Beijing Olympics’ winners and losers
By Dan Wetzel, Yahoo! Sports
Aug 24, 9:44 am EDT
BEIJING – After nearly 1,000 medals were handed out here, someone needed to provide a Cliffs Notes version on the real winners (and losers) of the 2008 Summer Olympics. We’re here to oblige, and yes, readers from around the world, this is an American-centric list. Deal with it.
WINNER – Michael Phelps
With eight gold medals, seven world records, a possible $100 million in endorsements – and reports he’s hanging out with Australian swimmer Stephanie Rice – Phelps has redefined Olympic success.
Perhaps most impressive, he made Americans care about swimming. His race was appointment television at night and coffee-shop talk in the morning. The likelihood the Baltimore native achieves the goal of making swimming “more than a once-every-four-year sport” remains a long shot, although who wants to bet against him now?
LOSER – NBC
Because I was in China, I didn’t watch NBC’s coverage. I can only say from the flood of angry emails it hasn’t improved since the last time I was home for the games. Tape-delayed races, plausibly live coverage and covering up Chinese special effects for the Opening Ceremony, NBC is like the China Daily – a state-run propaganda newspaper – of American television.
If only everyone could get the feed for the Canadian Broadcast Company, which anyone in select American markets can attest does an exponentially better job of television coverage of the Olympics.
WINNER – Kobe Bryant
The two biggest surprises to come out of the redemption men’s basketball team was 1) the ease in which the U.S. dominated the competition to win gold and 2) the immense popularity of Kobe in China. Everywhere he went, he found adoring crowds, huge ovations and general rock-star treatment that not only dwarfed his teammates but also was at least the equal of national hero Yao Ming.
Not even in Los Angeles is Bryant this well received. Said Carmelo Anthony: “He ought to move here.”
LOSER – Liu Xiang
The Chinese hero was under enormous pressure to repeat gold in the 110-meter hurdles, an event he no longer dominates. He never even competed, pulling out due to injury before the preliminaries in an announcement that caused television reporters to cry on the air.
It was a devastating turn for Liu, whose likeness adorns advertisements across the country. While sympathetic Chinese journalists felt for Liu’s injury, many skeptical western ones questioned if it was just a face-saving measure. While only Liu knows for sure, it’s one of those clear cultural divisions in the world. Either way, the Olympics of Liu’s dreams turned into a nightmare.
WINNER – Hope Solo
A year ago, after she was benched in a Women’s World Cup game against Brazil, the U.S. goalkeeper ripped the decision, a move that tore apart her team and caused her temporarily to be separated from it. At the Olympics, she let her play do the talking, making a number of critical saves in a shutout of Brazil for the gold medal.
The entire U.S. women’s soccer team looked like it had entered a new era under positive coach Pia Sundhage. Solo is just the most obvious example.
LOSER – Ronaldinho
Soccer fans here were excited by the inclusion of the veteran superstar on the Brazilian men’s team, which, per Olympic rules, is mostly under 23. Once considered the best player in the world, Ronaldinho showed just how out of shape he is and looked a shell of his former self in a sad vision of how far and fast he has fallen. Very disappointing.
WINNER – Alicia Sacramone
Yes, she famously fell off the beam in the women’s gymnastics team finals and failed to medal in her only individual event final, the vault. She wasn’t too happy leaving Beijing.
However, the 20-year-old Brown University sophomore may wind up one of the breakout stars of the games. Even more than gold medalist teammates Nastia Liukin and Shawn Johnson. At least among male fans who help make her one of the most searched athletes of the Olympics.
Or as Deadspin.com put it: “Is Alicia Sacramone the New Anna Kournikova?”
Anna never won, either. She made a lot of money anyway.
LOSER – Softball
In losing the gold to Japan, the U.S. may have made the best case for softball to be saved from elimination from future Olympics. That’s an awfully big price to pay for something that may not even be enough.
WINNER – Usain Bolt
Jamaican sprinter Usain Bolt became the first man since Carl Lewis in 1984 to sweep the 100 and 200 gold medals at an Olympics.
Track seemed all but dead a couple weeks ago. Then along came this flamboyant speedster out of Jamaica.
He won three gold medals and set three world records, all while electrifying fans around the globe. He wasn’t just fast; he was flashy, a personality, a 6-foot-5 game changer who simply gobbled up track with each stride.
There hadn’t been anything in track like him in years, and coming off an era of extreme doping, he couldn’t have come at a better time.
LOSER – Jacques Rogge
If you wonder why everyone calls the International Olympic Committee out of touch, consider that while most of the world was celebrating Bolt, the organization’s president decided he should use his considerable bully pulpit to rip him for supposed showboating.
Rogge is a classic stiff-collared bureaucrat. His organization has made billions off athletes such as Bolt for years, yet he has to find someone to pick on.
