Category: Rants

Posts where I spout off on one topic or another

Fixing the apostrophe with two marks for two purposes

Both for people who are new to English and for life-long speakers, one of the most consistently confusing aspects of the language is the apostrophe.

There†s a pretty straightforward reason for this, I think, and it†s one that could be addressed fairly easily if people are willing to consider a minor linguistic change. There are two main uses for the apostrophe:

  • Indicating possession, as in: “The cat’s bed is beside the dog’s bed, on the floor between Carol’s bed and Peter’s bed” and
  • Indicating a contraction, as in: “I’ve noticed there’s not a lot of time ’til Christmas”

This dual use is most problematic insofar as it causes it’s/its errors. People are naturally used to seeing the apostrophe as a marker for possession, so “The dog is vexed by it’s fleas” seems intuitive.

A simple solution would be to use two different marks for the two different purposes. Since possession seems to be the use that is most intuitive for people, I would suggest using the new mark for contractions. A superscript dagger wouldn†t change the look of printed text too much. Furthermore, the character is already included in nearly all typefaces, and isn†t widely used for any purpose that isn†t equally well served by a numbered footnote. People who chose to make the change wouldn†t confuse people excessively, and English’s reputation as an incoherent hodgepodge of a language might be somewhat mitigated.

The problems with apostrophes also connect to the awkward issues involved in indicating plurality and possession for words the always end in ‘s’, over which there is no agreement even among pedantic language experts. Using two punctuation marks wouldn†t settle that, but it may help reduce the odds of error.

Anything but comp prep

Partly because of its supposed effectiveness in countering stress, spending moderate amounts of time at the gym falls within what I consider acceptable procrastination. It certainly helps that the Hart House gym has pretty good hours and is only a four minute walk from my bedroom (as well as the libraries where I should generally be embedded for the next month).

Generally, I do 25 minutes of cardio on an elliptical machine, run a lap, do another 25 minutes of cardio, run another lap, and then row for 2000 metres. Even with my new glasses, I don’t find that I can effectively read during any of these activities, so it’s also a chance to catch up on Planet Money, This American Life, The Current (I tend to avoid the most depressing stories), and the Savage Lovecast (abrasive, but a useful source of perspective – like his long-running column). I wish Stephen Fry released his podgrams much more often (the one on language is wonderful, and an antidote to pedantry).

When working on exceptionally daunting and unpleasant tasks, I have to suspend the rules of my normal procrastination flowchart, since following it would easily allow me to cut study time to nothing. Beyond the gym, a few forms of acceptable non-study activity include corresponding with friends and family members (though I am still well behind); dealing with especially time-sensitive 350.org tasks; purchasing, cooking, and eating brain-sustaining food; taking and posting photos of the day; and doing a quantity of paid work that reduces the rate at which my savings are depleting.

Less justifiable activities that sometimes sneak in are the occasional ladder game of Starcraft II (seems to raise wakefulness as much as a large cup of coffee, without insomniac side-effects), reading materials unrelated to the comp, and ongoing endless correspondence with the Canada Revenue Agency.

Historical institutionalism! State-centred governance! Policy evaluation!

I am having real difficulty preparing for my next comprehensive exam, principally because the material to be memorized is so dull that every activity and chore holds more appeal than studying.

The only answer is a sort of sensory deprivation: declining all social invitations, banning forays into more interesting books, refusing to undertake photography projects, and forbidding as many things as possible aside from exercise and exam prep.

Living with a fifth limb

Both to feel a little less surveilled and to be subjected to fewer deviations from whatever stream of thought is ongoing, I often choose to leave my cell phone at home when going out.

The choice does serve those purposes but, whether my phone-side pocket is empty or stocked with some less intrusive object, I nonetheless feel periodic spontaneous sensations which can be interpreted as the buzz of text messages or email. It’s somewhat akin, perhaps, to the phantom limb syndrome experienced by those who have lost arms, legs, or digits. Once the brain has come to expect sensations from a particular part of the peripheral nervous system, it will sometimes introduce them by its own invention whether the genuine form is present or not.

Late April

I am feeling a bit burdened with worries right now. The Massey term is coming to an end, so people are heading off. Some of them won’t be returning in the fall. There is also coursework and grading for me to wrap up (the latter keeps seeming like it will end, only to yield a new complication like plagiarism to investigate, student queries and complaints, and incompatible approaches used by the various teaching assistants in evaluation). Giving people bad grades is quite uncomfortable for me, even when they are well-deserved. It naturally makes me wonder if the quality of my instruction should have been better, or if I could have found more effective means of motivation.

