I just got quite a shock. I went to the American Heritage Dictionary link in my sidebar and got the generic Bartleby.com front page. Thinking there must be some mistake, I went to the IE roots link: same thing. I googled to see if anyone was talking about this, but there's nothing I can find, so I'm guessing it's very recent. Does anybody know what's going on? I'm hoping it's some temporary glitch, so I'm not deleting the links from the sidebar yet, but I fear that is more of a fantasy than a hope, and if the superb AHD and its IE and Semitic appendices are no longer online, I want to know who to curse!
Posted by languagehat at June 10, 2009 01:59 PMDoes it mean rather that Bartleby.com has gathered them all in the same online site? I notice that Strunk & White is right in there with the Bible and Gray's Anatomy.
Posted by: marie-lucie at June 10, 2009 02:05 PMThe Columbia Encyclopedia has also disappeared from Bartleby.
Posted by: Amateur Reader at June 10, 2009 02:28 PMGoogle cache says it was fine on the 5th. I say give it another week before you seal the seals on any dread maledictions.
Posted by: Ransom at June 10, 2009 02:30 PMI noticed this yesterday too. OneLook no longer links to AHD entries on Bartleby either, which isn't a good sign. In fact, I noticed the change while reading the the "jazz" comments, since I wanted to check on the Semitic root of Arabic "jism" 'body' (borrowed into Hindi).
Posted by: Ben Zimmer at June 10, 2009 02:32 PMThe Columbia Encyclopedia has also disappeared from Bartleby.
Also? I meant that I had followed the link and found the AHD on Bartleby (a site I did not know before).
Posted by: marie-lucie at June 10, 2009 02:41 PMThose two things indeed do not appear in the "References" dropdown on the Bartleby homepage.
I clicked on the tiny "Welcome" link at the bottom of this page and got (of course) their "Welcome" page. At the bottom it says:
"NOTE: Due to financial and usage considerations the reference works licensed from Columbia University Press and Houghton Mifflin Harcourt have been removed as of June 2009."
That would be those two things, no?
Posted by: Paul Clapham at June 10, 2009 02:53 PMSo it means that the name of the book is on the page (where I saw it), but the book itself can no longer be accessed. So what comes next?
Posted by: marie-lucie at June 10, 2009 03:05 PMNot a perfect replacement, to be sure, but NID3, the 1961 unabridged Merriam-Webster, is available online with neither paywall nor ad. Prudence forbids me from openly posting the free-access URL, but I am happy to send it to any bona fide Hattic who inquires; my name is a mailto: link.
Posted by: John Cowan at June 10, 2009 03:15 PMAH, BARTLEBY! AH, HUMANITY! AH! money!
Posted by: scarabaeus at June 10, 2009 03:38 PMYou can still get American Heritage Dictionary content via the Free Dictionary, http://www.thefreedictionary.com/dictionary.htm
Posted by: Dave at June 10, 2009 03:48 PMYes, AmHer disappeared while other books have not. Its URL is^H^H was http://www.bartleby.com/61/; if you replace that “61” part in it with 162 or 185, other books are fetched. This suggests that the pattern of access to the volumes has not changed, but rather that the volume 61 disappeared alone. Also, and contrary to what marie-lucie suggests, the dictionary is not in the reference index.
And to extend on the Paul Clapham's observation, AmHer is copyrighted by Houghton Mifflin. So this change is likely to be permanent, alas.
Posted by: fregimus at June 10, 2009 03:51 PM@Dave: Needless to say, thefreedictionary.com does not have the appendices on IE and Semitic roots (even though the AHD etymologies refer to them).
Posted by: Ben Zimmer at June 10, 2009 04:06 PM(Shhh... just discovered it's still all archived here. At least for now.)
Posted by: Ben Zimmer at June 10, 2009 04:09 PM"NOTE: Due to financial and usage considerations the reference works licensed from Columbia University Press and Houghton Mifflin Harcourt have been removed as of June 2009."
That would be those two things, no?
It would, yes. And now I am sad. But thanks for clearing it up. (Though I'm still not clear where my maledictions should go.)
Posted by: language hat at June 10, 2009 04:11 PM(Shhh... just discovered it's still all archived here. At least for now.)
Did you try looking anything up? Because I did, and I got:
Not in Archive.
No archived versions of the page you requested are available. If the page is still available on the Internet, we will begin archiving it during our next crawl.Posted by: language hat at June 10, 2009 04:13 PM
You can't use the search box, but all the entry pages are still there if you browse for them.
Posted by: Ben Zimmer at June 10, 2009 04:34 PMcontrary to what marie-lucie suggests, the dictionary is not in the reference index
That was not what I suggested - I had never accessed B before and saw AHD on the list on the home page. Later I noticed and tried the reference index, and indeed it was not there.
Posted by: marie-lucie at June 10, 2009 04:43 PM
But Ben Z's link does work: search (at the top) does not, but scrolling to the bottom of the page does (eg the IE and Semitic sections are there).
Posted by: marie-lucie at June 10, 2009 04:47 PMLH: I'm still not clear where my maledictions should go.
When there's the possibility, I always blame the authorities at Columbia. Hey, it works for me.
Wait, I knew about the AHD Index of Indo-European Roots, but there's a Semitic one as well?
Posted by: Mattitiahu at June 10, 2009 05:36 PMThis is very disappointing news. Thanks to Ben for pointing out the archives. A quick test suggests that the list of IE roots there is still working.
Posted by: Stuart at June 10, 2009 05:56 PMWait, I knew about the AHD Index of Indo-European Roots, but there's a Semitic one as well?
Yes, that was one of the things (besides the beautiful cover and lavish illustrations) that induced me to shell out for the fourth edition. When my brother wanted a good up-to-date dictionary I recommended the AHD 4th, and he was very pleased with it.
Posted by: language hat at June 10, 2009 06:22 PMAnd here's the archived Semitic index, which so far is still working. Thanks, Ben!
Posted by: language hat at June 10, 2009 06:24 PMQuoting Language hat:
I want to know who to curse!
This is off-topic but I am now genuinely confused about the who/whom nominative/accusative guideline. Were you writing informally?
Just to keep it clear, I'm not a professional linguist or grammarian, and this is not a grammar nazi post disguised as a rhetorical question. I may have been talking through my hat with my understanding of the nominative/accusative test.
Posted by: Inquiring Mind at June 10, 2009 07:25 PMI love the IE roots section and own the separately published book of the same, but does anyone know if the Semitic roots section was likewise pulled out into its own book? An Amazon search suggests not, but maybe they're wrong. I would very much like to own that if it was.
Posted by: Patrick T. Wynne at June 10, 2009 07:32 PM@Inquiring Mind:
The argument of know is accusative, since I know him but not *I know he. Thus, one could say “I want to know whom”. But since whom is dying in nearly all Modern English dialects, the sentence “I want to know who” is also grammatical.
Posted by: James at June 10, 2009 07:43 PMJames: You've got it the wrong way round. In that sentence, "who(m)" is the object not of "know" but of "curse": "I want to know [who(m) to curse]." There would be no question that it should be "who" in, say, "I want to know who did it."
To answer Inquiring Mind's question, I basically use "whom" only after prepositions: "Of whom are you speaking?" "From whom did it come?" As James says, it's basically a dying form, and I think the reason I (and, I believe, a fair number of others) use it after prepositions is that that's a formal construction to begin with: normal conversational English has "Who are you talking about?" and "Who did it come from?" (Note that these violate the very silly "rule" about not ending sentences with prepositions.)
Posted by: language hat at June 10, 2009 07:51 PMI received a copy of the then-current edition of the AHD 30 years ago when I was in junior high. (I think it was a gift or prize incident to, of all things, a Math League championship. Go figure.) I read and reread and rereread the appendix on IE roots. I think that, in combination with (perhaps more embarrassingly) some of the philological appendices to the Lord of the Rings, was the single greatest causal factor in my subsequently acquiring a B.A. in Linguistics. Although some credit must also be given to Hegel's Phenomenology of the Spirit, which helped take the alternative possibility of a B.A. in Philosophy off the table. I knew at the time I was taking the class as an undergrad that my Historical Linguistics teacher was the spouse of Calvert Watkins, but I failed to make the connection with his involvement with the IE-roots appendix that was partially responsible for my being in the room.
Hopefully in one form or another it will remain readily accessible to suck in future generations of teenagers.
Posted by: J. W. Brewer at June 10, 2009 11:21 PMThere's been an AskMetaFilter question about this already.
Posted by: Kári Tulinius at June 10, 2009 11:46 PMLH: the very silly "rule" about not ending sentences with prepositions.
