Monday, May 07, 2007

Maledicta

Today's must read (to borrow a phrase): Most readers of this blog know Maledicta: The international journal of verbal aggression. It was once a rite of passage for many linguists to publish there, as some Madison faculty did. (Anybody doing fieldwork on a less known language or dialect had an easy paper: "Cursing in [name of language here]".

Maledicta's founder and editor (and the author of many contributions), Reinhold Aman, has just guestposted a long piece to Language Log. It's Aman at his best — he's talking details of the gross mistranslations of the phrase that got Imus fired.

2 comments:

The Ridger, FCD said...

I was quite surprised myself that "jigaboo" wasn't the word people ran mad over. It seems much worse to me. I wonder, a little, if people couldn't bring themselves to keep repeating that one so they focused on the one they could stand to say? At any rate, the whole conversation was contemptible, including the "wannabe" remark about the pretty players at UT.

The Ridger, FCD said...

Ah well - another pop culture remark that passed me right by. But that does explain it. Thanks!