Couplespeak

Like a lot of couples, my wife and I have a great many inside jokes and turns of phrase that amuse us no end but must puzzle the hell out of everyone else.

Part of the reason, of course, is that we've been together for over twenty years, and during that time shared experience has given us a rich reservoir to draw from.  Sometimes, it's a combination of two or more memories that gives words their relevance, and those are even harder to explain should anyone ask.  For example, I ended a series of texts with my wife a couple of weeks ago, "Thank you, Bloopie," and she started laughing so hard she was afraid her coworkers would come in and demand to know what was so funny, which would have required her to explain that it was a combination of bits from Seinfeld and an obscure British spoof of middle school educational videos called Look Around You, and there was no way the explanation would have elicited anything more than puzzled head tilts and questions about why that was even funny.

Another example is why we always laugh when we hear Bill Withers's song "Ain't No Sunshine," the lyrics of which are anything but funny.  This one is at least explainable; when we were in Spain about fifteen years ago we rented a room for the night in a B&B, and the guy in the next room spent what seemed like hours practicing the trombone.  Amongst his Greatest Hits was -- I kid you not -- "Ain't No Sunshine."

He seemed to particularly enjoy the "WOMP WOMP WOMP" part at the end of each line.

The whole subject comes up because of a paper a couple of weeks ago in the Journal of Communication, which gave the results of a longitudinal study of communication between couples as they moved deeper -- and subsequently, sometimes out of -- relationships.  Instead of verbal communication, which would have required the participants to recall accurately what they'd said, the researchers used text messages, and found, perhaps unsurprisingly, that as relationships progress, the language of the texts becomes more and more similar.

The research, done by Miriam Brinberg (Pennsylvania State University) and Nilam Ram (Stanford University), looked at three parts of electronic communication: syntactic alignment (sentence structure, use of the different parts of speech, use of punctuation), semantic alignment (word meaning, including similarity of word choice where there's more than one way of expressing the same concept), and overall alignment (including features like the use of shortcuts like "omwh" for "on my way home").  They found that at the beginning of a romantic relationship, all three of them converge fairly quickly, and the process of becoming more similar continues -- albeit at a slower pace -- thereafter.

One interesting potential direction for further research is whether both partners shifted their speech, or if one of them moved more than the other.  "There's some research in this area that looks at power dynamics," study co-author Brinberg said, in an interview with The Academic Times.  "For example, in a job interview, the interviewee might make their language more similar to the interviewer to indicate they are more similar to them, or employees may alter their language to match that of their supervisor.  As with those examples, one might wonder if, in romantic relationship formation, there is one person who is changing their language to match the other."

In my own case, it doesn't seem like one of us altered our language use further than the other; more that we both gradually picked up phrases that then had a shared meaning.  The one exception I can think of is that there's been an unequal trade in words from our respective ethnic backgrounds.  My wife, who is Jewish, has a great many words and phrases from Yiddish that are incredibly expressive, explaining why I now use words like bupkis and verklempt and schvitz and schmutz.  Carol has picked up fewer French words from me, although I know that she's used words like macacries (Cajun French for "knick-knacks") even though there's a perfectly good Yiddish word for the same concept (tchotckies).  Other than that, I think most of the French words she's learned from me have to do with cooking, which I suppose makes sense.

But it's a fascinating phenomenon.  Language is much more than flat denotative meaning; there are wide shades and gradations of connotation that can be extremely subtle, one reason why it's so hard to learn a second (or third or fourth) language fluently.  I still remember my Intro to Linguistics professor explaining the difference between denotation and connotation using the example of "Have a nice day" versus "I hope you manage to enjoy your next twenty-four hours."

If there are cultural nuances that would be difficult to explain to a non-native speaker, consider that within those there are additional personal nuances that might be incomprehensible outside of the small number of people in the in-group who "get it," making the interpretation of informal speech a lot more complex than you might have guessed.

So that's our excursion into the subtleties of linguistics for today.  Now, I gotta go get ready for work, and I need to take a shower and wash off the schvitz and schmutz.  Can't show up looking all verklempt.

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This week's Skeptophilia book recommendation is pure fun: Arik Kershenbaum's The Zoologist's Guide to the Galaxy: What Animals on Earth Reveal About Aliens and Ourselves.  Kershenbaum tackles a question that has fascinated me for quite some time; is evolution constrained?  By which I mean, are the patterns you see in most animals on Earth -- aerobic cellular respiration, bilateral symmetry, a central information processing system/brain, sensory organs sensitive to light, sound, and chemicals, and sexual reproduction -- such strong evolutionary drivers that they are likely to be found in alien organisms?

Kershenbaum, who is a zoologist at the University of Cambridge, looks at how our environment (and the changes thereof over geological history) shaped our physiology, and which of those features would likely appear in species on different alien worlds.  In this fantastically entertaining book, he considers what we know about animals on Earth -- including some extremely odd ones -- and uses that to speculate about what we might find when we finally do make contact (or, at the very least, detect signs of life on an exoplanet using our earthbound telescopes).

It's a wonderfully fun read, and if you're fascinated with the idea that we might not be alone in the universe but still think of aliens as the Star Trek-style humans with body paint, rubber noses, and funny accents, this book is for you.  You'll never look at the night sky the same way again.

[Note: if you purchase this book from the image/link below, part of the proceeds goes to support Skeptophilia!]

Templar cookie warning

A couple of weeks ago I wrote about Nabisco creating a hermetically-sealed, bomb-proof vault on the island of Svalbard, with the sole purpose of storing a stockpile of Oreo cookies.  It's a little odd, but on first glance seems innocent enough; in the case of a global cataclysm, the company wants us still to be able to have tasty snacks to enjoy.

It will not surprise loyal readers of Skeptophilia to find out that there are people who ascribe more sinister motives to the company.  And one guy, in fact, thinks that the Oreo cookie vault is in place because when you eat an Oreo, you are unwittingly swearing allegiance to Our Illuminati Overlords, and the Bad Guys want us to continue being able to do that even if civilization collapses.

[Image licensed under the Creative Commons Robbgodshaw / Oreo, Vector Oreo, CC BY-SA 3.0]

At least, that is the contention of one Maurice "Moe" Bedard, over at the site Gnostic Warrior.  I looked in vain for any sign that he was joking, but alas, I fear that this guy is 100% serious.  Here's an excerpt from his "About" link on the site:

Let us help you on along your evolving path to enlightenment in order to assist you in connecting with your higher self and who you truly are on the inside.  Our global community is composed of reasonable men, and women of truth who seek to understand the world we live in by seeking the without being trapped by the darkness of lies, conspiracies and the masses who love them. 

Well, that's very nice and all.  But there are a lot of words I could use to describe the cookie claim, and "reasonable" is not one of them.  Here's a bit of it, so you can get the flavor (crunchy and chocolate-y and nice when dipped in milk, of course):

Almost 500 billion have been sold.  In fact, if you were to stretch out all the OREOs ever sold, you could circle the globe with OREO cookies 341 times.  But did any of these billions of people ever notice the hidden Knights Templar symbology etched into a Oreo cookie as they dipped their OREO's in milk; or licked off the white creamy filling from the Cross Pattée emblazoned cookies?

I know I didn't.  He goes on to tell us that the little marks on the cookie's surface are actually crosses and triangles that come right from the symbolism of the Templars.  This immediately brought to mind a quote from Umberto Eco's tour de force novel Foucault's Pendulum, from a conversation in which the two main characters, Casaubon and Belbo, are discussing how to define lunacy:

The lunatic... doesn't concern himself at all with logic; he works by short circuits.  For him, everything proves everything else.  The lunatic is all idée fixe, and whatever he comes across confirms his lunacy.  You can tell him by the liberties he takes with common sense, by his flashes of inspiration, and by the fact that sooner or later he brings up the Templars.

Which is spot-on.  And as far as the crosses and so forth on the surface of an Oreo, the problem is that any geometrically-patterned surface is going to have triangles and crosses and squares and such.  That's what being "geometrically-patterned" means.  If all of this was Illuminati symbology, then kids in math class would be participating in a cult ritual every time they opened a geometry text.

