On CNN's Quest Means Business, Richard Quest last night sought to know from three leading G20 personalities whether "we" (if I got him right), presumably G20 we, were "ahead of the curve"? The phrase, I believe, had been used earlier in the day by Timothy Geithner, the new US Treasury Secretary. Mr. Quest interrogated the concept by means of a simple, u-shaped (not s-shaped) curve drawn on a hand-held whiteboard.
Despite not being quite sure of the concept himself, the first time Mr. Quest posed the question, he correctly inserted another curve taking off from and running, partially, above the "base" (or "standard" or average) curve. The second and third time he showed the audience his curve, however, he clearly suggested that being "ahead of the curve" was somehow simply a question of where along the "base" curve one was. That was wrong.
The Canadian Finance Minister was correct to say, "I think we are on it"; though even he was apparently not so firmly grounded as to the correct meaning of the term "ahead of the curve." The Argentinian Central Bank boss was quite emphatic that "No, we are not ahead of the curve." As far as I could tell, he had not been shown the graphic, however, and so one does not quite know if he is a master of the concept.
The "curve" alluded to is, typically, the learning curve, a variant of which is the experience curve. The latter is more appropriate in the present circumstances. The learning curve is a logistic curve, and reflects the standard or average or "normal" progression among a class of members or units or entities over time. The basic characteristic of learning curves, indeed most if not all curves, is that they are typically plotted on two axes, X and Y.
In the present case, G20 members are taken to be the referent "class of members" whose progression the "base curve" that Quest was displaying to his TV audience represents. If that is so, then no G20 member can possibly be ahead of the curve shown, or even farther along it than any or all of the rest. Where G20 members are, individually and collectively, along the curve at any pont of time is a function of only one metric, the total time-frame plotted in the graphic.
By the same token, one cannot be ahead of the learning or experience curve by simply being farther along it than the rest, if that were theoretically possible. The learning curve is not a concrete, singular road along which we must all ride. It is a conceptualized, mean path. To be ahead of the (standardized) curve, then, is to be on another curve altogether, "above" the standard one. Above all, it is to be not a member of the pack in question. It is to have and to display a better than the pack's average trajectory. It follows from the foregoing that if one is below average, then one is likewise on another curve, in another trajectory, "below" the pack's.
It is conceivable, of course, that a "base" curve could be plotted for, say, the US alone as some sort of standard -- in the same way as the US dollar, or gold, is a standard. In that case, it would be legitimate for any and all of the other G20 members to ask whether or not they were "ahead of the US curve", or for the US to seek to know if it was ahead of any or all of their respective curves. And this is probably the way Richard Quest should have framed his question.
The fundamental point in all of the foregoing is that you cannot possibly be ahead of your own curve.
Tuesday, March 17, 2009
Monday, March 16, 2009
Mauri: An Etymological and Memetic Conversation
The name Mauri means different things to different people. As I have used it, Mauri is a variation on the theme Maurice, which is the baptismal name my father gave me. I don't know if, and I don't think that, he knew the etymology of the word. All he knew, and needed to know, was that it was a saint's name -- as it turns out, one out of over 5000 saints (and blessed or venerable individuals still one or two steps to sainthood) -- and that he wanted to give it to his eldest. Perhaps he (still a young man at 30) had the help, in this, of an Irish Catholic priest (in our cultural circles Catholic priests were called Opere) at St. Peter Claver's, in Nairobi, those many years, those many innocent and devout years, ago. I did not, of course, have a say in the conversation -- of which I was the Februarist subject. Being around, I was happy enough just to be around, and to be so obviously doted upon as I believe I was. You see, I, Onyalo, was father to the man -- who sought to name me, one more time, with the Church's blessing.
I officially changed that first name Maurice to Mauri a quarter century later. Essentially, however, what I changed was the spelling, and the pronunciation -- effectively bringing to an end the ce (to the ear the s) -- thereby allowing the name to be a three-syllable name, to those (the majority, it turns out) who preferred to pronounce it so (Mauritania and Mauritius being familiar to them), and a two-syllable to others. What's interesting is that both Mauritania and Mauritius derive from Mauri, not the other way round! The island of Mauritius was, ironically, named after the Dutch Prince Maurice of Nassau by Dutch explorers, so that what goes around comes around.
There are still people now, though, people whom I have known for a long, long time, whom I suffer -- a muffled sort of suffering -- to call me Morris, or even Moris! Occasionally, Prof. Maurice Yambo even appears on the cover page of a student's term paper! I prefer to treat these as typos -- and you know how the editorial mind presumes to treat suchlike.
The name Maurice has a long and detailed history, as I have come belatedly to learn. One online source explains that Maurice originates from an old Roman name Mauricius, itself rooted in the word Maurus, which is a Latin word meaning "Dark Skinned". In Greek, Maúros likewise means black. Maurus and Maúros are thus the Latin and Greek etymons of Maurice. But it all boils down to Mauri = Moor, which I didn't know so many years ago.
