Internalizing

A fascinating little video clip here via the Twitter of Courtney Roskop.

Not at all clear on the context, but love the premise.

It would appear that the video game's characters are being played by actors who are musing on the morality of giving this kind of über-violent game to intelligent people. How would those people react? But before they can give an answer, they are interrupted by the squirrel and have to go back into shoot'em up mode. No time for thinking!

What a wonderful little Möbius strip of thought.

Mac Envy

We loved the Urban Dictionary definition of the day yesterday. The word phrase was "Mac envy." Defined as, "a state of mind in which a PC owner realizes his computer sucks, then is immediately jealous of all his Mac-owning friends."

Brilliant!

Baby Talk

This is something the intuitive have known for a long time. Baby's brains are ready and open for business from a very young age. Baby talk is the foundation of language. It is how babies practice and imitate the adults around them. Ask a smart parent, they will tell you.

The scientists are catching on, too. M.D. Perri Klass in the New York Times, "Babble is increasingly being understood as an essential precursor to speech, and as a key predictor of both cognitive and social emotional development."

What is more interesting is first-year babies all over the world babble in similar ways, but during their second year, toddlers mold their sounds into the words of their native tongues.

This has implications for linguistics that stretch from the Biblical Tower of Babble story to the co-development of the human species.

For parents this is a reminder to talk to your kids even from the youngest age. Scientists' research indicates that babble has cognition in common with questions. Babies' brains are open for reception when they are babbling along in baby talk. Research also suggests that the television and the computer don't substitute for human interaction when it comes to language learning. Babies are picking up on facial clues and gestures as an essential part of their language skill development.

The New York Times reports that a baby hears much of language and is able to differentiate well before it can reproduce the same range of sounds. The experiments argue that a baby’s vocalizations signal a state of focused attention and a readiness to learn. When parents respond to babble by naming the object at hand babies are more likely to learn words.

This kind of linguistic and neurological digging is a wonderful nexus for people to understand our common humanity. And a great reason to start talking to your kids as early as you can.

New textual punctuation

Never before seen grammar^*...Have you noted, dear readers, one of the new textual punctuation techniques that the kids of today are using?

It is to place a period after each word in a given sentence. This full stop functions as a hammer to bang home the seriousness, gravitas, power of the utterance.

Check out this example from the infamous website, Texts from Last night...

"Best. Roommate. Ever."

Which in modern textual grammar is bigger ups than "Best roommate ever!!!"

^*Save for possibly in a telegrams.

What do you call your boy toy?

Our esteemed guest correspondent recently returned from Ethiopia and you might think that a guy like that would not have extra time on his hands for speculation like this. But you would be wrong. Without further ado, we give you the lexicographical musings of J. Coop.

I recently took a flight from Cairo to New York. Now, on solo domestic flights I generally make a point of avoiding conversation with my seatmates. Experience has shown that there is at least a 70% chance that the person is from a Great Lakes state and that they are visiting their (great aunt / second cousin / parakeet phone pal) on account of the recent (birth of their third child / refinancing of their home / loss of their tooth). Not only that, but by replying, “Fine, thank you” to their “Hi, how are you?”, you may have unwittingly invited a lengthy recounting of their thoroughly unremarkable family history. Best to have a book handy. When the hilarious exploits of your seatmate’s house pet become tedious, the conversation can usually be ended with a brief sideways glare and something to the effect of, “What was that? I’m sorry, I was having trouble hearing you over this fascinating book I’m reading.”

