Language Log

Public notice in a ward in Tainan, Taiwan: (Source)

"The Lost Harvest of Chinese Food Plants in Venezuela", By José González Vargas, Caracas Chronicles (May 11, 2019)

Following up on the previous post, see Emma Grey Ellis, "Nobody knows what 'troll' means anymore — least of all Mueller", Wired 4/26/2019: GREETINGS, TROLLS OF Reddit! Tell me: What’s a troll? “Memester that hates normies,” says suicideposter. “Someone who only interacts for reactions,” says _logic_victim. “Lives under a bridge, votes Republican,” says TW1971. (“no […]

[This is a guest post by Varun Khanna] In the Nyāya Sūtra by Akṣapāda Gautama (composed sometime between the sixth century BCE and the second century CE), a three-fold conception of dialogue is discussed. It appears that at the time this was written, dialectic culture was strong in the Sanskritic world. Thus, the rules of dialogue and […]

Elizabeth Wydra, "Chief Justice John Roberts is under tremendous pressure", CNN 5/10/2019: As the Supreme Court strives to finish its work by the end of June — deciding on issues from the future of the census to the ability of politicians to draw their own legislative districts — the justices labor in their chambers at […]

From Tomo's Twitter: So “-bachi” is now an English suffix for any food prepared live by Asians on a metal plate.Etymology: 火鉢 [hibachi] ‘charcoal brazier’ = 火 [hi] ‘fire’ + 鉢 [hachi] ‘crock’ pic.twitter.com/WDEtYoKKz2 — Tomo (@tomoakiyama) May 2, 2019

Christian Lindner opened his speech in Chinese at the 70th Federal Party Congress of the FDP:

Jenny Chu sent in this photograph of an ad on a Hong Kong subway car:

A friend was visiting in Lijiang, Yunnan Province (southwestern China) earlier this week.  She stayed in Yuhu 玉湖 village where Joseph Rock (1884-1962; the famous Austrian-American explorer, geographer, linguist, and botanist) lived nearly a century ago at the foot of Yulong 玉龙 Mountain.  The area around Lijiang has become a famous tourist destination, not only for the beauty of […]

"China to issue new RMB bills in August", CRI Online (4/29/19):

Today's xkcd: Mouseover title: "Listen, I'm not a fan of the Spanish Inquisition OR predatory multi-level marketing schemes…"

Sir Michael Edwards, "La Française République", bloc-notes de l'Académie Française 5/2/2019: La grande majorité des importateurs d’anglicismes sont des gens honnêtes ; les agents publicitaires en particulier ne cachent pas leur jeu. Air France est in the air, les voitures Citroën sont inspired by you, Opel, qui nous disait autrefois, fièrement et avec l’accent à l’appui : Wir leben Autos, nous […]

I called this old post to the attention of Yijie Zhang, a true native of Peking / Beijing / Beizhing: "How they say 'Beijing' in Beijing" (8/18/08) Yijie's reply: I totally agree with you! There is indeed an enormous amount of slurring and swallowing of consonants in Pekingese, which is sometimes referred to as "tūn […]