It seems that Cameron and Tyler Winklevoss — the “Winklevii” twins — could get up to $300 million worth of Facebook shares when the deal goes through.

And that’s noteworthy, of course, since they so famously sued Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg for allegedly stealing their idea when he created the social media website while they were all students at Harvard (a chapter of their lives chronicled in The Social Network, a movie that didn’t present the Winklevii in that flattering a light).

After much legal maneuvering, the twins came away with about $45 million worth of Facebook (non-public) stock. Now, if the initial public offering does indeed happen, their stake is expected to grow substantially — though it won’t rival the $28 billion or so that Zuckerberg’s post-IPO share of Facebook’s worth is expected to be, according to Bloomberg Businessweek.

Cameron Winklevoss, on Twitter, professes to be very pleased what the payday headed his way:

“We r excited 4the #FacebookIPO + wish the company + all involved the very best,an amazing accomplishment!”

Whether the Winklevii are really that happy, though, might depend on what they think about this news: David Choe, an artist who painted a mural at Facebook’s first offices and was paid with about a 0.25 percent share of the company, stands to earn about $200 million from the IPO.

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The records released Tuesday by the Federal Election Commission illustrate a basic shift in political giving at the presidential level by the nation’s financial elite.

After a fling with Obama – the charismatic Democrat embraced four years ago during the severe credit crisis that erupted under President George W. Bush – Wall Street is backing Romney in a return to its largely Republican inclinations.

Romney’s six largest campaign contribution sources in 2011 were executives, family members and affiliated political action committees of Goldman Sachs, JPMorgan Chase, Morgan Stanley, Credit Suisse, Citigroup and Bank of America, according to the Center for Responsive Politics, a Washington, D.C.-based group that monitors campaign finances.

The center said that the leaders of the six Wall Street giants — which were rescued from ruin by U.S. taxpayers about three years ago — have given $1.8 million to the Romney campaign.

As for Obama, Goldman Sachs was the sole major financial firm ranked among his top 20 contribution sources for 2011, with gifts of just $64,000 compared with $496,000 to Romney.

As they line up behind Romney, banks and investment firms are being joined by a new generation of hedge fund and private equity managers with deep pockets.

They are backing the candidate who comes from their ranks — Romney, a former private equity executive.

“The financial industry has preferred Romney from the beginning when he started his campaign,” said Viveca Novak, spokesperson for the center. “He is of their world. They believe he understands them. So, not surprising they would favor him.”

Newt Gingrich, Rick Santorum and Ron Paul, the other three Republican presidential contenders, have received very limited support from the financial sector.

FINANCE ON TOP AGAIN

As usual, the finance/insurance/real estate sector is leading all others on the campaign donors list, the center said.

Even after the 2008 financial crisis and the 2010 passage of the Dodd-Frank laws that put new restrictions on the banks and markets, “the power of Wall Street in Washington is unmitigated,” said Richard Parker, a public policy lecturer at Harvard University’s Kennedy School of Government.

The sector had donated more than $23 million to presidential campaigns as of December 5, the center said. And there are nine months to go before the elections for president and Congress.

Wall Street money, like funds from other walks of life, is pouring in both as traditional campaign donations, which are limited to $2,500 per donor, and as unlimited gifts to Super PACs.

The Super PACs are the legacy of a 2010 Supreme Court decision that unlimited donations by individuals, corporations and unions to groups that operate independently from campaigns.

Working through Super PACs, a few wealthy managers of top hedge funds and private equity firms are pumping money into the political process at unprecedented levels.

Seven of them have given more than $5 million combined to Restore Our Future, a Super PAC that backs Romney. That was more than Obama’s Super PAC, called Priorities USA, raised in all of last year. Priorities USA’s donor list is topped by labor unions.

Leading supporters of Romney from the financial industry include hedge fund managers Robert Mercer, Julian Robertson, Paul Singer and Chris Shumway, as well as private equity leaders Miguel Fernandez and Steven Webster.

Each has given at least $250,000 to the pro-Romney Super

PAC.

Hedge funds and private equity firms also have been a key source of traditional campaign gifts to Romney.

He has taken in more than $850,000 from executives at firms such as HIG Capital, Blackstone Group, Elliott Management, Citadel Investment and Bain Capital, the firm he co-founded.

NEW PLAYERS ARRIVE

Private equity and hedge fund managers arrived on the political scene in 2005.

That was when Congress began scrutinizing the “carried interest” tax break that lets these managers pay a tax rate on much of their earnings that is much lower than the top U.S. income tax rates.

