October 20, 2005
Pluralism
Ever since my 7th grade English class I've had an interest in correct plurals. Even more than most English the rules for plurals seem arbitrary and confusing. I have one ox or maybe many oxen. Why then wouldn't I have one box and several boxen? Even seems to work, when you use it out loud. "I'm moving, so I need a some boxen," you might say. Even better, a herd of boxen, as a large group of boxen might be called.
This works for a lot of 'x' words. "We can't let the cat out, there's a herd of foxen living nearby."
"There go the lumber jacks into the woods with their herd or axen."
The danger here is from the 'l33t." They already speak glowingly of Hax0rs. The so called elite tend to plural any word that ends on a hard 'k' sound with the 'sor' sound. That sounds close enough to our boxen to be a problem.
Even if we can't have axen we can still get around some of the other plurals. I have one mouse, many mice, one die, many dice; why not one pie many pice or one trout many trice.
Self pluraled words really bother me. I don't want one sheep many sheep. Sheep sounds plural. Maybe I could have one Shoop, that paired becomes sheep. After all I can have one goose and many geese. Gets a little tricky here though. After all, one door many deer will give people the wrong idea. The concept of one moose many meese is okay, but somehow still a bit lackluster.
Fortunately, no plural of Duk is necessary, since there remains only one true Duk.
Posted by DjDuk at 07:02 PM | Comments (4) | TrackBack
October 18, 2005
NaNoWriMo
National Novel Writing Month. NaNoWriMo comes around every November. It's the time of year all of us with literary pretensions go out and pretend we're going to write a novel. The idea is to write one novel, of at least 50,000 words, in thirty days. This seems like madness because it is. I have, however, heard on good authority that it's quite fun.
This year I'm going to try it. My problem, aside from a sudden need to generate 1,700 words a day, is that I don't know quite what to write. I've rejected in short order, dystopian Sci-Fi, mystery novel, hard boiled detective, gothic vampire story, comic book novelization, and standard fantasy. This leaves me with few choices toward writing anything I know. I don't have many options left. Some sort of non-standard fantasy, pulp fantasy, steam or cyber punk, funk detective novel, space opera, or some sort of comedy spoof of any of the above. This says nothing about plot, characters, or settings. So this is a call to action for all my loyal DJ Duk readers. I'd customarily make a "Both of you" joke here except that I doubt I have even one regular reader. Never the less, whatever you, the readers of DJ Duk decide, so shall I write. And to demonstrate my good faith I will post my daily writing right here, unedited, on the site.
Posted by DjDuk at 10:20 PM | Comments (1) | TrackBack
October 11, 2005
Eliza
Here, try this. Eliza, the computer therapist basically just repeats a variation of everything you tell her. It's just like real therapy without a massive bill. Not real smart, but fun for a few minutes.
Posted by DjDuk at 11:44 AM | Comments (120) | TrackBack
October 10, 2005
Jackassery
The actions or activities of a jackass, i.e. "Bill couldn't come, he's up to some jackassery."
Alternativly, the collective body of jackasses. "I don't want to go to the mall, the jackassery will be out in force."
Posted by DjDuk at 10:16 PM | Comments (611) | TrackBack
In defense of Noam Chomsky
I tried. I really did. I got nothing. There is no defense for that idiot. I suppose that makes this a cheap shot, but that wasn't my intention when I started. I had about three paragraphs of text that, on review, all boiled down to, "He's not been seen to eat infants in public." Proving that there's a way something could be worse isn't a defense. Perhaps I'll try again later.
Posted by DjDuk at 10:01 PM | Comments (582) | TrackBack
Procrastination
I could write the book on procrastination. Arguably, I already have. For the past several months I've said to myself, "I'll post soon," and then never got around to it. The blank pages for the past several months represent my book on procrastination. It's a 'how to' guide. This post exists as a way of breaking that chain of lethargy. We'll see what happens.
Now I'm off to my second project for the day. I need to see about copyrighting blank space.
Posted by DjDuk at 09:55 PM | Comments (618) | TrackBack