Upon seeing that word for the first time, I had only the vaguest idea of what it meant, though I suspected that it was closely related to the dog breed name: schnauzer (n.) breed of terrier with a bearded muzzle, 1923, from German Schnauzer, literally "growler," from schnauzen "to snarl, growl," from Schnauze "snout, muzzle," […]
The war drags on, and once again one wonders how different Ukraine is from Russia, Ukrainian from Russian. This superb article will help us get a handle on what the issues at stake are: "A short history of language in Ukraine" Norman Davies, Spectator (2 October 2022) The article is so richly illuminating and timely […]
In a recent presentation, I noted that generic statements can be misleading, though it's not easy to avoid the problem: The limitations and complexities of ordinary language in this area pose difficult problems for scientists, journalists, teachers, and everyone else. But the problems are especially hard to avoid for AI researchers aiming to turn large […]
If I were a cruciverbalist, I might use that as a clue for "hammock", though it didn't turn up here: https://www.wordplays.com/crossword-solver/sailor%27s-bed nor here: http://crosswordtracker.com/clue/sailors-bed/ but it was first here: https://crossword-solver.io/clue/sailor%27s-bed/ With somer a-comin' — though spryng has barely sprung, at least not in these parts — it's time to drag out our dusty, trusty hammocks […]
#OldEnglish #WOTD: wundor-blēo, n.n: a wondrous colour. (WUN-dor-BLAY-oh / ˈwʌn-dɔr-ˌbleːɔ) Image: Panther in a bestiary; England, c. 1226-1250; @bodleianlibs MS. Bodley 764, f. 7v. pic.twitter.com/nHqwdYElVh — Old English Wordhord (@OEWordhord) May 5, 2022
[This is a guest post by Don Keyser, in response to "Trends" (3/27/22).] I do hope Sir Walter Scott is part of the study, as an outlier perhaps. I still have nightmares going back to English class in an era when one still was obliged to diagram the sentences to establish to the satisfaction of […]
In the comments on yesterday's post "Language development", Olaf Zimmermann pointed us to this recent Onion scoop — "Newly Uncovered Manuscript Reveals China Invented English Language 700 Years Before Western World", The Onion 1/13/2022: BEIJING—Shedding new light on the origins of the world’s most popular language, an international team of linguists announced Thursday that a […]
Norimitsu Onishi, "Using Harsh Language, Macron Issues a Challenge to the Unvaccinated", NYT 1/5/2022: Faced with a surge in coronavirus cases driven by the Omicron variant, President Emmanuel Macron of France said Wednesday that he wanted to “piss off” millions of his citizens who refuse to get vaccinated by squeezing them out of the country’s […]
Andrew Gelman sent a link to blog post (with a rather long title): "Just another day at the sausage factory . . . It’s just funny how regression discontinuity analyses routinely produce these ridiculous graphs and the authors and journals don’t even seem to notice", with the note "You might enjoy the statistics content in […]
[The first part of this post, giving the historical background of the central figure, is by S. Robert Ramsey.] Two joined panels of a Japanese folding screen painted in 1605
In Massachusetts, booster shot is spelled borcester shot — Adam Blickstein (@AdamBlickstein) August 17, 2021
A week ago, Julie Lee made this interesting comment on Language Log: …when I studied Yuan dynasty drama and had books from the library, my husband (a physicist) picked them up to read and was amazed at the 13th century dialogue. "That's just the way we spoke at home in Shandong", he exclaimed. He grew […]