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#ielts #toefl #gre #english_vocabulary #english
Idiom of the Day
the knacker's yard
A state of ruin or failure due to having become useless or obsolete. Refers to a slaughterhouse for old or injured horses. Watch the video
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Language Log
Little Italian girl talking with her hands
Are Italians by nature more manually voluble than other people?
Selected readings
* "Learning to speak Sicilian" (2/10/20) — some similar hand gestures
* "Baby talk" (12/21/10)
* "Baby talk, part 2" (8/19/18)
* "Twin talk" (3/31/11) — watch video here and here
* "The babbling phase: ranting toddler speaks out" (9/2/10)
* "Ask LL: parents' beliefs or infants' abilities?" (10/29/09)
* "Canine backtalk" (10/25/19)
* "Annoyed dog responding to the Islamic 'Call to Prayer'" (12/29/15)
* "Bird language" (6/15/17)
* "Barking roosters and crowing dogs" (2/18/18)
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Language Log
China VPN redux
Chapter 1
A professor in China who is collaborating with a famous American professor of Chinese literature wanted to read one of my Language Log (LL) posts because he had heard that it's being widely discussed around the world. However, because of China's rigid censorship rules, he couldn't open the LL post.
The Chinese professor asked the American professor to help him gain access to my post.
The American professor asked me to help the Chinese professor.
I suggested to the Chinese professor to use a VPN. Without a VPN, Chinese are not able to access LL, Wikipedia, Wiktionary, Google, X, etc., etc. In other words, without a VPN, Chinese are cut off from most of the information on the internet that is outside the Great Firewall, i.e., most of the cutting edge, valuable information in the world.
The Catch 22 is that it is a crime to use a VPN in China.
Can you imagine having to live in a benighted place like the PRC? Chapter 2
From a distinguished American professor (what he says may sound devious and hypocritical on the part of the Chinese authorities, and it is, but it doesn't surprise me in the slightest):
When I was in Hangzhou a decade or so ago, the university there had a series of grad students take us sightseeing to various places, and during such trips I had conversations with them about this very issue. Turns out most of the grad students in arts and/or humanities-related disciplines were without access to the banned VPNs and were thus, as expected, often seriously cut off from the outside world. But then the grad students in science-related fields were different. They told me quite openly that they were encouraged by faculty to use VPNs and did so as a matter of course. “After all, how could I possibly do any of my research without access to a VPN?” one told me. He added that he sometimes helped friends in other fields obtain VPNs because he felt so sorry for them. Chapter 3 — conclusion
This is further proof, if you didn't already have enough, that China is dependent on the West for basic ideas / information / knowledge / techniques in science and technology, and doesn't want to learn anything from the West when it comes to social sciences and humanities.
Unless and until it thoroughly recreates its educational, ontological, and epistemological priorities and procedures, it will be virtually impossible for China to succeed / flourish in the modern world, which is based on completely different premises, values, and modalities. Selected readings
* "Fissures in the Great Firewall caused by X" (6/10/24)
* "Shadowsocks" (2/8/18)
* "God use VPN" (12/28/15)
* "Mixing (or ignoring?) metaphors" (6/9/24)
* "Badge of honor: Language Log is blocked in China" (12/26/19)
* "The ultimate protest against censorship" (11/27/22)
* "The reality of censorship in the PRC" (10/13/16)
* "The face of censorship" (1/11/19)
* "Bad words on WeChat: go directly to jail" (12/17/17)
* "The letter * has bee* ba**ed in Chi*a" (2/26/18)
* "Censoring 'Occupy' in China" (10/24/11)
* "Using riddles to circumvent censorship in China" (3/6/18)
* "Peppa Pig has been purged" (5/2/18)
* "Censored letter" (12/19/14) — about a nine-year-old boy who suggested that Xi Jinping lose weight
* "Excessive quadrisyllabicism" (2/17/18)
* "Censored belly, Tibetan tattoo" (8/28/17)
* "Chinese translation app with built-in censorship" (11/29/18)
* "Lepus oryzinus" (2/10/18)
* "Banned in Beijing" (6/4/14)
* "Where's Xi?" (9/11/12)
* "Digraphia and intentional miswriting" (3/12/15)
* "It's not just puns that are being banned in China" (12/7/14)
* "Annals of literary vs. vernacular, part 2" (9/4/16)
* "The PRC censors its own national anthem" (2/9/20)
* "Hemorrhoids outbreak" (914/21)
* "Typos as a means for circumventing censorship" (7/22/22)
* "Circumventing censorship in th[...]
