Sam's L33t Journal

Going through my notes, I found this little list of Erica's (past?) interesting ways of phrasing / pronouncing some things, which I record here for posterity (I mentioned a few of these before):

"ember" - To recall
"rememories" - Things recollected
"ceero" - Either "cereal" or "Cheerios" specifically
"load(s) down" - Gather data onto a computer from elsewhere
"a brave" - Hair collected into interwoven strands
"geanz" - A food consisting of (to quote the source of all knowledge) "the seed of several plants in the family Fabaceae", which Erica likes in many forms, but a favorite might be cold straight from the can
"structions" - Directions followed to accomplish some task
"funny goose!" - Expression of amusement
"intertresting" - Opposite of boring

A conversation I had with a friend on Twitter this morning:

@Sorcyress: I am kinda weirded out by the idea of "hug a jew day" (girls were discussing in high school class)...
@Sorcyress: ...but I don't really have the background to fight it. Maybe I'm just reacting to the phrasing "a jew", which is a slur? I don't know.
@Sorcyress: (Also problematic in that what if the Jewish people in question don't *want* hugs. Or don't want hugs for that reason.)
Me: @Sorcyress "A Jew" is not a slur any more than "a Christian" or "a Muslim" is a slur.
@Sorcyress: More on "Jew" versus "Jewish" http://bit.ly/b2Myxv --implication is that "Jew" isn't technically a slur, but has a dubious history
@Sorcyress: @L33tminion It seems that "Jew" may not be a slur, but is still tainted by a history of being used as one.
Me: @Sorcyress Are you seriously making anti-Semites your go-to source for the definition of the word "Jew"?
@Sorcyress: @L33tminion Based on my research (bit.ly/b2Myxv, bit.ly/JSch1) "Jew" is not a slur, however it is/was so commonly used as one that...
@Sorcyress: @L33tminion ...some people shy away from the word. My best guess is that it's to other reclaimed language, ie, there is not a problem...
@Sorcyress: @L33tminion ...if a Jewish person chooses to self identify as "a Jew" or call themself/another Jewish person "Jew" but because of the...
@Sorcyress: @L33tminion ...history, it can be a little dicey for non-Jewish-identified people to refer to Jewish people a "a jew" or "jews"
@Sorcyress: @L33tminion That being said, IANA Jewish studies major or Jewish. I initially was unsure of whether Jew was a slur. Still am.

At which point I decided a longer post was called for.

Full Disclosure: I was raised Jewish. Many of my family members are Jews. I don't identify myself as "Jewish" / "a Jew", primarily because that implies things about my religious belief and/or practice that are incorrect. (Secondarily, because I put more focus on the religious connotations of the term than ethnic/racial concepts of "the Jewish people".)

Jew as "Reclaimed Language": First off, I take issue with the characterization of the word "Jew" as "reclaimed". Jew is not a word originally applied to practitioners of Judaism by their detractors, but a word with straightforward historical origins that trace back to the biblical story of the origin of the Jews. Wikipedia has an article on the word itself, which contains an excellent summary:

The Jewish ethnonym in Hebrew is יהודים Yehudim (plural of יהודי Yehudi) which is the origin of the English word Jew. The Hebrew name is derived from the region name Judah (Yehudah יהודה). Originally the name referred to the territory allotted to the tribe descended from Judah the fourth son of the patriarch Jacob (Numbers). Judah was one of the twelve sons of Jacob and one of the Twelve tribes of Israel (Genesis). The Genesis 29:35 [1] relates that Judah's mother — the matriarch Leah — named him Yehudah (i.e. "Judah") because she wanted to "praise God" for giving birth to so many sons: "She said, 'This time let me praise (odeh אודה) God (יהוה),' and named the child Judah (Yehudah יהודה)", thus combining "praise" and "God" into one new name. Thereafter Judah vouchsafes the Jewish monarchy, and the Israelite kings David and Solomon derive their lineage from Judah. In Hebrew, the name "Judah" (י ה ו [ד] ה) contains the four letters of the Tetragrammaton — the special, holy, and ineffable name of the Jewish God. The very holiness of the name of Judah attests to its importance as an alternate name for "Israelites" that it ultimately replaces.

