A couple of years ago, Eyjafjallajökull erupted, and news announcers all over the world began tripping over their tongues. Now JJ DOOM uses the name in the first verse of the track GUV'NOR from their new album KEYS TO THE CUFFS: Your browser does not support the audio element. Catch a throatful from the fire […]
The next-most-recent xkcd: Mouseover title: "Slowly progressing from 'how do protons behave in relativistic collisions?' to 'what the heck are protons even doing when they're just sitting there?'"
Essay in Wall Street Journal: "Computers Speaking Icelandic Could Save the Language From ‘Stafrænn Dauði’ (That’s Icelandic for ‘Digital Death’): To counter the dominance of English in technology and media, Iceland is teaching apps and devices to speak its native language." By Egill Bjarnason (May 20, 2021). This is such a fascinating article, and one […]
There's a university in Wales with this name: Evidently "prifysgol" means "university". Etymology From prif- (“chief”) + ysgol (“school”). Noun prifysgol f (plural prifysgolion) university
Another volcano in Iceland is erupting. But the projected effect on air travel is less serious than the disruptions caused by last year's Icelandic eruption: University of Iceland geophysicist Magnus Tumi Gudmundsson said this eruption, which began Saturday, was Grimsvotn's largest eruption for 100 years. "(It was) much bigger and more intensive than Eyjafjallajokull," the […]
Following up on his tip about "bomb-diffusing" at the Telegraph, Robert Ayers sent me a link to an unexpected verbal inflection from the same source ("Icelandic volcano 'set to erupt"", 2/8/2011): By comparison, Bárdarbunga dwarves the Eyjafjallajökull volcano, which shutdown most of Europe's airspace last year after its ash cloud drifted across the continent's skies. […]
It may be time for newsreaders worldwide to start polishing up their pre-stopped laterals again. The automatic earthquake-location system at the Iceland Meteorological Office's Department of Geophysics has been starting to show some small earthquakes under Eyjafjallajökull's bigger neighbor, Mýrdalsjökull:
Back of April 27, I linked to Aspen Swartz's volcano-themed sea chanty ("Eyjafjallajökull FTW"), and in the comments, Ray Girvan suggested that in the tradition of sailor-style anglicization that transformed the Bellerophon into the Billy Ruffian, Eyjafjallajökull should become "Fat Yokel". Ray embodied that suggestion in four sample verses. Now it seems that Ray's creation […]
Some people are apparently still puzzled by the pronunciation of Eyjafjallajökull. So let's take it a bit at a time. This morning, we'll cover the unexpected (to non-Icelanders) pronunciation of the 'll' at the very end of the word. (I warn you in advance that I don't know anything about Icelandic, I'm just exercising some […]
I have begun to accept that air travel across the North Atlantic is a thing of the past, at least for now. Europe is as distant a dream as it was a hundred years ago, a trip accomplishable only by a long sea voyage. I need to accept that I live in Boston now. I […]
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