Category: Math

The CALL Facility … and other Mysteries of UVIC – Updated July 2022

DEJA CALL … all over again!

So, what exactly IS …
The CALL Facility at UVic?
Well, here goes!
Including new ‘BETA‘ content
for September 2022 !

I have a NEW PDF (and PDF-video!) for a NEW version of The CALL Facility Orientation for September 2022!

  ⬇️ September 2022 ⬇️
NEW BETA VERSION
The CALL Facility Orientation
  ⬇️ Click Below to download ⬇️

And just below is my “Director’s Cut” YouTube version, converted from PowerPoint – and less than 2 minutes in length (1:59! LOL!) I will definitely have some updates and upgrades between now and then as I ‘Field Test’ this new approach to showing everyone The CALL Facility and preparing for September 2022.

Previous versions (Page) of my CALL intro had MANY slides of all the available resources for each  language/course/Department that used CALL for homework, assignments, WICKET, etc. That has totally changed due to Covid and I wanted a very quick, very informative slide show that ANYONE could quickly see (and show!) and not be resource or ‘click heavy’. I hope I have accomplished that!

I will continue to tweak it and after a few live CALL orientations, I will update these resources! Of course, I retain the right to .. include my brand of humour throughout! Oh, by the way, without a doubt, Star Trek: Strange New Worlds is THE BEST STAR TREK SERIES OF ALL TIME! And … Spoiler Alert – this could actually pop up as a Jeopardy Questions in the new September CHD Training Day! You .. never … know!

The CALL Facility is STILL one of the Hidden Gems of Clearihue! Enjoy!

I will  have future Bog Blog posts about “Heading Back to UVic“,  “Oldest Computers in the World“, “On Vacation“, “Welcome Back to UVic” in September, and even some updated Pages and more totally random stuff that I seem to … maybe … specialize in! LOL!

CHD Jeopardy Greg's Playlist II
   CHD Jeopardy Greg’s Playlist II

And … another SPOILER ALERT – a brand new CHD Jeopardy Greg’s Playlist II for September CHD Training too! YAY JEOPARDY!

Thanks to EVERYONE at CHD for participating and your support too! I can’t make CALL Orientations or CHD Jeopardy without all of you and your assistance, support and … rolling eyes!! Thank you!

TTFN!

 

ON VACATION! Back on AUGUST 30!!

I AM NOW ON VACATION!

What an exhausting and long year since last August – my last full vacation!

And exhausting … for ALL OF  US! I am so fortunate to have been able to  work with such amazing and incredible colleagues at The Computer Help Desk over the past … 500+ DAYS! Yes, it has been that long since we started working remotely, late in March of 2020!

Without ALL of their support, humour, leadership, imagination, guidance  and every single possible ‘intangible‘ that each and every single one of them, ALL BRING to our Teams meetings, emails, texts, GIFs, Emojis, Jeopardy, Quote Contests, it would have been impossible to accomplish a fraction of what WE ALL DID AS A TEAM!

THANK YOU ALL!

A few key UVic and BC websites for returning to campus in September for everyone!

  1. Return-to-Campus Guidelines now available
  2. Return to campus info for students
  3. Communicable Disease Plan now available
  4. UVic News
  5. Update on getting your COVID-19 vaccine
  6. Remote work arrangements announced for the fall
  7. Working remotely
  8. Post-secondary studies during COVID-19
  9. NEW COMPUTERS IN CALL! YAY!
  10. NEW FURNITURE IN CALL! YAY!

Not to worry . . .

August 30th to prep for
. . . Septem . . . PURR !!!!

 

Pandemic


I will bring Empire Donuts when I return to UVic!

~~Bogman~~

 

Bold Italics Comic Sans . . . or Word Processors Through the Years

Bold Italics Comic Sans
. . . or . . .
Word Processors Through the Years

Typewriter! Whiteout! Ribbon! Carriage Return! That was MY technology when I was writing term papers back in 1975-1982 at the University of Calgary!

Those late nights AND early mornings, pounding away, literally, on my Smith Corona typewriter – trying to balance SPEED with ACCURACY! There was no such thing as DELETE or UNDO … unless you count going through gallons of whiteout! BUT, I had a very HI-TECH version of correcting mistakes!

Basically, it was a dry ‘tape’, with dryer white ‘chalk’ on one side, and a more inert opposite side. But first, you had to recognize that you did INDEED make a typo, AS YOU WERE TYPING! There were no spellcheckers back then! And then, backspace manually TO THE MISTAKE, insert the correction tape, powder side TOWARDS the error, TYPE THE ERROR AGAIN to literally WHITE OUT the mistake, backspace AGAIN, and manually type in the corrected letter! Good times, good times! All this with a single, ORIGINAL, piece of paper in the typewriter! ARGH! And no automatic page feeds so I often ran out of room on my PRISTINE and ORIGINAL PIECE OF PAPER! DOUBLE ARGH!

