một trăm (13. 331)

Via Laughing Squid, we are directed to this rather lit rap video from language teacher Levion that teaches one how to count to one hundred in Vietnamese following in the tradition of Multiplication Rock and others that reenforces learning through a catchy format. The teacher also uses the technique for teaching colours and the days of the week. This is really rapid-fire but in the cadence one can pick up of the patterns and conventions of the numbers (see previously). More straightforward in terms of forming the base, there are historically two sets of numerals, native Vietnamese used here and the version most used for everyday accounting purposes and another of Sino-Vietnamese influence generally only used for fixed expressions and very large numbers, like Latin and Greek prefixes in English. Arabic numerals and Roman script (chữ Quốc ngữ) supplanted Chinese characters during the era of French Indochina.

9x9 (13. 308)

ruina montium: an striking landscape in Spain created by the ancient Romans fracking for gold—via Miss Cellania  

13 ｘ 7 = 28: Abbot and Costello try to meet their sales quota—via MetaFilter 

i’m your hell, i’m your dream—i’m nothing in between: a linguistic and semantic history of the term bitch 

anatoly kolodkin: US waives sanctions to allow Russian tanker to deliver crude oil to Cuba  

coalition of the willing: recalling the legacy Icelandic PM Davíð Oddsson of committing the nation to the unjustified invasion of Iraq in 2003, juxtaposed with contemporary Spain  

cocktail nation: Spy Vibe’s regular segment on swank vintage soundtracks  

lip-filler accent: influencers inform the way we speak—via Nag on the Lake, see also  

gigo: AI is an accelerant for academic fraud, selling papers and citations to pad one’s portfolio  

unoosa: a profile of the director of the UN Office for Outer Space Affairs who alerts the world of impending asteroid impacts

an agony, in eight fits (13. 306)

With the above subtitle, as our faithful chronicler reminds, English writer Lewis Carroll (previously) published his nonsense poem on this day in 1876, borrowing stylistically from an earlier verse “Jabberwocky” and Through the Looking-Glass, whose first printing run included a religious tract, “An Easter Greeting to Every Child Who Loves ‘Alice.’” Variously interpreted as a lampoon against Victorian sensibilities, an allegory of tuberculosis, existential angst over the fear of losing one’s sense of self and a court case that was a cause célèbre during its composition involving a man who claimed to be the missing heir to the Tichborne estate supposed lost in a shipwreck en route to Australia, and relates the narrative of a hunting party’s arrival in a strange land, the crew consisting of a bellman, bonnet-maker, a barrister, broker, billiard-maker, banker, a beaver, a baker and a butcher to pursue their quarry of the Snark, which is rumoured to be a highly dangerous boojum, which makes all take pause.  Whilst the sense of derision or irreverence is onomatopoeic from the interjection to snort, the poem lends the sense of a wild-goose chase.  The hunt commences:

They sought it with thimbles, they sought it with care;
They pursued it with forks and hope;
They threatened its life with a railway-share,
They charmed it with smiles and soap.

Along the way, the B-Team encounter a jubjub bird and are attacked by bandersnatch, causing the bank to lose his sanity and disappear without a trace, claiming to have spied their objective but none of the others catch sight of the elusive prey. With illustrated plates by stained-glass designer, muralist and architect Henry Holiday (see above), whose studies of ancient Egyptian motifs helped fuel the Mummy Mania craze, “The Hunting of the Snark” received mixed contemporary reviews and critics pronounced Carroll’s prose and poetry past its prime, although upon reevaluation the enduring references, vocabulary and cadence, structured like a limerick, it has been embraced an reinterpreted in many formats and a dedicated academic journal.

9x9 (13. 291)

crepuscular rays: the phenomena of sun pillars explained  

an exercise in attention: cultivating contemplation through a defence of pet portraiture  

关税: Trump’s reciprocal tariffs have failed against the Chinese export economy  

por la paz y justicia: Spain’s defiance and criticism under US duress is a template for the rest of European, allies threatened with sanction and invasion

the day of the locust: the Simpsons’ patriarch is taken from the protagonist of Nathanael West’s 1939 novel about Hollywood society with a cast of stock characters  

odonymy: UK regionalism for alleyways—see previously, see also  

смертономика: thanatology and Russia’s resistance to sanction  

dinergoth: the post-subcultural mainstream and the weirding of middle of the road America as a coping mechanism  

aurora borealis shining down in dallas: nineteenth century physicist Karl Lemström’s attempts to produce the Northern Lights on demand—see also

