Responding to this recent post about machine analysis of grammar, "Literary Sinitic / Classical Chinese dependency parsing" (11/27/19), Nicholas Morrow Williams writes: That reminds me tangentially of something I just heard about, an effort to transcribe Japanese "kuzushiji" (cursive-like) script using AI. This article, which contains some striking illustrations, is about a huge international competition […]
Here I am standing in front of a hair salon near the south gate of Kansai University in Osaka, Japan two days ago:
Ben Zimmer was just passing through Hong Kong Airport, where he got a bottle of Tibet 5100 spring water, complete with Tibetan script:
"'Laziness has won': apostrophe society admits its defeat", The Guardian 12/1/2019: John Richards, who worked in journalism for much of his career, started the Apostrophe Protection Society in 2001 after he retired. Now 96, Richards is calling time on the society, which lists the three simple rules for correct use of the punctuation mark. Writing […]
Three days ago, I passed through immigration at Kansai International Airport (near Osaka). I was struck by a large, prominently displayed word in katakana (syllabary for transcription of foreign words and onomatopoeia): tero テロ. Since I was in a restricted area of the airport, naturally I couldn't take a picture of the signs with this […]
We've mentioned "kaomoji " before (see "Readings"), but only gave a few examples. "Kaomoji 顔文字 ("face character / writing") is a Japanese term for more or less elaborate "drawings" composed of kana, characters, punctuation marks, and now letters and other symbols drawn from a wide range of writing systems. They can be quite fanciful, even […]
An experience that's become all too common — as documented in Zits for 11/25 through 11/28:
…or at least the faucets in it, using Delta's VoiceIQ Technology. Delta VoiceIQ Technology pairs with your connected home device to give you exactly the amount of water you need with features like metered dispensing and custom container commands. I have to say that being able to tell my kitchen faucet to dispense 137 milliliters […]
[This is a guest post by Jichang Lulu] This statement, attributed to the new Taiwan Affairs Office spokeswoman of the PRC, reinforced my impression that Relevant Organs (including exoprop media like the Gobar Times (Huánqiú shǐbào 环球屎报 [Global Shit News], a pun for Huánqiú shíbào 环球时报 [Global Times], for which see "Dung Times" [3/14/18])) often […]
Caity Weaver, "Typing These Two Letters Will Scare Your Young Co-Workers: Everything was O.K. until you wrote 'O.K.'", NYT 11/21/2019, starts with a note from someone in Queens: I am a Gen X-er who generally speaks proper English and am a “digital native.” (Hey, kids: We built these tools that you claim as your own.) […]
We are keenly aware that, while advances in machine translation of Vernacular Sinitic (VS) (Mandarin) are quite impressive and fundamentally serviceable, they cannot be applied directly to the translation of Literary Sinitic / Classical Chinese (LS/CC). That would be like using an Italian translating program for Latin, a Hindi translation program for Sanskrit, or a […]
This headline confused me until I read the story: Julian Chokkattu, "Email App Maker Begs Apple CEO to Get Back on the App Store", Wired 11/22/2019. I couldn't figure out why an app maker wanted Tim Cook to "get back on the App Store", or indeed what it would even mean for Cook to be […]
Last week I gave a talk at an Alzheimer's Association workshop on "Digital Biomarkers". Overall I told a hopeful story, about the prospects for a future in which a few minutes of interaction each month, with an app on a smartphone or tablet, will give effective longitudinal tracking of neurocognitive health. But I emphasized the […]