This Gem is from Chen

Self Defense Video

My blogging replacement activity

So the fact that I don't know German keeps coming up as a career-stopper. I've decided to do something about that finally and take Anatoly Liberman's advice. (He was the first one to ask that crushing question "Can you read German?") He recommends reading children's books to acquire reading ability in a new language. Just read regularly without stopping to look things up. I don't know how it's supposed to work, but I'm giving it a shot. I don't have any children's books in German, so instead I'm reading the Gospel of Mark (available on biblegateway.com). I read a passage in Spanish (to help refresh those skills) then in the Elberfelder translation. After I leave Trinity, I'll add Greek to the mix, but I get plenty of Greek right now.

In order to squeeze in this new daily activity, I have to squeeze out some others. I decided to stop reading blogs--mostly blogs of people I don't know (Lileks, Steyn, ...). I don't even read the news online anymore. I will still try to read my peeps Linus and Pirate Jimmy. And post here from time to time. But for know I must go the way of most bloggers....

Pax Christi, yo

So,

where did everyone that used to contribute in here go?

You know I ran across
An old box of letters
When I was bagging up some clothes for goodwill

But you know I had to laugh
At the same old struggles
That plagued me then are plaguing me still

'Cause I know the road is long
From the ground to glory
But a boy can hope he's getting some place

But you see I'm running from
The very clothes I'm wearing
And dressed like this I'm fit for the chase

Breaking Silence

I've been busy reading Anatoly Liberman's new book on etymology. I bought it back at the U of M bookstore--it was selling so well that they had to get my copy out of the back. I haven't finished it yet, so I can't give a full review, but I think a lot of the people who bought it based on the subtitle "Etymology for Everyone" will be disappointed. It's not the easiest read.

Of course, maybe I'm just bitter because Liberman disagrees with part of my etymology of kitty-corner below. He thinks the origin of "cater" with the French "quatre" is unlikely. He suggests instead a Dutch word that means "left" as in "left-handed." I don't remember the spelling at the moment, something like ketje. Right is normal or straight, while left is abnormal, not straight but diagonal. I don't know if this is a better semantic explanation than the French derivation. If I remember the OED entry correctly, there is documentary evidence of the four dots on a die being called a "quatre" or "cater"; in that case cater-corner would be transparently related to the French word for four.

um ?

here's a dumb question: does anyone live here?

ok

what's up with the Chakas being gone ?!

whats up with this one

'to clean one's clock'

Where oh where can they be ?

Where can i get a good deal on my next magic carpet ?

I'm not dead

And I will prove it by handing out some useless/precious facts (I'm going from memory here and not checking the facts, so beware):

I grew up saying "kitty-corner" to describe two items diagonally opposed from each other. When I was in high school, I heard a teacher refer to two such items as "catty-corner." This sounded absolutely ridiculous (see also, "Duck, Duck, Goose"). Everyone knows what a kitty is, but what on earth is a catty?

Further research showed, however, that "catty-corner" is the older form of this expression. The "catty" has nothing to do with cats, but is descended ultimately from the French quatre, pronounced by Americans as "cater," whence "catty" and finally "kitty." Quatre means four, particularly in America as in the square of dots on the four side of a die; the expression cater-corner thus implies the relationship between opposite corners of the square. No folk-etymologies about how cats tend to ignore straight lines and walk in diagonals are needed!

This example illustrates a principle of historical linguistics which has application in many fields, like Textual Criticism, for example: the more difficult variant is more likely to be original. My teacher's "catty-corner" was more opaque than my "kitty-corner"; it seemed to be composed of a meaningless element and a meaningful one. My intuition was to hold my pronunciation as original, because both elements of the compound were meaningful, but my intuitions were wrong.

whY - oh whY ?

and once again we have to ask: whY has Chaka died?

...

oh, i mean um, whY has Ask Chaka died again?

- sorry for the dramatic confussion to all of yoU that thought Chaka actually died there for a second.

Franny and Tranny

What are the qualifications for a good nickname? All guys I know seem to have one, and yet they are the most random and meaningless names ever! So last night my friends and I made nicknames for our friends Francisco and Orlando 'the transformer' (aka Chino Latino) that they rapidly abhorred and rejected. What could possibly be wrong with Franny and Tranny?!?

Linus, if you can't fix Scrubs...

Can you at least fix this website?