Some challenging e-mail about that item came from Dennis Moran, assistant business editor of the Prague Post. "English borrows copiously if incompletely," he wrote, noting such Associated Press style preferences as "referendums" and "stadiums" (not the Latin plurals "referenda" and "stadia"). Amen to those, and to "curriculums," rather than the pompous "curricula" still widely favored in academic circles.

I disagree for two reasons.

1. I don't think the change came about as a result of bringing those originally borrowed words into line with standard English pluralization rules. I understand the argument for doing so, since English becomes muddy if we start having to apply foreign (or extinct) rules to all borrowed words. In other words, even though "stadium" comes to us from latin, it's not latin anymore, it's english, and should be treated as such when pluralized (thus, "stadiums"). Nonetheless, I don't hear that argument directly. Rather, I hear that the changes are to prevent confusion (which, yes, indirectly argues against confusing additional rules) but I'm generally against modifying language to cater to ignorance. Call me elitist, but I think it's preferable to keep usages that have long been in practice, but require some education of the reader. I can't help being plagued by visions of "lite" replacing "light" because "gosh, the 'gh' is confusing and 'lite' is more common". This sends me into fits of apoplexy.

2. It sounds dumb. A trailing 'ms' is inelegant and unpleasant to say. "The referenda were universally rejected." flows so much better than "The referendums were ..." Perhaps I'm giving my inner aesthete too much rein, but I think elegance is worth preserving in language.

Am I expected to contemplate "datums" or should we just decide to allow everyone to use "data" as if it were singular?

Never.

Language Corner: Graffito/Graffiti

It may have been just a typo, but it pops up from time to time: "Such reports seem born out by help-wanted advertising..." The correct spelling is "borne," with an "e." It's one of two past participles of "to bear," meaning (a) to give birth or (b) to carry. The one without the "e" is used for actual or figurative birth: a star is born, to a born loser; things are born of necessity or desperation; children are born out of wedlock. For everything else, including the cited form of "bear out," meaning to prove or confirm, add the "e."

Yes, dammit, yes! Misuse of born/borne is a pet peeve of mine.

Language Corner: Borne Out, with an

Its study follows a February story in The Tennessean that Frist, along with House Speaker Dennis Hastert, R-Ill., ordered the vaccine liability language inserted in a defense spending bill in December without debate and in violation of usual Senate practice.

I love that line. Gee, inconvenient to get something you want? Just stick it into the draft in the middle of the night so no one notices.

And while we're on the subject of amazing lines, check out this one.

"The lack of any restriction on jury trial is problematic," the analysis said. "Where injured parties have no other avenue for relief, juries are likely to find ways to award damages."

In other words, "we've already taken away every other way people can come after us, we want this one taken away too so people have NO recourse at all when we do something negligent."

At this point it isn't stupidity or incompetence, this is willful harm.

Vaccine makers helped write Frist-backed shield law - Nashville, Tennessee - Monday, 05/08/06 - Tennessean.com

This is the complete opinion of Justice Mann. If you've been following this case (for 20 years), it's an interesting read.

Some highlights, starting with the one i found most crucial

This is ultimately a matter of impression. I must look at the mark with the eyes of a reasonable and sensible user and determine what impression would be given. Such a user would be familiar with the notion of buying recordings of creative works from a retailer, and would be capable of not seeing any other association between retailer and the music other than that arising out of the sale itself. That is what happens in shops. The same user would be likely to be familiar (at least nowadays) with other download services (for example Napster, or Real) where downloads of similar material are available and where the service's logo features on the webpages from which the downloads take place, or within the downloading window. In my view the presence of a logo which is the logo of the download service would not be likely to be taken by such a user, without more, as a sort of trade association with the content beyond that of being a retailer. That is not, in my view, the sort of association that falls within the TMA. A retailer offers goods which have originated from others, very often under the mark of others. In doing so, and in advertising his sales service by the copious use of his own mark, he does not suggest that the goods are his in terms of trade origin or trade source, particularly if the originator's mark is used.

The judge effectively states that the Apple Computer logo can't reasonably be construed to be applied to the music content itself.

On the matter of establishing the baseline for addressing the claimed breaches

Before deciding whether any given acts are breaches it is necessary to ascertain what the TMA means. The parties do not agree about this, and I can summarise the arguments of the parties as follows. In fairness, this summary does not do justice to some of the subtleties of the arguments, but an outline suffices for present purposes. Both parties submitted that the position is simple and straightforward, which is a pretty good indication that it is not.

Emphasis mine... i thought that was telling, and humorous.

Lastly, and this has no real bearing, but I found it interesting, the Judge lightly castigates Apple Corps manager Aspinall, saying,

He professed not to be a technical man, and professed no affinity with computers whatsoever. I think that he sought to portray himself as somewhat more naïve about and ignorant about technological issues than is really the case. I do not consider that he can have successfully carried out his job for as many years as he has held it had he been quite as distanced from these things as he sought to portray in the witness box. While I accept that basically he is not a technical man (and there is no reason why he should be) I think him capable of a greater grasp of these things than he wished to demonstrate.

Ha!

Of course, Apple Corps has pledged to appeal, which is expected, but at any rate, and all Mac love aside, I think this appears to be a reasonable decision, and I hope it stands.

Apple Corps v Apple Computer: judgment in full - Law - Times Online

So-called domain tasting is one of the more unpleasant developments in the domain business in the past year. Domain speculators are registering millions of domains without paying for them, in a business model not unlike running a condiment business by visiting every fast food restaurant in town and scooping up all of the ketchup packets.

Such bullshit. I hate domain speculators. For that matter, I hate anyone who buys a domain with the express intent of reselling it or absorbing typo-traffic. Unfortunately, I haven't been satisfied by any of my own arguments against their rights to do that stuff. Alas, even with all my hate, I can't make an effective case to say they *can't* do it.

In Bad Taste

Colbert's real sin wasn't lese majesty, it was inserting a brief moment of honesty into an event based upon a lie -- one considered socially necessary by the political powers that be, but still, a lie.

Like its upscale sibling, the annual Gridiron Club dinner, the White House Correspondents dinner is a ritual designed, at least implicitly, to showcase the underlying unity of our Beltway elites. It's supposed to demonstrate that no matter how ferocious their battles may appear on the surface, political opponents can still gather in the same room and break bread, with the corporate media acting as the properly neutral host. It's a relic of the good old days of centrism and bipartisan log rolling ("the end of ideology"), visible proof that in the American system, there may be enemies, but there are no mortal enemies. And so last night we had Joe Wilson and Valerie Plame sitting at one table, Karl Rove at another, and no knives were drawn.

Another good analysis, this time by billmon...

The Blog | Billmon: American Nightmarez | The Huffington Post

According to current and former intelligence officials, Plame Wilson, who worked on the clandestine side of the CIA in the Directorate of Operations as a non-official cover (NOC) officer, was part of an operation tracking distribution and acquisition of weapons of mass destruction technology to and from Iran.

Interesting.. Plame was working on Iran nuclear proliferation at the time the Bush Administration outed her.

Of course. Ughh.

The Raw Story | MSNBC confirms: Outed CIA agent was working on Iran

Sometimes, if you're lucky as a historian, you find a bit of evidence which illuminates a big idea. That happened to me this week in the Pepys Library at Magdalene College, Cambridge.

The thought uppermost in my mind was how odd it is that non-scientists think of science as being about certainties and absolute truth. Whereas scientists are actually quite tentative - they simply try to arrive at the best fit between the experimental findings so far and a general principle.

The manuscript I found was a ship's journal kept by a 17th Century English sea captain, who had offered to carry some state-of-the-art scientific equipment on a voyage to the west coast of Africa and back - two new pendulum clocks.

[ Not a bad article, but not great either. I think the author was unclear in places and not quite in front of the argument, as I see it.

-k]

BBC NEWS | Magazine | Believe it or not: The battle over certainty

To the president the Democrats should be saying, Double or Nothing is Not a Foreign Policy.

Joshua Micah Marshall seems on point here.

Talking Points Memo -- On Iran

The White House Correspondents' Association Dinner was televised on C-Span Saturday evening. Featured entertainer Stephen Colbert delivered a biting rebuke of George W. Bush and the lily-livered press corps. He did it to Bush's face, unflinching and unbowed by the audience's muted, humorless response.

Astonishing. Colbert is on fire "delivering truthiness to power" as I heard it described. Honestly, Colbert has brought satire back to a prominence long missed, and he's doing it in an extremely hostile environment here. The press corps and guests are visibly stunned.

Daou's analysis here is worth reading, but watch the video first. There are links scattered about, but if you've got the time and bandwidth, get the high res torrent here : http://www.mininova.org/tor/296239

The Blog | Peter Daou: Ignoring Colbert: A Small Taste of the Media's Power to Choose the News | The Huffington Post