As linguistic metaphors go, I thought Surya Prakash chose very well for the title of his op-ed piece in The Daily Pioneer in India, which concerned the way in which bygone sins of American politicians rise up to blight their hopes and make them anxious about their prospects. He called it "Past imperfect, future tense." […]
Last year I wrote about citation plagiarism and why there is no such thing. I just discovered a comment on this by Miriam Burstein at The Little Professor which requires some discussion.
Parse that however you wish, we're plagued with them. On an average day, I receive solicitations to write papers from them three or four times. Sometimes they offer me editorships or guest editorships for designated issues. Sometimes (but not often) they offer me money. All such e-mails immediately go in the trash, but they leave […]
"Second Circuit Refers Lawyer for Disciplinary Proceedings Based on AI-Hallucinated Case in Brief", by Eugene Volokh, The Volokh Conspiracy, reason | 1.30.2024 From Park v. Kim, decided today by the Second Circuit (Judges Barrington Parker, Allison Nathan, and Sarah Merriam); this is the 13th case I've seen in the last year in which AI-hallucinated citations were […]
The issues discussed in "AI plagiarism" (1/4/2024) are rapidly coming to a boil. But somehow I missed Margaret Atwood's take on the topic, published last summer — "Murdered by my replica", The Atlantic 8/26/2023: Remember The Stepford Wives? Maybe not. In that 1975 horror film, the human wives of Stepford, Connecticut, are having their identities […]
It's already happening. Of course, we don't want our students to use AI software to help them write their papers, but the fact of the matter is that some of them, especially among those who have poor English writing skills, are already routinely doing so. Their attitude seems to be that they will do the […]
This new article in The Economist (6/29/23) has a familiar ring to it: To understand Xi Jinping, it helps to be steeped in the classics China’s leader has invented a phrase—and an image Take four Chinese characters, all of them in everyday use. Put them in a certain order and, lo, they become a phrase […]
A few years ago, I began to notice that the scientific and technical papers relentless spammed at me, by academia.edu and similar outfits, were becoming increasingly surrealistic. And I soon learned that the source for such articles was systems for "article spinning" by "rogeting" — automatic random subsitution of (usually inappropriate) synonyms. Those techniques were […]
A recent Dinosaur Comic features a passionate investigation into alleged philosophical plagiarism:
So everybody knows what we're talking about: Baozi (Chinese: 包子), Pao-tsih or bao, is a type of yeast-leavened filled bun in various Chinese cuisines. There are many variations in fillings (meat or vegetarian) and preparations, though the buns are most often steamed. They are a variation of mantou from Northern China. (source) Early on in […]
I have often sung the praises of Google Translate (see "Selected readings" below for a few sample posts), but now I've learned about an online translator that, for many languages, may be even better. Since we've been discussing phenomenal developments in AI quite a bit lately (see also under "Selected readings" below), now seems as […]
Registration is open for Artificial Intelligence in Language Education Please join us for Penn Language Center's annual Language Educator Symposium, co-sponsored by Educational Linguistics at Penn GSE ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE in LANGUAGE EDUCATION Symposium: Saturday, March 25, 2023 at the Kislak Center, Van Pelt Library Pre-Symposium Workshop: Friday, March 24, 2023 in the Collaborative […]
Following up on their query which formed the basis for "Ashkenazi click sounds" (1/27/23), Dana F. appends this additional valuable information: I have been searching for a while and have not been able to find anything on Youtube (my theory is that it is used in casual speech only, and people might not do it […]