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Wednesday, 2020 August 26, 15:18 — cartoons

curious about causality

Without trying, I can think of five webcomics authors who changed their pronouns long after they started posting: Dana Simpson (Ozy and Millie), Joey Alison Sayers (Thingpart and now Alley Oop), Allison Shabet (Deadwinter), Elli Stephens (Goblins), and now Maelyn Dean (Real Life).

Is there something in the ink?

(See also.)

LATER: add Jodie Troutman (Sporkman), Jackie Lesnick (Girly, Cutewendy), Daisy Finch McGuire (Gastrophobia), Jeanne Thornton (The Man Who Hates Fun); and, the other way, Nate Stevenson (Nimona).

Saturday, 2020 August 1, 23:29 — language

polyglot priority

A genie offers to make you fluent in twenty or a hundred languages, living or dead. How do you choose?

The greedy algorithm: add whatever language most increases the number of people, living or dead, with whom you could have (had) a fluent conversation; repeat.

Alternately, the language preferred by the most recent ancestor with whom you cannot already converse; repeat. (Closely related dialects come at a discount.)

But I’d trade some slots on either of these lists for some smaller languages of historical or literary interest, such as Etruscan and perhaps Volapük, plus sign languages (ASL, Plains, BSL).