From the Archives - The CarbonTech Debate

Introduction

I just read a profile in The New Yorker about Grant Petersen, the founder of Rivendell Bicycle Works, a company which makes retro steel bike frames with touring-type geometry, which are built up (generally) with upright handlebars and puffy tires. They’re the kind of bike that you’d put a big weird Brooks saddle on, from which you’d hang a hand-tooled leather bag containing perhaps an old fashioned tobacco pipe, a silk handkerchief, a pince-nez, some hand-tied fishing flies, a leather-bound book, and maybe even a beautifully crafted letter opener. You’d dress up in flannel and loafers and ride this bike to the brewpub or coffee shop where crumbs would get stuck in your beard. Myself, being someone who (somewhat) recently advocated in these pages for modern aerodynamic wheels—the better to cheat nature and ageing with—I can’t really relate to the vision of low-speed, low-intensity, woolly hipsters on kinda heavy, needlessly lugged bicycles that cost $2-5K but aren’t much faster than my $265 1981 Miyata 310 … just a lot more elegant.

All that being said, I do respect Petersen’s ethos, and bristle a bit at wealthy wannbes on excessively high-performance racing bikes wearing skintight $200 Rapha jerseys. Don’t get me wrong, I appreciate that these guys are supporting the bike industry, and it’s their money to spend on whatever they want (and better this than a jet ski or a $1K bottle of wine), but the sport starts to look a bit silly when it tips too far into this high-end poseur realm, and the Lycra is stretched over a pot belly. Wool both hides that belly better and excuses it, because nobody is pretending to be a pro racer.

I’ll also admit that I sometimes get a bit nostalgic for an era when cycling was more affordable, and more Euro, and cyclists were more like outlaws, or at least outcasts. Many years ago I even sent an essay of my own to the Rivendell Reader, which they were nice enough to print (and which you can read here). This push-pull between tradition and tech has been with me for decades and today I offer you the below dialogue among a couple of college racing pals and myself, which had originally circulated among our bike club. I won’t share the entire thread, but here is the gist: one friend, T—, had asked about stripping the paint off of his beloved carbon fiber Miyata CarbonTech 7000 so he could repaint it. Another friend, R—, pooh-poohed the idea, saying that sentimental value notwithstanding, the expense of restoring the Miyata (hundreds of dollars) would be silly, and it would be better to buy a new, superior frame. This touched a nerve with both T— and me.

Here’s a picture of the bike in question, from the catalog, with the laughable thou-doth-protest-too-much opening line, “Put any misgivings about the reliability of carbon fiber out of your mind.”

The CarbonTech Debate – October, 2007

On October 23, 2007, at 6:33 PM, T— wrote:

Yeah, but your so-called “new far-superior modern” frames are fugly and not worth the price. Watching the peloton these days is like watching the detritus from a McDonald’s garbage can blowing down the street in a wind of eau de cologne.

And repainting the Miyata certainly isn’t silly for a few hundred, or even twice that, frankly. I know this bike rides well, damn well, because I raced it for two years, to quite a few significant victories (a few of which I believe you were taking up space as pack filler [sorry guys, this what R— likes to bring out in me, thus his use of the words “silly” and “modern,” and I am sure he is giggling near-uncontrollably (there are innocents reading this one R—, so behave ourself)]).

Are you telling me I can find a decent frame for $3-500 that will ride as well? In an industry that is increasingly pre-fabbed and preoccupied with production costs and experimental methods, where riders are more likely to be listening to 50 Cent than anything else, where frames are offered in S, M and L, and with bad angles, I doubt there is much out there that would fit the bill without breaking my little bank. In fact, triple that amount and I might only be getting close to something in steel, and double it again to get something close in carbon.

Also, R—, what “modern” bikes today capture the imagination like the ones mentioned in the recent exchanges? Sorry, rhetorical question, but you knew that.

T—

On Oct 23, 2007, at 11:58 PM, Dana Albert wrote:

Well, I don’t know about the rest of y’all (though I can guess), but I for one am giggling like crazy. Sizzling stuff. If I had a “pleasure vein” in my forehead like Dr. Shimano (aka G—, cc’d herein) it would be ready to burst. Naturally I couldn’t stay away from such a delightfully bombastic fray.

Can you really strip a cawbun fibuh frame? I thought it would damage its fontanel or something.

Given the most impressive of T—’s victories on that Miyata (national collegiate road race in ‘90, for those on this distro who weren’t there), I would personally have the frame bronzed if it (and that achievement) were mine, except that the bronzing process is almost sure to damage cawbun fibuh. Sentimental value is too rare these days, especially with regard to bikes. And as I’m about to get to, only the irrational, emotional part of our minds could conscionably champion the modern bikes.

To love a modern bike is to abandon your senses as would a fool-for-love. Why? Because they’re just whores, that’s why. First of all, you can’t count on them. They’re not designed to last, because the pros they’re designed for all have multiple bikes they jettison at the end of the season, if not mid-season. These bikes are not designed to withstand crashes, because that’s what the spare bike on the team car is for. Remember stage 17 of last year’s Tour [de France], when ‘Roid Landis soloed, and flatted at one point? He dismounted the bike and just dropped it on the ground like a piece of trash. I didn’t necessarily expect him to set it down carefully or hand it to his mechanic, but he could have at least winced or something.

And yet ... I did love my Orbeas. Both of them [though actually I ended up having—and breaking—four before I gave up]. To the very end, each time, I was just smitten. I’d be working in the home office down here and glance over at Fava [my late Orbea] leaning there against the wall, and I would sigh. Why? Sheer good looks? Well, it did look cool. And had flair. But no, it was more because I’d immediately remember what it’s like to ride that bike. Man. T—, you really would have to ride a modern bike to appreciate what R— is talking about. They’re amazing. That first ride on Spentje [my nickname for my first Orbea]... I’ll never forget it. I swept up Spruce two minutes faster than I ever had before. Two minutes! All I could think was oh my GOD, I can’t believe this! It was like having a 40 mph tailwind or something. And then on the basically flat section of Wildcat before South Park? Man, the bike just accelerated like nobody’s bidness, and those modern wheels, you feel like you’re just slicing through the air like, well, like a Ginsu steak knife or something. (T—, I know you’ve had some pretty trick time trial wheels, so maybe that part wouldn’t be quite as noticeable to you.) And on the downhill? More plush than any steel bike I ever had. As far as the riding experience goes, they’re simply better in every single category—except that you can’t get attached to them.

Because they break! What a drag that is! Going back to my old steel bike, Full Slab, after each Orbea broke and I had to wait for a warranty replacement ... those were dark, dark days. And Full Slab was full Dura-Ace, hollow crank, hollow BB, titanium here and there—not like some ancient thing (other than that godawful frame). Even with the modern wheels, I was miserable. Just miserable. It was like salsa made in New Jersey, or wearing a beige shirt to a bank robbery, or trying to get good tech support from some offshore guy making his developing country’s paltry minimum wage. You might as well just bag it. Now, I’m not saying your Miyata CarbonTech 7000 would be like that, but it would be on that side of the coin. (My backup bike, an aluminum/carbon Salsa, is very much of the modern era. It’s fast, really fast, kind of O-Thank-God-fast after Full Slab, that wretched thing of evil.)

But these modern bikes ... they break! It’s ridiculous. I didn’t even get 10,000 miles or two years out of either bike. They break for no other reason than they’re not made to last. Now R—, I know what you’re going to say—it’s just Orbeas that break. Bah. The only reason you don’t hear of other bikes breaking is because the modern riders treat them like the whores that they are, discarding them out of boredom before they ever have a chance to break. The modern cyclist has the fickleness that only wealth can bring, like an investment banker who trades in his wife every few years for a younger, hotter model. Nobody wants to keep a bike long enough to get attached to it (people don’t even name their bikes anymore!). Modern bike consumers are like junkies building up a tolerance—they can’t wait to have that exhilarating feeling again, the one I described a couple paragraphs ago, and they’ll buy and buy and buy to try to get more of it. They’ll never get it again, of course; you can only jump bike eras once every decade or so. They’ll shave off a few ounces each time, but they won’t drop five pounds while picking up extra stiffness and yet comfort. They’re just tinkering, at that point, and if they ever quit doing that and tried to love the same bike year after year, that bike would give out like a faulty boob job, quickfastinahurry, I don’t care what company made it (or, rather, had it made under the auspices of their brand).

