tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-45101383050791993062024-03-15T21:11:12.905-04:00The Cranky LinguistObservations, thoughts, reminiscences, and occasional rants on
anthropology, linguistics, old-time banjo, and anything else that crosses my path...Ronald Kepharthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16289672930585985148noreply@blogger.comBlogger386125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4510138305079199306.post-21013376016794500982023-10-27T10:09:00.001-04:002023-10-27T10:09:54.866-04:00Word of the day<div style="font-family: inherit;"><div class="" dir="auto" style="font-family: inherit;"><div class="x1iorvi4 x1pi30zi x1swvt13 xjkvuk6" data-ad-comet-preview="message" data-ad-preview="message" id=":rdc:" style="font-family: inherit; padding: 4px 16px;"><div class="x78zum5 xdt5ytf xz62fqu x16ldp7u" style="display: flex; flex-direction: column; font-family: inherit; margin-bottom: -5px; margin-top: -5px;"><div class="xu06os2 x1ok221b" style="font-family: inherit; margin-bottom: 5px; margin-top: 5px;"><span class="x193iq5w xeuugli x13faqbe x1vvkbs xlh3980 xvmahel x1n0sxbx x1lliihq x1s928wv xhkezso x1gmr53x x1cpjm7i x1fgarty x1943h6x x4zkp8e x3x7a5m x6prxxf xvq8zen xo1l8bm xzsf02u x1yc453h" dir="auto" style="-webkit-font-smoothing: antialiased; color: var(--primary-text); display: block; font-family: inherit; font-size: 0.9375rem; line-height: 1.3333; max-width: 100%; min-width: 0px; overflow-wrap: break-word; word-break: break-word;"><div class="xdj266r x11i5rnm xat24cr x1mh8g0r x1vvkbs x126k92a" style="font-family: inherit; margin: 0px; overflow-wrap: break-word; white-space-collapse: preserve;"><div dir="auto" style="font-family: inherit;">I know I'll get pummeled for this, but: I keep seeing children in Gaza being pulled, some dead, some alive, out of rubble created by bombing and shelling. The ones lucky enough to be alive will likely go to a hospital with no water, no fuel and thus no electricity, so that they'll only remain lucky if all they need is a band-aid. The word that keeps coming to mind is:</div><div dir="auto" style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></div><div dir="auto" style="font-family: inherit;">Genocide.</div></div></span></div></div></div></div></div><div style="font-family: inherit;"><div class="x168nmei x13lgxp2 x30kzoy x9jhf4c x6ikm8r x10wlt62" data-visualcompletion="ignore-dynamic" style="border-radius: 0px 0px 8px 8px; font-family: inherit; overflow: hidden;"><div style="font-family: inherit;"><div style="font-family: inherit;"><div style="font-family: inherit;"><div class="x1n2onr6" style="font-family: inherit; position: relative;"><div class="x6s0dn4 xi81zsa x78zum5 x6prxxf x13a6bvl xvq8zen xdj266r xktsk01 xat24cr x1d52u69 x889kno x4uap5 x1a8lsjc xkhd6sd xdppsyt" style="align-items: center; border-bottom: 1px solid var(--divider); color: var(--secondary-text); display: flex; font-family: inherit; font-size: 0.9375rem; justify-content: flex-end; line-height: 1.3333; margin: 0px 16px; padding: 10px 0px;"><div class="x6s0dn4 x78zum5 x1iyjqo2 x6ikm8r x10wlt62" style="align-items: center; background-color: white; color: #65676b; display: flex; flex-grow: 1; font-family: system-ui, -apple-system, "system-ui", ".SFNSText-Regular", sans-serif; overflow: hidden;"><div class="" style="font-family: inherit;"><span class="x4k7w5x x1h91t0o x1h9r5lt x1jfb8zj xv2umb2 x1beo9mf xaigb6o x12ejxvf x3igimt xarpa2k xedcshv x1lytzrv x1t2pt76 x7ja8zs x1qrby5j" style="align-items: inherit; align-self: inherit; display: inherit; flex-direction: inherit; flex: inherit; font-family: inherit; height: inherit; max-height: inherit; max-width: inherit; min-height: inherit; min-width: inherit; place-content: inherit; width: inherit;"><div class="x1i10hfl xjbqb8w x6umtig x1b1mbwd xaqea5y xav7gou x9f619 x1ypdohk xe8uvvx xdj266r x11i5rnm xat24cr x1mh8g0r xexx8yu x4uap5 x18d9i69 xkhd6sd x16tdsg8 x1hl2dhg xggy1nq x1o1ewxj x3x9cwd x1e5q0jg x13rtm0m x1n2onr6 x87ps6o x1lku1pv x1a2a7pz x1heor9g xnl1qt8 x6ikm8r x10wlt62 x1vjfegm x1lliihq" role="button" style="-webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent; background-color: transparent; border-color: initial; border-radius: inherit; border-style: initial; border-width: 0px; box-sizing: border-box; color: inherit; cursor: pointer; font-family: inherit; list-style: none; margin: 0px; max-height: 1.3333em; outline: none; overflow: hidden; padding: 0px; position: relative; text-align: inherit; touch-action: manipulation; user-select: none; z-index: 1;" tabindex="0"><div><span style="font-family: inherit;"><span class="x1e558r4" style="font-family: inherit; padding-left: 4px;"><br /></span></span></div></div></span></div></div><div class="x9f619 x1n2onr6 x1ja2u2z x78zum5 x2lah0s x1qughib x1qjc9v5 xozqiw3 x1q0g3np xykv574 xbmpl8g x4cne27 xifccgj" style="align-items: stretch; background-color: white; box-sizing: border-box; color: #65676b; display: flex; flex-flow: row; flex-shrink: 0; font-family: system-ui, -apple-system, "system-ui", ".SFNSText-Regular", sans-serif; justify-content: space-between; margin: -6px; position: relative; z-index: 0;"></div></div></div></div></div></div></div></div>Ronald Kepharthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16289672930585985148noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4510138305079199306.post-54107359982590431692023-09-07T14:58:00.002-04:002023-09-07T14:58:36.836-04:00Invasive species...<p> I never caught the story, but last week on the CNN news crawl the theme of the global cost of "invasive species" showed up a number of times.</p><p>No mention that I saw included Humans, and yet <i>Homo sapiens</i> is invasive everywhere outside of Africa.</p><p>Ad don't even think about the cost to the world of <i>that</i> species' invasions...</p>Ronald Kepharthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16289672930585985148noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4510138305079199306.post-53692168851713286182023-07-18T13:49:00.000-04:002023-07-18T13:49:15.274-04:00 A couple of thoughts...<p>Tommy š„ville wants the military to bend to his personal fantasies about the world. But in the past, the military has sometimes led the way in establishing rights that "society" has tried to withhold. Access to health care is a human right, not subject to whatever he thinks his imaginary friends want.</p><p>-----</p><p>Asa Hutchinson says that women's reproductive health access should be up to each state. I call Bullshit. This is a human rights issue, and not up to the whims of Alabama or Mississippi. Or Iowa.</p>Ronald Kepharthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16289672930585985148noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4510138305079199306.post-86616085672801535122023-05-10T10:02:00.006-04:002023-05-10T10:02:57.345-04:00Neandertals, again...<p><span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: medium;">OK, so it has been a while. I'm trying to gear up for more writing here. Meanwhile I posted this on Facebook this morning, edited a bit:</span></p><div class="xdj266r x11i5rnm xat24cr x1mh8g0r x1vvkbs x126k92a" style="background-color: white; color: #050505; margin: 0px; overflow-wrap: break-word; white-space: pre-wrap;"><div dir="auto"><span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: medium;">Yesterday after the verdict in the E. Jean Carroll trial was announced, tRump's lawyer Joe Tacopina came out and took a few questions. A heckler in the back kept yelling at him "Fucking Neanderthal! You're a fucking Neanderthal! ..."</span></div></div><div class="x11i5rnm xat24cr x1mh8g0r x1vvkbs xtlvy1s x126k92a" style="background-color: white; color: #050505; margin: 0.5em 0px 0px; overflow-wrap: break-word; white-space: pre-wrap;"><div dir="auto"><span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: medium;">So this is when I would have liked to be there to lecture the crowd on the humanity of the Neandertals, and the extremely unlikely chance that any male N would have behaved in his band like the former president has behaved all his life. Such a male Neandertal would have long since been cast <a style="color: #385898; cursor: pointer;" tabindex="-1"></a>out of the group or killed, maybe by the women.