Word of the Day
Word of the Day: presumptuous
This word has appeared in 25 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
make for
to move towards something
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Word of the Day
entreaty
Definition: (noun) An earnest request or petition; a plea.
Synonyms: appeal, prayer.
Usage: Nothing is wanting but to have you here, and it is our particular wish and entreaty that you would come to us as soon as you can.
Discuss
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Word of the Day
Word of the Day: adieu
This word has appeared in 39 articles on NYTimes.com in the past year. Can you use it in a sentence?
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Idiom of the Day
keep mum
To remain silent; to not say anything (e.g., about a secret). Watch the video
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Slang of the Day | Vocabulary | EnglishClub
bugger off
to go away
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Language Log
The true identity of the first Chinese translator of Lady Chatterley's Lover
There has long been a suspicion that the first Chinese translator of Lady Chatterley's Lover (1928/1932), Ráo Shùyī 饒述一, about whom next to nothing is known, was actually the scholar and theoretician of aesthetics, Zhū Guāngqián 朱光潛 (1897-1986).
To give a little bit of background about the nature of the two translations of the novel, here is the abstract of a recent scholarly article comparing them:
This article discusses how sex-related content is rendered in two Chinese translations of D. H. Lawrence's Lady Chatterley's Lover: Rao Shuyi (1936) and Zhao Susu (2004). It is found that Rao's translation features explicitness, flexibility and Europeanization, while Zhao's translation features conservativeness and domestication. And the observed features in the two translations regarding sex-related content are explained from perspectives of social and historical background, translation purpose and intended readership, and patronage. Index Terms–Lady Chatterley's Lover, translation, sexuality
Zhu, Kun. "The Translation of Sex-related Content in Lady Chatterley's Lover in China." Theory and Practice in Language Studies, vol. 10, no. 8, Aug. 2020, pp. 933+. Gale Literature Resource Center.
For those who are interested, the title of D. H. Lawrence's novel in Chinese is 《Chátàilái fūrén de qíngrén 查泰萊夫人的情人》.
Decades ago, I was aware of this controversial mystery over who the first Chinese translator was, and I poked around a bit to try to solve it, but got nowhere fast. Furthermore, my mentor, Patrick Hanan, who was extremely learned about Chinese esthetics and esoteric fiction, though he solved many other problems surrounding the authorship of Chinese literary works, to the best of my knowledge never attempted to figure this one out. So I have decided, rather than flailing around undertaking deep research on Zhu Guangqian, to put it to the collective readership of Language Log, where surely there are others who are far more qualified to work on it than I, including my close friend and colleague, also surnamed Zhū 朱, namely, Zhū Qìngzhī 朱慶之.
Selected readings
* "Linguistic divergence and convergence" (4/17/18) — Lady Chatterley's Lover, which despite its reputation has more in it about linguistic ideology than about sex
* "'We are all the other now'" (11/8/12) — [(bgz) OED has the sexual euphemism from 1922, in two quotes from Joyce's Ulysses: "They would be just good friends like a big brother and sister without all that other" and "Bit light in the head. Monthly or effect of the other." It's also in Lady Chatterley's Lover: "She loved me to talk to her and kiss her… But the other, she just didn't want."]
* Roger Shuy, "Code-Switching in Lady Chatterly's Lover", York Papers in Linguistics 1980.
[h.t. shaing tai]
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Idiom of the Day
keep in step with the times
To be, strive to be, or appear to be contemporary, fashionable, and/or relevant in modern times. Watch the video
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mably now required by the journal's editors: http://languagelog.ldc.upenn.edu/myl/FishermanCrocAI.png I'll leave it to the commenters to explore the appropriate English pronunciations of Benggwigwishingasuchus eremicarminis — but you get a free subscription to LLOG if you can remember all 30-odd characters of the name, after a short period doing something else…
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Learn English Through Football Podcast: 2024 Euro Final Preview
Читать полностью…
Phrasal Verb of the Day | Vocabulary | EnglishClub
apply to
If something applies to you, it is relevant to you or you are affected by it.
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Word of the Day
navel
Definition: (noun) The mark on the surface of the abdomen of mammals where the umbilical cord was attached during gestation.
Synonyms: bellybutton, omphalos, umbilicus.
Usage: The first-graders were awed by Tom's navel, which protruded outward in classic "outie" fashion.
Discuss
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Word of the Day
nubbly
Definition: (adjective) Rough or irregular; textured.
Synonyms: homespun, nubby, slubbed, tweedy.
Usage: The seamstress preferred the nubbly, matte surface of raw silk to the glossy, smooth look of satin.
Discuss
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e PRC" (11/7/21) — with a very long bibliography
* "Melon eaters and censorship in the PRC" (12/8/21)
* "Blocked on Weibo" (8/23/13)
* "'Bad' words" (12/5/21)
* "Franco-Croatian Squid in pepper sauce" (3/12/09)
* "Mee Tu flavor" (11/29/18)
* "Lepus oryzinus" (2/10/18)
* "'Grass Mud Horse' and other homophonic puns threatened with extinction" (7/15/22)
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Language Log
No "good morning" and "good afternoon" in Romance Languages?
From François Lang:
I hope this isn't a well-known question. I searched LL for
"good morning" romance
and found nothing. So here goes.
(1) One can say "good evening" idiomatically in Romance languages, but not "good morning" or "good afternoon".
(2) However, all three are idiomatic in Germanic languages.
I'm wondering if LL readers concur, and, if so, have any explanations of these two points.
Just kidding here, but maybe the Whorfians would suggest that the passage of (day) time in southern Europe is more fluid?
My apologies if this question is old hat on LL.
I don't know about this. I think that I was taught to say "bon matin" in high school French a long time ago.
Selected readings
* "'Good morning' considered dangerous" (10/24/17)
* "Why plural days and nights in Spanish greetings?" (4/29/13)
* "Sinographically transcribed English" (12/26/10)
* "Transcriptional Chinese animal imagery for English daily greetings" (3/13/23)
* "'Have a good day!' in Mandarin" (9/5/12)
* "Sinographically transcribed English" (12/26/10)
* Mary S. Erbaugh: "China expands its courtesy: Saying 'Hello' to Strangers," The Journal of Asian Studies, 67.2 (May, 2008),621-652.
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Slang of the Day | Vocabulary | EnglishClub
lame
bad, weak, of poor quality
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Idiom of the Day
keep out of sight
To remain unseen, as by hiding or evasion. Watch the video
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Language Log
Government dampers on AI in the PRC
"China Puts Power of State Behind AI—and Risks Strangling It: Government support helps China’s generative AI companies gain ground on U.S. competitors, but political controls threaten to weigh them down", by Lia Lin, WSJ (7/16/24)
Most generative AI models in China need to obtain the approval of the Cyberspace Administration of China before being released to the public. The internet regulator requires companies to prepare between 20,000 and 70,000 questions designed to test whether the models produce safe answers, according to people familiar with the matter. Companies must also submit a data set of 5,000 to 10,000 questions that the model will decline to answer, roughly half of which relate to political ideology and criticism of the Communist Party.
Generative AI operators have to halt services to users who ask improper questions three consecutive times or five times total in a single day.
Comment by Mark Metcalf: "Nothing like encouraging creativity. And that's certainly nothing like encouraging creativity."
Selected readings
* "The perils of AI (Artificial Intelligence) in the PRC" (4/17/23)
* "Welcome to China" (3/10/14)
* "Vignettes of quality data impoverishment in the world of PRC AI" (2/23/23)
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Phrasal Verb of the Day | Vocabulary | EnglishClub
take in (2)
to fully understand something you hear or read
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Word of the Day
doleful
Definition: (adjective) Filled with or expressing grief.
Synonyms: mournful.
Usage: The poor child's doleful eyes compelled me to buy him expensive toys and bags of candy in the hopes of cheering him up.
Discuss
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Word of the Day
Word of the Day: staggering
This word has appeared in 611 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
put on (3)
to present an event such as a concert, a seminar, a sporting tournament, etc.
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Word of the Day
buoyancy
Definition: (noun) Irrepressible liveliness and good spirit.
Synonyms: irrepressibility.
Usage: With his natural buoyancy of spirits, he began to hope again.
Discuss
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Language Log
"Fisherman Croc's desert song"?
Shannon McDonagh, "'What the Hell Is This?': Crocodile-Like Fossil Rewrites Triassic History", Newsweek 7/11/2024:
The groundbreaking discovery of the Benggwigwishingasuchus eremicarminis reveals the presence of waterside crocodile-like creatures around the globe during the Middle Triassic.
