Advanced English Skills

Slang of the Day | Vocabulary | EnglishClub oi! a sound used to attract someone's attention, like "hey!" ➖ @EngSkills ➖

Phrasal Verb of the Day | Vocabulary | EnglishClub turn around to change something unsuccessful into something successful ➖ @EngSkills ➖

Word of the Day exothermic Definition: (adjective) Releasing heat. Synonyms: heat-releasing, exothermal. Usage: Scientists use a calorimeter to measure the amount of heat released during an exothermic reaction. Discuss ➖ @EngSkills ➖

Idiom of the Day be in for a surprise To be guaranteed to receive or experience an unexpected outcome, especially a negative one. Watch the video ➖ @EngSkills ➖

countermand

dea that the GRd are string games in the Hamiltonian mode, I am pleased that he takes into consideration the astronomical, zodiacal, calendrical aspects of the device. Selected readings * "Roman dodecahedra between Southeast Asia and England, part 2" (5/12/24) * "Ask Language Log: One = only one?" (7/22/11) — philosophy of Sir William Hamilton * "Roman dodecahedra between Southeast Asia and England" (4/30/24) * "Wheat and word: astronomy and the origins of the alphabet" (3/15/24) — with references to seven substantial papers on this subject by Brian Pellar * "The Alphabet and the Zodiac" (12/6/22) [Thanks to Jing Hu] ➖ @EngSkills ➖

Language Log Roman dodecahedra between Southeast Asia and England, part 3 I stopped short when I passed by this piece of gym equipment in a kindergarten playground near my home. http://languagelog.ldc.upenn.edu/~bgzimmer/dodeca1.jpg http://languagelog.ldc.upenn.edu/~bgzimmer/dodeca2.jpg "What," I thought, "another Gallo-Roman dodecahedron right in my own backyard?  Am I seeing things because I've been too preoccupied with Gallo-Roman dodecahedra (GRd) for the past few weeks?" But this was not a dodecahedron; it was (I think) a modified decahedron, and SFAIK it has nothing to do with the alphazodiac. Speaking of which, here is a dodecahedron created by a Slovakian astronomer, each face labeled with its appropriate constellation of the zodiac: http://languagelog.ldc.upenn.edu/~bgzimmer/dodeca3.jpg Folded and glued: http://languagelog.ldc.upenn.edu/~bgzimmer/dodeca4.jpg (source) Here is an Italian leather and wood dodecahedron decorated with the signs of the zodiac: http://languagelog.ldc.upenn.edu/~bgzimmer/dodeca5.jpg (source) The knobs at the vertices are said to be for the protection of the faces when the device is placed on a surface.  I myself, during an idle moment today, thought that, whatever else they may have been intended for, the knobs keep the device from rolling over onto another face.  The five projecting "feet" keep the dodecahedron solidly and securely seated (Gr -edron < hedra,L sedere, sit) (Collins) As for the purpose / use of the dodecahedra, Thomas Lee Mair offered these helpful notes: I was relieved to see that someone (Brian?) mentioned a possible military association, such as rangefinding. The organization of the legions is a subject worthy of consideration. We all know the importance of the aquila to the generals, and to the emperor. I will never forget the scene in "I, Claudius" when the Caesar Augustus is informed that his armies have been lost, in Dacia I believe. Caesar, played by Brian Blessed, enters into an apoplectic fit, screaming like a baby having a tantrum: "I want my Eagles back! I want my Eagles back!" It's an unforgettable scene, and not easily understood until we realize that the Eagles were the embodiment of the Roman Legions. The tantrum is frightening to witness. There are so many plausible ideas mentioned in the comment section to your previous two posts that I hesitate to put forward another idea, based purely on speculation. To me it seems apparent that these were restricted items, reserved either for scientists, scholars, astrologists, priests, or generals. Otherwise they would appear in the literature. It might be worth considering if these were symbols of military authority that were held in secret, to be returned to Rome or to be buried if the legion were in desperate straits. This reasoning is compatible with the GRd as astronomical-calculatory device hypothesis that I thought they were from the beginning.  It also has the added advantage of explaining where they have been found.  I surmise that the GRd were like basic, simplified, portable astrolabes (precursors to the sextant), which were amazingly versatile and could solve more than a thousand different kinds of astronomical and mathematical problems. In modern times, the Irish mathematician William Rowan Hamilton invented a mathematical game called the Icosian game, which involved finding a Hamiltonian cycle that followed the edges of a dodecahedron and passes through all of its vertices.  It came close to becoming a commercial success and he even created a travel version of the game. Here are four blog posts on "Roman Dodecahedrons" (I, II, III, IV) by a scientifically minded Australian engineer tinkerer named Gavin.  They are extraordinarily detailed and attentive to the demands of verifiability and falsifiability.  Although he is wedded to the i[...]