</span></div></div>Ronald Kepharthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16289672930585985148noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4510138305079199306.post-11847599373329362712022-05-11T14:17:00.001-04:002022-05-11T14:17:18.174-04:00"Neandertal" republicans<p><span style="font-size: medium;"> <span style="background-color: white; color: #050505; font-family: inherit; white-space: pre-wrap;">Last</span><span data-offset-key="cb2la-1-0" style="background-color: white; color: #050505; font-family: inherit; white-space: pre-wrap;"> night (May10) on The Last Word with Lawrence O'Donnell, law professor Lawrence Tribe described republican efforts to drag women back to pre-Roe days as "Neandertal." I just want to go on record as saying that the Neandertals were very likely nowhere near as misogynistic as these thugs.</span></span></p><div class="" data-block="true" data-editor="7a0e5" data-offset-key="chene-0-0" style="background-color: white; color: #050505; white-space: pre-wrap;"><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEji2M-xHzxDgTe0fF3BRD50HgO3WeRSZ95rN9W7ODss_Wz9a2k_uEhWJ3SvNdJBJk5mlDvWNveJIU7mMHkTYF6CoZ_Ms_AaaNz_AlARI7Kuc14B0hWE47-0ydAKjGEzrVqaQK0Bv9vfkuK5UIK1SocVX6RtXNEXvmo8Pw7gXpIbhHsks1B5P2lclMwz" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img data-original-height="452" data-original-width="365" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEji2M-xHzxDgTe0fF3BRD50HgO3WeRSZ95rN9W7ODss_Wz9a2k_uEhWJ3SvNdJBJk5mlDvWNveJIU7mMHkTYF6CoZ_Ms_AaaNz_AlARI7Kuc14B0hWE47-0ydAKjGEzrVqaQK0Bv9vfkuK5UIK1SocVX6RtXNEXvmo8Pw7gXpIbhHsks1B5P2lclMwz=w259-h320" width="259" /></a></div><br /><div class="_1mf _1mj" data-offset-key="chene-0-0" style="direction: ltr; position: relative;"><span data-offset-key="chene-0-0"><span style="font-family: times; font-size: medium;"><br /></span></span></div></div><div class="" data-block="true" data-editor="7a0e5" data-offset-key="2nqd6-0-0" style="background-color: white; color: #050505; white-space: pre-wrap;"><div class="_1mf _1mj" data-offset-key="2nqd6-0-0" style="direction: ltr; position: relative;"><span data-offset-key="2nqd6-0-0"><span style="font-family: times; font-size: medium;">Artist: Tom Bjƶklund</span></span></div></div>Ronald Kepharthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16289672930585985148noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4510138305079199306.post-37987496648366768652022-02-05T16:44:00.003-05:002022-04-20T13:28:32.557-04:00Guest blog: On Whoopi Goldberg and the "race" thing<p><span style="font-family: times;">My Anthropology colleague Daniel Cring posted this on Facebook a couple days ago and I thought it best go up here as well. </span></p><p><span style="background-color: white; color: #050505; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-family: times;">----------------------------------------------------------</span></span></p><p><span style="background-color: white; color: #050505; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-family: times;">Whoopi Goldberg:</span></span></p><div class="cxmmr5t8 oygrvhab hcukyx3x c1et5uql o9v6fnle ii04i59q" style="background-color: white; color: #050505; margin: 0.5em 0px 0px; overflow-wrap: break-word; white-space: pre-wrap;"><div dir="auto"><span style="font-family: times;">āLetās be truthful, the Holocaust isnāt about race, itās not. Itās about manās inhumanity to man, thatās what itās about. These are two groups of white people.ā</span></div><div dir="auto"><span style="font-family: times;">She continued: āYouāre missing the point ā¦ letās talk about it for what it really is. Itās about how people treat each other. Itās a problem. It doesnāt matter if youāre black or white, Jews ā¦ everybody eats each other.ā</span></div></div><div class="cxmmr5t8 oygrvhab hcukyx3x c1et5uql o9v6fnle ii04i59q" style="background-color: white; color: #050505; margin: 0.5em 0px 0px; overflow-wrap: break-word; white-space: pre-wrap;"><div dir="auto"><span style="font-family: times;">As an anthropologist who created and taught a college course on ārace and racismā, I believe that Whoopi has a point that people are missing here. </span></div></div><div class="cxmmr5t8 oygrvhab hcukyx3x c1et5uql o9v6fnle ii04i59q" style="background-color: white; color: #050505; margin: 0.5em 0px 0px; overflow-wrap: break-word; white-space: pre-wrap;"><div dir="auto"><span style="font-family: times;">Johann Blumenbach (1752 -1840) was a German physician, naturalist, physiologist, and āanthropologistā, who pretty much created the concept of āraceā as a way to classify human biological diversity. Today we know that this is a taxonomically invalid taxon. Human biological diversity is continuous and not discrete. The concept of āraceā has no scientific validity but yet people continue to use it to discriminate because of population pressures. </span></div></div><div class="cxmmr5t8 oygrvhab hcukyx3x c1et5uql o9v6fnle ii04i59q" style="background-color: white; color: #050505; margin: 0.5em 0px 0px; overflow-wrap: break-word; white-space: pre-wrap;"><div dir="auto"><span style="font-family: times;">And now the term āethnicityā, not biological diversity but rather cultural diversity including religious diversity. Because of exogamy, āraceā and ethnicity are not coterminous even though people use these two terms interchangeably. </span></div></div><div class="cxmmr5t8 oygrvhab hcukyx3x c1et5uql o9v6fnle ii04i59q" style="background-color: white; color: #050505; margin: 0.5em 0px 0px; overflow-wrap: break-word; white-space: pre-wrap;"><div dir="auto"><span style="font-family: times;">Eugenics and racism were increasingly more prevalent in the 20th century because of population pressures cause by colonialism and imperialism. And most certainly Nazi Germany believed that they were the Master āRaceā- the Aryan Race. But they also believe in eugenics, so that many other people died in the death camps- Poles, Russians, homosexuals, Roma People, handicapped, and apparently even some Soviet prisoners of war. I remember seeing the mortal remains of the victims of Auschwitz in the British contemporary documentary āMemory of the Campsā and one victim wore a Christian crucifix that they took to their grave when they were buried in a mass grave with all the other victims of the Nazi atrocities- Jews, Poles, Roma, homosexuals, mental and physically unfit Germans, and Soviet POWs. </span></div></div><div class="cxmmr5t8 oygrvhab hcukyx3x c1et5uql o9v6fnle ii04i59q" style="background-color: white; color: #050505; margin: 0.5em 0px 0px; overflow-wrap: break-word; white-space: pre-wrap;"><div dir="auto"><span style="font-family: times;">I once sat in a sociology class āMinority Groupsā here at UL and I saw how students started to argue which minority group had been persecuted the most throughout history, and I remembered the sacrifice by three young men in Mississippi- one āblackā, and two Jewish men in June 1964 during the Civil Rights Movement- āThe victims were James Chaney from Meridian, Mississippi, and Andrew Goodman and Michael Schwerner from New York City. All three were associated with the Council of Federated Organizations (COFO)ā (Wikipedia).</span></div></div><div class="cxmmr5t8 oygrvhab hcukyx3x c1et5uql o9v6fnle ii04i59q" style="background-color: white; color: #050505; margin: 0.5em 0px 0px; overflow-wrap: break-word; white-space: pre-wrap;"><div dir="auto"><span style="font-family: times;">What the hell are we humans doing to ourselves? We have conquered nature, but not ourselves.</span></div></div>Ronald Kepharthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16289672930585985148noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4510138305079199306.post-74860568003064843652022-01-28T16:06:00.003-05:002022-01-28T16:06:50.467-05:00Some things that are pissing me off<p><b>"America." </b> The people who have these red MAGA hats and other paraphernalia have no idea that "America" refers to not just the United States, but to the whole hemisphere. And for the most part they don't care. What they want to "make great again" is just the little part of America that's in the US. </p><p>And actually, they can't even do that, because the US has never been "great," and therefore cannot be made "great" again. The US has, for its entire existence, been a nation built on exploitation, oppression, genocide, and internal colonialism; a nation built on two kinds of slavery: chattel slavery (people owning people), and wage slavery (people owning other people's labor).</p><p><b>Republicans</b>. The people who yell "Make America Great Again" the loudest have no intention of actually doing so. They continue to block: efforts to raise the minimum wage, and thus make wage slavery a little less onerous; efforts to put in place a truly sane national health care system by eliminating the "health insurance" industry; attempts to reform laws regarding the possession of firearms; elimination of student debt and extension of free public education to college/university; elimination of medieval restrictions on women's reproductive health care (and why are males even a part of this conversation?); etc.