smenita: the centre for smenitalogical studies

smenita hits again

2007-06-28T23:48:00.001-07:00

According to a reliable source, smenita hit the Blogger comment system again on June 28. Speaker of Truth has details.

smenita hits again

2007-06-28T23:48:00.000-07:00

According to a reliable source, smenita hit the Blogger comment system again on June 28. Speaker of Truth has details.

Smenita is back sending waves of panic through the streets of Bloggerville

2007-01-09T20:41:00.001-08:00

Just when I thought it was safe to close comments on the centre for smenitalogical studies, a fresh outbreak is throwing blogs in the blogger system into chaos and creating widespread dismay.

A reliable source wrote me this morning:

Smenita has reappeared! Blogger was down for a long time today, and now that it has restarted the word verification word for both [a major blog] and for [another influential blog] has reverted to "smenita"! But it does seem to be accepting comments (rather slowly) on both blogs, and then giving a new word verification of "smenita".

Tried to post this to http://smenita77.blogspot.com/, but you have
closed that to comments, no doubt assuming this subject is dead. It
hasn't died that quickly!

Despite the fact that I'm living in a part of the planet so remote that there is not even high-speed internet, I have managed to reactivate comments.

Please report your smenita experiences here and we will do our best to get to the bottom of this crisis.

One question remains unanswered by the powers that be in the lofty towers of Googleopolis: If this isn't a random occurrence, then why are the Blogger bosses allowing it to continue?

See other links in the sidebar of this post for various kinds of emotional and technical support related to smenita and the suffering it causes.

Lingamish

Smenita is back sending waves of panic through the streets of Bloggerville

2007-01-09T20:41:00.000-08:00

Smenita has reappeared! Blogger was down for a long time today, and now that it has restarted the word verification word for both [a major blog] and for [another influential blog] has reverted to "smenita"! But it does seem to be accepting comments (rather slowly) on both blogs, and then giving a new word verification of "smenita".

Tried to post this to http://smenita77.blogspot.com/, but you have
closed that to comments, no doubt assuming this subject is dead. It
hasn't died that quickly!

Translation, Linguistics and Bible at Lingamish

2006-06-12T10:03:00.001-07:00

Thank you for visiting the centre for smenitalogical studies. Research on captcha related phenomena has been suspended due to time constraints. You're always welcome to report smenita outbreaks here.

My other blogs are:

Lingamish: Writings about linguistics, bible translation, and missionary life.
Nyungwe Bible Translation: A photo-journal of the Nyungwe Bible translation which is a project in Tete, Mozambique where I serve as a translation consultant.
Afri-Kers: A "cute kid" blog with pictures of our kids and their life as missionary kids.

Ben Yancer, Inc.

2006-04-20T13:23:00.000-07:00

Ben Yancer, Inc. and company have been posting recently on smenita.

His post contains a rather poignant comment by Carissa:

"My experience with Smenita scarred me and has had far reaching effects. My enthusiasm to comment has significantly diminished for fear of that impossible mode of verification Blogger might ask of me."

Good to know that the centre for smenitalogical studies is there when people need it.

Share your stories of smenita here.

5 Slices Of Baloney

2006-04-18T12:01:00.000-07:00

I've started a new blog incorporating several "techniques" to increase visitors and effectiveness of the information. The blog is called "5 Slices Of Baloney" and is about tracking "baloney" that is, fallacious argumentation, on the web.

Techniques include:

A weekly award to web sites which will hopefully tap into the base of those sites.
A chance to nominate "Baloney" on the web.
An online poll.

The new blog is partly an attempt to rescue my old blog from the topic of logical fallacies!

Eye Tracking

2006-04-18T11:58:00.000-07:00

Jakob Nielsen has a recent article on the F-Shaped Pattern For Reading Web Content. This article has food for thought on how we design web pages for maximum effectiveness. He has another link in that article to guidelines for writing for the Web which I intend to check out if I ever get around to it.

