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#ielts #toefl #gre #english_vocabulary #english
Word of the Day
exothermic
Definition: (adjective) Releasing heat.
Synonyms: heat-releasing, exothermal.
Usage: Scientists use a calorimeter to measure the amount of heat released during an exothermic reaction.
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dea that the GRd are string games in the Hamiltonian mode, I am pleased that he takes into consideration the astronomical, zodiacal, calendrical aspects of the device. Selected readings
* "Roman dodecahedra between Southeast Asia and England, part 2" (5/12/24)
* "Ask Language Log: One = only one?" (7/22/11) — philosophy of Sir William Hamilton
* "Roman dodecahedra between Southeast Asia and England" (4/30/24)
* "Wheat and word: astronomy and the origins of the alphabet" (3/15/24) — with references to seven substantial papers on this subject by Brian Pellar
* "The Alphabet and the Zodiac" (12/6/22)
[Thanks to Jing Hu]
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Language Log
Multiple possible parsings of strings of sinographs
Chinese signs collected by Zeyao Wu:
http://languagelog.ldc.upenn.edu/~bgzimmer/zeyaowu1.png
本店/有/嬰兒被/賣 or 本店/有/嬰兒/被賣
běn diàn yǒu yīng'ér bèi mài
this shop has baby passive signifier; blanket for sale
"this shop has baby blankets for sale" or "this shop has had babies for sale"
http://languagelog.ldc.upenn.edu/~bgzimmer/zeyaowu2.png
歡迎/新老師生/前來就餐 or 歡迎/新老師/生前/來就餐
huānyíng xīn lǎo shī shēng qián lái jiùcān
welcome new old teachers students before come dine
"welcome new and old teachers and students to come and dine" or
"welcome new teachers to come and dine while they are still alive" (other interpretations are also possible)
http://languagelog.ldc.upenn.edu/~bgzimmer/zeyaowu3.png
小便/當/湯 or 小便當/湯
xiǎo biàn dāng tāng
small convenience serve as / structive morpheme (borrowed from Japanese) soup
N.B.: 當 has multiple etymological derivations, multiple pronunciations, and more than two dozen different meanings and functions (source)
"pee as soup" or "small bento / tiffin / lunchbox — soup"
大便/當/飯 or 大便當/飯
dà biàn dāng fàn
big convenience serve as / structive morpheme (borrowed from Japanese) rice / meal
"poo as meal" or "big bento / tiffin / lunchbox — meal"
http://languagelog.ldc.upenn.edu/~bgzimmer/zeyaowu4.png
廣州市/人和/母豬/配種/繁殖/基地 or 廣州市人和母豬/配種/繁殖/基地 (人和 is a place in Guangzhou).
Guǎngzhōu shì rén hé mǔ zhū pèizhǒng fánzhí jīdì
Guangzhou city human and mother / female pig breeding reproduction base
"Guangzhou city Renhe base for sow breeding and reproduction" or
"Guangzhou city base for human and sow breeding and reproduction"
Lordy me! Gotta be on your toes when you read sinographic texts.
Selected readings
* "Greater and lesser conveniences" (6/25/14)
* "Linguistic advice in the lavatory: speaking Mandarin is a great convenience for everyone" (9/11/07)
* "Sign everywhere" (3/11/13)
* "Literary Sinitic / Classical Chinese dependency parsing" (11/27/19)
[Thanks to Diana Shuheng Zhang and Jing Hu]
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nown Chinese characters" (12/3/13)
* "'No' in Chinese" (3/19/19)
* "Keep on -inging" (10/30/17)
* "I don't feel OK" (12/27/18)
* "Burlesque Matinée at the Max Planck Gesellschaft" (12/4/08)
* "The degendering of the third person pronoun in Mandarin" (12/12/13)
* "cactus wawa: the strange tale of a strange character" (11/1/14)
* "Cactus Wawa revisited" (4/24/16)
* "Sino-Japanese aesthetics and a new mode of translation" (10/28/21)
COMMENT:
A note that Kirinputra wrote to me separately a few days ago:
BTW written Taioanese is far from new (and written Hokkien & Teochew are older than Taioanese itself). It has just been marginalized so that it perpetually seems new to some critical mass of observers, of which I used to be one.
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Word of the Day
Word of the Day: pseudonym
This word has appeared in 108 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
narrow down
to reduce the number of possibilities, options or choices
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Idiom of the Day
in some sense
Partly; in some or certain way(s). Watch the video
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Learn English Through Football Podcast: Fifth Successive Title
Читать полностью…
Phrasal Verb of the Day | Vocabulary | EnglishClub
hand in
If you hand something in, you give it to someone in authority, like a teacher, a policeman or a security guard.
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Word of the Day
Word of the Day: hubbub
This word has appeared in 41 articles on NYTimes.com in the past year. Can you use it in a sentence?
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Slang of the Day | Vocabulary | EnglishClub
earworm
a song that repeats annoyingly in one's head
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Language Log
Diplolingo: "stern representations"
During the last decade or so, the Chinese foreign ministry has developed such a distinctive, confrontational brand of diplomatic jargon that I thought it deserved a neologistic portmanteau designation of its own, though I think the expression could be used for different styles of diplomatic language that are quite different from the harsh rhetoric of the current Chinese approach.
Overall, contemporary Chinese diplomats are instructed by their government to adopt a "wolf warrior" approach. Wolf warrior diplomacy is a form of public diplomacy involving compellence adopted by Chinese diplomats in the late 2010s. The term was coined from the title of the Chinese action film Wolf Warrior 2 (2017). This approach is in contrast to the prior diplomatic practices of Deng Xiaoping and Hu Jintao, which had emphasized the use of cooperative rhetoric and the avoidance of controversy.
Wolf warrior diplomacy is confrontational and combative, with its proponents denouncing any perceived criticism of the Chinese government, its ruling Chinese Communist Party (CCP), and associated policies on social media and in interviews, as well as using physical violence against protestors and dissidents. As an attempt to gain "discourse power" in international politics, wolf warrior diplomacy forms one part of a new foreign policy strategy called Xi Jinping's "Major Country Diplomacy" (Chinese: 大国外交; pinyin: Dàguó Wàijiāo) which has legitimized a more active role for China on the world stage, including engaging in an open ideological struggle with the Western world.
(Wiktionary)
In this post, I will focus on one typical, particular expression of PRC diplolingo, viz., "stern representations" (yánzhèng jiāoshè 严正交涉), which is generally preceded by the verb tíchū 提出 ("propose; put forward; raise"), hence tíchū yánzhèng jiāoshè 提出严正交涉, which in diplospeak English usually comes out as "lodge stern representations".
According to a Baidu definition (Google translated with some modification):
"Stern representation" is a diplomatic term, and solemn means serious and legitimate; representation means consulting with the other party to resolve relevant issues; the two words together roughly mean consultation with the other party to resolve relevant issues seriously and legitimately. Seriously and formally to express an attitude of opposition.
The Chinese Ministry of Foreign Affairs mainly focuses on the most commonly used vocabulary regarding China’s sovereignty issues and disputed territories. Similar words include strong condemnation, strong indignation, regret, solemn statement, solemn concern, doomed to failure, deep regret, etc.
A common conception of diplomacy is that it is practiced by highly trained individuals who use language and knowledge skillfully and effectively to solve problems that may arise between various countries.
Diplomacy is the art and practice of building and maintaining relationships and conducting negotiations with people using tact and mutual respect.
—-
Source: "The Skills of Diplomacy: The nine skills of diplomacy fall into three different categories: informational, relational, and operational." National Museum of American Diplomacy.
It would seem to me that PRC / CCP-style "diplomacy" runs contrary to the purposes of conventional diplomacy as it has been conceived for the last several centuries, that is, not at oppositional and confrontational, but with the aims of solving difficult issues that arise among countries by means other than war. Diplomacy comprises spoken or written communication by representatives of state, intergovernmental, or nongovernmental institutions intended to influence events in the international system.
Diplomacy is the main instrument of foreign policy which represents the broader goals and strategies [...]
