Language Log

A recent SMBC:

Among many other applications, this hypothesis (from the most recent xkcd) may finally offer a quantitative explanation for the generally poor quality of language-related articles in Science and Nature:

Mouseover title: "When comparing hypotheses with Bayesian methods, the similar 'clickbayes factor' can account for some harder-to-quantify priors."

Recently in PHD Comics:

My schedule is merely crowded over the next week or so, rather than insane, so I hope to be able to post a little more often.

The "Frequency Illusion", introduced here in 2005, has made the big time in today's SMBC:

Dilbert for 5/2/2018:

Today's xkcd:

Mouseover title: "Hi, I'm your new meteorologist and a former software developer. Hey, when we say 12pm, does that mean the hour from 12pm to 1pm, or the hour centered on 12pm? Or is it a snapshot at 12:00 exactly? Because our 24-hour forecast has midnight at both ends, and I'm worried we have an off-by-one error."

I'll leave it to readers to compose the corresponding jokes for economists, physicists, anthropologists, literary theorists, stand-up comedians, and so on.

Non Sequitur for 4/25/2018:

Exercise for readers: Is the order "Live and Learn" motivated by meaning or sound?

That's the abbreviated title of a popular webcomic by Lin Chao 林超.  The full title in Chinese is Nà nián nà tù nàxiē shì 那年那兔那些事 (lit., "that year that rabbit those affairs"; i.e., "The story of that rabbit that happened in that year")

From the beginning of the Wikipedia article:

The comic uses animals as an allegory for nations and sovereign states to represent political and military events in history. The goal of this project was to promote nationalistic pride in young people, and focuses on appreciation for China's various achievements since the beginning of the 20th century.

Today's Frazz:

Today's Random Crab:

Thomas Carlyle, "Sir Walter Scott":

There is a great discovery still to be made in Literature, that of paying literary men by the quantity they do not write. Nay, in sober truth, is not this actually the rule in all writing; and, moreover, in all conduct and acting? Not what stands above ground, but what lies unseen under it, as the root and subterrene element it sprang from and emblemed forth, determines the value. Under all speech that is good for anything there lies a silence that is better. Silence is deep as Eternity: speech is shallow as Time. Paradoxical does it seem? Woe for the age, woe for the man, quack-ridden, bespeeched, bespouted, blown about like barren Sahara, to whom this world-old truth were altogether strange!

Today's SMBC explores an important issue:

Today's xkcd:

Mouseover title: "[They do not move.]"