Jeg liker å kunne koder som ikke alle kan. Og det er hele poenget med cockney rhyming slang (og mye av min fascinasjon ved fenomenet oppsto ved at jeg ikke ante hva folk snakket om). Nå vil man kanskje påpeke at om jeg liker at ikke alle kan det burde jeg kanskje ikke skrive en artikkel om det. Og det er et godt poeng. Men med uselviske motiver og tanker om et utvidet dannelsesbegrep (trodde dere kanskje at det bare var realister som kunne snakke om det?) og fordi dere burde skjønne hvorfor dette er morsomt, legger jeg nå mine egne behover til side for det felles beste.

Det er ikke helt klart hvordan denne språkformen oppsto. Jeg har hørt teorier om at gateselgere brukte det for å kunne snakke seg imellom uten at kundene kunne forstå, at tyver brukte det for å ikke bli forstått av politiet, at det hele bare er en lek eller startet som en form for eufemisme (wikipedia antyder at man også kan anse det som en "linguistic accident", hva nå det innebærer). Det stammer i alle fall sånn omtrent fra midten på 1800-tallet og har dermed tatt steget over i Ærverdig Tradisjon.

Hva går det så ut på?

Som navnet antyder er det snakk om en form for slang som baserer seg på rim, men det er hakket mer komplisert (hvis man bare sa "toffee" istedet for "coffee" ville det ikke vært særlig vanskelig å forstå. Istedet baserer det seg på å substituere begynnelsen ...

If you, like me, have more than one computer, you would probably like to have some way to sync files between them. There are of course numerous options for this kind of thing, and I haven't really looked at them all in detail, but I have settled for using a clever combination of dropbox and symlinks. It will sync your files with a minimum of effort required to set it up, no effort required to use, and, importantly, it will only occasionally corrupt your data. And probably not at all if you follow a few simple rules.

The first step is to download, install and register dropbox on all the computers you want to sync files between. Then, if you for example want to sync your Documents folder, you first move the entire folder into your dropbox. If you are on Mac OS X, this probably requires a bit of sudo, as the operating systems seems to like the Documents folder where it is. To compensate for this, you can then add a symbolic link from where the Documents folder would usually reside, to where you have moved it. Provided you placed your dropbox folder in your home folder, you can achieve this by writing



You then have to repeat this procedure on any other computer you want to sync to, and your Documents folder should automatically be synced between them. Neat, but not very impressive. We want more. We want to sync the ...

Jeg blir bare mer og mer sjokkert. Jeg har skrevet før om Grønn iskaffe, som jeg sikkert drakk hundrevis av liter av på videregående, og om hvordan den forsvant, formodentlig fordi folket ville ha noe med mindre kaffe og mer sukker. Jeg har også skrevet om hvordan den kom tilbake, men, dessverre, det var bare for en kort stund.

Men så, da jeg returnerte til Trondheim i går oppdaget jeg til min store overraskelse at kiosken på Værnes hadde noe som het "Caffe Brasil", som i følge etiketten skal inneholde en trippel espresso. Det hørtes jo ganske seriøst ut, tenkte jeg, og kjøpte en. Den viste seg dessverre å inneholde trippel dose sukker, og jeg stiller meg dessuten meget tvilende til at den faktisk inneholder en trippel espresso, så det var egentlig skuffende greier. Men for all del, mye bedre enn alle de andre sjoko-mokko-variantene som det later til å bli flere og flere av. (Skjønt, jeg har i det siste begynt å lure på om det bare er nostalgi-brillene som gjør at jeg tenker så fint om Grønn iskaffe. Jeg mistenker at den i virkeligheten var både søtere og svakere enn jeg liker å tro.)

Uansett, vel hjemme prøvde jeg å slå opp på Tines vanligvis utmerkede nettsider, men der kunne jeg ikke finne noe som helst om denne nye varianten av iskaffe. Jeg gikk dermed til google i stedet, og fant en blogpost som kunne fortelle at det dreier seg om en produkt-test, og at den dermed vil finnes i handelen kun i en begrenset periode. Jeg sørger ikke.

Helt til slutt en oppfordring til eventuelle produktutviklere hos Tine som måtte lese dette: Gå på Dromedar, kjøp en kul cortado, og lag noe som ligner.

-Tor Nordam

At the risk of starting a spate of linguistics posts, I have a question about Norwegian which I wanted to put to some native speakers.

