Doing some doc-reading at work today. My focus might be switching briefly from the NTCIP work that I was ramping up for to some light GPRS work. Well, since I'm not really familiar with the topic -- like, at all -- I started ramping up on the technologies by browsing Wikipedia. I love Wikipedia. GPRS led me to GSM. GSM is apparently rooted in LPC ( Read more... )

So someone made a post to linguistics last night about the use of "like" in modern English. I was browsing briefly through a few of the responses before coming in to work this morning.

I haven't yet put the time to finding the earliest studies of the modern usages of "like", but I did run across one that argues that "like" is like "if you will". It makes ( Read more... )

I mean, really. Iotation. Lenition. Rhotacise. Retroflex lateral flap. That shit is effing awesome.

(LJ Spellchecker Genius of the Day: Iotation -> Adoration)

A post for my Hellenic homies and other Greek geeks, with appreciation to chalepa_ta_kala.

I was chatting with my dental hygienist at my dentist appointment this morning. We always have great conversations. This morning the topic somehow shifted to careers and beginnings, and I told her a story I once heard. It's almost certainly apocryphal, but it goes something like this.

There once was a young man with a violin. This young man ( Read more... )

Learned something at the Con. Was babbling randomly with people after a roundtable and ran into a couple of people who knew ASL. Apparently, they report, facial expressions have a grammatical function in the language. The same hand gestures can be interpreted as a statement, a yes/no question, or a broader question of fact, distinguishable only by ( Read more... )

Goats probably aren't the first thing that pop into your head when someone mentions Aphrodite, but maybe they should be.

But first a little background. The Pantheacon schedule was posted recently. There's some flaky stuff, of course, but also some stuff that I'm really looking forward to. One presentation in particular caught my eye, titled "The ( Read more... )

I realized this morning that I wasn't actually reading L'Aphrodite Grecque. I was waiting for the completion of my oil change, and I had the book open in front of me. My eyes were going across the page, though they were stumbling pretty severely. Every time I came across a word or construction I didn't immediately recognize, I would pause and try ( Read more... )

Saturday started out with errands. A fair number of them, here and there. Lunch, groceries, post office. Then we had a little time, so radiantbaby and I braved North Point Mall traffic to find me a new coat. My old was was getting quite threadbare and had been in for repairs more times than I could count recently. Coming apart at the seams is bad enough; it ( Read more... )

On Friday, as planned, radiantbaby and I hopped up to UGA ( Read more... )