22

In recent years, both young men and women have delayed many transitions. For example, in 2001, half of all 22-year-olds were still in school. Only one in five had a partner (usually common-law), and one in 11 had children.

I've already discussed the problems with using relationships and children as markers of adulthood so we won't get into that again. Today my point is the problem with using the age of 22.

Here in Ontario (which, like it or not, constitutes a statistically influential chunk of the Canadian population), in 1971 and in 2001, if you started kindergarten at the normal age (in September of the calendar year in which you turn 5), then proceed through elementary school, high school (including OAC, which still affected 22-year-olds in 2001), and university at the standard rate of one grade level per year, at the age of 22 you will be in fourth-year university. If you were born in the first half of the calendar year, the entire time you were 22 years old will have been spent in university. If you were born in the second half of the calendar year, you will still be 22 for a few months after graduation.

So still being in school at the age of 22 is not a sign of lack of adulthood. It is simply a sign of being in university. Even if absolutely everyone finished university in four years, graduated, got a job, and married in quick succession, and then promptly got themselves knocked up, half of 22-year-olds would still be in school, and the vast majority would not be married yet (because some people are going to want to have a wedding that involves some planning) or have children yet.

If they want to make these kinds of value judgements, they should really pick a slightly older age.

I think I've been thinking about Ontario politics too much

I thought I wasn't paying enough attention to the Ontario election, but then last night I had a dream.

I dreamed that McGuinty, Hampton, and Tory were having a debate about the value of MMP. (No, I don't know why De Jong wasn't invited to my dream.) They all kept using the word consensus to mean something different, and couldn't agree on what it actually meant. (Yeah, I know...) So I offered to look it up in the dictionary for them, but I had trouble because I didn't know about the invisible U between the N and the first S. (Yes, the invisible letters schtick is an Eddie thing.) So then I remembered about the invisible U and looked it up and found the definition. So I raised my hand and said that I'd found the definition. But John Tory wouldn't shut up for long enough for me to tell them the definition. He just kept talking and talking and wouldn't shut up. So I punched him in the teeth.

Seriously, that was my dream. Maybe I need to back off politics for a while.

Performance art, free for the taking

Today I saw a rather loud group of people celebrating the fact that one of their number was cancer-free.

It would be good performance art to loudly celebrate the fact that your friend is cancer-free, casually neglecting to mention that they've never had cancer yet in the first place.

Bath tissue?

I just saw a commercial for toilet paper that described it as "bath tissue". I've heard "bathroom tissue" before, but "bath tissue" sounds just a tad too bath-related, and not enough toilet-related.

Alos, I saw a commercial with someone complaining that the dishes come out of her dishwasher less than completely dry. I think perhaps that's a sign you don't have enough problems.

Military funerals

If a member of the military dies, do they have to have a military funeral? What if they want something else?

WTF?

A government committee is jumping down the Chief Electoral Officer's throat because he won't forbid people from wearing veils while voting. The Chief Electoral Officer's position is that he has no authority to do so, because the law clearly states that photo ID is not required.

Which it does:

2) If the poll clerk determines that the elector’s name and address appear on the list of electors or that the elector is allowed to vote under section 146, 147, 148 or 149, then, subject to subsection (3), the elector shall provide to the deputy returning officer and the poll clerk the following proof of his or her identity and residence:
(a) one piece of identification issued by a Canadian government, whether federal, provincial or local, or an agency of that government, that contains a photograph of the elector and his or her name and address; or

(b) two pieces of identification authorized by the Chief Electoral Officer each of which establish the elector’s name and at least one of which establishes the elector’s address.

Public servants do not have the authority to do anything but implement the law as written. This is the cornerstone of public service ethics. Only elected officials can change the law by passing legislation through the normal channels.

The Chief Electoral Officer is a public servant. The committee that's haranguing him consists entirely of MPs. In other words, the committee members are the ones with the authority to change the law, and the Chief Electoral Officer is morally and professionally obligated to NOT take any initiative in changing the law, but instead of changing the law the MPs instead jump down his throat.

