In "Peevable words and phrases: journey", 5/18/2024, Victor quoted Lisa Miller, "When Did Everything Become a ‘Journey’?", NYT 5/16/2024: According to the linguistics professor Jesse Egbert at Northern Arizona University, the use of “journey” (the noun) has nearly doubled in American English since 1990, with the most frequent instances occurring online. In PubMed, where we've […]
Sino-Platonic Papers is pleased to announce the publication of its three-hundred-and-fifty-first issue: "Placing Western Coins Near the Deceased in Ancient China: The Origin of a Custom," by Pin LYU: ABSTRACT: This article traces the custom in ancient China of placing Western coins in proximity to corpses during burial. Academic attention has focused on the origin […]
Abner Li, "Google Messages adopts double FAB to promote Gemini", 9to5google 6/26/2024: Gemini in Google Messages exited beta at I/O 2024 last month and now features a double FAB design. In a rather prominent push, the “Start chat” floating action button now has a smaller Gemini FAB just above it. When you’re dealing with the […]
Aside from etymology, one of my favorite language study activities before college was diagramming sentences. Consequently, I was delighted to be reminded of those good old days by this new (June 19, 2024) article in The Public Domain Review: "American Grammar: Diagraming Sentences in the 19th Century". This is a magisterial collection of crisply photographed […]
Behold the Latin word sāpō (soap) and its many, many descendants which include the Mother of the Austronesian language family—the indigenous Formosan languages of Taiwan: 阿美語 Amis: safon 噶瑪蘭語 Kavalam: sabun 卑南語 Puyuma: sabun 鄒語 Tsou: savungu https://t.co/aYrp1a8bEl pic.twitter.com/YvbyQWTRI7 — Ted (@ted_huang) June 17, 2024
After I left Omaha and headed westward on Route 30 / Lincoln Highway, I began to notice that every little town along the way with a population of around three thousand or more had a restaurant called Runza. My instinct was to pronounce that "roon-zuh", but the people around here say "run-zuh". Because I was […]
Angela Giuffrida, "Pope Francis allegedly used offensive slur during discussion about gay men", The Guardian 5/27/2024: Pope Francis allegedly used an offensive slur during a discussion with bishops over admitting homosexual men into seminaries, several Italian newspapers have reported. The pontiff, 87, is alleged to have made the remark during a closed-door meeting with bishops […]
Having gotten a good earful of Latin last month, Chau Wu was prompted to write this note in response to our previous post on "From Chariot to Carriage" (5/5/24): “chē 車 ("car; cart; vehicle") / yín 銀 ("silver")” In my view, these two words are among those most representative of cultural and linguistic transfers from […]
Wherein we embark upon an inquisition into the divine proportions of the dodecahedron and its congeners, take a peek at the history of accounting, explore the mind of Leonardo da Vinci, and examine the humanistic physics of Werner Heisenberg*. [*Heisenberg's father was a professor of medieval and modern Greek studies at the University of Munich […]
[This is a guest post by John Mock] Query about inscription on crystal from Afghanistan. Face 1 (actual and reverse):
[This is a guest post by Chris Button about xiān 祆 (usually defined in English as: Ahura Mazda, god of the Zoroastrians 祆：胡神也。 From: Shuowen Jiezi, circa 2nd century AD Xiān: húshén yě. [Pinyin]Xian is the god of the foreigners. (source) The two components of the 祆 glyph are shì […]
This is a typical headline emanating from the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the PRC: Furious mainland China slams Taiwanese leader’s ‘blatant’ call for independence People’s Daily commentary blasts William Lai Ching-te’s inauguration speech for ‘inciting hatred against the Chinese people’Beijing also objects to US secretary of state’s congratulations to Lai Xinlu Liang in BeijingPublished: […]
It's been a while since we had a post in the Prescriptivist Poppycock category. This example is more a case of badly-researched etymology, but we'll take what we can get, courtesy of Florent Moncomble, who writes: In the May update of the prescriptive « Dire, ne pas dire » section of their website, in a […]