Minggu, 14 Oktober 2012

English: Fascinatingly Inconsistent




“There’s nothing constant in this world but inconsistency” – Jonathan Swift
Indeed, inconsistency is what makes up the world. We may find consistency in nearly all aspect of this life, even in language. We have learnt English since elementary school, some of us even earlier, but we learnt it for granted. Thus, we seldom realize that some consistencies occur in this language. Dr. Albrecht Classen, a linguist from The University of Arizona, points out several fun and entertaining inconsistencies in English that will put us in awe and make us shout “how can I missed that” or “seriously.”

In his “English Language: Crazy Inconsistencies,” Dr. Classen shows us that an English word may come with different meaning, such as the word “dessert” in this sentence:
The soldier decided to desert his dessert in the desert
There are two exactly identical words and one nearly identical word in the sentence; but those three words have totally different meaning. The first desert means to leave or to abandon while the second desert means the barren or desolate area especially the dry and often sandy ones. And the other dessert (with double s) means the dish served as the last course of a meal.

In the other examples, we are shown with some interesting facts that there is no egg in eggplant, neither pines nor apples in pineapples, English muffin is not originated from English, French fries in not French. Also, we will find paradoxes in the fact that quicksand is slow, a boxing ring is square, and a guinea pig is neither from Guinea nor a pig.

Do you ever have a nose that runs and feet that smell? Do you ever wonder if a vegetarian eats only vegetable then what does a humanitarian eat? How can a fat chance and a slim chance are the same? Why can a wise man and a wise guy be opposites? A wise man is a wise and trusted guide and advisor while a wise guy is an upstart who makes conceited, sardonic, insolent comments. Why is put pronounced as /pʊt/ while cut is pronounced as /kʌt/? Why does alarm go off when it rings?

Those are some of the million unique features of English. After all, language is the product of human’s intelligences, not a computer’s, thus inconsistencies may occur here and there. From here on, be aware of those unique features in every language you learn, and then you will find the fun in learning the language.

Compiled from various sources

Selasa, 07 Agustus 2012

Language after Twitter


Yes, this up-to-140-characters long microblogging site known as Twitter is gaining massive popularity these days, not only in United State of America, from which the founder of the site, Jack Dorsey, is originated, but also in the whole world that it ended the domination of Facebook in social media realm. Since the day it was created in March 2006, it has been rapidly developed as now there are over 500 million active users with more than 340 million tweets generated daily. The popularity of the site inevitably influences people’s social aspects. Language is among those that are not immune to the influence. In fact, many have said that language suffers most due to the limitation of 140 characters. Ralph Fiennes, a Hollywood actor said that modern language is being eroded, and he blamed “a world of truncated sentences, soundbites and Twitter.” The modern age people often find difficulties in the sentence with more than one clause and the words of more than two syllables. For example, the density of Shakespeare text can be a challenge in a way for the younger generation that perhaps the people of few generations ago did not have. Even the famous Linguist, Noam Chomsky also mentioned Twitter lingo* as “very shallow communication” and regarded it as superficial “it requires a very brief, concise form of thought and so on that tends toward superficiality and draws people away from real serious communication. It is not a medium of a serious interchange.”

In contrary, some believe that Twitter is not ruining language but in fact it enriches it and makes it better. Aside of the abbreviations and the substituted words as well as the leetspeak*, Twitter also contributes new phrases or terms that are used both online and offline. These specific phrases allow people across the world to connect and interact in specific topics. As for scientist, those phrases enable them to easily gather information from Twitter just by search those phrases or words in it. Twitter is full of a variety of language that people may don’t understand, however the people from around the world can converse and interact using those specific Twitter terms or phrases that are widely known. In fact some Twitter words are also adopted in English dictionaries such as Oxford Learner Dictionary that lists the word “retweet” and “hashtag” as meaningful words.

For centuries, human’s culture is changing, evolving, and thus resulting in various social changes that affect our way of life and not to mention the language. The new communication era, not only via Twitter but also other means of communication such as short messages or telegraph, changes our communication attitude thus resulting in language shaping. Is it bad or good? You decide. After all a surviving language is an evolving language.
@haru_haruu


*lingo: the vocabulary of a particular field of interest (Merriam Websters Dictionary)
*leetspeak: a communication where a user replaces letters for numbers or other characters (www.computerhope.com)

Selasa, 19 Juni 2012

Digital Life?