And then I took my first computer science course! Although technically NOT a word processor, a massive desk with a punched card reader could be consider an early form of a word processor! Every mistake in code (FORTRAN!) I made, took about 30 minutes to actually DISCOVER from the Punch Card Elders who took my deck and ran it into the giant Punched Card Monsters! Then I had to dig out the SINGLE CARD that had a typo or bad code, and type it in again!

The day I discovered the ‘Function Switches’ feature, which would mirror all the text was like a miracle! I would press the copy button, then STOP, type in the corrected command or typo, then continue with copy and the card would appear at the end! Reinsert, hand over the deck and … ANOTHER TYPO FURTHER INTO THE DECK! Repeat as many times as necessary! Good times, good times!

Commodore SX-64
Commodore SX-64

And then, I graduated, not only from U of C, but onto SUPERIOR TECHNOLOGY! Well, at least, at the time, it certainly WAS superior technology! My first teaching gig was not only teaching a Beginner Computer Science course, but DESIGNING IT AS WELL! I earlier posted about Desktop Publishing, but … it was really just basic Word Processing with Apple and Commodore Computers!

Yes, that is the manual for my own Commodore SX-64 that I used for some Grad courses at U of C! And I used the worlds best FREE word processor at the time … SPEEDSCRIPT! A future post will discuss just how amazing the SX-64 computer was! AND IT STILL WORKS!

SpeedScript was free, had a spell checker and even had a PREVIEW of the final page, which was YEARS ahead of anything else out there! And did I mention it was … FREE! YES FREE! And amazingly, it used a markup language that is INCREDIBLY SIMILAR TO WHAT HTML IS NOW! Commodore computers were definitely ahead of their time!

And then a commercial word processor – PaperClip came along and … well, due to budget cuts, only 1 copy was purchased for me! Free is free, right!

And the first ever ‘office suite’ was actually a cartridge based system for .. you guessed it … my SX-64! It was called VIZASTAR and had … EVERYTHING you ever needed for what is now considered an ‘Office Suite’ – Spreadsheet, Database and Graphics … but no word processor sadly!

Why here? A future post will be about my SX-64 AND the cool software I still have, including one of he worlds first ever … LIGHT PEN called Flexidraw! VERY COOL even by today’s standards!

I brought up my Commodore SX-64 to our Systems Open House a few years ago! The theme was ‘Time Travellers – Meet the Team:Systems Through Time‘ Click here to see some photos from a previous post! (Yes, always, more Product Placement!)

And then .. progress marches on. The next generation of hardware and software was WordPerfect on a Commodore IBM clone. What? I bet you didn’t know that Commodore made IBM clones! THEY DID!

And I might start an argument, but I always preferred Corel WordPerfect (MAC) to pretty much any flavour of Word through the years! Okay, so maybe now Office 365 is better! But when I was helping to publish our CALL Proceedings, I made WordPerfect the recommended application. Of course, everyone ignored it, but WordPerfect did Word, BETTER THAN WORD back then! AND IT WAS CANADIAN TOO!

Apple even had their own versions of word processors, including Apple Writer, ClarisWorks, MacWrite, MacWrite Pro, AppleWorks, and now Pages. All good! Used them all for various reasons with great success! 

And then there is another package that I have briefly used, and is free for both current WIN and MAC platforms called Libre Office, which was once known as Open Office. I have only used it sparingly, basically enough to answer basic questions about it, and I am not sure it is installed on any computers at UVic anymore, with Office 365 kinda taking over … for free for students and staff! Which, by the way is a VERY GOOD THING!

And then there are now Text Editors – basically a blend of raw ASCII text with minimal word processing features. So, yeah … they are word processors! There are SO many of them, we all have our favourites and they are quick and dirty to see CONTENT as far as I am concerned. If you are using a text editor for word processing …. then let’s talk! LOL!

Soothsayer Cat
    Old School Cat

And if you think about it, creating a post here on OAC is a perfect blend of word processing AND text editor! I can switch to Text if I want to change some nuts and bolts thing with HTML, or just use the New Post and … see what happens! YAY FOR OAC! Many thanks to “mvh” for his patience whenever I have an OAC question for him!

 

 

Some interesting links to tickle your funny bone or perhaps feel compelled to put pen to paper – in a manner of speaking! Remember, I am old school! 

Enjoy!

  1. SpeedScript – Wikipedia
  2. Speedscript – C64 Wiki
  3. SpeedScript 3.2 for the Commodore 64
  4. Speedscript 3.0
  5. Computer GAZETTE for Commodore Personal
  6. PaperClip Professional Word Processor
  7. PaperClip – Wikipedia
  8. Commodore 64
  9. Commodore PC Compatible Systems
  10. WordPerfect 3.x (Mac)
  11. WordPerfect – Wikipedia
  12. Corel – Wikipedia
  13. Microsoft Word – Wikipedia
  14. On the Origin of the Word Processor
  15. The Evolution of Word Processing – Pencils to Wikis
  16. Vizastar – Wikipedia
  17. Flexidraw
  18. Light Pen – C64 Wiki
  19. Apple Writer – Wikipedia
  20. Everything About Punch Cards
  21. Punched Card – Wikipedia

As long as there are words … and Word Processors … out there, there will be interesting topics! 

ENJOY!
     
TTFN!

Commodore History – The PET
Part 1 of 8

Remember WordPerfect?
Where Are They Now?

WordPerfect Tutorial
VHS from 1987!

The Oldest Office
for Microsoft Windows

Medieval Help Desk

The History of
Word Processors

Computer Chronicles
Word Processing (1983)

MS-DOS Word Processors

1975 What is Word Processing?

      

I Excel at PowerPoint . . . or Computer Puns and Jokes

I Excel at PowerPoint
. . . or . . .
Computer Puns and Jokes

Taken
Taken

I don’t know who you are or why you stole my copy of Microsoft Office …. but I will find you. You have my .. WORD! I hope I have ‘Taken‘ your attention away from whatever you were doing! Just when you thought it was safe to blog again … COMPUTER PUNS AND JOKES!

CALL Facility Klingon & Sindarin
CALL Facility Klingon

I always try to sneak in jokes, puns or riddles into many of my CALL Facility orientations and handouts too! I once included ‘Klingon‘ in a handout of languages that The CALL Facility had resources for! And it is still at ZOHO!

Soothsayer Cat
Soothsayer Cat

And then UVic goes and offers a course in Alien Languages (Klingon & Sindarin!)! That makes me a soothsayer! I wonder if that means a pay raise or not! My guess …. NOT!

And more ‘Product Placement’ as I posted a previous Bog Blog about … Puns titled ‘When is a Door Not a Door? When it is a Jar“!!

The best part of puns are when they are impromptu and happen instantly! All too often, my eyes widen or roll about and that is an early warning system for colleagues … PUN ALERT! PUN ALERT! People know me all too well! I would be horrible at poker! LOL!

I found one site where a computer was programmed to CALCULATE the funniest puns and it came up with the following….. and …. yeah, NO! Even I have lines I do not cross … and they are often …  lines of code! LOL!

I often say that if I am having fun, then the students are having fun too! There is so much stress nowadays that humour IS good medicine! I won’t bother telling you my absolutely favourite jokes and puns other than …

… it is always my NEXT ONE!

Some interesting links to tickle your funny bone, or perhaps, seek medical attention afterwards!

Enjoy!

  1. XKCD – A Webcomic of Romance, Sarcasm, Math, and Language
  2. Explain XKCD Wiki
  3. 25 Computer Puns That Will LAN You In A Pool Of Laughter
  4. Computer Puns
  5. Com­puter Jokes
  6. Puns about Technology (Misc. Computer Puns)
  7. Fourteen Computer Puns That Only Tech Heads Will Understand
  8. 10 Computer Geek Jokes and Truisms
  9. A Computer Made a List of the 5 Funniest Puns it Knows
  10. Computer Programming Puns
  11. 55+ Best Computer Puns

As long as there are words out there, there will be interesting topics! 

ENJOY!
     
TTFN!

30 Awful Computer Puns
(in Less Than 2 Minutes)

31 Jokes for Nerds

       

XKCD Eternal Flame Explained

Open Book Exams … or My Favourite Textbooks

Open Book Exams
. . . . or . . . .
My Favourite Textbooks

This may be the FIRST and ONLY blog post on the internet about … Favourite Textbooks! Textbooks are usually the bane of most students! LOL!

But I really enjoyed getting new textbooks, especially in Grade 12! For the first time, we had to venture to DOWNTOWN CALGARY to actually BUY AND OWN our textbooks! Previously, we were issued them, had to guard them throughout the semester and RETURN THEM at the end! But now, we could OWN THEM!

And what a great textbook for Grade 12 Math – ‘Modern Intermediate Algebra‘! And the trick was, to buy the book that had the ANSWERS IN THE BACK! Only a few of them DID have the answers, and I was lucky enough to get one of those! Quite an adventure for me at the time! 

And if you haven’t figured it out by now, I still have these textbooks! Yup, weird, but … I collect books of all kinds! A future post will be on REALLY OLD TEXTBOOKS that I have! 

The next 4 textbooks are all from when I attended the University of Calgary from 1975-1982. Yup, some gap years in there to travel, live and work in Banff and explore the world! Might sneak an old photo of me in there somewhere too! LOL!

And how boring – a book on .. evaluating student progress? And even more boring, THAT IS THE TITLE TOO – ‘Evaluating Student Progress’!

And here I thought I would finally find out all the tricks and secrets of passing exams … and for the most part, I did pick up some ideas, especially when my first job out of university was evaluating exams, something called Item Analysis! And it was fun! Basically, how does an exam actually MEASURE student knowledge! Yeah, boring, but at the time, I actually USED this textbook in a real life setting!

And then one of my All Time Favourite themes – STATISTICS titled ‘Elements of Statistics‘! All kinds of neat formulas, algorithms and magical numbers with REAL WORLD RESULTS! And for the first time – a new studying technique! We were allowed to bring in a small 4×6 recipe card with ANYTHING WE WANT WRITTEN ON IT! This was such a great learning tool, that I used it in all my future classes! This forces you to actually STUDY and WRITE DOWN anything you were not as confident with, thus FORCING YOU TO RECOGNIZE AND STUDY YOUR WEAK POINTS! And it worked flawlessly! (At least, for me!)

This has been a bit of a ‘Top 10 Favourite Textbooks‘ countdown, except only a ‘Top 5‘ of them! My bad! And the next 2 textbooks bring back fond memories … and some not so fond …. of courses I took … sometimes twice and three times! How about them apples!

The BEST stat course EVER was on games of chance! And the Instructor LIVED HIS TEXTBOOK – ‘Basic Probability and Applications‘! When introducing himself, he said he might be late for some Monday morning classes as he would be enroute BACK FROM LAS VEGAS as he spent most weekends there …. GAMBLING! That is one amazing course intro! And he had his own TEXTBOOK TOO!

And my FAVOURITE TEXTBOOK OF ALL TIME is entitled ‘Excursions Into Mathematics‘ for the exceedingly misnamed course ‘Elementary Mathematics From and Advanced Viewpoint‘!!!

I took this course
… THREE TIMES …
before I passed it!
HARDEST.COURSE.EVER!

First time was with a friend and BOTH of us dropped it at Christmas as it was just too freaking hard! Second time was with my entire Education Year colleagues (9 of us!) and the 10th student in the class dropped it too – and he was in Honours Math at the time! Why did HE drop it? It was lowering his GPA!

Finally, passed the course in the summer, and all I did was Math for a solid month, literally every day, and got a B+ on it! YAY! The Instructor apologized to me .. I was literally ONE POINT AWAY FROM AN A- …. but I did not care. I HAD PASSED THE COURSE and could now graduate! WHEW!

Still, the textbook is awesome and even though I may have ONCE understood many classical concepts – it is like Quantum Physics, another favourite topic! I may not understand ANY of it … but it is as close to MAGIC as we will ever get in this crazy world/universe/multi-verse we live in! LOL!


Oh, and whenever there was a so-called ‘Open Book Exam‘ – they were the toughest exams in the history of education. You better KNOW YOUR STUFF, because if you spent the time looking for the answer in your ‘textbook’, you wasted so much time, you never finished the exam!

And as Steve Jobs liked to say … ‘… one more thing….’!

My favourite math book was my ‘Mathematical Handbook‘ that had all kinds of formulas and simplified explanations of my favourite theorems and numbers! Served me well all through High School and University!

And one more …. one more thing! If I didn’t include a dictionary … ANY DICTIONARY in this list, then I would be remiss! I had ve saved many of my old dictionaries, including my pocket French/English dictionary, but I now tend to use dictionary.com and thesaurus.com on an almost daily basis! Big thumbs up to both of those sites!

 

 

Enjoy!

  1. 20+ Funny Textbook Doodles That Are So Clever, Teachers Won’t Be Mad

And not that many funny extra sites out there. I found most of them quite rude and in bad taste and many offensive. The only funny one is above. And just doodles on existing images in each book. Sometimes you win. Sometimes you lose. Sometimes … it rains! (Ask me about THAT quote, which literally comes out of … right field!)

And same with videos. Lots of bad taste ones out there, sand offensive ones, so today, only a compilation of Steve Jobs ‘One More Thing‘ below, to wax nostalgic today!

As long as there are words out there, there will be a site that Google finds!! 

    ENJOY!
            
   TTFN!

Steve Jobs …..
History of One More Thing

 

 

Working From Home . . . What Could Go Wrong?

Working From Home . . . 
What Could Go Wrong?!

DEFINITELY NOT my most productive morning since working from home!

Full Disclosure: Having a relatively frustrating morning, with, you guessed it … my computer! So, probably a short post today.

DOUBLE Full Disclosure: Taking a Tea Time Out, breathing and … over it now!