He’s deathly frightened of criticizing any major nation – such as China, which broke a hundred promises to him in staging these games. He wouldn’t dare mention any of the dozens of athletes from big countries whose celebrations were just as bold.
A single sprinter from a small, impoverished, powerless island nation? Sure, hammer away.
Fortunately, Bolt came back and didn’t change his act at all in winning his third gold in the 4x100 relay. Rogge will soon fade into obscurity for a while.
LOSER – Smog
Smog was thick around the Bird’s Nest during the Beijing Games.
In a beat down worse than the one the U.S. laid on Germany in men’s hoops, the Chinese government all but eliminated smog from Beijing during the games. Trees were planted, factories shuttered, construction sites quieted and cars removed from the streets in an effort to produce blue skies.
It was a slow start to the process. Early on, the clouds of pollution were almost incomprehensible. The Chinese originally tried to claim it wasn’t smog but that it was just “mist.” Only the China Daily, and perhaps NBC, would believe this.
“We got absolutely snuffed out,” said a spokesperson for the Smog Olympic Committee. “It was a tough games for us. We just couldn’t get the carbons together to form a cancerous cloud, trap heat and sear eyeballs.”
WINNER – Smog
Guess what, it’s coming back. How depressing will it be to a Beijing resident the next couple of weeks? The smoke stacks will be relit, the coal plants fired up, the cars will return. Slowly, the reverse of the above picture will occur.
One older Beijing resident claimed the city hadn’t looked this good in a decade. Newer arrivals remarked the town was actually pretty. Yeah, not for long.
China has claimed it will curb the problem, but how? And Western corporations, all too pleased to take advantage of lax environmental laws, are part of the problem, too.
China gets routinely and deservedly hammered for its human rights issues in Tibet and Darfur. The biggest human rights issue may be the cancer in the air that its own citizens must breathe.
WINNERS – USA Volleyball and USA Water Polo
Kerri Walsh and Misty May-Treanor won their second consecutive gold medal in beach volleyball.
On the beach, the Americans swept the men’s and women’s competitions. Indoor, the men won gold and the women won silver. Both did so while dealing with some level of tragedy from the stabbings of Todd and Barbara Bachman, the parents of former women’s player Elisabeth Bachman and the in-laws of men’s coach Hugh McCutcheon.
In the pool, the men surprisingly took silver and the women also won silver in a last-second loss.
WINNER – Cigarette smoke
Veteran readers of this column will note past criticism of Greek and Italian smokers, two medal contenders in the worldwide tobacco competition. At dinner, the Greeks smoke between bites. The Italians just never take it out of their mouths. (Smoking would be one of the more intriguing Summer Games events, although not as good as Russian Roulette, where gold really is the only option. Then there’s haggling at the Beijing silk market, where I’d have a shot to medal.)
Anyway, the Chinese appear to be far behind on cigarettes. It was mostly clean breathing (so to speak) around here.
LOSER – Chinese coffee
Good tea here. Coffee, not so much. I’m dying for a Dunkin’ Donuts large black. Not four ounces of warm, darkened water. The Big One.
WINNER – Ara Abrahamian
Yes, sportsmanship and all declares that protesting a scoring decision by throwing your bronze medal down and storming off isn’t good form. Then again, who hasn’t wished they could do the same on occasion. The Swedish Greco-Roman wrestler inspired every take-this-job-and-shove-it wannabe around the world.
That’s a winner enough for us. And that was before an arbitration court ruled in his favor.
LOSER – Angel Matos
The Cuban taekwondo athlete was so angered at his disqualification from a bronze medal match, he deliberately booted the referee in the face. Yeah, that’s a little much. Matos and his coach were banned for life. Not sure how there could be an appeal.
WINNER – Beijing organization
Considering the ability of the government to relocate people, build whatever infrastructure was necessary and control everything from private industry to dinner menus to traffic, there will probably never be a better tactically run games than these.
As long as you didn’t consider how it got done, working in Beijing was a breeze. The venues were modern and close, and the organization was sophisticated and smart. On this point, London and everyone else has its work cut out for it.
WINNER – Living in Beijing
Once the smog cleared, Beijing was tremendous. One of the best parts of covering an Olympics is you don’t see the host city as a tourist. You come here to live and work for a month, and while you’re obviously never a real local, you tend to get a little deeper into the place.
You learn how the subway works. You figure out a bus route. You have regular restaurants. We lived at Beijing Normal University, on the near northwest side of town, between Second and Third Ring Roads. It is surrounded by a real neighborhood, and over the course of nearly a month we met store owners, waiters, bartenders, cooks, security guards and local residents. We’d see them on the street and stop and chat.
The food was incredible and beyond cheap. The service was impeccable. And this neighborhood near “Bay-Shoe-Dah” was a tremendous place to live for a stretch.
