How I spend my Friday nights

The sewing of my Harley Quinn outfit has been defeated! ...I mean, completed.

I can't figure out how to flip the picture...

It took me hours and I broke countless needles (of which I will be replacing for the friend I borrowed the machine from), but it's done and ready for tomorrow's pub crawl! I just need to buy a nurse hat and some gloves that I will get at the Halloween warehouse tomorrow morning. I should look pretty rad. I can't wait to see what all the other nerds dressed up as.

On a down note, I got pulled over today because my tags are expired and I never registered my car under my name (oops). Going to the DMV Monday to sort it out (what better way to spend my day off?) and then eventually once I get it all sorted out I'll have to go to the sheriff's department so they can inspect it and waive the fine (of a whole $20) and the citation so I don't have to go to court on August 13th (which I wouldn't be able to make it anyways as I'll be stuck in LAX for a whole day flying back from Japan on that day). Seeing as how I should have paid better attention to the registration/tags I feel no angry rant is in order because it is wholly my fault. And the officer was very nice (although a little exasperated looking). Unlike the cop who gave me my speeding ticket four years ago. He was just plain mean. Regardless the fact that I deserved that one too.

And I think I did something bad to my left knee...it hurts. Just in time for my triathlon.

Oh joyous world.

Jamie  

Insomniac; one affected with insomnia

Did anyone ever notice that the title of my blog has been spelling wrong this whole time? It was "insomiac".

That being said (although it really has nothing to do with the rest of this post now that I think about it), right now i'm reading this book by Bill Bryson titled "Mother Tongue" for my Selected Topics in Applied Linguistics class. It's pretty much an intro into the world of English linguistics, laid out in such a way for people who don't have a background in linguistics can follow it with little problems. The author has a very humorous style of writing and since he is British he mainly uses examples from British English. Despite it being a book for beginner linguists I have found it to be rather informative as well as amusing and haven't been able to put it down. I love it when profs assign textbooks that aren't really textbooks. Bryson brings up a lot of interesting topics though, the latest chapter I just read being on "good" English vs "bad" English and the prescriptive and descriptive approaches to each side. I find myself in the descriptive linguist group (embrace language shifts, don't fight them!). The prescriptive people of course are those who want to freeze language where it is (or rather where it was 50+ years ago) and prevent anymore change from happening (which of course would be a Noam Chomsky school of though approach and lets face it, that man is just silly sometimes).

Why would anyone want to stop language change? I mean, I guess I can see why some people would want to solely to preserve the way they themselves speak (sorta like the way older people have their opinions on what we younger people call "music" a-now-days). I find the fact that people here in 2010 use almost entirely different vocabulary than people 30,40,50 years ago to be fascinating! And it's not a new phenomena like some people might think; language has been changing ever since people invented language! You don't see people going around saying "thou" and "hark", etc, do you? Society is an ever changing monster and if the language doesn't change with it, then it will cease to exist because people eventually move onto a different means of communication that better fits their needs (which is one factor that kills so many indigenous languages of small population because they get exposed to, say English, which fits the modern world better than their language therefore they abandon their native tongue for the more useful one). So the next time you think that our language has taken a turn for the worse remember this; people from generations before you would say the same thing about YOU. Just appreciate the changes and except that nothing can prevent it ( as it should be) and that there really is no "correct" way for speaking so long as the speaker is understood by other native speakers i.e. there ain't nuttin' wrong wit dee suthern accents cuz wut dey sayin' is completely understandable to the other speakers around them, even if outsiders have a hard time with it, so who's to say it's wrong?

Even though I am living here in Japan and therefore should be taking advantage of studying Japanese linguistics, I find myself wanting to study more and more about English. Perhaps it's because it's my native tongue but don't know much about it other than how to speak it, but ever since I took my first Sociolinguistics class last winter term (which focused a lot on American dialects and what-not) I have been captivated with all the different accents in America. Don't get me wrong though, I'm not completely wasting my opportunity here in Japan. In fact, I'm extremely interested in Japanese Sociolinguistics and have even found a book that compares Japanese and American Linguistics/Social behaviors (which go hand in hand). And of course just my everyday living here and being in contact with native speakers is a study all it's own! I'll being going on a trip down to the Kansai area of Japan (Osaka, Kyoto, Kobe, Nara, etc) where the dialect there is unlike any other in Japan. In fact, it's so interesting that most comedians are from that region (therefore I can't understand most of the comedians on TV). But I'll be able to hear it first hand in about a months time and I am stoked!

Sorry to nerd out on you. I could go on and on for days about this stuff, so if it interests you too, lets chat privately! :D

Noam Chomsky

out
Jamie