English - the vexation: adjectives

This cropped up in discussion a few weeks ago, and irritated the hell out of me for some time after.  Why are certain word orderings "right" and others "wrong"?  Why is a big brown spider fine, but a brown big spider not?
Turns out there is a list describing the ordering of adjectives.  Why must english be so much work?

Now, although I, and probably many others, was unaware of the rules for ordering adjectives, the _concept_ of correct (or at least better) ordering is not alien, as I described at the start. When it's your native language, you pick so much up from context it can be surprising the general rules you seemingly intuitively know, without having a formalised basis.
Because of course schools do not, for better or worse, spend much time at all these days teaching english grammar.

Languages are dynamic things.  The structure and words and conjugations that we enjoy today are not the same as those of a couple of hundred years ago, let alone of five hundred years ago.  Shakespearean english, for all that high school students curse it, is not Old English or even Middle English.  It's Early Modern English, and represented a time when the language became more standardised.

And yet english is characterised by a mishmash of rules and exceptions, regularities and irregularities.  When Shakespeare coined the word "arouse", rather than the existing "rouse" or first used "to numb" as a transitive verb, he directly shaped the language.
Where lies the line between error and creation?  Between breaking and shaping?  And what role has creativity?

http://www.pathguy.com/shakeswo.htm

When one thinks of modern attempts at reshaping the english language, the primary example that comes to mind is that in Nineteen Eighty-Four.  In the Orwell novel, words are both added to the language and removed.  Thoughtcrime and the Thought Police are some of the more enduring ones that have spread outside the novel.
But one of the things that stood out for me, perhaps because of a programming mindset, was the regularity that was introduced.  Good and ungood.  Good and plusgood and doubleplusgood.  In a language that seems unnecessarily complex, the construction of new, yet readily understood words seems like positive growth.

Which leads back to the list for determining the order of adjectives.
Does having a specific set of rules for determining adjective order improve the language, or is it arbitrary and capricious?
Does adhering to the order prescribed in the list aid in regularity, or constrain forms gratuitously?

Having dabbled in poetry and French - and perhaps having something of a rebellious streak in me - I'm not averse to placing adjectives after nouns, or striking out for more whimsical phrasing.  Whether I deliberately start pushing at the walls this list throws up - well, I don't yet know.

But there's a related area that I think offers some intriguing possibilities, and that's the case where an adjective should only follow a linking verb, and where an adjective must precede a noun.

For the first case, the British Council give the example of:
"Our teacher was ill" - good.
"We had an ill teacher" - bad.
Though of course, if you have two teachers standing up against the wall, one of whom is ill and one of whom is in good health, I don't think it would be improper to remark that:
"The ill teacher collapsed."
Though the implication is that a more proper description would be:
"The teacher that was ill collapsed."
Though perhaps I'm over-stretching their wording of "normally used".

On the other hand, their other example is worded as describing adjectives that "are used only in front of a noun" - which is quite firm.
And either I don't agree with their strict ruling, or I just don't see it for their specific examples, one of which is:
"There were countless problems with the new machinery." - good.
"The problems with the new machinery were countless." - bad.

One explanation for my finding the second sentence to be acceptable is that I'm Australian, and therefore the rules and formations are slightly different.  It was remarked upon by a friend from the US that he found the dangling word "heaps" to be odd and unusual.  For him, he expected it to be in front of the item it described - "heaps of sugar" - and not left lying unreferenced at the end of a sentence as in "I took heaps."  And so the issue of english dialects is also something to take into consideration for acceptable phrasing.


And finally, the ordered list itself.

Adjective Ordering:
- General opinion (good, important)
- Specific opinion (tasty, smelly)
- Size (large, small)
- Shape (square, circular)
- Age (young, old)
- Colour (blue, black)
- Nationality (French, Irish)
- Material (brick, wood)
- Qualifier (rocking [chair], book [cover])


From: http://learnenglish.britishcouncil.org/en/english-grammar/adjectives/order-adjectives
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Adjective#Adjective_order

Flash Fiction: Ermintrude

This is a piece of Lovecraftian flash fiction the bulk of which I wrote previously as a comment backstory for the artwork by the inimitable Mary C, below, with further inspiration from Mz Maau and Mar Mai.   Various names and elements also already provided by others as constraints.  I swear it was like trying to bring horror to My Little Pony!

Ermintrude

I can only relate these matters as fragments, I'm afraid.  The dreams ... ahhh, the dreams.  It had been over a year since the last dream, the one I hinted at when last we met.  I hadn't told you in full for I well knew how disbelief would take you.