FIRST AND FOREMOST – amazing colleagues! I can’t say enough about everyone I work with at the Computer Help Desk! Thanks everyone! And they are doing the same for Students, Staff and Faculty with knowledge, humour and steadfast patience!

My laptop went wonky this morning! Still a bit wonky, but still doing what it does best – allow me to work from home during these interesting times! Everyone was quick to help, offer suggestions and give advice and I am back doing my morning OAC post! 

The only downside, would seem to be my bookmarks/Favourites in Edge have gone rogue! And if THAT is the worst thing that has happened on ‘Yet Another Manic Monday‘, then I am good to go with that! I spent the better part of the morning finding and re-setting my bookmarks and access to them. NAILED IT! Well, maybe … THUMBTACKED IT!

I had to take my own advice and just … let it go! I can easily, slowly, rebuild my Favorites and just keep on working at home! A few things that I always try to remember and put into perspective:

  1. PERSPECTIVE! Yup, just how important is it.
  2. Tea! Better than coffee for stress reduction
  3. Meditation – just letting things go. Thanks to Henri at UVic’s Multifaith!
    1. Breathing … kind of a sub-category, at least for me!

Not too much more. Those work for me and me alone. Yes, a big bag of oversimplification, but, it works for me. 

So, a perspective story! My lawnmower started on the second try this weekend! YAY! But the rip cord to start it .. RIPPED OUT! So, standing there, lawnmower RUNNING and no way to start it again … Command Line Decision – just start cutting and don’t stop! Just like in Finding Nemo – “Just keep swimming!”, except … mowing the lawn!

I even emptied the catch bag – WHILE IT WAS RUNNING – and kept on mowing! Whew, finished frontyard, lane, alleyway and backyard in about 50 minutes while on FULL THROTTLE!

Makes a good story and then the best part – there are kits to replace the staring cable for under $10!

In hindsight,it was not as stressful as at the moment! But … I decided to …. just keep mowing, just keep mowing and it relieved my stress! Thanks Dori!

I also did a previous post on “Relieving Stress . . . International Words and Self-Care Trends”

And I leave you with some great UVic and other sites on stress including BC and Canadian government sites.

Enjoy!

  1. 10 Ways to Cope with Anxiety about Coronavirus (COVID-19) (UVIC)
  2. Ways to cope if you are in isolation due to COVID-19 (UVIC)
  3. Anxiety and Stress (UVIC)
  4. Managing COVID-19 Stress (BC Government)
  5. COVID-19 (BC Centre for Disease Control)
  6. Coronavirus disease (COVID-19) (Canada)
  7. World’s Most Advanced Lawnmower

As long as there are words out there, there will be interesting topics! 

    ENJOY!
            
   TTFN!

 

 

 

 

 

Most Insane Lawnmowers

 

 

 

 

 

 

Kopi and Kaffee and Café and Kafés and … COFFEE in Different Languages

Kopi and Kaffee
Café and Kafés
and
Coffee in Different Languages!

I install JAVA every single morning! And I tend to update it again within hours! And you probably know where I am going with this – COFFEE!!!!

Full Disclosure: I am drinking coffee right now, as in … RIGHT NOW!!!! And the rumours are true … I have a coffee mug shaped like … The TARDIS!

Ah, that morning nectar, that brown liquid ambrosia, that chocolate wine, that beige magic … and … enough with Thesaurus.com!

And below are just a few of the many words for coffee in other languages!

 

Chinese: 咖啡 (Kāfēi)
Malay: Kopi
French: Café
German: Kaffee
Japanese: コーヒー (Kōhī)
Korean: 커피 (Keopi)
Portuguese: Café
Russian: Кофе (Kofe)
Spanish: Café
Afrikaans: Koffie
Dutch: Koffie
Finnish: Kahvi
Greek: Καφές (Kafés)
Hindi: कॉफ़ी (Kofee)
Icelandic: Kaffi
Romanian: Cafea
Swedish: Kaffe

 

 

Did you know that coffee dates back to 800 A.D.? And that in Arabic, it literally translates into ‘wine’! Cool! There are multiple links below, as always, and you can try a few out and find out even MORE interesting facts about the World’s Most Popular Beverage, by far – if you don’t count … TEA!

And what about coffee here in Victoria! You basically practice some Italian every time you go into a Starbucks – Grande, Venti, And Trenta. But what about some great coffee locations here in Victoria!

Full Disclosure – I like ALL the coffee shops in town! They are all amazing! But the best part of coffee is always … the conversation and companionship with coffee buddies! Check out CoffeeCrew.com for a list of all the great LOCAL coffee shops here in town, updated to April of this year! Nope, I don’t get anything from this at all. It is just a great site for finding local coffee! And you probably already know who runs the site!

And, the whole idea of the topic of this blog, originated in yesterdays’ blog about Made Up Languages in movies. Specifically, the Heptapod B language!

Why? Because it was described at one site as a ‘Coffee Stain‘ language! What a great segue, eh! Oh and one more cool site about Arrival and Linguistics!

And I leave you with some great coffee sites to peruse on your next Java Break!

Enjoy!

  1. HOW TO ORDER A COFFEE IN DIFFERENT LANGUAGES
  2. 21 Surprising Coffee Facts That Will Perk Up Your Afternoon
  3. 16 most interesting facts to know about coffee
  4. 30 Coffee Facts That Every Coffee Lover Should Know
  5. 17 Things You Didn’t Know About Coffee
  6. Coffee Facts
  7. 22 Facts About Coffee: The World’s Most Important Beverage
  8. How to Order Your Local Cup of Coffee in Different Languages
  9. Coffee in Different Languages and Cultures
  10. Words for “Coffee” Around the World
  11. HOW TO ORDER COFFEE IN 8 LANGUAGES
  12. HOW TO SAY COFFEE IN 45 LANGUAGES
  13. How to Say Mocha in Different Languages
  14. Coffee Crew Blog (in Victoria!)
  15. Coffee Crew (in Victoria!)
  16. What’s Hot in the Victoria B.C. Canada’s cafe scene (during COVID19) – Updated April 2020
  17. 12+ Extremely Caffeinated Coffee Brands
  18. 10 Most Expensive Coffees in the World in 2020

As long as there are words out there, there will be interesting topics! 

    ENJOY!
            
   TTFN!

 

 

 

 

 

Coffee Facts

The Basics
About Coffee

WEIRDEST Facts
About Coffee

7 Facts About Coffee
That You Probably Didn’t Know

How to Order a Coffee in Italy

How to Order a Coffee in Greece

How to Order a Coffee in Russia

How to Order a Coffee in Japan

 

 

 

 

 

 

pe’vIl mu’qaDmey . . . or Curse Well in Klingon . . . or Made Up Movie Languages

pe’vIl mu’qaDmey
or . . .
Curse Well in Klingon
or . . .
Made Up Movie Languages!

Now you know how to gracefully exit yet another Klingon late night gaming party! You never know when learning Klingon will save your life!

Full Disclosure: Contrary to many rumours, I do not speak Klingon. I just like to have the Netflix Closed Caption on for any Science Fiction movie that has … space languages!

 

DOUBLE Full Disclosure: Early disclosure but my favourite made up language is from the movie ‘Arrival‘. Not only is it a fabulous movie, but they managed to add something new to a language that is CRITICAL to the storyline! WARNING!:- spoilers below about what that is!

The most popular and well known ‘Alien’ language is without a doubt, Klingon! Star Trek has become part of our Pop Culture ever since Spock first said ‘Illogical’. For many years, I would imbed an ‘Easter Egg’ in my CALL Facility demos that had Klingon as one of the many courses taught at UVic. And then … IT REALLY HAPPENED!

And of course, one of the biggest blockbusters of all time, Tolkien’s Lord of the Rings and prequel The Hobbit, contain MANY made up languages by J.R.R. Tolkien! And another UVic course was offered as well, but treating Middle Earth more as a history course than a Linguistics course!

And even more blockbuster movies contained made up languages: Avatar (Na’vi), Arrival (Heptapod B), Despicable Me (Minion), Serenity (The Galactic Language), Harry Potter (Parseltongue), Cloud Atlas (Old Georgie) and one not for the faint of heart in A Clockwork Orange (Nadsat).

SPOILER ALERT!: And my favourite of them all, that would be top of my own list to learn would be ….. HEPTAPOD B! This is a language that is quite literally … FLUID or maybe SMOKE or maybe SENTIENT INK! And it allows for Time Travel! There simply is no other cooler language than Heptapod B! I will be the first to register when it is offered at UVic!

And if Heptapod B ever IS offered at UVic, since it is a Time Travel kind of language, you would never have to do any homework because … you would have already learned it! That is my kind of course!

Imagine ordering Take Out in …. Heptapod B! They would already know when and what you wanted and it would arrive … INSTANTLY! So many benefits! 

And I leave you with the best Elvish script from The Lord of the Ring:

Enjoy!

  1. The top 10 made-up movie languages
  2. 10 FICTIONAL MOVIE LANGUAGES WE’D LOVE TO LEARN
  3. Arrival — Decoding the Universal Language of Time
  4. A 100-word dictionary was made to create the alien language in this year’s highly anticipated sci-fi thriller ‘Arrival’
  5. HOW DO YOU SPEAK HEPTAPOD B?
  6. Learning From Time
  7. Fictional language
  8. 12 Fictional Film and TV Languages You Can Actually Learn
  9. 11 fictional languages created for movies and books
  10. Top 9 Best Made Up Languages Ever Created
  11. When Hollywood Needs A Made-Up Language, They Come To Us
  12. 6 Fictional Languages You Can Really Learn
  13. Klingon Phrases
  14. Klingon proverbs
  15. 18 Klingon Phrases That’ll Save Your Life One Day

As long as there are words out there, there will be interesting topics! 

