While we are speaking of etymologies, one of the most popular ones on the internet is that for “wiki.” As more or less everyone who’s worked with wikis knows, Ward Cunningham named his software “WikiWikiWeb” after the Hawaiian term, “wiki wiki”, which means “quick”. I believe that shuttle buses one gets at the airport in [...]
Language Log’s Mark Liberman has put his finger on a common phenomenon which drives me batty: people using (often incorrect or folk) etymology to make philosophical points. Here is how Liberman describes the rhetorical structure of such arguments: In [language X], the word for [concept Y] is based on the word for [concept Z] (or [...]
This map alone will make sure that this episode of the Simpsons will be banned in China. Notice how Taiwan is a different color and written in a country size font? Well, even if you didn’t, Taiwanese independence activists did! (via the Taipei Kid) (If my blog wasn’t banned in China before, this post probably [...]
I’ve long believed that the main purpose of outsourcing is not to save money by finding cheaper labor, but to save money by keeping labor costs down at home. In other words, it serves as a means of disciplining local labor so that they don’t make demands for increased pay or benefits. So I was [...]
This is why Kevin Drum is still my first stop on the web: This gets to an issue I’ve long had with the whole “voting against their economic interests” argument: I don’t think it’s true. Seriously now, try to answer this question in a concrete way: if you were an average joe in a rural [...]
It seems that the word Bollywood derives from Tollywood. Perhaps it’s worth mentioning here that ‘Tollywood’, as a name for the Calcutta film industry was in circulation long before anyone had ever heard of Bollywood. The term is a portmanteau, Hollywood and Tollygunge (the area in Calcutta where many film studios were located) packed up [...]
So the middle classes are knee high in debt because their kids need iPods and fancy cell phones. Right? Wrong: My biggest criticism of the Times article is that it furthers the impression that middle class individuals are spending their money on frivolous luxury items and could solve all of their problems with a little [...]
Frequent readers of Keywords will know that I am obsessed about the issue of inequality. One of the frequent arguments put forward by conservatives is that inequality is a necessary side-effect of growth and, as such, should be tolerated. This is the argument that former Bush economic advisor, and Harvard economics professor Greg Mankiw made [...]
A large satellite image of home via Google Maps Wallpapers: Click for a larger view, with the train stops marked. Also, via the Map Room, the Literary Map of Manhattan is up on the NY Times web site. {7 train, Google, jackson heights, maps, wallpaper}
So long Daniel Okrent. I can’t say I care. I never learned anything from his pieces, and I can’t say he did much to affect editorial decisions at the Times. His job seems to have been one of damage control – making the Times seem responsive, without really forcing it to respond to anything. But [...]