are crepuscular dogs active at sunset?

Crepuscular...I just came across this favorite word in a book about dogs. I've enjoyed the word since reading and loving the hilarious novels of P G Wodehouse about Bertie Wooster, who was crepuscular. (Maybe it was another of Wodehouse's wonderful characters who was crepuscular, but I think it was Bertie Wooster.)

I'm chuffed to see that someone else loves this word; it's number 26 on the BBC News Magazine's list of fifty favorite words. (I'm being tough with myself here. I will not, will not, will not get distracted by the other 49 wonderful words.)

The American Heritage Dictionary give two definitions, and the second one relates to zoology:

Becoming active at twilight or before sunrise, as do bats and certain insects and birds.

So, dogs are supposedly crepuscular...That may explain why my dog Penny happily lies around all day and becomes active at sunset. I had the impression it was the thought of dinner that got her going. As to sunrise...no way is she active at that hour!

origin of the word 'cynic'

Since I've been living with a dog I've often thought about some of the things we humans take for granted - for instance our dependence on our sense of sight, our enjoyment of 'good manners', our constant worrying about the future. Dogs don't care about things like that and seem all the happier for it.

In Stanley Coren's book, 'How Dogs Think', he says:

Plato's contemporary Diogenes, another significant Greek philosopher, although more eccentric than most, became known for wandering the world with a lamp claiming to be "looking for an honest man." While he had his doubts about humans, Diogenes thought dogs were extremely moral and adopted the nickname "Cyon", which means "Dog". He would go on to found one of the great ancient schools of philosophy, and he and his followers would become known by his nickname as "Cynics" or "Dog Thinkers." Diogenes' own intelligence and wit were such that Alexander the Great, after meeting him in Corinth, went away saying, "If I were not Alexander, I should wish to be Diogenes."

When Diogenes died, the people of Athens raised a great marble pillar in his memory. On top of the pillar was the image of a dog. Beneath the dog there was a long inscription that started with the following bit of conversation:
"Say, Dog, I pray, what guard you in that tomb?'
"A dog."
"His name?"
"Diogenes."

Coren presents this information as part of a discussion of humanity's changing attitudes over time to the question of the dog's intelligence and ability to feel emotion. In Coren's version, Diogenes adopted the name out of respect for the dog.

The Internet Encyclopedia of Philosopy, on the other hand, says

the term may have begun as an insult referring to Diogenes’ style of life, especially his proclivity to perform all of his activities in public. Shamelessness, which allowed Diogenes to use any space for any purpose, was primary in the invention of “Diogenes the Dog.”

The precise source of the term “Cynic” is, however, less important than the wholehearted appropriation of it. The first Cynics, beginning most clearly with Diogenes of Sinope, embraced their title: they barked at those who displeased them, spurned Athenian etiquette, and lived from nature. In other words, what may have originated as a disparaging label became the designation of a philosophical vocation.

black swan events

I've learned a new expression today, and with it a new concept. On ABC Radio's Counterpoint program this afternoon I was listening to three philosophers discuss Enlightenment Values in the Twenty- First Century , and one of the speakers referred to what I thought was a black swan effect.

Or maybe he referred to a black swan event.

It was immediately apparent that it meant a circumstance that wouldn't have been predicted, because no previous experience suggested such a thing was possible.

A quick look around the Net told me that it's a theory proposed by Nassim Taleb. Here's a brief quote from his work, posted on Wikipedia:

What we call here a Black Swan (and capitalize it) is an event with the following three attributes. First, it is an outlier, as it lies outside the realm of regular expectations, because nothing in the past can convincingly point to its possibility. Second, it carries an extreme impact. Third, in spite of its outlier status, human nature makes us concoct explanations for its occurrence after the fact, making it explainable and predictable. I stop and summarize the triplet: rarity, extreme impact, and retrospective (though not prospective) predictability. A small number of Black Swans explains almost everything in our world, from the success of ideas and religions, to the dynamics of historical events, to elements of our own personal lives.

Taleb says there's a 'nice summary' of his ideas at Arlene Goldbard's blog.

She finishes with these points:

Since we can’t control unpredictable events, we should accept uncertainty and seek to maximize our exposure to serendipity, as by putting ourselves in the way of new ideas.

Since there is such danger in accepting conclusions based on too little information simply because they confirm our beliefs, we should try to remain aware in the present of what we are doing, paying attention to what actually happens and refraining as far as possible from imposing theories on our experience.

We should recognize our poor record as a species in predicting the future, that we are much better at doing than knowing. Some things are more predictable than others: we are safe enough in expecting tomorrow’s sunrise to plan on breakfast. We can start noticing which situations are most susceptible to black swans, and when we encounter them, remember how little we truly know so our ignorance doesn’t lead us around by the nose.

Israelis can recognise sarcasm

A Great Catchy Name: Semi-Supervised Recognition of Sarcastic Sentences in Online Product Reviews. What an amusing title for a research report on teaching computers to detect sarcasm in written text.

Computer scientists at a university in Israel 'taught' an algorithm to recognise sarcasm by showing it about 5,500 sentences from Amazon product reviews that human volunteers said were or were not sarcastic.

This page has a few of the sarcastic reviews.

Here are some definitions of sarcasm.