This reminds me of the bullies on the Simpsons who keep going "Stop punching yourself!" while using the victim's own fist against him.

***

Also, I've been really surprised lately by the tenor and quality of the reader comments on the Globe & Mail website. The G&M has always come across as rather an intellectual newspaper, but so many of the readers leaving comments are just stupid! They aren't googling, they're basing their positions on premises that are blatently false, and they're just generally being loudmouth assholes. I'm surprised that people like that would read the Globe and Mail in the first place! Frankly, it's a dull and dry-looking newspaper, and there are plenty of other newspapers that would be more appealing (visually, content-wise, and editorially) to these kinds of people.

Ping Globe and Mail editorial writers

"To applaud diversity for diversity's sake is to evade responsibility for the effects of that diversity on children."

And what about if those children grow up to be people who would benefit from a society that's accepting of a variety of family structure?

(Aside: Only 8% of Canadians are divorced. I thought it would be more.)

Handshake logistics

If I'm noticing that the other person's handshake is weak, does that mean that my handshake is sufficiently firm? I know I can give good handshake, but I always forget to pay attention to it. Then when I notice someone else's hand is limp, I start fretting about whether mine is too.

The relevant Eddie:

Breastfeeding pictures

Apparently Facebook banned breastfeeding pictures and now there's a big fuss.

Now I have nothing against breastfeeding and am no way bothered by it. I was breastfed myself. However, I honestly do not understand why a person would a) take a picture of their baby nursing, and b) post it on the internet. "Hey, this would make a good picture! Get the camera! Now we must share it with everyone!"

In a nursing picture, you can't see much of the baby's face because it's obscured by the breast. In addition, there are a lot of people on the internet who you probably wouldn't want thinking about your breasts. So if you wanted to post a picture of your baby, why wouldn't you post one where you can actually see the face and that doesn't involve your breasts? Or, if you do want people thinking about your breasts, why not post a picture that's actually sexy rather than one with a great big baby head in the way? I just cannot grok the mindset.

Whose Line moment of the day

I'm just posting this because it made me laugh far more than I would have thought US Whose Line could.

My latest conspiracy theory

I think the idea of teaching creationism in schools was brought up so that government funding for Catholic schools will ultimately be eliminated.

First they mentioned funding other religious schools, which does make sense - it's got to be everyone or no one, not just the catholics. Then they mention creationism to make the idea of universal religious funding scary. But the public has already processed the idea that it's no fair that only the catholics get funding, so in the long run they're not going to continue to accept the status quo.

It is inevitable that government funding must go to either all or no religious schools. This was obvious to me back when I was a Catholic preteen. (Yes, I am aware of the British North America Act, but it didn't anticipate and is not applicable to today's more pluralistic society.) And obviously it would be far easier to organize one secular public school system than any number of religious school systems. I think Tory's current approach is a nefarious scheme to make that happen. I'm surprised to see it from the Conservative party, and it's not enough to affect my vote, but I am glad to see that seed was planted.

Zit poll

Please answer in the comments:

Are you getting more acne than usual lately? If so, please post your geographical location in the comments.

I'm asking because I've been getting more acne than usual the last couple of weeks, and so have two friends in Hamilton (one male, one female).

Won't someone please think of the virgins?

Okay, we've all heard the thing where apparently Islamic terrorist martyrs think that they'll get 72 virgins in the afterlife.

And if you google this you'll find people debunking it and saying it's not really Islam or whatever.

But let's just take this belief as a given. There are people who believe this, so for the purpose of this post let's call it a religious belief.

So theological question: how did those virgins end up being sentenced to be someone's sex slave?

Is it punishment? Could it be avoided? Or is demands for virgins so high that everyone is pressed into service? And what does the afterlife have in store for an unmarried non-virgin? Maybe it's better to just jump in bed with the first willing person to avoid condemning yourself to a lifetime of being some asshole's sex toy?

People think I'm joking when I ask questions like this, but I'm quite serious, I want to know. Unfortunately, I don't know what to google to find the answers.

Test The Nation: Language

I got 62/70, which is only 88%. I'd hoped to do better.

Spelling, Eh: 4/5
Modern English: 4/4
Everyday Mistakes: 10/10
Made in Canada: 11/12
Nursery Rhymes: 3/4
Euphemisms: 5/5
Word Origins: 3/8
Language Terms: 4/4
Txt Talk: 5/5
Plurals: 4/4
The Arts: 3/3
What The...?: 2/2
Expressions: 4/4

The interesting thing about the spelling category is that I'm not necessarily that good at spotting common misspellings. I tend to double-check things with spell-check and google rather than knowing every spelling off-hand. Thing is, my fingers know how to spell more words than my brain does. If I attempt to type something, I will type it properly (barring typoes), but I can't necessarily rattle it off spelling-bee style.

I'm surprised I got so many right in the Made In Canada category, because I was guessing at everything. I don't actually know that many regionalisms.

The problem with the nursery rhyme category was that I didn't know what a tuffet is. That category is questionable though, because it was more about common conceptions of what the nursery rhymes are about rather than what they're actually about. For example, Snopes says the idea that Ring Around the Rosie is about the plague is false. If it actually is false, I don't think a person should be faulted for not knowing it's allegedly about the plague.

The word origins were almost entirely Aboriginal, and almost entirely place names. I see their point and I'm not saying there's no place for Aboriginal word origins or place name origins in this test, but I think to truly test people's in-depth knowledge of English, you'd have to test their understanding of more common etymology, from French and German and Greek and Latin, and of everyday words, especially words for which the etymology is significant. I did find it strange that they asked at the beginning how many languages you speak when knowledge of other languages had so little influence on so many of the questions.

It would be interesting to see a bilingual version of this quiz. It would also be interesting to see how people could do if they were allowed to research. My translation training focused more on teaching me how to quickly and reliably find out stuff I don't know rather than on knowing absolutely everything, and I am absolutely certain I could have gotten every question correct if I'd had, say, one minute or 90 seconds to research each question. So I'd be interested in knowing how this compares with other people who don't have this training and experience.

Things They Should Invent: Phonetymology

Given that phonetics is pronunciation and etymology is word origins, we need a field of linguistics called Phonetymology, which will study pronunciation origins.

Why do we need this? Because of the word lieutenant.

In the States, they pronounce lieutenant reasonably. But everywhere else, it's pronounced in English as "leftenant."

BUT WHY?????

The only way I could see getting from the letter U to the F sound is if you considered a U and a V to be the same thing (like carved letters on old architecture from I forget what that architectural era is called but I'm inclined to say Romantic), and then pronounced the V in German. Despite the fact that the word origin is clearly French. But that would be weird, because the preceding vowel sound isn't German (if it were, it would be a long EEEEEE). And the "leftenant" also disregards the I for some reason.

So how did they establish this? "Okay, pronounce the first letter normally, ignore the second letter, pronounce the third letter as though the surrounding vowels weren't there, disingenuously misread the fourth letter as though it were carved into a historic stone sign and then pronounce it in German, and then pronounce the rest of this word as written."

Another related (is this mere coincidence) word for which we need phonetymology is colonel, which is pronounced kernel. So not only is the L changed to an R, but the strong vowels become weakened or completely ignored, without influencing the surrounding consonants! Usually if you have the letter C before a weak E sound it's a soft C (pronounced S), but this one retains its hard C qualities. And the only way I've ever heard of for confusing L and R is that mock Chinese accent that Monty Python did in that one bit with the court of Elizabeth I on scooters, but I think that's racist.

"Okay, pronounce the first letter as written, belligerently forbidding it to be influenced by the pronunciation of the neighbouring vowel. Then turn the second letter into a weak vowel, despite the fact that it's the location of the stress in the word. Pronounce the third letter in as racist a manner as humanly possible, then ignore the fourth letter and pronounce the rest of the word as written."

WTF is up with this? We need an explanation!

Why was Larry Craig a senator in the first place?

There's one thing that I don't get about this whole Larry Craig scandal in the states: why did he run for public office in the first place, especially as a republican?

I can, unfortunately, understand why a person, especially a person his age, might believe it's impossible to live an authentic and transparent life that includes having sex with people of the same sex. And I am aware that closeted gay people sometimes feel the need to put on a public appearance of being anti-gay. But why pick a career path that would require you to repeatedly publically assert your position on gay issues? Why not do something where you aren't in the public eye? Be an actuary or something? That way, when you're outed, instead of being someone who actively worked to make life more difficult for gay people, you're just some random guy who, worst case, turns into a bit of a loudmouth homophobic asshole when he's had a few drinks. I'm sure there wouldn't be nearly as much scandal about the bathroom sex thing if he hadn't been so loudly anti-gay.

Birth order theory

Suppose a family has a child, acquired through whatever means. Then they adopt a second child who happens to be older than the first child. Who is (i.e. takes on the traits of/is treated as) the firstborn?

Lightbulbs

My compact fluroescent bulbs become hot to the touch if left on for a bit. I thought that wasn't supposed to happen?

Wherein my inner child plays with a cellphone

The other day I had to use the word fuck in a text message. (Yes, my choice of modal there was deliberate.) However, T9 didn't know the word fuck. Its guesses were: dual, duck, eval, and dubl. I'm not sure where it's going with dubl except perhaps Dublin. Curiously, since I taught it the word fuck, fuck has become the second choice for that key combination, ahead of duck.

Of course, this made me wonder what T9 would make of other swear words.

Shit: shiv. And that's it. Isn't a shiv a makeshift prison knife? Why on earth would I need to say that?

Damn: econ, famo, fann, dann, damo, ebon. None of these are whole words.

Ass: Turns out it knows the word ass. But it guessed app, bps, and apr first, and then arr, asp, ars, and bsq. I don't know what bsq is supposed to be.

Hell: Is hell even a swear word for grownups? I don't know. But it was on the list of words I learned in Grade 1 from the big Grade 2 kids in the line next to us (except for the mythical C word, which I thought was "crap" until the age of 17) so I'll try it. And T9 gets it right on the first try.

Now onto the letter C...

Cunt: aunt, cumu. Aunt is a joke involving the pope, isn't it?

And just because of my childish confusion over C words...

Crap: I know it isn't really a swear word, but I'll try anyways. ASAP, bras, arcs, apar, cras, ascr.

Bitch: Not entirely a swear (and, in fact, a perfectly cromulent word in the context of dog breeding) but we'll see what happens anyway. Citag, chubi. I don't know where citag is going. And I guess T9 didn't anticipate talking about dog breeding.

And since I tried bitch, I'll have to try...

Bastard: Even though it isn't really a swear word. And T9 doesn't know it at all and doesn't have any guesses.

Slut: Again, not a swear, but a good ugly dirty-looking word. Plut, and that's it. I guess it's going for Pluto.

Whore: whose, and that's it. And now we need some more male-gendered insults to balance things out.

Dick: dial, fick, egal. I like fick! I think I'll start using that as faux-profanity! Then I added some more letters, but T9 can't even guess at the word dickhead.

Asshole: T9 can't guess at this either. I think it has trouble with longer words.

Speaking of longer words, let's round this out with the rest of the seven words you can't say on television.

Piss: sips, rips, ripp, sipp. I'm not sure where sipp is going.

Cocksucker: coastaler. I didn't know that was a word! It knows the word cock, but it guesses coal and anal first. Which gives me ideas for more words...

Motherfucker: It doesn't know this one. Before I entered the R, it was going for " mothereuale", which I don't know what that's supposed to mean.

Tits: thus, thur, vitr. I guess, in addition to dog breeding, T9 didn't anticipate ornithology.

Now for the idea I had before - the technical names of sex acts.

Sodomy: Right on the first guess!

Cunnilingus: Right on the first guess! (Aside: while checking my spelling, I found the wikipedia has an article on cunnilingus. Complete with illustrations from classic works of art. And a typical wikipedia discussion on whether it should be merged with the article on oral sex.

Fellatio: Fellathm. I have no idea where that's going.

Masturbation: Right on the first guess.

This post makes me wish I had Google Ads just so I could see what they'd come up with.