This rule is one of those which were supposed to improve English by making it obey the "rules of grammar", defined as those of Latin or Greek grammar. You cannot end sentences with a preposition in Latin, ergo you should not be doing it in English. It is on a par with "not splitting infinitives" because you couldn't do it in Latin.
JWB: On Language Log currently they have a list of linguistic specialties in relation to jobs for linguists, and I commented that there was not even a mention of historical linguistics. Many students, like you, are or were attracted to linguistics because of their interest in language history and then find that there are very few courses on the subject or profs specializing in it. Linguists who bemoan their lack of influence on the public don't seem to have noticed this discrepancy. It is as if a youngster interested in animals were to find that the only science courses offered were in math and nuclear physics. Perhaps it would be easier to attract students to linguistics, and increase public interest in it, by starting with what attracts the most interest - language history and origins - and afterwards get into theory, rather than the opposite (some current linguistics programs do not even have one course in historical linguistics).
Posted by: marie-lucie at June 11, 2009 12:09 AMI want to know who to curse
Isn't "who to curse" some sort of dependent clause with "who" as the subject?
Posted by: Nijma at June 11, 2009 12:40 AMI want to know who to curse
Isn't "who to curse" some sort of dependent clause with "who" as the subject?
Posted by: Nijma at June 11, 2009 12:41 AMNijma: "who" is not the subject but the object of the verb "to curse": i want to curse somebody, but who(m) should I curse? him or her?. The unknown person referred to as "who" is not the one who is going to do the cursing.
Posted by: marie-lucie at June 11, 2009 12:57 AMLucky I am, had the entire site downloaded once.
Posted by: camitava at June 11, 2009 02:06 AMThere's been an AskMetaFilter question about this already.
Your "already" is misleading, since it was my complaining about the disappearance that led cgc to post the AskMeFi question.
Posted by: language hat at June 11, 2009 09:07 AMKnowing that the web is pretty well writ on wind and running water, I have kept my ancient Microsoft Bookshelf CD (1996–7 edition). In fact, I install it on my various hard-drives, and can search and cut-and-paste the PIE appendix of AHD at will. It is such a handy thing that I also keep a hard copy or two of AHD around, just for the appendix. AND I have secured the somewhat expanded version, Calvert Watkins' American Heritage Dictionary of Indo-European Roots. Warmly recommended. Of all the books I could have taken to China last September for a linguistics postgrad protégée of mine in Beijing, I took a copy of that. (She'd better be using it!)
As for the Proto-Semitic, I have used it; but I know of no independent hardcopy version, or cheap old CD.
For who(m) and uncertainty about case, see useful examples at Wikipedia. Yes, I contributed most of those. (Don't blame me for all of the infelicities. You know how Wikipedia is.)
Posted by: Noetica at June 11, 2009 09:56 AMAs I mention here, you can get the indexes of entries with the various notes (word history, usage, regional, etc.) from the Internet Archive. Along with the AH results appearing in dictionary.reference.com, as noted in the AskMe thread, this gets you most of what Bartleby had.
But not the appendices. Sorry, languagehat.
I downloaded the free trial AHD app from Houghton-Mifflin. It includes the appendices (and it runs tolerably on WINE on Linux, for those who swing that way), but the license is for just one computer.
Posted by: Zed at June 11, 2009 12:17 PMIn 1968, as an undergraduate senior, I took a seminar on Homer. There was some guy sitting in on the seminar who was constantly citing parallels from Avestan and Tokharian (I can't remember whether A or B). Boy, was I impressed!
It was Calvert Watkins.
Posted by: Bill Walderman at June 11, 2009 12:31 PMWell according to wiki this Watkins got his Ph.D. in 1962, so you needn't have been that impressed.
Posted by: A.J. P. Crown at June 11, 2009 05:19 PMI knew a Watkins, once. He lived on Sullivan Street. And a Trask. He was a good painter. but very snotty.
Posted by: A.J. P. Crown at June 11, 2009 05:42 PMI've known plenty of PhD's who couldn't cite Avestan and Tokharian.
Posted by: language hat at June 11, 2009 06:05 PMMe too.
Posted by: A. J. P. Crown, Ph.D. at June 11, 2009 06:40 PMYeah, most PhD's just bluff their way through Avestan. Ašti.masō xraožduuahe biš aētauuatō varəduuahe, I say.
