Language

It has been just over a year since I learned about the site Free Rice. I got addicted, then forgot about it. Now I am reminded of it again and getting readdicted.

Free Rice is fun and feeds the poor around the world. You play educational games and for every answer you get right, rice is donated to feed the hungry. Last night my wife and I had a nerdy good time with world capitals, chemical symbols and famous paintings, and in the process donated some 16,000 grains of rice to feed the hungry. Given that sometimes I get addicted to this kind of nerdy game anyway, it''s nice to be able to feed some people as well.

Do you know the capitals of Uzbekistan and Tajikistan? How about the difference between a Fanz Hals and a Bruegel? Learn math, science, Spanish, French, famous paintings, etc. while helping to feed the hungry. What could be better?

About a year ago I introduced readers to a neat little site called "Free Rice." Basically back then you could play a vocabulary game and for each answer you got right sponsors would pay for 20 grains of rice to feed the poor around the world. In their first month of operation last year this effort raised enough to feed 50,000 people for one day. Not a huge thing, but a nice little effort.

OMFG!

This is why I love this man. When he minces with words, he totally cracks or shocks people up.

"I can give you at least four or five scenarios from where it might originate," Biden said to Emerald City supporters, mentioning the Middle East and Russia as possibilities. "And he's gonna need help. And the kind of help he's gonna need is, he's gonna need you - not financially to help him - we're gonna need you to use your influence, your influence within the community, to stand with him. Because it's not gonna be apparent initially, it's not gonna be apparent that we're right."

Not only will the next administration have to deal with foreign affairs issues, Biden warned, but also with the current economic crisis.

Douchebageosity
@WolfBlitzer can't help his douchebageosity. He asked @HillaryClinton how she felt not being the one debating.

Joe The Plumber
"Joe Sixpack has been replaced by Joe The Plumber", Bill "i sell values but gamble and booze" Bennett

Grumpy McNasty
Paul Begala : "McCain looked like Grumpy McNasty", LOL!

Reverse Bradley Effect
@PatrickRuffini dude you know you want to vote for @BarackObama. you're a case of Reverse Bradley Effect waiting to happen

So many people have asked me what does this one means, that here it is:

FTMFW!
aka Fuck The Motherfucking WHAT!
oooh! #Hillary smacks down the "join the cabinet" buzz by pushing the "we need every Senator" buzz --Senate majorities do FTMFW!

Check out the etymology of the word bad (via Volokh Conspiracy who got it from Language Log) :

Prof. Zupitza, with great probability, sees in bad-de (2 syll.) the ME. repr. of OE. bæddel ‘homo utriusque generis, hermaphrodita’ ... and the derivative bædling ‘effeminate fellow, womanish man ...’ applied contemptuously; assuming a later adjectival use, as in yrming, wrecca, and loss of final l as in mycel, muche, lytel, lyte, wencel, wench(e. This perfectly suits the ME. form and sense, and accounts satisfactorily for the want of early written examples. And it is free from the many historical and phonetic difficulties of the derivation proposed by Sarrazin [which ends up relating it to an OE. word meaning ‘forced, oppressed’] .... No other suggestion yet offered is of any importance; the Celtic words sometimes compared are out of the question.

Oh snap!

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Geezus.

Josh Marshall of Talking Points Memo found out about this gaffe via El País, Spain's "paper of record".

John McCain, is being interviewed by a journalist with an obvious Castillian accent. She asks him a series of questions about his future policies towards Latin America (which was the focus of the press conference).

Then in the last 30-40 seconds of the clip she asks him if he's looking forward to meeting with Jorge Zapatero, the prime minister of Spain. This is a somewhat tricky diplomatic question. Since winning the elections more than a year ago, Zapatero has not had a chance to visit the White House, nor has George Bush gone to Spain for an official meeting.

What does McCain do? Give his standard talking point about meeting with friendly countries only and standing tough against rogue and hostile countries.

The reporter re-frases the question 3 more times, with the last one being, "what about Europe? Spain is in Europe". McCain sticks to the talking about as if Spain were a Latin American threat to the United States.

Here's the audio clip :

You all know why I hate the word "Hispanic". So when Marisa from Latina Lista sent this around the other day, I couldn't stop myself from bashing them for using that most detested word.

As a Latinoamericanista by training, Latin American and by extension, Latino, means to include non-Spanish speaking countries like Brazil and Haiti. Hispanic doesn't.

Also, when we speak Latino, we don't speak of people who are only of Castillian Spanish ascendancy. They could be descendants of Persian Jews, Lebanese Christians, Tagalog Filipinos or simple any of the hundreds of Native South American and Caribbean tribes that populate our countries.

If universities across the country can make a distinction between Hispanic and Latino studies, it would behoove the political elites to make those distinctions, no? It's why I've never understood the insistence of advocacy and organizations to use the anachronistic term "Hispanic".

Any organization that doesn't embrace the diversity of the Latino community, with all our languages, ethnicities, cultures and races, is bound to always be political weak. Especially in these times when mobile and internet technologies, along with transnational economies, are breaking down the barriers of racial, ethnic and linguistic identity while fortifying those of class.

Anyhow, thanks Marisa. Am pulling a lazyweb on this one and just cutting and pasting on the blog.

Shit
Piss
Fuck
Cunt
Cocksucker
Mothterfucker
Tits

An amazingly simple legacy of free speech, civil disobedience, philosophy of language and culture criticism all wrapped up in the guise of stand up comedy.

New York City to me has rarely been to me the voice of Woody Allen or Seinfeld. New York City has always been the voice, the "tawk" and the raunchy wit of George Carlin.

Shit
Piss
Fuck
Cunt
Cocksucker
Mothterfucker
Tits
Fart
Turd
Twat

To celebrate George Carlin as a champion our civil rights and the integrity of the US Constitution I give you thee the original stand up skit that went into the Supreme Court Decision of FEDERAL COMMUNICATIONS COMMISSION v. PACIFICA FOUNDATION, 438 U.S. 726, 98 S.Ct. 3026 (1978).