Metrolingua

A different way of celebrating our independence

2009-07-03T20:50:00.002-05:00

Tomorrow is Independence Day for the US, to commemorate the signing of the Declaration of Independence. Here's a cute video of Captain America and other superheroes celebrating it.

Good Billy Mays ad

2009-07-01T22:50:00.003-05:00

I still can't believe Billy Mays died--he seemed to be at the height of his success and fame, and seemed healthy as well. Here's a good ad that he did for ESPN--it's campy and clearly doesn't take itself too seriously. It mocks advertising by breaking down the obvious and using purposely stiff actors. It's just entertaining on various levels and contains cultural commentary as well.

Puce and taupe sound more colorful than flea and mole

2009-06-29T10:27:00.002-05:00

In a recent post, I discussed how speakers of different languages see color differently. Continuing with the theme of color, I thought that it might be interesting to explore how certain colors obtained their names.

For instance, turquoise is derived from a French word for "Turkish," as the bluish stone for which the color is name was known in French as "la pierre turquoise" (the Turkish stone). Logically, such colors as topaz, sapphire, jade, amber, ebony, and emerald also come from their respective stones, just as gold and silver come from precious metals.

The colors ultramarine and aquamarine refer, not surprisingly, to the sea, as well as to stones. Aquamarine originally referred to the color of a type of stone that came from the Mediterranean region and suggested the color of that sea, whereas ultramarine was used to designate the color of a stone (lapis lazuli, imported from Asia), that originated across the sea ("ultra" in this sense meaning "beyond" and not "excessive").

Pink was named for a flower known as a "pink," although the etymology of the word gets a bit murky, as the original word leading, by way of Dutch, to the name of the flower may have meant "small" or "hole." Violet and rose have similar floral origins.

A number of color names come from fabrics. These include ecru and beige from French, as well as "scarlet," from Persian. Colors have also been named for dyes or dye-producing plants. Purple comes from Greek via Latin. Crimson comes to English through Old Spanish, Arabic, and Sanskrit, while indigo, meaning "the Indian dye," comes from Portuguese. Magenta was taken in the 19th-century from one of Garibaldi's then-sensational Italian victories and used to market a type of photographic dye.

Some colors have surprisingly bizarre origins. Puce, originally a French word, means "flea-colored." Taupe, also French, refers to the color of a mole (the animal, not the skin blemish). Perhaps more appetizingly, maroon comes from a French word for a type of chestnut. Teal, an English word with Old English roots, is named for a color pattern found on a type of river duck, also known as a teal.

For an interesting discussion on many of these colors as well as observations on how certain color names, such as khaki and auburn, have shifted to denote different colors over time, please visit Word Wide Words.

(Posted by language fan and friend Silas McCracken. And feel free to join his Facebook fan page too.)

Taking a staycation

2009-06-27T17:25:00.003-05:00

I'm going to take a staycation by enjoying a summer break in Chicago. I think that's a great word to express staying at home to vacation. And apparently it's a 21st century word, according to a travel article:

A Nexis search reveals that the first published use of staycation (as far as Nexis knows) was in the Myrtle Beach Sun-News on July 11, 2003. In a story entitled "Sports World Doesn't Stop for Vacation," Terry Massey uses the term to describe nine vacation days spent at home in Myrtle beach watching sports on television and preparing a nursery for a new baby.

I just realized that I should contact Mr. Massey to find out if he created that word, and what he thinks of it. So stay tuned--I'll probably do an update if I can get a hold of him (and if I'm not too lazy to do it :D)

I highly recommend this book

2009-06-24T19:44:00.004-05:00

Right now I'm reading a few books, one of which is a language book that was sent to me (which I haven't finished yet), but I just finished an excellent book about the rise and fall of the company that produced Veggie Tales, and the creator's personal journey as he discovered that he was in over his head and ended up failing--his company went into bankruptcy and he had to sell the whole thing off to pay off a lawsuit. Just a total nightmare, but he admits that he was to blame for the company's demise.

But in the larger picture, he's not a failure, because he was able to create another company and continue making a living from being creative. But it's really a good lesson on a lot of levels about what it's like to go for something so big, you either can't handle it or your ego gets in the way, or both.

