James Tauber's Blog 2008/08
n.b., etc.
Last week one of my colleagues asked me if I knew what "n.b." meant. "Of course, " I said. "It's short for nota bene, Latin for note well."
It had been used in a document from someone in the UK. Apparently n.b. isn't very common in the US. I asked my colleague if he knew what i.e. and e.g. meant. Of course he did.
So then I decided to do an experiment. I wrote up the following on my whiteboard:
- e.g.
- i.e.
- n.b.
- cf.
- q.v.
- viz.
They were six Latinate abbreviations I could think of off the top of my head, roughly in order of how likely I thought it was that my colleagues would (1) have ever seen them; (2) know the meaning of them; (3) use them themselves. (Yes, there are others like etc. and ibid. but the above were the six I thought of at the time)
Anyway, it turns out the people I asked in the office were familiar with and used i.e. and e.g. but none were familiar with n.b., cf., q.v. or viz.
Feel free to comment below on which of the six you (1) have seen; (2) know the meaning of; (3) would use.
UPDATE: Professor Conrad pointed out that c.f. should be cf. which I've corrected above.
by James Tauber : Created on Aug. 10, 2008 : Last modified Aug. 11, 2008 : Categories linguistic_observations : 21 comments (permalink)
Dr Horrible Ringtones
Thanks to James Bennett, I learnt how to make ringtones out of my MP3s.
So here is the Dr Horrible Main Title and the Bad Horse Phone Call as .m4r files which you load in to iTunes and sync with your iPhone.
(you may need to right click to download them)
Other songs I've done are available as MP3s from my post
More Dr Horrible
but they are too long to make into ringtones (they won't sync with the iPhone) so I have to pick which 30 second extract in each case to use. That page also has versions without vocal lines for use in Dr Horrible karaoke!
Enjoy! And go buy Dr Horrible from iTunes while you're at it :-)
UPDATE: Made the link to my existing MP3s clearer as at least one commenter missed it.
by James Tauber : Created on Aug. 6, 2008 : Last modified Aug. 7, 2008 : 25 comments (permalink)
More Dr Horrible
I got another request for a Dr Horrible song so here is Laundry Day / Freeze Ray from Act I:
- Freeze Ray 0.1 with vocal line on synth
- Freeze Ray 0.1 Backing without vocal line
For easy access, here are my previous three efforts:
- So They Say 0.1 (from Act III with vocal lines)
- Main Title 0.1
- On The Rise 0.1 (from Act II with vocal lines)
Enjoy! (and go buy Dr Horrible on iTunes to hear the real thing)
PS If you're Jed Whedon, I'd love to talk to you more about your scoring.
UPDATE (2008-08-04): Here are backing versions (i.e. without vocal lines) of the other two songs above:
- So They Say 0.1 Backing without vocal lines
- On The Rise 0.1 Backing without vocal lines
UPDATE (2008-08-05): Here's the Bad Horse phone call from Act II:
- Bad Horse Phone Call 0.1 without vocal lines
UPDATE (2008-08-06): Here's Brand New Day from Act II both with and without vocal lines
- Brand New Day 0.1
- Brand New Day 0.1 Backing without vocal line
UPDATE (2008-08-06): RINGTONES! Now see Dr Horrible Ringtones
UPDATE (2008-09-27): A Man's Gotta Do
by James Tauber : Created on Aug. 2, 2008 : Last modified Sept. 27, 2008 : 64 comments (permalink)