Firstly, sing me a happy birthday! I’m the birthday boy today J. Celebrating the first day I breathed the open air of the world. Thanks to facebook for making the remembering other’s birthday easier, and thanks for giving me the things everybody always have these days on their birthday, the birthday greetings….on the wall, or now they call it timeline. Thank you for all the timeline writers, I do appreciate your wishes and greetings!! You rock!!

So here it came, once the facebook did its job…the greetings flooded my days. People faraway, wrote on my timeline, people near me, congratulated me..shook my hand…with their loveliest smiles I saw today, some did both…congratulate me offline and online. Not saying it on facebook is not “afdol” they said, and I was like…uummmm it works the other way around for me. I know, it was meant to be a joke, but let’s see from the “nynyir” point of view :D ….I mean if you have done the greeting offline (directly by meeting in the real world) then why would you need to say it in the online world? The thing is, for me, the one does matter most is letting the person to whom you want to congratulate your feeling, not letting everyone on facebook knows that you have congratulated someone on his birthday. It’s not like I don’t like them post the greeting on my timeline, and it’s not that saying happy birthday twice, offline and online, is bad…but yeah…saying it is not “afdol” really surprised me…. One thing crossed my mind is, has the digital world become that important? Some said facebook brings the far ones closer, and the close ones farther, and yeah…sadly it is true. Frankly, I was there…I used to be at the time when I communicate with the person about 3 meters away from me using facebook J. If  that is bad enough, I tell you what’s worse….the public display of affection in the social media…like saying I love you, oh I need you, oh I want to be always be with you…and other creepy things on social media when they have more private means of communicating like messaging or telephone. I mean, yeah, once a while..it is okay…but repeating it every minute and every day is like shouting to everybody you are eating donuts while everybody has already known/seen you are eating… it is not necessary. Then maybe you will say “I write what I want to write, it is my space, my account” yes you are right…and in the other side “I respond to what I want to, to what I see, to what is responsible of making me feel certain 
feeling”…..indeed, it is called SOCIAL media for a reason. Social means you, like it or not, will have too deal with others, communicate with others, interact with other, thus what you do will, more or less, have effect to others.

The digital life really gets more and more “important”…..even sometimes the real life gets less important than that. How many times I see people say certain things in facebook or twitter at certain occasions like “happy mother’s day/father’s day” for example…when they know, neither the father nor mother has facebook/twitter account… ridiculous isn’t it? What do they want? Show the love to the father/mother, or show other that they love the father/mother? If they mean the former, why don’t they just tell them directly…posting something on facebook for someone that doesn’t have facebook account is just not making any sense. Once, I got a chain message that said “send it to 10 (or..umm I don’t really remember the amount), if you don’t then you don’t love your parents” ---- that was just outrageous…how can you measure the love to parents just by how much you care to send a silly message to certain number of people. Come on……it is okay to have a digital life…but live it responsibly, and remember….no digital friendship better than the real one.


PS: My birthday is yesterday, June 18....I wrote it yesterday, and posted it just now...so yeah, when you read the first paragraph, pretend you are on June 18 ya hehehe  

Selasa, 12 Juni 2012

Give glory to God and love the people (Raden Saleh, Maxen 1848)