You can read an excerpt at his site, which seems to me like it was originally a blog post that became a book. But the post is long enough to get a pretty good idea of what happened to his company.

I also liked the book because it was well-written and conversational. Honestly, I don't like books that seem self conscious or too rigid. But this one flowed and the information, advice, and insight were worth it.

btw--I only saw one episode of Veggie Tales, and that's only because I was reading this book.

More people hate working at home

2009-06-22T19:24:00.004-05:00

Almost four years ago, I did a post about working at home. I'd been working at home for a while before I did that post, but I was really starting to hate it. I liked working independently and still do, even though my primary work isn't at home, but I hated waking up and being alone in my place and never hearing other people talk, unless I went to a cafe, where I felt alone anyway, since it was just a place full of individuals not interacting with me.

And I'm not one of those people who finds online interaction fulfilling--it can actually be creepy and very dissatisfying because people are anonymous and the online scene is superficial. There seem to be a lot of people online who make "friends" at sites or interact a lot online with their real-life friends, who they barely see offline. So they use social apps, IM, etc., to connect, but I've realized that nothing beats seeing someone in person or even talking with them on the phone.

When I was primarily working at home, I did a search online to see if anyone else out there didn't like working at home, but it was hard to find articles or blogs that talked about it. So I started to think I was even more alone, and wondered if I was weak for not really liking the isolation or such byproducts of a more technological world.

Well I did another search online today, and now I see more posts about not liking working at home, including a good one by a software developer who bluntly says that he "absolutely hate[s] working from home" and "working from home permanently is like being locked away in solitary confinement."

I'm surprised his employer doesn't mind him writing about it, but apparently they don't care. I'm glad he's honest about it, and I like how his post is written. I've found a lot of other blogs and articles online, but I think he expresses himself well.

Download the book

2009-06-19T20:38:00.002-05:00

Here's a preview of the anthology I put together. Now you can download it for half the price of the print version available at Amazon. It features various writers, including bloggers--check out the preview below to see the writers' bios.

Down the Block

Foot Fingers and Other Body Part Naming Curiosities

2009-06-16T20:51:00.003-05:00

In my last post, I gave a brief outline about how different languages classify colors differently. It may come as some surprise that different languages may also provide different classifications of another subject that we may take for granted: body parts.

Slavic languages, for instance, often do not distinguish between arm/hand or leg/foot. In Russian, "ruka" may mean a hand or an arm, while "noga" may refer to a leg or a foot. Similarly, Amharic also considers the leg and foot to be part of the same entity. Lavukaleve, spoken in the Solomon Islands in the Pacific, features the same word for arm, leg, and hand.

Jahai, spoken in the Malay Peninsula in Southeast Asia, has a particularly interesting division of body parts, with different lexical terms for upper arm, lower arm, and hand, but supposedly no specific word for mouth!

While English, German, and Norwegian consider fingers and toes to be entirely separate body parts, other languages, such as Spanish, Portuguese, Japanese, and Russian, label toes as simply "foot fingers." In French, either option is possible, with "orteil" (a word for toe that is separate from "doigt," used for finger) being more formal and literary and "doigt de pied" ("foot finger") being used often in oral language.

Conversely, while English and German refer to a cheekbone as being the "bone of a cheek," in a number of Romance languages, such as French, Spanish, and Italian, the word for cheekbone has nothing to do with the word for cheek. For instance, in French, a cheek is a "joue," while a cheekbone is a "pommette."

(Posted by language fan and friend Silas McCracken. And feel free to join his Facebook fan page too.)

Analog TV signing off

2009-06-14T19:11:00.003-05:00

On Friday, a bunch of TV stations around the US had to turn off their analog switches because the nation is becoming digital. Here's an interesting signoff: they got the original engineer, the guy who switched the TV station on when it was just starting out in the late 1940's, to come back to turn the station off (in its analog form, of course). He's 99, so it's quite a historical moment.

Also--I found a site with images of TV's from the 1940's.

