Today I'll Mostly Be Using The Future Tense

Let me reveal a secret: I love language. I love not just how it sounds and how it's used, I love in particular the fact that the way we use language can change the world around us, and language can tell us things about the world around us that we wouldn't otherwise have known.

Now, dear reader, I can guess what you're thinking.  You're probably thinking "What is he going on about now?", or "Why does he never write about interesting things?", or something along those lines.  Both are good questions.  On we go.

By way of introduction (no, the above paragraphs are not introduction, they're pre-amble, which is different), let me mention that the differences between American English and British English are well known and well documented.  I don't propose to go on at length (!) about tom-ay-toes and tom-ar-toes and all that.  It is what it is.  And most of what it is is differences in vocabulary.

Differences in vocabulary (pitch v field, courgette v zucchini, tarmac v blacktop) are important to know.  For example, if you're a Brit travelling in the US of America, you probably are well aware that Americans use "sidewalk" to indicate what you would call a "pavement"; but it might also come in useful to know that Americans also use "pavement", but to them it means the surface of the road.  Equally, depending on what you get up to whilst travelling over here, it might be useful to know that Americans use the word "suspenders" to indicate what Brits would call "braces", ie something to hold up mens' trousers (aka pants) rather than womens' stockings.

And so, dear reader, if this was just any old expat blog, I would go on about vocabulary differences at length and we could all have a good laugh about what would happen if you mixed up your suspenders and your pants, etc.

But, as my hardcore following will know, The Referee tries to dig a little deeper, in order to give you the in-depth inter-cultural commentary you so richly deserve.

That being the case, I want to mention something much more subtle about the way that Americans use English and see if it doesn't indicate something interesting in outlook and points of view.  There are multiple potential subtle differences, of course, but I want to focus on one I've noticed often recently, and which stood out on a recent visit to the cinema, aka movie theater.

The Littlest Referee was keen to take me to see a film and I was happy to go along; (it used to be the other way round).  On the way in to the cinema, the very polite young ticket chap said the following: "Theater 7 is going to be upstairs, and the concession stand is going to be open up there".

Think about that for a moment.  Ignore the spelling - I'm spelling "theater" that way just to be consistent with who the speaker is.  (There appears to be a pattern of Americans anglicizing French words, but don't get me started on that.)

He said: "Theater 7 is going to be upstairs".  I had to force myself not to ask "Where is it at the moment?", as though concerned that Theater 7 might not show up in time before we arrived at the top of the stairs, only to find ourselves on the brink of a frightening vortex full of anti-matter, whatever that might be.  But I didn't, because that would have been a little mean to the poor chap, not to mention confusing.

Instead, I thought about that fascinating use of language, which is a very common American way of speaking.  I have noticed it most often in the context of what you might call customer service, in the widest sense - at the cinema, in a restaurant, when asking directions, etc.

The thing that occurs to me about this phraseology is that the speaker is putting him or herself in the shoes of the listener.  It is, I think, a manner of speaking employed when the speaker wants to be helpful by describing for the listener what they are about to experience, rather than simply expressing facts that the speaker happens to know.

Did the ticket chap at my local cinema believe that Theater 7 was not yet in place but would be so at some point in the near future?  Of course not.  What he was doing was describing for the Littlest Referee and myself what we were about to experience in the next minute or so.  We would go up the escalator to the 2nd floor (which can be found where a Brit would locate the first floor), and then we would make our way, via the concessions or otherwise, to door number 7, and behind that door we would then discover our destination, and that destination was Theater 7.

This reminds me that I have no idea why Americans use the word "concessions" to describe food and drink places.  Answers on a postcard, please.

But, more importantly, I like to think that, as the inventors of customer service, in movie theaters, diners, drive-ins, etc, the Americans have unconciously developed a manner of speaking which is empathetic to the needs of the listener.

And so, that leaves me to say only that I am going to be signing off this message, at some time in the near future.

There it is.  Told you so.

