Language Log

Hannah Al-Othman, "‘Mad fer it’: Greater Manchester Aldi to keep Aldeh name in tribute to Oasis", The Guardian 7/24/2025:

An Aldi store in Greater Manchester rebranded Aldeh in honour of Oasis is to keep the new name, the supermarket chain has said.

The new sign was erected at the Prestwich store before the Oasis homecoming gigs earlier this month. The band played five sold-out shows at Heaton Park, which is near the store.

It was meant to be a temporary name change, but the sign has been a massive hit with tourists and local people, with Oasis fans queueing outside for selfies.

The sign has even been listed on Google Maps as a cultural landmark, with a string of glowing five-star reviews calling it “the Stonehenge of a generation” and “the greatest rebrand of all time”.

"Tom Lehrer, Musical Satirist With a Dark Streak, Dies at 97", NYT 7/27/2025.
Nancy Friedman's skeet underlines who and what he outlived:

He outlived Henry Kissinger and New Math. RIP Tom Lehrer.
(Gift link) www.nytimes.com/2025/07/27/a…

[image or embed]

— Nancy Friedman (@fritinancy.bsky.social) July 27, 2025 at 1:14 PM

Today's Tank McNamara:

The most interesting LLM research that I've seen recently is from Alex Cloud and others at Anthropic and Truthful AI, "Subliminal Learning: Language models transmit behavioral traits via hidden signals in data", 7/20/2025:

ABSTRACT: We study subliminal learning, a surprising phenomenon where language models transmit behavioral traits via semantically unrelated data. In our main experiments, a "teacher" model with some trait T (such as liking owls or being misaligned) generates a dataset consisting solely of number sequences. Remarkably, a "student" model trained on this dataset learns T. This occurs even when the data is filtered to remove references to T. We observe the same effect when training on code or reasoning traces generated by the same teacher model. However, we do not observe the effect when the teacher and student have different base models. To help explain our findings, we prove a theoretical result showing that subliminal learning occurs in all neural networks under certain conditions, and demonstrate subliminal learning in a simple MLP classifier. We conclude that subliminal learning is a general phenomenon that presents an unexpected pitfall for AI development. Distillation could propagate unintended traits, even when developers try to prevent this via data filtering.

From Alex Baumans:

Hyeri needs translation by Haneul while talking with Kiss of Life! #kissoflife #키스오브라이프 #혜리

https://www.youtube.com/shorts/zv6hFvQyiDM

I've recently noticed two compound neologisms, both involving metaphors about foot-related self injury.

The first one was in an article in Medium on 6/27/2025, "Why Google is Betting 8 Years on a Programming Language That Doesn’t Exist Yet". That article explains that

In 2022, Google introduced Carbon, a potential successor to C++. Unlike Go or Rust, Carbon wasn’t ready for prime time. In fact, it was barely out of the conceptual phase.

And among the reasons given for the effort [emphasis added]:

C++ has steep learning curves and footguns.

The second foot-related compound was in a 7/24/2025 TPM article, "Why is Jeff Bezos rakestomping the Post?".

From Glenn B.:

I just spotted a pair of recently introduced resolutions in the New Jersey legislature that might be of interest to Language Log. SJR 167 and the identical AJR 230 would (if adopted) recognize Sanskrit "as one of the world languages."

Not all of the claims made on behalf of Sanskrit seem kosher to me, particularly the claim that "Sanskrit has a unique origin, not created by man," but I'd love it if Language Log were able to provide a more authoritative discussion.

This is an odd-looking word that I encounter fairly frequently, especially in my publishing ventures.  Since I don't understand how / why "queue" should be pronounced like "cue", which is also a variant spelling for the same word, I'm especially cautious about "queue" when I approach it.  Moreover, since I'm steeped in pinyin, I'm tempted to pronounce "queue" as "chyueyue" (!).  Consequently, I always have to slow down when I spell / type it:  "q-u-e-u-e", which I seldom have to do with other words except "Cincinnati", which I still haven't mastered.

Other than "its / it's", "queue" is probably the most frequently misspelled word I know of, even among educated persons.

I also am somewhat perplexed why "queue" means both "line" and "tail".

The word "queue" is used to mean a line, particularly in British English, because of its etymological origins. "Queue" comes from the French word "queue," meaning "tail," which in turn comes from the Latin word "cauda," also meaning "tail". This connection to "tail" makes sense when visualizing a line of people or objects, as they often form a linear arrangement reminiscent of a tail. The term "queue" is also used in computing to refer to a data structure where items are processed in a first-in, first-out (FIFO) manner, similar to how people are served in a line.

(AIO)

More Julesy:

Why 50% of modern Chinese vocabulary was made in Japan

The PR campaign for the Unitree GI Robot now comes in at least three local variants: the "Uncle Bot" in China,  "Jake the Rizzbot" in Austin, and a gay version of Jake in Los Angeles.

At the Swarthmore Farmers Market this past Saturday morning, I came upon a new stall selling onigiri, which are Japanese rice balls, a popular and versatile snack or meal component. They consist of steamed rice formed into various shapes, often triangles, and typically filled with savory ingredients like pickled plums (umeboshi), salmon, or tuna with mayonnaise. They are often enclosed in nori (seaweed).

These onigiri were wrapped in cellophane and had a label stuck on the side.  As soon as I saw the design on the label, which looked like a human face, I found that I could "read" it:

Charles B. writes:

Apparently, birds are not considered wild animals by law. Reference here, where apparently feeding them in parks in permitted except if they are red masked parakeets:

SEC. 486. FEEDING BIRDS AND WILD ANIMALS PROHIBITED.
It shall be unlawful for any person to feed or offer food to any bird or wild animal in or on any sidewalk, street or highway of the City and County of San Francisco. It shall be unlawful to feed or offer food to any Red Masked Parakeet in any park of the City and County of San Francisco.
(Added by Ord. 268-64, App. 10/2/64; Ord. 133-07, File No. 070467, App. 6/15/2007)

Taiwan hosts its 1st International Linguistics Olympiad
Nearly 400 people competing at National Taiwan University
Kelvin Chen, Taiwan News (7/21/25)

I wonder whether any Language Log readers have heard of the International Linguistics Olympiad or may even have participated in one of the Olympiads that have been held in at least 23 different countries since its founding in 2003.  Because it has an interesting history and purpose, before telling about what is happening in Taiwan right now (July 21-26, 2025), I'll give a brief sketch of the origins and aims of the Olympiad: