The Hundredth

Blog entry #100

Aaaaand it's a century!

What a year this has been! I never even thought I'd start blogging and I've already reached a hundred posts! It has been a wonderful adventure penning my thoughts.

Feeling elated and grateful :)

I am also happy to share that I've been able to publish 10 book summaries on my second blog https://sriyaakhilesh.wordpress.com/ and 15 posts on my third one on finance https://sriyaakhileshfinance.blogspot.com/ 

A big thank you to the following people for supporting my blog creation, making suggestions for improvement and also encouraging me to write:

In no specific order, Akhilesh, my husband, supporter and critic, Mom and Dad, of course, and an extra thanks to Dad for promptly tweeting and re-tweeting all my posts :) and Viyoma, because of whom I was enticed to start blogging. She started her April blog challenge on City Connect and that's when I decided, why not join the bandwagon? And so here I am.

Last but not the least, thank you dear Readers! Thank you to all those who have visited my blog, read my posts, and left comments.

Let's hope 2021 brings us all loads of happiness, excitement, and amazing new things to look forward to.

So long!

Speaking to oneself in the third person makes one wiser

Blog entry #99

Socrates said, "The unexamined life is not worth living." The path to true wisdom lies in knowing oneself. While my previous post talked about the various introspective questions to ask oneself, this one suggests a method to delve into self-reflection. Ruminating over your thoughts and concerns is discouraged because it drives you into a rut and would probably lead you astray rather than help you narrow down the root issues. Research depicts that people prone to rumination often succumb to depression due to their inability to make decisions under pressure. 

Enter 'Illeism'. Change your perspective slightly and reiterate your problem out loud, but this time, in third person. It helps you circumvent the biases in your head when you reframe 'I am frustrated...' to 'Mary is frustrated...' Take a specific situation, such as changing your job. Adopting this zoomed-out perspective will not only help you see the pros and cons more clearly, but also weigh the risks in a distanced, nonchalant manner.

Researcher Igor Grossmann found that illeism, as exemplified by Julius Caesar, resulted in people having better emotional regulation and stability. Keeping a third-person diary had the participants experience muted negative feelings and more accurate predictions of their positive emotions. It was found that wiser reasoning allowed them to find enhanced mechanisms of coping with their thoughts and feelings.

Though it is tough to improve intelligence in a generic manner via brain-training, the above research more than hints that wise reasoning and better decision making are indubitably within one's power, if one sought to do so.

Introspective Questions

Blog entry #98

In school, you are rewarded only for giving the right answers but in life, you discover the real power is in asking the right questions. In order to lead a meaningful life, learn to introspect, and understand your own self by asking questions. For starters, you can meditate to know what you're feeling deep inside of you. Become aware of your thoughts, feelings, and state of mind. Ask yourself if you're happy and grateful for everything you have around you today, whether it's people or materialistic things, or as simple as a roof over your head, some good food, and clothes to wear. When asking yourself if you're happy, don't spend too much time thinking about the answer. The first answer your mind pops out is usually the truest one.

Below are additional questions you may choose to ask yourself. While the list may vary over time, you will start to observe that your life has become better by merely asking these introspective questions:

1. Am I waking up excited every day?
2. Do I enjoy what I do currently in my job or business?
3. Do I find my work to be meaningful?
4. Am I continuing to learn new things and continuing to be excited about them?
5. Are there other ways I can get better at what I do? Am I working on those or do I have a plan to work on them?
6. Do I feel well-equipped to connect with people?

While these are generic ones, there are other questions you can ask yourself every morning, such as:

1. What is my most important priority for today?
2. Can I achieve that in a faster and more efficient manner? (This question is to help you tap into your creativity to optimize your day)
3. What tasks should I not focus on today? (This would help you identify and separate distractions from your tasks)
4. What can I spend time on today to move one step closer to achieving my long-term goals?
5. How can I help one person today? (Despite your daily work, remember to be kind)

Additionally, as you enter new stages in your life, such as getting married, moving in, having kids, your questions can become more specific, catering to these phases, such as:

1. Are my children happy? 
2. Am I doing the best I can to spend meaningful time with them?
3. Is my partner or spouse content?
4. What about this relationship makes me the happiest?

Last but not least, this question will help you grapple with a difficult situation or phase in your life:

1. What questions am I not asking myself?

Asking this from time-to-time will help you discover yourself more deeply. Many times, you may avoid discussing or even introspecting an uncomfortable topic. Deal with your brain's responses to the above question and find yourself feeling more peaceful at the end of the day.

Ultimately, it's all about taking the time to brood over your thoughts and feelings, self-analyze, and over time becoming a better version of you.

Finite and Infinite Games - Simon Sinek

Blog Entry #97

I watched yet another Simon Sinek talk, this time on Finite and Infinite Games. I wish he was allowed an hour to speak because 25 minutes weren't enough to cover all topics, so when you watch the full talk here, you'll notice it's ended abruptly. Nevertheless, there are a lot of fundas to be garnered from his speech, which I've chronicled below.

Simon Sinek starts his speech by describing an incident that happened in the Vietnam War. Though 'Nam launched a surprise attack on the US, they ended up not only losing the war but also 350 times more people in troops! Using this event, he then goes on to explain the concept of finite and infinite games. Firstly, the idea of a game is that you must have at least one competitor. In games that are finite, there are known players, the rules and objectives are fixed and agreed-upon. On the other hand, infinite games comprise known and unknown players, changeable rules, and the primary objective is to stay in the game for as long as possible. If you look at finite vs finite players or infinite vs infinite players, in both cases, the situation is stable. One example of infinite vs infinite would be the Cold War. However, in the case of finite vs infinite, one side is playing to win, while the other side is playing to keep playing. What happens in such a case is that the finite player ends up in a quandary, running through willpower and resources in order to win and close out the game.

