Ali G

            On Wednesday morning I finished memorizing "Rupture au miroir" (Crack in the Mirror) by Serge Gainsbourg. I looked for the chords but no one has posted them and so I worked them out for part of the intro. 

            I weighed 84.5 kilos before breakfast. 

            I left for my final English in the World class at 10:20. There was no one in the classroom ahead of ours. 

            We had the final set of presentations and they summed up their joint effort as "Slang jargon and accents in …" 

           Erblin's presentation was called "Money haffi mek, Jamaican slang and English gangs in the TV series Top Boy". The show accentuates Jamaican slang in relation to standard English. The form has the sense of combination. The characters are drug dealers. They speak Jamaican patois. "Chat" means talk. "Haffi" is have. "To mek" is to make. "Ting" is thing. "Yard" is home. "Dat" is that, etc. The language represents identity, social status, and economic condition. Law and order representatives speak the Queen's English of the educated. MLE represents dialect rebellion, distinct from the everyday. 

            I ask if there is a difference between the language of Jamaican gangs in Britain and in Jamaica, but she doesn't know. 

            Newsweek.com has a fairly long list of MLE slang words: https://www.newsweek.com/top-boy-season-2-slang-guide-meaning-definition-netflix-1689388 and Reddit has another: https://www.reddit.com/r/topboy/comments/uder23/official_top_boy_slang_encyclopedia_feel_free_to/

            I've read that Multicultural London English is replacing Cockney. 

            Sasha Baron Cohen's "The Ali G Show" parodied white people who try to appear cool by speaking MLE. 

            Tiffany presented on ballet jargon and slang. Her title was "The Silent Artform Speaks". Tiffany was with The National Ballet for twenty years. 

            Jargon is specialized language that is stable and technical, while slang is colloquial. 

            From the slang words: "Cookies" are breast inserts, and "merde" means "good luck". 

            The language expresses comfort with one's own and with other dancers' bodies. Humour distances the speakers from the formality of the artform. 

            From the jargon: "Ballet" comes from "ballo" meaning "dance". They combat prestige with slang. "Tutu" comes from a slang word for buttocks. The jargon reveals the importance of footwear. The slippers last one day. The connection between artist and athlete. If you wear Gainers your feet stink because they don't breathe. 

            Lila presented on delis vs bodegas. The jargon in New York corner stores. The distinction between two staples. 

            According to Oxford a bodega is a small local shop with a limited range of groceries, like a convenience store. It comes from wine shops. 

            A deli is a small local market. It comes from Jewish and German origins. Some say delis are brighter and have more prepared food and so they are considered more elite. 

            In a bodega: A "loosie" is a single cigarette and it's illegal for it to be sold out of a pack. "Papi" and "Duke" are bodega owner references. 

            In a deli: "Nosh", "schmear", and "mishiga". 

            Jargon as authenticity markers. She showed a picture of Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (AOC) in a bodega buying a bacon egg and cheese sandwich. Andrew Yang posted a photo of himself buying breakfast in a bodega but it was really a Whole Foods. Taylor Swift now lives in Tribeca and wrote about bodegas but people wonder if she has really been to a bodega. 

            I asked the difference between "papi" and "duke". She said that "Papi" is Latin American while "Duke" is Middle Eastern. I think that "papi" is specifically Puerto Rican but I couldn't find anything to confirm the origins of "duke". 

            I found a term list: https://firstwefeast.com/features/2016/09/new-yorkers-explain-bodega-dialect/ 

            The next presenter talked on the language of diet culture. The word diet first appeared in 1460 as a course of life or thinking. The most popular diet is KIO (Ketogenic and Intermittent One Meal a Day). Yikes! The ketogenic diet is high in fat and low in carbohydrates. 

            Diet language speaks of food in terms of good vs bad. Good words include "skinny", "sinless", "x-free", "clean", and "pure". Bad words include "junk", "cheat", and "sinful". There is a lot of shaming language. "That Girl" is a term for the perfect dieter. 

