Just like last time, the trend is for lots of polite and complimentary words to show up in the spam comments. I have no idea why this should be. it’s not like I’m going to approve the link-baiting just because it’s friendly.

The word “just” also stands out. “Just wanted to say thanks.” Are spammers trying to excuse themselves for butting in? It’s not working.

We can also see the more usual “dating” and “single” “women”, as well as the  unending barrage of adverts “treatment” and “diets” to do with “fat” and “weight”.

There are a few WTF gems in there… can you spot any?

Thank goodness for the filters.

I’ve been using Twitter a lot recently. It’s very easy to forget that most people don’t. Indeed, on some days I have more conversations with people online than in meatspace. That’s just how the world is now. At least, in my case.

I’m often asked what the point is. Isn’t everyone just posting pictures of their dinner, or tweeting inane nonsense about the weather? Well, there is a bit of that, but mostly I think it’s like being in the pub at a conference for science communicators. At least, in my case.

It’s not like the formal, programmed conference sessions. Generally, any one person’s outpourings on Twitter are brief. It’s more of a conversation than a lecture. And, just like at real conferences, it’s often far more interesting to spend time in the pub chatting to people than sitting through the sterile, rehearsed talks.

Twitter: it definitely doesn’t all go past as a blur. Pic from British Science Festival in Bradford, September 2011

Here is a list of similarities between Twitter and the conference pub chat:

• Discussion are relatively informal.
• You can approach the big names in your field.
• It’s very loud. Lots of people are trying to get their point across.
• There is occasional swearing.
• There are no significant barriers to entry: you don’t need to register for the conference, because it’s just any old pub. You can walk in off the street through the front door and hang out with the punters.
• People may have been drinking for several hours by the time you get in touch with them.
• You can eavesdrop on other people’s conversations. It’s crowded in the Twitter pub, and you can’t always know who is listening over your shoulder.
• Conference discussions in the bar are also unlikely to fundamentally change the way French is spoken.
• People can talk about anything, though we all (I mean me, my followers and the people I follow) generally stick to science communication and other, at least tangentially related, topics. Plus kittens (yes, kittens in pubs).
• Blocking/barring: bouncers can be called in to remove people.

A picture I have actually tweeted. Try to find THAT in a pub.

Of course, like any analogy, it’s not a perfect fit. Here are the major differences:

• Twitter is like a round-the-clock lock-in; it never shuts (though people tend to have certain hours of activity). Although, when Twitter does occasionally fail, everyone goes berserk, like when a pub runs out of booze or the lights go out.
• There’s a permanent (ish) record of what you said, available for anyone to see (unless you protect your tweets, in which case there’s only a permanent(ish) record of what everyone else was saying to you.
• Blocking people isn’t 100% effective – people can come back in disguise (ie by creating a new account)
• You can schedule updates on Twitter, but it’s hard to both be and not be in a pub. (Also, being perceived by others as being in the pub when you’re meant to be at work is not ideal…)
• Discussion is online, so sources for what people say are readily available. This definitely counteracts the “I read a paper once, I’ll have email you the link” effect that is so common in pub chat.
• There is much more depersonalization, so trolling and shouty arguments happen much more readily on Twitter than in the pub (alcohol-fuelled barfights notwithstanding).

So if that’s what Twitter is like, I’d hate to think about Facebook in real life. Oh, wait…

Happy reading!

Me, relaxing by the Lake in August 2012

I love living in Geneva. The lake in summer, the mountains in winter, the international environment and the sense of history make for a nice experience overall. It can feel at bit small sometimes, but on the whole it’s quite nice. One thing it isn’t, however, is romantic. I don’t care how you swing it, there is no sense of love in the air like you (read: I) get in places like Strasbourg, Verona or Berlin. Hell, even London can be quite romantic in my experience (though your experience may be different, of course).

The mountains around Geneva. Looks like a layer cake!

So you can imagine my surprise when I heard – not five minutes ago as I write this – a “news” item on World Radio Switzerland (WRS), reporting that Geneva is the most romantic getaway spot on Valentine’s Day. Positions 2 and 3 were taken by Edinburgh and Amsterdam. More “traditional” romantic cities like Paris, Rome, and Venice weren’t even in the top 10.

Let’s ignore for a moment the ridiculousness of trying to measure how romantic somewhere is. My own preferences (see above) notwithstanding, levels of “romanticness” (“romanticity”? especially when applied to cities?) are not like air pollution. You can’t just stick a probe in the air see what the chemistry says.

