Sometimes I get really discouraged about all the stuff that’s wrong with the human race… the arguing, the senseless violence, the control-freak posturing and the corruption in every direction. Why don’t people see how stupid all of that is? Why don’t they listen more, put themselves in the shoes of their fellow human beings, tryContinue reading “Translators without Borders and changing the world”
Category Archives: Language
Language, IQ and firstborns
For the past couple of decades, I’ve come in and out of contact with articles saying that firstborn children tend to have better verbal skills, on average, than their younger siblings. This, of course, gelled with my own experience as a preternaturally linguistic firstborn child — my mother recorded my early verbal expressions faithfully, reportingContinue reading “Language, IQ and firstborns”
The art of non-romantic conversation
The best conversation, I think, is serious but jovial, drawing in ideas and reference to some shared joke or reference, sometimes rejoined with a sly observance, contradiction, further witticism, or self-deprecating but hearty laugh. Talking even of the weather leaps from the mundane to the sublime. Whether or not you are equals, you meet asContinue reading “The art of non-romantic conversation”
On joue au couteau
I have a few songs by Coeur de pirate, a female French Canadian singer-songwriter, and recently, a few lines of “Corbeau” (Raven — an omnivorous bird considered an ill omen due to its propensity to feed on flesh, also regaled as an intelligent trickster) caught my ear. C’est dur d’être libre comme toi? Is thisContinue reading “On joue au couteau”
Relativism
What is wrong with the following sentence (other than the obvious heartbreak): “The thing is, is John just doesn’t love me anymore” ? It’s the fake relative pronoun. A relative pronoun, obviously, is a word that begins a relative clause. In the sentence just previous to this one, the word is “that;” essentially, this pronounContinue reading “Relativism”
Affirmative responses: not always so clear cut
English, though not exactly on the same context level as Chinese, can still present problematic nuances to second-language learners, even advanced ones. Consider the following possible affirmative responses (said in a fairly neutral voice) to the rather nerve-wracking request “Would you like to go out with me on Friday? To see that show? I hearContinue reading “Affirmative responses: not always so clear cut”
Between the Walls
We saw the Class yesterday, though at first I had sort of hesitated, asking myself if I really wanted to relive teaching unmotivated French adolescents from the lower classes. Class, itself, has its own subtleties. It always does. I had my jaw agape the whole way through thinking that this had to be some sortContinue reading “Between the Walls”
The non-localizable language
Watching a documentary on the practice of rumspringa (“running around,” sometimes also referring to the whole period of adolescence), when 16-year-old Amish kids release themselves from their normal boundaries and go out into the world (or out into the back field) to taste and see if they want to live as others do, or elseContinue reading “The non-localizable language”
Work-related
You know how those savvy lifestyle gurus write nice little forwards to their magazine content every issue? Now it’s my turn. I feel like Martha Stewart crossed with Noam Chomsky crossed with a hillbilly.
Bateke scanning
I am scanning and scanning and scanning, page by page, a book I got by interlibrary loan, because I have not had time to sufficiently memorize it in the allotted time of a few weeks; it is a French / French Congo Bateke dictionary. This book, by the way, was published in 1911 and hasContinue reading “Bateke scanning”
Botkin Creative 