In this thread on a linguistics forum, I was talking about three-gender dialects and two-gender dialects of Norwegian (my username is Echobeats).

Another poster (Åge Kruger), who is from Scotland but currently living in Norway, told me there was no such thing as a two-gender dialect of Norwegian, only dialects which have moved varying numbers of nouns from the feminine to the masculine gender. By way of example, he mentioned the noun fylle, which always takes the definite form fylla even in the speech of "ekte Bergensere" who believe they only have two genders in their dialect.

Later, there was a discussion about the definition of gender. The issue is that in order to say a gender exists, the allegedly gendered word has to force another word to take a particular form. So, for example, in a three-gender dialect of Norwegian, the indefinite article is en with one group of nouns, ei with another group, and et with a third group. This means we can distinguish three noun classes, or genders* (never mind han/hun/den/det for now).

This means that when the variation occurs within the noun itself, we can't call it a gender; fylla in Bergen dialect might just be an irregular definite suffix, which wouldn't distinguish a separate gender any more than an irregular plural does. In order to ...

Tor og jeg er omtrent like gamle og fra omtrent samme sted (vel, han kommer fra fjellet og er tre måneder eldre enn meg). Likevel snakker han av og til veldig rart (jeg vil anta at det kommer av en eller annen slags dyp språkforvirring i og med at han har foreldre fra Sunnmøre og Trøndelag).

Den siste i en lang rekke av "jaha, så det er slik du sier det ordet"-øyeblikk skilte seg imidlertid ut i det at jeg

1. aldri har hørt noen si det på den måten før

og

2. faktisk tror jeg kan forklare hvorfor forskjellen har oppstått

og

3. jeg synes det er ekstra morsomt med tonem og det kan hende vi får lurt Lena til å kommentere.

Ordet er ferist (eller fe-rist) -- en rist i veien som hindrer kyr og sauer og denslags (fe) i å komme over.

Tor sier fe-rist i tonelag 1 (som i løvet)
Jeg sier ferist i tonelag 2 (som i løve)

Sånn jeg forstår det er det vanlig at tonelag 1 brukes i ord som har én stavelse i grunnformen, mens tonelag 2 brukes i ord som i utgangspunktet er flerstavelsesord -- løv (blader fra trær) har én stavelse, løve (stor katt) har to (lingvister må gjerne rette på meg hvis jeg har misforstått).

I den sammenheng har jeg formulert en teori som går ut på at "fe" er et enstavelsesord, og Tors språk har tatt konsekvensen av det selv når det settes sammen med "rist ...

As I have suggested before Cambridge Footlights is one of those great British comedy institutions, and we owe them generous helpings of thanks for having produced such spectacular people as Douglas Adams, Alexander Armstrong, Ben Miller, Graham Chapman, John Cleese, Eric Idle, Peter Cook, Hugh Dennis, Stephen Fry, Hugh Laurie, Emma Thompson, David Mitchell, Robert Webb, John Oliver and Sandi Toksvig (and lots of other people). Well, ``produced'' might be the wrong word. Fostered? Driven to excellence?

At any rate, with such a splendid history and exalted associations comes expectations of truly extraordinary proportions. This makes it easier to stand out (not to mention sell out -- the tickets, I mean) at a place like the Edinburgh Fringe, but it also means that people like me will show up expecting to see the new David Mitchell, the new Emma Thompson or (heaven forbid) the new Stephen Fry. And that is all really quite an unreasonable way of treating a bunch of (mainly) undergraduates. The finesse and perfect timing we (or I, at any rate) associate with the names listed above are probably due in large part to practice and experience and all those other dreary things that doth a professional make.

I meditated on this on my way back home after the show because, to tell the stark horrible truth, I was a little disappointed. And that isn't quite fair. I laughed quite a bit. They entertained me. They definitely felt like Footlights (and that is odd considering I have ...

Last year, as I wandered aimlessly and pennilessly around at the Fringe, there was one show in particular that I was loath to miss. This was Barry and Stuart doing something to do with magic. (If you break with tradition and follow the link and look around I am sure you will find something entertaining and weird.)

I have, at random intervals, been regretting my lack of attendance during the last year, and so one of the things I insisted we do when Tor sat there with all his money and wanted to know what we should spend it all on was that we go see these two strapping, well-dressed, friendly-looking gentlemen and their spirit-conjuring. The excuse I used was that what I am working on at the moment is vaguely related to spiritualism, and so it would almost be like studying on a night out. A blatant lie, of course; but Tor was kind enough to not point it out.

And blatant lies, of course, is the whole point of the exercise. As these two made sure to tell us. 98% séance is rather an overstatement, thankfully. I wouldn't have it any other way. Any real attempt to convince people you are talking to the spirits of the deceased is tacky at best and downright [something bad] most of the time. Being honest about the dishonesty and poking fun at spiritualism is the only way to go. And they did it masterfully. And that is really all I ...

After the roaring success of yesterday's Fringe adventure, today's was a humongous let-down. It sounded oh so promising (just look at the title) -- I had visions of snappy, light old school jazz while enjoying a light meal. Alas.

If we had read the flier's description more carefully (instead of getting carried away with mental images), we might have avoided it:

A unique show featuring the evocative, melodic live music of Ian Millar on saxophone & Dominic Spencer on piano from Scotland. With a video backdrop of beautiful, timeless, stunning Scottish scenery.

This is all down to the Fringe programme, which states that it is a

saxophone and piano duo, playing standards and melodic originals with inspiring video backdrop of Scottish scenery in an intimate jazz club setting. Good food. Good music. Good atmosphere. Have lunch or just listen!

My mind had skirted over the video backdrop (imagining a slightly ironic take with heather and cute cows -- none of which are uncombinable with good jazz) and focused on all the stuff that turned out to be lies, damned lies:

-the intimate jazz club setting was a horrible room in the Raddison hotel. It combined all the worst features of hotel lobbies with a sad attempt at historical connection. If I had not forgotten to include a memory card in my camera you could have revelled in the horror of it. As it is you will have to make due with my feeble attempts at explaining. There were hotel ...

Earlier today, Camilla and I were looking at the the programme for the Edinburgh Fringe, a relatively hefty tome at 340 pages, and trying to decide what we should go to. Among other things, we decided to attend a concert called "Hot Chocolate at Ten". I quote from the programme:

Finish off your fringe day with relaxing hot chocolate and music by candlelight. Programme includes popular choral and chamber music by Bach, Schubert, Ravel and others.

The venue, Old Saint Paul's Church, lies in Jeffrey Street. I have walked this street loads of times, but never noticed a church, and indeed the facade was relatively nondescript, at least at street level. If I had looked up, which I have apparently never done, I would have noticed several tell-tale signs of a church, such as a huge, well-lit Jesus on the cross. In any case, I was genuinely surprised to find a very nice, and quite spacious, old church inside the small door in this not particularly nice street. And actually, as I look at Google Maps now, I can hardly see how the churh room we were just in could fit inside the building in the photo.

The music tonight was performed by a woman, Philomena Moffat-Knox, playing the piano, and two young men, Jerome and Alex Knox, singing. I don't know if they are related to each other, though I'd say they probably are; I also don't know if they are related to ...

Forrige helg gikk Camilla og jeg en tur til Canonmills, et område nord i Edinburgh. Ganske sjarmerende sted. Det viser seg sant å si at det finnes ganske mange sjarmerende steder i Edinburgh jeg ikke har visst om før nå i det siste. Litt irriterende, i grunn, å oppdage nye sjarmerende steder nå som pendlertilværelsen min etterhvert går mot slutten. Det spørs om jeg ikke får prøve å finne en post.doc. her eller noe.

Men, det var ikke det som var ponget. Poenget var at vi besøkte en slik veldedighetsbruktbokhandel som Edinburgh har så mange av, og vi endte naturligvis opp med å kjøpe et par poser med bøker til £1 stykket. En av bøkene jeg kjøpte var Norway. The Rough Guide, som åpenbart er en reiseguide for personer som har tenkt seg til Norge. Hovedgrunnen til at jeg kjøpte den var at den hadde så mye fint å si om Molde, så jeg tror i grunnen jeg bare sakser villt:

A few islands and a couple of fjords to the north of Ålesund is MOLDE, which sprawls along the seashore to either side of the tumbling river Moldeelva with a ridge of steep, green hills behind. Despite its modern appearance, Molde is one of the regions older towns, but it was blown to smithereens by the Luftwaffe in 1940, an act of destruction watched by King Håkon from these same hills just weeks before he was forced into excile in England. The new town that grew up in ...