Yesterday, my boss asked “does anybody have the interest in painting?” to the people at my office, “who wants to come with me to Raden Saleh’s painting exhibition?” she added, then I said “I don’t know much about painting Ma’am, but I would like to go to the exhibition.” And then today I with my boss and one of my office mate escape the office hour to go to the exhibition (I know, this is not a good thing…ssshhhh don’t say anything to anybody..okay? :D ). All I know about Raden Saleh is that he was a painter, and couple days ago I saw his painting at the internet…and I was like….hmmmm this painting is quite nice (and that was one of my reason I went to the exhibition).
The walls beside the door show two large red poster, written “Give glory to God and love the people (Raden Saleh, Maxen 1848)” on the right wall and the letter as well as the picture of Raden Saleh or Raden Saleh Syarief Bustaman on the left wall, from which I later learned that Raden Saleh once lived in Europe and as he was very talented, the government offer him to choose to be European or Indonesian….he chose to be the later.  The first painting I saw was the one titled “Winter” (or Winter in Netherlands…I was not very sure hehehe), as I overheard from an organizer staff who was explaining the painting to a group of junior high students that this painting was sketched by Raden Saleh’s mentor, A.J. Payen,  from Netherlands who had Raden Saleh finished the sketch. 
I like the painting, the detail amazes me given it was painted on 1830, gives me a chill of winter breeze. 
There were a lot of paintings exhibited, but you know, I went with my boss, and most definitely I have to be her assistant in taking her picture....since she is very fond of taking picture wherever and whenever (and the first thing she does is uploading them to facebook :D). My boss is a very...what we call it....cultural..uummmm I mean she like the exotic things ....like antiques etc. She also loves paintings, she knows a lot about them. From her, I learned that the most famous painting of Raden Saleh is the Arrest of Diponegoro, a historical painting about the arrest of one of Indonesian heroes, Pangeran Diponegoro which was painted on 1857.
Okay, sorry for the distraction...just focus on the painting, okay :D. They also exhibit Raden Saleh's sketches that were published in the books about painting for children. For a novice like me, the paintings were extraordinary, the details are amazing, some paintings really present the ambiance, certain feelings......as I see in these paintings...


 these are my favourites....I forgot the name, I think they have to do with "Mega Mendung". The feeling of fresh, bright, and calm illuminate me. I really love the exhibition, even though I don't really understand paintings hehehehehe. So if you like, spare some time to visit Musium Nasional (in front of Gambir Station) to see this exhibition before it is closed on 17 June. 






Rabu, 23 Mei 2012

WAIT, WHAT WAS THAT YOU CALL ME??


What’s in a name,
that which we call a rose by any other name would smell as sweet (Romeo and Juliet)

Apa artinya sebuah nama? Mawarpun walau disebut dengan nama lain, akan tetap berbau harum, Kata Shakespeare. Yes indeed, tapi tak semudah itu om Shakespeare. Have you ever been called by any other name that you find it offensive or not a name to be fond of? No no no, I don’t mean by your father’s name (I know the feeling, trust me I lived my school age with that name). Name yang saya maksud di sini, bukan nama mungkin ya, tapi “panggilan” lebih tepatnya . Sampai sekarang, saya masih canggung jika dipanggil dengan panggilan “Pak” baik saat pembicaraan langsung maupun lewat media (telepon, email dan lain-lain), jiwa (masih merasa) muda saya memberontak, kenapa nggak manggil saya “Mas” ? (Don’t ever think about “Kakak” unless you are mbak-mbak pramuniaga toko di mall). Nggak tau ya, mungkin saya merasa belum pantas dipanggil “Pak” (hey I’m on my twenties…….twenty something lah :D). Beda kasus dengan saya dipanggil dengan hanya “nama” oleh adik-adik kelas dan junior di kantor, yang umurnya ya di bawah saya, kalo itu saya tidak keberatan malah. Nggak tau ya, mungkin saya menganggap kalo mereka merasa “dekat” dengan saya (kepedean) dan tidak perlu memakai embel-embel “Mas” (padahal karena mereka nggak nganggep saya kali ya hahaha).
Sebenernya, saya niatnya sih mau nulis tentang “panggilan” (nggak perlu ditambah “cewek” ya di depannya), tapi bingung bikin paragraph pembukanya gimana hehehhe, jadi maapkeun kalo paragraph yang di atas itu agak berantakan. So it started as I notice something interesting on the way my surrounding address each other. Panggilan itu contohnya “pak” (bapak) “mas” “mbak” “kak” (kakak) “bu” (ibu) dan bahkan “cuk” (jancuk), serta panggilan panggilan lain. Generally, actually based on my own opinion (who are you to make such opinion Ru? :P), certain considerations are made before one decides to address the other.
1.       Gender
Jenis kelamin sangatlah menentukan panggilan yang akan kita gunakan. Ya iya lah, emang misal situ cowok trus dipanggil “Bu” mau? (iya iya ada beberapa “cowok” yang mau kok, udah jangan cemberut ah). Ya emang sih, ada beberapa yang netral, bisa dipake oleh baik cowok, cewek, cowok setengah cewek, maupun cewek setengah cowok, contohnya “cong”?? :P. kalau menurut gender, panggilan ini ada di hampir semua bahasa, baik “barat” atau “timur” (you know what I mean). Gender merupakan value pembeda, seperti di bahasa Inggris ada “sir” “maam” “auntie” “uncle” dan lain lain, bahkan di bahasa Korea  agak lebih kompleks, panggilan untuk cowok ke cewek, cowok ke cowok, cewek ke cewek, cewek ke cowok akan berbeda. Kalau di bahasa lain, yang menentukan adalah gender of the addressee, di bahasa Korea, gender of the addresser is also considered (ciee mentang-mentang gak jadi ke Korea, ngomongnya tentang Korea mulu cie ciceeee.....eerrrrr -___-).

2.       Age, umur
Yap, umur, unlike in the “barat,” orang “timur” biasanya menambahkan “panggilan” sebelum nama seseorang berdasarkan umurnya. Contohnya orang Jawa akan memanggil laki-laki yang lebih tua “mas,” dan ini pun dipengaruhi oleh umur, if one is considerably young, he will be called “mas” but when the addresser thinks that the addressee is quite as old as his or her old man (father) he (the addressee) will be called “pak” or maybe “mbah” if he is as old as a grandfather. Di Negara barat, panggilan seperti ini jaranglah ada. Mungkin ada, tapi tidak banyak.
Nah, dua pertimbangan di atas adalah hal pokok yang menentukan penggunaan panggilan (menurut saya lho….hehehehe, bisa jadi nggak valid)  ada beberapa variable (apa dah variable, sok nih bahasanya  -____-“) yang memengaruhi penggunaannya, sehingga pertimbangan tersebut kadang tidak berlaku. Contohnya adalah:
1.       Closeness/friendliness/intimacy
“Kedekatan” (bukan kedeketan ya, eh lucu juga ya, kedekatan dan kedeketan, beda satu huruf, artinya jadi beda hehehehe). Biasanya, jika jarak sosialnya cukup jauh, seseorang akan menggunakan panggilan yang “menghormati” yang menempatkan si addresser “di bawah” si addressee. Contohnya gini deh, saya ketemu sama orang baru, belum tau latar belakangnya, belum tau umurnya, cuma tau jenis kelaminnya (bukan berarti saya sudah pernah melihat kelaminnya lho ya, tapi kan bisa dibayangkan,...… eerrrr anu maksudnya itu, eh nganu, ah, ya gitulah, -___-) saya akan menggunakan “mas” atau “mbak” walaupun mungkin umurnya lebih muda dari saya. Dan kepada yang lebih dekat jarak sosialnya, panggilan nya akan lain, mungkin hanya memanggil nama, atau bahkan “cuk” “su” (asu = anjing) “ndhes” (gondhes = gondrong ndheso) dan lain lain yang “terdengar kasar”. Tapi semakin kasar, menunjukkan bahwa semakin dekat hubungan si addresser dan addressee. Tapi ya nggak selalu juga, kalo nggak berteman (bermusuhan) atau belum saling kenal, memanggil “cuk” “su” bisa berarti melecehkan sih. Dan hal seperti ini saya alami, beberapa adik kelas saya sekolah, kuliah, maupun angkatan di tempat kerja, (tentu yg umurnya lebih muda) memanggil saya dengan hanya nama, nggak ada embel-embel panggilan. Oke kalo di tempat kerja sih bisa dimaklumi, because the “class” is no longer that mater. But, it doesn’t mean that I disapprove them, not at all, in fact I am glad that (maybe) they think that I am a “close” friend hehehehehhe. Malah kadang agak awkward kalau orang yang biasa manggil saya dengan hanya nama, trus memanggil saya dengan “mas.”