11x11 (13. 268)

epistemic cocoon: filters, bubbles, synthetic friends and the personal theatre of disinformation—via Web Curios  

no yokes: a quarter of a century in market fluctuations  

semantic drift: the etymological and entomological history of the word drone  

belated blogoversary: Kottke turns twenty-eight  

wet shelter: the house photographer of the aid mission in the crypt of St Botolph’s 

le salaire de la peur: in a demonstration project to expand research partnerships with other laboratories, CERN attempts to transport a microscopic payload of antimatter for the first time—see previously  

caged lorries: Singapore, despite pressure from businesses that rely on migrant labour, is moving towards banning the dehumanising way workers are transported to job sites  

unbirthday: salutations and reflections from veteran blogger Diamond Geezer  

áfram með smjörið: delightful Icelandic idioms—via friend of the blog Nag on the Lake  

what’s that got to do with the price of tea in china: US egg cost down forty-two percent—hope it was all worth it  

ai is african intelligence: the exploited workers who tutor and moderate chatbots fight back

in every language (13. 262)

Via Web Curios, we are directed to an engrossing project from Riley Walz (previously) that scrapes the representative header image from all the three-hundred plus language editions of Wikipedia, chosen by that version’s editors, to represent a given topic or concept—see also, see previously—to present an interesting array of how different cultures symbolise and genericise an idea. When there’s not a media commons, sometimes I switch between different languages to scour for a better photograph on a specific subject but its really interesting to see what illustrative examples are used around the world. Try looking up automobile or dog or comedy or art or see where random entries lead.

growth-hacking paradigms (13. 247)

As a bit of a vindicating corollary to a previous post on business jargon, we are referred to via Slashdot, a longitudinal study by Cornell university cognitive psychologist Shane Littrell introducing their Corporate Bullshit Receptivity Scale (CBSR) as a gauge of susceptibility to empty rhetoric, corresponding with overall poor job performance and a deficit of practical decision-making skills. Although BS can happen in any context, it can be especially fraught in the workplace where such lingo is an institutional protection, structurally built in, to cushion misdirection and feign accomp-lishment, and so for their experiment for insight into how such language is reenforced and paradoxically is a poor surrogate for job management skills, Littrell commissioned a LLM to generate corporate soundbites and had a large sample of workers to rate the business savvy of such phrases revealing quite a knowledge gap, enticed with what passes as transformative, inspired and visionary. More at the links above.

let’s take this offline (13. 239)

Though properly, despite its obscurity to outgroups of a given profession or industry and reputation as gatekeeping and kind of an insult to expert language, jargon is not the same as non-technical corporate lingo, we rather enjoyed this omnibus of laments and grievances of the register of vicious terminology that has seeped into common-parlance as reviled words and phrases. I think I am guilty during a meeting or in an email of using many of these—except for the most egregious in synergy and let’s circle back, most of them euphemistic in nature covering up a lack of actionable knowledge and blunting direction or a method for looking like a team-player and acknowledging, repackaging previous contributions. What do you think? Tell us your most odious malapropisms and mixed-metaphors.

9x9 (13. 220)

a real chadwick: nineteenth century missionary and polyglot John Ross’ role in why Hangul uses spaces whereas other Asian scripts do not  

the count: an annual tally tradition from Diamond Geezer—see also  

τεσσαρακοντήρης: the ancient super-galley commissioned by Ptolemy IV Philopater, so named as it was rowed by forty 

lettres decoratives: open source letterform templates inspired by the artisanal signs of Paris  

calendar girl: RIP Neil Sedaka—more here  

abc schengen: a bundle of fonts inspired the typefaces of the transportation industry—see previously  

δώδεκαθεϊσμός: an introduction to the practitioners of the Hellenic religion who worship the twelve Olympian gods 

happy map: in an increasingly fraught world, a deep longitudinal survey of tiny and momentuous moments of joy  

data ≠ knowledge: poetic reflections on large language models by Rishi Dastidar—via Web Curios

…baby one more time (13. 218)