I wouldn’t try to stick a probe in the Jet d’Eau in Geneva…

We have to make do with the assumption (I haven’t accessed the questions that were actually used in the survey) that it’s about asking people where they like to go for romantic breaks. Even this is far from perfect, as many people’s idea of a romantic getaway involves staying in their own town. But generally, if you can trust the source, you can be fairly sure they used proper methods, and that what is being reported is valid. After all, there is only a very limited amount of time dedicated to the news report, so editors have to be very selective about what gets broadcast. Right?

As it turns out (and, to be fair, was stated in the report), the “discovery” was made by a respected social sciences institution Gatwick Airport. That would be the same Gatwick Airport which is known for being totally impartial when studying tourism habits and definitely has nothing to gain from the results of this “work” being widely reported (eg here, here, here, here, here – that last one says Geneva is an unsurprising result, although it uses a picture of a castle near Montreux, as do many pieces about how great Geneva is to visit). They certainly couldn’t be motivated by the notion of people thinking more about getting away for a romantic Valentine’s break and buying flights to Geneva, Edinburgh and Amsterdam.

Edinburgh. Romantic, not grey & horrible. (Actually I quite like it!)

In fact, had the “survey” “found” that Paris, Rome or Venice were thought of as the most romantic destinations, perhaps there would not have been as much coverage of the “story”. I also suspect that Gatwick Airport has no trouble selling flights to these destinations around this time of year, precisely because they are thought of as romantic and because lots of people already buy into the Valentine‘s gimmick (can you tell I’m not one of them?!).

I had a look at the original press release. It’s worth noting that the WRS report and other coverage suggested that a poll or survey had been involved. This is not entirely surprising, given that the title of the press release is:

Love is in the air: Gatwick Airport passengers pick Edinburgh and Belfast over traditional Valentine’s retreats.

In fact, according to a footnote, the data were

“supplied by the Forecasting Team at Gatwick Airport for the period between 14th and 18th February 2013. Date completed: 5th February 2013″.

I don’t think it’s stretching the interpretation of “pick” too far to suggest that this is a tad misleading. Also, the fact that this is a observational study (or it would be if this were proper science) means that to read romanticity into people’s flight bookings is ridiculous. Without actually asking passengers why they are traveling, all you can say is that they are traveling. Admittedly, a lot of it around this weekend will be Valentine’s-related, but a lot of it also won’t. Unless, of course, an airport can get the idea of going somewhere nice and unusual like Geneva into people’s heads.

Internet searches, bringing you totally unfiltered access to information since forever.

So, could it be that the “results” were adjusted or manipulated to make them more newsworthy? A sinister prospect, to be sure. There is no way to know for certain, unless Gatwick or the airlines publish the raw data and the way they were collected. On the other hand, we can look at previous information, too. This isn’t the first time Gatwick Airport have used a press release to suggest people buy their flights. In fact, barely 2 months ago, it was all about where people go for Christmas, and the wonderful things they. Top of the list? You guessed it… Geneva. So, it looks like Geneva is just a popular destination during the winter, and possibly year-round. I can’t think why lots of people would be flying between London and Geneva. It’s not like there are a large number of international organizations high-quality ski resorts around here, or anything).

Either way, surely it’s no big deal where people think is romantic and choose to take their holidays, right? That’s true enough, and perhaps I’m making a more fuss over this particular story than it warrants. And this kind of Public Relations (PR) -based “research” presented as fact is rife, and not just in the tourist industry. Indeed, retail is full of this stuff. Gatwick Airport themselves had the cheek as far back as November to suggest people do all their Christmas shopping in their shops to avoid the stress and make the most of their discount prices and delivery service, backed up by a survey by notorious PR “research” company OnePoll.

To return to the original story, idea becomes more grim when you consider that this kind of PR “research” was presented on WRS at the same level as the rest of the news, including deaths of skiers and Swiss-US tax agreements. Admittedly, it was on last, but it was hardly being treated as an “and finally” comedy story. Given that there is so little truth value in the notion that Geneva is the most romantic destination you can fly to from Gatwick, what place does it have alongside the real and pressing concerns of listeners?

