The Ideas Bazaar

Words, Words, Words

An NYT piece examines the content of previous innaugral speeches from 1789 to yesterday, sizing the words according to the frequency of their use. The words highlighted in yellow were used significantly more in this inaugural address than average.

Unsurpisingly, Dubya's most used word was freedom - not something that the enormous number of Black American's incarcerated in the US, and the inmates in Cuba, were ever likely to experience under his regime.

Also, there's a great Flickr pool of images from DC here.

Three

This little aphorism was new to me and I like it - but the interweb doesn't say much about who this woman is/was....

"For a list of all the ways technology has failed to improve the quality of life, please press three"

Alice Kahn

Inspired Inspiration

Fantastic mash-up of inspirational speeches, via swissmiss

Warning

WARNING by Jenny Joseph

When I am an old woman I shall wear purple
With a red hat which doesn’t go, and doesn’t suit me,
And I shall spend my pension on brandy and summer gloves
And satin sandals, and say we’ve no money for butter.
I shall sit down on the pavement when I’m tired
And gobble up samples in shops and press alarm bells
And run my stick along the public railings
And make up for the sobriety of my youth.
I shall go out in slippers in the rain
And pick the flowers in other people’s gardens
And learn to spit.

You can wear terrible shirts and grow more fat
And eat three pounds of sausages at a go
Or only bread and pickle for a week
And hoard pens and pencils and beermats and things in boxes.

But now we must have clothes that keep us dry
And pay our rent and not swear in the street
And set a good example for the children.
We must have friends to dinner and read the papers.

But maybe I ought to practise a little now?
So people who know me are not too shocked and surprised
When suddenly I am old and start to wear purple.

What gets lost

el problema es este this is the difficulty

lo que se pierde what gets lost

no es lo que se pierde en traducion sino

is not what gets lost in translation but more

what gets lost in lanuage itself lo que se pierde

en el hecho en la lengua

en la palabra misma

Alastair Reid

Mapping old age

"Our maps have improved in a kind of spurious precision as they have deteriorated in the amount of worthwhile information they convey...If the Ordnance Survey were worth the paper it prints on it would be producing a special series of maps for the over-forties, the over-fifites etc. (When you reach a hundred you end up merely with an enlarged plan of your house, with the location of the lavatory clearly markeed and a small arrov pointing towards the crematorium" (MacLean 1986: 106)

From a paper by Andrew Blaikie entitled Imagined Ladscapes of Age and Identity, in Ageing and Place: Perspectives, policy, practice (Eds. Andrews and Phillips)

Beckham Balls

The confidence of masculinity, the celebration of talent, the intimacy of David Beckham. The fragrance projects the edgy, sexy side of David. A modern woody-spicey accord radiating warmth and sensuality. A heady mix of energy, vibrancy, comfort and warmth. Magnetic, provocative, cool - yet never aloof, he is aspirational but within reach.

This - being the description of Intimately David Men from the Aer Lingus in-flight catalogue- has to be one of the greatest ensembles of marketing balls ever written. Too good for Pseud's Corner.

Thought for the Day

“. . .if you are tempted to judge someone as ignorant, look for the context in which his knowledge can be turned into gold.”

Sounds like a goods plan.

Levy P (1997) Collective Intelligence: mankind’s emerging world in cyberspace. Cambridge: Perseus p.13-14