Language Log

Today's Tank McNamara:

Frazz for 12/11/2023:

Cartoon by Atu:

(source: Facebook, Instagram)

In addition to a proto-regular-expression for English monosyllables, Benjamin Lee Whorf's 12/1940 Technology Review article has a weird diagram showing how a linguist (?) would organize French language instruction along the lines of mid-20th-century factory work:

Today's SMBC:

Those first four panels resonated with my recent experience skimming Helena Blavatsky's The Secret Doctrine: The Synthesis of Science, Religion, and Philosophy. Vol II — Anthropogensis (1888). I learned of Blavatsky's existence due to the restaurant located in her former residence, and my sense of her influence in Philadelphia was reinforced by years of walking past the United Lodge of Theosophists.

I expected The Secret Doctrine to be nuttier than squirrel poop, as indeed it is. But I wasn't prepared for its extreme mythic racism, endorsement of (fantastical versions of) eugenics, and so on. In retrospect, I should have realized that late 19th-century fantasy would be like that. I'll spare you the details of Blavatsky's theories of lost continents and their associated "root races" — you can read Wikipedia's summary, or dive into the 1888 tome yourself if care. But I'll reproduce a few illustrative quotes from the book.

As is so often true, xkcd points to an important topic so far ignored by linguists:

We're all waiting to learn the story behind Sam Altman's firing as CEO of OpenAI. Or at least, many of us are.

Meanwhile, there's possible resonance with an on-going drama in the daily Popeye comic strip, concerning the fate of (former) King Blozo of Spinachovia, now the Superintendent of Royal Foot Surfaces:

Today's xkcd:

Mouseover title: "The problems started with my resolution next year to reject temporal causality."

A recent SMBC strip:

No, not what you get by asking GPT-4 for insults — for that, see below…
This is the SMBC comic from a few days ago:

Shared by John Rohsenow and David Cahill / Isham Cook:

From Arthur Meursault (@emptymeursault)

奥本海默中国大陆版本剪辑情况 pic.twitter.com/Nbjxy5PJ4J

— 小径残雪 (@xiaojingcanxue) September 1, 2023

[link to full tweet here]

…or maybe we should call it a "semantic jump"? It's a pun that illustrates how word meanings can evolve along sensible paths that become obscure as time passes and culture changes. Which is one of the reasons that the reconstruction of linguistic history gets harder as time depth increases.

Here's the upper scene in the latest Perry Bible Fellowship comic: