ARE ADULTS capable of learning from children? Yes, they are—with some
help from psychologists.
Gerald Winer, a professor at Ohio State University, asked a group of
nine-year-olds and a group of college students a series of questions along the
lines of “Do you see with your fingers?” and “Do you hear with your nose?”.
Almost every child, Winer writes in The Journal of Psycholinguistic
Research, answered the questions correctly, saying: “No.” But the majority
of college students got the answers wrong, responding with statements like “You
can sniff out trouble” to the second question, for example.
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In a follow-up experiment, Winer told the students their answers would be
evaluated alongside those from the nine-year-olds. This time, they answered
“cǰٱ”.
The problem with the adults, Winer says, is that they have learned to
interpret language metaphorically, whereas children take it literally. The adult
way may mean some wrong answers, but it can still be useful, he maintains. When
he asks his 18-year-old nephew “Can you pass me the salt?”, the lad has
apparently learned not to say “Yes” and do nothing.
IT CAN pay to be ethical. Rules on conflict of interest prevent government
officials in the US from having large stock holdings in public companies. So
last summer, incoming Army Secretary Tom White was obliged to sell off the
$25 million of company stock he had accumulated when he was a bigwig at
global energy trader Enron.
If he had sold it last week, when Enron crashed spectacularly, he would have
netted only about $118,000.
TRANSLATION services are proliferating on the Web, and some search engines,
such as Google, can translate Web pages for you. Indeed, with Google you can
select the language to use for the search engine interface. The list of
languages on offer is extensive (see services.google.com/tcbin/
tc.py?cmd=status). It includes not only the well-known languages such as
English, French and German, but also lesser known ones such as Frisian, Tamil
and Tagalog, and some quite unexpected ones, including Pig Latin, Hacker, Elmer
Fudd and Borkborkbork.
Borkborkbork? Oh, that’s the pidgin Swedish spoken by the chef in the TV show
The Muppets. Go to www.almac.co.uk/chef/chef/chef.html if you’d like
to know more.
SOMETHING feels a little odd when you go to the New South Wales Births,
Deaths and Marriages site (www.bdm.nsw.gov.au) to check out the details of
someone who has died. If you search for the person by name, you get a six-column
report with headings such as name, date of death, parents’ names and so on.
Finally, you are presented with the option: “Add to shopping basket.”
IF YOU are going to worry unnecessarily, at least do a good job of it. The
giant petrochemicals company BP believes that hydrogen is the fuel of the future
and has carried out market research to find out whether or not the public
agrees. Many people, however, brought up concerns over safety, pointing to
accidents such as the one that befell the hydrogen-filled Hindenburg in
1937.
“Some are even worried about the atom bomb,” revealed a BP market researcher
Feedback met at a conference recently. We pointed out that however misplaced
this fear might be, the A-bomb is still not the correct weapon to fret about.
“Ah, my mistake,” said the BP man. “I meant that they are worried about the
hydrogen bomb.” Quite.
DO YOU believe them? Reader Raphael Compagnon received a spam message ending
with these instructions: “This is a one time mailing and this list will never be
used again. To be removed from this list, please send an e-mail with the word
‘remove’ in the subject line to . . . “
FEEDBACK always ticks the box that asks you to confirm you don’t want to
receive junk mail from a company you are ordering goods from. So do readers
Martin and Steph Burton.
The Burtons were enjoying filling in a word puzzle in Prima magazine
in the hope of winning a money prize. The game involved finding a hidden word,
and to their delight they found the answer. The instructions with the game told
them to put the answer on a stamped postcard together with their name and
address, and send it off to the magazine.
They were just about to stick the stamp on the card when they noticed a data
protection statement accompanying the instructions in the magazine. “We may wish
to use your details,” it said. ” . . . If you do not wish to receive information
. . . tick this box.”
They duly ticked the box, and then suddenly realised the pointlessness of
what they had done. The box was in the magazine. How would Prima know
the Burtons had ticked it when it received their postcard?
MULTIDISCIPLINARY TERRORISTS: according to the Guardian
on 29 november, “two nuclear scientists” are “suspected of helping Osama bin Laden
develop chemical weapons using anthrax”
COMET, the electrical goods retailer, lists several camcorders on its website
www. comet.co.uk. Among these is the Samsung VP-W60/XEU 8-millimetre
camcorder, whose dimensions we are told are
“W 101.00 cm × D 174.00 cm × H 104.00 cm”.
The site doesn’t say anything about the forklift truck you will need to help
you carry it.
UNFORTUNATE wording seen by reader Robert Walsh in a hotel elevator in San
Francisco: “In the event that the elevator halts or the doors fail to open: 1.
Please do not become alarmed. 2. Press the button labelled ‘Alarm’.”
FINALLY, we continue to receive letters from readers telling us about their
experiences with ambiguously worded signs. For a veritable feast of semiopathic
bafflement, check the online Letters section on our website www.newscientist.com.