On this particular day, I suppose I was feeling generous and friendly, because I did indeed enter a dialogue with my seatmate. After all, I figured the risk was reduced, as most people can’t afford the upkeep of international parakeet phone pals (to say nothing of the language barrier). My seatmate was a pleasant American woman, probably in her 50s, and incidentally from the Seattle area, so we had something in common. Given the circumstances, there were the natural questions about what had brought the other to Cairo. I told her I was sightseeing on the way home from a business trip, and she told me that she had been traveling with her . . . partner, the final word said not with a literal wink and nod, but with an intonation that implied it. Not being familiar with the established insinuations of her generation, I was at a loss. What could be the meaning behind this bizarre emphasis of a perfectly ambiguous word? Was she referring to a business partner, or was this more like a “pardner”: an ally in times of cattle-wranglin’, whiskey-swillin’, and six-shooter-shootin’? Was she trying to tell me that she was gay? The word choice had left me confounded.

Fortunately, I had the good sense to keep my confusion to myself. I was able to deduce from the continuation of the conversation that this particular usage of the word could be defined something like this: partner, n. [pahrt-ner]: A gentleman bachelor, close in age to the woman, with whom she is romantically involved.

Here, dear reader, is where I beseech you for your advice and assistance. We must find a word with a more specific definition to be used by ladies in the situation of my seatmate. This word must grant her the ability to better communicate the nature of her human relationships to louts such as myself.

I’ve put some thought into this, and have yet to come up with a satisfying solution. For more mature persons, it’s understandable why the terms boyfriend and girlfriend might not be preferred. Fortunately for the seasoned and sophisticated man, there is always the option of referring to his female counterpart as a ladyfriend. After all, a girlfriend may be cute and flirtatious, but a ladyfriend is experienced and knows what she wants. Rawr.

But what is the male equivalent of a ladyfriend? The obvious response would be a gentlemanfriend, but that doesn’t roll of the tongue. Also, the term manfriend is right out, for reasons I can’t quite put my finger on. Guyfriend, maybe? That’s still sort of boyish, but maybe could work. I dunno, I’ve got nothing else. So I’ll put it to you, standardized test analogy style:

Girlfriend : Boyfriend :: Ladyfriend : ???

(This should go without saying, but I better not hear a suggestion of “lover” or any phrase with “lover” as part of it. That term just makes me cringe, and it’s a word you just don’t want to hear come out of anyone, unless it’s Will Ferrell in an SNL skit.)

Compound words

Just a quick follow-up to our post on the University of North Carolina's Davis Library Finals' Week flash mob. How many challenging, modern, compound-or-not words were there in that post?

Flash mob, itself, a compound word, two words or hyphenated? Wikipedia opts for two words in its header, but it can't make up its mind because it then opens its entry with, "A flash mob (or flashmob)..." Merriam-Webster also opts for two words. The definitive source for such a modern term, Urban Dictionary (UD), opts for two words, as well.

However, easily flash mob is dispatched by the authorities, the Clarion Content thinks it is not as clear-cut. The idea of a flash mob is a singular concept, not an adjective modifying mob, as would be the case in "large" mob or "wild" mob.

Other problematic words emerged from this same post, handheld, for example. Mozilla Firefox is confident that handheld is not a compound word, brazenly underlining it. But then again, what does Mozilla know? Well for one thing, it knows how to spell Mozilla. Though, not so generous to potential competitors, it underlines Facebook as if it had never heard of the massive network. Facebook is a proper noun, ergo the choice for two words, hyphen or compound word belongs to the owner of the entity that is the name. In this case they have opted for one word, and Mozilla, along with Microsoft Word, Google Docs and their ilk need to accept it.

But back to handheld, once again Wikipedia waffles. "Hand held" re-directs to the article for "Mobile Device" which in its first sentence uses handheld as a single compound word. Searching Wikipedia for "hand-held" hyphenated yields a disambiguation page where handheld is treated as a compound word in four article titles and a hyphenated word in two titles. Mozilla, of course, accepts the hyphenated word "hand-held" because it is made up of two words it accepts and the hyphen is a signifier to treat them separately. Merriam-Webster in this case is definitive opting for the compound word "handheld" and dating it all the way back to 1923. The Clarion Content cannot fail to agree, "handheld" a singular descriptive state, an adjective, one word.

The final to compound or not word that popped up prominently in the Davis Library Flash Mob piece was "chatroom." Of course, Mozilla Firefox, in its stern, unforgiving manner says it is a mispelling. As noted previously, due to a programming default, it is willing to accept to "chat-room." Merriam-Webster agrees with Mozilla's anti-chatroom stance. It dates the phrase "chat room" to 1986 and says two words, no hyphen. It undermines itself to a certain extent because the Google Ad Sense ad on the page shills for a one word "chatroom" site. Wikipedia prefers two words for chatroom although the article opens with the dual warnings, "This article needs additional citations for verification," and "This article may require cleanup to meet Wikipedia's quality standards."

The Clarion Content is inclined to disagree with the fuddy-duddies at Merriam-Webster and the negatistas Mozilla (who think fuddy-duddy isn't a word and have never heard of negatista). Chatroom is a singular concept, a noun referring to a particular meme, a virtual room where one goes online to have chats. Urban Dictionary has no fewer than eleven definitions of "chatroom" all of which treat it as one word. UD also has seven chatroom related phrases defined from "chatroom thug" to "chatroom whore" all of which treat chatroom as a singular phrase. It is certainly still arguable though, even via modern sources, for example, the website www.techfaq.com offers a more reasonable definition for chatroom than any of those on UD, but treats "chat room" as two words.

Ah, these modern words and phrases bring us much fascinating debate. One of our favorite modern linguists, And He Melts noted that, Philip K. Dick in his 1964 novel, The Unteleported Man, produced in the first thirty pages alone a massive treasury trove of hyphenated words ranging from "the impatient ("syn-cof," instead of "synthetic coffee"), [to] the needless ("break-through"), [to] the redundant ("aud-receptors/aud-monitors/data-monitors/data-recorders"), [to] the quaint ("light-years, ""colony-world"), [to] the way-ahead-of-his-time ("UN-egged-on"), and the simply fantastic ("Swiss-made nipple-assist")." We look forward to more of this kind of linguistic fun, thinking, and discussion about the compound words of this modern era. (Which is not to say there are not fun old compound words still to debate.)

Musical Communion

This one comes to us courtesy of our northern most New Jersey reader. As she so succinctly summed it up, Bobby McFerrin Hacks Your Brain with the Pentatonic Scale.

World Science Festival 2009: Bobby McFerrin Demonstrates...

The Emoticons of texting

As you may or may not be aware dear readers, the Clarion Content's editor-in-chief is fascinated with the code switching that is on-going in the new language of texting. English has endless vernaculars, and even technologically speaking, texting is but one code among many tech jargons.

Our sincere thanks to the south Durham reader who recently forwarded our way one of the most complete lists we have seen interpreting the emoticons of texting. Interestingly most of these emoticons are primarily made with mathematical and grammatical symbols, rather than English letters. Though we do not endorse all of these interpretations, (follow this link to Wikipedia's fascinating take) we thought we'd share them.

Follow this link to see the big list.

List of the Emoticons of Texting

Full List of the Emoticons of Texting
we do not endorse all of these interpretations

HAPPY, SMILING, LAUGHING

:-) smiling; agreeing

:-D laughing

|-) hee hee

|-D ho ho

:-> hey hey

;-) so happy, I'm crying

:'-) crying with joy

\~/ full glass; my glass is full


TEASING, MISCHIEVOUS

;-) winking; just kidding

'-) winking; just kidding

;-> devilish wink


:*) clowning, kidding

:-T keeping a straight face


AFFIRMING, SUPPORTING

:^D "Great! I like it!"

8-] "Wow, maaan"

:-o "Wow!"

^5 high five

^ thumbs up

:] Gleep, a friendly midget who wants
to befriend you

(::()::) bandaid; offering help or support


UNHAPPY, SAD

:-( frowning; boo hoo

:( sad

:-< really sad

:-c really unhappy

:-C really bummed

&-| tearful

:' crying

:'-( crying and really sad

:-| grim

:[ really down

:-[ pouting

\_/ "my glass is empty"


ANGRY, SARCASTIC

>:-< angry

:-|| angry

:-@ screaming

:-V shouting

:-r sticking tongue out

>:-< absolutely livid!!

:-, smirk

:-P nyahhhh! sthmmmup! (with spit)

:-> bitingly sarcastic


TRYING TO COMMUNICATE

:-& tongue-tied

:-S incoherent

:-\ undecided

:- I "hmmm..."

:-, "hmmm "

:-# "My lips are sealed"

:-X "My lips are sealed"

:-Y a quiet aside

:-" pursing lips

:-W speaking with forked tongue

:( ) can't stop talking


FEELING STUPID OR TIRED

:~/ mixed up

%-) braindead

(:I egghead

<:-I dunce

=:-) hosehead

:-] smiling blockhead

:-[ un-smiling blockhead

|-O yawning

|-I asleep

:-6 exhausted; wiped-out


SURPRISED, INCREDULOUS, SKEPTICAL

:> What?

:@ What?

:Q What?

:-o "uh, oh!" or surprised

;-) mischievous approval

:O shocked

8-| eyes wide with surprise

:-/ skeptical

8-O "Oh my goodness!!"

:-C just totally unbelieving

|-{ "Good Grief!" (ala Charlie Brown)


HUGS AND KISSES

: * kisses

:-X a big wet kiss!

:-x kiss kiss

:-{} blowing a kiss

[] hugs

(( )):** hugs and kisses

((((name)))) big hug to name


MISCELLANEOUS

:-* Oops!

:-I indifferent

\-o bored

:-P tongue hanging out in anticipation

O :-) angel; being an angelic

Carlin on Advertising

Long time readers know how the Clarion Content feels about advertising. While researching something else entirely we ran into this funny George Carlin bit on advertising. Watch below. Kinetic type thanks to Cousin of Sparda.

Pimpins versus Shubbas

Can a word be rejected on a purely aesthetic basis?

As regular readers know, the Clarion is a big fan of wordsmithery. We appreciate the new, well-crafted word. We're not exclusionary or any sort of linguistic purists. We were intellectually braised in the late, late 20th century stew of a post, post-modern era. We accept that language is an imperfect convention and a constant invention. If most all rules in this existence are to a large extent constructs and no rules are firmly affixed, well, linguistic rules are no different, they flux, too.

The two words in question today are recent additions to the Clarion's heard word lexicon, pimpins and shubbas.

Pimpins and Shubbas.

Both of these words fail to turn up at Merriam-Webster.com. The good folks at Merriam-Webster never got wind of these words. Truth be told, the Clarion hadn't either until hearing them uttered by our local, Durhamanian youth recently.

Pimpins is used to refer to one's male comrades, one's homies, one's pals, one's buddies. Used in a sentence, [talking to said buddies about leaving.] "Come on pimpins, it's time to bust out of place."

Shubba is a team of endearment for an extremely cute animal. Used in a sentence, "Aww, look at the little the shubba."

Shubba, for less than good reasons, is somehow significantly more aesthically pleasing to the Clarion's ear. It is in part connotation, shubba's are inevitably darlings, pimpins decidely less so. Beyond that, pimpins is a strange creation, ideally, grammatically, pimps has more basis. However, the fatal flaw of pimps is a decidely negative connotation, even syms don't want to be referred to as pimps. It is widely considered derraogatory. To be pimpin, or better yet big pimpin, on the other hand, is a good thing. To be pimpin is to be stylin' or looking good or rolling in it, winning at the game of life. So when one refers to one's homies as "pimpins" the connotation is then positive, they got it going on, they may even be playas, but they are not pimps. (read: misogynists)

The sound of it still doesn't roll off of the Clarion's tongue, but language is both personal and a consensus. If it works for others who are we to say, "No!" We have no such standing, nobody does except in France.

At first we thought neither of these definitions of these words made the Urban Dictionary cut. For shubba this is correct, the one definition listed is an usage the Clarion is not familiar with, shubba as an exclamation. But a closer look at the UD for pimpins, reveals definition number five, from Big Dirty (Joppa Smoot), who defines pimpins as "another name to call someone." The example of it used in a sentence is, "'Sup, pimpin." This is spot on for the sense the Clarion has heard in Durham.

In sum, despite its less than pleasing sound, pimpins is in the lexicon, alongside shubbas. No language is onomatopoeia. New words cannot, in fact, be rejected on a purely aesthetic basis. One might elect to use them more or less on the basis of aesthetic preference, as in: the Clarion is going to refer to the dudes as "pimpins" on, but not before, the Tuesday after Never. Whereas, while we are unlikely to use shubbas when speaking with homo sapiens, we are quite sure to use it when speaking with other furry creatures.

Do me a solid

Do me a solid is a wonderful new phrase that has made an appearance in the modern lexicon. It means do me a favor, but conveys a shading of the favor between friends that the Clarion most appreciates. A favor is an act of grace, consideration or sympathy. Certainly, nothing to be looked askance at, but rather to be accepted with humble gratitude and returned grace.

However, in our view, modern American society, as epitomized by the Mafia movie, has exploited the favor, turning it into a quid pro quo. A quid pro quo is in fact something quite different than a favor, it is an act done, rather than out of kindness or grace, with the expectation of the return action in mind. It is done in the mindset of, "I do this because; then you will owe me (one.) And I will be able to call on you when I need it."

Do me a solid has made an end around that kind of favor to recapture the original essence of the deed. A solid is not a favor that creates or carries with it an obligation, beyond the mutual obligation to care for one another that is inherent in real friendship. It is rather doing the right thing, the obvious act of grace. A friend comes to you in need, you do not tote up the score of whom has helped whom most recently and how much. If they say do me a solid, they need you. To do a solid is to do the right thing in that kind of situation, unquestioningly, with no expectation of return. Friends are always in each other's debt. Friends are solid. You can count on them.

“There is nothing I would not do for those who are really my friends. I have no notion of loving people by halves.” –Jane Austen

Words sourced

The Clarion is a huge fan of wordsmithery. A word itself, that our publishing software does not approve of, despite Merriam-Webster's citation as far back as 1873. As a fan of such craftsmanship, we love Urban Dictionary.

Urban Dictionary is a dictionary composed of reader contributed definitions. The definitions are all accompanied by a thumbs up, thumbs down rating, and listed from most to least approved. Anyone can submit a definition with accompanying examples. Submissions are not paid. So rather than being edited down to one correct, or even several popular versions of any given definition, queriers looking up words see all given definitions ever posited by posters.

The Clarion is addicted to voting on other folks' definitions. Goodness, could anything make the people in my immediate family happier than a dictionary where you can vote whether or not you agree with the definition, as well as submit your own definitions. Sweetness and joy.

At the Clarion we delight in wordsmithery (see Urban Dictionary's definition of wordsmithery here. We love words, meaning and feeling, communication is our lifeblood. We hope we have explicated our favorite new tool, the Urban Dictionary for you. Now we want to throw some fresh word fuel on the fire.

Three words for your pleasure and warmth.

Scenester. Pretendica. Fatabulous.

New words? Not exactly, but only one of them can be found at our friend Merriam-Webster's website.

The first word, scenester, this is just the kind of word the Clarion loves Urban Dictionary for, a word that is clearly moving into the lexicon, but not yet officially accepted. You can see the faint outlines of this because old Merriam-Webster's claims to have scenester in its unabridged version, which has a "free trial" you can sign up for, uh, no thanks. Urban Dictionary already has it and right on the money, too. A scenester is a person who tries very hard to fit into a given scene, generally around music. They are not the true original adherents of the given trend or music, but rather the copycats. In fact, they may not be into the music at all, scenesters tend to be more into emulating the look, the fashion, and the appearance, rather than the substantial thing the scene was originally about; imitators.

