The name of the inch comes from the Anglo-Saxon word ynce. This was a very early borrowing of the classical Latin word uncia. Both words meant `twelfth' (fractional part, not ordinal number) in general, and `inch' (twelfth part of a foot) specifically. In post-classical Latin, uncia also came to have the specific meaning of a twelfth of a pound. A twelfth of a troy or apothecaries' pound is still called an ounce (ultimately from uncia, of course, but via French) or something similar in various European languages. The sense of ounce was extended slightly to mean a subdivision of a pound or of a volume that weighs a pound, so we have the avoirdupois ounce, which happens to be a sixteenth part of an avoirdupois pound, and the fluid ounce.

Although German has Unze in the (now largely disused) sense of `ounce,' it seems that no Germanic language besides English borrowed uncia as a unit of length. It is typical that English reborrowed uncia and has two derived words. Since Romance languages developed from post-classical Latin, it was slightly harder for them to borrow uncia in the earlier sense. They typically use the word for thumb or a word derived from it. (E.g., in Spanish pulgar is `thumb' and pulgada is `inch.' In Italian and French the word for thumb also means `inch,' though in Italian one can also use dito `digit' for `inch.') The classical Latin word pulex (`flea') gave rise to similar-sounding words (e.g., Spanish pulga) for flea. The English word puce is derived from the French word for flea.

There's an Indology mailing list, archives at <http://listserv.liv.ac.uk/archives/indology.html>; you can subscribe by sending the one-line message
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Here's the Indian page of an X.500 directory.

``accessIndiana'' is the state's official website. USACityLink.com has a page with mostly city and town links for the state.

Here's a page of legal and legislative information served by the Indiana University School of Law -- Bloomington.

In 1868, Heinrich Schliemann tried to become a citizen of Indiana (a ``Hoosier'') so that he would be able to divorce Ekaterina.

Indium is a soft metal at room temperature. This makes it especially useful in putting together waveguides. A typical waveguide system is composed of mostly straight lengths of copper waveguide, each length with a flange soldered to each end. The flanges have screw holes in standard locations, and the units are screwed together flange-to-flange. If you need a really good seal -- to maintain a vacuum or a particular gas at some determined pressure, say -- you probably need a sealant between the flanges. Indium does the trick: loop some indium wire on the face of one of the flanges and screw it tight. Of particular importance is the fact that indium, because it is a metal, conducts electricity. Hence, there is not a large impedance discontinuity at the join. (Indium is not a very good conductor, but the seal is thin and broad, so it conducts well enough.)

Learn other stuff at its entry in WebElements and its entry at Chemicool.

Anyway, it's always interesting to see what the exceptions to the natural gender assignments are. With ``natural gender'' in the usual sense (male/female grammatical gender), it seems that an enormously common exception is construing children as neuter. With animate/inanimate gender, I don't know enough examples to say what is common, but I can mention that in Basque, tables are construed animate, and I've heard that in Ojibwey (in some spelling; what used to be called Chippewa), stones are animate. I'll have to check into all of this stuff later. Right now I just wanted to get the entry in so I could quote the late Stanislaw Lem (d. April 5, 2006).

In the prologue to his Wysoki Zamek (1975), he ruminates on memory. Michael Kandel's translation from the Polish (Highcastle: A Remembrance, 1995) has this at page vi:

  I really don't know when it was that I first experienced the surprise that I existed, surprise accompanied by a touch of fear that I could just as easily have not existed, or been a stick, or a dandelion, or a goat's leg, or a snail. Or even a stone. ...

I guess now I need to explain one or another of the anthropic principles. Knowledge is inconveniently interconnected and never-ending.

Next page, Lem writes that ``For a while I firmly believed that my soul--or rather, my consciousness--was located four or five centimeters inside my face, behind the nose and a little below the eyes. I have no idea why.'' Could it be that he has a Japanese soul? I can't say I've studied this matter adequately, but in the US certainly and, I think, in the West generally, the gesture to indicate oneself is a closing of the fingers of one hand into a fist with the thumb pointing at one's chest or belly, typically acompanied by a slight motion of the hand or thumb towards the body. In Japan, the gesture is pointing with an extended index finger at one's nose.

Lattice constant is 6.058 Å.

1. Encyclopedia USA: The Encyclopedia of the United States of America Past & Present
   It's a fifty-volume dictionary of American biography, bulked up with entries for items that are, to varying degrees, not people: the Agricultural Adjustment Act, the Abraham Lincoln Brigade, Fort Abraham Lincoln, and Agriculture - Machinery. The first volumes were issued in 1983, and the project petered out the 1990's after 29 regular volumes and three supplementary volumes. For more detail, see Encyclopedia USA.

