The Atlas of North American English

This is something for all the language nerds out there. It's called the Atlas of North American English, and the coolest feature on it is a map of the United States and Canada that highlights different dialects of English. To view it, click on the link above, then click on "The Dialects of North America," then click "Mapping Features." On this map, North America (excluding Mexico, since it doesn't apply nearly as much, although it still could be interesting), is divided into regions based on the primary dialect spoken in that region. You can click on these regions and then listen to recordings of people from those regions speaking to actually hear these dialectic differences. It's a great way to waste time on the internet (although, admittedly, not everyone will enjoy it).

But there's one major issue I have with this map. Can anyone guess what it is after looking at the map? I'll give you a huge hint: I'm from California.

For some reason, the linguists who designed this map, two of whom are from Pennsylvania, gave New York City its own dialect but only assigned one dialect to THE ENTIRE WESTERN HALF OF THE UNITED STATES. I can tell you that people from Northern California speak differently than people from Southern California. Shit, people from some parts of LA speak differently than people from other parts of LA. Entire studies have been done on the dialects of California and it's a fact that AT LEAST four different dialects exist within California (anyone from there can tell you there are way more). But apparently that's bullshit; I didn't realize that everyone from the western half of the United States speaks exactly the same.

Not to make too big a deal out of it, even though I already am, but this map has a huge bias in favor of the east coast, which is annoying but not all that surprising. Probably the three best linguistics departments in the country (MIT, Harvard, and UMass) are in Massachusetts (which, as a linguistics student, I can say I'm proud to go to school in). But an affect of this is obviously that more attention is going to be paid to east coast dialects in the most prominent studies. And of course the reverse happens as well; the study I cited above was done at UC Santa Barbara, in California. It seems that people only pay attention to the dialects near them, which again makes sense if you think about it; they're the easiest ones to find native speakers for.

Also, I'm over-exaggerating a bit. If you actually listen to the recordings you'll hear tons of different dialects within every region. Still, that map is just a little lazy.

The Past and Future of LOLcats

For some reason, LOLcats have been in the news lately. Well, at least they've been in the news that I read. Maybe that can tell you something about how informed I am.

First of all, the world's first LOLcat was recently discovered.

I found out about it from Language Log (although I don't know what it was doing there). This picture is from 1905 and predates our current versions of LOLcats by about 100 years.

Also, an off broadway musical is being made about LOLcats. What that could possibly involve I don't know. All I can say is

Things I Like

It's a slow day around my "office" (read: dorm room) and I notice things have been kind of slow around the Tartar Sauce. So here are some things that have pleased me in the past couple of hours: Trailers. Movie trailers are really kind of an interesting subspecies of movie in their own right. A really good trailer is a thing of beauty, conveying all of the awesome of the movie without giving away too many plot details. Case study: Brick. (This is probably one of my favorite movies, for so many reasons. The dude who wrote/produced/directed it, Rian Johnson, was a young guy, about our age when he first wrote the script, and then raised funding to do the entire thing himself. That's really cool and makes me like the movie even more, but even the product on its own is amazing. Film noir set in high school, really good film noir at that, more Raymond Chandler than Mellvile, and also amazingly beautiful to look at. And the dialogue is superb, straight up thirties slang. I'm starting to lose it explanation-wise, so just rent it). Challenge is, the trailer tells a story of its own right, one that's a little faster paced than the movie, but no less good, and still manages to not reveal any of the major plot details (and plot is a key feature to "Brick"). But then there are trailers that tell a better story than the movie, that promise way too much and lead only to disappointment when the actual film is watched. Case study: the Wacknes, specifically the redband trailer. This sets up all that is/was wonderful about that movie: the nostalgia for the 90's, the good hip-hop, the drug dealing, the relationships, in a mere two minutes and nine seconds. The actual movie is considerably longer and gets bogged down trying to deal with everything that the trailer brings up. But in trailer form, it's a near-perfect story, because trailers carry no expectation of anything more than tastes. And the hypothetical tastes are often just as good as the movie. Which begs the question, why need a movie? Enter the "Grindhouse" boys and their wonderful fake trailers, which showcase the finest and most badass moments of trashy exploitation flicks without forcing the viewer to deal with all the irritations of "plot" and "development" and "story arc." The highlight fake trailer, in my opinion, was Rob Rodriguez's Machete. Explosions, great one-liners, just enough development for the story to be pleasurably implausible, boobs, Cheech, what more could you want? A bomb trailer deserves more appreciation for being a bomb trailer than I believe they get. So long semi-intellectual tangent for a minor point, but check out Wes Anderson's Fantastic Mr. Fox trailer. This looks like a whole lot of awesome, all the best of Wes Anderson and Claymation without seeming either creepy or weird (both have a tendency towards uncomfortable at times). I never read the book, but that trailer makes the movie look so damn fun that I can't wait to catch it. Hopefully there will be no disappointment. And the other thing that I like? Squid. Squids are so fucking cool and alien that they absolutely fascinate me; watching TV and there's a squid documentary on? Game over. The bigger the squid the better: giant and colossal squid rock my world like no other. So of course I was floored when the aggressive, inquisitive, intelligent and up to six-foot long Humbolt Squid (el Diablo Rojo) was reported to be colonizing the waters off San Diego, probably due to some climate shit. But most importantly? Divers have been posting footage on the internets. Here's a pretty baller well-edited squid montage, complete with odd music. How fucking cool is that? And how terrifying would it be to be diving and see like six coming out of the murk towards you? More facts about Humbolt Squid: they're known as Red Devils because they are mad aggressive, and apparently they're breeding very quickly. Their tentacles have hooked beaks on them, so they're very capable of fucking divers up. Possibly curious instead of overtly hostile sometimes, but nonetheless when these dudes attack they grab with their tentacles and drag. Downwards. With a fuck of a lot of force. Basically they don't mess around. I'm too incoherent with what I have and haven't told you to go further into squid knowledge (of which I can drop a lot, after a very productive day of Wikipedia at work yesterday), but I think you get the picture. Enough for more videos: squid attack and a pretty good squid documentary from PBS. Oh, and they're being exported for foreign calamari. Cool shit. Ok, I'm finished. Enjoy your now hopefully vastly unproductive and squid-appreciative/fearing days.

