zoösemiotics A branch of SEMIOTICS that studies the features of human COMMUNICATION which, as the end products of an evolutionary series, are shared with animal systems of communication; opposed to ‘anthroposemiotic’ features, which are exclusively human. Under the heading of ‘zoösemiotic features/systems’ fall certain features of tone of voice (cf. PARALANGUAGE), facial expression, gesture, etc. (cf. KINESICS, PROXEMICS), as well as several mechanisms of animal communication which seem not to overlap with human signalling systems (e.g. chemical signals, pheremones, echolocation).
[From: Crystal, David. Dictionary of Linguistics and Phonetics, Fourth Ed., Blackwell, 1997.]
Archives for May 2006
Word of the Week
May 31, 2006 by at 2:24 pm
The Mystery of Things
May 31, 2006 by at 8:11 am
Obit
May 30, 2006 by at 9:15 pm
Thanks to MCM for passing along word of this obituary for Judith Moore in the Los Angeles Times.
This fellow wrote something as well.
Why I’m a Catholic
May 29, 2006 by at 11:54 pm
Why did I join the Catholic Church?
Out of boredom, when it comes right down to it. Everything else bored me to death — except God’s love, God’s majesty, God’s infinite intimacy and yet infinite distance, His mystery. And only in the Catholic Church are those preserved. Everywhere else under the sun is a yawning chasm of yawns and boredom unto death.
And yet there are these formidable forces within the Church, working to strip it of that majesty and that love and that mystery, and make it a place where boredom once again reigns, as it reigns everywhere else on Earth. The most scandalous thing about the much-publicized sexual abuse scandal, for example, is that it is so essentially boring, arising out of boredom and leading from boredom unto boredom.
Gosh, thanks.
May 28, 2006 by at 10:03 am
The Catholic Press Association gave Swimming with Scapulars second place in the First Time Author category. I am honored and grateful – to the Association, and to the folks at Loyola who made the book possible, and made it better as well.
May 26, 2006 by at 10:44 pm
…
May 26, 2006 by at 1:38 pm
Standby…
May 25, 2006 by at 8:54 pm
We’re trying to figger out how to git JOB up an’ runnin’ here at the Godsbody Lab…
Word of the Week
May 25, 2006 by at 2:02 pm
year’s mind n [ME yeris minde, fr. OE geargemynd, fr. gear year + gemynd memory, commemoration, mind — more at YEAR, MIND]: a Roman Catholic requiem mass for a deceased person held on or near the anniversary of death or burial — compare MONTH’S MIND
[From: the big dictionary in the library.]
Gone Fishin’
May 24, 2006 by at 6:36 am
Honored Readers,
The day job beckons, as do a couple of other projects. I’m putting the blog on hiatus for a while. Should anything earth-shattering happen here at Casa Godsbody, I’ll make a note of it, but otherwise, it’ll be pretty quiet. Thanks to all who have visited and all who have commented. You guys are the best.
Holy Crap, Percy’s Going to the Big Screen
May 23, 2006 by at 8:04 pm
Via Maud – The Second Coming is Coming To A Theater Near You. Fascinating that this should be the one to make the jump first. In some ways, it comes across as the least, well, moving – as in, motion. But there’s action at the heart of it, and Allison is a fantastic character. I’m all giddy.
Double Sigh.
May 23, 2006 by at 6:34 pm
Actual quote from Hollywood-type person, said to me sometime around 1999:
“What you should write is some kind of religious conspiracy thriller. It’s what’s hot right now. I keep reading about things like a piece of the devil’s horn kept in the basement of the Vatican.”
Godsbody – missing the boat since forever.
And so an end to the Code-postings.
Can We Talk?
May 23, 2006 by at 9:08 am
About this?
P.S.: Don’t miss the link to the trailer at the bottom.
CCH
May 23, 2006 by at 8:20 am
Kind Hearts and Coronets
The arch of a brow
A slim bridge between drama
And black comedy
Well, the arch of a brow and Alec Guinness playing eight members of a wretched English family…
Keillor Goes Meta…
May 23, 2006 by at 6:35 am
…doing a movie about the last episode of his radio show, one in which Guy Noir is not just a character on the show, but a real member of the cast.
Great line: “Every night is your last night.”
There’s a good bio waiting to be written on Keillor – between the New Yorker years, the novels and short stories (there are some truly priceless bits in The Book of Guys), the radio show, the column for Slate, the Writer’s Almanac, the anthologies of poetry…the man is a champion of middlebrow culture, and I use that term admiringly.
All the same?
May 22, 2006 by at 7:42 pm
Because nobody demanded it…
Godsbody dares to ask…
Is it just me, or is there a striking similarity between the melody for the line “I’d give you everything I’ve got for a little peace of mind” on the Beatles’ “I’m So Tired” and “I’m going off the rails on a crazy train” on Ozzy Osbourne’s “Crazy Train”?
What was that Mitsui was saying about pop culture ephemora a few posts back?
Whit, Mon.
May 22, 2006 by at 4:35 pm
Whither Whit? Something about Jamaican churches. I’ll follow, happily.
As usual, thanks to Terry.
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