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Idiom of the Day
leather-lunged
(used before a noun) Having an extremely or inordinately loud or strong voice, as of someone with very robust lungs. Watch the video
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ast set of sayings covers friendship, including how such relationships come about, and how they shape us. 類は友を呼ぶ — Rui wa tomo o yobu. Deriving from the Yijing (Book of Changes), this phrase is awkward to translate directly, but means something like “birds of a feather flock together.” It suggests that people with similar likes or interests naturally become friends with each other. It may be used positively—or sometimes negatively, for those with undesirable shared qualities. 朱に交われば赤くなる — Shu ni majiwareba akaku naru. “Mix with vermilion and you turn red” focuses on how friends influence each other. Again, this could be seen as a good thing if the friends are nice people, or bad if someone falls in with the wrong crowd. 竹馬の友 — Chikuba no tomo. “Bamboo horse friends” is used to describe buddies who have been close since the childhood days when they played together with toy horses made from bamboo.
There is so much deep wisdom and truth embodied in these humble Japanese sayings, especially the one about en 縁: edge, fate, brink, relation, chance, connection, karma, bond, destiny, love, affinity. Selected (!) readings
* roy porat, "Layers of Ineffability in the Zhuangzi: Why Language Should Not Be Trusted", New Visions of the Zhuangzi (2015).
* Philip J. Ivanhoe, "Zhuangzi on Skepticism, Skill, and the Ineffable Dao", Journal of the American Academy of Religion, Vol. 61, No. 4 (Winter, 1993), 639-654.
[Thanks to Don Keyser]
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Slang of the Day | Vocabulary | EnglishClub
hustler (2)
a skilled player, esp. at pool or billiards, who cheats other players by pretending to be an average player and then challenging them to play for money
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Idiom of the Day
in leaps and bounds
By very large degrees; rapidly or in quick progress forward. Watch the video
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Language Log
Triple review of books on characters and computers
Sino-Platonic Papers is pleased to announce the publication of its three-hundred-and-fifty-fourth issue: "Handling Chinese Characters on Computers: Three Recent Studies" (pdf), by J. Marshall Unger (August, 2024).
Abstract
Writing systems with large character sets pose significant technological challenges, and not all researchers focus on the same aspects of those challenges or of the various attempts that have been made to meet them. A comparative reading of three recent books—The Chinese Computer by Thomas Mullaney (2024), Kingdom of Characters by Jing Tsu (2022), and Codes of Modernity by Uluğ Kuzuoğlu (2023)—makes this abundantly clear. All deal with the ways in which influential users of Chinese characters have responded to the demands of modern technology, but differ from one another considerably in scope and their selection and treatment of relevant information long known to linguists and historians.
Keywords: touch-typing, computerization, Sinitic languages, politics of script reforms, national language
—
All issues of Sino-Platonic Papers are available in full for no charge.
To view our catalog, visit http://www.sino-platonic.org/
Selected readings
* "Sinographic inputting: 'it's nothing' — not" (2/22/21) — with lengthy bibliography
* Victor H. Mair and Yongquan Liu, eds., Characters and Computers (Amsterdam, Oxford, Washington, Tokyo: IOS, 1991)
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Learn English Through Football Podcast: 2024-25 Bundesliga Season Preview
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Slang of the Day | Vocabulary | EnglishClub
ripped (2)
intoxicated, drunk, drugged
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Idiom of the Day
leap to (someone's) mind
To suddenly or immediately materialize in someone's mind. Watch the video
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ion?
A conundrum. And I knew I was pushing my luck for a gāo bízi 高鼻子 ("big / high / long nose") so I left it there, and we parted friends until the next time I needed a part or a repair.
[end of guest post] Selected readings
* "A Hainanese mystery" (8/21/24)
* "Hypercorrect Mandarin tones" (10/15/23)
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Word of the Day
Word of the Day: resonate
This word has appeared in 434 articles on NYTimes.com in the past year. Can you use it in a sentence?
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Phrasal Verb of the Day | Vocabulary | EnglishClub
go off (1)
If something goes off, it stops working because of a power cut.
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Word of the Day
char
Definition: (verb) Burn slightly and superficially so as to affect color.
Synonyms: blacken, sear, scorch.
Usage: The fire charred the ceiling above the mantelpiece, and my mother had to hire a painter to cover up the discoloration.
Discuss
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Language Log
Regional claims on "yeah no / no yeah"
For some reason, people from different social groups in different regions all over the world believe that saying (things like) "yeah no" and "no yeah" is their special thing.
Maybe it's a New York thing:
#newyorkersbelike pic.twitter.com/ShW7SXq016
— Kevin B (@guaritopapi) January 14, 2019
Or maybe it's part of "How to Speak Midwest":
Your browser does not support the audio element.
Today I'm gonna teach you how to speak Midwestern.
First thing you need to learn is the ABCs,
which in the midwest is the yeah-no-yeah.
But really, it's a feature of California English?
Or maybe it's Australians (Erin Moore, "Yeah-No: A Discourse Marker in Australian English" Honours thesis, Department of Linguistics and Applied Linguistics, The University of Melbourne, 2007; and other publications).
Or uneducated British millennials from Bristol…
Or maybe it's U.S. young people in general ("Yeah no", 4/3/2008):
http://languagelog.ldc.upenn.edu/myl/llog/YeahNo.png
Or Afrikaans and South African English.
Also the analogous phrasing in Romanian, Russian, and no doubt many other languages…
And "Yeah, no, well, in fact 'yeah no' is pretty much the thematic idiom of NPR."
Wikitionary has an entry citing Australia, New Zealand, California, and Upper Midwestern U.S.
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Word of the Day
Word of the Day: prolific
This word has appeared in 738 articles on NYTimes.com in the past year. Can you use it in a sentence?
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Phrasal Verb of the Day | Vocabulary | EnglishClub
muck up
If you muck something up, you do it badly and fail to achieve your goal.
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Word of the Day
juxtaposition
Definition: (noun) The act of positioning close together (or side by side).
Synonyms: apposition, collocation.
Usage: The juxtaposition of the skyscraper and the brick townhouse had a curious effect, and from a distance the cozy home looked like a dollhouse.
Discuss
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Language Log
Elective affinities: Japanese bonds of affection
One of my favorite expressions of ineffability in Chinese is yǒuyuán 有緣, which is what two people feel when they are drawn together by some inexplicable, indisputable attraction. Considerations of beauty and practicality are not what matters. They simply are fated / predestined to be together. They have an undeniable affinity for each other.
I first gained a serious appreciation for the idea of affinity in college when I read Die Wahlverwandtschaften (Elective Affinities), the third novel of Johann Wolfgang von Goethe (1749-1832). The concept was taken up in chemistry (Robert Boyle [1627-1691] — check out his hair!), then sociology (Max Weber [1864-1920]), then in psychology to describe the magnetism between individuals, and in dozens of other fields (commerce, finance, and law; religion and belief; science and technology; business; music; literature; history; mathematics; language studies; etc.). Needless to say, "affinity" is a powerful, productive concept, just as it is an actual force in relations between entities in the microcosm and macrocosm.
Those are preliminary observations to introduce this thought-provoking Japanese article:
"Japanese bonds of affection Pockmarks Are Dimples: Japanese Proverbs and Idioms About Love, Family, and Friendship", Richard Medhurst, nippon.com (8/23/24): Someone for Everyone
Love can be forgiving in Japanese sayings, although that does not mean it will always last forever. あばたもえくぼ — Abata mo ekubo. According to the old saying “even pockmarks are dimples,” as someone who is smitten can see marks or scars, perhaps left by smallpox, as cute facial features. 割れ鍋に綴じ蓋 — Warenabe ni tojibuta. There is someone out there for everyone, just as there is “a perfect lid for any cracked pot.” 縁は異なもの味なもの — En wa i na mono aji na mono. Roughly, “love is a strange and fascinating thing.” Here, en, the mysterious force that brings people together romantically, is translated simply as “love.” 秋風が立つ — Akikaze ga tatsu. When “an autumn wind blows,” the chill air means that affections are waning. This is associated with common word play between aki (autumn) and akiru (to lose interest). Like Parent, Like Child?
Opinions are split on whether children are like their parents, while other sayings consider how parents influence their children’s lives. 蛙の子は蛙 — Kaeru no ko wa kaeru. “A frog’s child is a frog,” according to one view, as children resemble their parents in character and ability, and take the same path through life. The proverb is used particularly to say that ordinary people will not have extraordinary offspring. 瓜の蔓に茄子はならぬ — Uri no tsuru ni nasu wa naranu. Similarly, “eggplants don’t grow on gourd vines,” with the same association with predictable traits. 鳶が鷹を生む — Tobi ga taka o umu. However, “a kite gives birth to a hawk” goes against the two previous sayings by imagining an outstanding child of an ordinary parent; here the hawk is seen as superior to the kite. 親の光は七光 — Oya no hikari wa nana hikari. “A parent’s light is seven lights” is a way of saying that if a parent has a high social position or is famous, it is a great help to the child in achieving success, with the “seven lights” representing the many benefits available to the child. The phrase may be seen in the shortened form oya no nana hikari, or “a parent’s seven lights.” 可愛い子には旅をさせよ — Kawaii ko ni wa tabi o saseyo. “Send a beloved child on a journey” is a proverb offering parental advice. It suggests that rather than pampering children at home, it is better to send them out to travel so that they experience the harshness of the world, and thereby grow. Turning Red
The l[...]
Phrasal Verb of the Day | Vocabulary | EnglishClub
enter into
to become involved in something like a discussion, an agreement, or a partnership.
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Word of the Day
admixture
Definition: (noun) An additional ingredient that is added by mixing with the base.
Synonyms: intermixture.
Usage: The flowers flourished in the new growing medium, a nutrient-rich soil comprised of equal parts sand and loam with an admixture of peat moss and cow manure.
Discuss
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Language Log
"I" again?
From Bill Clinton's 2024 DNC speech:
Your browser does not support the audio element.
I mean look,
what does their opponent do with his voice? He mostly
talks about himself
right?
So the next time you
hear him, don't count the lies.
Count the I's.
Count the I's.
His
vendettas, his vengeance,
his complaints,
his conspiracies.
He's like one of those tenors
opening up
before he walks out on stage like I did, trying to get his
lungs open by singing, "Me, me, me, me, me, me."
This evokes the long series of false pundit assertions about Barack Obama, especially by George F. Will, from June 2019 to May 2012 and beyond.
Will's assertions about Obama's pronoun frequency were shameless lies, but they were irrelevant to his larger point anyhow, since first-person pronoun usage is not a good metric for egocentricity or narcissism or whatever. See the discussion about Chris Christie's pronouns in "First Person Singular, Redemption Plea Edition" (1/11/2014), or the more general discussion by Jamie Pennebaker in "What is 'I' saying?" (8/9/2009).
Putting aside the pragmatics and social psychology of pronoun use, Geoff Pullum suggested that I might count
[U]ses of (wordforms of) the first-person singular pronoun lexeme in (i) speeches by Harris and (ii) speeches by Trump. Tailor-made for a Breakfast Experimenthttps://s.w.org/images/core/emoji/15.0.3/72x72/2122.png .
So here we go — but I'll add Clinton's DNC speech to the project.
