Uncommon Knowledge

How to stop procrastinating

Recent research has suggested that forgiveness is good for your health. But it may also be good for your study habits. Students who procrastinated in studying for an exam — but forgave themselves for doing so — procrastinated less and got a higher grade on a subsequent exam. One might normally expect such a self-forgiving student to keep on procrastinating. However, self-forgiveness mitigated the guilt and rumination — and desire to procrastinate further to avoid these negative feelings — that resulted from the initial bout of procrastination, making it easier to study for the next exam.

Wohl, M. et al., “I Forgive Myself, Now I Can Study: How Self-Forgiveness for Procrastinating Can Reduce Future Procrastination,” Personality and Individual Differences (forthcoming).

Africa: the good news

The conventional wisdom about Africa is that it’s stagnant and dysfunctional. Yet, according to a new economic analysis, this may be history. While there was indeed little progress in the 1980s, there seems to have been a lot since the 1990s. Up until then, 40 percent of the population lived on less than one dollar a day; by 2006, that number dropped by 10 percentage points. Likewise, GDP per capita has surged. The growth appears to be widespread, and not confined to a subset of advantaged countries. The authors point out that “these results contradict the 2008 Millennium Development Goals Report” of the United Nations and that, if it weren’t for conflict in Congo, those goals could actually be reached two to three years ahead of schedule. Moreover, this growth does not appear to have exacerbated inequality and, in fact, appears to have reduced it.

Sala-i-Martin, X. & Pinkovskiy, M., “African Poverty is Falling…Much Faster than You Think!” National Bureau of Economic Research (February 2010).

What power does to your appetite

While power may corrupt in the political sense, new research suggests that it also corrupts in the hedonistic sense. In one experiment, people were asked to recall a situation where they either had power or were powerless. Later, they were presented with a plate full of cheese crackers as part of a purported taste test. People who had been primed with power ate as many crackers as their hunger dictated, but people who had been primed with powerlessness only ate what they thought they should, regardless of hunger. In another experiment, people expecting to occupy a position of power consumed food in proportion to its appeal, whereas people expecting to occupy a powerless position only ate what they thought they should, regardless of taste. These results bolster the theory that power causes people to rely more on impulse, feeling, and experience.

Guinote, A., “In Touch With Your Feelings: Power Increases Reliance on Bodily Information,” Social Cognition (February 2010).

Gen Me at work

Much has been written about the supposedly self-centered attitudes of today’s youth, but is this trend reflected in their work ethic? To find out, researchers analyzed data from a nationally representative survey of high school seniors in 1976, 1991, and 2006. The most recent generation — a.k.a. “Generation Me” — places a greater emphasis on leisure time than Generation X and especially Baby Boomers. Significantly more seniors in 2006, compared to 1976, thought that having more than two weeks of vacation was “very important,” wanted a job where they could work slowly, were less interested in working overtime, were more likely to see their jobs as just a way to make a living, and were less interested in intrinsic rewards and social interaction. The one exception to this trend is that Generation Me is a little less driven by extrinsic rewards than Generation X (though still more so than Baby Boomers). The authors concede that young people may be justified in seeking a better work-life balance, given that many jobs today demand more hours and offer less vacation time.

Twenge, J. et al., “Generational Differences in Work Values: Leisure and Extrinsic Values Increasing, Social and Intrinsic Values Decreasing,” Journal of Management (forthcoming).

Does attractive mean friendly?

A question that has puzzled mankind for ages is whether physically attractive people also tend to have more attractive personalities. A recent study says yes. Researchers first asked men and women to assess their own personalities. Meanwhile, photos of these men and women were shown to other people, who made an independent assessment of physical attractiveness. The researchers found that the men and women who were seen as more physically attractive also identified themselves as more agreeable and sociable. It is easy to imagine that the personalities of physically attractive people evolve over time to become more agreeable and sociable, building on the positive social feedback that comes from being desirable. But the researchers found that agreeable and sociable people groomed themselves better, explaining their attractiveness advantage.

Meier, B. et al., “Are Sociable People More Beautiful? A Zero-Acquaintance Analysis of Agreeableness, Extraversion, and Attractiveness,” Journal of Research in Personality (forthcoming).

Kevin Lewis is an Ideas columnist.

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Full article and photo: http://www.boston.com/bostonglobe/ideas/articles/2010/03/21/how_to_stop_procrastinating/

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Hey guys!