We read that Maurus (or its derivatives Maurice, Mauritius, Maurinus, Maurontus and Maura) was the name of some 22 early saints (click here for another source), including followers of Saint Benedict. Maurice is also the name of an Egyptian soldier/martyr who served in the Roman army, and of other noteworthy characters from the past:
A Google search and other encounters reveal that Mauri has multiple and usually related or cross-cutting meanings, including the following:
1. It means Moor, itself an anglicized etymon, as above explained. In that sense, and by extension, it is also a frequent referent to all things Maori -- that is, to the Maori people of New Zealand.
2. It has attached to it a series of more recent or more sub-cultural usages or renditions in a variety of social contexts (for one such series, Click).
3. It means "the life force which all objects contain" in Maori language (spoken in New Zealand) and in the Rotuman language (spoken on the Rotuman Island, a part of Fiji) (click). Since all objects contain "a life force", Mauri is at one with all things, and Mauri is Everyman.
4. It is, to a section of the fashion-conscious, a designer-shoe brand that one occasionally comes across in the glossy media.
5. Casa Mauri (or Palau-Mauri), associated with a family of confectioners (Yambo loves sweet things), is one of the five palaces that house Museu Picasso (The Picasso Museum) on the Carrer de Montcada Street in Barcelona, Spain.
All told, Mauri is as glorious a name as I always thought it was; a clear case of wysiwyg!
I officially changed that first name Maurice to Mauri a quarter century later. Essentially, however, what I changed was the spelling, and the pronunciation -- effectively bringing to an end the ce (to the ear the s) -- thereby allowing the name to be a three-syllable name, to those (the majority, it turns out) who preferred to pronounce it so (Mauritania and Mauritius being familiar to them), and a two-syllable to others. What's interesting is that both Mauritania and Mauritius derive from Mauri, not the other way round! The island of Mauritius was, ironically, named after the Dutch Prince Maurice of Nassau by Dutch explorers, so that what goes around comes around.
There are still people now, though, people whom I have known for a long, long time, whom I suffer -- a muffled sort of suffering -- to call me Morris, or even Moris! Occasionally, Prof. Maurice Yambo even appears on the cover page of a student's term paper! I prefer to treat these as typos -- and you know how the editorial mind presumes to treat suchlike.
The name Maurice has a long and detailed history, as I have come belatedly to learn. One online source explains that Maurice originates from an old Roman name Mauricius, itself rooted in the word Maurus, which is a Latin word meaning "Dark Skinned". In Greek, Maúros likewise means black. Maurus and Maúros are thus the Latin and Greek etymons of Maurice. But it all boils down to Mauri = Moor, which I didn't know so many years ago.
We read that Maurus (or its derivatives Maurice, Mauritius, Maurinus, Maurontus and Maura) was the name of some 22 early saints (click here for another source), including followers of Saint Benedict. Maurice is also the name of an Egyptian soldier/martyr who served in the Roman army, and of other noteworthy characters from the past:
The name Mauri is, in the end, the equivalent of Maurus and root (even "root-cause") of the name Maurice. To the English of old, and to Imperial England, all inhabilants of North Africa, and of parts of the Sahel, were, following that same tradition, broadly labelled Moors. Thus, Hannibal (who, like I, was born in '47) was a Moor; and so was Shakespeare's fictional character Othello. So were Ibn Khaldun (fellow Sociologist) and St. Augustine of Hippo. Among the Scots, however, Mauri is, quaintly, a derivative of Mary; which is a name that's given to girls and not boys.Saint Maurice was a 3rd-century Roman soldier from Egypt. He and the other Christians in his legion were supposedly massacred on the orders of emperor Maximian for refusing to worship Roman gods. Thus, he is the patron saint of infantry soldiers.
This name was borne by a 6th-century Byzatine emperor. Another notable bearer was Maurice of Nassau (called Maurits in Dutch), a 17th-century prince of Orange who helped establish the Dutch Republic. The name has been used in England since the Norman conquest, usually in the spelling Morris or Moris. (click here
for source)
A Google search and other encounters reveal that Mauri has multiple and usually related or cross-cutting meanings, including the following:
1. It means Moor, itself an anglicized etymon, as above explained. In that sense, and by extension, it is also a frequent referent to all things Maori -- that is, to the Maori people of New Zealand.
2. It has attached to it a series of more recent or more sub-cultural usages or renditions in a variety of social contexts (for one such series, Click).
3. It means "the life force which all objects contain" in Maori language (spoken in New Zealand) and in the Rotuman language (spoken on the Rotuman Island, a part of Fiji) (click). Since all objects contain "a life force", Mauri is at one with all things, and Mauri is Everyman.
4. It is, to a section of the fashion-conscious, a designer-shoe brand that one occasionally comes across in the glossy media.
5. Casa Mauri (or Palau-Mauri), associated with a family of confectioners (Yambo loves sweet things), is one of the five palaces that house Museu Picasso (The Picasso Museum) on the Carrer de Montcada Street in Barcelona, Spain.
All told, Mauri is as glorious a name as I always thought it was; a clear case of wysiwyg!
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