[...]

The Middle English word Jew is from the Old French giu, earlier juieu, from the Latin Iudaeus from the Greek Ἰουδαῖος. The Latin simply means Judaean, from the land of Judaea. In the Old English the word is attested as early as 1000 in various forms, such as Iudeas, Gyu, Giu, Iuu, Iuw, Iew. [links omitted]

The first article that @Sorcyress cites, Jonah Goldberg's Proud and True: He's A Jew, claims that "the word 'Jew' is being rehabilitated". The article correctly identifies some problematic uses of the word "Jew". "Jew" as a verb and as an adjective are problematic and that usage both originates from and ties back to an anti-Semetic context. However, the article makes some bizarre statements, for example:

Ironically, the Jew-Jewish distinction was brought to the fore recently by - or to be more fair - because of, another Democrat: Hillary Clinton. The allegation that she called an aide a "f***ing Jew bastard" 30 years ago, fairly or not, reminded some people that "Jew" can be a hurtful word. "F***ing Jewish bastard," oddly enough, would not have been as offensive. [emphasis mine]

Wait, what? I suppose that last statement is technically true. A reduction in the number of syllables conveys emotional intensity (think how many slurs and swears are one syllable), and also has the connotation of force of habit. One would not be unreasonable to conclude that the speaker of the first line is more vehement in their anti-Jewish sentiment and guessing that they more habitually rant about their dislike for "the Jews". But talk about missing the forest for the trees, if the reminder there has to do with the usage of "Jew" versus "Jewish" as opposed to the association of either with "F-ing bastard"!

Another paragraph of note from the same article:

[...] Hitler was largely successful in smearing the word "Jew." The word was so beaten up that after the Holocaust most American Jews took to saying, "I'm Jewish," rather than say, "I am a Jew."

Hitler speaking of "Jews" would have been rather uncharacteristically in English, so that leads to some fascinating sociolinguistic questions about the effects of a word with similar derivation in a different language being used as a slur. (I'm being a bit unfair here, I'd guess that the effects of English-speaking anti-Semites had a more significant direct effect on the perception of the word "Jew" in English. A rhetorical reference to Hitler in the context of the recent history of anti-Semitism can surely be forgiven.)

Identity and Labeling: Proponents of political correctness (and yes, I would count myself in that group) often focus on the use of labeling language. See, for example, the discussion of "person-first language". It's true that language can be hurtful because it implies that an attribute is more of a core part of someone's identity than it actually is. Unfortunately, that cuts both ways: Language can be hurtful because it implies that an attribute is less of a core part of someone's identity than it actually is. Especially if that connotes, "I don't want to treat this as a core part of your identity because it's bad." When someone uses "Jewish person" when "Jew" would flow better, I wonder if this is an expression of discomfort with their own negative attitude about Jews, or an excessive focus on speech norms as opposed to the actual effects of speech. To give an exaggerated example, think what it would imply if someone consistently referred to Jews as "people who are members of the Jewish religion" or "people who practice the Jewish faith", especially if they didn't refer to members of other religions in a similar manner. (I considered using "person with Judaism" as my example, but I'm pretty sure that crosses the line from rhetorical exaggeration into satire.)

On Consistency: Speaking of that last, the connotations of "Jewish person" versus "Jew" may also depend on how the speaker refers to (more specifically, how the listener expects the speaker to refer to) members of other religions. "Jew" is the ordinary noun for "a member of the Jewish religion". So if you refer to "Christians", "Muslims", "Buddhists", "Hindus", and "Jewish people", I don't think the connotation with regard to Jews/Judaism is positive. As the Wikipedia article concludes:

[...] when used as a noun, "Jew" is preferred, as other circumlocutions (e.g. "Jewish person") give the impression that the term "Jew" is offensive in all contexts.