</p><p><b>Critics of Critical Race Theory.</b> As far as I can tell, these critics don't understand the terms "critical," or "race," or "theory."</p><p><b>China</b>. Yeah, China, for its obviously genocidal treatment of the Uyghurs, but also for its stupidity in mistaking communism for fascism.</p><p><b>ŠŠ»Š°Š“ŠøŠ¼ŠøŃ ŠŃŃŠøŠ½</b>. He's on my list for wanting to reconstitute the old CCCP by armed force instead of making Russia a place these other countries, like Ukraine, want to hang with. </p><p><b>The Vaccine Refuseniks</b>. These people who equate remaining unvaccinated with "freedom" and "liberty" are killing us. And they're pissing me off. If nearly all of them had gotten vaccinated when the rest of us did, we'd probably be pretty much over this thing. You know, like how we're over smallpox, and polio, and etc.</p><p><b>Educational administrators at every level</b>. Mark Twain wrote: <span style="font-family: times;"> "I<span style="background-color: white; color: #202124; font-size: 16px;">n the first place, God made idiots. That was for practice. </span><span style="background-color: white; color: #202124; font-size: 16px;">Then he made school boards</span><span style="background-color: white; color: #202124; font-size: 16px;">." See the recent spate of Boards removing books like Maus (about the Holocaust) from their curricula, or banning use of the word "gay" in classes. People on these boards seem to work under the illusion that children are snowflakes. Well, they aren't. They're tough. They can take it, often better than their parents.</span></span></p><p><span style="font-family: times;"><span style="background-color: white; color: #202124; font-size: 16px;">This is only a partial list; I'll be back.</span></span></p><p><br /></p><p><br /></p><p><br /></p>Ronald Kepharthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16289672930585985148noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4510138305079199306.post-80659284033480551652021-11-02T13:52:00.000-04:002021-11-02T13:52:47.216-04:00Opening for Linguistic Anthropologist at University of North Florida<p> <span style="background-color: white; color: #050505; font-family: inherit; font-size: 15px; white-space: pre-wrap;">The Department of Sociology, Anthropology, and Social Work at the University of North Florida invites applications for a full-time, nine-month, tenure-track faculty member in linguistic anthropology at the level of Assistant Professor to begin in August 2022. </span></p><div class="o9v6fnle cxmmr5t8 oygrvhab hcukyx3x c1et5uql ii04i59q" style="background-color: white; color: #050505; font-family: system-ui, -apple-system, "system-ui", ".SFNSText-Regular", sans-serif; font-size: 15px; margin: 0.5em 0px 0px; overflow-wrap: break-word; white-space: pre-wrap;"><div dir="auto" style="font-family: inherit;">Candidates should have expertise in linguistic anthropology grounded in contemporary cultural anthropological theories and qualitative ethnographic research. Their study of language should intersect with two or more of the following areas of investigation: gender and sexuality, race and racism, migration, new media, and politics. Geographic focus of research is open. Requirements for this position also include: a PhD in Anthropology by August 1st, 2022, some prior scholarly publications in the field of linguistic anthropology, knowledge of at least one foreign language, and some relevant teaching experience. </div></div><div class="o9v6fnle cxmmr5t8 oygrvhab hcukyx3x c1et5uql ii04i59q" style="background-color: white; color: #050505; font-family: system-ui, -apple-system, "system-ui", ".SFNSText-Regular", sans-serif; font-size: 15px; margin: 0.5em 0px 0px; overflow-wrap: break-word; white-space: pre-wrap;"><div dir="auto" style="font-family: inherit;">The position requires that candidates demonstrate an ability to teach face-to-face and online classes in linguistic anthropology, cultural anthropology, and in their geographic area of expertise. Previous experience or a commitment to developing study abroad programs and/or field schools is preferred.</div></div><div class="o9v6fnle cxmmr5t8 oygrvhab hcukyx3x c1et5uql ii04i59q" style="background-color: white; color: #050505; font-family: system-ui, -apple-system, "system-ui", ".SFNSText-Regular", sans-serif; font-size: 15px; margin: 0.5em 0px 0px; overflow-wrap: break-word; white-space: pre-wrap;"><div dir="auto" style="font-family: inherit;">UNF faculty are expected to maintain the highest standards of academic excellence in all phases of instruction, research/scholarship/creative activity, and service. The successful candidate will be expected to excel in teaching, maintain an active research agenda including publication in peer-reviewed outlets, secure external research funding, and make meaningful service contributions to the department, the university, and the discipline. </div><div dir="auto" style="font-family: inherit;">UNF is a Carnegie Community Engaged institution. This designation celebrates the Universityās collaboration with community partners from the local to the global level. It reflects UNFās mission to contribute to the public good and prepare educated, engaged citizens. We are especially interested in candidates who can contribute to the diversity and excellence of the academic community through their research, teaching and service and are committed to increasing the participation of the members of underrepresented groups.</div></div><div class="o9v6fnle cxmmr5t8 oygrvhab hcukyx3x c1et5uql ii04i59q" style="background-color: white; color: #050505; font-family: system-ui, -apple-system, "system-ui", ".SFNSText-Regular", sans-serif; font-size: 15px; margin: 0.5em 0px 0px; overflow-wrap: break-word; white-space: pre-wrap;"><div dir="auto" style="font-family: inherit;">To apply, please complete an online application for Position #338820 at <span style="font-family: inherit;"><a class="oajrlxb2 g5ia77u1 qu0x051f esr5mh6w e9989ue4 r7d6kgcz rq0escxv nhd2j8a9 nc684nl6 p7hjln8o kvgmc6g5 cxmmr5t8 oygrvhab hcukyx3x jb3vyjys rz4wbd8a qt6c0cv9 a8nywdso i1ao9s8h esuyzwwr f1sip0of lzcic4wl py34i1dx gpro0wi8" href="https://l.facebook.com/l.php?u=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.unfjobs.org%2F%3Ffbclid%3DIwAR1vuVQ_tD8R09MpEB2eL25b-2uZ0PXC7fviHeQISY7NALLLuxQpyAI486w&h=AT1Te2-A2EQJzwKRTRNl5UMcEuZRG2W2lgu-1bTIJsyyCdnTysSVcb-rY0GexBZgToMqN3kEjoe1TC9o7kWDfRgBRrAsWN0D-UV3rPWsmJfQHluN4UXYr8blQWK0eQ9Ry3URErxS9MyCUOa5c14ypgQ&__tn__=-UK-R&c[0]=AT3W0d9xdJ8Mu9en92gsTkbsJpYY8-tsxxqdH3mKri3l4EvTA3sQpKHEHSywQAPOh45dcgPoAMDDxex_t82QWzsymvWrY02Li_kTcYyQdAW7RunWHsismVfIRfWJtSzr0Lvlj5dioVWzrW115i-S9-SJoKY" rel="nofollow noopener" role="link" style="-webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent; background-color: transparent; border-color: initial; border-style: initial; border-width: 0px; box-sizing: border-box; cursor: pointer; display: inline; font-family: inherit; list-style: none; margin: 0px; outline: none; padding: 0px; text-align: inherit; text-decoration-line: none; touch-action: manipulation;" tabindex="0" target="_blank">https://www.unfjobs.org/</a></span>. Applicants must complete the online application and electronically upload: 1) a cover letter that addresses their research, teaching profile, and professional plan for the next 5 years; 2) a curriculum vitae; 3) a statement of their teaching experience and philosophy; 4) copies of relevant syllabi; 5) 1-2 sample publications in linguistic anthropology; and 6) unofficial transcripts. A minimum of three (3) references with contact information must be listed in the application. Candidates who are invited for campus interviews will be asked to have original, signed reference letters mailed or submitted electronically. Incomplete applications will not be considered. Initial review of applications will begin on November 15, 2021 and will continue until the position is filled. For more information contact Dr. Rosa de Jorio, Search Committee Chair, at (904) 620-1642 or rdejorio@unf.edu. </div></div><div class="o9v6fnle cxmmr5t8 oygrvhab hcukyx3x c1et5uql ii04i59q" style="background-color: white; color: #050505; font-family: system-ui, -apple-system, "system-ui", ".SFNSText-Regular", sans-serif; font-size: 15px; margin: 0.5em 0px 0px; overflow-wrap: break-word; white-space: pre-wrap;"><div dir="auto" style="font-family: inherit;">UNF is an Equal Opportunity/Equal Access/Affirmative Action Institution.