The first private equity lobbying group was set up in 2006, a month after Democrats won control of both houses of Congress.

More than five years later, the “carried interest” tax break remains in place, although Democrats still say they may seek to eliminate it as part of a plan to trim the federal budget.

Hedge funds and private equity firms are keen to protect the tax break, while Wall Street banks want to roll back portions of Dodd-Frank or, at least, minimize the costs and restrictions it imposes on them as U.S. regulators continue to implement it.

Democrats’ threats to close the carried interest loophole, coupled with their strong support for Dodd-Frank regulations and Obama’s frequent verbal jabs at the banks, have opened a rift between him and the industry that briefly embraced him three years ago, said American University Professor Leonard Steinhorn.

When Obama came to power, the industry assumed it would have cozy ties with him, as it had with President Bill Clinton in the 1990s.

At first, it did. Then the economy tanked and Obama began to criticize bankers for their role in the credit crisis. Such criticism from a president was a jolt to leading bankers, who were accustomed to flattery from Washington.

“These are people who were totally alienated from Obama when he stopped praising them. Some of them got bitter. These are folks with large egos who like to be stroked,” Steinhorn said.

Many bankers have felt uneasy in recent years with the social conservatives who have gained power in the Republican Party, but the bankers likely feel they can relate to Romney, analysts say.

“Romney is one of them,” Steinhorn said. “So they can feel comfortable with him.”

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“]

Egypt declared three days of mourning for more than 70 people who died in Wednesday's football riots [Reuters

Egyptian police have fired tear gas at thousands of demonstrators outside the interior ministry offices in the capital, Cairo, protesting against the security forces’ failure to prevent a football riot that killed more than 70 people.

Nearly 10,000 protesters, including sports fans, rallied on Thursday demanding retribution for the deadly violence in Port Said, which most blamed on police inaction.

Al Jazeera’s Sue Turton, reporting from Cairo, said protesters pushed their way towards the barricaded ministry building near Tahrir Square, pulling away barbed wire barriers

“At least 120 people were wounded in tonight’s clashes,” she said. “All this is taking place in the direct vicinity of Tahrir Square but the rest of Cairo carries on as normal.”

According to Egypt’s health ministry, at least 388 people were wounded in the clashes.

The protesters hurled stones at police, who responded with heavy tear gas. The wounded were ferried out of the area on motorbikes.

Spread of chaos 

In Tahrir Square, witnesses saw at least five ambulances rush in the direction of Thursday’s clashes.

Some demonstrators tried to move big concrete blocs erected around the interior ministry since November, when clashes between the police and protesters then left more than 40 people dead.

In scenes reminiscent of those clashes, protesters set tyres on fire, sending black smoke in the air. Egyptian state TV said 100 people had passed out from the tear gas.

The interior ministry said in a statement that the protesters had cut the barbed wire, and crossed over the concrete blocs to reach the roads leading to the headquarters.

It urged the protesters “to listen to the sound of wisdom … at these critical moments” to prevent the spread of chaos.

Earlier in the day, hundreds joined funeral processions in the streets of Port Said.

Wednesday’s riots at the stadium in Port Said erupted when al-Masry fans stormed the field following a rare 3-1 win against al-Ahly, one of Egypt’s most popular clubs.

A security official said fans chased al-Ahly players and cornered their supporters on the field and around the stadium, throwing stones and bottles at them.

Al-Ahly players were trapped in the changing room along with supporters and riot police were sent in to drive the rival crowds of fans back.

Mohamed Ibrahim, Egypt’s interior minister, said many of the victims had died in a crush of people at the stadium.

At least 52 people have been arrested and authorities said the search for suspects linked to the violence was continuing.

Revenge attacks

A network of rabid football fans known as Ultras vowed vengeance, accusing the police of intentionally letting rivals attack them because they have been at the forefront of protests over the past year, first against Hosni Mubarak, the deposed leader, and now the military.

Many of the fans who were among the protesters vowed to storm the ministry.

Egypt declared three days of mourning for the more than 70 people who died in the football riots.

Angry members of parliament denounced the lack of security at the match and gathered for an emergency session.

Addressing parliament, Kamal Ganzouri, the military-appointed prime minister, said Port Said’s senior security chiefs and the governor had been suspended.

He also said the Egyptian football federation’s board had been removed, but disappointed those seeking tougher steps, such as dismissal of the interior minister.

“Egypt went through a difficult night yesterday. Egypt spent its night crying [over] its dead,” Saad Katatni, the parliament speaker, said in the session’s opening remarks.