            It needs to get away from shame and use more words like "nourishing" and "delicious". 

            I was curious about the origins of "That Girl" and wondered if it had anything to do with the popular 60s TV sitcom "That Girl" starring Marlo Thomas. She didn't know and when I researched this I could find no direct connection. According to WikiFancom.com: The first instance of the term "That Girl" is a viral TikTok by the user @angelxadvice in 2021. In it, she dances as a bullet-pointed list of New Year's resolutions showed on screens, with points such as "eat more fruit and veg" and "read more books, trust me." Later that year, the tag was born. 

            The use of the term "that girl" is interesting because it suggests distance as opposed to "this girl" who would be oneself or someone close. As long as something is "that" it has not been attained. That Girl is said by many to represent a dangerous ideal of under eating. 

            Peter's presentation was entitled "Phoneme It In When Too Lazy to Learn". He showed a clip of a man teaching a robot in The Jetsons. 

            AI that turns audio into transcripts has high error scores in Scotland and Ireland. Whisper AI can translate a variety of languages from audio and has set translation accuracy records. 

            Whisper might be something I could use, since sometimes the lyrics of a French song that I want to translate are not posted online and I find it easier to translate from text. But I doubt it could pick up the subtleties of expressions. For instance, "C'est Bath" would just translate as "That's Bath" which would not explain where the term comes from. Many scholars think it goes back to the time before Paris was a fashion capital and the French would travel to Bath, England to experience the height of style. And so if something was particularly stylish one would say, "C'est Bath!" 

            Professor Percy thanked me for all of my contributions to the class. I told her that it was a frustrating jumble of a course but I couldn't think of anyone besides her who could have made it more pleasant and informative. We chatted about my Medieval Literature course being online and she said she is pals with Professor Audrey Walton although she hasn't seen her for a while. Percy said that when she had to teach this course on Zoom during the pandemic it was one of the best incarnations of the course she's ever had. I guess I'm old fashioned but I find Zoom classes lifeless and uninteresting. 

            I weighed 84.5 kilos before lunch. I had saltines with five-year-old cheddar and a glass of limeade. 

            I weighed 84.4 kilos at 16:15. 

            I finally got the mark back for my first Medieval Literature essay and I got an A+, so that made me feel good. 

            I went online and wrote my last exit slip survey for English in the World. 

            I still have a take-home test and my final essay to finish for this course. Plus I have to start my final essay for Medieval Literature. I've already asked for a week extension to hand it in on December 19, although I hope I'm done way before that. I really don't want to write essays over the holidays. 

            I made pizza on naan with Basilica sauce and five-year-old cheddar. I had it with a beer while watching season 2, episode 32 of The Beverly Hillbillies. 

            Jed's banker Milburn Drysdale has created a corporation called Clampco Inc. as a tax write-off for Jed, with Jed as the president, Granny as the vice president, Elly as the secretary, and Jethro as the treasurer. The company isn't supposed to do anything and Drysdale tells Jed he only has to go to board meetings twice a year. But Jed insists on being involved and so Drysdale gives Jed and his family the penthouse in his building for their offices. 

            Granny refuses to get into the elevator and acts as if she's never taken one. But she's been in Drysdale's office many times and it would logically not be on the first floor, so it's just one of the many inconsistencies in this show. 

            Once they are in their offices Granny looks up "vice" in the dictionary and doesn't like what she sees. In the first few episodes it seemed to be only Jethro who could read. Jed changes the "V" in Vice President to an "N" for Nice President. 

            But the Clampetts still don't know what to do in their company. Drysdale makes the mistake of telling them that they will stimulate the economy by getting more money into the hands of more people. But a little later Drysdale is sitting in his office when he sees out the window that it is raining money. The Clampetts have taken a large amount of cash out of their account and are now throwing it out of the penthouse windows to put more money in the hands of more people. 

            I searched for bedbugs and for the second night in a row I found zero.