Two Little Chefs

Tonight my friend Caroline and I have started a new blog all about food. It will feature delicious recipes and fantastic pictures (because Caroline is an amazing photographer and she's going to make our food look even more amazing than it tastes...hard to believe, I know). We currently only have 1 recipe posted, but keep checking it out because we'll be updating it on a regular basis.

Read it.

You won't regret it.

help

I need this. As soon as possible.

Feminist Muslims

No, it's not an oxymoron. There are indeed women who are Muslim AND feminists. And this past weekend was the Third International Congress on Islamic Feminism wherein Muslim women from all over the world gathered together to discuss the issues facing women in the Muslim world today. It warms my heart to know that such an event is taking place. Maybe I'll go next year. If you're interested, the BBC has a selection of excerpts from speakers at the conference. I particularly like the ones from Oman and the US, especially this part from Amina Wadud:

"I have always defined myself as pro-faith and pro-feminism.

I do not wish to sacrifice my faith for anybody's conception of feminism, nor do I sacrifice the struggle and actions for full equality of women, Muslim and non-Muslim women, for any religion. Islamic feminism is not an either/or, you can be Muslim and feminist and strive for women's rights and not call yourself a feminist."

Might I say the same as a Mormon woman.

And now the moment you've all been waiting for...

What do I think of Sarah Palin's g-dropping and reductions?

All political views aside, I hate the way she speaks. I don't think it's natural even one bit (maybe it was when she was a teenager, but she's been around the public eye long enough to have mastered Standard American English). To me, she sounds friendly and believable, but very unintelligent. I feel like she's talking down to America and putting us all in a class with hicks and rednecks. Which I am not. *Note: I'm solely talking about Palin's speech, not her personally or her politics.

However, I understand her purpose of trying to create solidarity among Americans. While my little poll was definitely less than scientifically accurate (i.e. it's really hard to separate what you think about the way Palin speaks from your opinion of her and her political views), I was not at all surprised by the results: 55% of you thought Palin's speech made her sound friendly (no one found her to be unfriendly) and 40% thought she sounded trustworthy. On the other hand, 35% thought she sounded unintelligent (I actually thought it would be higher) and 30% thought she sounded unpresidential. The point is, Palin is clearly altering her speech so the she can come across as a friendly, down to earth type of person...and it's working. The only down side is that people don't always take the local "hockey mom" very seriously.

Along those same lines, one of my professors, Wendy Baker, did an extremely fascinating study a few years ago (yes, I'm too lazy to go find a source for this right now) on dialect perception. She played speech clips of people from various areas across the country: South, East, West (Colorado), Northwest, and Utah. Her results found that people assumed different things about people based on the way they speak. Southerners sounded dumb, but friendly; Easterners sounded stuck up and smart; Coloradans had an equal mix of sounding smart, friendly, relaxed- theirs was the preferred dialect; and Utahans sounded dumb, but not unfriendly (interestingly enough, it was the Utahns that rated their dialect the lowest- come on Utah, get some self-esteem!). We constantly make judgements about people based on their accents and word choices.

The real trick is finding a balance in your speech. In Palin's case, she's identifying very well with lower-middle class America, but perhaps not so much with the academics. Do you think it's worth the risk of alienating 1 group to identify with another?

*Just for the record, if I ever say anything about your speech, I for one am not judging you. I'm just observing and sometimes I get excited and want you to know what I've just noticed about your speech. I'm a linguist; it's what I do.

Ode to Krust

Today is my sister Kristi's (you can call her Krust) birthday. She's 24. And since she's stuck in Brazil and I'm a pile who didn't send her a Halloween package for her birthday (her actual present was a birth certificate...the same thing as last year. It kind of rotten having to apply for all sorts of visa stuff, eh, sis?), I thought I'd post a little tribute to my sister.


Here's a short list of the things that make her really great (in no particular order):

She is...

• very loyal
• fun AND cool
  
• a good dancer
• an excellent Portuguese speaker
• loving, unconditionally.
  
• never one to fight (usually), even when I goad her
• smart AND interesting (and not even nerdy)
• a person with great taste in fashion, decor, and art
  
• a good cook

AND she has great hair.

Happy birthday Sister!

You wanna see how politics are changin'?

The other day one of the ESL teachers at UVU shared a most excellent worksheet with me (thanks Maddie!). It covered 2 interesting linguistic phenomena: g-dropping (which technically isn't dropping the g at all, just the -ing sound and converting it to an -n) and reductions.