Donald Trump RNC2024: 12586 words, 265 I's (2.1%), 348 FPSP (2.8%) Kamala Harris DNC2024: 3697 words, 83 I's (2.2%), 127 FPSP (3.4%) Bill Clinton DNC2024: 2458 words, 66 I's (2.75%), 88 FPSP (3.6%)
I'll spare you the counts and percentages for the many other speeches by these personalities that I've analyzed, but suffice it to say that Bill Clinton's jibe is not empirically supported — at least in terms of pronoun counts.
A more sophisticated analysis (perhaps of a different data source) might yield a different answer. I didn't count "his vendettas, his vengeance, his complaints, his conspiracies". But here as elsewhere, crude pronoun counts are not easily mapped to personality dimensions.
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Word of the Day
Word of the Day: smattering
This word has appeared in 136 articles on NYTimes.com in the past year. Can you use it in a sentence?
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Phrasal Verb of the Day | Vocabulary | EnglishClub
wind up (1)
If you wind up in a certain place or situation, you find yourself there by chance or because of unexpected events.
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Word of the Day
disjunct
Definition: (adjective) Marked by separation of or from usually contiguous elements.
Synonyms: isolated.
Usage: The islands were like little isolated worlds, as abruptly disjunct and unexpected as a palm-shaded well in the Sahara.
Discuss
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Language Log
Tones, Then and Now
[This is a guest post by Don Keyser]
I was relieved/reassured to read this in Language Log yesterday:
VHM: I myself remember very clearly being taught to say gongheguo 共和國 ("republic") and gongchandang 共產黨 (Communist Party) with the first syllable of each being in the first tone, then being surprised later when the PRC started pushing fourth tone for those first syllables. This sort of thing happened with many other words as well, with, for example, xingqi 星期 ("week"), which I had been taught as first tone followed by second tone, becoming two first tones.
My first Chinese language instructor, Beverly (Hong Yuebi) Fincher, used Chao Yuan-ren's Mandarin Primer. Later I studied a couple years, full-time, at the "Stanford Center" (Inter-University Program for Chinese Language Studies) hosted by National Taiwan University. Subsequent to that, a half decade later, I spent a year in Mandarin interpreter training at the government's Foreign Service Institute Branch School in Taiwan. In my "spare time" during that program, I studied daily an hour of Shanghainese and "Taiwanese" (i.e., Hoklo, or southern Min, or whatever).
So when I arrived in Beijing spring 1976 on the first of my three postings there, and encountered what you describe, on something as basic and oft-heard as gongchandang 共產黨, I concluded that my memory and/or learning and/or articulation skills were horribly deficient. (They probably were, but that's another story.) I convinced myself that I must have a real issue in distinguishing adequately between first and fourth tones.
Very parenthetically, I found peculiarly useful for tone-learning/reinforcement the necessity to listen "solemnly" to the guógē 國歌 ("national anthem") in movie theaters prior to the showing of the film. The characters were printed on screen as patriotic images floated by, and the tones in each of the four-character sets were pronounced in the purest Beijing-style Mandarin (i.e., not with the distinctive southern Mandarin pronunciation heard in Taipei at the time).
[VHM: I had the same experience with regard to solemnly singing the national anthem of the Republic of China before the film was shown, though, in addition, I also couldn't help but think of Sun Yat-sen (who penned it) and his Three People's Principles, plus Abraham Lincoln's "government of the people, by the people, and for the people".]
—–
During my two years at the Stanford Center, I commuted via motorcycles (a Suzuki 125 and a Honda 150). They were fairly reliable beasts, but of course needed maintenance and minor repairs from time to time. So I early learned my share of "motorcycle-repair" vocabulary to be deployed when I took in my noble steed to one of the local shops.
I still remember vividly that the workers at one "complimented" me on my Mandarin … but added the observation that "However, you foreigners do not seem able to pronounce correctly the word 是 … none of you say 'si'/szu' but make some very foreign sound." By which they meant 'shi.'
