I’m not sure what this is saying about me, but my immediate reaction was to go check whether tengrandisburiedthere.com was available. To my surprise, Microsoft had yet to snatch it up! A few hours later, here’s the result:

Go ahead, visit the site and give it a try!

Note: Not being a marketing guy, I just threw some text together to introduce Firefox. If someone has some better copy for this display, please let me know.

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From Dates in the Month of May that Are of Interest to Linguists by the late James D. McCawley:

May 6, 1939. The University of Chicago trades Leonard Bloomfield to Yale University for two janitors and an undisclosed number of concrete gargoyles.

May 23, 38,471 B.C. God creates language.

May 29, 1962. Angular brackets are discovered. Classes at M.I.T. are dismissed and much Latvian plum brandy is consumed.

May 31, 1951. Chomsky discovers Affix-hopping and is reprimanded by his father for discovering rules on shabas.

Unfortunately May 31, 1951 was a Thursday…

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Last week I released a proof-of-concept demo of the next generation Ubiquity parser design and it was also the focus of discussion in our weekly internationalization meeting.¹ Christian Sonne even wrote a Danish plugin for it during the meeting—a testament to the pluggability and of the new parser design.

In addition, at the Ubiquity weekly meeting, pushing this new parser into Ubiquity proper was identified as a key goal of Ubiquity 0.2, making frequent iteration and debate over this parser essential.

To that end, I’ll highlight some of the changes made to the parser demo codebase in the past week:

• left-branching support and a Japanese parser
• basic French parser
• a timer display
• Danish parser by Christian Sonne
• synonyms: as an example, you can now use “purchase” or “buy,” both of which point to the same verb.
• verb name localizations: you no longer need to use the English verb names with different languages. (Currently only Japanese has any verb localizations.)
• a number of optimizations and corrections

I encourage you to check out the demo again or check out the source on BitBucket.

➔ Ubiquity Parser: The Next Generation demo

I’d love to get comments, patches, or additional parsers! Thanks! ^^

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From the 2004 Scav Hunt list:

Item 80. Brain Farts: The Collected Works of The University of Chicago Bathroom Graffiti (organized by theme, but attributed to location). [102 points. 15 bonus points for an inset detailing the entirety of the “Grout Work.”]

I spent a day or so going around campus with a friend (so I didn’t have to be snooping around in ladies’ rooms) taking pictures and compiled the booklet. In good Scav Hunt spirit, I opened the booklet with this tongue in cheek forward:

The anonymity and collaborative nature of bathroom graffiti makes it an amazing reflection of the world we live in. People can write what they want to in their own honest words—it is a clear window into the modern human psyche.

Oddly enough, the latter part of this passage on anonymity jives with Dean Levmore’s talk. For posterity’s sake, I’ve made a compressed—but still pretty big—PDF version available here:

Make sure not to miss the highlight: the three pages of grout-fiti, collected from three different buildings. I might even venture to say it’s the groutest collection of egroutica ever compiled.

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“We are like you—only more so.”

Brilliant. Watch the video:

(via kottke)

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I don’t think those two were related.

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I’ve been a fan of the SNL Digital Shorts since Lazy Sunday, but this is absolutely something else. It’s a brilliant piece of cross-cultural parody. Many on the associated Hulu page had some questions, however, so I decided to write up a little explanation of what’s actually going on in this short, and why I love it so.¹

The Digital Short begins with the Japanese version of the intro sequence, including a shrine, a 700 series bullet train, and the Scranton city sign now showing Amagasaki (尼崎市), a similarly industrial city near Osaka. Dwight shredding paper with Japanese text and Jim eating noodles are nice touches. All the names, in case you were wondering, are possible Japanese names (modulo Jim’s actor’s name being in katakana, and thus exclusively foreign). After Michael Scott with extra black hair readjusts his lucky cat (manekineko, 招き猫), we get to the brilliant title card.

As Japanese lacks definite and indefinite articles, the word “The” is replaced with 「その」 sono, the demonstrative ‘that’, making the title literally “That Office.” Lacking a straightforward replacement for “The,” however, I feel that this is a very cute artifact of overly-faithful translation.

The short itself runs through the Japanese versions of a few key scenes from the first episode of The Office. In the first, Pam is answering the phone and Michael interrupts her in his signature way, repeating her name (or, the Japanese equivalent of “Pam”, pamu パム) and then dropping -san, a personal name suffix—the equivalent of Mister or Miss—and smiling into the camera, content with his own cleverness. Pam says something indiscernible to Michael, referring to him as Tanaka-san (the “Mr. Smith” of Japan—even though his name plate accurately said “Michael Scott” マイケル・スコット), to which Michael mumbles 「そういうことです」, a phrase meaning “and that’s that,” or “and that is the case.” My guess is that this was the attempted translation of “that’s what she said.”