This is an equal-opportunity disengenuousness, because no scientific evidence is ever conclusive beyond a metaphysical doubt.

I found that bit of hippogriff dander on p. 121 of Dorothea E. Olkowski's Postmodern Philosophy and the Scientific Turn (Indianapolis Univ. Pr.), and I had an urge to share.

The initialism I.S.S. is now sometimes used to refer to the system before consolidation. I don't know what the practice was at the time. I suppose I could find out.

The same issue of Esquire, Bruce McCall takes a whack at Golf.

Okay, then, let's inject some interestingness. German uses a total calque of independent: unabhängig -- literally `not hanging off.' Wow!

Very important for heavily inflected languages is lemmatized entries. That is, entries for different forms of a word given together under a base form of the word as headword. This sort of intelligent lemmatization was expected in the traditional indices verborum. In other languages like, well, mostly in English, intelligent lemmatization has to do mainly with distinguishing homographs.

Indie is also a kind of rock music, related to grunge and goth, descended from punk, but all the categories are mixed up these days. NIN is an indie band. There's an indie music newsgroup: <rec.music.industrial>.

Indigenous is ultimately from the Latin indigena, `native [person].' This was constructed from indi- + gignere. The prefix indi- or indu- was an ancient (even for Latin) combining form of the preposition in. The heavily contracted gignere, in the passive, means `to be born.'

Indigent is ultimately from the past partiple (which provides the -nt) of Latin indigere, `to lack.' This was constructed from indi- (also) + egere, `to want.'

Get your tickets now.

Typical speeds for tectonic plate movements are in the range of 1-10 cm per year. The most rapid collision, of the Indian Ocean plate thrusting against the Eurasian plate, is estimated at as much as 20 cm/y, and is raising the Himalayas on the order of 1 cm/y. Thumbnails and children grow at comparable rates. Something to think about the next time someone says ``geological time scales.''

My first flights, age 18 months, were in little propeller planes over the Andes, crossing the cordillera between Argentina and Chile. One time when we encountered an especially bad patch of turbulence, my mother pretended that we were on an amusement park ride -- Uuu-up!!! Doownnn! Wheee!!! The other passengers stared with wide eyes set in green faces. I have one word for those of you reading this now who were along with us for that ride: Chill. If we die, we die. If we live, the baby froths with drooly joy instead of bawling in terror.

In origin, the word comes from Latin meaning `nonspeaking,' hence a very young child. Very quickly, the meaning in Old French was extended to include a boy or youth, hence the military term infantry (unmounted soldiers).

The earliest recorded Middle English use is consistent with this contemporary Old French usage, and in England today, some schools for the early primary grades are called Infants' Schools. Nevertheless, the semantic field of infant has generally shrunk back toward its original sense.

It's called financial infidelity for a reason. Really, it's the same kind of lying as sexual infidelity. It hurts and makes people angry on a lot of the same levels, and that's because it's a broken trust.

My instant reaction was that this made sexual infidelity seem a whole lot less serious. Plus which, only one spouse gets screwed.

Among French-speakers, informations is a faux ami. The French word information functions both uncountably, as in English, and countably, primarily with the sense `piece of information.' Given the sense of the countable use, the plural is very similar in meaning to the uncountable use. E.g., ``ces informations sont confidentielles'' means `this information is confidential.' However, it seems that the plural tends to be used in the sense of `news items.'

This situation in German is similar to that in French, with singular form Information and regularly-formed plural Informationen. The word is regarded as having been borrowed into German directly from Latin rather than from French; the first extant instances (I like to say that) date from the fifteenth century.

The plural (informaciones) occurs in Spanish, but the singular (información) is usually understood as uncountable. For whatever reason, the erroneous use of informations in English by people more comfortable in Spanish doesn't seem very common to me, and I know a lot more people whose native language is Spanish than whose native language is French.

I'm not going to research the situation in Russian, but I will mention that a Russian-speaking friend just sent me an email that included the phrase ``another info.'' (It could be due to one of his other languages, but those don't have as much absorbed Latin.)

Their homepage is very focused to advertising and support, with little PR (i.e., little of interest that isn't closely related to their products).

None of this is even remotely like Alexander's solution of the knotty Gordian problem.

Properties interpolate between those of InAs and of GaAs.

The particular alloy composition in InGaAs that lattice matches InP is In_0.53Ga_0.47As, for which

Effective mass m^* = 0.041 m₀
density = 5.5 g/cc
longitudinal sound velocity = 4.74 km/s
Deformation-potential constant E_i for acoustic-phonon interaction = 9.2 eV
Transverse elastic constant c₁₂ = 39.56 GPa
Piezoelectric constant h₁₄ = 254 MV/m
Lattice constant a = 5.862 Å
LO phonon energy = 34.5 meV
Static dielectric constant = 13.88
Optical dielectric constant = 11.34

Properties interpolate between those of InP and of GaP.

