The last two panels of today's Dumbing of Age: Walky has a good point about "too bad". But the last panel is also a good example of emphatic even — see "What does 'even' even mean?", 2/8/2011 "Can they even prove that?", 5/24/2011 "Even again", 10/21/2011 "Annals of even", 10/4/2013
We lose 300 Americans a week, 90% of which comes through the Southern Border. These numbers will be DRASTICALLY REDUCED if we have a Wall! — Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) January 11, 2019 Presumably this is elliptical for something like We lose 300 Americans a week to drugs, 90% of which comes through the Southern […]
It is common for Chinese to claim that their ancestors have been drinking tea for five thousand years, as with so many other aspects of their culture. I always had my doubts about that supposed hoary antiquity, and after many years of research, Erling Hoh and I wrote a book on the subject titled The True […]
The newest release from K-pop group Apink is called "Eung Eung", written %%.
Ryan Miller, "Jeremy Kappell apologizes in Facebook video, promises he did not use racial slur on TV", Rochester Democrat & Chronicle 1/7/2019: Meteorologist Jeremy Kappell promised that he did not use a racial slur in reference to Martin Luther King Jr. and issued an apology to anyone who may have been hurt by his slip-up […]
Patrick Redford, "There's Nothing To Say About What Andrew Wiggins Said That's Not Conditional", Deadspin 1/9/2018: Andrew Wiggins went off for 40 points on the Thunder last night in a lively game that featured 32-year-old interim coach Ryan Saunders getting his first win and Thunder guard Dennis Schröder getting ejected for shoving. Wiggins was asked […]
Often have I pondered on the origin and precise meaning of the Sinitic word lào, luò (reading pronunciation) 酪 ("fermented milk; yoghurt; sour milk; kumiss"); Old Sinitic (OS) /*ɡ·raːɡ/ (Zhengzhang). My initial impression was that it may have been related to IE "galactic" words. Possibly from a Central Asian language; compare Mongolian айраг (ajrag, “fermented […]
"With government shutdown threatening paychecks, more TSA agents calling out sick", NBC News; "TSA Workers Are Calling Out Sick as the Government Shutdown Rages On", Popular Mechanics; "Passengers at Sea-Tac miss flights as TSA agents call out sick amid government shutdown", KIRO 7; "TSA says increase in officers calling out sick hasn't impacted travel", WCNC; […]
Heather Stewart, "Brexit: as parliament returns to work, what happens now?", The Guardian 1/6/2019: Labour is likely to table a vote of no confidence in the government, though it is unclear whether it would do so immediately – and even less unclear whether it could win it. [h/t Stan Carey]
Face to face, most students greet me as "Professor Mair", a few as "Dr. Mair". In e-mails and other written communications, they nearly all address me with "Dear Prof. Mair", "Hello Prof. Mair", or "Hi Prof. Mair", all of which sound natural and normal. I nearly fell off my chair when a female student from […]
Stanley Insler died unexpectedly last night in Yale-New Haven hospital. He was Professor Emeritus of Linguistics at Yale University, the Edward E. Salisbury Professor of Sanskrit and Comparative Philology in the Department of Classics. Stanley was a scholar of ancient Indo-Iranian languages and texts. His research focused on Sanskrit, Vedic, Avestan, Zarathustra and the history […]
This article (in Chinese) describes how China's netizens (wǎngyǒu 网友) are ridiculing President Xi for inappropriately quoting a poem by Kong Rong 孔融 (153-208), a 20th generation descendant of Confucius, in his New Year's address to the nation. The first lines of the poem are: suìyuè bù jū shíjié rú liú 歲月不居 時節如流 The years […]