Language Log

In "'Between you and I'" (10/5/2025), I quoted three theories that Merriam-Webster's Concise Dictionary of English Usage offers as possible explanations for the confusion over "between you and I" vs. "between you and me". The third of those theories cites Noam Chomsky, whose work is not usually part of usage discussion:

Another possible explanation (unnoticed by the comentaros) comes from the linguist Noam Chomsky. In his Barriers, 1986, he says that compound phrases like you and I are barriers to the assignment of grammatical case. This means that between can assign case only to the whole phrase and not to the individual words that make it up. Thus the individual pronouns are free to be nominative or objective or even reflexives. Chomsky's theory would also explain some other irregularities in pronoun use (See PRONOUNS); it's the best that has been offered so far.

I expressed skepticism about this theory, "for reasons to be discussed another time".

How Chinese Characters Almost Died 

Once again, Julesy tells it like it is.

…as AntC said in a comment on yesterday's "Different from/than/to?" post.

For example, different was borrowed from French différent. But the French use the preposition de with that adjective, e.g. "Pourquoi les Québécois ont-ils un accent différent de celui des Français?". And de is mostly translated as "of", but no English speaker would ever say "X is different of Y".

Or so I thought — but COCA has 72 hits for "different of". Most of them are from contexts like "different of course", but others seem genuine, like this one:

And in another, filmed by Mecklem in 1997, Roman shares an appreciation for the "slowness" of painting, in both the creation and appreciation of it. "You can look at it hundreds of times over the years and you can eventually eke out something, some meaning out of it," he said. "That type of attitude is so different of the mega-visual culture that we have of just quick cuts… It would be good to bring back the activity of painting, of observing painting, and appreciating painting."

Several commenters on yesterday's post "'Between you and I'", starting with Martin Schwartz, go back and forth (or round and round?) about different from vs. different than vs. different to.

So I can't resist quoting the entry for different from, different than, different to from Merriam-Webster's Concise Dictionary of English Usage:

We have about 80 commentators in our files who discourse on the propriety of different than or different to. The amount of comment—thousands and thousands of words—might lead you to believe that there is a very complicated or subtle problem here, but there is not. These three phrases can be very simply explained: different from is the most common and is standard in both British and American usage; different than is standard in American and British usage, especially when a clause follows than, but is more frequent in American; different to is standard in British usage but rare in American usage. 

[This is a guest post by Randoh Sallihall]

Analysis of Google search data for 2025 reveals the most searched for slang words in America.

It sounds like an insane concept, but apparently it is a real thing — in Japanese (karōshi 過労死) and Chinese (guòláosǐ 過勞死 / 过劳死).

…a Japanese term relating to occupation-related sudden death.

The most common medical causes of karoshi deaths are heart attacks and strokes due to stress and malnourishment or fasting. Mental stress from the workplace can also cause workers to commit suicide in a phenomenon known as karōjisatsu (過労自殺).

Karoshi is also widespread in other parts of Asia. Generally, deaths from overwork are a worldwide occurrence. For example, over 770 wage labourers die of overwork annually in Sweden, a country with robust labour regulations. The death toll is, however, expected to increase in the future.

(Wikipedia)

Politics aside, there's been some prescriptivist reaction to (part of) a Signal exchange between White House aides Anthony Salisbury and Patrick Weaver about the idea of deploying the 82nd Airborne to Portland. From  The Guardian :

“Between you and I, I think Pete just wants the top cover from the boss if anything goes sideways with the troops there,” Weaver said.

For some people, it should be "between you and me", and "between you and I" is annoyingly wrong. I've gotten a couple of emails about this. So here's the (complicated) story.

Marie Solis, "When Did Everything Become So ‘Intentional’?", NYT 9/29/2025:

Dating, walking, working out, watching a movie at home, watching a movie in the theater, thrift shopping, grocery shopping, meal prepping, playing trivia, making coffee, drinking coffee, consuming alcohol, making friends, making plans with friends, playing the guitar, journaling, arguing, reading, thinking, scrolling, breathing.

You can just do all of these things. Or you can do them “intentionally,” as a growing chorus of lifestyle gurus, influencers and perhaps slightly overtherapized people you may know personally are preaching lately. […]

A close linguistic relative to mindfulness, living intentionally suggests being present and self-aware. Your words and actions are in near-perfect alignment. Possibly, you’ve meditated recently. True to its literal definition, being “intentional” also implies a series of deliberate choices.

Imagine running propaganda and forgetting to blur the Top Gun logo. Peak CCTV. Even the Chinese can’t bear to see it! #TopGun pic.twitter.com/p0gs5X1MK7

— The Great Translation Movement 大翻译运动 (@TGTM_Official) September 23, 2025

SMBC, Zach Weinersmith, Oct. 3, 2025:

Geoff Brumfiel, "Kiss reality goodbye: AI-generated social media has arrived", All Things Considered 10/3/2025:

A fascist SpongeBob SquarePants, a dog driving a car and Jesus playing Minecraft – these are just a few of the things you can see as you flip through OpenAI's new app populated exclusively with short-form videos generated using artificial intelligence.

And if you can't find what you're looking for, don't worry: you can make it with ease using a small text-based prompt window in the app. The result is a highly addictive stream of sometimes funny and sometimes strange 10-second videos.

"New Autism Data Challenge Long-Held Assumptions", MedPage Today 10/3/2025:

Autism diagnosed during early childhood had a distinct genetic and developmental profile compared with autism diagnosed later, a large analysis of multiple cohorts showed.

[…]

The results challenge a long-held assumption that autism has a unified underlying cause.

The Strange Reason Chinese Doesn’t Borrow Words

Time for another Julesy: