Tuesday, October 31, 2006
The ownuss is on me to avoid talking a load of dribble
At the moment, we Dunces are currently involved in the difficult, stressful process of searching for a house to buy. Instead of writing about mortgages, leaseholds, freeholds, (I'm glazing over just writing the words), I thought I'd revisit the language topic of eggcorns, described in the online Eggcorn Database as a type of linguistic error reflecting "spontaneous reshapings of known expressions", such as the use of "eggcorn" instead of "acorn". I've recently run into a few interesting examples:

owness instead of "onus": as in "Folks who are going to be watching this film [Mel Gibson's The Passion of the Christ] need to educate themselves about how to watch the film. The owness is on churches as well as synagogues." (CNN Live Sunday transcript). Google lists over 200 hits for "owness is on", vs. 774,000 (searching for "owness" on its own gives an assortment of things, not all of which are eggcorns for "onus", such as "Sickness and Owness" which I guess means "the state of 'OW'!!", or "U2 Albums in Order of must-owness"). This is a characteristic example of an eggcorn: onus (etymological origin, Latin onus, "burden, load" [OED]) is a very uncommon word, and its replacement "owness" (or "oweness", with its 52 google hits "oweness is on") can quite nicely be interpreted as "a state of owing someone something" ("owe" coming from a totally different etymological origin than "onus"). Once you start looking for variants of an eggcorn it's often not hard to find interesting variants, such as one instance of "ownuss", "...if you do not get a gas cert then the ownuss is on you to keep records to show that you at least checked things out...". I'd imagine this is some sort of link between owning and responsibility.

dribble instead of "drivel". I first noticed this one in the spoken form (by someone I know who will remain anonymous). Because I know this person fairly well (and perhaps because my social graces are somewhat lacking) I had no hesitation at all in prodding them for more details. "It makes sense," said my informant, "because it's like they don't think about what they're saying and it just sort of dribbles out of their mouth like spit." This is an especially good example, as it brings the meaning of "drivel" back to some of its former uses: OED's first definition of the noun "drivel", with examples from the 14th century "Spittle flowing from the mouth; slaver, dribblings. Now rare.". The subsequent evolution of "drivel", "Idiotic utterance; silly nonsense; twaddle." is first attested in 1852. It's a little harder to find Google examples (unless you cheat by looking for drivel and dribble together, to see whether anyone else has written about this comparison. Which they have, but I figured I may as well avoid their examples and find some for myself), since "dribble" is a perfectly acceptable word in the right contexts. But it's not too hard; you just need to come up with a decent phrase in which "drivel" should appear, and replace it with "dribble". Here's one: "talking a lot of dribble" (a forum posting, someone appears to be making an idle thread of legal action against another forum poster who is "talking a lot of dribble" on some topic related to The Legend of Zelda). Just one example does not demonstrate a highly-used eggcorn, but it's encouraging. Then I struck the motherlode (or "motherload" as often eggcorned), "load of dribble". Would you believe nearly 800 Google hits? From my totally unscientific investigation of the first few instances of "load of dribble" I would suggest that this phrase is almost always used in a ranting context, and seems to correlate quite well with the use of run-on sentences and other language uses which might be considered anomalous, variant and/or wrong.

untilmatum instead of "ultimatum". Google only shows a handful of them (depending how many fingers you have, if you prefer to interpret "handful" in the literal sense [which is not actually a literal sense of "handful" because the way hands work, a handful is not actually likely to contain fingers {unless they have been removed from someone else's hand(s), for example, in which case there is no requirement that there be exactly five of them, but I digress}]), but this is such a beautiful example of an eggcorn I couldn't pass it by. You obviously wait until you have no other choice before delivering an untilmatum.

language
Tuesday, October 31, 2006 3:19:25 PM (GMT Standard Time, UTC+00:00)  #    Disclaimer  |   | 
 Friday, October 27, 2006
Job offer of the year!
Here's one of the best scam email messages I've received in a long time. It arrived in ALL CAPS, without line breaks or anything, but it was so hard to read I've converted it into a readable format. It's not quite enough to tempt me into a career change, but I hear Canada, USA is a great place to work.