There is plenty more of this kind of thing kicking around Valentine’s Day. A friend-of-a-friend of mine, Michael Marshall, has a useful overview out today, and you can check out his “Bad PR” blog here. Along with Blue Monday and Christmas, Valentine’s Day is the one of the worst times of year for PR taking over the news. Perhaps someone should declare one of them to be PR Awareness Day?

Of course, there is a lot of spam out there, and although I have the impression of getting a lot, it is really peanuts compared to the volumes really popular bloggers must get. At the moment, it’s still just about manageable. I can afford the luxury of at elast skimming over mine. Sometimes, it can be quite entertaining. I’ve even started making poems out of them (in both French and German).

Received wisdom about internet spam is that it’s all advertising for porn and penis enlargements. However, I don’t seem to get much of that.  In fact, my spam is almost entirely composed of flattering comments about how good my blog is, followed by spam links. Sometimes the comment itself contains no link a all; instead, the link is contained in the commenter’s information. On the whole, then, reading my spam comments is actually quite a nice experience; so much so that I’ve made this word cloud:

Using the last 10 days’ worth of spam comments, I copied about 13000 words into the Wordle application to get this picture. I used the “ignore common English words” setting, and pruned out a few very common German words (der, die, das, von, zu) by hand (looking again, I see I missed “und”).

As you can see, several nice, polite words turn up quite a lot. “thanks”, “great”,”Hi”, “nice”, “like”, “informative”, “interesting”, “awesome, “appreciate”, etc. By contrast, there are hardly any negative words. There’s also “Moncler” and “Winterjacken”, which is the result of a single, particularly repetitive comment.

So, most of the spam I get is polite and complimentary. Several ask questions about blogging software, too. I especially liked the irony of the following spam comment:

Howdy, i read your blog occasionally and i own a similar one and i was just curious if you get a lot of
spam comments? If so how do you reduce it, any plugin or anything you can suggest?
I get so much lately it’s driving me insane so any help is very much appreciated.

No comment needed, really.

Finally, every so often a spam comment comes along which is uncannily close to being real. Consider the following:

Through the evolution of the language, many words and phrases are no longer used in French. Also, there are those that, even though grammatically correct, do not have the same meaning in French as the English words that derive from them.

From the commenter’s identifying information, I could tell they were a spammer. However, other than that it would be a perfectly reasonable comment to leave under my recent post about how the french language has been changed by technological developments. Unfortunately for the spammer, it was “written” in response to a completely unrelated post, another red flag.

This is now my fourth post in a month about spam. These tend to result in my getting yet more spam, in a vicious cycle of unwanted communication. So why do I keep doing it? Well, spam is data. If I’m going to get spam, I might as well put it to some use, right? I’m guessing there are even people whose job it is to study spam: you could thus argue that spam makes at least some contribution to the world!

As with much of life, going from “not knowing x” to “knowing x” at Uni was usually a gradual process; skills and knowledge were acquired by repeating actions, or reading passages in textbooks, several times over. Instances of a teacher specifically saying “now I will teach you how to do X” were few and far between.

However, I do still remember the day a lecturer first said “here is how you read a paper”. The knack, he said, lay in the order of going through the different sections, asking “am I still interested?” at each stage. In reality, I think the question he was teaching us to answer was “Do I want to read this paper at all?” as opposed to “How do I read it?”. It seems the two came down to the same thing.

Of course, I had to hone my paper-reading abilities with practice, but that particular day marked me. Before my undergraduate studies, I had never encountered primary research literature. At school, it was all about textbooks. Now, there were still textbooks, but they were considered general background reading, and often a few years out-of-date. True understanding, we were told, was to be found in more recent papers. By the end of our studies, we were expected to read dozens if not hundreds of them, and to be able to summarize them quickly and accurately.

After my BSc, I decided I wanted to move into communications, rather than research. On several occasions during my recent MSc, the ability to go through a paper quickly proved vital to extracting the story I want to tell.

So, having gone through the process of learning some science, and a little about how to communicate it, I find myself at the start of a career. What will be my primary tool in future jobs? I would have hoped it would be papers. However, there is a problem.

Well, there are several problems. For one, there are far too many papers out there. But let me leave aside for one moment the impossibility of  keeping fully up-to-speed with research in all of science. I also won’t go into the world of other flaws existing in e.g. publication rates of medical trials. Indeed, it would be a “good problem to have” if the sheer overwhelming volume of research I had access to was what stopped me from keeping abreast of the latest research.

