When's the last time that historical linguistics made the front page of the print edition of the NYT? Today, here. In a piece about the 'modern' pentathlon being redefined as four events, something akin to the Big 10 having more than 10 schools, we read:“The classicist in me says: ‘Wait a minute. This is crazy,’ ” said Brian Joseph, a linguistics professor at Ohio State — referring to pentathlon, not his university’s membership in the 11-member Big Ten. “But the linguist in me realizes that words change their meaning.”Well said.
While we're on the subject of linguistics in the news, congrats to the Log on winning the "Linguistics, Language and the Public Award". As a profession, we are underrepresented in many places and many ways, but the Log — along with the LINGUIST list and a few others — helps make up for that, carrying a lot of water.
Image from here.
3 comments:
Just in from someone in discussing this topic: "To make it a real spectator sport, they should put the running, shooting, fencing, swimming and horse jumping all into one event. They could call it a JamesBondathlon."
Now, that's a ticket I want!
Not only do ordinary folks know about the root pent-, as the NYT remarks, but it was still sort of productive a few years ago when Intel named Pentium its newest processor, the successor of the 486.
On the other hand, although the article suggests that "a trilogy with two books" would be unacceptable, Douglas Adams called his Hitch Hikers' Guide to the Galaxy a trilogy in four parts.
Bonus points for anything that references Hitchhiker's Guide...
Post a Comment