Surprising headlines

[calimac]

Michael Kinsley, in his wonderfully snarky collection Curse of the Giant Muffins, described the "genre of boring headlines [that] gravely inform[s] you that a development you weren't aware of and don't care about has reversed itself, ideally in some distant part of the globe." He cites Nepal Premier Won't Resign and University of Rochester Decides To Keep Name. But what if, while not exactly caring about it in the sense of it affecting you, you still find it very interesting? I'd certainly read an article headlined with another of Kinsley's examples, Chill Falls on Warming Relations Between Australia and Indonesia.

Here's a development I wasn't aware of that has reversed itself, doesn't affect me, but still interests me: Media Abandoning German Language Reforms (via Arts & Letters Daily). One thing the article doesn't say, perhaps because it's short, is that this is not the first time the German language has been officially reformed. Anyone who needs to deal with 19C (or earlier) German texts will find it useful to know that around the end of that century some official body decided to drop the letter h in the combination th, as in German it doesn't affect pronunciation, and apparently there was no homonym confusion. There was one word they left the h in, though: der Thron, which led to wags remarking that the throne wouldn't stand without its h. As it happened, the throne fell without all the other hs instead.

Here's something else that interests me: Computer-imaging restoration of ancient sound recordings. All the early recordings I've heard have remained scratchy and fuzzy even after the sound is cleaned up: perhaps this new process will yield something better.

Comments

[sartorias.livejournal.com]

Yeah, reading Martin Luther's German was quite a challenge.

I sure as heck hope that that ancient sound recording thing works out. I would so love to hear Jenny Lind, for example. I read years and years ago that some recordings still existed, but even when the wax tablets and 78s were new, she sounded like a squeaky wheel. If there is any chance of diminishing the distortion so we can get some idea of what charmed so many people--wow.