Word of the Day
pauperism
Definition: (noun) A state of extreme poverty or destitution.
Synonyms: indigence, penury, need.
Usage: Two children begged for money on the subway, and their pauperism weighed heavily on the minds of the train's passengers.
Discuss
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Idiom of the Day
in a flutter
In a nervous, confused, or agitated state. Watch the video
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Idiom of the Day
be in for a surprise
To be guaranteed to receive or experience an unexpected outcome, especially a negative one. Watch the video
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Language Log
Roman dodecahedra between Southeast Asia and England, part 3
I stopped short when I passed by this piece of gym equipment in a kindergarten playground near my home. http://languagelog.ldc.upenn.edu/~bgzimmer/dodeca1.jpg http://languagelog.ldc.upenn.edu/~bgzimmer/dodeca2.jpg "What," I thought, "another Gallo-Roman dodecahedron right in my own backyard? Am I seeing things because I've been too preoccupied with Gallo-Roman dodecahedra (GRd) for the past few weeks?"
But this was not a dodecahedron; it was (I think) a modified decahedron, and SFAIK it has nothing to do with the alphazodiac.
Speaking of which, here is a dodecahedron created by a Slovakian astronomer, each face labeled with its appropriate constellation of the zodiac:
http://languagelog.ldc.upenn.edu/~bgzimmer/dodeca3.jpg
Folded and glued:
http://languagelog.ldc.upenn.edu/~bgzimmer/dodeca4.jpg
(source)
Here is an Italian leather and wood dodecahedron decorated with the signs of the zodiac: http://languagelog.ldc.upenn.edu/~bgzimmer/dodeca5.jpg (source)
The knobs at the vertices are said to be for the protection of the faces when the device is placed on a surface. I myself, during an idle moment today, thought that, whatever else they may have been intended for, the knobs keep the device from rolling over onto another face. The five projecting "feet" keep the dodecahedron solidly and securely seated (Gr -edron < hedra,L sedere, sit) (Collins)
As for the purpose / use of the dodecahedra, Thomas Lee Mair offered these helpful notes:
I was relieved to see that someone (Brian?) mentioned a possible military association, such as rangefinding. The organization of the legions is a subject worthy of consideration. We all know the importance of the aquila to the generals, and to the emperor. I will never forget the scene in "I, Claudius" when the Caesar Augustus is informed that his armies have been lost, in Dacia I believe. Caesar, played by Brian Blessed, enters into an apoplectic fit, screaming like a baby having a tantrum: "I want my Eagles back! I want my Eagles back!" It's an unforgettable scene, and not easily understood until we realize that the Eagles were the embodiment of the Roman Legions. The tantrum is frightening to witness.
There are so many plausible ideas mentioned in the comment section to your previous two posts that I hesitate to put forward another idea, based purely on speculation. To me it seems apparent that these were restricted items, reserved either for scientists, scholars, astrologists, priests, or generals. Otherwise they would appear in the literature. It might be worth considering if these were symbols of military authority that were held in secret, to be returned to Rome or to be buried if the legion were in desperate straits.
This reasoning is compatible with the GRd as astronomical-calculatory device hypothesis that I thought they were from the beginning. It also has the added advantage of explaining where they have been found. I surmise that the GRd were like basic, simplified, portable astrolabes (precursors to the sextant), which were amazingly versatile and could solve more than a thousand different kinds of astronomical and mathematical problems.
In modern times, the Irish mathematician William Rowan Hamilton invented a mathematical game called the Icosian game, which involved finding a Hamiltonian cycle that followed the edges of a dodecahedron and passes through all of its vertices. It came close to becoming a commercial success and he even created a travel version of the game.
Here are four blog posts on "Roman Dodecahedrons" (I, II, III, IV) by a scientifically minded Australian engineer tinkerer named Gavin. They are extraordinarily detailed and attentive to the demands of verifiability and falsifiability. Although he is wedded to the i[...]
Language Log
Shameful grass
Liwei Jiao sent in this photograph from a park in Hefei, China:
http://languagelog.ldc.upenn.edu/~bgzimmer/grasssmiled.jpg
Such notices (do not disturb; tiny grass is sleeping / dreaming / smiling) are virtually a genre unto themselves (see here), with many variants and classics that can suck you in for an afternoon, and since I haven't written about them for awhile, and since this one can teach us something interesting about botany, I decided to write this brief post about it.
xiǎo cǎo hánxiū xiào
小草含羞笑
the tiny grass is smiling shyly / bashfully
qǐng nín wù dǎrǎo
请您勿打扰 (您 is honorific 2nd person)
please don't disturb
Inept use of the embarrassingly creepy Chinese adverb for smiling here is further muddled by the fact that it serves as a descriptor for grass to form the plant name hánxiū cǎo 含羞草 ("mimosa; shameplant" — it swiftly draws back and closes up if you so much as touch it). A lot more could be said about the plant and the cocktail named after it, but that's a rabbit hole I'd rather not go down this afternoon.
Selected reading
"Tiny grass is dreaming" (5/24/12)
"Chinglish trifecta" (11/14/23) — third item
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Language Log
Mixed script writing in Taiwan
[This is a guest post by Kirinputra] Something happened* a few days ago that some of your readers might find surprising. It reflects a mood change that's set in over the last few years in Formosa.
[*VHM: The content of the Facebook post linked here may not be available at this time, but you can still get the gist of what it was about from the remainder of this post.] My apologies — the link has been set to private. But the incident has spawned a new Facebook group that anybody can view.
So this guy posts a message in mixed-script Taioanese (sinographs & romanization, mixed inline) in a pro-motorcyclist Facebook activist group…. The message was aligned with the views of the group, but the first few waves of comments were almost all reactions of disgust at the post not being in Mandarin; some group members blocked the guy right away. Some of the reactions were specifically against the romanized elements, but the reaction to the sinographic elements was pretty disparaging too….
To unpack, romanized Taioanese especially has made a bit of headway in the last five years or so, so that young mainstream society is aware of it now, very much in contrast to the previous 70+ years. However, young mainstream society loves to hate romanized Taioanese. The backlash against romanized Taioanese is most of the "mind share" that it has gained. And people often take writings in straight romanized Taioanese to task for being all romanized, but — as we see here [or not, unfortunately, since the post has gone private] — the mainstream reaction to the mixed script is also disgust, first & foremost at there being romanized elements at all. I would add that the sinographic elements of the post unintentionally skewed towards Mandarin-centric, non-native usages, as sponsored by the Chinese Taipei state. Had native usages been used instead, the audience would've been even more disgruntled.
One of the most interesting & damning aspects to unpack is where this took place: A niche citizens' rights group, for a "niche" demographic that skews Taioanese-speaking while subsuming nearly the entire working class of Formosa, & much of the urban middle class as well. It's been my experience as well — and I was taken aback too at first — that the backlash against non-conformity to Chinese Taipei nationalism is paradoxically heightened in so-called human rights circles, and — more generally — wherever people have gathered in the name of a conventionally literate specialty (i.e., most specialties, but maybe not local botany).
It is striking that despite how Chinese nationalist rhetoric militates against non-sinographic scripts, non-conforming sinographic scripts are not tolerated either outside of unambiguously low contexts like ads or KTV lyrics. The intolerance for actual written Taioanese in most contexts also challenges Chinese Taipei's current image — in the Anglophone media, especially — as a tolerant, liberal polity where Taioanese is newly flourishing & prestigious. Selected readings
* "A crack in the hegemonic edifice of hanzi" (5/23/24)
* "Mixed Mandarin-Taiwanese-Japanese orthography" (10/29/21)
* "No character for the most frequent morpheme in Taiwanese" (12/10/13)
* "Our Taiwan" (11/19/13)
* "A trilingual, triscriptal ad in the Taipei subway" (/29/14)
* "Polyscriptal Taiwanese" (7/24/10)
* Multilingual tea packaging" (4/7/18)
* "Polyscriptal, multilingual packaging for thousand-year eggs" (9/2/18)
* "'NG' and 'CP' in Taiwan" (11/24/19)
* "A Northeastern topolectal morpheme without a corresponding character" (6/9/20)
* "Mixed-script letter written by an adult" (1/3/18)
* "A child's substitution of Pinyin (Romanization) for characters" (11/9/14), with links to other posts
* "Character amnesia and the emergence of digraphia" (9/25/13)
* "Substituting Pinyin for unk[...]
