Weird tangents

I've recently found myself building a system to simplify and partially automate the generation and cataloguing of artificial languages.

Yes, there was a (fairly) good reason. Had a sudden need to come up with a few such languages, in a little more detail than it's often done in literature. And when you're trying to come up with something that sounds halfway convincing, with various bits and pieces of the grammar that decline in various odd and sorta believable ways, it does get to be a bit of a pain to keep track of it all in a word processor or spreadsheet. And while cataloguing programs (like Shoebox) do exist, they all kinda assume the language is already there.

I wanted something I could tell: okay, do we have this word yet? Yes? Good. What is it? No? Okay, I need this word. Gimme some possiblilities. That one, thanks. Okay, that part of speech declines in a coupla different ways in this language. Here's one way how... remember that for next time, too. Now do it to this root, gimme the results, and I'll edit them for actual usability/realistic irregularity, and then you can catalogue it all for when I ask you next...

We now have that. Just possibly the most esoteric piece of software I've ever come up with.

It's also quite possible I'm insane.

Oh yeah?

Amazon sez they figure I'm about 555 times more likely to purchase Tom Waits' Real Gone than are the rest of their 'members'.

Okay. They're onto me. I probably am.

But there's something annoying about this. I really don't like being predictable. Mindreading point-of-sale systems, I'm agin' 'em.

I'll take some comfort in the fact that they've either (i) not assessed or (ii) not admitted to assessing the probability I'll buy it from them, specifically.

Which is pretty low. Seein' as the locals have it.

Who the fuck asked them anyway?

I'd ask ya to pardon the salty language, but that would be inconsistent, wouldn't it? Sure... write it... then say excuse me.

So fuck that. I mean it anyway. Good ancient, properly pithy word, that one. Gets the point across.

Still seem to be steaming, just a bit, 'bout a few things. And Ms. Benson over at Butterflies and Wheels is still on a good tear—the latest broadside being on the subject of the spurious authority granted certain mouthy religious types on the subject of just what the fuck (there I go again) the rest of us are allowed to say:

The assumption that the MCB knows 'what is unacceptable to Muslims' and is the bod to consult on the subject, when in fact lots of Muslims find the MCB itself 'unacceptable.' And the BBC's continued ongoing fostering of that very assumption by itself 'consulting' the MCB. And of course even more, the calm, smug, authoritarian assumption that Muslims or any religious group should be able to tell a secular national museum what not to display.

— Ophelia Benson, Imaginary Offense and Real Censorship

Yeah, it's pushy, smug, authoritarian. Always wondered about that, myself. And to take the point about religious groups commenting on art and what is and isn't 'offensive' to a larger issue: I'd say the presumption is of a piece with all the mouthy fundies trying to push their idiot creation myths into science class, and with the oh-so-full-of-himself pontiff pontificating on birth control, abortion, stem cell research, and everything else he feels like giving a properly mediaeval opinion upon. Sure: what we say matters because... umm... because our frickin' magical sky bunny says it does?

Honestly, who the fuck cares? Why does the media even quote these twits? What's their opinion worth if they haven't cracked a science textbook since sometime in the 1300s? And, for that matter, if they claim to hear voices from invisible sky fairies? The street person off his meds I walked by yesterday evening, screaming incoherent babble into my neighbours' flower beds is probably just about as qualified to pronounce upon science policy, reproductive technologies and education as is that lot.

I say, tell 'em to get stuffed. Come up with a coherent, rational opinion on the subject that suggests you take your advice from someone other than the voices in your head, and then we'll talk.