Now, you make a pretty good point, T—, about bad angles in the modern frames. I assume you’re talking about the compact geometry, that makes an expensive road bike look like a BMX bike, with two feet of seatpost showing and a stem with all that rise (and/or gobs of headset spacers). But even beyond the aesthetics, I have a problem with the epidemic of cawbun fibuh frames out there (or “plastic bikes” as my pal P— calls them). What’s wrong with cawbun? As a material, nothing—I think we owe most of the comfort of a modern bike to cawbun. But you don’t get to pick your geometry anymore! And let’s face it, the stock geometry for the American market is about as reasonable as the stock ingredients in an American deli sandwich. All these short top tubes, steep seat angles, ultra-short chainstays, high bottom brackets—it’s garbage, pure garbage. Specialized made a big to-do this spring about how they spent all these millions (!) to get Tom Boonen a longer top tube, because the poor guy was having all these back problems. S, M, and L indeed. Straight-up pure garbage. And you get these new Time bikes (I think it is) where the seatpost comes built-in, and you gotta cut the top off to fit. Well, what if you guessed wrong? Or decided you hated your saddle (and who wouldn’t, these new things with the big valley down the middle, for paranoid stockbrokers whose prostates are shrunken by bad living, with so little leather you couldn’t make a child’s coin purse out of it) and bought a new (or better yet, old) one with taller or shorter rails? Screwed, simply screwed—go drop another three grand. For all that money, you get stock geometry ... somebody forgot about ergonomics somewhere along the way. It’s like buying a suit at the factory outlet store and they won’t tailor it for you. That’s my gripe with full cawbun. Certain modern frames, Cyfac and Orbea among them, offer custom geometry because they’re made out of metal tubes that can be cut to the perfect size by a human who knows what he’s doing, instead of you having to settle for a frame that seems to have been extruded somehow, like a giant robot taking a dump.

[This is the frame geometry I came up with for my Orbeas, which was absolutely perfect, but which is why the warranty replacements took so long. The name “Fava” refers to a joke I made to T— once about compact geometry … I said of it, “I think of it kind of how I think of lima beans. They have a right to exist, but I don’t know why anybody would want them.” After my first Orbea, the company adjusted my design to be semi-compact, as you see below. All the important characteristics were maintained with an only slightly sloping top tube. I told T—, “I wouldn’t call it a lima bean. A fava bean, maybe.” Click the image to study it at length.]

Oh, Lord, who needs caffeine? I’m ready to brawl! Against whom? Anybody! Everybody! Like D— W— rushing onto the soccer field because a fight had broken out ... did he know who started it? Did he care? No! He just started swinging! Full of the spirit, like when he won that sprint in training, sat up, and yelled “FUCK!” (By the way, T—, that’s what it’s like to ride a modern bike, if I haven’t made that clear enough.)

The question is, what is the bike for? To appreciate aesthetically, as a connoisseur? Or to go as fast as you can, to defy the ageing process and deny that your glorious youth is behind you? Both are worthwhile pursuits. Spiritually speaking, though, this dichotomy is worthless. Now, I’m not sure if rhetorical questions are ever supposed to be answered, but I’ll take a crack at your last one, T—, about which modern bikes capture the imagination like the glorious bikes of yore. My answer is, precious few. I hear people rave about Cervelos. Meh. And Felt ... that’s not even a real bike company, that’s somebody’s silly made-up brand. Scott? Please. A marketing company trading on their good reputation for skis. Skis! I’m offended. What else? R—, I know you love the way Treks ride and I’m quite sure they’re brilliant. But let’s face it, they’re the Dell Computer of the bike world. Next. Ridley? Ugly and terrible. And what’s with these pro teams riding Cannondales? Have they no shame? Nuff said on that sad topic. Man, I’m actually starting to get depressed. Even Orbeas, that weird Spanish brand we’re probably mispronouncing, are starting to get a bit trite. I can only hope the ugliness of their cawbun versions scares off the new enthusiasts by the time I get my new [aluminum] one, if I’m even that lucky.

Okay then. Needless to say I have more I could say, in response to the other excellent points made in this long and growing email chain, but it’s waaaaaay past my bedtime.

Dana

P.S. I’m not going to proof this thing and I’m sure it’s riddled with clumsy mistakes. I grant you permission to heckle me one time, in aggregate, for all the mistakes.

Epilogue

In case you’re wondering, my lengthy tirade about modern bikes ended up being kind of a last gasp. My best friend rides a Cervelo, with hydraulic brakes and electronic shifting no less, and it hasn’t even occurred to me to give him a hard time about it. I myself have—and love—a carbon fiber Scott mountain bike. I rented a Felt for a week of cycling in the French Alps and liked it just fine. The modern, carbon frame I have now is a Giant (the second-best-selling brand in America) and has lasted for over ten years and about 50,000 miles. On top of all this, T— himself, unable to elegantly repair a knackered rear dropout on the Miyata, eventually succumbed and has a carbon Trek that he bought from R—. Oh well … at least we put up a fight.

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The Oxford Comma

Introduction

A friend of mine asked me recently, “Hey, did you blog about the Oxford comma?” This was basically entrapment. Having posted 690 times to albertnet, I feel like all the easy topics (e.g., bike gearing, pasta, flatulence, cycling, the spelling of “kindergartner”) have been exhausted, so I struggle to come up with new ones. Thus, an inquiry like this is basically an assignment.

Herein I will explore the raging debate around the serial, aka Oxford, comma: what is it, who uses it, should it be used, should we care, and why do we care?

What is the Oxford comma?

When a sentence includes a list of things, the Oxford comma is the one placed before “and,” as in this example:

“I bought some gum, a lighter, and a knife.”

Opponents of the Oxford comma would omit that final comma:

“I bought some gum, a lighter and a knife.”

Opponents assert that this final comma is redundant because “and” gets the job done by itself. Proponents cite the lack of clarity that can result if this comma is omitted, as in this classic example:

“We invited the strippers, J.F.K. and Stalin.”

Had the Oxford comma been used in the above sentence, nobody would be wondering if J.F.K. and Stalin were strippers. Obviously you could dodge the grammar and say clarity is achieved by knowing that neither world leader looked good naked, but that’s cheating.

Strong opinions

I emailed three of my wife’s former newspaper colleagues (the “recovering journalists,” I call them) to get their take. Ed immediately wrote back, “I don’t like the Oxford command [sic] anyway [sic], shape or form!” Rachel opined that “the Oxford comma is redundant and ungrammatical,” gave some rationale for her position, and concluded, “I will die on this hill.” The third, Monique, was the most emphatic of all, declaring, “I literally included this line in a [résumé] cover letter: ‘Colleagues know me as positive, trustworthy, calm in a crisis and always ready to battle the Oxford comma!’”

Oddly, when I inquired with my bike team email group, most of the responses were the opposite. Seven supported the Oxford comma, one didn’t care, and one wrote “depends.” My friend Pete, who started this whole thing, and is also a cyclist, is strongly for it. And this article in Bicycling mentions that American pro cyclist Chad Haga is a big fan of the Oxford comma. So why are cyclists different from journalists? I’ll get to that. But first…

Should we use the Oxford comma?

I favor the Oxford comma, for the simple reason that many writers don’t have the judgment to decide, on a case-by-case basis, whether that final comma is needed. A journalist might pause to consider the matter, and would understand sentence structure well enough to make the right call, but so many people wouldn’t. Therefore, we should have a simple rule that can be applied every time. The comma in “apples, bananas, and pears” isn’t hurting anything.

I suppose the recovering journalists would argue that the “extra” comma slows things down—and journalists are all about speed. Their greatest fear seems to be that the reader will lose patience and stop reading. I suspect this is somewhat inaccurate, because the traditional audience for newspapers has all but evaporated, and those (like me) still willing to pay for a home subscription actually love to read, and aren’t in a constant panic about it taking too long. (Never mind that the doomscrollers end up reading a tremendous amount, though in tiny bite-sized pieces.)

Meanwhile, not all text is news, and when clarity is lost in certain contexts, such as law, the effect can be disastrous. Long ago, when I was working my first corporate job, our office split off from the parent company, very acrimoniously. I was charged with reviewing the split-off agreement, which included language around how long our consultants could continue using software that had been developed in-house. Due to the lack of an Oxford comma, it wasn’t clear whether all six software applications could be used, or just the last one in the list. I almost spoke up about this, but for some reason I just didn’t. (Maybe I was just tired after a futile debate with my boss over apostrophes.) Well, lo and behold, the former parent company ended up suing us for continuing to use all six apps, and though we eventually prevailed, the lawsuit wasted well over a month, cost gobs in legal fees, and was a massive distraction. I should have spoken up … but if the Oxford comma had been the law of the land, I wouldn’t have had to.

This kind of thing surely happens a lot. Some years ago, as described in this New York Times article, a Maine dairy company had to pay $5 million to drivers because the overtime policy, as written into Maine law, wasn’t clear about what types of work were exempted. The lack of clarity opened the door to the (ultimately successful) overtime claim. As if the $5 million wasn’t bad enough, Maine revised the law very crudely. You see, they couldn’t just add the Oxford comma, because they were dead set against it. As described here, “the Maine Legislative Drafting Manual … specifically instructs lawmakers to not use the Oxford comma.” So they came up with a grotesque new construction: “The canning; processing; preserving; freezing; drying; marketing; storing; packing for shipment; or distributing of” is how they arranged their sequence. They just replaced the Oxford comma with a semicolon, understanding that punctuation is required before the “or” but refusing to make it a comma. I think anyone who cares about words and grammar would agree that’s a monstrosity, and that this overly zealous adherence to the anti-Oxford-comma stance is absurd.

Of course the anti-Oxford-comma group would say fine, use it when it’s truly necessary, but omit it the rest of the time, because it’s jarring and slows the reader down. An essay in the Daily Californian states, “As readers, our brains are trained to pause when we see commas.” Well, yes, but when reading a sequence, we pause at each comma (which is what they’re for) and we also pause for the implicit comma suggested by “and.” If we didn’t, we’d get tripped up. Frankly, I think the lack of comma slows me down because I find it jarring—it’s like being clotheslined.

That this lack trips me up, but doesn’t bother the recovering journalists, suggests I’m reading different stuff, such that this serial comma seems normal to me. My favorite magazine, The New Yorker, famously defies the Associated Press Stylebook in always employing it. (Mary Norris, their “comma queen,” explains her rationale here.) The Oxford comma is also employed by most of the novelists I read. (I just spot-checked the last one, Tana French, and have confirmed she’s indeed in the pro-comma camp.) On a hunch, I searched the index of Vladimir Nabokov’s Strong Opinions to see if he weighed in on this matter, and while there’s no entry, the opening sentence of the book happens to employ this comma: “I think like a genius, I write like a distinguished author, and I speak like a child.” As for the absence of serial commas in the Times, I don’t exactly read that paper anyway … I usually just skim it.

So why do cyclists seem to promote the Oxford comma? My wife’s theory is that more of us are engineer-types, and I will say that the loveliness of bicycles as mechanical objects is a big part of the sport’s allure, whatever our background. Moreover, anyone who has to properly dial in spoke tension, brakes, and indexed shifting generally has a healthy respect for being methodical and precise, even at the expense of time and effort. I will go one step further and suggest that road cycling is a good way to learn patience. I rode up Mount Diablo yesterday and was acutely aware how long that takes … halfway up the climb I thought, “Cool, only half an hour to go” and then realized, wait, that’s a long time to suffer in 90-degree heat. (And then it’s two more hours riding home.) To me, the kind of brisk, comma-avoidant sentences favored by journalists are aesthetically at odds with the experience of long-distance cycling, which is so often a slog. I don’t spin the pedals like a hamster … I like to stand up and mosh away at a low cadence … shove, shove, shove. The brief lull at the top of each pedal stroke is a bit like a comma.

Should we care about the Oxford comma?

Two things have stood out for me in researching this post. First, the responses to my inquiry—not just those that supported my position, but also the ones that didn’t—were a joy to read. Well, actually, not all of them. The one who replied “Who gives a f—?” didn’t please or inspire me. (Another replied with that comment but only to direct me to this Vampire Weekend rock video.) Apathy toward language bothers me in this era of STEM-obsessed non-readers who prefer podcasts and YouTube over the written word. My second observation is that reading various articles about the Oxford comma has been an extremely pleasant way to pass the time. (In addition to what I’ve quoted from, several other articles, like this one, greatly amused me). Readers and writers who get fired up about linguistic minutiae are my people. What side of the fence we’re on is less important.

Case in point: my friend Trevor took me to task, years ago, for using two spaces after a period. While I debated this heartily at the time, I have now conceded that he’s right … not because two spaces was never helpful, but because lots of modern software doesn’t handle a pair of spaces correctly. It’s just not worth fighting modern convention. But what I didn’t expect, when I conceded this point, is that now, years later, seeing two spaces looks wrong to me. My taste has adjusted, which is a reminder that opinions can be malleable … but apathy is absolute. 

Why do we care?

Where the Oxford comma debate is concerned, one thing is perfectly clear: those with an opinion hold it strongly. But why should this be, when the matter hinges on such a subtle point, and the English language is so convoluted to begin with? I suppose that once you’ve made up your mind what’s right and what’s wrong, every instance of the “wrong” usage feels like an affront. Perhaps it’s the same way we respond to fashion: once we’ve decided fanny packs are dorky, we wouldn’t be caught dead wearing one, even though a whole lot of people (mostly tourists, it seems) just love them.

The Oxford comma, then, could be considered a matter of fashion, just like anything else. In his New Yorker essay “A Tale of Two Cafés,” Adam Gopnik examines the phenomenon of two perfectly good neighboring cafés in Paris, the Flore and the Deux Magots, one of which is always preferred and the other shunned—even though their popularity flip-flops over time, according to the whims of Parisians. Gopnik quotes a “dour friend” who sums up the matter as intrinsic to human nature:

The relationship between the modishness of the Flore and the unmodishness of the Deux Magots isn’t just possibly arbitrary. It’s necessarily arbitrary… The reason that, when you place any two things side by side, one becomes chic and the other does not is that it’s in the nature of desire to choose, and to choose absolutely.

I think that’s a big part of it, anyway. Beyond that, the Oxford comma is just plain correct. I mean, isn’t that obvious?

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Ride Report - Marin County Coastal Adventure Ride

Introduction

My bike club has many fond traditions:  coffee, wine, cheese, paella, beer, pasta, race reports, and … shoot, what was that other thing?  Oh yeah, riding bikes!  And sometimes racing!  And, uh, race reports!  I almost never race these days, but today was an Adventure Ride so I’m filing a report anyway.  Now, if you’re not a biker yourself, don’t be put off … there’s stuff in this report that should catch the attention of just about anybody.  And it should hold your attention too, like a train wreck you can’t take your eyes off of.

Executive summary

It was long, rolling, scenic, fun, hot, and at times quite fast.  I suffered for all the usual reasons, plus a couple new reasons, one of which is weird and gross and macabre and in fact totally absurd.  Food and drink followed.  Camaraderie was rampant.

Short version 

• Ride stats:  62.7 miles, 3:38:57 ride time, 5% of the ride in heart rate Zone 4 (i.e., redlined), 4000 feet of climbing.
• Breakfast:  1 bungee cord hook, 1 cup salted water, 1 cup 50/50 blend of water and hydrogen peroxide, 1 bean & cheese burrito
• During ride:  2  detached flaps of flayed flesh from the floor of my mouth, between the teeth and the lingual frenulum; 2 caffeinated gels; 1 blueberry crisp Clif bar; 1 bottle fruit punch Gatorade; good-sized bite of pain au chocolat from Bovine Bakery in Point Reyes Station
• After ride:  loaded potato skins, lettuce bits, ranch dressing at BJ’s in San Rafael
• Dinner:  nothing yet … I can’t quite face the idea of eating

I maimed myself pre-ride, taking a snapped bungee cord to the inside of the mouth, and thus suffered terribly even before the ride began.  I suffered some more, due to poor fitness and the injured mouth, on some climb out of San Rafael on the way toward  Mount Tam (though we didn’t ride Tam); we rode at a very hard pace over a beautiful rolling section along the coast between Muir Beach and Stinson Beach where I suffered terribly; we hammered along some more rolling stuff between Stinson Beach and Point Reyes station where—guess what?—I suffered some more; we had baked goods and fresh cold water in Point Reyes Station except somebody who had iced decaf; it got really hot and we rode stiff-legged over some hill and then some other hills, passing this big rock they call “The Big Rock,” and we wound down through some other areas and there was this dickhead motorcyclist who held his horn down forever while passing us and made a gesture and has now come down with scabies, or maybe shingles, or maybe this is just wishful thinking.  Then we hung out on the patio at BJ’s in some mall and enjoyed sprightly, impassioned conversation about watching track races, etc.  Overall, a grand day out.

Long version

I’ve been sleep-deprived lately and was all set to go to bed at 10:30 last night, when my older daughter asked for some help preparing for her first debate—that is, her first Debate Club debate (she and I debate things all the time).  So I got to bed at almost midnight, was awakened 6ish because my daughter was having computer trouble while tinkering some more with her debate stuff, and then she was getting ready to bike over to the high school where she’d meet up to carpool to the venue.  She was really stressed out and running late, and the laptop bag—stuffed with the laptop, lots of thick books and papers, and God knows what else—was bending her spine like a willow in a strong wind.  So I decided to lash the bag to her bike’s rack.  As I did this, I tried to say soothing things that would calm her down because she kept fretting about the debate.  “Let’s tuck in the shoulder strap so it doesn’t go into your wheel and cause a fiery wreck,” I said soothingly.  To which she replied, “Yeah, that would be two fiery wrecks in one day because I’m gonna go down hard in this debate.”  How does a dad respond to such negativity?  I tried to give advice (e.g., “If your opponent makes a good point, to which you have no obvious rejoinder, just say, ‘That sounds suspiciously like something Donald Trump might say,’” and/or, “If you get stuck and need to introduce levity into the debate, to distract the judges, just tell your opponent, ‘Look, I’m not going to argue with you.’”)

Now, I can’t explain exactly how this next thing happened.  I was bending over the bike, stretching a bungee cord over that big laptop bag, and trying to hook it over the edge of the rack, and I lost my grip on it.  I’m sure this has happened to you before, perhaps when securing your bike to one of those cheap rear-mount Hollywood car racks, and as the bungee cord recoils at like 600 mph its big metal hook snaps painfully into your hand or something.  But this time, the hook recoiled at like 600 mph and somehow WENT INTO MY FRICKING MOUTH, and the sharp end of the hook plunged deep into my mouth’s floor, between the backsides of my teeth and my lingual frenulum. 

Now, if that’s not the most messed up freak accident you’ve ever heard of, check this out:  it hurt so bad, and I was so freaked out, for a couple of seconds I just froze and couldn’t figure out what to do, other than to roar a terrible garbled roar, and the strap was still under full tension!  Alexa, who was holding the bike, completely freaked out and started screaming, which brought my wife running over.  I figured out that I had to pull on the cord to create slack at the hook end, and got the damn hook out of my mouth, which freed me up to start cussing like a sailor, and although it would be an exaggeration to say that a fine mist of blood was spewing forth as I did so, the look of horror on Alexa’s face was as serious as though I were spewing a fine mist of blood, so that I thought maybe I actually was, but as I applied a paper towel that my wife produced (kind of amazingly quickly) I realized I wasn’t bleeding that much.  At this moment I felt relieved that my daughter listens to rap music, so she wasn’t learning a lot of new profanities from me.

Now, as dire as this emergency seemed, Alexa still had to get to the school pronto so as not to miss her ride to the debate, so she was torn as to whether to abandon me before getting any answer to “ARE YOU OKAY?” which she kept asking and which I couldn’t articulately answer due to the continuous stream of profanities that I couldn’t stop painfully spewing forth.  Her mom told her, “Go!  Get to your debate!”  Alexa biked off, crying, and I tried to put her at ease by calling after her, interlacing encouragement like “Good luck!” and “Give ‘em hell!” with my curses.

I swished around a bunch of salt water, which hurt, and then a solution of 50% water and 50% hydrogen peroxide, which hurt like a motherfrockle, and then I had to push past the pain and eat something because for dinner the night before we’d had broccoli soup, kale, and quinoa, which tricked me into thinking I was full when I wasn’t, which caused me to dream about food all night.  It was a given I’d bonk if I didn’t fuel up before the ride.  So I made a burrito with a Mission tortilla, Rosarita Traditional refried beans, Tillamook medium cheddar cheese, and Casa Sanchez fresh salsa.  I skipped the brown rice because that seemed too prickly for my poor mouth.  Eating this didn’t hurt quite as much as I expected, perhaps because I still had massive amounts of adrenaline coursing through my system.

I headed over to Muzzy and MB’s place so we could carpool to the trefpunt, a mall parking lot in San Rafael.  Here we met up with a bunch of EBVC folks and also a bunch of Marin Velo Club folks.  My teammate Matt had set up the whole thing.  It was kind of like the Socs and the Greasers meeting up in a vacant lot for a rumble, except that everybody was really nice and came equipped with racing bikes instead of switchblades. 

We rolled out on some crazy twisty sidewalk thing with bridges and hairpin turns and fins and gills like some giant piranha fish and though the pace was ultra-mellow, I discovered that a piece of torn flesh had broken off from the floor of my mouth, like a glacier calving, and was now floating around in my mouth.  Could/should I swallow it?  That would be cannibalism!  Of course I wouldn’t get caught, but I’d have to live with myself.  I spat it out, which hurt.  Everything I did, or didn’t do, really hurt my mouth, and it hurt more after the (albeit necrotic) protective skin flap was no longer covering that tender, maimed mouth-flesh.  A few minutes later, another piece broke loose.  It was pretty gross.  I took a drink to kind of flush the area, and man, that hurt like crazy!  OMG, how was I going to stay hydrated when it hurt so bad to take a drink?

We climbed up that road going from Mill Valley up to Highway 1—I think—and regrouped at this crazy three-way road junction with a tiny little median that looked a little bit like a lingual frenulum.  Lots of traffic here, not the highlight of the ride.  A bit later we headed up this long, fairly steep climb, and I was dying on Muzzy’s wheel.  Remember earlier when I said I suffered for all the usual reasons, plus two new ones?  The second new reason is that I’m really not very fit right now.  I mean, don’t get me wrong, it’s completely normal to suffer on Muzzy’s wheel, but I was suffering more than usual.  He noticed this because for once I wasn’t talking.  I was actually above my Peak Conversational Threshold, which is extremely high—almost as high as my Anaerobic Threshold, I think, maybe even higher.  Muzzy seemed to be enjoying this, as he said, “So, Dana … tell me about yourself.”  A little later he sawed me off completely, and without any apparent effort.  My heart rate was in the low 160s, which is hella high for me these days, and my misery was absolute.  Fortunately Muzzy and the rest of the badass bike mofos waited up at the top of the climb.

While certain riders braved the widespread poison oak aside the road to go micturate, I pondered my situation and realized that although my legs hurt, my mouth wasn’t bothering me so much anymore. My theory is that digging really deep during exercise produces enough pain-masking endorphins to significantly reduce all pain you might be feeling (possibly including existential angst or minor heartbreak).  Endorphins, in fact, might have been what enabled a runner to finish a marathon despite having been shot in the head at mile 10.  (I’m not joking—click here for details.)  So when we set off again, I decided to hammer like crazy and see if I could keep this mouth-pain under control.

It might not have been obvious to those around me, but I fricking buried myself on the bike today.  Wow, I went hard.  That said, I was able to pause for a moment (I may have even coasted briefly) to snap the photos you saw earlier.  Also, I developed a technique for drinking that wasn’t so painful:  I’d hold the bottle kind of sideways, squirt water into the uninjured side of my mouth, and then (by turning my head a little) kind of sluice the water down the side of my throat so it wouldn’t reach the floor of my mouth on the bad side.

It was good and hot when we reached Point Reyes Station.  We got fresh cold water from a spigot and I was surprised how good that tasted under the circumstances.  I had a Clif bar (fortunately not the chocolate brownie type that are almost inedible under any circumstances—no offense, Clif, I think your stuff is mostly great) and then Matt offered me a piece of his pain au chocolat (or “chocolate pain” as somebody called it).  All of my good breeding told me to politely decline because he should get the whole thing, but it looked so good, the chocolate all melt-y and ooze-y, that I accepted.  It had gotten slightly greasy in the hot sun, but in the best possible way, and I loved it.  Thanks, Matt.

After a long break we headed out over this awful little hill, legs groaning and creaking, and the rest of the story I think I already covered, with the Big Rock and all that.  Post-ride we sat around this place called BJ’s and ate loaded potato skins, which had bacon, cheese, certain other things I can’t remember, and scallions, which looked a bit prickly so I kind of shucked them off.  The thing is, the first one I ate went down real nice, but the second one hurt kind of a lot.  I guess it was the endorphins wearing off, or perhaps my mouth had coated the injured region with some sort of protective scum during the ride, which got washed off by two glasses of possibly astringent iced tea.  All I know is, by the third tater skin my mouth was in agony.

All in all, it was a great ride, and I’d like to extend a shout-out to my EBVC pals, and the MVC riders, and Ken’s Spanish friend, and in particular Matt for planning this Adventure Ride.  Now, if you’re just some unaffiliated reader and don’t know who any of these people are, just imagine your own friends, but better.

Epilogue

Midway through writing this I took a dinner break.  I figured macaroni and cheese would be pretty easy to eat, so I made some.  From scratch, of course, and actually it was campanelle, not elbows, and I deliberately overcooked it.  Just as we were sitting down, Alexa got home from her debate, and despite all her silly misgivings and pessimistic predictions, she and her partner won all of their debates!  And, the pasta went down relatively nicely!  Things are looking up….

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For a complete index of albertnet posts, click here.

What We Talk About When We Talk About “Kit”

NOTE:  This post is rated R for mild strong language.

Introduction

You might not actually care if cyclists use the word “kit” to mean “those silly Lycra clothes we bikers wear.”  Frankly, I don’t much care myself.  But I do care how we approach language in general; how we choose the words we use; and what impact we can have on how the vernacular evolves.  If you love language—and don’t like it eroded by indiscriminate usage—then you should read this post.  It’s the third installment in a series about “kit,” and you can read the first installment here and the second here.

In this essay I rebut an argument from my friend W—, which you haven’t read.  Yeah, I know that’s awkward, but I don’t wish to quote W—’s entire e-mail.  So I’ll quote his most salient points, college-paper style.  If nothing else you’ll get a nice crash course here in identifying logical fallacies.

Straw man

W— begins his argument by stating, “Your whole argument boils down to this: ‘I don’t like Cool Hunting and the things they promote on their website; therefore, use of the word “kit” to mean cycling clothing is invalid.’”

This is a blatant example of what is called the “straw man” fallacy.  This argumentative technique involves erecting an inferior version of your opponent’s argument that can be easily knocked down.  Straw man fallacies can be effective, particularly when the audience doesn’t have the original argument at hand.  I’ll save you the trouble of looking at my earlier posts:  here is a distillation of what I wrote.

• When we use a word, we participate in all its connotations whether we like it or not.
• Using a word can subtly pressure others to adopt it; one teammate admitted, “‘Kit’ still sounds dumb to me, but I use the word because I think I am supposed to.”
• Perhaps “kit” is useful, but we can avoid sounding like wannabe Euro types by using a different term.
• “Costume” is a better word for bike clothing, because so many of us cyclists are poseurs. By using a term that mocks our own pretentiousness, we beat others to the punch.

The above points are from my first post.  That is, I made them before W— even pointed out to me that the website Cool Hunting uses the term “kit.”  How could my whole argument boil down to my reaction to a website I hadn’t yet seen when I made it?

In my second post, I made these points: 

• Cool Hunting’s use of the term “kit” does not, in my opinion, validate the word whatsoever. 
• Word choice is a matter not just of utility but of taste. The members of my bike club avoid “bidon,” despite knowing what it means, because we don’t like it. That “bidon” has a following doesn’t sway us.
• The elasticity of language and the basic ability of a word to convey meaning should not be trotted out as blanket justifications for adopting new usage.
• There is ample precedent for refusing to adopt popular expressions (e.g., “at the end of the day,” “step up our game,” “swing for the fences,” “incent”).

W—’s argument is a straw man fallacy because he has falsely claimed that one of my points is representative of all the others.  It simply isn’t. 

Meanwhile, W— hasn’t even represented my argument correctly as regards Cool Hunting.  I didn’t say Cool Hunting’s use of “kit” is invalid; I simply said that Cool Hunting’s use of “kit” doesn’t, by itself, validate widespread adoption of the word.  That is, I’m not going to start using “kit” just because some website does, especially when it’s a dorky website selling needless, overpriced, twee crap to hipsters.  W— either misunderstood what I meant by “validate,” or he’s quibbling.

Allow me to further clarify my position on “valid” vs. “validate.”  Here’s an analogy.  In the South, people often say “y’all.”  I find this a highly useful (i.e., valid) term, because it’s the only plural sense of “you” that exists in English.  However, the meaning it conveys is perhaps insufficient to validate my own use of the term, because “y’all” is not typical Californian vernacular and my use of it can be puzzling to people.  (I sometimes can’t resist its utility; this has caused others to think I was from the South or was pretending to be.)

By the way, there’s something you should know about Cool Hunting (this isn’t part of my argument, but is just a warning):

The red herring fallacy

Three paragraphs of W—’s e-mail pertain to arguments against “kit” advanced by our teammate Trevor, who started this ball rolling by questioning my use of “kit.”  Trevor attacks the notion that this term is specific and clear enough to be valid.  This is an entirely separate argument from mine, and for W— to respond to Trevor’s argument (in an e-mail addressed to me) is to commit a “red herring” fallacy.  When he writes, “Remember, the argument is not about what words you like or don’t like to use, it is about the correctness of the term ‘kit’ to refer to cycling clothing,” he’s refuting the wrong argument. My argument has always been about whether or not we ought to support “kit.” I’ve gone after its connotations, not its value as a conveyer of meaning.

As you probably already know, a red herring is an argument that seems reasonable, but doesn’t actually address your opponent’s argument.  (In my household it’s known as “red lobster” because my young daughter once goofed when rattling off a list of logical fallacies.)  A red herring can be an intentional effort to distract the audience from the subject, or an unintentional loss of focus.  W—’s red herring is a slide toward straw man, as it conflates Trevor’s argument with mine. 

Here’s an analogy.  Suppose both my kids hate spinach.  Suppose Lindsay says, “Spinach is gross because it’s slimy.”  And suppose Alexa says, “I hate spinach because it tastes like shit.”  To say, “Alexa, you’re forgetting that uncooked spinach on a salad is quite crisp” is to attack the wrong argument, conveniently ignoring what Alexa actually said.  (Take note:  I find “tastes like shit” to be a powerful and valid phrase, but not one that I’d allow my kids to actually use.  Again, utility is not the only criterion by which to judge linguistic choices.)

W— invokes another red herring when he links to this article about the origin of the word “bike,” joking that there may have been “some bike club back in 1882 or so whose riders had a raging argument about how ‘impossibly stupid’ and ‘twee’-sounding it was to refer to a bicycle as a ‘bike.’”  But the article he cites doesn’t concern any objection to “bike,” certainly not on the grounds that it was affectation of any kind.  If the British had adopted “bike” many years before Americans, and those Americans who adopted it also used silly words like “bidon,” maybe W— would be getting somewhere.  But “bike,” according to the article, is an Americanism.

Argumentum ad populum

W— contends that “it is correct, normal—and in fact quite common, even among non-Kiwi, non-Brit, non-Euro English speakers—to use the term kit to refer to a cycling jersey and shorts. None of your criticism of Cool Hunting refutes that. And in fact their usage serves as proof that even a non-cycling specific website with national/international reach uses the term in the way I describe.”  W— goes on to describe a survey he did among participants in the Port of Oakland ride, asking what they call bike clothing.  The result:  “8 out of 10 serious responses were ‘kit.’  These are real, living users of the English language.”  (I wonder if it’s really fair to throw out non-serious responses; after all, isn’t the court jester typically the voice of reason in Shakespeare?  And “real, living users” somehow makes me think of the signs outside strip clubs saying, “See and talk to live nude girls!”  Is this parenthetical aside a red herring?  Absolutely.  Will the phrase “nude girls” bring traffic to my blog?  I hope so.)

An argumentum ad populum fallacy is made when the popularity of an idea is represented as evidence of the legitimacy or veracity of that idea.  Sometimes it’s tempting to assume something is right simply because so many people believe that it is.  (Here’s a doozy of an argumentum ad populum:  “Cigarettes are great!  After all, 40 million Americans can’t be wrong!”)

Whether W— commits this fallacy hinges on what he means by “correct” where word choice is concerned.  So I’ll quote him again; he reiterates that “kit” is “correct English usage, in common parlance in the USA, at least among bikies.”  So for him, “correct” means “in common use,” and I hope I don’t commit my own straw man fallacy by paraphrasing his argument thus:  “People do call it ‘kit.’  Get over it.”

So, his “everybody’s doing it” argument works okay if you construe proper usage as “talking the way everybody else talks.” If we accept “conveys meaning” as the be-all and end-all of language, then W— isn’t really committing a fallacy here.  But of course we shouldn’t accept “conveys meaning” as the true calling of language.  That’s where the next fallacy comes in.

Naturalistic fallacy and the is/ought problem

The Scottish philosopher David Hume wrote, in A Treatise on Human Nature, “I have always remarked, that the author proceeds for some time in the ordinary way of reasoning, and establishes the being of a god, or makes observations concerning human affairs; when of a sudden I am surprised to find that instead of the usual copulations of proposition, is and is not, I meet with no proposition that is not connected with an ought or ought not.”

Building on this, the British philosopher G.E. Moore introduced the term “naturalistic fallacy” and warned against drawing moral or qualitative judgments—the ought—from empirical observation—the is.  Notions like Social Darwinism, the validity of unrestrained capitalism, eugenics, Ayn Rand’s Objectivism, and so forth are all committing the naturalistic fallacy.  This fallacy lurks behind many a defeatist approach, such as, “If the great grey owl can’t handle a little habitat displacement, maybe it just wasn’t meant to be.  Fate favors pigeons.  Get over it.”

As language goes, the naturalistic fallacy promotes the assumption that the way words end up being used is the same thing as how words ought to be used.  So a  person may reason, “If enough people call a lectern a podium, well, I can too!  If teenagers are throwing around words like ‘twerk’ and ‘vape,’ well, maybe I should too, to show how youthful and with-it I am!  And, I can always use ‘their’ as a third-person singular possessive pronoun (e.g., ‘each person must have their own ticket’), since everybody else does it.  It has become correct, by definition!”  Okay, fine, talk like that.  But don’t assume everybody’s going to like it, or that everybody should.

What does this have to do with “kit”?  Well, W— keeps pointing out examples of how “kit” is used.  I’m trying to make the case that perhaps it ought not be used.  Not because “kit” is as foul as “YOLO” or “artisanal,” but because I think we (i.e., my bike club, and the readers of this blog) can do better.

The do-gooder problem

As for as I know, “the do-gooder problem” isn’t an established category of problem, like a logical fallacy is.  But I feel the need to address a whiff of egalitarian, all-together-now spirit in W—’s argument:  again and again, he equates “correct” with “normal” and “common.”    Thus, when a person like me seeks to fault all these good, common, honest people who are just gettin’ it said, the only way they know how ... well, this may come off as elitist.

