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Slang of the Day | Vocabulary | EnglishClub
hang | hang out
to spend time with
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Idiom of the Day
a knee-slapper
A hilarious joke, especially one that evokes loud and prolonged laughter. Watch the video
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Language Log
New horizons in word sense analysis
Today's xkcd:
http://languagelog.ldc.upenn.edu/myl/organ_meanings_2x.png
Mouseover title: IMO the thymus is one of the coolest organs and we should really use it in metaphors more."
Like all aspects of word meaning, such metaphors come and go. For example, batshit (in the metaphorical meaning "nonsense" or "crazy") came into use in the middle of the 20th century, presumably via confluence of the older "bats in the belfry" phrase and the proliferation of other (and older) metaphorical "fecal compounds". And medicine has long since left the science of humorism behind, but we've inherited a metaphorical residue when we use phlegmatic to mean "calm, sluggish", or bilious to mean "irascible".
Recent applications of "deep learning" to the analysis of semantic change will open another chapter in the adventure that I described in my 2011 Henry Sweet Lecture, "Towards the Golden Age of Speech and Language Science":
For the sciences of speech and language, the 21st century promises to bring the kind of progress that the 17th century brought to the physical sciences.
Our telescopes and microscopes, our alembics and Pneumatical Engines, are today's vast archives of digital text and speech, along with new analysis techniques and inexpensive networked computation.
However, the scientific use of these new instruments remains mainly exploratory and potential. There are several critical problems for which we have at best partial solutions; and like our 17th-century predecessors, we need to unlearn some old ideas on the way to learning new ones.
Focusing especially on Henry Sweet's own interests in phonetics and in the history of English, this talk will discuss some of the barriers to be overcome, present some successful examples, and speculate about future directions.
Some recent papers (and code) on corpus-based semantic change analysis:
Dominick Schlechtweg et al., "SemEval-2020 task 1: Unsupervised lexical semantic change detection", 2020.
Sinan Kurtyigit et al., "Lexical Semantic Change Discovery", 2021.
Francesco Periti and Stefano Montanelli, "Lexical Semantic Change through Large Language Models: a Survey", 2024.
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Word of the Day
Word of the Day: imperceptibly
This word has appeared in 14 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
iron out
If you iron out the last details of a deal, you sort out the final problems or issues.
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Word of the Day
nubbly
Definition: (adjective) Rough or irregular; textured.
Synonyms: homespun, nubby, slubbed, tweedy.
Usage: The seamstress preferred the nubbly, matte surface of raw silk to the glossy, smooth look of satin.
Discuss
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e PRC" (11/7/21) — with a very long bibliography
* "Melon eaters and censorship in the PRC" (12/8/21)
* "Blocked on Weibo" (8/23/13)
* "'Bad' words" (12/5/21)
* "Franco-Croatian Squid in pepper sauce" (3/12/09)
* "Mee Tu flavor" (11/29/18)
* "Lepus oryzinus" (2/10/18)
* "'Grass Mud Horse' and other homophonic puns threatened with extinction" (7/15/22)
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Language Log
No "good morning" and "good afternoon" in Romance Languages?
From François Lang:
I hope this isn't a well-known question. I searched LL for
"good morning" romance
and found nothing. So here goes.
(1) One can say "good evening" idiomatically in Romance languages, but not "good morning" or "good afternoon".
(2) However, all three are idiomatic in Germanic languages.
I'm wondering if LL readers concur, and, if so, have any explanations of these two points.
Just kidding here, but maybe the Whorfians would suggest that the passage of (day) time in southern Europe is more fluid?
My apologies if this question is old hat on LL.
I don't know about this. I think that I was taught to say "bon matin" in high school French a long time ago.
Selected readings
* "'Good morning' considered dangerous" (10/24/17)
* "Why plural days and nights in Spanish greetings?" (4/29/13)
* "Sinographically transcribed English" (12/26/10)
* "Transcriptional Chinese animal imagery for English daily greetings" (3/13/23)
* "'Have a good day!' in Mandarin" (9/5/12)
* "Sinographically transcribed English" (12/26/10)
* Mary S. Erbaugh: "China expands its courtesy: Saying 'Hello' to Strangers," The Journal of Asian Studies, 67.2 (May, 2008),621-652.