Canadian hotels Canada,
Welcome to Hotel Omini this is Canada Hotels in Canada, this my phone number you can call us any time from morning to night, I1-806-359-6279, or international dial 561-753-3993.
Canada.
Sign.
By Hotel Canadian .
Hello dear the manegements and the staff of Hotel Canadian wish to inform you for an a job vacancy at Hotel Canadian from 27-1-006 read cerefully so that you will understand.
Now, the hotels need a group of 5-10 men and woman who can work and live in hotels in canada, u.s.a
this is how the work can be and about ur payment of salary? , this is the type of work
a, waching cars in hotel. --- every month salary - 1200 us doollars
b, clean in the hotels room.-- every month salary -1800 us dollars
c, sale in the bar hotel.----------- every month salary -1700 us dollars
d, or men who want to sex with grils. --every month salary - 2000 us

these are the things hotel need from u 'and you have to apply with you internationl passport number
thanks mrs c g rose grand christana

I have not corresponded with this particular individual but I imagine they will request a small processing fee to handle my application, perhaps followed by a slightly larger but entirely reasonable fee for document verification, perhaps followed by a somewhat larger fee for necessary lawyer's fees (what can we do?! everyone knows lawyers are expensive!), perhaps followed by an additional fee for security clearance checking, perhaps followed by any number of fees, and during this process no doubt the nonexistent Hotel Omini will have already filled its nonexistent jobs with nonexistent people who will no doubt excel at their jobs of waching cars, clean in hotels room, sale in the bar hotel, and wanting to sex with grils.

Oh yeah, if you google the telephone numbers in the email messages, you can see that a few different variants of this scam are floating around out there.

Friday, October 27, 2006 10:37:18 AM (GMT Standard Time, UTC+00:00)  #    Disclaimer  |   | 
 Monday, October 23, 2006
Hedge fund
The front of our house features a rather sizable hedge which serves to separate our front "garden" (a mostly paved, mostly weedy area behind a waist-high brick wall) from that of the neighbors (I suppose they are "neighbours" and not "neighbors"). It's a pain to trim it as we only have an old, rusty pair of hedge clippers. And also because the top is fairly high, requiring somebody to stand on a rickety stepladder and reach over the top of it. That somebody has to be me, as I am significantly taller than Mrs. Dunce, and have impressively long monkey-like arms that, in theory, should allow me to successfully reach every wildly-growing bit of the hedge. Given my lazy tendencies, it's not really a surprise that I've trimmed the hedge only about three times (err, exactly three times) in the year and a half we've lived in the house.

A few weeks ago, there was an added impetus to trim it, as the aforementioned neighbours went through a flurry of yard work, including a neat trim of their side of the hedge. Since then it's been very noticeably asymmetric, and on multiple occasions Mrs. Dunce has observed that it sure would be nice if our side of the hedge were similarly trimmed. (Such observations may have also been made by Mrs. Dunce's mother, who happened to be visiting during my trip to Poland. If so, they have only been passed to me indirectly, through the impressive channeling abilities of Mrs. Dunce herself). Some of her observations have been more like requests, I should note, but none have (quite) reached the status of direct orders. So I have gradually become resigned to the possibility that indeed, on some brisk, dry, but not too windy weekend afternoon (conditions ideal for hedge trimming, and also rare enough that I've been able to avoid the job until now) I will have no choice but to drag out the stepladder, oil the trimmer, move the cat safely away from the blades, and commence a hedge trim the likes of which hasn't been seen since Elvis joined the army. Or so I thought.

But then, suddenly, we received an announcement through the mail slot. "Dunce", it said, "Your laziness has been rewarded." Well, maybe not in those exact words. But it seems that, through a neighbourhood improvement initiative, area hedges will be trimmed at no charge in early November. A telephone number is provided, in case you do not want your hedge trimmed. So a truly ideal situation for a lazy Dunce with an overgrown hedge. If you want your hedge trimmed, do nothing. I may extend this approach to all other aspects of gardening.