The depth of definition offered at Urban Dictionary allows for such nuance. Nuance is an essential part of the structure of the Clarion's thoughts about meaning.

As for the next word, pretendica, the Clarion doesn't think even Urban Dictionary has the full scoop (yet) on how they are using it these days. The Urban Dictionary has pretendica as marijuana slang only. The Clarion will concede that it likely started there, but these days it is used to refer to anything that is a faux imitator. As in, scenesters are pretendica because they are not true believers, but rather fakers. The slang of today will also use pretendica to dis a band, bar, car, ad infinitum. If there is a version of it that can be the real deal, than there is an imitator that is pretendica. Fake Gucci handbags are pretendica. Merriam-Webster has no idea from pretendica. Hilariously trying to guess misspelling their second suggestion, after pretender, is puritanically. But give credit where due, they do know the final word, fantabulous.

Fantabulous which M-W's dates to 1957 as slang. It is also considered misspelled by the Clarion's publishing software, which was coded by illiterate degenerates no doubt. The Clarion does not doubt fantabulous's existence. We did not know it had been around that long since it sounds like something that kids just made up. And well they could have, and well within their rights they would have been to do so. Is there meaning or just nuance added by combining two words that mean basically the same thing. This begs the question, is fantabulous a portmanteau or no?

A portmanteau is a mash-up of two words that form a single word with a blended meaning of the two words that it came from; so the most cited example is usually smoggy, a word that is a combination of smokey and foggy, and an effect that is a combination of smokey and foggy. This is the key not only have the two words been shortened combined, but their meanings have been blended into the new entity. Another classic portmanteau is bionic from biological and electronic. The word that gave birth to the portmanteau, slithy failed to survive. It was coined alongside the new meaning added to portmanteau, formerly luggage, by Lewis Carroll in Through the Looking-Glass. Slithy was supposed to be a combination of slimy and lithe. Perhaps these two words are so hard to associate that their fusion was doomed. What could it possibly mean for something to be slimy and lithe, it would be so dastardly and horrible that one would hardly care to contemplate.

The Clarion would argue fantabulous fails the portmanteau test for another reason entirely, no additional meaning is obviously signified by the fusing of fantastic and fabulous into one word. It is still stupendous, awesome, marvelously good. There are a plethora of words already available to describe events, situations, personas that might be fantabulous. This is not to say it should be banned, surely there are events, situations, personas that can only be described as fantabulous. There is nuance in fantabulous. It is simply to the Clarion's judgment not a portmanteau. Ginormous fails the same test for the Clarion with much less panache. Can't ya just say HUGE!

Hike who?

Growth

Vast, endless seas of concrete,
nary a living creature in sight,
save for the paver, humans.


Ours

In a time of War,
throbbing with sacrifice,
what is not enough?

Crazy

Crazy is just a measure of deviation from the average. And what is this mythic beast average? It is not extant.

Because who among us is this average person? Is average a male or a female? Ah-ha. Already, we see the problem, is there then two averages? One for each gender?

This average person do they have 2.4 kids? Do they live in a house? An apartment? In suburbia? A city?

Are there types? Oh surely, there are types and archetypes. But when somebody tells us we’re “Crazy” or “It’s crazy,” we ususally take it mean daring or different. When someone tells you you’re crazy, it is usually a sign you have had a bold and/or innovative idea.

Trust your gut and have a good sounding board, but don’t be afraid to go way out on edge. It’s the view.

Nothing ventured, nothing gained isn’t just a saying in a universe with no rewind, it’s axiomatic.

