The New Zealand dialect of English has a curious feature: group nouns are grammatically plural! In American English, at least, I would say “the family is doing well.” Kiwis, on the other hand, would say “the family are doing well,” as if family were plural, like the word monkeys. I asked my mom’s friend Ann Maree which she would prefer, and it was indeed the plural version. “It’s probably not proper,” she admitted, but the cool thing is what is actually being used in everyday speech.

While on the subject of linguistics, NPR has recently had two great segments on the social and emotive functions of language. One is about autism and speech used primarily to socialize, featuring my favorite neuroscientist, Ramachandran. The other is about a robot who talks about his tabletop world and has a rudimentary theory of mind. It’s nice to see some headway on the neuroscience of discourse, especially after seeing the huge number of conflicting theories on the subject! I fear being brought up on Nova has skewed my credibility toward the harder sciences.

Then again, science fiction may be the best science of all. I have been enjoying the new Doctor Who which just started here in New Zealand. Of course I’m partial to Tom Baker; the only Doctor Who I’d seen before now was season sixteen (Douglas Adams contributed to that one, by the way), but the new Doctor has his charm. Can you believe the original series ran for 26 seasons? More Doctor Who fun can be had at WhoMix, a site with dozens and dozens of theme remixes. My favorite is Good as Gold, the closest I could find to the original. I want to be Time Lord when I grow up!

Maybe not. A more practical goal is to become a designer, a job where I can doodle for living. Designing what, I’m not quite sure, though I’m still hoping for a job at Weta Workshop. One of my inspirations has been Pixelgirl Shop, which sells handmade goods from a variety of artists — I especially love their crazy creature plushes, themselves inspiration for my Pally. Not everything is to my taste, but it’s great to see so many people making a living by being creative.

I’m just getting over a cold, but the weather has been warm. Words of wisdom for sick: less dairy means less phlegm, and cute flash games are the chicken-soup of entertainment. Now back to Beowulf — with the original Anglo-Saxon right next to the English translation!