chronic.linguist

Today’s Slashdot has a fascinating discussion of Google’s decision to use the term labels rather than tags to refer to user-defined categories for their digital content. One user opines:

It makes more sense to call them “labels” because the word “tag” generally refers to html/xml tags. Since you can use these tags (although you don’t have to) to create the label type of tags, it’s especially confusing.

In any case, it’s closer to plain English to call them labels. That’s what you’re doing. If I’m in GMail and I want to indicate that an email is work related it is closer to plain English to say that I labelled it work than to say that I tagged it work.

While others’ native speaker intuitions may disagree about whether label or tag is more natural or “plain English,” I happen to agree that using tag as a category for web content could easily cause confusion thanks to the term’s use in reference to the code that defines a web page.

Other comments revolve around the appropriateness of hierarchical categorization, as in today’s file systems—as opposed to the non-hierarchical notion of labels/tags. Some commenters feel that hierarchical structure allows for better organization; others point out problems:

Let’s say I make my folder as follows:
/pictures/trip/2006/Christmas/pic001.jpg

Why shouldn’t I be able to type in:
/trip/2006/Christmas/pictures/pic001.jpg

And get the same result?

Hierarchies are a horrible way to manage data, because no one “category” is always a subset of another. Pick the more general term here:

Pictures
2006
Christmas
Trip

You can’t. Or else it depends on a number of things….

In other words, we often use orthogonal categories for things; neither “Pictures” nor “2006″ is necessarily contained within the other like “cat” and “dog” would be subcategories of “animal.”

If I had to suggest a system, it would be a blend of the hierarchy and label models: allow for labels to be organized under other labels, and apply the most specific one(s) to a particular piece of information. Crucially, it should be possible to narrow searches to include only those items matching all labels in the search (or subcategories of these labels). To follow the above example, pic001.jpg could be labeled with:

• pictures, which in turn is labeled media and keepsakes
• 2006, which is labeled ’00s, which is labeled years
• Christmas, which is labeled holidays
• trip, which is labeled activities

This scheme would assert, e.g., that all pictures are also media and keepsakes. So pic001.jpg should be included in the results of a search which makes use of any of the bold labels above.

John Oliver “reports” on the use of scare quotes.

Glad to see that The Daily Show has a linguistic expert in residence:

Stewart: 3000 Iraqis died just this month! To argue over what to call it seems like semantic quibbling.

Oliver: “Semantic quibbling?” Well, I wouldn’t call it that.

The Daily Show takes on conceptual metaphors and obscure etymologies:

CNN’s Glenn Beck, to Muslim Rep. Keith Ellison (D-MN): What I feel like saying is, sir, prove to me that you are not working with our enemies, and I don’t—I know you’re not, I’m not accusing you of being an enemy, but that’s the way I feel, and I think a lot of Americans will feel that way.

Stewart: Finally, a guy who says what people who aren’t thinking are thinking.

And it was written on the whiteboard outside my room:

Hail, Citizen:
And your mother spread her legs, and there was light.

Naturally, I felt compelled to translate this into Biblical Hebrew:

ותפתח אמך את-רגליה, ויהי-אור.

If I end up taking Biblical Hebrew next Fall, that will shed light on how accurate this translation is.

I’m glad to see that somebody gets it.

Jon Stewart explains President Bush’s “Iraq is just a comma” remark:

“Iraq’s a comma. Hiroshima, that’s a colon. Spanish Inquisition? That’s a tilde, one of them squiggly things over the n. 9/11 changed everything. Into punctuation.”

The folks at Language Log, however, think the comment was a veiled statement to the religious right, code for “Trust me. This is what God wants.”

Understanding conservatism is so damn depressing sometimes.

Do certain 24-hour news networks use interrogative captions to make insinuations without the appearance of bias? The Daily Show’s Jon Stewart reports.

Erudite mental commentary: ‘I should tell my nose to fuck off.’

Geeky linguistic mental commentary: ‘Is such a sentence possible in languages which contrast alienable and inalienable possession?’

And in case you were wondering: Gravity > Claritin. (I don’t know the precise magnitude of the acceleration due to Claritin, but I’m estimating it to be around 3.2 m/s². Pitiful.)

Helping me to round out my summer vacation were the following books:

The Power of Babel: A Natural History of Language (John McWhorter, 2003)

This is similar to Deutscher’s The Unfolding of Language, but focuses less on the mechanics of language change and more on the sociolinguistic factors which influence the evolution of languages. McWhorter spends less time than Deutscher discussing ancient languages, but has more pop culture references (apparently he’s a big fan of television). It’s an informative read, and I think a good prelude to my upcoming class on language contact between the Native Americans and Europeans. Unfortunately, McWhorter is no longer a professor at Berkeley, having given up tenure in favor of working at a conservative think tank.

Chapter Summary »

The Language Instinct: How the Mind Creates Language (Steven Pinker, 1994)

TLI is a classic—perhaps the classic linguistics book written for a popular audience. Though much of the book is a survey of the Chomskyan approach to linguistics, its purpose is to reconcile what we know about language, the mind, and human behavior—that is, to explore why is language is natural for human beings. For anyone interested in language with or without a linguistics background, this is a worthwhile read. (I’m not so sure I agree with all of Pinker’s/Chomsky’s arguments, but the discussion is superb.)

What surprised me most about this book was what was not included: there was only a passing mention of metaphor, and no discussion of categories/frames—two concepts that are central, at least in the Lakoffian approach, to understanding how the mind and language work. I find it strange that these areas of research are barely acknowledged by a cognitive linguist discussing language and the mind.

Chapter Summary »

Whose Freedom?: The Battle Over America’s Most Important Idea (George Lakoff, 2006)

Though I’ve become something of a Lakoff nut, I realize that his linguopoliticocognitive theory on American moral systems can be a bit difficult to grasp at first. Of his previous books on the subject, Don’t Think of an Elephant! is, I think, inadequate in explaining the some of the key details of the theory, and Moral Politics is too thorough and academic to appeal to a general audience. This new book, I feel, is the best starting point for those who want to learn more about the Strict Father/Nurturant Parent dichotomy and how it plays out in the American values debate. Focusing on the idea of freedom allows Lakoff to hit on a lot of issues (freedom involves not just civil liberties and foreign policy but also things like environmental protection and economics) within a unified discussion (what freedom means to progressives vs. conservatives). Plus, it’s short and easy to read—200 pages shorter than Moral Politics. Keep in mind that this book is primarily about an idea, not a tactic, so the practice of framing takes a backseat—though an understanding of core concepts like ‘freedom’ is the critical for framing.

Chapter Summary »