Southpaw Presidents

I just read in an article that although only about 10% of people are left-handed, President Obama is now the 8th left-handed president out of 43 (He is the 44th president of the US, but Grover Cleveland was both the 22nd and the 24th!).

Every president since 1974 except for Jimmy Carter and George W. Bush has been left-handed (FYI, these would be Gerald Ford, Ronald Reagan, George H.W. Bush, Bill Clinton, and Barack Obama).  John McCain and Al Gore are also lefties.

"Some evolutionary advantage, whether overall greater intelligence or language skills, has kept a stable group of lefties for at least the past 200,000 years," said Chris McManus, professor of psychology and medical education at University College London.

I guess this kind of stuff is consistent with what everyone tells me -- that a disproportionately high percentage of mathematicians and other intellectuals are left-handed.  I wish I were a leftie!

Shoo-in

Wow, 3rd post in the last several hours after weeks of nothing.  Must be a lucky day.  In my previous post, I had originally used the term "shoe-in."  But upon Googling "shoe in," I ran across this page, which says that it should be spelled "shoo-in."  (This is now corrected in the previous post.)

The origin of the term "shoo-in," it seems, comes from horse racing, when a horse was so much faster than the rest that one could merely shoo it to the finish line rather than having to use more extreme measures.

The website has an impressive list of common English errors.  It reminds me of a book Michele has about common mistakes in English, though this website seems to include some idioms (e.g. shoo-in) and cultural references as well.

Speaking of errors, here is an embarrassing misspelling that occurred over the entirety of a television ad I saw today.

Dr. Who?  Oh dear...

2008 Oscar Nominations

The 2008 Oscar nominations were released today with, let's say, more than a few major disappointments.  First off, here is the list of nominees.  And here is the list of movies I saw this year:

• The Curious Case of Benjamin Button
• The Dark Knight
• Doubt
• Frost/Nixon
• Gran Torino
• Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull
• Kung Fu Panda
• Man on Wire
• Milk
• Revolutionary Road
• Slumdog Millionaire
• WALL-E

Now some observations and opinions about the nominations:

• Best Actor: Someone watch Revolutionary Road and honestly tell me that Leonardo DiCaprio doesn't deserve a nomination.  Definitely a much better performance than Brad Pitt's, and perhaps even rivaling Frank Langella's and Sean Penn's.  Ditto for Clint Eastwood in Gran Torino, though his omission seems a little more reasonable to me.
• Best Supporting Actor: Heath Ledger is a shoo-in for this one.  Philip Seymour Hoffman's and Michael Shannon's nominations are well-deserved.  Josh Brolin -- maybe...
• Best Actress: Again, watch Revolutionary Road and tell me that Kate Winslet doesn't deserve a nomination for that.  Though she did win Golden Globes for both movies (Best Supporting Actress for The Reader), so I am curious to see that movie.
• Best Animated Film: WALL-E is a shoo-in, and may have even been a contender for Best Picture, had it been submitted (which would have, I assume, made it ineligible for the Best Animated Film category).
• Best Directing: I'm not too big of a fan of The Dark Knight and have no problem with it not being nominated for Best Picture, but I still think it's blasphemous to not nominate it for Best Directing.
• Best Picture: Don't even get me started.  But if Slumdog Millionaire doesn't win in this (relatively) trashy quintet of nominees, something is really wrong with the Academy.
• Best Writing (Adapted Screenplay): This is a tough one to call.  I've seen 4 of the 5 nominees, but in my own opinion, I'd have to choose Frost/Nixon to win this one.
• The Curious Case of Benjamin Button: A 166 minute movie that is equivalent to a waste of about 136 minutes.  How it got nominations in anything non-technical is beyond me, and the pleasure I'd get from seeing it go 0-for-13 would be greater than the pleasure I got from watching the movie (close to none).

So here is my current top 5 of the year, keeping in mind that I do still have several movies yet to see, most notably 4 Months, 3 Weeks, and 2 Days; Frozen River; Happy-Go-Lucky; Iron Man; Let the Right One In; The Reader; Synecdoche, New York; and The Wrestler.

1. Revolutionary Road
2. Gran Torino
3. Slumdog Millionaire
4. WALL-E
5. Frost/Nixon

---

Update (6/17/09): Since I first wrote this, I have seen The Wrestler, Frozen River, Iron Man, and The Reader.  All of them were great.  I'd have to say that Iron Man is now #5 on the above list, with The Wrestler squeezing in as an honorable mention, pushing Frost/Nixon down to #7.  (Note: I did, in fact, like Iron Man significantly more than The Dark Knight.)

Oh My Gosh

This is sad but strangely funny:

Academy basketball coach sees a win in 100-0 loss
By Barry Horn, The Dallas Morning News

The final score of the high school girls basketball game was 100-0, and his team had the nothing. Still, a week later, Dallas Academy Athletic Director Jeremy Civello was chalking up the game in the win column.

Dallas Academy players and coach look back on the game and talk about never quitting and playing for more than the final score.

"My girls never quit," he said. "They played as hard as they could to the very end. They played with all their hearts at 70-nothing, 80-nothing and 100-nothing. I was really proud of them. That's what I told them after the game."

The game took place Jan. 13, on the road, against The Covenant School. Civello didn't expect his girls to win. He never really does. His girls haven't won a game in his four seasons at the White Rock Lake-area school, renowned for its work with students with a variety of learning problems. In most games, they haven't come close.

The Bulldogs play, Civello said, for more than the final score. They play in hope of improving skills, learning teamwork and picking up whatever life lessons athletics may bring.

[...]

Against Covenant, Dallas Academy was surprised to see an obviously superior team keep the pressure on until it scored its 100th point in the fourth quarter. "I'm sure they could have won by 30 points and still had just as good a time," Civello said.

[...]

The box score that the Covenant head of school has been staring at reveals that his team scored 35 points in the first quarter before building a 59-0 lead at the half. The score after three quarters was 88-0.

"They are really good," Civello said. "Their point guard is terrific. This is what it came down to in the second half: steal at half court and layup. Steal and layup. Steal and layup. It was a layup drill. They finally eased up when they got to 100 with about four minutes left." Covenant's point guard had 48 points.

Dallas Academy is busy piecing together a new schedule of nonleague games. The school, which has final exams this week, played its final TAPPS game of the season Thursday night. The Bulldogs lost, 41-8, to Cambridge School of Dallas.

Cambridge Athletic Director Luke Yarbrough, the TAPPS district president, said he hired his basketball coach with the understanding "that it is possible to beat a team without attempting to demoralize it."

He said he could see the joy on the faces of the Dallas Academy girls when their team scored its points. He enjoyed the view. "I was so happy for those girls," he said.

[...]

Later on the 100-0 night, Civello told his girls the life lesson they could take from their loss: "I told them someday they will be on top in a similar situation and they should remember how they felt when some people were cheering for a team to score a hundred points and shut us out. Hopefully, my girls all learned a lesson in sportsmanship that will last them a lifetime."

British English

I did some searching for British English phrases.  Here are some of my favo(u)rites, along with their American English translations.  Some of them may be more commonly used than others.

• agony aunt = advice column writer
• approved school = juvenile hall
• bedsit = studio apartment
• boardies = swimming trunks
• bum bag = fanny pack
• bumf = useless paperwork
• cagoule = parka
• cleg = horse-fly
• compere = emcee
• courgette = zucchini
• crotchet = quarter note (in music)
• dodgems = bumper cars
• electric fire = space heaters
• engaged tone = busy signal
• fairy lights = Christmas lights
• gaffer tape = duct tape
• gutties = tennis shoes
• hundreds-and-thousands = sprinkles
• ladybird = ladybug
• minim = half note (in music)
• OAP = senior citizen
• off-licence = liquor store
• pram = baby-carriage
• sleeping policeman = speed bump
• Tipp-Ex = Wite-Out
• vegetable marrow = squash (vegetable)
• Y-fronts = tighty whities
• zebra crossing = crosswalk

Now that I'm looking over this list again, it's kind of top-heavy.  Lots of words that begin with 'a,' 'b,' and 'c.'  But looking over the Wikipedia article I got these from, that list is kind of top-heavy too.  Oh well...