To combat the possible PR issue here, I’d like to make a distinction between “elite” and “elitist.”  In my opinion, the desire to do something really well (i.e., better than the average person does) doesn’t make you elitist.  It may make you elite (if you’re successful), but being elite is not itself being elitist and is not a character flaw.

You know that viral YouTube video “Shit Cyclists Say”?  I won’t lie—I’ve heard a lot of those lines from my teammates and I’ve used a few myself—but our general level of discourse is much higher than this.  During bike rides, I’ve had fascinating discussions about economics, public key encryption, net neutrality, glaciers, human nature, and—yes—language.  We don’t judge—though we may debate—and we set a high standard for one another.

This high standard comes through in our members’ race reports, which are consistently funny, food-centric, and well-written.  One member even took a page from the celebrity playbook and enlisted a ghost writer to help burnish his report.  Even something as basic as the name of our training race has been subject to continual revision:  “Hammer Ride” became “Haimer Ride” (based on an e-mail typo) before being renamed “House of Pain” which (perhaps because it wasn’t original, or perhaps because it was too brash) was changed to “Domicile of Hurt” (the acronym being implicit).  This still wasn’t good enough so it was then changed to the delightfully redundant “Domicile of Yurt.”  It’s this spirit of constant innovation that makes me think we EBVCers (and you, elite reader of blogs) could be leaders in the linguistic realm instead of blithely adopting whatever trendy lingo we come across.

So, to reiterate:  “kit” is a valid term, perhaps not completely precise but nonetheless useful (unlike “irregardless” and “biweekly”).  I don’t care who uses “kit,” and I won’t call you out for using it, and I plan to use it myself from time to time as a safeguard against dogmatism (though anybody who knows me will automatically fill in the air quotes, like he or she presumably does every time I insert a pregnant pause before uttering the word “Internet”).  But, recognizing that we can choose to accept or deflect memes, I encourage you to second-guess “kit.”  Sure, it’s a word; sure, it’s valid—but is that really enough?

“Kit” Revisited - Not OK with “Kit” Commentary!

Introduction

In my last post I tried really hard to lead my readers away from using “kit” to refer to bike clothing.  My strategy wasn’t to definitively prove that Americans who use this word are dorks, but rather to introduce an alternative that was so clearly superior, further debate would be needless.

Well, the debate continues.  And if that’s not bad enough, one of my readers—an American living in New Zealand—got his knickers in a twist over a couple of gross inaccuracies in my essay, which were particularly jarring due to my  “smug confidence.”  (I suppose I should point out that I use the chiefly British expression “knickers in a twist” not because I’m trying to sound un-American but because it’s slightly less vulgar, to my ear, than “panties in a wad.”  And please note that I say “un-American” instead of “Euro” because “Euro” is one of the words that got me in trouble last time.)

In this post I shall first apologize, and then go on the offensive because another of my pals persists in trying to advance a nonsensical “living language” argument that really needs to die.

An apology

My first error, as pointed out by the Kiwi correspondent, involved this assertion:

Absolutely everybody who wears a jersey calls it a jersey.  This is a very useful word because it differentiates between a basic t-shirt and that funny Lycra thing with the zipper in front and the pockets in back.

I should not have said “absolutely everybody.”  I should have said “everybody in the United States.”  Obviously, in other countries people would have other words for this garment.  In the Ukraine, they’d call it “Джерсі,” which would phonetically sound like “dzhercee” (the “zh” is my approximation of the sound the “s” makes in “pleasure” and if you have trouble with it, just imagine Chekov, from the original “Star Trek,” saying “jersey”).  I don’t know what they’d call a bike jersey in China, and that’s a shame, because that’s my blog’s third biggest audience (after the US and the Ukraine).  Of course, those who don’t speak English probably don’t spend a lot of time on albertnet.

So why does it matter that I said “absolutely everybody”?  Well, I may have confused some non-American English speakers.  I’ve been advised that while “Antipodean club cyclists would understand [my] usage from exposure to American media,” “non-cyclist Australasians might NOT recognise [my] usage of ‘jersey.’”

Dang it.  I was totally unaware of any of this, and moreover I had to look up “Australasian” (which I’d have guessed means “Australian/Asian fusion cuisine,” as in “throw a couple ginger-infused shrimp tempuras on the barbee!”) and “antipodean.”  The first two dictionaries I checked defined “antipodean” as “being as different as possible” or “on opposite sides of the earth,” which obviously don’t work here.  The third dictionary (the really thick one) had the definition that fit the context; this meaning was flagged “chiefly British.”

Now, it’s really tempting to defend myself here.  How come my Kiwi critic gets to use confusing British terms, wacky spelling (i.e., “recognise”) and single quotation marks, but I have to be aware of every connotation of “jersey” among English speakers worldwide?  How come when I read an original (i.e., non-Americanized) version of a Harry Potter book to my kids, I’m tickled by “jumper” for sweater and “trainers” for sneakers, but my confusing use of “jersey” is grounds for criticism?  Don’t worry, I’m not naive about the truth behind this apparent paradox.  As everybody knows, Brits are charming, but Americans like me are merely annoying.  I get that.  I also accept that for me to be so narrow-minded and insular with my America-centric perspective, while posing as an authority on how best to use the English language, is nothing short of sickening.

Perhaps even worse, as my New Zealand friend points out, I “seemed to equate ‘British’ and ‘European’ in a way that would make many Brits and not-a-few Europeans uncomfortable.”  I have nothing to say in my defense.  I’ve never bothered to interview Brits or continental Europeans about how they feel about one another, and though I believe I accurately represented the way in which many Americans, such as the ones who use “kit” to mean bike clothing, lump all members of the EU together when trying to emulate their cycling heroes, I did so without acknowledging, or perhaps even recognizing, how lame this is. 

But before I actually issue the formal apology, I have to figure out whom exactly I’m apologizing to.  The confusion I have caused among my overseas audience (2.5% of whom hail from the UK) is perhaps offset by the delicious satisfaction they must have derived from decrying my ignorance.  On the whole, was their discomfort greater than the pleasure they got from issuing scathing, probably profane, judgments about me and my ilk?

Well, just in case it was, I hereby apologize to all Europeans and Brits.  I’m sorry I’m a stupid, narrow-minded American, and that my blog is spreading my corrosive ignorance across the world.

It’s very tempting to apologize to Americans as well, but that’s a complicated matter.  After all, both my geopolitical ignorance and my smug confidence are core American values.  If I act apologetic about embracing freedom and patriotism, well, maybe the terrorists win.  So let me say this:  I hereby apologize to American expatriates worldwide, and any other progressive American who thinks we should be knowledgeable about other cultures, be humble about our beliefs, and use air-quotes around “beliefs” to indicate how tentative we are in believing in anything.

I suppose I could go fix my previous post, to be more inclusive of every meaning of jersey and more discerning about British vs. Euro, but that would make this post rather confusing.  And really, repentance isn’t the point; acknowledging my ignorance is.  So, knowing my original essay will be read by more people in the future, I want to make a special apology to any non-American or expatriate-American English speaker who reads it on his or her birthday.  I truly hope I don’t ruin anybody’s birthday.

(Note that I cannot bring myself to apologize separately for being smugly confident.  I believe I am incapable of blogging timidly.  Blogging, as far as I’m concerned, is an intrinsically audacious act.)

Back on the offensive

Okay, enough of that.  It’s time to beat back a burning bush some more.  I’m talking about the ongoing attempt of another correspondent to justify “kit.”  His first shot is the rhetorical equivalent of an air ball:  “Living language Exhibit A.”  In case you’re reading this essay after that link has gone stale, it’s to a website called Cool Hunting (headline:  “Three Fresh Cycling Kits for Spring”) selling a wide variety of awful things:  ugly brown leather cycling gloves that look like Isotoners with the fingers cut off; a coffee cup holder for your handlebars; a hand-painted bike bell; underwear for cycling; a suit described as “Movement-Minded Suiting” that could make anybody look like a d-bag; and a whole bunch of particularly ugly Rapha clothing.  (I know “ugly Rapha” is redundant, but I thought “particularly Rapha clothing” might confuse somebody.)  In other words, it’s a purveyor of awful, overpriced, over-precious, totally needless crap for pretentious dickwads with too much money.  That Cool Hunting uses the term “kit” does not, in my opinion, validate the word whatsoever.  I’m astonished anybody would say so.  If this website hadn’t been trotted out by a defender of “kit,” I’d have cited it myself to explain exactly why “kit” is a term any old-school, non-hipster, self-respecting bicyclist might wish to avoid.