ENJOY!                TTFN!

 

 

 

 

 

Arrival’s Linguistic Relativity
and Time Perception

Top 10
Fictional Languages

Arrival
Embrace the Problem of Language

Arrival: Sabotaged
Diplomacy Scene

Accent Expert Breaks Down
6 Fictional Languages

4 Fictional Languages
You Can Learn

5 Fictional Languages
You Can Actually Learn

Artlang: A Compilation of
Movie and TV Clips

 

J.R.R. Tolkien Reads
A Poem in Elvish

 

 

 

 

 

 

Of Unconscious and Precocious Surveillance of Foudroyant Chrysanthemums . . or Hard to SPELL English Words

Of Unconscious and
Precocious Surveillance of
Foudroyant Chrysanthemums
or . . .
Hard to Spell
English Words!

Yet another sentence that you won’t find at Google. BUT, each word IS spelled correctly!  And the reason being … SPELLCHECKERS!

Full Disclosure: Eye I am knot bad at spelling, but I am not grate at grammar! Bear with mee! 

DOUBLE Full Disclosure: My Grade 1 teacher traumitized me when under constant threat of being whacked with her ruler, could not properly spell ‘cat’ in her presence! All that could come out of me when challenged by her was ….. ‘KAT’! 

WAY back when, I took a computer science course at the University of Calgary. One ‘advanced’ assignment was to read in a random paragraph, generated by the Prof, then scan the paragraph and change some words to … OTHER words! They weren’t misspelled, but it was the pre-cursor to spellcheckers, grammar checkers and word processing! Oh, did I mention … we had to program in FORTRAN and … ON PUNCHED CARDS!!!! Good times, good times … KNOT!

Everyone probably has a few words that they consistently misspell, including the word, misspell!

It just doesn’t ‘look right’ with a double-s in the middle! Other words that always seem to throw me are: pronounce, pronunciation, comfortable, principle & principal, compatible & compatible, weird, catchup & ketchup, and of course … CAT! Some are context based confusion for me, some are just … they don’t look right!

So why do some people misspell words? Turns out, it can be a major cognitive challenge!

It turns out that misspelling in the brain (if it’s not being influenced by some kind of learning disorder, like dyslexia, which is another matter entirely) is a multi-layered problem involving diverse areas of brain tissue and multiple processes. Spelling, neurologically, isn’t as simple as rummaging in a brain-bin, finding a word, and reproducing it perfectly on paper. There are many stages where things can go slightly awry, and new science means we can pinpoint exactly where in the brain various processes are going wrong. Not much of a comfort when you’ve misspelt the main word in the title of your Powerpoint presentation, but there it is.

And one of my favourite words and that I often spell wrong is QUIXOTIC! It has a neat pronunciation and an imaginative, literary and historic background! Beauty and Chaos all in one word, including how to pronounce it!

What a wonderful word quixotic is! While it is most often used to mean equally impractical and idealistic, it also has the sense of romantic nobility. Its source is from the great Spanish novel “Don Quixote,” whose title character is given to unrealistic schemes and great chivalry. In the middle of a recession and high unemployment, it would be quixotic to imagine that you could quit your job and find another easily.

Spellcheckers are amazing … and annoying at the same time! If I recall, our lab computers have spellchecking turned on automatically for documents in Word/Office. And that causes a clear 50/50 split amongst students using Office! Literally half the students want it turned OFF when it is ON. And you can guess the other half! You can’t hope to win …. best you can hope for is a tie!

Personally, I just crank out the text, I try and catch my spelling mistakes, but I know that upon another read through, I will let Bill Gates decide what word I want to use. OOPS, forgot about that US vs Canadian spelling! And that might also be a future post too – different spellings for common words in US, Canada, UK, Australia, etc. and more curiouser and curiouser … WHY?

And nice to know that Word has spellcheckers in foreign languages too! That is always a ‘weight off my shoulders’ for First Year German students! LOL!

Enjoy!

  1. 10 Words You Need to Stop Misspelling
  2. 25 Hard Spelling Bee Words & Meanings
  3. 15 of the Hardest Words to Spell in the English Language
  4. Top 10 hardest words to spell
  5. These are the hardest-to-spell words in the English language
  6. 10 Hard Words to Spell in English
  7. The 8 most Difficult words to spell
  8. Difficult Spelling Words Quiz
  9. WHAT ARE THE TOP 100 HARDEST WORDS TO SPELL?
  10. 100 Most Often Misspelled Words in English
  11. 300 Most Difficult SAT Words
  12. Robert Heckendorn’s List of Hard to Spell Words
  13. Why Some People Are Bad Spellers, Unscrambled

As long as there are words out there, there will be interesting topics! 

