Archive for Writing
September 4, 2020 @ 9:46 am· Filed by Victor Mair under Errors, Miswriting, Orthography, Phonetics and phonology, Writing
A protester holds a placard that reads "Do not forget 831 terror attack, truth needs to be seen on CCTV" during a demonstration at a Hong Kong mall on Aug. 30 on the eve of the first anniversary of the Prince Edward MTR station incident when police stormed the station to make arrests during massive anti-government protests. (Photo: AFP)
(Source)
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July 30, 2020 @ 4:43 pm· Filed by Victor Mair under Humor, Language and religion, Writing, Writing systems
From Nick Tursi:
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July 18, 2020 @ 8:57 pm· Filed by Victor Mair under Decipherment, Writing
From Aman ur Rahman:
(Face)
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June 2, 2020 @ 9:42 am· Filed by Victor Mair under Language and art, Language and politics, Language and the law, Writing
What the people of the former British colony dread:
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May 27, 2020 @ 7:15 am· Filed by Victor Mair under Errors, Miswriting, Writing
As is my custom, I was zipping along merrily, letting my fingers dance on the keys to transfer my thought-flow into typed words. Usually when I'm in a good mood and this happens — which is almost always — I'm thinking thoughts in my head (speaking the sounds of the words I want to type) and letting the neuro-muscular synapses and reflexes take care of the actual writing. It's really quite a nice, pleasurable collaboration between mind and body.
So, my normal practice is to think thoughts, "let my fingers do the walking", and enjoy watching what appears on the computer screen. But I do have to keep an eye on what my fingers are producing, because sometimes it is hilariously wrong and only tenuously connected to what was going on in my brain.
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March 31, 2020 @ 10:08 am· Filed by Mark Liberman under Language and gender, Writing
Following up on "Écriture inclusive" (10/9/2017), Eloy Romero Muñoz sent in a link to a June 2019 "Édition augmentée" of the Manuel d'Écriture Inclusive.
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February 10, 2020 @ 8:59 pm· Filed by Victor Mair under Books, Writing
Clément Pit-Claudel writes:
I was recently at the Boston antiquarian book fair, where I spotted a book titled The Battle of Foochow about the Fuzhou Uprising of November 8, 1911, in which revolutionaries defeated the Qing (Manchu) army, a significant step on the way to the fall of the last dynasty in traditional Chinese history, when the six-year-old Last Emperor, Puyi, abdicated on February 12, 1912. Here's a photograph of the cover:
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February 8, 2020 @ 4:00 pm· Filed by Victor Mair under Language and archeology, Writing, Writing systems
Stone artifact from around the beginning of the first century AD, excavated at the Tawayama remains in Matsue, capital of Shimane Prefecture:
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January 19, 2020 @ 1:16 am· Filed by Victor Mair under Language and culture, Language and politics, Slogans, Writing
From a friend in Hong Kong:
The following pictures are from Shatin mall last night. They show people lining up to get individually calligraphed Chinese New Year’s couplets that take up the key slogan of the protests: “Restore HK’s glory: revolution for our times.” On the way up to mass today, we saw new slogans spray-painted calling for HK independence as “the only way out”. “It ain’t over yet.”
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December 27, 2019 @ 10:34 am· Filed by Victor Mair under Language and computers, Writing, Writing systems
People's Daily video posted on illegal Twitter:
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November 18, 2019 @ 11:39 pm· Filed by Victor Mair under Bilingualism, Diglossia and digraphia, Language and food, Writing, Writing systems
From Jeff DeMarco:
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September 16, 2019 @ 2:17 pm· Filed by Victor Mair under Language and psychology, Writing, Writing systems
Many's the Language Log post in which we've looked at the pluses and negatives of writing Chinese characters (see "Selected readings" below). These include discipline, character building, aesthetic aspects, myopia, even punishment. Now, in "Bring Back Handwriting: It’s Good for Your Brain: People are losing the brain benefits of writing by hand as the practice becomes less common", Elemental (9/12/19), Markham Heid examines the psychological and physical effects of writing by hand as opposed to typing fully formed letters with the stroke of a key.
Psychologists have long understood that personal, emotion-focused writing can help people recognize and come to terms with their feelings. Since the 1980s, studies have found that “the writing cure,” which normally involves writing about one’s feelings every day for 15 to 30 minutes, can lead to measurable physical and mental health benefits. These benefits include everything from lower stress and fewer depression symptoms to improved immune function. And there’s evidence that handwriting may better facilitate this form of therapy than typing.
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September 14, 2019 @ 10:59 am· Filed by Victor Mair under Language and art, Writing, Writing systems
The following mind-boggling demonstration of machine-like writing of Chinese characters was posted on imgur a few days ago:
Flawless writing of Chinese characters
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