- Lately, there seems to be fewer delays caused by people jumping in front of trains. Positive economic indicator? #
- Most exciting twitter feed ever? @time_JST #
- @yulzopolis /reported in reply to yulzopolis #
- @timiat we have very different mondays
in reply to timiat # - @yuco812 うらやまし〜 in reply to yuco812 #
- I just became the mayor of Subwayロックシティ守谷店 on @foursquare! http://4sq.com/bv6J7A #
- "I was attacked by a bear!" / "Goddamn bear tried to kill me!" / "That ursine juggernaut bethought to sup upon my person!" #
- apparently only DF Wallace and people writing about him use the word "androsartorial" #
- Reading David Foster Wallace article "Tense Present". So far had to look up "quandoque bonus dormitat homerus" and "adduce" (Latin fail)
# - Done with Lost and caught up with Dexter (ending of season 4…OMG!!!) …what shall I watch next? #
- People will review anything. And I guess I will watch anything ^_^ http://slatev.com/video/ketchup-packet-smackdown/ @slate #
- Outside a ramen shop. Neat http://twitvid.com/TFP9L #
- Outside a ramen shop. Amazing. #
- @cheapsh0t bring da pain!! in reply to cheapsh0t #
- Time to reposition on train. Direct butt-to-butt contact with salaryman is making me uncomfortable #
- シートベルトを着用しましょう!! #
- Zzzzzzzzzzz (@ 茨城県運転免許センター) http://4sq.com/94y0AT #
Sneaky’s Weekly Twitter Updates for 2010-06-02
Boring grammar and style stuff (you’ve been warned!)
Today, I read an excellent article entitled “Tense Present” by David Foster Wallace. The article is partly a review of Garner’s Modern American Usage and partly an overview of the “seamy underbelly of U.S. lexicography”. For anyone interested in grammar and style, both the article and the book are worth reading.
The “seamy underbelly” referred to by Mr. Wallace is the rift between “prescriptivists” and “descriptivists”. I won’t delve into the details of the “Usage Wars” in this post; in brief, prescriptivists aim to define rules that govern best usage in Standard Written English, whereas descriptivists eschew normative judgments and aim to document the language as it’s actually used.
As an editor, I am favorably inclined toward the prescriptavists because standard usage is my primary concern. Although I agree with descriptivists that y’all is a valid word and not inherently “bad”, I’m not going to use it in a scholarly paper. However, other cases require more careful consideration: different from vs. different than, due to as an adjectival phrase vs. due to as an adverbial phrase, clearly/hopefully/etc. as sentence adverbs, U.S. vs. US vs. United States, very/somewhat/fairly (necessary?), split infinitives, and so on.
Having edited many papers in the last year, I have formed various opinions on style and usage.
To occasionally split infinitives / To split infinitives occasionally
An absolute rule against splitting infinitives is completely unfounded, even though this notion is widely held. Instead a careful writer ought to minimize the extent to which an infinitive is split – for example: <Good style requires the author to not, as I have done here, split an infinitive too widely.>.
Sometimes clarity requires an infinitive to be split — for example: <We plan to carefully inspect frozen food imported from Europe.>. Here, there is no other place to put carefully without changing the meaning of the sentence.
1) We carefully plan to inspect frozen imported from Europe.>
2) We plan to inspect carefully frozen food imported from Europe.>
3) We plan to inspect frozen food carefully imported from Europe.>
4) We plan to inspect frozen food imported from Europe carefully.>
In the above sentences, carefully modifies 1) plan, 2) inspect/frozen (unclear), 3) imported, and 4) imported. Here, splitting the infinitive is not only defensible, but optimal.
Due to
When I first started my editing job, I was unaware that due to has been traditionally used only as an adjectival phrase and not as an adverbial phrase — for example: <The program’s cancellation was due to poor ratings. (adjectival phrase)> vs. <The program was canceled due to poor ratings. (adverbial phrase)>. I thought this distinction in usage was old-fashioned and pedantic when I first noticed it in the American Chemical Society Style Guide. But after reading several papers revised by other editors who adhered to the traditional usage of due to, I came to like the phrases that these editors typically used as substitutes: because of and owing to.
The compound degraded due to its high reactivity. –> The compound degraded, owing to its high reactivity.
The compound degraded due to its high reactivity. –> The compound degraded because of its high reactivity.
Hopefully
Although hopefully does not often appear in scientific writing, I fully embrace its new role as a sentence adverb. Traditionally, hopefully has been used to mean “in a hopeful manner” — for example: <He looked on hopefully as the horses ran down the homestretch.>. Nowadays, the phrase is widely used to mean “I hope that” — for example: <Hopefully, the surgery will succeed.> — usage that drives grammatical sticklers batty. Because this new usage is so widespread and firmly established, traditionalists are fighting not only a losing battle, but a battle that has already been lost. Since this point is unlikely to come up at work, I hopefully (in the traditional sense!) cast my lot with the victors.
Sneaky’s Weekly Twitter Updates for 2010-05-26
- The gears of bureacracy are slowly turning (@ 守谷市役所) http://4sq.com/dnrWoz #
- @nyafuri 楽しみにしないので、正直な言葉で表せられない。 ^_^ 長い時間がかかるし、つまらないビデオを観なければならないし、面倒くさくなるんだろうな〜と思っている。 (;_;) in reply to nyafuri #
- Words truly cannot describe how much I'm looking forward to renewing my Japanese driver's license tomorrow. #
- 60 kb/s is not doing it for me right now!! #
- Fml. Working late instead of watching lost #
- My cat is shedding like crazy #
- @cheapsh0t in reply to cheapsh0t #
- ≫@ジョンを漢字75文字で表すと⇒萌萌萌萌萌萌萌萌萌萌萌萌萌萌萌萌萌萌萌萌萌萌萌萌萌萌萌萌萌萌萌萌萌萌萌萌萌萌萌萌萌萌萌萌萌萌萌萌萌萌萌萌萌萌萌萌萌萌萌萌萌萌萌萌萌萌萌萌萌萌 #
- I just became the mayor of プロント PRONT 八丁堀店 on @foursquare! http://4sq.com/9z4m6A #
Sneaky’s Weekly Twitter Updates for 2010-05-19
- Kitty making himself comfortable (^_^)v http://twitpic.com/1oqb90 #
- Hazards of shopping at uniqlo: a guy on the train and I are wearing the exact same shirt (*^_^*) #
- Finished watching Dexter season 1. It was good #
- @yorkii nice. On monday, 久しぶりに, I ran 2 miles. I was sore until Friday. This week I'm gonna give it another go, with hopefully fewer aches. in reply to yorkii #
- I just became the mayor of ミニストップ 守谷中央店 on @foursquare! http://4sq.com/duORoy #
- Pretty good list RT @Slate: 30 best summer blockbusters ever via @kottke http://slate.me/9GWCSc #
- Excellent book for your nerdy grammar/style needs: http://bit.ly/c5AaMy #
- I just installed the latest Ubuntu. I could use Linux for 85% of my computing needs, but right now getting everything set up is a huge pain. #
- Last presentation class of term. No more long train rides to tachikawa for a while #
- I just unlocked the "Super User" badge on @foursquare! http://4sq.com/9aJTpn #
A beauty secret
If anyone has ever wondered the secret to my alluring scent, “Mooooooo!”
Nice udders!
Cow Beauty Soap (ミルク成分配合 [with a combination of milk ingredients])
Note the highly effective branding: nothing says fresh and clean like a dairy cow.
Got milkfed?
Milk seems to be a big selling point here in Japan, at least judging from the increasing number of milkfed bags I see on the train.
Privacy on the Internet
Lately, online privacy has been widely discussed, especially with regard to Google and Facebook.
All your information are belong to us
Between these two, Facebook has the more condemnable approach to user privacy. Facebook’s complex and ever-changing privacy policy is suspect, as is its practice of rolling out privacy changes to all its users regardless of preset user preferences. If you set your profile picture to be accessible to only friends, Facebook has violated your privacy, because now your profile picture is searchable on Google. Facebook’s conduct can likely be defended in a strict legal sense by a close reading of the company’s privacy policy, but this conduct is clearly at odds with a reasonable expectation of privacy.
Of course, defining what constitutes a reasonable expectation of privacy is difficult for online information. Furthermore, it is worth distinguishing between privacy and confidentiality. Facebook should protect users’ privacy, but users must also recognize that nothing posted online is confidential.
Will Google's new Shower View project raise greater privacy fears than Street View?
For example, e-mail is generally private and secure, but clearly an e-mail sent to a friend and one sent to an employee covered by a non-disclosure agreement are different — one is private, while the other is confidential. Even if your Facebook data can be viewed only by friends, none of your friends have signed an NDA. Although Facebook’s privacy policy is flawed, many of its most vocal critics neglect the inherently public nature of a social networking site.
Today, I read an article about Google’s WiFi snooping. One German official was “horrified” by the incident, and Google has apologized and promised to delete the data. But, in this case, I am hard pressed to find anything wrong with Google’s conduct. Does Street View violate privacy? Perhaps privacy standards in German differ from those in the United States, but the outer facade of a home, as viewed from a public road, is public by its very nature; and the address of a home is publicly available. As for payload data collected from non-password-protected WiFi connections, maybe I am a technological snob, but such data are no more worthy of an expectation of privacy than words shouted on your front lawn or flyers posted on a telephone pole.
This blog is an example of my approach to privacy. Because the Internet is public, I don’t post anything here that I wouldn’t want my grandmother or boss to read. Nevertheless, I do hope to maintain a certain degree of privacy (basically, I don’t want this site to come up as the first result on Google if a future potential employer queries my name). So, I have purged the site of certain identifiable information such as my full name. Also, I have installed a robot.txt file keep parts of the site off of search engines. Sure, someone could find this site by connecting the dots from my more personally identifiable Facebook or Twitter account, and the information here is hardly secret or well-protected, but I am able to exercise a degree of control over where this information is publicized (e.g., on my Twitter feed but not in search result for my name). Facebook should give users similar control, while users should exercise caution regarding shared information.
None of this is to say that I think privacy is unimportant or that Google’s actions are not somewhat creepy. Instead, users, Internet companies, and government officials should more carefully consider online privacy to better suit the realities of the Internet.
Disproportionate Japanese
Today, coming home on the Tsukuba Express, I noticed a sign for the emergency door release.
Tsukuba Express emergency exit sign
Reading this sign, I was struck by the disporportionate amount of Japanese relative to English.
So, what does the sign say?
The English is straightforward: “Emergency use only / By pulling the handle the door can be opened manually.”
The Japanese however is much more extensive: “非常用ドアコック・非常の場合はこの中のハンドルを手前に引けばドアは手であけられます。みだりに車外へ出ると危険です。もし出るときはほかの電車やおりる場所にもご注意下さい。なお係員の指示があった場合にはそれに従って下さい。”
One difference is the Japanese word for this particular device, ドアコック, which unfortunately is not transliterated into English, Door Cock. Perhaps this is a valid technical term, but I’m guessing that they just didn’t want the English speakers snickering too much during an emergency exit.
The rest of the Japanese text offers more specific guidance than the English: “Emergency Door Cock / In the case of an emergency, if the handle contained herein is pulled inward, the door can be opened manually. Exiting the train unnecessarily is dangerous. When exiting, please be careful of other trains and the location where you exit. Also, if an official gives instructions, please follow them.”
Of course, this is all just cover-your-ass safety jargon. During an emergency, no one will say, “Okay guys, let’s just do what the tiny sign says and we’ll all be fine!” So, not translating the full details seems reasonable.
Or maybe this is part of a sinister plot, and the Tsukaba Express’s company wants people who can’t read Japanese to be able open the door without having full knowledge of the safety protocol; then, the poor illiterates can get run down by another train after exiting!
Or maybe they put the Japanese into Google Translate, saw the results, and said, “Fuck it, there’s plenty of English.”
Google version: An emergency door cock by pulling the emergency door handle in front to be opened by hand in this. It is dangerous to go outside a car without good reason. Please note that if you go to other places by train or Oriru. In the case of staff, please follow the instructions on it.
Sneaky’s Weekly Twitter Updates for 2010-05-12
- !droW RT @ActuallyNPH: .noitucexe ni naht yroeht ni gnisuma erom hcum si gniteewt sdrawkcaB #
- Just completed a 3.30 km run with @runkeeper, check it out http://rnkpr.com/a5lc1v #RunKeeper #
- "this is easy to determine simply based on interatomic distance" >> "this is simple to determine on the basis of interatomic distance" #
- I really shouldn't edit wikipedia…Its like work but not getting paid. #
Scientific Writing: Odds and Ends
Now that I am making an effort to update this blog on a semi-regular basis, I’d like to post more frequently about scientific writing, my work as a scientific editor, and other grammatical nerdiness.
To start, I must first note that all work-related posts come with the following disclaimer: my company’s clients and the client’s research are confidential, so identifying details are changed accordingly.
In today’s post, I will write a little bit about my job and what it entails, as well as discuss a few grammar points — because my days are consumed by grammar points and I feel compelled to share!
Native Speaker vs. Professional Editor
For many jobs in Japan, a pulse and native English ability are the key prerequisites. For my job as a scientific editor, naturally, a science background is also required.
When I applied for my job, I satisfied the above-mentioned criteria, but had no experience as an editor. So, my first six months on the job included rather rigorous training: my boss looked over every one of my jobs and provided me with extremely thorough feedback. Any native speaker checking a document is able to check for grammatical errors such as subject-verb agreement and spelling, but a critical element that separates native speakers from professional editors is consistency.
A prototypical example is the serial comma, which is generally used in American English but often omitted in British English and technical writing: both “A, B, and C” and “A, B and C” are grammatically correct. One of the most difficult — and for lack of a better word, unnatural — parts of my job is having to recognize that “A, B, and C” is used on page 3, while “A, B and C” is used on page 17. A similar example is checking the citation of references, for example, having to notice that on page 5, [1] the reference is given after the comma, but on page 14 [2], the reference is given before the comma. One last example is ensuring the consistent use of terminology. If an author primarily uses the phrase “electronic device” and only once uses “electrical device”, the terms must be revised for consistency.
Because individually these examples are not strictly incorrect, they would most likely escape the notice of a non-professional native speaker; in contrast, a professional editor with a well-developed sense of anal retentiveness can be expected to make the necessary revisions.
Redundant Redundancy Repeating Unnecessary Words That Are Not Needed
One of the more amusing parts of my job is spotting grammatically correct yet redundant phrasing that can be written more concisely.
…in the next fifty years of this century… (in the next fifty years)
…the laser beam perpendicular to the normal of the surface… (the laser beam parallel to the surface)
…temperature increases linearly with a constant slope… (temperature increases linearly)
One of my New Favorite Words
Thereby – adv., by that means
Before becoming an editor, I never once used the word thereby, but it really is useful for cutting out superfluous words and writing in a clear, direct style.
We dissected the frog, and by do so, were able to examine its internal organs.
That sentence isn’t bad, but toss in a little thereby and bam!
We dissected the frog and thereby were able to examine its internal organs.
How was that? いかがでしたか？
On the Origin of Species
Lately, I have been reading On the Origin of Species on my iPhone. Although I must confess that I haven’t read the whole thing, in part because I already know how it ends (Fig. 1).
Fig. 1 I stopped reading before Darwin got to this part...
I doubt many people reading this post will need me to point out Darwin’s brilliance (although some people might!). Instead, I want to write about what struck me while reading the book.
It’s one long argument.
I was surprised that in many respects, On the Origin of Species reads more like a math paper than a biology paper; although variables and equations are scarce, Darwin carefully lays out a series of observations, assumptions, hypotheses and deductions in support of his theory of natural selection, much like a mathematician would present lemmas, corollaries and proofs.
Let us now take a more complex case. Certain plants excrete a sweet juice, apparently for the sake of eliminating something injurious from their sap: this is effected by glands at the base of the stipules in some Leguminosae, and at the back of the leaf of the common laurel. This juice, though small in quantity, is greedily sought by insects. Let us now suppose a little sweet juice or nectar to be excreted by the inner bases of the petals of a flower. In this case insects in seeking the nectar would get dusted with pollen, and would certainly often transport the pollen from one flower to the stigma of another flower. The flowers of two distinct individuals of the same species would thus get crossed; and the act of crossing, we have good reason to believe (as will hereafter be more fully alluded to), would produce very vigorous seedlings, which consequently would have the best chance of flourishing and surviving.
In the above passage, a couple phrases that I see almost exclusively in regard to mathematics are shown in bold. In most biology and physical sciences papers today, the primary aim is to report results rather than to engage in speculation, or to construct and test (and heaven forbid, disprove) a hypothesis. Indeed, I think a large portion of science today forgoes well-formed hypotheses in favor of mere questions.
To borrow from the passage quoted above, a typical researcher today would design an experiment to answer the question, “Do cross-pollinated plants produce more vigorous offspring?” and then simply report the results, “We found that cross-pollinated plants produce more vigorous offspring,” while offering a brief, hedged explanation, “This result might be attributable to the increased genetic diversity of the offspring. The genetic basis of this finding will be explored in future work.” The follow-up work would then be designed to answer the question, “Is there a genetic difference between pure and crossbred plants?”
Basically, in my fictitious research example, the Scientific Method is being followed, but in an extremely uninspiring way. In contrast, the best works extend beyond merely reporting results to form explicit testable hypotheses that logically follow from the experimental findings, rather than leaving the hypothesis implicit in the design of subsequent studies. For me,what makes On the Origin of Species so enthralling is its presentation of the science known at the time to construct an extremely far-reaching theory.
Seeing the foundations of modern biology
Reading On the Origin of Species, I was struck by the extent to which it resembled a road map of modern biology. For example, Darwin notes that crossing two individuals that differ to a certain extent will lead to beneficial variations, while crossing two individuals that differ too greatly will produce sterile offspring or none at all. On this point, he writes, “Both series of facts seem to be connected together by some common but unknown bond, which is essentially related to the principle of life.” Of course, modern readers recognize this “unknown bond” as DNA. Darwin presents his theory comprehensively, but often notes its shortcomings. Notably, these gaps have since been filled by work in fields such as molecular biology, population genetics, anthropology and paleontology.
British spelling, archaic spelling, and outdated notions
- mongelise
- ruta-baga
- male alligators have been described as fighting, bellowing, and whirling round, like Indians in a war-dance
Fig. 2 Darwin, that's not PC dude!
sneaky