Cigar party

2009-06-12T17:54:00.004-05:00

Here's some entertaining text from a real invitation to a party that I'm going to tonight. Note: I'm not a guy, and I don't smoke cigars, but the last time I went, I had a great time. It's just that if you see the text, you'd think it's just a guy thing (which it mostly is--I think I was one of only a few females last time). I've removed various words from the invitation to just feature the interesting highlights below, but I haven't included any ellipses to represent the missing words (...) because it'd look weird.

Tonight's the night, boys!!! Final reminder to get your butt over to Jimmy P's joint for the biggest and best Cigar Party yet!! We've got cigars and booze up the ying yang! We had about 110 guys in October, smokin', eatin', drinkin', golfin', tellin' jokes and carousing with the guys and all had a great time! We're doin' it again tonight!!

Note how they mistakenly say "ying" instead of "yin". Also note how often they omitted the "g" from those various verbs.

So I'll be leaving now, and expect to smell like smoke when I get back because in addition to all the cigars, they said there will be "fire pits blazing if needed!". I'm sure the party will have the same enthusiasm the invitation did :D

Why English with English subtitles?

2009-06-09T19:40:00.002-05:00

This is weird, but useful: in this scene from Kung Fu, there are English subtitles to go along with the English dialogue. So maybe the purpose was to learn English--you can easily read along as they speak.

I almost got published in a newspaper

2009-06-07T18:20:00.004-05:00

I've been writing online for a while, but I think writing for print is nifty too. So when someone from the Washington Post contacted me to contribute an opinion piece, I was psyched. They found my blog--I didn't have to approach them, which is cool because we often have to chase after opportunities. In fact, I had no idea that editors from such prestigious newspapers look online for contributors. I'm not going to lie: I still think it's a big deal when someone from the print media is interested in what I have to say (which is why I was happy when Mary Beard noticed my blog).

So I spent a bit of time writing a draft of an essay, and I even turned down some extra radio work to get it to the Post early, in case they wanted me to make changes. But then they told me that they weren't going to do the topic, and I was disappointed. They said that if I had an interesting idea, I should let them know, but for some reason, even though I'm quite opinionated, I can't think of anything that they might be interested in.

Maybe one day it will happen, but until then, I'll continue toiling in obscurity :D

Japanese article about standing at Canon

2009-06-04T15:41:00.003-05:00

There's a blog post circulating out there about how Canon is making their employees stand and walk faster at work to increase productivity and employee relationships.

If you want to see the original Japanese article, you can find it at a Japanese IT site.

The title is 本当に「いす」がなかった，キヤノン電子のオフィス (There really are no chairs at the Canon Electronics office).

And here's the introductory paragraph (no time to translate it now, though I might do it after I fulfill my radio duties):

先日，キヤノン電子の酒巻久社長に，桜が満開となっていた同社の秩父工場（写真1）を案内していただいた。酒巻社長は『椅子とパソコンをなくせば会社は伸びる！』（祥伝社）の著者であり，職場から「いす」をなくすという大胆な改革を実行した人である。秩父工場内には，応接室など一部を除き，会議室にも，開発部門や管理部門のオフィスにもいすがない。もちろん，社長室にもないという。

A color by any other name

2009-06-01T11:18:00.001-05:00

Those of us who are sighted tend to take the colors we see for granted. The sky (at least on a sunny day) is blue, while the grass (when lush and healthy) is green. Yet these very distinctions are, to some degree, arbitrary, and vary between languages and cultures. It appears that every language has a color scheme with between two (such as Burarra, an aboriginal language spoken in Australia that divides all colors into shades of two colors that very roughly mean "light" and "dark") and twelve basic color terms (with other color terms in each language being variants of these terms), yet each language divides and assigns these colors in its own way.

Celtic languages have definitions of "blue" and "green" that are surprisingly different from those assigned in English. In Middle Irish and Old Irish, "glas" encompassed green, blue, and some shades of gray. In Modern Welsh, "gwyrdd" refers to "green,' while "glas" generally means "blue." However, "glas" can also refer to the color of grass, the color of the sea, and the color of silver, suggesting that, although the distinction between blue and green exists, the dividing point is different between Welsh and English. Increasingly, though, and probably due to the considerable influence of English in the British Isles, Welsh appears to be tending toward the eleven-color color scheme used in English, adopting "llwyd' for gray in addition to "gwyrdd" and "glas."