The horror of it!  Even now I can barely bring myself to describe what I saw.  What sane man could?

It was last December, a month you well know to have been one of unusual chill.  And yet that night I rolled in sweat, my muscles knotted, as my mind was assaulted by a vile creature emanating a tide of hate.  I saw it then in my dreams that night, though it wasn't the first time I had encountered its mind.  It appeared as a hulking beast, a pink putrescence oozing from its skin.  Purple eyes that fell away to nothing entranced me, their bottomless pits echoing that Void I wish never to see again in waking hour or dream.
It held me in its gaze, waves of malevolence washing over me as I struggled.  I was unable to break free, unable to wake, sure only that this foul creature of the abyss would rend my mind from my corporeal existence before the night was through.

And then mercifully the beast suddenly bellowed and I found myself released.  That was the night you walked in and found me in that hut.  I said little of it that night, for I was shaken and unable to articulate the magnitude of what I had experienced.  But also I knew that even then you would have trouble accepting the true import of that mental invasion. And so, in seemingly roundabout fashion, we discussed the cane you brought with you.  For I believe now even more so than then that the staff of Snok that you held when you crossed the threshold of that hut was all that kept me from madness that night!

In the ensuing months I delved deep into the lore of Snok, that ancient god of myth from the darkest depths of Africa, where Her name and countenance have been lost since before the language of man.  And yet I found tales, handed down orally amongst the tribes there.  Just fragments ... and yet when put together those fragments painted a most horrifying picture.

For Snok, it was said, had many children, horrifying nightmares of children that in the forms of beasts roamed the earth as it was.  They took what they wanted, and what they willed was done, for they were without peer.  Nothing could breach their hide, and with their mental powers they could reduce any foe to madness.

The tales were ... brief; conflicting.  That these children of Snok were few in number was certain, and yet for the most part the tales could not agree on form let alone name.  But there was one.  One of Snok's children that had common description. A picture of a beast more loathsome than any could imagine, so pink it veritably sparkled in the darkest depths of the starless nights.  Quadruped it was, stomping throughout forests and making the earth shake, with giant all-hearing ears and a twisted parody of a goat's tail attached to its hind-quarters.  But most hideous of all was said to be a great appendage upon its visage; a lone tentacle, as of a giant squid.  I'm sure I have no need to tell you of what that suggests!

This child of Snok ran rampant through Africa, destruction left only in its wake.  Beasts rent or devoured.  People fleeing in terror.  Tales of stork sacrificing themselves in some unfathomable devotion to its madness.  And yet that chaos of mind became its downfall, as it angered its Mother, and it railed against Her.  In its madness it challenged its Mother and was struck down and bound, a spiked amethyst collar clamped hard against its neck.  And in its binding it cried out to its Mother, but in vain, for Snok was without pity, and without remorse, for none could daresay Her.  And so Her child lay dormant, bound and buried deep beneath the uttermost layers of the earth.  And Her child's name was Ermintrude.

Alas, for my inquisitiveness!  It seems I dug too deep into things that were best forgotten, and in my prying I disturbed this nightmare incarnate and drew its gaze more fully upon me.  Bound and buried Ermintrude may yet be, but still she writhes tendrils of shadows out beyond her gaol and into our world.

I said earlier that it had been more than a year since the last dream.  Had, dear friend, until last night.  For once again Ermintrude visited me through the power of its Pachydreams, the brilliance of its pink visage bursting forth from cracked blackness.  Its face twisted with hate, it glared upon my soul and I don't mind telling you I quailed and recoiled in terror.  I had never wanted to see that face again, framed as it was by sprouts of wretched black hair shooting out from below that tentacular limb.
Its mouth soundlessly opened in longing to once again walk this earth, something it planned to accomplish through my own mind, even if it had to tear it apart in the process!

I told you I had hoped to never see Ermintrude again, nor suffer the assault of its Pachydreams.  That is true.  However, I was not unprepared for the possibility.  For in my travels I come across many items, and not all have been made by the hands of men.  So it was with one item, whose making was so long ago I cannot fathom it.  But I determined that it was of a disassembling nature, and had powers over more than matter.  How I was able to learn this I cannot reveal, even to you.  But I have kept this by my side for many months now, hidden from others for it is of a strange hue, and would attract undue attention.

