I don't know when the next generation of DVDs is due, and whether BluRay or SuperDVD wins out is not my concern. I do hope however that they use all the space for better quality movies rather than just more movie (or extra features). By better quality I mean less darn compression!! I just sat through "Hot Shots" on DVD and although the movie itself was enjoyable, the inter-frame compression was causing extreme lagging of some parts of the image. Throughout the film the characters faces stayed put on the screen while the rest of their head moved about. Freaky. Reminded me of hte Mr Potato head images on the early video phone demonstrations.
BTW (and that's an initialism not an acronym) whatever became of the DVD-audio vs SA-CD battle?
Friday, September 30, 2005
Acronyms and Not-Acronyms
Something that troubles me is the corruption of the English language. However, I have come to the conclusion that it doesn't really matter. My reasons for thinking this are the subject of another blog (as yet unwritten), which gives me enough time to have a moan about my latest complaint.
Today's subject matter are Acronyms, Initialisms and Abbreviations. I've noticed a lot of people are misusing the term 'acronym' when they actually mean 'initialism'. I've always understood the uses this way:
Top level : Abbreviation. This covers the shortening of words and phrases.
Subset of Abbreviation : Initialism. This covers abbreviations that use the initial letters of the words/phrases being shortened.
Subset of Initialism : Acronym. This refers to those initialisms that can be said as a new word, such as SCUBA but not HTML.
Wikipedia has a good writeup on the above and goes much further with the detail, making an interesting read.
What's fascinating is that the whole initialism scenario is a very recent occurance, mostly only popular in the last century. What really got me started on this was all those emails going around that claim to give the meanings of initialisms. Since most of these claims point back to centuries ago, that alone is cause for scepticism. While most obvious bogus expansions of initialisms such as GOLF and POSH were easy to spot, I was surprised to find that the international distress signal SOS was never intended to stand for Save Our Souls/Ship, but was in fact picked purely for its easy recognizability in Morse code. See Backronyms. Also worthy of a look are False Etymology and Fake Etymology.
Today's subject matter are Acronyms, Initialisms and Abbreviations. I've noticed a lot of people are misusing the term 'acronym' when they actually mean 'initialism'. I've always understood the uses this way:
Top level : Abbreviation. This covers the shortening of words and phrases.
Subset of Abbreviation : Initialism. This covers abbreviations that use the initial letters of the words/phrases being shortened.
Subset of Initialism : Acronym. This refers to those initialisms that can be said as a new word, such as SCUBA but not HTML.
Wikipedia has a good writeup on the above and goes much further with the detail, making an interesting read.
What's fascinating is that the whole initialism scenario is a very recent occurance, mostly only popular in the last century. What really got me started on this was all those emails going around that claim to give the meanings of initialisms. Since most of these claims point back to centuries ago, that alone is cause for scepticism. While most obvious bogus expansions of initialisms such as GOLF and POSH were easy to spot, I was surprised to find that the international distress signal SOS was never intended to stand for Save Our Souls/Ship, but was in fact picked purely for its easy recognizability in Morse code. See Backronyms. Also worthy of a look are False Etymology and Fake Etymology.
Wednesday, September 28, 2005
Top 3 Foolish Quotes
Asked many many times of us by ignorant people who can't think outside the country...
3. "So do we have accents to you?"
Said to our friend Jessica (an English girl) who was telling a chap that she had been in the States for a whole year...
2. "You've picked up the language well"
Asked of Duncan by a man(who knew he was English) at the bar writing him directions to somewhere or other...
1. "You can read and write in English can't you?"
All the above quotes are genuine - ie these people were serious.
3. "So do we have accents to you?"
Said to our friend Jessica (an English girl) who was telling a chap that she had been in the States for a whole year...
2. "You've picked up the language well"
Asked of Duncan by a man(who knew he was English) at the bar writing him directions to somewhere or other...
1. "You can read and write in English can't you?"
All the above quotes are genuine - ie these people were serious.
Monday, September 26, 2005
Away to Starbucks
My first vlog proper! This is a short movie clip recorded directly to the MemoryStick of my camcorder.What you will see is CD and me leaving CDs house this afternoon to head to the nearest web-cafe, now that Evolution has closed. Pah!
Sunday, September 25, 2005
Coming soon...!
Having returned from a most informative Webzine 2005 in San Francisco, I have created my first Blogger template in readiness for my vlog.
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