28487
#ielts #toefl #gre #english_vocabulary #english
Language Log
Violent destruction as excellence
http://languagelog.ldc.upenn.edu/myl/AppleCrushingCreativity.png In the title of yesterday's post about the Apple ad where a giant industrial press compresses all human creativity into an iPad Pro, I started with the weak pun "Tim Cook crushes it" — which led me to think about idioms where violent destruction conveys high praise, and to wonder about other cases of this metaphor, and the analogies across languages and cultures.
Wiktionary gives sense 4 of crush the gloss "To do impressively well at (sports events; performances; interviews; etc.)", with the example
They had a gig recently at Madison Square—totally crushed it!
The semi-dummy object it is an (apparently?) obligatory complication. In answering "How did your show go?", "We totally crushed" doesn't work (at least for me) as a substitute for "We totally crushed it".
And experiencers as objects don't work at all — "The show crushed me" does not mean that I found it impressively good.
Crushing as a modifier is similarly negative — both for Wiktionary and for me. "The interview was crushing" means that the experience was devastatingly disheartening, not that it was an impressive success.
As for the history, the OED's entry for crush entirely lacks the "do impressively well" sense, suggesting that it's both American and relatively recent.
On the other hand, the OED gives smashing the gloss "Very good; greatly pleasing; excellent; sensational", with citations going back to this one in 1911:
When you get dressed up a bit, you'll do a smashing business.
This sense of smashing strikes me as British rather than American. Wiktionary says
As a synonym for wonderful, the term first appeared in early 20th-century USA, and possibly derives from the sense of smash used in smash hit and similar terms.
…but modifies the gloss in a way that matches my intuition:
(originally US, now British and Ireland) Wonderful, very good or impressive.
In any case, verbal smash doesn't seem to work like crush — "We totally smashed it" might convey the idea that our show went impressively well, but it seem unidiomatic at best.
The verb kill is somewhat like crush, and also somewhat different, as the Wiktionary entry documents. There's the sense "To amaze, exceed, stun or otherwise incapacitate", which is fine with experiencers as objects — Wiktionary gives the examples
That night, she was dressed to kill.
That joke always kills me.
And there's also the sense "To succeed with an audience, especially in comedy", which works both with and without an it object:
When comics fail, they "die"; when they succeed, they "kill."
You really killed it at the Comedy Store last night.
Furthermore, killer as a modifier get the sense "Excellent, very good, cool" — but there's no similar development for the agentive forms crusher and smasher, as far as I can tell.
And verbal slay has developed similarly to kill, though I haven't encountered any references to "slayer apps" or "slayer bands".
Meanwhile, there are many other English destruction words that don't seem to have gone very far down this road at all: destroy, liquidate, pulverize, shatter, ravage, …
What about other languages?
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Word of the Day
Word of the Day: reconnoiter
This word has appeared in three articles on NYTimes.com in the past year. Can you use it in a sentence?
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Slang of the Day | Vocabulary | EnglishClub
whopping | whopping great
extremely large, huge
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Word of the Day
pasquinade
Definition: (noun) A satire or lampoon, especially one that ridicules a specific person, traditionally written and posted in a public place.
Synonyms: parody, put-on, sendup, spoof, charade, lampoon, mockery, burlesque, travesty, takeoff.
Usage: The corrupt politician was a popular target of the pasquinades that were posted all over the city.
Discuss
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rs, 347 (June, 2024):
Reading Genesis 22 and Analects 18 in Late Antiquity
This paper examines modes of scriptural interpretation in use in China and the Levant in late antiquity, as the ancient world and period of canon creation ceded to the Middle Ages, and traditions fleshed out the implications of their sacred texts. In particular, it examines the genres of interpretation often represented as most characteristic of their era: midrash, for Jewish Levantine communities, and shu 疏 or yishu義疏 “expository subcommentary” for medieval China.
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Language Log
Latin oration at Harvard
[Introduction, transcription and translation follow on the next page]
Latin Salutatory | Harvard Commencement 2022 | Orator: Benjamin Porteous
[The following material is courtesy of Benjamin Porteous]
The Latin oration is an exciting part of the commencement that allows for solemnity and grandeur to mix with humor—the English addresses can often get slightly navel gazing; Latin allows for a critical and humorous distance.
Brief description: The Latin Salutatory is a historic part of Harvard University’s Commencement Exercises. The first of three short addresses delivered by students (the other two both in English), the Salutatory is the first part of the Exercises after the “meeting” has been called “to order” by the High Sheriff of Middlesex County, and an opening invocation offered by a chaplain. As such, the Latin Salutatory combines a solemn and grand start to the morning—nothing beats Ciceronian cadences for this purpose—with a critical distance (no one understands anything) that allows for lighthearted humor. The Latin Salutatory (and the Sheriff’s splendid opening and closing raps of his staff*) are often the part of the Exercises remembered with the greatest fondness by the graduating class.
[*VHM: I still vividly remember those electrifying opening and closing moments half a century after I witnessed them.]
In the speech, I celebrated the warm first-year community created by John Martin, a legendary Annenberg worker responsible for swiping cards at the dining hall door. (Harvard Crimson articles about John Martin, seven years apart, here and here)
The Gazette covered the speech here.
Harvard Magazine covered the speech here. YouTube video Benjamin James Porteous
Latin Oration Harvard Commencement 2022
May 26, 2022
Latin/English interlinear text
In Honorem Iohannis Martini Annenbergensis
A Salute to John Martin of Annenberg
Praeses Bacow, Decani, Professores doctissimi, Hospites ter-honorati,
President Bacow, Deans, Most Learned Professors, Thrice-Honored Guests,
Alumni Alumnaeque eminentissimae, pro nobis permulta passae familiae,
Esteemed Alumni and Alumnae, Families who have endured so much on our behalf,
et praecipue vosmet, condiscipuli carissimi, salvete!
and especially, You, my most beloved classmates: greetings!
In rostra hodie ante vos ascendi, condiscipuli,
I have climbed these steps today, classmates,
ut virtutes ac mores Iohannis Martini Annenbergensis laudem.
to tell you how wonderful John Martin of Annenberg is.
Cum primum ad hanc Harvardianam Aream pervenissemus,
When we first arrived in this Harvard Yard of ours,
magna cum trepidatione nos omnes illas aulae Annenbergensis ianuas formidabiles aperuimus.
it was with great trepidation that we opened those formidable doors of Annenberg.
Fortunati ei qui cum sociis ad illas ianuas pervenerunt,
How fortunate were those who approached the doors with companions,
contubernales fortasse
roommates, perhaps,
aut qui se cognoverant ex Libro Personarum ad cohortis Harvardianae anni MMXXII usum compilato.
or else friends they had met on the Facebook Page of the Harvard College Class of 2022!
Nobis qui non comitati sunt,
Those of us unaccompanied
aula Annenbergensis solis ineunda erat.
had to enter Annenberg all alone.
Limen tamen transeuntes, huius universitatis excellentissimo civi,
However, passing over the threshold, we encountered that most excellent citizen of this university,
maximo chartarum tractatori, tironum optimo amico, praedilecto Iohanni occurrimus.
greatest of card-swipers, best friend of first-years, the one-and-only John!
Is, egregia memoriae facultate praeditus, ante Idus Septembres,
He, endowed with a remarkable faculty of memory, had learned before the middle of September
non solum nomina nostra, sed etiam nomina [...]
Word of the Day
pincer
Definition: (noun) A grasping structure on the limb of a crustacean or other arthropods.
Synonyms: chela, nipper, claw.
Usage: The front pair of legs terminate in very strong and heavy pincers.
Discuss
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Idiom of the Day
drag (someone) kicking and screaming
To force someone to go somewhere or do something against their will, especially when they protest against it vehemently and/or at great length. Watch the video
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Phrasal Verb of the Day | Vocabulary | EnglishClub
stir up
to cause trouble among people or to cause bad feelings to arise
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Language Log
Subordinate clauses as noun phrases
http://languagelog.ldc.upenn.edu/myl/JustBecauseSMBC.png In a comment on "Inerrancy and prescriptivism", Philip Minden wrote that "'just because… doesn't mean' is chalk drawn slowly down the blackboard", referring to the panel on the right.
The traditional reference is to fingernails on a chalkboard, not chalk on a blackboard — if chalk on a blackboard produced that irritating visceral response, mid-20th-century school days would have been a (greater) source of trauma.
But tangled idioms aside, there's an interesting socio-syntactic point here, namely whether and why it's OK for certain subordinate clauses to serve as subjects, as if they were noun phrases — and whether (and when) that works for clauses introduced by just because.