The point stands that reading primary literature is important in good communication. I don’t mean to say that large swathes of broad-sense “science communication” can’t be done without reading research papers. Of course you can create great shows for schools, design science centre exhibits, and do many other parts of scicomms wthout once opening a journal. However, there are other areas where communicators are totally dependent on getting access to research literature. Take writing, for instance. The best popular science books are those which are thoroughly backed up with evidence. On the Internet, where anyone can publish anything, writers who link back to original sources are seen as more trustworthy than those who do not (at least, they should be).

But without an institutional subscription, getting hold of papers can be a challenge. The crux of the problem lies in that many of the most prestigious journals, where top scientists seek to publish their work, charge high fees to anyone wanting to read their articles. For many people working in academia, this is not a huge problem – their institutional library simply pays on their behalf (though these arrangements are not always without tension). Those without such links, however, are faced with the prospect of paying a fee just to see a paper before even finding out if it is useful to them. There are no returns policies for papers.

Even within an institution, the problem is not solved entirely. For example, my final year project for my BSc involved looking at the effects of bilingualism on how people think about science. Unfortunately, the psychology department in my university at the time did not specialize in bilingualism, so the library did not have subscriptions to the relevant journals. But interdisciplinary science is well known as a source of insight. For academics to only have access to those articles which are most closely related to their own field smacks of blinkered thinking. As for science communicators and the “general public” (there’s no such thing, but I’ll use the term as shorthand for non-academics for now), interests are often broad, spanning across disciplines and rarely catered for by a small enough number of journals.

So where, as a science communicator, am I to turn?

There’s always #icanhazpdf on Twitter, where those with institutional access sometimes send a paper to those without. But that solution is both cheeky and unreliable. Occasionally, emailing the author of a paper directly can be fruitful. However, that can be quite time-consuming and is, again, no guarantee of success.

Thankfully, there is an increasing amount of research literature available without such expensive pay-per-view or subscription charges. I am referring to “Open Access” (OA) publishing. There are several models of OA publishing, but in essence the idea is to move the costs of publishing an article (which some people think are exaggerated by publishing companies) from the reader to the author.

At its heart, there are ideological motivations behind OA, beyond the practicalities of getting academics and communicators in touch with primary literature. It is felt by some that publicly-funded research ought to be available to anyone, and that the public should not have to “pay twice” for knowledge (no pretension is made over what should be done with privately-funded work, except in the case of e.g. drug trials). Peer review, the most important and arguably the most valuable part of the process of scientific publishing, is provided by academics for free. The profits made by selling articles goes straight to the private companies involved.

So there is nobility and idealism around the OA movement, beyond mere pragmatism. It is hardly surprising, then, to find a certain level of activism in this area. Indeed, several scientists have pledged to boycott all of Elsevier (a giant in the world of scientific publishing), refusing to publish articles in their journals or review for them.

The ability to boycott such a major player is a privilege few can afford. There is huge pressure within academia to “publish or perish” (though that’s also known as “doing your job”), and many career opportunities are determined by the prestige of a scientists’ publications (more precisely, the prestige of the journals they publish in!). Unfortunately, OA journals are not yet reaching the higher echelons of impact factor league tables (silly though impact factors as a metric may be). So, a keen young researcher, eager to share his findings with the world, may find themselves faced with a difficult situation. Do they publish OA in the name of all that is good, and risk their future careers through lack of prestige? Or do they betray their ideals and go for glory? (Yes, I know I’m exaggerating. It’s called intentional use of hyperbole for dramatic effect.) Often, the (non-OA) decision is made for them by their academic superiors.

Nonetheless, the OA movement is gathering speed. In the UK, the Finch Report, published last year, recommended that all publicly-funded research be published under an OA model within reasonable delays. This is already the case for research carried out with Wellcome Trust funding. So there is progress.

But how far will academics go to push the OA agenda? It occurred to me recently that if scientists refuse to publish in and review for “closed-access” journals (surely a contradiction in terms?!), perhaps they also choose not to cite the articles those journals publish. The logic would be that if the non-OA journals see their impact begin to drop as they lose citations, they might reconsider their business models. But there are other ethical questions to consider. Does ignoring research that is otherwise valid but not published in the way one might like constitute good scholarship? Also, given that many researchers have no say in where to publish (see above), would it not harm their careers to boycott them?

These are tricky issues, and I don’t think I’m qualified or experienced enough as an observer of science to give a firm opinion. So here is my appeal to you, oh brave reader (after all you have made it through about 1500 words by now!):

If you refuse to publish in or review for non- Open Access journals, should you also refuse to cite their articles?

I have been asking this very question on Twitter (thanks to those who have RT’d and answered it already); a few answers have come trickling in, with a mixed reaction overall. If you’re not on Twitter, you could also leave a comment below. I am compiling people’s submissions, with a view to publishing a summary here soon. Watch this space.

NB: If you are a physics undergraduate in one of CERN’s Member States, you have until 27 January to apply for the 2013 programme. For non-Member States, the deadline is 31 January. There are special arrangements in place for students from Canada, Japan and the USA.

Andy by Lake Geneva (in Montreux)

Left Behind

I’m a physics grad student at the University of Cape Town in South Africa. Last summer, I attended the CERN Summer Student Program, which consisted of a 6-week lecture series and a research project on some fascinating CERN-related topics. Although I learnt some intriguing, mind-boggling physics during my 10-week stay, the greatest experience was meeting my fellow summer students. 269 bright minds from 71 countries spanning Brazil to Japan! What a great adventure it was to interact with these friendly, intelligent, fun-loving people who dedicate their lives to unraveling the great mysteries of our Universe. In fact, I had so much fun that I simply did not want to leave. My last night at CERN was spent with my new friends reminiscing, drinking and getting up to mischief (as young people do). In fact, I was having so much fun that I forgot to pack! Mere minutes before I was meant to be at Geneva airport to catch a flight back home, I was in my hostel room frantically throwing things into my bag. Needless to say, something always gets left behind in such situations. In my case, my favourite shoes were abandoned. If you happen to be at CERN anytime soon, look out for something small, shiny and grey. That’ll be them.

Thanks Andy!

Image (c) CERN 2012 – Can you spot Andy?

The Summer Student community Facebook page saw a tradition develop, whereby people would leave a note about their highlights and saying goodbye to their friends. Occasionally these would take the form of poems. Andy, however, went all-out. She wrote a full-length song, to thetune of “My Favourite Things” from The Sound Of Music. I’ve dropped in a few links to help illustrate some of the references.

You can play this video to see that it scans, too:

Five sigma glory and wild trolley races
Salsa and waltzing and other kind graces
Fireworks, card games and tshirt meetings
These are a few of my favourite things

Snow covered peaks that look draped in white silk
Italian choc liqueur and warm choco milk
They taste delicious when I drink with you
This summer’s been perfect, now surely that’s true

Roommates are snoring, the Frenchman is roaring
Let’s go watch Batman else nighttime is boring
Paragliding lets us fly without wings
These are a few of my favourite things

When report’s due
When my time’s up
When I’m feeling sad
I simply remember my favourite things
And then I don’t feel so bad

Detecting muons that come from afar
The Balkans can tell us of drinking and war
A swim in Lac Leman when the heat, it stings
These are a few of my favourite things

Bicycle accidents, friends who give haircuts
Charlie’s pub late nights, antimatter traps
Working all day in the apple store
Without you around life is truly a bore

Lunchtime in R1 and flashmob rehearsals
Astronaut visits, piano recitals
A post of a bra bar and the trouble it brings
These are a few of my favourite things

When the grid’s down
Or when ROOT’s mean
When I’m feeling sad
I simply remember my favourite things
And then I don’t feel so bad

Jamming together beneath magic trees
Speedy web access whenever we please
A concert for students, together we swing
These are a few of my favourite things

Geneva parade, a black and white picture
A Nobel awaits us in the distant future
Stalking Steinberger, Higgs and Ellis
If you missed this summer, you should be jealous

Trio rehearsals and Japanese dinners
Olympic games and CERN Webfest winners
Gigantic posters are hanging by strings
These are a few of my favourite things

When I’m back home
When I’m sleeping
When I’m tired and sad
I’ll simply remember a favourite thing
And then I won’t feel so bad

Summer romances ‘neath meteor showers
Rooftops and tunnels, but no water towers
Some pump room parties get a little too rough
They still make the list of my favourite stuff

Detector tours and Cernettes who rock
International dish parties and chocolate in Broc
Heat waves and hail storms, if you go out it stings
These are a few of my favourite things

When the beam’s dumped
Due to lightning
When you feel jet-lagged
You should simply remember your favourite things
And then you won’t feel so bad

Fondue in Gruyeres where cowbells surround us
Missing my plane, tram, my train or my bus
Sergio Mendez, in Montreux he sings
These are a few of my favourite things

Zumba, cake, curry, a surprise birthday party
Furniture pyramids, someone was naughty
Karaoke night and hiking outings
These are a few of my favourite things

Tearful goodbyes that are brimming with love
Two final pranks that we’ll all be proud of
I love that you’ve all made my summer so fine
Come, let me show you this country of mine!

Now our time’s up
Just keep smiling
Let us all be glad
Just pick from the list your most favourite thing
And then you won’t be so sad!

If that hasn’t convinced you that CERN is the best place for a young physicist in the summer, I don’t know what will! Applications close soon, so you’d better hurry. You might even say you should accelerate.

The Russian flag, one of the 100 most-used pictures on English Wikipedia!

I love languages, I think they’re fascinating things. However, being born and bred in England, where everything is in English and pretty much everyone speaks English all the time – in person, on the TV, on the radio – I had far less exposure to other languages than I would’ve liked, in retrospect.

While I don’t think this is a foolproof excuse for being monolingual (lots of British folk do learn more than their mother tongue), I think it’s a factor in how few of us learn and speak other languages confidently in the long term. It’s much easier to learn through immersion (being surrounded by a language) than picking up a book and listening to a tape, so English filtering into everyday life in other places must be a factor in locals’ ability to pick it up. I assume.

Having studied Latin at school to A level, German GCSE and a bit of French when I was much younger, I do have a continuing interest in linguistics even if I haven’t used my aptitude to its full potential, which I do regret sometimes.

Why Russian?

When some random Russians moved into my first London flat unannounced (don’t you love useless landlords?), I was hypnotised by their words and wanted to understand what they were on about. So I fired up Rosetta Stone, bought some CDs to put on my mp3 player, and a highly recommended tutorial book and dictionary. With a bit of extra help from wikipedia and a couple of podcasts, off I went!

This may not have been the highest-priority task while I was doing my PhD research but I had decided (or more accurately, my friends convinced me) that when they went home to Moscow, I should go and visit. Having never even been on an aeroplane before, this was a bit of a scary first-proper-holiday plan, and the least I could do to relax was get to grips with the basics of Russian.

In those 9 months I covered enough to get more information from my surroundings than I would have otherwise; I knew what shops were, what signs said, and a few safe food items to order. I even had a reasonable little conversation with a nice nurse in St. Petersburg who X-rayed my foot (always an ideal holiday experience).

One thing about learning new languages is the similarities to things you already know. Languages have evolved from common ancestors much like organisms have, and the interactions between different cultures (e.g. invasions, large settlements) is often reflected in vocabularies.

In Russian, there’s quite a bit of German to be found, for example. They’ve also adopted plenty of English terms (bar, radio, menu etc.). As Alex has written previously, these cognates or “friends” can be a blessing or a stumbling block. False friends can easily trip you up when you think you’ve remembered a handy similar word that actually means something subtly (or markedly!) different.

I made a note of some when I was learning and I’ll briefly introduce a few.

A false drug?

One of my favourites is магазин (magazin), which sounds a lot like “magazine” when you say it. You might have seen this word before; it means “shop”, so I do spot it quite often, as there are lots of Polish/Russian shops around London! But if you tell your friend you just bought one…

[Alex says: this one also turns up in French, where magasin means “shop” and magazine means “magazine” (the publication, not the ammunition case).]

For comedy value, I expect you’d get a strange look if you started describing your intricate Hallowe’en костюм (kastyum, sounds like “costume”) to someone, because in Russian it means “suit”. Not completely different, but enough to make some giggle-worthy errors. The one that did make me laugh was брат (pronounced brat), which means “brother”. Appropriate in many cases, I’m sure.

[Alex says: in French costume also means suit, whereas the word for “costume” is déguisement (note the similarity to the word “disguise”) - I'm starting to think Russian is just French in a different alphabet…]

In Russian, there’s also a distinction between hard and soft consonants, which can be difficult for many learners who aren’t familiar with palatisation in speech. One case where this could get you in trouble is мат vs. мать (mat with a ‘hard’ t sound, like in heart, vs. mat with a ‘soft’ t, almost like you find in culture). The latter is Russian for English’s loveliest word: “mother”. But the former means “bad language”. Best to remember that one.

