world news Rush to Vote-by-Mail could cost Dems the ElectionMail-in Voting puts Millions of Minority Ballots at Risk By www.gregpalast.com Published On :: Thu, 16 Apr 2020 18:22:50 +0000 I get it: We all must vote by mail—or we die. There is really no other safe choice. But there is much to fear, with a switch to all-mail voting—unless our broken absentee ballot system is fixed. Here’s what the “Go Postal” crowd doesn’t tell youThe post Rush to Vote-by-Mail could cost Dems the Election<div id='sec-title'>Mail-in Voting puts Millions of Minority Ballots at Risk</div> appeared first on Greg Palast. Full Article Articles absentee ballots Amy Klobuchar How Trump Stole 2020 mail in ballot NVRA Ohio voter id Wisconsin
world news How Trump Stole 2020: A Facebook LIVE Event By www.gregpalast.com Published On :: Sat, 18 Apr 2020 04:00:34 +0000 How Trump Stole 2020: A Facebook LIVE Event — previewing Palast’s new book, which reveals how Trump’s already got the November election in the bag, featuring exclusive reports from the scene of the crime. Hosted by Thom Hartmann and incl. interviews with Barbara Arnwine, Lee Camp, Nomi Prins, David Cay Johnston, Dennis Bernstein, Cary Harrison, Josh Fox & more!The post How Trump Stole 2020: A Facebook LIVE Event appeared first on Greg Palast. Full Article Articles Elections Podcasts Video reports election fraud Election2020 elections Facebook Live How Trump Stole 2020 voter suppression voting
world news Deepwater Horizon: BP’s SECOND BlowoutThe Secret History - 10 Year Anniversary By www.gregpalast.com Published On :: Mon, 20 Apr 2020 00:06:15 +0000 Ten years ago, April 20, 11 men on the Deepwater Horizon were incinerated when the BP/Transocean oil rig blew out and exploded. Just 17 months before the Deepwater Horizon destroyed 600 miles of Gulf Coast, BP covered up aThe post Deepwater Horizon: BP’s SECOND Blowout<div id='sec-title'>The Secret History - 10 Year Anniversary</div> appeared first on Greg Palast. Full Article Articles Azerbaijan British Petroleum Caspian sea Chelsea Manning Chevron Deepwater Horizon Ecuador Exxon
world news Palast on Staying Home with Josh Fox: Let voters choose the politicians not other way around By www.gregpalast.com Published On :: Wed, 22 Apr 2020 20:59:41 +0000 There is much to fear, especially for minority and young voters, with a switch to all-mail voting — unless our system is fixed. Palast and Fox discuss the challenges our democracy faces during the coronavirus pandemic and what we need to do toThe post Palast on Staying Home with Josh Fox: Let voters choose the politicians not other way around appeared first on Greg Palast. Full Article Articles Elections Environment Interviews & Chats Podcasts Coronavirus COVID-19 elections Josh Fox Pandemic voting Wisconsin
world news Election Crimes Bulletin: How Trump Stole 2020— And How We Can Steal It Back! By www.gregpalast.com Published On :: Thu, 23 Apr 2020 17:32:01 +0000 Bernstein delves into Palast’s new book, How Trump Stole 2020, which serves as a warning — and a guide to how we can steal the election back!The post Election Crimes Bulletin: How Trump Stole 2020<div id='sec-title'>— And How We Can Steal It Back!</div> appeared first on Greg Palast. Full Article Articles Audio Reports Elections Interviews & Chats Podcasts Coronavirus COVID-19 elections Josh Fox Pandemic voting Wisconsin
world news We Won’t Lift the Quarantine on Kemp By www.gregpalast.com Published On :: Sun, 26 Apr 2020 08:26:35 +0000 When Donald Trump thinks you’re Looney Tunes, time to get professional help, Mr. Kemp. But in the storm over Kemp's goofball “opening,” Kemp's other threat to Georgians has gone unnoticedThe post We Won’t Lift the Quarantine on Kemp appeared first on Greg Palast. Full Article Articles Brian Kemp Coronavirus Georgia
world news Palast & Hartmann: How Trump Stole 2020 — A Warning! By www.gregpalast.com Published On :: Thu, 30 Apr 2020 10:29:18 +0000 Trump & Co are stealing the election right now, but we can steal it back. We can beat the ballot bandits. Watch this video of my conversation with constitutional expert and broadcaster Thom Hartmann — then pre-order my new book, How Trump Stole 2020, to find out how!The post Palast & Hartmann: How Trump Stole 2020 — A Warning! appeared first on Greg Palast. Full Article Articles Elections Interviews & Chats Podcasts Coronavirus COVID-19 elections Florida Georgia Ohio Pandemic Thom Hartmann voting Wisconsin
world news Palast & David Cay Johnston: How Trump Stole 2020 — A Warning! By www.gregpalast.com Published On :: Sat, 09 May 2020 16:38:07 +0000 They don’t steal votes to steal elections. They steal votes to steal the money. If you can steal an election, you’ve stolen the keys to the treasury — our treasury. In this conversation, award-winning investigative reporters and authors Greg Palast and David Cay Johnston follow the (stolen) money, and expose the billionaires and ballots bandits who are systematically stripping the United States of its assets, just as a vulture fund would with a corporate entity caught in its talons.The post Palast & David Cay Johnston: How Trump Stole 2020 — A Warning! appeared first on Greg Palast. Full Article Articles Billionaires Elections Interviews & Chats Podcasts Uncategorized Coronavirus COVID-19 David Cay Johnston elections Florida Georgia John Paulson Ohio Pandemic Steve Mnuchin voting Wisconsin
world news Review: Linguistics: why it matters by Geoffrey Pullum By separatedbyacommonlanguage.blogspot.com Published On :: Wed, 26 Jun 2019 22:43:00 +0000 It's National Writing Day (for another 48 minutes) and I've reali{s/z}ed that I haven't written anything but emails and tweets today. So a blog post is needed. But a short one. Luckily, I have a very short book to review. The book is the linguistic installation of Polity Press's 'why it matters' series, and it's by the exceptionally clear Geoff Pullum. Here come the full disclosures: I know Geoff and I got this book for free. But I wouldn't say nice things about the book if I didn't mean them. (I'd just save myself the trouble of writing a blog post about it.)So, since it's by the exceptionally clear Geoff Pullum, this is an exceptionally clear book. It's just 120-something pages, divided into five themed chapters on why linguistics matters: for what it tells us about what makes us human, about how sentences work, how meaning, thought and language intertwine, how it uncovers social relations, and how it might help machines understand humans. I particularly admire Geoff's ability to write short sentences about complex topics. (That's lesson 1 in making things exceptionally clear—complex topics aren't helped by grammatically complex sentences!) The real value of the book is in the examples that show how linguistics does matter—for expanding human understanding, for uncovering and undoing prejudices, and in applications that can help people. Here's the bit that I most enthusiastically underlined:[T]o a large extent the importance of linguistics has turned out to lie not so much in the results it has achieved (those evolve over time and are often overturned or contradicted) but in the change in the general view of what's important enough to study. It lies in our moral evolution of our perception of what we should be looking at and what we should value. That leads into a discussion of the shift from thinking of signed languages as gesticulations to their recognition as complex languages that are as languagey as any other human languages. But I think it could have introduced many of the sections. I do believe that linguistics has done a lot of good in the world in the past 50 or so years, and a lot of that is about valuing people and their languages. Though the book is only long enough for a few examples of that, they're great examples. The ideal audience for this book? I think it would make an excellent present from any students studying (or planning to study) linguistics to their parents. When your parents' friends ask them "What's your kid up to?" and they say "Studying Linguistics", the conversation usually DIES. Give them the gift of knowing how to talk up your fascinating studies! It'd also be great for anyone considering studying linguistics, or who just thinks: "That sounds like an interesting subject, but I don't quite know what it's for." (It's mostly not about translation or language teaching, by the way.) Geoff blogged about writing the book, which you can read here.Here's a link to the publisher's site. It's only giving me the UK buying links, but I hope that if you approach it from another country you'll get the appropriate page! Full Article books
world news grammar is relationships By separatedbyacommonlanguage.blogspot.com Published On :: Fri, 09 Aug 2019 22:22:00 +0000 This is not a post about American versus British English. I hope you’ll indulge me. It's come out of some Twitter conversations this afternoon. It started when I read this sentence in James Pennebaker’s book The Secret Life of Pronouns:Function words require social skills to use properly.And I wondered how it had got(ten) past a copyeditor. So I did a Twitter poll to see if other people were happy with the sentence. The poll looked like this: "Function words require social skills to use properly"Is this sentence:— Lynne Murphy (@lynneguist) August 9, 2019 So, 25% of more than 300 people thought it sounded fine. 75% felt there was something weird about it. Given how I phrased the question, it's possible that the 75% had 100 different reasons for thinking it weird. But considering some of the tweet-replies I had, I know that at least some people had the same reaction that I did. The problem with the sentence for me is that there is no reasonable subject for the verb to use. Compare it to this sentence with the same kinds of parts in the same order: The law requires every driver to drive safely.In that case, the subject of the infinitive to drive is every driver—every driver is to drive safely. So, what you've got is:Main verb: requiresSubject of main verb: the lawObject of main verb = infinitive clause: every driver to drive safelyBut that doesn't work for Pennebaker's sentence. Social skills to use properly is not a complete clause because (a) there's no object of the verb to use (to use what properly?), and (b) social skills is in a position where it could be the subject of to use (as in the driving example), but it's not. The sentence could be "fixed" in a number of ways that involve making it clearer that function words are the things being used.Make the infinitive into a passive, so it's clear that function words is the object of use: Function words require social skills to be used properly. Move use closer to function words so that it's clear how they relate to each other: To use function words properly requires social skills. (Or Using function words properly requires social skills.)Move function words closer to use: It takes social skills to use function words properly.Number 1 is a little ambiguous (it sounds a bit like function words are bossing social skills around), so I'd prefer 2 or 3, where it's really clear that function words is the object of use. But there are sentences with require that do work more like Pennebaker's sentence:Crops require water to grow.Here, it's not the water that's growing, it's the crops. So it doesn't work like the driving sentence—the object of require is not water to grow. In both sentences, I've put the object of require in blue, so you can see that the sentences have different structures. Another way that you can tell they're different structures is that you can replace to with in order to in one and not the other and can rephrase one with that and no to, but not the other.The law requires every passenger in order to drive safely.Crops require water in order to grow. The law requires that every driver drive safely. [or drives if you're not a subjunctive user]Crops require that water grow.So one of the reasons I wanted to write this post is to make this big point: Grammar isn't just where words go in a sentence, it's how they relate to each other.The fact that the crops sentence is the same shape as Pennebaker's sentence doesn't mean that Pennebaker's sentence is grammatical, because it still has the problem that there is no subject for to use. Notice that it can't be rephrased in either of the ways that the other two can:Function words require social skills in order to use properlyFunction words require that social skills use properlyThe last possibility is to interpret use as being in middle voice (as opposed to active or passive voice). This is when the verb acts kind of like a passive (where what would have been the active object becomes the subject), but doesn't get the passive be +past participle form. English has some verbs that work this way.I cut the bread easily. (active voice: subject is the cutter)The bread is cut easily. (passive voice: subject is what's cut)The bread cuts easily. (middle voice: subject is what's cut)Grammar Girl has a podcast and post on middle voice in English if you're interested. English has more of a 'middlish' voice than a 'middle', as we're really limited in how we can use it and it doesn't have a special verb form, as it does in some other languages. As Grammar Girl notes:[English] middle-voice sentences usually include some adverbial meaning, negation, or a modal verb, or a combination of the three. “The spearheads didn’t cast very well” has both negation (“didn’t”) and an adverb phrase (“very well”). “The screw screwed in more easily than I thought it would” has the adverb phrase “more easily than I thought it would.” While Pennebaker's sentence does have an adverb, properly, it's not one that I'm super-comfortable using with a middle construction (?The bread cuts properly), but maybe some people would like it better than I do. (Proper is used more as an adjective and adverb of intensity in some colloquial BrEs than in my AmE.)So, are the 25% who like the sentence reading it as having middle voice? I'm not totally convinced, because I think that the English middle doesn't do well with fancier sentence constructions as with require:?That bread requires a good knife to cut easily.?That bread requires a steady hand to cut easily.Putting an object between requires and to makes it confusing—is it the bread or the knife/hand that is cutting easily? If it's the knife or hand, then the sentence would usually require an it to stand for the bread: The bread requires a good knife to cut it easily. So, anyhow, when I put the Pennebaker sentence up, some people wondered if it was like this dialect phenomenon, found in some parts of the US (particularly western Pennsylvania) and some parts of the UK (particularly Scotland):The car needs washed.It was natural for them to make that connection because both Pennebaker's sentence and the needs washed sentence would work in other dialects if the final verb were made passive. But note that what needs to be added to the sentences to create a passive is different in the two cases. In needs washed, the washed is in the past participle needed for a passive. But in Pennebaker's sentence the infinitive verb is not in any way in passive form. The car needs to be washed. The function words require social skills to be used properly. So, I asked the 25% who accepted the sentence to write back and tell me where they were from. And it turns out they're from anywhere.... New Jersey, California, New England, southeastern US, eastern and western Canada, up and down the UK, the Caribbean. That makes it look like it's not a dialect feature. An interesting thing about the 25%, though, was that a few got in touch to say: "I clicked that the sentence was fine for me, but once I started thinking about it, I was less sure." After the dialect idea didn't pan out, I joked that the next step was to give personality tests to people who didn't like the sentence. And while it was a joke, I think there is probably something to the idea that some people read for meaning and don't get the grammatical 'clang' that I got because getting the meaning is good enough. If they can get the meaning without a deep look at the grammar, the grammar is irrelevant. I'd wonder if people who get a 'clang' with this sentence are also more likely to also notice misplaced modifiers and dangling participles. A lot of us who notice these things notice them because we've been trained in looking at language analytically, or we're just very literal readers. Had I heard Pennebaker's sentence, I probably wouldn't have noticed that there was no workable subject for the verb use. I would have just understood it and gone merrily on my way. But in reading, CLANG. Anyhow, the main reason I wanted to blog this was to make that point that Grammar is how words relate to each other. That two sentences with the same shape can be working in very different ways. And on that note, I'll leave you with an experiment that Carol Chomsky did way back when. She gave children a doll with a blindfold over its eyes and asked them if this sentence was true—and if not, to make the sentence true. The doll is easy to see. Notice how that sentence doesn't work like this sentence:The doll is eager to see.In the first, the doll is being seen. We can paraphrase it as The doll is easy for me to see. In the second, the doll is who will do the seeing. We can't paraphrase it as The doll is eager for me to see, because it means The doll is eager for the doll to see. The words easy and eager determine how we interpret the relations of the other words in the sentence. In linguistic terms, they license different relationships in the sentence. (In these sentences it's adjectives doing that relationship-determining, but in most sentences, it's the verbs. In our requires sentences above, we can see that require licenses a range of possible sentence structures—words do that too.)Understanding that a blindfolded doll is easy to see is something that most kids don't master till they're into their school years. When asked to make the doll easy to see, the younger kids take off the doll's blindfold. This shows us that kids take a while to fully take account of the grammar, not just the words, in sentences. Hope you didn't mind my little grammatical foray... --> Full Article grammar not-SbaCL
world news Book week 2019: the prologue By separatedbyacommonlanguage.blogspot.com Published On :: Sun, 24 Nov 2019 22:25:00 +0000 My new year's resolution for 2019 was: Finish the books I start. Now, it must be said, I don't read enough books. I do a lot of reading for research, which does not usually involve reading books from cover to cover. (It involves reading journal articles, reading chapters, using the indices of books to find the bits I need.) Since so much of my working life is reading (including multiple books' worth of student writing each term), after work I tend to do other things. But I still want to be reading books, because there are so many good books out there and I have great respect for the writers of books and the books they write.I find it's very easy to start (reading) books. Rarely do I start reading a book and then lose interest in it. I have every intention and desire to finish most books that I start. But then some other book comes along and I just want to start that one too.(It must be said here that these days I mostly read non-fiction—and it's relatively easy to leave non-fiction unfinished. If there is a story to a non-fiction book, I generally know how the story ends, so it doesn't have that page-turner vibe that fiction can have.)At the start of 2019, there were four books that I had started months before, and had been really enjoying, yet instead of finishing them, I started other books. But thanks to my resolution, they are finished. Yay! So that was going well. Until I started starting books again. As of last week, I had seven books on the go (not counting a couple that made me say "Life's too short to spend it on this sub-par book"). And thanks to what I'm about to do, I will probably soon have 12 unfinished books heading into the LAST MONTH of 2019. So: made a resolution to reduce the number of unfinished books I have, and I am ending the year with THREE TIMES AS MANY unfinished books. What a failure!But the reason I'm starting even more books is that people send me books. Publishers send me books. I get a lot of books. They send me the books because I have a blog and they want me to help publici{s/z}e the books. I like getting the books, and I want to help authors of good books. And it helps them if I tell you about the books in a timely way. So this week, I am going to write about some of the books I've been sent this year and which I may not have read from cover to cover. For each book, I plan to read at least two chapters before telling you about it. So, I'm going to have a feel for the book, which I can tell you about, even if I haven't read the whole book.Why do this now? Two reasons:I can assuage my guilt about not writing about these books sooner by pretending that I was waiting to give you a seasonal list of books that would make great gifts for the holiday season! I have the time.I have the time because my union is about to go on strike for eight days. During this time, I am not engaging in the activities that the university pays me for. (And indeed, I will not be paid by the university for those days.) So, I'm catching up on things I want/like to do that are not within my job description. And apparently starting books and not finishing them is one of the things I like to do best. I'm only going to tell you about books I like. I'm channel(l)ing my mother: "If you can't say something nice, don't say anything at all." I'm also listening to the adage "There's no such thing as bad publicity." I've decided not to give any publicity to sub-par books. I could be scathing about them (and witty—scathing and witty go hand-in-hand). And that might be a lot of fun. But I'd just rather not shine my light on sub-par books, since that takes space and attention away from the good books. Some of the books I'll write about are by people I like. It's not that I know them well, just that I've had enough interactions with them to know we're on the same wavelength—so it's not quite nepotism (just tribalism?). And I'm going to try my best to have five posts for five days, but life happens and I might have to interpret "week" very loosely. So: stay tuned, and we'll get this book week going.Oh, and: I'm taking nominations for US-to-UK and UK-to-US Words of the Year. Are there any US-to-UK or UK-to-US borrowings that are particularly 2019-ish? They don't have to have first come to the other country this year, but they should have had particular attention or relevance in the other country this year. Please nominate them in the comments below. Full Article books
world news Book week 2019: Jane Setter's Your Voice Speaks Volumes By separatedbyacommonlanguage.blogspot.com Published On :: Mon, 25 Nov 2019 17:28:00 +0000 Welcome to the first review post of Book Week 2019. See the intro to Book Week 2019 to understand more about what I'm doing this week. I'm starting with the most recent book in the ol' pile of books from publishers:Your voice speaks volumes it's not what you say, but how you say itby Jane Setter Oxford University Press, 2019Jane is Professor of Phonetics at the University of Reading (UK) and a recipient of the prestigious National Teaching Fellowship. (As you can see, we are on a first-name basis, as we travel some of the same Public Linguist circles.) I mention the teaching fellowship because it is relevant: Jane is excellent at making linguistics, particularly phonetics, crystal clear for the uninitiated. She uses that talent to great effect in her first book for the general public. This book speaks squarely to a general British audience — and to those who want to know more about English-language issues and attitudes in this country. I'm writing this on a day when my social media feed has given me (a) the story of a man wrongly arrested for public drunkenness in Brighton—because the police had mistaken his Liverpool accent for slurring and (b) a misreading of the relevance of accent in the US (as a means to say something about how accents are read in the UK). But I'd have at least two such things to tell you about on any other day when I might have written this post. Accents make the news in Britain because they matter inordinately. Differences that might not be discernible to those from other countries are imbued with layers and layers of meaning and subjected to piles and piles of prejudice. As I warned in the intro to Book Week, I have not been able to read the whole book. But I was able to get through much more than I thought I'd be able to in a single evening (four of the seven chapters: 1, 2, 3, 7). Part of my speed was because I could skim the bits that were explaining linguistic facts that I already knew. (That's not to say that the facts here are too basic. I've just had a helluva lotta linguistics education.) But it is a zippy read throughout. Setter uses personal and celebrity stories to demonstrate the everyday relevance of the phonetic and sociolinguistic facts that she's explaining. (Hey look, I seem to revert to last-name basis when I'm reviewing someone's book.) The chapters I haven't yet read are those that I'd probably learn the most from: on the use of linguistics in forensic investigations, on voices in performance (including accent training for actors and why singers' accents change in song—which she should know, since she's also a singer in a rock band), and on transgender and synthesized voices. I started with the chapter that relates most to my work ('English voices, global voices') and then went back to the beginning where I was most likely to run into things I already know. That's good from a reviewing perspective, because I can say with confidence that Setter covers well the things that I know need to be covered for her audience. But as I got further into the book, the more unexpected things I learned. I ended in the chapter on women's and men's voices, and I will tell you: I learned some things! To give an example, I liked her interpretation of a study in which women and men were asked to count to ten using various kinds of voices, including 'confident' and 'sexy'. It turns out men generally don't have a 'sexy voice' to put on, while women do, and this might tell us something about what we're sociali{s/z}ed to find sexy—and why.It's hard to write about sound —and especially about linguistic sounds for a general audience. Writing for linguists is easy, because we have a lot of practice in using the International Phonetic Alphabet (IPA). But you don't want to fill a book for non-linguists with letters that don't make the same sound as they make in English spelling, or letters they've never even seen before. Setter mostly talks about accents without having to get into the kind of phonetic minutiae that excite linguists and make laypeople glaze over. Where she does need technical terms (e.g. lexical sets), she explains them carefully and clearly. But happily for all of us, Setter wrote this book in the internet age. Throughout the book, there are scannable QR codes by which one can hear the sounds she's talking about. (You can get there without a QR reader too, the web URLs are provided.)For readers of this blog with an interest in US/UK issues, there is plenty of comparison between UK and US and discussion of "Americani{s/z}ation". These are discussed with an assumed familiarity with British Englishes and less with American Englishes. This book is an important instrument for fighting accentism and other linguistic prejudice in the UK. It might make a nice gift for that person in your life who says they "care deeply about the English language", but really what they mean is "I like to judge other people's use of the English language". But more than that, it is a great demonstration of what the study of phonetics can do. I really, really recommend it for A-level students in English (language) and their teachers, as it touches on many of the areas of linguistics taught at that level and would surely inspire many doable research projects. Let me just end with: congratulations on this book, Jane! Full Article books pronunciation
world news Book week 2019: David Adger's Language Unlimited By separatedbyacommonlanguage.blogspot.com Published On :: Tue, 26 Nov 2019 18:18:00 +0000 Welcome to the second review post of Book Week 2019. See the intro to Book Week 2019 to understand more about what I'm doing this week. Next up we have:Language unlimitedthe science behind our most creative powerby David AdgerOxford University Press, 2019This is a book for people who like to think about HOW THINGS WORK. It's a serious work of popular science writing, which carefully spells out the mysteries of syntax. And by mysteries, I mean things you've probably never even noticed about language. But once they're pointed out, you have to sit back and say "Whoa." Because even though you hadn't noticed these things, you know them. Remember a few years ago, when the internet was hopping with posts about how we subconsciously know which order to put adjectives in? That's kid's play compared with the stuff that Adger'll teach you about the things you know but don't know about. Adger (who is Professor of Linguistics at Queen Mary University, London) describes the situation carefully, clearly, and engagingly, using copious examples and analogies to communicate some really subtle points. (I particularly liked the explanation of form versus function in language, which drew on the form versus the function of alcohol. Chin-chin!) He draws in evidence from neurology, psychology, and computer science to both corroborate his points and to introduce further questions about how language works.As I said in the intro to Book week, I have not read all the books I'm reviewing absolutely cover-to-cover. In this case, of the ten chapters, I read 1–3, 7, and 10—and skimmed through the other chapters. The early chapters make the case that there's more to linguistic structure than meets the eye and that human linguistic abilities must consist of something special—they must be qualitatively different from the types of cognition that other animals use and that humans use in non-linguistic communication. Later ones cover issues like how children experience and acquire their first language and what happens when computers try to learn human language. Throughout, the examples feature Adger's partner Anson and his cat Lilly. I almost feel like I know them now. Hi Anson and Lilly! Adger makes clear from the start that his book makes a particular argument in favo(u)r of a particular way of explaining language's mysteries—and that particular way is a Chomskyan way. This means that he makes the case for a Universal Grammar that underlies all human language. I was struck by his willingness and ability to take this all the way for a lay audience. By chapter 