Simon Sinek then moves on to exemplifying the same concept in the field of business, comparing Microsoft with Apple. He once went to a Microsoft Summit, where the only talk was of how to beat Apple. When he later went to an Apple summit, he noticed a hundred percent of the executives devote a hundred percent of their time and effort in brainstorming how to help teachers teach and how to help students learn. When he met an Apple employee later that day and told him that he found the Zune better than the iPod, all he received in response was 'I have no doubt.' This helped him realize that Apple is playing the long game. People working there are obsessed with where they're going and are thus an infinite player, unlike Microsoft. As an infinite player, you are only focused on getting ahead and you don't really care about being the 'best' or the 'first.' It would be nice if we played the infinite game when it came to traffic signals. Rather than be the first one ahead, try to enjoy the drive and be a kind-hearted, non-honking soul who respects road rules.

The third section of his speech outlines a set of checklist items one must focus on to be an infinite player in the game, the first being 'having a just cause.' Be clear on why your organization needs you because, without a just cause, you feed people what they want rather than what they need. He urges that the universities focus on teaching skills such as effective confrontation, communication skills, long-term thinking, and building good relationships. The other items on his checklist include 'having courageous leadership', 'trusting in teams'. 'having a worthy rival', and 'keeping your playbook flexible.' On courageous leadership, he insists on a leader believing in their just cause and sacrificing short-term for long-term rather than the other way round. Courageous leaders know the difference between rank and leadership, and accept the responsibility of creating an environment in which people can work at their natural best. This part reminded me of fixed vs growth mindset, wherein Lee Iacocca did exactly the opposite of the traits mentioned above. You can read about mindset here and about Mr. Iacocca here.

Towards the end of his speech, he reiterates about what universities are teaching their students and he is visibly outraged. He is aghast and dismayed when he sees banners and billboards of universities advertising themselves with what starting salaries students get once they graduate. He believes that such advertisements judge superficial things and are not directed toward attracting ideologists who commit their time and energy to impact the world. Unfortunately, the time runs out here and he is forced to end his speech.

Overall, I believe the key things to take away from his speech are the concept of infinite games and how to be an infinite player in life.

Time-logging

Blog Entry #96

Introduction

The previous post talked about starting your own ultralearning project. One of the helpful techniques to monitor your activities was by keeping a timelog. In this post, I'll talk about how timelogging has (or hasn't) helped me.

TBH, tracking every hour of my day made me realize that I was getting a lot more done on good days than I imagined myself to have accomplished. I would've planned to do just 6 tasks the previous night (this definitely helps, but for me, planning first thing every morning works better because I then know my true wake-up time), but I'd end up doing 14 or more in actuality.

Keeping a timelog is fun for me because it entices me to complete more just so I can tick off more number of activities in one hour (can't help it, I'm a 'J' on the MBTI scale). Another thing I do to increase the number of things I get done in an hour is 2 25-minute pomodoro timers for important, time-consuming, focus-based tasks like writing a blog post. Then, I follow that up with three 10-minute timers to get three other shorter tasks done within half an hour.

These 10-minute timers help me sift through emails, get some household work done, make myself a cup of green tea, or just walk around the house to collect my thoughts. Through trial and error, I've figured out that either 2 10-minute timers followed by a focused task of 25-minutes followed by the third 10-minute timer work in some cases whilst 3 10-minute timers on days of high energy help me get done with chores in succession.

“A woodpecker can tap twenty times on a thousand trees and get nowhere, but stay busy. Or he can tap twenty-thousand times on one tree and get dinner.”

— Seth Godin, The Dip

Looking busy and actually doing productive work are very different things. Many times I find myself skimming through articles but not really reading anything. So, I spend the time but don't get any value out of it. Other times, I am able to focus on one article and comprehend the depths of the message being conveyed. Not only that, but I am also able to recall key points from the article at a later time and share them with the right set of people at the right times.

Example

Let's look at a sample timelog sheet taken from Google:

This is pretty much what I also do and it's exciting to see how much you can get done in one hour.

You can also make fancier ones like this:

But frankly, this one appears to be more confusing.

Conclusion

To timelog or not to timelog? That is the question.

Well, it depends on how beneficial this activity is for you. If you're a nose-to-the-grindstone kind of person, you may not need something like this because you're already disciplined. Timelogging helps me and those who feel they've not gotten anything done during the day. Timelogs help you see where your time actually went. You can also view how much time you spent doing various activities. Knowing this proportion can help you plan future activities better. If you feel keeping a daily timelog is an overkill, tryout a weekly or monthly timelog, provided you're able to recall all of the activities you've done in that period. Also, even if you're ultra focused, it might be a good idea to give timelogging a try, as you'll feel a sense of accomplishment at the end of the day.

Happy timelogging!

Start an Ultralearning Project

Blog entry #95

Scott H. Young, an ultralearner and the author of 'Ultralearning' piqued my interest when I came across his blog post that explains how he learnt the entire 4-year MIT curriculum in just 12 months. As someone who enjoys learning and is probably also addicted to it, when I came across the word 'ultralearning', it intrigued me immensely and I had to know what it was.

Scott Young wrote a two-part post on a DIY ultralearning project. I shall attempt to give you a gist of those 2 posts: Part 1 and Part 2.

