Monday Morning Miscellany
A little question for you car AND film buffs.
ITEM!: My belated congratulations to the organizers of Kopicon, a convention devoted to studying artificial language design in Georgetown University. These languages usually tend to be used to flesh out cultures in science fiction—Klingon, Dothraki, Kryptonese, that sort of thing. The event was close enough that I could swing by and start some conversations that might bear fruit in an upcoming Journal of Wordplay.
ITEM!: Busy times just now, a lot going on that I can’t talk about quite yet—gathering other Journal material, getting through the toughest remaining part of the Ubercross. Should have more to chatter about soon, though. I’ve joined Bluesky, so anybody who wants to reach me more informally has another option!
ITEM!: Etymonline, the best-researched etymology resource you’re likely to find on the Web, has a convincing argument about why Google Ngrams are not very trustworthy. This conflict is a microcosm of the larger, brewing conflict between human expertise and AI-“written” autotext.
ITEM!: Slipping through Matt Gaffney’s archives, I found this gem: of all the symbols on the periodic table, the only common name spelled out by three of them in periodic-table order is CLARK (Cl, Ar, K, numbers 17-19). The only common English word spelled out by three of them in that order is SIPS (Si, P, S)…which comes immediately before CLARK (numbers 14-16). There’s nothing decipherable that uses four or more symbols in order, unless you count the sentence ’NAM GAL SIPS, CLARK. Or shorter versions thereof.
ITEM!: It has occurred to me that Harrison Ford drives a Chevy in American Graffiti, not his most famous role, but his most famous role where he spends a lot of time onscreen driving a car. It can be argued that he participates in a Chevy chase. Whereas in Chevy Chase’s most famous car-driving role, in National Lampoon’s Vacation…he got pretty harried in a Ford.
Harrison Ford has been seen riding in a Ford on the streets, but not in a movie. Nor has Chase ever driven a Chevy onscreen, to my knowledge. Maybe Wes Bentley’s been filmed in a Bentley, or Portia de Rossi or Portia Doubleday in a Porsche? There’s gotta be some potential here for…crossover.
