Don’t do or say anything you wouldn’t have your mother know.

The English language is stupid.

It’s ludicrous.  Rules, then exceptions to those rules.  Logic, then words that defy that logic.  We’ve have this stupid language for centuries, and we just continue with the madness.  There is no end in sight.  Sometimes, I wonder if the AOLers and shorthand IMers are pure evil or truly revolutionary geniuses.

Related:  Gallagher’s bit on words (skip to 4:30 if you’re short on time and filled on humor)

“I hold it be a proof of great prudence for men to abstain from threats and insulting words towards anyone, for neither…diminishes the strength of the enemy; but the one makes him more cautious and the other increases his hatred of you and makes him more persevering in his efforts to injure you.”

- Niccolo Machiavelli

Words are stupid.

Whatever happened to “sticks and stones can break my bones but words can never hurt me”?  Words are really tools of destruction by nature, even though they can be used to come off as temporary good, but if those words aren’t maintained, it’s really just a form of prolonged destruction.  Only once you’re objective will you be able to acknowledge how unbalanced our dependence on words is.

Example 1:  You tell someone, “You’re an idiot.”  5 seconds later, you say, “You’re not an idiot, you’re so smart.”  9 times out of 10, the person still thinks you called them an idiot, even though you used words to negate and then reverse the initial comment.

Words cannot undo the destructive nature of words.  Actions, however, can.  Hence, “Actions speak louder than words.”  By placing such strong emphasis on words, you’re setting yourself up for 1) destruction and 2)prolonged disappointment if you deny actions and maintain a focus on words.

Words are also free.  Hence, “Talk is cheap.”  People can lie because it takes little to no effort.  To actually carry out their words in actions though, takes conviction.

I was at work walking from my cube to the elevators and I passed 2 guys I know talking about eye doctors who wear glasses instead of contacts having no expertise to share with people who wear contacts.  As I passed them, directly on the other side of a cube wall next to them is a Blackberry support girl who was on the phone with a caller.  The girl and the 2 guys were no more than 3 feet away from each other, separated only by a 3 inch thick, 5 foot tall cube wall.  Right as I was even with the cube wall, the girl and one of the guys said “contacts” at the same time.  It was like the intersection of a sine and cosine wave.  2 completely different contexts and conversations intersecting in verbal harmony.

To top it off, as I’m writing that paragraph, my coworker came over and said “Sorry I’m late, I was talking to my contacts over in another department.”

I’m not looking for definition.

I’m just longing for recognition

That you define our position

In our relationship expedition.

But in addition,

Don’t be victim of attrition.

Use your heart and tool of erudition.

And do this in your own volition.

I can’t really speak for tradition

And I do not call myself a statistician,

But, given our story without omission

It would take no mathematician

To see our repeated emotional transmission

I care for you under any condition

And I try to write in such exhibition

But words can’t spell out my emotional emission

Because there’s no such thing as emotional definition

So, identify your inhibitions

And label any opposition

If they outweigh benefits of a relationship transition

Let’s begin remission

And agree on recission

So take my admonition

And if I satisfy that condition

Let us have the definition

And love another with ambition

Because I have no premonition

And I think we’d be a fine composition

And I’ll maintain a perfect disposition

Despite coalition or abolition.

Results may vary.  Even Webster‘s seems to dodge the answer.  Which understanding do you operate under?

Talking with Chris Olivieri one day, we got into how cursive is useless and shouldn’t be taught any more.  If we wanted to teach children how to write differently, teach them a different language.  To take that a step further, you could teach everyone in the world the same extra language.  That might draw us all a little closer to a global communication standard.  Even if it’s a language like Latin, that so many other languages are based on, it will help people identify root words and origins to be more adept linguists.

You may have noticed the new page – Words With Josh

I play words with friends (a scrabble rip-off basically) with a few people on my iphone, and I wanted to wrap some intelligence around finding the optimal word based off what letters were already played.  Now, I do not condone the act of cheating when you’re playing the game.  I was more intrigued at the logic that your brain does to determine what words to play.  Scrabble is a measurable science, and there is always a best word to play, it’s just a matter of whether you know that word and whether you recognize where to place it.

I at first wanted to write a complete scrabble game, that would track the entire board and value changing tiles, so that you could play against a computer.  I could still do that, but I would think that no one really wants to play scrabble by themselves, right?

So I set off to at least code what could be useful -IF- you decided to use it as a reference tool.  I made a version available through the blog but also a better mobile version for iphones and such here – http://sixf00t4.com/wordswithjosh.  Give it a shot.  It will help you find anagrams, words with letters in specific places, and even includes the option for blank tiles.  I was thinking about adding the functionality to set letter spaces as score modifiers (triple letter, double word, etc), but I got lazy and really just satisfied with what I have now.  It’s all php and mysql.  Let me know what you think!

Travels take me far from here.
But for some reason, my mind stays home.
not that it’s lost or forgotten,
It just decides not to come.