9, he is explaining Merge, the key tool of Chomsky's Minimalist Program. Now, here I have to say: this is not the kind of linguistics I do. It's not just that I'm not a syntactician—though I have, from time to time, dipped my toe into theories grammatical. It's also that I lost faith in theoretical monotheism when I moved from a very Chomskyan undergraduate degree to a more ecumenical linguistics department for my (post)graduate studies. When I arrived for my PhD studies, the department wanted to know which syntactic theories I'd studied, so they could determine which courses I needed to take. I could not tell them. After four years of studying Chomskyan linguistics, I thought I had spent four undergraduate years studying "Syntax". No one had told me that I was studying a theory of syntax, just one among several theories.Ever since, I have tended to agnosticism and s{c/k}epticism when it comes to syntactic theory. (This is probably how I ended up as not-a-syntactician; I don't know that it's possible to have a career in grammatical studies without adhering to one theoretical church or another.) Being a lexicologist has meant that I don't have to take sides on these things. And so I play around with different theories and see how they deal with the phenomena I study. When I listen to the evangelists, I listen warily. I tend to find that they oversimplify the approaches of competitor theories, and don't learn as much from them as they could (or, at least, sometimes don't give them credit for their contributions). This is all a very long explanation of why I skipped to chapter 7—the chapter where Adger responds to some non-Chomskyan ideas (mostly personified in the chapter by Joan Bybee).So (mostly BrE*) all credit to Adger for spending a chapter on this, and for citing recent work in it. I generally thought his points were fair, but I did what I usually do in response to such theoretical take-downs: I thought "ok, but what about..." I do think he's right that some facts point to the existence of a Universal Grammar, but I also think it's not the only interesting part of the story, and that it's premature to discount arguments that explore the possibility that much of what happens in language learning is based in experience of language and general cognitive abilities. But then, I would think that.I definitely recommend the book for people who are interested in the scientific approach to language, but I'd skip the final chapter (10). It is an oddly tacked-on bit about sociolinguistic phenomena, precisely the kinds of things that are not even approached in the theory the rest of the book has been arguing for.I congratulate Adger on this strong work that makes extraordinarily abstract concepts clear.P.S. Since I'm not doing Differences of the Day on Twitter this week, here's little chart of use of all credit to (frequency per million words) in the Corpus of Global Web-Based English, for good measure. Full Article books grammar
world news Book Week 2019: David Shariatmadari's Don't Believe a Word By separatedbyacommonlanguage.blogspot.com Published On :: Fri, 29 Nov 2019 00:05:00 +0000 Welcome to the third review post of Book Week 2019. In the intro to Book Week 2019, I explain what I'm doing this week. In the end, there will be four posts. I thought there would be five, but one of the books has (orig. BrE) gone missing. Having had a day off yesterday, I will also have a day off tomorrow, so the final review will appear during the weekend. Probably.Anyhow, today's book is: Don't believe a wordthe surprising truth about languageby David ShariatmadariNorton, 2019 (N America)W&N, 2019 (UK/RoW)David Shariatmadari writes for the Guardian, often about language, and is one of the sensible journalists on the topic. The number of sensible journalists writing about language has really shot up in the past decade, and judging from reading their books, this is in part because of increasingly clear, public-facing work by academic linguists. (Yay, academic linguists!) But in Shariatmadari's case, the journalist is a linguist: he has a BA and MA in the subject. And it shows—in the best possible way. The book is a familiar genre: busting widely held language myths. If you've read books in this genre before, you probably don't need these myths busted. You probably know that linguistic change is natural, that the border between language and dialect is unfindable, that apes haven't really learned sign languages, and that no form of language is inherently superior to another. Nevertheless, you may learn something new, since Shariatmadari's tastes for linguistic research and theories is not always on the same wavelength as some other books directed at such a general audience. Once again, I'm reviewing with a partial view of the book (this is the practical law of Book Week 2019). In this case, I've read chapters 1, 5, and 9 and skimmed through other bits. The introductory chapter gives us a bit of insight into Shariatmadari's conversion to full-blown linguist, as a reluctant student of Arabic who was quickly converted to admiration for the language and to the study of language as an insight into humanity. "It's not hyperbole to say that linguistics is the universal social science", he writes. "It intrudes into almost every area of knowledge."UK coverI chose to read chapter 5 because I'd had the pleasure of hearing him talk about its topic at a student conference recently: the popularity of "untranslatable word" lists. Goodness knows, I've contributed to them. What I liked about the talk was his detective work on the words themselves—some of the words and definitions presented in lists of 'untranslatables' are practically fictional. And yet, those of us who don't speak the language in question often eat up these lists because of our ethnocentric need to exotici{s/z}e others. This leads inevitably to discussion of linguistic relativism—the notion that the language you speak affects the way you think—and the bad, old (so-called) evidence for it and the newer evidence for something much subtler. The chapter then goes in a direction I wasn't expecting: introducing Natural Semantic Metalanguage (NSM), an interesting (but far from universally taught) approach to meaning that uses about 65 semantic building blocks to represent and compare meanings across languages. NSM adherents make the case that few, if any, words are truly equivalent across languages. But while any word in one language may have no single-word equivalent in another language, that doesn't mean those words are untranslatable. It just means that translating them can be a delicate and complicated thing. US coverThe final chapter (9) takes the opposite view to David Adger's Language Unlimited (in my last review), and argues that the hierarchical (and human-specific) nature of linguistic structure need not be the product of an innate Universal Grammar, but instead could arise from the complexity of the system involved and humans' advanced social cognition. While Adger had a whole book for his argument, Shariatmadari has 30-odd pages, and so it's not really fair to compare them in terms of the depth of their argumentation, but still worth reading the latter to get a sense of how linguists and psychologists are arguing about these things.Shariatmadari is a clear and engaging writer, and includes a good range of references and a glossary of linguistic terminology. If you know someone who still believes some language myths, this might be a good present for them. (Though in my experience, people don't actually like getting presents that threaten their worldview. I still do it, because I care more about myth-busting writers earning royalties than I care about linguistic chauvinists getting presents they want.) It would also make an excellent gift for A-level English and language students (and teachers) and others who might be future linguists. After they read it, send them my way. I love having myth-busted students. Full Article books grammar linguistic relativity
world news Book Week 2019: Gretchen McCulloch's Because Internet By separatedbyacommonlanguage.blogspot.com Published On :: Mon, 02 Dec 2019 12:37:00 +0000 Welcome to the final review post of Book Week 2019. In the intro to Book Week 2019, I explain what I'm doing. The 'week' has turned out to be eight days. If you're perturbed about that, I'm happy to offer you a full refund on your subscription fees for this blog.On with the show. Today's book is: Because InternetUnderstanding the new rules of language (US subtitle)Understanding how language is changing (UK subtitle)by Gretchen McCullochRiverhead, 2019 (N America)Harvill Secker, 2019 (UK)Gretchen McCulloch describes herself as an internet linguist: writing about internet language for people on the internet. She actually does a lot more than that, with daily blogging at All Things Linguistic for years and being one half of the Lingthusiasm podcast team and writing on all sorts of linguistic themes for all sorts of publications. So, I expect many readers of this blog will already know her and have heard about this book. US CoverI expected Because Internet to be good, knowing Gretchen's work, but I also probably (in my grumpy, middle-aged, oh-do-we-have-to-talk-about-emojis-again? way) expected it to be faddish. There have been too many just-plain-bad, (orig. AmE) jumping-on-the-bandwagon books about emojis, and I've got(ten) a bit sour on the topic. This book is so much more than I expected it to be. I should have known better. Having read and heard much of her work, I should have expected that this would be a truly sophisticated approach to language and to general-audience linguistics writing. So far in Book Week 2019, I've recommended the books as gifts for A-level students/teachers, science lovers, and language curmudgeons. This book is good for all those groups and more. UK coverThe key is in the subtitle(s).* This is not just a book about emojis and autocomplete (and, actually, autocomplete isn't even in the index). This is a book about the relationship between speech and writing and how that's changed with technology. It seamlessly introduces theories of why language changes, how change spreads and how communication works in a time when the potential for change is high and the potential for changes to spread is unprecedented. That seamless introduction of linguistic concepts is the reason I've started this book from the beginning and not skipped around (unlike for other books in Book Week—where the rule is that I don't have to read the whole book before I start writing about it). In most books about language for non-linguists, I'm able to skim or skip the bit where they talk about the basics of how language works and the classic studies on the topic and the ideas springing from them. McCulloch covers those issues and those studies (the Labovs, the Milroys, the Eckerts), but since this is intertwined with looking at how language is changing in the 21st century—because (of the) internet—it was worth my while to read straight through. The great thing about the language of the internet is: even when it looks really different from non-internet language, it's still illustrating general principles about how language, communication, and society work. But it also shows how society is changing because of technology, particularly in changing who we are likely to interact with or hear from, In the process, it gives a history of the internet that's enlightening even for those of us who've lived through it all. (I've just flipped open to a section about PLATO at the University of Illinois. One of my student jobs was working in a PLATO lab, playing Bugs-n-Drugs [aka Medcenter] while signing people in and out. That game was not good for my hypochondria, but I have awfully fond memories of PLATO.)Another thing to appreciate about McCulloch's book is how unreactionary it is. She doesn't set up her discussion as "You've heard people say these stupid things about the internet, but here's the TRUTH." (A style of writing that I can be very, very guilty of.) She mostly just makes her case gracefully, based on what the language is doing, rather than reacting to what other people say the language is doing. Rather than 'This, that and the other person say emoji are a new language, but they're not', she just gets on with explaining how emoji fulfil(l) our communicative need to gesture. It's a positive approach that academic linguists will have had trained out of them by the requirements of academic publishing. This is a bit of a nerdview 'review'. Usually reviews tell you some fun facts from the book they're reviewing, whereas I'm telling you what I've noticed about its information structure. That's because that's what I really look for in books as I prepare to write a new one. In terms of information, in this book you'll learn, among other things:which "internet generation" you belong to and how your language is likely to be different from other generations'.what punctuation communicates in texting/chat and how that differs from formal writinghow language change can be traced through studying strong and weak social links and geographic tagging on TwitterInevitably, the book is mainly about English, in no small part because English rules the internet. But it does make its way to other languages and cultures—for instance, how Arabic chat users adapted their spelling to the roman alphabet and how emojis are interpreted differently around the world. In the end, she briefly considers whether space is being made for other languages on the internet.It's a galloping read and you'll learn all sorts of things. So, on that happy review, I declare Book Week 2019 FINISHED.* I love the transatlantic change in subtitles, since it completely illustrates the point of chapter 8 of The Prodigal Tongue: that Americans like to talk about language in terms of rules, and Britons in terms of history/tradition. I've also written a shorter piece about my personal experience of it for Zócalo Public Square. Full Article books computers
world news 2019 UK-to-US Word of the Year: knock-on By separatedbyacommonlanguage.blogspot.com Published On :: Tue, 31 Dec 2019 20:32:00 +0000 It's the end of the year, and time to declare the Separated by a Common Language Words of the Year. As ever, I've got two categories: US-to-UK and UK-to-US. In other words: I'm interested in borrowings between these national dialects. To be a SbaCL WoTY, the word doesn't have to have been imported precisely in that year—it just needs to have been noticeable in some way. For past WotYs, see here. I'll post the US-to-UK word soon; this post is for UK-to-US.I've been noticing a lot of Britishisms in American English this year (and, as ever, Ben Yagoda is recording many of them at his Not One-Off Britishisms [NOOB] blog). I've decided to go with one nominated by Neil Dolinger last month. The UK-to-US SbaCL Word of the Year is:knock-onThe relevant sense is defined by the Oxford English Dictionary as: Being a secondary or indirect consequence of another action, occurrence, or eventIt's most commonly found in the phrase knock-on effect, which is first recorded in the OED in 1972. Knock-on itself seems to have passed into general usage from physics:Ben Yagoda's blog had knock-on effect as an "on-the-radar NOOB" in 2012, and the reason I've chosen it as the 2019 UK-to-US Word of the Year is its 2018-19 surge in US usage, as can be seen here in the US portion of the News on the Web corpus:Of the 612 US examples of it in this corpus, 481 are in the phrase knock-on effect(s). Another 83 are followed by another noun, such as impact, employment, and delays.It's still very much a British expression: while knock-on still occurs about 5 times per million British words in the News on the Web corpus, it's still less than once per million in the US news corpus (.63 in 2019 overall). And that corpus is showing the marks of globali{s/z}ation—a frequent source of knock-on in the US data is from the US edition of the UK paper The Guardian and of the Irish Times international edition. Still, it is showing up in a lot of homegrown US media: local news channels, the Washington Post, Forbes, Variety, and others:Click to enlarge Why is it more common in the first half of each year than the second? Well, for 2019, there are no examples after October, so I think that might be an effect of the corpus collection methods. It could also be because of rugby, in which knock-on is a noun (for when the ball is knocked forward). The Six Nations tournament starts in February and 4 out of 24 US examples of knock-on in February 2019 and 4 of 13 in March have the rugby sense. By contrast, in January and April, zero of the 29 US hits have the rugby sense. So, while there is definitely noise from the rugby sense in two months of the year, that effect seems limited. I'll let Ben Yagoda have the last say about whether this shift is enough to take it from "on the radar" to being a full-blown Not One-Off Britishism in the US, but I thank Neil for nominating it. But before I go, it seems fitting to mention this dialectal difference: BrE Heath Robinson machine versus AmE Rube Goldberg machine. You can click on the links to learn about their namesakes, but here's an OK Go video to illustrate knock-on effects, just for fun. Happy New Year! Full Article adjectives idioms WotY
world news 2019 US-to-UK Word of the Year: gotten By separatedbyacommonlanguage.blogspot.com Published On :: Thu, 02 Jan 2020 00:46:00 +0000 For part 1 of the 2019 Words of the Year, click here. Now we're on to the US-to-UK WotY.Radzi Chinyanganya, WotY inspirationI had pretty much decided not to do a US-to-UK Word of the Year for 2019. The words nominated were generally ones that had made a big splash in English recently on both sides of the Atlantic, rather than long-standing Americanisms that were making a splash in Britain. I had begun to think that BrE had reached peak Americanism. But then I went through my top tweets of the year, and saw one that made me think: "Oh yeah, that's it."The US-to-UK Word of the Year is: gottenHere's the tweet that reminded me: I'll admit getting teary over @iamradzi's departure from Blue Peter, but the reason (for a linguist) to watch his 'best of' episode is the number of times he says 'gotten'. It really is making a comeback in UK. If we can resurrect a verb paradigm, imagine what else we can do ????— Lynne Murphy (@lynneguist) April 30, 2019 Now, this choice might be controversial in that gotten is not just and not originally American. It is one of those linguistic things that mostly died in the UK while it thrived in the US. When I moved to the UK, a colleague told me that you'd still hear gotten among old people in Yorkshire. I haven't had the chance to bother any old people in Yorkshire about that, but -en forms of get were found far and wide in English dialects. That said, the OED has it as "chiefly U.S." and it is widely perceived in the UK as an Americanism. In England you do hear it more from Americans (in the media, if not in person) than from British folk. Here's a bit of what I said about it in The Prodigal Tongue:That part of the book goes on to examine the evidence that gotten only really got going in the US—that it was not used much in the formal English of those who came from England to the Americas, and that its use exploded only in the late 19th century, when the US was finding a voice of its own. (Want to know more? I have a book to sell you!)So, while gotten is not just American nor originally American, America is where gotten made its fortune. The "standard" British participle for get is have got, as discussed (along with its meaning) in this old post.What's interesting about gotten in Britain in 2019 is that it's been used quite a bit in places where you don't tend to hear non-standard, regional grammatical forms: like on the BBC and in Parliament. And I have heard it among my child's middle-class (orig. AmE) tween friends here in the southeast. Here are some interesting examples, besides our friend Radzi.* On the CBeebies (BBC channel for young children) website:In a BBC news story about an orange seagull in Buckinghamshire:Hospital staff said the bird "had somehow gotten himself covered in curry or turmeric". In the linguistically (and otherwise) conservative Telegraph newspaper:**Yet, it is the ageing filter that has gotten most people talking.By then-Shadow Foreign Secretary Emily Thornberry, who got into trouble for saying:The Lib Dems have gotten kind of Taliban, haven’t they? And in the House of Commons:"I would like to share some of the thoughts of organisations that have gotten in touch in recent days to share their experience of training mental health first aiders..." —Luciana Berger, 17 Jan 2019"...those in Sinn Féin say, 'Well, we’ve gotten away with two years of saying we’re not going back into government until...'" —Gregory Campbell, 5 Mar 2019 "...the mess that this place has gotten itself into..." —Deirdre Brock 19 Mar 2019"...the best way of dealing with this is not through a voluntary levy based on the least that can be gotten away with" —Jim Shannon, 2 July 2019There's a difference, though, between the ones from the House of Commons and the others. The parliamentary ones have gotten in a set phrase of some sort. It's long been the case that British speakers say gotten in close proximity to mess and into, since they're alluding to Laurel and Hardy films, where gotten is indeed the form. And in the other cases above, we've got gotten away with and gotten in touch, which are figurative and idiomatic uses. (Neither of those particular idioms is particularly American.) Since gotten is heard in Parliament as part of set phrases, it's not clear that it would be a 'normal' way for those speakers to form the past participle of get in general.The other examples above (and indeed Radzi's uses that inspired my original tweet) are have gotten just as a plain old verb in its many meanings. Those interest me more because they do seem more like the re-introduction of the get-got-gotten paradigm, and not just certain constructions that have been remembered with a certain verb form. A lot of the British gotten that I've been exposed to is from homegrown children's television and children, and that's what really seals it for me as a 2019 word. After 20 years of not hearing it much (and training myself out of saying it much), I'm really noticing it. You can find lots of people, particularly older people, in the UK talking about its ugliness or wrongness, but the fact that younger people are un-self-consciously saying it makes me think that it will get bigger still.And on that note, a bit later than is decent, I say goodbye to 2019! Footnotes:* I haven't presented corpus numbers in this post, since the bulk of the gotten numbers in corpora tend to be (in news) quoted Americans or (in other things) in set phrases. The Hansard corpus tool at Huddersfield University doesn't seem to be able to separate the gottens from the ill-gottens—which is a form that has remained in BrE despite the more general loss of gotten.** (I got quite a few google hits for gotten in the Telegraph, for which I could see the gotten in the preview. But for some, when I clicked through, the same sentence had got. Might this be because some stories were originally posted with gotten then changed when the "error" was caught?) Full Article morphology WotY
world news eggs By separatedbyacommonlanguage.blogspot.com Published On :: Thu, 06 Feb 2020 12:17:00 +0000 While I've been very good at keeping up with my Differences of the Day on Twitter, the blog posts have got(ten) fewer and f{a/u}rther in between. I'm committing this month (and hopefully from now on) to do one a week, and the way I'm going to make that feel more do-able is to piggyback on the work I've done for the #DotDs. Lately, I've been doing a lot of themed weeks of differences, and those can be built up into a nice little blog post.I decided on #EggWeek because I was newly part of Egg Club. The first rule of Egg Club is that a generous member of our neighbo(u)rhood goes to a farm outside town and buys eggs from 'very happy chickens'. The second rule of Egg Club is that those of us with standing orders show up at her house with money and something to put the eggs in (we'll get to that, below). Here are #EggWeek differences I noted, and some information added-on by the tweople who responded to the tweets. AmE has a vocabulary for fried-egg cooking that BrE doesn't, which starts from the assumption that if you want your eggs well-done, then you should flip them over. In UK, flipping is less common. In a (BrE) caff or (orig. AmE) greasy spoon and in some homes, a well-done egg is achieved by spooning the cooking fat over the egg. In my American life, I've never seen anyone fry an egg in enough fat to be able to spoon it. At any rate, the AmE vocabulary includes:sunny-side up = not flippedover easy = flipped over for just long enough that the egg white is cooked on both sides. Yolk should still be runny.over medium = flipped over and cooked for a 'medium' amount of time/yolk-runninessover hard = flipped over and cooked until the yolk is solidBrE egg yolks can be described as dippy if they are nice and runny. A dippy egg is a soft-boiled egg into which you can dip your toast to get some nice yolk on it. That leads us to a difference that is more cultural than linguistic: in UK, soft-boiled eggs (often just called boiled eggs in this context) are just about always presented in an egg cup. I know some Americans own egg cups and use them, but they are the exception rather than the rule. Some UK folks proposed to me that this is because Americans don't eat soft-boiled eggs, but that's just not true. I once had a 70-something-day streak of having two boiled eggs and two slices of toast every evening for dinner. (This was back in my poor earning-rand-but-paying-back-student-loans-in-dollars days. You might think I'd have got(ten) sick of boiled eggs, but it's still one of my favo(u)rite meals. Only now I can afford some asparagus to go with it.)But when I posted photos side-by-side of British-style boiled-egg presentation and American-style, several British Twitterfolk protested that the American eggs were poached (righthand photo). No, they were boiled eggs that had been peeled and put on toast—which is exactly the way I eat them. (I am making myself hungry now. I guess I know what's for lunch.) The picture on the left is BrE egg and soldiers, the soldiers being the lengthwise-sliced toast strips. Of course, this posting resulted in lots of people trying to tell me that the British way of eating boiled eggs is superior. You can have it, it's not for me. (My mother-in-law has given us several egg cups, perhaps because she couldn't find any at our house. I mostly store small kitchen bits in them.) Putting the egg on toast lets you give it a single and wide-spreading sprinkling of salt and (if you like) pepper. Peeling them is much easier if the eggs are fresh, which is what makes Egg Club so worth my while. The store-bought eggs I get in the UK are generally not as easy to peel. When I was a kid, a soft-boiled egg was a regular first foray in to the world of the eating after a stomach bug. My mom would peel it, and put it into a bowl, so you could smash it and dip your toast in it. But on toast is the grown-up way to go. (And much easier than poaching, especially if you want to make a few of them.)Egg cartons are often called egg boxes in BrE: The sandwich filling made of hard-boiled eggs and mayonnaise is called egg mayonnaise in BrE, which Americans perceive as a pleonasm: all mayonnaise is made of eggs, so of course it's egg mayonnaise! But if you're perceiving it that way, you're probably imagining the stress pattern of the phrase as the same as you'd say herb mayonnaise for mayonnaise with herbs in it. The trick is to hear it like it's 'egg in the mayonnaise style'. The pronunciation of the mayonnaise is English, not French, but it follows a French food syntax (as we've seen before). This concoction is called egg salad in AmE, though a lot of Americans would put in other ingredients as well to flavo(u)r the (orig. AmE) combo. This pattern holds for other mixes of bits of food with mayo: tuna mayonnaise/salad, chicken mayonnaise/salad.There was one more #DotD in #EggWeek: whether scrambled egg is a count noun or a mass noun. In AmE, you can have a scrambled egg, but you wouldn't have scrambled egg. When you've got a bunch of it and you can't tell how many eggs are there, AmE goes for scrambled eggs. So, BrE scrambled egg on toast = AmE scrambled eggs on toast. I've covered this one before, so if you want to have a conversation about count and mass nouns, please see this old post. One week of blogging down, many to go!PS: I meant to point out another difference between US and UK (and European generally, I think) eggs: American eggs need to be refrigerated, British ones don't. Here's an article about why.Egg cartons/boxes colo(u)r-coded by sizePPS: What counts as a 'large' egg or a 'medium' egg differs too. Possibly not in the direction that you'd think. Have a look at Wikipedia. When I go to the shop to buy eggs in England, my choices seem to have more to do with how the chickens were raised than with the size of the eggs, whereas in US supermarkets, there seems to be more variety available in egg size, more clearly label(l)ed—e.g. in different colo(u)red cartons. You can see the difference in this photo of eggs on the shelf (not the fridge) in a UK chain versus this at our supermarket in NY state.PPPS: It is very hard to get a white-shelled chicken egg in the UK. I go through a crisis about this every Easter when I'm trying to dye eggs (like the good American parent that I am, or try to be). I end up just leaving them in the dye extra-long and have dark colo(u)rs instead of pastel ones. In the US, white-shelled was the norm when I was growing up, but brown ones have become more and more common, on the mistaken belief that they are somehow more 'natural'. It's the species of chicken involved that determines the shell colo(u)r. Full Article containers count/mass food/cooking