Essam el-Erian, a politician from the Muslim Brotherhood’s Freedom and Justice party, said the military and police were complicit in the violence, accusing them of trying to show that emergency regulations giving security forces wide-ranging powers must be maintained.

This tragedy is a result of intentional reluctance by the military and the police,” he said.

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The cuts will fall most heavily on the airline’s maintenance operations, which will lose 4,600 jobs. More than 4,000 additional ground worker jobs will be eliminated, as will 2,300 flight attendant jobs.

Management will be reduced by 1,400 employees, with the most narrow cut coming among pilots, which will only see a reduction of 400.

Thomas Horton, CEO of American Air parent AMR Corp. (AAMRQ), said in a letter to American employees, “We will end this journey with many fewer people. But we will also preserve tens of thousands of jobs that would have been lost if we had not embarked on this path.”

The airline and its unions will now negotiate over the company’s cost-cutting plans, but management can seek to have the bankruptcy court impose the changes if it can’t win concessions at the bargaining table.

Horton wouldn’t say how long the airline will wait before taking that step or when it wants the layoffs to begin.

“Given all the uncertainty out there, I think it will serve our company and our people best to get the changes made as quickly as possible,” Horton said on a call with reporters at the end of the day.

But union officials showed no eagerness to agree to the company’s plans.

“The negotiating team expected this to look ugly, yet it has exceeded all of our expectations,” said Laura Glading, president of the Association of Professional Flight Attendants in a statement to its members, who called the proposal “despicable.”

Horton said the company needs to save more than $1.25 billion annually in labor costs, and reduce costs in each work group, including management, by 20%. To try to cushion the blow of those cuts, it is offering employees a profit-sharing plan, and said it plans to continue to giving workers annual pay increases.

Some of the savings will come from the airline’s proposal, also announced Wednesday, to shift its underfunded pension plans to a government agency, the Pension Benefit Guaranty Corp.

“If this liability is not eliminated, we will need to have more than $800 million each year in additional savings to service the unfunded liabilities,” said the company.

But the Pension Benefit Guaranty Corp. once again said it would seek to block the airline from dumping its pensions on the agency, which is already facing a deficit of its own. The agency’s estimate is that American’s pensions are underfunded by $10 billion.

“Before American takes such a drastic action as killing the pension plans of 130,000 employees and retirees, it needs to show there is no better alternative,” said agency director Josh Gotbaum. “Thus far, they have declined to provide even the most basic information to decide that.”

If the company is successful in shifting its pensions to the agency, thousands of workers and retirees, particularly its pilots and upper management, would have their pension benefits slashed. But American said Wednesday that 90% of those covered by the plans will not have their benefits reduced.

Other savings will come from restructuring debt and leases, grounding older planes, and improving supplier contracts. Horton said the company wants to cut $2 billion a year in total cost cuts.

AMR is also is looking for $1 billion a year in improved revenue from better use of its aircraft and improved product offerings.

There have been suggestions since the bankruptcy filing that American should close hubs, break-up the carrier or merge with another airline.

“I do not believe any of these outcomes are in the best interests of American, our people, or our stakeholders,” Horton wrote. “But as I have said since the start of this process, there will be many parties with input into the outcome of our restructuring.”

The company is meeting with the three major unions that represent the workers at American, the Allied Pilots Association, the Association of Professional Flight Attendants and the Transport Workers union, which represents ground workers including mechanics. Between them the three unions represent about 54,000 employees at American and its feeder airline, American Eagle, which also is owned by AMR.

American announced it planned to close one of its facilities outside of Dallas that performs the major overhaul of aircraft that all airlines need to do on a regular basis, as it moves to outsource that heavy maintenance work. The announced job cuts represents more than 40% of the maintenance staff represented by the Transport Workers.

American did not say where the work will be sent, but the union said it expects the airline will use lower-cost facilities overseas. Most major airlines such as Delta Air Lines (DAL, Fortune 500), United-Continental (UAL, Fortune 500) and Southwest Airlines (LUV, Fortune 500) already outsource that work. The Transport Workers have vowed to fight the move.

AMR Corp. said at the time of its Nov. 29 bankruptcy filing that it needed to achieve a more competitive labor structure. Over the past 10 years most other major U.S. airlines have gone through bankruptcy to cut labor costs.

“Just as our competitors that went through restructuring are now earning consistent profits, we believe there is a real opportunity for American’s employees to benefit when we emerge a stronger, more competitive company,” said Jeff Brundage, the airline’s senior vice president of human relations, in a letter to employees Wednesday

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There, he told reporters:

Let me just say, when you look at all these cars, it is testimony to the outstanding work that’s been done by workers — American workers, American designers.  The U.S. auto industry is back.  The fact that GM is back, number one, I think shows the kind of turnaround that’s possible when it comes to American manufacturing.

