The attempts of the Academie Française to enforce linguistic standards have long been the subject of jokes, but France is on the verge of legislating actual jail time over an issue of definitions.
Turkey has warned Nicolas Sarkozy that he will compound "France's political, legal and moral mistakes" and face retaliatory action if he signs a law ( Read more... )

Today I read Act V of Faust, Part 2, up to the final scene. It's much better in an edition which isn't a pile of mangled text, and I should go back and reread the rest at some point. The last act does have the advantage of actually getting back to Faust's story ( Read more... )

After a very quick comparison of the ebook edition I've been reading of Faust, Part 2, with an online edition, I realize that the one I've been trying to read is really awful; the editing is bad and important stuff is left out. So it may actually be a lot more readable than I thought. I can still read Act V in the online version.

I've been struggling through Goethe's Faust, Part 2. The language is difficult, there are few descriptions or stage directions, and it demands more knowledge of the classics than I have. But this morning it clicked for me. Goethe was approaching the end of a long career, he had a dedicated following, he was presenting a sequel about one of his most ( Read more... )

A lullaby for a targ in Kilngon, presented by Lawrence Schoen. The most disturbing thing about it is that I may never be able to think of the German "Dreimal Hoch" (three cheers) the same way again.

You may remember that a while back I got an iPod Touch that came up in Dutch, and I returned it. I later got another one from the Apple Store, and today I did a "restore" on the old one so I can give it to a friend. But after resetting it, this iPod now comes up in Dutch ( Read more... )

"At the hall's end was a teleconference room." - Poul Anderson, "Robin Hood's Barn," 1959 (read in The Collected Short Works of Poul Anderson, Volume 3: The Saturn Game, from NESFA Press).

I wonder if this was the first published use of the word "teleconference."

Department stores present themselves to customers in jargon. You find clothing under a sign reading "Mens" (where a men gets clothes, I suppose), and there you can find "khaki" (in a variety of colors). The tag tells you the item is a "pant" (so you must have to buy two of them if you want a pair of pants).

I'm currently reading Steven Pinker's The Language Instinct. It's the kind of book I like; one that I sometimes learn from, sometimes disagree strongly with, but always find the author has interesting things to say. Disagreeing with a specialist is always a dangerous business, but I can call him on one point. He writes:
In English, the head of a ( Read more... )

"Close Your Eyes" has become a singalong song -- in German. This is somehow deeply disturbing.