Posted by: Dr No at June 11, 2009 07:53 PMlanguagehat: Your "already" is misleading, since it was my complaining about the disappearance that led cgc to post the AskMeFi question.
Eh... I didn't mean that you were copying AskMe, but that there was an AskMe... that "already" was superfluous, I'll admit.
Posted by: Kári Tulinius at June 11, 2009 07:58 PMA knowledge or even a smattering of Avestan and/or Tokharian (or even of Greek and/or Latin) is not required by most Ph.D. programs outside of Indo-European linguistics, a field which in North America is not crawling with applicants.
Posted by: marie-lucie at June 11, 2009 08:43 PM... a field which in North America is not crawling with applicants.
How pleasing to see inverse litotes coming into greater use around here.
Though others find a different inverse for litotes:
L'inverse de la litote est l'hyperbole ou exagération.But since litotes is compound (a negation of a negation, or of a diminution), we might be happy with a definite reversal of just one of the two elements. And that makes not crawling with applicants a sort of inverse litotes, compared with, say, the litotes not short of the odd applicant or two. Is there a more accurate term than inverse litotes?
I like the image of fields, crawling with applicants.
Posted by: A. J. P. Crown, D.Litt. at June 12, 2009 04:34 AMAll of them murmuring whatever bits of Avestan they can dredge up.
Posted by: language hat at June 12, 2009 08:41 AMI just discovered this today. Hadn't used the site since school let out. American Heritage is the best dictionary in my opinion. This is unfortunate.
Posted by: Bryan C. at June 12, 2009 12:42 PMThe murmuring of innumerate Anavestan PhBees.
Posted by: Noetica at June 12, 2009 07:30 PM"A knowledge or even a smattering of Avestan and/or Tokharian (or even of Greek and/or Latin) is not required by most Ph.D. programs outside of Indo-European linguistics, a field which in North America is not crawling with applicants. "
And even if there are qualified applicants, it seems that the financial situation in a lot of programs right now aren't optimal for taking in new I-E students.
(I say this from a quite recent and bitter experience *shakes fist*)
Posted by: Mattitiahu at June 16, 2009 08:28 PMI sympathize with you, Mattitiahu, for what it's worth.
There is a vicious circle (aggravated by the current economic situation): the field is not fashionable, so there are not too many resources thrown at it, so not enough money to hire new professors when the old ones retire, or to support graduate students, so too few students are admitted to justify the program, etc. This in spite of the fact that many students are interested, like M, and many members of the public, such as readers of this blog. I am no longer either a student or a (fulltime) teacher, but I hope that in the not too distant future hist.ling will be considered a part of general linguistics, period, not like an elderly, impoverished distant relative kept on a pittance by the charity of their family. But in the meantime things are tough for the potential students .
Posted by: marie-lucie at June 16, 2009 10:16 PMMattitiahu: I have been there and shaken that fist, and I endorse m-l's hopes.
Posted by: language hat at June 17, 2009 07:43 AMThen maybe it is time for marie-lucie to start that blog. I joked about it on a thread over at Kron's place, but now I'm not so sure it's a joke.
Posted by: Nijma at June 17, 2009 10:46 AMDon't hold your breath, Nijma. I wouldn't come up with all these comments just on my own, they are prompted by all the interesting things you guys write.
Posted by: marie-lucie at June 17, 2009 12:43 PMOh, I'm almost positive it won't happen. As I said before, blogging takes time, unless you just have a permanent link page set up as a sort of calling card. Not that I wouldn't like to know what m-l reads and so forth...
I agree half of the fun here is the way people interact with each other. The world would be a cold place indeed without Dravidians.
I do envy those who have such focused blogs. Mine has become a little of everything, but I link to it so people won't think I'm spam or maybe in the hopes the people will feel more comfortable with me, since I'm anonymous. It probably says something about who I am. Maybe when I get to the point where I'm not spending all my energy obsessing on my neighborhood situation I'll get around to doing something more serious with it. I did get a domain name ages ago, but that's as far as it went.
Posted by: Nijma at June 17, 2009 01:43 PMI do envy those who have such focused blogs.
I agree it's the best idea from the perspective of the blogees, but who are we blogging for? (I don't know.)
such focused blogs
There are all kinds of blogs, focused or not, and it is natural that they should evolve with time. The main thing is: are they attracting congenial spirits?
blogees; shouldn't it be bloggees, on the model of blogged, blogging?