I remember a conversation with a Polish colleague once, in which he was trying to get me to pronounce a Polish word that contained an en with an acute accent. This was evidently a palatalized en. I pronounced it that way, and he kept saying that I almost had it, but that palatalized en wasn't quite right. He was never able to explain how to correct it in a way I could understand, and I wasn't able to hear the difference. Looking into it now I think it may have been that Polish dentals t and d, as well as n, are articulated more nearly dentally (tongue against upper front teeth) than they are in English or Spanish (tongue just a little bit further back, against the gum).

In any case, I think that in Spanish there is really no difference between nie and ñe (in any dialect I am familiar with), but that historical spelling counts for something.

For a more interesting and possibly nonexistent INIS, see FEMIS.

Inklings is a clever name. On one hand, an inkling is a perceived clue or suspicion, but the word can be seen as a play on ink and the gentilicial ending -ling (hence meaning something like a printer's devil or more loosely anyone associated with writing).

The Inklings Handbook: A Comprehensive Guide to the Lives, Thought, and Writings of C.S. Lewis, J.R.R. Tolkien, Charles Williams, Owen Barfield, and Their Friends, by Colin Duriez and David Porter, was published in 2001 (St. Loius, Mo.: Chalice Pr.). Our library owns a copy but it's out, and I'm not going to trouble anyone with a recall just to satisfy your idle curiousity. But I will try to work up an Apostles entry. We do already have a Bloomsbury entry.

The usual normal modes of a system are defined to describe deviations from equilibrium. In that case, the total configurational energy of a system with many degrees of freedom is expanded in increasing powers of a configuration-coordinate vector.
[More precisely, in powers of u = r - r_e , which measures the deviations u_i (of particles labeled by i) from their equilibrium coordinates r_ei.]

The zero-order term is a not-very interesting constant. The first-order term is the dot product of the configuration coordinate deviation vector u with a constant matrix the represents a generalized restoring force. In equilibrium, the restoring forces vanish.

The lowest-order term that does not usually vanish is the second-order term, a constant matrix dotted with two copies of u. This constant matrix is called the dynamical matrix. Its eigenvectors are the normal modes. If the second-order approximation is correct, then it is possible to excite individual modes of the system independently. The frequency of oscillation of these excited modes (eigenvectors) is given by their corresponding eigenvalues, which in terms of the preceding description, for a system of particles of identical mass m, are mw²/2, where w (read ``omega,'' please) are the eigenmode frequencies. If the particles have varying masses, or the coordinates are not chosen as orthogonal Cartesian position coordinates, or the system consists of more complicated fundamental objects (extended objects with internal angular momentum, say), then a direct analysis of the potential energy function alone is not exactly appropriate. Instead one uses a Hamiltonian or Lagrangian formulation, and through equivalent steps arrives at a dynamical matrix whose eigenvectors again describe independent modes of harmonic oscillation and whose eigenvalues are the squared frequencies.

To be continued after dinner. (Not the most recent dinner.)

All the contractions mentioned are for singular or uncountable nouns. There are no corresponding in contractions for feminine gender or plural number, that I am aware of, but I've been surprised once already today, so you never know. (The preposition in governs only an accusative or dative object, depending on the sense.)

The notion of innateness is an important one in philosophy, and the connection between philosophy and adult beverages goes back a long, long way. Socrates drank himself to death, and the great philosopher W.C. Fields is believed to have reasoned, ``Everybody's got to believe in something. I believe I'll have another beer.''

Jà only seems to have been definitively replaced by déjà in the twentieth century; the earlier word is attested at the beginning of the twelfth century; that little parasite on the a appeared in the eighteenth century. (The word is ultimately from the Latin iam. For details, see the entry for jà in the TLF.) The twelfth century is the time when Old French emerges in literature, and pas seems to have solidified its grammaticalization into a negative auxiliary not too long before, so the proposed expression is antiqued back at least nine centuries. (I'm not sure, but I think the conjugated form vu is not anachronistic.)

Do not confuse this conference with the Northwest Conference on Philosophy (at the University of Portland in 2006 [58th annual meeting]).

As the voice for private schools in Indiana, INPEA makes sure we are at the forefront of all topics affecting non-public education.

I guess they just couldn't think of a better way to avoid an acronym that would be pronounced ``I pee.'' It doesn't seem to faze the intellectual property people. I would have preferred ``INdiana Private independent Or Denominational educational association.'' (Well, I didn't saaaay that I would have ``recommended'' it. I'm not that foolish.)

Clicking on the Resources item under the Services menu, the only ``resources'' listed is a printable standard form: ``Request for Waiver of Penalty for Loss of Instructional Day.'' It seems that a filing is necessary only if lost time is not recovered by rescheduling. It is also clear (see this ``state issue'') that a penalty is not assessed so long as the school corporation offers ``at least 180 student instructional days.'' There's a penalty not just for whole lost days but also for the loss of more than 120 minutes in a single day due to delay or early dismissal. Presumably this means school days shortened to contain less than three hours (grades 1-6) or four hours (grades 7-12) of instructional time, since a ``student instructional day'' consists of a minimum of five and six hours of instructional time in the respective cases. (It would reasonable, given the number of days in a year and hours in a day, to limit homework to a maximum of 43 and 42 hours per day, respectively, but this has not been done. It's probably too difficult to coordinate the different classes.)

Penalties are assessed as a pro rata reduction in the amount of tuition support provided by the state [Kind of a big deal the ``Choice'' (voucher) schools.] State accreditation also depends on meeting state minimums. There is an automatic waiver (for penalty and accreditation purposes) for days shortened by less than 120 minutes due to utility failure or weather, if the lost time is made up somehow, but there is no place on the form to request a waiver of penalty for the loss of, say, 110 minutes due to something else. I guess if there's a fender-bender in front of the school that delays the start by fifteen minutes, you should cancel two hours so you have a chance to escape penalties. (Just one idea!)

Anyway, it doesn't look good for a loss-of-instructional-day waiver to be the only, and therefore the featured, resource -- even during this monstrous winter (December 2013 through May 2014).

The INS has a reputation for poor customer service, though I just phoned them and on just the second try they humored me with only mild contempt (of course, I'm not a ferinner). Among the many hypotheses to explain why they treat foreigners so shabbily, one that hadn't occurred to me before is simply institutional: they're part of the Justice Department (DOJ)! Most of their intradepartmental colleagues (see DOJ org chart) organize their entire thinking in terms of good guys and bad guys, while INS deals with ``us and them.'' The confusion is irresistible.

Lattice constant is 6.479 Å.

The guide is apparently compiled from phone interviews with students at 300-odd colleges deemed worth profiling. They're vague on the interview methodology, but here's a clue to help you judge its accuracy. The clue is from their entry for the University of Notre Dame, which begins with this paragraph:

Not far off the interstate in South Bend, Indiana, a statue of a bearded man in flowing robes stands atop the library of the University of Notre Dame. ``Touchdown Jesus,'' as he is known to students, is representative of all that Notre Dame stands for--Catholic ethics, a rigorous education, and football.

Set aside a few minor flaws in this sentence -- the campus of Notre Dame is outside, not in, South Bend; the university has a number of libraries, though Hesburgh Library (the one with Touchdown Jesus) is the largest; the robe looks tightly wrapped and hangs vertically, so if ``flowing'' means anything, then this one isn't. But apart from the minor errors there is this boner: Touchdown Jesus is not a statue that ``stands atop the library,'' it is a part of a mosaic that covers most of the front of the building above the second floor. The building faces south toward the sacred football stadium, and Touchdown Jesus's line of sight is along the center of the field, from goalpost to goalpost. His arms are raised so it looks as if he is about to make the hand signal that football referees make for a touchdown.

I imagine a staffer at Yale was told that Touchdown Jesus is ``on'' the library and imagined the rest. It suggests the kind of misunderstanding that can occur in phone-it-in ekphrasis. I suppose one might argue that a zebra Jesus is somehow ``representative of ... rigorous education.''

The Insider's, or Not-so-far-outsider's, Guide to Colleges is written in the standard stilted style of undergraduates. Still, though better-written than the average freshman paper, it is filled with authentic-sounding local-informant quotes. So if you want to build up a taxonomy of undergraduate errors across the academisphere, this corpus has the advantage that you might at least be able to stomach it. Notes toward that taxonomy project:

1. Nearest-noun concord: ``During the winter, going to the hockey games are a MUST!''
2. Mixed idiom: ``a last-ditch resort.'' (Save me a rut.)
3. Ill-considered qualifier: ``We're not just a bunch of NYU rejects.'' (CUNY turned us down too!)

1. Widely well regarded
2. crap.

``Be a man!'' said I. ``You are scared out of your wits! What good is religion if it collapses under calamity? Think of what earthquakes and floods, wars and volcanoes, have done before to men! Did you think God had exempted Weybridge? He is not an insurance agent.''

1. My Kid's an Honor Student, Your Kid's a Loser, by Ralph Schoenstein. Recommended by Bill Cosby, despite the comma splice. Subtitled The Pushy Parent's Guide to Raising the Perfect Child.
2. I'm Perfect, You're Doomed, by Kyria Abrahams. Another comma splice, so many parallels! Subtitled Tales from a Jehovah's Witness Upbringing.