Language Log

There is much hullabaloo over the new "Mulan" trailer:

I first heard about Beau Jessup (founder [2015] and CEO of Special Name) and her Chinese baby-naming business a couple of years ago.  There was even a TEDx talk by her about it:

The start of today's SMBC:

Article in ABC News (Australia) today (11/20/18): "'Arsehole' geese become internet sensations as farmer writes honest for-sale post" All Leslie Du Preez wanted was to add a little tranquillity to her small southern Queensland farm. "We got these beautiful geese and thought they'd be a wonderful addition to our beautiful zen-like property," she said. It […]

Don Clarke has called to my attention a new bilingual, digraphic expression:  “娘man结合”.  That's "niáng man jiéhé ('woman man [the English word] combination')". It’s a women’s fashion style that combines femininity in one part of the outfit with manliness in the other — like wearing a colored print dress with an army jacket.  Supposedly, “man” is read in the first tone. Don […]

Emily Jane Fox, "Michael Cohen says Trump repeatedly used racist language before his presidency", Vanity Fair 11/2/2018: After the first few seasons of The Apprentice, Cohen recalled how he and Trump were discussing the reality show and past season winners. The conversation wended its way back to the show’s first season, which ended in a […]

Recently there was quite a ruckus over the correct word to be used for "maternal grandmother" in second-graders' textbooks in Shanghai: "Much Ado About Grandma: Textbook Change Sparks Linguistic Debate:  Critics call ‘waipo’ to ‘laolao’ change ‘cultural hegemony’ from the north", Kenrick Davis, Sixth Tone (6/22/18) "A debate over the word for ‘grandmother’ in China […]

The International Phonetic Alphabet is a useful invention, which everyone interested in speech sounds should learn. But it's much less useful for actually doing phonetics than you might think. Whenever this comes up in discussion, I'm reminded of the Dr. Seuss classic On Beyond Zebra: In the places I go there are things that I […]

In "Text-as-data journalism? Highlights from a decade of SOTU speech coverage" (Online Journalism Blog 2/5/2018), Barbara Maseda surveys some of the ways that "media has used text-as-data to cover State of the Union addresses over the last decade". When Erica Hendry asked me for thoughts about features of Donald Trump's style in last week's SOTU, the […]

The Chinese government has prohibited  Mongolian language instruction in all schools in the Mongolian areas of Xinjiang:  "Southern Mongolia: Instruction in Mongolian Language Banned in All Schools", Unrepresented Nations & Peoples Organization (1/3/18). The last school in the so-called Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region to provide education in the Mongolian language, the Bayangol No. 3 High […]

I wondered when this would happen. Jack Shafer, "Week 18: The Further Perils of Paul Manafort", Politico (Swamp Diary) 9/23/2017 [emphasis added]: Flynn has hired seven attorneys, and his family has established a legal defense fund for him, stipulating that donations from foreign governments or the Trump campaign or business won't be accepted. Isn’t it […]

The so-called Free Speech Rally that's about to start in Boston will probably be better attended, both by supporters and opponents, than the one that was organized by same group back in May. But some of the featured speakers at the May rally, including "Augustus Invictus", have decided not to attend today's rerun. So I […]

For several days I've been aware of a strange poem that has gone viral in China: "Read The Smog-Inspired Poem That China Can't Stop Talking About" (NPR, 1/12/17) The strangeness of the poem is due to its being written from the perspective of lung cancer and addressed to the patient.  You judge for yourself — […]