Reading Barbara’s lovely discussion about “how local to go”, I was blindsided by this amazing sentence:
Cornmeal, we know from, but millet — to most Appalachians, that stuff is birdseed.
The “we know from” construction is fairly familiar to me from informal speech and writing. It’s a favorite of Sars. A few examples from her:
- The man’s baseball childhood was basically the 12 Stations of Richie Ashburn; Philly fans know from having to wait.
- I have spent time in New Jersey DMVs, so I know from annoying…
- I don’t know from ESL grammar…
- Moreover, Giuliani knows from art criticism like I know from sub-nuclear physics. [AG note: awesome]
- Say what you want about the guy off the field, dude knows from pitching.
I’ve been known to use it myself, although mostly self-consciously, to present a jokingly exaggerated portrait of my knowledge about some area. There are no uses of it in my blogging at all, so I can only suppose that I might say something like “I’m a linguist, so I know from dialects!” It’s a hard construction to search for on Google, because “know from X” is also the first part the standard structure “know from X that Y”, which is why I turned to Tomato Nation for examples.
I don’t really want to get into discussing the “properness” of this structure (some people hate it) or its origin. What really struck me about Barbara’s sentence, though, was the effect of combination with topic-fronting: Instead of saying “We know from X” (X = cornmeal), she writes “X, we know from”. This is just standard topic-fronting, which is a common discourse pattern.
But the combination of the two yields a sentence unusual enough to catch my eye, unusual enough that several people I sent it to said it seemed confusing to them, especially on first reading. Quite an interesting result.
Update:
Jesse points out in the comments that a more sophisticated Google search can find some examples, such as:
PS: Your iPod doesn’t know from romance
Barbecue? I know from barbecue…
Since Five I Know From Funny
I’ve been to or known of a lot of weddings of people I know this year, including two in June (both lovely, and very different). Thus I was charmed to find my interest in transit combined with this recent swell in weddings in Annie’s post about a couple traveling to their own wedding on the Tube.
Favorite line: “We didn’t feel that we needed a stretch limo to get to their register office when we have got an Oyster card and the Tube.”
What a great idea! Weddings are often resource-intensive, so I love their concept of trying to make lighter mark. Three weeks ago Barbara also wrote about doing a “local food” catering for a wedding (vegetarian, too), for another person who is committed to “green” living. The food, of course, sounded absolutely lovely, but that goes without saying since it is Barbara.
Post about my trip to Toronto coming soon, I promise.
Ride stats:
DST: 29.8 (target 30)
AVS: 14.7 (go me, target was really around 14)
MXS: 30.7 (Woodside descent)
Ride time: 2:01
Total time: 2:30
Route: Laurel > Valparaiso > Alameda > Woodside > Cañada to 92, back the same route except Valparaiso > Middlefield > Willow > Alma > Burgess to add a bit more distance at the end (otherwise the ride is only 28 mi). The ride is straightforward, pretty, and varied (lots of rolling hills, one steep climb and some flats), so it’s a good route.
Things I learned:
I’m not that slow as long as there aren’t too many steep hills. I don’t think this helps for Waves to Wine, unfortunately. :)
Any ride longer than 15 miles should use the Camelbak — not because I necessarily need that much water, but because I am not very good at either stopping to drink frequently or drinking from a bottle while ensaddled.
It’s a good idea to have food along (I learned this because I had food and felt inclined to eat, not because I neglected it).
I need a new, narrower saddle for my road bike.
I need a new helmet that doesn’t make my head hurt.
I may need gel shoe inserts.
I should bring a Buff to wipe up sweat if it’s hot.
Chamois cream stuff is awesome (but I learned that on the Sequoia ride already).
People don’t really stop at the Whiskey Hill stop sign. Because they are jerks? I don’t know.
I usually am stopped/resting 15 minutes of each hour of riding (so 1:00 hr ride time = 1:15 total time — not 0:45 ride = 1:00 hr total).
I’m no longer having serious issues around 20 miles but I do still start to feel more soreness/numbness around then.
It’s dirty out today — the crappy air quality can actually be seen in the amount of grit on my face.
I should remember to put on sunscreen.
Also learned: I kind of rock. Riding is so much fun and I’m getting better at it!
Not surprisingly, when I created a Wordle it came out with a lot of cycling words.
Hat tip: Annie Mole
I bought a new phone today! I decided to go with the LG Dare, in the end. The reviews came out mostly positive, and I was getting feedback that the enV2 and the Voyager weren’t as good in various respects, so I decided to take the risk.
It’s exciting so far, though I have plenty of stuff still to mess around with. The only thing I wish is that they could transfer my text messages. (I got my contacts and pictures — though not the associations between the two, unfortunately.) But I always end up deleting text messages after a while because of lack of space, so I really should just archive the important ones manually and forget about it.
I’ll post a bit more considered opinion after I use it for a few days, but so far I’ve made calls (good quality), sent texts (typing is easy), changed settings (fairly straightforward but sometimes hard to scroll properly), mucked around with the interface, and tried to take pictures (why isn’t it obvious how to actually take the picture?!), and mostly my feeling is very good.
I have quite a bit to say about Canada, but just as a quick followup to my last post, gas was indeed very expensive. I was lucky enough to be able to borrow a car from my relatives, but my side trip of 194 km (120 mi) one way (so 240 miles total) cost CDN$73.30 in gas (51.077 L @ CDN$1.435/L), plus the CDN$60.06 (40.445 L at $1.485/L) of gas that I put into the tank to leave it more or less full for my relatives (the tank didn’t start out full, so I had to fill up twice).
[My bank indicates I was charged US$72.71 for the CDN$73.30. The other I paid in cash.]
Interestingly, Google Maps is completely convinced that the way I went — Hwy 401 to CR-73 (Elgin Road) — isn’t the best way, but my relatives all insisted that it was the best way. The distance and time given are identical for the route Google suggests and the route that was recommended to me (though the one I actually took, which was given as a slightly simpler alternative, is 2 miles and 3 minutes longer), and doesn’t involve going through downtown Toronto just after the rush hour (something that is indeed the nightmare you might imagine, as I discovered the next day on bike, but on bike it’s not a big deal because you can’t be going that fast anyway). It seems like a no-brainer to me.
That was the only time I was in a car for the entire trip, except for a brief drive with my aunt and uncle to dinner (I took buses to and from the airport). I’m pretty sure we could have gotten to the place we wanted to go faster on the TTC subway than driving at that time, too. I was very impressed by the TTC, but I’ll leave that discourse for another entry, along with my joy at visiting Urbane Cyclist.
I called my credit union today to ask them about their policy for exchange rates and fees on my credit and ATM cards for Canada (I’ll be traveling there tomorrow through July 8). Their policy is the same it was last summer, when I went to Vancouver — 1% surcharge, market-rate exchange, and extra ATM surcharge.
The 1% surcharge is annoying and quite honestly makes me want to switch credit unions because I know not all of them do that. It’s also funny because according to the currency converters I consulted, currently:
$1.00 USA = $1.01 CDN
So once the 1% surcharge is taken, I end up with almost exactly 1:1. In a way, that’s incredibly convenient!
And the average cost of gas in Toronto is $5.10/gal (though they usually measure it in cents per liter, which is a funny unit). Yiiiiiiiikes. (I won’t be driving in Toronto, but I have a side trip to make that nearly requires driving.)