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Slang of the Day | Vocabulary | EnglishClub
lame
bad, weak, of poor quality
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Idiom of the Day
keep out of sight
To remain unseen, as by hiding or evasion. Watch the video
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Language Log
Government dampers on AI in the PRC
"China Puts Power of State Behind AI—and Risks Strangling It: Government support helps China’s generative AI companies gain ground on U.S. competitors, but political controls threaten to weigh them down", by Lia Lin, WSJ (7/16/24)
Most generative AI models in China need to obtain the approval of the Cyberspace Administration of China before being released to the public. The internet regulator requires companies to prepare between 20,000 and 70,000 questions designed to test whether the models produce safe answers, according to people familiar with the matter. Companies must also submit a data set of 5,000 to 10,000 questions that the model will decline to answer, roughly half of which relate to political ideology and criticism of the Communist Party.
Generative AI operators have to halt services to users who ask improper questions three consecutive times or five times total in a single day.
Comment by Mark Metcalf: "Nothing like encouraging creativity. And that's certainly nothing like encouraging creativity."
Selected readings
* "The perils of AI (Artificial Intelligence) in the PRC" (4/17/23)
* "Welcome to China" (3/10/14)
* "Vignettes of quality data impoverishment in the world of PRC AI" (2/23/23)
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Phrasal Verb of the Day | Vocabulary | EnglishClub
take in (2)
to fully understand something you hear or read
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Word of the Day
doleful
Definition: (adjective) Filled with or expressing grief.
Synonyms: mournful.
Usage: The poor child's doleful eyes compelled me to buy him expensive toys and bags of candy in the hopes of cheering him up.
Discuss
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Word of the Day
Word of the Day: staggering
This word has appeared in 611 articles on NYTimes.com in the past year. Can you use it in a sentence?
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Word of the Day
Word of the Day: credo
This word has appeared in 45 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
stand for (1)
If letters or symbols stand for something, they represent that thing.
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Word of the Day
exceptionable
Definition: (adjective) Open or liable to objection or debate; debatable.
Synonyms: objectionable.
Usage: We can't have perfection; and if I keep him, I must sustain his administration as a whole, even if there are, now and then, things that are exceptionable.
Discuss
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Language Log
Topolect: a Four-Body Problem
From Jeff DeMarco:
The fanfic fourth book in the sāntǐ 三体 ("three-body [problem]") series, translated by Ken Liu has the following sentence: http://languagelog.ldc.upenn.edu/~bgzimmer/baoshu.jpg Women dressed in flowing silk dresses oared elegant barges over the placid waterways, singing folk ditties in the gentle, refined accents of the Wu topolect …
fāngyán 方言 (lit., "place speech", i.e., "topolect; dialect")
Wú fāngyán 吳方言 ("Wu topolect") Wu (traditional Chinese: 吳語; simplified Chinese: 吴语; Wu romanization and IPA:ngu ngei [ŋu²³³.ŋə̰i²¹⁴], wu6 gniu6 [ɦu˩˩˧.n̠ʲy˩˩˧] (Shanghainese), ghou2 gniu6 [ɦou˨˨˦.n̠ʲy˨˧˩] (Suzhounese), Mandarin Wúyǔ [u³⁵ y²¹⁴]) is a major group of Sinitic languages spoken primarily in Shanghai, Zhejiang Province, and the part of Jiangsu Province south of the Yangtze River, which makes up the cultural region of Wu. Speakers of various Wu languages sometimes labelled their mother tongue as Shanghainese when introduced to foreigners. The Suzhou dialect was the prestige dialect of Wu as of the 19th century, but had been replaced in status by Shanghainese by the turn of the 20th century. The languages of Northern Wu are mutually intelligible with each other, while those of Southern Wu are not.
(Wikipedia) Selected readings
* "'The Three Body Problem' as rendered by Netflix: vinegar and dumplings'" (3/23/24)
* "Ken Liu reinvents Chinese characters" (12/5/16) — translator of The Three Body Problem
* "Ted Chiang uninvents Chinese characters" (5/13/16)
* "Bringing back the Cultural Revolution — in English" (5/28/21)
* "Thought panzers" (2/24/2) — on "River Elegy"
* "The Three-Body Problem: The 'unfilmable' Chinese sci-fi novel set to be Netflix's new hit 3 Body Problem", BBC (3/19/24), by James Balmont
* "'Topolect' is in China!" (4/14/18)
* "'Topolect' is spreading in China" (6/20/19)
* "Tianjin topolect: linguistic diversity in China (and India)" (4/29/24)
* "Crosstalk about topolects" (12/16/19)
* "Concentric circles of language in Beijing, part 2" (6/13/20)
* "Dialectometry" (4/26/24)
* "Topolect writing" (11/23/14)
* "The American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language, 5th edition" (11/14/12) — q.v. "topolect"
* "Mutual intelligibility" (5/28/14) — see the long list of posts linked at the bottom)
* "What Is a Chinese “Dialect/Topolect”? Reflections on Some Key Sino-English Linguistic Terms," Sino-Platonic Papers, 29 (1991).
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Slang of the Day | Vocabulary | EnglishClub
gross
disgusting, very unpleasant
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Idiom of the Day
the knacker's yard
A state of ruin or failure due to having become useless or obsolete. Refers to a slaughterhouse for old or injured horses. Watch the video
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Language Log
Little Italian girl talking with her hands
Are Italians by nature more manually voluble than other people?
Selected readings
* "Learning to speak Sicilian" (2/10/20) — some similar hand gestures
* "Baby talk" (12/21/10)
* "Baby talk, part 2" (8/19/18)
* "Twin talk" (3/31/11) — watch video here and here
* "The babbling phase: ranting toddler speaks out" (9/2/10)
* "Ask LL: parents' beliefs or infants' abilities?" (10/29/09)
* "Canine backtalk" (10/25/19)
* "Annoyed dog responding to the Islamic 'Call to Prayer'" (12/29/15)
* "Bird language" (6/15/17)
* "Barking roosters and crowing dogs" (2/18/18)
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Language Log
China VPN redux
Chapter 1
A professor in China who is collaborating with a famous American professor of Chinese literature wanted to read one of my Language Log (LL) posts because he had heard that it's being widely discussed around the world. However, because of China's rigid censorship rules, he couldn't open the LL post.
The Chinese professor asked the American professor to help him gain access to my post.
The American professor asked me to help the Chinese professor.
I suggested to the Chinese professor to use a VPN. Without a VPN, Chinese are not able to access LL, Wikipedia, Wiktionary, Google, X, etc., etc. In other words, without a VPN, Chinese are cut off from most of the information on the internet that is outside the Great Firewall, i.e., most of the cutting edge, valuable information in the world.
The Catch 22 is that it is a crime to use a VPN in China.
Can you imagine having to live in a benighted place like the PRC? Chapter 2
From a distinguished American professor (what he says may sound devious and hypocritical on the part of the Chinese authorities, and it is, but it doesn't surprise me in the slightest):
When I was in Hangzhou a decade or so ago, the university there had a series of grad students take us sightseeing to various places, and during such trips I had conversations with them about this very issue. Turns out most of the grad students in arts and/or humanities-related disciplines were without access to the banned VPNs and were thus, as expected, often seriously cut off from the outside world. But then the grad students in science-related fields were different. They told me quite openly that they were encouraged by faculty to use VPNs and did so as a matter of course. “After all, how could I possibly do any of my research without access to a VPN?” one told me. He added that he sometimes helped friends in other fields obtain VPNs because he felt so sorry for them. Chapter 3 — conclusion
This is further proof, if you didn't already have enough, that China is dependent on the West for basic ideas / information / knowledge / techniques in science and technology, and doesn't want to learn anything from the West when it comes to social sciences and humanities.
