On this episode of Spark: Digital preservation, Exclamation Marks (!!!) and SPIN Farming
- Seamus Ross, Dean of the Faculty of Information at the University of Toronto, explains digital preservation
- Nora mentions her trip to the CBC Radio archives
- Mignon Fogarty (AKA Grammar Girl) talks about exclamation marks and interrobangs (full interview)
- Nora mentions Spark’s punctuation contest
- Wally Satzewich starts a web-powered, veggie growing revolution called SPIN Farming (more info)
This episode features Creative Commons music and sound effects:
- “Wadidyusay?” by Zap Mama
- “It’s Up To You (instrumental mix),” “Help Yourself (instrumental mix),” and “20 Natural Disaster (instrumental mix)” by Danny Echo (not CC, used with permission)
- 2 08 Br Lib amb footsteps.wav by ERH
- “Rubber Molecules” by Chad Crouch
- “Love Letters” by Dick Haymes (1945)
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[Original image by the Frankfurt School]
I would love to have a punctuation mark to denote statements of questionable veracity, like a compact version of [citation needed].
I think we need a sarcasm mark to identify when a statement or question is sarcastic. The only two ways to identify a statement or question as sarcastic is:
1. by starting or ending with "He/She said sarcastically".
2. by ending a post with a “/s”.
Ok! About the smiley face at the end of parnthesis… [ What's the problem?
]
On my keyboard I have {incredible resources} like three different tyes of parenthesis. Perhaps {if it is really necessare} the curly parenthesis can be . used to denote scarcasm… the square ones to denote- [ I'm really serious here] and the regular saved for their traditional use.
{Not that I'm particularly worried about this idea} [but YOU should be worried the YOU are not understood]
One bit more about "spacey" use of EMPHATIC CAPITAL LETTERS, and too many … and too many !!! and ??? … I think these are all wonderful ways of indicating that there is so much more to communication than just words.
I teach ESL and the 'melody' we add to a sentence is more than half the meaning.
-or- 
whichever you wish to believe.
So let's continue to invent and spread the word. Better communication is the objective- .
Shane in wpg
shanedn@mts.net
How about a mark to indicating that the writer has been tippling? one for each drink consumed? (e.g., YY for two martinis) That would give the reader a visual clue like slurring words in conversation.
Hi Folks …
I am just listening to this week show for the 2nd time …
I am slightly in disbelief that you had an entire show on 'Digital preservation' without discussing open standards … and how open source is moving to specifically address this issue.
Hopefully I don't sound like a nag … but I think you guys need a follow up show where you talk to someone at archives canada … or openoffice.org (for example).
Cheers and I love your show!
Jim
Interesting segment on exclamation marks but I could hardly concentrate as I was so taken with Mignon Fogarty's 1980's Valley Girl accent. Why not do a program about why young, intelligent Canadian women still cling to this outmoded way of talking?
Interrobangs were semi-common knowledge at my high school – they're what the annual literary magazine was named after. I think the title was a 1970s creation (I graduated in 1991), but I'm not sure…
If I were to put a smiley within parenthesis, I would do it this way: "(Gotta Love Windows
)" See that? There is a space between the Smiley's chin and the closed parenthesis.
Good to know that Grammar Girl has a new book coming…-) !!! (just joking, but being ironic first, and all in a loud loud voice). Welcome to the punctuation jungle. How about an episode about punctuation in business communication. People being fired over an !…?
re: Digital Preservation. The angle taken on this segment focused on being able to run today's software on tomorrow's computers and operating systems.
But the more important question, I believe is will we be able to view PDF files or JPEG images of MPEG videos? I think that the answer will probably be "yes." For one thing, these are actual standards (in the case of JPEG and MPEG) and a de facto standard (in the case of PDF) that have come into such widespread use that future generations of software and operating systems will have to be able to deal with them.
Which brings me to my next point which is the supposed loss of paper documentation. Ever heard of scanning or digitization? I know it is a pain but once precious documents have been digitized you can store them in the "cloud" for ever and access them from anywhere on the planet. What's more, using databases and/or key words you can make them much easier to find than in a box of hard copy (paper) lying in your basement.
Any thoughts?
more re: Digital Preservation and Open standards.
Forget Word! Even forget PDF (although it's nice to have them).
May I introduce the hero of open standards and definitively backwards-compatible software AND document preparation, Donald Knuth. King Knuth, fed up with slovenly-typeset mathematical papers spent a long type researching classical typography, and then created a programming language and system for type-setting beautiful documents, known as TeX. Because TeX is *essentially* a programming language *about* typesetting, it is extensible, and so extensions abound. Notable among these is the work of brave Sir Leslie de Lamport, creator of the Lamport TeX (or LaTeX) document structuring macro package, used throughout the scientific community. Because the foundation is both open and fixed, the basic TeX engine will never need changing, and so any documents you've ever written in TeX will be readable and typeset-able as long as their bytes are still good!
Re: Digital Preservation- I know of a group who has used microfiche to preserve their files- which only needs a light behind it to view it. Simple, and preservable possibly for an indefinite period if protected from moisture and light. No need for complex technologies….The worry about digital information is always that there might be a loss of understanding of computer operating systems in the future; and not passing on the protocols needed to open the files.
Thanks for looking into this issue-please do a follow up!