Review of 2021

What did you do in 2021 that you'd never done before?

Gave a keynote talk at a really big conference (virtually, unfortunately). Got vaccinated against COVID-19 (double AstraZeneca with a Moderna chaser).

Did you keep your New Years' resolutions?

I didn’t make any, which was wise, as I wouldn’t have kept them.

Have you any resolutions for next year?

Pay more attention to my health.

Did anyone close to you give birth?

This year, I don’t think so.

Did anyone close to you die?

No - though several caught Covid.

What countries did you visit?

Austria, Belgium, Denmark, France, Germany, Italy, Monaco, San Marino, Slovakia, and the UK. Not bad for someone who didn’t leave Germany in the first half of the year.

What would you like to have in 2022 that you lacked in 2021?

The ability to continue our syntax social at Seekuh without danger or fear.

What date(s) from 2021 will remain etched upon your memory, and why?

23rd June 2021: day of vaccination dose 2, eventually spelling (relative) freedom.

What was your biggest achievement of the year?

Something that had best remain under wraps, for now, I’m afraid. But other than that: restoring and extending the model railway in my office! There is a new bridge and tunnel that I’m looking forward to showing you.

What was your biggest failure?

I lost my iPad! Fortunately I was able to get it back again.

Did you suffer illness or injury?

This year I’ve been remarkably healthy. The sickest I’ve been was after my first dose of AstraZeneca, and that lasted less than 24 hours.

What was the best thing you bought?

Travel tickets! Specifically, the ones to Bratislava. Too long without convoluted European train adventures!

Whose behaviour merited celebration?

The good folks who set up a new series on historical linguistics with Language Science Press. Also, all my wonderful PhD students.

Whose behaviour made you appalled and depressed?

Anonymous Twitter fanboys and debatebros.

Where did most of your money go?

This year, quite a lot of it’s gone into my mortgage.

What did you get really, really, really excited about?

The ability to travel again!

What songs will always remind you of 2021?

Faunts - M4 Part II

Manchester Orchestra - The Silence

Compared to this time last year, are you:

Happier or sadder? Happier.

Thinner or fatter? Fatter (?).

Richer or poorer? Richer.

What do you wish you'd done more of?

Repeated now two years in a row: “Real relaxation activities, i.e. hiking, cooking, washing things. I’m bad at relaxing.” Even when I have complete control of my own time and nowhere else to be.

What was the most embarrassing thing that happened to you in 2021?

Losing my iPad.

Who did you meet for the first time?

Nice people at Míšakemp 2021 on Mors, Denmark. A couple of cool English linguists in Konstanz.

Did you fall in love in 2021?

No.

How many people did you kiss?

None.

How many one-night stands did you have?

None.

What was your favourite TV programme?

Probably Shadow and Bone on Netflix. Series 3 of Sex Education was also good. But I spent lots more time watching T90’s Age of Empires 2 streaming content, as well as Roll Together’s D&D streams (especially the sublime Gloom Falls on Baldur’s Gate).

What was your favourite film of this year?

I didn’t watch many. Only one in the cinema was No Time to Die, and at home I watched Fight Club, Grand Budapest Hotel, and Saving Private Ryan. I think my favourite was the Grand Budapest Hotel.

What was the best book you read in 2021?

Fiction: A Deadly Education by Naomi Novik.

Non-fiction: Permanent Record by Edward Snowden.

What was the best game you played in 2021?

Slightly slower on games this year than last. In the first half of the year, I played Cyberpunk 2077, which was good (think GTA but with more body-modification and Japanese people) but inevitably didn’t live up to the hype, as well as being bugged to hell. Another new game was Life is Strange: True Colors, more of a narrative/puzzle offering. I also replayed Shadowrun: Dragonfall agaaaain, and the classic Wesnoth campaigns Invasion from the Unknown and After the Storm, as well as Dragon Age II (agaaaaaaaaain) and most of Dragon Age: Origins. Overall, I probably got the most fun out of the Wesnoth campaigns.

What was your greatest musical discovery?

Faunts.

How would you describe your personal fashion concept in 2021?

Warm clothes that ideally aren’t torn.

What kept you sane?

The prospect of travel and in-person teaching.