Conversely, something we tend to derive happiness from, the “garden”, is actually сад (sad) in Russian. With reference to this section’s heading, “friend” in Russian is друг (drug, but pronounced like droog) – which A Clockwork Orange fans probably know already.

So there’s a selection of my favourite false friends to watch out for.

I also wrote about my trip to Mother Russia here, if you’re interested!

[Thanks Maz!

I've hardly ever come across Russian in my life (with the exception of A Clockwork Orange, and friends learning it at school), but it sounds like a fascinating challenge.

You can read more of Marianne's work on her own blog.]

]]> http://alexanderbrown.info/2013/01/21/guest-post-learning-russian/feed/ 4 captainelaboration evo of speech http://alexanderbrown.info/2013/01/20/tu-itter/ http://alexanderbrown.info/2013/01/20/tu-itter/#comments Sun, 20 Jan 2013 17:44:26 +0000 Alex Brown http://alexanderbrown.info/?p=1241 ]]>

From excellent post Learn French Through Twitter (click for link)

This BBC Magazine article suggests that the use of the informal pronoun “tu” on Twitter may kill off the use of “vous” in French. The lede asks:

As in many countries, online modes of address in French are more relaxed than in  face-to-face encounters. But will this have a permanent effect on the French language?

I doubt it, frankly. Much as the Internet can affect our use of language (“web“, anyone?), I think the hierarchy of tu and vous is so ingrained in the way we use French that it will take more than just Twitter to shake it.

The French on Twitter

As of July 2012, there are over 8 million Twitter accounts in France out of half a billion Twitter accounts globally. Let’s assume that the vast majority of them tweet in French. I think that’s a safe bet, although there is probably some multilingualism and English influence, too. We would also have to factor in French speakers/tweeters in other parts of the world. I think Canada, parts of Switzerland and London* would be especially common – I’m not sure how many people in former French colonies (many of which are in Africa, where I imagine Internet access is more restricted) use Twitter.

So on the whole, the proportions of online conversations happening in French, and French conversations happening online, are quite small.

(c) Semiocast 2012

The French & the Internet so far

It’s clear that the Internet generally can add features to languages, including French. For instance,

C’est trop LOL!

Yeah.

I have heard that one spoken out loud on a regular basis for about ten years. It even gets adapted and integrated into vocabulary - C’est lollant being (I suspect) a portmanteau** of LOL and marrant ***. Je like is more recent, but I have also heard that one in the street.

The Académie Française is the institution which officially decides what is and is not French. Yes, we have one of those. And yes, it is composed almost exclusively of old, white men****, whose 40-strong membership of “Immortals” is elected… by the existing membership. They are a highly conservative group, and usually propose gallicised (or Frenchified if you will) versions of new words. See also their FAQ of French.

Mostly, the Académie‘s recommendations consist of things like fin de semaine instead of “le week-end”. However, in the world of technology and innovation, new objects and ideas needing names come up fairly often. As far back as the 1950s, IBM supposedly coined the word ordinateur for “computer” because they thought calculateur did not reflect the capabilities of their machines. For what’s it’s worth, I think there’s another reason. After all, who wants to have words which sound like con and pute (I’ll let you look those up for yourselves) in the name of their product?!

Another example is the official Académie term for e-mail: courriel, which is a portmanteau** of courrier (“post”) and électronique. This has given rise to a double portmanteau that I am particularly fond of: the word for “spam” is pourriel, which is a portmanteau** of pourri (“rotten”, or “rubbish” (as an adjective) and the aforementioned courriel. A double portmanteau. Of course, none of this stops anyone from using the terms un email, un mail or even un mél (*shudder*), as well as du spam.

[23 Jan. Update to add: The Tribune de Genève today reports that the "Journal Officiel" (I'm not sure what that is, but it sounds important) that the word "hashtag", as commonly used on Twitter, is to be replaced by "mot-dièse", which literally translates as "word-hash". The irony is not lost on me.]

Tu and vous in the real world

The nature of the relationship is key to whether we use tu or vous. I remember quite clearly the first day of school in CE2 (equivalent to Americans’ 3rd Grade or Year 3 in the UK). The teacher, Mr Rey, told us that we could each choose whether we wanted to call him tu or vous. However, if we picked tu, we would also have to use his first name (which I’ve since forgotten), for consistency. My classmates and I were in the habit of using last names for teachers (and mistakenly also called them tu), so we learned to stick to the more formal vous.

More recently, I was asked by a former teacher to give a careers talk to my old school. You know, one of those “what’s the real world like?” things. I gladly accepted the offer (well, any opportunity to show off…), but it occurs to me I don’t know how to address him. When I was still at school, there was no doubt that I was to call him vous and monsieur, and he called me tu and Alex. But what about now? He’s less than ten years older than me (I’m guessing), and we now know several of the same people in the real world. If we were to meet socially for the first time now, it would most certainly be on an equal footing, with tu and first names.

In 2010, I spent a couple of weeks working in a residential summer camp (i.e. where the kids stay overnight as well during the day). A significant proportion of the campers were from severely disadvantaged backgrounds, and many had behavioural difficulties. They typically spent most of their time either in foster care, or in children’s “homes”. The philosophy of the camp was that these children were on holiday; although we adults were there as authorities, we were primarily there for entertainment and pastoral care (though of course thoughts of discipline and safety were never far away). So, the kids were perfectly allowed to call us tu, and to use our first names. For most of them, this was easy enough. They just treated us like big friends (though with clear boundaries, don’t get the wrong idea). However, several of the children, especially those from the homes, chose to stick with vous. They could get around the issue of using first names instead of monsieur or mademoiselle (“sir” or “miss”), but couldn’t bring themselves to call us tu. Whenever we asked them why, they would all reply that they didn’t want to get out of the habit of calling grown-ups vous, for fear of being told off by their foster families or carers.

Some people call their parents vous, which I find odd. I speak to my parents in English, but on the rare occasion I do speak to them in French (for instance if we have company), I use tu. That might be down to the fact that I’m a grown-up now, but I think it would also have been true as a child (I used to refuse to speak to them in French, even in front of guests. It just felt weird. In fact, it still does, but I’m more polite about it now.)

In English, we already use the formal form of address. Indeed, “you” is the equivalent of vous, and tu translates to the historic form “thou”. For proof of this, look at religious texts, where God is called “Tu” in French and “Thou” in English, both with a captial T.

God, the only character to feature in every Monty Python film.

Tu and vous online

When it comes to the online version of the tu/vous debate, the social norms of interaction are unclear. Twitter gives people unprecented access to each other, bridging gaps between social groups. This brings with it new questions of social interaction. The key issue in French lies in the 140-character length limit. Vous is twice as long as tu, so it seems natural to use the shorter form, which technically has the same meaning.

The BBC article highlighted above points out a case of a politican being called “tu” by someone asking him a question. Instead of answering, he asked

“who gave you permission to call me tu?”

This inevitably led to considerable backlash.

I don’t tweet in French very often. Supposedly, tweeting in foreign puts people off. But if I were to Tweet @ someone much higher up the social order, I would still use “vous”. If I was really struggling for characters, I might abbreviate it to “vs”. But then I hardly ever use “u” instead of “you”, so I would probably try to strip out as many letters elsewhere before sacrificing the “vous”.

I am gradually gaining an understanding of how it works in German, where they have similar issues surrounding du and Sie. For instance, God is referred to using Du. But the character saving is only 1, rather than 2, and I gather that du/Sie is even more central to conversations than tu/vous.  The transition from Sie to Du to du is certainly more subtle in my experience. But that’s a matter for another post.

Conclusions

Languages are constantly evolving, and that’s no bad thing. I could (and probably will) write loads about whether we should even try to stop phenomena like “Denglisch” and “Franglais”. But for now, suffice it to say that I think it takes more than even the mighty Twitter to change such a core part of a language.

Has the internet affected the way you use language? If so, how?

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Notes:

* London is “France’s sixth biggest city” with nearly half a million ex-pats. It’s closer to Paris by train than most of the rest of France.

** I love that “portmanteau” is a mis-spelling (of porte-manteau) and a misnomer!

*** Marrant is slang for “funny“, not to be confused with marron – “chestnut“ and a commonly used in the colourful sense.

**** Only 6 of the current 40 are women. The maximum age for a candidate seeking Immortal status is 75.

Further reading:

If you want to learn French through the medium of Twitter, you’re not alone!

Communication is a complex problem; Up Goer Five is a simple tool. But it is one of many. A diversity of approaches and techniques seems the obvious way forward. If it was simple, there wouldn’t be masters degrees in it, and we could all make do with tweeting our #overlyhonestmethods.