Blog promotion ideas

2006-04-13T15:21:00.000-07:00

In the continuing quest for greater blog traffic, I found "Promoting your blog" in Blogger Help. Maybe it works... maybe it don't.

smenita through the ages

2006-04-08T23:15:00.000-07:00

Someone by the name of Mad Maggie named her blog "smenita." The blog is completely empty and dates from January 2006. What could this mean?

In March 2006, Steve also started another blog named smenita.

The earliest blog named "smenita" dates from December 2005 and expresses unspeakable befuddlement. The blog is full of cryptic references to queen, offer, sue and skype. This blog has the distinction of actually holding the URL for smenita: smenita.blogspot.com.

What is the earliest reference to smenita in history? According to my search on Blogger, December 3, 2005 seems to be the original outbreak.

Smenita debuts in fiction

2006-04-08T23:01:00.000-07:00

At Artistic Nonsense, Smenita has entered the annals of literature as a name for a castle.

The castle Smenita. It was quite a thing to behold, covering as much land as any farmer's field and boasting as many fortifications as the royal castle Bloggdor. It was not a place any would attack without a plan. ...

Source: The Braedsen Village Chronicles IV

It also gets a mention in The Braedsen Village Chronicles VI

As we mentioned in a previous post word verification captcha codes are already being used by lexicographers at Zrharc!. According to one of their experts, they will begin work on a definition in the near future for smenita.

Hey guys, here's the proof image when you're ready:

Word verification's erratic behavior

2006-04-01T08:36:00.000-08:00

Ramya Chennai at Somethings and Nothings reports that word verification is generating sentences on his blog. A quick search of recent posts on word verification indicates that people are experiencing a variety of word verification woes. An Extraordinary Woman at Already a Legend reports her own difficulties with word verification. We'll keep you posted on any breaking news about a possible epidemic.

SEO Trick 1: name dropping

2006-03-28T20:23:00.000-08:00

In an earlier post I mentioned that I wanted to implement some of the suggestions from Todd Mintz's blog about improving your blogs ranking on the common search engines. In his post he talks about picking a narrow topic and building a base of content. For our experiment I have chosen the following keywords to focus on: word verification and captcha. As I mentioned before, it didn't take the Centre for Smenitalogical Studies (CSS) very long to make it into the top ten on Google and Blogger searches. But until now I haven't been able to get it into the top 10 list for "word verification" and "captcha." So what I have started doing is "name dropping" that is, using those two keywords consistently in my posts. Hopefully over the next few weeks we'll be able to report CSS appearing on the top ten "horizon" for those keywords.

Basically what we're hoping for is that when the next smenita outbreak hits, people will be able to find this site when they google word verification or captcha.

Zrharc! The Comment Word Verification Dictionary

2006-03-28T20:02:00.000-08:00

Time doesn't allow me to give a full review of this valuable blog but let me just encourage you to peruse the contents of this very readable source of information on captcha codes. While The Centre for Smenitalogical Studies is devoted to providing timely and accurate information on smenita phenomena, Zrharc! seems to me to be a not altogether serious endeavor. It's also notable that they don't have a definition for "smenita." But it's not so strange if you think about it since none of the other captcha codes have been shown to be real words.

Zrharc! The Comment Word Verification Dictionary

Word verification problem?

2006-03-28T19:36:00.000-08:00

Coping during a smenita outbreak
Are you having trouble posting a comment because word verification isn't working? Perhaps the wiggly word looks like "smenita" and you typed "smenita" but it just keeps coming up with "smenita" over and over again. There is a possibility that the word is something else like "yokbes" or "bpamze." Whatever the case you can't get Blogger to accept your comment and so you're starting to get upset.

1. Remain Calm
This is a smenita outbreak. It has occured twice in history: December 2005 and March 2006. There seems to be some flaw in the "captcha" word verification system which periodically causes this to happen.

2. Save your work
If you have written a comment that you hope to share copy it and save it in a word processing program together with the URL of the page you have been visiting. You can copy and save this data by clicking in the comment window containing your comments, pressing CTRL+A to select all the text, then pressing CTRL+C to copy this text. Then switch to your word processing program and paste this text. Do the same thing for the URL by clicking in the address bar containing the URL (usually a long string of characters beginning with "http://"), hit CTRL+A and CTRL+C and paste the address into your word processor.

3. Wait
There is nothing you can do. Restarting your computer won't help. Resetting your cookies and clearing your cache are useless. Screaming, swearing or lashing out violently are inappropriate responses to an inconvenience of this magnitude. Instead, be calm. Talk it over with a friend. Be philosophical. Write a poem about smenita. Consider what up 'til now might have been unthinkable: There is more to life than posting comments on someone's blog. Turn off your computer. Interact with some of the bipedal mammals known as "family" that share your personal living space. Watch TV.

Smenita outbreaks usually afflict a blogger for no more than a day. When a smenita outbreak is in progress, many bloggers turn off word verification temporarily to allow you to post your comments.

Early detection systems for smenita phenomena

2006-03-27T08:46:00.000-08:00

The smenita outbreaks in December and March caused widespread disruption and frustration for an untold number of bloggers. This site is dedicated to anticipating future crises and equipping bloggers for survival. My studies in the last several days have centered on using Search Engine Optimization (SEO) to make sure that next time people go looking for help they can find it here. Todd Mintz blogs on simple methods of SEO. Many of them are free.

Smenita provides an interesting case for SOE since it is a neologism that has just recently erupted on the scene. On the day that I first seriously began to blog on smenita, there were 232 results for "smenita." The Centre for Smenitalogical Studies (CSS) didn't even make it in the top ten results. Two days later, CSS had risen into the top ten and the number of results had risen to more than 500. I have been changing the tag line daily on the blog but the current Google result still shows the original tagline from the first day of the blog. Interesting data no doubt. In the coming weeks I'll be documenting SOE techniques and their apparent impact on CSS search engine ranking as well as site traffic.

Smenita was not an accident

2006-03-26T11:07:00.000-08:00

Where do those little word verification codes come from? Are they generated randomly by a monkey with a typewriter? Or is somebody in silicon valley paid a healthy salary to think them up? In this post we want to begin looking at the captcha codes and try to make some sense of them. Since I'm using Firefox and it remembers everything I put into forms, I have all the captcha codes that I have entered since beginning to use Blogger. I've listed them below for your enjoyment and analysis:

Lingamish's captcha codes
Total number of Lingamish's captcha codes as of March 25, 2006: 93.
Character range: 5 to 8 characters.
Average characters per captcha: 6.46.

afuzdlc, amocwgeb, atdxoog, atepoxka, axoqj, bhlqqhcm, bivpf, bpamze, bpcejm, btcujmhg, cagmm, captcha, cdjiedlz, chevwwq, crdkdy, csoahut, dakwn, djbqfqt, ebxnlbrd, ehsbbu, fbhie, fhnva, gaosbdf, gempzzeo, gfmeu, gkbqoolf, gngsasr, gvjncma, hfkstt, ignyb, irjetdpx, ixxaojq, jbckrfq, jetmtid, kedps, kleqv, kwqzlxxg, lpjrinzo, ncuwcq, nmhuebh, ntngeya, oaqkism, orvjokln, pigyvt, piilx, pldeu, pocdst, pthkb, ptmsoov, pvtpwgn, qeusnm, qgowd, qnywyc, qrexfcm, rbtuw, rdyxjz, rhciwu, rttbwrx, rvkwth, rvrcct, rxyvpbj, ryecok, ryqjm, sdyxhrfv, sfkox, siupssg, slznuh, smenita, smguek, srnenita, styqyq, swlrrpb, tirqthp, tlrmsra, trzre, ugfmpp, uvefkz, vokfssu, vxhlz, waiuyz, wkxshvo, wmxgjj, wmzzhr, wutvsve, wwxwg, xbsllzwf, xijihfri, yokbes, yoxtkruf, yrntbj, ysngnar, zapco, zzkefsd

A few comments about the codes in this list. First, there are possibly errors in this list. Why? Because Firefox records anything you type into a form and then press enter. That's why in addition to smenita there is also srnenita and even captcha. Despite the shortcomings of this sample it is still a good representative sample for us to begin making some observations about captcha codes.