Monday, October 23, 2006 9:49:37 AM (GMT Standard Time, UTC+00:00)  #    Disclaimer  |   | 
 Wednesday, October 18, 2006
Nowy Sacz - Krakow (Day 7:Poland - Slovakia)
Sorry it’s been quite a while since I updated, thanks to the usual routine of just too busy to do anything. I’ve finally found a corner of sort-of-free time to write the last in my current cycle tourism series. We got up for the last morning of riding, fortified ourselves with a hefty hotel breakfast (giant omelette filled with strange assorted canned vegetables), then consulted the maps to decide on the best route back to Krakow. There was a small problem, though: only one of us had a map with sufficient detail to show all the roads on our desired route: taking roads as small as possible to avoid the main highways wherever we could (Not to say we were traveling without maps. Everyone had a map that showed highways both major and minor). The owner of the detailed map was, of course, your narrator (the Dunce is not above over-planning his activities, perhaps to a fault). Anyway, our plan was to stick together fairly closely, so that we’d all manage to make the correct turns at the correct moments. Not a problem; the previous day’s ride gave us a pretty good idea that we’d overestimated the amount of climbing we’d have to do (therefore making it easier to stick together: climbing sections are where groups separate quite quickly).

After the previous evening’s ride into Nowy Sacz (along a very busy highway) it was incredibly gratifying that getting out of town was much easier: immediately after crossing a bridge at the edge of the old town, we suddenly found ourselves on a quiet suburban two-lane road which quickly became quite rural (I guess Nowy Sacz style urban sprawl only happens in certain directions). And then the first climb commenced. Contrary to our expectations there were a number of climbs, the first of which led almost immediately to a separation of the group into three or four subgroups (each containing one or two riders). I, holder of the map, was unfortunately not in the lead group, and a combination of this with some badly lacking (i.e. absent) road signage led us to miss our first turn and continue for some distance on a more major road than any of us would have preferred. It was still only a minor highway but had quite a bit of traffic. This caused a bit of upheaval among the more athletically-inclined members (member) of our group who preferred to be in charge of both leading and route planning rather than leaving it to someone somewhere behind him on the road. A transfer of the map was effected about this time. We continued onward, the group splitting once again, and foolishly some of the rearguard decided to take a brief(?) stop to check out another wooden church. Unfortunately this did not bode well for the newly-appointed map-holder who had suddenly become very concerned about the possibility of reaching Krakow before dark, and issued a command that none of us should stop at churches, and further that we should follow the most direct route to Krakow. This may have been an entirely reasonable fear given the unexpected amount of climbing, and the inaccurate measure of distance on our first day riding. However, it may also have been related to the newly-appointed map-holder’s failure to realize the extent of the change in map scale (going from 1:500,000 to 1:200,000) and thus overestimating the distance remaining by 100% or more. Or something; in any event any sensible reader should find it quite obvious that I'm exaggerating the degree of conflict for narrative effect (perhaps highly ineffectively).

I might mention here that despite some degree of mental anguish (on the part of the newly appointed map holder, that we might not make it to Krakow before dark, and that some of us were lollygagging to an unacceptable degree. On the part of others, that the newly appointed map holder had gone power-mad for no apparent reason, and that we should lollygag more just out of spite), the scenery was still quite nice. Well-off farming communities for the most part along pretty river valleys, and on up into the hills.





I might be giving a sort of grumbling tone, but it was actually quite fine as we were making good time (especially for those whose scale of the map was somewhat distorted). However, the quality of the road surface was gradually deteriorating, and suddenly we found ourselves at the junction of a major highway leading to Krakow (and the only road that appeared on my map that went anywhere near where we wanted to go). Not only a major highway but a narrow, two lane highway with no shoulder and loads of fast-moving traffic. Mere moments (not even minutes!) after joining this road, three out of four of us were run off the road by a passing bus which not only failed to give us any room whatsoever, but would have run us over had we not taken to the (highly undesirable) ditch. As we had no other choice (and only 4km or so before we reached the next town), we tightened the straps on our helmets and took off at the highest pace we could manage, keeping an eye on the shoulder and intentionally ducking off instead of being hit or crushed. As soon as we hit the outskirts of town we took to the sidewalks, then flopped down in a small park by the intersection of the two busiest, most dangerous small highways any of us had ever seen. None of us wanted to ride on such a road ever again, yet the only slightly direct route to Krakow was on that nasty road we'd just left (which no doubt only got worse as Krakow approached). Fortunately we figured out that we were quite close to Krakow: maybe 20km. So a much less direct route would still get us there in plenty of time (as it was still the very early hours of afternoon. Just seemed like evening. We planned to take the two long sides of a right triangle instead of its hypotenuse, and given that the two sides were approximately equal in length we could have had a pretty good estimate of distance, had any of us been capable of rational thought at that point. The riding was a little less interesting: terrain had flattened out and just about everything reminded me of northern Indiana (guess that's why a lot of Poles ended up there).



At least there weren't any buses or big trucks trying to wipe us out, but this last part of the ride was becoming a bit tedious. Flat and fairly dull, and without promise of much more (from the hills we had seen that everything flattened out most of the way to Krakow). So instead we headed straight north, planning to intersect a railway line with a general plan to take a train west to Krakow central station (thus avoiding the very undesirable concept of riding west into the major built-up and industrial areas of Krakow, right about rush hour and with the sun right in our eyes (and in the eyes of the assassins behind the wheels of buses and trucks). Before long, there it was, a train station (or at least two platforms with people idly waiting for the next train). Some 45 minutes later (30 minutes late) the train for Krakow arrived, signaling the end of our bike ride. The journey was not complete, however, as we, our bicycles and our filth crowded into two entry/exit compartments for the ride. Scheming looking young men soon joined us in the compartments, looking very suspiciously at us and our bikes. I thought surely we were about to be robbed or something, and I wasn't pleased at all when one of them forced one of the doors open while the train was still moving (his companion watching down the train for authorities). I held onto the bike (as if using it for balance) and made mental plans about what I would do if (a) I were thrown off the train, (b) my bike was thrown off the train, (c) I and my bike were thrown off the train, (d) various other criminal activities upon my person and/or belongings. Turns out they were just sneaking into the entry/exit compartment to smoke. Reality 1, paranoia 0. (Or so "They" would like you to think. Anyway, we made it to the station, and to the hotel without further incident.

Distance ridden for the day: a not-so pleasant 52.9 miles
Time on the bikes for the day: 5:00 (moving time)
Moving average: 10.6mph
Maximum speed: 35.0mph.

Today's altitude profile was unexpectedly peaky though nowhere near as nasty as that first day:


Total distance for the trip came out at 266 miles, total riding time 23 hours and 36 minutes.

The last night in Krakow was uneventful; we were too tired to do much of anything. Dismantling and packing the bicycles, then showers and an ordinary meal at a fast-foodish Georgian restaurant, then straight to bed with no shenanigans of any kind. And the trip back home was entirely ordinary (and home was a very very good place to be).

bike | travel
Wednesday, October 18, 2006 5:11:04 PM (GMT Standard Time, UTC+00:00)  #    Disclaimer  |   | 
 Wednesday, October 04, 2006
Bardejov - Nowy Sacz (Day 6:Poland - Slovakia)
With four snoring gentlemen in one small room, it's no real surprise that we were up quite early. Our quality accommodation offered no breakfast (although it did have a somewhat rundown kitchen, which might have been useful if we'd have bothered to buy any foodstuffs besides Snickers bars and beer). No problem, we'd just find a restaurant in the town centre. Well, after walking into several different establishments, we were sorely disappointed: we were looking for something a little more substantial than coffee or beer (half of the customers were having coffee for breakfast, the other half pints of beer). Eventually we found ourselves at a sandwich shop, very much a Slovakian equivalent of Subway (I might note here that in our entire time in Slovakia we didn't see any of the ubiquitous American chains: no Subway, KFC, McDonalds, Starbucks, nor any of your familiar large retailers). I had a big-ol sandwich with an odd mix of the non-meaty things on offer: boiled egg, mushrooms, cheese, pickled peppers, cabbage/slaw, onions, tomato, mustard. We sat there, gobbling our sandwiches and wondering what happened to the concept of breakfast in Bardejov.