I then did my rendition of 44 stone lions, all using "si" instead of "shi" where needed, which duly impressed them. And puzzled them. "So why if you CAN make that sound, do you not do so when speaking Guóyǔ 國語 ('Mandarin')?"
Reflecting my youth and lack of good sense, I told them that Mandarin, which we were taught to speak in its northern/Beijing pronunciation, has both the "si" and the "shi" sounds. To their disbelief, I countered by asking if they had not been taught the zhùyīn fúhào 注音符號 or ㄅ, ㄆ, ㄇ, ㄈ ("bo po mo fo"; "Mandarin Phonetic Symbols") system in their schools.
They said they had, of course. So, I asked, how do you pronounce ㄕ and ㄙ ? To which they replied "si" and "si." But if there are two different symbols in the bopomofo system, I pursued, why would each have the same pronunciat[...]
Slang of the Day | Vocabulary | EnglishClub
joint (2)
a prison, a jail
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Idiom of the Day
laze about
To relax or spend time idly; to do nothing or very little. Watch the video
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Funny Or Die (Youtube)
Understanding the Trump Phenomenon
Throwback to 2016 when we sent a reporter to try to understand the average Trump voter.
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Language Log
A Hainanese mystery
[This is a guest post from Mok Ling.]
Hainanese is rather atypical of Southern Min (閩南) languages, with lots of innovations and retentions not seen in other varieties in the region: it has, for example, implosive consonants (which it shares with Vietnamese), as well as glottal-final 上聲 (a retention from Old Chinese).
The atypical feature I've found most mysterious is the tendency to pronounce the Middle Chinese 去 tone as 陰平. I haven't managed to find a consistent pattern in the words affected by this tonal shift.
Just for context: I unfortunately do not know which part of the island my grandparents are from. I was told ethnic tensions within the Chinese community in the island of Tanjung Pinang (where they eventually settled) discouraged them from transmitting any kind of information about this to their children. Looking at phonetic data compiled online (from the dialect dictionary kaom.net as well as recordings of Hainanese), it seems that our family lect most resembles Qionghainese (瓊海話).
Here are some examples of the 去-平 change, transcribed from my own speech (these are arranged in no particular order):
話 ("language") ʔiɛ²⁴
畫 ("to draw") iɛ²⁴
花 ("flower") ʔɦiɛ²⁴
號 ("number") ʔɦɔ²⁴
步 ("step") ʔɓɔu²⁴
命 ("life; destiny") mia²⁴
利 ("sharp") lai²⁴
利 (only in 利用) li²⁴
用 ("use", only as a noun) iɔŋ²⁴
二 ("2", as a cardinal and seemingly only word-initially) ʔɗzi²⁴
共 ("and") ka²⁴*
弄 ("to joke") laŋ²⁴
賣 ("to sell") ʔɓɔi²⁴
*As for 共, my mother taught me very carefully to read it as gōng in Mandarin rather than gòng. I thought it had to have been dialectal influence, but 趙元任 Chao Yuen-ren's 1962 article "What is Correct Chinese" shows that I wasn't alone in being taught this antiquated pronunciation.
[end of guest post]
VHM: I myself remember very clearly being taught to say gongheguo 共和國 ("republic") and gongchandang 共產黨 (Communist Party) with the first syllable of each being in the first tone, then being surprised later when the PRC started pushing fourth tone for those first syllables. This sort of thing happened with many other words as well, with, for example, xingqi 星期 ("week"), which I had been taught as first tone followed by second tone, becoming two first tones.
Selected readings
* "Tabudish and the origins of Mandarin" (5/21/13)
* "Confessions of an Ex-Hokkien Creationist" (9/20/16)
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Slang of the Day | Vocabulary | EnglishClub
undies
pieces of underwear, esp. women's panties
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Idiom of the Day
lay (one's) life on the line
To put oneself in harm's way (to achieve something), especially at the risk of losing one's life. (Sometimes used hyperbolically.) Watch the video
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