Then he drops the bombshell on us that even the name "Oreo" is full of secrets:

The etymology of the word OREO gives us two words. Or and Eo.  The Hebrew meaning of the word Or is light, and it can also mean dawn, daylight, early morning, lightning, star, sun, sunlight, and sunshine.  The word Eo has a similar meaning from the Greek word ēōs, meaning dawn. 

In the scriptures, we can then find a reference to fallen angels who are called the watchers, whom I believe are connected etymologically to the word OREO.  For example, the Greek word for watchers is ἐγρήγοροι egrḗgoroi, pl. of egrḗgoros, literally "wakeful".  This Greek word for "Watchers" originates in Daniel 4 where they are mentioned twice in the singular (v. 13, 23), once in the plural (v. 17), of "watchers, holy ones".  Hence, the Templars symbology of the OREO cookie and name are dedicated to the Morning Star, or Dawn Star of the morning.  Another Greek name for the Morning Star is Heosphoros (Greek Ἑωσφόρος Heōsphoros), which means "Dawn-Bringer."

All of this brings up a general rule of thumb, which is "don't fuck with a linguist."  My MA is in historical linguistics, and I can say with some authority that you can not simply subdivide a word any way you want, and then cast around until you find some languages with pieces that fit.  If that's the way etymology worked, then I could take Mr. Bedard's first name, "Maurice" and say that we can split it into "Mau" + "Rice."  From there, it's obvious that it derives from the Egyptian word mau meaning "cat"and the Old English word rice meaning, "strong, powerful, mighty."  So it's clear that Mr. Bedard is actually being controlled telepathically by his cat, who is inducing him to write reams of confusing nonsense so as to mislead us puny humans and keep us subjugated, i.e., bringing our Cat Overlords lots of canned tuna.

Actually, if you're curious, the origin of the name Oreo is unknown; the only idea I've seen that holds any water (besides the most likely explanation, which is that it was simply a short and catchy name), is that it comes from taking the "re" from "cream" and sticking it between two "O"s from chocolate, to make a symbolic sandwich.

In any case, I think you can safely enjoy your Oreos.  No worries that you're accidentally ingesting Templar symbology and an abridged version of the name "Lucifer."  So I'm just going to leave this here, because now I have to go off and investigate the claims of a guy who thinks that John F. Kennedy is still alive, and that he's the Great Beast from the Book of Revelation, and is soon to reveal himself and initiate the End Times.  The guy also thinks that Henry Kissinger is the "Second Beast."  This makes you wonder who the "Third Beast" is, doesn't it?  I'm thinking Mitch McConnell.

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This week's Skeptophilia book-of-the-week is one that has raised a controversy in the scientific world: Ancient Bones: Unearthing the Astonishing New Story of How We Became Human, by Madeleine Böhme, Rüdiger Braun, and Florian Breier.

It tells the story of a stupendous discovery -- twelve-million-year-old hominin fossils, of a new species christened Danuvius guggenmosi.  The astonishing thing about these fossils is where they were found.  Not in Africa, where previous models had confined all early hominins, but in Germany.

The discovery of Danuvius complicated our own ancestry, and raised a deep and difficult-to-answer question; when and how did we become human?  It's clear that the answer isn't as simple as we thought when the first hominin fossils were uncovered in Olduvai Gorge, and it was believed that if you took all of our millennia of migrations all over the globe and ran them backwards, they all converged on the East African Rift Valley.  That neat solution has come into serious question, and the truth seems to be that like most evolutionary lineages, hominins included multiple branches that moved around, interbred for a while, then went their separate ways, either to thrive or to die out.  The real story is considerably more complicated and fascinating than we'd thought at first, and Danuvius has added another layer to that complexity, bringing up as many questions as it answers.

Ancient Bones is a fascinating read for anyone interested in anthropology, paleontology, or evolutionary biology.  It is sure to be the basis of scientific discussion for the foreseeable future, and to spur more searches for our relatives -- including in places where we didn't think they'd gone.

[Note: if you purchase this book using the image/link below, part of the proceeds goes to support Skeptophilia!]