Tired of logging on first thing Friday morning only to see that the Mojo Friday diary already has 1000+ comments?
Tired of people in more easterly time-zones having all the fun, and hogging all the mojo?
Tired of the Mojo Friday page being so huge and bloated by the time you see it that it brings your browser to its knees, thus preventing you from joining the fun?
You are? Welcome to the Mojo Friday -- West Coast Edition diary! This is no different than the other Mojo Friday diary, but provides a time-shifted alternative for left-coasters who can't be bothered to drag our sorry butts out of bed early enough to get in early on the regular Mojo Friday diary.
This is our second go at a West Coast edition. Last week's inagural effort turned out pretty well, here's hoping this one does better. Same rules, more or less, apply as with TexDem's regular mojo-thons.
Flip on over for this week's theme, What the F*** is up with English orthography, anyway?
Or-what-graphy?
Orthography. Two-dollar word for "our system of writing."
While there is much that is amazing about the written form of English (not least of which, its ability to perform real, honest-to-god telepathy between people separated by vast distances of time and/or space), there is much also about it that just plain sucks balls.
Gallagher did a bit on this, back in the 80s, in which he pointed out that while English pretends to have rules for how we pronounce what is written and how we write what we pronounce, by and large these rules slack off every chance they get, choosing instead to wander into dimly lit bars, pound a couple of shots of tequila, then slink off into a corner to sleep it off instead of actually helping us get busy with the business of communication.
I before E except after C? Gimme a break! What weirdo thought that one up?
Really, though, I suppose we should expect nothing less from a language that has clubbed several other languages into submission, dragged them back to its cave by the hair, and proceeded to have its way with their juicy vocabularies.
English has stolen heavily from Latin, Greek, French, and German, just to name a few. That's three separate language families, all trying to fit their particular slice of phonetic space onto the set of Meaningful Squiggles originally invented by the Phonecians.
No wonder, then, that the French-filched "fuselage" assigns a "zh" sound to the letter "g", while "pwnage", assigns the Right and Proper hard-G voiced velar stop?
But that's almost a fringe case, compared to some other offenders. I speak, mainly, of the letters C, K, and X.
C, that chameleon, gets to be [k] at the beginning of words (most of the time), [s] elsewhere (most of the time), except of course there are so many exceptions that it's hard to accept any so-called Rule that presumes to explain how the hell to pronounce this letter.
K, of course, is basically a subset of C, except when, you know, it's silent. Silent? What is this, French? Er, Norman? I remember boggling, as a kid, at the entire notion of slient-K, and it doesn't make any more sense to me now than it did then.
And then there's X. Good old hugs-and-kisses X. A letter that basically has no definable sound of its own. Sometimes it's [z]. Sometimes it's [ks]. Never does it serve any unique role, and IMHO only its prevalence in the prefix "ex-" has saved it from linguistic extinction lo these many centuries.
It's all so sad. I have no love lost for Latin, but those Romans did get one thing right: they had a completely regular system of orthography. You could tell, just from the spelling, exactly how to pronounce anything and vice versa. Too bad that all went to hell along with the rest of the empire.
Wait-- What's that you say? What about the vowels? Oh, don't even get me started on English vowels. Not when there's MOJO TO BE HAD!
Mojo Friday West-Coast Guidelines
If you comment you have to recommend all comments. (in order to receive mojo you have to give mojo. It's only good mojo manners.)
Everything you say may be taken as a joke (so if you ask a question, expect a silly answer)
You must recommend the diary (and pimp it unapologetically)
You don't have to comment to recommend.
You can't steal TexDem's idea (I already did, and one larceny is enough)
Please, no pictures or YouTubes until after 300 comments. Now, after 300, use a little common courtesy and be responsible in the number.
Mojo mojo mojo mojo, mojo mojo mojo...
Do these few things and you too can become a Trusted User, with all the rights, privileges, and free airline upgrades attendant thereto.
Mojo Friday Goals
A. At least 300 different commenters and 1000 comments by 1:30 PM PST and 1500 by 5:00 PM PST Friday Night that it's posted.
B. 100 recommends for each comment, at least.
C. Stay on Recommend List at least five hours (this requires some strategic planning by you guys, refer to guideline #3)
D. At least 200 diary recommends. 300 would be better, spread the word.
E. And always, fun fun fun.
F. Have at least 75% average participation rate as seen <somewhere> in the Mojo Friday West Coast Edition Postgame Show by <whoever volunteers first>. Hey, I can't do everything for you...
G. Have at least 30 kossacks over 90% participation.
H. Overload the servers with recommends, not to mention dominate Top Comments Mojo list. (we do tend to mess with the site with all of our recommends at one time)(also, to dominate the Top Comments Top Mojo we need at least 50 comments with over 200 recommends, see guideline B)
I. That's enough for now. (Have a suggestion? Post it.)
See also, MKinTN's diary on achieving greater success called How to Succeed at Mojo Friday Without Really Trying, and of course, the Official Mojo Friday Snecktionary.
[And credit where it is due, this set of rules has been cribbed, utterly without shame, from TexDem, who deserves credit for a piece of writing that will definitely last for the ages.