Cool, and Cyrillic

This is very cool. It’s an explanation of how Russian written on Western keyboards leads to new words for things. From the ever-marvellous Language Log.

PeBloWriMo is over but I won’t stop blogging entirely; however, it felt like too many of my posts were lytdybrs (see link in previous paragraph) and I won’t write unless I have some germ of an inkling of what to say. Or fun links to post.

“No accent”

In the previous post I mentioned some inane commentary from one of the people who were part of the staff on Buffy. I won’t mention any names because this thing is Googlable, but it was one of the creators of the show, not one of the actors. And yes, she did say some really stupid things. Such as the line “James Marsters isn’t British… in fact he has no accent!” James Marsters, for those who don’t know Buffy at all, is an actor who plays a vampire with a “British” accent. (In fact, once you know he’s American, you can hear the non-Britishisms from time to time, although I do think he does a good British accent - but then, I’m foreign.) However, he as I just said he is American, you can hear him in this clip from an interview, and would you say he had no accent? He has a normal, not particularly broad American accent, that’s what. And claiming that somebody - anybody - has no accent is just an ignorant thing to say.

And that’s quite enough of that.

After, I watched another episode commented by Joss Whedon, and that was great fun. He says the oddest thing with a completely deadpan intonation, it’s excellent. Yay Joss.

Oh dear

A large Swedish daily newspaper has an article about netiquette and how to (not) write a successful business email. And some of what they say is correct. Only, some of it isn’t. And I know this, because it’s what I write about in That Thesis. So do I drop them an email and say “Um, no, actually it’s fine to begin a business email with ‘Hello [first name]‘, especially to the US, or ‘Dear [first name]‘, especially to Britain; and almost nobody opens an email with ‘Dear Sir’, and in fact most USAnians open business email to utter strangers with only the person’s first name - and ‘best regards’ is a perfectly fine ending in a business email to Britain as well as the US, ‘Yours faithfully’ is like ‘Dear Sir’, so formal it’s almost insulting.”?

But then, the result of such an email would either be that the journalist would ignore it, or else misinterpret and mis-quote me. And after all the thesis isn’t finished yet so I shouldn’t go pretending to actually know anything (although I do!) No, it would end in tears. I’ll be quiet and let any Swedish businessmen who take that advice make fools of themselves - which is probably all for the best.

[Edited later: Bother. Somehow - I have no idea how it happened - this post was linked from the article, in their list of blogs that link to them. That is not supposed to happen unless you ask for it to happen which I certainly didn't, but in any case I removed the link to the article from the post and hopefully that will remove the link from the article to the post. If anybody wants to read the article you can go to dn.se and look up the article called "Bomma inte e-tiketten".]

Face in the real world

Here and here is a little more about negative and positive face, in connection with politeness strategies - using positive and negative face applied to other people, to make them feel better - because if others feel good, we feel good, or so the theory goes. It’s pretty interesting, and it works subtly differently in diffferent cultures which makes it even more interesting.

It suddenly struck me that the other day was the 15th, which was the date when the IPrA were going to decide which submitted papers they would accept, for the 10th International Pragmatics Conference. So I logged in, and found that my Pending status was changed to Accepted. So there I’ll be, lecturing on the use of address phrases in email to the big-name pragmaticists of the world. Eek but also yay.

Here is a nice blog I found not very long ago: Sociolinguistics and CMC. (CMC in this context being computer mediated communication, which is what my PhD is all about). It’s written mostly by graduate students, and there are more posts that raise interesting questions than posts that answer them; but the field is too young to have a lot of decisive answers anyway. I think it’s quite interesting reading.

Language Log is one of the best linguistic weblogs around. Read this post by Geoffrey K Pullum, for instance. (It concerns less and fewer and why less than three is a perfectly grammatical construction). I could give you lots of other example posts to read as well, but on the whole, it is almost always worth reading. (No, not only if you are a linguist.) Relevant topics, often entertainingly discussed. A really good blog about language. How could it possibly be better?

Here it is: Language Log.

I suppose that when you are a published academic, you are expected to be so high above worldly concerns that seeing your name in print is of no consequence. Well, sod that for a game of soldiers (as Terry would say.) I’m published! In vol 66 of Neuphilologische Mitteilungen, ISSN 0028-3754; my paper is on p 295-305.

I think that is extremely cool. So there.

Right, so this is a) only funny if you know Swedish and b) rather rude. It will help having some knowledge of the Värmland dialect as well (more specifically, in the ways that it is lexically similar to Norwegian).

This was published in Expressen a few days ago. My colleague Kicki (who does have some knowledge of the Värmland dialect) showed it to me, and we wondered together if that was the same edition of the rag in question that was published in Karlstad? Yes, knowing a bit about language is important…

Babelfish provides hours of fun—but now I’ve found an online translation tool that transfers English into almost, but not completely, unintellegible Swedish. I entered a paragraph from this blog and translated it into “Swedish”. Here is the result:

I stället Jag har rättvis läsa Jane Yolen’s Briar Ros , en ovanlig Holocaust berättelse vävt tillsammans med en re - talande av Sovande Skönhet. Den er en ung vuxen roman , med en hellre uncomplicated , uppriktig jordbit ( och en kom framträdande vid staden av Torun ) ; så undersåten materia vinerna , ändå , den er icke i en uncomplicated bok , till vara placera ned obekymrad efter den er färdig. JAG vill inte försök till definiera vad göra den ovanlig I’ll behov till re - läsa den första , JAG tänka. Den central lokalerna om jordbit är en söka , en sökande av slagen , för historien av en gammal dam vem dör inne mitt om henne älskande familj , ingen om vem veta henne verklig namn eller var hon kom från originellt. En om dams bagen stor daughters—the ungast av tre syster , ja , för når det den här er på en måte en saga also—undertakes söcken , och så JAG omtalat det er icke mycket invecklat , en annan författare kunde har gjord den mycket mer besvärlig , utom JAG få kännanden så pass för Yolen grunden er icke den all - viktig sak. Vad er mer viktig de/vi/du/ni är den se en skymt av av historia , den inblicken in i vad göra en person en hjälte , en bov eller en på - såg i en desperat läge , och den fläta samman om gammal och den ny berättelse. Vilken är vackert gjort.

“Måte”? Since when is that a Swedish word? (Norwegian isn’t Swedish, you know.) And “ungast”. . . no, words fail me—I laugh ’til I cry instead. Let’s translate the paragraph back to English, using the same tool. . .

Instead I have just read Jane Yolen’s Briar Rose , a unusual Holocaust tale wove together with a territory expressive of Asleep Beauty. It’s a young adult novel , with a rather uncomplicated , frank plot ( and a arrived appearance wide cities of Torun ) ; so subject matter hints , yet , it’s by no means a uncomplicated book , to be put down unconcerned behind it’s completed. I will nots try to define what make the unusual I’ll need to territory read the first , SELF think. The central premises if plot is a search , a quest of down and out , for affair by an old lady whom dies in the midst of hers loving family , none of whom know hers substantial name ors each she came from originally. A if lady’s bag grand daughters—the youngest of three sister , yes , for after all this yourself in a way a f*** also—undertakes search , and so SELF mentioned it is not much good complicated , another author be able had made it much more troublesome , except SELF poll feeling that for Yolen grounds aren’t the all matters of importance. What is more important they / wes / yous / yous is the glimpse of stories , the insight into what make a person a hero , a villain ors a on saws in an desperate situation , and the interlace if stale and the fresh tale. Which is beautifully done.

As I say, hours of fun! The toy is found here.