WOTD: intelligence quotient (IQ)

Today’s word is a number. More accurately it’s the score determined by one’s performance on a series of standarized tests designed to assess intelligence. The higher one’s IQ the more intelligent one is considered to be, at least according to the tests. Whether or not the IQ scale is an accurate or useful way of measuring actual intelligence is certainly debatable. There are many factors that make up intelligence and IQ tests assess only some of these.

Interestingly, the words idiot, imbecile, and moron were once associated with the IQ scale and were used by psychologists to describe those whom they considered to be “feeble-minded” or mentally retarded to varying degrees. The word “moron” for example, used to be the clinical term for someone who was “mildly-retarded,” and had an IQ of between 50 and 70.

Furthermore, the word “moron” is also strongly associated with the American Eugenics movement. Eugenics is the belief that certain characteristics can be intensified through “selective breeding.” Hypothetically, if a musically-proficient man and a musically-proficient woman have a child, then this child will be according to eugenics, a musical genius. However, it was also believed that certain negative characteristics could be eliminated using often draconian methods. People determined to be “morons” were discouraged from having children to prevent the creation of further morons. In some extreme cases, these “morons” were forcibly sterilised.

The Eugenics movement is a dark time in our history and the ideas and theories associated with it are now considered to be extraordinarily flawed, not to mention highly immoral. Thus, words like “moron” are no longer used by psychologists to describe people of low intelligence. Instead we use words like “dull.” Although, ironically the word “moron” actually means “dull” in Ancient Greek.

The modern IQ scale looks something like this:

Over 140 – Genius or almost genius
120 – 140 – Very superior intelligence
110 – 119 – Superior intelligence
90 – 109 – Average or normal intelligence
80 – 89 – Dullness
70 – 79 – Borderline deficiency in intelligence
Under 70 – Feeble-mindedness

On a final note, someone who possesses a high IQ and multiple university degrees can still be stupid. The following is an exchange between a doctor testifying as a witness in a court case, and the lawyer questioning him. Keep in mind that in order to become a lawyer one must study for many years, and then one must pass a very difficult exam.

Nevertheless…

Lawyer: “Doctor, before you performed the autopsy, did you check for a pulse?”
Witness: “No.”
Lawyer: “Did you check for blood pressure?”
Witness: “No.”
Lawyer: “Did you check for breathing?”
Witness: “No.”
Lawyer: “So, then it is possible that the patient was alive when you began the autopsy?”
Witness: “No.”
Lawyer: “How can you be so sure, Doctor?”
Witness: “Because his brain was sitting on my desk in a jar.”
Lawyer: “But could the patient have still been alive nevertheless?”
Witness: “Yes, it is possible that he could have been alive and practicing law somewhere.”

WOTD: bureaucracy

Unfortunately, today’s word is something that has become a fact of life for most of us living in the modern world. Dictionary.com defines bureaucracy as, “government by many bureaus, administrators, and petty officials.” Hehehe…I love how they used the word “petty” in their definition.

Additionally, bureaucracy can be associated with all large organisations and not just with government. Thus it is further defined as, “administration characterized by excessive red tape.”

Ahh…red tape. That’s a colloquial synyonym for bureaucracy and is defined as, “excessive formality and routine required before official action can be taken.” Much of this red tape is manifested in the form of letters from large organisations such as insurance companies or banks. Since so many must be sent out daily, such letters are automatically generated and sent out by computer. At no time are these letters seen by human eyes. This must be the case, otherwise why would dead people continue to receive letter after letter despite frequent and repeated attempts to inform the sender that the recipient of their letters is in fact deceased?

The following exchange is a classic example. It’s a bit long but definitely worth reading to the very end:

My father died on Jan 02, 1995. He left no forwarding address.

Therefore, it fell to me to collect his mail. I didn’t expect much really, since my sisters and I had been careful to notify his bank, insurance agent and a host of other businesses that one of their customers was no more. You would think a death notice would cut down on the amount of correspondence from those firms. Quite the contrary. Instead — for months, mind you — my deceased father continued to receive mail from companies that had been told of his passing but pressed on, determined to contact him anyway. The first to hope for a reply from beyond the grave was my father’s bank.

Dear Mr. Hanson,

Our records indicate payment is due for overdraft protection on your checking account. Efforts to contact you have proven unsuccessful. Therefore, we are automatically withdrawing your monthly $28.00 service charge from you account. Please adjust your records accordingly.

Sincerely,

The Phoenix Branch

Dear Phoenix Branch,

This is to notify you once again that Mr. Hanson died Jan 02, 1995. It is therefore unlikely he will be overdrawing his account. Please close his account, and adjust your books accordingly.

Sincerely,

Scott Hanson

Later that same week, I receive this note from Dad’s insurance company. Again, this is a firm that had been told in no uncertain terms of his death.

Dear Mr. Hanson, It’s time to renew your auto insurance policy! To continue your coverage, you must send $54.17 to this office immediately. Failure to do so will result in the cancellation of your policy, and interruption of your coverage.

Sincerely,

Your Insurance Agent

Dear Insurance Agent, This is to remind you that Mr. Hanson has been dead since January. As such, the odds he’ll be involved in a collision are quite minimal. Please cancel the policy, and adjust your books accordingly.

Sincerely,

Scott Hanson.

The next day, I went to my mailbox to find this:

Dear Mr. Hanson, Let me introduce myself. I am a psychic reader, and it is very important that you contact me immediately. I sense that you are about to enter a time of unprecedented financial prosperity. Please call the enclosed 900 number immediately, so I can tell you how best to take full advantage of the opportunities that are coming your way.

Sincerely,

Your Psychic Reader

Dear Psychic Reader, My father regrets he will be unable to call you 900 number. As a psychic reader, I’m sure you already know my father is dead, and had been for more than three weeks when you mailed your letter to him. I sense my father would be more than happy to take you up on your offer of a psychic reading, should you care to meet with him personally.

Sincerely,

Scott Hanson

P.S. Should you be in contact with my father in the future, please ask him if he’d like to renew his car insurance.

A few months of calm passed, and then these arrived:

Dear Mr. Hanson, Our records indicate a balance of $112 has accrued for overdraft protection on your checking account. Efforts to contact you have proven unsuccessful. Please pay the minimum amount due, or contact this office to make other arrangements. We appreciate your business and look forward to serving all of your future borrowing needs.

Sincerely,

Your Bank’s San Diego District Office

Dear San Diego District Office, I am writing to you for the third time now to tell you my father died in January. Since then, the number of checks he’s written has dropped dramatically. Being dead, he has no plans to use his overdraft protection or pay even the minimum amount due for a service he no longer needs. As for future borrowing needs, well, don’t hold your breath.

Sincerely,

Scott Hanson

Dear Mr. Hanson, Records show you owe a balance of $54.17 to your insurance agent. Efforts to contact you have proven unsuccessful. Therefore, the matter has been turned over to us for collection. Please remit the amount of $54.17 to our office or we will be forced to take legal action to collect the debt.

Sincerely,

Your Insurance Agent’s Collection Agency

Dear Collection Agency, I told your client. Now I’m telling you. Dad’s dead. He doesn’t need insurance. He’s dead. Dead, dead, dead. I doubt even your lawyers can change that. Please adjust your books accordingly.

Sincerely,

Scott Hanson

A few more months, and:

Dear Mr. Hanson, Our records show an unpaid balance of $224 has accrued for overdraft protection on your checking account. Our efforts to contact you have proven unsuccessful. Please remit the amount in full to this office, or the matter will be turned over to a collection agency. Such action will adversely affect your credit history.

Sincerely,

Your Bank’s Los Angeles Regional Office

Dear Los Angeles Regional Office, I am writing for the fourth time to the fourth person at the fourth address to tell your bank that my father passed away in January. Since that time, I’ve watched with a mixture of amazement and amusement as your bank continues to transact business with him. Now, you are even threatening his credit history. It should come as no surprise that you have received little response from my deceased father. It should also be small news that his credit history is of minor importance to him now. For the fourth and final time, please adjust your books accordingly.

Sincerely,

Scott Hanson

Dear Mr. Hanson, This is your final notice of payment due to your insurance agent. If our firm does not receive payment of $54.17, we will commence legal action on the matter. Please contact us at once.

Sincerely,

Your Insurance Agent’s Collection Agency

Dear Insurance Agent’s Collection Agency, You may contact my father via the enclosed 900 number.

Sincerely,

Scott Hanson

It has now been a couple of months since I’ve heard from these firms. Either the people writing these letters finally believe my father is Dead, or they themselves have died and are now receiving similar correspondence. Actually, there has been a lesson in these letters. Any one of them would be cause for great worry, if sent to a living person. The dead are immune from corporate bullying. There’s nothing like dying to put business correspondence in its proper perspective. Perhaps that’s the best reason not to fear death. There’s no post office there.

Until next time…

WOTD: nerdjacking

Once again I have the Urban Dictionary to thank for today’s word. It never fails to disappoint.

Continuing with this weekend’s nerd theme, today’s word is a particular phenomenon, whereby one momentarily and unwittingly engages others in nerdy topics of conversation despite and often in complete obliviousness to a total lack of understanding or interest on the part of the listener.

Clyde held Stella’s attention briefly, until he began nerdjacking the conversation by talking about World of Warcraft for four uncomfortable minutes.

This is apparently one of the most common symptoms of Asperger Syndrome.

WOTD: gastronomy

Today’s word is inspired by the fabulous lunch I had this afternoon with colleagues at one of the finest restaurants in Sweden. Sjömagasinet (The Lake Warehouse) is a Michelin starred restaurant that was until recently owned by Chef Leif Mannerström, a world-class chef who is one of the celebrity chef host/judges of Master Chef Sweden. In 2010 he sold the restaurant to Chef Ulf Wagner, another world-class chef who won the Chef of the Year award in 2010. The restaurant just happens to be located a short walk away from where I work, although today was the first time I’d eaten there.

I love food, you see. Everything about it. I love cooking it, reading about it, watching TV shows about it, and especially eating it. The word given to the art and science of good eating is our word of the day: gastronomy. It can also be defined as the study and appreciation of food and culture. A person who is well-versed in gastronomy is called a gastronome. I’m not sure if I’m one yet, but maybe one day…

Today’s lunch was a piece of halibut that was good enough for Jehova. It was perfectly cooked, sitting in a pool of the most beautifully complex lemon butter sauce, and topped with chopped fresh parsley, sun-dried tomatoes, and roasted pine nuts. Oh god…it was so good I had to hold myself back from gobbling it up in two mouthfuls. Instead I took small bites so I could savor every single well-developed flavor in every bite. It was easily the best food I’ve ever eaten in this country, and one of the best meals I’ve ever eaten in my life. Possibly the best.

Now I know where to take my family for lunch or dinner when they arrive in a few weeks. If you’re ever in Gothenburg you simply must try this restaurant. I was blown away by how good the food was.

WOTD: skitbra

The English language may have many more words than the Swedish language, but there are some words and phrases in Swedish which don’t really have an equivalent in the English language, and which I particularly love. One of those phrases is “skitbra,” which translates to “shit good.” It’s common in Swedish slang to place the word “skit/shit” in front of the adjective of one’s choice. The word “skit” functions as an auxiliary sentence modifier that emphasizes the meaning of the adjective. Therefore the word “skitbra” means not just good but rather good, thank you very much.

Other uses of the “skit/shit” modifier can be found in the following examples:

1. skitdåligt = shit bad

Den här filmen är skitdåligt! (This film is not very good.)

2. skitkallt = shit cold (referring to the weather/climate)

Fy fan, det är skitkallt idag. (My goodness, it’s cold today.)

3. skitvarmt = shit hot (ditto the above)

Fan också! Det är skitvarmt! (Dear me! It’s rather warm!)

More on Swedish slang and profanities later…

WOTD: justice

I just read on The Local: Sweden’s News in English, that Ephrem Yohannes, the man convicted of the brutal rape and murder of Elin Krantz, was sentenced to 16 years in prison for his crimes, after which he will be deported from Sweden. He’s also been ordered to pay 600,000 SEK to the victim’s family as compensation, as if mere money could possibly “compensate” her family for her loss.

This is how he has been ordered to pay for his crimes. Whether or not this sentence can be considered “justice” is a another matter entirely.

It seems a rather lightweight sentence to me considering the degree of brutality and ruthlessness of the crimes. Then again I was born and raised in the highly punitive culture of the United States, where citizens demand that lawmakers be as tough as possible on crime. In America, a violent rapist-murderer would receive no less than a life sentence. In some states he might even be sentenced to death. The idea of a violent criminal being sentenced to a mere sixteen years in prison would seem ridiculously lenient to most Americans. Including me.

Still, this is Sweden, where it is believed that every criminal no matter how far gone has the potential to be rehabilitated. I’m not so sure.

I happen to have a different perspective on this particular crime because it occurred practically in my backyard. Elin Krantz’s body was found in the woods next to the public tram stop that I use every single day. I remember like it was yesterday the morning that I walked to the tram stop like usual and noticed that the whole area was cordoned off with blue and white police tape. There were several police cars in the area and my first thought was that they must have found a body.

It didn’t occur to me exactly whose body until I boarded the tram and remembered seeing the notices posted on the inside of the tram stop shelter and on the door of the nearby supermarket. “Have you seen our sister?” the notices read below a picture of Elin Krantz. She went out on Friday night and never made it home. It was then Monday morning. I saw a man on the tram reading a newspaper with the main headline, “Body Found in (my neighborhood).” They hadn’t yet identified the body.

That’s when it hit me. Oh my god. Oh my god. It’s her! The body they found. It’s got to be her.

And sadly, it was.

WOTD: intoxicated

Yesterday at an after-work barbecue party, myself and a few colleagues were trying to come up with as many slang, figurative, and colloquial phrases we could think of for the adjective “intoxicated,” which is the most proper and clinical way of describing someone who has had too much to drink. Some of us were sightly intoxicated when this discussion came up and I found out that it’s difficult to pronounce “intoxicated” when one is intoxicated.

So I’ll have a go:

Drunk

Full som en kastrull (strange Swedish expression that translates to “as drunk as a saucepan.”)

Hammered

Smashed

Wasted

(And my personal favorite:)

Shitfaced

Of course there are more. Many many many more. But I don’t want to have all the fun. What amusing phrases can you come up with?

WOTD: California

I very rarely choose a proper noun as a featured word, but this article over on Dictionary.com about the origins of the state name California really caught my eye. California is a Spanish word so I probably assumed the state was named after some Spanish missionary. However, the story behind the California name is actually quite fascinating.

Apparently, when the Spanish began exploring the Pacific Coast they mistakenly thought California was an island. In fact, some of the earliest maps of this region depict California as separated from the mainland. “This is considered one of the greatest, albeit short-lived, cartographic errors.”

Not only that, they decided name the newly-discovered “island” after the mythical island of California from the novel Las Sergas de Esplandián, “The Adventures of Esplandián,” written by Spanish author Garci Rodríguez de Montalvo.

In the book, the mythical California is ruled by Queen Califa and populated only with female warriors who brandish gold weapons. They even harness their animals in gold because it is the only mineral on the island.

The legend of Califa and her island was well known among New World explorers. In 1536 when Hernán Cortéz arrived in Baja California, he believed he had landed on the legendary island.

Labeling it “California” on the charts led to future explorers thinking this was the actual island from the story, inhabited with Amazon-like women almost drowning in gold. Of course 300 years later gold was discovered in California which led to the Gold Rush, statehood, and the state’s nickname, “The Golden State.”

The State of California's bizarre flag.

Until next time…

WOTD: superstition

There is superstition…the writing’s on the wall…

Today’s word is a noun, a concept really, defined as, “a belief or notion (not based on reason or knowledge) in or of the ominous significance of a particular thing, circumstance, occurrence, proceeding, or the like.” I find superstition as a concept to quite fascinating. The idea that certain objects or actions could possibly affect the outcome of random future events is something that occurs in every nation on earth. However, like art and literature and other things created by humans, superstitious beliefs are culturally specific. Things that considered bad or good luck in one country have no significance whatsoever in others.

In the United States for example, it’s said to be bad luck to open up an umbrella indoors. Certain numbers are considered good or bad luck. The most well-known of these is the number 13. I’m not sure if it’s really true or just an urban legend that certain tall buildings and sky scrapers deliberately leave out a thirteenth floor because of the ominous significance of that number. However, in Japan the number 13 has no significance and the number four is bad luck. This is because the Japanese character for the number four looks similar to the character for death, or something.

Anyway, what I find really interesting about superstitious belief is that even people who swear they aren’t superstitious nevertheless find themselves altering their behavior because something is considered good or back luck in their culture. When I was living in Japan I remember being at a department store picking out an umbrella. Several others were there and they were all opening and closing different umbrellas in order to try them out. I’d heard people say that opening an umbrella indoors was bad luck, though I never seriously believed it. Yet, I found myself reluctant and almost uncomfortable with the idea of opening the umbrella inside the store. It was weird. How can the action of opening an umbrella indoors possibly have any affect on anything? And yet, I hesitated.

Some of the most superstitious people are actors and sports people. They might have been wearing a particular pair of socks and had an unusually good game or performance, so they decide that those socks must have certain powers and if they wear them for every single performance or game then they’ll have a greater chance of succeeding. Of course it’s all bullshit, and often they realize it’s bullshit, yet they still don’t feel ready to perform unless they’re wearing their totemic item.

Enough for now…

WOTD: Ascension

Today is Ascension Day or Kristihimmelfärdsdag (Christ-Heaven-Lift-Day) as it’s called here in Sweden. According to the New Testament this was the day when Jesus made his bodily ascent to heaven, which took place 40 days after the resurrection. So it’s a religious holiday and a “red day,” which in Sweden refers to a day on which one doesn’t have to work but for which one still gets paid. Sweet.

Such days are highlighted in Swedish calendars with red ink, and thus they have come to be known as “red” days.

Sweden is a funny place in many respects, and by funny I mean slightly odd. In most countries, religious holidays are times for family get-togethers, visits to churches and cemeteries, and moments of quiet reflection. Here in Sweden the major holidays of the year: Christmas, Easter, and Midsummer, are always celebrated on their “eves.” I used to wonder why but I have it figured out now.

The day before any religious holiday or red day is considered an acceptable time to get totally and embarrassingly shitfaced, so the actual day can be used as a hangover recovery day. Practical. Logical. Typically Swedish.

Bye for now…