{"id":56,"date":"2008-08-26T22:13:12","date_gmt":"2008-08-27T02:13:12","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.samplereality.com\/gmu\/fall2008\/343\/?p=56"},"modified":"2008-08-27T23:13:26","modified_gmt":"2008-08-28T03:13:26","slug":"jabber-the-jabberwocky-engine-neil-hennessey-lynn-golden","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.samplereality.com\/gmu\/fall2008\/343\/2008\/08\/26\/jabber-the-jabberwocky-engine-neil-hennessey-lynn-golden\/","title":{"rendered":"Jabber: The Jabberwocky Engine, Neil Hennessey – Lynn Golden"},"content":{"rendered":"

Thinking through the representational aspects of Jabber:<\/em><\/span><\/p>\n

When I first visited JABBER: The Jabberwocky Engine<\/span> in class, frankly \u2013 I wasn\u2019t impressed. <\/span>However, my love of vocabulary, crossword puzzles, and Scrabble urged me to give Neil Hennessey another chance to captivate me. <\/span>Initiating the Jabberwocky Engine for a second time, surprisingly, changed my perception of Hennessey\u2019s creation. <\/span>Jabberwocky is a fun textual media experience that gives the user the opportunity to watch randomly bumping letters bond into accepted English language syllables that create new \u201cnonsense words.\u201d <\/span>An amusing aspect of the Jabberwocky experience is that some \u201cnonsense words\u201d are further combined to create \u201ccompound nonsense words.\u201d <\/span>Hennessey\u2019s presentation can be (if given the chance) a stimulating experience for anyone interested in the construction of words. <\/span>Through my second encounter with Jabberwocky, I found it to be both informative \u2013 related to standard phonetic combinations – and humorous related to the accidental combinations that result in \u201cwords.\u201d <\/span>The randomness of Jabberwocky provides an element of surprise that retains interest. Another dimension is added by the user\u2019s ability to access the list of \u201cwords\u201d being formed. <\/span>This list is a window into the innumerable possible combinations of new words that could be created using this concept and catalyzes thought regarding the similarity of many of the created words to real morphemes. <\/span>Neil Hennessey\u2019s analogy that letters are to words as atoms are to molecules, clearly explains his intent to present a visual demonstration of what he calls \u201cword chemistry\u201d in the context of the creation or building of words.<\/span><\/p>\n

<\/span><\/p>\n

Considering my initial impressions of Jabberwocky and contemplating why I wasn\u2019t initially impressed, it struck me that unlike Firefly and Orson Whales, Jabberwocky is not as graphically rich. <\/span>The introductory frame is a simple black rectangle centered on a doctor\u2019s office blue background. The introduction is crisp, clean, and to the point – a basic explanation with a small simple window that invites the user to \u201claunch!\u201d <\/span>Certainly, Hennessey was capable of creating a more visually stimulating experience, but he chose to keep the periphery basic. <\/span>The choice to minimize graphics and sound purposefully focuses the user on the basics of the Jabber experience and analogously – the very basic building blocks of all words \u2013 letters. <\/span>Would aesthetic additions to the graphic or sound experience of Jabber heighten or diminish the experience? <\/span>My conclusion is that any further graphic or sound enhancements would detract from the intended purpose and experience. <\/span><\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

On an evocative level:<\/em><\/span><\/p>\n

Jabberwocky<\/span> evokes the randomness of language. <\/span>Although we can trace many morphemes to Latin, through time and the influences of the evolution of culture, language is constantly changing. <\/span>An example of a recent word creation is infobahn. <\/span>This word derived from the merger of two concepts \u2013 the high speed German Autobahn and the idea of the information superhighway. <\/span>Thus, the bumping together of letters\/words through cultural influence created a new word. When viewing my Jabber word list, I couldn\u2019t help but notice many similarities or inversions of familiar words. <\/span>These words made me think of other real word inversions, for example – the simple word mop. <\/span>Why is a mop called a mop and not a pom. <\/span>Why is a pom-pom called a pom-pom and not a mop-mop. <\/span>A mop head and a pom-pom are constructed in the same way. Strands of fiber are bound in the center. <\/span>Of course there is a history behind these words that can be studied and analyzed, but for a common person <\/span>\u2013 it seems like nonsense <\/span>in much the same way the Jabberwocky Engine<\/span> first struck me. <\/span>Another simple word example: tot. A tot can be a toddler or a processed potato food. <\/span>This does not make any more sense to me than a random Jabber creation. <\/span>In viewing my Jabber list, I see the word: leggering. <\/span>This word makes perfect sense to me. <\/span>This word could be used to describe a person who is sitting with her legs crossed, swinging her top leg up and down \u2013 why not just say she is leggering? <\/span> <\/span> <\/span><\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

\n

It is also plausible for\u00a0the Jabberwocky Engine\u00a0to evoke\u00a0the idea\u00a0of the colliding\/bumping of the letters\/words of the languages of the world. <\/span>As our world continues to become smaller and smaller through advancements in the technologies of travel and communication \u2013 cultures and ideologies are gradually blending\/assimilating and thus affecting language. <\/span> <\/span>Six years ago, I was not familiar with Cinco de Mayo. <\/span>Five years ago, one of my Latino neighbors started the tradition of a Cinco de Mayo block party. <\/span>Now, families of Korean, European, Latino, and Chinese descent have formed a new tradition \u2013 the Thames Street Cinco De Mayo Block Party. <\/span> <\/span>In Jabberville, it might be called the Thamco DeMock Party!<\/span><\/p>\n

<\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Thinking through the representational aspects of Jabber: When I first visited JABBER: The Jabberwocky Engine in class, frankly \u2013 I wasn\u2019t impressed. However, my love of vocabulary, crossword puzzles, and Scrabble urged me to give Neil Hennessey another chance to captivate me. Initiating the Jabberwocky Engine for a second time, surprisingly, changed my perception of … Continue reading Jabber: The Jabberwocky Engine, Neil Hennessey – Lynn Golden<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":8,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[14],"tags":[10,13,11,6],"class_list":["post-56","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-reflections","tag-evocative","tag-firefly","tag-representational","tag-textual-media"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.samplereality.com\/gmu\/fall2008\/343\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/56","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.samplereality.com\/gmu\/fall2008\/343\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.samplereality.com\/gmu\/fall2008\/343\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.samplereality.com\/gmu\/fall2008\/343\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/8"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.samplereality.com\/gmu\/fall2008\/343\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=56"}],"version-history":[{"count":6,"href":"https:\/\/www.samplereality.com\/gmu\/fall2008\/343\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/56\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":113,"href":"https:\/\/www.samplereality.com\/gmu\/fall2008\/343\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/56\/revisions\/113"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.samplereality.com\/gmu\/fall2008\/343\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=56"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.samplereality.com\/gmu\/fall2008\/343\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=56"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.samplereality.com\/gmu\/fall2008\/343\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=56"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}