What did you do on your birthday, and how old were you?

I was 36. It was right after DiGS, which I organized, so I don’t remember much - I think I slept a lot, ate cake, and had a birthday Zoom call with friends.

How did you spend Christmas?

At home with the folks in Derbyshire.

What would have made your year immeasurably more satisfying?

No pandemic. Or at least no fourth/fifth etc. waves.

Which celebrity/public figure did you fancy the most?

It was a poor year for celebrity-fancying.

What political issue stirred you the most?

The German general elections this year were a bit of a rollercoaster, though I wasn’t allowed to vote. And the outcome was a lot better than it could have been.

Who did you miss?

I got to see a few people that I hadn’t seen in a long while, which was nice. But I missed Michael Walkden and Rachel Fritts in particular.

Do you hate anyone now that you didn't hate this time last year?

No, I don’t think so.

Was 2021 a good year for you?

Better than 2020, on pretty much all counts.

What was your favourite moment of the year?

I very much enjoyed Míšakemp in Denmark - playing table tennis, drinking cans of beer, and scooting about on foot in a remote landscape. Visiting Southwold with David & Fi was nice too, as were my three weekend breaks in Bratislava, San Marino and Monaco.

What is a valuable life lesson you learned in 2021?

You don’t have to be particularly good at something to enjoy it, and vice versa.

Singular "dice"?

Dice (plural) are those things that you roll in tabletop games, sometimes known as "math(s) rocks". What's the singular? What do you call it when you roll only one?

There's a school of thought that says that the only correct answer is die. That is: one die, multiple dice. And it isn't difficult to find internet pedants claiming this. As usual, though, when internet pedants start fulminating against some linguistic usage, it means that the truth is more complicated and that there are other possibilities out there.

My starting point, as usual, is the OED. There it says:

The form dice (used as plural and singular) is of much more frequent occurrence in gaming and related senses than the singular die.

This is to be found in the OED's second edition (1989), so it's clear that the singular use has been around for a while. The OED also provides an example from 1557:

1557   R. Record Whetstone of Witte sig. Rii   I haue a dice of Brasse of .64. vnces of Troye weighte.

(Two earlier examples are provided there, but both involve the regularized plural dices – which, though it implies a singular dice, doesn't count as a use of it.)

Speaking for myself, as a Brit, the singular die is just not grammatical for me in the context of the six-sided cubes with numbers on. Moreover, some of the sources above imply that there is a British-American difference as regards the use of these forms. Time to play around with Google Ngram Viewer!

The usual caveats are needed with regard to this source: it's just published books, so it's biased towards formal, conservative practice; there are some terrible errors of dating and transcription in there; it's pretty much useless before 1800; etc. But it's easy to use and good for getting an overview, in general terms, of historical developments.

Starting with the basic corpus "English (2019)", we see a lot of fluctuation. a die is in general more common than a dice throughout, which is not surprising, since a die is not restricted to the context of math-rocks. Since 1990 it seems as if a dice is on the rise.

The picture is similar for this die vs. this dice. But let's now turn to regional differences. As usual with Google Books, the picture for American English closely matches the overall view:

British English is different, though - with the two uses much closer together.

The smaller-scale fluctuations are harder to assess, but it looks like there was relatively little difference between the two in 2000, and that the gap has since widened again. If we restrict the context even further (roll a die vs. roll a dice), looking at the post-1950 period (the Age of Math Rocks), it's even closer. The below graph shows that for British English the two variants are pretty much in lockstep until about 2008, when singular die seems to shoot up again.

And here's the corresponding graph for American English:

Here, singular dice has very much been the minority variant all along, and hardly used at all before 1998.

So there's a clear difference between British English, where singular dice is an established variant, and American English, where it (largely) isn't. But none of this empirical evidence helps us to figure out what the CORRECT singular form is, of course! That can only be done through LOGIC and RATIONAL REASONING!

I present the following analogically-linked forms for your delectation:

• two mice : one mouse
• two lice : one louse
• two dice : one douse

QED. The douse is cast!

Mensabot rides again

See my earlier post here for details of what's going on. This time I've cleaned up the dataset orthographically a bit (fixing umlauts and eszett, which the bot can't deal with).