Other languages, such as Lakota (spoken by the Sioux), represent blue and green as shades of one color, and such languages. Yet some languages outdo English (which, admittedly, has terms such as "indigo" and "azure," but these are often considered to be shades of blue, although indigo is sometimes classified as a separate color in the spectrum) and and make further distinctions between blue and green. Greek, for instance, has six words for varying shades of blue, one word for turquoise, and four words for varying shades of green. Italian has two words for light blue, "azzurro" and "celeste," as opposed to "blu" which means "blue." More significantly, "azzurro" is generally not considered to be a shade of "blu," but an entirely separate color. Some Slavic languages, as well as Romanian, also treat light blue and blue as separate colors. Kazakh has one color ("kök") for natural green objects and another color ("jasâl") for human-made green objects. Interestingly, "kök" also refers to the color of the sky and of the sea. Japanese and Mandarin also have different color boundaries for blue and green.

Similar differing semantic fields are found for other colors. Pink and red are considered to be separate colors in English, yet shades of the same color in Mandarin. A number of African languages see blue and black as shades of the same color, as did Old Norse (and Swedish until the early 20th century).

As we can see from the examples of Welsh and Swedish, color divisions can change in a single language over time. In English, "orange" became established as a separate color as late as in the early-mid 20th century. Prior to this date it was often called "yellow-red" on artists' palettes. "Pink" and "purple" are also examples of descriptive (subordinate shades that have, respectively developed into abstract colors in their own right.

(Posted by language fan and friend Silas McCracken. And feel free to join his Facebook fan page too.)

Stayed up late with the Greeks

2009-05-29T20:51:00.004-05:00

I was going to do a blog post yesterday, but I ended up staying out very late with the very fun Greek Media Club, where most of the people really were Greek and some thought I was too. And oddly enough, even though the word "media" is part of the club's name, I think I was part of the media minority.

Most of the people I met last night were Greek-Americans, though some were bilingual, and even though the bilingual people were born in the US, they still had a tiny accent. But you'd have to be a language fan like me to enjoyably discern it :D

Even though I was allowed to get into work "late" (6:00 AM), I barely got any sleep. So it was my usual night of sleep deprivation. But I really met some very friendly people, and I could have easily stayed out most of the night and driven straight into work.

A really long word

2009-05-25T20:37:00.004-05:00

Word Lily has a post about a really long word, which is the name of a village in Wales:

Llanfairpwllgwyngyllgogerychwyrndrobwllllantysiliogogogoch

It's obviously the longest name in Britain, and I'm sure it's one of the longest in the world.

You can hear a pronunciation of the word here and learn about the history of the village at their official site, where they say that the name "was invented by a cobbler from Menai Bridge."

See star trek

2009-05-23T21:19:00.002-05:00

I rarely see movies, but I decided to see Star Trek because I've watched several episodes of Next Generation, Voyager (my favorite series) and Deep Space Nine. But you don't have to know anything about Star Trek to enjoy this movie, and if you are totally into Star Trek's history, story lines, characters, and quirks, you will have to put all that aside because this movie is starting a new era.

You don't even have to be into sci-fi. It's just a good movie, and if you like action, special effects, good acting, and high quality production value, then you'll really like this movie.

And what's weird is that the guy who plays Kirk looks and acts like a guy I work with, which I'm going to tell him on Monday because I doubt he reads my blog :D

Fan page created

2009-05-20T17:28:00.002-05:00

If you're one of those people who enjoys reading posts here by my language fan friend Silas, I've created a Facebook fan page for him. I also did it because it seems that he's quite active on Facebook with some loyal friends of his, so I figured I might as well make it official :D

So click here to join his Facebook fan page and have a nice day :D

"-ic" vs. "ical": The distinctions can be fickle

2009-05-18T02:36:00.002-05:00

Cheesy blog post titles aside, in my opinion, one of the trickier elements of English is the use of adjectives ending in "-ic" vs. those ending in "-ical" when they share the same root. For instance, is it "electric cord" or "electrical cord"? Although hardly scientific or academic, a simple Google search reveals 184,000 results for "electric cord" and 274,000 for "electrical cord." While the latter option is the clear winner, a very sizable minority uses the former. To make matters even more confusing, in some instances the distinction appears relatively clear. English speakers would probably feel that "electric guitar" is a much better choice than "electrical guitar" and "electric eel" is definitely preferable to "electrical eel." Similarly, English speakers would probably vastly prefer "electrical engineering" to "electric engineering."

