In Science News Online, there is an article (of December 2003) on stylometry called Bookish Math – Statistical tests are unraveling knotty literary mysteries. Thanks to Gary Muldoon of the Forensic Linguistics mailing list for the link. Stylometry is ‘the science of measuring literary style’. The article describes methods in some detail.

bq. At first glance, it might appear that the way to pinpoint a writer’s style is to study the rarest, most striking features of his or her writing. After all, it’s the unexpected words and the unusual rhetorical flourishes that seem to mark a work as uniquely Shakespearean or Dickensian.

bq. Yet the most venerable, commonly used approach of stylometrists does the opposite: It examines how writers use bread-and-butter words such as “to” and “with.” Although this approach seems counterintuitive, it’s based on sound logic.

For example, when some of the Federalist Papers were analyzed to discover whether they were written by Alexander Hamilton or James Madison, both of whom claimed authorship, about thirty rules were used, such as a rule that Hamilton used the word ‘upon’ about ten times as often as Madison did. This kind of thing is harder to copy than unusual vocabulary. This particular study was done in the early 1960s, and stylometry has greatly developed since then.

A later technique called principle-components analysis (PCA) is described in detail with illustrations of diagrams. It showed that The Royal Book of Oz was not written by Frank L. Baum. There is more, including something about neural networks (which I don’t really understand).

The article has further links, a bibliography, and a list of sources.

Yet another translator/interpreter is in the news. The Independent writes that Georg-Andreas Pogany has been branded a coward, just as Jessica Lynch was branded a hero. Instead of being sent back for active duty after recovering from stress, he was pilloried by his commanding officer.

According to the Denver Post:

bq. Just when he felt he was recovering, a commander berated him in front of lower-ranking soldiers, telling him “what a (expletive) bag I am and what a (expletive) coward I am,” Pogany said.

The Independent quotes the Denver Post slightly more fully:

bq. According to an account Sgt Pogany gave recently to the Denver Post newspaper, he had begun to implement the army psychologist’s advice and was feeling much better when his commanding officer took the drastic action of branding him a coward. In front of a group of lower-ranking soldiers, the commander told him “what a shit bag I am and what a fucking coward I am”.

In a bizarre move, Bill Clinton and Nelson Mandela are among those recommended to be made Lord Warden of the Cinque Ports (emphasis on ‘recommended’, I think – can they have a chance?)

The Independent writes:

bq. The position has remained vacant since the death in 2002 of the Queen Mother, who served as the last warden to the association of 14 ports – including the original five ports of Sandwich, Dover, Hythe, Romney and Hastings.
Joe Trussler, the speaker of the Cinque Ports and the Mayor of Sandwich, has asked the Queen and the Prime Minister to consider a number of public figures, including Bill Clinton, John Major and Nelson Mandela, for the post.

For the non-British: Cinque Ports is pronounced ‘sink ports’. The Lord Warden has only a ceremonial role today. He was recommended because his appointment would improve relations with the USA and because he likes playing golf. The post is said to be considered Britain’s oldest military honour and can go to a Commonwealth citizen, which at least includes Mandela.

To quote the Kent resources page referred to above:

bq. According to the original Charter, the members of the Cinque Ports had the right to:
“soc and sac, tol and team, bloowit and fledwit, pillory tumbril infangentheof, outfangentheof, mundbryce waives and strays, flotsam and jetsam and ligan”.
I hope that no-one asks me for a translation but basically it really meant that the sailors from these Ports could do what they wanted, when they wanted and this included wrecking, grounding and plundering other ships. An extremely good foundation for the smuggling that eventually became the vocation of many of the men from around this part of the coast and these Towns in particular.

Carob reports (January 10th), with links and commentary, on a dpa item:

bq. This Thursday, many German newspapers ran a Deutsche Presse-Agentur article headed Von Homoehe bis Babyklappe – Neue Wörter aus den letzten Jahren (‘From Homoehe to Babyklappe: New Words from the Last Decade’).

Particularly interesting is Carob’s information that the word Elchtest was taken over into English as elk test or moose test.

The full report of the Institut für Deutsche Sprache is available as a PDF file (German): Doris Steffens, Nicht nur Anglizismen. Neue Wörter und Wendungen in unserem Wortschatz.

60% of the neologisms were found to be based on other German words.

Slightly off topic: the Independent reports that Northampton College in England is running a short course on how to build IKEA furniture. It lasts three hours and is part of a series for people who are put off by longer courses. However:

bq. The college also considered “Reverse Parking for Women”, “Putting on a Duvet Cover Without Ending up Inside it”, and a specialist course for men, “Ironing Shirts”, before turning to frustrated DIYers.

IKEA apparently welcomed the course. (The college’s website at www.northamptoncollege.ac.uk doesn’t seem to be working at the moment).

The most often quoted entry on Transblawg is ‘Where IKEA gets the names’, and IKEA is currently building the biggest branch in Germany in Fürth, so I feel I have to mention this.

Ostblog reports that in 2003 the German public purse made record profits of EUR 262 m from the sale and lease of land that was originally People’s Property in the German Democratic Republic. This comes from an article at NDR online (in German).

The land was nationalized after expropriations in the years 1945 to 1949, before the GDR existed. I think such expropriations were not reversed by the Federal Republic because they were not done by the GDR. After the end of the GDR they were transferred to the Treuhandanstalt (Trust Agency), and since 1992 the BVVG (Bodenverwertungs- und -verwaltungs GmbH) has been responsible – it’s a private company appointed by the government to privatize former People’s Property (fields and meadows, woods, buildings and waters) in Brandenburg, Mecklenburg-West Pomerania, Saxony, Saxony-Anhalt and Thuringia. The process is expected to last well into the next decade.

The east German farmers are still recovering from the 2002 floods and the hot summer of 2003, so they preferred to continue leasing, and less land was sold than expected.

The BVVG is now changing the rules, so that you cannot prolong a lease unless you have already applied. This will free land to be auctioned to the highest bidder; this will affect about 6000 tenant farmers.

I don’t know if anyone else is interested in this, but I’ve translated some stuff about it and it’s something we don’t think much about in the west. And Ostblog is a wonderful source (German). See also the marvellous things we liked abroad, in Czechoslovakia, in 1967: the device to separate egg yolk from white, the wall-mounted kitchen scales, the net bag that holds ten pounds of potatoes or several bottles of beer, the chopping board with a protective plastic surround.