Which Sports Is The Most Attractive For Writers

I'm a big fan of baseball, though, I would not mention it if visiting the UK. In the UK, I would pretend to like playing football. This comes from a result of the Books Ngram Viewers by Google. If you are wondering what Ngram Viewers is, see the following talk!



I tried several words in the Ngram, and then I found something interest by a combination of terms of sports. Here is my example:

English

I chose five sports for this analysis; (1) Baseball, (2) Football, (3) Tennis, (4) Golf, and (5) Cricket. At first, I picked several other sports like polo (I think this word is used not only for describing a sport but also for other meanings like polo shirts), wrestling, swimming, basketball, hockey and so on. But, I thought the five sports which I picked are interesting because of having well variations. At 2000, Baseball is the most frequently used in the above graph! Yeah! However, as you can guess, when this result falls into American and British English, ...

American English

British English

In the American English, Golf was the most popular for writers to mention during the early twentieth century. Also, before baseball was a popular sport in the US, cricket was in style in the late nineteenth century. It's surprising for me! Of course, cricket has been popular in the UK (+India) as shown in the British English, while baseball has been the worst attractive for writers who use British English.

One more thing I want to state here is the influence of wars on sports. Even my graphs show the evidence that  less frequent words regarding sports were mentioned during the wars such as WWI, WWII, and Vietnam War. In particular, compared the American to British graph at 1960, there is a big difference. For example, tennis indicates the opposite trend between the American and British. My explanation for it is that Vietnam War has something to do with the trend because US involvement to the war escalated in the early 1960s and also there was Cuban Missile Crisis in 1962.

Anyway, I recommend you play the Ngram!

Happy Thanksgiving

In Japan, there is no Turkey Day. My dinner will be white rice, miso soup, tuna (Japanese national fish? Maybe!), plus something. Well, If I had thanksgiving dinner, I would like to eat mash potatoes with a gravy sauce rather than turkeys. Anyway, have a good time!

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This Is The Music Using Our Ability

Bobby McFerrin, who is one of the best-known vocal performer, conducts a wonderful impromptu performance below.



Some people who are singing in the video sound like little off-key at first, but they gradually adjust their key. Eventually, they create a beautiful harmony between them and Bobby.

Wonderful!!

Honne & Tatemae Everywhere

"Honne and Tatemae" is a famous word to describe Japanese culture. Honne is what people are truly feeling or really want to do. It is usually used for behavior and opinions. On the other hand, Tatemae refers to socially expected behavior and opinions, regardless of what the people actually think about and want to do. For instance, suppose you are invited to a neighbor's house, and the host says "Would you like to something to drink?" If you are Japanese, you probably say "yes," even though you are not thirsty (If you were like me, you would finish the drink and even say "it's delicious," regardless of whether it's really good or "not good..." ). This "yes" is known as Tatemae.

The reason the Japanese start using this custom is to avoid conflicts. In Japan, it is important to keep harmony among people, and harmony is assumed as a value.

Zits published November 4, 2011

Well, Honne and Tatemae looks like, however, not only for the Japanese, but also for everybody in the world. Zits shows a very well example of Honne and Tatemae. In the above comic strip, Jeremy (who is sixteen years old, a high school student, and wants to become a musician) tells his mother to thank-you for buying a new down jacket in the first and second scene. However, in the last scene, he is thinking "...said the giant purple hand grenade." It seems that his thought may be "Honne," while his thank-you and comment to his mother may be "Tatemae".

If you avoid conflicts, saying Tatemae might be good. If not, say Honne!

A more sophisticated explanation regarding this topic is available at the following link: http://www.kirainet.com/english/honne-and-tatemae/.

Interesting Toy

The tool looks like very interesting. I'd like to play it. Some of the function seem difficult for children to use, but it also means that adults enjoy playing it. The last function is especially my favorite.

Virtuoso means...

According to my favorite dictionary, Longman Dictionary of Contemporary English, a virtuoso is defined as "someone who is a very skilful performer, especially in music". The reason I saw the word in the dictionary was that I checked a word, vis-a-vis, though.

I'm no complaint about the definition of a virtuoso, but I'm very curious about why the editor (s/he is her fan?) chose the illustration:

"violin virtuoso Vanessa Mae"

I think she is a great talented violinist. However, I do not have an image for her as a virtuoso. One of her performances is below.

What I believe as a virtuoso is Itzhak Perlman. Actually, when checking out the word on the Wikipedia, Perlman is one of the examples. The point I want to make is that my connotation from the term, virtuoso, is a  performer like Perlman. But, if the word reminds other people of like Mae, what's going on is, I think, that a virtuoso may imply like her performance. Although this is a mere example of using a word differently among generations, I feel a big difference between Perlman and Mae. Just in my opinion, Perlman is more an appropriate instance! Please check out a virtuoso in your dictionary!

Bystander Effect

The Street by Baltus

Here is a famous painting by Baltus who is French, 1908-2001 (it is available to see at MoMA in NY). Although at first glance it looks like just a beautiful painting, there is something wrong to happen in the painting. On the left side, the man is doing sexual aggression to the girl wearing a red cloth, but none of the people seem to notice it (or I guess they pretend not to).

This is a good example for the bystander effect (the large number of people witnessing the tragedies militated against anyone's helping). The reason that it occurs is that the people assume as the reasonableness and appropriateness of not helping by the other people do not help. In the above case, if we do not know what the man is doing, we may assume that is appropriate or even may not notice the weirdness.