Note that the last is not an argument from any authority, simply a long-standing consensus among the article's editors. I'm just quoting that to say "I agree".

"Hug a Jew Day": Of course, none of that addresses the original question of whether or not "Hug a Jew Day" is weird or offensive, except to object to the characterization of "Jew" as "a slur". I can see why "Hug a Jew Day" could be problematic.

However, a bit of searching revealed a more interesting historical context than I'd originally expected. It seems that "hug a Jew day" dates back to 2009. It originated as a Facebook group formed in opposition to Kick a Jew Day, which in turn was inspired by Kick a Ginger Day, which was inspired by an episode of South Park. Hard to say without further information how @Sorcyress's classmates' discussion fits into that context, but there's clearly some substantial stuff to dig into.

Again, I delay posting because I can't decide what to post about, but there's stuff to say. So this is a little disorganized:

Fitness: Went climbing on Wednesday:
( Courses )
Working out, I've succeeded in some of my major goals. I can back-squat or deadlift two plates (225 lbs.), and as of today I can bench press my weight (170 lbs.). My medium (8 reps) on bench press has gone up from 50 lbs. to 170 lbs. in the last 9 months, which isn't bad at all.

I've been trying to revive my social life since getting back from camp. Patti, Dan, and Tegan's housewarming party last Sunday was fun, and I'll be hanging out with Tegan again this evening. I'll also be hanging out with Lynn on Monday, which is cool, scheduling is tricky since she's farther out from the city proper.

Still memorizing kanji, using Mnemosyne to get back up to date on the one's I've previously learned. Trying to avoid confusing 後 and 終; 北, 比, and 化; 可, 同, and 向; etc., etc. Probably more posts on studying Japanese later.

Speaking of posts later, I'll probably get back to doing my chapter-by-chapter of Megatrends, mainly because I do plan to finish the book and don't like quitting when I'm halfway through. Good writing practice if nothing else.

And news: How about that Goldman Sachs story? Record quarterly profits, record compensation for executives ($18 BILLION; $600,000 per employee, although not actually so evenly distributed, obviously; they paid back the TARP funds first to avoid restrictions on executive pay, but that's a paltry portion of their bailout billions). Goldman seemed to be one of the few firms that realized the subprime mortgage market was "toxic", they sold what they could and then heavily shorted what they sold (the financial equivalent of selling your neighbor a time-bomb and then taking out a large life-insurance policy). What they couldn't dump on the unwitting, they insured with AIG. Given that they knew how bad the subprime bubble was, they must have known that AIG risked becoming insolvent, but that was okay since the US Treasury was run by former Goldman execs (Paulson, among others). Goldman manages to pull of the functional equivalent of crimes in such a way that it's not clear they're crimes at all: Were they misrepresenting the subprime securities they sold, or just taking advantage of less clever competition? Was the relationship between Goldman, AIG, and the US Treasury an elaborate kickbacks scheme planned in advance, or was Goldman just taking advantage of preexisting (and stupid) government policy (most importantly, the "too big to fail" doctrine)?

What really surprises me about the above is the low incidence of actual outrage, even in the easy-to-anger domain of the blogosphere. There's a lot of "we should be outraged", the facts of the matter are pretty outrageous. But it seems that Americans are used to the idea that organizations like Goldman are willing to help destroy the economy for their own (evidently really significant) benefit. Or maybe there's no reason to care about the economy beyond employment and grocery prices... who cares if the government gives billions to the wealthy financial class, who cares about the machinations of the rich? Maybe there's some subconscious belief that it's all a house of cards, and the state of our existence in the lower stories of said house isn't worth much concern, even if the whole thing is seeming rather shaky...

Unrelated, but also political, sort of: While I was at camp, had an argument with a climate skeptic who believes that the last few years of evidence say solar cycles are driving climate in a cooler direction, regardless of anthropogenic global warming. A few thoughts on that:
1. The scientific modeling work is really interesting, there's still a lot to discover.
2. Activists for political change related to global warming will be really reluctant to believe it. And for good reason. Politically motivated climate skeptics were in favor of sun cycle theories of climate change way before the last few years, when the trend was clearly warming, seemingly for reasons of fatalistic denial as opposed to solid science.
3. The guy I was arguing with took the "they'll totally destroy the economy" whine line, which is really annoying. Even if that was climate liberals' goal (it really isn't), the chances of regulation that would actually be economy destroying getting passed and implemented is slim to none. (Unless it massively benefited the rich, I suppose.) I expect whatever gets passed will be minimal, commonsense stuff wrapped in lofty language.
4. Sun-driven cooling is either good news in the sort term (temporary reprieve to global warming, giving us time to get some of those factors in check) or really bad (little ice age during an energy crisis!).

More to write about various books, but I'll do that later, maybe.

That's enough of a brain-dump for now.

Word counts from candidate speeches graphed over time: Here's leadership vs. change. Looks like McCain has come a long way from his "leadership over change" pitch from early in the campaign.

Bonus:

I take it you already know,
Of tough and bough and cough and dough.
Others may stumble, but not you,
On hiccough, thorough, laugh and through.
Well done! And now you wish, perhaps,
To learn of less familiar traps. Beware of heard, a dreadful word,
That looks like beard and sounds like bird.
And dead - it’s said like bed, not bead,
For goodness’ sake, don’t call it ‘deed’!
Watch out for meat and great and threat,
(They rhyme with suite and straight and debt). A moth is not a moth in mother,
Nor both in bother, broth in brother.
And here is not a match for there,
Nor dear and fear for bear and pear.
And then there’s dose and rose and lose –
Just look them up – and goose and choose.
And cork and work and card and ward,
And font and front and word and sword. And do and go and thwart and cart –
Come, come, I’ve hardly made a start! A dreadful language? Why man alive!
I’d mastered it when I was five.

-T.S.W.

(From here.)

My last weekend in Japan...

Friday was my kanji final. Yesterday, wrote my other final paper (for sociolinguistics). Today, went to a festival in Narita (forgot my camera, unfortunately) and had a totally awesome sushi dinner at a fairly fancy place (also in Narita) with my host family. What a great birthday gift (my birthday is on Tuesday, can't believe I'm almost 21). Tomorrow, I have my final for kaiwa. Tuesday and Thursday I have my final for Japanese class. Need to go to the bookstore one last time on Wednesday, to start packing by Thursday, to cancel my rail pass on Friday. The farewell party is Friday afternoon.

Update: Corrected error, my Japanese final is Tuesday and Thursday, not Thursday and Friday.

Tuesday: Talked about "foreigner talk" in sociolinguistics class. Among other features, English speakers are a lot more casual and use a lot less grammar when talking to English learners, whereas Japanese speakers do the opposite (more grammar, more polite wording). Japanese learners also tend to use more grammar than necessary (trying to include all the particles, for example), as we need to practice our grammar and don't know what to leave out. This explains the common, somewhat backhanded compliment 「あー、きれい日本語ですね」 (ah, kirei nihongo desu-ne; "ah, that's beautiful Japanese, isn't it?").

Wednesday: Had lunch with Vito at 日本のデニーズ, which is a bout a billion times better than American Denny's. (Actually, Japanese Denny's is owned by an entirely different company which bought the rights to the Denny's branding. That company in turn is owned by 7&i Holdings, which owns 7/11.) In the afternoon, I went to the national museum of Japanese History in Sakura (fairly close to my host family's home). The museum was quite interesting and definately worth the time, even though one of the museum's five galleries is currently closed for renovations.

Thursday: In the afternoon, there was a guest lecture at the IES center on Japanese popular culture, given by a neo-Marxist, anti-technology reactionary, otaku woman who's working as a professor (teaching English?) at some other university in Tokyo.

Friday was uneventful, so that's about it. This weekend, I have a ton of Japanese studying to do, and I need to make more progress on my project for marketing class (on McDonald's Japan).

My kanji book (A Guide to Remembering Japanese Characters by Kenneth G. Henshall) arrived over break, and is it ever awesome!

The book contains brief entries that excellently explain the etymology of each of the jōyō kanji. Each entry also contains pronunciations, examples, stroke count, suggestions for memorization, and a brief mnemonic. The mnemonics are (as in most textbooks) of inconsistent quality (some are just weird), but some are quite good, and the suggestions for memorization are useful. The book is well-indexed (the index of characters by reading is extremely helpful) and well cross-referenced (very useful when encountering new components in a complex kanji).

The only major strike against this book is its somewhat misleading title; it really should be called A Guide to the Origins of Japanese Characters or something similar. While some people (including myself) will find the etymological information alone to be a major help in learning and memorizing characters, some will find it far less helpful for that purpose.

Minor strikes against this book include the lack of kana readings (and the author somewhat confusingly writes both "ou" and "oo" as "ō") and the lack of stroke order (leaving that out was probably a good decision overall, though, since adding that would make the book quite a bit bigger and it's quite sizable as it is). It's worth noting that this is neither textbook nor kanji dictionary, nor is it a substitute for either. Still, I think this book is an excellent reference for any serious student of Japanese writing, preferably as a supplement to a good kanji textbook and dictionary.

In the comment threads two posts ago, I used the word "gaijin" (lit. outside person; outsider, foreigner) as opposed to "gaikokujin" (lit. outside country person; foreign national, foreigner), and a fellow IESer chewed me out for that, asking me (politely, if somewhat condescendingly) to stop using the word. I'm not sure I have an informed opinion on the subject, so I'll just open the floor to discussion.

So, "gaijin": When is it acceptable for foreigners to use the word referring to themselves? What about referring to other foreigners? Does it make a difference if they're expats as opposed to those staying more temporarily? Is it acceptable for Japanese people to use it ever? In what contexts is it pejorative? Is using the word "culturally insensitive"? Is it equivalent to "nigger" (and therefore deserving to meet the business end of the PC ban-hammer), or is that an overreaction? Is it better for racist epithets to be co-opted or excluded by the group that they refer to?

Food for thought:

• Wikipedia entry on Gaijin
• Essay arguing that "Gaijin" is a Racist Word
• Blog entry on Racism in Japan with some interesting discussion in the comment threads

Update: I asked my host mom 外人と話すのは失礼ですか (gaijin-to hanasu-no-wa shitsurei desu-ka; "is it rude to say 'gaijin'?" [although "hanasu" is probably not quite the right verb, among other problems]), and her response was that it wasn't, although she noted that the word makes some older Japanese people uncomfortable (that's heavily paraphrased, though... I may have missed some of the details of her explanation).

Update 2: The above is totally wrong (wrong verb, can be misinterpreted as "is it rude to talk to outsiders". The correct phrase is apparently 外人の言葉は失礼ですか (gaijin-no kotoba-wa shitsurei desu-ka; "is the word 'gaijin' rude"). According to Kyoko-san (again heavily paraphrased) the word is impolite because it seems to imply that there is some fundamental difference between "nihonjin" and "gaijin" (Japanese people and all other people).

First, I would like to say that I really like the extremely expressive way in which Japanese people speak.

Second, I feel that I'm getting a bit behind on kanji. I really haven't started on the kanji class assignment from last Friday, and there's another short kanji assignment for Nihongo this week.

I'm doing all right on vocabulary... nouns and adjectives, anyways. Verbs still need quite a bit of work. Doing all right on grammar, but we're going through a lot of it really quickly.

Vito and I are going to Hiroshima for Golden Week (end of April, beginning of May), assuming all goes well. (Ben might be joining us as well.) I have accommodations reserved, I just need to buy train tickets.