tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1030220433025894048.post699755599081203678..comments2023-11-03T08:02:25.369-04:00Comments on AmericanScience: A Team Blog: What a jokeDavid Roth Singermanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12841041983824755867noreply@blogger.comBlogger2125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1030220433025894048.post-80828509223181003442014-09-09T07:06:51.444-04:002014-09-09T07:06:51.444-04:00This comment has been removed by a blog administrator.Sudheer Yadavhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/14336763195411670132noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1030220433025894048.post-78180509694337458152014-09-06T12:58:21.330-04:002014-09-06T12:58:21.330-04:00Hah! This is great. Regarding Mendenhall's l...Hah! This is great. Regarding Mendenhall's letter: one thing that I've noticed in studying fin-de-siecle nomenclature debates - chemical ones, anyway - is that while the high-level European meetings focused on matters of vocabulary and orthography in the abstract, Americans tended to be quite concerned about matters of spelling and pronunciation. On the one hand, this presumably reflects the difference between negotiating inter-linguistic standards and putting them into effect in a particular language. On the other, it perhaps also indicates a greater heterogeneity within scholarly American English than within the language of scholarship in France, Germany, or Britain (notwithstanding the diversity of dialects in each of these nations).<br /><br />As for the Mendenhall reference - maybe the "joke" works for viewers other than David Singerman as a simple high-low: it's funny that numbskull Archer gets what is clearly an obscure reference. Obscure references are a stock-in-trade of the humor of these kinds of shows, right? I resisted watching Arrested Development for a long time because of my mild irritation at the constant barrage of references to "huge tiny mistakes" and the like.<br /><br />It's perhaps worth reflecting on the image of history of science (history in general, really) that this projects: a huge library of facts and names, fodder for esoteric references suitable for any topic. Not the way of thinking about the past that most of us historians practice, or that we wish to encourage in our students and readers.<br /><br />There's another example of pop-culture historical humor that takes a different approach to stories about the past: web hit-turned-Comedy Central series Drunk History. For those who aren't familiar with Drunk History, here's the gist: an obscure comic drinks a whole bunch of booze, narrates a historical episode, and familiar actors hilariously act out the narrator's story, complete with hiccups, drunken tangents, memory lapses, and so on. As historiographic method, it's perhaps not to be endorsed. But what I like most about these stories is the they are clearly *arguments* - the drunken vehemence of the narrator makes that clear. While a reference to a historical fact or name might be the most overt and recognizable genre of incidental public history in pop culture, people are constantly hearing and making historical arguments, often without knowing it. I am all for jokes and storytelling that help illustrate this.<br /><br />Speaking of nomenclature and jokes, here's one from an 1890 issue of the Chemical News, in reference to a couple of suffixes used in numerous chemical names:<br /><br />"It would be better still if the terminations 'in' and 'ine' could be dispensed with, since they have been seized upon by the inventors of 'proprietary' medicines and applied to compounds which, whatever may be their medicinal value, are certainly not chemical individuals. "Listerine" is a name which sets our teeth on edge.""<br /><br />Now **there's** some inclusive humor.<br />Evanhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/18194354174479536249noreply@blogger.com