Yes, ladies, this means you

In the study of peevology, language subdivision, one of the more fertile areas of inquiry is the long list of things that people are annoyed to be called. Not the truly offensive terms — none of which can be printed here, and all of which have a level of discomfort far higher than “pet peeve’’ — but the more general terms, whose offense is often magnified when they’re used by strangers involved in a commercial transaction.

Some people hate to be called “honey,’’ or “sugar.’’ A few feel that any use of “hey’’ as an attention-getter is rude (with the classic retort being “Hey is for horses’’). Others believe that being called “ma’am’’ ages them 10 years. But one of the more widespread vocative peeves, at least for women, is being addressed as “you guys.’’

Whether it’s the group e-mail that opens “Hi Guys!’’ or the waiter who says “OK, guys, your table is ready,’’ the use of “you guys’’ for groups of mixed gender (and even for all-female groups) can send the needle on many peeve-ometers into the red.

There’s plenty in the history of the word guy that would make you think the word is objectionable on its face — it comes from the name of Guy Fawkes, one of the conspirators in the 1605 Gunpowder Plot, a thwarted attempt to blow up the Houses of Parliament in England. From that inauspicious beginning, the word came to be used for effigies of Guy Fawkes that were paraded and burnt on Nov. 5, the anniversary of the plot. The word guy came to mean any effigy — and from there was then applied to any scary-looking or badly-dressed person, in the same way that scarecrow can be used to say that someone looks gaunt or ragged. The word was also used as a generic term for man. (Not necessarily casting aspersions on the way you dress, fellas, but …)

However, it’s not the “freakishly dressed person’’ sense of guy that causes the offense; it has been so long since guy has been used that way that it has lost any residual sting (at least in the United States). The discomfort seems to come from a perceived gender disconnect: “The waiter wouldn’t address a group of men and women with ‘you gals,’ ’’ the thinking goes, “So why should he or she use ‘you guys’?’’ This may shortly be followed by another kind of indignation: “Do I look like a guy?’’

“You guys’’ may simply make some women feel overlooked or ignored, especially a single woman in a group being addressed as “you guys.’’ There’s a sense that even one man would short-circuit any attempt to address a group with “ladies’’ (except in a sarcastic-coach way), but a group made of up of more than half women is easily addressed as “you guys.’’

But however much this use of guys annoys you, believe me, it’s better this way. The plain truth and the knotty problem is that all the other options for addressing a group are worse.

(Just to be clear, I’m not saying that anyone, male or female, doesn’t have the right to be offended at being called “you guys.’’ This is America; you’re allowed to be offended by whatever you choose. You can be offended at not being addressed “Commander SnorkelFritz, Hero Third Class of The Loompian Hegemony,’’ and I will fully support your indignation…and not just because I want to see your uniform, commander.)

Unfortunately for us, and for our waiters, in English there are relatively few ways to address a mixed group, and each has its own problems. “Ladies and Gentlemen’’ can sound either too hokey or too formal; “folks’’ can be, well, too folksy; and a plain and unadorned “you’’ may not convey enough inclusiveness. I’m a big fan of “y’all,’’ but it has problems of formality and regional distribution. “Gal,’’ while a rootin’-tootin’ good word in the right context, sounds too artificial for everyday use, and has patronizing overtones: A Gal Friday is just a glamorous gofer, after all. And as much as I enjoy Damon Runyon, “Right this way, guys and dolls,’’ is not really a practical option in places other than self-consciously cute speakeasies.

If it’s any consolation, we’re already used to words in English that have different meanings for the singular and plural: look and looks, arm and arms, manner and manners, and custom and customs all give a wider meaning to the plural without anyone raising a stink — and it’s easy to imagine guy and guys joining the list.

Whether from a dearth of suitable alternatives or just from habit, “you guys,’’ if not completely entrenched, is well on the way to being the standard casual way to address a group. Rather than fight that battle, we may want to save some indignation for the next awkward form of address to surface. I’m thinking it’s probably “dudes.’’ (Seriously, dudes.)

Erin McKean is a lexicographer and founder of Wordnik.com.

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Full article: http://www.boston.com/bostonglobe/ideas/articles/2010/03/21/hey_guys/

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The week ahead

Italian regional polls will show if Silvio Berlusconi’s popularity is waning

• THE prime minister of Italy, Silvio Berlusconi, will be able to assess the damage that a string of scandals has meted out to his government when Italians go to the polls for two days of voting in regional elections starting on Sunday March 28th. Elections are set to take place in 13 of Italy’s 20 regions. Eleven regions are held by the centre-left opposition. Mr Berlusconi, hoping to capitalise on a wave of sympathy after an attack by a mentally unstable man in December, had hoped his People of Freedom (PdL) movement might oust up to five centrist and left-wing governors. But its campaign is in chaos—and the government’s ratings are plunging.