As established, the bot is a big fan of carb combos, which is very on-brand for the Mensa.

Schweinerueckensteak | Kokos

Schweine mit Tomatensauce | Pommes frites | Kartoffeln | Blattsalat-Balskare

Pasta | Joghurt mit Salami | Karoof | Kayele-Sauce | Brot

Lauch mit Kartoffeln

Penne | Basmatireis

Blattsalat-Chili sauce mit Kirschen

Reis | Kartoffeln | Spaetzle | Basmatireis

child mit Frischkaese | Mie-Quark-Salat-Haasnen | Brot

Schweinegeschnetzeltes "Gemuese" | Bratensauce | Basmatireis

Wokensauce mit Tomatensauce Griesspudding mini Spinat

Kartoffeln | Bratensauce | Blattsalat-Banane-Curry | Brot

Zitronen-Schweiner | Gemuese

Kartoffeln | Kartoffeln | Kartoffeln-Kartoffeln | Basmatireis | Chili nemet

Blattsalat-Cocktailer mit Kaeseschnitzer | Basmatireis

Rotejogger | Basmatireis

Reis | Kartoffelkartoffeln | Basmatireis

undressing | Paprika | Bohnen | Blattsalat-Basmatireis

Rindfleikas (aus) | Haehnchendrip | Kartoffeln | Kartoffeln | Basmatireis

Pasta | Paprika | Kaiserstreifen | Basmatireis

Indischer | Salat-Balsamicodressing mit Budget

Rindergucken | Basmatireis

Currywurst | Gemuesebausauce

Vollkornnuden | Joghurt mit tomatensauce

Weiser Salat | Kokossen-Tomatensauce | Blattsalat-Balsamicodressing | Blattsalat

Italienischer Rinder | Basmatireis

Mayonnaise | Zitronen-Schokothundressing | Burger | Ketchup | Basmatireis

Lasten-Curry-Kartoffeln | Brot

Italienila Glasschenboner | Paprika | Kaisergemuese | Backfackern | Kartoffel-Safarstril

Spanner vom Sauce | Frischobatcouls | Baratoville | Blattsalat-Balsamicodressing

Kartoffel-Reis | Kartoffeln | Basmatireis

Kartoffeln | Kartoffeln | Kartoffeln | Bratensauce | Kartoffeln | Kartoffeln | Bananensauce | Banane-Sauce

Review of 2020

What did you do in 2020 that you'd never done before?

Survived a pandemic. Published a book (long in the making) with Language Science Press. Got grumpy emails from retired male professors criticizing me for my politics. Started supervising seven doctoral students at the same time.

Did you keep your New Years' resolutions?

Once again I resolved to exercise more. Once again I did not do so.

Have you any resolutions for next year?

No. (I think I’ve finally learned my lesson.)

Did anyone close to you give birth?

Just learned that Joe Goodwin has a seven-week-old - congratulations!

Did anyone close to you die?

No. And that’s a hell of a thing to be happy about in itself.

What countries did you visit?

January-February: England, Wales, France, Switzerland, Germany, Italy.

March-December: a few hours just across the border in Switzerland; otherwise just Germany.

What would you like to have in 2021 that you lacked in 2020?

The freedom to travel. Other freedoms.

What date(s) from 2020 will remain etched upon your memory, and why?

29th Oct 2020. Inbox zero! (Yeah, this was a shit year.)

What was your biggest achievement of the year?

Publishing the Wackernagel book, I think - though that one doesn’t really count as this year’s achievement, since most of the work was already done. Also finishing the draft of the HEL textbook with Míša.

What was your biggest failure?

Getting tunnel vision and being overly sensitive to minor things that don’t affect me directly.

Did you suffer illness or injury?

Arthritis in my big toe joint! Which sucks given that I’m 35 and walking is pretty much the only form of exercise that I enjoy. But I have orthopaedic soles that help a bit, and it can be operated on in future if necessary.

What was the best thing you bought?

Age of Empires II: Definitive Edition.

Whose behaviour merited celebration?

Everyone who stayed at home, wore a mask, followed the guidelines, and therefore didn’t literally kill people unnecessarily.

