Sounding Circle

Tuesday, July 1, 2003

Was The Didgeridoo A Bit Of Irish To The Aborigines? 1 comment

1 Jul 2003 @ 10:27 Was The Didgeridoo A Bit Of Irish To The Aborigines? By Daniel Dasey June 23 2002 The Sun-Herald Faith and begorrah! The linguistic origins of Australia's most iconic musical instrument, the didgeridoo, have been called into question with an academic claiming the name is of Irish derivation rather than from an Aboriginal dialect. Flinders University PhD student Dymphna Lonergan suggests the term may have its roots in an old Irish and Scottish expression meaning black trumpeter or horn blower. She also suspects an Irish influence on other Australian terms. "The response has been amazing," Ms Lonergan said. "When I go through my theory people are generally accepting and find it convincing." Ms Lonergan, whose PhD is on the history of the Irish language in Australia, said she investigated the linguistic origins of a host of terms proposed by a colleague in Sydney. While most proved unconnected to Gaelic, her suspicions were aroused by didgeridoo. She found the first appearance of the word didgeridoo in Australian dictionaries occurred in 1919 in the Australian National Dictionary. The word is not in any Aboriginal dialect and linguists have long suspected the word is imitative of the sound made by a didgeridoo. But Ms Lonergan said an experiment she conducted asking subjects to make the sound of the instrument yielded words full of vowels starting with the letter "b" or "m". No subjects made the sound didgeridoo. She instead believes the word is derived from the Irish and Scottish Gaelic term dudaire, which is is pronounced dooderreh or doodjerra and means a pipe smoker, a nosey person or a trumpeter or horn blower. The Gaelic term for black is dubh, pronounced duv or do. In combination, the terms produce doodjerra doo. Ms Lonergan said she suspected early immigrants drew on their native tongues to describe their new country and believes other common Australian terms may also have Gaelic origins. The term for Australian wild horses, brumbies, resembles an old Gaelic plural term for young horses, brumaigh, pronounced brummy. Similarly, the expression to crack on to, where young people chat up members of the opposite sex, resembles the Irish expression craiceann, a slang expression for sexual intercourse. Even the humble chook may have an Irish link. The word resembles the Gaelic term tiuc, meaning "come here". Ms Lonergan can picture early Irish settlers calling "tiuc, tiuc" to their hens.  More >

Nap As Good As Full Nights Sleep 0 comments

1 Jul 2003 @ 10:12 Nap As Good As Full Nights Sleep BBC News Monday, June 23, 2003 Grabbing an hour's sleep during the day may be as beneficial as a whole night in bed, according to scientists. But the "power-nap" only works if the sleep is of the right quality, say the experts from Harvard University, US. And experts say that a full night's sleep is still necessary for many vital body functions, even though a short sleep may boost learning and memory. Many famous people have claimed that it is possible to get by on just a few hours' sleep a night. Yachtswoman Ellen MacArthur sailed solo around the world while sleeping only occasionally and for very short periods. However, there are plenty of others who say they cannot function properly without the full eight hours. The Harvard research, published in the journal Nature Neuroscience, compared the learning and memory skills of two groups of people during a single day, and again the following morning. One group was told not to sleep at all during the day, and, as expected, their performance tailed off into the afternoon and evening. However, the other volunteers were allowed to have an hour or 90 minutes nap at 2pm. The researchers tested the brainwaves of the "nappers" to check the quality of their sleep. Dream state They were looking for two different sleep phases -- slow wave sleep, and rapid eye movement, which is normally associated with dreaming. Those whose sleep involved both phases fared significantly better than those who had no sleep when given the learning test later in the day. Volunteers who never reached rapid eye movement sleep did not perform as well -- although even this "poor-quality" sleep did prevent some of the deterioration in performance. Remarkably, over 24 hours, the performance of those who took a good-quality "power-nap" was as good as volunteers in previous studies who were tested after two full nights' sleep. The researchers wrote: "From the perspective of behavioural improvement, a nap is as good as a night of sleep for learning on this perceptual task." Dr Derk-jan Dijk, from the Sleep Research Centre at the University of Surrey, said that there was increasing evidence that a combination of "short wave sleep" and REM sleep was important for learning and memory. However, he added: "We should not conclude that we can do with just a nap. "Sleep is useful for more things than just these particular tests. "Other research has suggested that people given six hours of sleep a night over a sustained period find it extremely detrimental."

Blind Psychic Gropes Buttocks to See Future 0 comments

1 Jul 2003 @ 10:03 Blind Psychic Gropes Buttocks to See Future Tue Jul 9,11:06 AM ET By Nick Tattersall BERLIN (Reuters) - Forget palm-reading. A blind German psychic claimed Tuesday he could read people's futures by feeling their naked buttocks. Clairvoyant Ulf Buck, 39, claims that people's backsides have lines like those on the palm of the hand, which can be read to reveal much about their character and destiny. "The bottom is much more intense -- it has a much stronger power of expression than the hand in my experience," Buck told Reuters. "It goes on developing throughout your life." By running his fingers along a number of lines on the surface of a client's posterior, he says he can tell them about their future monetary success, family life, health and happiness. He says lines representing success, career and artistic ability extend inwards from the outer extremities of the buttocks, while a further five lines radiate outwards. "I began on a circle of friends and the circle grew," Buck said. "I am not a new-age freak. I treat people with great care and conscientiousness." Buck, who lives in the northern village of Meldorf, northwest of Hamburg, says all types come to him to have their bottoms read. He sees his blindness as a great asset, not least because it means customers do not risk having their identities revealed. "All sorts come, from cleaning ladies and secretaries to prominent members of the community. For them, my being blind is an advantage because I can do it without recognizing them again in the future." Buck has been blind since the age of three. Although he claims to have spent many years training his fingers, with his index and middle fingers the most sensitive, Buck says even amateur buttock readers can make a broad-brush assessment of people's personalities. "An apple-shaped, muscular bottom indicates someone who is charismatic, dynamic, very confident and often creative. A person who enjoys life," he said. "A pear-shaped bottom suggests someone very steadfast, patient and down-to-earth." He is quick to shoot down any suggestion that his buttock groping might be motivated by anything other than a genuine desire to probe people's futures. "I do not need to feel bottoms for my own pleasure. My wife is quite beautiful enough for me," he said. Buck is reluctant to speak about his successes, but says he correctly predicted an actress from a popular German soap-opera was going to write a book, and says a stockbroker has been using his services for over two years. "No stockbroker would keep asking a blind clairvoyant to tell them about future stock prices if they didn't believe I could to it," he said.

Weblog for Party Comparisons 0 comments

1 Jul 2003 @ 09:55 WatchBlog "a multiple-editor weblog broken up into three major political affiliations, each with its own blog: the Democrats, the Republicans and the Third Party (covering everything outside the two major parties)." The side by side display exposes people to alternative views of political issues.