Language Log

"Some German tongue-twisters", posted on 21/07/2024 by StephenJones.blog   

Whereas the mind-boggling “tapeworm words” in my post on Some German mouthfuls are of a practical nature, the realm of fantasy opens up whole new linguistic vistas. In a stimulating article, Deborah Cole introduces the work of the Berlin-based cabaret performer, playwright, and pianist Bodo Wartke.

This new sign at the intersection of Cottman Avenue and State Road has gotten a lot of news coverage:

"Lattes with onions are a hit in China", by Allan Rose Hill, Boing Boing (6/7/24)

Some might call that "over the top", I would call it "under the bottom". 

It's all part of a trend referred to as hēiàn liàolǐ 黑暗料理 ("dark cuisine").

Dark cuisine basically refers to food and drinks that put people's sensibilities to the test.

Basic Barista provides a recipe that boils down to the following: Finely chop a bunch of spring onions and drop them in a glass. Add ice, pour in milk, and then dump in that double shot of espresso.

[VHM:  many people pour in some soy sauce too.]

Egas Moniz-Bandeira on Twitter/X:

From Breffni O'Rourke:

I thought you might appreciate this effort by Dall.E. The prompt was "Create a diagram of Shannon and Weaver's model of communication."

Eve Armstrong's latest — "Everything's Fine", arXiv.org 3/29/2024:

I investigate the peculiar situation in which I find myself healthy and strong, with a darling family, stimulating job, top-notch dental plan, and living far from active war and wildfire zones — yet perpetually ill at ease and prone to sudden-onset exasperation when absolutely nothing has happened. My triggers include dinner parties, chairs, therapists, and shopping at Costco. In analysing this phenomenon, I consider epigenetics, the neuroscience of neuroticism, and possible environmental factors such as NSF grant budgets. Yet no obvious solution emerges. Fortunately, my affliction isn't really all that serious. In fact, it's good writing material. So while I'm open to better ideas, I figure I'll just continue being like this.

SMBC dramatizes an all-too-common dynamic in the textbook industry. The initial negotiation:

Preface

Because surnames of immigrants in a melting pot like America often end up getting distorted, bowdlerized, prettified, and otherwise transformed from what they were in their original homelands, we cannot take their current form as gospel linguistic truth.  Nonetheless, people who encounter them cannot avoid taking them at their face value, which may cause much merriment or consternation.  Here I will list several puzzling, unusual surnames I have known, but will not make an assiduous effort to arrive at a definitive explanation of their etymology, morphology, or phonology

In grade school, there was a classmate with the surname "Hassapis".  We all assumed that it meant something related to Manneken Pis (like, he couldn't wait), which I wrote about recently.  After googling around for a few moments, I found that a lot of people from Cyprus have that surname, but couldn't find a hint of its meaning.  After still more googling, I found that a variant seems to be "Hasapis", which may be derived from the Greek word "hasapi", meaning "butcher", though I'm not so sure about that. (source)  Other, more fanciful, derivations have been proposed, but I am inclined to believe that it does have something to do with the Greek word for "butcher":

…by virtue of the global spread of English. At least, that's what we can conclude from the click-bait title of a book recently published in France, "La langue anglaise n'existe pas". C'est du français mal prononcé (= "The English language doesn't exist". It's badly-pronounced French).

The author, Bernard Cerquiglini, has some serious credentials, to which he's now added a verified sense of humor. The book opens with a (slightly modified) quote from Montaigne:

« C'est icy un Livre de mauvaise foy, Lecteur.» Il faut de l'audace pour citer Montaigne à rebours; nous aurons cet aplomb: la mauvaise foi est ici proclamée, assumée, réflechie.

"Here is a book in bad faith, reader." It requires boldness to cite Montaigne backwards; we will have this confidence: bad faith is here proclaimed, assumed, and considered.

This post links to three shorts by @ellecordova — "This is what I think it would be like if famous authors asked you out".

The first one features Kurt Vonnegut, Emily Dickinson, Dr. Seuss, Jane Austen, James Joyce, Virginia Woolf, and Ernest Hemingway:

I have something to add to The Economist's list of "How businesses are actually using generative AI", namely creating phishing messages that are even more implausible than those generated by rooms full of non-native hirelings.

Let's start with the last four panels of today's Doonesbury: