Recently there was a stir in the genetics and genomics world because a computer has been able to decode a lot of jumbled-up English. If it can do that, they reason, maybe it can decode a lot of genetic material.
The trick was to take a whole novel (which happened to be the delightful Emma) and run all the words togetherlikethiswithnodistinctsentencesorparagraphs. The computer program managed to figure out not only the words, but the sentences. Most of the time, anyway.
Dark Matter proposes a much tougher test for it, so to speak. Can it decode cricket? The Ashes tournament is now under way in Australia. I am reading about it for the sheer pleasure of trying to figure out what is happening. And it ain't easy.
Let's start with the score. I am not making this up:
Paul Collingwood’s 98 not out and Kevin Pietersen’s unbeaten half-century helped England reach a dominating 266 for three Friday on the first day of the second Ashes cricket Test against Australia.
Got that? Other examples:
He was out, leg before wicket.
Warne, who entered the attack after only 77 minutes and in the day’s 18th over, finished with no wicket for 85 runs from 27 overs.
Clark finished the day as Australia’s best bowler with two from 25 from 15 overs, sharing the second new ball with Lee after being bowled sparingly in the late afternoon.
And my fave:
Pietersen was on 60, sustaining the form that brought him 92 in the same innings and the buccaneering spirit which characterized his pivotal contribution to England’s Ashes victory at home last year.
Buccaneering spirit? You just know something's happening there. Something buccaneering, something after the tea break. (They take a 20-minute tea break every afternoon in cricket.) I just need some serious decoding help.
Cricket is like The Changing of the Guard at Buckingham Palace. You can watch it for hours and enjoy the artistry, but you are no more able to figure out what is going on or why than you were when you started, and you never really know whether you want to bother trying. It’s stands along with the unwritten constitution and Imperial measure as one of the three-pronged triumphs of English irrationalism. I have long suspected it was invented by some seventeenth century version of Monty Python, the members of which all died suddenly before they could tell everyone it was a joke, but I have to admit that it raises sportswriting to a level worthy of study in a faculty of fine arts.
5 comments:
Football commentary on TV is quite similar and even though I am familiar with the basic concept of the game and recognize individual English words, I have no idea what they've talking about. Explication by the resident sports fan isn't any help either.
There are three sports that have for various reason inspired an outstanding literary cannon: baseball, boxing, and cricket. And the greatest of these is cricket. There are more books about cricket than there are atoms in the universe.
(All you need to know about the Ashes is that it is played approximately every two years, and features five 'Test matches' (which last 5 days each) between England and Australia. England won them in 2005 for the first time in 16 years, the Aussies weren't too happy about it, and are now, in revenge, giving us the almighty spanking of a lifetime.
International cricket is essentially an opportunity for England's former colonies to humiliate the mother country.)
I can't believe anyone has a problem in understanding the rules of cricket, or any other English games such as soccer and rugby. It is when I try to follow American football, ice hockey, basket ball and Aussie football that my head wants to explode.
Well, the rules of soccer are easily discerned by watching a few matches. First, when you have the ball, keep it away from the net at all costs. Second, if despite Rule 1 you are forced to approach the net with the ball, kick it either directly to the person standing in the net, or wide to one side. Third, if you have the ball and any other player approaches, immediately fall to the ground and grab your knee.
Rugby is just a grown-up version of kill the kid with the ball.
Cricket, on the other hand, is completely indecipherable, although I take it that one of the rules is never use plain English to describe anything that happens on the "pitch" (i.e., the field of play).
...says the Canadian.
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