October 15, 2014--Nobels

It is chauvinistic to worry about this year's spectrum of Nobel Prize winners?

For example, remember when Americans thought that though the Japanese economy was booming it was because they were assembling products for us and the rest of the West using our scientific and technological discoveries? That they were good at copying but not inventing?

For example, for decades TVs were manufactured almost exclusively in the U.S. but by the 1960s nearly all came to be manufactured in Japan. But, we were told and believed, the Japanese discovered and invented nothing having to do with television, from transistors (a Bell Lab invention) to the picture tubes themselves (developed by RCA and Western Electric). All the result of American research, ingenuity, and, unspoken, superiority.

So should we be upset that this year, of the 13 awarded, more Nobels were won by Japanese than Americans--three to one?

The three Japanese laureates are physicists who did important work on the development of blue, low-wattage LED light which is already revolutionizing lighting in resource-poor countries worldwide.

Even the Norwegians won more prizes than we--two to neuroscientists who did pioneering work on how the brain computes spacial memory. I imagine, why we don't bump into things. Though I do at night when staggering to the bathroom.

The coveted Peace Prize went to Malala Yousafzai, an inspired and courageous Pakistani advocate for girls' education, and Kailash Satyarthi, an Indian children's rights activist.

There is a Brit (John O'Keefe, physiology) and a Romanian-born German (Stefan Hell, who shared his prize in chemistry with the one American--W.E. Moerner) and then, as if to rub it in, there are two French winners--

In economics, Jean Tirole, whose award continues the Nobel's recent support for work that challenges the Chicago School's free-market orthodoxy. Tirole's work, in contrast, see markets as "imperfect."

So, not only didn't we as usual win an economics prize, but the one that was awarded attacks mainstream economic theory effectively made in America!

Finally, my personal favorite, literature.

The winner this year was Patrick Modiano. His Italian-sounding name not withstanding, he was born and raised in France.

Once again, no Philip Roth. As they say in my old Brooklyn neighborhood--Wait til next year.

September 30, 2014--Homographs

I'm the world's worst spella but love word games and langauge oddities.

A longtime favorite is idioms. Not so much what they metaphorically mean but their literal meanings and orijins. From time to time I've written about them here.

But among my favorite language quirks are homographs, words that are spelled the same but have more than one meaning--words such as bear/bear; left/left; and, one of my favrites, skate/skate/skate.

Unlike these, a homograph that is pronounced diferently is a heteronym--words such as wound (meaning wound up) and wound (a cut) that are spelled the same way, but pronounced differently and have different meanings.

I haven't a clue as to why English and a few other langages include homographs. It would be easy to have wound (wound up) and wooned (a cut), but instead we have wound and wound. Maybe it's for the sake of efficiency. Who knows.

Thus learning a language with lots of idioms and homographs is extra hard. What would a native French speaker make of match (to light a cigarette) and match (to make a pair)? Or rock (as in a stone) and rock (as in a cradle) or even rock (as in music)? All are not just homographs but homonyms because they are pronownced the same way. Get it?

And when it comes to learning or understanding idioms what is that same French speeker to make of "Bring home the bacon" or "Hide one's light under a bushel"?

Or, for that matter, what would an English speaker struggling to learn French think about Appeler un chat un chat? Literally, to call a cat a cat, which colloquially means something similar to the English idiom "to call a spade a spade." Or Au pif? Literally, "at the nose," meaning a general estimate.

There are also French homographs. Mainly as a result of words that are graphically the same but have accents in different locations. For example--

arriéré--overdue or backward
arrière--rear or aft

jeune--young
jeûne--fasting

marche--walking 
marché--market

Then, of course, there are the Chinese homographs--

便宜  (pián yi)--which as an adjective means cheap or inexpensive; while as a noun it means something undeserved that you're not supposed to get; and then as a verb it means to benefit.

This is about as far as I can take you. For other Chinese homographs you're on your own.

Though I can tell you about the meanings of my newest favorite homograph--minute and minute with the first a measure of time and minute, with the "i" pronounced differently and accent on ute, meaning tiny. I especialy like the relation between the too--in the largher scheme of things, a minute realy is minute.