Mmm... Globalization

Just for fun, here's a random list of slang words for McDonald's from different countries.

America - Mickey D's

Japan - Makku

Finland - Mac Dougal's

Australia - Macker's

France - Macdo

And here's what my good friends John Travolta and Samuel L. Jackson have to say on the subject.

It's true that a quarter pounder with cheese is called a royale with cheese in France, but it's not true that you can buy beer in McDonald's. I mean Macdo.

What the fuck? Astro-Rap

So who else has heard about this already? Who else had heard that former astronaut Buzz Aldrin (btw, calling someone a "former astronaut" makes them sound way less cool) is trying to start a rap career? And that Snoop Dogg, Talib Kweli, and Soulja Boy are helping him? Because it's pretty much the funniest thing ever. And no, I'm not making this up at all. It's completely true.

First of all, that beat sounds like it's from the early 90s, at the latest. Then it just gets way funnier when Buzz actually starts rapping. I mean talking. Because that's all he's doing is talking. This just sounds like my grandpa talking. Because that's all it really is. Just someone's grandpa talking. The way he bobs back and forth is so hilarious too. I kind of feel bad making fun of him, but I had no idea it was possible for an astronaut to be so incredibly uncool. Then you have all these women (and apparently one dude) singing "To go flying into outer spa-ace!" We're not even half a minute into the video and I'm already on the floor with laughter. 

The video with Snoop and Talib Kweli on the site I linked to is great too. It's just so funny how in on the joke Snoop and Talib are. Then there are all the wonderful quotes.

"I have only two passions: space exploration and hip hop." - Buzz Aldrin (Although I feel like this could also be a quote from George Clinton)

"People think of hip hop and they think of beefs. We have east coast west coast beef, down south up top beefs, but, it doesn't compare to the beef between earth walkers and moon walkers, which I think is a way more dangerous beef." - Talib Kweli (Although I feel like this could also be a quote from Michael Jackson)

"Buzz Aldrin is so gangsta." - Talib Kweli

And seriously, the main hooky line sounds so much better when Snoop Dogg says it. Also, Buzz said that his intention in doing this rap was to get kids interested in space. Are there any kids anywhere who aren't interested in space? Every kid wants to be an astronaut when they grow up. This will probably turn them against it. "Astronauts can't rap and aren't cool. I don't want to be an astronaut when I grow up."

In all honesty though, it does appear that Buzz is in on the joke. At least, I really, really hope he is.

Song of the South

Lordy, I have been nearly overcome with the amount of attention paid to my homeland in the videogame industry these past few weeks. First Valve announces that Left 4 Dead 2 is going to be set in the Deep South, with campaigns spanning Savannah to New Orleans, then I see that Bethesda's next DLC for Fallout 3 is going to be set in Point Lookout. I'm so happy about that I might forgive Bethesda for writing such shitty dialogue. Especially since you can get a coach gun. Wait... what's that you say? You can wear a War of Northern Aggresion relic?!? Instant win. I've always wanted to make a Lovecraftian survival horror game set in the Georgia marshlands. Maybe I'll actually get around to it one day. But until then, I'm going to be happy runnig around my ancestral stomping grounds blasting zombies to bits.

New Writer, Japan, Piracy Week, Shifting, Awesomeness

Yes, so you may have noticed we have a new contributor to The Tartar Sauce: The Great Bobbicus is here to share stuff and articles and things, seemingly about games and the like, should be interesting.

This is -believe it or not- unrelated to the fact that our very own Jake may not be posting as frequently anymore. He's gone 13 hours in the future to Nagoya, Japan, where, in between sake bombs and DDR sessions he now takes time to update his Posts from Nagoya blog/journal that is on our blogroll, and I reccomend you all read religiously (which is a little difficult to do when the blog has no RSS feed (*hint*)).

Also, in celebration/observation/mourning of The Pirate Bay trial verdict, starting Monday will be Piracy Week here at The Tartar Sauce! Featuring rants, tutorials, info, essays, and (as usual) anything else we think is interesting about everyone's favorite internet crime! This is the first time we've done something like this (and you've seen how "weekly" our weekly posts actually are), so forgive us if this goes a bit rusty, but it should be fun either way.

And don't be alarmed if you notice some of the layout shifting around and new elements popping up, that's just me fucking around, trying to add some new functionality to the sidebar/making the site look halfway presentable/getting angry at blogger for being a POS.

Finally, an awesome thanks to you all for reading, and giving us a decent amount of traffic.
It's... it's all I live for....