• FOUR employees of Rio Tinto, a huge Anglo-Australian mining company, go on trial in China on Monday March 22nd on charges of bribery and industrial espionage in connection with negotiations over the price of iron ore. The accused, three Chinese and one Australian, were arrested last year shortly after Rio had spurned a big investment from Chinalco, a Chinese state-backed metals firm, infuriating the Chinese authorities. That led to speculation that the two events were linked while also dealing a blow to relations between China and Australia. But now relations seem to be improving, at least between Rio and Chinalco. The two companies are have announced a big iron-ore joint venture in Africa.

• BRITAIN’S chancellor of the exchequer (finance minister), Alastair Darling, unveils Britain’s budget on Wednesday March 24th. With an election looming—a poll must be called before June and May 6th is widely touted as the likely date—Mr Darling will be gratified that recent figures show Britain’s deficit, while vast, has not expanded quite as much as predicted. Britain’s lacklustre economy and dreadful public finances are sure to be important election issues. But Mr Darling’s urge to tackle the deficit with a budget of nothing but austerity measures make take second place to doling out a few election sweeteners to the country’s voters.

• EUROPE’S leaders will converge on Brussels for a two day EU summit starting on Thursday March 25th. The Greek debt crisis and the fragility of other European economies is sure to be the main talking point. Greece’s prime minister, George Papandreou, has called on the EU to come up with a way of channeling financial aid to his country as a reward for the drastic austerity package he has pushed through. But any scheme aimed at saving Greece will have to overcome severe misgivings about a rescue package brewing in Germany. Angela Merkel, Germany’s chancellor, has even suggested a mechanism to throw out countries from the euro area if they repeatedly flout fiscal rules.

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Article and photo: http://www.economist.com/world/international/displayStory.cfm?story_id=15745318&source=features_box1

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No

Two of the most basic words in the English language, yes and no, are locked in a constant struggle, embodying abstract forces of agreement and opposition, positivity and negativity, acceptance and denial. Just look at the recent Congressional wrangling over health care reform, where the words have come to stand for much more than simply the up or down votes that legislators may cast. Democrats seeking a final compromise over health care legislation have talked optimistically about getting to yes. “I just wish and hope some of my colleagues will be willing to help us get to yes on this,” Senator Mark Warner of Virginia said. And a House leadership aide told The Huffington Post, “We do have an environment where people can now get to yes.”

Getting to yes has become a creaky cliché in political and business circles thanks to a best-selling negotiation manual with that title first published in 1981. The authors of “Getting to Yes,” Roger Fisher and William Ury of the Harvard Negotiation Project, outlined the best strategies for reaching a settlement by identifying “options for mutual gain.” Fisher had been experimenting with the word yes for quite a while. Back in 1969, he argued in the book “International Conflict for Beginners” that the key to getting the other side of the bargaining table to agree is to present them with a “yesable proposition.” It is no surprise that supporters of Barack (Yes We Can) Obama would draw on the conciliatory rhetoric of getting to yes.

Blocking the road to yes on health care and other initiatives, however, is the Republican Congressional minority, which has been painted by Democrats as “the party of no.” It’s been a common refrain since the early months of the Obama administration, when the Democratic National Committee introduced a “Party of No” clock on its Web site, tallying the time Republicans spent criticizing Obama’s budget plan without offering their own alternative.

Leading Republicans, for their part, have either disavowed the “party of no” label or have found canny ways to reclaim it. Mitt Romney told the Conservative Political Action Conference to embrace no proudly, explaining, “it is right and praiseworthy to say no to bad things.” Representative Pete Sessions of Texas, meanwhile, has offered a punny twist: “We’re the party of know: k-n-o-w.”

When Democrats use “the party of no” to criticize Republican obstructionism, they are unwittingly echoing Ronald Reagan. The expression has historical resonances, like Truman’s election-year complaints in 1948 about “the do-nothing Congress” or Spiro Agnew’s memorable line (penned in 1970 by his speechwriter, William Safire) excoriating “the nattering nabobs of negativism.”

