If you do

Today's Cipher puzzle is "You must be relentless in the pursuit of your goals. If you do, you will be successful. - Steve Garvey"

Setting aside the dubious truthiness of the quote (plenty of people fail despite being relentless), the syntax sounds off to me. I can't use "do" as a pro-verb for a copula or copular phrase. I would have to say "if you are".

Where?

Another antecedent problem...

You really have to be careful. No Jews were murdered at the Auschwitz Museum, guys. Yeah, I know: Auschwitz Museum is their name (or rather their Twitter handle), but still. You've just made "Auschwitz Museum" your antecedent for your relative clause. Try saying:

I can hardly believe it, but we live in the day and age where the Museum at Auschwitz, where 1.1 million Jews were murdered, is having to weigh in on...

(Also, it's usually "we live in a day and age". That gets 12 million hits on Google, while "the" gets only 7,000 - and a lot of them are false, like "Until then, Steve, Gay, Morry, and the day and age they represented, remained historical relics, entombed in reels of celluloid." or "You get a “does not exist” error on the day and age page.")

Borrowed and reversed

There's an example of an interesting phenomenon in yesterday's NYT crossword: a word or term borrowed from a narrow field - in this case, sports - that acquires the opposite connotation.

Here it's subpar, defined as "poor" where in golf it's good.

Another is pinch hitter; in real life, say giving a presentation, if you say "I'm pinch-hitting for Bob" you're warning the audience you probably won't be as good or knowledgeable as he, but in baseball a pinch hitter is supposed to do better (in the situation) than the guy being replaced.

synchronicity strikes again

I just finished David Crystal's "The Story of Be", and Chapter 6 is "Visitational Be". He notes 

"During the twentieth century, it was increasingly common to see the verb used without the prepositional phrase. Usually, the visit is related to an occupation: the person has come and gone professionally. The location is taken for granted." 

The examples in the book (Has the doctor been? The gardeners have been. You can tell me daughter and her dogs have been.) seemed odd to my American ear.

So does this (See if Father Pancake has been). But it's clearly what he's talking about.

How to have an empty swimming pool

Use GoogleTranslate 😁😄😆

Nice try but no

One might have a good discussion about just which vowel is in Pyeongchang's first syllable, though most sources agree it's /ʌ/ (the vowel in 'mud').  But I believe we can all agree that this is just plain wrong, and weird, especially given their transcription of 'taekwondo' later in the article. And what happened to the NG, /ŋ/? Usually it's /pʰjʌŋtɕʰaŋ/ or /ˌpjʌŋˈtʃæŋ/), NG in both syllables. This is just weird.

So close

Man, I feel like quoting Luke Skywalker.

"Nothing more important than to return our home - no." That's how Facebook translated Нічого важливішого за те, щоб повернути наших додому – немає.

It's a perfect example of the importance of grammar - those pesky little endings. Every word is right or close enough. Almost every word is wrong. Especially наших додому, where the endings make it clear that this is not a noun phrase meaning "our home" - but rather two parts of the verb phrase, the direct object and the adverb of goal: returning "ours to home". Hаших is accusative plural (looks like genitive because the elided noun is animate), and додому is an adverb built from the preposition до + the noun дiм in genitive (дому).

There's a bit more, of course.  Нічого важливішого is genitive of negation because of the verb немає, which is the negative existential: "there is not". Negatives are very often in genitive in Ukrainian, and the 'subject' of the negated existential is always in genitive. But Facebook's translation algorithm almost never recognizes case endings.

Interestingly, it does navigate the syntax of за те, щоб, correctly rendering it as "than". Points there, algorithm. But the full sentence is just wrong. And worse, it reads just fluidly enough that you can think you know what it means. But you don't.

"Nothing more important than to return ours (our people) home doesn't exist" - with negative concord, so a better translation would be "Nothing ... exists" or "anything ... doesn't exist". Best would be "There is nothing more important than to bring our people back home - nothing."

And that was just the first sentence. It didn't get any better. Stay tuned... 

Happy New Year!

If you celebrate the turning of the year today, then Happy New Year! May it find you happy and well, make you so if you aren't now, and keep you thus until it ends.


Saale Nao Mubbarak
Gelukkig Nieuw Jaar
Antum salimoun (اجمل التهاني بمناسبة الميلا و حلول السنة الجديدة)
Shuvo Nabo Barsho
Nedeleg laouen ha bloavezh mat
Schastliva Nova Godyna! (Щастлива Нова Година)
Z novym godam i Kalyadmi! ( З Новым годам i Калядамi)
Gung hay fat choy! Sun nien fai lok!
Chu Shen Tan
Blwyddyn Newydd Dda
Scastny Novy Rok
Godt Nytår
Gelukkig Nieuwjarr!
Head uut aastat!
Aide shoma mobarak (كرسمس مبارک سال نو مبارک)
Onnellista Uutta Vuotta
Bonne Année
Bliadhna Mhath Ur don a h-uile duine
Prosit Neujahr
Kenourios Chronos
Hauoli Makahiki Hou
L'Shannah Tovah (חג מולד שמח ושנה טובה)
Krisamas aur nav varṣ saṃgalamay ho (क्रिसमस और नव वर्ष मंगलमय हो)
Selamat Tahun Baru
Sanah Jadidah
Bliain nua fe mhaise dhuit
Felice anno nuovo
Akemashite Omedetou Gozaimasu
Xin nian hao
Godt Nyttår
Manigong Bagong Taon
Szczesliwego Nowego Roku
Feliz Ano Novo
Karisama te navāṃ sāl khuśiyāṃvālā hove (ਕਰਿਸਮ ਤੇ ਨਵਾੰ ਸਾਲ ਖੁਸ਼ਿਯਾੰਵਾਲਾ ਹੋਵੇ)
An nou ferict - La Multi Ani
S Novim Godom (с новым годом)
Sretna nova godina (Сређна Нова Година)
Nayou Saal Mubbarak Hoje
Subha Aluth Awrudhak Vewa
Próspero año nuevo!
Gott nytt år!
Manigong bagong taon
Eniya Puthandu Nalvazhthukkal
Sawadee Pee Mai (เมอรี่คริสต์มาส และสวัสดีปีใหม่)
Yiliniz Kutlu Olsun
Shchastlyvoho Novoho Roku (Щастлівого Нового Року)
Naya Saal Mubbarak Ho (نايا سال مبارک هو)
Chúc Năm Mới Tốt Lành

"Of" and Nouns

"Of" is a prepo- sition that most often shows a relation- ship of owner- ship or partitive or com- position. Generally the noun following "of" controls the other one. That's what makes this gist/summary/tease so problematic.

"The attack of four Dalits" pretty much has to mean that the dalits did the attacking. Instead, they were the victims.

The writer needed to say "attack on four Dalits".

Bugs?

Playing a word search game on my phone and this happened:

The theme is "Insects and Bugs". The first threewords are "tick", "bee" and "fly". All well and good. The last one is "mantis" - also fine.

But "worm"? Since when are worms bugs?

Spotted in the wild: reversed sequential action!

Russian has a verb form they call a деепричастие, or verbal adverb. (Often, perversely, this is called a "gerund" in Slavic linguistics, do not ask me why.) It functions as the verb in a subordinate clause and modifies the verb in the main one, hence its name. There are two forms, from the two aspects. One (imperfective) denotes action that occurs at the same time as the main verb; it's usually translated with "X-ing or "while X-ing" (he read the paper sitting in the chair). The other (perfective) denotes action that occurs sequentially with that of the main clause, almost always prior ; the textbook translation here is "having X-ed" (he read the paper, having sat down in his favorite chair).

Grammar books will spare a sentence or two to let you know that it's possible for the perfective to denote action that happens after that of the main verb.  They invariably offer up the same example - он вышел, хлопнув дверью, he went out, slamming the door - and they will add, as does Terence Wade: 'but this construction should not, however, be regarded as the norm' (his emphasis, section 379, p393 in my edition of A Comprehensive Russian Grammar).

Today, however, I found one in the wild! Two, in fact, though in the same sentence. Dmitry Berko wrote (at Grani.Ru:

Позиция казалась разумной. Во-первых, юридически это совершенно правильно. Во-вторых, возникает возможность негласного торга с обвинением: вашему начальству так нужно признание "беспорядков" на Болотной? Пожалуйста, мы думаем иначе, но не спорим. Все равно уже куча судов эти самые "беспорядки" признала, создав преюдицию и сформировав общественное мнение. А нам отдайте мальчика, который к ним не причастен.

The position seemed reasonable. First, legally it is completely sound. Second, it opens up the possibility of a backroom deal with the prosecution: Your bosses really need an acknowledgment that there were "riots" on Bolotnoye Square? Well, okay; we don't agree with that, but we won't argue. After all, a whole series of trials have already acknowledged these same "riots", thus creating a prejudicial effect and shaping public opinion. And then you give us the boy who wasn't involved in them.

Clearly, obviously, the creating and shaping are the result of the previous court actions.

I'm so excited about finding this. I'm such a nerd.

This doesn't work for me

From NPR's Facebook page:

"Inflation has barely moved but so have wages."

Expand that and you get "Inflation has barely moved but so have wages barely moved."

I don't know about you, but I can't use "barely" that way. It's like a verb of minimal degree - you can not budge an inch, but you can't budge an inch (Bob's not that stubborn; he'll budge an inch / say a word / blink an eye...). For me, that sentence needs to end negatively:

Inflation has barely moved, but neither have wages.

Conjunctions are cohesive

In one way, after is a temporal con- junction. But reading after as because is so common, it's its own logical fallacy - post hoc ergo propter hoc, "after this therefore because of this".

And that makes its use - particularly in headlines - very problematic. This particular headline (Vatican Fires Polish Priest After He Comes Out as Gay to Reporters) begs to be read as "he got fired because he came out as gay".

But that's not what happened. He got fired because he's bragging about having a sex life. If he'd paraded a woman around the same thing would have happened, and a nice tame celibate gay priest would be a coup for a church that claims it loves gays as long as they don't, you know, act that way.

Well...

This is of course the point where she says "Daryl, what part of 'not necessarily' and 'quite often' do you not understand?"

You read what you expect

I vaguely noticed the "typo" in the headline "Oklahoma Guv's Daughter Living In Trailer Parked Outside Guv's Mansion" but really read right over it. To the extent that I was actually startled to realize she wasn't living in a "trailer park" (I figured the article was going to be about the governor's refusal to help her daughter or the daughter's crime-and/or-poverty-ridden life) but was in fact living in a trailer that was parked on the mansion's grounds. The story is about people complaining about taxpayers "footing her bills" - though, as the governor points out, if her daughter had moved into the mansion people would be paying for "her" utilities just the same.

By the way, I also was only vaguely aware that the daughter is in a band (which is why she's in a trailer). What can I say? Oklahoman politicians' families are not really on my radar.

Oh, Bing...

Юрій Поправка – один з тих, хто віддав своє життя за волю і віру в свою країну. Наші діти повинні зростати гідними громадянами великої країни Героїв!

Bing gives that as:
Yuri Amendment is one of those who gave their lives for freedom and faith in his country. Our children must grow worthy citizens of a great nation of heroes!

This time, Google is worse:
Yuri amendment - one of those who gave their lives for freedom and faith in his country. Our children should grow worthy citizens of a great country heroes!

Both of them miss the meaning of the instrumental case after зростати, which they both mistranslate as just "grow". As the dictionary puts it, the primary meaning is:

1. (рости) to grow; (про дітей) to grow up

where про дітей means "of children". And the instrumental complement gives the meaning of "to become" or "to be".

And they both - like Mark Twain's translation "'the infuriated tigress broke loose and utterly ate up the unfortunate fir forest' (Tannenwald)" where he "found out that Tannenwald in this instance was a man's name." - translate Yuriy's surname. He's not Yuriy Amendment (Google cavalierly ignores the capitalization); he's Yuri Popravka. 

ps: If you haven't read Twain's "The Awful German Language", you should.

pps: there is an interesting translation problem here. Yuriy might be "one of those (unspecified people) who gave his life". Semantically it's not likely, but it's possible in a context where he was in a group but was the only one to do. The grammar makes it possible, as хто (who) is grammatically singular and masculine regardless of its antecedent, and своє (the possessive "one's own", as opposed to "someone else's") has no number or gender of its own but matches up with the noun it modifies. I wouldn't translate it that way without a good contextual backstory to justify it, but it's grammatically possible.

Also, життя is in a class of neuter nouns where the nominative singular and plural are the same. In this case, in Ukrainian it's actually singular (plural would be свої життя), but that's not so different from English where one could say "one of those who gave their life" and mean the same thing as "their lives".

Suzette Haden Elgin

Somehow I missed seeing this. Suzette Haden Elgin has died.

I read her books and enjoyed them very much, from the Ozark trilogy through Native Tongue to the "Verbal Self-Defense" books. She will be missed.

How I say to fix it

"How the owner says the two men got away with his vehicle."

This leading W- word is so common in journalese, but it just annoys me. You're not describing how the owner/police/lawyer/witness/whoever says anything. They are saying how something happened. At the very least you need commas - how, the owner says, the two men got away. But really, dangit, move that w-word!

The owner says how the two men got away.

How Police Say Two Women Almost Got Away With Stealing at Least 6 Houses - Police say how two women...

A-Rod: How lawyers say team could avoid paying him. - Lawyers say how team could ...

From over the sea?

So, a friend came back from Peru and brought me a very cute little toy guinea pig with a hat and bag. We were trying to remember what they're called in Russian, and when we looked it up, it's морская свинка (morskaya svinka), which is literally "little sea pig".

Sea pig? we all asked. The name, says the etymological entry, is borrowed from Polish świnka morska, and the Poles got it from the Germans - Meerschweinchen, which, it said, is literally "морская свинка". Which is true. Why do the Germans call guinea pigs "little sea pigs", is the logical next question.

And here the Germans let us down. According to their Wikipedia entry on Hausmeerschweinchen (little house sea pigs),

Laut Duden kommt die Bezeichnung Meerschweinchen von dem spätmittelhochdeutschen Ausdruck merswin. Dieser bedeutete ursprünglich ‚Delfin‘ und wurde wegen der (als ähnlich empfundenen) Grunzlaute verwendet. Es gibt jedoch viele andere, möglicherweise weniger sprachwissenschaftlich begründete Vermutungen, wie die Bezeichnung Meerschweinchen entstand. Am häufigsten wird der Name dadurch gedeutet, dass die Tiere sehr schweineähnlich aussehen und über das Meer zu uns kamen. Es könnte jedoch auch aus einer Verballhornung des Wortes „Möhrenschweinchen“ entstanden sein. Eine weitere Möglichkeit ist, dass sich die Bezeichnung aus einem ähnlich klingenden Wort entwickelt hat, welches jedoch eine völlig andere Bedeutung hat, ähnlich wie bei der Meerkatze, welche als Affenart weder etwas mit Meer noch mit Katze zu tun hat, deren Name sich aber vom indischen Wort „marcata“ ableitet, was übersetzt „Affe“ bedeutet.


According to the dictionary, the term Meerschweinschen comes from the late Middle High German expression "merswin". This meant originally "dolphin" and was used because the grunts were perceived to be similar. However, there are many other, possibly less linguistically educated guesses, for the name's origin. Most often the name is characterized as that the animals look very similar to pigs and came over the sea to us. However, it could also be a corruption of the word "Möhrenschweinchen (little carrot pigs)". Another possibility is that the name has evolved from a similar-sounding word, Meerkatze, which is the name of a monkey and has nothing to do with "sea cat" but rather comes from the Indian word "marcata" which translated means "monkey".

None of those seem very convincing. Plus, I don't think guinea pigs' grunts sound like dolphins', so that hardly strikes me as more convincing than "little pigs from over the sea", however more "linguistically educated" it might be.

Of course, I never got the "pig" part of "guinea pig" anyway.

It's standard. Why don't the machines know it?

The teaser reads: Згадайте людей, які віддали життя за нашу з вами країну. Не дозвольте забути. Нікому.
Небесна сотня. Реквієм.

Bing: Remember the people who gave their lives for our country with you. Don't let me forget it. Anyone.
Heavenly hundred. Requiem.
Google: Remember the people who gave their lives for our country with you. Do not be forgotten. None.
Heavenly hundred. Requiem.

What? WHAT? I don't understand this.

Oh, sure, they both have their different problems with the Не дозвольте забути construction - Ukrainian, like Russian, doesn't require the person not being allowed to be specified, and this means "don't let them be forgotten" or, more literally, "don't allow forgetting" - the next, emphatic one-word sentence being "no one" in the dative, that is marked as who must not be allowed to forget, rather than - as both translations suggest - who should not be forgotten. (Actually, Google's possibly means who shouldn't let me forget it.)

But that's not my gripe here.

What is this "gave their lives for our country with you"? They both say that. They're both totally wrong. Ukrainian (again, like Russian) uses this "we with X" construction to specify who the "we" is. "We with you" means "you and I"; "we with my husband" means "my husband and I"; "we with Bob" means, yes, "Bob and I." And that hold true for "our with you", too.

They "gave their lives for our your country and mine". Or possibly "our country" full stop. But certainly not "gave their lives for our country with you", which sounds like "you" are dead, too.

And what's the most annoying is that this construction is utterly standard and typical and something you learn pretty early on. But neither Google nor Bing has the first clue about it.

Remember the people who gave their lives for your country and mine. Do not let them be forgotten. By anyone
The Heavenly Hundred. Requiem.