First Spanish, then Chinese, says Nicholas Kristof

In this editorial, New York Times columnist Nicholas D. Kristof discusses the trend (mainly among hyper-competitive, status-aware parents) of enrolling children in Chinese (Mandarin) lessons. In terms of chic-ness, Chinese is apparently the new French. Although a fluent speaker of Chinese who commends the pursuit of taking up Mandarin, Kristof argues for the importance of learning Spanish first. Not only is it easier for English speakers to acquire, but Spanish is also increasingly important, as the U.S.'s hispanic population is steadily growing. There's also the whole matter of Latin America being our neighbor.

DFW Takes a Shot at Descriptivism in "Consider the Lobster"

Long time, no blog. Sorry to disappoint, viewers! (all < 5 of you). So, I recently bought the late David Foster Wallace's collection of essays cutely titled, "Consider the Lobster." In it, one chapter in particular caught my attention. Of course, it's about language -- "Authority and American Usage." Wallace critiques Bryan A. Garner's A Dictionary of Modern American Usage, but uses this as a jumping point to discuss prescriptivism (think rule-governed, so-called "correct" usage, as epitomized by William Safire and such) and descriptivism (the supposedly objective study of language and what most linguists ascribe to -- think Noam Chomsky and Steven Pinker). While Wallace admits, unsurprisingly, to being a total usage snob, here he examines the positives and negatives of the two schools of thought. DFW's writing is lucid, but his hammering tangential* footnotes (*I say tangential with some reluctance; they're usually relevant, but I view his overuse of footnotes as a sign of weak writing rather than an adorable idiosyncrasy) often make it difficult to follow his points. Aside from that, I took issue with his positing that descriptivists fail to recognize the adaptive usefulness in adopting different discourse modes based on one's audience. Descriptivists do not overlook this occurrence nor do they deny its importance. In fact, they would argue that each individual of competent intelligence (that is, one who is at the very least "average" in intellectual ability) is fluent in at least one such discourse -- whether it's academic language, Black Vernacular, etc. -- and that adopting a certain discourse mode to fit a particular social domain is socially beneficial. However, unlike prescriptivists, they do not believe that ONE mode is correct or superior to another, but that a mode's "correctness" is relative depending on the social context. A hardcore prescriptivist, on the other hand, would argue that one mode (the highly-educated, usually white, male-dominated one) is always superior to others. So, sorry, DFW, but descriptivists do not have a vendetta against academic language and its usefulness. In describing language in its current, fluid state, descriptivists certainly observe and take note of discourse modes.

Sarah Palin, Wordsmith?

America's favorite clown, Sarah Palin, has coined a neologism: refudiate. Is this a combination of "refute" and "repudiate"? It's a neat combination, I must say, but I really don't think that Palin had this as a new word in mind when it passed from the gray space in her mind to her lips. It was just a malapropism, but of course, never one to admit she's wrong, Palin rationalized her slip as creative license, even daring to say that the estimable Shakespeare made up new words.

Illinois town makes English its official language

Illinois town makes English its official language

Fact:

Those who demand that the U.S. establish English as its official language can usually barely speak or write the language themselves...

The War on Chinglish

Chinese cities host an array of signs, locale names, and menu items boasting humorous English renderings. Recently, government programs have been set up with the goal of eradicating "Chinglish." This interesting NYTimes article mentions there was a campaign to fix English signs in Beijing in time for the 2008 Olympics, but it focuses primarily on the current Shanghai Commision for the Management of Language Use's two-year-and-ongoing battle against Chinglish's presence in Shanghai. While it is apparent that Chinglish is a source of embarassment for many Chinese -- hence the commisions -- there are some, whom I'm assuming are mainly non-Chinese, who not only find Chinglish endearing and hilarious, but also view it as an important linguistic relic that supposedly offers a peek into the Chinese mind. There's even a German lady who's currently working on her PhD in Chinglish, once again proving that you really can obtain a doctorate in just about anything.

Because the New York Times appears to have prevented the copying/saving of its photo files, here's a link to its Chinglish slideshow:http://www.nytimes.com/slideshow/2010/05/03/world/asia/20100503_CHINGLISH.html

Alabama Republican Runs Bizarre Ad, Calling for English-Only Driver's License Tests

Republican Tim James is running for governor of Alabama, and he decided to air a campaign ad declaring that if he's elected, driver's license tests will only be administered in English. Because, you know, that's such a pressing issue for the state, and foreign languages are so icky and weird-sounding!

