[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 […]
[This is a guest post by Chau Wu, with additions at the bottom by VHM and others] On the akinakes* (Scythian dagger / short sword) and Xiongnu (Hunnish) horse sacrifice Chinese historical records suggest that the akinakes, transliterated from Greek ἀκῑνάκης, may be endowed with spiritual significance in the eyes of ancient Chinese and Northern […]
Or maybe "little sticky toes"? 'Tis the season for articles about mistletoe, like this one: Rachel Ehrenberg, "Marvelous Misunderstood Mistletoe", Knowable Magazine 12/18/2020: Some plants are so entwined with tradition that it’s impossible to think of one without the other. Mistletoe is such a plant. But set aside the kissing custom and you’ll find a […]
Or maybe that should be paraparasynthetic. Charles Belov writes: From "San Francisco’s Lazy Bear rose out of a recession. Can it survive coronavirus?" by Janelle Bitker: "But now, the chefs serve takeout cold-brew coffee, pastries and sandwiches — like hot Wagyu pastrami on sourdough — that they hope taste worthy of a two Michelin-starred restaurant." […]
There's a Reddit page with this title: "Fully anglicised Japan, based off actual etymologies, rendered into plausible English". Feast your eyes: (source)
The title and the following observations come from Rebecca Hamilton: I was reading Patrick Leigh Fermor's Between the Woods and the Water: on Foot to Constantinople, as I convalesce from COVID-19 (I've had a hard time of it), and I stumbled upon an aside he made about the French "hongre," meaning "gelding," as does the […]