Tag Archives: Barack Obama
Australia Through its Languages
When Barack Obama goes abroad, he has a knack of disarming the locals by quoting from the local language. Even if the locals speak English. In Australia, he won laughs for his (slightly off) rendering of expressions like spot on, … Continue reading →
The US Government’s Metaphor Program, and Lingodroids
Once every month or so, Carol Hills and I pick our five favorite language stories. Big stories, obscure stories, we love ‘em all. Here’s the latest rundown: 5. Slangy Scrabble. New entrants in the Collins Scrabble Dictionary include innit, grrl … Continue reading →
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Tagged as Barack Obama, DARPA, IARPA, Indonesian, lingodroid, metaphor program, origins of Japanese, phylogenetics, Ruth Schultz, Scrabble, slang, Stanley Ann Dunham
Political language before and after Tucson
After the Tucson shootings, we hear from Dutch and German journalists about political discourse and violence in their countries. Like many Europeans, the Dutch used to think of their country as less violent than the United States, in both word … Continue reading →
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Tagged as Barack Obama, blood libel, Clarence Dupnik, Gabrielle Giffords, Germany, Holocaust, iTunes, Netherlands, Pim Fortuyn, political discourse, Sarah Palin, Tucson, United States
Voting, vowing and singing in a foreign language
You may know this type of person: the guy — and it usually is a guy — who needs to know everything that everyone around him is saying. This is a problem if everyone around him is speaking in a language … Continue reading →
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Tagged as Amra Faye-Wright, Barack Obama, bbc, Calligraphy, Chicago, Dhivehi, Eating Sideways, English language, Flushing, Foreign language, international news, Islamic calligraphy, iTunes, Japan, Japanese, Japanese language, Korean, language, Maldives, Muhammad, Patrick Cox, politics, pri, pri's the world, public radio, The World in Words, Tokyo, Velma Kelly, wedding vows, wgbh, Yokohama, YouTube
Obama’s new words, Avatar in the Amazon, and a Chinese satirical extravaganza
As Barack Obama enters the second year of his presidency, he’s dropped some expressions — among them, war on terror, associated of course mainly with George W. Bush and AfPak, a conflation of Afghanstan and Pakistan, which didn’t go down … Continue reading →
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Tagged as Add new tag, Avatar, Barack Obama, bbc, China, drones, Eating Sideways, Ecuador, George W. Bush, Grass Mud Horse, international news, language, Lyndon B. Johnson, Middle East, New York Times, Obama, Patrick Cox, politics, Presidency of George W. Bush, pri, pri's the world, public radio, rhetoric, Ronald Reagan, Schuar, The World in Words, United States, wgbh, World of Warcraft
Weird words like whiffling, and the elusive meaning of peace
Adam Jacot de Boinod is a seeker of obscure but colorful English expressions. It all began when he was working for a BBC program called QI with Stephen Fry. He was asked to find interesting words beginning with an A. … Continue reading →
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Tagged as Adam Jacot de Boinod, Add new tag, Barack Obama, bbc, Candidates, Candidates and Campaigns, Eating Sideways, idiom, international news, language, Nobel, Nobel Peace Prize, Obama, Patrick Cox, peace, politics, Presidential, pri, pri's the world, public radio, The World in Words, tingo, United States, war, wgbh, whiffling
