Mad World

You know, it's sorta strange. If they could, I'm pretty sure at least 90% of the German elective population would go and cast their votes in the presidential elections in the USA.
In our own votes, be they regional, federal or European, you're already lucky if even 30% of those who are allowed to vote actually go to vote.
Isn't it ironic...

That said, http://www.betavote.com/ (thanks, elfy) is rather interesting. If only for the statistical value.

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( Irgendwie komisch )

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Yuck/Cool

Today, walking from the station to university, I saw that all the street was covered with a reddish liquid happily flowing along. Coming closer to the intersection, I saw that a duct cover was missing in the sidewalk, and that reddish liquid was bubbling out of the hole - bubbling, as the water comes bubbling out of the duct covers in New York in The Day After Tomorrow. Reddish. Like blood diluted with water. Disgusting, but fascinating.
And I had forgotten my camera; and after class, of course, the duct cover had been shut again and the street cleaned up.

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( Igitt/Cool )

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Who says {a,a,a,a,a} can't be a correct sentence?

I think I like the linguistics textbook for the intermediate exam. I like theoretical textbooks that manage to quote The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy twice on the first 12 pages.

A little edifying (I'm using that word rather often recently, aren't I?) story in celebration of the idiots slightly overtaxed people in my linguistics seminar, and for everyone who thinks Chinese could as well do without Kanji or is easy because of its lack of complicated grammatical structures:

The Lion Story

Text in Hanzi/ Kanji:
石室詩士施氏嗜獅、 誓食十獅。氏時時適市視獅。十時、 適十獅市。是時、 適獅 氏適市。氏視十獅、恃矢勢、使是十獅逝世。氏拾是十獅尸、適石室。石室湿侍拭 石室。 石室拭、氏始試食十獅尸。食時、始識是十獅尸寛十石獅尸。

Transcription/ Pinyin (numbers indicate tone):
Shi2 shi4 shi1 shi4 shi1 shi4 shi4 shi1, shi4 shi2 shi2 shi1. Shi4 shi2 shi2 shi4 shi4 shi2 shi1 shi4. Shi4 shi2, shi4 shi1 shi4 shi4 shi4. Shi4 shi4 shi2 shi1, shi4 shi3 shi4, shi3 shi4 shi2 shi1 shi4 shi4. Shi4 shi2 shi4 shi2 shi1 shi1, shi2 shi4 shi1. Shi4 shi3 shi4 shi4 shi2 shi4, shi2 shi4 shi4. Shi2 shi4 shi4, shi4 shi3 shi4 shi2 shi2 shi1 shi1. Shi2 shi2, shi3 shi4 shi4 shi2 shi1 shi1 shi2 shi2 shi2 shi1 shi1.

The first version is no problem to read and understand for anyone familiar with the symbols. The second version, i.e. the transcription (or the spoken) version of the story even a native Chinese speaker couldn't understand, which is, of course, what this is all about. Ambiguity doesn't even begin to cover it.

And for those curious, here comes the translation:
In a room of stone a poetry scholar from the family Shi1 desired lions; he vowed to eat ten lions. From time to time, said scholar would go to the town and watch out for lions. At ten o'clock it happened that ten lions came to the town, and it happened that the scholar Shi1 came to the town at the same time. He saw the ten lions, trusted in the force of his arrows and brought death to these ten lions. He picked up the corpses of the ten lions and went to his room of stone. The room of stone was wet, so he had a servant clean the room of stone. When the room of stone was clean, he began to eat the ten lion corpses. While he ate, he began to realize that these ten lion corpses were in fact ten lion corpses of stone.

There you go. Not the most brilliant of tales, but it's perfect Chinese. And yet, if you told it to a Chinese, they wouldn't understand it*. And the story uses only 31 of the 62 possible translations and writings for the syllable shi.
This tale was brought to you from Zhao Yuanren via me, because I don't have anything better to do than look up Kanji anyway. [Incidentally, shi in different tones can also mean 'stand erect' and 'lick with tongue' and other nice stuff, so one also could have written Shi1/Shi3 slash or something. But oh well. Oh, and shi can also mean 'shit'.]

*That is, probably they would, because they know that particular story. But if they didn't know it, they wouldn't.

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( Wer sagt, dass {a,a,a,a,a} kein korrekter Satz sein kann? )

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