Most people think an umlaut is the two dots over a letter that you often see in German and some other languages. A number of Anglophone rock bands have decorated their names with ‘metal umlauts’, not affecting the pronunciation, in […]
Language
A Hipper and Cooler Name for ‘Czechia’
Since Czechoslovakia divided into two countries in 1992, the western part has internationally been called the Czech Republic. More recently it has tried to call itself Czechia. I can think of a better alternative. For one thing, Czechia is hard […]
More on Manners and Customs
Some more issues on the issue of Manners and Customs. The issue of enforcement. Disobedience to Manners is enforced, let it be said, by discrimination and exclusion. Sometimes the person is explicitly told why he is excluded; sometimes he is […]
Manners, Customs, and Languages: The Spontaneous, A-Rational Kingdom
This particular kingdom is also not one of the three that evangelicals regularly talk about, but in the training of missionaries and evangelists, we pay a lot of attention to it! ‘Missiology’ includes endless classes on culture, and how we […]
Some General Observations about China: Languages, Romanizations, Air Quality, General Appearance
I am late getting out this post, which should be my last about China. China does not feel like Europe. It feels like America in some parallel universe. I had always hated the science fiction tales on TV that had […]
Sympathy versus Empathy
I think I have finally figured out the distinction between ‘sympathy’ and ’empathy’, and why we have two words. ‘Sympathy’ is a much older word, and has been in use for centuries; ’empathy’ is a fairly new one, becoming fashionable […]
St. Paul, Bad Words, and Greed
In a recent post, the one on the fire pits [which turned into a website and a Facebook page, I’m told] I used an eight letter b-word which pushed the Kennel Kode to the limit. I thought it justified in […]
The Changing Meanings of the Word ‘Passion’
The word ‘passion’ has gone through some fascinating gyrations in its meaning, at least in English. First, it is clearly related to the word ‘passive,’ which is the opposite of ‘active.’ And it originally refers to someone who receives action […]
What Do Words Really Mean to our Contemporaries?
Not long ago I was at church and we happened to sing a well known song called “Power in the Blood.” Here are a couple of lines from it: Would you be free from your passion and pride? There’s power […]
The Language of “Mad Men”
I found this on the New York Times website. Comparative linguistics, or philology, has been one of my favorite subjects since my high school days, though I could hardly converse about it with my friends; it was the era of […]