Language Log Shameful grass Liwei Jiao sent in this photograph from a park in Hefei, China: http://languagelog.ldc.upenn.edu/~bgzimmer/grasssmiled.jpg Such notices (do not disturb; tiny grass is sleeping / dreaming / smiling) are virtually a genre unto themselves (see here), with many variants and classics that can suck you in for an afternoon, and since I haven't written about them for awhile, and since this one can teach us something interesting about botany, I decided to write this brief post about it. xiǎo cǎo hánxiū xiào 小草含羞笑 the tiny grass is smiling shyly / bashfully qǐng nín wù dǎrǎo 请您勿打扰    (您 is honorific 2nd person) please don't disturb Inept use of the embarrassingly creepy Chinese adverb for smiling here is further muddled by the fact that it serves as a descriptor for grass to form the plant name hánxiū cǎo 含羞草  ("mimosa; shameplant" — it swiftly draws back and closes up if you so much as touch it).  A lot more could be said about the plant and the cocktail named after it, but that's a rabbit hole I'd rather not go down this afternoon. Selected reading "Tiny grass is dreaming" (5/24/12) "Chinglish trifecta" (11/14/23) — third item ➖ @EngSkills ➖

Language Log Multiple possible parsings of strings of sinographs Chinese signs collected by Zeyao Wu: http://languagelog.ldc.upenn.edu/~bgzimmer/zeyaowu1.png 本店/有/嬰兒被/賣 or 本店/有/嬰兒/被賣 běn diàn yǒu yīng'ér bèi mài this shop has baby   passive signifier; blanket for sale "this shop has baby blankets for sale" or "this shop has had babies for sale" http://languagelog.ldc.upenn.edu/~bgzimmer/zeyaowu2.png 歡迎/新老師生/前來就餐 or 歡迎/新老師/生前/來就餐 huānyíng xīn lǎo   shī        shēng     qián     lái     jiùcān welcome new old teachers students before come dine "welcome new and old teachers and students to come and dine" or "welcome new teachers to come and dine while they are still alive" (other interpretations are also possible) http://languagelog.ldc.upenn.edu/~bgzimmer/zeyaowu3.png 小便/當/湯 or 小便當/湯 xiǎo   biàn             dāng tāng small convenience serve as / structive morpheme (borrowed from Japanese)   soup N.B.:  當 has multiple etymological derivations, multiple pronunciations, and more than two dozen different meanings and functions (source) "pee as soup" or "small bento / tiffin / lunchbox — soup" 大便/當/飯 or 大便當/飯 dà biàn              dāng fàn big convenience serve as / structive morpheme (borrowed from Japanese)  rice / meal "poo as meal" or "big bento / tiffin / lunchbox — meal" http://languagelog.ldc.upenn.edu/~bgzimmer/zeyaowu4.png 廣州市/人和/母豬/配種/繁殖/基地 or 廣州市人和母豬/配種/繁殖/基地 (人和 is a place in Guangzhou). Guǎngzhōu shì  rén      hé    mǔ                     zhū pèizhǒng fánzhí           jīdì Guangzhou city human and  mother / female pig breeding  reproduction base "Guangzhou city Renhe base for sow breeding and reproduction" or "Guangzhou city base for human and sow breeding and reproduction" Lordy me!  Gotta be on your toes when you read sinographic texts. Selected readings * "Greater and lesser conveniences" (6/25/14) * "Linguistic advice in the lavatory: speaking Mandarin is a great convenience for everyone" (9/11/07) * "Sign everywhere" (3/11/13) * "Literary Sinitic / Classical Chinese dependency parsing" (11/27/19) [Thanks to Diana Shuheng Zhang and Jing Hu] ➖ @EngSkills ➖

nown Chinese characters" (12/3/13) * "'No' in Chinese" (3/19/19) * "Keep on -inging" (10/30/17) * "I don't feel OK" (12/27/18) * "Burlesque Matinée at the Max Planck Gesellschaft" (12/4/08) * "The degendering of the third person pronoun in Mandarin" (12/12/13) * "cactus wawa: the strange tale of a strange character" (11/1/14) * "Cactus Wawa revisited" (4/24/16) * "Sino-Japanese aesthetics and a new mode of translation" (10/28/21) COMMENT: A note that Kirinputra wrote to me separately a few days ago: BTW written Taioanese is far from new (and written Hokkien & Teochew are older than Taioanese itself). It has just been marginalized so that it perpetually seems new to some critical mass of observers, of which I used to be one. ➖ @EngSkills ➖