I'm Getting Old!

I've mentioned in the past that seeing new first years arrive at university in October each year makes me feel old. Now it seems that I am getting old as well as feeling old. What has made me feel this way you ask? I no longer have all my own teeth!

I woke up in absolute agony early on Saturday morning to find that one of my molars seemed to have crumbled a bit. When I eventually managed to find some emergency dental treatment on Monday morning the unanimous decision was that there wasn't much left saving and the easiest thing to do was simply pull the tooth. I have to say that with the anaesthetic working it is was the most pain free trip to a dentist I have ever had, but I am now short one of my own teeth.

WALL-E

I've mentioned before that I'm looking forward to the release of Pixar's next movie WALL-E, but for the first time I've just seen a trailer for the film that actually hints at a plot line. Now I want to see this movie even more!

Click To Play

Interesting Birds at Old Moor

We have been to the RSPB reserve at Old Moor quite a few times before. The weather was not great on Sunday but a trip to Old Moor was just what we needed to get away from all the boxes that still need unpacking and sorting out after the move.

We obviously picked a good day to go as, not only was the food good in the restaurant, but we got some good views of different and interesting birds. Unfortunately the photos of the Bullfinches are all slightly out of focus, and the Kingfisher is a single blue pixel, but some of the photos turned out alright.

TV Reception

Sorry for not having blogged recently but we had to move house, again, and so I've been a bit short of time -- especially given that at home I don't yet have an active Internet connection!

Anyway after moving house I set the TV up and left the Freeview box to find the channels. Surprisingly when I got back it had found all 90 available channels. Something I have never seen it do before.

Standing at Penistone train station the following morning though I realised why.

The tall tower in the distance is the Emley Moor transmission mast. Apparently it is the largest free standing structure in the British Isles at 1,084 feet! Given that the roof of the house isn't that much below the level of the platform I'm guessing there is almost direct line of sight between the TV aerial on the house and the top of the mast which would explain the exceptionally good reception.

The Whisky Shop

It took a long time before someone offered me a whisky I could drink without the burning sensation making me want to pass out. The first whisky I really liked was a 10 year old Isle of Jura single malt and to this day it is still me favourite.

Given that good whisky is expensive I'm always wary of buying a bottle only to find that I don't like it. Given this I'm definitely a fan of the Glenkeir Treasures range from The Whisky Shop. They buy barrels of whisky direct from the distilleries and then decant into small bottles upon request. This way you can try lots of different whiskies at a fraction of the cost it would cost you to try them by buying normal sized bottles. I found out about the shop when I was bought a 10cl bottle of 12 year old Ben Nevis whisky for my birthday last year. A truly fantastic whisky!

Now I have a clearer idea of what I think makes a good whisky I'm going to follow this flavour chart and try some more light and delicate whiskies. Although I won't rule out trying a smoky rich whisky either!

Lego Computer Games

On paper they seem ridiculous: take a well known film franchise, re-imagine it in Lego, and then turn it into a computer game! How anyone ever managed to persuade their boss that it was a money making idea is beyond me.

Having said all that I'm blown away by just how good they are and how much fun they are to play. My current favourite Wii game is Lego Starwars. If you still can't imagine the concept then here is a trailer for the game:

Click To Play

I've previously mentioned that some of my favourite childhood films are the Indiana Jones movies. So given how much I'm enjoying Lego Starwars I've just pre-ordered Lego Indiana Jones!

Click To Play

A Unique vs An Unique

Yesterday I was reviewing a paper that had clearly been written by a non-native speaker of English. When reviewing papers I try and give as much feedback as I can, mostly as I appreciate it when reviewers do that with my papers. As well as commenting on the content I also try and correct any spelling and grammar errors that I encounter. This may be a surprise to many of you as my own level of spelling and grammar is not considered world class, but when writing or reviewing papers I seem to get a better feel for when things are right or wrong.

So I was happily reviewing the paper when I encountered a sentence that started "An unique aspect of ....". I instantly changed the an to a and then stopped. Clearly "a unique" sounds right whereas "an unique" is difficult to say, but wasn't I always taught that words starting with a vowel should be preceded by an not a?

A quick look at my copy of the OED showed that it is definitely "a unique" as it gives the example "a unique opportunity to see the spectacular Bolshoi Ballet." A longer hunt through my English textbooks (working in natural language processing I have a surprising number of books on the English language) drew a blank so I turned to the web for answers.

It looks as if the reason for "a unique" is that it isn't the starting letter that is important but rather the starting sound and the suggestion was that the word unique is pronounced yoo-neek and the constant sound means you use a not an -- although I'm not entirely convinced that yoo is a constant sound!

When I dug a little deeper I found that there are actually many more examples of this in everyday usage that I'd never noticed. For example, we say "an hour" as we don't pronounce the h and we say "an MP3 file" as we pronounce MP3 em-pee-three. No wonder non-native speakers get confused when we make up easy to remember rules and then break them at every available opportunity!

While writing this post I remembered something I overheard a few years ago at work. A non-native speaker had seen a carpet described as "shag pile" and was totally confused!