Five other things to read

[yendi]

1. Suzanne Vega on her "two-hit wonder" status, as well as how "Luka" became a hit.

2. Poul Anderson demonstrates how English might read if it were more Germanic (ganked from matociquala).

3. Ken Jennings on "Roh-butt" vs "Roh-baht."

4. Jeff Vandermeer on writers and the Internet.

5. Finally, Christopher Butcher's second part of his Shape of the Manga Industry is as fascinating as the first one was.

Comments

[martinhesselius.livejournal.com]

I <3 "Uncleftish Beholding"

[yendi]

:-) It's a wonderful phrase.

[martinhesselius.livejournal.com]

*Nod nod*
I'm a big Poul Anderson fan (and in mild trouble because I split a ton of his books across two of my bookshelves a few weeks ago, but that's another story!). Heh; I'm short, not so heavy, and not Dutch at all, but van Rijn's long been a fiction-hero. ;)

I tracked down the article a few years ago, and was delighted to see there were even Wiki articles on "Uncleftish":
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anglish
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Uncleftish_Beholding
(Yah, Wiki not's definitive, true!)

[greektoomey.livejournal.com]

I'd guess that the 'baht' pronunciation originated with the truncation of robot to 'bot just as Lucas reduced android to 'droid. Interesting that Jennings notes the use of 'bot as a suffix but fails to make that connection.

[yendi]

Well, maybe he'll make the connection in a follow-up post. I suspect he might (like me) have heard enough pre-truncating versions the newer pronunciation that he's discounting that possibility.

The real question is, why didn't he make a Zoidberg reference?

[fings.livejournal.com]

Sometimes in the NY/Northern NJ area, we do indeed eat “carr-ahts.”

(that is, around here, either pronunciation is acceptable.)

[dougals.livejournal.com]

I must be tired. I first saw number three as:

Ken Jennings on "Ruh-roh" vs "Roh-baht."

And it made absolutely no sense to me... ;)

[montykins.livejournal.com]

I look forward to Suzanne Vega talking about Tom's Diner, because "Tom's Album" (the album of all wacky covers of Tom's Diner) has long been one of my favorite cover albums, and I love that she officially approved it.

[bassfingers.livejournal.com]

A not so great live recording (http://www.phui.com/cm/Assorted%20Scraps/05%20The%20Queen%20and%20The%20Soldier.mp3) of my old band doing Vega's "The Queen & the Soldier".