WINNER – Chinese People
Nowhere in the world have I encountered friendlier people. Nowhere. Perhaps it was Olympic pride. Perhaps I was just an easily identifiable American with a press badge. It didn’t matter. The Chinese people wanted me to think well of them and their emerging country, and it is quite clear that this nation’s greatest resource is its citizens.
From the woman in the earthquake refugee camp who, despite having nothing, offered me a small, simple glass of water as a sign of hospitality. To the army of volunteers, forever smiling even when given the lowest of tasks such as sorting garbage in the cafeteria. The lasting memory for me from these games will be the Chinese people.
Their government has issues (as do all governments). It didn’t live up to what it said it would here. There is a great fear of China in the western world because people here will work for wages unlivable anywhere else and because of a natural suspicion of the Communist party.
No doubt, the challenges here are immense. If allowed, the Chinese people might be good enough to solve them.
Monday, August 25, 2008
Friday, August 22, 2008
Yimou: "Diritti umani? Inutili"
Occidente soffre di troppa democrazia"
I diritti umani? Rendono l'Occidente inefficiente e non gli consentono di raggiungere gli elevati standard organizzativi e artistici di cui sono capaci i cinesi. Parola di Zhang Yimou, autore di pellicole famosissime come "Lanterne rosse" e "Hero", oltreché regista della cerimonia di apertura delle Olimpiadi di Pechino. Secondo lui, solo con il senso dell'ordine e l'ubbidienza si possono realizzare elevate prestazioni artistiche.
Le incredibili affermazioni sono state fatte nel corso di un'intervista al quotidiano cinese "Weekend al sud". Zhang Yimou ha espresso la sua incondizionata ammirazione per le manifestazioni politico-culturali dei nordcoreani e spiega che "questo tipo di uniformità produce bellezza", di cui "siamo capaci anche noi cinesi". Per esemplificare il suo pensiero il regista cita la scena ammirata in tutto il mondo della cerimonia di apertura, in cui sul terreno dello stadio blocchi argentei con i caratteri di stampa cinesi si sollevavano ed abbassavano come in una macchina da scrivere, risultato ottenibile solo perché "gli esecutori obbediscono agli ordini e sono in grado di farlo come un computer, è questo lo spirito cinese".
Insomma, obbedienza e cieca e nessuno spazio al libero arbitrio delle persone. Cosa che non riuscirebbe così bene agli occidentali, troppo abituati a quella strana cosa chiamata "libertà". Gli occidentali "non sono in grado" di fare lo stesso, non fosse altro che per "il loro rispetto dei diritti umani" dice Yimou. Il regista spiega che proprio le rigide norme sul lavoro e la tutela sindacale incontrate nei Paesi europei gli hanno finora impedito di realizzare regie operistiche, poiché "gli interpreti occidentali lavorano solo quattro giorni e mezzo alla settimana, fanno due pause al giorno per il caffé, ma poi non sono nemmeno in grado di stare bene allineati". Come se non bastasse, attori e cantanti occidentali "hanno anche a disposizione organizzazioni di ogni tipo e i sindacati". Secondo il regista, grazie alla loro cultura "i cinesi riescono a realizzare in una settimana quello che gli europei fanno in un mese". La Cina è davvero vicina?
I diritti umani? Rendono l'Occidente inefficiente e non gli consentono di raggiungere gli elevati standard organizzativi e artistici di cui sono capaci i cinesi. Parola di Zhang Yimou, autore di pellicole famosissime come "Lanterne rosse" e "Hero", oltreché regista della cerimonia di apertura delle Olimpiadi di Pechino. Secondo lui, solo con il senso dell'ordine e l'ubbidienza si possono realizzare elevate prestazioni artistiche.
Le incredibili affermazioni sono state fatte nel corso di un'intervista al quotidiano cinese "Weekend al sud". Zhang Yimou ha espresso la sua incondizionata ammirazione per le manifestazioni politico-culturali dei nordcoreani e spiega che "questo tipo di uniformità produce bellezza", di cui "siamo capaci anche noi cinesi". Per esemplificare il suo pensiero il regista cita la scena ammirata in tutto il mondo della cerimonia di apertura, in cui sul terreno dello stadio blocchi argentei con i caratteri di stampa cinesi si sollevavano ed abbassavano come in una macchina da scrivere, risultato ottenibile solo perché "gli esecutori obbediscono agli ordini e sono in grado di farlo come un computer, è questo lo spirito cinese".
Insomma, obbedienza e cieca e nessuno spazio al libero arbitrio delle persone. Cosa che non riuscirebbe così bene agli occidentali, troppo abituati a quella strana cosa chiamata "libertà". Gli occidentali "non sono in grado" di fare lo stesso, non fosse altro che per "il loro rispetto dei diritti umani" dice Yimou. Il regista spiega che proprio le rigide norme sul lavoro e la tutela sindacale incontrate nei Paesi europei gli hanno finora impedito di realizzare regie operistiche, poiché "gli interpreti occidentali lavorano solo quattro giorni e mezzo alla settimana, fanno due pause al giorno per il caffé, ma poi non sono nemmeno in grado di stare bene allineati". Come se non bastasse, attori e cantanti occidentali "hanno anche a disposizione organizzazioni di ogni tipo e i sindacati". Secondo il regista, grazie alla loro cultura "i cinesi riescono a realizzare in una settimana quello che gli europei fanno in un mese". La Cina è davvero vicina?
Tuesday, August 19, 2008
Liu Xiang, dolore e rabbia
Liu Xiang, dolore e rabbia. E se fosse tutta una farsa?
L'eroe nazionale non poteva perdere. E il video prima della gara sarebbe stato girato per ottenere i 13 milioni dell'assicurazione
PECHINO, 19 agosto 2008 - Una conferenza stampa organizzata in pochi minuti (mai accaduto in Cina); il capo dell’atletica cinese, Feng Shuyong, notoriamente scarso in lingua inglese, che miracolosamente comincia a parlarla benissimo e a usare termini scientifici; un telegramma (anche questo mai accaduto prima) del vicepresidente della Repubblica popolare, Xi Jinping, al Ministero dello sport, per definire Liu Xiang "Un eroe", appena 5 minuti dopo l’infortunio (nemmeno per la ginnasta Sang Lan, rimasta paralizzata nel ’98 era stato fatto altrettanto); una frase non tradotta, un video non trasmesso in Cina. E il dramma di un nazione e di un popolo rischia di diventare uno scherzo cinese, il meno divertente, il più sconcertante e irritante.
I DUBBI - Quando è annunciata la conferenza stampa, subito dopo il ritiro di Liu Xiang, per i giornalisti stranieri è tutto normale. Per quelli cinesi, invece, è incredibile. E quando sentono Feng Shuyong spiegare con termini tecnici l’infortunio si guardano tra loro, straniti, perché la sensazione è di una lezione imparata a memoria, in ottimo inglese. E cominciano i dubbi, che aumentano quando Sun Haiping, l’allenatore personale di Liu Xiang, dice che tre medici hanno tentato di farlo guarire, ma che "Persino il ghiaccio e le preghiere non sono serviti". La frase non è tradotta per gli stranieri. Le preghiere? Tre medici che pregano? Molti giornalisti cinesi non credono più a una parola. La conferenza stampa, sospettano, è stata preparata in precedenza. I tecnici si sono accorti che Liu Xiang non ha recuperato dall’infortunio e se ne sono inventati uno nuovo. La sconfitta in pista sarebbe intollerabile, meglio far cadere l’eroe nazionale sotto un destino avverso.
I SOLDI - E si pensa che anche il video girato prima della gara, e non mandato in onda in Cina, abbia due scopi: dimostrare che Liu Xiang ha avuto un nuovo infortunio e costituire una conferma per l’assicurazione, che dovrà dare 13 milioni di dollari. Il paradosso è che Liu Xiang "rischia" di avere un vantaggio economico da questa storia. Ci sono diverse stime di quanto guadagni, secondo la rivista Forbes 16 milioni di euro l’anno, ma una più realistica dovrebbe essere sui 10 milioni di euro, garantiti da Nike, Coca Cola, Shanshan (abbigliamento), Konka (produzioni Tv), Baisha (sigarette), China mobile (telefonia), Wili (latte) e Longxin (moto). L’agente di Liu Xiang non tratta mai per meno di un milione di euro. Ma ora, con la fama di "eroe" che si è inchinato solo a un dolore insopportabile, dopo aver comunque tentato di andare in pista "per amore del popolo", le cifre potrebbero aumentare. Lo scherzo cinese funziona così.
L'eroe nazionale non poteva perdere. E il video prima della gara sarebbe stato girato per ottenere i 13 milioni dell'assicurazione
PECHINO, 19 agosto 2008 - Una conferenza stampa organizzata in pochi minuti (mai accaduto in Cina); il capo dell’atletica cinese, Feng Shuyong, notoriamente scarso in lingua inglese, che miracolosamente comincia a parlarla benissimo e a usare termini scientifici; un telegramma (anche questo mai accaduto prima) del vicepresidente della Repubblica popolare, Xi Jinping, al Ministero dello sport, per definire Liu Xiang "Un eroe", appena 5 minuti dopo l’infortunio (nemmeno per la ginnasta Sang Lan, rimasta paralizzata nel ’98 era stato fatto altrettanto); una frase non tradotta, un video non trasmesso in Cina. E il dramma di un nazione e di un popolo rischia di diventare uno scherzo cinese, il meno divertente, il più sconcertante e irritante.
I DUBBI - Quando è annunciata la conferenza stampa, subito dopo il ritiro di Liu Xiang, per i giornalisti stranieri è tutto normale. Per quelli cinesi, invece, è incredibile. E quando sentono Feng Shuyong spiegare con termini tecnici l’infortunio si guardano tra loro, straniti, perché la sensazione è di una lezione imparata a memoria, in ottimo inglese. E cominciano i dubbi, che aumentano quando Sun Haiping, l’allenatore personale di Liu Xiang, dice che tre medici hanno tentato di farlo guarire, ma che "Persino il ghiaccio e le preghiere non sono serviti". La frase non è tradotta per gli stranieri. Le preghiere? Tre medici che pregano? Molti giornalisti cinesi non credono più a una parola. La conferenza stampa, sospettano, è stata preparata in precedenza. I tecnici si sono accorti che Liu Xiang non ha recuperato dall’infortunio e se ne sono inventati uno nuovo. La sconfitta in pista sarebbe intollerabile, meglio far cadere l’eroe nazionale sotto un destino avverso.
I SOLDI - E si pensa che anche il video girato prima della gara, e non mandato in onda in Cina, abbia due scopi: dimostrare che Liu Xiang ha avuto un nuovo infortunio e costituire una conferma per l’assicurazione, che dovrà dare 13 milioni di dollari. Il paradosso è che Liu Xiang "rischia" di avere un vantaggio economico da questa storia. Ci sono diverse stime di quanto guadagni, secondo la rivista Forbes 16 milioni di euro l’anno, ma una più realistica dovrebbe essere sui 10 milioni di euro, garantiti da Nike, Coca Cola, Shanshan (abbigliamento), Konka (produzioni Tv), Baisha (sigarette), China mobile (telefonia), Wili (latte) e Longxin (moto). L’agente di Liu Xiang non tratta mai per meno di un milione di euro. Ma ora, con la fama di "eroe" che si è inchinato solo a un dolore insopportabile, dopo aver comunque tentato di andare in pista "per amore del popolo", le cifre potrebbero aumentare. Lo scherzo cinese funziona così.
Monday, August 18, 2008
Time Magazine article: "Making an Arguement for Misspelling"
Tuesday, Aug. 12, 2008
Making an Arguement for Misspelling
By Laura Fitzpatrick
Most teachers expect to correct their students' spelling mistakes once in a while. But Ken Smith has had enough. The senior lecturer in criminology at Bucks New University in Buckinghamshire, England, sees so many misspellings in papers submitted by first-year students that he says we'd be better off letting the perpetrators off the hook and doing away with certain spelling rules altogether.
Good spellers, Smith says, should be able to go on writing as usual; those who find the current rules of English too hard to learn should have their spelling labeled variant, not wrong. Smith zeroes in on 10 candidates for variant spellings, culled from his students' most commonly misspelled (or mispelled, as Smith suggests) words. Among them are Febuary instead of February, twelth instead of twelfth and truely instead of truly — all words, he says, that involve confusion over silent letters. When students would ask why there's no e in truly, Smith didn't really have an answer. "I'd say, 'Well, I don't know. ... You've just got to drop it because people do,' " he says. Smith adds that when teachers correct spelling, they waste valuable time they could be spending on bigger ideas.
Word nerds aren't the only ones with a stake in the proposal. People who have trouble with spelling are punished when it comes to applying for jobs or even filling out forms, even though their mistakes are far from unusual, says Jack Bovill, chairman of the British-based Spelling Society, an international organization that has advocated simplified spellings since 1908. A 2007 Spelling Society survey of 1,000 British adults found that more than half could not spell embarrassed or millennium correctly and more than a quarter struggled with definitely, accidentally and separate.
Smith and Bovill are part of a long and illustrious line of spelling malcontents. Benjamin Franklin, Andrew Carnegie, Teddy Roosevelt and even Noah Webster, father of American lexicography, all lobbied for spelling reform, their reasons ranging from traumatic childhood spelling experiences to the hope that easier communication would promote peace. In 1906, Mark Twain lobbied the Associated Press to use phonetic spelling. "The heart of our trouble is with our foolish alphabet," he once wrote. "It doesn't know how to spell, and can't be taught."
Non-English-speaking countries have been simplifying their spelling for centuries: Spain, France, Germany, Russia, Norway, Ireland, Indonesia and Japan, among others, have all instituted such reforms; Portugal in May amended its spelling to follow the simpler Brazilian rules. Since 1755, when the English language was standardized in Samuel Johnson's aptly named Dictionary of the English Language, many variant spellings have become widely accepted on both sides of the pond. In 1864, for instance, the U.S. government officially changed the spelling of words like centre and timbre to end in the variant -er; more recently, at the beginning of the 20th century, fantasy became an accepted variant of phantasy.