 

President Barack Obama is shown the American Pride Chevrolet Camaro, as Ed Welburn, Vice President of Global Design for General Motors, explains design and manufacturing details of the car during a visit to the Washington Auto Show at the Walter E. Washington Convention Center in Washington, D.C., Jan. 31, 2012. Gerard Murphy, President of the Washington New Automobile Dealers Association, is at left. (Official White House Photo by Pete Souza)

 

 

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]]> http://www.indonesiamedia.com/2012/02/01/in-the-showroom-of-the-washington-auto-show-video/feed/ 0 http://www.indonesiamedia.com/2012/02/01/english-is-a-crazy-language/ http://www.indonesiamedia.com/2012/02/01/english-is-a-crazy-language/#comments Wed, 01 Feb 2012 06:20:16 +0000 Richard Lederer / Densy Chandra / IM http://www.indonesiamedia.com/?p=40696  English is the most widely spoken language in the history of our planet, used in some way by at least one out of every seven human beings around the globe.  Half of the world’s books are written in English, and the majority of international telephone calls are made in English.  Sixty percent of the world’s [...]]]>  English is the most widely spoken language in the history of our planet, used in some way by at least one out of every seven human beings around the globe.  Half of the world’s books are written in English, and the majority of international telephone calls are made in English.  Sixty percent of the world’s radio programs are beamed in English, and more than seventy percent of international mail is written and addressed in English.  Eighty percent of all computer texts, including all web sites, are stored in English.

     English has acquired the largest vocabulary of all the world’s languages, perhaps as many as two million words, and has generated one of the noblest bodies of literature in the annals of the human race.  Nonetheless, it is now time to face the fact that English is a crazy language — the most loopy and wiggy of all tongues.

In what other language do people drive in a parkway and park in a driveway?
In what other language do people play at a recital and recite at a play?
Why does night fall but never break and day break but never fall?
Why is it that when we transport something by car, it’s called a shipment, but when we transport something by ship, it’s called cargo?
Why does a man get a hernia and a woman a hysterectomy?
Why do we pack suits in a garment bag and garments in a suitcase?
Why do privates eat in the general mess and generals eat in the private mess?
Why do we call it newsprint when it contains no printing but when we put print on it, we call it a newspaper?
Why are people who ride motorcycles called bikers and people who ride bikes called cyclists?
Why — in our crazy language — can your nose run and your feet smell?

     Language is like the air we breathe.  It’s invisible, inescapable, indispensable, and we take it for granted.  But, when we take the time to step back and listen to the sounds that escape from the holes in people’s faces and to explore the paradoxes and vagaries of English, we find that hot dogs can be cold, darkrooms can be lit, homework can be done in school, nightmares can take place in broad daylight while morning sickness and daydreaming can take place at night, tomboys are girls and midwives can be men, hours — especially happy hours and rush hours — often last longer than sixty minutes, quicksand works very slowly, boxing rings are square, silverware and glasses can be made of plastic and tablecloths of paper, most telephones are dialed by being punched (or pushed?), and most bathrooms don’t have any baths in them.  In fact, a dog can go to the bathroom under a tree –  no bath, no room; it’s still going to the bathroom.  And doesn’t it seem a little bizarre that we go to the bathroom in order to go to the bathroom?

     Why is it that a woman can man a station but a man can’t woman one, that a man can father a movement but a woman can’t mother one, and that a king rules a kingdom but a queen doesn’t rule a queendom?  How did all those Renaissance men reproduce when there don’t seem to have been any Renaissance women? 

     Sometimes you have to believe that all English speakers should be committed to an asylum for the verbally insane: 

In what other language do they call the third hand on the clock the second hand?
Why do they call them apartments when they’re all together?
Why do we call them buildings, when they’re already built?
Why it is called a TV set when you get only one?
Why is phonetic not spelled phonetically?
Why is it so hard to remember how to spell mnemonic?
Why doesn’t onomatopoeia sound like what it is?
Why is the word abbreviation so long?
Why is diminutive so undiminutive?
Why does the word monosyllabic consist of five syllables?
Why is there no synonym for synonym or thesaurus?
And why, pray tell, does lisp have an s in it? 

     English is crazy.

     If adults commit adultery, do infants commit infantry?  If olive oil is made from olives, what do they make baby oil from?  If a vegetarian eats vegetables, what does a humanitarian consume?  If pro and con are opposites, is congress the opposite of progress?