Unless and until it thoroughly recreates its educational, ontological, and epistemological priorities and procedures, it will be virtually impossible for China to succeed / flourish in the modern world, which is based on completely different premises, values, and modalities. Selected readings
* "Fissures in the Great Firewall caused by X" (6/10/24)
* "Shadowsocks" (2/8/18)
* "God use VPN" (12/28/15)
* "Mixing (or ignoring?) metaphors" (6/9/24)
* "Badge of honor: Language Log is blocked in China" (12/26/19)
* "The ultimate protest against censorship" (11/27/22)
* "The reality of censorship in the PRC" (10/13/16)
* "The face of censorship" (1/11/19)
* "Bad words on WeChat: go directly to jail" (12/17/17)
* "The letter * has bee* ba**ed in Chi*a" (2/26/18)
* "Censoring 'Occupy' in China" (10/24/11)
* "Using riddles to circumvent censorship in China" (3/6/18)
* "Peppa Pig has been purged" (5/2/18)
* "Censored letter" (12/19/14) — about a nine-year-old boy who suggested that Xi Jinping lose weight
* "Excessive quadrisyllabicism" (2/17/18)
* "Censored belly, Tibetan tattoo" (8/28/17)
* "Chinese translation app with built-in censorship" (11/29/18)
* "Lepus oryzinus" (2/10/18)
* "Banned in Beijing" (6/4/14)
* "Where's Xi?" (9/11/12)
* "Digraphia and intentional miswriting" (3/12/15)
* "It's not just puns that are being banned in China" (12/7/14)
* "Annals of literary vs. vernacular, part 2" (9/4/16)
* "The PRC censors its own national anthem" (2/9/20)
* "Hemorrhoids outbreak" (914/21)
* "Typos as a means for circumventing censorship" (7/22/22)
* "Circumventing censorship in th[...]
Word of the Day
Word of the Day: presumptuous
This word has appeared in 25 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
make for
to move towards something
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Word of the Day
entreaty
Definition: (noun) An earnest request or petition; a plea.
Synonyms: appeal, prayer.
Usage: Nothing is wanting but to have you here, and it is our particular wish and entreaty that you would come to us as soon as you can.
Discuss
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Word of the Day
Word of the Day: adieu
This word has appeared in 39 articles on NYTimes.com in the past year. Can you use it in a sentence?
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Idiom of the Day
keep mum
To remain silent; to not say anything (e.g., about a secret). Watch the video
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Slang of the Day | Vocabulary | EnglishClub
bugger off
to go away
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Language Log
The true identity of the first Chinese translator of Lady Chatterley's Lover
There has long been a suspicion that the first Chinese translator of Lady Chatterley's Lover (1928/1932), Ráo Shùyī 饒述一, about whom next to nothing is known, was actually the scholar and theoretician of aesthetics, Zhū Guāngqián 朱光潛 (1897-1986).
To give a little bit of background about the nature of the two translations of the novel, here is the abstract of a recent scholarly article comparing them:
This article discusses how sex-related content is rendered in two Chinese translations of D. H. Lawrence's Lady Chatterley's Lover: Rao Shuyi (1936) and Zhao Susu (2004). It is found that Rao's translation features explicitness, flexibility and Europeanization, while Zhao's translation features conservativeness and domestication. And the observed features in the two translations regarding sex-related content are explained from perspectives of social and historical background, translation purpose and intended readership, and patronage. Index Terms–Lady Chatterley's Lover, translation, sexuality
Zhu, Kun. "The Translation of Sex-related Content in Lady Chatterley's Lover in China." Theory and Practice in Language Studies, vol. 10, no. 8, Aug. 2020, pp. 933+. Gale Literature Resource Center.
For those who are interested, the title of D. H. Lawrence's novel in Chinese is 《Chátàilái fūrén de qíngrén 查泰萊夫人的情人》.
Decades ago, I was aware of this controversial mystery over who the first Chinese translator was, and I poked around a bit to try to solve it, but got nowhere fast. Furthermore, my mentor, Patrick Hanan, who was extremely learned about Chinese esthetics and esoteric fiction, though he solved many other problems surrounding the authorship of Chinese literary works, to the best of my knowledge never attempted to figure this one out. So I have decided, rather than flailing around undertaking deep research on Zhu Guangqian, to put it to the collective readership of Language Log, where surely there are others who are far more qualified to work on it than I, including my close friend and colleague, also surnamed Zhū 朱, namely, Zhū Qìngzhī 朱慶之.
Selected readings
* "Linguistic divergence and convergence" (4/17/18) — Lady Chatterley's Lover, which despite its reputation has more in it about linguistic ideology than about sex
* "'We are all the other now'" (11/8/12) — [(bgz) OED has the sexual euphemism from 1922, in two quotes from Joyce's Ulysses: "They would be just good friends like a big brother and sister without all that other" and "Bit light in the head. Monthly or effect of the other." It's also in Lady Chatterley's Lover: "She loved me to talk to her and kiss her… But the other, she just didn't want."]
* Roger Shuy, "Code-Switching in Lady Chatterly's Lover", York Papers in Linguistics 1980.
[h.t. shaing tai]
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