ERR-OR. Sentence Fragment.

On the eve of Super Bowl CCXCVII, let us take a moment to examine a particularly fascinating aspect of sports broadcasting, one that many people typically digest unaware, like the thousands-plus calories present in a typical McDonald's value meal.

Recall the last sporting event that you either watched on TV or listened to on the radio. Can you still hear the voices of the announcers and color analysts who were calling the play-by-play and providing commentary on the competitors' current winning streak, assist-to-turnover ratio, or ballpark-adjusted O.P.S.? Excellent.

Now, pretend for a moment that you were deaf, and were watching the same sporting event with closed-captioning on. What does the close-captioning feed look like? Perhaps something like this?

Allen to Garnett on the block. Better hurry. Kicks it out to Pierce and-- batted away by Iverson! Recovered by Perkins, but a 24-second shot-clock violation.

Or this?

Two out, bases loaded for Ortiz. Ortiz hitting .352 with runners in scoring position. This Yankee crowd getting a little uneasy. Sabathia into the stretch. The pitch. Line shot down the first-base line! One run in. Ellsbury right behind. Nady having trouble getting it out of the corner. Pedroia rounding third, the throw to the plate. Not in time! And the Red Sox take a 5-4 lead on a bases-clearing triple by David Ortiz.

Now, riddle me this: if you were to transcribe the play-by-play commentary for an entire sporting event and hand it into your high school English teacher, how many boxes of red pens would he or she have to buy (assuming Costco bulk quantities) to elevate the grammar to an acceptable level?

Indeed, most sports announcers speak in sentence fragments, and I think that this is something we easily accept because those fragments are mostly descriptive in nature and complement what we can otherwise plainly see (or hear) about the event and situation in question. There does appear to be some variation from sport to sport, however.

Referencing the above examples, I've found that most baseball commentators frequently omit the word "is" (and "there is") from their sentences, even in between plays when there is no action to describe and including the "is" would produce a complete, grammatically-sound sentence. (e.g., "Ortiz hitting .352 with runners in scoring position.") Basketball announcers, by contrast, seem to have a tendency to end their sentences in nouns that directly reference a rule of the game that has just been applied (e.g., "Recovered by Perkins, but a 24-second shot-clock violation" or "Roy drives through the lane, and a foul!") And although I haven't watched enough football to pick up on any patterns (maybe I can use Joe Buck's cross-sport announcing as a constant), tomorrow's Super Bowl may provide an ample opportunity if and when the Steelers find themselves up by 47 points.

In closing: if you're planning on taking the TOEFL, please be careful not watch any sports, because they will cause you to fail.

Next time: transcribing movie trailers, and the hilarity that ensues.

Exercising the Right to be Arbitrary, Episode #391

Today, whilst purchasing a decanter at Ye Olde Crate & Barrel, I encountered a very large point-of-sale console that happily offered to process my credit card transaction. Its dimensions were approximately 16 inches wide by 12 inches tall, and it prompted me to sign for my purchase within a box that was approximately 10 inches wide by 6 inches tall. This seemed excessive, so I decided to draw a giant smiley face above my signature.

The cashier seemed amused. She asked me whether I did this all the time. I said no, this was the first time I'd done it.

Then I pillaged the Sweet Factory.

How to Make a Speculative Documentary About the Apocalypse

Well, this week is Armageddon Week on the History Channel, and as the owner of a month-old plasma TV, that means it's time to watch a bunch of fiery, high-definition explosions bathe my living room in a hearty warm glow. The week's lineup includes an in-depth analysis (and CGI re-creation!) of the events depicted in the book of Revelation, and exposé on The Bible Code, and no fewer than thirty-seven treatments of Nostradamus' verses. As a child who kept the crushingly vacuous boredom of church at bay by reading the Book of Revelation over and over, I am So. There.