world news dicing with death By separatedbyacommonlanguage.blogspot.com Published On :: Fri, 14 Feb 2020 17:31:00 +0000 Previously on this blog, I've discussed whether BrE and AmE are different in their singular for dice. Have a look at that blog post if that's what you're interested in.This one is about the phrase to dice with death, meaning essentially, to take risks with one's life or safety. It's one of those things that I didn't reali{s/z}e was BrE until another American pointed it out to me. (Apologies if you were that uncredited American—I can no longer find the correspondence.)The OED says the use of dice to mean 'risk' is especially associated with motor sports (a phrase that itself seems to be more BrE than AmE). It is not about chopping up death into cubes, but about 'gambling with one's life' (a phrasing that can be used in either language). Though Merriam-Webster includes this use of dice with an example from Newsweek, it's nowhere to be seen in the American portion of the GloWBE corpus.The phrase raised two questions for me:is it dicing with death or dicing with Death?I imagined the latter, that it's playing a game of dice with the Grim Reaper. But none of the corpus examples treat death as a proper name, so perhaps I'm alone in that.what's the relationship to dancing with death? Since not a lot of people use dice as an intransitive verb to mean 'to play dice', I was imagining that dance with death might have arisen from a misunderstanding of dice with death—an eggcorn, if you will. And I think there's some evidence to back that up:In this Google Books Ngram chart (click on it for details), the blue line shows dicing with death is already in existence in BrE during (BrE) the War. The green line is American use of it, intermingling early on with dancing with death. Dancing with death eventually catches up with dicing in AmE, while also rising in BrE, perhaps getting more currency as people have more distance from the 'risk' use of dice as a verb.For what it's worth, it's slightly easier to find capital-D Death with dance than with dice, but it's far more common to find it lower-case. Full Article death idioms
world news pigs in blankets By separatedbyacommonlanguage.blogspot.com Published On :: Sun, 23 Feb 2020 13:35:00 +0000 This keeps coming up on Twitter and in the comments at other posts, so let's talk about (BrE) pigs in blankets/(more common in AmE) pigs in a blanket (singular for both: pig in a blanket).Recipe at BBC Good FoodBritish pigs in blankets are small sausages wrapped in bacon (and cooked!). They are delicious. They're traditionally served alongside turkey as part of Christmas dinner. (For me, they almost make up for the fact that Brussels sprouts are also a traditional part of Christmas dinner in England.) The usual sausage involved is a chipolata, which we could call a BrE word because it's hardly heard in the US (16 UK hits on the Corpus of Global Web-Based English, but zero US ones). But then again, it's not that there's another word for it in AmE, so better to call it a UK-and-not-US thing, rather than a BrE word. Basically, all the non-imported sausages (and even some of the imported ones) are different in the UK and US.These are (increasingly, I think) found in US cooking, but I haven't heard them called pigs in blankets in the US. My brother, with no prodding from happy me, has started serving them as pre-dinner snack at Christmas time, and we call them sausages wrapped in bacon. Now that he does that, pretty much the only thing I like better about UK Christmas than US Christmas is the fact that I don't have to travel for my pigs in blankets. (Sorry, mince pie fans.)Recipe at food.comIn AmE, pigs in a blanket are usually small sausages wrapped in dough (and cooked!). They are delicious. When I was a kid, this usually involved (AmE) cocktail franks* (also cocktail wieners, little smokies, and general-English cocktail sausages) wrapped in the kind of Pillsbury dough that comes in a tube. I think that when I was a kid, this usually involved the dinner-roll dough, but nowadays I see most of the recipes online (including Pillsbury's) involve their crescent-roll dough. (Even though I should know better now, I'm still dangerous around a basket of freshly baked Pillsbury crescent rolls. There's no point in calling them croissants, though. A crescent roll is like a croissant that's been photocopied 100 times and then had hydrogenated palm oil added.) * Note that on the Oscar Mayer package, the sausages are now wrapped in bacon. Trendy. Recipe at BBC Good FoodThe use of crescent-roll pastry, rather than a bread dough, takes American pigs in blankets a step closer to the British sausage roll, which is a sausage (often just the sausage meat) encased in puff pastry. But to my senses, US pigs in blankets and UK sausage rolls are very different things, due to the differences in sausage spicing, sausage/pastry ratios and coverage, shape, etc.). The ones in the photo here are 'mini sausage rolls', but a non-mini sausage roll contains as much sausage as a typical hot-dog-style sausage. Recipe at Splendid TableThe final type of pig in a blanket is an American breakfast food: American-style breakfast links wrapped in an American-style pancake. They are delicious. This is the least common meaning for the expression, but one you used to be able to find on an IHOP menu. The key thing to know about these is that American breakfast sausages are nothing like any breakfast sausage in the UK. They have a lot of sage, are much slimmer than most UK sausages and sometimes casing-less, and are really well complemented by maple syrup. If you order sausage in a US breakfast diner, you may well be asked links or patties? If you've ever seen a Sausage McMuffin, you've seen a sausage (AmE) patty. You get those by slicing them like salami (but thicker!) from a big ol' package of sausage meat. (This paragraph added in response to comments) The plural pigs in blankets is more common in BrE, while AmE tends toward pigs in a blanket. In the Corpus of Contemporary American English, the ratio is about 1:4. That said, I think the plural blankets is found more in print—the COCA examples include a lot of spoken ones and fictional dialogue. Looking at Google Books ngrams, pigs in a blanket seems to be a rather recent plural.)Now comes THE BIG TWIST IN THE TALE. The term pig in a blanket is originally AmE, but it had nothing to do with sausages at the beginning. The OED has its first recorded use of the term showing up in 1882 and referring to oysters wrapped in bacon. This dish shows up slightly earlier in UK cook(ery) books with the name it still has: angels on horseback. The first record of a sausage-related meaning is from 1926, and refers to a sausage in a roll, rather than one baked into dough, and that meaning continues on in the 1940s. (I've found additional examples as well as the OED's up to 1948.) Apparently, the first known use of it in the "rolled in dough" meaning occurred in 1957 in Betty Crocker's Cooking for Kids. Essentially, it looks like the current AmE meaning coincides with the wide availability of packaged refrigerator doughs.As for the BrE meaning, it's not hard to imagine the AmE term coming over to the UK and being re-interpreted. It would not have been needed for oysters-in-bacon, since BrE already had an equally weird term for that. Sausages, usually made of pork in the UK, make a lot more sense as a 'pig' than an oyster does.Other sausage-related posts for your information, edification, or appetization: (Is that a word? It is now.) on hot dogson red hotson baked goods (pigs in blankets briefly mentioned) on breakfaston bangerson pudding (including black pudding) PS: Nancy Friedman has shared this glorious picture of the 1957 Betty Crocker's Cook Book for Boys and Girls (Betty Crocker = an American institution), showing (a) that the use of mini sausages was a later thing, and (b) the traditional plural form. I love the hat-tipping wiener and frank—and the explanation of the difference.. Full Article food/cooking plurals
world news geez, jeez! By separatedbyacommonlanguage.blogspot.com Published On :: Mon, 02 Mar 2020 13:37:00 +0000 As with many of my discoveries about English, this one happened during a Scrabble game. I had played GEEZ and my opponent challenged it, stating that she thought I needed a J rather than a G. When British people think I've got English wrong, I make a note of it, go home, and look it up. And about half the time, it is because there is a national/dialectal difference to be found. (The rest of the time, it's down to some weird beliefs about language. And most of the things we believe about language are weird, and little to do with reality. This has been the main thesis of my research career.)Geez/jeez is originally AmE, a way of not-taking the name Jesus in vain. I was probably an adult before I reali{s/z}ed that. To me, it was just some thing people said, and I didn't make the connection, just like a lot of people probably don't reali{s/z}e (till someone tells them) that (BrE) crikey is a way to avoid saying Christ or (BrE) cor, blimey stared as an avoidance of God blind me.Whether people spelled it with a G because they didn't see the relationship to Jesus or whether using the G was a way to keep it one more step removed from Jesus, I don't know. What I do know is that the G is the more common spelling in AmE, but it's rarely used in BrE, where the expression has caught on (not least in imitations of Americans). I suspect that when it entered BrE people could see its minced-oath nature, and so assumed it was spel{led/t} with a J.Click to embiggen.https://www.english-corpora.org/glowbe/ As we've seen before, there's a lot of spelling variation in interjections, which start their lives in speech and mostly stay there. They never get tested in school spelling quizzes, you just do what you want with them. It will be interesting to see whether there's more standardization of the spelling of speech-like bits as an effect of the more speech-like writing we do online. (If anyone knows of such research, I'd be interested to hear about it. I had a quick look and didn't find anything super-relevant, but there must be some out there.)Jack Grieve has made a word-mapper tool for seeing where particular words are tweeted most in the USA. You might enjoy his maps of Sweary USA. I tried it for geez/jeez to see if there's any variation in the US. As you can see, saying {g/j}eez is not a regional thing. It's all over. But spelling it with the J, while less common overall (note the different colo[u]r scales for the maps), is more common in 'the North', i.e. the northeast and northern midwest. What struck me about the jeez map is how the jeez area seems to echo Yankeedom in Colin Woodard's American Nations. Woodard's book posits that different regional subcultures of the US derive from its migration histories, with value systems travel(l)ing westward from the east coast (and then dispersing in different ways when migration patterns become less linear and sparser in the 'west'. Woodard's maps look much like maps of major dialect areas in the US. https://www.businessinsider.com/the-11-nations-of-the-united-states-2015-7Perhaps BrE has the jeez spelling because of greater contact with the northeast—though I doubt that is the relevant issue, since exposure to the word is probably mostly through speech. Perhaps Yankeedom and the UK have in common a feeling that the oath does not need so much mincing, and so they are more apt to spell it in line with its etymology.If you're interested similar speaking/spelling problems, you be interested in these other posts. Please comment about those ones at their posts and keep those parties going:whoa/woah um, er, erm, uh, ehyuck/yuk Full Article euphemism exclamations interjections spelling
world news 'X's Y' versus 'the Y of X' By separatedbyacommonlanguage.blogspot.com Published On :: Sun, 29 Mar 2020 21:45:00 +0000 [I had said I'd be blogging weekly, but that didn't happen when I had to travel for family reasons. I have got(ten) back to it, not that you'll always notice. I've decided that my goal is to *write* for the blog each week, but not necessarily to publish. So, I started writing this one last week, finished this week.]I'm doing a lot of reading about the genitive case at the moment. Grammatical case is some kind of marking (e.g. a suffix) that shows what 'job' a noun is doing in a sentence. You might know a lot about case if you've studied German or Latin or Finnish (or some other languages), which have case suffixes on nouns. You'll know a little about case from being an English speaker who knows the differences between they, them, and theirs. Modern English marks pronouns for case, but not other nouns, except...Old English (Anglo-Saxon) had a robust case system, which it got from the ancestor it shared with German. The case suffixes pretty much died during Middle English. (English lost a lot of other kinds of suffixes over the centuries too, in part because suffixes are the kinds of things that get swallowed up in speech and in part becuase they're the kind of thing that become vulnerable when different languages come into contact—as happened for English and Norman French nearly 1000 years ago.) But one English case suffix, rather than disappearing, morphed into something else, and that something is the scourge of English spelling, the apostrophe-s: 's. So in the Old-English poem Beowulf, you can read about Grendles guðcræft. That -es on the name of the monster Grendel is the forebear of 's. We can translate it as something like 'Grendel's power' or 'Grendel's warcraft'. That (masculine, singular) genitive case marker says that there's a very close relation between Grendel and the guðcræft. Grendel is the power's source or its possessor. But when that poem gets translated into Modern English, the translators sometimes translate the -es as an 's and sometimes not:the might of Grendel (Francis Gummere) Grendel's power of destruction (Seamus Heaney)That's because something else happened in Middle English: English started using of in the way that French uses de to express genitive relations—because French got all up in English's business at that point. Because of that change, of occurs only 30 times in Beowulf (where it has its original meaning of 'away from' or 'off'*), but over 900 times in Gummere's translation of it (where it means next to nothing).So English has ended up with two ways of expressing those kinds of relations. We tend to talk about them as being 'possessive' relations and of the X in X's Y or the Y of X as 'the possessor'. But the relation is not necessarily possessive. Think about something like the theft of the bicycle and the bicycle's theft: the bicycle doesn't possess the theft. The relations between the nouns in 's/of expressions are varied and hard to pin down (but they are very close relationships, covering a lot of the same ground as the genitive in Old English). We don't exactly use 's and of interchangeably, though, and even where we can use both we often have preferences for one or the other. One of the strongest predictors of whether it'll be 's or of is the animacy of the thing in the X position (the 'possessor'). Linguists often talk about an animacy hierarchy in which expressions that refer to animate things are preferred in certain positions in sentences over non-animate things. In terms of what's animate, humans (the teacher, Heidi) come above animals (the badger, the parrot) and collectives (the company, the union), which come above objects (the table, the book). All of the below noun phrases are "grammatical" but the higher up the list we go, the more apt people are to use the 's instead of the of phrase, all other things being equal: the teacher's size the size of the teacherthe badger's size the size of the badgerthe union's size the size of the unionthe table's size the size of the tableA lot is going on in that 'all other things being equal' (a phrase used in both AmE and BrE, but AmE also likes all else being equal). Some other things that swing a possessive in favo(u)r of 's phrasing rather than of phrasing are:heavier (more syllables/more complex syntax) possessed NPs rather than lighter ones(the table's dirty and worn-out alumin(i)um edge vs the dirty and worn-out alumin(i)um edge of the table)the need for denser texts, as in newspaper headlines speech (rather than writing) informal writing style (rather than more formal writing styles)the dialect being spokenSo, on the last point: English in general used to be a much stronger avoidance of 's on inanimate object names. Inanimate possessors have become more and more accepted in English over the last 200 years or so. But that change has been happening faster in American English than British. This is like a lot (but not all!) of other changes in English (see The Prodigal Tongue, or if you really like to read about statistical methods, Paul Baker's book)—the change has roots deep in English's history, but goes faster/slower in different places. In this change's case (like some others), the "newer" form ('s on inanimates) is perceived as less formal and it's more condensed (and therefore quicker to say/read). Both of these properties might characteri{s/z}e some differences between the cultures that maintain the "standard" versions of English in the two countries. AmE tolerates more informality and more brevity in more situations.So, having been thinking about all this, I did a Difference of the Day on Twitter, showing these two charts:Here you can see that North Americans are much more happy than others to say the book's cover or the book's title or the table's edge or the table's width (or whatever other nouns might go after book's and table's). Here's the flipside, the of versions, which I didn't post on Twitter.The table chart goes with what we'd expect to see: BrE doing a lot more with of than AmE. But the book table has AmE doing more of the book than BrE. You know why? Because American talk about books more. No, really:So that's a lot more detail than you needed in order to see the AmE/BrE difference, but, hey, reading is good for you!*Why does off look like of? Because they used to be the same word! Some of the things I've been reading that influenced this post:Carlier, Anne and Jean-Christophe Verstraete. 2013. Genitive case and genitive constructions: an introduction. In Carlier and Verstraete (eds.), The genitive. Amsterdam: John Benjamins.Carlier, Anne, Michèle Goyens and Béatrice Lamiroy. 2013. De: a genitive marker in French? Its grammaticalization path from Latin to French. In Carlier and Verstraete (eds.), The genitive. Amsterdam: John Benjamins.Szmrecsanyi, Benedikt and Lars Hinrichs. 2008. Probabilistic determinants of genitive variation in spoken and written English: A multivariate comparison across time, space, and genres. In Terttu Nevalainen, IrmaTaavitsainen, Päivi Pahta, and Minna Korhonen (eds.), The Dynamics of Linguistic Variation: Corpus Evidence on English Past and Present. Amsterdam : John Benjamins. Full Article grammar morphology prepositions
world news on the up and up By separatedbyacommonlanguage.blogspot.com Published On :: Sat, 18 Apr 2020 11:57:00 +0000 Thomas West recently asked:AmE/BrE difference of the day: "on the up and up" means "above board, not underhanded" in AmE but appears to mean "rising, on the rise, moving upward" in BrE. Is that right? @lynneguist— Thomas West (@IntermarkLS) April 16, 2020I hadn't really noticed this before, but it looks like it's probably a case of an American phrase coming to Britain and being re-interpreted (which happens now and again—I talk about a few other cases in The Prodigal Tongue and elsewhere on this blog).The expression originated in AmE in or before the 1860s. It is often hyphenated: on the up-and-up. The OED entry for it starts:a. Honest(ly), straightforward(ly), ‘on the level’. Originally and chiefly U.S.1863 Humboldt Reg. (Unionville, Nevada) 4 July 2/1 Now that would be business, on the dead up-and-up. But then it continues with a second definition that it does not mark as U.S.: b. Steadily rising, improving, or increasing; prospering, successful.1930 Sun (Baltimore) 18 Aug. 6/1 From now on, we are led to believe, law and order will be on the up and up, as the current phrase is.1937 G. Heyer They found him Dead xiii. 265 He certainly wasn't on the up-and-up when I knew him. He was picking up a living doing odd jobs for any firm that would use him.1959 Encounter Oct. 25/2 Private travel is on the up and up.Just the first example in sense b is from an American source—but I really can't tell why they think that either of the first two examples has sense b and not sense a. I would have thought that the first one is saying that the police are going to be less corrupt or disorgani{s/z}ed, and, in the second, I would think that they were saying that he was taking money under the table. But you can see how the two senses can overlap and therefore sense a could morph into sense b, which it definitely has done by the 1959 example.Sense b comes 50 or 60 years after the first sense, during a time when the UK is getting a lot more exposure to AmE, so it does seem reasonable to think that the phrase came from the US and changed in the UK. The data from Google Books also seem to support this hypothesis: The b sense is definitely the primary sense in BrE. The (UK-based) Collins COBUILD Idiom Dictionary marks sense a as American but not sense b, and the BBC World Service's Learning English pages give only the 'successful' meaning in their list of up idioms:To be on the up and up: to be getting increasingly successful.Example:His life has been on the up and up since he published his first book. Now, he's making a film in Hollywood. One of the sources on freedictionary.com explicitly marks the b sense as British:But all that said, a few commenters on Thomas's original post seem to be Americans saying that they use the 'successful' sense. (I suspect they are younger Americans.) As we've seen above, it's not always clear which one people mean. Looking at a sample in the Corpus of Contemporary American English, though, the sense a meaning predominates:Click picture to enlargeSome of the BrE speakers responding to Thomas said that they assumed that on the up and up is an extension of a phrase on the up, meaning 'rising, being successful'. The OED doesn't record that, but there are plenty of examples in the Corpus of Global Web-Based English. (I searched for them followed by a (BrE) full stop/(AmE) period, so that I could be sure there wasn't another and up after the first up.)The examples in this data are often along the lines of "the numbers of X are on the up", so they are clearly about rising numbers and (by extension, often) success.Now, there is no expression on the down to mean 'decreasing' and the OED hadn't yet noticed the on the up expression, so I have to wonder whether the phrase on the up and up came from the US, got reinterpred in BrE, and then got shortened to on the up (rather than the latter being expanded from the former). It's harder to get information for on the up in a place like Google Books, because one can't do the punctuation trick and rule out all the examples like on the up grade or on the up line. I had a quick look at the Hansard corpus, the record of UK Parliamentary speech, as that gives a more reasonable amount of data to comb through. None of the examples of on the up before the first appearance of on the up and up (1946) are on the up to mean 'improving'—they are all on the up [noun], using up as a modifier for the noun. The 1946 Hansard example of up and up is used to mean 'growing, successful' (the b sense), as are the subsequent examples (33 of them). The first example of on the up in that meaning is in 1978. So, that is making it look like the phrase was cut rather than expanded in BrE.Thanks to Thomas for pointing this one out! And thanks to Jan Freeman and Ben Yagoda for noticing it earlier. I'd forgotten about Ben's post here. Full Article adverbs Americanization Britishization idioms prepositions
world news loose end By separatedbyacommonlanguage.blogspot.com Published On :: Sun, 26 Apr 2020 16:52:00 +0000 Thomas West was responsible for last week's post topic, and here he is again, having tweeted:Here’s another great example of BrE and AmE. Lloyd says “at a loose end” but in the US we say “at loose ends.” I wonder how differences like that happened. @lynneguist— Thomas West (@IntermarkLS) April 18, 2020Reading that, I first thought "I think that's a mark of my Britification—the singular is probably what I'd say now." I then wasted some time searching things I'd written (on Twitter, on this blog, on my hard drive) that used the expression, and found none. What else are lockdown Sunday mornings for?But then I thought more and thought "But do at a loose end and at loose ends always mean the same to me?" Loose ends, of course, need to be metaphorically tied. Both Englishes talk about, say, a project having loose ends, which need to be tied off or tied together to give us something finished—that won't unravel. Here I'm just interested in the at expression, which has more particular uses, and in which the metaphor gets a little more buried. No one says I'm at loose ends, so I'm going to tie them or I'm at a loose end, so I'm going to tie it/myself up. Maybe when you're at a loose end, you can get the image of hanging idly, or when you're at loose ends you have a sense that you have "ends" that you don't know what to do with. The Collins Dictionary website can be useful for looking into such things as it has a whole bunch of dictionaries together: the Collins COBUILD (meant for English learners, BrE-based but more apt to cover American variants), Collins English Dictionary (which is BrE-based), and Webster's New World Dictionary (WNW; AmE-based). COBUILD presents at a loose end as a feeling of boredom, and simply states that at loose ends is the American equivalent. (Collins English Dictionary defines it as "without purpose or occupation".)Where Collins has one definition for the singular (and by extension, the plural) phrase, WNW gives three senses for the plural phrase: Now, all of those senses are very similar, and so this looks like a difference in lexicographical style—whether you lump similar uses together or split them into definitions that describe more specific situations where the phrase is used. The Collins "without purpose or occupation" could be mapped onto senses 2 ('without anything definite to do') and 3 ('unemployed') in WNW. It's the 'unsettled, disorganized' bit that feels a bit different from COBUILD's 'bored'. What's unclear from that definition is whether it's people or situations that are unsettled and disorganized—that is, "I am at loose ends" versus "We left the project at loose ends". So, I had a little look in the GloWBE corpus, to see if I could find differences in how the singular phrase is used in BrE (42 unique usable examples) versus the plural phrase in AmE (20). There are few enough of these that I can look at all the examples. (The four "AmE" examples for the singular phrase were actually from British sources, so I won't consider them.)All of the examples in both countries are talking about people, rather than situations. Some seem to be in the 'disorganized, confused' sense—and I had to wonder in some of these cases if the writer was thinking of the phrase at [someone's] wit's end. These 'confused" examples were there in small numbers in both countries, so it is looking like the expressions really are equivalent in AmE and BrE, it's just a matter of different dictionaries splitting the senses more or less. BrE source: any advice will help as im at a loose end surely there is something i can do to sort this out??? AmE source: As a former (public school) teacher I was at loose ends how to educate my daughter (in context, this meant: didn't know which choice to make) Otherwise, most of the examples in both places signify 'having nothing particular to do' or 'idle'.Merriam-Webster, another US dictionary, gives only one definition, which seems to combine all three of WNW's senses, and makes it clearer that this expression is used of people, rather than of their situations: USnot knowing what to do : not having anything in particular to do But I found two things in the data interesting:1. As someone with both phrases in my repertoire, I felt like I'd have to use the plural with a plural subject. That is, I [singular] may be at a loose end, but my friends [plural] would be at loose ends, because they each have their own loose end. The data had five British plural at loose ends and 3 of those had plural subjects, but the BrE singular at a loose end was also used with plural subjects. This might be like collective noun agreement, in that the BrE speaker might be considering the semantic number more than the grammatical number: we are at loose ends if we're separately loose, but we are at a loose end, if we're reacting to a singular situation. That said, I don't think the data really show this in most cases. In the first example below, we get a BrE plural verb with a grammatically singular (BrE) football club name, but their loose end is singular. (Note that the collective plural in BrE isn't as semantically driven as some people—even me in the linked-to blog post—claim. I discuss that in chapter 6 of The Prodigal Tongue.)BrE singular end, plural subject: AC Mill Hill were at a loose end and started to play the hopeful long balls. BrE plural ends, plural subject:tens of thousands of men with military training are put at loose ends each year 2. AmE has a few examples of at loose ends with [one]self, which seems to have a particular sense of feeling 'lost' and 'purposeless'. BrE doesn't seem to have at a loose end with: AmE: Years ago I had a client who always seemed to be at loose ends with himself. None of this has addressed Thomas's question "why?" "What's the difference?" questions are answerable. "Why do they differ" questions are often not, both because the evidence is not available and because change in idioms is rarely a simple straight line. Things that change don't simply change once, they change thousands of times in small and diverse ways before they arrive somewhere else. The thing to keep in mind here is that things had loose ends centuries before people did. People were talking about loose ends in other kinds of contexts, so if the expression as applied to people started in the singular (and it probably did), then it would be unsurprising if the plural (about things) noun phrase (loose ends) affected the singular (about people) prepositional phrase (at a loose end). When I searched for the at phrases in Google Books, there were lots of loose ends in the early 1800s, but the OED only notices the 'idle person' meaning from the 1850s onward. So, I put an am in front of the at in my searches (in order to make sure that the loose ends belonged to people) and got this (there are no British hits for am at loose ends). That seems to confirm that the plural expression came later, with the singular having some presence in AmE, then falling out in the first half of the 20th century:But the other thing to note about origins is that the phrase was not originally at a loose end in BrE either. The at took a long time to settle down. Early examples in the OED have after a loose end and on a loose end, and the OED also notes another expression from more than 100 years earlier than at a loose end: at the loose hand.1742 R. North & M. North Life F. North 77 He was weary of being at the loose hand as to company.So perhaps the metaphor was originally one of idle hands rather than fraying rope? Is that why we don't talk about tying up our loose ends, because the expression didn't evolve from a nautical rope metaphor? At any rate, as idioms evolve, they often influence each other and that could have happened here. Full Article idioms metaphor morphology plurals
world news coronavirus and COVID-19 By separatedbyacommonlanguage.blogspot.com Published On :: Sun, 03 May 2020 22:41:00 +0000 A retired colleague contacted me with this query:Has a dialect difference emerged between US novel coronavirus/new coronavirus and UK COVID-19, do you think? Novel coronavirus/new coronavirus is favoured by Reuters, but I don't know whether that counts in the dialect balance.I hear plenty of COVID-19 from US sources, so that didn't strike me as quite right, but I had a look (on 29 April) at the News on the Web (NOW) corpus, which (so far this year) had 226 covi* (i.e. words starting with covi-) per million words in US and 49 per million in UK. For coronav* it's 362 US v 92 UK. (I searched that way so that I'd get all variations, including COVID without the -19, without the hyphen, coronaviruses, etc.). Now, I don't trust the geographical coding on the NOW corpus very much, because you have things like the Guardian showing up in the US data because it has a US portal that has US-particular content, but also all the UK content—and that doesn't do us much good in sorting out AmE from BrE. I really don't know why the per-million numbers are so much higher in the US sources, since the news in both places is completely taken over by the virus and stories related to it. But anyway, about 38% of the (named) mentions of the disease are COVID in the US and 35% in the UK, so there is no notable difference in preference for COVID. I found it interesting that the two newspaper apps on my phone (Guardian [UK] and New York Times) prefer coronavirus in headlines, even though COVID-19 is shorter. But my colleague is right that there is a lot more new/novel coronavirus in US than UK. About 12% of AmE usages are prefaced by an adjective that starts with N, while only about 3% of BrE coronaviruses are. Distribution is fairly even between novel (from medical usage) and new. It's worth noting that since I'm only searching news media, new/novel is probably far more common in this dataset than it would be in everyday interactions.Including the definite article (the coronavirus) seems to be more common in AmE. If I just look for how many coronavirus occurrences are preceded by the, the proportion is 45% for AmE and 37% for BrE. this search hits examples like the one in the 'middle school' story on the left: the coronavirus lockdown where the the really relates to the lockdown. So, to try to avoid this problem, I searched for (the) coronavirus [VERB] and (the) coronavirus [full stop/period]. In those cases, then AmE news media have the the about 50% of the time, while BrE ones have it less than 30% of the time. That misses the new/novel coronavirus (because of the adjective between the and coronavirus), so the real difference in the before coronavirus is probably more stark. The media's style guides are supposed to guide the choices journalists and editors make in phrasing such things, but how strictly they follow their own guides is another matter. I had a look at a couple:The Guardian Style Guide (UK) says:coronavirus outbreak 2019-20The virus is officially called Sars-CoV-2 and this causes the disease Covid-19. However, for ease of communication we are following the same practice as the WHO and using Covid-19 to refer to both the virus and the disease in our general reporting. It can also continue to be referred to as the coronavirus. [I've added the bold on the latter]The Associated Press (US) gives similar advice, though it goes into more particular rules for science stories.As of March 2020, referring to simply the coronavirus is acceptable on first reference in stories about COVID-19. While the phrasing incorrectly implies there is only one coronavirus, it is clear in this context. Also acceptable on first reference: the new coronavirus; the new virus; COVID-19. In stories, do not refer simply to coronavirus without the article the. Not: She is concerned about coronavirus. Omitting the is acceptable in headlines and in uses such as: He said coronavirus concerns are increasing. Passages and stories focusing on the science of the disease require sharper distinctions. COVID-19, which stands for coronavirus disease 2019, is caused by a virus named SARS-CoV-2. When referring specifically to the virus, the COVID-19 virus and the virus that causes COVID-19 are acceptable. But, because COVID-19 is the name of the disease, not the virus, it is not accurate to write a new virus called COVID-19. [bold added]In comparing the two passages you can see one predictable difference between them. AP writes COVID in all caps, Guardian has Covid with the initial capital only. There is a widespread preference in BrE (and generally not in AmE) to differentiate between initalisms and true acronyms. (There's been a bit in the Guardian about it, here.)In an initialism, you pronounce the names of the letters: the WHO stands for World Health Organization and it is pronounced W-H-O and not "who". It's spel{led/t} with all caps (or small caps), no matter where you live. (AmE styles are more likely than BrE styles to insist on (BrE) full stops/(AmE) periods in these: W.H.O.—but styles do vary.)Acronyms use the initial letters of words to make a new word, pronounced as a word. The National Aeronautics and Space Administration's short name is pronounced "nasa", making it a true acronym. All AmE styles that I know of spell it with caps: NASA. Many BrE styles spell it like any other proper name, with just an initial capital: Nasa. This disease name provides a slightly different case because it's doesn't just use initial letters: COronaVIrusDisease. That's probably why I'm seeing some initial-only Covid in AmE, for instance in the Chronicle of Higher Education, where they spell other acronyms (like NASA) in all caps. Other variants, like CoViD and covid are out there—but they are in the minority. COVID and Covid rule.While some other UK sources, like the Guardian, follow the initial-cap style (Covid), many UK sources use the all-cap style, including the National Health Service and the UK government.And on that note, I hope you and yours are safe.P.S. Since I'm talking about newspaper uses, I haven't considered pronunciation—but that discussion is happening in the comments. Full Article acronyms determiners medicine/disease spelling
world news Prenez soin de vous + Take care of your French with a dozen more words By feedproxy.google.com Published On :: Thu, 23 Apr 2020 10:42:10 +0200 A gift from our guest: dried cyclamen, a ballet of expressive flowers! Today's Expression: Prenez soin de vous : take care of yourself (plural: yourselves) Audio file: Click here to listen to today's phrase in French and English A DAY IN A FRENCH LIFE by Kristi Espinasse Someone close to us, someone young and strong, had an accident--une chute while alone at home-- followed by a trip to ER for some points! The emotional and physical scars are there, but our bien-aimé is here with us now and will stay in time to recover from the choc. Today's short entry is a reminder to you and me to continue to check in with those who are living alone. Which of our friends are on their own? Which family members? Which colleagues? Have you seen the post lady lately? Big, strong, young? Grand, fort, jeune? Don't forget to check on these ones! Check on everyone. Self-check. Vérifie! I am off to check on our guest, who somehow managed--between the ER and here--to pack a bunch of goodies for us to share at the table: gingembre, poireaux, citrons, oranges--les agrumes--which have since been added to soup and put into a simple cake.... Full Article
world news Our mystery guest + le cafoutche = The "everything room" in France By feedproxy.google.com Published On :: Thu, 30 Apr 2020 11:51:30 +0200 Up till now, the best part of our cafoutche was the view. More about a few sweet and savory projects in today's missive. Thank you for reading and sharing this post with a friend! Today's Word: cafoutche : storage room, cupboard AUDIO FILE: click here to listen to the following quote in French Cafoutche: De l’occitan cafoucho synonyme de cahute. A Marseille il désigne un petit placard où l’on met de tout et de rien. Peut désigner la cave, aussi bien qu’une petite pièce fermée ou un débarras. Cafoutche: from Occitan cafoucho synonymous with hut. In Marseille this designates a small closet where you put everything and nothing. May refer to the cellar, as well as a small closed room or storage room. --www.lasardineduport.fr A DAY IN A FRENCH LIFE by Kristi Espinasse Not only is our guest on the mend, she is mending! Helping, that is, to fix everything from a punctual petit creux to our unruly store room--insisting all the while, ça fait du bien de travailler. What a positive way to look at work--as something that makes us feel better! I know this is true with my writing which I often put off to a later date,... Full Article
world news Pâte Brisée : Jêrôme's 4-ingredient wine-based shortcrust pastry is easy, versatile, delicious for savory quiche or sweet, delectable pie! By feedproxy.google.com Published On :: Thu, 07 May 2020 11:46:58 +0200 I can tell you--after seeing them in the bathroom mirror this morning--this shortcrust pastry recipe will give you les poignées d'amour. That's French for "love handles." Même pas peur? Not even scared? Good! Read on and discover a truly delicious and versatile pâte brisée. I should know...I've tested 10 of them in the past week--ever since you asked for the recipe! Today's Word: la pâte brisée : shortcrust pastry, a rich dough for making pie crust Audio: Listen to the words pâte brisée in this soundfile En cuisine, la pâte brisée est une pâte servant de base aux tartes salées ou sucrées. La pâte brisée désigne généralement une pâte composée principalement de farine et de matière grasse sans sucre. In cooking, shortcrust pastry is a dough used as a base for savory or sweet pies. Shortcrust pastry generally refers to a dough composed mainly of flour and fat, without sugar. Jérôme's Pâte Brisée: 4-ingredient Shortcrust Pastry (makes one large or two small tarts!) Ingredients... 2 cups flour 2 teaspoons baking powder 1/2 cup white wine 1/2 cup sunflower oil Note: ordinary white wine is all you need. Leftover wine will work as long as it hasn't turned to vinegar. For... Related StoriesCaviar d'Aubergine: An easy, delicious family recipe for you Full Article Recette / Recipe
world news Friday, January 06, 2017 By feedproxy.google.com Published On :: Bloom County by Berkeley Breathed for January 06, 2017 Full Article
world news Saturday, January 07, 2017 By feedproxy.google.com Published On :: Bloom County by Berkeley Breathed for January 07, 2017 Full Article
world news Monday, January 09, 2017 By feedproxy.google.com Published On :: Bloom County by Berkeley Breathed for January 09, 2017 Full Article
world news Japan’s favourite tramp juice By feedproxy.google.com Published On :: Sun, 15 Sep 2019 16:25:01 +0000 Tramp juice, a slang term for high-strength canned drinks, including the granddaddy of them all, Carlsberg’s Special Brew, loved by homeless alcoholics, have not got the same bad rap in Japan, but are actually the fastest-growing sector of the market, so this ranking from goo Ranking looks at the tastiest strong (7% or more) canned […] Full Article Polls Rankings chu-hi goo ranking strong zero
world news Which Pixar movies moved Japan? By feedproxy.google.com Published On :: Sun, 22 Sep 2019 16:07:39 +0000 goo Ranking recently published a straightforward survey on which Pixar movie moved people the most. For me it has to be Toy Story 3, although I’ve never actually seen Monsters University, and I only caught the last 15 minutes of Finding Dory in Japanese once, but it seemed more silly than moving to me! Anyway, […] Full Article Entertainment Polls Rankings Uncategorised goo ranking pixar
world news Japan’s tastiest McMenu item By feedproxy.google.com Published On :: Sun, 29 Sep 2019 16:07:18 +0000 This survey from goo Ranking looked at what Japanese considered was the tastiest menu item at McDonald’s. My first visit to a McDonald’s was in Germany to get a salad, then a cafe latte in a McCafe in Macau (McAu?) in lieu of going to a casino as part of a package tour. My first […] Full Article Polls Rankings goo ranking mcdonalds
world news Japan’s worldwide praise-worthy cars By feedproxy.google.com Published On :: Sun, 13 Oct 2019 16:29:58 +0000 The pictured meme has perhaps not yet penetrated far the Japanese psyche, given the results of this survey into what famous Japanese cars the Japanese think the world praises. I think the Prius is a good car, although in Japan it seems every second car is one, but I do enjoy driving one, and it’s […] Full Article Polls Rankings car goo ranking prius
world news Factory tours Japanese would like to go on By feedproxy.google.com Published On :: Sun, 20 Oct 2019 17:08:56 +0000 There’s a very definite Tokyo-area bias in this survey from goo Ranking into which factory tours people would want to go on; the pictured food sample factory is not one of them, though. The only factory tours I’ve been on in Japan were three times to the Yamazaki distillery tour and tasting and once to […] Full Article Polls Rankings factory goo ranking
world news Japan’s tastiest family restaurant By feedproxy.google.com Published On :: Sun, 24 Nov 2019 14:44:54 +0000 Today we have goo Ranking looking at where Japanese rate as the tastiest family restaurant. “Family restaurant” is another example of Japanese English; it isn’t “family-owned”, but “family-friendly”. Saizeria as number one (incidentally, it’s also the foreign traveller’s favourite) is a little surprising; their pasta is all dried pasta, and their pizza bases are just […] Full Article Polls Rankings Uncategorised family restaurant food goo ranking
world news Theme restaurants or bars Japanese wish to visit By feedproxy.google.com Published On :: Tue, 10 Dec 2019 15:50:02 +0000 No words, just a map: OK, a few words; goo Ranking looked at what theme restaurants or bars Japanese might want to visit. Some of these restaurants are also popular with tourists and foreign residents, so perhaps you can find a new favourite in the list? Also note that some of the places have other […] Full Article Polls Rankings food goo ranking restaurant
world news Japan’s tastiest fizzy drink By feedproxy.google.com Published On :: Sun, 15 Dec 2019 15:14:05 +0000 No real surprises with the most popular, but the second, third and fourth are in this list of what the Japanese rate as the tastiest carbonated drinks. Pictured is a special limited-time flavour of the number two drink. Oronamin C Drink and others with medicinal-sounding names are indeed that; vitamin-laden foul-tasting drinks that might or […] Full Article Polls Rankings coca cola fizzy goo ranking soda
world news Brands Japanese were suprised to find were Japanese By feedproxy.google.com Published On :: Thu, 30 Apr 2020 17:12:04 +0000 I’m back, and with some free time let’s try a translation I started last year; brands that the Japanese were surprised to learn were actually Japan-born. Samantha Thavasa television advertisements have an extremely American feel with supermodels frolicing around New York in fancy frocks, so I too was surprised to find they were actually Japanese. […] Full Article Polls Rankings
