Language Log

From Mark Swofford in Taiwan:

On Facebook, this conversation thread followed from a post by Bill Benzon, commenting on his recent blog post, "Once more around the merry-go-round: Is the brain a computer?"

Nick Tursi sent in this Bosnian menu from a cafe near Kravica waterfalls in Herzegovina:

Photographs by Mark Swofford from Fuxing District of Taoyuan City:

Mark Swofford, who is visiting the Jiaobanshan (Jiaoban Mountain) Park in Fuxing District of Taoyuan City, sent me this photograph of a sign introducing the area:

Over the years, I have come across the expression "red thread" in various and sundry circumstances.  The latest instance was conveyed to me by the French journalist and documentary director, Philippe Grangereau.  As we were working together on an illustrated piece of reportage about the Tarim mummies, he would remind me from time to time that everything that went into the text had to contribute and be related to what he called the "red wire" (speaking in English).  The first several times Philippe used that expression I didn't know what he was talking about.  Finally I asked him how to say it in French.  When he told me "fil rouge", I knew right away that he meant "red thread", and that fit perfectly with my understanding of the need for all the elements in the text to be related to the central narrative thread that ran through it.

Today's Dinosaur Comics:

The mouseover title: "for my next trick, i'm turning a four-dimensional hypercubical linked list, which is a concept i just made up, into allegory".

Latest article in SupChina:

"‘Small-town test taker’ — phrase of the week"

A “small-town test taker” is a self-deprecating — or slightly insulting — phrase to describe a country bumpkin who works their butt off in pursuit of success.

Andrew Methven (7/22/22)

One would not expect a strongly class consciousness and behavior in a presumably classless communist society, but that seems to be the case in the PRC, especially in the entertainment sector, of all places.

Our phrase of the week is: small-town test taker (小镇做题家 xiǎo zhèn zuò tí jiā).

Context

Chinese pop singer Jackson Yee (易烊千玺 Yì Yángqiānxǐ) and two other celebrities are facing controversy after the National Theatre of China (国家话剧院 guójiā dà jùyuàn) hired them as staff performers, sparking calls on social media for more transparency amid concerns that they gained privileged access.

HE HAS ALL THE SOU OF COURSE
0:05 AND LOADED, READTOO.K
0:11 TING
0:16 A TVERY CONFIDENT.CONWAY
0:21 COURTHOUHAING TOGET T ROCESS.WHE
0:28 COIDATE'
0:30 TTACUTION'S CATHATE'
0:36 SE.
0:36 CHCEN'T KNHA
0:37 TAER OFURDI

That's the start of the automatically-generated transcript on YouTube for "See George Conway's reaction to Trump's reported plan if he wins again", CNN 7/24/2022.

A sinographic character that pushes the limits of imagination: a phono-semantic compound with "人, human" as its semantic component and "A" as its phonetic component (從人、A 聲). This is not fictional. It is used by the Bouyei people (=Northern Zhuang) of Guizhou Province. pic.twitter.com/aCrpB0WTD4

— 戴忠沛 Tai Chung-pui (@taichungpui) July 23, 2022

The giraffe is such an outlandish animal that many otherwise sensible people have thought that it must be a combination of several species.

From the concept of a giraffe being an amalgam of several animals jointly; compare Persian شترگاوپلنگ‎ (šotorgâvpalang, “giraffe”, literally “camel-ox-leopard”) and Ancient Greek καμηλοπάρδαλῐς (kamēlopárdalis, “giraffe”).

Noun

زَرَافَة • (zarāfa) f (plural زَرَافَات‎ (zarāfāt))

1. 1. group of people, cluster of people, body of people

      ‏زَرَافَاتٍ وَ‌وُحْدَانًا‎ ― zarāfātin wa-wuḥdānan ― jointly and severally; in groups and alone

(source)

The name "giraffe" has its earliest known origins in the Arabic word zarāfah (زرافة), perhaps borrowed from the animal's Somali name geri. The Arab name is translated as "fast-walker". In early Modern English the spellings jarraf and ziraph were used, probably directly from the Arabic, and in Middle English orafle and gyrfaunt, gerfaunt. The Italian form giraffa arose in the 1590s. The modern English form developed around 1600 from the French girafe.

"Camelopard" /kəˈmɛləˌpɑːrd/ is an archaic English name for the giraffe; it derives from the Ancient Greek καμηλοπάρδαλις (kamēlopárdalis), from κάμηλος (kámēlos), "camel", and πάρδαλις (párdalis), "leopard", referring to its camel-like shape and leopard-like colouration.

(source)

Eric P. Smith writes:

Is there a name for a typographical error like the following?  If not, perhaps we should call it a “Firebug”.

Since 2021, Truss has served as the Secretary of State for Fireugb Cinnibweakth and Development affairs.

Liz Truss, who may well be the UK’s next prime minister, was Secretary of State not for some obscure Scottish Gaelic department with an indecipherable name, but for “Foreign Commonwealth and Development affairs”.  The typist’s right hand has strayed one quantum to the left, so that O has become I, M has become N, and so on.  The hands will have physically collided with the left index finger on the T of “Commonwealth” and the right index finger above the G next to the H, and the collision must have jogged the right hand back onto the straight and narrow, apparently without the typist even noticing.

A recent Daily Beast spamletter featured an intriguing teaser:

The headline made me think that a faction of the Duchess of Cornwall's staff, known as "Team Rubbish", had made a startling accusation. The next sentence (and the linked article) set me straight.

So "Team Rubbish" is a classic Crash Blossom, caused as usual by noun/verb ambiguities. And in this case there's an added UK/US dimension: rubbish as a verb is mostly a British thing, as is the use of plural verb agreement with a singular subject that refers to a group.