</div></div>Ronald Kepharthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16289672930585985148noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4510138305079199306.post-16569439665716695402021-09-15T14:44:00.001-04:002021-09-15T14:44:33.923-04:00Cultural survival...<span style="font-size: medium;">Over on Facebook</span> someone wrote about the people who were brought from Africa to the New World as slaves:<br /><ul style="text-align: left;"><li>[They] ...survived being chained to other human bodies for several months in the bottom of a disease-infested ship during the Middle Passage, lost their language, customs and traditions, picked up the English language as best they could while working free of charge from sun up to sun down...</li></ul>I might call this the Blank Slate Hypothesis of African-American language and culture. Anyway, I responded:<br /><br />I'm sorry, but this is very misleading. The slaves off the boats still knew their languages and where they were from (although the countries they were did not exist in their present form). They passed this knowledge down as best they could. The descendants of slaves that I worked with in the Caribbean use words from African languages in their daily speech, as do many African Americans*. Where I worked, many people had a tradition of knowing what African ethnic group their ancestors came from (Kongo, Igbo, Mandingo, Yoruba, etc.). The Gullah people near where I am now (Northeast Florida) have hundreds of African words in their everyday speech. The idea that all this rich culture and language was erased by slavery is a convenient myth promulgated by whites; and it's been totally disproven by anthropologists (I am one) and others. <div><br /></div><div>I''ll give you just one example: the word 'juke' as in 'juke box'. This word was brought to the Americas by speakers of Fula, a West African language. In Fula it means to pierce, jab, penetrate, including sexually. The Juke Joint became the place you went to hook up; the Juke Box played the music. To this day, people where I worked use 'juke' as a word for getting pricked by, say, a cactus spine. There's a lot more to this (I wrote my dissertation on an Afro-Creole English from Grenada) but I think (hope) I've made my point.<br /><br />There was pushback:<br /><ul style="text-align: left;"><li>[They] ... were taken to central slave-exporting ports, from where they were forced aboard TransAtlantic transport ships under brutally inhumane conditions. The "passengers" typically were a mixture of tribes and languages. Of course they lost their language, customs, and traditions.</li></ul>And again, I responded:<br /><br /><div>And I am telling you that you are wrong. Sorry, but here's no polite way to say it. The idea that Black people "lost their language, customs, and traditions" was made up by White people to make Blacks seem subhuman. Many language features that they brought from Africa and incorporated into their speech over here were said to show mental deficiency, because, you know, they couldn't possibly be legitimate carryovers from somewhere else. You may not like it, but it's a fact. If you don't want to believe me, look for Lorenzo Dow Turner and Melville Herskovits, two of many scholars who have demonstrated the continuities between West Africa and African American languages and cultures.<br /><br /><ul style="text-align: left;"><li>You are purporting that the enslavement of Africans did not deprive them of their language, culture or traditions because they have managed to retain a small remnant of each. That's preposterous.</li></ul>I am arguing against the original proposition, which was that Africans lost ALL their culture and language in the slave experience. They did not. They carried with them more than a "small remnant." They mingled that with the languages and cultures they were embedded in in the New World: English, French, Spanish, etc. In each they created new languages out of English (etc.) and the "remnants" they brought. In some cases they continued speaking their home languages right into the present (Cuba, for example). Retention and creativity; I have spent my academic career studying this, and I know what the fuck I'm talking about.</div><div><br />Do you eat okra? The plant and the name for it come from West Africa (Igbo language). Have you ever called peanuts goobers? The plant is American, of course, but its African name (nguba) comes from Kikongo. Watch the Living Dead? Zombie is from Kikongo zumbi or nzambi. And on and on....</div><div><br />The more interesting (to me) influences of West African are in the grammars developed by the slaves and their descendants. That would be a whole 'nother thread I think, but one example: The West African languages I've studied don't have the English th sounds. So in the encounter, English words get reworked and th sounds become t or d: the > de; this > dis; and so on. Exactly this sort of thing was used by the racists to label Blacks "lazy"- because they didn't always pronounce our th's. Some said they couldn't make these sounds because they had "lazy tongues" or "thick lips." Of course, they can learn to make them because they are <i>Homo sapiens</i>. But it was (and sometimes still is) grist for the racist mill.</div></div><div><br /></div><div>The Blank Slate Hypothesis of African American language and culture attributes any deviation from "standard" language and culture to cognitive deficiency, the inability to learn the presumedly more "advanced" language of whichever Europeans the slaves ended up among. I wish I could write "attributed" in that last sentence, but it seems to be alive and well, and still a part of the folk model for some, at least.</div><div><br /></div><div>*I use the term "African American" to refer to the descendants of slaves brought from Africa to the New World, all of which is really "America."</div><div><br /></div><div>-----------------------------</div><div>Herskovits, Melville. 1966. <i>The New World Negro: Selected Papers in Afroamerican Studies</i>. Minerva Press.</div><div><br /></div><div>Turner, Lorenzo D. 2002 [1949]. <i>Africanisms in the Gullah Dialect</i>. University of South Carolina Press.</div>Ronald Kepharthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16289672930585985148noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4510138305079199306.post-5700091320877117222021-08-21T11:33:00.001-04:002021-08-21T11:33:11.990-04:00Retirement!<p><span style="font-size: medium;"> <span style="background-color: white; color: #050505; font-family: system-ui, -apple-system, system-ui, ".SFNSText-Regular", sans-serif; white-space: pre-wrap;">So the SASW Department gave me a retirement send off yesterday. Very relaxed and informal, and with kind words. They know I like primates, so they gave me what appears to be a Spider Monkey and donated a brick in my name to the Jax Zoo. Little do they know Iāll be around a lot, cleaning 32 years of experience out of my office. Thanks, Everybody!</span></span></p><p><span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="background-color: white; color: #050505; font-family: system-ui, -apple-system, system-ui, ".SFNSText-Regular", sans-serif; white-space: pre-wrap;"></span></span></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj5wNYUliQk6QzVzFnDI0HRJqhs2mpSzoUvGnFoCR3nfXmIBJ2yu-uxNAJIxj7DB6NKfL4u1EDnjHosO4zd1CtMSq8d-_wzYBfvdCqetwh5LcfZGVPWBIJ8yvlHyjoiVpaC6-nmyU2cX2o/" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img alt="" data-original-height="720" data-original-width="960" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj5wNYUliQk6QzVzFnDI0HRJqhs2mpSzoUvGnFoCR3nfXmIBJ2yu-uxNAJIxj7DB6NKfL4u1EDnjHosO4zd1CtMSq8d-_wzYBfvdCqetwh5LcfZGVPWBIJ8yvlHyjoiVpaC6-nmyU2cX2o/" width="320" /></a></span></div><span style="font-size: medium;"><br /><br /></span><p></p>Ronald Kepharthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16289672930585985148noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4510138305079199306.post-10661314593575866832021-08-03T15:57:00.005-04:002021-08-03T16:04:56.305-04:00Grades are in!