AJP, you already had a ready made audience, but as it grows it will be a little different - none of us regulars thus far have goats, let alone cute ones like yours. And it is so refreshing to see pictures of grass and trees when you live in a city. Keep it up!!!
attracting congenial spirits
There is a social aspect, to be sure, especially when for me the main non-invisible people I have to interact with are either non English speaking or engaged in activities they wish to conceal from me. Some blogs have a business plan as well and other bloggers have a genuine unique skill that attracts people--I always seem to find those computer geek blogs when I'm having extended technical problems. Or maybe, like Bob from neither clever nor witty (another foreign service offspring who blogs mainly about his children) says, he just seems unable not to write.
I think I started out with some vague idea of encouraging cross-cultural understanding.
Posted by: Nijma at June 17, 2009 08:34 PMengaged in activities they wish to conceal from me
des activités louches, then?
Posted by: marie-lucie at June 17, 2009 10:02 PMdes activités louches, then?
Not if you go by JE's "continental decadence, with hints both of illegality and (perhaps past) elegance" definition. There's nothing about these characters that has ever been even remotely elegant. They're just dumb and get shot a lot. They weren't even particularly good at concealment, standing right in front of the building in broad daylight with their cellphones as cars drove up and drove away, right across the street from the home of two genuine Chicago Police Officers.
Posted by: Nijma at June 17, 2009 10:49 PMBut JE's definition is not the one I go by, in the original language. Elegance has nothing to do with it, as I wrote earlier, and decadence (which suggests downfall, from a more perfect state) does not apply.
Posted by: marie-lucie at June 17, 2009 11:33 PMMarie-Lucie & Languagehat:
Thanks for the support.
Admittedly, this was probably about the worst year in a good many to apply to such things, so I'm remaining optimistic about trying again in future while I trudge through some more studies in Classical Philology. It probably wouldn't hurt to do an MA Thesis on Greek Linguistics and get a better footing in my Hittite and Sanskrit (and maybe even familiarize myself with a little Avestan and Tocharian!?!) in the meantime.
Posted by: Mattitiahu at June 18, 2009 12:00 AMSo "louche" just means "criminal"? I don't think you can use such a fancy-shmancy French-sounding word as louche to describe obnoxious loser Chicago g@ngbangers.
You know what I saw in the elementary school where I worked last year? A sign the kids made at Halloween/Día de los Muertos that thirty-some Chicago children had been killed so far that year in gang violence. I don't know what that is, but "louche" just doesn't sound right.
Posted by: Nijma at June 18, 2009 12:30 AMYour comment could not be submitted due to questionable content: gαngbang
So the filter thinks it's louche?
Posted by: Nijma at June 18, 2009 12:37 AMSo the filter thinks it's louche?
Worse than louche: decidedly loose – at least in its only Australian meaning. See gang-bang in the SOED entry "gang":
gang-bang n. & v. (slang) (a) n. an occasion on which several people copulate in turn with one other person; (b) v.t. & i. (of several people) copulate in turn with (one other person)Chicago gang-bangers are up to something rather different, yes?
Thanks, m-l. I think of you as having forget-me-nots and dandelions, but they're probably on the wane by now.
'Blogees' was a mistake, but none the less an interesting potential word. I just read in David Crystal's book that Shakespeare introduced about 1,700 words into English, of which half survive, including 'accommodation' and 'acquiescence', so I'm thinking of introducing some words into English myself and after that I'm going to introduce some words into Norwegian.
Posted by: AJP Captain at June 18, 2009 03:58 AMNijma, NO, in French louche does not mean criminal which is quite definite, it means something like murky, fishy, suspicious, appearing untrustworthy, etc.
Other definition: I find "several copulate with one" rather different in tone and implications from the slang word, which is about multiple rape. It is not about several women and one man having a party.
Posted by: marie-lucie at June 18, 2009 07:26 AM
AJP, the dandelions are long gone but the forget-me-nots are still going strong.
Posted by: marie-lucie at June 18, 2009 07:28 AMOther definition: I find "several copulate with one" rather different in tone and implications from the slang word, which is about multiple rape.
I disagree. At least in Australian usage (and I strongly suspect in Britain and elsewhere), gang-bang is neutral with regard to the issue of consent. Of course, if you assume that no woman (to narrow the possibilities for convenience) would ever consent to such activity, then you might appeal to the idea that gang-bang is coextensive with pack-rape. But in fact the senses are different; and I should add that the necessary assumption would be ill-founded.