Slang of the Day | Vocabulary | EnglishClub
bent
dishonest, corrupt
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Word of the Day
shutout
Definition: (noun) A defeat in a game where one side fails to score.
Synonyms: skunk.
Usage: The coach knew that if his team could score just one point, it would avoid the humiliation of a shutout.
Discuss
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Language Log
Nine quid for two?
The Daily Mail explains that this viral video features "Marnie and Mylah, from Burnley, [who] hit out at the ice cream van for high prices":
A transcription, courtesy of Jadrian Wooten at The Monday Morning Economist:
Mom: Girls, what’s just happened?
Girl: So, there’s an ice cream van there. It’s silly, just 2 ice creams with 2 chewing gums in it, is bloody £9 for two of them.
Mom: 9 quid, for two?
Girl: Yea, 9 quid. That? He’s gonna get no where. The ones that come to my street have it £1 a piece or £2. That? He’s going to get no where with that.
Mom: No, he ain’t is he?
Girl: No! No, he aint!
Mom: That’s well bad, isn’t it?
Girl: Yea, he should know. And he only does bloody card. I stood there with me cash. Bloody hell!
Mom: That’s well bad, innit?
Girl: Bloody well bad. Yea, and I bet he can hear me.
Jadrian's exegesis:
While it might seem like Marnie’s reaction was all about the high price, there’s a lot more going on here. This situation gives us a perfect glimpse into the fundamental concept of "anchoring" in behavioral economics. It’s a principle that helps explain why we react the way we do to prices and other financial decisions. […]
Anchoring is a psychological bias where we rely too much on the first piece of information we’re given—the “anchor”—when making decisions. Once this anchor is set in our minds, we adjust other judgments around it, and there’s a tendency to interpret new information relative to the anchor in our minds.
For Marnie and Mylah, their anchor came from past experiences with ice cream vans on their street at home. Marnie tells us that “the ones that come to my street have it £1 a piece or £2.” This price range set their expectations and became the anchor by which they judged the new price.
So, when they saw a price of £9, it didn’t just seem high; it was shockingly out of line with their anchored expectations. This led to their strong reaction of shock and disbelief. Their blunt comment, "He’s gonna get nowhere with that," highlights how expectations shape our perception of what is fair and reasonable.
That link came to me in email from Bob Shackleton, who noted that he "wouldn't have been able to place [the accent] any better than somewhere in Lancashire or Yorkshire. As it turns out, our young economists are from Burnley in Lancashire, 20 miles north of Manchester and a mere 8 miles from the thriving metropolis of Shackleton in Yorkshire….."
http://languagelog.ldc.upenn.edu/myl/ShackletonMap.png
In other linguistic news, the version of the viral clip on Sunland.tv has an odd word substitution — "ascent" for (I think?) "accent":
http://languagelog.ldc.upenn.edu/myl/AscentAccent.png
Sunlandtv">That channel is based in Ghana, so maybe the writer pronounces "accent" as
/ˈæ.sɛnʔ/, which would motivate the 's'.
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Language Log
A crack in the hegemonic edifice of hanzi
Stunning report from Pinyin News:
"Chinese characters no longer required for Taiwan Aborigine names" (5/21/24)
Last week Taiwan’s legislature passed an amendment stating that members of Taiwan’s tribes will no longer be forced to adopt names written in Chinese characters. Instead, their names can be presented solely in romanization if so desired. Thus, at least in this specialized category, Chinese characters have been stripped of their primacy and romanization is officially allowed to stand on its own (not appear only in conjunction with Chinese characters).