The person who trotted out the Cool Hunting justification for “kit” was quickly rebuked (by others, not me, I might add).  So he  replied, “Call it Bay Area slang, if it that'll make it go down easier. An idiomatic usage in a micro-dialect, if you like. But what you cannot deny is that there ARE people using the word ‘kit’ to mean a cycling jersey and cycling shorts. Living language at its best.”

Okay, first of all, I can’t see how impugning the Bay Area would make anything go down easier.  I do like the idea of micro-dialect just fine, and have embraced it for decades.  (For example, my brothers and I have long used the term “tranja”—pronounced “tron-ya” and taken from a 1960s “Star Trek” episode—to indicate any flavored beverage, and my daughter has now adopted the term.)  But the mere fact of people in any community using a word does not justify promotion of that word, and is not necessarily “living language at its best.”

Consider this:  so far, I have never heard any member of my bike club use the word “bidon,” despite all of us knowing what it means (a water bottle, in Velominati/cool-hunting/poseur/d-bag parlance).  We rightfully avoid “bidon,” despite knowing what it means,  because, evidently, we just don’t like it.  Word choice is a matter of taste, and those who respect language have far higher standards than “what others will be able to grasp.”

I think it’s crucial to understand the difference between evolution and mere change.  Evolution implies progress:  in nature, to evolve generally means becoming better suited for survival.  But when we say language “evolves,” we’re not talking about natural selection.  Sloppiness is just as likely to transform a language.  For example, the word “biweekly” used to mean something specific.  It either meant “every two weeks” or “twice a week,” but not both.  But because people began using it both ways, dictionaries eventually accepted the second meaning as legit, and now the word “biweekly” is utterly useless—it is impossible to tell from context what is meant.  From a usability perspective, this word has been pushed toward extinction.

Even when changes to a language don’t dilute meaning, choosing words carefully is worthwhile.  Often, when two words are equally precise and do an equal job of getting a point across, one is still better than the other.  If we say, “Pass me a facial tissue please,” that sounds stilted and odd, and begs the question, “Why didn’t you say ‘Kleenex’?”  And if my daughter asked her mother for a “snot rag,” she would be rightly reprimanded. 

Clarity is sometimes overrated.  To simply grasp a word’s meaning is nothing special; even a beast can do that.  My daughter did a science experiment with our cat.  It has been well established that our cat knows her name and will actually respond to a call of “Misha!” (particularly if it is issued from the kitchen).  The other day Alexa and I were on the sofa, with the cat on Alexa’s lap.  “Hey Mom,” Alexa said, “Call out ‘feces’ in the same voice you’d call out ‘Misha.’”  My wife called out from the kitchen, “Feeee-ces!”  This summoned the cat just as effectively as “Meeee-sha!” ever did.  So we brought the cat back to the sofa and tried again, but this time with “Eggplant.”  Despite being uttered in the same singsong way, it produced no reaction from the cat.  My wife called “Feeee-ces!” again, and immediately the cat trotted back in there, tail held high.  Following this breakthrough, my daughter started calling the cat “Feces” all the time.  I put my foot down.  “We named her ‘Misha’ because we like that name,” I told her.  “I do not like the word ‘feces.’  You are forbidden to use it in reference to the cat.”  Now, is that bad parenting, on the grounds that the cat does understand the particular meaning of “feces” within our household’s micro-dialect?  I truly hope nobody thinks so.

I am not a fan of “kit,” but I’m not interested in continuing to debate its aesthetic merit, nor the question of whether its (supposed) utility is enough to offset its Velominatic air.  But what I’m trying to do here is squash the idea that the elasticity of language can be trotted out as justification to blithely adopt any new usage that manages to convey meaning.

You still think all linguistic change is for the good?  Well, think about all the corporate jargon so many of us are subjected to on a daily basis.  If you were to hear the following on a conference call, you might only find it a slight exaggeration:  

At the end of the day, the value proposition needs to by synced up with our bottom line, so if we’re going to step up our game, tee this thing up, and swing for the fences, the reality is that—candidly—we’ve got to get Product’s skin in the game, and really incent those folks to add value up the whole stack, because when you peel back the layers of the onion, you can see that business synergies are table stakes in this business, and shareholder value demands that we either reinvent ourselves with some disruptive technologies or we’re going to be in the position of having to ventilate this workforce.  I mean, this is the world we live in.  It is what it is.

If you’re not gagging right now, you’re on the wrong web page.  Maybe you should head over to Cool Hunting.

From the Archives - STEM vs. Rhetoric

Introduction

Some seventeen years ago, before the novelty of e-mail had worn off, I forwarded around a funny message I got from my boss. My friend M— forwarded it to a bunch more people, and one of them sent a rebuttal that I found a little too pat. Moreover, his opening sentence, “Your math is off,” struck me as a little smug. So, notwithstanding the absurdity of the original e-mail, I decided to defend it to the death. (Actually, being in the wrong actually increased my motivation: as a lover of rhetorical finesse, I have a natural fondness for the quixotic job of advancing untenable positions.)

I present the transcript of this debate because I think it’s funny, and because everybody loves a good smackdown, right?

(A note on the title: of course the term “STEM” hadn’t been coined yet in 1997. But my title, you may find, is decent shorthand for the subtext of this debate.)

Knowledge vs. Money - a debate between strangers

From: Dana Albert
Sent: Friday, November 07, 1997 5:36 PM
To: undisclosed-recipients:
Subject: FW: Equation

Check out this funny e-mail from my boss!

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Team,

I think we could call this the rule of the VP level at (insert client here)...

Do you know too much?

We all know that:
Knowledge is Power and  Time is Money.

And, as engineers learned in school:
Power = Work / Time

So, if  Knowledge = Power, and  Time = Money, then  Knowledge = Work / Money

Solving for Money, we get:  Money = Work / Knowledge

Thus, Money approaches infinity as Knowledge approaches ZERO, regardless of the Work done.

Therefore:
The Less you Know, the More you Make.

--~--~--~--~--~--~--~--~--

From: M—
Sent: Monday, November 10, 1997 11:18 AM
To: Dana Albert
Cc: undisclosed-recipients
Subject: FW: Equation

Dana,

Below is follow up from my friend—working on his PhD in Physics...

M—

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From: S—
To: M—
Subject: Re: Equation
Date: Sunday, November 09, 1997 8:22PM

Your math is off. You must assume that work is independent of knowledge for your math to be correct. Since knowledge and work are correlated money does not go to infinity. Work is probaly proportional to knowledge to some power greater than one (first order approximation).. i.e. work = C * (knowledge)^(1+n). Where C is a constant. So if we go back to the eq M = W/K. We get M= C* K^(1+n) / K, by substituting in the relation for work. Finally simplfying, we get: M = C*K^n. So we see that as Knowledge increases money, actually also does increase. All is good in the world still.

S—

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From: Dana Albert
Sent: Tuesday, November 11, 1997 7:16 PM
To: M—
Subject: RE: Equation

M—,

I find your friend’s rebuttal to my boss’s treatise interesting. I will analyze the rebuttal in terms of the three branches of rhetoric: ethos (authority), logos (logic), and pathos (emotional feeling).

First, ethos: the fact that your friend is working on his Ph.D. in physics is not nearly as impressive as an actual degree in physics. All that being in graduate school means is that he already has an undergraduate degree and has passed some tests. Meanwhile, we can only speculate on the quality of his undergraduate education. I did immediately notice that your friend’s his message had punctuation errors (such as only one space after a period), spelling errors (such as “probaly”), and grammatical errors (such as the sentence fragment “Where C is a constant”). Suffice to say he doesn’t win huge points in the ethos category.

Moving on to pathos, we immediately see that he bases his rebuttal largely on equations. I was not moved.

Finally, his logic is based upon what I would call a faulty premise: that knowledge and work are correlated. Where did he ever get that idea? It is futile to build an argument on an axiom that is not generally accepted. An effective argument must not only have valid reasoning, but must also be built upon sound premises—thus his equations, nothing more than smoke and mirrors, evaporate.

Clearly all is not “good in the world still.”

Sorry,
Dana

--~--~--~--~--~--~--~--~--

From: S—
To: M—
Subject: I am a Rocket Scientist!
Date: Tuesday, November 11, 1997 4:35PM

Mr. Albert feels that my argument fails for three reasons: I do not have the authority to make such statements, my rebuttal did not stir his emotions, and that knowledge and work output were indeed uncorrelated.

Mr. Albert challenges my authority, citing my numerous typos, and my lack of education. In science, authority has no baring on the validity of an argument. Just as the church’s authority could not stifle Galileo’s heresy, Mr. Albert’s authority can not stifle my heresy. I would also note that he is not immune to typos himself: “I did immediately notice that your friend’s his message had punctuation errors”

Mr. Albert goes on to say that my argument fails to move him. Perhaps, Mr. Albert, my equations failed to move you, because as an English major you fail to understand them.

Finally, Mr. Albert rejects my assumption that work output and knowledge are correlated. I challenge him to reject the assumption the next time he is interviewing a potential employee.

The success of the scientific worldview has been in large part due to the rejection of pathos and ethos, in favor of logos. While Mr. Albert certainly has pathos and ethos in abundance, it does not obscure the fact that he lacks logos. Mr. Albert defends his boss’s abuse of math and science in an attempt to prove that the less you know the more money you make. The argument is empirically false, and the argument should be rejected for that reason alone. I simply wished to point out where the logic of the proof collapsed.

S—

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From: Dana Albert
Sent: Tuesday, November 11, 1997 8:16 PM
To: M—
Subject: RE: I am a Rocket Scientist!

M—,

I will continue to uphold the validity of my boss’s statement about money, knowledge, and work. This is fun.

The following sentence, committed by Mr. S—, I find comical: “In science, authority has no bearing on the validity of an argument.” Perhaps Mr. S— is quibbling on the definition of “valid,” which in strict logical terms can mean “correctly inferred or deduced from a premise.” I see no point in doing this: valid, in a normal context, means “(1) Well grounded; just: a valid objection. (2) Producing the desired results; efficacious.” Now, does Mr. S— really believe that authority has no bearing on the validity of an argument? If a doctor diagnoses sickle-cell anemia and the patient insists it’s just a cold, does the doctor back down? When a judge or attorney evaluates the merit of forensic evidence, whom does he call on: a forensics specialist, or an art historian? Perhaps Mr. S— is unimpressed by credentials, but he can hardly speak for the entire scientific community.

For Mr. S— to point out my typo is an excellent example of what in logic is called the “red herring fallacy.” While I did make a typo, pointing it out is irrelevant to the actual argument, which concerns my boss’s statement about work, knowledge, and money. I cited Mr. S—’s grammatical errors because I was attempting to evaluate his level of education. My level of education, on the other hand, does not figure in the validity of my boss’s argument. Meanwhile, since the quality of S—’s education is still very much in question and pertinent to our ongoing discussion, I did notice that in the very sentence in which Mr. S— points out my typo, he commits another punctuation error by neglecting to end his sentence with a period. Perhaps he wasn’t sure whether the period should go after the quotation mark or before it and just gave up. But I digress.

Mr. S— suggests that the failure of his equations to move me emotionally is due to the nature of my undergraduate education. On the contrary, elegant and conclusive math—such as that exemplified by my boss in his original statement—moves me almost to tears. Moreover, a solid argument can impress and persuade anybody, regardless of his or her background. To confine one’s audience to nerdy scientists seems pointless, given that my boss’s original statement had universal appeal to any of us weary cogs of industry.

I was surprised to see that Mr. S— returned to his ill-fated premise about knowledge and output being correlated. This assertion is arguable at best, and simply cannot stand up to ages-old, commonly accepted axioms such as “time is money” and “knowledge is power.” And yet his first attempt to support this assertion is a suggestion that I keep his assertion in mind when conducting job interviews. I can assure Mr. S— that when conducting job interviews, I actually keep in mind the fallacy of this assertion. When I interview an applicant, particularly one weighted down with extra degrees, I invariably have the following question in mind: “Okay, he’s got plenty of knowledge, but after such long residence in the ivory towers, will he work hard enough to finish his projects on time? Will he complete a variety of tasks, or get bogged down in his habit of perfectionism? Or will he decide that his job is a nuisance, and return to academia for another degree?”

Meanwhile, it appears that Mr. S—’s submersion in his graduate physics program has given him a skewed perception of “the success of the scientific worldview.” All around us are examples of science’s failure to persuade people. For example, it is scientific fact that smoking cigarettes causes lung cancer, yet millions of people begin doing it every day. Why? Is it because they refute the validity of the scientific findings? I doubt it. More likely it’s a clear example of scientific logos being overpowered by the pathos of cigarette ads showing beautiful sexy cool people smoking, combined with the ethos of the Marlboro Man and assorted smokers in the entertainment industry. Again, Mr. S— seems to confuse the prestige of his field with the realities of rhetoric.

Mr. S—, meanwhile, himself seems to try to infuse his argument with ethos by titling his message “I am a Rocket Scientist!” and repeatedly citing the strength of logos in science as if it were exemplified in his own arguments. Alas, it is not. For Mr. S— to claim that “Mr. Albert . . . lacks logos” is both incorrect and a good example of the logical fallacy called “ad hominem.” For Mr. S— to assert that my argument is illogical is one thing; to assert that I as a person “lack logos” is a personal attack. I will not dwell on this attack, since it is far more interesting to wonder what problems he has found in my logic. Incongruously, he attempts to support his attack on my logic by claiming that my boss’s statement about knowledge and money is empirically false. First of all, what does empirical evidence have to do with the quality of my logic? Dismissing the premises of an argument does not in itself do anything to evaluate the logic of conclusions that proceed logically from those premises.

Let us use a simpler proof to elucidate Mr. S—’s mistake. Assume this premise: it is raining outside. Assume also this premise: if it rains, Mr. Jones will carry his umbrella. If we assume these premises to be true (i.e., it is raining, and Mr. Jones does carry his umbrella when it rains), then we arrive at the logical conclusion that Mr. Jones is therefore carrying his umbrella. I believe this is a classic example of inductive reasoning, called (if memory serves), “modus tollendo ponens.” Now, if we discover that we were mistaken about the rain—that it is in fact not raining—does that mean we were being illogical when we concluded that Mr. Jones was carrying his umbrella? Of course not. Our logic was impeccable; we were simply wrong about one of the premises. For Mr. S— to state that my premise is the point “at which the logic of the proof collapsed” suggests that he aspires to an understanding of logical proof which he has not yet achieved.

This brings us to what apparently is the last possible foundation of his argument: his assertion that knowledge and output are interrelated, and that this statement is empirical fact. Even when I take into consideration Mr. S—’s lack of experience in the corporate world (immersed as he is in academia), I still must believe that examples of knowledge without output are all around him. What about the tenured professor who hasn’t published in three decades, who recycles the same rote lecture year after year? What about the grad student who has read every single book on his subject and still hasn’t started on his doctoral thesis, and never will? What about all those who finally get their Ph.D.s, only to take dead-end jobs in the service sector, letting their nine years of education slowly fall to oblivion? Meanwhile, we see other examples of output without knowledge, such as the factory worker who knows almost nothing about the textile industry but is nonetheless capable of sewing more than 500 elastic waistbands a day. Clearly, Mr. S— is unwise to base his entire argument—and his condemnation of my logical ability—on such a problematic assertion as knowledge and output being interrelated to a significant degree.

I hope that clears up the matter.

Dana

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From: S—
To: M—
Subject: Re: Equation (fwd)
Date: Wednesday, November 12, 1997 1:44PM

M—,

I’ve been busy researching the correlation between knowledge and wages, but I offer the insights of C—, a fellow graduate student.

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Forwarded message
Date: Wed, 12 Nov 1997 11:36:23 -0700 (MST)
From: C—
To: S—
Subject: Re: Equation (fwd)

I find this entire discourse fairly meaningless in light of one error. Even if we accept the premises that knowledge is power, and that power is equal to work divided by time, the conclusion that these two relationships obey the laws of communicability is fallacious. The original author has fallen into a fairly common trap in the sciences. As with the infamous “Intensity” definition in optics, the true meaning of power depends upon the specific context, or less generally, discipline of science in which it is used.

Since an astronomer uses “intensity” to mean “watts per square meter” and a radiometric scientist uses “intensity” to mean “power per steradian” (the true SI definition), can we state that the ratio, area divided by solid angle, is a meaningless quantity and should thus be discarded? Of course not. As I see it, there are two definitions of power in play. As a businessman might use the term, power is the ability to wield influence over others. Fortunately, the science definition is more exact. It is presented appropriately in the original document, power = work/time. You may disagree with the former definition, but my fundamental point is undeniable: business power cannot be made equivalent to science power.

You may attribute any typos in this document to my telnet settings (which do not properly justify and update the window as I edit) rather than to how much attention I paid to spelling back in the sixth grade. Thank you.

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From: Dana Albert
Sent: Wednesday, November 12, 1997 5:40 PM
To: M—
Subject RE: Equation (fwd)

M—,

I find C—’s assessment to be refreshingly clear and conclusive. With surgical precision, he has gotten right to the crux of the matter: the inappropriate merger of mathematical equations with abstract aphorisms.

However, I can’t help but point out that the original treatise (“the less you know, the more you make”) is meant as comedy—and, like other examples of the comic genre, depends upon its good-natured audience to gloss over the certain things (in this case the math/aphorism incompatibility). If the director of “Trading Places” had been hung up on the impossibility of a panhandler becoming a successful Wall Street trader, the movie never would have been made. In like fashion, if Mr. C— had responded directly to the knowledge/money treatise, he would have spoiled our fun. I much prefer the protracted debate in between, especially when my opponent is off in the weeds. ; )

Dana