<div style="text-align: left;"><span face="system-ui, -apple-system, system-ui, ".SFNSText-Regular", sans-serif" style="background-color: white; color: #050505; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span data-offset-key="dntqc-0-0" style="font-family: inherit;">Grades</span></span><span data-offset-key="dntqc-1-0" face="system-ui, -apple-system, system-ui, ".SFNSText-Regular", sans-serif" style="background-color: white; color: #050505; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span data-text="true" style="font-family: inherit;"> are in. I had 19 students for my last (?) Introduction to Anthropology class. </span></span><span style="background-color: white; color: #050505; font-family: inherit; white-space: pre-wrap;">T</span><span style="background-color: white; color: #050505; font-family: inherit; white-space: pre-wrap;">he course was presented over Zoom for six weeks from mid-June to last July 30. We met on Tuesdays and Thursdays, 9:00am to 12:30pm. I typically gave us a 15-20 minute break at around 10:30. </span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="background-color: white; color: #050505; font-family: inherit; white-space: pre-wrap;"><br /></span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="background-color: white; color: #050505; font-family: inherit; white-space: pre-wrap;">I tried to cover a couple of topics each meeting, although that didn't always work out. I used the first three weeks to cover biological anthropology, and saved culture and language for the last three. Throughout, I used videos from the old <i>Faces of Culture</i> series as well as a film on documenting endangered languages and a segment from David Mayberry-Lewis's <i>Millennium</i> series.</span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="background-color: white; color: #050505; font-family: inherit; white-space: pre-wrap;"><br /></span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="background-color: white; color: #050505; font-family: inherit; white-space: pre-wrap;">Lectures were supplemented with Powerpoint slides. Generally I use the slides as bullet points; only if there's an especially worthwhile quote do I include it on the slide, for example this from Teddy Roosevelt:</span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="background-color: white; color: #050505; font-family: inherit; white-space: pre-wrap;"><br /></span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="background-color: white; color: #050505; font-family: inherit; white-space: pre-wrap;"><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgrXrep7Y_3USmeZCRLRadLgWjRgL4utzOMMfAe_hRKViotCC68m4UeWQRvlDPnZ7M_x18m32qosgRqIukP9oCkTUicgkzl62SMQ_OWN-fvny-kRjwBv09SbK463P-qRhXAUNX4y0XpA_g/" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img alt="" data-original-height="540" data-original-width="720" height="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgrXrep7Y_3USmeZCRLRadLgWjRgL4utzOMMfAe_hRKViotCC68m4UeWQRvlDPnZ7M_x18m32qosgRqIukP9oCkTUicgkzl62SMQ_OWN-fvny-kRjwBv09SbK463P-qRhXAUNX4y0XpA_g/w400-h300/image.png" width="400" /></a></div><br /><br /><br /></span><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">In lecture, students were exposed to all the things wrong with TR's worldview.</div></div><p><span style="background-color: white; color: #050505; font-family: inherit; white-space: pre-wrap;">The class average was in the B range and lowest grade was a C. I would have preferred face-to-face, obviously, but still they were a pretty good group.</span></p>Ronald Kepharthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16289672930585985148noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4510138305079199306.post-7013931989918222862021-06-14T10:34:00.001-04:002021-06-14T10:35:17.706-04:00Needed: "cynical knowledge"<span style="font-family: times; font-size: medium;">What people call "Critical Race Theory" should, in my view, be a component of a larger program of what Chomsky calls "intellectual self-defense." Or, if you prefer, what a professor of mine (r.i.p. Robert Lawless) called "cynical knowledge." This is a realization, developed through scientific observation and analysis of the facts of US history, that the pablum we are fed from almost all sides of our culture about how gloriously wonderful and beneficent the US has always been is no more than the "propaganda" and "mind control" that we deride when we see it in other nations.</span><div><span style="font-family: times; font-size: medium;"><br />We only have to look at the people jumping on Rep. Ilhan Omar for suggesting that the US has done bad things to realize that we desperately need this kind of knowledge. Otherwise, we just keep doing bad things, like ripping little kids away from their parents at the border, surely a Crime Against Humanity.</span></div>Ronald Kepharthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16289672930585985148noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4510138305079199306.post-18944181144940335072021-04-25T13:55:00.008-04:002021-04-25T14:04:46.441-04:00"Tribal" again, encore Still thinking about the popular use of "tribal" in referring to political or actual conflict.<br /><br /><div>Journalists and others call it "tribal" I think because they've learned somewhere that the societies we anthropologists think of as tribal (mostly small-scale horticulturalists and pastoralists) are always warring against each other, which of course they rarely do except in very special circumstances. Steven Pinker has exacerbated the problem by bleating about how much more peaceful we are now that we have large nation-states to keep our demons under control.<div><br /></div><div>For me, "tribal" yields an admittedly somewhat fuzzy set of social and cultural features which set these sociocultural "systems" apart from larger-scale systems of the sort that Friedman was referencing. Maybe one of the most important is the distinction between small-scale shamanistic/communalistic religious cults and the larger-scale ecclesiastical cults at the center of mideastern conflict. Social fusion/fission plays a part in these conflicts. This is suggested by violence between Christian cults (Northern Ireland), islamic cults (Middle East etc.), and so on all over the place. They had fusion forced on them by external colonial powers, now they're striving for fission to preserve what they see as their identity.</div><div><br /></div><div><div>So maybe the Social Imperative is at the heart of it all. SI promotes fusion, but too much fusion provokes crowding stress, and SI responds with fission?</div></div><div><br />Incidentally, I feel the same way about the gross misuse of "theory." This past year I actually heard Ira Flatow on NPR's Science Friday ask a physicist "when does a theory become a fact?" I meant to email him but never did....<br /></div></div>Ronald Kepharthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16289672930585985148noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4510138305079199306.post-84307466228281937522021-04-23T11:24:00.000-04:002021-04-23T11:24:03.926-04:00"Tribal" again<div style="text-align: left;"> <span style="color: var(--primary-text); font-family: inherit; font-size: 0.9375rem; white-space: pre-wrap;">Tom Friedman was just on CNN pushing the ātribal politicsā meme to describe our problems. Where is the Anthropolgy Word Police Squad?</span></div><div style="font-family: inherit;"><div class="stjgntxs ni8dbmo4 l82x9zwi uo3d90p7 h905i5nu monazrh9" data-visualcompletion="ignore-dynamic" style="border-radius: 0px 0px 8px 8px; font-family: inherit; overflow: hidden;"><div style="font-family: inherit;"><div class="cwj9ozl2 tvmbv18p" style="color: #1c1e21; font-family: system-ui, -apple-system, system-ui, ".SFNSText-Regular", sans-serif; font-size: 12px; margin-bottom: 4px;"></div></div></div></div>Ronald Kepharthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16289672930585985148noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4510138305079199306.post-2819131523249790372021-03-03T15:10:00.005-05:002021-04-26T08:05:52.853-04:00"Neanderthal Thinking"<br /><br /> Holy coprolites, the work of anthropologists is never done!<div><br />We are being told that President Biden has charged the governors of Texas and Mississippi with "Neandertal thinking" (don't get me started on the spelling!) for their decisions to drop Covid-related restrictions.<br /><br />How do we get through to him that any random Neandertal (early European Homo sapiens) almost certainly had more empathy, more concern for the members of their community, than these two troglodytic governors combined? Why? Because without doubt as children they were dependence-trained and thus sensitive not just to what their society owed them, but what they owed to their society reciprocally. Not independence-trained like these selfish, socially irresponsible "modern" USAniacs.