Language Log

The New York Review of Books recently spammed me with an email that led off like this:

I’m still trying to figure out, in XJP rhetoric, when 中华 is used and when it’s 中国. How long has Zhongguo been used directly as an adjective this way, as opposed to 中国似的or 中国性？Is a 中国味different from a 中华味？Which smells better? pic.twitter.com/9CARnICZSu

— James Millward 米華健 (@JimMillward) September 4, 2024

imgur,  "On forms of address for non-binaries", by apolloendymion:

The use of the verb positioned in this sentence, part of an article quoted in "'Dutch roll'", puzzled some commenters:

The aircraft remained on the ground in Oakland until Jun 6th 2024, then positioned to Everett,WA (USA), ATS facilities, and is still on the ground in Everett 6 days later.

But there are general processes in English morpho-syntax that validate the sentence as published.

To start with, there are various ways to verbify nouns. In particular, it's common to turn a noun denoting a place into a verb meaning "cause something to come to be in/on/at that place" — as in position N. → position V. 

There's also the question of static vs. dynamic placement, which might have suggested "was re-positioned to Everett" rather than "was positioned to Everett" — but a Google search for {"then positioned to the"} demonstrates that the dynamic interpretation of position V. is entirely normal, especially in various technical domains.

Some speculated  that this sentence might have been a typo for "was positioned to Everett" — but there's the causative/inchoative alternation involved in things like

(a) The pilot moved the plane to Gate 37.
(b) The plane moved to Gate 37.

Derivational morphology is quasi-regular, so new applications of these various processes tend to become normalized in particular fields, but then surprise outsiders. Which is what seems to have happened in this case…

BREAKING: University of Florida students chose to breakdown their encampment after being handed this of Allowable Activities and Prohibitive Items and Activities.

Look at those Consequences for Non-Compliance

University of Florida's chapter of Young Democratic Socialists of… pic.twitter.com/l4jYjrSVcr

— Stu (@thestustustudio) April 26, 2024

One of the students in my class — all from China — hit her elbow on the edge of her desk and grimaced.  I asked her, "Did you hit your crazy bone?"

She didn't know what I meant, and none of the other students in the class knew either.  I explained what "hit my crazy bone" signifies (see below for a physiological note), and the entire class thought it was funny.  Lots of giggling and laughing.

Most Language Log readers are aware that the Japanese writing system consists of three major components — kanji (sinoglyhs), hiragana (cursive syllabary), and katakana (block syllabary).  I would argue that rōmaji (roman letters) are a fourth component, as they are in the Chinese writing system.

How do people decide when to switch among the different components of the Japanese writing system?  Of course, custom and usage determine when to use one and when to use another.  (It's a bit like masculine, feminine, and neuter in gender based languages [a frequent and recent topic on Language Log] — you don't ask why, you just do it].)  In most cases, convention has fixed which of the three main components of the writing system is used for a particular purpose.  On the other hand, since I began learning Japanese half a century ago, I noticed a fairly conspicuous slippage regarding what I had been led to believe were predetermined practices.

Sanae Heist, a senior studying linguistics at Columbia University, brought this whole matter to the surface when she wrote to me as follows:

Evan Boehs, "Everything I Know About the Xz Backdoor", 3/29/2024:

In April 2022, Jia Tan submits a patch via a mailing list. The patch is irrelevant, but the events that follow are.

Here are a couple of puzzling word-choices from Charlatan Magazine, sent to me by someone who was somehow put on their mailing list.

This one is from "The Politics of Immigration", 3/3/2024 [emphasis added]:

While Biden patrols the Texas border (taking a wide berth around the impeachment of Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas) he assuages the American voter whose ire toward illegal immigrants under his presidency has doubled. “There were 49.5 million foreign-born residents in the United States (legal and illegal) in 2023,” according to the Center for Immigration Statistics, and the foreign-born population has grown by 4.5 million under Biden's exegesis.

My correspondent identified "exegesis" as a malapropism, but we couldn't figure out what it might be a substitution for. I guess the author might have meant something like "Biden's interpretation (of immigration policy)", though there's nothing else in the article to raise the question of alternative interpretations of such laws or policies.

From Jeff DeMarco:

This is the de Young Museum in San Francisco, doubling down the -x construction for Spanish: Bienvenidxs.

Are most Spanish speakers ok with this?

I also note that none of the Chinese language materials use simplified characters (viz., huānyíng 歡迎 but not 欢迎).  Is this a snub against the mainland? They do feature a dress made up of images of Mao….

Masterful essay by the Music Director of Symphony Nova Scotia.

"Maestro, Maestra, or Holly?"

We asked our Music Director Holly Mathieson how she prefers to be referred to on the podium!

Her reply may surprise you — or not:

The earliest record we have of the Italian term Maestro in connection to music is from 1724 (maestro di cappella, which translates as Master of the Chapel, similar to the German Kapellmeister). By the end of that century, there is evidence of it being used more generally in Italy as a single word, referring to a master or great teacher of music, or a composer. Etymologically, it shares its roots with the Latin magister, the offshoots of which include the musical term Maestoso, which instructs us to play majestically or in a stately manner, as well as more common language descendants such as magisterial and magistrate, words which connect to ideas of qualified authority.

Recently, we've had occasion to discuss how waitpersons in restaurants tend to say "perfect" no matter what we order (see, for instance, in the comments here).  Lately, I've noticed how the craze for perfection has spread to the grocery business.

I have a habit of carrying cash (my Chinese students barely know what cash is) around in a change purse (for coins and dollar bills) and a billfold for fives, tens, and twenties.  When it comes to paying, I have two general rules of thumb:

1. If possible, I like to pay the exact amount of the bill

2. I like to get rid of an excess of heavy change and bulky dollar bills that rapidly accumulate in my purse

To meet both of those desiderata, that sometimes entails fussing around a bit to count out the right amount.  It might mean that I end up giving the cashier slightly more than the exact amount.  Sometimes I even come up a penny or two or three short, in which case the cashier might make it up from the kitty.  No matter what, they almost always say "perfect" — especially  if I give them the precise amount owed, or close to it.

Yesterday evening in a restaurant, our attentive server frequently asked us things like "Are we ready to order" and "How are we doing?". This waiter-we is pretty common, so I didn't notice it, though one of the other diners did. But when another server brought us a complimentary bit of sushi with the explanation "Here's some unagi for us", that was striking enough to prompt a bit of discussion. Among the three of us at the table, I thought that the we uses were normal but the "for us" was unexpected; another one of us saw all examples of waiter-we as weird and annoying; and the third, a native speaker of Russian, said that in Russian it's called (in translation) the "mom we".