Last Thursday, during LREC 2016, 16 participants from ELRA and LDC had a festive dinner at a restaurant named Na Burji. On the drive from Portorož, we had a discussion about what the restaurant's name means — our first guess, stimulated by the extreme switchbacks we traversed as the road climbed steeply from the coastal plain towards Nova Vas […]
"The Oxford English Dictionary (OED) added 19 Singaporean terms and 13 Hong Kong terms in its latest update." So reports BBC News in "Singapore terms join Oxford English Dictionary" (5/12/16) Here are the lists:
Following up on the issues raised yesterday in "Feelings, beliefs, and thoughts", it might be helpful to explore the etymology of the various verbs that people commonly use to express the epistemic status of their assertions. From their entries in the Online Etymological Dictionary, we'll learn that several common propositional attitude verbs have roots in sensation, motion and emotion, […]
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) "Of precious swords and Old Sinitic reconstructions, part 3" (3/16/16) "Of precious swords and Old Sinitic reconstructions, part 4" (3/24/16) As mentioned before, the following post is not about a sword or […]
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) "Of precious swords and Old Sinitic reconstructions, part 3" (3/16/16) As mentioned before, the following post is not about a sword or other type of weapon per se, but in terms of […]
A note from Cullen Schaffer: As a student of Mandarin, I'm fascinated by the fact that the language translates the word 'again' differently in these two cases: He did it last month and yesterday he did it again (又). He did it last month and tomorrow he'll do it again (再). It seems bizarre to […]
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 […]