</div>Ronald Kepharthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16289672930585985148noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4510138305079199306.post-24596310301204402792021-02-24T14:14:00.001-05:002021-04-26T08:07:00.875-04:00Restarting<p><span style="font-family: inherit;">I've been off the blog, really pretty much just off, for most of the last presidential term. Every time I thought of writing about something, before I could get my thoughts collected something else happened that knocked the first thoughts off the road. Now that we have a new, slightly more boring (i.e. "normal") president, maybe there will be time to think and write a little between events.</span></p><p><span style="font-family: inherit;">News: I have now received my two doses of the Pfizer vaccine. My age (75 and counting) qualified me for an early vaccination. Tomorrow (Feb 25) will mark two weeks since my second dose, so I should be able to go out the house without being terrified.</span></p><p><span style="font-family: inherit;">So, my thought for this first post of 2021:</span></p><blockquote style="border: none; margin: 0px 0px 0px 40px; padding: 0px; text-align: left;">Now over half-a-million dead from the virus! I still want to see the former president and his enablers indicted, possibly for negligent homicide although that almost seems too lenient. It could be genocide, since they seemed to lose interest when they learned that Black and Brown populations were the most susceptible to the worst effects of the virus.</blockquote><br />Ronald Kepharthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16289672930585985148noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4510138305079199306.post-2520626897857549922020-08-06T10:31:00.056-04:002021-04-26T08:08:32.439-04:00Another August 6thToday is the 75th anniversary of the bombing of Hiroshima, followed shortly thereafter by the bombing of Nagasaki. So far, watching the News (CNN, MSNBC) I haven't caught any mention of it.<br /><br />I'll let my past posts speak for themselves:<br /><br />2009: <a href="https://www.blogger.com/#">An almost unmentioned anniversary</a><br /><br />2010: <a href="https://www.blogger.com/#">The most destructive use ever of weapons of mass destruction</a><br /><br />2011: <a href="https://www.blogger.com/#">Another August 6th</a><br /><br />2012: <a href="https://www.blogger.com/#">Yet another August 6th</a><br /><br />2013: <a href="https://www.blogger.com/#">August 6, 1945</a><br /><br />2014: <a href="https://www.blogger.com/#">It's August 6th, again</a><br /><br />2015: <a href="https://www.blogger.com/#">August 6, 2015</a><br /><br />2016: <a href="https://www.blogger.com/#">August 6, again</a>Ronald Kepharthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16289672930585985148noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4510138305079199306.post-24416645265564497532020-07-05T14:26:00.002-04:002020-07-05T14:56:17.981-04:00English is complicated?Some folks on social media lately have been expressing concern about how "complicated" English is. There are a couple of things a linguist might want to say about that.<br />
<br />
First, we have to be clear that we are talking about the language, not the writing system. The English writing system is indeed complicated, but not because the language itself is complicated. The writing system is complicated because it was first developed for Old English or Anglo-Saxon back before the year 1000 CE. It was developed by Christian missionaries who mostly used the Latin alphabet, and it was not bad. The vowels <i>a e i o u</i> had their Latin qualities (pretty much modern Spanish). A word like <i>Moon</i> (for the Moon) was pronounced like modern English <i>moan</i>. <i>Hus</i> (house) rhymed with modern <i>loose</i>. All the written consonants in <i>cniht</i> (knight) were pronounced. These sounds changed, and some disappeared, over the years, but how we write them did not change so much. We can safely that English spelling is a nightmare. George Bernard Shaw captured this with his humorous observation that we could spell <i>fish</i> as <i>ghoti</i> (<i>gh</i> from <i>enough</i>, <i>o</i> from <i>women</i>, and <i>ti</i> from <i>nation</i>).<br />
<br />
If anything, English grammar has simplified over the years. In Old English, nouns had cases like modern Russian and German, so the word for 'person,' <i>folc</i>, varied depending on whether it was singular or plural as well as whether it was being used as a subject, object, possessor, or object of a preposition: subjects and objects singular and plural <i>folc</i>; possessors <i>folces, folca</i>; prepositionals <i>folce, folcum</i>. This meant that word order was somewhat less important in Old English. In these example, the words for king and bishop do not change form, but the definite article does (Ļø is a rune letter that represented the 'th' sounds):<br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
Se cyning meteĻø Ļøone biscop. 'the king met the bishop'<br />
Ļøone cyning meteĻø se biscop. 'the bishop met the king'</blockquote>
<div style="text-indent: -19.2px;">
Old English verbs, too, were more complicated than their modern reflexes. They were conjugated for person, number, tense, and mode. One brief example, the verb <i>deĢman</i> (to judge) in the present indicative: (I) <i>deĢmde;</i> (you)<i> deĢmdest; </i>(she/he)<i> deĢmde</i>; (we/you-all/they) <i>d</i><i style="text-indent: -19.2px;">eĢ</i><i style="text-indent: -19.2px;">ma</i><span style="text-indent: -19.2px;"><i><font size="2">Ļø</font></i><font size="1">.</font></span></div>
<!--StartFragment-->
<!--EndFragment--><i>.</i><br />
<i><br /></i>
While English has lost some of its complexity, the one thing that probably troubles adult learners most is the auxiliary verb (AUX) <i>DO</i> that makes an appearance in question-formation. Note the following:<br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
Statement: <i>Cats eat mice.</i> </blockquote>
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
Question: <i>Do cats eat mice?</i></blockquote>
Where did that <i>do</i> come from? English is the only language I know about that forms questions in this way (though there may be others). The answer lies in realizing that the basic rule for question-formation in English is "Move AUX" which means the Auxiliary verb is moved to the front of the sentence. In sentences that already have an auxiliary verb, things are pretty simple. Here the AUX <i>will</i> is moved to form the question:<br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
Statement: The c<i>ats will eat the mice.</i> </blockquote>
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
Question: <i>Will the cats eat the mice?</i></blockquote>
There appears to be no AUX in the statement. Or isn't there? It turns out that all English sentences have a place for an AUX, but the place can be unoccupied. But to follow the "Move AUX" rule and form a question, if the AUX position is empty, we have to create a "dummy AUX" and then move it:<br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
Statement: <i>Cats ___ eat mice. </i><i> ā </i> <i>Cats DO eat mice.</i><i><br /></i>Question: <i> DO cats eat mice?</i></blockquote>
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Just one more bit of complication. Suppose the sentence is <i>Our cat eats mice.</i> Look what happens:</div>
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
Statement: <i>Our cat eats mice.</i></blockquote>
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
Prep for question: <i> Our cat DO eats mice. ā Our cat DOES eat mice.</i></blockquote>
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
Question: <i>Does our cat eat mice?</i></blockquote>
Note that the <i>-s</i> on <i>eat</i> moves to AUX before AUX is moved to form the question. There are explanations for why this happens, but they will take us too deep into the weeds of English syntax. For now, let's just say that while English is not as complicated as many people think, it does have its quirks.<br />
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Ronald Kepharthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16289672930585985148noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4510138305079199306.post-22687076420925052492020-07-04T12:51:00.001-04:002020-07-05T14:55:10.658-04:00Irregardless...For some reason, people on Facebook (at least) are recently upset about <i>irregardless</i> existing in the Merriam-Webster dictionary of English, despite the fact that it has been around in various sources since at least 1912. Most references to the word label it as "erroneous," or an example of substandard or dialectal English.<br />