The matter is of current interest in Australia, where there is much hysterical talk about the behaviour of certain footballers and certain women.
Compare also the occasional mistranslation of the French film-title Baise-moi as Rape me (see Wikipedia; oops – it seems I wrote that bit!). Yes, of course there is rape in the film: but there is much else, and it is sheer politics that motivates that mistranslation.
Posted by: Noetica at June 18, 2009 09:11 AMAt least in Australian usage (and I strongly suspect in Britain and elsewhere), gang-bang is neutral with regard to the issue of consent.
Definitely in the States.
Posted by: jamessal at June 18, 2009 09:47 AMI mean, really, I don't think the spammers who forced Hat to ban the word in the first place were advertising rape.
Come to think of it, that's pretty naive.
Posted by: jamessal at June 18, 2009 09:48 AMPerhaps I am behind the times, or indeed naive, but it seems to me that "gang-bang is coextensive with pack-rape" in the contexts where I have read the word (I had never encountered the second one). If I am wrong and it just means one person (of either sex?) with multiple partners on the same occasion (as in the dictionary definition above), then good luck to them, but the word seems hardly neutral to me.
Posted by: marie-lucie at June 18, 2009 10:09 AMChicago gang-bangers are up to something rather different, yes?
I had forgotten how shocked I was to hear the word used so casually when I first moved here, but yes, in Chicago gang-banging involves weapons and selling drugs and for some reason, hanging out conspicuously while wearing your "colors". This summer in this neighborhood it's white t-shirts, although everyone else seems to wear these too. Nothing like being highly visible at night, not to mention drawing mosquitoes, but they're not too bright.
Urban dictionary doesn't mention gangs until about the sixth entry. Apparently it's a west coast usage as well--one entry mentions crips and bloods. Urban dictionary thinks it can be consensual as well, not a meaning I would have picked, (although there is some difference of opinion on this) and mentions porn. I'm sure there is a market--and a corresponding spammer--for any porn activity that can be dreamed up.
Posted by: Nijma at June 18, 2009 10:26 AMI'd say the verb 'to gang-bang' someone or 'to be gang-banged' is not neutral, whereas the noun 'a gang-bang' is.
Posted by: AJP Crown at June 18, 2009 10:28 AMPerhaps I am behind the times, or indeed naive,
I'm sorry, I didn't meant that you were naive. I was referring to myself, joking about my initial supposition about what might be advertised on the internet. Also, if we're going to take into account finer shades, I'm not sure that the term is wholly neutral either.
Posted by: jamessal at June 18, 2009 10:29 AMUrban dictionary also mentions a group of males having sex with one male or group sex with one male in jail.
They don't say whether it's considered to be consensual when it's all male.
Posted by: Nijma at June 18, 2009 11:41 AMSexual abuse is notorious in male prisons.
Posted by: marie-lucie at June 18, 2009 02:40 PMI was being ironic about the "oversight". The presence or absence of consent seems to depend on POV.
/irony
Posted by: Nijma at June 18, 2009 02:59 PMIt amuses me to no small extent how this thread on the e-discontinuity of the AHD turned into a debate on the semantics of the English verb 'to gang-bang'.
Posted by: Mattitiahu at June 18, 2009 07:20 PMI do envy those who have such focused blogs.
Sauropod Vertebra Picture of the Week
SV-POW!... All sauropod vertebrae, all the time!
There's an audience for everything on the Internet. Check out how popular that blog is.
Sexual abuse is notorious in male prisons.
That varies a lot between countries. Americans seem to take it for granted that if you go to prison, you'll be raped, but I haven't encountered that assumption elsewhere so far.
Posted by: David Marjanović at June 18, 2009 08:35 PMMattitiahu, "unpredictable" is the tacit motto of this blog.
David: I took it for granted that the discussion was within the American context.
Posted by: marie-lucie at June 18, 2009 09:53 PMAll sauropod vertebrae, all the time!...There's an audience for everything on the Internet.
Maybe I should actually blog about something in my field. Or maybe I should even look for a job in my field first. Language is a lot of fun, but the payouts aren't very rewarding.
Americans seem to take it for granted that if you go to prison, you'll be raped, but I haven't encountered that assumption elsewhere so far.
I have, but not discussed openly. Perhaps to do so would reflect back on the person assaulted, or appear to criticize a government.
Posted by: Nijma at June 19, 2009 12:26 AMI think you'd have a fairly good chance of being raped in prison in the United Kingdom, but less so in Norway, where a prison spell seems to be a much less depressing experience.
Posted by: AJP Crown at June 19, 2009 07:07 AM... in Norway, where a prison spell seems to be a much less depressing experience.
I do hope that is not simply relative to how life is outside of prison in Norway. (If it is as expensive as we are told, it had better be pleasant. Beyond the goats and rustic surrounds, I mean.)
Ha, I meant less depressing than life in most countries' prisons. Some thing (like cars) are very expensive (tax), but the biggest purchase most of us make -- housing -- is much cheaper than in (eg) Britain, Ireland, NY or California. A million here and a million there, and pretty soon it adds up to real money.
Posted by: AJP Crown at June 19, 2009 09:04 AMI think that gang bang (in the sexual sense, which I believe to be the older) certainly started out as neutral or even implicitly consensual, and its darkening of tone occurred as Free Love gave way to the Age of AIDS. But I may be quite wrong.
Posted by: John Cowan at June 19, 2009 05:31 PMHa, I meant less depressing than life in most countries' prisons.
Ah Krn, I understood that. But now I am not perfectly sure that you understood my jesting intention. Humour me: If life were generally worse in Norway than elsewhere, and if life in prison were much the same everywhere, Norwegians going into prison might experience less of a decline in standards than, say, Americans. But that would be a miserable reason for "a prison spell [seeming] to be a much less depressing experience", ugye?
Posted by: Noetica at June 19, 2009 06:50 PMI understood your intention was jesting, if not your jesting intention, doctor.
I sort of like the idea of making conditions in prison better than those outside, though.
Posted by: AJP Crown at June 20, 2009 12:28 AMYears ago our famous ABC broadcaster Terry Lane visited Sweden, and came back with all manner of strangenesses to relate. One concerned the übercivilised treatment of prisoners. He was astounded that a female prisoner officer, in all innocence, spent long hours counselling a convicted (male) rapist. Alone in the evening.
But why not?
American prisons are, of course, notorious. As I understand it the situation is worsened by the provincial way such things are managed, state by benighted state. And (preteritiously) let us speak no more of Guantánamo and associated assaults on humanity at large – Americans, as usual, automatically excepted.
Australia too has much to be ashamed of, and vies with America in the hypocrisy stakes. At least China is honestly (if silently) malevolent towards those it selects to be its internal outcasts.
ben z, thank you so much for the link! i would probably have wept if i discovered those appendices were no longer accessible, and i had nowhere to turn for advice and consolation.
p.s. shhhh.
Posted by: phdesmond at June 21, 2009 09:10 PMgang bang ...neutral or even implicitly consensual
I guess I'm not really sure what "neutral" means in this context. The first time I heard the phrase gang-bang was in connection with Stanley Kubrick's A Clockwork Orange (1971) where one victim is a ten-year-old girl and another dies in the attack while her husband is permanently disabled. (No question of consent there, but these days there are too many who act like only the underage and those who die in attacks are capable of non-consent.)
If you google it now (I googled it so you don't have to) the first page of results is all-female staged lesbian scenarios which are presented in a story line, such as it is, as being non-consensual. Obviously a fantasy or a film is not real and the "victim" (actor) does have control over the situation (and in fact is probably getting paid).
Posted by: Nijma at June 22, 2009 02:26 AM
I just want to write a little something here...if just for therapeutic reasons...having stumbled upon this thread...disconsolate...after days of checking bartleby.com to see if had been righted...to find it not...
To Columbia University Press and Houghton Mifflin Harcourt: you are malign enemies of free inquiry, learning and the project of civilization.
To bartleby.com: I have visited with you daily for ten years or more, despite your grievous blinking, popping and shouting ads, and consider you an indispensable friend. I am saddened by your permanent injury. I see the shadow of your former self in the archive and I will visit you there. But, I suspect that too will pass under the darker umbrage of "financial and usage considerations."
Americans seem to take it for granted that if you go to prison, you'll be raped
Overblown, of course. The American convicts I've talked to, in NJ and CA, have all said rape is pretty rare. Lots of gay sex, though.
Which obviously isn't at all to imply that the US gulag isn't about as fucked up an institution as exists on earth. 2.3 million and counting.
Posted by: jamessal at June 26, 2009 01:03 PM