ENJOY!                TTFN!

 

 

 

 

 

Top 20 Hardest
English Words to Spell

7 Year Old Child Spells out
the LONGEST English Word!

8 Extremely Long Words
Everyone Must Learn in English

Top 20 Hardest English Words
to Spell! Guess the Right Word!

Top 10 Hardest Words
to Spell

10 Difficult
English Words to Spell

Can You Spell
These 10 Difficult Words?

How to Pronounce the
Longest Name in Canada

Home Simpson
I Am So Smart

 

 

 

 

 

Of Specific Rural Isthmuses Surrounded by Anemones Overrun by Squirrels . . or Hard to Pronounce English Words

Of Specific Rural Isthmuses
Surrounded by Anemones
Overrun by Squirrels
or . . .
Hard to Pronounce
English Words!

I guarantee you that sentence will never be found using Google!  And the reason being … it is made up of some of the words that are considered THE hardest to pronounce in the English language!

Full Disclosure: That is the weirdest sentence I could think of. Don’t make me write another one! I am saving other weird sentences for a future post about using …. Google Translate!

A previous post looked at “Unpronounceable Words or . . . I Didn’t Quite . . . Catch That . . .” about hard to pronounce words in the World! This time, let’s just look at English! Last time, I included ‘Worcestershire’ and … it is still difficult to pronounce, even in other languages!

So why are some English words so hard to say, even if you are a native speaker? There are those that simply say, “My mouth just doesn’t work that way!” and that actually might be true for some speakers!

Other words throw a curve by including a sound, that does NOT have the corresponding, and logical, letter within the word! For example, Colonel!

But it turns out, there is a rationale for it:

The key is phonology – the science of sounds within the language. Hebrew has five or six vowel sounds and more than 20 consonant sounds. In contrast, English has five written vowels, but 20 vocalic sounds. A written ‘a’ will have numerous different sounds depending on what letters are couched around it.

And to throw yet another curve at you, try this extract from a famous pronunciation poem circa the turn of the century!

Enjoy!

(And a really tough poem is here!)

The Chaos

by G. Nolst Trenite a.k.a. “Charivarius” 1870 – 1946

Dearest creature in creation
Studying English pronunciation,
I will teach you in my verse
Sounds like corpse, corps, horse and worse
I will keep you, Susy, busy,
Make your head with heat grow dizzy.
Tear in eye your dress you’ll tear,
So shall I! Oh, hear my prayer,
Pray, console your loving poet,
Make my coat look new, dear, sew it!
Just compare heart, beard and heard,
Dies and diet, lord and word,
Sword and sward, retain and Britain.
(Mind the latter, how it’s written).
Made has not the sound of bade,
Say said, pay-paid, laid, but plaid.
Now I surely will not plague you
With such words as vague and ague,
But be careful how you speak,
Say break, steak, but bleak and streak.
Previous, precious, fuchsia, via,
Pipe, snipe, recipe and choir,
Cloven, oven, how and low,
Script, receipt, shoe, poem, toe.
Hear me say, devoid of trickery:
Daughter, laughter and Terpsichore,
Typhoid, measles, topsails, aisles.
Exiles, similes, reviles.
Wholly, holly, signal, signing.

  1. The 10 hardest English words to pronounce, according to Reddit
  2. 14 Hard Words to Pronounce in the English Language
  3. 40 Hard-to-Pronounce Words You’re Probably Getting Wrong
  4. What’s The Most Difficult Word In The World To Pronounce?
  5. The 14 Hardest Words to Pronounce in the English Language
  6. 20 Words That Are Really Hard to Pronounce in the English Language
  7. The most difficult words to pronounce in the English language revealed – as well as the world’s favourite English tongue-twisters
  8. WHY ARE SOME ENGLISH WORDS HARDER TO PRONOUNCE FOR SOME NATIVE SPEAKERS BUT NOT FOR OTHERS?
  9. Psychologists reveal the world’s hardest tongue twister

As long as there are words out there, there will be interesting topics! 

ENJOY!                TTFN!

 

 

 

 

 

Pronounce 33 Most Difficult
English Words

100 HARDEST English Words
Pronunciation Practice Lesson

Top 60 Mispronounced
English Words

60 Words You Are
Pronouncing INCORRECTLY!

How to Cheat at Pronunciation!
10 Most Difficult English Words!

10 English Words You Are
Probably Mispronouncing!

10 Most Difficult Words
to Pronounce in English

The ‘Chaos”
English is Tough Stuff!

Watch People Try to Pronounce
the 5 Hardest Words