Language Log

We've met Julesy before:  "The conundrum of singing with tones" (5/30/25).  She has a Ph.D. in linguistics and knows how to communicate her scientific knowledge of Mandarin to intelligent laypersons.  Here she is again, this time telling us some very important things about the differences between words and characters:

Two years ago, I wrote a post about "kempt and sheveled" (3/26/23).

That elicited the following offline comment by a German friend:

Yann LeCun's evaluation of political versus linguistic errors:

 

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Last Monday, Rep. Earl L. "Buddy" Carter introduced H.R.1161 – "Red, White, and Blueland Act of 2025", according to which (Sec. 2)

The President is authorized to enter into negotiations with the Government of Denmark to purchase or otherwise acquire Greenland.

and (Sec. 3)

AntC wrote:

You may or may not have heard of Kucha.  For those who are interested in Tocharian or Uyghur, you almost certainly would be well aware of this oasis city on the northern rim of the Taklamakan Desert in the Tarim Basin of Eastern Central Asia. 

Coordinates: 41°42′56″N 82°55′56″E

Kucha is the historical seat of so-called Tocharian B, i.e., Kuśiññe Kantwo, the home of the renowned Buddhist translator, Kumārajīva (344-413), and an important center of Uyghur history and culture from the 7th to 13th centuries.

'Tis the season to savor panettone, a mildly sweet Italian bread.

It is made during a long process that involves curing the dough, which is acidic, similar to sourdough. The proofing process alone takes several days, giving the cake its distinctive fluffy characteristics.

(source)

It usually contains small amounts of fruit; the variety I'm eating this afternoon has cherries and chocolate pieces — extremely delicious.

Being the irremediable language buff that I am, I could not help but marvel at the construction of the name of this delicious bread:

This is apparently from X in February of 2023, though it can now be found elsewhere:

So is ass an intensifier in "super mario level ass geological formation", or has it just been bleached into a formative for turning a phrase into a modifier?

"Some idioms and terms pertaining to Japan's favorite grain", by Yuko Tamura, The Japan Times (9/25/24)

Rice is an essential part of the Japanese diet, so naturally it's also a part of the language. In fact, the word for "meal," ご飯 (gohan), also means "cooked rice." Before it's cooked, however, you'll see it referred to as 米 (kome). Below are a few terms and idioms that either use the kanji for rice or refer to it in some form.

• 朝飯前 (Asameshi mae): No sweat, a piece of cake. Something that can be done before breakfast. Ex., それくらい朝飯前だよ (Sore kurai asameshi mae da yo, That’s no trouble at all).
• 日常茶飯事 (Nichijō sahanji): Common, everyday things such as drinking tea or eating food that are a part of daily life. Ex., 彼の遅刻は日常茶飯事だ (Kare no chikoku wa nichijō sahanji da, His being late is a usual thing).

Back in the early 2000s, George W. Bush got a lot of flac for calling Greeks "Grecians" and making similar mistakes in the mapping from place names to ethnonyms.

J.D. Vance recently went the other way, mapping the ethnonym Haitians to a possible place name pronounced /ˈhej.ʃə/, as if it were spelled "Haitia":

From Bored Panda (8/5/24).  For people who love food and the culinary arts, this issue of Bored Panda, which has fifty parts, is almost like a bible.

Shannon McDonagh, "'What the Hell Is This?': Crocodile-Like Fossil Rewrites Triassic History", Newsweek 7/11/2024:

The groundbreaking discovery of the Benggwigwishingasuchus eremicarminis reveals the presence of waterside crocodile-like creatures around the globe during the Middle Triassic.

Broadly known as pseudosuchian archosaurs—four-legged, carnivorous beings with an armadillo-like coating—these creatures are now known to have existed coastally between 247.2 million and 237 million years ago.

Oh wow this is an AMAZINGLY FASCINATING find! The 'Chinese characters' seem intractable, but are just phonetically written Mandarin syllables (initial, nucleus, coda):
c(e) 策+ e 額 + (e)ng 鞥 = ceng
Next to it a Manchu transcription: ᡮᡝ᠋᠊ᠩ

I wonder where it comes from? https://t.co/p2T42WANGD pic.twitter.com/z9V2DO5SaC

— Egas Moniz-Bandeira ᠡᡤᠠᠰ ᠮᠣᠨᠢᠰ ᠪᠠᠨᡩ᠋ᠠᠶᠢᠷᠠ (@egasmb) June 4, 2024