Författare: xikano_2

Being Chicano is a sense of essence you see

I couldn’t belong to this idea of democracy because I am what exactly what your idea of democracy demands from you: that you churn out rebels.

I am a rebel, a thief, a frito bandido and I am aware because you gave me free will.

I may come back on occasion and I appreciate you giving me awareness as much as a Cheyenne appreciates you for giving him civilization you see, and it’s funny that you attribute my awareness as your God given gift to me because that is exactly what you always stated: you came to give but instead you came to take and you took and that is whay I can’t belong to you and I know I don’t belong to you because you can’t make buñuelos ni champurrados nor tamales, so there.

Things to do tomorrow: Stop believing in the USA

I firmly believe that the bible is the devil’s prima facie work

Capitalism is dead …

More and more I see the fascists future

The very chains that capitalism promised to unshackle melted into iron bars

Prisons, security and more policing to protect free markets

Oh! dear friend of mine
now that the war is over
& your moral qualms gone
can we go second-hand shopping
for discarded goods
and old fashions to wear?

There is a masquerade tonight
it’s really no biggie
we’ll just have to put up a charade
nothing you haven’t done before
can you do that for me?

The aisle was carpeted with a carpet named Yielding Effects and the color was, according to an old catalog my mom had left behind, Oriental Jade. The walls bore paintings from the family’s efforts to inculcate their children artistic talent that only now stand there as testimony to their good intentions and their immense faith they had on their children. Family photos also hung here and there of relatives now gone to better pastures. In the middle of the aisle stood an eighteenth century mahogany longcase Grandfather clock with a rocking ship in the dial and a quarter-chiming movement that used to bring shrieking screams from my mother every time we rushed by the aisle to get to the table during dinner time. It was her pride and joy and only remnant of a past she never tired to remind us of. It now stands there marking the hours as it always has done, ticking away the light of the sun and welcoming the shadows of the night, collecting dust by the minute every day.

To a larger degree, this very aisle has been witness to many an historical and turning point in the affairs of our family and also a silent onlooker to many a fight between mon and dad and we siblings. The trip to Cantabria reached a final decision right here, by the copy painting of Monet’s Waterlilies, Green Reflection, Left Part. Over there, by Toulouse-Lautrec’s The Toilette poster, bought during a small sojourn mother took in Paris, my sister fainted because, as we lesser beings unaware of the mysteries of womanhood later found out, she’d been then 7 weeks pregnant already.

Maybe the reason for this flurry of activity in an aisle was due to our bathroom being there. Many screams to hurry up were shouted on top of our throats to the door and yet here I stand now, in front of it, alone at last, and somehow It doesn’t feel the same….

Just then a voice from the distance interrupted his thinking – ” Are you coming George?”

– Wait a sec hon … I’ll be right there. George walked into the bathroom and took a piss, zipped up fast and then headed for the car.

– Boy! Why do you always have to take so long every time we stop at your mom’s old house? I mean every time we stop here you always seem to take an eternity for just taking a piss ..

– Just drive hon, just drive …

Well, suffice to say my spanish blog has sucked a lot of time out of me and it’s because my blog community is so responsive to the text I write and I believe I have developed a sort of friedship with some of them. Well, after all they are from my native city and we have lots of common, I just can believe how great this blogger thing can be! I know, I sound so cliché but it’s true! I just love it.

Anyways, our good friend Logovo answered an observation on a blog post in Spanish [ Tijuana en el Exilio : Thursday, April 17, 2003 ] I made regarding the direct translation of a well known phrase in English ( I can’t believe I just did that ) to Spanish. It sounded foreign in Spanish, because it is not lexicalized (yet) in Spanish, so I pointed it out to her and she so kindly said:

” Direct translation… yep, it’s just in my system. This is what happens when I’m trying to say something but my brain will provide me with only one way of saying it. It knows that it’s given an answer and refuses to make an effort to search any further. ” (my italics)

Now, bear in mind that the following text am about to write here is in response to the text and as my Creative Writing teacher Jon Buscall says: you are attacking the text, not the person in question.

I refuse to believe the above mentioned assertion because I know how a bilingual brain works, I had one for 36 years.

I believe in incubation, I think that if you leave the problem in your head long enough, it will provide a solution to the translation issue in question.

