Kind words will unlock

 

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a gentle reminder on monday morning…

(reposted from Ajaytao 2010)

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Kind words will unlock.

Jargon and Poetry

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Jargon is one of those necessary and mysterious things: necessary because any group of people united by common interests will eventually evolve its own terminology for the interest(s) that has brought together its members, mysterious because the use of jargon prevents those outside the group from understanding what is being said. (And RT himself remembers being shut out of more than one football conversation.)

It’s no use blaming this or that group of jargonists for indulging in their special lingo; we are all guilty of creating and participating in jargon. Just consider the varieties: professional talk, sports talk, wine tasting descriptors, scientific terminology, and, last but not least, native languages used for private conversation.

RT offers two observations on the phenomenon:

1) Poetry. Poetry is the opposite of jargon. Whereas jargon is the creation of a group and signals membership in the group, poetry possesses a universality that opens its words to all speakers of a language. Poetry is all about accessibility; its beauty and clarity are two of its primary characteristics, and these encourage reading. Poets will use rare words and expressions on occasion, but the context almost always supplies the meaning, and the word adds to the richness of the language.

2) Duplicate/unnecessary terminology. RT presents the following symbol ¶  for consideration. Is it a pilcrow or a paragraph sign? It can also be called a paraph, alinea, or Blind P. And what exactly are its uses? Poetry intrudes itself here once again: we are leaving the realm of correctness and entering that of delight. We begin to talk about preferences among users–or even schools of use.

On the other hand, RT is pretty sure that when plain meaning is the chief consideration, the term used should be that one understood by the broadest possible audience: in this case, RT would recommend the use of the term  paragraph mark. But then, RT’s poetic, anti-jargon, instincts are showing themselves again. That isn’t to say, of course, that in the right place in the right line, he might not have recourse to the term alinea. It’s a beautiful word, after all.

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What is worth bearing in mind through all this is the precision that jargon can confer on communication. There are times when it helps to distinguish between the hyphen and the hyphen-minus, the guillemet and the guillemot. And when jargon is correctly used and the text beautifully copy-edited, reading becomes that much more of a pleasure (as any hardened reader can tell you).

RT

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Photograph: Denis Diderot plaque – 3 rue de lEstrapade, Paris. WikiCmns; CC 2.0 generic; author, Monceau from San Antonio.

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Doodle-a-Day: March 13

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i like this man’s style–bold, simple, unapologetic…  RT

(reposted from Ironclad Folly)

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Doodle-a-Day: March 13.

Roses Falling from the Sky

 

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We often (and with good cause) think of hail as a dangerous nuisance…here’s another perspective on the matter… RT

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Photo: Small hail fractured to reveal internal structure. Agricultural Research Service, U.S. Department of Agriculture. WikiCmns; Public Domain.

Veni, Vidi – 188

 

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a day in the life, Bogota…  RT

(reposted from Lost Creek Publishing)

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Veni, Vidi – 188.

The Advent of Light: Earth, Wind, and Fire (2011)

 

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and now for a different response to the mystery of creation…  RT

(reposted from Naomi Silver Art)

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The Advent of Light: Earth, Wind, and Fire (2011).

The Shoulders of Atlas

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RT has long wanted to post about particle physics, the ultimate black box of truth. He wanted to put up one of those dramatic, colorized images of particles smashed together, breaking apart in spectacular corkscrews of light.

But, Dilbert-like, the above is RT’s contribution to the understanding of something he has only the vaguest notions about. It is, in fact, a historic photo, recording the first observation of a neutrino (and, it turns out, the photo also displays an anti-neutrino).

Cool stuff, but RT admits to being pretty much beyond words.

He will note, however, that neutrino oscillations have flavors and that neutrinos are marked by handedness (specifically, in their helicities). Where else but in the intricate gardens of mathematical formulae would we expect to find blossoms of metaphor? The mind yearns for experience (and for beauty)…   RT

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Photograph: First Neutrino Observation (Nov. 13, 1970). Argonne National Laboratory. WikiCmns; Public Domain.

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In beauty is begun in beauty is ended.

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gorgeous, enjoy…  RT

(reposted from meiro)

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In beauty is begun in beauty is ended..

Here it is, Folks: Everything…

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RT isn’t even going to try to explain this one; the image title says cryptically, “universe image on w band.” The cosmic egg cracking open?

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Image: WikiCmns; Public Domain.

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Charles Minard: Did You Get That?

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Napoleon was the first in modern times to learn the hard way just how tough winter in Russia can be. You really, really do not want to fight a war on the eastern front without adequate planning and preparation.

Surely no analysis of the Grande Armée’s defeat, however detailed, can drive the lesson home like this chart. What is more amazing is that this handsome graphic of the fate of the French invaders is not the result of some contemporary insight into the vivid presentation of data; it was published in 1869 by Charles Minard.

RT first ran across the graphic, which details the loss in French manpower during Napoleon’s invasion, in Edward Tufte‘s The Visual Display of Quantitative Information, a powerful exposition of the ways that graphics can be used to underline the significance of what otherwise might be boring facts. Interesting things happen when the analytic and artistic minds collide…  RT

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Graphic: Napoleon’s Invasion of Russia, Charles Minard; Wikipedia featured image; Public Domain.

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