Michael then goes on to say 「日本で一番面白いボスです」 (nihon-de ichiban omoshiroi bosu desu, ‘[I am] the most interesting (=funniest) boss in Japan’). Steve Carell’s snicker halfway through that line, in response to his trying really hard at producing it, is very cute. The mug itself says 「世界中で一番面白い社長」(“world’s funniest company president”). This reminds me of my dad when he speaks Japanese, in the best way possible. ^^

Next is of course the jello scene. Dwight picks up the phone with the phone-appropriate 「もしもし」 (moshimoshi) and Jim asks where the stapler is. Dwight yells back 「バカ！」 (baka, ‘stupid!’) and Pam laughs, though in the stereotypical Japanese female’s high pitch manner, appropriately covering her mouth (though Pam also actually does this in the original). Michael walks in and they all apologize, 「ごめんなさい」 gomennasai. Although the bowing is a bit excessive in a classical SNL parody way, the traditionally hierarchical status quo of Japanese offices is very succinctly reflected here.

The next scene is also from the first episode of The Office, where Michael introduces himself, 「僕は君たちのリージョナル・マネージャ」 (boku-wa kimitachi-no regional manager, ‘I am your Regional Manager’). Dwight states that he is the “Assistant Regional Manager” (アシスタント・リージョナル・マネージャ) and then is corrected, 「リージョナル・マネージャのアシスタントです」 (regional manager-no assistant desu, ‘[you are] Assistant to the Regional Manager’). It’s very cool to see how this back and forth translates beautifully, and to see these actors execute it with the right timing and effect in a foreign language. Michael asks 「どうしてここにいるのだ」 (doushite koko-ni irunoda, ‘why are [you] here?’) and leads them in the radio exercises (ラジオ体操), saying 「じゃ、ラジオ体操をしましょう」 (jya, rajio taisou-wo shimashou, ‘well then, let’s do the radio exercises’).

Here’s another beautiful cultural point. These “radio exercises” are real, as every Mori no Ike villager knows, broadcasted over public radio and TV every morning, and are often done en masse at schools and some businesses. Pam’s then notes 「田中さんはみんなの健康を心配しています」 (Tanaka-san-wa minna-no kenkou-wo shinpai-shite-imasu, ‘Mr. Tanaka (=Michael) is concerned for everyone’s health’) in a conference-room reflection, and we see Stanley doing the crossword again.

After hurting his shoulder and cooling it with some oolong tea—the same bottle that was on Pam’s counter in the first scene—Michael reflects:

「今日はいい日でした。」 (kyou-ha ii hi deshita, ‘Today was a good day.’)
「いい仕事をした。」 (ii shigoto-wo shita, ‘[I] did good work.’)
「そう思う…かな？ はいはいはい！」 (sou omou… kana? hai hai hai!, ‘I think this way…? Yes yes yes!’)

The last line there is beautifully translated, capturing the essence of Michael in Japanese. As Japanese is a verb-final language, you literally say “blah blah blah I think” to mean “I think blah blah blah”, which may help explain the last phrase, 「そう思う」. Finally, the 「かな」 thrown in at the end turns the entire sentence, which was declarative up till then, into a question, which the bobble-head then answers. Brilliant!

In the final scene, Michael’s singing karaoke and Dwight yells 「かんぱい！」 (kanpai!, ‘bottoms up!’). The final credits list Sarah Sawyer and Hanna(h) Sawyer as producers… I wonder if they were actually involved with this Short or if they are also made up as well.

The details in the Short are great: the little Hello Kitties and origami, orchid plant on the reception desk (Japanese love orchids—or wait, maybe that’s just my grandfather), and all the copy paper that had 「コピー用紙」 (kopii-youshi, ‘copy paper’) pasted on. There’s a bonsai tree on Jim’s desk and his spoon is replaced with chopsticks.

If you want to get picky, of course, there are many rough edges… the incorrect use of 「ステープラー」 (how you would say “stapler” in Japanese) in lieu of 「ホッチキス」,² some text being poorly typeset, etc. But overall, this SNL Digital Short was obviously written by someone with a solid (albeit stereotypical) understanding of Japanese culture and strong intermediate Japanese skills. If the goal was simply only to play off of Japanese stereotypes, accurate Japanese wouldn’t have even been necessary, and so I really appreciate the effort that went into this. In addition, Steve Carell et al’s delivery in a language they don’t speak, in my opinion, is commendable.

“It’s funny because it’s racist,” in the best way possible. Bravo!

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This, together with my currently daily train commutes, have led me to further explore the world of podcasts. I’m now a proud subscriber of “The Bugle: the Audio Newspaper for a Visual World,” with John Oliver of Daily Show fame and Andy Zaltman, distributed by The Times of London. Like a weekly audio Daily Show, except more British and thus more ridiculous. It’s fabulous fun, and perfect for those of us who hate reading.

Here’s a snippet from this past episode:

USA and Britain are once again at the top!, of the western world’s teenage pregnancies – also called the two countries most committed to the war on terror. … What it also suggests is, as nations, we get overexcited in the prospect of an easy conquest without really thinking about the long term consequences.

So true.

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Thanks.

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