Shaggy number story

A science reporter was interviewing a famous pure mathematician at home. After the interview, his attention was drawn to the various beautiful paintings on the wall depicting well-known mathematical numbers, such as √2, 1729, Fibonacci series, and even transcendentals such as π and e.

Ah yes, they are presents from my artist friends. Aren't they lovely? she asked.

The reporter noticed one painting on the ground depicting 0. Why isn't that one on the wall?

Why, that's the unhung zero, replied the mathematician.

Huperchild and woperchild

The urban dictionary gives a citation from 2019 of huperchild. Woperchild is cited from 2005.

I wish it to be known that huperchild was invented by Lambert Meertens back in 1986 at the CWI. Unfortunately we did not think to publish this on the incipient Internet (still lots of Usenet, UUCP and a few ARPANET nodes) and stake the claim.

Lambert was musing about the politically correct way of saying human. So we have the progression:

human →huperson → huperchild

Similarly for woperchild:

woman →woperson → woperchild

Pavimental?

Today I passed a council artist creating pre-distorted paintings on the ground that when viewed from the correct spot displays the correct proportions. Very clever.

These were for the Snow Festival at Greenwood Plaza, North Sydney.

I wondered if they could be called murals in light of the derivation of that word. Indeed ground mural is the common term. A painting on any flat surface is regarded as a mural now. Pavimental has zero chance of becoming accepted, too late for that.

Enticing with food

Today an amusing incident popped into my mind.

Several years ago I was working as a programmer in a university lab. One day around lunchtime one of the Chinese masters students popped into the lab and handed me a jam sandwich on a paper plate. I accepted it with thanks, ate it and thought no more about it.

In retrospect I realised that she did exactly what one does when trying to entice an animal to be friendly, offer some food. 😃 Oh dear, maybe I should have made some conversation. I can be a bit dim. I hope she wasn't disappointed.

It illustrates though the importance of food in Chinese culture. While these days how are you is rendered as nǐ hǎo, between familiars (possibly above a certain age) a common phrase is chī le fàn ma meaning have you eaten (a meal). There is more concern for the listener's well-being compared to nǐ hǎo. For example a singer coming on stage would not ask the crowd if they had eaten.

Here's an explanation of the phrase. The writer talks about northern China, but the phrase is also used in the southern parts, e.g. Guangdong.

An idea for quirky travel

According to my saved email copy, I first thought of this 13 June 2013. The idea is to visit every place that is associated with a chess opening.

As I observed then: Might not be as hard as it seems, for example visiting anywhere in Spain ticks the Ruy Lopez box. A trip to Eastern Europe and Russia would tick a lot of boxes.

Unfortunate position for the f

I think the shop didn't foresee this when they wanted people to like them on Facebook.

Morning by Clare Fischer

Driving along today with ABC Jazz playing, I heard a lovely song that was familiar but couldn't identify. Fortunately ABC Jazz maintains an online just played list, so using the broadcast time I discovered that it was Clare Fischer's Morning, released in 1965, and interpreted by Australian jazz performers Alex & Nilusha in 2012 on their debut album Moments in Time.

Searching through my CD archives, I discovered that it was familiar because Sérgio Mendes had performed an instrumental of the song on his 1966 album The Great Arrival, with the arrangement by Clare Fischer.

It's unknown when Clare set words to the music, but they were not performed until 1980 for Clare Fischer's Salsa Picante with the 2+2 vocalists. The lyrics, about a lost love, are more wistful than melancholy due to the upbeat cha-cha-cha tempo.

In 1969, José José set the piece to Spanish lyrics, upstaging the future Spanish version of Fischer's lyrics. Una Mañana's lyrics are about nascent love and more cheerful*. I'd bet that many Spanish speakers of a certain age will have fond memories of this song.

Morning has been covered by scores of jazz and latin musicians, both in instrumental and vocal versions. Pretty good for a half a century old composition.

Coming back to the Australian performance, Nilusha Dassenaike has a beautiful voice and the collaboration lists of the duo include well known names on the local scene.

* I should have realised this sooner, but when using lyrics to practice a language, pick break-up songs to practice the past tense, and wooing songs to practice the future tense. 😃 For example, Tom Jobim's Eu Sei Que Vou Te Amar (I Know That I Will Love You) is full of the informal future "conjugated ir + infinitive". And then for fun you can tackle the imperfect subjunctive of Besame Mucho.