Fubar or foobar

Last night I watched a great documentary about the war on narcotics in Miami during the 1980s: Cocaine Cowboys. It is the story behind Scarface and the Mariel boatlift. It is also the background for Miami Vice. Coincidently, the music for the documentary was composed by the same composer of the Miami Vice Theme: Jan Hammer. Ever since arriving to the US, my first name has been difficult to pronounce: Jan. More often it is also mistaken for a woman's name -I have gotten samples for female products in the mail-. In my first weeks in the US, I tried various ways, including almost changing my email alias to 'ian', as it was phonetically closer to my name. Then, Jan Hammer came to my rescue. People knew how to pronounce his name, and knew he was a male.

The documentary taught me a new phrase: fubar. Over and over it was mentioned. Being an engineer, I immediately thought of foobar, a common place holder name in programming. It didn't make any sense in the movie. During Frontline tonight, the term fubar came up again. Now I was really intrigued. I had to look it up: fubar - fucked up beyond all recognition/repair.

• RFC3092 - Etymology of Foo
  

E n g l i s h !

Living in the Bay Area, you hear a lot of different dialects, accents and levels of the English language. I am not a native English speaker myself, so I won't proclaim to be proficient in it. There are however two expressions which annoy me tremendously. More and more native English speakers are starting to use them. Argh!

1. Long time no see - when meeting somebody after a long while. Wikipedia expands: "Long time no see" is a common Chinglish term, meaning "I haven't seen you for a long time"
2. My bad - when making a mistake. Mea culpa.
   

Boom!

I am a big fan of Presentation Zen. The blog has a tremendous amount of info and tips on becoming a better public speaker. Steve Jobs is often used as an example. Here he is in real good form:

Pizookies

Our tools group hit a major milestone this week. Take a look at the suite of developer tools for applications using the Data Distribution Service on our website. To celebrate, we met in our breakroom for BJ Pizookies (also known as pazookie). Huh? My first reaction was this was some sort of game. Nope.

1. BJ = BJ's Restaurant & Brewhouse in Cupertino. (Silicon Valley oldtimers know it as the old Peppermill in front of the Apple Headquarters on De Anza Boulevard)
   
2. Pizookies are giant, barely cooked cookies, baked in a pizza dish and served in a pizza box. Pizza+cookie=pizookie, get it? You can choose from: peanut butter, oatmeal raisin, chocolate chip, and white chocolate macadamia nut. They are best served with a scoop of ice cream and taste pretty great.
   

So there you go, a new word in my slang dictionary: pizookies.

Attitude Control

I've been several weeks in my new job, when an email about attitude control arrives in my inbox. Great, after merely a few weeks and unbeknown to me, I apparently have rubbed somebody the wrong way. Week 2 coincided with the annual company offsite and retreat (this year to the Chaminade in Santa Cruz) with all the families. So, I got to know and interact with everybody in the company. However, my day to day interactions are with a small team of about ten people. Who was it?

Upon reading the email, my fears subdued and I was convinced it was a typo and should have been altitude control. Wrong again. When I consulted the reference book for the project I am currently working on, attitude control system or attitude determination and control system (ADCS) stabilizes a spacecraft and orients it in desired directions during the mission.

Pew, no attitude control required. I am still the quiet lamb I used to be. Baaaah Baah

Chinese 101: no thank you

Hunting for new recipes, I started browsing Martin Yan's China Town cookbook for some oriental tastes. Most of the ingredients look standard. A lot of the meats, fish or poultry first get a coating of cornstarch. The oriental taste seems to come primarely from the sauce: some soy sauce here, some satay sauce there, and a few spoonfuls of fish sauce, oyster sauce or hoisin sauce.
Fortunately, our neighborhood has a large Vietnamese and Chinese population. We have two 99 Ranch (oriental) supermarkets within a 5 minute drive. I always found a visit to 99 Ranch an interesting tourist attraction, where you can pick your live sucker fish and have it butchered in front of your eyes. Or choose the smiley frog with the nicest legs to be disjointed and ready to be seared in a garlic butter sauce. (On the other hand, the strong smell that hangs around the supermaket has been a bit of turn of.) As we were strolling around the aisles on the look out for hoisin and satay sauce, I realized I could pnly read about 25% of all the products in the supermarket. Come on now! I understand the clientele is 90% oriental. But give me break! Allow a 'whitee' to understand what he is buying. In Belgium, there are three official languages: Dutch (Flemish), French (Walloon) and German. Laws are written and published in all three languages. People are expected to know the three languages, so shopping in Liege, you should not be surprised to read all in French. The point is there are three official languages. In the US, the one and only official language is English, not Spanish, not Chinese, not Ebonics. Every product should therefor at a minimum have one word in English explaining its content. (It is probably good marketing anyway.)

Technorati: Chinese The English Language

Is it Colour or Color?

If Tony Blair would tune in to prime time American network television, he would feel very much at home. Not only are all the so called reality shows British clones, the judges are British as well. (Add a black and latin judge for the ratings.) Case in point: Simon Cowell of American Idol (UK: Pop Idol) and Len Goodman of Dancing with the Stars (UK: Strictly Come Dancing). Both judges probably came with the contract to have an American version of the show. However, you didn't see this with the hosts of Operation Robinson (Survivor), Big Brother or Belgian's De Mol (The Mole). Arent' there any American dancing judges or music experts?

Not only is American television infatuated with the English accent, so is radio. Commercials and announcements are regularly in a true English accent. A good time for aspiring English actors and voice overs in the U.S. I presume.

Why the fetish for English pronunciation? Or is it the overall use of the English language? Are the Brits really the superior country when it comes down the use of the English language? The current assumption is the Lords would smoke the Yanks.

Let's settle it in a duel, or translateded on this side of the pond as "Bring it on!". A new reality show: "Straight A's", based upon the Dutch/Belgian "Tien voor Taal" (10 for language). The original show was co-produced by the VRT, in Belgium, and by the KRO Dutch television channel. It has two teams from both counties dueling on various aspects of the Dutch language. In one episode all team members were librarians. In the next, politicians, or movie stars. You get the idea. The show has been very popular for over 15 years. (Earlier this year, the VRT ended the co-production. The KRO continues the show in Holland.) Here are some ideas for the panels:

NFL bad men with tiny voices vs. Liverpool scouse swearing soccer players

Texas congresmen vs. Lords of the Common House

Stanford vs. Cambridge

Princeton vs. Oxford

Ellison and co vs. Branson and co

Motley Crue vs. The Rolling Stones

American Idol vs. Pop Idol

BackStreet Boys vs. Spice Girls

Wallstreet Journal vs. Financial Times

Star vs. The Sun

ABC, NBC, FOX: did I mention I optioned the show?

Technorati: Reality Shows The English Language