     Why can you call a woman a mouse but not a rat — a kitten but not a cat?  Why is it that a woman can be a vision, but not a sight — unless your eyes hurt?  Then she can be “a sight for sore eyes.”   

     A writer is someone who writes, and a stinger is something that stings.  But fingers don’t fing, grocers don’t groce, hammers don’t ham, humdingers don’t humding, ushers don’t ush, and haberdashers do not haberdash.  

     If the plural of tooth is teeth, shouldn’t the plural of booth be beeth?  One goose, two geese — so one moose, two meese?  One index, two indices — one Kleenex, two Kleenices?  If people ring a bell today and rang a bell yesterday, why don’t we say that they flang a ball?  If they wrote a letter, perhaps they also bote their tongue.  If the teacher taught, why isn’t it also true that the preacher praught?  Why is it that the sun shone yesterday while I shined my shoes, that I treaded water and then trod on the beach, and that I flew out to see a World Series game in which my favorite player flied out?

     If we conceive a conception and receive at a reception, why don’t we grieve a greption and believe a beleption?  If a firefighter fights fire, what does a freedom fighter fight?  If a horsehair mat is made from the hair of horses, from what is a mohair coat made?  

     A slim chance and a fat chance are the same, as are a caregiver and a caretaker, a bad licking and a good licking, and “What’s going on?” and “What’s coming off?”  But a wise man and a wise guy are opposites.  How can sharp speech and blunt speech be the same and quite a lot and quite a few the same, while overlook and oversee are opposites?  How can the weather be hot as hell one day and cold as hell the next?

     If button and unbutton and tie and untie are opposites, why are loosen and unloosen and ravel and unravel the same?  If bad is the opposite of good, hard the opposite of soft, and up the opposite of down, why are badly and goodly, hardly and softly, and upright and downright not opposing pairs?  If harmless actions are the opposite of harmful actions, why are shameful and shameless behavior the same and pricey objects less expensive than priceless ones?  If appropriate and inappropriate remarks and passable and impassable mountain trails are opposites, why are flammable and inflammable materials, heritable and inheritable property, and passive and impassive people the same?  How can valuable objects be less valuable than invaluable ones?  If uplift is the same as lift up, why are upset and set up opposite in meaning?  Why are pertinent and impertinent, canny and uncanny, and famous and infamous neither opposites nor the same?  How can raise and raze and reckless and wreckless  be opposites when each pair contains the same sound?

     Why is it that when the sun or the moon or the stars are out, they are visible, but when the lights are out, they are invisible; that when I clip a coupon from a newspaper I separate it, but when I clip a coupon to a newspaper, I fasten it;  and that when I wind up my watch, I start it, but when I wind up this essay, I shall end it?

     English is a crazy language.

     How can expressions like “I’m mad about my flat,” “No football coaches allowed,” “I’ll come by in the morning and knock you up,” and “Keep your pecker up” convey such different messages in two countries that purport to speak the same English?

     How can it be easier to assent than to dissent but harder to ascend than to descend?  Why is it that a man with hair on his head has more hair than a man with hairs on his head; that if you decide to be bad forever, you choose to be bad for good; and that if you choose to wear only your left shoe, then your left one is right and your right one is left?  Right?

     Small wonder that we English users are constantly standing meaning on its head.  Let’s look at a number of familiar English words and phrases that turn out to mean the opposite or something very different from what we think they mean:

A waiter.  Why do they call those food servers waiters, when it’s the customers who do the waiting?

I could care less.  I couldn’t care less is the clearer, more accurate version.  Why do so many people delete the negative from this statement?  Because they are afraid that the n’t…less  combination will make a double negative, which is a no-no.

I really miss not seeing you.  Whenever people say this to me, I feel like responding, “All right, I’ll leave!”  Here speakers throw in a gratuitous negative, not, even though I really miss seeing you is what they want to say.

The movie kept me literally glued to my seat.  The chances of our buttocks being literally epoxied to a seat are about as small as the chances of our literally rolling in the aisles while watching a funny movie or literally drowning in tears while watching a sad one.  We actually mean The movie kept me figuratively glued to my seat – but who needs figuratively, anyway?    

A non-stop flight.  Never get on one of these.  You’ll never get down.

A near miss.  A near miss is, in reality, a collision.  A close call is actually a near hit.

My idea fell between the cracks.  If something fell between the cracks, didn’t it land smack on the planks or the concrete?  Shouldn’t that be my idea fell into the cracks (or between the boards)? 