A first look at captcha
1. As has been noted above, captcha codes range from 5 to 8 characters.
2. All 26 letters of the English alphabet are represented.
3. In this sample of 93 captcha codes, none begins with the letter m.
4. smenita is distinguished from all the other captcha codes in having a consonant-vowel pattern with CCVCVCV. No other code has that many CV patterns in it which is one of the things that makes smenita look like a word as opposed to looking like a random bunch of characters.

Conclusions and areas for further study
There is reason to suspect that smenita is not a randomly generated captcha code like all the rest.

First, as we mentioned in our list above, it looks like a word. No other captcha has ever been shown to either look like a word or be an actual word in one of the languages of the world. As others have noted, smenita means "disavowal" in Italian.

Second, smenita behaved differently than all the other captchas. If you misspell a captcha, the system will give you another captcha. But not in the case of smenita. Instead you were stuck until "something" got reset and bloggers were allowed to resume posting comments using word verification. What was that "something?" Some have tried clearing their cache, resetting their cookies, restarting Windows, Explorer or Firefox. Others have simply posted their comment elsewhere, waited, or thrown their keyboard across the room. Some bloggers turned off word verification. It is worth remembering the dictum "correlation does not equal causality." I believe that another "hand" was at work here. Was it the monkey with the typewriter? Was it deus ex machina? Was it the devil incarnate?

Finally, and most telling in my opinion is the fact that smenita struck twice! As I mentioned in another post the chance of smenita being selected randomly is 1 in 8 billion (26 to the 7th power). Now what is the chance of smenita happening again? Well my calculator can't display a number that large but it's 1 in 8 billion squared! Not even a universe full of monkeys working on typewriters could have that kind of luck.

Conclusion: Smenita was not an accident. Whether the hidden hand is malicious or divine or both is for you to decide. But the hard truth is that smenita was imposed on us consciously. The question is by whom? And will it strike again?

The dualistic nature of smenita

2006-03-25T09:00:00.000-08:00

Yesterday was an exhilirating day full of personal discovery, interconnectivity and polysemic neologisms. Eff of A Place for Robots mentions in his comments on this post that repeated exposure to smenita increased his capacity to cope. But for others like anaglyph, it was necessary to find greener, smenita-free, pastures. Others like Dasan of Learning to Fly have gained a new appreciation for smenita. As has Steve (who just happens to be my esteemed father!).

What about you? How would you describe the metaphysical, philosophical, etic, or theological nature of smenita? Is the power of smenita innate? Or do we give it power over our lives? By the way did you notice that I said "it" and not "her"? Many see smenita as intrinsically feminine? Do you agree? Or again is there a balanced duality of masculine and feminine?

La soñadora insomne of Bolivia writes beautifully about smenita's dual nature:

Te he visto tanto que ya no te odio, ya dejaste de irritarme, dejé de sentir que me haces perder el tiempo. Y sólo siento una mezcla de cariño con añoranza, porque sé que eventualmente dejarás de ser y teniéndote frente a mis ojos ya te extraño.

My translation (please correct me as necessary):

I have seen you so often that I no longer hate you. You have ceased to irritate me, I no longer feel that you are wasting my time. I only feel a mixture of affection and nostalgia because I know that eventually you will cease to be and having you before my eyes I already miss you.

Amazing sentiments! I must confess that I have wondered, "What if smenita never returns?"

Smenita: The Blogger Community reacts

2006-03-24T12:42:00.000-08:00

Well, smenita has caused huge chaos in the past several days. Imagine how many people had to type that word over and over again. Lost productivity! Blog rage! One man threw his keyboard across the room.

Here are just a few of the amazing things happening out there because of this word:
The Velvet Blog and My Voice chose smenita as their word of the day. Spilt Milk has proposed "Smenita!" as a replacement for "Foobar." Roc Rebel Granny is going crazy! The rage generated by smenita is quite surprising. Even at the Philosophical Blog they're having trouble being philosophical about smenita. The "dreaded" word inspires Sidecar in the search for deeper meaning and also reminds him of the Czech composer, Smetana, and the Czech word for cream.

The first recorded instance of smenita used as a verb (smenitaed) was recorded at Taking A Long View. The predominant semantic collocation for smenita seems to be "dreaded." Three different blogs called it the "dreaded" smenita: Down the Trodden and Germany doesn't suck and An American in Aachen. Oasis of Sanity Blog is remaining calm on this situation. Several bloggers have noted the synomorphic form "srnenita" including The Mom Chronicles.

Up 'til now Smenita is universally recognized as a feminine entity, including at Educating Me and Downcaster Journal.
Kid Ric even got a response from blogger support on this in December.
It's being talked about in Swedish and Spanish. On another Swedish blog, smenita is called "a curse." There's another blog out there with Smenita in the title. Here's who got the original site name.

The happy news of the day: Gustav Smenita of Sofia, Bulgaria has his own blog! Welcome to America, Gustav!

Smenita strikes again!

2006-03-24T06:05:00.000-08:00

Sanctifiable was the first to note that "smenita" first struck comment word verification on Blogger in December 2005. This week it struck again. There has been no comment from Blogger administrative employees on the origins or intentions of this word. Perhaps they couldn't comment either because of smenita problems. Bloggers experienced undue stress and frustration trying repeatedly to post comments. In one case, a blogger in India became physically violent!

According to Udge of Germany, smenita means "disavowal" in Italian. An appropriate definition. Michele Scasso uses smenita in a sentence on her blog.

On this date current statistics for a Google search of smenita are:
Results 1 - 10 of about 232 for smenita. (0.08 seconds)

Illustrating that smenita is largely a localized phenomenon, the number of results when only googling Blogger is 119.

Poems using "smenita"

2006-03-23T22:02:00.000-08:00

Cathy shared in a recent post on her blog a poem called "Narcissus." When she did people began to have trouble replying to the poem because of the smenita phenomenon. What's so interesting about this is that when you read the poem, it seems to be talking about smenita. Is this coincidental? Yes, it is. But it highlights an important aspect of cognitive linguistics. The mind will by nature assume that messages are meant to have meaning. Therefore, if you say, "My great aunt Matilda died" and your friend replies, "Smenita" you will assume that smenita is in some way an appropriate response to your statement. Perhaps it is a statement of condolence you are unfamiliar with. Perhaps it is a mild Georgian oath.

Speaking of Georgian, there is an interesting appearance of the word smenita, rendered orthographically as "smeniTa" on the web site for the Georgian Patriarchate. I assume this is a font rendering difficulty. The photo depicted on the page is of some sort of religious painting, apparently on a wall in Georgia. I wonder what smeniTa means in Georgian? I recently heard rumor that "smenita" means "cream" in Czech.

My Smenita poem
By Lingamish

Smenita. Smenita.
Smenita. Smenita.
O, Smenita.

Please share one of your favorite poems using the word smenita in it. No need to quote the entire poem. Original entries are highly welcomed.

Define "smenita" and its synonym "srnenita"

2006-03-23T21:31:00.000-08:00

Smenita has appeared on the linguistic horizon as an emerging neologism. What does it mean to you? How should it be used in the future? Is it Italian or Georgian or Finnish?

Perhaps it is an acrostic or acronym. At the Joey Polanski Show several folks have discovered anagrams. It is possibly a fragment from a larger discourse unit such as "It is men. It always is with us."

Anshul of Singapore makes the interesting claim that "Smenita is the feminized embodiment of a sentient life form created randomly by computer."

According to my calculations the chance of smenita being chosen for word verification on blogger is 1 in more than 8 billion (26 to the 7th power). But we have seen smenita not once but twice. What are we to make of this startling fact? Blind chance? Intelligent blog design?

Definitions of smenita at: Geekri-La and Yadayada

Forms of smenita: smenitalogically, smenitaed.

Word verification vilification

2006-03-23T19:31:00.000-08:00

How did you react to difficulties with posting your comments? Were you bewildered? Or did you react angrily? Or violently? Our own responses to life's unexpected afflictions can be springboards for personal growth. Here's the place to vent or seek mutual support when you have word verification problems.