However, this is the tricky thing about being bilingual: you must do maintenance work. If you do not balance how you feed your languages it will turn into a lopsided affair.

This happened to me not long ago. The thing is that I only took care of English, you see, I only read and developed my ideas in English. I left Spanish to its own devices, and that’s why many point out that Spanish is the language of the house.

That’s why you can relate when I say that English is more of an ”intellectual” issue for me, since I have overdone the idea department to an English only area.

Are casseroles flying yet?

Yet more exciting information at hand from the Lexicography dept:

Dictionaries: Collins English Dictionary Fourth Edition updated 2000 according to the blurb: 21st Century Edition

The New Britannica-Webster Dictionary and Reference Guide 1981

The query at hand: Compare the macrostructure of the two dictionaries:

“A dictionary’s macrostructure refers to what constitutes an entry in a dictionary and how the entries are arranged.” Lexicography: An Introduction – Howard Jackson (2002)

I took a common prefix: im- for the investigation of this quest.

The Britannica-Webster refers me to seek in- in the dictionary. So I did and at first we get a definition of the prefix. Then, a three small column of a list of words beginning with in-. In fact, the prefix in- enjoys a set of entries in the dictionary at hand, and every sense of it has a full headword status. Aside the above-mentioned list, which has 69 words that have a correlation to in-, there is a plethora of words with the prefix in- in alphabetical order. Words that have morphological bending are treated in the same headword but the dictionary only provides the abbreviated suffix of said morphis.

Collins, on the other hand does not redirect me but instead tells me that im- is a variant of in- ¹ and in-² with superscript indicating sense status. Although there is no redirection indicated, I believe one is to assume that if we are to look for the ‘real’ definition of im- we are to understand by the word variant, that this prefix is nothing more than another form of in- hence I ought to look in the direction of said prefix. So I did. In- has two full headword status in the dictionary and thereafter a host of words with that prefix are shown although intermingled with other words that have no relation to the prefix in question. So that while you can find inappropriate in the list following the definition of the prefix, you will also find a definition for inasmuch as. Words that have a morphological bending are shown in boldface type along the whole spelled word and not just the suffix. So that if you look for inarticulate, you will also find within that same headword, inarticulately and inarticulateness.

While our current reference book for this course indicates that words that enjoy full headword status in a dictionary are more easily accessible, it is of the opinion of this student that it really does not make much difference whether a word has full headword status or not.

The reason for this statement is because it is in the understanding of the student that the approach to words is according to the next of kin method, and as we scan the headword in question, scanning is done in a vertical manner.

When we find that which approaches our search we scurrily take a quick glance to the next headword to seek for a potential similarity but in the event that said word is not there our eyes takes a horizontal turn and down the headword that most resembles that which we seek until we find it.

Vertical descension take that! You downward spiral, your days are over! jejejeje, over dramatized it a little, didn’t I???

Rolling in laughter yet?

Further jolly good fun from the folks at the lexicography Dept.

The dictionaries chosen at will:

Collins English Dictionary Fourth Edition updated 2000. According to the blurb: 21st Century Edition and The New Britannica-Webster Dictionary and Reference Guide 1981

The query at hand: Compare the prefaces of said dictionaries:

The dictionaries in question do not have a section called preface in their books, but according to the etymology of the word from the Britannica-Webster its origins are : [Middle French, from Latin prefatio “foreword”, from praefari “to say beforehand” from prae– “pre-” + “fari” “to say”] and according to Collins preface comes from [C14: from medieval Latin praefatia, from Latin praefatio a saying beforehand, from praefari to utter in advance from prae– before + “fari” to say] hence I will use the Foreword, indicated in both dictionaries, to mean ‘preface’.

Collins seems to address its audience with much more in mind to say since there are far more wordy compared to Britannica-Webster who has less than a half page dedicated to their foreword. Collins has one and a half pages addressed to its readers. The information presented in the Britannica-Webster is placed smack in the middle with three short paragraphs and the one presented in Collins has one full page of information in two column rows and a second page half full also in a two column row formation.

Britannica-Webster has a near childish approach to its reader, and the emphasis on the didactical aspects are way over done. More oft than not it sounded like a blurb, highlighting much of the contents and what it had. It is a mere self-laudatory foreword to the dictionary as if the selling pitch has to continue to convince the reader that said dictionary is a sound investment. A few recommendations as to what to do first with the dictionary were dished out by the Editors. Collins also has the tendency to hype up its foreword by lauding its efforts in bringing about said dictionary, much of the information, if you bypass the sales pitch that seems to permeate every other labor that was done in an effort to bring the dictionary about, is handy and I guess that credit must be given were credit is due.

Bloody good review if you ask me!

Having fun yet?

I was recently told to compare the microstructure of two dictionaries in my very exciting lexicography class which makes me question WHY is it that I like lexicography so much, specially etymology.

The dictionaries chosen at will:

Collins English Dictionary Fourth Edition updated 2000. According to the blurb: 21st Century Edition

and The New Britannica-Webster Dictionary and Reference Guide 1981

The query: Compare the microstructure of the two dictionaries:

I took the entry: rest

The results:

Collins:

· This word has a superscript number for the headword to the right of the word. The dictionary indicates that all homographs are so treated.

· Word class is marked by italized abbreviation and if a word has more than one part of speech it is separated from others by a lozenge

· Pronunciation transcription according to the IPA is provided

· Senses are numbered and if there is more than one sense within the same number an alphabetical order is attached to the number.

· Fixed noun phrases are given full headword status

· Etymology comes at the last of the definition of the word which is indicated by bold brackets [ ] and according to the Guide to the Use of the Dictionary, ‘ The Etymologies show the history of the word both in English … and in its pre-English source languages.’

Britannica-Webster

· This word has a superscript number for the headword to the left of the word. The dictionary indicates in its section titled Using The Dictionary that ‘The order of homographs is historical.’

· Pronunciation transcription is provided right after the boldface entry word is shown.

· Word class is marked by italized abbreviation. If the word has another part of speech it is given a separate entry.

· Following the word, pronunciation and word class, the Britannica-Webster offers synonym paragraphs because according to the dictionary ‘[they] help the reader discriminate among a number of similar and often confused words.’

· Senses are numbered and if there is more than one sense within the same number an alphabetical order is attached although the number does not follow and the alphabetical letter stands alone. Every definition in the Britannica-Webster is set off by a boldface colon whether or not there is a number before it. When a meaning has multiple variations, the meanings are given according to their historical status with the oldest recorded meaning having first status and newest ones last status.

· What Collins refers to as idioms the Britannica-Webster refers to as run-on entries and they do not have headword status in this dictionary, nor much by way of distinguishing them either, they are ‘ … the last element of many entries.’

· Etymology is in square brackets following the definition. In the etymology, the entry’s history is in italics and its definition in quotations marks.

Exhilarated yet?

I believe in the USA and its constitution.

It has helped many people and probably will continue to do so.

But right now there is a group of people who have hijacked this ideal and turned it into a venture for their own enterprises.

This sector is bound to foster conflict because they are in the business of conflict and their enterprise is conflict. They manufacture products for the use in conflicts.

What will happen in Irak is that the USA will ‘manage conflict’ I got this idea from years of following the Palestine uprising against the nation of Israel to assert its right to existence. This is another rightful and moral idea that has been hijacked by businesses that have for business the manufacture of products for use in conflicts.

Unfortunately the USA cannot do without this sector since it brings in much needed revenue to sustain its mammoth government.

The influence of this interest group has been going on since the Reagen years. The Right, and its fascist allies, are giving the constitution a false interpretation in as much as radical fundamentalists are giving the Koran a false interpretation or The Zionist menace twisting the Talmud to their own gain.

I believe also that it is unhealthy that there is no real opposition within the USA to withstand the onslaught of radical patriotism which is now embroiling the USA.

We must, for the good of the USA, show opposition to the USA so that it see that they can’t do willy nilly as it pleases.

The recent war, (? : a silly joke in as much Israel is at war with Palestine. How can a superior power be at war with a much more weakling state such as Palestine and Irak?) while I applaud the so-called liberation of its people, it worries me as well since patriotism and business have now colluded with that mysterious faction called the Military Industrial Complex.

However, one mustn’t undervalue this kind of intervention which really was a ’nicer’ model of destruction in that even Washington felt the pressure of the international community.

The Bush term is to be seen as a fiasco in liaison with big business and however moral and preachy and evangelical this man is he is unhealthy for the future of the USA.