Source: Lìyuàn tōngguò: yuánzhùmín shēnfen zhèngjiàn — kě zhǐ xiě pīnyīn zúmíng (立院通過：原住民身分證件 可只寫拼音族名), United Daily News, May 15, 2024
Selected readings
* My Bunun name is….” Pinyin News, November 27, 2023.
* “Writing indigenous names in Taiwan.” (12/10/23)
(Thanks to Mark Swofford)
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Word of the Day
walloping
Definition: (noun) A sound thrashing or defeat.
Synonyms: debacle, drubbing, thrashing, trouncing, whipping, slaughter.
Usage: The tournament was an embarrassment, with our team receiving a thorough walloping from the opponent.
Discuss
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Idiom of the Day
all of a dither
In a nervous, confused, or agitated state. Watch the video
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Language Log
Don't tell les immortels
Avmeric Renou, "À VivaTech, la French Tech s’offre un nouveau coup de boost", Le Parisien 5/21/2024.
"la French Tech"? "un nouveau coup de boost"?
The obligatory screenshot:
http://languagelog.ldc.upenn.edu/myl/CoupDeBoost.png
Elie Juien, "Homophobie, transphobie… À Paris, les bars LGBT-friendly pourraient être identifiés par un autocollant", Le Parisien 5/22/2024:
Une proposition du groupe communiste en Conseil de Paris, qui dénonce la hausse d’actes homophobes au premier trimestre, prévoit qu’un un réseau d’établissements accueillant du public « libres de LGBTphobies » soit créé avec apposition d’un sticker pour le signaler.
"les bars LGBT-friendly"? "un sticker pour le signaler"?
The screenshot:
http://languagelog.ldc.upenn.edu/myl/BarsLGBT-friendly1.png
Given the volume of English-language borrowings from French, turn about is fair play… But I'm a bit surprised by these phrases, since it would have been easy enough to use French calques.
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that guide a state's interactions with the rest of the world. International treaties, agreements, alliances, and other manifestations of international relations are usually the result of diplomatic negotiation and processes. Diplomats may also help shape a state by advising government officials.
Modern diplomatic methods, practices, and principles originated largely from 17th-century European custom. Beginning in the early 20th century, diplomacy became professionalized; the 1961 Vienna Convention on Diplomatic Relations, ratified by most of the world's sovereign states, provides a framework for diplomatic procedures, methods, and conduct. Most diplomacy is now conducted by accredited officials, such as envoys and ambassadors, through a dedicated foreign affairs office. Diplomats operate through diplomatic missions, most commonly consulates and embassies, and rely on a number of support staff; the term diplomat is thus sometimes applied broadly to diplomatic and consular personnel and foreign ministry officials. Etymology
The term diplomacy is derived from the 18th-century French term diplomate ("diplomat" or "diplomatist"), based on the ancient Greek diplōma, which roughly means "an object folded in two".[4] This reflected the practice of sovereigns providing a folded document to confer some official privilege; prior to the invention of the envelope, folding a document served to protect the privacy of its content. The term was later applied to all official documents, such as those containing agreements between governments, and thus became identified with international relations. This established history has in recent years been criticized by scholars pointing out how the term originates in the political context of the French Revolution.
(Wiktionary)
So I would say to our Chinese colleagues, "Why don't you try to be more diplomatic?", where diplomacy means "exercising tact or courtesy; using discussion to avoid hard feelings, fights or arguments." (Wiktionary) Selected readings
* "Protests, Complaints, and Representations" (7/10/09) — detailed discussion of "tíchū yánzhèng jiāoshè 提出严正交涉" ("lodge stern representations"; includes statistics of usage
* "Xinhua English and Zhonglish" (2/4/09)
* "The mind-numbing official-speak of the CCP" (8/29/17)
* "Decoding an emperor's letter: the dark arts of diplomacy" (11/29/22)
[Thanks to Mark Metcalf]
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Word of the Day
Word of the Day: coalesce
This word has appeared in 113 articles on NYTimes.com in the past year. Can you use it in a sentence?
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Slang of the Day | Vocabulary | EnglishClub
blow (2)
cocaine
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