Lauren Wu dot com

From Slashdot comes a thread on whether Webspeak is threatening the English language. Feel free to read at your leisure, but I wanted to poach an interesting post on some examples of how complex English can be:

• We polish the Polish furniture.
• He could lead if he would get the lead out.
• A farm can produce produce.
• The dump was so full it had to refuse refuse.
• The soldier decided to desert in the desert.
• The present is a good time to present the present.
• At the Army base, a bass was painted on the head of a bass drum.
• The dove dove into the bushes.
• I did not object to the object.
• The insurance for the invalid was invalid.
• The bandage was wound around the wound.
• There was a row among the oarsmen about how to row.
• They were too close to the door to close it.
• The buck does funny things when the does are present.
• They sent a sewer down to stitch the tear in the sewer line.
• To help with planting, the farmer taught his sow to sow.
• The wind was too strong to wind the sail.
• After a number of Novocain injections, my jaw got number.
• I shed a tear when I saw the tear in my clothes.
• I had to subject the subject to a series of tests.
• How can I intimate this to my most intimate friend?
• I spent last evening evening out a pile of dirt.

The English Lesson

We'll begin with box, and the plural is boxes,
But the plural of ox is oxen, not oxes.
Then one fowl is goose, but two are called geese,
Yet the plural of moose should never be meese.

You may find a lone mouse or a whole lot of mice,
But the plural of house is houses, not hice.
If the plural of man is always called men,
Why shouldn't the plural of pan be pen?

The cow in the plural may be cows or kine,
But the plural of vow is vows, not vine.
And I speak of a foot, and you show me your feet,
But I give a boot... would a pair be beet?

If one is a tooth, and a whole set is teeth,
Why shouldn't the plural of booth be beeth?
If the singular is this, and the plural is these,
Why shouldn't the plural of kiss be kese?

Then one may be that, and three be those,
Yet the plural of hat would never be hose.
We speak of a brother, and also of brethren,
But though we say mother, we never say methren.

The masculine pronouns are he, his and him,
But imagine the feminine she, shis, and shim.
So our English, I think you will agree,
Is the trickiest language you ever did see.

And Another One!

I take it you already know
of tough, and bough and cough and dough?
Others may stumble, but not you
on hiccough, through, slough and though.
Well done! And now you wish, perhaps
To learn of less familiar traps?
Beware of heard, a dreadful word
That looks like beard and sounds like bird.
And dead; it's said like bed, not bead!
For goodness sake, don't call it deed!
Watch out for meat and great and threat,
(They rhyme with suite and straight and debt)
A moth is not a moth in mother,
Nor both in bother, broth in brother.
And here is not a match for there,
Nor dear and fear for bear and pear,
And then there's dose and rose and lose -
Just look them up - and goose and choose,
And cork and work and card and ward
And font and front and word and sword.
And do and go, then thwart and cart.
Come, come, I've hardly made a start.
A dreadful language: Why, man alive,
I'd learned to talk when I was five.
And yet to write it, the more I tried,
I hadn't learned it at fifty-five.

Labels: fun

I am so excited! Comcast has come out with a dual tuner HD DVR in the Bay Area. They really need to improve their marketeting: I only found out about it from reading the company's earnings transcript, of all places. If I were them, I would be blasting it from the rooftops and promoting this service from every available advertising outlet. If they managed to miss me, a self-admitted TV freak who was actively looking for this service, I don't know how they're going to reach more casual TV viewers. VOD (Video on Demand) is supposed to available as well, but only in selected parts of the Bay Area. I specifically called customer service about it, and they confirmed it hadn't rolled out in my neck of the woods yet.

I had to do quite the sell job to convince him we should get the Comcast PVR. In case you also need to sway your loved one, here are the three things you should emphasize:

1. Dual tuner: With this device, you can record two channels simultaneously while watching a pre-recorded show. Alternatively, you can record one channel while watching another *live* channel. This functionality is not yet available with regular standalone TiVo boxes.
2. HD Tuner: We've had a HD-ready TV for a while, but are still watching standard definition TV on it because we didn't want to spend $300 on an HD tuner. Plus, even with the HD tuner, we wouldn't be able to record anything in HD without buying a ~$1,000 HD TiVo.
3. No upfront costs: It's only $10/month and you don't have to buy the box.

Now that we have it, D is super happy that we can watch shows in high def, especially sports! The negatives are that we both abhor the interface, and the unit itself is kinda buggy, but the ability to get HD + dual tuner for the bargain price of $10/month almost makes up for it. More importantly, we are keeping our existing TiVo unit because we already have a lifetime subscription.

The pros & cons of HDTV 6412 vs. TiVo is well documented at PVRblog. This comprehensive site is where I discovered how to program one of the remote buttons to advance 30 seconds (skip commercials). BTW, DO NOT reprogram your mute button for this purpose, even if you have a separate surround system! I discovered this the hard way. Due to a bug in the PVR, the "mute" function turned itself on somehow. Fortunately, this problem was discussed on PVRblog so I was able to fix it.

In case you don't want to read through PVRblog, here are the instructions on how to program a button to advance 30 seconds:

1. Press the "Cable" button at the top of the remote to put it into Cable Box control mode.
2. Press and hold the "Setup" button until the "Cable" button blinks twice.
3. Type in the code 994. The "Cable" button will blink twice
4. Press (do not hold) the "Setup" button
5. Type in the code 00173 (for 30 second Skip) or 00236 (for Swap).
6. Press whatever button you want to map the skip or swap function to.

As you may have guessed, the same process can be used for programming other functions. For additional information and problem solving tips, visit the dvrchatter forum.

As a consumer, I'm delighted that Comcast and TiVo recently announced a strategic partnership (emphasis on "consumer" since I'm staying out of the heated discussions amongst investors and technologists etc.) As a final note, you may be interested in reading Comcast CEO Brian Robert's perspective on the deal.