Return of the Son of Monkey Glue

Richard Dawkins, the notable British evolutionary biologist and Oxford don (not pictured, left) was recently in DC to speak at a gathering labelled the "Reason Rally", which claimed to be the largest ever gathering of secularists, humanists, atheists and the like.  According to Barbara Bradley Hagerty, religion correspondent at NPR (National Public Radio, for those reading this from outside the US of America), Dawkins had been invited as a keynote speaker in part to improve the public image of the secularist community.

This gives me a thin but nevertheless arguable excuse to return to one of my favo(u)rite topics: the age-old (and, in my view, pointless) argument between science and religion about how we got here and what it all means.

But, before I launch into that, let me say the following by way of preamble:

1.  My first thought on hearing about the "Reason Rally" was to wonder what the collective noun for secularists, humanists and atheists might be.  A "Proof" perhaps, or a "Laboratory", or maybe a "Curmudgeon".  A curmudgeon of secularists.

2.  Inviting Richard Dawkins to represent secularists in order to improve their image is, may I humbly suggest, rather like hoping Newt Gingrich might improve the image of conservatives.  Or like inviting Basil Fawlty to address a conference of hoteliers.  All are well qualified, certainly, but none of them is exactly a pin-up.  Is that the best they can do?  Isn't Beyonce an atheist, or Ryan Seacrest?

3.  I have, as those numerous (!) keen followers of this august organ will be aware, held forth on this topic before, in my messages of 11/25/05 and 12/26/05, to be precise.  You might be wondering if I'm going to say anything different this time.  The answer is no: I'm going to say the same things, in a slightly different way.  Am I, you might then reasonably ask, going to keep going on about this same topic interminably?  The answer is yes: I plan to keep going on about it at some length until someone listens.  Don't hold your breath.      

So, here goes.  In a nutshell, the approach taken by The Referee, for what's worth, is that the age-old argument between science and religion about the origin of things - by which I mean everything - is essentially a non-sequitur.  In other words, the question raised by one side is responded to by the other side with an answer which is in fact about something else.  This is followed inevitably by confusion.  And this in turn is followed by a boring and protracted round of everyone insulting everyone else's beliefs, as though we were all talking about the same thing.  We weren't.  Let me explain.

The essential point, IMHO (as those young people say), is that the question of HOW we got here is not the same as the question about WHY we are here.  The first is mechanics, the second is meaning.

Why does this matter?  I'm glad you asked that.  Here's why:

Scientists are qualified to answer questions about HOW.  Theologians and philosophers are qualified to answer questions about WHY.  The origin of the non-sequitur, it seems to me, is that both groups have consistently attempted to get out of their own lane and answer the other guy's question.  Or, worse still, both have, in their own way, tried to pretend that there's only one question.

Let's say, by way of example, that you bumped into the Archbish of Canterbury, perhaps having a crafty pint in the margins of the General Synod, and you sidled up to him and asked him to explain the physics behind the Big Bang.  What do you think he'd say?  I'd like to think that he might pass on the question.  I'd hope he would refer you to someone more qualified than he on this point.  A physicist, for example.  He might perhaps offer you some wisdom on the theological significance of the event, but it's a fair bet that he would leave the physics to someone else.

Looking at the vice versa situation for a moment, does Mr Dawkins respond to out-of-lane questions  with such humility?  No, he does not.  In fact, when the decorated astrophysicist and non-God-botherer Martin Rees (Lord Rees of Ludlow to you and me) suggested in his book "Our Cosmic Habitat" that there are legitimate questions of faith and meaning that "lie beyond science", Dawkins apparently responded by asking "what expertise can theologians bring to deep cosmological questions that scientists cannot?".  A classic example of pretending there's only one question.

I wish I could say that my fellow God-botherers have all acted as humbly as I imagined Dr Williams would.  Alas, they have not.  Whilst there are very many, perhaps a silent majority, who get it, a very vociferous minority have been just as guilty as Dawkins et al in terms of getting out of lane, just in a different way.

The key here is Genesis.  Not the complicated hippy prog-rockers turned balding millionaire charity crooners, but rather the opening book of the Bible.  Too many of my fellow God-botherers have failed to limit themselves to WHY, and have proclaimed Genesis as a book of HOW.

