March 2009
19 posts
www.bombombombomwooooo.com →
I’m half-tempted to post comments that consist soley of this link on every Maureen Dowd column ever written.
February 2009
40 posts
Fun with Nomenclature! Ach! →
On the always-entertaining Smart Bitches, Trashy Books blog, an offhand comment about the seemingly random insertion of extra vowels into the names of Scottish Highland Heroes led to a discussion of Gaelic vocatives (!).
The post also included a tidbit entirely new to me:
“To English speakers the different cases sometimes sound like two different names, so the second form of the name has...
It just occurred to me that most of you are probably reading this through my website as opposed to through tumblr.
Which is totally fine (and easier on the eye, if you ask me), but because of tumblr’s shitty javascript feed you’re not able to comment on the posts through my website.
So if you would like to comment, go to elizabethlittle.tumblr.com.
(Of course, it’s perfectly...
The Linguists. →
So this is what certainly appears to be an extremely interesting documentary about two linguistics professors’ search for dying languages throughout the world. I wouldn’t know, because it was supposed to air on PBS last night but WNET here in New York apparently had other ideas. And I can’t find it anywhere on the upcoming schedule.
Suffice it to say, someone’s not getting...
Translating "The Economist" Behind China's Great... →
A group of about 240 Mandarin-speakers are translating The Economist in order to distribute the content in China. A fascinating article about the mechanics of group translation and the challenges of media censorship in the PRC. (Via waxy.org)
Elderly Woman Scares Off Robbers With Pot. →
This story was a lot less interesting than the headline led me to believe.
"Oldest English words" identified. →
“Reading University researchers say ‘I’, ‘we’, ‘two’ and ‘three’ are among the oldest in use and could date back thousands of years.” (From BBC News)
In Twitter news, @THE_REAL_SHAQ apparently met Mickey Rourke tonight.
This is essentially the adult-Elizabeth equivalent of the creation of kitten-unicorn hybrids. There is literally no upper limit to the amount of money I would have spent to be present at that meeting.
Gore Verbinski to develop "Clue." →
Flames … on the side of my face. Breathing … breath … heaving breaths.
The World in Words →
I was just reminded of this wonderful collection of language-related podcasts. Very much worth a listen.
John Gibson Did Not Compare Eric Holder To Monkey... →
“Rourke’s uncanny resemblance to Marlon Brando—both in his Method intensity and...”
– The Onion A.V. Club
Dinosaurs Fucking Robots. →
It is what it says.
“We’ll scour the country for the kind of publicity-hungry babe for whom...”
– David Mitchell, on finding a new girlfriend for Prince Harry (from The Observer)
WatchI am a woman. And this is a bridge. And despite our vast differences, we are very much in love.
Bacteria Talk →
Sayeth molecular biologist Bonnie Bassler:
“And we’re starting to think that bacteria are multilingual. So they have a language that’s, say, English; they have their own molecule that they talk to each other with. And another species of bacteria, they’re the French, and they have their own molecule. But then there’s a language, and you can think of it like Esperanto,...
New Jersey Plant Is Called Source of Sweet Smell →
I think it’s safe to say that nobody saw that one coming.
“As I’m sure you are aware, one of your flock has strayed. A Miss Paris...”
– Ricky Gervais’s modest proposal for a US-UK tart swap
Know-nothings
(Some background: I finally caved and added the NYT Most-Emailed List to my RSS feed, if only because I’m beginning to accept that “Didja read that editorial/review/retarded trend piece in the New York Times today?” is the bourgeois equivalent of “How ‘bout them Yankees/Steelers/whatever team is relevant to your geographical and socioeconomic condition?”
Given...
