Cultural Cartography

Hockey Mom??

One thing that has struck me whilst reading all the articles about Sarah Palin is how often she is referred to by the shorthand of "Hockey Mom". Now I lived in the States for 3 years and I think I understand a lot of the cultural references but I am still not 100% sure about hockey mom. What about all the people who have had no more contact with the US than the ubiquitous TV series. Do they know what it really means? Come to that, do the reporters and journalists who are using it really know what it means. 

It clearly refers to Ice Hockey and not Field Hockey (as it is called in the US). But is it good or is it bad? Does it mean self-sacrifice or wallowing in your children's success? Does it mean that she is down to earth or extremely sporty? 

And is one Hockey Mom always the same as another hockey mom. This article from the Baltimore Sun gives a bit more insight into the typologies of Hockey Moms that exist. So even that isn't that easy. 

More than anything, this widepsread appropriation of a US term in European media suggests to me that the media is succumbing to one of the biggest problems in global branding - the assumption that we all know what something means and attach the same values to it. Sometimes it works, but very often it doesn't. 

Old logos seen with new(ish) eyes

I am back in London for a couple of days before heading off for an idyllic week's walking! One of the first things that struck me was the old British Rail logo that you still see when you get on the train at Stansted.

It really is a design classic. (as said here). What really struck me is that you know what it is, without having to think what it is. It makes use of elements of the product itself - in this case the rails; delivers a sense of what the product delivers - movement; and above all presents a clear sense of an entity which has a sense of purpose. The latter is actually more than what now adds up to British Rail does, but hey ho! the logo is still around and maybe sometime BR will be back.

Democratisation of English

I heard an interesting article on the World Service today about the way that the Internet is causing the democratisation of English. Interestingly enough I have always thought that English is a profoundly undemocratic language, as to be very good at it, you have to be very well educated. This is definitely not the case in other languages! But back to the point: as English is now more or less the working language of the web and everyone is using it, the words that they use or create get passed round the web in much the same way a virus does and take hold just as quickly. This also means that the typical authorities such as the OED and the Webster Dictionary in the States are no longer the gate keepers of what is considered to be an English word or not. Increasingly they are the momentary recorders of what is changing very quickly (check out this link and you will see that the OED at least has recognised that). 

What I like about this fact is that it moves English away from being the preserve of a few and into being a working object that changes and morphs as it is needed. Much like a well loved knife in the kitchen which no longer has a straight sharp blade but which is perfect for opening letters with. It's what you need and not what someone else thinks you need. At least that is what my mother tells me, when I try to sharpen her knives. 

I remember a friend of mine in London who used predictive texting. Whenever he typed in the letter combination for "cool", it came up with "book". So after a while, his friends and he just used "book" for "cool". Now that is quite "book" isn't it? 

Some new words which have supposedly developed are things like roariffic, a griefer and leetspeak.

Here is to the democratisation of English!! Long may it continue. 

Du or Sie unplugged

After writing my last post, I started thinking about Du and Sie again, and realised that there has been a big change in Germany in the last few years when it comes to the usage of Du or Sie. It is now much more common to say Du to someone on the first meeting or pretty soon afterwards. All it takes is for the two people to be of roughly the same age (and probably under 40), work in more informal branches of industry like the media or consulting, or for everyone around you to be saying "du" to each other, because they all work together. And bob's your uncle. Or bob is your neighbour at the meeting and not Herr Kaiser anymore. 

I am not quite sure what I think about this. I actually quite like Sie and its ability to signal distance between you and someone. It is like saying 'yes, we might be sitting here joking together but I am still going to get a bill from you tomorrow and I want to be able to question it'. 

However on the other hand, we get on quite fine without it in English (see my last post) and even countries which used to have two forms like Sweden are all happy with just using 'du'. 

The difficulty comes (as is often the case when language is in flux) when there are both usages around. Du as the default 2nd person pronoun and the choice between Sie and Du. 

I am convinced however that in 50 years there will be no Sie form, or only for the Queen (who as we all know is quite German). 

Things that drive me mad in Germany Part 1 Du or Sie

This has nothing to do with planning or semiotics or even anything but I just want to get something off my chest. 

I hate it in Germany when people say to me that we are really lucky in English because we all say "Du" to each other. I should explain for those that don't know that German has two ways to address someone: Du which is the informal and generally only used for people you know very well or for children and Sie, which you use for people you don't know very well or don't want to be very intimate with. Along with having to conjugate the verb differently for either Du or Sie, strictly speaking you use someone's first name with Du and address them as Ms. Smith with Sie. So some clever people think that because in English we often use first names straight away, that we are all really informal and best buddies, on the Du level of intimacy. 

Well, let me tell you here: We are not. There are a thousand ways in English to talk to someone and each one demonstrates more or less distance. Just because you call someone by their first name doesn't mean that you know them well, or even let's be honest here, even like them. An example: "Joan, would you please bring in the coffee now?" is more distant (IMHO) than "Joan, bring in the coffee, will you?" and so on. 

I don't know why it annoys me so much but it might have something to do with the fact that I feel that people that make this mistake can't have understood English very well. They are making that classic mistake of translating a concept from their language into another language. I tend to just take a deep breath and smile when someone says this to me. So be warned, if I am heavy breathing around you! 

PS. On this level, another tip for people who might meet me: Don't come up to me and say in bad, heavily accented English "Oh, you are English. I like to talk English." Well, I do too, but only to people whose English is as good as my German. And I don't like people who assume that because I am English, I don't speak German - Why? 

Mauersegler or Wallflyers

I am spending more time sitting at my desk at home at the moment as I am in the process of restructuring my work life balance (gosh what an elegant way to say I am trying to work less and have more time for myself). So I have more time to dream and think about things and whilst I do, I can pay more attention to what is going on around me. Just as in London, I loved the starlings, so in Berlin I have become very attached to the swifts. They are called Mauersegler (or wall flyers/gliders) in German, which is very apt name for birds that appear in Berlin in the summer. I imagine that the people who lived here whilst the wall was up, not more than a few hundred yards from where I am living, looked up at the birds circling overhead and wished that they too could fly so easily from one country to another. 

And then there is their cry: they really do screech through the air. (check out this page in German!) I have become addicted to it. It reminds me of where I am and also that I share this bit of the world with not only other animals but also with other people. 

Beer in Berlin

There has been a spate of posters for local Berlin beer companies recently which have been playing the home card and featuring Berlin in different ways. Berliner Pilsner has based its entire campaign on differing attitudes and sensibilities in different parts of the city.

 

Hopefully you should be able to tell that Friedrichshain is where the young trendy people hang out (i.e. not me!) 

Another beer company Schultheiss which is also local has decided to just talk about Berlin in total. Their original line is a play on words: "Berlin ist wieder fluessig" which either means Berlin is liquid again i.e. Berlin has got something to drink again or it means Berlin has money again (which it clearly doesn't) so either way they are talking about something which is close to the hearts of many Berliners. 

But this being Berlin, you will always see a certain anarchic tendency coupled when done best with wit, as demonstrated by this redesigned poster which I saw on Yorckstrasse. 

So there you go. Berlin's beer advertising at its best! 

PS. I seem to have now fully recovered from a year of working very hard and should be posting more soon. 

On the shortness of life

I will soon not be in full time employment. And because of that, I have a bit more time on my hands, which I find means I spend more time looking around and just noticing things. I now have more time for one of my favourite occupations on public transport, seeing what people are reading. 

Yesterday I completely lucked out and the woman next to me was reading Seneca: On the shortness of life. That definitely felt like a sign and not only a sign but also a good thing to read at this moment, where I am making decisions about how I want to live my life in the future. 

PS. I wonder if there is a blog on what you see other people reading already. If not watch this space. 

Tidying up before the guests come

I have registered my site for Orange's internet balloon race. I am getting quietly excited about it. And I also thought I have should have a new blog entry on my site to welcome the guests. It really feels like just before a party when the guests are about to arrive and you are worried that they will spot the only corner of the flat that you haven't cleaned.  So here we go and dear guests, please don't look too closely in the corners.

The brilliant thing about this balloon race is that it makes complete semiotic sense. If you imagine the web as a loosely connected cloud of virtual ideas, then having balloons float from one idea to the next makes perfect sense. It also seems to tap into what happens when many of us surf: you float from one thing to the next. It isn't really hopping like it is when you watch TV, where the different channels have nothing to do with each other. For most of us I am sure when we surf, the sites that we navigate to have something however vague to do with the last site that we were on - if only syntagmatically by virtue of there being a link from one site to the next. 

And also the balloons look great and they have these clever widget things that really work.

Cultural schizophrenia

In case you hadn't realised by now, I am living in Germany.  And of course Germany are through to the semi finals of the European Cup, as well as Turkey. One phenomenon I have noticed recently are a lot of cars and flats with both the German and the Turkish flag. Now that is a great sign I think. To me it means that people are leaving behind their restrictive nationalistic thinking and acknowledging that they can be a member of more than one culture. 

Now comes the tricky part. Not only are both German and Turkey through to the semi finals, they are playing each other on Wednesday. I for one am looking forward to the match but not to what will happen afterwards, no matter who wins. I am sure that there will be some very nasty moments on Wednesday night where the winners rub the losers' noses in it. 

I wonder what the evening will be like for those who have been flying two flags. I can't help thinking that despite the very positive sign that it sends, that when it comes down to a match between the two teams and cultures which you are part of, you can only support one team. You can only shout for goals from one side. 

But maybe just maybe these enlightened beings won't shout quite so loud as the others and won't draw any other conclusions from a loss of the team they ultimately support, than that they lost. No vicious repercussions, no expressions of deep seated cultural resentment, just losing a game of football. And that would definitely be progress, wouldn't it?