  

TL;DR

• Part 1
• Figure out what to learn
• Choose a learning format
• Gather preparatory materials
• Part 2
• Set up a focus-friendly environment
• Create an activity/time log
• Meditate

The first part talks about finding the 'what', the 'why' and the 'how' while part 2 talks about barriers to learning. Basically, ultralearning refers to the deep self-education that helps learn difficult things in a relatively short amount of time. It can be thought of as the opposite of dabbling, which is simply playing around with something and eventually learning it, without time or commitment set aside for it.

The 3 steps of starting an ultralearning project include figuring out what you want to learn quickly and intensely, choosing the project format, and preparing to learn the material. For step 1, though it may be tempting to pick multiple subjects, it is important to choose only one and make it a shorter, more focused project with certain constraints, such as 'I will set aside 1 hour every day to learn how to play the guitar for 1 month.'

Step 2 is choosing your project format. Project formats could be one of 3 styles - one, full-time, two, fixed schedule, such as '1 hour before bed daily', or three, fixed number of hours, such as '4 hours every week', but the hours you choose could be random. While deciding on a project format, also ensure to select the total length of time that you will spend on learning.

Step 3 is just as important as actually starting to learn - preparation. Gather the required material and run a pilot test of your schedule to see what works and what doesn't. Design an attack plan, such as 'First, I will watch or read so-and-so, next, I will solve practice questions, and third, I will use the Feynman technique to teach this to myself.' The pilot test will help you understand if you've set too unrealistic a schedule for yourself or not.

In Part 2, he talks about some of the barriers to learning, why people are afraid to start, or don't follow through after starting, and solutions to those problems. If you have a full-time job and you're working 40 hours a week, choose to expand your project longer than 1 year. Quoting Scott Young: "If you know how to finish the challenge while also putting in 40 hours/week on a full-time job, I should be the one emailing you for advice!"

An important thing to remember is that Time is abundant, while attention is not. Hence, make working on your project a habit by setting up a fixed time to invest in it every day. Secondly, choose projects that really matter because the investment of time and effort is relatively huge.

Actually starting on your project involves creating a conducive, focus-friendly environment, and conducting a time log of your activities to monitor your focus. A sample time log would contain a pre-filled time column, such as 7am to 8am, 8am to 9am, and so on. It could contain three other columns too - activity, purpose, and effectiveness. Scott Young spent about 50 to 60 hours every single week on his ultralearning project.

Finally, what's a focus-related blog post on improving focus without mentioning meditation? He recommends meditating in order to gradually better your focus over time. Also work your way through every day via conditioning and self-pep-talk. Ultralearning projects are undoubtedly challenging and intense, but you can reap humongous benefits. Being able to learn something quickly and in-depth is definitely a must-have skill in this day and age of information overload, at least for me. Hope to start an ultralearning project soon enough and post about my experience. Look forward to hearing about your ultralearning project too!

5 Rules by Simon Sinek

Blog entry #94

I recently watched Simon Sinek's Talk to Millennials on 'Change your future'. He shared anecdotes with a moral for each (of course) and stated 5 rules to follow.

TL;DR - The 5 rules you must follow:

1. You can get what you want, but you cannot deny anyone else to go after what they want
2. Take accountability for your actions
3. Take care of each other
4. Learn the skill to keep your opinions to yourself
5. You deserve a Styrofoam cup

He started his speech with 'There are two ways to see the world.' The anecdote went as follows: He was standing at a fair with his friend when they saw a number of people forming a line in front of a free bagel stand. While he saw the free bagel, his friend could only see the line. So no matter how many times he repeated 'free bagel' with more emphasis each time, his friend could only stick with 'no, I don't want to wait in line'. So what Simon did was simply walk up to the front of the line, grab two bagels from the 100 that were there and give one to his friend. Here's where he quoted his first rule, where he also mentioned that there are two kinds of people in this world - one, who can only see the obstacles that prevent them from getting what they want and the other, who see what they want and how they can get it (without denying others from getting what they want).

The second anecdote was a short yet powerful one. In the Renaissance period, it was observed that women died 48 hours after giving birth. The surprising and tragic reason for this was that, brace yourselves, doctors did not wash their hands! What's more, they refused to acknowledge this for 30 years. So the underlying message here was that sometimes, you're the problem. Learn to take accountability for your actions. The third one was a simple 'take care of each other' story exemplified by Navy SEALs.

It was amazing how Simon Sinek narrated 5 different anecdotes within a quick 15-minute video to convey the underlying one-line message for each of the tales. Story number 4 talked about Nelson Mandela's father, a tribal chief. Mandela, during his childhood, observed 2 things from his father during meetings - one, they would always sit in a circle, and two, his father was always the last to speak. The rule here is to keep your opinions to yourself, and not nod 'yes' if and when you agree with somebody. I've found this skill important because what happens with me is that if I stop nodding 'yes' after a bout of continuous nodding, the speaker immediately senses that I no longer agree with them on the point they've just made.

Finally, the last story talks about how his friend, when he held a top position at a firm, was given a warm welcome, a car with a driver to have him picked up and dropped to and from the airport, to and from the hotel, and a ceramic cup for him to have his coffee in before his speech. The same set of people, a few years later, had to receive his friend once again, who this time around, held a not-so-high position at his firm. He didn't get a car pickup and drop facility, and for his beverage, all they gave him was a Styrofoam cup! So the lesson here is that the ceramic cup was never for him, it was for the position he held. Similarly, all of us must remember this story about humility and gratitude.

Here's the full speech for those interested: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8l-YpiiBH4o

Same video, but without the bagel story: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mKJ9-OTbanE

Lexicon Subtleties: Antithesis

Blog Entry #93

Antithesis is a literary device to introduce two opposing propositions for contrasting effect. Two similar concepts are paradox and oxymoron. Paradox is an argument which shows inconsistency with logic and common sense. Antithesis is the juxtaposition of two contrasting ideas or words in the same statement to create a contrasting effect whereas paradox is a juxtaposition of a set of seemingly contradictory concepts that reveal a hidden truth. Oxymoron, on the other hand, is the combination of seemingly contradictory terms, such as bigger half, alone together, act naturally, or my favourite: deafening silence!

Example of antithesis:

Many are called but few are chosen.

Let’s look at some examples in Literature:

Julius Caesar by William Shakespeare:

Marcus Brutus and Mark Antony were painted in opposite colors, albeit subtly

A Tale of Two Cities by Charles Dickens:

"It was the best of times, it was the worst of times."

Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs:

Snow White and the Wicked Witch are always at odds. Snow White wanted to be kind and helpful to everyone while the Wicked Witch wanted to poison her with an apple, thus taking away her beauty and charm.

Lexicon Subtleties: Ablaut Reduplication

Blog entry #92

Why do we say hip-hop instead of hop-hip and King Kong instead of Kong King?

There seems to be an unwritten rule in English that native speakers seem to know almost instinctively. The reason for the above question is usually stated as "Because saying it any other way just sounds wrong"!

So what’s the rule?

Rule: if you have three words, then the vowel order has to be I, A, O (big, bad wolf). In case of two words, the first is almost always an I and the second is either an A or O (little green men, and not green little men).

Fascinatingly, ablaut reduplication isn’t seen just in English. It’s also prevalent in Indo-European languages, wherein the most commonly used letter is 'e’, akin to that of the English language.

Ablaut reduplication pairs words with internal vowel alternations, such as chit-chat, ping-pong, and jibber-jabber.

Other types of reduplication are as follows:

Rhyming Reduplication - boogie-woogie, easy-peasy, and hoity-toity

Exact Reduplication (used in baby talk) - bye-bye, choo-choo, and no-no

Shm- Reduplication (feature of American English with Yiddish roots) - fancy-shmancy

Comparative Reduplication - my balloon went higher and higher, her skin got whiter and whiter

Contrastive Focus Reduplication - I’m awake, but I’m not AWAKE-awake

Related topic:

The Unwritten Adjective Rule:

Adjectives in English absolutely have to be written in this order: opinion-size-age-shape-colour-origin-material-purpose Noun.

A lovely little old rectangular green French silver whittling knife feels correct whereas rearranging the words does not. Also, as size comes before colour, green great dragons can’t exist. This construction creates dissonance in English speakers’ ears. Something just doesn’t sound right. 

Lexicon Subtleties: Phonotactics

Blog Entry #91

Despite English being a unique and whimsical language, it still adheres to certain rules. Apart from grammar, there are multiple components that all work together to create meaningful communication among individuals. These which concern the structure of language, are phonemes, morphemes, lexemes, syntax, and context. Phonotactics on the other hand, is a branch of phonology, related to sonority. Phonotactics are restrictions on the types of sounds that are allowed to occur next to each other or in particular positions in the word

Phonotactic constraints restrict the ways in which syllables can be created in a language. Languages do not allow random sequences of sounds; rather, the sound sequences a language allows are a systematic and predictable part of its structure. Syllables in a word can be split into an onset, nucleus and coda. Onset and coda are optional whereas the nucleus is obligatory.

Let’s look at certain simple rules:

English: 'bl’ is a permissible sequence at the start of a syllable, it cannot occur at the end of one

Conversely, 'nk' is permitted at the end, but not the start

Japanese: consonant clusters like 'st’ cannot occur

German: 'lt' is not allowed at the start, but is allowed at the end

Lexicon Subtleties: Silent letters

Blog entry #90

What are silent letters?

'e' in table is not pronounced. 'e' is the silent letter in table.

'h' is school is silent.

'k' in knee, 'l' in half, 'g' in sign, 'c' in indict are a few other examples.

Origin

Words borrowed into English from other languages:

'Tsunami’ borrowed from Japanese

'Psychology' borrowed from Greek

Before the Great Vowel Shift (see footnotes for reference),  the Germanic language had open syllables with long vowels, meaning the word 'bit' would be said with short 'i' whereas the word 'bite' would be long and would have been something like 'beetuh'. After the GVS, the distinction between long and short vowels in English is more than just length. The eventual elision (omission of sound) of the final 'e' made its modern pronunciation 'byt' with the 'e' becoming silent.

Evolution

Most words beginning with a silent k are remnants of Old English, which was the language that evolved from the Saxons who settled in England around the 5th century. Historically, they were voiced and are still pronounced in modern German words. For example, the word ‘knot’ in English is knoten in German. Despite having the same origins, English lost the initial k sound while German still has it. The assumption is that English speaker simply chose to stop saying them. 

Old English texts comprise several awkward consonant clusters that are difficult to pronounce. Even Shakespeare would have still pronounced the initial k, but shortly after that its use dwindled in modern times. The k and gh was lost quite recently, so the old spellings have stuck. Some of the earlier consonant clusters like 'h' prefixed in words like ‘ring’, originally spelt and voiced as 'hring', disappeared much earlier, resulting in the spelling to also change.

The word ‘knight’ has two consonant clusters and it’s a lot easier to pronounce as 'nyt' than the German equivalent 'knecht', where both clusters are voiced. In some cases, it’s useful to keep the initial k as it helps distinguish one word from another (e.g. ‘knot’ and ‘not’, ‘know’ and ‘now’).

