Tag: language update
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Animist jargon
From the Old Postcards Facebook page. The crate is familiar, but the official jargon for the crate is new to me. Pop shells!
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Worthy reprint
Looking at the statcounter for the old blog. I haven’t changed it in 18 months, but the readers there are more varied and “purposeful” than the readers of this new WordPress version. I still don’t know why. Is it something about the format, or am I just dumbed down after three years of NAZI TORTURE?…
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Zit?
Elon has renamed Twitter to X, and adopted a new logo for X. More proof that he’s intentionally driving the company into the ground for an LBO. Brands that can’t be pronounced are guaranteed to fail. Remember “the artist formerly known as Prince?” Remember Latinx and Womxn? What’s the verb form? Instead of tweeting, will…
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Sequoyah was smart
A new article in Tablet makes a strong point. Hebrew is what keeps the Jewish tribe together. The author underestimates the specific linguistic power of Hebrew. (As opposed to just any generic shared language.) = = = = = START TABLET: To better understand this relatively unexplored contrast, we might refer to the distinction made…
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Words are reflectors
EnidBuzz asks “What’s a habit that makes people seem old?” The answerers interpreted it two ways: (1) Physical habits like naps and groaning that are automatic results of aging in any era; (2) Language or cultural habits specific to earlier decades, like writing checks or using landline phones. One of the latter caught my eye…
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Language update
Before 2010, I was listening to radio and TV, which provided plenty of material for new words and grammar forms. Since I threw away the TV in 2011 and the radio in 2020, I haven’t done many Language Updates. Finally we have two items worthy of mention. Both are verb forms. One has deregularized and…
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Tracking the trace
Trying to explore the concept of value in ledgers, consulted an 1873 book on accounting which has a fresh view of the subject. The book also has an unexpected phrase: With regard to stocks, the titles of account, by which value in them is kept trace of, will be suggested from their descriptive names. If…
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Why only v’
Listening to the Strange as it seems episode on the origin of the Star-spangled Banner. The characters are singing the song as it first appeared in a Baltimore paper, and their father tells them it’s not new at all. He then sings Anacreon in Heav’n and orders his daughters to stop singing an old bawdy…
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One good thing
The bitcoin world was always and only a trick for Deepstate and big banks to steal money and power from suckers. Still, the bitcoin world has one advantage over the “standard” government and corporate world: Occasional clear language. Here’s a statement from some “network” or “exchange” that decided to shut down because of QT: “Product…
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Kirn loses it
Katharine Boyle said: The decline in liberal arts degrees bodes well for society on almost every dimension. College students now know that majoring in Book Club won’t get you a great job. This is progress. Kirn snotted back: “On almost every dimension” isn’t English, brainiac. Close, but not quite. And what would know about dimensions…
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British losing θ?
θ is a weak sound, and weak sounds tend to slide down a gradient into silence or into stronger sounds. θ goes to f in many British dialects. Lately I’ve been noticing θ going toward t in some proper London types. This might be an old tendency but I haven’t noticed it before. It’s constantly…
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God believes in ether
Until 1920 most discussion of electricity and radio was based on the assumption of an ether. Michelson-Morley DIDN’T wipe out the ether. It was wiped much later when quantum quackery took over the doctrines and creeds of “science”. Here’s a nice clear example from a 1904 book by Frederick Vreeland, the inventor of the weirdly…
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More fake surprise
Bad grammar is a major component of sneaky propaganda. I don’t mean ain’t or irregardless. I mean distortion of verb aspect. The latest fake surprise is a 75-year-old constant process posing as a freshly discovered sudden unexpected unprecedented brand-new crisis. The feds have arrested two Chinese spies who were running a blackmail factory in NYC,…
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Random grammar thought
Random grammar thought, seems like an interesting correlation at the moment. Among Indo-European languages, the Catholic or Orthodox cultures (Latin, Slavic) prefer reflexive verbs as a way of expressing passive or middle voice. Protestant and Islamic cultures (Germanic, English, Arabic) prefer distinct active and passive forms. Latin started with a distinct passive, then replaced it…
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Bond gender
We’re confused about bonds in the same way that we’re confused about gender. A bond is a contract with a specific time interval. You buy it, let the seller use your money for a specific time, and expect a periodic rental fee from the seller. At the end of the fixed time interval you sell…
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