Posts Tagged ‘new york times’
New Language Began With Baby-Talk
Here is a fascinating article in The New York Times about a new language, Light Warlpiri, which is spoken by a relatively small group of Australian Aboriginal people. Everyone who speaks it is younger than 35 years old. And it began with baby-talk.
From the Times:
There are many dying languages in the world. But at least one has recently been born, created by children living in a remote village in northern Australia.
Carmel O’Shannessy, a linguist at the University of Michigan, has been studying the young people’s speech for more than a decade and has concluded that they speak neither a dialect nor the mixture of languages called a creole, but a new language with unique grammatical rules.
Here is a video, “Monster Story in Light Warlpiri Child39”, from Dr. Carmel O’Shannessy’s YouTube account.
So what’s this about baby-talk? Again, from the Times: Read more »
A Different Way To Look At Autism
From the New York Times Magazine:
Tyler Cowen, an economist at George Mason University (and a regular contributor to The Times), published a much-discussed paper last year that addressed the ways that autistic workers are being drawn into the modern economy. The autistic worker, Cowen wrote, has an unusually wide variation in his or her skills, with higher highs and lower lows. Yet today, he argued, it is increasingly a worker’s greatest skill, not his average skill level, that matters. As capitalism has grown more adept at disaggregating tasks, workers can focus on what they do best, and managers are challenged to make room for brilliant, if difficult, outliers. This march toward greater specialization, combined with the pressing need for expertise in science, technology, engineering and mathematics, so-called STEM workers, suggests that the prospects for autistic workers will be on the rise in the coming decades. If the market can forgive people’s weaknesses, then they will rise to the level of their natural gifts.
The Autism Advantage – NYTimes.com.
MTA Raises Fares, Can’t Spell
It appears that although the MTA is planning on raising fares, they can’t spell.
What do these two things have to do with each other? Nothing really. Except that they are both MTA-related. The MTA has indeed proposed a fare increase, although the details of said fare hike are unclear.
What is clear is that someone at the MTA, either a human or a sentient machine, can’t spell. But it’s bad spelling for a good cause.
The safety of you and your children.
This is from the New York Times Metropolitan Diary and was submitted by a Times reader, who writes that the following text “is a literal transcription of an electronic sign at the Avenue of the Americas-34th Street Downtown subway stop. All spelling, capitalization, line breaks are as found.” The submitter did capitalize the first line to “make it the title.” I’m OK with that.
Here, for your reading (dis)pleasure, is the text, or ur-text, or beat poetry, or whatever you want to call it, of an electronic sign in the service of the MTA. Read more »
DaddyTips Show and Tell for July 22, 2009
- The New York Times shows us what was happening in 1969 — Joe Namath, Led Zeppelin I, and other things that are cooler than what happened this year. (NYTimes.com)
- Darth Vader meets Hello Kitty. Hello Vader? (Zombie Panda)
- Kirk Hammett stinks at Guitar Hero. He’s the lead guitarist for Metallica. Funny. (Onion AV Club)
Kim Jong-Il’s Son Doesn’t Want Dad’s Job
Most family businesses are taken over by a child. Wal-Mart. Ford. The New York Times.
But in North Korea, Kim Jong-Nam is saying “thanks but no thanks” to his dad. His dad is Kim Jong-Il. Maybe you’ve heard of him? Read more »
DadNews Daily – Rupert Murdoch Strikes Back
Happy Monday! Even if you, like the Boomtown Rats, do not like the first work day of the week, at least it’s starting to get a little warmer. Of course, now that I’ve typed that sentence, it will snow in April. But I will not live in fear! (Please don’t let it snow…) Read more »
Hey dad, could you shut up?
Do your parents ever say things that make you want to hide your face? Do they say them to the New York Times?
My guess is that Uma Thurman’s dad has said stuff like this her whole life, so its not that big a deal. Still, it’s one thing to say, “I want to find the mother in Dick Cheney,” at home. (“Pass the butter, dear.”) It’s another thing to see it in print.
image: cocs.com
