Language Log

On my to-blog list since last month:

You are not a horse. You are not a cow. Seriously, y'all. Stop it. https://t.co/TWb75xYEY4

— U.S. FDA (@US_FDA) August 21, 2021

There's probably no other Japanese word that is better known to the world than "arigatō".  In this little essay, Kaki Okumura attempts to explain why "there is difficulty" means "thank you".  This is something that I have often pondered myself, but is that all there is to it?  And what about the alleged Buddhist aspects of the expression?

Even the rather full etymology I've quoted below doesn't do full justice to the word.

"The Strange Thing About Writing ‘Thank You’ in Japanese:  When life is full of good miracles"

Kaki Okumura, Medium (8/27/21)

[This is a guest post by Pamela Kyle Crossley]

Just read the blog post on this. I feel like "I feel like" is one of those passive-aggressive tics that came in in the 1980/1990s, related to that thing where people turned statements into questions by raising their pitch at the end of a sentence (which I think was originally a California-ism). That fake question stuff was passive-aggressive, and students used it addictively, particularly in discussion. "I'm asking, right? Not stating? So nobody can criticize me, right? I'm just asking a question? If I'm wrong, don't be harsh on me, right? I'm just asking?"  Very destructive. Students need to be able to make statements.

Yesterday, I had a ride with a young man (age 23) from East Liverpool, Ohio to Irwin, Pennsylvania, a distance of about 70 miles, so we had the opportunity for a good talk.  He is a tow truck operator by trade, but was also acting as a taxi driver to earn some extra income.

We had a nice, free-flowing conversation covering all sorts of interesting topics:  his work as a tow truck driver, the ceramics industry in that Tri-State (Ohio, Pennsylvania, West Virginia) corner of the world, his 12-year-old niece winning the first demolition derby of her life and getting a 6-foot-high trophy plus a prize of $1,200 at the Hookstown County Fair, and much else besides.

Fairly early in our conversation, I noticed an unusual feature of the young man's speech, the prevalence of the word "I'm" at the beginning of sentences.

From Barbara Philips Long:

It is my impression that this lawmaker is pronouncing affidavit with a terminal -d instead of -t, regardless of the phonemes in the following words.

Listening to the audio, I agree with the judgment:

Mr. Braynard, I
did have a chance
to read through your affidavit
and look at
the exhibits that you attached
to the affidavit

From Charles Belov:

A story on COVID-19 in Mississippi, "After Big Thanksgiving Dinners, Plan Small Christmas Funerals, Health Experts Warn", includes the following sentence:

“If I were in DeSoto, I wouldn’t go out,” Dr. Dobbs said during the MSDH roundtable late last week. “I would stay in my house as much as possible. Because DeSoto is eat up with coronavirus cases.”

I'd never heard "is eat up" before, so I wondered whether it might be a typo. I searched on the phrase "is eat up" and, aside from coincidental other occurrences, found "Wife's stepsister is eat up with BLM" and "I’m from South Carolina and my Facebook is eat up with this dumb crap!!!" so apparently it is a part of English.

One of my favorite places to run to from Swarthmore is a beautiful little lake about three miles away.  I've been running down there for a couple of years now after I discovered its existence when I mentioned to some folks who live in Ridley Park, where the lake is located, that I'm always looking for nice places to run, and they suggested, with some pride, that I should come down and check out their little gem of a lake.  So I tried it out and have become stuck on it.  I have to run down there at least once every week or two, otherwise I feel that something is missing in my life.

So I've been blissfully running to that pretty little lake for a couple of years, but never thought whether it had a particular name.  Yesterday, for some unknown reason (perhaps because the weather was so glorious — 70º, clear blue skies, still some autumn foliage), the thought entered my mind that I should ask some people walking around there, sitting on benches, fishing, and standing on the cute bridge at one end where there is a creek that feeds the lake, what they call that lovely, little body of water.

That's the title of a new book (Oct. 7, 2020) from Routledge edited by Henning Klöter and Mårten Söderblom Saarela, with the following subtitle:  Historical Trajectories, Language Planning, and Multilingual Practices.   I was present at the conference in Göttingen where the papers in the volume were first delivered and can attest to the high level of presentations and discussions.

This is the publisher's book description:

Headline in Global Times today (9/10/20):

Since the colorful, eye-catching term "vicious smears" has been popping up elsewhere in PRC English language media these days, colleagues have been wondering where it comes from in PRC Chinese language media.  Tracking down the Chinese original of this Global times article, it seems that "full of errors, inconsistent with the facts, and full of vicious smears against China" in this article is translated from "cuòlòu bǎichū, yǔ shìshí yánzhòng bùfú, chōngchìzhe duì Zhōngfāng de èdú gōngjí mǒhēi 错漏百出，与事实严重不符，充斥着对中方的恶毒攻击抹黑", and thus the Chinese word they use for "smears" in this article is "gōngjí 攻击 ("attack") mǒhēi 抹黑 ("discredit / [bring] shame [on] / defame / blacken OR tarnish [someone's reputation]")"; and "èdú gōngjí mǒhēi 恶毒攻击抹黑" for "vicious smears". Without the reference to the original Chinese sentence, I would probably translate "vicious smears" as "èdú de huǐbàng 恶毒的毁谤" ("vicious slander") given this specific context.

(Plus one non-native accent…)

Response to this video has been absolutely insane! Cannot thank everyone enough! 4.5 Million views on TikTok! #COVID19 #covid #corona pic.twitter.com/8i8F8ktJvD

— Blake Pavey (@BlakePavey) July 30, 2020

Almost a month old, but still relevant.

From the Ulster-Scots Academy:

The introduction of Ulster-Scots as a language subject into the schools’ curriculum in Northern Ireland depends on the availability of an appropriate range of foundational textbooks and classroom resources. Because of this, the Education Programme of the Ulster-Scots Academy is closely related to our Language Development Programme and the provision of these resources to support accredited courses (to examination standards). These consist of dictionaries, spelling guides, grammar books, Ulster-Scots texts in the form of ‘readers’, and — in particular — classroom materials in the form of model ‘lessons’ with appropriate notes for teachers.

A sample lesson on "THE and THEY" is provided.

If you ask Google (in various ways) how to pronounce pecan, you'll get suggested additional questions like these:

I've previously featured comedy turns from Kylie Scott ("Drunk in the club after Covid") and Sarah Cooper ("How to medical"), lip-syncing recorded passages from Donald Trump's press events. Here's another approach, from @JaneyGodley, substituting her own voice for that of the First Minister of Scotland, Nicola Sturgeon:

“Don’t be wearing American tan tights round your head – just cover your face when you need to go out” #janeygodleyvoiceover #lockdownuk #nicolasturgeon catch me on tour https://t.co/CgJN2qYsty pic.twitter.com/bv6mDsWCRs

— Janey Godley (@JaneyGodley) April 28, 2020