November | 2014 | Arnold Zwicky's Blog

Archive for November, 2014

xkcd cartoons

November 14, 2014

I’ve created a Page on my blog —

xkcd cartoons

on Language Log and AZBlog postings of and about xkcd cartoons. This is a publicly accessible compendium of this material. (I’m gradually turning my private lists of various sorts into such Pages. The initial investment of time and work is quite considerable, but afterwards they’re fairly easy to maintain, really no more difficult than my private lists were.)

The current list of Pages can be viewed on the right side of my blog, and any Page can be viewed from there by clicking on its name.

I welcome comments (by e-mail to me) on omissions in these lists and corrections to them.

Posted in Linguistics in the comics, Resources | Leave a Comment »

A ride on the Reading Railroad

November 13, 2014

(Not much about language, but mostly about my life, train travel, and train stations.)

From Ann Burlingham, this card in the game of Monopoly, which she posted on Facebook in connection with a story about the Koch Brothers’ campaign against high-speed rail in the U.S.:

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I grew up in a suburb of Reading PA, from which the Reading Railroad got its name, and I traveled often on the railroad in my childhood and young adult years. It was the route to Philadelphia, and, beyond that, to Princeton and on to New York City.

(more…)

Posted in My life | 4 Comments »

bigger

November 13, 2014

Today’s One Big Happy has Ruthie and James at cross-purposes on the semantics of bigger:

The adjective big and its comparative form bigger are understood with reference to some scale S: X is big if it’s towards the high end of S, and X is bigger than Y if it’s higher on S than Y is. What distinguishes Ruthie and James is the S that they’re appealing to. For Ruthie, S is the ordering of natural numbers 1, 2, 3, … (which makes sense in the strip, since the context is a discussion of arithmetic), but for James, it’s the ordering of written symbols according to their physical size.

Posted in Linguistics in the comics, Semantics | Leave a Comment »

Two-fisted, bruised-knuckle science

November 13, 2014

Yesterday’s Scenes From a Multiverse (“Going Rogue”, on-line here) gets scientifically aggressive:

Note the names of the weaponry, with their references to the two faces of American science in the popular media, Neil deGrasse Tyson and Bill Nye.

(more…)

Posted in Linguistics in the comics, Names, Science | Leave a Comment »

Trademark annals

November 12, 2014

From Victor Steinbok, a link to this story from KHON-TV (in Honolulu HI) on the 10th: “Noh Foods sued over ‘Huli-Huli’ trademark infringement” by Manolo Morales, beginning:

A mainland company that makes Huli-Huli sauce has sued a local company that makes Hula-Huli sauce.

Huli-huli may be a familiar term in Hawaii, but when it comes down to it, mainland-based Pacific Poultry Company owns the rights to it. So other companies would need permission to use it.

Legal details to follow. But first, about those sauces.

(more…)

Posted in Language and food, Language and the law | Leave a Comment »

Paper vs. screens: handwriting

November 12, 2014

Briefly noted.

In the latest NewScientist (for11/1/14), a piece by Tiffany O’Callaghan, “Goodbye, paper: What we miss when we read on screen”, subtitled “Digital technology is transforming the way we read and write. Is it changing our minds too – and if so, for better or worse?”. A report on reading and writing on paper vs. on-screen. O’Callaghan observes that, for the most part, there’s been plenty of speculation, but very little conclusive research. We don’t really know much. One notable exception, in a box on the work of neuroscientist Karin James of Indiana Univ.:

Writing freehand, then, seems to be an important part of learning to read – but does the type of handwriting make a difference? Some schools have stopped teaching cursive or joined-up writing. In the US, for instance, it is not part of the national curriculum adopted by 46 states, though it has been reinstated by some states in response to a public outcry. When it comes to learning to read, though, James has found that writing in cursive doesn’t seem to add anything to the mix. “It seems like it’s any kind of creation of a letter by hand that makes the difference,” she says.

That is, the physical action of writing, in whatever style, facilitates learning to read.

Posted in Language technology, Writing | Leave a Comment »

Calendar boys

November 11, 2014

From Victor Steinbok, a link to the Hunks & Horses charity calendar, showing off naked guys and their horses. For June 2014:

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Tons of naked hunk charity calendars are available, especially from the U.K. (as here), working for various worthy causes. In this case:

Hunks & Horses charity calendars are filled with, well, hunks and beautiful horses! All proceeds from every calendar, and associated events, are donated equally between World Horse Welfare and Testicular Cancer Research UK.

On to a note about the title of this posting, which plays on the song title “Calendar Girl”, and then back to the hunks.

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Posted in Calendars, Gender and sexuality, Language and the body, Music | 1 Comment »

Sweetgum

November 11, 2014

As I sit at my computer, I can see, out the front window, over the patio wall, the trees in the back of the Palo Alto downtown library, currently featuring an American sweetgum (Liquidambar styraciflua) in its bright red fall coloring. A very cheering sight. A stock photo from the net:

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(more…)

Posted in Eggcorns, Language and plants | 3 Comments »

I’ve got a lovely bunch of coconuts

November 10, 2014

A photo taken by Ned Deily yesterday on the patio at Coconuts Caribbean Restaurant, just up the street from me in Palo Alto: a flashing green coconut palm:

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An ornament to the neighborhood.

(more…)

Posted in Language and food, Language and plants, Music | Leave a Comment »

Monday quartet

November 10, 2014

Four varied cartoons in this morning’s crop: a Zits on address terms; a Scenes From a Multiverse on symbols; a Rhymes With Orange on case-marking of pronouns with than; and a Zippy reviving Doggie Diner.

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