But some language purists insist that there is value to the top-down rules of English. "People who spell a lot of words incorrectly either aren't paying attention or don't care," says Barbara Wallraff, who writes the Wordcourt column on language and writing problems for the Atlantic and King Features Syndicate. "Why are we changing our language to accommodate — with two m's — them?"
Joe Pickett, executive editor of the American Heritage Dictionary, says that changes to dictionary entries are always on the table, but he and his seven fellow editors are a tough crowd. They keep an eye on print publications to see whether a variant usage has started to become mainstream. Any word that seems to be a good candidate for an update undergoes rigorous scrutiny as the editors seek input from a panel of some 200 orthographic and lexicographic whizzes. Even among this writerly crowd, 13% admitted in 1996 to combining a lot into a single word. But 93% still considered it an error and corrected it in their own writing — leading the editors not to change the entry. Variants are added to the dictionary, Pickett says, "only when we're really convinced that even people like us don't notice [the misspelling] much."
Smith, for his part, insists that he is advocating only for minor changes. "I'm not saying to people who have actually gone to all the trouble to learn all the exceptions to the rule that they should unlearn it. I'm just saying, let's have a few more variant spellings," he says. And if that doesn't catch on, he has another idea. "In the 21st century, why learn by heart rote spelling when you can just type it into a computer and spell-check?" he asks.
Making an Arguement for Misspelling
By Laura Fitzpatrick
Most teachers expect to correct their students' spelling mistakes once in a while. But Ken Smith has had enough. The senior lecturer in criminology at Bucks New University in Buckinghamshire, England, sees so many misspellings in papers submitted by first-year students that he says we'd be better off letting the perpetrators off the hook and doing away with certain spelling rules altogether.
Good spellers, Smith says, should be able to go on writing as usual; those who find the current rules of English too hard to learn should have their spelling labeled variant, not wrong. Smith zeroes in on 10 candidates for variant spellings, culled from his students' most commonly misspelled (or mispelled, as Smith suggests) words. Among them are Febuary instead of February, twelth instead of twelfth and truely instead of truly — all words, he says, that involve confusion over silent letters. When students would ask why there's no e in truly, Smith didn't really have an answer. "I'd say, 'Well, I don't know. ... You've just got to drop it because people do,' " he says. Smith adds that when teachers correct spelling, they waste valuable time they could be spending on bigger ideas.
Word nerds aren't the only ones with a stake in the proposal. People who have trouble with spelling are punished when it comes to applying for jobs or even filling out forms, even though their mistakes are far from unusual, says Jack Bovill, chairman of the British-based Spelling Society, an international organization that has advocated simplified spellings since 1908. A 2007 Spelling Society survey of 1,000 British adults found that more than half could not spell embarrassed or millennium correctly and more than a quarter struggled with definitely, accidentally and separate.
Smith and Bovill are part of a long and illustrious line of spelling malcontents. Benjamin Franklin, Andrew Carnegie, Teddy Roosevelt and even Noah Webster, father of American lexicography, all lobbied for spelling reform, their reasons ranging from traumatic childhood spelling experiences to the hope that easier communication would promote peace. In 1906, Mark Twain lobbied the Associated Press to use phonetic spelling. "The heart of our trouble is with our foolish alphabet," he once wrote. "It doesn't know how to spell, and can't be taught."
Non-English-speaking countries have been simplifying their spelling for centuries: Spain, France, Germany, Russia, Norway, Ireland, Indonesia and Japan, among others, have all instituted such reforms; Portugal in May amended its spelling to follow the simpler Brazilian rules. Since 1755, when the English language was standardized in Samuel Johnson's aptly named Dictionary of the English Language, many variant spellings have become widely accepted on both sides of the pond. In 1864, for instance, the U.S. government officially changed the spelling of words like centre and timbre to end in the variant -er; more recently, at the beginning of the 20th century, fantasy became an accepted variant of phantasy.
But some language purists insist that there is value to the top-down rules of English. "People who spell a lot of words incorrectly either aren't paying attention or don't care," says Barbara Wallraff, who writes the Wordcourt column on language and writing problems for the Atlantic and King Features Syndicate. "Why are we changing our language to accommodate — with two m's — them?"
Joe Pickett, executive editor of the American Heritage Dictionary, says that changes to dictionary entries are always on the table, but he and his seven fellow editors are a tough crowd. They keep an eye on print publications to see whether a variant usage has started to become mainstream. Any word that seems to be a good candidate for an update undergoes rigorous scrutiny as the editors seek input from a panel of some 200 orthographic and lexicographic whizzes. Even among this writerly crowd, 13% admitted in 1996 to combining a lot into a single word. But 93% still considered it an error and corrected it in their own writing — leading the editors not to change the entry. Variants are added to the dictionary, Pickett says, "only when we're really convinced that even people like us don't notice [the misspelling] much."