"Electric" is generally defined as something that uses, provides, produces, transmits, or is powered by electricity; "electrical" refers to something that simply has to do with electricity. Obviously, there is a considerable amount of overlap here. Why the difference? Both "electric" and "electrical" would seemingly refer to something that has to do with or powered by electricity. At first glance, this would appear to be redundant. After all, in many Romance languages, this discrepancy does not exist. In French, for instance, both "electric" and "electrical" are translated as "électrique." And a number of English roots have only one option; for example, we say "fantastic" and not "fantastical," "terrific" and not "terrifical."

It would appear that the morphological rules in English regarding "-ic" and "ical" are quite complex, perhaps suggesting that the meanings of forms with "-ic" and "-ical" have either become more similar or have diverged over time. Consider "numeric" and "numerical," which would appear almost interchangeable (referring to numbers), as would "botanic" and "botanical" (referring to plants). Conversely, "economical" (referring to a thrifty solution) is quite different from "economic" (something relating to the economy), just as "politic" (an adjective meaning "prudent" or "shrewd") differs from "political" (having to do with politics).

The Maven's Word of the Day site discusses the difference between "historic" and "historical," a particularly confusing pair. It is generally accepted that something that is "historic" is important in history ("a historic event"), but that something that is "historical" simply has to do with history "a historical museum"). (And don't even get me started on the controversy between "an historic/historical" and "a historic/historical"!)

The site states that "The earlier word is historical, from the early fifteenth century. Historic is first found in the early seventeenth century, and the use of historic to mean 'important in history', is more recent still, from the late eighteenth century. The distinction between the two words is therefore relatively recent. Nonetheless, the distinction seems a worthwhile one, and since it is straightforward, you might as well follow it."

Hence, we can conclude that the rules regarding "-ic" and "-ical" are hardly set in stone, have a number of exceptions, entail varying degrees of confusion if flouted, and will likely continue to be a headache for non-native- and native English speakers!

(posted by language fan and friend Silas McCracken)

Play date

2009-05-15T20:11:00.004-05:00

If I had a lot of time, I'd want to look up the origin of the term "play date" (or playdate--I'm not sure of the spelling). I'd also research the first usage of that word, which probably comes from an article or book about parenting.

When I was young and played with other kids, we never called such times "play dates"--we just went to kids' houses to play. Now when I talk with parents or kids, they'll tell me that they have a play date with someone instead of saying that they're going to play with their friend.

When I looked it up in Wikipedia, there was one sentence that was a sad commentary on modern life (they said "Playdates are a late 20th century innovation"):

the work schedules for busy parents, along with media warnings about leaving children unattended, prevent the kind of play that children of other generations participated in.

It reminds me of a recent conversation I had with a mother, who said she and her husband chose to live in a small town far away from Chicago because their kids can ride bikes and do other things without worrying about bad things happening. It's just sad that the sickos have to ruin kids' play time and some people are so busy they have to provide a formal word for something that kids naturally do.

Lithuanian invitations I can't read

2009-05-12T19:36:00.004-05:00

My co-worker, who is from Lithuania, sent me an email with some information about Lithuanian concerts around the city. The only problem is that I can't read most of them (there were a bunch of them in the email). But I think it's really cool that I got all those Lithuanian mini-posters in my email, so I've posted a couple here.

Are there secrets?

2009-05-10T18:54:00.002-05:00

I just walked outside to the store, and I passed an Asian woman speaking Chinese to her daughter. Then I saw a car pull up, and the driver was her American husband, who talked to them in English, then drove them away.

So it made me wonder about kids who grow up with parents who don't speak the same languages. In this case, they could all speak English, and I'm assuming the husband couldn't speak Chinese, otherwise they would've spoken that, since the wife could speak it a lot better than English.

So I wonder what the mother talks with the daughter about in Chinese--other than "clean your room" or "eat your vegetables." Could she be saying things to her that she doesn't want the husband to know, and can get away with secrets because he'll never understand?