Beginning a two-week run at the top of UK charts, the lead single from eponymous debut album from sixteen-year old Britney Spears, child actor with the All-New Mickey Mouse Club sought by proxy to expand her repertoire, came about as the result of rejections by several labels, downplaying her demos with indictments that there was not going to be another Madonna, Debbie Gibson or Tiffany, and traveling to Sweden to work with songwriters and producers on a multi-record deal. The parenthetical “Hit me” was interpreted by many not only as canonically the title but also as a narrative of wanting back an abusive ex- or a reference to sadism but is attributed to the lyrics’s Swedish author tenuous command of English slang and was meant to convey “hit me up”—a strange formulation in itself like all the un-euphemistic metaphors to sports and violence. Initially shopped around to the Back Street Boys and TLC, it was eventually taken by Spears’ agent. Thematically similar with its three-note opening to Beethoven’s Fifth and Queen’s “We Will Rock You” and the Rolling Stones’ “Start Me Up,” it is considered one of the most influential pop tracks in the history of the genre, propelled by the accompanying video directed by Nigel Dick (Oasis, Toto, Band Aid, Guns N’ Roses, Tears for Fears, Taylor Dane).

heebie jeebies (13. 215)

Recorded on this day in 1926 at the studios of Okeh Records in Chicago, the group having performed their rendition of the Boyd Atkins arrangement at the Vendome Theatre (see also), the song is credited with solidifying the career of Louis Armstrong and His Hot Five. The single is also credited with popularising scat singing—though there were precedents with ragtime entertainers Gene Greene and Al Jolson with a few choruses and bars from the latter in faux-Chinese (see also) drawing from traditions of lilting, yodelling and yoiking—with the possible apocryphal anecdote that when Armstrong was in the studio, his sheet music had fallen off the stand and had to improvise, filling the time with nonsense lyrics, surprised by the producers’ decision to keep it in. The record company subsequently capitalised on its popularity by advertising a choreographed dance to the song. The phrase comes from a 1923 newspaper comic strip by cartoonist Billy DeBeck, Barney Google and Snuffy Smith, and refers to a feeling of apprehension and anxiety—popular slang in the 1920s also inspiring the name for the number ten duotrigintillon, “sweet mama,” “horsefeathers” and leaving a legacy through catch-phrases “time’s a-wasting” “great balls o’ fire.”

je sème à tout vent (13. 212)

We enjoyed perusing this abecedary of desk pads (blotters) promoting the Petit Larousse junior encyclopaedic dictionaries, above motto, “I sow to all the winds,” usually depicted on the cover by a figure blowing dandelion seeds, la dent-de-lion. It’s a bit of a brain teaser to figure out what the words are being depicted in French—like D for douche, dolmen, dinde. Scroll through the whole alphabet and see what for us non-francophiles needs some puzzling out.

synchronoptica

one year ago: microbar banners (with synchronopticæ) plus Napoleon returns from exile (1815)

twelve years ago: a direct connection between Europe and Brazil to bypass US undersea cables 

fourteen years ago: the myth of the eight hour sleep 

fifteen years ago: Germany surpasses France as a European travel destination 

it’s a drag, it’s a bore, it’s really such a pity to be looking at the board, not looking at the city (13. 206)

Having coming across this fact elsewhere a few weeks ago, we enjoyed the chance to hear again the full name of the Thai capital known to outsiders by the toponym Bangkok (village on a stream in reference to the marshy area where King Rama I established his new residence in 1782, nicknamed Venice of the East for its canals and islands) and in common parlance as Krung Thep Maha Nakhon (กรุงเทพมหานคร) or abbreviated even further to Krung Thep (กรุงเทพฯ), the City of Angels—see also. With some variation over the centuries, the metropolis has the ceremonial title of: 

 กรุงเทพมหานคร อมรรัตนโกสินทร์ มหินทรายุธยา มหาดิลกภพ นพรัตนราชธานีบูรีรมย์ อุดมราชนิเวศน์มหาสถาน อมรพิมานอวตารสถิต สักกะทัตติยวิษณุกรรมประสิทธิ์  

Transliterated from the Thai script and translated from the combined Sanskrit and Pāli (the classical sacred language of Theravada Buddhism), the title reads: 

Krung Thep Mahanakhon: City of Angels, Great City.
    Amon Rattanakosin: Eternal land of the Emerald Buddha.
    Mahinthara Ayuthaya: The impregnable city of God Indra.
    Mahadilok Phop: Grand capital of the world.
    Noppharat Ratchathani Burirom: Endowed with nine precious gems, the happy city.
    Udomratchaniwet Mahasathan: Abounding in enormous royal palaces.
    Amon Piman Awatan Sathit: Resembling the heavenly abode wherein dwell the reincarnated gods.
    Sakkathattiya Witsanukam Prasit: Erected by Vishvakarman at Indra’s bidding. 

