This is the logo of Legco, the Legislative Council of Hong Kong: It is a stylization of the "lap6 立" ("set up; erect; establish; enact") of: Hoeng1gong2 dak6bit6 hang4zing3 keoi1 lap6faat3 wui6 (Jyutping) Hēunggóng dahkbiht hàhngjing kēui laahpfaat wúih (Yale) Xiānggǎng tèbié xíngzhèng qū lìfǎ huì (Hanyu pinyin) 香港特別行政區立法會 now written in PRC simplified characters as 香港特别行政区立法会 "Legislative Council of the Hong Kong Special […]
In a statement on 7/29, Kevin McCarthy apparently meant to say "Congressman Gohmert" but what comes out is "Congressman Covid": Kevin McCarthy accidentally calls Louie Gohmert "Congressman COVID" pic.twitter.com/UcQcvHtEU9 — The Recount (@therecount) July 29, 2020
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What's your instinct? How many syllables do you think there are in the following words? kawaii かわいい (Japanese for "cute") Kawai カワイ (the Japanese piano manufacturer) Kauaʻi (name of one of the Hawaiian islands) In English, it's our habit to treat diphthongs consisting of two vowels as one syllable, but that's not the way they […]
From Lisa Nichols: I noticed on Twitter some HK protest folks last night talking about being a "handfoot", seemingly a newly coined (punned?) term playing with Chinese characters. I can't seem to figure out much about it, though, but, in trying, came across your posts on Hong Kong protest language [see "Selected readings" below] and […]
It's no wonder that the people are losing patience with the Party: "‘A toddler could write this’: senior Chinese policeman’s Peace Mantra book, praised by authorities, is ridiculed Investigation and apologies over ‘intellectual’ officer’s book, which provincial government and state media had said was recommended reading Sharing of the book’s repetitive content leads to […]
Today's xkcd: Mouseover title: "Canada's travel restrictions on the US are 99% about keeping out COVID and 1% about keeping out people who say 'pod.'"
Jim Unger sent me this mystifying note (7/25/20): The other day, my wife called my attention to the fact that the ‘organ theory of the emperor’ (Tennō kikan setsu), for which Minobe Tatsukichi (1873-1948) was prosecuted in the 1930s, is written 天皇機関説. This is odd since ‘organ’ in the medical sense (the apparent source of […]
Earlier this year, we had a post about a fascinating new Wikipedia article on "Goblet word" (5/30/20). That post was about a vessel that served as an analogy for a rhetorical device called zhīyán 卮言 ("goblet word"). Now we have another magisterial Wikipedia article by an anonymous master of Chinese esoterica. It's about another name […]
He Zhang, Liang Zhang, Ziyu Li, Kaibo Liu, Boxiang Liu, David H. Mathews, and Liang Huang, "LinearDesign: Efficient Algorithms for Optimized mRNA Sequence Design", arXiv.org 4/21/2020: A messenger RNA (mRNA) vaccine has emerged as a promising direction to combat the current COVID-19 pandemic. This requires an mRNA sequence that is stable and highly productive in […]
[This is a guest post by Conal Boyce] Your wonderful arabesque on the world of 'kedi'* (and the disappearance of cats for a time — perhaps to a different planet, because they had grown weary of trying to school us humans?) reminded me that you are a connoisseur of languages plural, not just Chinese. In […]
From Randy Alexander, a photo taken in the courtyard of an apartment complex in Huaying, Guang'an, Sichuan (广安华蓥):