A hot water heater.  Who heats hot water?  This is similar to garbage disposal.  Actually, the stuff isn’t garbage until after you dispose of it.

A hot cup of coffee.  Here again the English language gets us in hot water.  Who cares if the cup is hot?  Surely we mean a cup of hot coffee.

Doughnut holes.  Aren’t those little treats really doughnut balls?  The holes are what’s left in the original doughnut.  (And if a candy cane is shaped like a cane, why isn’t a doughnut shaped like a nut?)

I want to have my cake and eat it too.  Shouldn’t this timeworn cliché be I want to eat my cake and have it too?  Isn’t the logical sequence that one hopes to eat the cake and then still possess it?

A one-night stand.  So who’s standing?  Similarly, to sleep with someone.  Who’s sleeping?

I’ll follow you to the ends of the earth.  Let the word go out to the four corners of the earth that ever since Columbus we have known that the earth doesn’t have any ends.

It’s neither here nor there.  Then where is it?

Extraordinary.  If extra-fine means “even finer than fine”  and extra-large ”even larger than large,” why doesn’t extraordinary mean “even more ordinary than ordinary”?  

The first century B.C.  These hundred years occurred much longer ago than people imagined.  What we call the first century B.C. was, in fact the last century B.C.

Daylight saving time.  Not a single second of daylight is saved by this ploy.

The announcement was made by a nameless official.  Just about everyone has a name, even officials.  Surely what is meant is “The announcement was made by an unnamed official.”

Preplan, preboard, preheat, and prerecord.  Aren’t people who do this simply planning, boarding, heating, and recording?  Who needs the pretentious prefix?  I have even seen shows “prerecorded before a live audience,” certainly preferable to prerecording before a dead audience.

Pull up a chair.  We don’t really pull a chair up; we pull it along the ground.  We don’t pick up the phone; we pick up the receiver.  And we don’t really throw up; we throw out.    

Put on your shoes and socks.  This is an exceedingly difficult maneuver.  Most of us put on our socks first, then our shoes.

A hit-and-run play.  If you know your baseball, you know that the sequence constitutes “a run-and-hit play.”

The bus goes back and forth between the terminal and the airport. Again we find mass confusion about the order of events.  You have to go forth before you can go back.

I got caught in one of the biggest traffic bottlenecks of the year.  The bigger the bottleneck, the more freely the contents of the bottle flow through it.  To be true to the metaphor, we should say, I got caught in one of the smallest traffic bottlenecks of the year.

Underwater and underground.  Things that we claim are underwater and underground are obviously surrounded by, not under the water and ground.

I lucked out. To luck out sounds as if you’re out of luck.  Don’t you mean I lucked in?

     Because we speakers and writers of English seem to have our heads screwed on backwards, we constantly misperceive our bodies, often saying just the opposite of what we mean:

Watch your head.  I keep seeing this sign on low doorways, but I haven’t figured out how to follow the instructions.  Trying to watch your head is like trying to bite your teeth.

They’re head over heels in love.  That’s nice, but all of us do almost everything head over heels.  If we are trying to create an image of people doing cartwheels and somersaults, why don’t we say, They’re heels over head in love?

Put your best foot forward.  Now let’s see…. We have a good foot and a better foot — but we don’t have a third — and best — foot.  It’s our better foot we want to put forward.  This grammar atrocity is akin to May the best team win.  Usually there are only two teams in the contest.  Similarly, in any list of bestsellers, only the most popular book is genuinely a bestseller.  All the rest are bettersellers.

Keep a stiff upper lip.  When we are disappointed or afraid, which lip do we try to control?  The lower lip, of course, is the one we are trying to keep from quivering.
I’m speaking tongue in cheek.  So how can anyone understand you?

Skinny.  If fatty means “full of fat,” shouldn’t skinny mean “full of skin”?

They do things behind my back.  You want they should do things in front of your back?

They did it ass backwards.  What’s wrong with that?  We do everything ass backwards.

     English is weird.

     In the rigid expressions that wear tonal grooves in the record of our language, beck can appear only with call, cranny with nook, hue with cry, main with might, fettle only with fine, aback with taken, caboodle with kit, and spick and span only with each other.  Why must all shrifts be short, all lucre filthy, all bystanders innocent, and all bedfellows strange?  I’m convinced that some shrifts are lengthy and that some lucre is squeaky clean, and I’ve certainly met guilty bystanders and perfectly normal bedfellows.

     Why is it that only swoops are fell?  Sure, the verbivorous William Shakespeare invented the expression “one fell swoop,” but why can’t strokes, swings, acts, and the like also be fell?  Why are we allowed to vent our spleens but never our kidneys or livers?  Why must it be only our minds that are boggled and never our eyes or our hearts?  Why can’t eyes and jars be ajar, as well as doors?  Why must aspersions always be cast and never hurled or lobbed?

     Doesn’t it seem just a little wifty that we can make amends but never just one amend; that no matter how carefully we comb through the annals of history, we can never discover just one annal; that we can never pull a shenanigan, be in a doldrum, eat an egg Benedict, or get just one jitter, a willy, a delirium tremen, or a heebie-jeebie.  Why, sifting through the wreckage of a disaster, can we never find just one smithereen?

     Indeed, this whole business of plurals that don’t have matching singulars reminds me to ask this burning question, one that has puzzled scholars for decades: If you have a bunch of odds and ends and you get rid of or sell off all but one of them, what do you call that doohickey with which you’re left?

     What do you make of the fact that we can talk about certain things and ideas only when they are absent?  Once they appear, our blessed English doesn’t allow us to describe them.  Have you ever seen a horseful carriage or a strapful gown?  Have you ever run into someone who was combobulated, sheveled, gruntled, chalant, plussed, ruly, gainly, maculate, pecunious, or peccable?  Have you ever met a sung hero or experienced requited love?  I know people who are no spring chickens, but where, pray tell, are the people who are spring chickens?  Where are the people who actually would hurt a fly?  All the time I meet people who are great shakes, who can cut the mustard, who can fight City Hall, who are my cup of tea, who would lift a finger to help, who would give you the time of day, and whom I would touch with a ten-foot pole, but I can’t talk about them in English — and that is a laughing matter.

     If the truth be told, all languages are a little crazy.  As Walt Whitman might proclaim, they contradict themselves.  That’s because language is invented, not discovered, by boys and girls and men and women, not computers.  As such, language reflects the creative and fearful asymmetry of the human race, which, of course, isn’t really a race at all.  

     That’s why we wear a pair of pants but, except on very cold days, not a pair of shirts.  That’s why men wear a bathing suit and bathing trunks at the same time.  That’s why brassiere is singular but panties is plural.   That’s why there’s a team in Toronto called the Maple Leafs and another in Minnesota called the Timberwolves.

     That’s why six, seven, eight, and nine change to sixty, seventy, eighty, and ninety, but two, three, four, and five do not become twoty, threety, fourty, and fivety.  That’s why first-degree murder is more serious than third-degree murder but a third-degree burn is more serious than a first-degree burn. That’s why we can open up the floor, climb the walls, raise the roof, pick up the house, and bring down the house.

     In his essay “The Awful German Language,” Mark Twain spoofs the confusion engendered by German gender by translating literally from a conversation in a German Sunday school book: “Gretchen. Wilhelm, where is the turnip?  Wilhelm.  She has gone to the kitchen.  Gretchen. Where is the accomplished and beautiful English maiden?  Wilhelm. It has gone to the opera.”  Twain continues: “A tree is male, its buds are female, its leaves are neuter; horses are sexless, dogs are male, cats are female — tomcats included.”

     Still, you have to marvel at the unique lunacy of the English language, in which you can turn a light on and you can turn a light off and you can turn a light out, but you can’t turn a light in; in which the sun comes up and goes down, but prices go up and come down — a gloriously wiggy tongue in which your house can simultaneously burn up and burn down and your car can slow up and slow down, in which you fill in a form by filling out a form, in which your alarm clock goes off by going on, in which you are inoculated for measles by being inoculated against measles, in which you add up a column of figures by adding them down, and in which you first chop a tree down — and then you chop it up.

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This post was submitted by Richard Lederer / Densy Chandra / IM.

                          

]]> http://www.indonesiamedia.com/2012/02/01/english-is-a-crazy-language/feed/ 0 http://www.indonesiamedia.com/2012/02/01/chinese-city-bans-schools-palm-reading-test/ http://www.indonesiamedia.com/2012/02/01/chinese-city-bans-schools-palm-reading-test/#comments Wed, 01 Feb 2012 06:00:26 +0000 CNN's Ashley Fantz,/ IM http://www.indonesiamedia.com/?p=40678 Education officials in a northern China city have banned schools from offering palm-reading tests that were purported to predict kids’ intelligence and potential,state-run news agency Xinhua reported Tuesday. The ban in Taiyuan comes after a previous Xinhau report that privately run kindergartens in that city’s province, Shanxi, were charging parents about $190 (1,200 yuan) for [...]]]> Education officials in a northern China city have banned schools from offering palm-reading tests that were purported to predict kids’ intelligence and potential,state-run news agency Xinhua reported Tuesday.

The ban in Taiyuan comes after a previous Xinhau report that privately run kindergartens in that city’s province, Shanxi, were charging parents about $190 (1,200 yuan) for the opportunity to have their kids’ palms read.

The company that designed the test, Shanxi Daomeng Culture Communication Co., claimed the palm reading could help determine a child’s innate intelligence and identify kids’ aptitudes in subjects such as math and music, and was applicable to children older than 3 months of age, according to Xinhua.

But Taiyuan education officials have “issued a circular to criticize the three kindergartens” that offered the tests, and have launched an investigation into whether the schools were ripped off by the company, the city’s education bureau chief, Ma Zhaoxing, told Xinhua.

Some parents in Taiyuan had complained about the cost and expressed doubts about the tests’ reliability, the news agency reported.

Lea Walker, founder and director of the U.S. Chinese Culture Center in Columbia, South Carolina, told CNN that she understood why some Chinese parents might be interested in the palm-reading tests. She taught early childhood education at Wuhan University in Hubai province before immigrating to the United States in 1991.

“It may seem different to another culture, but there’s a real and very deep desire in Chinese culture to have an idea of how your child will perform when they are still very young,” said Walker, whose nonprofit center is sanctioned by the Chinese government to host workshops and teach English in China. “There’s great emphasis placed (on) whether they will be good at sports or good at music, academics, whatever you need to know to get them started in specific classes geared toward those disciplines. This is just part of many traditions.”

When children have their first birthdays, she said, some parents will have them crawl toward some items placed in their path.

“If they pick up a pen, they’ll be a great writer some time, for example,” she said. “This is just an expression of nurturing your child. Not many people believe it’s scientific, or that palm reading is scientific.”

Walker said she suspects the tests also might have been appealing because ofChina’s one-child policy that limits Chinese parents to a single child.

“If you have one child, you really want them to succeed,” Walker said. “You’re going to (do) anything you can to make sure of that.”

But Walker said she thinks the Taiyuan government’s ban on the palm-reading tests is a move in “the right direction.”

“I think the palm reading for young children might be misleading and might hinder the children’s future development,” she said.

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This post was submitted by CNN's Ashley Fantz,/ IM.

                          

]]> http://www.indonesiamedia.com/2012/02/01/chinese-city-bans-schools-palm-reading-test/feed/ 0 http://www.indonesiamedia.com/2012/01/31/photo-of-the-day-4/ http://www.indonesiamedia.com/2012/01/31/photo-of-the-day-4/#comments Tue, 31 Jan 2012 21:42:46 +0000 The White House / IM http://www.indonesiamedia.com/?p=40653 January 2012: Photo of the Day                 Print PDF This post was submitted by The White House / IM.]]> January 2012: Photo of the Day

 

 

First Lady Michelle Obama shows NFL PLAY 60 Super Kid James Gale, 11, historical photos from previous administrations on display in the Booksellers Area during a National Football League (NFL) taping in the East Wing of the White House, Jan. 30, 2012. At right is James' mother Lisa Gale. The taping will air during the Super Bowl, Feb. 5, 2012. (Official White House Photo by Lawrence Jackson)

 

 

President Barack Obama boards Marine One for departure from Cambridge-Dorchester Airport in Cambridge, Md., Jan. 27, 2012. (Official White House Photo by Pete Souza)

 

 

Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack and First Lady Michelle Obama have lunch with students at Parklawn Elementary School in Alexandria, Va., Jan. 25, 2012. The First Lady and Secretary Vilsack visited the school to sample a healthy meal that meets the United States Department of Agriculture’s new and improved nutrition standards for school lunches. (Official White House Photo by Chuck Kennedy)

 

 

President Barack Obama talks with Tina Tchen, Chief of Staff to the First Lady, on the Colonnade of the White House, Jan. 10, 2012. (Official White House Photo by Pete Souza)

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]]> http://www.indonesiamedia.com/2012/01/31/photo-of-the-day-4/feed/ 0 http://www.indonesiamedia.com/2012/01/31/obamas-old-car-for-sale-for-1-million-video/ http://www.indonesiamedia.com/2012/01/31/obamas-old-car-for-sale-for-1-million-video/#comments Tue, 31 Jan 2012 04:44:31 +0000 Jeanne Moos / CNN http://www.indonesiamedia.com/?p=40632 A man hopes to sell President Obama’s old car for $1 million. Print PDF This post was submitted by Jeanne Moos / CNN.]]> A man hopes to sell President Obama’s old car for $1 million.

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