Is That English?

tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-303431992011-04-21T21:01:28.324-04:00Is That English?Thoughts on Linguistics, Information, and TofuJameshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08148726103082560440noreply@blogger.comBlogger231100tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-30343199.post-1156164536037716072006-08-21T08:44:00.000-04:002006-08-21T08:48:56.046-04:00Another Google Search Quirk

Googling "the light of a thousand suns" returns 675 hits. Googling "with the light of a thousand suns" returns 2,540 hits. What?

Jameshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08148726103082560440noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-30343199.post-1155176232250510632006-08-09T22:12:00.000-04:002006-08-09T22:20:31.363-04:00A New Layout

Okay, everyone! I've done a few major layout re-workings, as you can see. I'm sure this particular layout is quite unusual for a blog, so I'm anxious to find out if you find it nice, uninteresting, or obnoxious. I'll probably continue tweaking it in the coming few days, so I'll point out any important changes. [It appears that this new and completely standards compliant layout does not work in

Jameshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08148726103082560440noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-30343199.post-1155049385249336072006-08-08T10:25:00.000-04:002006-08-08T21:36:51.066-04:00Scratch that Causative Alternating Itch

The other day I overheard the following dialogue: A: Look at all these bug bites.B: Wow. And you haven't been itching them?A: No, I haven't been scratching them.B: That's what I meant. Are you saying there's a difference between itch and scratch?A: [Some description of how itch is a sensation and scratch is an action]B: Huh. I never noticed a difference. Let me first posit that B does indeed

Jameshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08148726103082560440noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-30343199.post-1154747663043602392006-08-04T23:10:00.000-04:002006-08-04T23:14:23.050-04:00Research Bombshell

Google Research has dropped a linguistic data bombshell and is giving it to the LDC, which of course is here at the University of Pennsylvania. Sweet.

Jameshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08148726103082560440noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-30343199.post-1154708820942180172006-08-04T11:33:00.000-04:002006-08-05T00:11:43.860-04:00Grammar Terminology Like Asyndeton, Apposition, a kind of renaming

After reading a recent Language Log post by Roger Shuy containing the stringIt's better to let people see how sausages are made, what's going on.my dad wondered, is that a sentence?First of all, that sentence was not written by Shuy, but by Ernie the Attorney, as is mentioned in the original post. And second of all, yes it is a sentence, even if you asked the strictest prescriptivist grammarians.

Jameshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08148726103082560440noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-30343199.post-1154451700269293672006-08-01T12:37:00.000-04:002006-08-13T22:22:12.766-04:00Gairaigo: You Decide

It is up for debate whether Japanese gairaigo are good or bad, but Kokken suggest many rewordings to avoid evasive language. Mark Liberman of Language Log disagrees, saying that gairaigo make language more specific. I am with Mark on this one, as usual, but I'd like to point out a pathological case of loanword abuse.Meet Mr. Don Kanonji (ミスター・ドン・観音寺) a minor character and TV spiritual medium from

Jameshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08148726103082560440noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-30343199.post-1154311321247915962006-07-30T21:35:00.000-04:002006-07-30T22:02:01.333-04:00Is Sushi Really That Hard to Pronounce?

I've been getting lots of hits recently from people googling something or other about the pronunciation of sushi. What are yall looking for? If it's the pronunciation of certain sushi types, I'd be glad to throw together a fun little chart with pronunciation links. But I fear that this is not the question, that it is instead one of how the word 'sushi' is pronounced. Oh dear. This is sounding

Jameshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08148726103082560440noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-30343199.post-1154139375838103182006-07-28T21:56:00.000-04:002006-08-06T08:47:03.556-04:00Man From Another Place

Thanks to Thomson, I have discovered the Man From Another Place, a character from the weird early 90's TV show Twin Peaks. The character, played by Michael J. Anderson, is a dwarf living in the protagonist's dreamworld, the red room. The Man speaks with a strange cadence which is hard enough to understand that subtitles are provided. The strange cadence is due to the fact that the lines were read

Jameshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08148726103082560440noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-30343199.post-1153747799473837702006-07-24T09:04:00.000-04:002006-08-05T00:13:14.103-04:00Best Tofu in Philly

On Saturday we went to Jonggajip (종가집), a sundubu (순두부) restaurant at 6600 N. 5th Street in North Philly. I've been there a few times before, but I never cease to be amazed at the quality of the tofu and perfect spices of the stew. If you're in the area, and feeling adventurous enough to try Korean cuisine, I really recommend it.Me chowing down on some high quality sundubu jjigae.

Jameshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08148726103082560440noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-30343199.post-1153373808881377292006-07-20T00:55:00.000-04:002006-08-06T09:40:36.323-04:00So...

At dinner tonight my sister mentioned that it bothers her when people tack the conjunction 'so' onto the end of a sentence and trail off. This 'so' is very common, I believe, especially when the omitted material is already in the discourse context.A: He got into a car crash.B: What? What happened?A: He was drinking, so...It occurred to me that this is very similar to the Japanese practice of

Jameshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08148726103082560440noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-30343199.post-1153193252053827312006-07-17T23:20:00.000-04:002006-07-17T23:35:17.433-04:00It'll Be a New Fad, I Just Know It

I haven't checked into the Ace Ventura clip yet, but I've been working on my own, as promised. Here I commemorate the first recorded speech in history, but backwards. It is easy to tell from this recording that it is practically impossible to sound natural; rather, it is quite a chore just to be understood. Indeed, this recording is the result of about an hour of practice on that single phrase.

Jameshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08148726103082560440noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-30343199.post-1152901311609714902006-07-14T14:05:00.000-04:002006-07-14T14:21:51.690-04:00Moving Forward with the IME

It appears that I've been linked to! The folks over at colspan.net found my post about a Hangul IME, and have responded with admiration. Thank you! They also said something to the effect that they are going to add the bookmarklet function to their IME... I think. Well I've tried commenting on their blog, but it seems not to work, and there is no contact information on that site, so if you are out

Jameshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08148726103082560440noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-30343199.post-1152680987224912162006-07-12T00:55:00.000-04:002006-07-12T01:09:49.143-04:00A New Hobby?

There is a scene from the film Top Secret where it is clear that it was choreographed backwords, filmed, and played in reverse, giving a very cool effect. But the dialogue was also backwards, and subtitles were provided. Reminded of this scene for no reason, I've been trying to duplicate reversed speech, such that when I play a recording backwards, it sounds normal. This endevor has made me (even

Jameshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08148726103082560440noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-30343199.post-1152589898168430312006-07-10T23:42:00.000-04:002006-07-10T23:51:38.176-04:00Bleach Fandub

The folks over at Bleach Portal have released a fan-dubbed first episode of the popular anime Bleach, which they have apparently been working on for quite a while. I won't bother you with my personal critisism, but if you're a fan I encourage you to take a look, the whole project is quite exciting. Potentially anyone could help in future productions, and be immortalized as a Bleach VA.

Jameshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08148726103082560440noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-30343199.post-1152113324236201502006-07-05T10:55:00.000-04:002006-08-02T07:27:15.990-04:00"Death" is Shakespearean for "Sex", and "Eat Tofu" is Chinese for "Grope Young Girls"

Let me remind those of you who know me, and initiate those of you who do not, in declaring that I love tofu. I really don't get credit for this, though, because americans just think I'm a health food nut, and asians can't believe that I'd really like it that much. They think that when I say I love tofu, it means that I will go to the bold extent of eating and enjoying it, unlike most americans.

Jameshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08148726103082560440noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-30343199.post-1151814241992563022006-07-02T00:10:00.000-04:002006-07-12T20:09:09.220-04:00"The Very Best Pronunciation" or "How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love [kʰeɻioʊki]"

When I go to a restaurant of foreign cuisine, I like to show off my knowledge of the appropriate foreign language. It's one of my character flaws. Usually this only extends to pronunciation. In a Japanese restaurant I order [soba] and [tem:pɯɾa], not [soʊbə] and [tʰɛmpu:ɻə]. In a Chinese restaurant I ask for [szˌʈʂwantoʊfu], not [sɛ:ʃwantʰoʊfʊu]. That's why when Yumeko ordered a [kesadija] (

Jameshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08148726103082560440noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-30343199.post-1151715584182201602006-06-30T19:52:00.000-04:002006-06-30T21:27:52.276-04:00Big Amounts of Googling

In reading a certain Wikipedia article today, I stumbled upon the following phrase (my emphasis):...optimized to deal with big amounts of data...This struck me as deeply odd. So I did some googling to compare adjectives that mean something like 'big'. To place all the numbers in one table would be very misleading, so I put them in separate tables. It's interesting that while many of the common,

Jameshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08148726103082560440noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-30343199.post-1151605778810005202006-06-29T14:06:00.000-04:002006-06-29T14:29:39.873-04:00The Game Within Which To Rejoice

A guest post about the greatest game ever, by Thomson Guster:To be, or Not to Be...Funny how it always comes down to that, even on a spring day in beautiful Exeter, New Hampshire. Yeah, I see the trees, their flowers, their leaves. I see the sunshine, feel the warmth on my eyes as I fall asleep in Philosophy class, the wisdom of all the sages lulling me into an ideal nap. I see the girls,

Jameshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08148726103082560440noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-30343199.post-1151592042973442042006-06-29T10:37:00.000-04:002006-07-01T11:08:55.216-04:00I'm Feeling Very ¡No chingues!

Watching Wimbledon just now I heard a commentator say he has noticed Nadal getting "a little more pumped up... a little more vamos." I'm speechless. Should I have heard such a usage before?

Jameshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08148726103082560440noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-30343199.post-1151590353538869782006-06-29T09:41:00.000-04:002006-06-29T11:25:51.463-04:00Keep Up The Battle, Geoff!

For many of the people I am close to, I am their go-to guy for language. But I am an undergrad still, and this authority is a bit scary. I believe, as do most linguists, and I think most academics for that matter, that a well thought out and well supported argument is far superior to one which is simply clever. But cleverness goes a long way, and the guys at Language Log do it all: well thought

Jameshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08148726103082560440noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-30343199.post-1151557180017577812006-06-29T00:24:00.000-04:002006-06-29T01:25:32.463-04:00Introducing Yet Another Hangul IME

So yeah, inspired by an Indic IME and its toolbar, I wrote a Hangul IME in JavaScript. I know there are things out there like this, but mine has the special feature that it only works in Firefox. Oh, wait, is that a drawback? Anyway, it was a good excerise, and I think it's pretty usefull too, especially in bookmarklet form. It's great if you're, for example, having a chat on meebo. Basically I

Jameshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08148726103082560440noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-30343199.post-1151428139039806562006-06-27T12:49:00.000-04:002006-06-27T17:18:24.853-04:00A Bit of Japanese History

Well, linguistic history, that is. Inspired by Matt's post on an Old School Romaji Edition of Aesop's Fables, I went Old School Romaji hunting, and came up with this: Ars Grammaticae Japonicae Linguae a grammar of Japanese written in Latin in 1632 by the spanish Diego Collado. The romanization is quite similar to the one in the fables (with some striking differences). Here is my (admittedly quite

Jameshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08148726103082560440noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-30343199.post-1151425965494242322006-06-27T12:09:00.000-04:002006-06-30T19:42:45.990-04:00It Begins!

At last I've made a blog, and with an address I like. The title is an homage to my highschool friends who shared my budding interest in linguistics. We would listen to Stanford Professor Seth Lerer's lectures on The History of the English Language, and our favorite part was in the introduction. He read a passage from Caedmon's Hymn, and said 'Is that English?'. Then a passage from the Canterbury

Jameshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08148726103082560440noreply@blogger.com0