Broadly known as pseudosuchian archosaurs—four-legged, carnivorous beings with an armadillo-like coating—these creatures are now known to have existed coastally between 247.2 million and 237 million years ago.
This proposed revision to Triassic history didn't startle me, due to my lack of relevant background assumptions about the distribution of crocodile-like creatures during that period. But the species name Benggwigwishingasuchus eremicarminis did catch my attention.
The paper announcing the discovery helps a bit — Nathan Smith et al., "A new pseudosuchian from the Favret Formation of Nevada reveals that archosauriforms occupied coastal regions globally during the Middle Triassic", Biology Letters 7/10/2024:
Abstract: Recent studies suggest that both stem- and crown-group Archosauria encompassed high ecological diversity during their initial Triassic radiation. We describe a new pseudosuchian archosaur, Benggwigwishingasuchus eremicarminis gen. et sp. nov., from the Anisian (Middle Triassic) Fossil Hill Member of the Favret Formation (Nevada, USA), a pelagic setting in the eastern Panthalassan Ocean characterized by the presence of abundant ammonoids and large-bodied ichthyosaurs.
[…]
Etymology: The generic name combines ‘Benggwi Gwishinga’ from the Shoshone term for ‘catching fish’, with ‘suchus’, the Greek term for Sobek, the Egyptian crocodile-headed god. The specific epithet combines the Latin ‘erema’ and ‘carminis’, meaning ‘desert song’, and honours Elaine Kramer and Monica Shaffer, and their love of the palaeontology, museums, and opera of the southwestern USA. The binomen is intended to translate roughly as ‘Fisherman Croc's desert song’.
That reveals some of the morphological analysis, though not the Shoshone morphosyntactic details, nor the appropriate pronunciation for the phrasal borrowing into English,
The Shoshoni dictionary at the Shoshoni Language Project lists both benggwi and gwishinga as meaning "fish", in the Duckwater Shoshone language: http://languagelog.ldc.upenn.edu/myl/Shoshone1.png http://languagelog.ldc.upenn.edu/myl/Shoshone2.png I'm guessing that the first of those words means "fish" as a noun, and the other means "catch (fish)" verb.
The source "Harbin 1988" is cited in the references as "Harbin, Theresa, Annette George, and Ricky Mike. 1988. The Duckwater Shoshone language and Culture Curriculum. The Duckwater Shoshone Bilingual Curriculum Development Team". I haven't been able to find a copy of that material, but an Eastern Shoshone Working Dictionary confirms that guess (even though the Duckwater Shoshone tribe is identified as a Western Shoshone group), giving bêngkwi glossed as "fish" and gwêshi glossed as "entangle", with a derived form gwêshigkeN glossed as "trap, catch, ensnare, net, entangle": http://languagelog.ldc.upenn.edu/myl/Bengkwi.png http://languagelog.ldc.upenn.edu/myl/gweshi.png There's a final non-linguistic mystery in the etymology of Benggwigwishingasuchus eremicarminis, namely the identity of the two people given credit for the "desert song" part of the name:
The specific epithet combines the Latin ‘erema’ and ‘carminis’, meaning ‘desert song’, and honours Elaine Kramer and Monica Shaffer, and their love of the palaeontology, museums, and opera of the southwestern USA.
They're not among the paper's authors ("Nathan D. Smith, Nicole Klein, P. Martin Sander and Lars Schmitz"). Nor are they mentioned in the paper's acknowledgements.
An interesting note: the paper contains a brief section denying AI assistance, presu[...]
Slang of the Day | Vocabulary | EnglishClub
pal
a friend
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Idiom of the Day
keep an eye peeled (for something or someone)
To remain vigilant or carefully watchful (for something or someone). Watch the video
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all—and if you’re a writer be glad you have such a wonderful editor. You should really buy him or her or them a cup of coffee.
I'm afraid I wouldn't be able to keep up with all of this simultaneity. My weirdness circuits would overload, but Jake Adelstein's seem to thrive on such bizarrerie. Selected readings
* "Language Log literally changes your brain" (8/25/16)
* "Language that exercises the brain; poetry and gradations of understanding" (1/7/24)
* "Parrot telepathy at the BBC" (1/28/04)
* "Invisible telepathic parrots" (6/30/07)
[Thanks to Don Keyser]
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