From my sleep I held onto it that night, as I have held onto it in my sleep for many nights now.  And in my dream I was able to draw this item out, this black titanium spork that endured simultaneously in more planes of existence than you can comprehend.  And with this spork I struck out at that maw, my arm passing through that writhing tentacle, past that one triangular tooth and deep into the gullet of Ermintrude.  In pain it roared, a hideous roar that blasted waves of pain upon me though it was silent.  Deep within the creature, within this spawn of Snok, I released the black titanium spork, disabling its defences.  Breached and wounded, it sought now to flee, its plans in disarray, its mind in turmoil. It no longer sought an entrance back to earth through me, but only to seek refuge, for it had been millennia since it had tasted even a sliver of pain.

But I was not done!  No, for the spork granted the wielder many powers of a supernatural form, and though I had not the opportunity to practice wielding such powers, I employed them now.  Steady in my fear, determination overriding the horror and revulsion that welled up inside me, I brought into being an amethyst hat of binding, enchanted with runes from Snok's own language, a language She shares with Her children.  And this purple hat I brought down upon the head of Ermintrude, binding it more deeply even than the spiked collar upon its neck.

The Pachydream was broken.  Ermintrude is more tightly bound than ever, unable to breach the earthly realm and the minds of men.  To the darkest foundations of the earth and beyond it now resides, and I deem that to be something of an accomplishment.

However, you see me now, before you, shaking yet with fear.  After what has been accomplished?  After the banishment of this beast?
Yes, I shake still.  For as I bound Ermintrude and cast it away, I caught a glimpse of something behind it.  Vast and overwhelming, I saw it but for an instant before returning to the waking world.  And yet, even without description, without name, without reference, I am sure of what I saw in that last moment.

For in the darkness beyond, revealing Herself to me in Her wrath, was Snok in all Her vengeful glory.

Artwork credit: Mary C
Names and other elements: Mz Maau , Mar Mai

On layering naming over numbers in social networking

I'm sure many of you have seen the Social Number social network about by now.  If you haven't, it's a network based around anonymity - in this case, the anonymity is about creating an online identity distinct from your meatspace identity.  At Social Number, everyone is just a number.  A ten digit number, enough for 10 billion people.

With this numbering system, you can still tag all articles back to the same 'user', it's just that this number has a certain abstraction to it.  If you like several articles from user 6660000666 then there's a reasonable chance you might like the next article by them.  And you may wish to communicate with that specific user.

It's not a bad system, and yet in practice people have trouble identifying numbers.  They're like sheep to the non-shepherd.
So what about a way to add a recognition layer on top, whilst keeping the unidentifying numbers underneath, and not adding any linkage between meatspace you and online you?

Consider.

At the client side, map names to the numbers.  The easiest way is to supply a list, have the selection fully automated, though there's no reason why you couldn't have manual overrides where desired.  Supply a text file and the numbers making posts could be Mary Jane instead of 1011325366 or Captain Picard instead of 4569871235.  Text files could either suit your culture / demographic, or be something more whimsical.  Have the network filled with a mix of popular first and last names for your country, or use only the limited set of names that your country dictates are allowed.  Or go for biblical names.  Or Star Wars names.  Or Tolkien characters.  Victorian era names, or medieval names, or 20th century political leaders or traditional Chinese names.

Since the underlying identifier remains, there's no reason why you couldn't converse within the system and refer to a poster using your own identifier, and have it auto-translated for other clients.  Your own comment of "I admired that last post by Luke Skywalker" gets rendered as "I admired that last post by Peter McDonald" on someone else's machine, and "I admired that last post by Mao Zedong" on yet another user's machine.
User 1011325366 has no idea you know him/her as Luke Skywalker, or that someone else knows them by the moniker Peter McDonald.

At first blush, it seems like all you've done is take Social Number's one differentiating feature - apparent anonymity - and remove it, replacing it with monikers akin to other social networks.

But this is not true, since for a start, the number still remains as the identifier.  But more importantly, you have shifted the naming from the server (of posts) to the client (the consumer of posts).  In the Facebook world, I name myself and others recognise me by the title that I display.  In this Layered Social Number world I am powerless to name myself, and am known by no common name - and yet remain as identifiable within the system to the same extent as the original underlying number.

The system doesn't even need support beyond the individual client.  Mapping numbers to names and displaying those instead can all be done on the local machine.  With or without other clients running the same layering software, it doesn't matter, as clients can only export the numbers of other users, since the names are useless outside of the local machine.

In effect, it is much like speaking to a person in another language on the phone and having auto-translation occur in between.  You have no idea if the other person is speaking Japanese, or French, or English.  All you know is that you speak in one language and it appears as if the other user understands and speaks the same language.

The content retains the focus and the anonymity of the author has not been compromised or self-polluted, but the ability for other humans to attribute multiple posts to the same author has been eased.

See:
http://socialnumber.com/