Sean Swanick, "Shaikh Zubayr", Duke University Libraries Blog, 4/13/2016: A man lost at sea, having drifted far away from his native Iraqi lands, comes a shore in England. In due time he will be nicknamed the Bard of Avon but upon landing on the Saxon coast, his passport reportedly read: Shaikh Zubayr. A knowledgeable man […]
"Japan’s autumn eggplant: Too delicious for your daughter-in-law"By Elizabeth Andoh, The Japan Times (Sep 1, 2024) Cooked properly, nothing beats an eggplant for succulence, softness, and savoriness. It's so good that you almost want to keep it for yourself. In Japan, eggplants reach their peak of flavor during a period of time known as zansho […]
Whenever I drive through the near northwest suburbs of Philadelphia, the names of the towns and streets there make me feel as though I've been transported to Wales: Bryn Mawr, Bala Cynwyd, Narberth, Uwchlan, Llanalew Road, Llewelyn Road, Cymry Drive, Llanelly Lane, Derwydd Lane…. By chance, through some sort of elective affinity, today I happened […]
Jeffrey L. Schwartz (cf. "Durian pizza" [10/18/19]) posted this photo on Facebook, showing a midtown Manhattan Asian fusion restaurant called Phoshime:
"Taigi a political question of identity", By Hugo Tseng, Taipei Times (7/27/24) The issue of whether to call the language spoken in Taiwan “Minnanese” (閩南語) or “Taigi” (台語, taiyu, also called Hoklo or Taiwanese) has long been a subject of debate. On the surface, it seems to be a simple question about language, but in […]
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 […]
If we come upon a glyph that we don't recognize and can't find in any dictionary, especially if we have half an idea what it might mean or what it might sound like, we are apt to call it a "variant character" (yìtǐzì 異體字) or calligraphic form of some standard glyph. It happens all the […]
Continuing our series on dragons, this note and illustration come from Juha Janhunen, the Finnish linguist: Happy Blue Dragon Year to everybody! Below is the official flag (1889-1912) of the Manchu Empire (in the west misleadingly known as "China"), which happens to have a blue dragon on it. Manchu muduri 'dragon' still seems to lack an external etymology. […]
Sunny Jhatti wrote to me: "I didn't know what 'pimp slap' meant till I saw this." After witnessing her astonishing diatribe, Conal Boyce said: I felt like I needed to take a shower. (Adding insult to injury, google failed to elucidate 'Skims' for me. Had to look elsewhere to get an inkling of what that […]
This is a followup to "Japanese words that are dying out: focus on diabetes" (11/21/23). Because it's history of science / medicine for specialists and too technical for the majority of readers, I will not provide transcriptions for all but a few of the most common terms. [The following is a guest post from Nathan Hopson] […]
From Nathan Hopson: I have been reading some handwritten documents from the 1960s and 1970s, and have been reminded that even beyond abbreviations, there were still "nonstandard" kanji in use. I guess this took me off guard mostly because these are school publications. On the abbreviated side, the most obvious example is: 第 → 㐧 […]