Amazing Anagrams

SOFTHEARTEDNESS = OFTEN SHEDS TEARS
WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE = I’LL MAKE A WISE PHRASE
SAINT VALENTINE’S DAY = NAY, A LASS INVENTED IT
THE UPHOLSTERERS = RESTORE THE PLUSH
TO CAST PEARLS BEFORE SWINE = ONE’S LABOR IS PERFECT WASTE
ANIMOSITY = IS NO AMITY

PRINCESS DIANA can be rearranged to spell ASCEND IN PARIS.

source: futilitycloset.com

“My mother … pointed out that one could not say ‘a green great dragon,’ but had to say ‘a great green dragon.’ I wondered why, and still do.” — J.R.R. Tolkien

True. You could also replace "English" with "American"

Un homme qui parle trois langues est trilingue.

Un homme qui parle deux langues est bilingue.

Un homme qui ne parle qu'une langue est anglais.

A man who speaks three languages is trilingual.

A man who speaks two languages is bilingual.

A man who speaks only one language is English.

- Claude Gagniere

Briton 'gets Chinese accent after bad migraine'

Briton 'gets Chinese accent after bad migraine'

A British woman is now speaking with a Chinese accent after suffering from an extreme migraine that apparently left her with some brain damage. If it sounds hokey, there's actually a name for this condition; it's called Foreign Accent Syndrome. Being that the woman had never even traveled to China and had never studied Chinese, her new accent, and those acquired by other individuals with the syndrome, is merely perceived and categorized as "Chinese" by listeners. Thus, the affected individual's new inflection is not an unconscious imitation of another language in any form, but rather their new pronunciation and tone, induced by a stroke or serious migraine, is a particular recipe that is ripe for perception by others as fitting a particular foreign accent.

How English Sounds to Foreign Ears

See more funny videos and Music Videos at Today's Big Thing.

Gawker recently compiled a list of words (mainly expressions and phrases, actually) that the post's author feels should fall out of use. The list included both tired, hackneyed sayings that were either never cool to begin with ("cool beans" for example), and what were once fresh memes but are now stale (i.e. "fail"). I'm surprised that Gawker neglected to mention the "worst. ___. ever." construction, since that one is both overused and annoying. We have ComicBookGuy to thank for that.

I must say I'm guilty of using these. One example would be the lolcatz meme, which usually entails saying, "I can haz ___." I also use the words "creepy" and "douchebag" way too often, though the former does not really constitute a linguistic trend, whereas the latter has been very popular in the last decade.

"England and America are two countries separated by a common language."

- George Bernard Shaw

D9 "Prawns" Reference is South-Africa Specific

In the 2009 film "District 9," the alien species are referred to (in a derogatory manner) "prawns" by humans because of their distinct features (I don't know the precise term - but the aliens have little leg-like appendages, sort of like whiskers or tentacles, that come out of their chests and above their mouths). I had thought, up until reading the TvTropes.com page on D9, that prawns meant shrimp (as prawn is another word for shrimp). However, it turns out that the name refers to a king cricket species commonly found in the Johannesburg, South Africa suburb of Parktown called the Parktown prawn. I can definitely see the resemblance it shares with the D9 aliens, but I don't think it was far fetched to think that the aliens look like shrimp. Either way, I found this an interesting little bit of trivia; I never would have thought to question my assumption regarding the movie's use of the word "prawn" -- my discovery of this fact was simply fortuitous.

a shrimp

a "prawn" from D9

What is the most difficult language for a native English speaker to learn?

In The Economist, a highly interesting article raises this question and discusses the problems various languages pose for anglophones. For example, as illustrated in Mark Twain's humorous quote below, English speakers often struggle with gendered languages:

"German has three genders, seemingly so random that Mark Twain wondered why “a young lady has no sex, but a turnip has”. (Mädchenis neuter, whereas Steckrübe is feminine.)"

Of course, Twain was joking and the assignment of gender to nouns in languages such as German has nothing to do with the noun having feminine or masculine characteristics.

The article mentions that the further a language is in terms of its linguistic relation to English, the harder it will generally be for an English speaker to pick it up. It seems intuitive that for a Brit, learning Mandarin would be a greater challenge than learning German.