Day: July 28, 2004

Talking out me neck, again

Re this post by Eric Bakovic, I reckon that when Chuck D of Public Enemy sings Ain’t how that God planned it? he is using “how that” where standard English speakers would use “how”, and that the pronoun “that” is assumed in the “ain’t” or what precedes it. The “how that”/”how” swap turns up in…

Here’s a good singer

I thought this was rather special, especially when you consider all the one-note-samba rubbish still floating around: an early C20th recording (MP3) by El Canario Chico which concentrates a maximum of micro-variation within a minimal compass. More here on the Centro Andaluz de Flamenco site. A prior engagement with a tarantula means I’m not going…

Country and Tristan

I’m terribly sorry: I meant conservative in the sense of a nostalgia for things just past, which does, I think, make Habermas and Derrida conservatives. Mark Liberman, on the other hand, is nostalgic for times long past, for the Enlightenment–buckled shoes, open drains, and, quite possibly, beating well-loved columnists with clubs–which makes him not so…