1485: Scripts for Multiple Languages Jan 5, 2019
Some writing systems, such as the Georgian Script or the Hebrew Script are often talked about only as they relate to the languages that bear the same name, but this is often misleading. For instance, all Kartvelian languages use the Georgian Script, and while sometimes this is just because of external political factors—such as in this case how most speakers of Kartvelian languages live in Georgia—often the scripts themselves are better for representing certain sounds. It is rare for a script to be used for only one language, but this too does happen, such as with Armenian Script, (excluding historical uses) pictured below.
1484: Different Greetings Jan 4, 2019
Every language will have greetings, though these often come in a variety completely different ways. Many Indo-European languages have words like English's 'hello', but these don't really relate to anything concrete. In other languages, such as Hawai'ian 'aloha' famously, or Hebrew's 'shalom', these can be used for greetings or for farewells because they just mean 'love' and 'peace' respectfully; there are some examples like this in English but these are less popular. In Georgian however, the word for a greeting is 'gamarjoba’, which means ‘victory’.
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1483: white noise Jan 3, 2019
Sounds don't have colors objectively tied to them in anyway, yet we still use the term 'white noise'. The term white noise comes from the association to white light, which contains all frequencies of the spectrum of light in equal amounts as to appear white. With white noise machines, the frequencies all use the same intensity, the sounds don't have to be anything recorded in particular, even if the associations are with natural sounds perhaps. This is why there aren't any other types of noise that 'white noise' overtly disambiguates itself from, despite the use of the adjective.
For a related look at 'blackmail', click here.
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1482: MeToo as a Verb (LITW 8) Jan 2, 2019
The # MeToo movement has since done a lot to highlight language-use, but the post today doesn't relate to PC language. Although certainly not exclusive to this word, MeToo eventually became a verb, but what this shows is not only the manner in which not only a phrase like 'me too' becomes one part of speech, but how it becomes a single word. No doubt this was helped by the commonality of the phrase in a variety of contexts, but also it was removed of distinct linguistic context as it is used in a hashtag. Once it is used as a hashtag, it doesn't need to fit into a sentence in the same way as another phrase would. For evidence, here is a tweet from Lena Dunham, though her assessment of the grammar is wrong.
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1481: Biblical Magicians & The 3 Wise Men Jan 1, 2019
In the biblical story of the Three Wise Men, these men are referred to either as that or as kings, but this isn't the whole picture. One of the dangers of only reading translations is that historical significance of and connotations to words change. The word used in the Bible is 'Magoi', which is the origin of 'magician' in English. Indeed, magi of the time were often involved in politics—hence 'kings'—and also 'priest', but their duties at the time included interpreting dreams and performing ritual sacrifices. Even the gifts they bring with them are from traditional magical practices. However, after centuries of this translation, it is hard to imagine changing the popular conception, and at this point anyway the idea of 'magician' has shifted significantly.
Notably, the suffix '-ic' has the ability to turn some nouns into adjectives, but in the word 'magic' this is only historically true. The words 'magic' and 'magician' all come from the same root as 'mage' and 'magus' (the singular form of the perhaps more famous 'magi').
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1480: Multilingualism and Healthcare Dec 31, 2018
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1479: Envelope and Lexical Stress Dec 30, 2018
In some words like 'rebel' or 'isolate', the accentuation changes from noun to verb. This is true of 'envelop' and 'envelope'; the only real difference between it and the earlier examples is that the spelling is also different, but the fact that as a verb the stress is at the end yet as a noun it comes at the start. However, the meaning of 'envelope' is not as broad as its counterpart, and really just relates to letters and packaging. This has only been true since the 18th century though, and beforehand it just related to anything that was enveloping.
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1478: Semaphore Dec 29, 2019
In general, semaphore is a signal of moving hands or flags in a specific way as a way to represent an alphabet. However, while this is often used to describe the specific and globally-accepted for as depicted in the photo below—used for instance on airfields—there is no limit to how a semaphore can look, just like an alphabet. Indeed, even other gestures that are used to give directions are often informally called a semaphore, as with someone guiding a driver how to park.
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1477: Language and Class: Wikipedia Dec 28, 2018
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1476: The Most Official Languages Dec 27, 2018
The country with the most official languages is listed in the Guiness Book of World Records as Zimbabwe, with 16 languages (listed at the bottom), but this number is hard to tally sometimes. First of all, most of the world's languages are not codified or standardized, so a county like Papua New Guinea where an estimated 11% of the world's languages are spoken does not—and cannot—list every one of them. Likewise, Bolivia has around 37 official languages, but this includes a few that are extinct, and most—except Spanish— are not official on a national level, but only in smaller subdivisions of the country.
