Bill Bryson, Broadway Books, 1999

Bryson is a very funny guy — a sort of erudite everyman, who relishes pointing out absurdity in the world and in his own behavior.

This book was written, as the title suggests, after returning to the States after living abroad. He returns, however, not to the America most of us Americans experience, but a picaresque small community in the north-east. The amusing observations, however, are more universal than this might suggest.

Bryson does not shy away form delving into political commentary, and saying essentially “what in the world has happened in the last twenty years?” Were it not for these more serious detours, the book would be “merely” an amusing collections of annecdotes, a presentation of a slice of life by a slightly cantankerous but overall benevolent spectator.

Jared Diamond, Viking Press, 2005

This book actually took me the better part of a year to read. In his studies of societal collapse, Diamond finds reasons for optimism; in his describing past collapses, it is difficult for me to find any.

Diamond is an engaging writer. With the exception of occasional passages where he throws out lists of numerical data, he paints very accessible pictures of civilizations both past and present.

As a researcher, Diamond loves to create enumerations (“these are the ten factors that determine success of an island society”), and, once he has them defined, he uses the model as fact. While I don’t doubt that he’s researched the factors, I’m not convinced that parameterization of highly complex, open systems is reasonable.

The most though-provoking parts of the book can be summed up by the question Diamond attributes to one of his students: “what did the Easter Islander think as he was cutting down the last tree?” Of course, by the point a single tree is left, it’s far too late to have any meaningful response. But where is the point where response is possible? When is it too late?

Diamond finds reasons to be optimistic. Unfortunately, I don’t feel that his research bears out that optimism. What do we have today that was lacked by the various failed civilizations he describes? It seems to me that we have two things: cheap, abundant energy, and widely distributed information. The former, however, is limited, and may fall into that “last tree” question above, while the information will whither without the energy to sustain its communication. Technology cannot save us without energy to drive it. And has human nature changed? Are significant numbers of people acting in a way that will lead to a sustainable population and way of life in this world? I don’t see it.

Cubicle-dweller 1: So, it’s 230a, not 230?
Cubicle-dweller 2: Well, technically it’s 230a, but there is no 230b.

The absurdity of Human Endeavor sometimes emerges in unexpected ways, and often surprises me.

OK, in the last two days, robot programs have posted over a hundred fake comments to this site. They’re all ads, of course, many of them for products of questionable legality.

I’d rather spend my time on things other than deleting spam. I’ve added a Question Challenge to the site for posting. You have to answer a fairly obvious question before your comment will be accepted. At least, that’s the theory. Let me know if this doesn’t work, and I’ll try to find another solution to the problem.

Ballyhoo, Buckaroo, and Spuds. Ingenious Tales of Words and Their Origins by Michael Quinon, Smithsonian Books, 2004.

The stories of words are fascinating and fun. As I labor to learn Spanish, and attempt to retain what little German I know (much less English!), finding the circuitous pathways between words helps me understand language. Knowing something of the history of a word not only helps in its correct usage, but also provides a better grasp of the more subtle connotation.

Ballyhoo, etc. is as at least as much a destroyer of myths of word origins as it is a provider of “factual” histories. It appears that etymology has a particularly notable tendency towards myth, or “folk-etymology” as Quinion has it. This doesn’t surprise me much, because telling stories to explain things is one of the things we humans do best — and enjoy the most. As wiser people than me have argued, narrative is a fundamental characteristic of human thought.

The book is rich with great stories that are, unfortunately, unsupported by available facts. In some cases, we are provided with authoritative origins, in some cases a collection of better references that hint towards the origins, and, in many cases, we are left adrift.

Quinion argues against incorrect usage of words, or uses that are based upon misunderstanding, but acknowledges that these incorrect applications gradually become correct through use. We language snobs and pedants may know that “a mute point” is incorrect (and may even expound on how the meaning of “moot” has changed through time), but, when all is said and done, the “incorrect” phrase may be the one that survives and becomes a part of the language. That mutability is what’s magical, fun, and, yes, threatening about language. And, inevitable, so “resistance is feudal.”