Previous posts in the series: "Of precious swords and Old Sinitic reconstructions " (3/8/16) "Of precious swords and Old Sinitic reconstructions, part 2 " (3/12/16) The following post is not about a sword or other type of weapon per se, but in terms of its ancient Eurasian outlook, it arguably belongs in the series: "Of […]
Rudraneil Sengupta is preparing a book on the history of wrestling in the subcontinent, and is searching for the etymologies of certain common terms used in the sport. He believes that some of the most common words in wrestling come from Iran & Turkey and that general region, and some are of Sanskrit origin. For […]
This World War II American propaganda poster speaks for itself: A poster of WWII era discouraging the use of Italian, German, and Japanese. (Source)
The following three items might well have been included in the previous post on Chinglish, but that one got to be rather long and unwieldy, so I'm treating these separately. In any event, I think that they merit the special treatment they are receiving here.
Email yesterday from P.O.: Professor Liberman, we need you. You're no doubt aware of Trump's recent comment, quoting a supporter. But now TPM has gone and printed a reader email linking 'pussy' to pusillanimous'. I had never heard this before, and I'm fairly well-read. I did some google-sleuthing, and found that it has clearly been […]
I'm prompted to ask this question in response to the very first comment on this post: "'Butterfly' words as a source of etymological confusion" (1/28/16) The comment supplies a link to this YouTube video, in which russianracehorse tells "The Butterfly Joke". A Frenchman, an Italian, a Spaniard, and a German each pronounce the word for […]
Nick Kaldis writes: I've started buying English etymology books for my 8-year-old daughter and I to explore; today we discovered that "butterfly" comes from "butter" + "shit", because their feces resemble butter.
Nicola Esposito sent in the following observations and questions: What is the etymology of ukiyo 浮世, the "floating world" known in the West mostly thanks to its depictions by artists such as Hiroshige, Hokusai and others? While perusing the website of New York's Metropolitan Museum of Art, I discovered that the origins of ukiyo lie […]
Over at China Economic Review, Hudson Lockett has written an interesting piece worthy of the celebrated British sleuth: "The game is afoot! Why Chinese Sherlock fans are as confused as everyone else" (1/3/16) It's all about how the Chinese term — mǎtí nèifān zú 马蹄内翻足 — for a congenital deformity referred to in English as […]
[This is a guest post by Jichang Lulu] The usual Chinese name for the Lena River is 勒拿河 Lèná hé. That's not a particularly felicitous transcription. Lèná rhymes with 圣赫勒拿 Shèng Hèlèná i.e. St Helena; it fails to reflect the palatalisation of the l in the Russian name. An alternative name transcribes the syllable ле […]
Donald Trump rally 12/21/2015, Grand Rapids, Michigan: l- let me just tell you I may win, I may not win Hillary that's not a president that's not- she's not taking us to the- everything that's been involved in Hillary has been losses you take a look even her race to Obama she was going to […]
It's become our tradition to list the Posts of Christmas Past: 2003 "'Twas the night before Christmas", "Same-sex Mrs. Santa: 'The semantics are confusing'" 2004: "Talking animals: miracle or curse?", "A boxing day election — or not?" 2005: "Christmas trees and holiday trees"; 2006: "Merry … umm … Christmas, Will!", "Like, a Christmas gift card", "Happy […]
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[The first part of this post is from an anonymous contributor.] The Serbian legation in London complains to the media about the spelling Servia, which is 'highly offensive to our people'. (It is true that there is a place in Greece called 'Servia', whose name 'derives from the Latin verb servo, meaning "to watch over"'.)