Grab Bag

When the United Kingdom put a referendum to its citizens as to whether to remain in or leave the European Union, the "leave" faction triumphed by the slimmest of margins with 51.9% of the vote. Unsurprisingly, the areas around London as well as those bordering the Republic of Ireland (which will remain part of the EU) were among those districts that had the highest totals of those seeking to stay. But also decisively in the "remain" column was a country that nearly split from the UK in 2014, and is now rethinking that position. In Scotland a solid 62% voted to keep ties to the continent, with not a single council area voting to walk away. 

As the Brexit debate has played out, those in the Highlands have watched and waited with no small amount of anxiety. So when Scots woke up to a tweet from the national police urging them to pack a "grab bag" and to get ready to leave, they could have been forgiven for not understanding the context. Was Brexit indeed a happening thing, and they should pack a bag filled with things that would no longer be easily accessible? French wine? German bratwurst? Swiss truffles? 

It turns out that national soul searching about staying within the continent's family of nations had nothing to do with the tweet. Rather, it referenced the need for a true emergency kit such as might be required in event of a natural disaster. On their official Twitter account the cops tweeted, "Emergencies can happen at any time and it's recommended to have a #GrabBag ready containing essential items including medication, copies of important documents, food/water, torch, radio and other personal items." Accompanying the post was a graphic of a backpack containing the aforementioned items, and a link to a checklist at Ready Scotland, a civilian defense agency. 

Because it came not from just any inter-government organization but from the cops, the tweet took on added significance: what did they know that the rest of the country didn't? Why suddenly, on a clear September morning, should people be checking the batteries in their penlights? Was there an imminent danger of civil unrest? Was Boris going to jump the gun and close the ports? Did they have advance warning of a haggis shortage? 

None of that. Seems that September is "Preparedness Month," an international campaign designed to promote family and community disaster and emergency planning. And the Scottish police were just tagging onto the national "#30days30waysUK" social media campaign. Under that banner, various UK authorities posted tips, reminders and conversation starters keyed to this year's theme of "Prepared, Not Scared." There was the Durham Country Council query "Could you stay with family or friends at short notice?" A thought provoker from the Devon Country Council that "If you bank online, how secure is your computer?" And the note from the Northhamptonshire County Council that while "most homes will have the majority of what they need to shelter in place for a few days, it is a good idea to gather some essential supplies for you and your family." (To which @sleepyvicar replied "and not just chocolate.") 

Simple enough, right? Not so fast. Seems that that campaign itself wasn't driven just by a concern for civil defense but by the first company you get when you Google "grab Bags." EVAQ8 is a company that sells emergency supplies, and its co-owner is one of the moving forces behind the campaign in the country. Seems the "30Days, 30Ways" campaign web site is on a server whose Google searches return EVAQ8 at the top when you go looking for grab bags. Just one more of those cases where government and commerce overlap. Thankfully that never happens on these shores. 

Not surprisingly, many reacted by offering up their own versions of grab bags. After all, emergency preparedness means different things to different people. Posts on the social network site Fark included an entry that describe one bag as including "$897.76 cash, 9mm xtra magazines, bus and train schedules, socks." Another more culturally attuned poster said his had "black pudding, haggis and a double nougat." And then there's this: "All I'll need is a few rubber bands, some chewing bum, baking soda and some plastic straws. Anything else I'll pick up on the road." The poster's name? MacGyver.

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Marc Wollin of Bedford keeps a flashlight in his suitcase. His column appears regularly in The Record-Review, The Scarsdale Inquirer and online at http://www.glancingaskance.blogspot.com/, as well as via Facebook, LinkedIn and Twitter.

THE Ohio State University

Is "dog" a verb or a noun or both? What about medical and scientific terms? Is "saute'" English or French? Slang? Abbreviations? Twitter speak? If you're talking the universe of words written, typed and spoken in English, you quickly reach numbers in the one million range. 

A more proper way of counting might be to take a look at one of the iconic dictionaries we use today. Webster's clocks in with close to half a million words, while the Oxford version tallies up nearly 200,000. But each contains words like crepuscular, which means "of or relating to twilight," tmesis, which refers to cutting a word in half and sticking another in the middle, and petrichor, which is "the pleasant smell that accompanies the first rain after a dry spell." If you know someone who can use those in everyday speech, well that's fan-freakin-tastic. 

In actual usage, experts estimate that most native speakers have a vocabulary that clocks in around 40,000 words. However, that includes both active and passive words. Passive ones are those that we know but rarely use, while active ones account for the majority of our speech and interactions. If you parse it even further, it's a much smaller universe. According to "The Reading Teachers Book of Lists," the first 100 words are used in 50% of adult and student writing, and the first 1,000 words are used in 89% of everyday writing. 

That means that every one of those 1,000 is valuable. You can argue as to how best to string them together to form sentences, but each is an arrow in your quiver when you try to communicate. Take away any of them, and your ability to convey what you want is severely limited. Imagine not being able to use #928 "bought." Or having to work around not being able to write #697 "smile." Maybe you could live without #534 "count" or #352 "best" or #146 "boy." The good news, of course, is that you don't have to avoid them. They are free to use as you see fit (which is #714 for the record). 

But what if they weren't? What if you had to fork over a royalty for each time you trotted out "whole" (#148) or "she" (#50) or "you" (#5). Imagine if it you owned the number one word in the English language, and were able to demand payment every time someone uttered it or wrote it. It would seem ridiculous, unless that is, you are Ohio State University. Or as they liked to be called "The Ohio State University." And so they filed a claim to trademark the word "The." 

The school was founded in 1870, and was originally called the "Ohio Agricultural and Mechanical College" due to its location in a farming community. In 1878, the name was changed to "The Ohio State University." The given reason for including "The" as part of the official name was to give the school stature and show it was a leading institution in the state, and not to be confused with any others – a first among equals. 

Fast forward to the days of big money college football, and it's all about marketing. The school filed trademark protection for the most used word in the English language, as well as the names Urban Meyer and Woody Hayes, two of the school's most well know coaches. According to university spokesman Chris Deavey, it was important to "vigorously protect the university's brand and trademarks. These assets hold significant value, which benefits our students and faculty and the broader community by supporting our core academic mission of teaching and research." 

However it seems they didn't check with the teaching staff at OSU's own Moritz School of Law. Professors there might have pointed out that in order to trademark a common word it has to be used in a unique fashion, like Apple for computers. Just putting an article in front of a name doesn't do it. And that's why their claim was rejected this week. 

So for now at least feel free to use "the" as many times as you wish, knowing you won't have to fork over a nickel every time to the folks in Columbus. But as for Urban Meyer, he might have an issue. He better insist on people calling him "Coach." Otherwise, it's going to cost him.

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Marc Wollin of Bedford uses many words, cost be dammed. His column appears regularly in The Record-Review, The Scarsdale Inquirer and online at http://www.glancingaskance.blogspot.com/, as well as via Facebook, LinkedIn and Twitter.

Blocked

Consider this scenario: you go to a movie with friends and are chatting about it afterwards. Someone wonders if the director of the movie, Spike Lee, ever did a crime film. In the past you would have played 20 questions: "Wasn't there one about a bank robbery?" "Dog Day Afternoon?" "No, that was Sidney Lumet. Wasn't it with Clive Owen?" And eventually you would wind up at "Inside Man." Today it's a different story. Unless someone is a movie aficionado who knows the answer outright, no one even tries to guess. Someone pulls out a phone, taps for a few seconds, and up pops every film Spike has ever made. Perhaps not as much fun, not as social, but certainly more efficient. 

It's a situation repeated endlessly in every arena . Food? Geography? Music? Regardless of the topic all you need is to Google it. As long as you have an internet connection, whether you're in a restaurant, a theater or just walking down the street, you can find out the result of your query: as the lawyers say, asked and answered. Access to that kind of knowledge is both a powerful tool and modern marvel that is easy to take for granted. 

For that reason, your phone is almost the most important thing to take with you when you travel. To be sure, it's your connection to share your trip with others and to keep up with the what's going on back home. These days the built-in cameras are first rate, making picture taking easy and producing great results. But if you like to wander and explore as we do, what really makes your phone valuable is its mapping ability and as a portal to access information as you crisscross locales, whether domestic or foreign. 

That doesn't mean it's not a good idea to do some research before you go to make sure you are hitting the points worth seeing. It's just that we've fallen into the trap of not having to remember. After all, why bother to store away bits and pieces of knowledge when the totality of relevant data is available at a moment's notice when we want it? On a recent trip to Istanbul we used that connection endlessly, answering the countless questions that popped up as we went from place to place. 

Sitting in a restaurant, we wondered about the bottles of local brew that so many of the patrons were drinking. In just a few seconds we pulled up that Raki was an anise flavored liquor. As we walked through a museum, we were curious if the court painter we were admiring had Italian training. Indeed, Aivazovsky studied in Naples and Rome. Spotting a blip of land as we come around the bend, we wondered what it was called. Turned out to be the Princes' Islands, a place where there are no cars and only horses. And on and on it went. 

But I noticed a curious thing. Almost always the first reference that popped up was from Wikipedia. This internet encyclopedia is a go-to source, very often the first stop for basic unbiased knowledge about almost anything. However, when I clicked those links, they never went through. I tried repeatedly, always having to backtrack and go somewhere else not as concise or direct. I assumed it was some kind of technical connection thing, until I dug a little deeper. 

Seems that Wikipedia is banned in Turkey. Back in 2017, due to an article on the site on state-sponsored terrorism wherein the country was described as a sponsor of ISIS and Al-Qaeda, Turkish authorities blocked online access. For sure there are ways around the block, as well as other sites that supply similar information. But it was my first experience with someone telling me what I was allowed to look at and what I wasn't, and banned me from my chosen source. 

It's easy to see this where this can lead, and it's not a good place. With so much discussion underway about disinformation and fake news and trolling, some advocate restricting access. But what gets restricted? And who decides? So if anyone ever asks for me to advocate or back or contribute to keeping information free available – all information regardless of whether I agree with it or not – having had a very small taste of the alternative, I know on which side of the question I stand.

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Marc Wollin of Bedford thinks information should be openly available. His column appears regularly in The Record-Review, The Scarsdale Inquirer and online at http://www.glancingaskance.blogspot.com/, as well as via Facebook, LinkedIn and Twitter.

Oh, Snap!

If you're talking insults, you have to talk Shakespeare. The man who is known for some of the finest turns of the English language, who coined "All the glitters is not gold" and "Cry havoc and let slip the dogs of war" and "Jealousy is the green-eyed monster" was also adept at the art of the put-down. From "All's Well That Ends Well" there's "Methink'st thou art a general offence and every man should beat thee." From "Henry IV Part I" there's "Away, you starvelling, you elf-skin, you dried neat's-tongue, bull's-pizzle, you stock-fish!" And from "Titus Andronicus" perhaps the first "mom" joke ever: "Villain, I have done thy mother." 

That set the stage for Don Rickles and "Who picks your clothes - Stevie Wonder?" as well as Triumph the Insult Comic Dog and "Three months out here supporting Michael Jackson. Do you realize you could have been head movie usher by now?" But these days if you want to get into the thick of it, you don't look to stages at comedy clubs or late night TV, but rather to the arena of politics.

Forget the Congressional niceties of "I yield to the gentleman from Kansas." The present occupant of the White House has upended congeniality in Washington in a way never seen before. From "Crooked Hillary" to "Sleepy Creepy Joe," President Trump tags his opponents and critics with names designed to demean and belittle them. You can argue whether they resonate or not, but from a strictly literary standpoint they are elementary school taunts at best. One could easily imagine a third grader saying "No puppet. No puppet. You're the puppet." Compare that with the Sir William's "You scullion! You rampallian! You fustilarian! I'll tickle your catastrophe!" and it's no contest.

But it's not the putdowns from 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue that define the state of art these days, but rather those utterances emanating from the other side of the planet. For when Trump hated Kim Jong-Un, the ruler of North Korea, and reached into his insult quiver for a zinger, the best he could come up with was "Rocketman." Kim replied with far more, formulating a putdown that included a word that, even if you didn't know its meaning, sounded seriously harsh: "Action is the best option in treating the dotard who, hard of hearing, is uttering only what he wants to say." Surely the Bard himself would have been impressed.

In historical fact, you can make a case that the Hermit Kingdom is perhaps the world's preeminent superpower in insults. Nearly 50 years ago they laid into LBJ as a "war maniac" and a "living corpse" and haven't taken a deep breath since. Leader after leader has come under the verbal barrage of the Democratic People's Republic of Korea. George Bush was described as a "tyrannical idiot" and "political imbecile who lacks even an iota of elementary reason, morality and ability to judge reality as a human being." Barack Obama was somebody who "does not even have the basic appearances of a human being." John Kerry had a "hideous lantern jaw" while "his behavior fully revealed once again the U.S. inveterate nature as a hypocrite who has deceived and mocked mankind with all sorts of gimmicks." And after Senator Corey Gardner called Kim a "whack job" the DPRK hammered him as "a man mixed with human dirt who has lost basic judgment and body hair." Ouch.

More recently they took aim at South Korean leader Moon Jae-in: "He truly is a shameless man." And they were just getting started: "We even question if his thought process is sound when he mentions 'talks' between North and South while playing out war scenarios that plan to destroy most of our armies in 90 days." And then the kicker: "that kind of thinking is enough to make the boiled head of a cow laugh." Say what you will: that is the long ball of insults.

They might have a "beautiful friendship" now, but when it sours - and it will – Trump better step up his game. If the best you got is "Lyin Ted Cruz" and "Leakin' James Comey," it's game over when the other side trots out this about a defector: "Despicable human scum, who was worse than a dog, perpetrated thrice-cursed acts of treachery in betrayal." As Sir William might say, "Forsooth! Thy tongue doth have sting!"

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Marc Wollin of Bedford loves a good put-down. His column appears regularly in The Record-Review, The Scarsdale Inquirer and online at http://www.glancingaskance.blogspot.com/, as well as via Facebook, LinkedIn and Twitter.