Doom-lexing
Yesterday, Randoh Sallihall from unscramblerer.com sent this note:
Susie Dent has an ever growing Twitter following of 1,1 million unique word lovers to whom she shares her daily word of the day. Word search engine Unscramblerer.com went through Susie Dent's whole Twitter history and analyzed what are the most liked, shared and commented words of the day she has posted.
List of Susie Dent's most popular words of the day:
- Word of the day is ‘ingordigiousness’: extreme greed; an insatiable desire for wealth at any cost. (141387 likes)
- Word of the day is 'maw-worm' (19th century): one who insists that they have done nothing wrong, despite evidence to the contrary. (114681 likes)
- Word of the day is ‘sparple’ (14th century): to deflect unwanted attention from one thing by making a big deal of another. (109082 likes)
- Word of the day is ‘recrudescence’ (17th century): the return of something unpleasant after a period of relief. (103422 likes)
- Word of the day is ‘malversation’ (16th century): the corrupt administration of power. (92425 likes)
- Word of the day is 'filipendulous' (19th century): hanging by a thread. (88913 likes)
- Word of the day is ‘circumlocutionist’: one who consistently speaks in a roundabout way in order to avoid addressing a question directly. (77277 likes)
- Word of the day is ‘spuddle’ (17th century): to work ineffectively; to be extremely busy whilst achieving absolutely nothing. (75219 likes)
- Word of the day is 'sequaciousness' (17th century): the blinkered, unreasoning, and slavish following of another, no matter where it leads. (69710 likes)
- Word of the day is Zugzwang [tzoog-tzwung]: a situation in chess (and life) in which a move must be made, but each possible one will make the situation worse. (68422 likes)
A spokesperson for Unscramblerer.com commented on the findings:
"Susie Dent sometimes uses current events to post a word of the day that is relevant to what is happening in the UK. This is why her most popular words of the day are likely also related to past events where she really understood the mood of the crowd. A great example of this is the word 'maw-worm' posted on Apr 12, 2022 her most retweeted word of the day ever (a dig at Boris Johnson during 'Partygate'). In general people love unique and obscure words they have never heard before. It spikes curiosity and it is really fun trying to use such words yourself. Resulting in people laughing and then asking what does 'snollygoster' mean?"
Read the rest of this entry »
Waterless, emission-free toilet that Chairman Xi saw
(see in particular the second item)
If this isn't dictator status, I don't know what ishttps://t.co/A4guMzG4m1
— Bumboclott (@Bumboclott) June 29, 2023
Read the rest of this entry »
Ron's Princibles
Sunday's post on "Listless vessels" opened with this clip:
The movement has got to be
about what are you trying to achieve on behalf of the American people
and that's got to be based in principle
uh because if you're not rooted in principle
uh if all we are is listless vessels that just supposed to follow
you know whatever happens to come down the pike on Truth Social every morning
that- that's not going to be a durable movement
about what are you trying to achieve on behalf of the American people
and that's got to be based in principle
uh because if you're not rooted in principle
uh if all we are is listless vessels that just supposed to follow
you know whatever happens to come down the pike on Truth Social every morning
that- that's not going to be a durable movement
And in the 30th comment, Yuval wrote
FWIW, both utterances of "principle" sound like 'princible' to me.
He's absolutely right — but what those two words "sound like" leaves an important theoretical (and practical) question open.
Read the rest of this entry »
The Tocharian Trek: PIE and migration across Eurasia
In recent weeks and months, Language Log has been quite active in discussions on Tocharian and its relationship to other members of Indo-European. Today's post takes a different approach from this post made just yesterday and many earlier posts.
"Europe's ancient languages shed light on a great migration and weather vocabulary"
by Ali Jones, Horizon: The EU Research & Innovation Magazine (8/15/23)
Painstaking archaeological exploration is a familiar, often widely admired, method of unearthing history. Less celebrated, but also invaluable, is the piecing together of fragments of ancient languages and analyzing how they changed over thousands of years.
Historical linguists have reconstructed a common ancestral tongue for most of the languages spoken today in Europe and South Asia. English, German, Greek, Hindi and Urdu—among others in the Indo-European family of languages—can all trace their origins to a single spoken one named Proto-Indo-European (PIE).
Read the rest of this entry »
Listless vessels
In an interview on Friday ("DeSantis plans to do what Trump couldn't | Full Interview with Will Witt", The Florida Standard 8/18/2023), Ron DeSantis referred to (some of?) Donald Trump's followers as "listless vessels":
The movement has got to be
about what are you trying to achieve on behalf of the American people
and that's got to be based in principle
uh because if you're not rooted in principle
uh if all we are is listless vessels that just supposed to follow
you know whatever happens to come down the pike on Truth Social every morning
that's- that's not going to be a durable movement
about what are you trying to achieve on behalf of the American people
and that's got to be based in principle
uh because if you're not rooted in principle
uh if all we are is listless vessels that just supposed to follow
you know whatever happens to come down the pike on Truth Social every morning
that's- that's not going to be a durable movement
Read the rest of this entry »
The origins and affinities of Tocharian
I asked several IEist colleagues:
Of all the IE languages, which one is Tocharian closest to?
Celtic?
Germanic?
Read the rest of this entry »
A sign of the future?
Anemona Hartocollis, "Slashing Its Budget, West Virginia University Asks, What Is Essential?", NYT 8/18/2023:
The state’s flagship school will no longer teach world languages or creative writing — a sign, its president says, of the future at many public universities.
Christian Adams wants to be an immigration or labor lawyer, so he planned to major in Chinese studies at West Virginia University, with an emphasis on the Mandarin language.
But as his sophomore year begins, he has learned that, as part of a plan to close a $45 million budget deficit through faculty layoffs and academic program consolidation, the university has proposed eliminating its world languages department, gutting his major.
He will have to pivot to accounting, he says, and probably spend an extra year in college, taking out more student loans.
“A lot of students are really worried,” said Mr. Adams, 18. “Some are considering transferring. But a lot of students are stuck with the hand they’ve been given.”
Read the rest of this entry »
Axing languages and linguistics at West Virginia University
From M. Paul Shore:
Article that appeared on the Washington Post website this morning (and is therefore likely to appear in tomorrow's print edition) about the recently proposed demise of, among other things, the Department of World Languages, Literatures and Linguistics at West Virginia University's flagship Morgantown campus (note that that department name really should be something like "Department of World Languages and Literatures and of Linguistics", since "World" doesn't really apply to "Linguistics"):
Recently proposed demise of languages, linguistics at WVU (Morgantown)
WVU’s plan to cut foreign languages, other programs draws disbelief
Academic overhaul at West Virginia University, in response to budget deficit, outrages faculty and students
Nick Anderson , WP (8/18/23)
A proposal from West Virginia University would discontinue 32 of the university’s 338 majors on its Morgantown campus and eliminate 7 percent of its faculty. As of 6:30 PM, the article had attracted more than 900 comments, which I'm fairly sure is well above average for the Post website. By 11 PM, it had garnered 1,400 comments.
Read the rest of this entry »
AI hype #∞
In social and even mass media, you may have seen coverage of a recent paper by Joshua Harrison et al., "A Practical Deep Learning-Based Acoustic Side Channel Attack on Keyboards". Some samples of the clickbait:
"A.I. can identify keystrokes by just the sound of your typing and steal information with 95% accuracy, new research shows", Fortune
"Do not type passwords in offices, new AI tool can steal your password by listening to your keyboard clicks", India Today
"AI Can Now Crack Your Password by ‘Listening’ to Your Keyboard Sounds", Beebom
"AI tools can steal passwords by listening to keystrokes during Zoom calls, study says", Khaleej Times
"How your keyboard sounds can expose your data to AI hackers", Interesting Engineering
But if you read the paper, you'll find very little to be concerned about — or at least nothing much new to add to your cybersecurity worries.
Read the rest of this entry »