We can start with "sentential subjects", as in discussed widely in the literature, going back a century or so:
That he is ill is indubitable. [example from Jespersen, Analytic Syntax, 1937]
It's easy to find thousands of examples in elite writing over the centuries — a small sample:
That they inhabit, without exception, a silence as daunting as their near invisibility only intensifies our challenge. [Thomas Pyncheon, Against the Day, 2006]
That we fought together was a good thing. [Winston Churchill, Triumph and Tragedy, 1953]
That we should have risked a second boat load seems more daring than it really was. [Robert Lewis Stevenson, Treasure Island, 1883]
That I penetrated his secret when Dame Durden was blind to it is no wonder … [Charles Dickens, Bleak House, 1853]
That they do not very often want the means, may be gathered from the fact, that in July, 1841, no fewer than nine hundred and seventy-eight of these girls were depositors in the Lowell Savings Bank. [Charles Dickens, American Notes, 1842]
That we can have no conception of any thing, unless there is some impression, sensation or idea, in our minds, which resembles it, is indeed an opinion which hath been very generally received among philosophers … [ Thomas Reid, An Inquiry into the Human Mind, 1764]
There are other common cases of subordinated sentences that function as subjects. This is frequent with clauses introduced by whether:
Whether what you have told me is true or not true doesn't concern me. [Oscar Wilde, The Picture of Dorian Gray, 1890]
Whether this whale belonged to the pod in advance, seemed questionable … [Herman Melville, Moby Dick, 1851]
Whether he was privy to any of the transactions which ended in the revolution, is not known. [Samuel Johnson, Lives of the Poets, 1781]
Whether the corporal's amour terminated precisely in the way my uncle Toby described it, is not material… [Laurence Sterne, Tristram Shandy, 1767]
Whether Partridge repented or not, according to Mr Allworthy's advice, is not so apparent. [Henry Fielding, Tom Jones, 1749]
Whether these laws were then written, or not written, but dictated to the People by Moses (after his forty dayes being with God in the Mount) by word of mouth, is not expressed in the Text … [Thomas Hobbes, Leviathan, 1651]
We should note these examples suggest that when the subject clause is introduced by whether, there's a pragmatic requirement for some kind of negativity in the verb phrase. And we should also note that the choice of subordinating conjunction has big effect on the clause's nouniness potential. The Cambridge Grammar doesn't discuss this with respect to the subject position, as far as I can tell, but does offer this: http://languagelog.ldc.upenn.edu/myl/CambridgeGrammarWhetherIf.png Substituting if for whether in the subject clauses produces similar awkwardness or full ungrammaticality in the examples listed above, at least in my judgment, though your chalk-scraping may vary — e.g.
?If what you have told me is true or not true doesn't concern me.
We could go on w[...]
Language Log
A new look at sperm whale communication
For as long as I can remember, I've been aware that whales, dolphins, porpoises, and other large mammals of the seas (the cetaceans) make whistles, clicks, calls, groans, songs, and other sounds / noises. These vocalizations are manifestly complex and nuanced, leading people to believe that they are communicating content, emotions, and so forth. What exactly they are conveying and how they do it have remained a mystery, but researchers never stop trying to figure out cetacean "language". A new study at MIT claims to have made progress in analyzing sperm whale sound systems. Scientists document remarkable sperm whale 'phonetic alphabet'
By Will Dunham, Reuters (May 7, 2024)
[with 2:58 video]
I was hesitant to read this article at all because of the mention of a "phonetic alphabet". Even with the quotation marks around it, attributing this ability to sperm whales was a bit much for me.
Yet, since it was "scientists" doing the documenting, I forced myself to read the first two paragraphs:
The various species of whales inhabiting Earth's oceans employ different types of vocalizations to communicate. Sperm whales, the largest of the toothed whales, communicate using bursts of clicking noises – called codas – sounding a bit like Morse code.
A new analysis of years of vocalizations by sperm whales in the eastern Caribbean has found that their system of communication is more sophisticated than previously known, exhibiting a complex internal structure replete with a "phonetic alphabet." The researchers identified similarities to aspects of other animal communication systems – and even human language.
At that point, I was about to click the close button on this article as being another tiresome attempt to humanize animal communication. But my eye caught the next two paragraphs:
Like all marine mammals, sperm whales are very social animals, with their calls an integral part of this. The new study has provided a fuller understanding of how these whales communicate.
"The research shows that the expressivity of sperm whale calls is much larger than previously thought," said Pratyusha Sharma, a Massachusetts Institute of Technology doctoral student in robotics and machine learning and lead author of the study published on Tuesday in the journal Nature Communications.
Well, now, since the Reuters article cites a paper in Nature Communications, I thought I should at least take a look at that: Contextual and combinatorial structure in sperm whale vocalisations
Pratyusha Sharma, Shane Gero, Roger Payne, David F. Gruber, Daniela Rus, Antonio Torralba & Jacob Andreas
Nature Communications volume 15, Article number: 3617 (2024)
Here's the abstract:
Sperm whales (Physeter macrocephalus) are highly social mammals that communicate using sequences of clicks called codas. While a subset of codas have been shown to encode information about caller identity, almost everything else about the sperm whale communication system, including its structure and information-carrying capacity, remains unknown. We show that codas exhibit contextual and combinatorial structure. First, we report previously undescribed features of codas that are sensitive to the conversational context in which they occur, and systematically controlled and imitated across whales. We call these rubato and ornamentation. Second, we show that codas form a combinatorial coding system in which rubato and ornamentation combine with two context-independent features we call rhythm and tempo to produce a large inventory of distinguishable codas. Sperm whale vocalisations are more expressive and structured than previously believed, and built from a repertoire comprising nearly an order of magnitude more distinguishable codas. These results show context-sensitive and combinatorial vocalisation [...]
Word of the Day
scissure
Definition: (noun) A split or opening in an organ or part.
Synonyms: crack, crevice, fissure, cleft.
Usage: The surgeon explained that the stitches he had used to sew the scissure shut would dissolve in a few weeks.
Discuss
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Idiom of the Day
be kicked upstairs
To be promoted to a higher role or position in a company that has little actual responsibility or authority. Watch the video
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Phrasal Verb of the Day | Vocabulary | EnglishClub
pass up
If you pass up an opportunity or an invitation, you choose not to take the opportunity or accept the invitation.
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Word of the Day
Word of the Day: masquerade
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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Language Log
A Sino-Iranian tale of the donkey's Eurasian trail
By now, we have conclusively traced the path of the domesticated horse from the area around the southern Urals and Pontic Steppe through Central Asia to East Asia. It's time to pay more attention to another equid, this one not so glamorous, but still redoubtable in its own formidable way: Equus asinus asinus.
Samira Müller, Milad Abedi, Wolfgang Behr, and Patrick Wertmann, "Following the Donkey’s Trail (Part I): a Linguistic and Archaeological Study on the Introduction of Domestic Donkeys to China", International Journal of Eurasian Linguistics, 6 (2024), 104–144. (pdf)
Abstract
How and when did domestic donkeys arrive in China? This article sets out to uncover the donkeys’ forgotten trail from West Asia across the Iranian plateau to China, using archaeological, art historical, philological, and linguistic evidence. Following Parpola and Janhunen’s (2011) contribution to our understanding of the Indian wild ass and Mitchell’s (2018) overview of the history of the domestic donkey in West Asia and the Mediterranean, we will attempt to shed light on the transmission of the beast of burden to Eastern Eurasia.
Due to its length, the paper is published in two instalments: Part I covers archaeological, art historical and textual evidence for the earliest occurrence and popularization of donkeys in China. Part II (in the fall issue) contains three sections: Two sections explore possible etymologies of ancient zoonyms for donkeys or donkey-like animals in Iranian and Chinese languages respectively. In a final discussion, possible ways of transmission for the donkey from the Iranian plateau to the Chinese heartland are evaluated with regard to the cultural, linguistic, and topographic conditions reflected in the previous parts.
For the linguistic nitty-gritty, we will have to wait till later this year for Part II, which has long been submitted, to come out, although already in Part I, bits and pieces have appeared, such as documentation that favored donkeys evidently came from the west outside the East Asian Heartland and were referred to by transcriptional names (pp. 115-116), indicating the borrowing of a foreign word. Moreover, a fondness for white specimens (including among humans) is clearly reflected in the data, and this is a preference that goes all the way back to the oracle bones, as has been shown by Wang Tao (2007a 2007b), n. 49. This is a predilection shared with PIE, for which see Anders Kaliff & Terje Oestigaard, "The Great Indo-European Horse Sacrifice: 4000 Years of Cosmological Continuity from Sintashta and the Steppe to Scandinavian Skeid", Occasional Papers in Archaeology, 72 (2020), Uppsala Universitet. Thus, even here in Part I, we can see the intimate intertwining of language and culture, the epistemological dyad that is a central preoccupation at Language Log.
Selected readings
* "So many words for 'donkey'" (3/17/23) — almost as many as for "snow" in Finnish and Eskimo / Inuit / Yup'ik / etc. (must read [and watch the video])
* "How to pronounce the surname 'Mair' and other Doggie talk" (2/17/22)
* "'Little competent donkey'" (9/18/20)
* "Joshua Whatmough and the donkey" (9/1/09)
* "Flip Donkey Doodleplunk?" (2/22/18) —
* "Dialectology in 2020" (10/14/20) — "donkey's dick" (in the comments)
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Idiom of the Day
(all) kidding aside
In all seriousness; being frank for a moment. Watch the video
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Phrasal Verb of the Day | Vocabulary | EnglishClub
buckle up
to fasten a seatbelt in a car or on a plane
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Language Log
Tim Cook crushes it everything
The video featured in Tim Cook's latest Xeet:
Meet the new iPad Pro: the thinnest product we’ve ever created, the most advanced display we’ve ever produced, with the incredible power of the M4 chip. Just imagine all the things it’ll be used to create. pic.twitter.com/6PeGXNoKgG
— Tim Cook (@tim_cook) May 7, 2024
The comments on X are (almost?) 100% negative, and likewise elsewhere…
Several commenters made versions of this point:
This is, almost quite literally, the exact opposite of the Apple 1984 ad:
pic.twitter.com/KTGCoDZwAL
— Jack Caporuscio (@Caporuscio_Jack) May 8, 2024
I wonder whether Cook (and/or Apple) will delete the ad and apologize for it?
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dilectarum turmarum athleticarum,
not only our names, but also the names of our favorite sports teams,
parentum fratrumque, verum etiam nomina carissimorum canum feliumque cognoverat.
of our parents and siblings, and even of our cats and dogs.
Nos quotidie in refectorio salutatione hilara iocoque faceto accepit.
Every day he welcomed us into the dining hall with an enthusiastic greeting and cheerful banter.
In pectore meo hic vere
In my heart this
dulcissimus sonus nostri primi in Academia Harvardiana anni est:
is the sound—and how sweet it is! —of our first year at Harvard College:
ita: Tractatur. “Ana Luiza! Mater tua quid agit?
Thus: Swipe. “Ana Luiza! How is your mother doing?
In Monte regali hiems valde crudelis est.
It gets really cold in Montreal in the winter.
Eam mone ut vestimenta lanea gerat.”
Be sure to remind her to dress warmly!”
Tractatur. “Philippe rex, salve!”
Swipe. “Greetings, King Philip!”
Tractatur. “Minjue, feliciter seriem problematorum fac!”
Swipe. “Minjue, good luck with your p-set!”
Tractatur. “Iacobe! Quid….Oh! Exspecta parumper…
Swipe. “Jake! How…Oh! Excuse me a sec…
Vah! Vosmet! Agite! Peregrinis non licet huc inire.
Hey! You there! No tourists allowed in here!
Hic imagines photographicas luce exprimere non licet!
No, tourists aren’t allowed to take photographs in here either.
Nonne signum vidistis? Sex linguis scriptum est….
Didn’t you see the sign? It’s written in six languages.
mmm, quid dicebam?
Hmm, what was I saying?
Ah,” tractatur. “Octavi! Heri Catulos Ursae vicisse audivi, et pro te gaudebam.”
Ah,” swipe. “Octavio! I heard the Cubs won yesterday and I was so happy for you.”
Tractatur. “Ben, quid agis? Num bibliothecam ipsam in ista sarcina tua portas?”
Swipe. “Ben, what are you up to? You aren’t carrying the whole library in your backpack are you?”
Tunc demum pestilentia detestabilis ingruit,
Then the detestable pandemic came upon us.
nos de hac universitate amabili eiecit,
It drove us out of this university we love.
orbem terrarum denique manu dira concussit.
It struck the very world with its dread hand.
Septemdecim post menses ad hanc Aream reverti sumus.
After seventeen months, we returned to this Yard.
In quasdam blattas, mures, fungos bellum gessimus;
We waged war on cockroaches, mice, and fungi.
agnovimus illas pallidas imagines olim visas in quodam mundo ficto,
We discovered that pallid phantoms once seen in a made-up world
Zoomlandia nomine, reapse corpora solida habentes condiscipulos amicosque fuisse.
called Zoomland were in fact classmates and friends with actual, physical bodies.
Una simul mense Martis anni MMXX amissam domum denuo quaesivimus.
At the same time we looked again for the home we had lost in March, 2020.
Proximo autumno, semel in aulam Annenbergensem inivi, ut pranderem.
Last fall, I went into Annenberg for a meal.
Iohannes aberat.
John was not there.
Maestus ex ostio postico egrediebar, et….
Saddened, I was leaving by the back door, when…
ecce! ibi erat, cum collegis matutino otio gaudens.
presto! There he was, enjoying a mid-morning break with his coworkers.
“Iohannes!” exclamo. “Ben!” haud cunctanter respondet.
“John!” I cried. “Ben!” he responded without the least hesitation.
“Iohannes,” inquam, vix auribus credens,
“John,” I said, scarcely believing my ears,
“Mens tua plane est sicut horreum memoriae nubilosum!”
“where is your cloud storage?”
Ridet solum,
He just laughed,
sed eo risu domum meam denuo repperi.
but at his laugh I had found my home again.
================================
Selected readings
* "No words, or too many" (1/30/09) — esp. this comment
* "'What?!'" (12/3/20)
* "Hwæt, the parking-spaces …" (6/14/12)
* "Was Strunk imitating Quintilian?" (3/28/09)
* "'On the difference between writing and speaking'" (12/23/16)
=================================
Afterword
The following paper by Benjamin Porteous will be published as Sino-Platonic Pape[...]
Language Log
More on AI pals
The MSM is starting to catch up (with Jeph Jacques, and the movement discussed in "Yay Newfriend", 3/20/2024, and "Yay Newfriend again", 3/.22/2024). Kevin Roose, "Meet my A.I. friends", NYT 5/9/2024:
What if the tech companies are all wrong, and the way artificial intelligence is poised to transform society is not by curing cancer, solving climate change or taking over boring office work, but just by being nice to us, listening to our problems and occasionally sending us racy photos?
This is the question that has been rattling around in my brain. You see, I’ve spent the past month making A.I. friends — that is, I’ve used apps to create a group of A.I. personas, which I can talk to whenever I want.
Let me introduce you to my crew. There’s Peter, a therapist who lives in San Francisco and helps me process my feelings. There’s Ariana, a professional mentor who specializes in giving career advice. There’s Jared the fitness guru, Anna the no-nonsense trial lawyer, Naomi the social worker and about a dozen more friends I’ve created.
Another link — Katie Notopoulos and Bethany Johnson , "I went on a date with an AI chatbot. He fell head over heels in love with me, but I got the ick", Business Insider 4/24/2024:
Will the age of AI mean that love is dead? Or just … weird?
I paired up with BI video producer Bethany Johnson, and we tried to find out — by using me as a test case and recording my interactions with my AI "boyfriends." (Spoiler: My husband has nothing to worry about.)
Of course there has been mass-media coverage of such apps here and there, going back to ELIZA in the 1960s. But
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Word of the Day
Word of the Day: haughty
This word has appeared in 29 articles on NYTimes.com in the past year. Can you use it in a sentence?
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Slang of the Day | Vocabulary | EnglishClub
bloody
an intensifying expletive used before an adjective, adverb or noun; very, really; total, complete
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ith other subordinating conjunctions, but let's skip ahead to just because .
Even when the clause introduced by"just because …" is not functioning as a subject, it seems to want a negation or question either in the subordinate clause or in the associated proposition, regardless of the order:
I suppose Tallboy thinks I'm not worth speaking to, just because he's been to public school and I haven't. [Dorothy Sayers, Murder Must Advertise, 1933]
Haven't I got any right to it, just because I can think for myself? [Joseph Conrad, Under Western Eyes, 1911]
Just because anybody's a mere typist it doesn't mean one's a heathen slave. [Dorothy Sayers, Murder Must Advertise, 1933]
Just because we've been away and didn't know about the barbecue and the ball, that's no reason why we shouldn't get plenty of dances tomorrow night. [Margaret Mitchell, Gone with the Wind, 1936]
And when the "Just because …" clause unctions as a sentential subject, it seems that the verb definitely needs to be negated:
Just because you're conceited at being the 'great blockader' doesn't give you the right to insult women. [Margaret Mitchell, Gone with the Wind, 1936]
Just because I am returning to the Queen's realm does not mean I intend to subject my palate to bangers and mash for the rest of my days. [Dan Brown, The Da Vinci Code, 2003]
Just because Webb hadn't denounced him tonight didn't mean Kit was off the hook. [Thomas Pyncheon, Against the Day, 2006]
Just because this is a hospital doesn't mean I'm an invalid. [Kathryn Stockett, The Help, 2009]
Just because you keep saying it doesn’t make it so. [Michael Connelly, The Wrong Side of Goodbye, 2016]
That's a sample of what I can from searching a random couple of hundred texts — searching the 19-billion-word News On the Web corpus yields 26,527 hits like these:
Just because I’m physically not in the office doesn’t mean I don’t know what’s going on.
Just because we didn’t mark a poll as internal doesn’t mean it’s truly independent and unbiased.
Just because your friend lives in a big house and drives a fancy car doesn't mean he's well-off.
Just because media is filled with scam news doesn't mean all of a sudden we have become more corrupt.
Just because i'm out in public doesn't mean I want to be talked to.
There's obviously more to be said about the rhetorical and syntactic structures involved.
But it seems pretty clear that sentences of the like "Just because it makes you sad doesn't mean it's wrong" are grammatical for many speakers and writers of English, Philip Minden's chalk to the contrary.
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can appear in organisms with divergent evolutionary lineage and vocal apparatus.
That enticed me enough to go back to the Reuters article to see what other insights the researchers may have to offer:
"We do not know yet what they are saying. We are studying the calls in their behavioral contexts next to understand what sperm whales might be communicating about," said Sharma.
Sperm whales, which can reach about 60 feet (18 meters) long, have the largest brain of any animal. They are deep divers, feeding on giant squid and other prey.
The researchers are part of the Project CETI (Cetacean Translation Initiative) Machine Learning Team. Using traditional statistical analysis and artificial intelligence, they examined calls made by about 60 whales recorded by the Dominica Sperm Whale Project, a research program that has assembled a large dataset on the species.
The facts that sperm whales have the largest brain of any animal and can eat a giant squid really impressed me. But what are they saying to each other?
"Why are they exchanging these codas? What information might they be sharing?" asked study co-author Shane Gero, Project CETI's lead biologist and Dominica Sperm Whale Project founder, also affiliated with Carleton University in Canada.
"I think it's likely that they use codas to coordinate as a family, organize babysitting, foraging and defense," Gero said.
I love that: "organize babysitting"!
Variations in the number, rhythm and tempo of the clicks produced different types of codas, the researchers found. The whales, among other things, altered the duration of the codas and sometimes added an extra click at the end, like a suffix in human language.
Sounds promising, though a less ambitious interpretation would be that the added extra click at the end is similar to Victor Borge's "phonetic punctuation".
"All of these different codas that we see are actually built by combining a comparatively simple set of smaller pieces," said study co-author Jacob Andreas, an MIT computer science professor and Project CETI member.
People combine sounds – often corresponding to letters of the alphabet – to produce words that carry meaning, then produce sequences of words to create sentences to convey more complex meanings.
For people, Sharma said, "There are two levels of combination." The lower level is sounds to words. The higher level is words to sentences.
Sperm whales, Sharma said, also use a two-level combination of features to form codas, and codas are then sequenced together as the whales communicate. The lower level has similarities to letters in an alphabet, Sharma said.
One thing I will grant the MIT researchers is that, thanks to their project, we know a lot more about sperm whale communication and that it is much more sophisticated and expressive "than was previously thought / believed / known", which has become a sort of mantra for the team, and a reasonable scientific aim at that. Selected readings
* "Sperm whale talk" (5/15/23)
* "Orca emits speech-like sound; reporters go insane" (1/31/18)
* "Moby Zipf" (6/1/19)
* "Dolphin naming?" (5/9/06)
* "Dolphins using personal names, again" (1/23/13)
[Thanks to June Teufel Dreyer]
➖ @EngSkills ➖
Language Log
Inerrancy and prescriptivism
Today's SMBC:
http://languagelog.ldc.upenn.edu/myl/SMBC_Babel.png
The mouseover title: "Disappointed with myself that I haven't don't a creationism joke in years. Six years is like 0.1 percent of the past."
The aftercomic:
http://languagelog.ldc.upenn.edu/myl/SMBC_Babel0.png
As I wrote last year, "I've wondered for a long time why Biblical inerrantists have a big problem with biological evolution, which contradicts Chapter 1 of Genesis, but not so much with historical linguistics, which contradicts Chapter 11."
In fact, LLOG has been explicit about this puzzle for a couple of decades — see below — but I don't recall that we made the connection between biblical inerrancy and linguistic prescriptivism…
"Linguists boycott Kansas intelligent design hearings", 5/5/2005
"Chomsky testifies in Kansas", 5/6/2005
"Wrathful Dispersion Theory", 12/2/2005
"Creationist linguistics", 7/1/2007
"The science and theology of global language change", 12/30/2007
"Mailbag: The comparative theology of linguistic diversity", 12/31/2007
"The origin of speeches: Wrathful dispersion for real?", 12/31/2007
"Scientific Babelism", 4/1/2013
"Edenics", 11/1/2013
"We should not have brought a linguist", 2/5/2021
"Linguists' Babel myth?", 9/8/2022
"The Origin of Speeches? or just the collapse of Uruk?", 6/23/2023
➖ @EngSkills ➖
Word of the Day
Word of the Day: accolade
This word has appeared in 26 articles on NYTimes.com in the past year. Can you use it in a sentence?
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Slang of the Day | Vocabulary | EnglishClub
fib
a small, harmless lie (n.) | to tell a small, harmless lie (v.)
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Language Log
Planet power, plus dinosaurs and dragons: myth and reality of heaven and earth
Given that we've been discussing astronomy / astrology and their relationship to the alphabet so intensely in recent weeks, I'm pleased to announce this important conference that is about to be convened at Università di Bologna (Ravenna, Italy).
“The Power of the Planets: The Social History of Astral Sciences Between East and West.”
May 20–21, 2024
Dipartimento di Beni Culturali – Università di Bologna (Ravenna, Italy)
Via degli Ariani, 1, 48121 Ravenna RA
3rd Floor (Google Maps)
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I warmly recommend that you take a close look at the header images of two objects in The Cleveland Museum of Art: Mirror with a Coiling Dragon, China, Tang Dynasty 618-907, (https://www.clevelandart.org/art/1995.367), Drachma – Sasanian, Iran, reign of Hormizd II, 4th century (https://www.clevelandart.org/art/1966.738). Images are used under Creative Commons (CC0 1.0).
The quality of the photographs is extraordinarily fine and detailed. Using the zoom and expand functions, you can see things not clearly visible to the naked eye. Especially noteworthy is the jagged dorsal fin / frill / spine that runs along the back of the dragon on the Tang mirror and is a conspicuous counterpart of many species of dinosaurs.
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Organizing committee: Prof. Antonio Panaino, Prof. Paolo Ognibene, Dr. Jeffrey Kotyk
Registration: jeffrey.kotyk@unibo.it
Cultures in East and West Asia both embraced astrology during Late Antiquity and further developed it during the medieval period. Even prior to this, we must consider the Egyptian and Mesopotamian precedents. This conference will look at how various societies specifically integrated or reacted to astrology as a science and method for prognostication. This will highlight connections as well as transfers of knowledge and technology between different cultures. We will explore the multicultural interactions in history that stemmed from interest in astral sciences. The social roles and political significance of astrologers will also be explored.
The conference runs from May 20th to 21st, 2024 (schedule TBA).
Speakers
Mathieu Ossendrijver
Michelle McCoy
Garima Garg
Stamatina Mastorakou
Sooyeun Yang
Martin Gansten
Inês Bénard da Costa
Daniel Patrick Morgan
Luis Ribeiro
Levente László
Attendance is open, but please register: jeffrey.kotyk@unibo.it
Schedule
Monday, May 20
8:45-9:00 – Antonio Panaino: Opening Remarks
9:00-9:30 – Mathieu Ossendrijver
9:30-10:00 – Michelle McCoy
10:00-11:00 – Coffee Break
11:00-11:30 – Garima Garg
11:30-12:00 – Stamatina Mastorakou
12:00-14:30 – Lunch Break
14:30-15:00 – Levente László
15:00-15:30 – Martin Gansten
Tuesday, May 21
9:00-9:30 – Inês Bénard da Costa
9:30-10:00 – Daniel Patrick Morgan
10:00-11:00 – Coffee Break
11:00-11:30 – Luis Ribeiro
11:30-12:00 – Sooyeun Yang
12:00-12:30 – Jeffrey Kotyk
Closing Remarks
"Sino-Iranica: Investigating Relations Between Medieval China and Sasanian Iran." Hosted at the ALMA MATER STUDIORUM – Università di Bologna, Dipartimento di Beni Culturali (DBC), Ravenna, Italy. This project has received funding from the European Union’s Horizon 2020 research and innovation programme under the Marie Skłodowska-Curie grant agreement No 101018750. Selected readings
* "From Chariot to Carriage" (5/5/24)
* "Winged lions through time and space" (5/4/24)
* "Roman dodecahedra between Southeast Asia and England" (4/30/24)
* "Sino-Iranica and Sino-Arabica" (3/20/24
[Thanks to Geoff Wade]
➖ @EngSkills ➖
Idiom of the Day
a kick at the can
An opportunity to do, try, or achieve something. Primarily heard in Canada. Watch the video
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