Whose behaviour made you appalled and depressed?

Admin people. A surprising number of people who find Pinker’s behaviour and views unobjectionable.

Where did most of your money go?

Random mail order shit that was intended to cheer me up, including a new gaming laptop. Also, charity and occasional acts of generosity.

What did you get really, really, really excited about?

D&D.

What songs will always remind you of 2020?

No songs, I think. Wasn’t really a musical year.

Compared to this time last year, are you:

Happier or sadder? Sadder.

Thinner or fatter? Fatter (?).

Richer or poorer? Richer.

What do you wish you'd done more of?

Repeated from last year: “Real relaxation activities, i.e. hiking, cooking, washing things. I’m bad at relaxing.” Even when I have complete control of my own time and nowhere else to be.

What was the most embarrassing thing that happened to you in 2020?

Getting scolded by Germans. (This should be a Cards Against Humanity card.)

Who did you meet for the first time?

LOL. I remember the days when you could meet people... That said, I did meet my three new STARFISH doctoral students, and a new colleague, Tamara, who are all very nice.

Did you fall in love in 2020?

No.

How many people did you kiss?

LOL. I don’t think I’ve even shaken anyone’s hand since early March.

How many one-night stands did you have?

ROFL. See above.

What was your favourite TV programme?

I watched a lot of TV this year, but most of it was trash. Stranger Things series 3 was by far the best series yet. The new Altered Carbon was okay, but not as compelling as the first series. Off the beaten track, Roll Together’s D&D streams - particularly Sea of Swords: Forsaken - are well worth watching for anyone who likes a character-driven, somewhat thespian take on D&D.

What was your favourite film of this year?

Knives Out.

What was the best book you read in 2020?

Fiction: Three Parts Dead by Max Gladstone. Non-fiction: The Anarchy by William Dalrymple.

What was the best game you played in 2020?

This year I replayed virtually every Bioware game, as well as several others. Mass Effect 2 stands out as probably one of the best games ever made. Assassin’s Creed: Valhalla provided many, many hours of fairly mindless fun, Age of Empires II: DE kept me sane at an unexpectedly difficult point in autumn, and what I saw of Baldur’s Gate 3 on early release was impressive (though a bit grindy at points).

What was your greatest musical discovery?

I didn’t discover any music in 2020.

How would you describe your personal fashion concept in 2020?

T-shirt, jeans and (when necessary) jumper.

What kept you sane?

Being able to video call with people I care about.

What did you do on your birthday, and how old were you?

I was 35, and the pandemic had slowed down enough for me to go for a nice restaurant meal with Henri and Fernanda - in late May, for the first time since early March.

How did you spend Christmas?

With Fernenri, to whom massive thanks.

What would have made your year immeasurably more satisfying?

Oh, gee, take a guess!

Which celebrity/public figure did you fancy the most?

Hannah John-Kamen as Ghost in the second Antman film.

What political issue stirred you the most?

P*nkergate. Also, and relatedly, transphobes.

Who did you miss?

Literally everyone.

Do you hate anyone now that you didn't hate this time last year?

Not hate, but my opinion of many has soured.

Was 2020 a good year for you?

No, not at all. Though I do need to relativize that: I’m mostly healthy and wealthy, don’t have kids, and on top of that I’ve always been pretty introverted. And I haven’t taught since February, thanks to research leave. So 2020 hasn’t hit me as hard as it has others - but it’s still been rough. I do get a bit anxious and a bit depressed, and I don’t have anyone to bubble with.

What was your favourite moment of the year?

Probably my crazy, unplanned trip over the Gotthard pass and around Switzerland by train in February. It got stuck in my mind afterwards as the kind of thing that would have been either impossible or deeply inadvisable for all of the rest of the year. But there were other nice moments: boat to Gaienhofen with Fernenri, and walking up around the Saarschleife. And it was nice to reconnect with quiz people from Manc, who paradoxically I actually saw more of than usual.

What is a valuable life lesson you learned in 2020?

Oh, I don’t know. I feel like I got some insights into how people who start out opposing an unjust system end up getting co-opted as its defenders. But I can’t formulate it as a crisp and clear life lesson, so I’ll end on this fairly unsatisfactory note.