Posted in culture, language, oddities on August 7, 2009 | Leave a Comment »
I haven’t learned much Kinyarwanda yet–French is far more useful on the margin–but after a colleague showed me a phrase book (a scanned page of which is below), I’m having second thoughts:
After all, what if I’m stuck helpless in a situation where the following phrase might be needed?
Of what use are these little things? Just [...]
Posted in language on January 22, 2009 | 1 Comment »
THE NY Times has an op-ed by renowned psychologist Steven Pinker espousing his theory of why Roberts screwed up the oath:
On Tuesday, Chief Justice John Roberts joined the Flubber Hall of Fame when he administered the presidential oath of office apparently without notes. Instead of having Barack Obama “solemnly swear that I will faithfully execute [...]
Posted in language on January 13, 2009 | Leave a Comment »
An FT article highlights a phenomenon that accords well my own observation; namely that the financial crisis is being described immer mehr in German. Unsurprisingly, Schadenfreude is first on the list, followed by one familiar to my readers:
Schadenfreude is not the only one suited to neatly capturing the Zeitgeist. Angst, which has been doing English [...]
Posted in language, the news on January 9, 2009 | Leave a Comment »
My former work colleague in Germany sent me today a newspaper article breathlessly describing a “scene just like from an action movie” in Schwerin. Long story short, a drunken twenty-year-old drove his Nissan Sunny (funniest part of the story for me) off the road, over a small pedestrian walkway, down some steps, and onto the [...]
Posted in economics, education, language, politik on October 21, 2008 | Leave a Comment »
A good rule of thumb when educating yourself about the current financial situation is to avoid sources that use terms like “free market fundamentalism” and “socialism.” Usually these words are used as nothing more than pejoratives, and one suspects that many of the people who use them couldn’t even provide a good definition of either [...]