A good friend of the Clarion’s passed us a quote not that long ago from a man who didn’t fear the crazy tag. Wore his crazy like a brightly colored scarf...Walt Whitman

“This what you shall do: Love the earth and sun and the animals, despise riches, give alms to every one that asks, stand up for the stupid and crazy, devote your income and labor to others, hate tyrants, argue not concerning God, have patience and indulgence toward people...re-examine all you have been told in school or church or any book, dismiss what insults your very soul, and your very flesh shall become a great poem.”


Crazy, right?

Uniqueness

The Clarion found William Safire's “ON LANGUAGE” column fascinating this week (June 24th 2007). Safire examined what has happened to the meaning of the word unique. He traced how the meaning and usage of unique once considered unmodifiable by “very, quite, rather, almost or practically” has degenerated so much that it has been replaced by the phrase one-off. Safire’s definition of one-off, “without precedent, easily copied but impossible to perfectly reproduce or clone,” is spot-on.

Paradigms have shifted beneath unique in ways that undermine its meaning. One angle from which to consider the paradigm shift that has contributed to the process of the debasement of unique stems from the post-industrial revolution mode of mass production. To give but two examples; we live in a country where hundreds of thousands of virtually identical, machined to be the same, Toyota Camry’s are produced, but each one issued its own unique vehicle identification number, to become ‘your car.’ Similarly hundreds of thousands of Intel Inside CPU’s are manufactured annually, virtually identical, but boxed differently, each one shipped with its own unique IP address to become ‘your computer.’ Unique has lost something when societally we are asked to understand objects as both mass produced and individually unique. This is a classic paradigm shift, mass production has required that objects barely distinguishable to the layman as unique. Objects that are virtually identical, machined to be the same, replicas, are asked to exist is separate, discreet, individually identifiable entities. This conundrum is omni-present in the post-industrial global present, thus the need for the phrase one-off which stands in stark repose to the mass production of nominally unique products.

An one-off product is handcrafted and irreplicable. Works of Art are understood as inherently one-off. To say some thing or object is one-off is to set it in the paradigm of a different mode of creation, pre-mass production, pre-genetic engineering, where each creature, animal or plant, was self-evidently understood as one-off. Separately from modes of creation/production, we live in an age where unique has been swallowed by the level of parsing possible. For example, we are asked to understand that there are unique species. Isn’t this phrase, “unique species” an oxymoron? The grouping of creatures denoted by species stands in opposition to the original meaning of unique, as Safire refers to it, “the paradigm of absolute solitude.” Today, we face a peculiar cognitive dissonance where we are asked to accept that very different looking dogs form one unique species. Even beneath that division where once we thought each creature had its own unique DNA, that too, through cloning, has come to be understood as potentially replicable. What then can be left of our perception of uniqueness?

The Clarion would argue that the paradigm shifts that have occurred triggered the need for the phrase one-off. A linguistic revolt as it were to bring back the sense of originality, craftsmanship, creativity, Art and vitality that was once inherent in unique and omni-present in the worlds where humans dwelled. A “prototype” is the first of its kind, but it is exactly the wrong synonym for one-off. Its meaning bespeaks of its desire to be machined, to be replicated. A one-off object is “one of a kind,” crafted individually, without a thought of its replicability.

Carlin

One of the Clarion's original inspirations passed away yesterday.

George Carlin, you will be dearly missed.




A couple of Carlin beauties, from a life that was an American tapestry.

"If crime fighters fight crime, and fire fighters fight fire, what do freedom fighters fight?"

Unfortunately, the answer was all too self-evident.

Accused of being dark and bitter, Carlin held a mirror up to the American self, the parts we didn't want to face, were afraid to admit, our own letdowns and failures.

But as he also said, "Scratch any cynic, and you'll find a disappointed idealist."

Carlin believed in people, he was an American idealist at heart.

People we can do better.

George, we at the Clarion wil always be grateful for you calling us on it.