zwölf zu eins

This Sunday, the citizens of Switzerland are set to vote for an unprecedented measure that would limit the exorbitant pay of company executives to a maximum of twelve times what the lowest paid employee of the same company earns. Opinion is split and early polls show that there is no clear winning margin with some economists championing the idea in hopes that such a cap at the high end will cause low end wages to rise and importantly calls attention to gross wage disparity and golden-parachutes often handed out for bad behaviour and poor performance in a society that values egalitarian qualities.
On the other hand, an equal amount argue that enforcing such a rule would handicap the ability of Swiss businesses to attract or retain talented leadership. It's comforting to believe that a clerk in the company mail room or a janitor might bring home a salary that's a direct and not too immodest ratio, not earning less in a year than what the highest compensated bring home in a month of the CEOs pay, but I suppose such functions are already contracted out to the lowest-bidder. What do you think about Switzerland's opportunity to make a statement? Whatever the outcome, I don't think the debate will stop when the ballots are counted.

whether and neither

Since the decision in Germany and several other countries to allow records of birth a third option for sexual identity as indefinite, as opposed to male or female, there has been much discussion among linguists on how to frame this new category—with tact and sensitivity. There have been quite a few proposals put forward, which mostly support removing gender distinction from language, culling nuance in other ways too, or reforming the word neuter and its equivalents so as to make it have no negative connotations.

Speech reflects realities, however, and not the other way around. Going back to Latin roots, neutral from neutralis simply means neither and the unrelated word neuter comes from ne-uter—not whether, not either (unweder auf Deutsch) and suggests impartiality, which probably captures the meaning conveyed the best. It is a distinct challenge, however, to introduce or re-introduce a new designation without controversy or stigma. Despite past social aversion, this is a condition that exists for not just a clinical minority, and depending on the jurisdiction, it is a matter for self-determination or a decision left to fretful parents with physician-recommendation. What do you think? Whether or not a particular language assigns gender along conventional and sometimes arbitrary lines or has any grammar of emasculation or misogyny, there is a lot of unspoken vocabulary having to do conventional roles and ready assignment.

a noun's a very special word – it's any name you ever heard

BoingBoing directs our attention to a clever little interview by Mother Jones magazine with the graphic designers behind the brilliant and massive Noun Project, which has—out of necessity—created icons to visually communicate some 17, 000 concepts. The artists go on to reveal that their motivation was kept up by educators reaching out to them for a larger set of symbols to equip autistic learners with as cues to see a task through.

Of course, these signs have broad appeal in their exhaustive and humourous coverage. Individual icons are available for fair-use purchase on the project's website.  Decades ago, there was a similiar prodigy, called Stefan Kanchev from Bulgaria who worked on the commercial advertizing side of the house, renowned for his endless business and industry logo designs.

macbeth effect

Here is an interesting vignette demonstrating how washing one's hands turns ones self-assessment towards the optimistic and provides a sense of closure. In clinical trials at least, in what could be named after Lady Macbeth or Pontius Pilate, subjects felt better after failing to accomplish an impossible task when encouraged to wash up afterwards. Egos from the hand-washers recovered significantly faster than those who did not, the study shows. I wonder, however, if the therapeutic results have to do with the body exorcizing defeat in the the mind symbolically or rather the low-hanging fruit effect, being assigned a very easy job after presented with one that was very hard.

yearbook, jahrgang

The exquisite BibliOdyssey delivers another brilliantly curated gallery with historical background with the annals of the Matriculation Register of the Basel Rectorate, documenting in three volumes enrollment and stewardship for the university continuously from 1460 to the year 2000, illustrated with beautiful paintings in miniature to bookend the reign of successive registrars and classes.  Be sure to linger a bit at this book to discover an amazing compendium of picture-books with stories about their origins sure to please any bibliophile.