Now, you'd think that producing a show about Armageddon could carry a hefty price tag, what with all of the CGI artists you'd have to hire to animate a lamb with seven eyes and seven horns, gravely wounded and bleeding profusely "as It had been slain" (Revelation 5:6), not to mention the crazy Bacchaen woman riding the Beast with seven heads and ten horns. (I mean, there's a lot of careful decision-making involved when it comes to allocating the horns across the heads. Does each head get a horn? Which heads get more than one horn? For the heads with multiple horns, are the horns symmetrically arranged?) Alas, it is not so. In fact, just about any ol' Joe with a digital camcorder and an iBook can easily throw together their own end-of-days TV special by following these simple guiding principles:

1. Hire the most sinister-sounding narrator you can find. Test their worth by having them read Goodnight Moon and determining whether the child's head rotates a full 360 degrees in your mind.


2. Include several shots of a modern U.S. city being hit with one or more fiery projectiles streaking out of the sky. Limit the voiceover content to vague descriptions of "absolute destruction" and "complete chaos" -- do not attempt to describe which city it is, what the projectiles are, or what is generally going on.


3. Whenever you are filming something benign (e.g. some children playing Four Square), shake the camera violently to indicate that a massive earthquake is sweeping the entire planet as the Final Battle rages in the heavens.


4. Occasionally punctuate the narration with a random Bible verse (not necessarily one from the Book of Revelation or having anything to do with Armageddon), preferably voiced by a retired Shakespearean actor.
   
   "For where two or three are gathered in my name,
   there am I among them."
   -- Matthew 18:20
   Ensure that the verse appears on-screen as it is read. Use wet, hand-written ink on a yellowed scroll if you can.


5. Make at least one mention of Nostradamus, and show him to be an ominous-looking, age-worn man with a beard, a funny hat, and a crystal ball. Helpful hint: add pupil-less, glowing eyes for effect.
   
   


6. Ensure that the soundtrack features a full-bodied choir chanting something ominous in Latin, Sanskrit, or some other ancient language. If you are unable to translate a phrase such as "four the horseman blacken the sky and sunder the earth," Google the language of your choice in conjunction with the word "phrases" and use whatever result you get by clicking the I'm Feeling Lucky button.


7. Consult various subject-matter experts for their thoughts on the Book of Revelation, the current situation in the Middle East, nuclear arms races, and global warming, but do not mention or display their names, titles, or qualifications at any time.


8. If at any point you feel that you are running out of material, keep cutting back to the shot of the anonymous U.S. city getting blown up by unspecified fiery projectiles. Show this scene in slow-motion or with negative coloration to lend it a sense of variety.

Mark My Words

If it ever turns out that, for whatever reason, I'm unable to drop $109,000 on a Tesla Roadster, a new-build DeLorean will have to do.

In the event that it doesn't come with a Flux Capacitor, I'll have to settle for the iPod jack, heated seats, and bluetooth integration kit... maybe the backup camera too.

On the Rediscovery of the Red Savory

The other day, I found myself standing in the middle of a chessboard, where the following took place:

Knight to C3
Pawn B6 to C6
Rook A1 to A5
Fig Newton J1 to incisor L2

Then the grayfish proclaimed to all through my ear-trumpet:

All hail the great tree of the shrouded everyman
For its diaspora has spread to twelve continents
And is broadcast to the other five in 1080p

Indeed, it was a time of accelerated enlightenment that promised a bounty of further discovery with every passing millisecond, where old habits quickly and silently faded into the teeming switchgrass, and even older ones sunk into the gaping sandtrap behind the 6th green. Jonah's gaze absent-mindedly followed the tangled loops of his shoelaces, as he pondered the fact that his name would never again be mentioned beyond the bounds of this sentence.

Excelsior! We have transcended the anonymity of a misplaced black button floating in a distant cranberry pond.

From within the sarcophagus, I could hear this voice and the footsteps that preceded him: they had become numb from frequent immersion in chilled marmalade. As the voice continue to mutter to itself about the proper aging policies for non-liquid receivables, I wondered how it was that I became suddenly encased in a sarcophagus in the middle of a chessboard. To be sure, King Tut had recently appeared to me in a dream, but his incessant circumlocution on topics that bore no relevance to my rapidly-declining home value prevented me from waking up for 37 days. The sum of 3 and 7 is 10. Knight C3 to D5. As a child, Ancient Egyptian civilization captivated my imagination (often through such vehicles as Choose Your Own Adventure Books and Super Mario Brothers), and I knew that, someday, I would visit. That day was not now; it was last Wednesday.