Footnotes:

The Great Vowel Shift:

https://guernseydonkey.com/english-language-history-what-caused-the-great-vowel-shift/

http://facweb.furman.edu/~mmenzer/gvs/what.htm

Lexicon Subtleties: Diacritics

Blog Entry #89

Technical stuff first:

• A diacritic (aka accent) is a glyph added to a letter or basic glyph
• A glyph is an elemental symbol within an agreed set of symbols intended to represent a readable character
• Some diacritical marks, such as the acute ( ´ ) and grave ( ` ), are often called accents. 
• Diacritical marks may appear above or below a letter, or in some other position such as within the letter or between two letters

Examples:

Hindi:

What we call 'maatras' when we learn 'Barakhadi' are nothing but diacritics. They are compound letters having vowels combined with consonants to change the sound of the basic letter:

English:

Acute: Resumé or résumé (rehz-yoo-may) is used for a work summary versus resume, which means "to begin again"

Grave: à la carte, crème de la crème

Both: déjà vu

Circumflex:  château, crêpe, maître d'

Other languages:

German: Umlaut - tschüss (goodbye)

Spanish: Tilde - mañana (tomorrow)

French: Cedilla - garçon (boy)

Purpose:

Used for additional sounds, in place of adding distinct letters to the alphabet

Aids pronunciation (such as apostrophes used to shorten two words into one - "don't")

Indicates other information about the pronunciation of words such as stress, tone or vowel length

Footnote:

Types of diacritics

Lexicon Subtleties: Allusion

Blog Entry #88

The first time I came across this word, I thought it was a typo of illusion! But this one’s an easy figure of speech - to allude to something simply means to make a reference to something. Allusions help to quickly create a visual imagery of the scene, provided you’re aware of the context being referred to. It can also aid in making your point quickly and effectively.

Let’s look at an example of allusion from a song written by one of my all-time favourite artists, Taylor Swift. Her hit single Love Story goes like this: 

"That you were Romeo, you were throwin’ pebbles

And my daddy said, "Stay away from Juliet"

Another way to hint at something and expect the other person to understand what we are referencing would be to simply say 'Chocolate is his Kryptonite' rather than explaining what the person’s weakness is. 

We come across allusions a lot in our daily lives. You might hear people say 'My Mom has a Spartan workout routine', or 'Some people are calling me the Tiger Woods of miniature golf' or a very common allusion of ’You don’t have to be Albert Einstein to understand poetry'. I’ve observed that people mostly allude to famous personalities or well-known superheroes and their traits. It’s interesting to note that people allude differently based on the city they hail from. For instance, I’ve not seen anyone other than Mumbaikars allude to the punctual train schedule or the bus conductor yelling in Marathi to everyone.

A couple of my favourite allusions are "Don Quixote" and "Pandora’s Box", probably because I’ve studied these lessons in my fifth grade at school.

Lexicon Subtleties: Synecdoche

Blog Entry #87

Definition:

A synecdoche is a rhetoric trope in which a term for a part of something refers to the whole of something.

Pronunciation: 

"sih-nek-duh-kee"

Example:

• "New York won the game", meaning, the New York Yankees baseball team won the game.
• "Can I buy you a glass?"

Usages:

Often used to personify, such as "All hands on deck!"

Types:

• Macrocosm: saying 'I need a hand with this project’, when you really need the entire person’s help for it.
• Microcosm: saying "the world," when the speaker really means a certain country or part of the world.

Related term: Metonymy

Here, the relationship between two things is not part-to-whole or vice-versa, but rather one of being conceptually related. 

Example - "The pen is mightier than the sword" 

"Pen" stands for writing and"sword" refers to physical power

This is not a synecdoche because a pen is not a part of writing, and a sword is not part of physical power. Rather, each of them is related to a concept.

Lexicon Subtleties: Onomatopoeia

BLOG ENTRY # 86

Oink, Meow, Roar, Chirp

Chew, Chomp, Gurgle, Burp

Word resembling that of its sound

Usage in humour and comics abound! 

Onomatopoeia is not new to those of us who have spent our childhood reading Amar Chitra Katha comics and Tinkle digests. I bet those kids who’ve grown up reading superhero comics would be familiar with words like Thump, Whack, Wham and Bam! For me, I love this word not only because its meaning intrigued me but also because my English teacher in the 6th grade used to ask me to spell it in front of the class. I was the teacher’s pet and would love to keep spelling new words for her as and when she used them, such as endeavour, magnificent, accommodate, or onomatopoeia.

Another reason I like reading comics is that the writer gets creative to conjure up interesting onomatopoeic sounds, such as 'FWEET!' to describe a whistle sound, or 'Kerplunk!' for rocks that are falling into a lake. If you think about it, the nursery rhyme “Old MacDonald had a farm” is full of onomatopoeic animal sounds - moo, cluck, oink, quack. Interestingly, though certain sounds may be heard similarly by people speaking different languages across the world, they are often expressed differently in their own languages. For instance, the “snip” of a pair of scissors is katr-katr in Hindi, cri-cri in Italian, and su-su in Chinese.

Now that you know onomatopoeia is not unique to English, other languages have it too, why do you think it originated? Some linguists theorize that language itself evolved from humans trying to imitate sounds in the natural world. Fascinating, isn’t it?

Lexicon Subtleties: Syllogism

Blog entry # 85

What is syllogism?

Popularized by Aristotle, syllogism is a logic-based argument where a conclusion is deduced from the combination of a general statement and a specific statement. If you’ve studied logic in school or college, you’d be familiar with modus ponens: P implies Q and P is true, therefore Q must be true.

What are the types of syllogism?

• Conditional Syllogism: If A is true then B is true (If A then B).
• Categorical Syllogism: If A is in C then B is in C.
• Disjunctive Syllogism: If A is true, then B is false (A or B).

Why syllogism?

It is a tool in the hands of a speaker or a writer to persuade the audience. This is because their belief in a general truth may tempt them to believe in a specific conclusion drawn from those truths.

Examples of syllogism

General: "Every virtue is laudable; kindness is a virtue; therefore kindness is laudable."

Aristotle: “All men are mortal. Socrates is a man. Therefore, Socrates is mortal.”

In advertising: “With a name like Smucker’s, it has to be good.” —Smucker’s jams

René Descartes: "Cogito ergo sum" ("I think, therefore I am.")

William Shakespeare: The Merchant of Venice
"Who chooseth me shall gain what many men desire."
Why, that’s the lady. All the world desires her.

George Orwell: Animal Farm
"All animals are equal, but some animals are more equal than others."

Syllogistic Fallacies

Dogs are animals; all dogs have four legs; hence all animals have four legs.

Lexicon Subtleties: Malapropism

Blog Entry #84

Have you heard of Mrs. Malaprop? If not, let me introduce you to this humorous aunt who gets mixed up with words in Richard Sheridan’s 1775 comedy, The Rivals. Her character is such that she often uses an incorrect word to express herself and that’s where the term ‘malapropism’ originated from. It refers to the intentional or accidental usage of another word that sounds similar to the right word. In French, ‘malapropos’ means “inappropriate”.

Mrs. Malaprop is known to use phrases like “The pineapple of politeness”, instead of “pinnacle of politeness”, and a humorous simile “She’s as headstrong as an allegory on the banks of the Nile”, where she’s used allegory instead of ‘alligator.’ 

Shakespeare too, is no stranger to using malapropism. In his plays, one of his characters says “indicted to dinner” in lieu of “invited to dinner”, while the other says “comprehended auspicious persons” in lieu of “apprehending suspicious persons,” notably Constable Dogberry. Thus emerged “Dogberryism” that became synonymous with malapropism. Though malapropism has been largely used to elicit humour, it is also used to deem intelligent characters as uneducated. If they mispronounce words or phrases, it instantly lowers their credibility.

“We will not anticipate the past, our retrospection will now be all to the future.”

-Mrs. Malaprop

Footnotes:

A few other places where writers have used malapropisms or the likes:

Sons of the Desert - Stan Laurel: “nervous shakedown” (correct: breakdown)

All in the Family - Archie Bunker: “house of ill refute” (correct: repute) and “off-the-docks Jews” (correct: orthodox)

Lexicon Subtleties: Alliteration

Blog Entry #83

Let’s start with an easy one. Most of us have been taught alliteration in schools, and if you’re from an ICSE school that studied the Golden Lyre poetry book for grades 9 and 10, you are all too familiar with this concept. This element is used to create harmony and unity within a poem.

Sometimes, alliteration works with just two words (which is like the minimum for the condition to even be satisfied!) such as 'treasure trove'. It need not match the spelling, as long as the sounds are phonetically the same, such as 'fish' and 'physics' or 'nest' and 'know'. It’s basically not the repetition of letters, but the repetition of sounds. 

Alliteration is also called head rhyme. TIL that similar to alliteration, which is concerned with the beginning of the words sounding the same, consonance is the repetition at the end of words, while assonance takes the middle ground. I came across these under the topic of rhymes. It might also interest you to know that there are several types of rhymes, other than the repetitive kind, such as the three mentioned above. See the footnotes below for more information.

I enjoy using alliterations, and that’s the theme I’ve chosen for the title of each of my posts on book summaries. You can check them out here.

That’s all for today! 

Stay safe.

Footnotes:

Types of rhymes:

Masculine or Singular end rhyme: vowels and succeeding consonant sounds are the same at the end and the emphasis is on the final stressed syllable

E.g. pan-tan, sing-thing

Feminine rhyme: the correspondence of sounds in two or more consecutive syllables

E.g. flower-power, lighting-fighting, habit-rabbit

Sight (or eye) rhyme: imperfect pattern that uses words similar in spelling rather than sound

E.g. dove-move, cry-envy, tone-gone

Slant (or para) rhyme: inexact or distant rhyme scheme where the sound matches but inconsistently

E.g. live-leaf, mill-mall

Homonym rhyme: word rhymes with its homonym 

E.g. blue-blew, bear-bare

Echo rhyme: same syllable endings utilized

E.g. appease-ease

Identity rhyme: whole word repeated

E.g. trip-trip

Repeat rhyme: whole line is repeated

A few other unique types are off-centered rhyme, mirror rhyme, sporadic rhyme, thorn rhyme, and last but not least: No-rhyme rhyme. This occurs when there are no words in the English language that match a particular word to rhyme it, such as purple and orange. The poet can still try to rhyme orange with door hinge or create neologisms like burple, the colour of a happy burp (LOL), to rhyme with purple.

Introduction to Blog Challenge #4: Lexicon Subtleties

Blog Entry #82

Welcome to the fourth blogging challenge! In this, I would like for us to explore the nuances of this epigrammatic yet expansive, plain yet metaphorical, serious yet poetic, and sesquipedalian yet succinct language. Over the course of this month, let’s delve into the joys and admire the heterogeneousness of all the elements this language provides, right from linguistics and phonetics to malapropisms and synecdoches to the etymology of words and idiosyncrasies of the Shakespearean dialect (I googled 'dialects of English' to see if I used the word correctly and I found this extensive list - Wow!).

I am currently reading a book on this very topic called 'Mother Tongue: English and How it Got that Way' by Bill Bryson. It is hilarious and informative, and the idea for this blog challenge dawned on me while reading the very first chapter itself, which talks about how funnily difficult this language can be for non-native speakers, while how unpronounceable English speakers may find other languages such as Welsh. It also enlists the terms present only in the English language but not in others (such as: there’s no word in Italian for the term 'wishful thinking', and the French have no word that differentiates a 'man' from a 'gentleman') and vice-versa (the Gaelic Scottish speakers have a word for the itchiness that overcomes their upper lip before taking a sip of whiskey - of course they do!).

Blog Challenge #4: September 2020 Challenge: Nuances of the English Language

Happy learning!

July Challenge: It's Mind Map Time! [Closure Note]

Blog entry #81

Difference between a mind map and a concept map:

Concept mapping:

Mind mapping:

Image courtesy: Google ©

July Challenge: It's Mind Map Time! [Topic: Web Design]

BLOG ENTRY #80

July Challenge: It's Mind Map Time! [Topic: Web Development]

BLOG ENTRY #79

July Challenge: It's Mind Map Time! [Topic: Computer Science Fundamentals]

BLOG ENTRY #78

July Challenge: It's Mind Map Time! [Topic: Personal Finance]

BLOG ENTRY #77

July Challenge: It's Mind Map Time! [Topic: Human Body Systems]

BLOG ENTRY #76

July Challenge: It's Mind Map Time! [Topic: Chemical Reactions Types]

BLOG ENTRY #75

July Challenge: It's Mind Map Time! [Topic: Parts of Speech]

BLOG ENTRY #74

July Challenge: It's Mind Map Time! [Topic: Communication in Client-Server Systems]

BLOG ENTRY #73

July Challenge: It's Mind Map Time! [Topic: Types of System Calls]

BLOG ENTRY #72

July Challenge: It's Mind Map Time! [Topic: Operating System Debugging]

BLOG ENTRY #71

July Challenge: It's Mind Map Time! [Topic: Operating System Services]

BLOG ENTRY #70

July Challenge: It's Mind Map Time! [Topic: Study Smarter, Not Harder]

BLOG ENTRY #69

July Challenge: It's Mind Map Time! [Topic: Reinforcement Learning]

BLOG ENTRY #68

July Challenge: It's Mind Map Time! [Topic: Vacation Week]

BLOG ENTRY #67

July Challenge: It's Mind Map Time! [Topic: Birthday Party Planning]

BLOG ENTRY #66

July Challenge: It's Mind Map Time! [Topic: Heteroscedasticity Part 3]

BLOG ENTRY #65

July Challenge: It's Mind Map Time! [Topic: Heteroscedasticity Part 2]

BLOG ENTRY #64

July Challenge: It's Mind Map Time! [Topic: Heteroscedasticity Part 1]

BLOG ENTRY #63

July Challenge: It's Mind Map Time! [Topic: Tips on Writing]

BLOG ENTRY #62

July Challenge: It's Mind Map Time! [Topic: Social Psychology Concepts]

BLOG ENTRY #61

July Challenge: It's Mind Map Time! [Topic: Machine Learning Applications]

BLOG ENTRY #60

July Challenge: It's Mind Map Time! [Topic: Machine Learning Basics]

BLOG ENTRY #59

July Challenge: It's Mind Map Time! [Topic: Learn How To Learn]

BLOG ENTRY #58

July Challenge: It's Mind Map Time! [Topic: Meta Mind Map]

BLOG ENTRY #57

Meta Mind Map

Source: app.mindmup.com

Introduction to Blog Challenge #3: A Mind Map A Day

BLOG ENTRY #56

Welcome to the third blogging challenge! This one is also self-made, as will be most of my others. 

After two hectic A-Z challenges, I've decided this one will not be restricted to one from each letter of the alphabet. What I'd like to do instead is to share with you several of my mind maps (some of them hand-drawn) across random topics. This approach will sometimes introduce you to various domains and their subjects broadly, and sometimes help you formulate ideas, prepare a quick plan for an event, or think through strategies.

Blog Challenge #3: July Challenge: It's Mind Map Time!

Happy learning!

P.S. I had the great honour of meeting the creator of mind maps himself, Mr. Tony Buzan (picture below) in the year 2009.

May A-Z Challenge: A Pair of Favourite English Words [Bonus]

Blog entry #55

Here's a cloud of my other favourite words. Enjoy!

Image source: wordclouds.com

Happy Halfway Month! See you on the other half of twenty-twenty. Hope to be back with a challenge in July.

Until then, stay safe.

Hasta pronto!

May A-Z Challenge: A Pair of Favourite English Words [Z]

Blog entry #54

Zilch | Zing

Zilch

"I couldn't point out one flaw in this work - zilch, zip, nada!" Zilch is such a fun word for the boring old 'nothing'. It sounds posh. Apparently it's also a German surname of Slavic origin. Since my husband likes saying this word too, we try to find instances to say it - "At this moment, these shares are worth zilch", "Although I learnt this concept in school in two different years, I remember zilch about it."

Zing

Watching Masterchef Australia is one of the best pastimes in our house. More than the food, ingredients, and recipes, we are more interested in the new words we learn like meringue, the reactions and responses from the judges, and the amazing Australian accent spoken on the show. Usually, contestants whose origins are from the Asia-Pacific regions like Vietnam or India, the reactions by the judges are along the lines of "There's so much flavour in this dish; This rasam has got a certain zing to it; This broth is so zingy." If I make a dish with lots of tamarind or slightly sour tomatoes, we'd expect a zing while eating it!

Stay tuned for my upcoming bonus post tomorrow!

Image courtesy: Google ©

May A-Z Challenge: A Pair of Favourite English Words [Y]

Blog entry #53

Yonder | Yoohoo

Yonder

Don't you just love archaic words? Well, I do, and this is one of them. It is fun to read out loud a soliloquy from Shakespeare's plays, such as the one below:

"But, soft! what light through yonder window breaks?

It is the east, and Juliet is the sun."

There is obviously no need to introduce the play or the character who uttered the above lines. How beautifully worded is the first line, so poetic! Imagine if Shakespeare were to replace it with its exact meaning: "A light came on in a window." How boring. Although I am familiar with the story of Romeo and Juliet, I hope to read the entire play as is, someday.

Yoohoo

Growing up watching a lot of teenage pop star soap-opera shows, I was no stranger to the gestural call out of 'Yoohoo!' Only after watching TBBT did I learn that there's a chocolate drink of the same name. Learning phrases, slangs, and jargon specific to certain cultures has always amused me. I tend to pick up quirky lines from the various shows I've watched and try to imitate the character when saying them out loud. I'm just waiting for an opportunity to respond like Sheldon when asked if he wants Yoohoo, and say, "It's hard to say no. The name literally beckons."

Image courtesy: Google ©

May A-Z Challenge: A Pair of Favourite English Words [X]

Blog entry #52

Xenodochial | Xeranthemum

Xenodochial

Synonymous to hospitable and another x-word xenial, this word's exact meaning is actually the opposite of xenophobia. A xenodochial gesture by someone, when they're being friendly to strangers, can either work in their favour, or end up against them. It's fun to learn words that are uncommon or unheard of, such as this one. Xylophone is too mainstream, and way too plain and commonplace to be classified as a favourite, isn't it?

Xeranthemum

This flower is not only of a colour that is one of my favourites, i.e. lavender, but is also a symbol of cheerfulness, immortality, eternity and everlasting love. When starting out to learn Machine Learning or ML, one of the most sought after skills of today, you start by practising on a platform known as Kaggle. Here, one of the very first datasets you are exposed to is the flowers dataset, where you are expected to classify different flowers based on their characteristics. Xeranthemum is one such flower to be classified.

Image courtesy: Google ©

May A-Z Challenge: A Pair of Favourite English Words [W]

Blog entry #51

Winner | Whetstone

Winner

"Winner winner, Kofta dinner" - modified the usual phrase because I'm a vegetarian and also, I like Kofta. Winner to me after 2012 resonated only with one person, and that's Harvey Specter. In school we were taught "winning isn't everything, participation is just as good." But after marrying a highly competitive chess-player, I've learnt from him that "winning isn't everything. It is the ONLY thing." My husband keeps telling me: "if you play, play to win. There's no other way." Over time, I've learnt to become more competitive not only when playing tournaments but also in general, and I've come to realize, it sometimes helps me find purpose in what I'm doing, my Ikigai.

Whetstone

I thoroughly enjoyed learning Shakespeare's play As You Like It for my English Literature class in grades nine and ten. No one was happier than me to know that my year was the first batch to study this short, fun play whereas until now, every batch had to study the tragedy Julius Caesar. What's better than studying a witty comedy over the myriad tragedies written by Shakespeare, all of them depressing or gory? Among obviously learning all of the new phrases introduced by the Bard of Avon and trying to interpret the several meanings within his sonnets and quips, 'whetstone' was one interesting word I recall. In the play, when the court jester Touchstone’s "wisdom" is questioned, it elicits the Duke's daughter Celia to remark, "the dullness of the fool is the whetstone of the wits." Google its interpretation if you're interested!

Image courtesy: Google ©

May A-Z Challenge: A Pair of Favourite English Words [V]

Blog entry #50

Venture  | Ventriloquist

Venture

A shortened form of 'aventure', itself a shortened form of 'adventure', coined as early as the 15th century, this word means to undertake a risk. The term venture capital came about only in 1943. I associate this term with gallantry. Whenever I want to try something outside my comfort zone or face one of my fears, I tell myself that I would venture out, say, in the dark, or alone on a trip. It’s good to take calculated, calibrated risks sometimes.

Ventriloquist

If you had read my post on 'V' in the city connect challenge, you’d know that I had attended a ventriloquism workshop back when I was in grade 7. Post the YouTube era, I’ve binge-watched videos of two amazingly creative and talented ventriloquists, namely Jeff Dunham and Darci Lynne. My favourite words post on 'L' talks about 'loqui-' being the Latin stem for ’talk.' You can now guess that the prefix of the word ventriloquism comes from the Latin word 'venter', which refers to 'belly.'

Image courtesy: Google ©

May A-Z Challenge: A Pair of Favourite English Words [U]

Blog entry #49

Umpteenth | Ubiquitous 

Umpteenth

In the Fatty and the Five Find-Outers series, you hear Fatty tell his friends "I'm telling you this for the umpteenth time" umpteen times! It thus became my favourite word. Enid Blyton uses a lot of rich words and phrases that come naturally to me today, thanks to binging on all her series - Famous Five to Secret Seven to Brer Rabbit. "Make room", "spill the beans", "Guy Fawkes night", and "ginger ale", were some of the phrases and terms I learnt in grades four, five and six.

Ubiquitous

I knew its synonym 'omnipresent' well before I came across this word. One of the rare words to contain three u's in it. Akin to presumptuous, superfluous, and unusual. There's also tumultuous, one with four u's, whoa! It's interesting how despite the words starting with a vowel 'u', if it has a 'you-' pronunciation, you add an 'a' in front of it, like 'a uniform', not 'an uniform.' Whereas 'u' words with 'uh' pronunciations have an 'an' at the start - 'an urn', 'an urgent request.' So for ubiquitous, it's of course 'a ubiquitous...', such as: 'Corona is now a ubiquitous phenomenon, i.e. a pandemic.'

Stay safe everyone!

Image courtesy: Google ©