I recently read John McWhorter's new book, Words on the Move: why English won't - and can't - sit still (like, literally). If you have any interest in words and language, I highly recommend pretty much anything he's done - besides books, he's now doing the Lexicon Valley podcast. (His lecture series for The Great Courses are all fabulous, as well ( Read more... )

I just realized that when I hear people with accents speak, I see the words written out in my head in specific styles of handwriting - for instance, Indian accents are written in that bubbly, round handwriting favored by fourteen-year-old girls (with circles for dots). Australian accents are written in spiky handwriting that slants heavily left ( Read more... )

I recently got a new little tea maker (something along the lines of a small french press, but for tea). It was made in Taiwan, where they presumably don't have very good translators. Or perhaps they just ran the directions through Bablefish?


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