By the time I had found the crowbar at my feet and pried the sarcophagus open with my elbow (after I had swallowed the crowbar), it had become phosphorescently clear that I had been checkmated by the ham-and-cheese sandwich parked at G5. The hour of ultimate defeat was at hand, for I had failed to obtain the secret 1-UP contained within the Level 5 Warp Zone, and consequently had no lives remaining in reserve. The sandwich lurched forward, sometimes erratically, sometimes delicately, and sometimes in a trumpet-accentuated figure-eight pattern, as the butter-like fabric of space-time melted cleanly and evenly into Jean Valjean's cosmic bowl of lightly-salted popcorn.

And so it came to pass that, at some point in time -- or perhaps never -- I was unexpectedly quashed from existence by a common lunchbox item. But at that meaningless point where the left-hand and right-hand limits of my consciousness diverged to opposite infinities, it could be summarily stated by an unidentified, omniscient third-person narrator that I felt more like myself than anyone else ever did or ever will.

Teacup Politics

As I watch the political convention circuses run their course, I've become increasingly struck (and alarmed) by the degree to which the two parties differ not in their beliefs and viewpoints, but in their observation of the facts that give rise to these viewpoints. There's definitely one side with which I tend to agree much more often than the other (and in more naive times I've even taken sides with another), but it's still disturbing to hear both sides (perhaps one a bit more often than the other) twist simple, objective facts into half-truths and outright lies that have little value in terms of their ability to suggest and provide any semblence of solution to the Average American (the definition of which can sometimes only mean the wealthiest 2% of us).

And so, in this spirit, I present to you a simple cup of tea, as viewed through the eyes of both major parties at their political conventions. (Note that my presentation may be slightly affected by my conviction that the VP acceptance speech that I just watched was largely based on a fictional reality that some people want all of us to accept as truth, and go to great lengths to suggest that we "don't get it" if we happen to disagree.)

Party #1: "Look at this tea cup! It is filled with a warm, aromatic Earl Grey with a dash of cream. Why, then, is it served with two lemon slices, if most people do not like their tea with both cream and lemon -- surely you're joking, Mr. Feynman! Perhaps we should make it a policy to always serve both the cream and lemon separate from the tea itself, so that people may be empowered to choose for themselves whether they want lemon or cream. And if they want both -- well, although I'd personally never do it, who am I to decide what one does with tea, lemon, and cream within the privacy of one's own home?

Party #2: Here before us stands the finest wine decanter in all the land. Made of the highest quality glass blown and shaped by American Standard Glass in Wichita, Kansas -- the heart of the American great plains! -- she proudly holds a full bottle of your favorite Appalachian-made wine. How could anyone not recognize and appreciate the simple, elegant beauty of its craftmanship? Nevermind what the tea-loving, elitist news media might suggest: this piece was not meant to hold Earl Grey! (After all, we valiantly fought off the British in 1776 and again in 1812 -- why would we disgrace this work of art with such a vile liquid?) Its use is quite simple and straightforward: simply open the wine bottle of your choosing and empty its contents into the decanter -- that's it! There's no need to add lemon, cream, or any other unnecessary foreign substance... and since there is no such need, why don't we enact legislation requiring that wine decanters of this quality only hold the finest wines -- those made in Appalachia, of course -- and no other drink?

Today's Random Depictions of Jesus

Super Space Defender Jesus:


Backwards Crucifix Rocket Jesus:

"O Lord, protect this Rocket-house
And all who may dwell within the Rocket-house."
-- Homer Simpson, "Mountain of Madness"

Frosted Nightlight Jesus:


Boob-secured Beaded Jesus:


Steel Raptor Terror Jesus:


Creamsicle Sunset Rifle Jesus:


Bloody Bear-slaying Forgiveness Jesus: