Inside Joke(s) -- But Lots Of Fun -- With A Bakken Connection -- Sort Of -- August 2, 2018 -- The "Upside Down "e"

This page is simply for the fun of it. If you are serious about the Bakken, I would skip this page. Normally I don't post this stuff, but:

• today is a pretty slow news day after a hectic week earlier;
• market futures were down (a lot) and I haven't checked the opening, and won't; but, more importantly,
• this is really, really very clever; and I learned a lot in the process; and,
• Arianna will love it;

First, quick, what's a "schwa"?

Let's go to wiki for an example:

In linguistics, specifically phonetics and phonology, schwa (/ʃwɑː/, rarely /ʃwɔː/ or /ʃvɑː/; sometimes spelled shwa) is the mid central vowel sound (rounded or unrounded) in the middle of the vowel chart, denoted by the IPA symbol ə, or another vowel sound close to that position. An example in English is the vowel sound of the 'a' in the word about. Schwa in English is mainly found in unstressed positions, but in some other languages it occurs more frequently as a stressed vowel.

Wow, that's a complicated paragraph. Easier, a schwa:

• an upside down "e"
• pronounced "schwa" 
• used in dictionaries to help people learn how to pronounce a syllable
• an unstressed syllable

At this point I have to give away a bit of the punch line because it's pretty obscure. But did you note that part about the "schwa" generally being unstressed in the English language?

So, first inside joke, from teepublic (make sure you have only one "p" in that URL:

Okay, that's pretty good so far but it gets better.

If an extraterrestrial alien were to study the English language on her own, how many ways might she think about how to pronounce "Sioux." Yup. "Schwa" would be one possibility. LOL. I assume "lewisandclark" -- lineage traced back to blue-stocking Brits -- would have called the Lakota, the "schwa." 

Now this, from a reader, and, wow, this reader had to be incredibly alert, an eagle-eye to spot this. From a comic strip:

The inside joke. Of course, everyone worth her salt in North Dakota will get the inside joke, but for everyone else "the fighting schwa" is a reference to the (RIP) "fighting Sioux."

Now, just between you and me, I think that's pretty clever. The reader who sent that to me also thought it was very clever; that's why the reader sent it to me. Hellooooo....

Now, how in the world does this end up in a cartoon strip and on this blog?

The rest of the story:

The screenshot is from "Amanda The Great," drawn by a cartoonist literally living in the heart of the Bakken, in Watford City, ND. And, yes, el-Dweek is her true surname, married.

Here's a March 2, 2018, article in The Williston Herald about the cartoonist, Amanda El-Dweek. It seems I've blogged about her before. I forget. I know when I first saw the surname, I assumed it was of Syrian descent.There's a huge Syrian population in western North Dakota -- I have blogged about that before -- many of whom made the Williston farming communities what they are today: huge, and highly successful, growing the best pasta-making hard wheat in the world. From the linked article:

El-Dweek, of Watford City, draws the comic stip “Amanda the Great,” online at GoComics.com. The cartoon is light-hearted, focusing on the daily struggles of a woman who looks a lot like her.

As a matter of fact, it for the most part is her. So it’s no surprise people get to know her through her strip.

Amanda the Great has long been El-Dweek’s fictional counterpart. Coming up with the name was fairly easy.

“I used to sign my papers that way in college, and I got scolded for it. And rightfully so,” she said. “I did it just to be funny and not out of arrogance or anything.”

Okay, so where were we? Ah, yes, "the fighting Schwa."

I guess that's the end. I never knew what that upside-down 'e' was called and now I know. I can't wait to discuss this with Arianna, our oldest granddaughter who knows something about everything. Something tells me she will know what a "schwa" is. LOL.

I wanted to post a music video of Siouxsie Sioux at this point, but I just can't get "into' her music. So no Siouxsie Sioux video. We'll have to do with something else.

Loud and lots of bass:

I Love Rock & Roll, Joan Jett and The Blackhearts

*********************************

The Book Page

Wow, sometimes I think the Grapevine (TX) public library is the best little public library in the world.

Book for the week: Ravensbrueck: Life and Death in Hitler's Concentration Camp for Women, Sarah Helm, c. 2014.

How she researched this story is incredible. Had it not been for her, the story would have likely been lost.

The book:

• prologue: 8 pages
• the book itself: 658 pages with a 26-page epilogue
• six pages of acknowledgements
• twenty-two pages of notes.
• bibliography: 13 pages
• index: 20 pages

Prologue: the setting. How this "quest" began. Her first visit to Ravensbrueck, about an hour's drive from Berlin's Tegel airport.

Chapter 1: Langefeld (chief female guard)

• history of Johanna Langefeld, a chief guard at Ravensbrueck; single mom with one son; what she saw of returning German soldiers after WWI reminds me of the second half of the movie, Lawrence of Arabia -- and right, wrong, indifferent, explains a lot; apparently drifted away after the liberation (not sure about this) and suddenly, mysteriously reappeared at the door of a former prisoner, Grete Bber-Neumann, 1957, Frankfurt to tell her (Langefeld's) story
• history of Heinrich Himmler -- makes me think of the movie, The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo
• the history of the camps -- not what most folks think
• first camp: Dachau
• Appellplatz: camp square
• how German women became infatuated with Adolf Hitler -- fascinating
• camps were not originally meant for Jews
• began with Hitler's determination to round up and crush all opposition, mostly Communists
• SS: Schutzstaffel, the paramilitary squad first formed as Hitler's personal bodyguard; by the time Hitler came to power in 1933, Himmler had transformed the SS into an elite force; one of its tasks was to run the new concentration camps
• Hitler's model for these concentration camps: concentration camps used for mass internment by the British during the South African War of 1899 - 1902. Dachau was the prototype -- designed by Himmler himself
• first commandant of Dachau: Theodor Eicke -- a monster, if there ever was one
• one of Theordor Eicke's recruits was Max Koegel, the future commandant of Ravensbrueck
• the story of the women of Jehovah's Witnesses-- fascinating

Chapter 2: Sandgrube

Enough for now. Will be continued elsewhere.