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Meta
Category Archives: language
that’s just the drugs talking, dear
Do you enjoy dictionaries as much as I do? The Office of National Drug Control Policy (boo hiss) publishes this one: Street Terms: Drugs and the Drug Trade. (Link provided by Michael Travers, as an aside from a digression about … Continue reading
Posted in drugwar, language
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Hortensii present and past
A few months ago in alt.fan.miss-manners someone confessed ignorance that Hortense is feminine. That sent me to the books to learn its etymology. From E.G.Withycombe, The Oxford Dictionary of English Christian Names, I learn that the Hortensii were a Roman … Continue reading
did the wabbit ever learn what updock is?
I am advised by World Wide Words that Oxford University Press have just published a Dictionary of Catchphrases. Joy at the availability of a reference that could soothe many a mental itch is diluted by a touch of “Is nothing … Continue reading
Posted in language
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spot the language
Someone wrote to my favorite list, I received this spam today. Does anyone know what language it is? (And is there a tool, pref. on the web and free, that can take a piece of text and guess what language … Continue reading
a name
I was thinking about English spellings of Indian names when this hit me: Does Chatterjee mean something like quadruply honored ?
Posted in language
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words on planets
I did not know that Astronomy Picture of the Day is mirrored in multiple languages. (That list misses at least one: romanised Russian.) I stumbled onto the mirrors while seeking the origin of the name of a feature on Venus. … Continue reading
Posted in astronomy, language
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bestial noises
A while ago I used the phrase “. . . Senator Feinstein would screech . . .”. It now occurs to me that if the senior Big Gummint Democratic Senator from California were a he I’d probably have used the word “howl”. I guess … Continue reading
Posted in language, politics
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