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English & Linguistics / Re: Interesting language stuff

« Last post by Ela on Today at 11:09:41 AM »

Came across a claim that Hebrew is a "phony" language. Can a language that is used and spoken by a large number of people be phony? The claim is that modern Israelis took ancient Hebrew, which he claims was never a spoken language (a claim I very much doubt) and made it into a modern language by making up words. But don't people make up words that eventually become part of a language all the time?

What makes a language "fake"?

Spoiler: links (click to show/hide)

Noting that modern Jewish prayer books contain some sections of prayer in which the Hebrew prayers are followed by an Aramaic translation, because many people in the time in which the prayer book was written no longer understood Biblical Hebrew. By that time, Aramaic was the commonly spoken language. Or so I've understood.

English & Linguistics / Re: I hate journalistic writing

« Last post by Brinestone on November 24, 2025, 07:16:52 AM »

Headline I saw today:

"Migraine Triggers May Have an Unexpected Twist"

The article was about how "surprisal" often led to migraine attacks in patients with chronic migraine, maybe and that the unexpectedness of the trigger seemed to matter more than the trigger itself.

I feel like this is a missed opportunity for "Migraine Triggers Have a Surprise Twist."

Unexpected is fine. Surprise would have been better with how often they used the word surprisal.

English & Linguistics / Re: Funny English and Linguistics stuff...

« Last post by Tante Shvester on November 10, 2025, 04:50:26 AM »

Walkie-Talkie is such a ridiculous name for a handheld two-way radio. It's like they let the toddlers name it (it was the Army, though). I work with people from all over, so I asked what they call it in their languages. In Spanish it's walkie talkie. In French it's talkie walkie (so they changed it, but didn't really improve it). In Italian it's walkie talkie. In Swahili it's walkie talkie. In Haitian Creole it's walkie talkie.

I asked the internet to translate it to Hebrew, German, and Albanian. It's walkie talkie, walkie talkie and . . . Radio Dore.

Trump has unveiled a number of moves aimed at cutting drug prices in recent months, but he has yet to move the needle on reducing costs – much less slashing them by 1,500%, which is mathematically impossible, experts say.

"experts say"

link

English & Linguistics / Re: The random etymology of the day

« Last post by Jonathon on September 09, 2025, 10:39:40 AM »

Huh. I'd never thought about its etymology before.

Quote

compound bone at the base of the spine, 1753, from Late Latin os sacrum "sacred bone," from Latin sacrum, neuter of sacer "sacred" (see sacred). Said to be so called because the bone was the part of animals that was offered in sacrifices. The Late Latin phrase is a translation of Greek hieron osteon. Greek hieros also can mean "strong" (see ire), and some sources suggest the Latin is a mistranslation of Galen, who was calling it "the strong bone."

link

English & Linguistics / Re: The random etymology of the day

« Last post by Tante Shvester on September 09, 2025, 10:30:25 AM »

Sacrum, meaning butt, is from the same root word as Sacred. It's not the first part that I think of when I think of what parts of the body might be the holiest, but I guess tastes vary.

English & Linguistics / Re: Funny English and Linguistics stuff...

« Last post by Tante Shvester on September 09, 2025, 07:08:23 AM »

Smithereens. Now I want to keep a single smithereen as a memento.

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