Archiving my Twitter, Facebook and other social network activity
Interesting: I only know the term “bodega” in its borrowed-into-English small-convenience-store sense, and since this clearly wasn't one, I looked up the actual Spanish meaning…
…and discovered that bodega, apothecary and boutique all come from the ancient Greek word for storehouse, ἀποθήκη.
https://pixelfed.social/p/bobfisherphoto/567679150312415191
https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/bodega
#language #linguistics #etymology #bodega
Interesting idea on vowel-heavy vs consonant-heavy languages and dialects being shaped by the *acoustics* of the landscape: humidity, temperature, tree types and cover, etc. and how they impact how clearly you can hear words with different types of sounds.
#linguistics
https://nautil.us/how-a-countrys-land-shapes-its-language-235852/
Everyone uses spatial metaphors for time, but *which* spatial metaphors varies across cultures. Is the future ahead of us as we’re moving, or behind us because we can’t see it? Some use uphill/downhill. And then there’s the impact of writing direction.
https://getpocket.com/explore/item/how-we-make-sense-of-time
The Lingthusiasm podcast episode on language and time is a good one too, and goes into even more issues of calendars, where the word “minute” came from, and so on.
https://lingthusiasm.com/post/168801498861/lingthusiasm-episode-15-talking-and-thinking
New round of #introductions for all the new people joining the Fediverse!
Hi, I’m Kelson (he/him), a computer programmer in the Los Angeles area. I talk about all kinds of things here: #scifi/#fantasy, #books, actual #science, #tech, #history, #linguistics, random day-to-day stuff, etc.
I also post photos – mostly cityscapes/landscapes, nature, random interesting stuff I’ve spotted IRL – on Pixelfed (@KelsonV) and more “serious” photos on photog.social (@kelsonv)
Each time I’ve read Les Misérables, I’ve had a greater appreciation for the chapter on argot. The first time I skipped it. The second time I decided I hadn’t missed much. The third time I could see what Hugo was doing thematically:
https://hyperborea.org/les-mis/book/slang/
The latest episode of the Les Mis Reading Companion is on that chapter, and they give it even more context, illustrating how language can be used for gatekeeping…or rebellion. https://readlesmis.libsyn.com/ep39-iv7i-iv-argot