<br />
Some of these folks claim that <i>irregardless</i> is not a word, but this is clearly wrong. <i>Irregardless</i> is a string of four syllables, with one prominent stress on -<i>gard-</i>. This is a pretty good definition of a word in English (but not necessarily all languages!).<br />
<br />
Furthermore, <i>irregardless</i> is a completely legal example of English Morphophonology, which has to do with the sound of words and smaller things (prefixes, for example) when they appear in context.<br />
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English has a Negative Prefix, /in-/, which attaches to adjectives to negate their meaning: for example <i>inedible, indecent, </i>etc. This prefix is pronounced in several different ways, depending on the beginning sound of the word it attaches to:<br />
<br />
<ul>
<li>If the word starts with a vowel, it's pronounced <i>in-</i>: <i> inactive, inedible, inoperable, </i>etc.</li>
<li>If the words starts with a consonant, <i>in-</i> assimilates to the articulation of the consonant: for example, if the consonant is Labial, /m/ is used: <i>impossible</i>; if the consonant is Alveolar, /n/ is used: <i>indelible</i>; and so on.</li>
</ul>
Now here's where it gets interesting. If the consonant is a Liquid (/l/ or /r/<i>)</i> the /n/ assimilates to those consonants:<br />
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<ul>
<li><i>illegal</i> /<i>in</i>-/ ā /<i>il-</i>/</li>
<li><i>irrational /in-/ ā /ir-/</i></li>
</ul>
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So what we can conclude is that not only is <i>irregardless</i> a perfectly good English word, but it also follows the rules of English word-formation.<br />
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Irregardless of what some people might think of it.Ronald Kepharthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16289672930585985148noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4510138305079199306.post-25937155533075256042020-06-16T10:03:00.002-04:002020-06-16T10:03:48.435-04:00Cultural dysfunction<span style="background-color: white; color: #1d2129; font-family: system-ui, -apple-system, system-ui, ".SFNSText-Regular", sans-serif; font-size: 14px; white-space: pre-wrap;">One sign that a culture is dysfunctional is that people value their "individual rights and liberties" over their social responsibility to wear masks and and practice physical distancing during a global pandemic...</span>Ronald Kepharthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16289672930585985148noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4510138305079199306.post-56933764737370713902020-06-09T11:33:00.001-04:002020-06-09T11:36:18.606-04:00IT and the need for police<div style="background-color: white; color: #1d2129; font-family: system-ui, -apple-system, system-ui, ".SFNSText-Regular", sans-serif; font-size: 14px; margin-bottom: 6px;">
So, briefly, from a long time ago in a galaxy far, far away....</div>
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The move to defund police departments runs into trouble as soon as we start thinking about the nature of human societies. In small-scale societies, where people might be organized into foraging bands or horticulture-based villages, we would typically see maybe between twenty and 100 individuals, many related by blood or marriage. Also typically, enculturation of children would stress Dependence Training (DT), <span class="text_exposed_show" style="display: inline; font-family: inherit;">a mode of upbringing that emphasizes the social ties between group members and social responsibility to the group. When an individual becomes disruptive by, say, stealing, or acting aggressively toward other group members, they will be sanctioned. If the offense is great enough, they might be banished or even killed. The punishment would have the weight of group consensus; there are no "police" in such societies.</span></div>
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In large-scale agricultural/industrial societies, which have developed only in the last 5K years or so, populations become much larger and more dense. People are no longer related to everyone else, they more often than not don't even know each other. Enculturation moves away from DT and shifts toward Independence Training (IT). Individuals' rights outweigh social responsibility. This shift is exacerbated by Capitalism, which is only really a few hundred years old. IT exalts the Individual over the group, and the Individual finds it easier to commit socially irresponsible behavior: theft, physical violence, homicide, etc. Because there are too many people for the group to function in a cohesive way, a special class of group members has to come into play: the Police.</div>
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And this is why we will probably always need some level of policing. At least until we find a way to change our mode of enculturation to value dependence over independence.</div>
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Ronald Kepharthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16289672930585985148noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4510138305079199306.post-29529946842829933722020-05-10T14:26:00.001-04:002020-05-10T14:26:23.256-04:00The wrong frameWe keep hearing in the News about the economic disaster Coronavirus has wrought upon us: so many jobs lost, so many unemployed, people unable to pay rent or buy food, and so on. The frame within which this narrative thrives is a worldview in which people's worth is shackled to the job they have. Jobless, not renting their labor to the capitalist class, they are worth nothing. Not even worth having health care, because their health care is also shackled to their job. Basically, without a job you shouldn't expect to be alive.<br />
<br />
I would like to propose a counter-narrative. People are not "unemployed." People are unable to go to work because of the danger of being infected by a Virus. The "job," i.e. the work they were doing, still exists, it was not "lost." Was it? Presumably it will still have to be done, when it's safe for someone to do it.<br />
<br />
In a decent country, the Virus would have happened, but the consequences would have been different. People who could not continue doing their jobs would have remained "employed," with pay and benefits. No doubt the Government would have to chip in, substantially, but people's lives would not have had to be so disrupted by the tangential effects of the Virus.<br />
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This decent country would have to be "socialist," to some extent, though a better label might be humanistic. This requires a different framing of human worth and work, something the US seems incapable of.<br />
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Of course, a decent country would not have allowed a grifter sociopath to become president in the first place. <br />
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<br />Ronald Kepharthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16289672930585985148noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4510138305079199306.post-71021527937927791362020-04-03T12:44:00.001-04:002020-04-03T12:44:37.831-04:00Spam commentsFans/followers of The Cranky Linguist:<br />
<br />
In the last few days I noticed that I had a huge number of spam comments (penis enlargement, herbal sexual enhancement, etc.) on some fairly recent posts. I managed (I think) to delete them all. Also, I think I managed to keep most of the earlier legitimate comments, but if one of yours was deleted, my apologies.<br />
<br />
For a time while I was doing this, I turned off commenting. Commenting is back on now, but I have it set to "always moderate." Hopefully this will keep the crazy crap off the blog.Ronald Kepharthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16289672930585985148noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4510138305079199306.post-4563545966706866922020-03-18T12:36:00.002-04:002020-03-18T12:36:44.192-04:00Social Distance: An Anthropological Perspective<div style="background-color: white; color: #1c1e21; font-family: system-ui, -apple-system, system-ui, ".SFNSText-Regular", sans-serif; font-size: 14px; margin-bottom: 6px;">