The languages of Zimbabwe include: Chewa, Chibarwe, English, Kalanga, Koisan, Nambya, Ndau, Ndebele, Shangani, Shona, sign language, Sotho, Tonga, Tswana, Venda and Xhosa.
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1475: Language Families with Little Relatition Dec 26, 2018
Many names for language families are done more for the sake of simplicity rather than with much scientific precision. For instance,m the Khoisan, Papuan, or Australian language families respectively can have relatively little relation between the languages that make them up. With the Australian languages, these are made up of as many as 28 distinct language families, which includes some language isolates, unrelated to any other language. Often, this is very political however, such as how Khoisan peoples use the term to raise political support and awareness for multiple minority cultures.
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1474: Followup to Types of Utterances Dec 25, 2018
1473: interest Dec 24, 2018
Bankers certainly have an interest in interest, but otherwise the two words don’t seem to overlap much, grammatically or in meaning. However, as you might have guessed from this, the two are indeed related, only splitting fairly recently. The word comes from Latin ‘interesse’ but in Old French it gained the meaning of ‘possession or right to something’. This then went on to equate to both financial interest, and then in the 18th century became a associated with wanting to know something. However, in the senses relating to finance and property with this word, it was influenced in the Middle Ages by other words ‘interest’ and ‘interesse’ that had meanings in French and Latin respectively of ‘damage’ and ‘debt defaulting’. Catch up on the newest video here: https://youtu.be/97RX-SwGq5U
1472: A Brief Study of '-(o)logy' Dec 23, 2018
The suffix '-(o)logy' often is used in words to mean 'study of'. Initially most of the elements to which this suffix affixed itself were Greek in origin, but in other, newer words like 'mixology' the stem word is English. However, other words like 'phraseology' does not refer to the study of phrases, and it never did; the suffix also denotes characteristics of speech and language. This is true of words like 'eulogy' and 'trilogy' as well.
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1471: When do Babies First Hear Words Dec 22, 2018
1470: English as a Non-Native Language Dec 21, 2018
1469: Sabertooths and Saberteeth Dec 20, 2018
Even in compounds, words that are formed in an uncommon way, like 'man' to 'men', tend to stay the same, such as in 'postman' to 'postmen'. However, in the case of 'sabertooth', both 'sabertooths' and 'saberteeth' can be there own words and mean different things. The first refers to multiple of the animal and the second is the actual teeth themselves, becasue 'teeth' is the plural of 'tooth', but in 'sabertooth', the pluralization applies to the word as a whole, because of how a noun in a compound can modify the other in multiple ways.
1468: bodega and boutique Dec 18, 2018
No matter where—even across languages—'bodega' doesn't denote something that is necessarily fancy; in The Philippines, it refers to any warehouse, and in the Spanish speaking areas or the US it denotes a grocery store. The root word, from Greek, denoted a storehouse, so this makes sense today, but in French the etymological equivalent is 'boutique', which—denoting a small artisanal shop—is not so different literally but culturally is quite different. Indeed, both come from the Greek for 'apothecary': apothḗkē, which only denoted a place for storage.
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1467: Confusing Scientific Names Dec 17, 2018
Every studied animal, living or extinct, will get a scientific, so at this point there are quite a vast number, and it can be difficult to keep track of this. For instance,the scientific name for the most famous of the saber-toothed cats, 'smilodon' comes from σμίλη (smilē):a scalpel or two-edged knife, and 'οδόντος' (odontús) which means tooth. Originally however, it was slated to be Hyaenodon from 'hyena', but then a whole three years later, the discoverer, Peter Wilhelm Lund had found out that another animal already had this name and so changed it to the one used now.
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1466: california pt 2 Dec 16, 2018
The origin of 'California' is from a book, but for a long time there was a lot of difference in opinion on the matter. Some possibly etymologies popped up that were from many different languages, but one that was particularly arresting and plausible was that the word came from 'caliph', as in the root of 'caliphate'. Nevertheless, even once the novel that inspired the name of California was uncovered, many scholars believed that Ordóñez de Montalvo made up the name 'California'—the name for the fictional utopia—at least inspired by 'caliph'. Ultimately, this will never be known for sure.
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