Archive for Errors
November 19, 2024 @ 7:06 pm· Filed by Victor Mair under Errors, Misreading, Pronunciation, Variation
Xi Jinping is celebrated as the first national leader of the People's Republic of China who speaks Modern Standard (MSM) rather than some heavily accented Sinitic dialect / topolect. That is basically true, though he slurs and swallows his words, and is (in)famous for his numerous verbal gaffes (see "Selected readings" below). Now the pseudoscience and fraud muckraker Fang Shimin / Fang Zhouzi has pointed out another alleged language error perpetrated by President / Chairman / Party Secretary of the CCP while he has been at the APEC meeting in Peru the last few days.
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August 13, 2024 @ 7:22 pm· Filed by Victor Mair under Bilingualism, Errors
A random cat video that showed up on Facebook:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7_iSxFL6_Wg
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February 10, 2024 @ 9:03 am· Filed by Victor Mair under Errors, Miswriting
Sign on the door of a Pizza Hut eatery in Timmins, Ontario:
(source)
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November 20, 2023 @ 11:53 am· Filed by Victor Mair under Errors, Vernacular, Vocabulary
From another tweet / X-effusion by the Master Muckraker, Fang Zhouzi / Fang Shimin:
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November 19, 2023 @ 7:14 pm· Filed by Victor Mair under Errors, Miswriting
From the Twitter / X account of the famous popular science writer and muckraker, Fang Zhouzi / Fang Shimin:
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November 16, 2023 @ 8:04 pm· Filed by Victor Mair under Abbreviation, Errors, Miswriting, Spelling, Writing
From Nathan Hopson:
I have been reading some handwritten documents from the 1960s and 1970s, and have been reminded that even beyond abbreviations, there were still "nonstandard" kanji in use. I guess this took me off guard mostly because these are school publications.
On the abbreviated side, the most obvious example is:
第 → 㐧
The "nonstandard" kanji that interested me most were these two:
1. 管 → 官 part written as 友+、
2. 食缶 as a single character, but paired with 食 to be 食[食缶]
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May 10, 2023 @ 9:36 pm· Filed by Victor Mair under Errors, Phonetics and phonology, Signs
[This is a guest post by Scott Mauldin]
I recently visited Marrakesh and was fascinated by the signs that I submit in the attached photographs. Ostensibly these were originally a kind of business sign that artisans and professionals could hang on their businesses or homes to advertise their profession, but they have evolved into something slightly different for touristic consumption as they now sometimes feature the faces of celebrities or even items.
They're interesting in themselves as a cultural item, but if you look closely at the photos the truly fascinating bit are the "errors" and deviations from standard French spelling. These signs are often made by artisans without a formal education in French and sometimes are phonetic renderings that encode Maghrebi French pronunciations.
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April 16, 2023 @ 6:20 am· Filed by Victor Mair under Artificial intelligence, Errors
Definition
In artificial intelligence (AI), a hallucination or artificial hallucination (also occasionally called delusion) is a confident response by an AI that does not seem to be justified by its training data.
(source)
I had mentioned such AI hallucinating in a previous post once or twice (see "Selected readings"), so it's good to have a concrete example.
Is the account below an instance of ChatGPT "hallucinating"? Its explanation of gato-por-liebre (cat-for-hare) in Spanish would seem so.
[The following is a guest post by Conal Boyce.]
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March 27, 2023 @ 11:54 pm· Filed by Victor Mair under Bilingualism, Errors, Grammar, Spelling
From Taiwan News (3/25/23), by Keoni Everington:
"Taiwanese 'Hello Kitty' English-Chinese dictionary has 70 'egregious errors'
Publisher ACME Cultural Enterprise Co has admitted errors but not recalled dictionaries"
Cover of dictionary, example of misspelling. (Eryk Smith photo)
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February 24, 2023 @ 1:52 am· Filed by Victor Mair under Errors, Etymology, Language and politics, Memes, Proverbs, Slogans, Tropes
From the recent meeting between Putin and Wang Yi (Director of the Office of the Central Foreign Affairs Commission of the Chinese Communist Party):
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October 26, 2022 @ 4:46 pm· Filed by Victor Mair under Errors, Etymology, Words words words
Next time you hear or use the expression "scot-free", don't think that it has anything to do with Scots language or Scot people. I have always avoided using this expression because I didn't want to disparage a whole people. But "scot-free" is such a useful phrase that I wished I could use it with a good conscience. So finally I looked it up and found that it has a completely different derivation from that of the name of the language and the people.
(colloquial) Without consequences or penalties, to go free without payment.
From Middle English scotfre, from Old English scotfrēo (“scot-free; exempt from royal tax or imposts”), equivalent to scot (“payment; contribution; fine”) + -free.
(Wiktionary)
scot
(skŏt)
n.
Money assessed or paid.
[Middle English, tax,
partly from Old Norse skot and partly from Old French escot,
of Germanic origin;
see skeud- in
Indo-European roots.]
(AH Dict. 2016 5th ed.)
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October 22, 2022 @ 7:33 pm· Filed by Victor Mair under Errors, Language and politics, Misspeaking
At this most important moment of his career, when he is about to be crowned emperor for life of the CCP / PRC, Xi Dada commits a whole slew of bloopers and blunders, gaffes and goofs, and the camera has caught him in flagrante delicto:
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July 23, 2022 @ 9:29 am· Filed by Mark Liberman under Errors, Typing
Eric P. Smith writes:
Is there a name for a typographical error like the following? If not, perhaps we should call it a “Firebug”.
Since 2021, Truss has served as the Secretary of State for Fireugb Cinnibweakth and Development affairs.
Liz Truss, who may well be the UK’s next prime minister, was Secretary of State not for some obscure Scottish Gaelic department with an indecipherable name, but for “Foreign Commonwealth and Development affairs”. The typist’s right hand has strayed one quantum to the left, so that O has become I, M has become N, and so on. The hands will have physically collided with the left index finger on the T of “Commonwealth” and the right index finger above the G next to the H, and the collision must have jogged the right hand back onto the straight and narrow, apparently without the typist even noticing.
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