Things are a bit up in the air with the fossil fuel divestment campaign, as we wait to see who will end up on this committee and try to decide what we can and should do in the interim. There are also big discussions ongoing about the future of Toronto350.org, which involve both risks and opportunities for the group. I am worried about us getting tied up with complicated organizational changes or unmanageable new financial obligations, losing our focus on practical and strategic campaigns carried forward by volunteers. Tomorrow night there is a poorly-timed three-hour meeting (five with travel time) where preliminary decisions are being taken on these issues.

There is personal financial stress too. I am still dealing with a seriously consequential re-evaluation of my 2012 taxes, where I have no idea what the final bill will be. I also need to deal with a conflict between the schedule of payments for the Ontario Graduate Scholarship and the fee deadline for the University of Toronto. Somehow, I managed to lose the pair of boots I wear nearly every day, leaving me with only hiking boots as practical footwear. A lot of my clothes are falling apart.

The comp is naturally also looming – both in the more distant sense of actually writing it and in the more immediate sense of constant outlines and readings due for my preparation group, where I have been consistently falling behind. I have done far too little reading, and am dramatically less familiar with the material than my groupmates. Starting in May, I will have weekend porter work obligations and summer residence bookings to help with, also.

The next couple of days require a big push: getting my last coursework essay done, coming up with something for my comp group, finalizing grading and invigilating the exam, and dealing with the important 350 meeting tomorrow. Lately, it has been hard to find motivation to try to knock items off a daunting list. That has become even more true as the likelihood of another ruined summer keeps rising. I keep feeling like I am about to move into a span where the headaches will clear and I will be able to commit solid work toward long-term projects, only to find that old headaches persist while being joined by new ones. It feels like a very long time since I have had a real break, as opposed to a guilty period of ignoring work.

[Update: 6 May 2014] Clara and Kristina found my boots! (Located mysteriously between the recycling and a woodpile)

Essays, grading, etc

This week involves one of my last pre-comp spurts of academic work for this term.

For tomorrow, I need to write a draft comp answer on policy failure, inequality, and political economy v. institutionalist v. agent-centred theories.

On Wednesday, my interview assignment for my qualitative methods course is due. I need to finish the astonishingly time consuming task of writing the verbatim transcript, then produce about 2500 words of analysis.

Sometime between Friday and next Tuesday, I am meant to grade the papers for the U.S. government and politics class where I am a TA.

After this, there is just one more qualitative methods assignment, along with terrifying masses of work and revision for the public policy comp. I am hoping the danger of having my entire summer ruined by the need to re-prepare in the event of failure will produce the desperation necessary to force myself to do comp adequate reading and preparation over the next month.

Reading week

Maddeningly, I am still waiting for a final result on my Canadian politics comprehensive exam, and I still don’t know whether I will be writing the Public Policy comp this spring or remaining in the PhD program next year. In all probability, these many delays have simply been the result of bureaucratic inefficiency, but they have a tendency to feel punitive or malicious nonetheless.

Regardless of long-delayed exam results, I have a heap of obligations that built up during comp prep and which have yet to be discharged, including coursework, reading set aside when urgently studying, a job application, preparation for Summer Resident Program work, over 100 unanswered emails, revision for the next comp (in the event I end up writing it), work for Toronto350.org (including writing the March 6th lecture for the president of U of T), etc.

Hopefully, the absence of classes and reading and teaching obligations during reading week will contribute to the advancement of those aims.

Pushing back against internet surveillance

An international effort is being made today to fight back against internet surveillance.

If you wish to take part, I suggest doing so by downloading a version of the GNU Privacy Guard for your operating system, in order to encrypt your emails. Gpg4Win is for Windows, while GPGTools is for Mac OS.

Downloading the TOR Browser Bundle is also a good idea.

Lastly, you may want to learn how to use your operating system’s built-in disk encryption: BitLocker for Windows and FileVault for Mac OS.

None of this is likely to protect you from the NSA / CSEC / GCHQ, but it will make ubiquitous surveillance a bit harder to enforce.

Year 2/6 (best case scenario)

The main skill acquired in PhD programs: Learning to deal with poverty and unrelenting stress while overcoming a myriad of procedural hurdles and pursuing a distant and uncertain objective that – even if achieved – will probably provide no career or financial benefits.