Until three days ago when I read the following article in the South China Morning Post, I had never heard of this expression: "Opinion: All you need to know about cheater’s stocks: its lures, its victims and the key opinion leaders" (Shirley Yam, 5/10/17) She calls these stocks LAO QIAN GU in Chinese, but since […]
Jichang Lulu has just posted a very interesting article titled "the clash of romanisations" (5/12/17). It begins: Last month the Ministry of Civil Affairs (民政部) published a list of six ‘standardised’ place names in the Indian state of Arunachal Pradesh, a large part of which the PRC claims as part of South Tibet (藏南). This generated […]
As Mark Liberman noted, Donald Trump seemed to imply in his recent interview with The Economist that he coined the phrase "priming the pump," or at least the financial use of it: "I came up with it a couple of days ago and I thought it was good." Was this just some sort of peculiar […]
"Transcript: Interview with Donald Trump", The Economist 5/11/2017: That all goes into tax reduction. Tremendous savings. But beyond that it’s OK if the tax plan increases the deficit? It is OK, because it won’t increase it for long. You may have two years where you’ll…you understand the expression “prime the pump”? Yes. We have to […]
Richard Warmington has a deep interest in the relationship between tone and intonation, especially in Mandarin. He has made a number of penetrating observations and asked a series of probing questions on this phenomenon. Since this is also a subject that has come up numerous times on Language Log (see below for a several previous […]
I must admit to having enjoyed the series of savage similes about quality of computer program code presented in three xkcd comic strips. They show a female character, known to aficionados as Ponytail, reluctantly agreeing to take a critical look at some code that the male character Cueball has written. Almost at first sight, she […]
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Madeline K. Sofia, "'Baby Dragon' Found In China Is The Newest Species Of Dinosaur" (NPR, 5/9/17) clarifies the origin of Beibeilong sinensis, the newest dinosaur species: In 1993, farmers in China found a Beibeilong embryo and eggs in Henan province. The fossils were sold to an American fossil company called The Stone Co. and brought […]
BIYI has written a very clever article titled "The Culture of sàng: a Generation Lying-down?" in China Buzz Report (Elephant Room, 5/7/17). It begins with a little Mandarin lesson: The character 丧 is a polyphone in mandarin Chinese. When it is pronounced sāng, it loosely translates to funeral or mourning. When as sàng, it could be […]
"Found in Translation" is the latest in the PBS video series Articulate, exploring how "scholarly translations are a constant battle between literal accuracy and literary interpretation." Connoisseurs of automated translation follies will appreciate the bit about 4 minutes in when Peter Cole copies some Hebrew into Google Translate and gets the English output, "ui on […]
Early one evening last week, I was feeling sleepy, and said so. And a little later, I said "OK, I'm cashing in my threat to take a nap", and went into my bedroom to do so. As usual, I took my cell phone out of my pocket and plugged it in to charge, which made […]
Today's xkcd: Mouseover title: "GO FOR LUNCH, REPEAT, GO FOR LUNCH."
John Herrman, "The Online Marketplace That’s a Portal to the Future of Capitalism", New York Times Magazine, 5/3/2017: Among the items I sent to my friend, on our modest budget: a laser pointer; 100-count “super strong” small magnets; a functioning violin; a spare part for the window mechanism on an Audi A6; a deep-V-neck sweater; […]