G-dropping occurs when, instead of saying the compelte -ing sound at the end of a word like fishing, hunting, eating, etc, you eliminate the -ing sound and instead pronounce the n: huntiN' fishiN', eatiN'.

A reduction occurs any time that you slur together or don't pronounce part of the sounds written in a word. This is very common in contractions: I should have --> I should've --> I shoulda. I am going to --> I'm going to --> I'm gonna. You may also hear reductions in a situation like this: Give her the mail --> Giver the mail; in front of --> in fronna (fronnuv); or a sentence like did you eat yet --> jew eat yet --> jeet yet.

You get the picture. To me, the most interesting part of g-dropping and reductions is when they are done with intent to manipulate or change social perception...which is exactly what so many politicans (and many others) have been doing for years.

So this worksheet focused on Sarah Palin's speech during the vice presidential debate. Perhaps you've already noticed, but Palin, like most politicians, (Hillary Clinton being one of the biggest culprits) is excellent at varying her speech depending on the topic and group being addressed (Obama also does this; he has been known to suddenly sound more "black" when he's addressing African Americans). For example, you'll notice that when Palin discusses her views on policy, she has her g-s in tact and uses very few reductions. But when she's talking to the "common man" or emphasizing that she's a hockey mom or just like the rest of us regular ole' Americans, suddenly all her g-s are gone and she sounds like a back country hick. (NPR's All things Considered has a great article about this very topic.) Whenever a person chooses to consciously alter their speech, there is a motive behind it. Most of the time it's simply to fit in better with the social group you're engaged with. And there's not anything wrong with that; everyone does it, to some extent at least.

So I have several questions I would love for you to answer in my Palin poll (please feel free to select as many as you like). Consider this a mini sociolinguistic study concerning the effect such speech variations have on public perception. I shall refrain from leaving you with my opinion until my poll closes (I wouldn't want to bias your opinions now, would I?) If you've never listened to Palin talk, click on the link above to the NPR article. There are several video clips that demonstrate what I'm talking about.

it's apple time

I spend much of my time during the fall searching for the perfect apple. Living in Utah, where the large majority of our apples come from Washington, the selection, in my opinion, is pretty slim. I know most Washington-ers would have my throat for for saying so, but I just don't love them. Sure, Galas are ok. They're definitely leaps and bounds better than Fuji, Pink Lady, or Jonagold. But when I want to eat an apple, I want it to crunch when I take a bite. I don't want my teeth sinking in around mealy mushy pulp posing as an apple. It should be tart, but not so tart that it sucks your cheecks in (take that Granny Smith!), and sweet, but not so sweet that it loses all semblance of being fruit.

Granted, I've been spoiled by growing up in New York. Cortland and Empire apples are just about the best apples around. They are just the right amount of sweet, crisp, and tart. They're perfect for eating or baking. They make excellent applesauce. And even McIntosh aren't so bad. New York just takes the cake when it comes to tasty apples. So during the past 7 years living in Utah, every trip home became a glutinous apple eating fest wherein I stuffed myself to the brim with Cortlands and Empires.

But then along came the Honeycrisp and the western apple world started looking a whole lot better (yes, there really is an entire website dedicated to honeycrisp. Sweet mother of lust).

Honestly, this is apple is Fantastic. It easily earns the right to join the ranks of Best Apple Ever. It's crisp; it's tart; it's crunchy. It's delicious.

And...it's available in Utah! Finally, something tasty is coming out of Washington orchards!

So as long I'm willing to pay 2.49/lb for tasty apples (which you know I am), I no longer have to endure such misery during apple season.

Praise allah. And the genius scientists at the Universtiy of Minnasota.

A LA GRAN PUCHICA

Read this. Or just look at the headline. Words cannot express the growing gnawing feeling in my stomach right now.

I feel like I haven't posted anything of real interest in ages. Not that I'm going to tonight, but I just thought I'd let you all know that we've lugged all our stuff into the basement and are currently trying to jam our 2 bedroom belongings into a 1 bedroom apartment. I definitely need to make a visit to Ikea. Maybe I'll even have to buy some of those super-organizers that I've never before needed or wanted.

On another note, I would like to entreat all of you to please clean your apartment the next time you move out of it. Our downstairs neighbors were less than thorough on ours...meaning they quickly wiped down anything that could shine noticeably (the kitchen sink and fridge) and promptly ran out the door, leaving nasty crusties all over the kitchen cuboards, charred food in the oven, and cobwebs in the corners and on the walls. Dis-gust-ing.

I dropped off one of my students on my way home from school yesterday and this is what he said:

"Thanks for riding me!"

And said with such sincere innocence!