With the current pandemic of the Coronavirus SARS-CoV-2 (COVID-19) there has been a lot of discussion about <b>Social Distancing</b> in order to slow the transmission rate between people. And in fact this particular virus may have originated from humans being in close contact with animals like the Pangolin (a zoonosis). Weāre being advised to avoid crowds, but nobody (to the best of my knowledge) is advising us to avoid āmakingā crow<span class="text_exposed_show" style="display: inline; font-family: inherit;">ds. We need to āthink outside the Pyramidā and recognize the singular most important problem facing humankind- global human overpopulation.</span></div>
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The Human Species is a paradox- we evolved to be the most social mammal (the evolution of Language qualifies that statement)- our social cooperation kept our ancestors from following the Australopithecines into extinction in the East African woodlands. We have a <b>Social Imperative</b> to make and live in social groups, but these were small groups where every individual was known- cooperation was the norm while competition was not, because it could be potentially disruptive to the group.</div>
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However, after the <b>Domestication Development</b> around 10,000 years ago, human population densities increased to the extent that humans had to adapt by creating social and political structures in order to minimize disruptions. Social competition became the ānew normalā creating ranking within the group, and stratification between groups. Nonetheless, over the past millennia, disruptions and violence have been increasing. These include xenophobia in all of its manifestations, and of course violence in all of its manifestations.</div>
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Humans are not naturally competitive and violent, and itās not natural for humans to harm other humans. So āsocial distancingā has been, and still is being used when itās employed in war and genocide (dehumanization). And of course that helps us to understand the phenomenon of <b>polarization</b>. The human world has become so crowded that we actively seek <b>social distancing</b> from others- even to the point of fictionalizing differences (aka stereotyping). Crowding stress is a perception tailored by culture and personality. So while we voluntarily congregate in incredibly large crowds, in other situations where we feel a loss of control, stress may ensue.</div>
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Machiavelli understood how crowding stress and negative emotions can be used for political gain. And today we see many of the worldās āleadersā use hate, fear, and loathing in order to motivate their political base.</div>
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Global human overpopulation is a genuine pandemic. It is the factor in anthrogenic climate change, density dependent diseases (DDD), and density dependent social pathologies (DDSP). The <b>meaning of life</b> is reproduction, but we do have a choice: either voluntary limits or let Mother Nature do it. The current CoV-19 pandemic will fade, but not our overpopulation pandemicā¦.unless.</div>
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Population density matters.</div>
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Daniel Cring</div>
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Ronald Kephart</div>
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<i>Anthropologists</i></div>
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Ronald Kepharthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16289672930585985148noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4510138305079199306.post-6402290532633850382020-01-05T13:56:00.000-05:002020-01-05T13:56:16.638-05:00Guest blog: No time for "heroes"<div style="background-color: white; color: #1d2129; font-family: system-ui, -apple-system, system-ui, ".SFNSText-Regular", sans-serif; font-size: 14px; margin-bottom: 6px;">
By Dr. Martin Cohen</div>
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(Lightly edited)</div>
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This will not be taken well by some of you, but I have to write this, perhaps now, before it becomes an offense for which I could be arrested (perhaps later this year). A message to members of our armed forces, a message to tell your children if they are in the armed forces, and a message for all of us to keep in mind in our responses to people in uniform - You are not a hero if you fight, kill, or risk your life, or even die in an unjust war of aggression; no, that makes you a criminal. You are not duty-bound or honor-bound to be a criminal, just because you signed up and wear a uniform. If you are old enough to vote, and old enough be to ordered to kill, then you have the ability to process what you are doing, and you are responsible for your own actions, no matter who ordered those actions or why. </div>
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We essentially established this at the Nuremberg trials, and have demanded our own military ignore it as much as possible. I know this is hard, I have friends with children or other family in the military, I have had numerous students in the military, some still in. And it is particularly hard to write this, because I guess I may be called out on this by friends who served in Vietnam, but really, they are not exceptions to this. We need, at some point to draw the line between hero and dupe, between martyr and criminal. We tend, like teenage girls of the past, to be blinded by uniforms. (By the way, one of the reasons for the development of dress uniforms and non-battle related military trappings and insignia are to take those whose lives are expendable and make them feel special enough to embrace and find meaning as cannon fodder. When the Marines say they are looking for a few good men, they entice recruits with a carefully crafted myth of hyper-masculinity. This has traditionally been reinforced by a certain percentage of women being raised to respond to that myth that makes the man in the uniform particularly special.)</div>
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It is a myth that those of us who opposed the war spat on Vietnam vets when they returned. The myth persists, so much so that it has entered the consciousness of some of those vets as a false memory. In fact, many of us, putting aside the criminality of the war, honored the individual for what they had experienced, for what our government made them do. And we were more likely to work for them receiving proper benefits and VA psychiatric care (I eventually worked in clinical research with a number of Vietnam vets at a VA psychiatric hospital). They are not heroes, they are just real, human beings. Some have put it aside, some still suffer today because of what they had done. The "PTSD" expert I knew at the VA insisted it was all about having lived under risk, and while that is part of it, at least anecdotally I got a strong impression it was also often the result of doing and/or seeing unthinkable things that went against all they believed about human life and decency.</div>
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At some level, I think many of us understand this - there is no doubt that many German soldiers during WWII fought hard and courageously for their country. Some sacrificed themselves for their comrades or to advance their country's cause in the struggle. I cannot admire these acts as heroic, not just personally, because their country was literally murdering my relatives or that the same soldiers were trying to kill our fathers, but because the cause itself was by any sense of human decency, beyond defensible. In fact, one could (but I wouldn't) argue that somehow those young German men were far more trapped in a role beyond their control than any member of our military is today.</div>
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After thousands of years of warfare, it is time to say: NO MORE HEROES!</div>
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<i>Martin Cohen is a friend and Anthropologist who teaches in the Los Angeles area.</i></div>
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Ronald Kepharthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16289672930585985148noreply@blogger.com0