W o t W: Grue (S,P)

The Word of the Week is:

"Grue" a linguistic term used to replace colour words in languages that do not distinguish between green and blue.

See for reference the discussion of colour in linguistics. A good survey is here at the Font of all Wisdom and Knowledge.

This entry gets a nod for semantic (it is a purely semantic construct; not really even a proper word) and the phonetic. And it is a portmanteau. O how we love the portmanteaus!

Thank-you.

W o t W: 猪头 Zhu tou "Pig head" (S,P)

The Word of the Week is:

"豬頭" (traditional characters; 猪头 simplified characters; in pinyin: Zhūtóu; in English "Pig head") in Mandarin is a commonly used insult.

Although not an expletive per se it does have a similar sense to the usage of the English word "bastard" which is frequently used between friends but is not remotely appropriate with non-intimates or one's employer.

My dearest friend, Hung Pei-hsin, referred to me almost exclusively as 大豬頭, or Big Pig Head.

For more fun with Mandarin expletives and slang go here for a list of transliterated and translated Mandarin expletives. I also tried here (Insultmonger/Swearsaurus) but the link seems to be dead. However, I also highly recommend the English Wikipedia page here or here for 中文 (Zhōngwén) (the Chinese language article). (Nous adorons aussi les sacres québécois d'ici, bien sûr! En anglais d'ici.)

(There's also this blog post which ends with a good list with the simplified characters and translations and (with a scroll over) transliterations into pinyin...but the context of the list is a rather puerile absolutist Free Speech RAWKS! screed. Just scroll down or don't bother with it. More expressions, although not necessarily expletives are listed here on a webpage detailing the Chinese used in the film Serenity and the programme Firefly. Kinda fun, but with nerdiness and citations.)

謝謝 (谢谢)

Technical Difficulties Continue

Mean Old Mr. Gravity has taken our primary computer of sound-editingness to a lesser place. We are---that is, ahem---The Engineer is trying to salvage the last interview because it was fucking good. If not, the interviewee has agreed to redo the interview. So that is also a possibility.

Further interviews to come include with a pornographer originally from Québec, and an anglophone anthropologist who just finished a post-doc at UQÀM, and a United Church Minister well known to us at HeresyQuébec. Here's hoping things improve that we may indeed have those and other interviews in episodes to come.

We're very happy that our listenership has peaked the solid 1 or sometimes even 2-digit mark. Thank-you for your support, I'm flattered you like our little show. We hope to continue to be worth your time until such time as well sell out, become derivative and you hate, hate, hate us.

Until then, here's the Quote for This Week:

"[T]he mask don't go on until the dwarf is in the can." ---Anthony Daniels expressing his disdain for costuming and apparently his colleague, Kenny Baker.

Salut, à la prochaine fois.

Legal to Lie; the Death of the Barefoot Bum's blog

I am sad to report this is the last entry of The Barefoot Bum. I really enjoyed some of the Bum's posts they were brilliant and insightful. I am glad the Bum chose to reactivate the archives so that they can be revisisted. This last article stems from a very disturbing precedent in US courts. I refer you, O Constant ListenerZ, to the documentary THE CORPORATION in which the case is first publicly discussed. This is subversive. Where is the outcry?

Sadly, the blog's sidebar reads: "The blog is closed for good. I will not reopen it. Browse the archives as you please, but it's all useless bullshit."

Pat Condell's take on Feminist issues around proposed Burqa Bans.

Pat Condell at his rantilicious best. I was not familiar with the suggestion that Rickets can be traced to the vitamin D deficiency tied to wearing a burqa (have a look here for more editorializing, or actual journalism here from the BBC).

I like his headhunter analogy. But again the issue that strikes me is choice. Many, many people object to transvestism, or goth children, or [insert your garishly dressed oft-reviled sub-culture of choice] and ridicule them for marking themselves differently as to invite their own scorn. So?

I don't buy that All Muslims Everywhere Hate the West and Everything It Stands For (cuz you know, grandiose statements aside, what does the West even agree on categorically anyway?) ...but even if they do, so what? I know many disaffected and marginalized groups within society consisting of members of the dominant hegemonic ethnicity and gender who hate their own culture viciously. Isn't the freedom of conscience large enough to cover the disaffected?

But he's right, Feminists. (Cuz we all how uniform and identical and interchangeable feminists are... ugh). But point taken, the burqa is misogynistic: humanist feminist cultural crtitics, you've dropped the ball.

(I can't believe in the earlier post I spelt burqa with a "K" (burka!) rather than with the greatest of letters, "Q," since B-U-R-Q-A is a valid alternate in English and preferred in French! One Quick edit later and all is well. ---BBY)