Smith, for his part, insists that he is advocating only for minor changes. "I'm not saying to people who have actually gone to all the trouble to learn all the exceptions to the rule that they should unlearn it. I'm just saying, let's have a few more variant spellings," he says. And if that doesn't catch on, he has another idea. "In the 21st century, why learn by heart rote spelling when you can just type it into a computer and spell-check?" he asks.
Wednesday, August 13, 2008
Tuesday, August 12, 2008
Sunday, August 10, 2008
Schiaffo a Berlusconi dalla NBC «È troppo anziano per andare a Pechino»
Toni da sfottò dei presentatori della tv Usa durante la cerimonia dei giochi
Non sono stati risparmiati neanche gli atleti italiani: mostrati per pochi secondi come quelli del Mali e Gabon
NEW YORK – Italia che conta poco, Italia da barzelletta. E’ questa l’immagine che milioni di americani hanno ricevuto venerdì sera nel guardare la cerimonia d'apertura dei Giochi di Pechino, trasmessa durante il prime time, - con una differita di ben 12 ore - dalla NBC. Che ha sborsato 894 milioni di dollari per ottenere i diritti in esclusiva per gli Stati Uniti. Quando, verso la fine dello show, i riflettori sono toccati all’Italia, il tono dei due presentatori Bob Costas e Matt Lauer è passato dal serio al faceto. «Il primo ministro italiano Silvio Berlusconi ha rinunciato ad essere qui stasera insieme agli oltre 80 capi di stato», hanno spiegato ridacchiando i due mezzibusti della NBC, «Perché a Pechino fa caldo. Troppo caldo per lui». Dopo aver ironizzato sull’immensa fortuna di Berlusconi («il più ricco magnate italiano dei media che è anche primo ministro del Paese»), e sulla sua età («a 72 anni è troppo anziano per un viaggio del genere»), i due presentatori hanno concluso spiegando ai telespettatori che «se sei ricco e potente come lui, puoi permetterti di startene a casa a guardare la cerimonia. Comodamente seduto davanti alla tv».
Il tono da sfottò nei confronti del leader italiano era in netto contrasto con quello, serio e rispettoso, riservato agli altri leader presenti sul palco dei Vip – dal presidente francese Sarkozy a quello americano George W. Bush. Ma lo schiaffo in faccia all’Italia non ha risparmiato neppure gli atleti italiani, che sono stati mostrati per pochi secondi, alla stregua delle mini-delegazioni di paesi in via di sviluppo come Mali e Gabon, e al contrario di quelle di altri paesi europei quali Spagna, Germania, Inghilterra e Francia, cui Lauer e Costas hanno dedicato dettagliati ritratti, in elogio ai passati record dei loro atleti. Perché questo doppio binario? Perché umiliare così l’Italia? Che cosa hanno pensato milioni di italo-americani che hanno seguito la cerimonia da casa? Non è la prima volta che la NBC finisce nel mirino durante l’olimpiade. Due anni fa il network era stato criticato dal quotidiano Usa Today perché, durante le dirette da Torino per le Olimpiadi invernali, si era rifiutato di menzionare la storia della Sacra Sindone, finita su tutti i giornali Usa. «Vogliamo tenere la religione fuori dai giochi», si era giustificato allora un portavoce.
Non sono stati risparmiati neanche gli atleti italiani: mostrati per pochi secondi come quelli del Mali e Gabon
NEW YORK – Italia che conta poco, Italia da barzelletta. E’ questa l’immagine che milioni di americani hanno ricevuto venerdì sera nel guardare la cerimonia d'apertura dei Giochi di Pechino, trasmessa durante il prime time, - con una differita di ben 12 ore - dalla NBC. Che ha sborsato 894 milioni di dollari per ottenere i diritti in esclusiva per gli Stati Uniti. Quando, verso la fine dello show, i riflettori sono toccati all’Italia, il tono dei due presentatori Bob Costas e Matt Lauer è passato dal serio al faceto. «Il primo ministro italiano Silvio Berlusconi ha rinunciato ad essere qui stasera insieme agli oltre 80 capi di stato», hanno spiegato ridacchiando i due mezzibusti della NBC, «Perché a Pechino fa caldo. Troppo caldo per lui». Dopo aver ironizzato sull’immensa fortuna di Berlusconi («il più ricco magnate italiano dei media che è anche primo ministro del Paese»), e sulla sua età («a 72 anni è troppo anziano per un viaggio del genere»), i due presentatori hanno concluso spiegando ai telespettatori che «se sei ricco e potente come lui, puoi permetterti di startene a casa a guardare la cerimonia. Comodamente seduto davanti alla tv».
