Stimulating, substantial article by Chang Che in SupChina (1/13/22): "China looks to the Western classics". Here are the first three paragraphs: A block east of Tiananmen Square, in a classroom last July, Chinese school children were singing the nursery rhyme “Old McDonald Had a Farm” in Latin: “Donatus est agricola, Eia, Eia, Oh!” The students, […]
If you want to get an idea of what preoccupies Chinese people, one good way is to take a gander at current lingo. SupChina provides a convenient compilation from two authoritative sources. In the past, I've been disappointed by many Chinese words of the year lists because they seemed to have been blatantly chosen by […]
Prefatory note: In this post, I take the noun "vaccine" as the basic word under discussion, but also consider other cognate terms ("vaccinate", "vaccination"). Here's a standard dictionary entry for "vaccine": n. 1. any preparation of weakened or killed bacteria or viruses introduced into the body to prevent a disease by stimulating antibodies against it.2. […]
"Altaic: Rise and Fall of a Linguistic Hypothesis", NativLang (9/28/19) — video is 12:29; extensive discussion after the page break
Many people have been asking me about the use of the term Guóyǔ 国语 ("National Language") for "Mandarin" in Xinjiang today. Here's an inquiry from Peter Moody: I have encountered what seems to be an anomaly in contemporary Chinese usage, and have been assured that you are among those most capable of addressing it. I […]
Today in Seth Cable's seminar on Montague's Universal grammar, he gave out a problem set that included the task of adding "Neither Mitt smokes nor Barack smokes" to the little fragment of English that had been developed. And in the discussion of the problem set, it turned out that I was the only one in […]
There is much hullabaloo over the new "Mulan" trailer:
I first heard about Beau Jessup (founder [2015] and CEO of Special Name) and her Chinese baby-naming business a couple of years ago. There was even a TEDx talk by her about it:
Article in ABC News (Australia) today (11/20/18): "'Arsehole' geese become internet sensations as farmer writes honest for-sale post" All Leslie Du Preez wanted was to add a little tranquillity to her small southern Queensland farm. "We got these beautiful geese and thought they'd be a wonderful addition to our beautiful zen-like property," she said. It […]
Don Clarke has called to my attention a new bilingual, digraphic expression: “娘man结合”. That's "niáng man jiéhé ('woman man [the English word] combination')". It’s a women’s fashion style that combines femininity in one part of the outfit with manliness in the other — like wearing a colored print dress with an army jacket. Supposedly, “man” is read in the first tone. Don […]
Emily Jane Fox, "Michael Cohen says Trump repeatedly used racist language before his presidency", Vanity Fair 11/2/2018: After the first few seasons of The Apprentice, Cohen recalled how he and Trump were discussing the reality show and past season winners. The conversation wended its way back to the show’s first season, which ended in a […]