Category Archives: language

Favourite podcasts

The Hidden Brain by NPR:https://www.npr.org/podcasts/510308/hidden-brain?t=1594925472583 I listened to this one all about debt:https://www.npr.org/2020/06/15/877401074/buy-borrow-steal-how-debt-became-the-sugar-rush-solution-to-our-economic-woes This episode all about scarcity was particularly impressive: https://www.npr.org/2019/08/05/748207152/you-2-0-tunnel-vision Ted Radio Hour by NPR:https://www.npr.org/podcasts/510298/ted-radio-hour About loneliness: https://www.npr.org/2020/07/01/886292087/listen-again-meditations-on-loneliness How I built this by NPR:https://www.npr.org/podcasts/510313/how-i-built-this How Ben and Jerry Ice Cream was founded: https://www.npr.org/2020/03/20/818918341/ben-jerrys-ben-cohen-and-jerry-greenfield The Story behind Recaptcha: https://www.npr.org/2020/05/22/860884062/recaptcha-and-duolingo-luis-von-ahn ARD Radio Tatort (crime fictionContinue reading “Favourite podcasts”

Affordance – Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

I read a new, unknown word today: Affordance – See definition on Wikipedia. A potential action that is made possible by a given object or environment; especially, one that is made easily discoverable. Hadn’t heard of it before. This is the context I heard it in: The term has further evolved for use in theContinue reading “Affordance – Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia”

Malawi Blog on Learning Tumbuka

Monire monire! Muli uli? Tobias Kumwenda has started a blog to teach Tumbuka ( via Global Voices): The mission of this weblog is to teach those people who are not ChiTumbuka speakers located across the world, but have developed passion to learn this language. A great idea. Keep up the good work! See also Wikipedia:Continue reading “Malawi Blog on Learning Tumbuka”

Most People Are Multilingual

Here’s my comment I submitted a couple of minutes ago at Climb to the Stars on Most People Are Multilingual (cos I’m not sure if my comment wasn’t gobbled): In southern Africa (Zambia, Zimbabwe, Malawi, SA) most people are multi-lingual with varying levels of language competency in at least 3 languages. For example in Malawi,Continue reading “Most People Are Multilingual”

About the inhabitants of JavaPolis

Linguistic nit-picking on a Friday afternoon: I noticed this phrase over at the JavaPolis 06 website (a login is required): 17 299 JavaPolians registered And I started wondering why JavaPolian, why not JavaPolitans? After all, people living in a metropolis are metropolitans or have metropolitan characteristics. The same applies for people from Minneapolis. Maybe theContinue reading “About the inhabitants of JavaPolis”

experimenting with WordPress plugins

yesterday evening I started playing around with some WordPress plugins I’d found. SlimStats This Day I made a small code change in wp-config.php. Everything was working fine… I thought. But this morning I got this error message (please skip the next paragraph if you’re a wp/PHP geek, you’re probably going to throw your hands upContinue reading “experimenting with WordPress plugins”

Help Save the German Language

Adopt a German word for 5 Euro: http://www.wortpatenschaft.de/ Apparently the German language needs your help: …Werden Sie Wortpate! Beschützen Sie ein deutsches Wort und übernehmen Sie dafür die Verantwortung: Entwickeln Sie das Wort weiter, pflegen Sie es, hüten Sie es vor MiàŸbrauch oder Verdrängung! Schreiben Sie Gedichte mit Ihrem Wort, tauschen Sie sich aus mitContinue reading “Help Save the German Language”