Pseudo-education & linguistic prescriptivism

It's really nice to find someone not only making points that I have every so often made in this blog, but doing so with the kind of passion I also feel about it: See here Pseudo-education as a weapon: Beyond the ridiculous in linguistic prescriptivism | Metaphor Hacker: here are some bits I particularly liked.

“educated” people go about spouting nonsense when it comes to language. This nonsense seems to have its origins in half-remembered injunctions of their grade school teacher. And because the prime complainers are likely to either have been “good at language” or envied the teacher’s approbation of those who were described as being “good at language”, what we end up with in the typical language maven is a mishmash of linguistic prejudice and unjustified feeling smug superiority. Every little linguistic label that a person can remember, is then trotted out as a badge of honor regardless of how good that person is at deploying it.

It's that linguistic prejudice and smug superior feeling that gets me. I find galling the misplaced self-assurance of being 'right' about for example, so-called split infinitives. Misplaced becasuse it doesn't stand up to more than about 30 seconds of more careful thought about the nature of culture, language and the construction of 'authority'. So it's right that ...

those who spout the loudest, get a reputation of being the “grammar experts” and everybody else who preemptively admits that they are “not good at grammar” defers to them and lets themselves be bullied by them.

Quite so; I have people in mind who fit the loud spouting description ... So kudos to Dominik for calling out one of these spouters, here's a relevant excerpt:

People who spell they’re, there and their interchangeably know the grammar of their use. They just don’t differentiate their spelling. It’s called homophony ... all languages have some high profile homophones that cause trouble for spelling Nazis but almost never for actual understanding. Why? Because when you speak, there is no spelling.

And the real issue therefore is simply about efficiency and clarity in a visual medium which has fewer sensory channels to offer the message (pitch, gesture, facial expression, speed of delivery are all lost in writing). The point is the way that this kind of censure-ship is actually part of a sign-system which is about power and status and therefore has the potential to create feelings of shame or disempowerment and so constitue un-agapaic behaviour and even perpetuate hegemonic situations.

 when pseudo-knowledge about language is used as an instrument of power, I think it is right to call out the perpetrators and try to shame them. Sure, linguists laugh at them, but I think we all need to follow the example of the Language Log and expose all such examples to public ridicule. Countermand the power.

Amen. Amen. Amen.

First osmosis power plant

I recall hearing of this a couple of years ago. So it's interesting to read that the prototype is now producing power. It looks like quite an exciting development from a process that I am surprised produces the kind of power it can apparently do.
"In the prototype plant, the two solutions used are salt and fresh water, siphoned from near the point where they meet at the mouth of the fjord. The two liquids are pumped to either side of a membrane, where osmosis creates a pressure equivalent to a column of water 120 metres high. This is used to drive a turbine and generate electricity. Many of the world's major cities are on river estuaries that could be ideal for osmotic power generation. Unlike wind and solar power, it can provide a continuous source of energy, although seasonal river-level changes do cause some fluctuations."
First osmosis power plant goes on stream in Norway - environment - 26 November 2009 - New Scientist:

New underwater turbines

This looks potentially important: a new and more efficient and easier to install way to generate leccy from tides. Read more here: New underwater turbines promise clean energy from UK tides |
Environment |
guardian.co.uk. It's a big deal because: "There is an immense potential resource of clean energy from the tidal flows around the UK: conservative estimates suggest there is at least five gigawatts of power, but there could be as much as 15GW, equivalent to 15 million average family homes. Tidal generators can harvest the energy of these moving streams, with the added advantage that the resource is, unlike wind, predictable."

UK tides ... stronger tides are yellow and red. Image: DTI

USAmerican low carbon living

Encouraging news from USA, though less encouraging in the macro.
BBC NEWS | Video and Audio

Breakthrough in solar power in Wales

This looks like a potentially very significant breakthrough in the search for mass distributed solar power: "those behind the Welsh operation think they may have made a crucial breakthrough. Their solar cell works in a different way from most, and is not based on silicon - the expensive raw material for conventional solar cells. G24 Innovations (G24i), the company making the new cells, says it can produce and sell them for about a fifth of the price of silicon-based versions. At present, it makes only small-scale chargers for equipment such as mobile phones and MP3 players. But it says larger panels could follow - large enough to replace polluting fossil fuels by generating electricity for large buildings.... The new so-called Graetzel cells offered a simpler and potentially cheaper way to generate solar power."
David Adam on solar power in Wales | The Guardian | Guardian Unlimited:

Power-generating buoys shelter in the deep

A new kind of generating buoy which sits beneath the storm levels at c.50m. Looks hopeful and is being developed by a British firm and tested offshore in Scotland.

'A town with 55,000 inhabitants would need half a square kilometre of seabed covered with 100 buoys to power it,' says Grey.
He adds that they could be effective in the North Atlantic, from Scotland down to Portugal, along the Pacific US shoreline, from San Francisco in the US up to Vancouver in Canada, along the coast of Chile, and even in South Africa and New Zealand.
But calmer seas, such as the Mediterranean do not have enough wave height to pump the buoy.

Power-generating buoys shelter in the deep - earth - 14 June 2007 - New Scientist Environment:

Wind power for urban areas

I keep finding articles on wind power from machines that are not windmill shaped. How long before we see some really serious use of these kinds of designs? Or is there something about them that really is unsuitable? Have a look and make up your own mind

Turbulent flow is the enemy of traditional turbines. How about a non-traditional turbine?

Check out this site too.
Climate Change Action

Technorati Tags: wind, urban, design