Il tono da sfottò nei confronti del leader italiano era in netto contrasto con quello, serio e rispettoso, riservato agli altri leader presenti sul palco dei Vip – dal presidente francese Sarkozy a quello americano George W. Bush. Ma lo schiaffo in faccia all’Italia non ha risparmiato neppure gli atleti italiani, che sono stati mostrati per pochi secondi, alla stregua delle mini-delegazioni di paesi in via di sviluppo come Mali e Gabon, e al contrario di quelle di altri paesi europei quali Spagna, Germania, Inghilterra e Francia, cui Lauer e Costas hanno dedicato dettagliati ritratti, in elogio ai passati record dei loro atleti. Perché questo doppio binario? Perché umiliare così l’Italia? Che cosa hanno pensato milioni di italo-americani che hanno seguito la cerimonia da casa? Non è la prima volta che la NBC finisce nel mirino durante l’olimpiade. Due anni fa il network era stato criticato dal quotidiano Usa Today perché, durante le dirette da Torino per le Olimpiadi invernali, si era rifiutato di menzionare la storia della Sacra Sindone, finita su tutti i giornali Usa. «Vogliamo tenere la religione fuori dai giochi», si era giustificato allora un portavoce.
NBC withholding live Olympic events from west coast viewers
By Chris Chase
NBC went to a lot of trouble in order to get major Olympic events like swimming and gymnastics on the air live in primetime in the United States. Now, after getting their wish, the Peacock Network is inexplicably showing those events on tape delay on the west coast.
Because the time difference from Beijing to the United States wouldn't allow NBC to air live coverage of events from China, swimming and gymnastics finals were moved to the morning in Beijing. The network paid $894 million to broadcast these Olympics and didn't want a redo of 2000, when every major event in Sydney was shown on tape delay (it's no coincidence that the ratings for those Games were the lowest in history).
But after enduring months of tough negotiations with the IOC to get the events moved, NBC is doing exactly what they tried to avoid: showing events on tape. Tonight's swimming finals with Michael Phelps, Dara Torres and Katie Hoff were not shown live in the Mountain or Pacific time zones, nor will they be shown for the entirety of the competition. NBC will instead ran the east coast feed three hours later; at 8:00 p.m. PT. So, at the moment (midnight on the east coast), viewers on the other side of the country still haven't seen Phelps shatter his own world record in the 400-meter individual medley.
This is a baffling decision by NBC. It's hard to recall any other time when a sporting event has been shown live in one half of the country, but not the other. It's unheard of. Sure, some sporting events start at weird times on the west coast, but that's the norm and people adapt. Like earthquakes, wildfires and actors-turned-governors, it's just how things are. That's why bars have breakfast buffets and bloody mary bars during football season for 10:00 a.m. kickoffs. If live mid-day weekend telecasts are good enough for the NFL and college football, why not the Olympics?
If the network plans on continuing the delay of the west coast feed, they're subjecting themselves to viewer backlash, poor ratings and upset advertisers. Essentially, NBC strong-armed the IOC into changing around a bulk of the Olympic schedule in order to broadcast live events in two time zones. Great business decision, guys. Why not just push Jay Leno out the door too while you're at it. (Oh, wait.)
NBC went to a lot of trouble in order to get major Olympic events like swimming and gymnastics on the air live in primetime in the United States. Now, after getting their wish, the Peacock Network is inexplicably showing those events on tape delay on the west coast.
Because the time difference from Beijing to the United States wouldn't allow NBC to air live coverage of events from China, swimming and gymnastics finals were moved to the morning in Beijing. The network paid $894 million to broadcast these Olympics and didn't want a redo of 2000, when every major event in Sydney was shown on tape delay (it's no coincidence that the ratings for those Games were the lowest in history).
But after enduring months of tough negotiations with the IOC to get the events moved, NBC is doing exactly what they tried to avoid: showing events on tape. Tonight's swimming finals with Michael Phelps, Dara Torres and Katie Hoff were not shown live in the Mountain or Pacific time zones, nor will they be shown for the entirety of the competition. NBC will instead ran the east coast feed three hours later; at 8:00 p.m. PT. So, at the moment (midnight on the east coast), viewers on the other side of the country still haven't seen Phelps shatter his own world record in the 400-meter individual medley.
This is a baffling decision by NBC. It's hard to recall any other time when a sporting event has been shown live in one half of the country, but not the other. It's unheard of. Sure, some sporting events start at weird times on the west coast, but that's the norm and people adapt. Like earthquakes, wildfires and actors-turned-governors, it's just how things are. That's why bars have breakfast buffets and bloody mary bars during football season for 10:00 a.m. kickoffs. If live mid-day weekend telecasts are good enough for the NFL and college football, why not the Olympics?
If the network plans on continuing the delay of the west coast feed, they're subjecting themselves to viewer backlash, poor ratings and upset advertisers. Essentially, NBC strong-armed the IOC into changing around a bulk of the Olympic schedule in order to broadcast live events in two time zones. Great business decision, guys. Why not just push Jay Leno out the door too while you're at it. (Oh, wait.)
Tuesday, August 05, 2008
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