Here's the key question they need to consider: what if Genesis was never intended as a book of mechanics, but rather a book of meaning?  If that's the case, which very many of us God-botherers believe it is, then there is no threat from science, including evolution, since these are matters of mechanics.

In other words, a win-win becomes possible.  Suddenly, one can conceive of both a Supreme Being who created us, and a body of scientific knowledge that is gradually discovering how She did it.

Or, if I may, scientific discovery becomes a matter of uncovering the "Fingerprints of God", which just happens to be the title of a book by one Barbara Bradley Hagerty.

"Aha!" I hear you cry, as you emerge briefly from your boredom-induced slumber, "so The Referee is an advocate of Intelligent Design".  No, he isn't.  Here's why.

ID, as those of us in the know like to call it, attempts to take on science in a battle to find the bits that scientists can't explain and then proclaim that as proof of a creator.  There are numerous problems with this, amongst my favo(u)rite of which are: (i) it's just another attempt to answer the other guy's question, & (ii) given that scientific discovery constantly moves forward, it's not a brilliant plan to base your argument on things that scientists haven't discovered, yet.

If the existence of God depends on gaps in science, what happens when those gaps are filled by new scientific discovery?  Does God suddenly cease to exist?

I prefer not to take on science in a battle for supremacy.  I prefer to invite it round for a nice cup of tea.

That is about the limit that my simple brain can deal with.  If you feel the need to get into this in a more serious way, then I would suggest avoiding the ID-peddling anti-evolutionists at Seattle's Discovery Institute and instead directing your attention towards the lovely people of the Faraday Institute for Science and Religion in Cambridge, where you will receive some real science, and maybe even a nice cup of tea.

Which leaves me only, as I have done before, to remind you of the wisdom of plant-pot wearing Ohio electro popsters Devo on this issue: "God made man, but a monkey supplied the glue".

And, with that, may I wish you a very happy Spring break post-equinox holiday vacation.  Amen.

Keep Rancho Clean

By way of preamble to this message, I'd like to make clear that The Referee has for many years been a fan of Woody Guthrie.  I want you to know that I'm not one of those Johnny-come-lately types who latches on to trendy things because someone at Rolling Stone or OK! magazine decides they're hip.  Oh no.  I'm a hardcore fan.

"How hardcore are you?" I hear you ask.  I'm glad you asked that.  Well, I'm so hardcore that one of the Little Referees (who are not so little as they used to be) is named after Mr Guthrie.  And the other is named after Mr Dylan, who looked up to Guthrie as his hero, famously visited him in hospital in New York when he was suffering with complications related to Huntington's disease, and wrote the wonderful Song to Woody, which was one of the few original songs on Dylan's debut album "Bob Dylan" in 1962.  In fact, it is often said that Dylan moved to New York from his childhood home in Minnesota at least in part to seek out his idol and visit him in hospital before he died.  And the rest, as they say, is history.

For those not too familiar with the great man, Woody Guthrie was born in Oklahoma in 1912 and died in New York City (so good they named it thrice: see my message of 18/9/06, or 9/18/06, if you prefer) in 1967.  In the interim he wrote hundreds of great American folk songs, most famously "This Land Is Your Land", often played with the words "This Machine Kills Fascists" emblazoned on his guitar, and is considered by many people who know about these things to be the Godfather of modern American folk music.

Why am I going on about this?  A fine question.

Well, the Information Steve Heighway has recently been abuzz (abuzz?) with an extract from the great man's notebook scribblings from 1943 (or 1942; there is disagreement in some parts of the blogosphere about exactly which year he wrote it.)  (Note here the use of the semi-colon, the Godfather of punctuation: neither a comma (let's pause for a moment) or a colon (look what's coming next), it says "let's pause for a moment before we see what's coming next"; and (there it is again), because it's often misunderstood, it's also criminally under-used.)

Anyway, where were we?  Oh yes.  Woody's notebook, in which he used two pages, right in the middle of the book, plus lots of scribbled illustrations, to set out his "New Year's Rulin's" for whichever year it was.