2.        Position in the society or in any other organisational chart
Students (in the test) say position affects achievement, then in this “naming” case I say position affects your diction. Ya, posisi dalam strata masyarakat, atau dalam pekerjaan memengaruhi penggunaan panggilan, affects in a great deal indeed. Ini yang saya amati, seseorang dapat mengubah cara memanggil orang lain hanya karena posisinya berubah. Contohnya, si A, dulu adalah bawahan dari si B, therefore si A memanggil si B dengan panggilan yang “menghormati” such as “pak” atau “bu,” tapi as the time goes by, si A kemudian berada di posisi yang sama dengan si B, dan saat itu pula si A mungkin merasa tidak perlu lagi panggilan “menghormati,” thus si A memakai panggilan yang “less formal,” contohnya hanya memanggil namanya, atau menggunakan kata ganti “lu” “kamu” despite of the age gap even if the gap is large. Iya, saya menyaksikan hal tersebut, dan menurut saya menarik, how the social communication works. Tapi pada beberapa kasus, bisa juga hal ini tidak terjadi, contohnya jika variable “kedekatan” lebih dominant, maka despite the age, the social status, the position, kata panggilan yang mereka gunakan tetap yang “less formal” bahkan “kasar” seperti “cuk” “bro” “su” “ndhes” dan lain-lain.

Penggunaan kata panggilan ini will really mater to some people, at certain position, at certain time. Seperti saya yang terganggu ketika dipanggil “pak” atau bos saya mungkin akan terganggu jika saya panggil “ndhes,” tapi intinya menurut saya adalah “kedekatan.” Umur, jenis kelamin, status sosial, akan tidak berlaku ketika telah ada sebuah tingkatan kedekatan tertentu. Mungkin di suatu tempat ada orang yang memanggil Presiden kita dengan “cuk” “su” tanpa bermaksud melecehkan tentunya dengan tanpa membuat pak Presiden tersinggung. Dan sebenernya penggunaan panggilan ini dapat digunakan untuk mencapai tujuan tertentu (sebenernya sih pada dasarnya memang ada tujuan dibalik semua panggilan), seperti ada temen saya yang sering menggunakan panggilan “boss” kepada teman yang lain, atau pernah ke ITC kan? Di sana pasti sering dipanggil “kak”…”kak mampir dulu kak, “kak giordanonya kak” “kak boleh liat liat dulu kak”….. ya semuanya berusaha menempatkan the addressee in a position higher than the addresser, thus the addressee will feel the “proud” and eventually it will be easier for the addresser to impose what he or she wants.
Oke, I lost my point, cuman iseng nulis tanpa kerangka ya begini ini hehehhe. pokoknya  tetep sehat, tetep semangat, biar tetep bisa baca blog saya hahahahaha.
Salam :)

Senin, 07 Mei 2012

A shower in the early November


Along the path of rush where patience is dead
Leading to everyday I have had
Under the shower
Under the shower


I hate Poets

Write of nothing
Of no one knows the meaning
But you see….
They are crazy

Taking round road
Walking and dancing
Never see what he’s holding
But you follow them somewhat

I hate poets

*) just found this in my old files, enjoy ^^...and drop your thought :)

Kamis, 12 April 2012

The Raid


Oke oke, emang telat banget saya nulis tentang film ini, tapi emang saya baru nonton sih :D. Saya tahu tentang film ini udah agak lama dan tergiur karena berita mengenai film ini begitu santer dan mayoritas positif. Jadi saya excited banget sama pemutaran film The Raid ini, apalagi melihat fakta bahwa Hollywood pun tertarik memproduksi ulang, bahkan Mike Shinoda of Linkin Park juga terlibat dalam scoring film ini. Wah pasti seru sekali. Saya tonton tuh trailer-trailer yang lalu lalang di internet, dan wow, kelihatannya bakal keren, ada film Indonesia dengan aksi yang menegangkan dan adegan berantem yang seru (saya memang fans berat film-film tentang bela diri hehehe). Tapi apa daya, pacar saya gak doyan nonton film macam ginian, jadi nggak bisa saya ajakin nonton. Tapi mending pacar saya gak saya paksa nonton film kaya gini, nanti konsekuensinya saya disuruh ikut dia nonton film vampire yang bersinar-sinar dan suka berantem sama manusia serigala -____-.