Our original misconception was that today's ride might be the most difficult of them all, but our more informed reinspection of the maps gave a much more pleasant impression: hilly but not mountainous. We set off north from Bardejov toward the Polish border. Or we would have, except that P. discovered one of the bolts on his rack had worked itself loose and disappeared. Fortunately there was a bike shop on the main square, and they gave him a suitable replacement bolt (for free!). And then we actually did set off. Once again the weather was perfect for riding; slightly chilly, sunny, with a light breeze. Hazy/misty off in the distance but which had dissipated by the time we reached it. Roads were quite empty, apart from the occasional Mercedes (unusual compared to the rest of the traffic we'd seen in Slovakia). The last Slovakian town we passed was Becherov, the only place that had a Cyrillic sign:


The early part of the ride was a 6-mile climb (250m) up to the border crossing; here's a shot of a couple of us getting ready to attack the steepest part of it:


Although both countries are part of the EU the crossing is quite a serious one. High fences, gates, numerous guards with guns, motorbikes, jeeps and so on. And very quiet in terms of traffic: only a couple of cars passed through while we loitered on the Slovakian side (spending our SKK at the border shop, which unfortunately offered only chocolate and alcohol). Our passports were closely inspected, but none of us did anything rash or silly and we were permitted to pass. The road surface was very nice and we cruised downhill for the next 12 miles or so (passed several times by border patrol people on the aforementioned motorbikes and jeeps). The countryside was quite scenic: nice rolling hills and fairly prosperous-looking farms.


We climbed another long uphill section, and discovered to our general displeasure that its downhill counterpart contained some of the worst road surfaces we'd faced so far: not so many large potholes but innumerable small holes, broken surfaces and all the other properties that make a speedy descent a truly bone-jarring process. Not only bone-jarring but bicycle-jarring as well: all of MJ's chainring bolts had become slightly loose (fortunately these are easily tightened). Far worse, we discovered that P's rear cassette had jiggled itself extremely loose. As we didn't have the exact tool designed to tighten it, we would be stopping every five miles or so to tighten it back down as best we could. One more climb and then it was downhill the rest of the way to Nowy Sacz. It's fairly big (pop. ~80,000) and we found ourselves riding along a quite busy highway to the city centre. There we stumbled across a very nice hotel just off the main square, the Panorama (overlooking the river valley):


The rooms were good, the staff were very helpful, and there was even a quite secure sort of cellar area where we could stash the bicycles. MJ and P set off to find a cycle shop where P's cassette could be properly tightened (after a small wild goose chase they did find a workshop, where all it took was a good turn with a long-handled cassette wrench), and HH and I went on a less difficult mission (finding a nice outdoor cafe where we could have a coffee and a beer and some snacks). Nowy Sacz seems to have some interesting sights but we were much more inclined to sit and relax. Once the "cassette mission" had been completed, we took a bit of a wander, stopping for a couple of Zywiec Porters at a very lovely art deco jazz bar.

Dinner was at a very nice (although deserted) basement restaurant ("Restauracja Kupiecka") specializing in traditional Polish food. The cassette-mission boys went for the "most traditional/typical" option, pork in a prune sauce with buckwheat grits. They weren't a fan of this dish at all. However both HH and I had extremely delicious food: mine was trout in a creamy sauce, HH's was a venison dish, rated as perhaps the best food on the trip. And then it was time for a short wander round the square before returning to the hotel. Some of us had to stop and pose for a picture with the Pope sculpture:

MJ (front), Pope (rear)

Distance ridden for the day: a very pleasant 50.9 miles
Time on the bikes for the day: 4:15 (moving time)
Moving average: 11.9mph
Maximum speed: 37.7mph.

It was a gradual-up-and-down day:


Total distance for the ride so far: 212.8 miles, and only one more day of riding left.

bike | travel
Wednesday, October 04, 2006 3:06:44 PM (GMT Standard Time, UTC+00:00)  #    Disclaimer  |   | 
 Tuesday, October 03, 2006
Stara Lubovna - Bardejov (Day 5:Poland - Slovakia).
After the previous evenings' carnage, getting up in the morning was quite difficult. Fortunately there was a nice breakfast (with great coffee), and a reasonably short and easy ride ahead of us. Having figured out that our reading of the area's topography was dead wrong (except knowing for certain that there was one substantial climb, of unknown height, noted as 12% grade on the map), we were fairly pleased to note that the day's ride to Bardejov would be relatively short and easy. Our original plan was to do the entire distance from Stary Smokovec to Bardejov in one day, but we decided that Bardejov (preserved medieval city, UNESCO World Heritage site, etc.) should remain the day's destination. Here's a view from just out of Stara Lubovna, looking east towards Bardejov:


And another of the many roadside shrines along the way:


Although we were on a fairly major road, there was very little traffic in general, except for the occasional bus or loaded lumber truck. Quite a few people seemed to be getting around on foot instead:


There was only one real climb on this ride (a mere 160m or so), so we made much better time than we had even expected. As a result three of us (HH was riding ahead) decided we could afford to take a short uphill detour to check out one of eastern Slovakia's noted wooden churches (here is a general historical note, and here is a quite extensive site about them). Here's a picture of the church at Krive:


(More info and interior photos can be found here). We were fortunate that a carload of well-organized German tourists happened to be visiting at the time; they had arranged for the caretaker to let them in. So we too were able to inspect the interior (most notably 17th century icons). Now I should note here that I was the first of our group to arrive at the church, and being anxious to get inside and see it, I locked my bike rather than leaving it unattended. Imagine my dismay upon leaving the church when I realized that the padlock key was nowhere to be found. I had to admit this to my traveling companions who began helping me look around the grass to find it. The Germans hadn't left yet; although they were lightly sympathetic and highly amused, they had no suitable tools to chop a cable with (I still contend that attacking the lock mechanism itself would have been more productive). Very fortunately the key was found, right beside the bicycle. So we were able to unlock the bike, although I was no longer permitted to be custodian of the key.

The remaining distance to Bardejov was a pleasant downhill along a fairly busy (for Slovakia, anyway) highway. We arrived in the gorgeous town square to find HH semi-snoozing on a park bench. Here are a few pictures of the square:






Although it should be quite a tourist draw, Bardejov seems to lack slightly important tourist facilities like accommodation. Or at least that's how it seemed to us. We did find a very cheap, very damp pension where all four of us (and our associated filth) got to share a room. Hot water only sufficient for two or three showers, vaguely musty aromas, etc., but at least we could store our bikes indoors, take showers, and sleep on beds. Then we headed back into town; some of us went into St Egidius' church to see the impressively preserved 15th century wooden altarpieces (some visible here; I tried taking pictures but it was just too dark). Bardejov is very much worth visiting despite the possible issues related to accommodation. Otherwise we just wandered around the old town, stopping occasionally at one of the many outdoor cafes for a cold drink and a small snack. When it came to dinnertime, well, there wasn't a whole lot of choice. For some reason just about every restaurant in town was a pizza place. We selected one of them and ate our fill of (surprisingly reasonably decent) pizza, slightly less than enjoying the accompanying music (an unholy blend of traditional southern German and Slovakian folk music with a lively techno beat). And then it was off to bed; after the previous night none of us were remotely interested in even thinking about anything considering nightlife.

Distance ridden for the day: 37.2 miles
Time on the bikes for the day: 3:09 (moving time)
Moving average: 11.8mph
Maximum speed: 33mph.

The altitude profile shows that this was a pretty easy day (note the compressed vertical scale compared to previous days):


Total distance for the trip so far: 161.9 miles

bike | travel
Tuesday, October 03, 2006 12:40:40 PM (GMT Standard Time, UTC+00:00)  #    Disclaimer  |   |