issues, following Naomi Osaka’s withdrawal from two Grand Slam tennis tournaments for the same reason, has turned a massive spotlight on the pressure that these top athletes are under. Biles was seen as the marquee athlete of this Olympics, like Usain Bolt and Michael Phelps in previous games, and expected to win accordingly. Those of us who have never come close to being in such stratospheric levels of athletic achievement may find it hard to appreciate the pressure these people are under, expected to perform at their peak under the close scrutiny of large numbers of people. The cameras are on them all the time, even when they are just stretching or chatting to people.
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The Cleveland baseball team has finally announced the new team name, replacing the Indians with the name Guardians. While I was glad that the old offensive name was gone, I was underwhelmed by the new one, seeing it as somewhat unimaginative. I imagined that it was chosen because the new name rhymed with the old one and thus looked similar when written in cursive script as the new logo
But Steven Litt writes that the name has a deeper meaning and is very appropriate.
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Conservative state legislatures around the country have been trying to pass bills that will prevent access to bathrooms based on gender identity, specifically restricting access for trans women. This is hateful, aimed at a tiny minority that is already discriminated against in so many ways. But on my travels over the weekend, I thought of a bathroom bill that would benefit everyone and passing it would be a much better use of everyone’s time.
There used to be a time when I could drive for long distances without having to stop to use the bathroom. I recall on one occasion driving non-stop from Cleveland to Philadelphia, a journey that took about seven hours, without stopping for anything at all. But I was younger then. Those days are long gone and on my trip to Los Angeles and San Diego I found myself having to stop to use the facilities several times.
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I will be going this weekend to Los Angeles and San Diego to visit old friends. It will be my first road trip since the pandemic shut downs began in March of 2020 and in addition to the pleasure that seeing old friends always provides, it will also be nice to get out on the open road and drive down the western coast. As a result, blogging will be light to non-existent.
I expect to resume on Tuesday.
I am not a football fan but follow the game in a casual manner and so learned that Italy beat England in the European Cup yesterday. The score was 1-1 at the end of regulation time.
I did not watch the game and my opinion on it would be worthless anyway but what I want to discuss is the way that the game was decided, by means of a penalty shootout that Italy won 3-2. Whether a goal is scored or not depends a lot on whether the goal keeper manages to guess correctly the intentions of the penalty kicker as to where in the goal the ball is being targeted.
While I understand the need to find a way to quickly end a game when the scores are tied, this seems to me to be a particularly bad method. Given the difficulty of scoring goals which makes ties likely, this form of the tiebreaker has been used in many high-profile games, even deciding Olympic gold medals.
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Crashes and pileups at the Tour de France are not that rare. This is not surprising since we have riders going at high speeds while bunched close together and weaving in and out and even the most skillful riders can occasionally make a wrong move that causes a crash. Last year the Tour de France was held with fewer spectators lining the streets because of covid-19 restrictions. This year the crowds were back in full force but the presence of one particular fan caused a massive pile up of riders.
Philosopher Stephen Law examines how words get their meanings. He says that when I say “It is hot today”, it is at one level just a process by which sounds are articulated. A parrot saying the same thing is also just a process. But the difference is that when I say it, I am conveying meaning in a way that a parrot is not. From whence does this meaning arise? Law says that Ludwig Wittgenstein took a different view of this question than John Locke (1632-1704)
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