Almost everyone uses language, so inevitably almost everyone thinks they are an expert in it. I don’t consider myself an expert, though most of my work requires at least language competence and sometimes actual skill, but I do follow the blogs featured on this feeds page.
(If you are wondering where the translation-related feeds have all gone, I have put them on their own page.)
Most of the blogs represented here are in English, most of the time, but don’t be surprised to find other languages used. Go with the flow – I occasionally find myself pleasantly surprised at how much I can grasp in languages I have never seen before.
Language On the Net
Language Log » LLOG outage this weekend
Language Log will be off the air for a while this weekend, due to building-wide electrical repairs. [Link]
languagehat.com » A Year in Reading 2017.
Once again it’s time for the Year in Reading feature at The Millions, in which people write about books they’ve read and enjoyed during the previous year; my contribution is up, featuring my review of Yuri Slezkine’s The House of Government: A Saga of the Russian Revolution 
Urban Word of the Day » fax potato
A person who faxes from one floor to another instead of getting up and running the information because they're too lazy to get out of their chair. Dilbert, over in Engineering, is such a fax potato. He sent me 15 faxes this week. What, he can't leave his office to run me a READABLE spec sheet?
[Link]
Language Log » "Sexual harassment dried bamboo shoot"
Given the bevy of shamed politicians and celebrities who have been paraded before the public in recent weeks, it may be of interest that the word for "sexual harassment" in Chinese is quite a colorful one: 
(Source) xián zhūshǒu sǔngān guōzǎi 咸猪手笋干锅仔 "stewed salted pork trotters with dried bamboo shoots" < "salted pork trotters with dried bamboo shoots in [hot] pot" That's when the first three characters are being used in their overt, Sinographic sense: "salted pork trotters". But, as often happens in Cantonese, the same three characters have an entirely different connotation that is partly (in some cases wholly) dependent on the transcriptional value of one (or more) of the characters for rendering the sound of a foreign word or a Cantonese morpheme for which there is no known Chinese character. In this case, the C. haam4 / M. xián 鹹 / 咸 (lit., "salt[y/ed]") stands for "ham", but that doesn't have anything ostensible to do with "salt(y/ed)". Rather, it supposedly comes from English "hamshop", which is Sinographically transcribed into Cantonese as C. haam4sap1 鹹濕 / 咸湿 (Sinographically literally "salty-moist", but transcriptionally "hamshop", i.e., "lecherous; lascivious"). I found the fascinating information in the latter part of the preceding paragraph at this website, which also has a lengthy list of other Cantonese terms said to be transcribed from foreign words. More information on the alleged etymology of English "hamshop" here and here. In sum, the key term in the mistranslated menu item at the top of this page, xián zhūshǒu 咸猪手 ("groper"), is actually a Mandarin borrowing from Cantonese haam4 zyu1sau2 咸猪手 (lit., "salty pig's hand / trotter"; "sexual pervert [esp. one who gropes women against their wishes or without their permission]"). It should have been translated more directly as "salted pork trotters". Cf. German Eisbein ("pickled ham hock"). Previous posts on this topic: "Grilled sexual harassment" (5/5/13) "'German type sexual harassment'" (10/20/14) "Salty pig's hand" (5/3/17) It's simpler in Japanese: sekuhara セクハラ < sekusharuharasumento セクシャルハラスメント . Now, after Matt Lauer, the latest in the procession from Harvey Weinstein to Al Franken and too many others to name, who will be the next "salty pig's hand" to be called out before the American public? > [Link]
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