I wonder if they'll buy the algorithm a graduation gift now that it's finished learning how to communicate more fully with the human race. They could buy it a downloadable punctution mark for sarcasm, the SarcMark.

an unnecessary comma?

Reading about the Duchess of York today in The Age newspaper, I had to pause to think about the meaning of one sentence:

The man who inveigled the duchess into a long, boozy dinner, the sight of $US40,000 ($A48,000) in fresh notes beside an ashtray, and a bottle of wine afterwards is Mahzer Mahmood, whose elaborate stings have trapped celebrities, royals and crooks.

It's a sentence that sets the scene clearly, and I could imagine the duchess sitting there looking longingly at the money, but I had trouble with comprehending its meaning. At first I thought perhaps a comma, following the word afterwards, would make it clearer.

But then I remembered the rule that we should not use a comma between the subject and the verb. At its simplest, the above sentence is The man is Mahzer Mahmood. So we wouldn't want a comma before is.

So I guess it's just one of those long sentences that are correct but take a moment or two to process. If I'd written it, I would have put that comma in but I think I would have been wrong.

playing with the Google online translator

Mary made a comment on my recent post about the Frying Dragon mistranslation from Chinese. She mentioned a game on the Australian music quiz television program, Spicks and Specks. In the game the lyrics of a song are translated into Japanese using an online web program. Then they're translated back into English and the players have to work out what song it was.

I couldn't resist trying it out, of course. I thought I'd try Hindi.

Here's my song:

If you're happy and you know it,
clap your hands.
If you're happy and you know it,
clap your hands.
If you're happy and you know it,
Then you'd really
better show it,
If you're happy and you know it,
clap your hands.

And here's what I got:

अगर आप खुश हैं और आप इसे जानते हैं,
अपने हाथ ताली.
अगर आप खुश हैं और आप इसे जानते हैं,
अपने हाथ ताली.
अगर आप खुश हैं और आप इसे जानते हैं,
तो क्या तुम सच में चाहते हैं
बेहतर यह दिखाने के लिए,
अगर आप खुश हैं और आप इसे जानते हैं,
अपने हाथ ताली.

Okay, now to translate it back to English:

If you are happy and you know it,
Clap your hands.
If you are happy and you know it,
Clap your hands.
If you are happy and you know it,
If you really want
Better to show it,
If you are happy and you know it,
Clap your hands.

Hey, pretty good!

So, let's try Chinese:

如果你感到快樂，你知道它，
拍拍你的手。
如果你感到快樂，你知道它，
拍拍你的手。
如果你感到快樂，你知道它，
然後你真想
更好地表現出來，
如果你感到快樂，你知道它，
拍拍你的手。

And back to English:

If you feel happy, you know it,
Clap your hands.
If you feel happy, you know it,
Clap your hands.
If you feel happy, you know it,
Then you really want to
Better performance out
If you feel happy, you know it,
Clap your hands.

I wonder why Hindi came out so much closer to the original?

Okay, can't resist trying Japanese:

あなたは満足している場合はそれを知って、
あなたの手をたたく。
あなたは満足している場合はそれを知って、
あなたの手をたたく。
あなたは満足している場合はそれを知って、
次に、あなたが本当にしたい
より、それを示す
あなたは満足している場合はそれを知って、
あなたの手をたたく。

And, back to English:

If you know it is satisfied,
Clap your hands.
If you know it is satisfied,
Clap your hands.
If you know it is satisfied,
Then you really want
More, it shows
If you know it is satisfied,
Clap your hands.

Oh, I must stop! It would be too, too easy to get addicted to this game. I wonder why the imperative verb comes out okay in every translation. Must think about it...

Can't resist one more - Basque, a language that is very different from other European languages.

zu zoriontsu bazara eta badakizu,
clap eskuak.
zu zoriontsu bazara eta badakizu,
clap eskuak.
zu zoriontsu bazara eta badakizu,
Ondoren, benetan zenuke
hobeto erakusten du,
zu zoriontsu bazara eta badakizu,
clap eskuak.

And back to English:

If you're happy and you know,
clap your hands.
If you're happy and you know,
clap your hands.
If you're happy and you know,
Then, you really
more shows
If you're happy and you know,
clap your hands.


MUST make myself stop! But I wonder whether a German-English one would be virtually perfect, given that the two languages are so similar. Or, maybe, Dutch-English...

飞龙 and the frying dragon lock

Why is it SO amusing when we read a translation from Chinese that involves the letter 'R' instead of 'L'?



I bought a lock recently, and I'll freely admit I purchased it only because the name on the box made me feel happy.Frying dragon. I had visions of a cute little children's story about a lonely dragon who succeeds in becoming Mr Popularity by frying up foods for the local villagers who haven't invented fire yet.

Or a dragon who doesn't like raw food and invents a method of heating up a giant pan so he can fry up a giant hamburger.

Or...

The possibilities are endless.

A search of the internet actually finds sites called Frying Dragon, but I hesitate to put links here as they seem to be unusual sites.

A Chinese colleague translated the paper insert in the box, and told me the fifth and sixth characters in the last line (飞龙) say flying dragon in English.



What a pity the company didn't check the work of their translator. On the other hand, their amusing mistranslation has resulted in one more sale. I don't need this lock. But I bought it.

The question of translating brand names between two such different languages and cultures presents its own problems - I read with great interest an article on this topic.