On The Awl, Samantha Sanders has a wonderful piece on "Dillweed (As An Insult)." (This is part of The Awl's "holiday series on flavors and spices," naturally enough.) She muses on how dillweed has been used as a pejorative since it was popularized by the show "Beavis and Butt-Head" back in the early '90s and […]
Missed this earlier in the year: "Poop-Themed Kanji Study Book a Bestseller in Japan" nippon.com (4/21/17) Not only is there one book utilizing the theme of excrement to stimulate interest in kanji, there's a whole graded series of texts, and they're selling like hotcakes (pardon me). It doesn't hurt that there's a general fascination with […]
From David Morris: The Sydney Morning Herald website is currently showing a headline – "How to not accidentally harass someone at the office party". (So, how to deliberately harass someone …?)
Now comes news of a Chinese car with an unusual name that is aiming to enter the American market: "China to Export Trumpchi Cars to U.S., Maybe With a New Name", by Keith Bradsher, NYT (11/17/17). GUANGZHOU, China — The cars are called Trumpchi (though their Chinese maker insists the name is just a coincidence). […]
Last Friday, Bill O'Neill decided to "speak up on the behalf of all heterosexual males" by posting this on Facebook: Since O'Neill is a justice of the Ohio State Supreme Court, and a declared candidate for governor of Ohio, this occasioned a certain amount of commentary.
From Jenny Chu: You might be amused by this latest edition of Google Translate's ability to transform meaningless character sequences into spoken-word poetry, discovered by my young son. It is all of the Vietnamese characters, in order of their appearance on the character map, with no spaces. Moreover, if you add all of the other […]
This is a screen shot I snapped during a recent attempt to purchase something (can't remember what) on the web: Notice that in order to continue, it tells me (twice) that I have to press "Pay". Can you see any button labeled "Pay" on the screen? If you are itching to tell me what I […]
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Neologisms pop up so fast in China that it is almost impossible to keep abreast of them. Furthermore, it is very hard to figure out where many of them come from. Some of them are undoubtedly borrowed from other languages, but given such a twist that it is difficult to recognize the original source. Others […]
One of the Forbes "30 under 30" for science — Zhou Yu:
When I began studying Mandarin over half a century ago, I very quickly developed a pet phrase (kǒutóuchán 口頭禪 / 口头禅): lǎoshí shuō 老實說 / 老实说 ("to tell the truth; honestly"), After I married one of the best Mandarin teachers on earth (Chang Li-ching) several years later, she corrected me when I said my favorite […]
Allegra Kirkland, "Sessions Denies Knowing Of Flynn Turkey Dealings, Alleged Kidnapping Plot", TPM 11/14/2017: Attorney General Jeff Sessions denied knowing that former national security adviser Michael Flynn lobbied on behalf of Turkey and allegedly discussed with Turkish officials the possibility of kidnapping of a U.S.-based Muslim cleric while serving on the Trump campaign. The string […]
Li Ka-shing, the Hong Kong entrepreneur, is one of the wealthiest persons in the world. Around the beginning of this month, he sold the famous Hong Kong skyscraper known as The Center to a Chinese Communist Party-backed firm for over $5 billion, making it the most expensive commercial building ever sold. Here's the WSJ report […]
"Japan’s buzzwords of 2017 cover everything from politics to poop", by Tomoko Otake, The Japan Times (11/9/17). To me, the most intriguing candidate out of the top thirty is Aufuhēben アウフヘーベン（from German Aufheben).