Language Log

Sino-Platonic Papers is pleased to announce the publication of its three-hundred-and-seventy-seventh issue:

“The Baghdad Battery: Experimental Verification of a 2,000-Year-Old Device Capable of Driving Visible and Useful Electrochemical Reactions at over 1.4 Volts,” by Alexander Bazes.

As has often been mentioned on Language Log, Dunhuang is a desert oasis town at the far western end of the Gansu / Hexi Corridor.  This is where the fabled Silk Road splits to head north and south around the vast Tarim Basin (filled with the extremely hot [summer] / cold [winter] / arid) Taklakamakan Desert.  Site of the Mogao Grottoes (hundreds of richly decorated medieval Buddhist caves), one of which (no. 17) housed tens of thousands of manuscripts that were sealed away more than a millennium ago.  Among them were the earliest written Sinitic vernacular narratives that I worked on for the first twenty years of my Sinological and Buddhological career (see the last three items of the "Selected readings" below).

I was planning to write a post on this chain of phenomenal gas stations cum country / convenience stores (gives a new meaning to that expression), so was tickled when jhh beat me to mentioning it in this comment.

Several days ago, i visited one in the outskirts of Dallas.  As per many things Texas, it was BIG.  Outside, it had more than 80 pumps, and inside it had more than 80 cashiers.  The store stretched on and on and on, longer than a football field.  I felt like I was in a Star Wars space ship cantina.  The store-station was equal to ten of our biggest Wawa station-stores, which I treasure.  It had a parking lot that accommodated hundreds of cars.

Many people who don't have the slightest clue about how Chinese characters work have been snookered by the (in)famous Chinese "poem" that has 92 or 94 characters all pronounced "shi" (though in different tones).  It's supposed to be a test of one's accuracy in mastering tones and is said to be intelligible when spoken aloud with the correct tones.  Some people think it proves how profound Chinese characters are.  In actuality, it proves absolutely nothing of value.  Nobody talks like this.

Here it is, with explication and annotation:   "Lion-Eating Poet in the Stone Den".

Unless you have endless amounts of time to waste, I would advise you to do no more than glance at it.

Before last week, I had never heard this expression, but among people who work remotely over the internet, it is fairly common.  For example, if you haven't seen or heard from a colleague for a long time, you might say to him, "Yo, bro, I was wondering whether you quiet quit."

What does it mean?

(ambitransitive, idiomatic) To cease overachieving at one's workplace to focus on one's personal life; to do only what is reasonably or contractually required. [since 2022] 

(Wiktionary)

A little over a year ago, as I was running through the little town of Wamsutter (pop. 203) in southwest Wyoming, I was stunned when the attendants and clerks at the three gas stations there uniformly greeted me with a hearty "Welcome in!"  

Last week, as I walked into a small store in the rural Dallas area, the shop assistant hailed me naturally with "welcome in!"  I couldn't help but catch my breath and momentarily halt my pace, because I hadn't heard that interjection a single time in the Philadelphia area.

I asked my son, who lives outside of Dallas, how prevalent this expression is.  He replied:

I would say it's fairly common.

Maybe 1 in 3 times one enters a restaurant or smaller store you hear that or a similar greeting

From AntC:  "Following the thread on South Korea’s English exam, here’s New Taipei promoting topolect diversity. “the goal is to encourage more people to learn Hakka and use the language in daily life.”

New Taipei to reward Hakka test passes with cash
City residents can earn up to NT$4,000 for certified exam passes
Reagan Lai, Taiwan News (Dec. 25, 2025)

The Penghu (/ˈpʌŋˈhuː/ PUNG-HOO,       Hokkien POJ: Phîⁿ-ô͘  or Phêⁿ-ô͘ ) or Pescadores Islands are an archipelago of 90 islands and islets in the Taiwan Strait, about 50 kilometres (25 nautical miles) west of the main island of Taiwan across the Penghu Channel, covering an area of 141 km² (54 sq mi). The archipelago collectively forms Penghu County. The largest city is Magong, on the largest island, which is also named Magong.   …Population 101,758 (2014)    (Wikipedia)

Sino-Platonic Papers is pleased to announce the publication of its three-hundred-and-seventy-fourth issue:

“Buddhism among the Sogdians: A Re-Evaluation,” by Todd Gibson.

Random storefront in Taiwan:

Sino-Platonic Papers is pleased to announce the publication of its three-hundred-and-seventy-third issue:

“Correspondences between Old Chinese and Proto-Celtic Words,” by Julie Lee Wei