world news How Japanese are living with COVID-19 By feedproxy.google.com Published On :: Mon, 04 May 2020 16:44:27 +0000 This survey is ancient in terms of the progression of COVID-19, but there’s still interesting figures in this survey from @nifty conducted at the end of March into COVID-19. This survey was conducted before the Olympics were postponed and the state of emergency declared. So far I’d put myself in the not really worried category; […] Full Article Polls Society coronavirus covid nifty pandemic
world news Hawaii Introduces COVID-19 ‘Feminist Economic Recovery Plan’ By feedproxy.google.com Published On :: Fri, 01 May 2020 15:28:24 +0000 The Hawai’i State Commission on the Status of Women introduced a ‘feminist economic recovery plan’ that is designed to help women recover from the economic hardships created by the coronavirus pandemic. The plan is the first of its’ kind in the nation. The plan, called “Building Bridges, Not Walking on Backs: A Feminist Economic Recovery Plan for COVID-19,” centers women from the most marginalized groups that have been disproportionately affected by COVID-19. The plan not only proposes measures that will help aid in recovery from the economic fallout of the virus, but also introduces fundamental changes to the way women’s work is valued and compensated. “I have not seen any state or nation propose a feminist economic recovery, a recovery that explicitly centers women or attempts to counteract patriarchy,” said Khara Jabola-Carolus, executive director of the commission. “Even proposals from left movements in the U.S. are missing this. They are bold on race and class, but gender is taken for granted. People don’t seem to understand the fundamental role of patriarchy, and how to tie gender in with race and class. So, I turned to the people with real power — women organizing in our communities who are active inside […] Related posts: COVID-19 Small Business Loan Program Runs Out of Funds as Businesses Struggle Need for Universal Paid Sick and Family Medical Leave More Urgent Than Ever Majority of COVID-19 Related Job Loss Falls on Women and Minorities Full Article Economy Feminist Newswire Money coronavirus COVID-19 economic recovery feminism hawaii Hawaii Commission on the Status of Women indigenous women
world news COVID-19 Pandemic Highlights Preexisting and Underlying American Racism and Sexism By feedproxy.google.com Published On :: Fri, 01 May 2020 19:24:58 +0000 As with most issues in the United States, Black Americans and female Americans are the hardest hit by the coronavirus pandemic. On April 6, Louisiana was the first state to release data on Covid-19 broken down by race. Its report showed that while African American’s make up 33% of the state’s population, they accounted for 70% of those dead from the virus at the time. Other cities and states soon followed suit with their own reports as the federal government remained silent on the issue. These reports showed, one after another, that areas with large populations of Black people have been ravaged with disproportionately high numbers of Covid-19 cases and deaths. Wisconsin reported that while Black people make up 7% of the state’s population, they made up 33% of the state’s deaths. In Michigan, the numbers are 14% of the population versus 40% of the deaths. In New York, Black people are twice as likely to die from the virus as white people. The pandemic has further exposed the stark racial divide in health in our nation. Black American communities face extreme situations of environmental racism which leads to underlying health issues like which make these communities more vulnerable to […] Related posts: Navajo Nation Has Third Highest Rate of Coronavirus Cases in U.S. Majority of COVID-19 Related Job Loss Falls on Women and Minorities Judge Affirms Abortion Access in Alabama During Coronavirus Pandemic Full Article Feminist Newswire Health Race coronavirus COVID-19 gender
world news ACLU Challenges Arkansas’s Latest Attempt to Restrict Abortion Access By feedproxy.google.com Published On :: Mon, 04 May 2020 16:45:40 +0000 Arkansas’s only in-clinic abortion provider, Little Rock Family Planning Services, is suing the state to challenge a rule requiring patients to get a COVID-19 test within 48 hours of their abortion procedure. This is the second time Arkansas abortion providers have had to fight a legal battle to protect abortion access during the COVID-19 pandemic. The American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU), representing Little Rock Family Planning Services, argues that the Department of Health rule severely restricts abortion access, especially for patients who are close to Arkansas’s 20-week gestational limit. Little Rock Family Planning Services reports that it has been unable to find any COVID-19 testing location that will test asymptomatic people and provide results within 48 hours. “For women who cannot obtain access to COVID-19 NAAT testing within 48-hours of their procedures, the Directive entirely bars them from exercising their constitutional right to receive pre-viability abortion care in Arkansas,” wrote the ACLU in the lawsuit. Last month, Arkansas tried to halt all but “immediately medically necessary” abortions during the coronavirus pandemic. The ACLU challenged that order, and a federal judge issued a restraining order to allow abortion care to continue as normal. A week later, the Eighth Circuit Court of […] Related posts: U.S. Appeals Court Rules in Favor of COVID-19 Texas Abortion Ban Reproductive Rights Groups Sue to Stop Oklahoma’s COVID-19 Abortion Ban Judge Blocks Oklahoma Abortion Restrictions During COVID-19 Outbreak Full Article Abortion Providers Clinics Courts Feminist Newswire Reproductive Choice Abortion Access abortion bans Arkansas coronavirus COVID-19
world news U.S. Women’s National Soccer Team Equal Pay Claim Dismissed by Federal Judge By feedproxy.google.com Published On :: Mon, 04 May 2020 16:53:05 +0000 A federal judge dealt a significant blow to the U.S. Women’s national team’s fight for equality on Friday. While the U.S. women’s team’s claim of unequal working conditions can go forward, a federal judge rejected the player’s claims of pay inequality. In March 2019, the USWNT filed a lawsuit against the U.S. Soccer Federation. The suit alleges the U.S. Soccer Federation’s has federally discriminatory payment practices, arguing that they pay women less than men “for substantially equal work and by denying them at least equal playing, training, and travel conditions; equal promotion of their games; equal support and development for their games; and other terms and conditions of employment equal to the MNT.” Judge R. Gary Klausner wrote in his decision that USWNT members did not prove wage discrimination under the Equal Pay Act because the women’s team played more games and made more money than the men’s team. Furthermore, the women’s team also rejected a collective bargaining agreement (CBA) where they would have an identical pay structure to the men’s team in favor of a different CBA. This CBA guarantees players are compensated regardless of whether they play, while the men’s CBA does not. “This approach — merely comparing […] Related posts: U.S. Women’s Soccer Players Seek More than $66 Million in Damages U.S. Women’s Soccer Team Continues to Dominate; Fight with U.S. Soccer Federation Ongoing Students Have Fundamental Right to Literacy, Appeals Court Says Full Article Courts Feminist Newswire Labor Rights Sports lawsuits Pay Equity USNWT women's soccer
world news Universities Face Decision Between Medical Disaster and Financial Ruin This Fall By feedproxy.google.com Published On :: Tue, 05 May 2020 16:34:12 +0000 Amidst great economic and political pressure to reopen in the fall, American colleges and universities must choose between enormous risk and liability if they do open and bankruptcy if they do not. Colleges and universities are among the most vulnerable institutions to disease outbreaks and would serve as efficient grounds the spread of coronavirus as students on campus share close spaces. Students are in close contact in classes, dining halls, clubs, sports, dorms, parties, events, games, assemblies, and meetings. Students could bring the virus to campus upon arrival and bring it home during breaks and holidays. Schools are worried about lawsuits in the case of outbreaks on campus, adding to the risk of reopening in the fall. If schools choose not to reopen this fall, they could lose half of their revenue and ultimately not recover, either filing for bankruptcy or closing permanently. Historically Black colleges and universities (HBCUs) are being hit the hardest by the financial burden of the pandemic and because African Americans are bearing a disproportionate share of the pandemic, school populations of HBCUs are more likely to be impacted by Covid-19. In response to political pressure from the GOP to reopen in the fall, schools are […] Related posts: California Special Needs Students Left Behind Amidst COVID-19 Education Changes Democrats and Civil Rights Groups Demand Delay of New Title IX Rule New Kaiser Family Foundation Survey Shows Coronavirus Weighs More Heavily on Women Full Article Education Feminist Newswire Health colleges coronavirus COVID-19 universities
world news Police Brutality in the Time of Coronavirus By feedproxy.google.com Published On :: Wed, 06 May 2020 15:24:12 +0000 Covid-19 is shining yet another spotlight on American systemic racism as African Americans face higher rates of death from coronavirus, as well as policing in the form of social distancing patrols, which are often racially disparate, inequitable, and aggressive. A majority of businesses have reduced operations or closed, but the NYPD has not slowed operations at all during the pandemic. Even in the midst of a historic crisis, the police oppression of Black and Brown communities perseveres. Earlier this week in New York City’s East Village, the violent arrest of a Black man allegedly defying social distancing orders was captured on camera by a witness. This was one of three arrests in the area that day by unmasked officers breaking the very social distancing rules they were ostensibly enforcing. All of these arrests have been condemned by the Legal Aid Society which is asking the NYPD to reconsider their selective social distancing enforcement. The NYPD is currently investigating the incident. In Philadelphia last month, mask requirements on public transportation led to the accosting of a Black bus rider by eight or nine police officers who then forced him off the bus instead of handing him a mask as they have […] Related posts: COVID-19 Pandemic Highlights Preexisting and Underlying American Racism and Sexism Navajo Nation Has Third Highest Rate of Coronavirus Cases in U.S. Trans Community Uniquely Affected by COVID-19 Pandemic Full Article Feminist Newswire Health Race coronavirus COVID-19 police brutality
world news Supreme Court Considers Affordable Care Act Religious Exemption Rule By feedproxy.google.com Published On :: Wed, 06 May 2020 17:34:07 +0000 On Wednesday, the Supreme Court will consider yet another case regarding whether employers can decline to cover contraceptives in their health care plans. Reproductive rights groups warn that depending on the outcome of the case, tens of thousands of American women could lose vital contraceptive coverage. The case, Little Sisters of the Poor and Paul Home v. Pennsylvania, involves a 2017 Trump administration rule change that significantly broadened who can claim an exemption to the Affordable Care Act (ACA) contraceptive coverage mandate. The 2017 rule change, issued without a notice of proposed rulemaking or public comment opportunity, expanded the scope of religious exemptions and added an additional moral exemption claim. States had successfully challenged the rule, calling it a violation of the constitution, federal anti-discrimination law, and the Administrative Procedures Act (APA). A federal appeals court issued an injunction, preventing the Trump administration from enforcing the rule until the case was decided. Both the district court and the Third Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals affirmed that states were likely to succeed on their APA claim. The court will now consider whether the Little Sisters of the Poor have standing and whether the Trump administration lawfully exempted religious objectors from the […] Related posts: New Form of Birth Control Being Tested for Approval by FDA Supreme Court Set to Hear Louisiana Abortion Case Today Obamacare Turns 10 This Week. Here’s How It Has Changed Healthcare in the US. Full Article Courts Feminist Newswire Reproductive Choice ACA Affordable Care Act Birth Control Contraception Reproductive Health SCOTUS Supreme Court
world news Transgender Woman Nina Pop Murdered in Missouri By feedproxy.google.com Published On :: Thu, 07 May 2020 20:06:42 +0000 On Sunday, May 3rd, the body of 28-year-old transgender woman Nina Pop was found in her apartment in Sikestown, Missouri. She had been stabbed multiple times, according to police. While police have not determined a motive, they are looking into the possibility of a hate crime. The LGBTQ advocacy group Human Rights Campaign reported that Pop’s murder is at least the 10th violent death of a transgender or gender nonconforming person this year, and the fifth in the past month. All five of the recent victims were transgender women of color. Tori Cooper, director of community engagement for HRC’s Transgender Justice Initiative, wrote in a blog post, “for the past four weeks, we have seen the deaths of five transgender women of color in this country. We are seeing an epidemic of violence that can no longer be ignored. Transgender and gender-nonconforming people, especially trans women of color, risk our lives by living as our true selves — and we are being violently killed for doing so”. Transgender and gender nonconforming people lack expansive, explicit federal legal protections to safeguard against the vast discrimination they receive. While they are covered under the state’s hate crimes legislation, they are not explicitly […] No related posts. Full Article Feminist Newswire LGBT Rights Violence Against Women
world news First ICE Detainee Covid-19 Death Occurred This Week By feedproxy.google.com Published On :: Fri, 08 May 2020 20:29:54 +0000 A 57-year-old man from El Salvador who was being held at the Otay Mesa Detention Center in California died from Covid-19 on Wednesday. This is the first confirmed death from the coronavirus at an ICE detention center. Carlos Escobar-Mejia has been detained at the center since Jan. 10 after having lived in the U.S. for 40 years. While at the detention center, he was on a list of people who are medically vulnerable to the virus and are therefore eligible for immediate release but was hospitalized before the list was fully put together. According to ICE, 705 out of 1,460 detainees tested positive for Covid-19. At the Otay Mesa center alone, there are 140 cases of Covid-19 out of the 649 detainees there, making it the facility with the largest number of positive tests among detainees. The Otay Mesa center is owned by the private prison company CoreCivic, which has not commented on the situation there. ICE maintains that it is caring for its detainees in light of the pandemic, but detainees have said that they do not have enough space to socially distance, that they do not have enough clean masks, and that guards are not adhering to CDC […] No related posts. Full Article Feminist Newswire Health Immigration