But Reagan was the first to paint the opposing party so forcefully with the brush of “no.” At the welcoming rally of the 1988 Republican National Convention, Reagan blasted the opposition as “the party of no,” while appealing to “rank-and-file Democrats” who had been alienated by the “strident liberalism and negativism” of party leaders. “The party of ‘yes’ has become the party of ‘no,’ ” Reagan, himself a former Democrat, said. “The liberal leadership of your party has been saying no to you, and now it’s time for you to start saying no to them.” The boisterous crowd reacted to Reagan by chanting the antidrug slogan his wife, Nancy, did so much to popularize: “Just say no!”

James Carville, who knew a powerful political catchphrase when he heard one, turned “the party of no” back on Republicans in the spring of 1993 when President Clinton was working to pass a stimulus bill. Clinton himself went further the following year, calling the Republicans the party of “no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no,” in an angry speech at a Boston fund-raiser. Other leading Democrats like Al Gore and Dick Gephardt used the phrase to disparage Republicans in the Clinton era.

At the beginning of George W. Bush’s second term, “the party of no” became a Republican talking point again, spearheaded by Tom DeLay, then the House majority leader. After Bush’s 2005 State of the Union address, DeLay said of the Democrats: “They’ve become the party of ‘no.’ No ideas, no solutions, no agenda. You know, ‘Just say no’ is not an agenda.” Now, five years later, the no wheel has turned yet again, proving that Reagan’s original phrase is endlessly adaptable to changing political circumstances.

Yes and no can accrue symbolic heft through what linguists call “zero nominalization,” whereby a noun is created from some other part of speech without adding a typical suffix like -ness or -ation. Nouny versions of yes and no have enjoyed quite a ride from the political class, but they also get plenty of play in pop culture. On the positive side of the ledger, Wendy Macleod’s play and subsequent movie adaptation “The House of Yes” tells the story of an entitled rich girl who will not be denied. Maria Dahvana Headley’s 2006 memoir of a year spent accepting dates from any man who asked her out is titled, naturally enough, “The Year of Yes.”

But the power of no is even more primal, perhaps because it is so often among the first words that English speakers learn as children. The poet James Tate imagines it as a territory of sorts, writing, “I went out of myself into no, into nowhere.” In slangy vernacular, no can turn into a material substance: the teenage title character in the 2007 movie “Juno” protests, “That’s a big, fat sack of no!” Bauer-Griffin Online, a paparazzi photo blog, critiques celebrities with snarky headlines like “Kelly Preston Is a Bucket of ‘No’ ” or “Phoebe Price, Pile of ‘No.’ ” In our culture of negativity, all too often the noes have it.

Reader Question
Barbara Orris asks: “The word avuncular means ‘of, pertaining to, or characteristic of an uncle.’  Is there a word that means pertaining to or characteristic of an aunt?”

A handful of adjectives related to aunts have been recorded in English, though none are as common as the male counterpart, avuncular. The most straightforward is auntly, modeled after motherly, fatherly, sisterly and brotherly, with scattered usage back to the 1830s. (Uncly is even rarer.) Auntish and auntlike are other alternatives that append aunt with familiar suffixes.

If we take the Latinate approach à la avuncular, then the Oxford English Dictionary provides materteral, attested since 1823 in humorous use, meaning “characteristic or typical of an aunt.” Classics majors would be quick to point out that the Latin roots of these words only cover maternal siblings: avunculus means “mother’s brother” and matertera means “mother’s sister.” On the paternal side, there’s patruus for “father’s brother” and amita for “father’s sister.”

In 1982, when William Safire asked his loyal Lexicographic Irregulars for “a word to fill this black hole in our vocabulary,” creative suggestions included auntique, tantular, tantoid, and tantative. One of his correspondents, Arianna Stassinopoulos (now better known as Arianna Huffington), was drawn to the Latin root amita, noting that “so far no English word derived from it exists.” She added, “There is, however, no reason why we cannot here and now invent it and proclaim that all aunts on the father’s side must from now on end their letters  ‘Yours amitally.’” Safire declared amital the best of the lot, despite the “happily drugged” sound of it.

Amital has, in fact, cropped up in anthropological studies of kinship since the 1940s but, like materteral, it has never made any headway in general use. Avuncular, meanwhile, has proved a durable descriptor for older public figures with a kindly demeanor, like Ronald Reagan and Walter Cronkite. It would probably take a thesis in gender studies to explain this terminological imbalance. Notably, traditional stereotypes about aunts have often been less than flattering: a literature search for auntish turns up many examples of “maiden auntish,” evoking images of forlorn spinsterhood.

Our new language columnist, Ben Zimmer, will answer one reader question every other week.

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Full article and photo: http://www.nytimes.com/2010/03/21/magazine/21FOB-onlanguage-t.html

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