Passive Aggressive Text Messages: A Primer

One Does Not Simply Walk Into Google Translate

HEH.

March Madness 2015: Wisconsin vs. Stenographer

Word games in addition to basketball games!

Here Are the Best 3 Minutes of Your Day. Guaranteed.

Is this Swedish sign language interpreter the new Numa Numa?

Not Quite the Queen's English

Friday Fun Video: Learn Italian Gestures

   

GRAZIE.

Friday Fun Video: Weird Al Parodies "Blurred Lines"

Well, it's been an absolutely horrible week. Passenger jet shot down over Ukraine, Gaza conflict just provoked an Israeli incursion, and more evidence that our government is completely hopeless both at home and abroad.  Did anything positive even happen this week?  Thank goodness for Weird Al's new video. We could all use a laugh:

Ave atque Vale: Chester Nez (1921-2014)

Mr. Nez was the last of the 29 Navajo Code Talkers of WWII.  The Code Talkers' work was not declassified until 1968 ... and the Japanese never did crack that code.

Monday Therapy: Deciphering Work Emails

Translating work email-ese into plain English!

Tasty Chinese

Here's an interesting post about language, translation, and usage.

I can't help including an anecdote from a big family get-together from a while back.  It was late, and some of us were hungry but too tired to go out, so one of my aunts offered to cook something quickly. How about some frozen dumplings?

OK, said my ever-ravenous brother. "What kind?"

"Big Testy," said my aunt (she's got a rather thick accent.)

"Big WHAT?" 

"Big Testy!"

"Big Testy?" he asked, just to be sure.

My aunt started getting flustered. "Testy!" she repeated. "Testy, testy!  Big!  Testy!"

My brother looked at me and smirked.  I knew exactly what he was thinking.  My mother looked confused.  We didn't bother to enlighten her.  My aunt opened a bag of frozen dumplings and proceeded to empty it into a big pot.

The brother then intercepted the bag before it fell into the trash can.  He read it, started laughing hysterically, and waved it at me.  It read "Big Tasty brand frozen dumplings."

Oh, man.  He and I still laugh about it, the Big Testes Dumplings.

Happy 450th Birthday, William Shakespeare!

Take a moment to appreciate his lasting influence and also to take part in Talk Like Shakespeare Day today!  Have you thought about just how many words and phrases we owe to the Swan of Avon?

"Let It Go" In Multiple Languages

This song from the "Frozen" soundtrack has taken over the universe, but even if you think you never want to hear it again, you'll want to give this version a chance as Elsa sings in every language from French to Thai to Serbian and beyond.

Friday Fun Video: Simpsons International

Quote of the Day: Linguistic Lunacy

Indeed:

"So farcical have the linguistic games become that we have reached a point at which Congress is being instructed that, Assad having crossed a red line that the executive branch didn’t set, it must accord the executive branch the permission that it doesn’t need to start a war that isn’t a war."

"Words, words, mere words, no matter from the heart: The effect doth operate another way."

The line from Shakespeare seems fitting for this.  Do recall this too.

What's In a Name: Literal Geography

A few cartographers had a lot of fun with the "Atlas of True Names" project.  More locations here!

Nerd Notes: How to Teach Good Writing

Good ideas, including (a) tossing out ponderous standard textbooks, and (b) focusing on clarity, clarity, clarity.

Monday Therapy: Design Jargon BS

It's more or less the business version of Nerdish.  Now here's a blog that collects examples from the real world! For instance:

"We formulated a Brand Platform recommendation and an executive consultant facilitated a session to gather input from the working team to refine and finalize the Brand Platform."

Happy 449th Birthday, Will Shakespeare!

Join the fun with the third annual Happy Birthday, Shakespeare online project sponsored by the Shakespeare Birthplace Trust and remember that it's also Talk Like Shakespeare Day!  You can join your fellow fans on Twitter all day long with the #happybirthdayshakespeare hashtag too.

Happy birthday indeed to the sweet swan of Avon, who has given me so much pleasure from the first moment I met him in a children's storybook to right now, when every re-reading of every play yields something fresh and new and wonderful.  The haters can hate all they want; Shakespeare is immortal.

For the quote of the day, I'll give you Ben Jonson's poem "To the Memory of My Beloved Master William Shakespeare, and What He Hath Left Us" and its peerless assessment that Shakespeare was not of an age, but for all time.

The Decline and Fall of the Philadelphia Accent

Say it ain't so?