Insult Generator
Testing the theory that putting the word “total”, “complete”, or “absolute” in front of any noun automatically makes for an excellent insult.
Tags: linguistics
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Preserving mother tongues
Hui Jing describes her motivation for creating the lovely Penang Hokkien site:
People who grew up their whole lives in a community that spoke the same mother tongue as themselves would probably find this hard to relate to, but it really was something else to hear my mother tongue streaming out of the speakers of my computer.
She ends with an impassioned call for more local language websites:
If the Internet is meant to enhance the free flow of information and ideas across the world, then creation of content on the web should not largely be limited to English-speaking communities.
Notes on `lang` by Taylor Hunt on CodePen
A really deep dive into the lang attribute, and the :lang() pseudo-class (hitherto unknown to me). This is all proving really useful for a little side project I’m working on.
A typeface is not a tool · Klim Type Foundry
Conceding that a typeface is a tool sounds dangerously close to an excuse: toolmakers cannot be held responsible for things made with their tools, or the tasks leading up to those things. They are only responsible for the making of the tool itself. If a person decides to use a hammer to drive home a screw, then so be it. The hammer was only designed for nails. It’s not our fault the typography doesn’t look good. The typeface is just a tool — you’re using it wrong.
Exploring the Linguistics Behind Regular Expressions
Before reading this article, I didn’t understand regular expressions. But now, having read this article, I don’t understand regular expressions and I don’t understand linguistics. Progress!
Teaching and Brainstorming Inclusive Technical Metaphors - Features - Source: An OpenNews project
Some great ideas here about using metaphors when explaining technical topics.
I really like these four guidelines for good metaphors:
- Complete
- Memorable
- Inclusive
- Accessible
Even Racists Got the Blues – The Geeky Gaeilgeoir
The perils of self-translation.
I’m often baffled by the number of people who seem to think that you can translate from one language to another simply by pulling the words of one language from a dictionary and plugging them into the syntax of the other. It just doesn’t work that way, friends.
Read to the end for a wonderfully delicious twist in the tale.
Amadán.
Malaphors | Unintentional blended idioms and phrases – It’s the cream of the cake!
Some of these really tickle my fancy bone.
That’s the icing on the iceberg
You let the horse out of the cart
What planet are you living under?
That opens a whole other kettle of fish
The cat’s out of the barn
Patience comes to those who wait
That’s right up my cup of tea
Can These Pornographers End ‘MILFs,’ ‘Teens,’ and ‘Thugs’? | The Nation
A fascinating look at an attempt to redefine the taxonomy of online porn.
Porn is part of the ecosystem that tells us what sex and sexuality are. Porn terms are, to use Foucault’s language, part of a network of technologies creating truths about our sexuality.
Reminds of the heady days of 2005, when it was all about tagging and folksonomies.
The project, at its most ambitious, seeks to create a new feedback loop of porn watched and made, unmoored from the vagaries of old, bad, lazy categories.
English as she is spoke
This is truly a book apart.
Translating Gender: Ancillary Justice in Five Languages Alex Dally MacFarlane | Interfictions Online
A fascinating look into the challenges encountered translating Anne Leckie’s excellent Radchaai novels into Bulgarian, German, Hebrew, Japanese, and Hungarian.
What is clear in all of these responses is that by examining the notions of ‘neutral’ and ‘feminine’ in grammar and gender through the lens of translation, we reveal their complexity – and some of their possible futures in languages, in both literature and speech.
Avoiding ‘words to avoid’ | Inside GOV.UK
I love the thinking behind this plugin that highlights the weasel words that politicians are so found of.
xkcd: Syllable Planning
This is called expletive infixation.
I’ll always remember the “Phila-fucking-delphia” example from Steven Pinker’s The Language Instinct:
If you said “Philadel-fucking-phia”, you’d be laughed out of the pool hall.
Benedict Cumberbatch Name Generator
I bet you’re going to just keep clicking and clicking and clicking…
Not click. Not tap. Select. : Cennydd Bowles
Cennydd uses the word “select” as an input-neutral term for what we might be tempted to call clicks or taps. Personally, I like the term “choose”, although that word might have too much intent bundled with it.
ishida >> blog » HTML5 adds new translate attribute
Richard gives the lowdown on the new translate attribute in HTML.
Metaphors we Program By: Space, Action and Society in Java
Linguistics and programming collide in this paper from the 18th Workshop of the Psychology of Programming Interest Group, University of Sussex, September 2006: Lakoffian analysis of the mental models of Java programmers.
Gangsta Lorem ippzle dummy text generator
Spizzle up your tizzle.
New Programming Jargon — Global Nerdy
Some of the best neologisms in programming, many of them to do with bug-fixing.