And what a great read they are.  A couple of things are immediately noticeable.  Firstly, there are 33 of them.  I expect it's true for most of us that we attempt at best 2 or 3 resolutions at this time of year: "I'll go to the gym more often, possibly"; "I'll be nicer to the children, or not"; "I'll be slightly less offensive to chuggers and salespeople this year".  Perhaps it takes a great man like Guthrie to take on ten times the number of resolutions that we mere mortals can muster.

The other thing that strikes one is that Woody's rulin's are so, for want of a better word, elemental.  He doesn't mess about with avoiding gluten or donating a larger proportion of his income to charity.  Oh no.  He focuses instead on more basic and urgent concerns, including "Take Bath", "Change Socks", and "Wash Teeth, If Any".

That last rulin' perhaps suggests that Mr Guthrie had intended that his resolutions would not just be for his personal use but would also one day be read by the likes of you, dear reader, and me.  Otherwise, why bother with "If Any"?  Presumably, even in the early 1940s, people were aware how many teeth they had, give or take.  And, if one had no teeth at all, one would almost certainly have noticed.

Whether or not the rulin's were intended for wider consumption, I for one am grateful for the work of the folk who look after Woody's huge archives of song lyrics and other writings, for preserving his down-to-earth resolutions, which perhaps put into perspective the rather pale, post-modern angst of our twenty-teens new year concerns.

Amongst my favo(u)rite rulin's are "Read Lots Good Books", "Listen To Radio A Lot", "Keep Hope Machine Running", its close relative "Stay Glad", the spectacular "Dance Better" (how I wish) and, especially relevant for those us with a rather, shall we say, expansive domestic management style, "Keep Rancho Clean".

And so, for this year, I have resolved not to dream up 2 or 3 lily-livered post-modern whinges that I have only a limited intention of addressing.  Instead, I am going to attach the New Year's Rulin's to the wall of my office (AKA Message Central) and do my level best to embrace each and every one of them with the gusto they deserve.

And so, a belated Happy New Year to all.  Stay glad, read lots of good books, and blogs, and keep your rancho clean.

Elvis Buys His Tree Here Every Year

So, where were we?

After 3 years and 7 months, The Referee has finally decided to retire from his self-imposed retirement and get back on his blogging horse, if you will.

And so, those of you who have missed reading pointless and rambling stories, who have longed for unfathomable tangents, who have pined for the almost criminal over-use of parentheses (that is to say, brackets) (see what I mean), you need to wait no longer.

No doubt you, dear reader(s) (note the optimistic plural), are wondering why The Referee entered his self-imposed retirement in the first place, and why he has now retired from it.  Both fine questions, if I may say so.

The answer to the former question is far too dull for an action-packed organ such as this.  The latter question, however, can be answered by a simple road sign.  Let me explain why.

I have long been fascinated by the search for the perfect retail moniker, that is to say, shop name.  Creative retailers the world over have often entertained their customers with comedy names for their establishments.  You know the sort of thing I mean.  Herr Kutz the barber.  Paws for Thought the pet shop.  Wok this Way the Chinese restaurant.

My personal contribution to this list occurred to me in a recent visit to Washington DC's national zoo.  While communing at the orangutan enclosure, it came to me, like a Damascene revelation, that orangutans would make the perfect logo for my aspirational chain of tanning salons, which would be named Orange-U-Tan.  If no one else has already done it, I'll be off as soon as I've finished this message to register the name Orange-U-Tan with whoever it is that registers the names of tanning salons.  Presumably the Federation of Authorized Tanning Salon Owners, or something along those lines.

Anyway, this remained just an idle (some would say pointless) (others would say worrying) obsession, until I heard a rumo(u)r that, right here in what the locals like to call the DC Metro Area, there was a Christmas tree selling establishment with the glorious name of Elvis Buys His Tree Here Every Year.

Elvis Buys His Tree Here Every Year.  Could it really be true?  If so, this was enough to cause me both to seek it out for my own arboreal acquisition purposes, and to emerge from retirement into the warm yuletide twinkle of the blogosphere. How could I wallow in retirement in front of the Fox Asocceration Football Channel, with such rich nuggets of American popular culture almost begging to be mined for your edification?

And so, loading up Mrs Referee and the Little Referees in the back of the RefereeMobile, I set off to find the place where Elvis buys his holiday (don't get me started) tree.

Sure enough, only a matter of minutes from Chez Referee, we spotted clear evidence that Himself had been seen nearby, in the form of a roadside sign that is well known to the locals.  Better still, the folks who run this establishment could not have been nicer or more helpful, they had some top notch trees, one of which we purchased and, to top it all, the sounds of Barry Manilow filled the advent air.

The only downside of the whole experience, which dawned on me as I studied my receipt on the way home, was that the name of the establishment was actually Suzanne Eaton Christmas Trees of Florida.  And the sign was just a sign.  Still, they were fine people, and maybe, just maybe, they had at least one very special customer.  And I'm not talking about The Referee.

Either way, for better or worse, I was already out of retirement.  I'll let you decide, dear reader, whether that's a cause for glad tidings, or bad.  Or something inbetween.  Middling tidings, perhaps.

Which leaves me only to offer something on the true meaning of the season.  I'd like to think it's the time of year for spending time by the fire with family and friends, for thinking back to a time when the King walked among us in person and wondering if, in a sense, he still does.

And so, as Tiny Tim observed, God bless us, every one.

Jolly Hockey Sticks

For reasons which are complicated and also too dull to relate on a site as dedicated to thrills and entertainment as this one is (!), The Referee recently found himself at the Coliseum in Nassau, Long Island to witness the New York Islanders being hammered at home by the Ottawa Senators. The visitors from north of the border looked superior throughout, so much so that the Islanders were lucky to come second, as they say.

For those who have not already spotted it, I am of course talking about (ice) hockey. (Ice) hockey is known here and in Canada as "hockey", such that if one wants to refer to hockey, one has to say "field hockey". Luckily, I rarely want to refer to hockey, and therefore this additional requirement is not particularly onerous in my case.

I have nothing more to report about Islanders 2 Senators 5 that can't be derived from the score or the brief synopsis above. I do, however, want to relate some of the things I learnt about (ice) hockey that evening, a sport about which I had not previously thought or cared very much at all. Whilst not all, or indeed any, of these things might be accurate, they are at least heartfelt, and that ought to be more important.

And so, The Referee is proud to share with you, dear reader, his hard-researched 5 Things You Never Knew, And Still Don't, About (Ice) Hockey:

1. There are 250 players on each team, although each player is on the ice for an average of only about 10 seconds each. For some reason no one ever thought to build a door in the dug out, so substitutes have to fling themselves over a little wall, hoping to land on their skates rather than their rear ends.

2. All (ice) hockey players have elaborately broken noses. By this I mean that these are not common or garden broken noses, the sort of injury that could befall anyone. Oh no. These are noses so comprehensively and numerously broken that they appear to be marking out a new slalom route for the benefit of a passing downhill skier. How could I tell this from the stands?, you are wondering. Well, I was lucky enough to meet a legendary former Islander before the game. He had clearly once been a good-looking chap, before the slalom bulldozers had moved in.

3. All (ice) hockey players fight, all the time. Except in the game I saw, in which no one so much as raised a question about the masculinity of his opponents. Obviously, fighting is bad, and The Referee was not in the least disappointed not to witness any. Although this to some extent restricted his ability to research the full extent of the game of (ice) hockey for your benefit, gentle reader.

4. The following point might say more about the age and constitution of The Referee than it does about the nature of (ice) hockey, but for quite a proportion of the game I couldn't actually see the puck as it skimmed at high speed across the surface of the ice. It appeared that this was not a problem shared by most of the crowd, since there was a good deal of ooh-ing and aah-ing some seconds before your correspondent had worked out what was happening. Ho, hum.

5. All (ice) hockey players fight, all the time.

Just before his visit to the Nassau Coliseum, The Referee received the news that he was to be summoned to return to the Motherland, AKA the UK of Blighty, without further ado. Again, the reasons for this are much too dull for an entertainment-heavy organ such as this. Suffice to say that The Referee's US odyssey would soon be at an end.

As I left Long Island and contemplated an impending return to the green and pleasant hills of the Motherland, I allowed myself a small and appropriate celebration. "Jolly hockey sticks", I thought.