How many kids have taken on the burden of keeping secrets because they were the only confidantes in the family who could understand one parent's language really well? And if they don't hear secrets, then have they eavesdropped on a parent's private conversations in the other language?

I've never thought of asking anyone this question, but maybe I will...bwahahaha.

The guy who didn't believe me

2009-05-08T20:53:00.002-05:00

Now that I don't have as much time to do language stuff as before, for some reason it reminded me of a holiday gathering that I was at, talking to a coworker about my various interests. I told her that I've translated and studied various languages, but now that I've become more busy in radio and have had to work weird hours and put in a lot of effort and energy to make any progress, I can't study as much as before.

When I said that, another coworker nearby snorted and shook his head, as if I was making it up or trying to sound impressive. Because if you think about it, a lot of people aren't language nerds who enjoy studying and translating a bunch of languages, so it might have sounded pretentious to say "I used to speak and translate a number of languages, but now I don't have the time."

But honestly, I meant it, and I wasn't trying to show off. I truly don't have as much time as before for language pursuits, which is unbelievable because the radio industry is drying up and a lot of people are losing their jobs. But that still doesn't diminish my love for language :D

ESL videos

2009-05-05T18:27:00.002-05:00

Someone told me about a site called ESL Basics where they have created videos to help people who are studying English as a second language (or "foreign" language as they say in England, I believe) learn vocabulary and phrases at various levels. They also offer support for teachers as well.

What strikes me about the site is that it's not only practical, but the creators seem to be genuinely interested in helping people and enthusiastic about English teaching. Since they seem sincere and intend on keeping the site free, then feel free to ask questions because they really want to help people.

The cow goes..."Hamba"?

2009-05-03T16:31:00.003-05:00

"Onomatopoeia," in addition to being a great spelling bee word, is the term used to describe those words that are supposed to reflect an actual sound accurately. Examples of these words include "splash," "thud," and "boom." They also encompass words used to describe animal sounds. However, different languages represent animal sounds differently, sometimes with a surprising amount of variation. In Language History, Language Change, and Language Relationship, Hans Heinrich Hock, et al. write that

While ordinary speakers (i.e. non-linguists) may be convinced that there is a clear connection between sound and meaning, at least in onomatopoiea,....linguists are just as firmly convinced that even here the relation is to some degree arbitrary. To support this view they can point out that other languages can employee different onomatopoetic means to express the same animal sound." (p. 228)

For instance, to an English speaker, a bird may say "tweet, tweet," while a Czech speaker will represent this sound as "jek jek," and a Spanish-speaker will swear that it's "pio pio." An English speaker will likely say that a cow says "moo," whereas a Bengali speaker will probably claim that a cow says "hamba." As for what a pig might say, the disparity indicates a real Tower of Babel. That grunting sound is interpreted by Croatian speakers as "rok-rok," English speakers as "oink oink," Chinese speakers as "hu-lu hu-lu," Japanese speakers as "buubuu," and Swedish speakers as "nöff."

Sometimes even two different dialects of the same language can produce two different representations. UK English speakers usually represent the sound a baby chicken (a chick) makes as "cheep cheep," while US English speakers often prefer "peep peep." Spanish-speaking Spaniards tend to think that a sheep says "bee," while Spanish-speaking Argentines generally feel that "meeee" is a more exact rendering of the sound. Similarly, a pig says "gruinh" to some European Portuguese speakers and "óinc-óinc" to Brazilian Portuguese speakers.

You can find more examples in this rather extensive list.

This variation in ways to mimic animal sounds could potentially cause difficulties when trying to use puns or other plays on words to a speaker who is not familiar with the terms used in a particular language. For instance, a cute greeting card with a picture of a happy cat and the caption "You're purr-fect!" might appear confusing and unfunny to a native Hungarian speaker who is used to hearing a cat's purr as "doromb."

Even humans' "primal" exclamations can vary from language to language. If you stub your toe, you may, as a reflex, cry out "Ouch!" if you're an English speaker, "Eina!" if you speak Afrikaans, and "Aie!" if you're a French speaker.

(posted by language fan and friend Silas McCracken)