This demonstration and claim of course drew some quibbling over technicalities and comparisons to Llanfair Pwllgwyngyll—“pool of the white hazels of the Church of St Mary”—and its full placename elaborated during the Victorian era to encourage tourism (see also) to the second longest single albeit agglutinative word toponym in the world in: Llanfair­pwllgwyngyll­gogery­chwyrn­drobwll­llan­tysilio­gogo­goch. The longest officially recognised is the Maori name of a hill on Te Ika-a-Māui (New Zealand’s North Island) Taumatawhakatangi­hangakoauauotamatea­turipukakapikimaunga­horonukupokaiwhen­uakitanatahu, with the narrative epithet of the summit where big-kneed Tamatea (a celebrated fifteenth century cheiftain and explorer), climber of mountains, the land swallower, travelled about and played his flute to his beloved. Also in the top ten is the Cree Pekwachnamaykoskwaskwaypinwanik for a lake in Mantioba “where wild trout are caught by fishing with hooks.” More from Language Log at the link up top with pronunciation help and more contenders.

mother tongue (13. 200)

Established by UNESCO in 1999 in honour of the 1952 movement of East Bengal to have their language recognised as official rather than provincial and leading to the creation of the independent state of Bangladesh from the Pakistani territories, the United Nations annual observance of International Mother Language Day is established to promote worldwide linguistic and cultural diversity as well as polyglotism. Al Jazeera presents and overview of the spoken languages of the world, writing systems and the status of many minority languages, including diglossia between officialdom and convention and endangered ones—forty percent of the estimated seven-thousand extant ones. Defined as when parents-users begin to pass on a more dominant parlance to their children, threatening proficiency and identity, most are in Oceania, Asia and Africa, including some on their way to a come-back owing to community-led revitalisation programmes like Yugambeh of Australia (the exonym meaning “no means no” and preferring the endonym Mibanah for “the sound of eagles”), the Ainu language of Japan’s indigenous peoples (an isolate considered to be functionally extinct) and the moribund Kernowek language of Cornwall. In the spirit of the observance, adopt a word from one of these languages.

8x8 (13. 198)

the mckinley colonies: the US settlement on Cuba’s Isla de la Juventud 

„…“: another omnibus listing of aphorisms and sage quotations  

manannán: 1940 sci-fi Irish language novel that contains the likely first use of a mecha outside of Japanese literature  

in the realms of the unreal: outsider artist Henry Darger—see previously 

spring has sprung: early heralds of the coming season—see previously 

archive.yesterday: Wikipedia bans controversial news and features article mirror for citations after the service launches denial of service attacks on websites linking to it—via MetaFilter  

lapsis muris: linguists uncover another usage case of uh—see previously  

tron/troff: explore your neighbourhood in the virtual grid

synchronoptica

one year ago: Ukraine and Europe excluded from peace talks (with synchronopticæ), an enigmatic online diary plus an ancient cistern in Naples

thirteen years ago: elision and mishearing 

fourteen years ago: graphic artist Tim Doyle 

9x9 (13. 188)

all lawful uses: Pentagon labels Anthropic AI a supply-chain risk for refusing to activate Skynet  

digital humanities: platforms, ethnographically, can only deliver two out of the three trilemmas  

skimo: newest Olympic sport combines uphill and downhill action 

⻢: etymologies of the year of the Fire Horse—more here 

rainbow push coalition: tributes for Jesse Jackson (RIP)  

the great breath: Christian Waller’s theosophical fairy tales 

sơng: author Ocean Vuong is suspiciously talented as a photographer as well  

project cardinal: turnaround management, corporate restructuring codenames and other euphemisms 

most energy storage solutions: inspired by DNA, a liquid forming molecular bonds can hold potential heat for months until it’s needed

synchronoptica

one year ago: protests against DOGE (with synchronopticæ) plus European emergency summit convened immediately following the Munich Security Conference

thirteen years ago: regional franchises plus more former enclaves and exclaves

fourteen years ago: the neocolonialism of finance 

fifteen years ago: academic dishonesty in the German government 

sixteen years ago: upcoming trips 

nervy-b (13. 186)

Whilst recalling one-hundo and pandemmy, we hadn’t yet really really encountered this new formula, reserved for a certain deomgraphic and perhaps more often spoken than committed to written exchanges, though it’s out there and possibly indicative that’s less ephemeral than some fads—doggos and brds have stuck around for quite a while and may be more than “cringe lingua” and datedness, like the enshrinement ceremony of Australia’s 2023 Word of the Year as a clipping of “cost of living crisis” or cozzie livs following the same pattern—the recent template of truncation and initialism: ChatGPT to chatty g, the above 100% to hundy p, sauvigon blanc to saavy b as well as numerous regular events that already have established abbreviations in defiance of jargon and speciality, like Unny-G and Euro-V. Such trends have their share of detractors, despite some sticking and demanding a rebrand, like Mickey D’s and SunnyD, calling them twee or insensitive, but it is in that reduction and destruction of the crucial element, an empowering indignity that one can visit on any phrase thanks to its formulaic nature—cf, mitty circs for “mitigating circumstances,” depreciating the important part—to undo the structural strictures imposed by language and institutions. Let’s come up with a good one for US ICE and Customs and Border Protection agents. The trend is also an emancipating format for hypocorism—pet-naming, for good or ill—probably the more ludicrious the better, 💯. Much more from Sentence First at the link up top.

synchronoptica

one year ago: Alaska’s Elizabeth Peratrovich Day (with synchronopticæ) plus assorted links to revisit

thirteen years ago: unique automats, eye-charts for drones, low-effort advertising plus hearty immune systems

fifteen years ago: more moon Nazis 

etaoin shrdlu, esaitn ruoldc (13. 181)

Again via Web Curios, we are pointed to an addictive little bilingual (I wasn’t up to trying in French however) word game that is agreeably one of the best we’ve come across in some time and as likely to return to after our streak with Wordle clones. Simple and straightforward, each round presents three lettered tiles to build words from in order of the letters presented and are awarded points based on Scrabble rules, in turn derived from the titular letter frequency. There are daily challenges and play can continue with random combinations. Gently timed, once one runs out of chances, there’s a break down of one’s score and the optimal word from the dictionary, though one can’t dispute the lexicon.

spine-tingling (13. 171)

Our thanks to Boing Boing for the education in book finishers’ craft with gauffered edging, gilt indentations along the page and decorative elements (called pallets)—the French version of the Germanic root that gives us waffle and wafer (see also) and means to plait or crimp—to revisit this highly satisfying demonstration of expert rebinding and book tooling skills, lovingly restoring an old volume with a pristine jacket, titled, ornamented with inlays and onlays and complete with marbled endpapers.

rebinding old book into a treasure
by u/Maddiee7diary in SatisfyingAF

*     *     *     *     *

synchronoptica

one year ago: unilateral peace negotiations for Ukraine (with synchronopticæ), malicious compliance plus the return of Enron

thirteen years ago: the retirement of Pope Benedict, furnished quarters plus architectural embellishments 

fourteen years ago: Nazis on the Moon 

zeuhl (13. 153)

In the conlang Kobaïan invented by drummer and founder of the experimental prog rock and jazz fusion French band Magma, Christian Vander, the title means in combination with ẁortz means “celestial force” and has become a sub-genre unto itself distinct from the related Space Music and Kosmische Musik sound. Established two years after the death of John Coltrane, unmatched and unmeted, Magma’s members sought in all reverence and humility to carry on the transcendental tradition and create something new and never before experienced. The band’s tracks, stretching across seven albums and with a couple of inspired surrogates, notably in Japan, Belgium and Sweden as well as garnering French compatriots, also extensively sampled from the neoclassical canon, including the structure of Carmina Burana. The chief and often exclusive lyrical language for Magma’s songs, the group still continuing in one form or another to the present, the libretto for a literal space opera about a group of human refugees settling on the distant world of Kobaïa after the Earth was rendered uninhabitable. Much more from John Coulthart’s journal {feuilleton} with performances, appearances and cross-overs at the link up top.