Nah, malam kemaren, saya dan temen saya akhirnya nonton film The Raid di Metropole. Dengan segala ekspektasi saya yang didapat dari denger cerita orang, baca berita, dan nonton trailer The Raid, saya duduk manis di dalam studio 4 Bioskop Metropole tepat pukul 19:15. Dan, setelah kira-kira 1,5 jam, film pun selesai, tapi ternyata ekspektasi saya kurang terpenuhi, kaya nggak orgasme (sok tau dah, emang pernah? Hehehe). Nggak, saya nggak mau cerita tentang alurnya, penokohannya, atau akting para aktornya….nggak, saya nggak ngerti masalah gitu-gituan hehehe. Tapi ekspektasi saya yang bakal melihat aksi berantem seru dan menegangkan itu yang tidak terpuaskan. Uummm gimana yaaa, kurang ‘indah’ kalo menurut saya. Oke, banyak aksi berantem yang keren, yang belum pernah saya lihat sebelumnya di film-film aksi Indonesia manapun, baik itu film aksi yang menampilkan naga terbang atau yang tidak. Tapi buat saya aksi itu lebih menjurus ke sadis. Yaaa mungkin emang dibuat sedemikian rupa agar berantemnya kelihatan nyata, efektif, dan tidak terkesan mengada-ada. Tapi itu menjadikan aksi berantemnya kelihatan uummm kurang berseni, harusnya pengarah gaya nya lebih bisa mengeksplore adegan-adegan berantemnya biar kelihatan lebih menarik.

Coba deh bandingkan dengan film Thailand yang berjudul Ong Bak! Udah pernah nonton kan? Kalo belum, gih sana donlot dulu hehehehhe. Film ini memiliki beberapa adegan yang sangat mudah diingat, dan berkesan, sampai-sampai ketika melihat adegan tersebut di video atau di film lain, saya bisa langsung inget “oooo ini kaya yang di film Ong Bak nih.” Salah satu adegan favorit saya adalah saat si Tony Jaa (pemeran utama film Ong Bak) itu dikejar-kejar sama bandit, terus didepannya ada dua orang menggotong sebuah gulungan kawat berduri, daan tanpa di duga si Tony Jaa melompat menerobos gulungan kawat berduri tersebut dengan cara yang tidak biasa, meluruskan kaki dan badan ke depan sambil menerobos kawat berduri, dan saya langsung berkomentar “anjiiiiir.” Adegan itu masuk dalam 10 top stunts di sebuah website. Dan tak terhitung beberapa gerakan yang bikin saya me-rewind dvd player saya hanya untuk melihat lagi adegannya, sampai segitunya lho!

Di Ong Bak, bela diri yang ditampilkan adalah Muay Thay, bela diri tradisional Thailand yang mengandalkan serangan siku, lutut, dan tendangan  (sering disebut dengan Thai Boxing). Dan banyaaaak sekali tendangan tendangan yang membuat saya melongo dan berkata “anjir, bisa ya kaya gitu.” Di The Raid ini, pemeran utamanya mempunyai dasar bela diri Silat, seharunya ini adalah kesempatan buat mempromosikan bela diri asli Indonesia, yaaa walaupun ssebenernya sih udah terkenal, banyak orang-orang dari luar negeri yang belajar dan mendalami Silat. Iko Uwais (pemeran utama di The Raid) emang jago banget, gerakannya keren, tapi ya itu, penata geraknya kurang berimprovisasi mungkin. Aksi aksi akrobatik dan stunts yang memorable sangat kurang deh saya rasa. Tapiiiii, on top of that, saya salut banget deh, Indonesia sudah bisa bikin film laga yang seperti ini, tanpa ada naga terbang dan monster raksasa hehehehhe. The score is 7 out of 10 in my opinion. Dan film ini pun bertaraf internasional…keren! Eh tapi ada yang cukup memorable buat saya di film The Raid, yaitu kata-kata si preman yang kayaknya berasal dari Indonesia Timur “Jangan bikin saya muak, kalo saya muak, saya bisa menggila” hehehehehe
Bravo film Indonesia!!