Latest la news

In this episode, we talked about… How to cope if you’re feeling uncertain and anxious because you are apart from your partner, as well as how to deal with boredom and frustration because of too much togetherness… What to do if you have a mismatched vision of what you both want… How to stay in […]

The post Your Top 5 Relationship Questions: Answered! appeared first on Gala Darling.

Full Article

video

BQM – BlockQuest Maker + SAMURAI ERA Is Now Available For Xbox One

By feedproxy.google.com
Published On :: Fri, 08 May 2020 04:15:00 +0000

Product Info: Developer: Wonderland Kazakiri inc Publisher: Wonderland Kazakiri inc Website: BQM – BlockQuest Maker + SAMURAI ERA Twitter: @BlockQuest_wk

Full Article

Plague Universe: Strategy RPG Bundle Is Now Available For Xbox

By feedproxy.google.com
Published On :: Fri, 08 May 2020 04:19:53 +0000

Product Info: Developer: Arcade Distillery Publisher: Arcade Distillery Website: Plague Universe Twitter: @LucBernard / @ArcadeDistiller / @PlagueUniverse

Full Article

SuperMash Is Now Available For Xbox One

By feedproxy.google.com
Published On :: Fri, 08 May 2020 04:24:00 +0000

Product Info: Developer: Digital Continue Publisher: Digital Continue‬ Website: SuperMash Twitter: @digitalcontinue

Full Article

Mecho Wars: Desert Ashes Is Now Available For Xbox One And Windows 10 (Xbox Play Anywhere)

By feedproxy.google.com
Published On :: Fri, 08 May 2020 04:35:34 +0000

Product Info: Developer: Arcade Distillery Publisher: Arcade Distillery Website: Mecho Wars: Desert Ashes Twitter: @ArcadeDistiller

Full Article

Duke Of Defense Is Now Available For Xbox One And Windows 10 (Xbox Play Anywhere)

By feedproxy.google.com
Published On :: Fri, 08 May 2020 04:45:07 +0000

Product Info: Developer: Sebastian Nigro, Christ Anselmo Publisher: HItcents Website: Duke Of Defense Twitter: @tophtacular / @Seabass_N / @Hitcents

Full Article

Ghost Files: Memory Of A Crime Is Now Available For Xbox One

By feedproxy.google.com
Published On :: Fri, 08 May 2020 04:54:55 +0000

Ghost Files: Memory Of A Crime is also included in the Detective Novels Bundle, which includes Noir Chronicles: City of Crime, and Path of Sin: Greed. Product Info: Developer: Artifex Mundi Publisher: Artifex Mundi Website: Games from Artifex Mundi Twitter: @ArtifexMundi

Full Article

Ultimate Ski Jumping 2020 Is Now Available For Xbox One

By feedproxy.google.com
Published On :: Fri, 08 May 2020 16:28:39 +0000

Enjoy the two arcade experiences from Blue Sunset Games now available in one bundle: Product Info: Developer: Blue Sunset Games Publisher: Blue Sunset Games Website: Ultimate Ski Jumping 2020 Twitter: @BlueSunsetGames

Full Article

SokoBunny Is Now Available For Digital Pre-order And Pre-download On Xbox One

By feedproxy.google.com
Published On :: Fri, 08 May 2020 16:37:01 +0000

NOTE: You may pre-download this game, but it will not be playable until the release date/time: 05/22/2020 – 3:00 AM (check the product page for release date/time in your region). Product Info: Developer: DillyFrameGames Publisher: DillyFrameGames Website: SokoBunny Twitter: @DillyFrameGames

Full Article

NASCAR Heat 5 Is Now Available For Digital Pre-order And Pre-download On Xbox One

By feedproxy.google.com
Published On :: Fri, 08 May 2020 16:50:13 +0000

NOTE: You may pre-download this game, but it will not be playable until the release date/time: 07/10/2019 (check the product page for release date/time in your region). Get three days early access when you purchase the Gold Edition. Product Info: Developer: Motorsport Games Publisher: 704 Games Company Website: NASCAR Heat 5 Twitter: @704Games / @MSportgames / @NASCARHeat

Full Article

Fury Unleashed Is Now Available For Xbox One

By feedproxy.google.com
Published On :: Fri, 08 May 2020 17:07:49 +0000

Product Info: Developer: Awesome Games Studio Publisher: Awesome Games Studio Website: Fury Unleashed Twitter: @AwesomeGamesStd

Full Article

Sin Slayers: Enhanced Edition Is Now Available For Xbox One

By feedproxy.google.com
Published On :: Fri, 08 May 2020 18:18:03 +0000

Product Info: Developer: Goonswarm Publisher: Black Tower Website: Sin Slayers Twitter: @sinslayersgame

Full Article

In the Interest of Safety, NFPA Cancels June 2020 NFPA Conference & Expo® in Orlando

By feedproxy.google.com
Published On :: 2020-04-20T18:30:00Z

At this time, the world continues to be significantly impacted by COVID-19 and we no longer believe it is possible to host and conduct the NFPA Conference and Expo in June. NFPA is a safety organization and we would not hold an event where the well-being

Full Article

nfpa conference & expo
home fire sprinklers
2019 nfpa conference & expo
home fire sprinkler advocacy

HyperX Teams up with Ducky and Launches HyperX x Ducky One 2 Mini Mechanical Gaming Keyboard

By feedproxy.google.com
Published On :: Wed, 06 May 2020 15:07:25 +0000

The HyperX x Ducky One 2 Mini mechanical gaming keyboard features HyperX red linear mechanical switches built for performance, longevity and an 80 million lifetime click rating per switch.

The post HyperX Teams up with Ducky and Launches HyperX x Ducky One 2 Mini Mechanical Gaming Keyboard appeared first on ThinkComputers.org.

Full Article

EK Releases the Long-Awaited Reflection Distro Plate for Lian LI O11D XL

By feedproxy.google.com
Published On :: Fri, 08 May 2020 14:20:50 +0000

The EK-Quantum Reflection PC-O11D XL D5 PWM D-RGB is a custom water cooling reservoir, routing, and pump solution that seamlessly fits into the front of the case. This waterway is also equipped with a physical flow indicator that gives a nice visual representation of the pump's speed.

The post EK Releases the Long-Awaited Reflection Distro Plate for Lian LI O11D XL appeared first on ThinkComputers.org.

Full Article

All News
Hardware News
Press Releases
Distro Plate
EK
EK Water Blocks
EK-Quantum Reflection PC-O11D XL D5 PWM D-RGB
EKWB
LIAN LI O11D XL
Watercooling

The UAE is going to Mars. Here's the plan for its Hope orbiter.

By feedproxy.google.com
Published On :: Mon, 04 May 2020 11:41:19 +0000

The United Arab Emirates had its sights set on Mars the day before it launched its second satellite ever.

Full Article

There are two kinds of sunspots on the sun right now amid solar cycle change

By feedproxy.google.com
Published On :: Mon, 04 May 2020 11:50:23 +0000

The sun offers plenty of brainteasers: Right now, for instance, it's sporting magnetic knots formed by two different cycles — simultaneously.

Full Article

The starry dusty field from the core of our Milky Way galaxy (photo)

By feedproxy.google.com
Published On :: Mon, 04 May 2020 11:53:46 +0000

A panoramic view of the Milky Way galaxy's dusty core reveals several colorful deep-space nebulas.

Full Article

Scientists keep debunking 'monster black hole' discovery. So, what's the deal with binary system LB1?

By feedproxy.google.com
Published On :: Mon, 04 May 2020 16:00:15 +0000

As scientists continue to weigh in, one thing is clear: the "monster black hole" discovered in 2019 doesn't exist.

Full Article

Negocio Sucio: Falta de Equidad Menstrual en las Cárceles Colombianas

By www.ourbodiesourselves.org
Published On :: Fri, 25 Oct 2019 16:05:38 +0000

By Charlie Ruth Castro

Read this post in English

Vamos a hablar de menstruación, el proceso más natural y necesario para la buena salud reproductiva entre las mujeres, pero aquel que culturalmente nos han enseñado a aborrecer, ocultar o incluso a hacerle burla. Y por otro lado voy a hablar de un negocio sucio perpetrado por ciertos funcionarios del INPEC -la institución nacional a cargo de la política penitenciaria- en muchas de las cárceles de Colombia: el desvío de presupuestos para el suministro de toallas higiénicas ... More

The post Negocio Sucio: Falta de Equidad Menstrual en las Cárceles Colombianas appeared first on Our Bodies Ourselves.

Full Article

Activism & Resources
menstruation

Dirty Business: Lack of Menstrual Equity in Colombian Prisons

By www.ourbodiesourselves.org
Published On :: Fri, 25 Oct 2019 16:07:11 +0000

By Charlie Ruth Castro

Lee este post en español

Let’s talk about menstruation – a natural and necessary process among women, but one that we have been culturally taught to hate, hide or even make fun of. Also, let me talk about a dirty business perpetrated by certain officers from INPEC, the Colombian national institution in charge of penitentiary policy. In many prisons, INPEC has routinely failed to supply adequate menstrual products for the female prison population.

Being deprived of ways to deal with bleeding is outrageous, ... More

The post Dirty Business: Lack of Menstrual Equity in Colombian Prisons appeared first on Our Bodies Ourselves.

Full Article

Activism & Resources
menstruation
Sex Education

Our Doctors, Ourselves: Barbara Seaman and Popular Health Feminism in the 1970s

By www.ourbodiesourselves.org
Published On :: Thu, 13 Feb 2020 19:51:46 +0000

“If the plastic speculum was the tool of choice for self-help advocates, leading women to a better understanding of their own bodies, then the popular media was Barbara Seaman’s preferred weapon in the cultural battle against medical sexism.”
— Kelly O’Donnell, in her article “Our Doctors, Ourselves: Barbara Seaman and Popular Health Feminism in the 1970s”

Barbara Seaman, a popular journalist in the 1960s and 70s who wrote for magazines including Brides, Ms., Ladies Home Journal, and Family Circle, was one of the first journalists to ... More

The post Our Doctors, Ourselves: Barbara Seaman and Popular Health Feminism in the 1970s appeared first on Our Bodies Ourselves.

Full Article

Activism & Resources
American Culture
Birth Control & Family Planning
Drugs & Pharmaceutical Companies
Healthcare System
Public Policy

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: requires
Subject of main verb: the law
Object of main verb = infinitive clause: every driver to drive safely

But 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 properly
Function words require that social skills use properly

The 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

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 unlimited
the science behind our most creative power

by David Adger
Oxford University Press, 2019

This 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

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 Food

British 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.com

In 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 Food

The 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 Table

The 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 dogs
on red hots
on baked goods (pigs in blankets briefly mentioned)
on breakfast
on bangers
on 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

Minnesota: Latest updates on coronavirus

South Dakota: Latest updates on coronavirus

Oregon: Latest updates on coronavirus

Rhode Island: Latest updates on Coronavirus

Idaho: Latest updates on Coronavirus

Michigan: Latest updates on Coronavirus

California: Latest updates on coronavirus

Louisiana: Latest updates on Coronavirus

Alabama: Latest updates on coronavirus

Alaska: Latest updates on coronavirus

Massachusetts: Latest updates on coronavirus

Georgia: Latest updates on Coronavirus

Colorado: Latest updates on coronavirus

Utah: Latest updates on coronavirus

Indiana: Latest updates on Coronavirus

Arkansas: Latest updates on coronavirus

Mississippi: Latest updates on Coronavirus

Ohio: Latest updates on coronavirus

Tennessee: Latest updates on coronavirus

Arizona: Latest updates on coronavirus

New York: Latest updates on Coronavirus

West Virginia: Latest updates on Coronavirus

Tesla Model 3

Godzilla Head

Las Vegas restaurant guide

Your Top 5 Relationship Questions: Answered!

BQM – BlockQuest Maker + SAMURAI ERA Is Now Available For Xbox One

Plague Universe: Strategy RPG Bundle Is Now Available For Xbox

SuperMash Is Now Available For Xbox One

Mecho Wars: Desert Ashes Is Now Available For Xbox One And Windows 10 (Xbox Play Anywhere)

Duke Of Defense Is Now Available For Xbox One And Windows 10 (Xbox Play Anywhere)

Ghost Files: Memory Of A Crime Is Now Available For Xbox One

Ultimate Ski Jumping 2020 Is Now Available For Xbox One

SokoBunny Is Now Available For Digital Pre-order And Pre-download On Xbox One

NASCAR Heat 5 Is Now Available For Digital Pre-order And Pre-download On Xbox One

Fury Unleashed Is Now Available For Xbox One

Sin Slayers: Enhanced Edition Is Now Available For Xbox One

In the Interest of Safety, NFPA Cancels June 2020 NFPA Conference & Expo® in Orlando

HyperX Teams up with Ducky and Launches HyperX x Ducky One 2 Mini Mechanical Gaming Keyboard

EK Releases the Long-Awaited Reflection Distro Plate for Lian LI O11D XL

The UAE is going to Mars. Here's the plan for its Hope orbiter.

There are two kinds of sunspots on the sun right now amid solar cycle change

The starry dusty field from the core of our Milky Way galaxy (photo)

Scientists keep debunking 'monster black hole' discovery. So, what's the deal with binary system LB1?

Negocio Sucio: Falta de Equidad Menstrual en las Cárceles Colombianas

Dirty Business: Lack of Menstrual Equity in Colombian Prisons

Our Doctors, Ourselves: Barbara Seaman and Popular Health Feminism in the 1970s

grammar is relationships

Book week 2019: David Adger's Language Unlimited

Language unlimitedthe science behind our most creative power

by David AdgerOxford University Press, 2019

pigs in blankets

The Finish Line: EPS Vs. Polyisocyanurate Insulation

The Finish Line: Sealants

The Finish Line: Building Walls in the Land Down Under

Anti-LEED Legislation

An Energy Label for Buildings

Coal: Not the New Black

NCS Trust ‘sad and disappointed’ at government plans to shut it down

Fundraising Regulator appoints four new committee members

Veterans’ care charity to merge into larger counterpart

Tech giant’s philanthropic arm gives almost £500,000 to two London charities

Vivint Expands Energy Services with Solar

Securitas Technology Partners with K9s United in Support of Law Enforcement Canines

Incident involving highwall collapse spurs MSHA safety alert

Flexco launches Natural Elements in wood, stone looks

Latricrete Glass Tile Adhesive

Subscribe To Our Newsletter

Language unlimited
the science behind our most creative power

by David Adger
Oxford University Press, 2019