There is something so cool about turning on the radio and hearing a symphony you’ve played in chamber orchestra. This is Beethoven’s 2nd, and I adore it. It was the grand finale to our concert in January, and it has deplaced the 7th as my Official Favourite Beethoven Symphony. We’re working on the 1st now, and it just doesn’t grab me like the 2nd does. I’m loving the Mozart we’re doing though, the 26th. Which I must go downtown to find a recording of this very day – heh heh heh – HMV, here I come, second weekend in a row! I buy very few CDs now; they’re expensive and I haven’t exactly had the disposable income necessary, nor the time to check out music stores. Barring last weekend’s joyous celebration of Baebes, I think I’ve bought all of six CDs this year, most of which were under $10 and study discs for orchestra (gotta love those classical Naxos CDs!). Before that… hmm… I bought the Harry Potter soundtrack in early December. I think that’s pretty much it for last few months of 2001; I don’t even remember what else I might have bought after the summer. I’m looking for a recording of the Mozart and some Bartok, again for orchestra prep purposes. It’s not so hot today, so it will be a nice trip. Maybe I’ll take the 104 again.

Wow! Earthquake! The swords are rattling on our walls!

I will explain a simple feature of human cadence.

We’re simple creatures. We like a da-DAH, da-DAH, da-DAH rhythm. Why? Because it’s our heartbeat. Simple. Elegant. A bassline accompaniment to everything we do. People who tell you they have no rhythm are either lying or vampires.

A pair of syllables (like da-DAH) that are unstressed-stressed is called an iamb. Most of English words and phrases fit this pattern; iamb followed by iambs followed by iambs. We stress the first syllable of a good chunk of words making up our language.

So when Lore Fitzgerald Sj�berg (yes, of the Shuttlecocks) remarked upon the eerie coincidence of posting his Twelve Actual AP Headlines Which, When Followed By ‘Doo-Dah, Doo-Dah,’ Can Be Sung To The Tune of ‘Camptown Races’ synchronous with the appearance of this article on writing catchy headlines, I checked the article out. The author seems to think he’s hit on some sort of miraculous discovery. I just shook my head and sighed.

It’s called iambic meter, folks. The best example of this is Shakespeare. Read this without stopping at the end of every line for breath, or without being overly dramatic. (That’s just wrong. Use the punctuation; that’s what it’s there for.)

To be, or not to be: that is the question:
Whether ’tis nobler in the mind to suffer
The slings and arrows of outrageous fortune,
Or to take arms against a sea of troubles,
And by opposing end them?

(Hamlet, III.i, if you need to know.) See how it’s sort of sing-songy? The human ear likes that cadence; it’s familiar, and we like familiar things. I should actually go a step further and say that it’s the Western ear that likes that cadence, for I cannot state with any sort of authority that Oriental literature follows the same style as Occidental. (Incidentally, it’s the same with music. We like a nice balanced eight-note scale with proper intervals. Asian and Indian music is hard for some people to wrap their ears around because it doesn’t follow the same musical rules; their idea of what is aurally pleasing is completely different.) Anyway, if you remove the last three syllables (that would be a weak-strong-weak syllable sequence) from any of the first four lines I’ve quoted up there and replace it with “doo-dah, doo-dah”, you’d have the same phenomenon that the dork who wrote the news story discovered (the comma is a pause, replacing one of the beats in the musical line). Case in point:

“The SLINGS and ARrows OF outRAGE, DOO-dah, DOO-dah.”

You’re welcome.

You know, one of my friends called me from his copywriting job (not copyrighting; on the contrary, he likes to claim that the term “copyright infringement” was created for him) last week and said that I was his last hope for aid, having gone through other copywriters and English graduates of various levels. It was a question concerning the use of the terms “logistics systems” and “logistical systems”. I talked it through for him and he seemed impressed, saying, “That sounds like an actual rule!” “Rule?” I said. “No one’s ever taught me a rule about this. It just makes sense.” “Wait a minute,” he said, becoming slightly suspicious in an amused sort of way; “You’re using the Force on this one, aren’t you.” Heck, yes! Grammar is all about using the Force! It’s a feeling. It’s being aware of what you’ve seen used elsewhere, and knowing instinctively if it’s correct or not. It’s about scanning. (Not with a machine, to the ear.)

What’s wrong with using the Force anyway? Just because it’s a totally subjective matter that you have to take my word for and can’t quantify doesn’t mean it’s a bad thing…

Autumn: Jedi M.A. in English. Guardian of Peace, Justice, and the English Language within the Galaxy.

Okay, now I’m hungry. I’ve been awake for two and a half hours. It’s beginning to be light outside. This is just wrong.

Dear gods. Birds just began to sing outside.

Do you read The Brunching Shuttlecocks? If you don’t, you should. I don’t know how I’ve forgotten to add their link to the left for so long. A quote from one of their latest rating articles, the subject being Keyboard Characters:

“Backslash:
I have, at various points in my life, been in the position to use both some form of DOS and some form of UNIX. Those of you who have no duck-strangling idea what I’m talking about, just smile and nod. The only point here is that DOS uses backslashes a lot and UNIX uses forward slashes a lot and the effect of using both is somewhat like having Darth Vader for homeroom and Yoda for first period. Many say that DOS is the dark side, but actually UNIX is more like the dark side: It’s less likely to find the one way to destroy your incredibly powerful machine, and more likely to make upper management choke. C-“

Go. Browse their ratings and reviews of things like Canadian Snack Foods, Power Tools, and Psychic Powers.