TresSugar

Très Cool! Babies Cry in Their Native Language

TresSugar — Sat, 07 Nov 2009 02:00:00 -0800

I've always found it fascinating that dogs "bark" in different languages. Though we say "ruff ruff" in English, that same noise is expressed as "ouah, ouah" in French. Now here's something even cooler: German researchers have started to think that babies' wails sound different depending on what language their parents speak.

The scientists observed 60 babies born to families speaking French and German and found that the infants could be absorbing their parents' accents from inside the womb. In the last three months of pregnancy, babies have already begun to memorize sounds, and based on the analysis of the babies' cry "melodies," the sounds mapped closely to the parents' accents:

The French newborns cried with a rising "accent" while the German babies' cries had a falling inflection.

Writing in the journal Current Biology, they say the babies are probably trying to form a bond with their mothers by imitating them.

The findings suggest that unborn babies are influenced by the sound of the first language that penetrates the womb.

Fascinating, right? Now I want to hang out with a big international gang of babies and see if their cries all sound different. Wait, that means being trapped in a room with a bunch of crying babies - nevermind!

Do Tell: What Language Do You Wish You Could Speak?

TresSugar — Wed, 30 Sep 2009 13:00:00 -0700

I'm always very impressed by people who can speak multiple languages fluently. In my battle to learn French, which started in high school, I've often felt like Joey from Friends, who struggles to learn French for an acting part. In that episode, which I've posted for you here, Joey tries his best, but can't do better than speaking French-sounding gibberish. Since today is International Translation Day, tell me: if you could speak a foreign language fluently, which one would it be?

Sarah Palin: Poet?

TresSugar — Wed, 22 Jul 2009 11:00:00 -0700

No matter how you feel about Sarah Palin, you have to admit the woman has an awfully strange way of expressing herself. I've heard her tortured syntax and odd word choices described as a "word salad," but one writer goes further. Palin's speech is likened to a verbal Armageddon because of her unique ability to turn a simple idea into near incomprehensible gobbledygook.

Hart Seely has taken these mangled forms and rakishly proclaimed them found poetry. The simple idea, "small town mayors are on the front lines," once Palinized, sounds like this:

You know,
Small mayors,
Mayors of small towns-
Quote, unquote-
They're on the front lines.

Writing composition masters Strunk and White may not have approved of Palin's use of language ("Omit needless words" was their mantra, after all), but writer Julian Gough facetiously agrees that Sarah Palin is an accidental poet. "A great poet needs to leave open the door between the conscious and unconscious," he says. "Sarah Palin has removed her door from its hinges."

Do you think a politician needs to be articulate, or do you think these folks are just being unfair to Palin?

Vocabulary Test Time! Can You Speak (New) English?

TresSugar — Fri, 10 Jul 2009 08:30:00 -0700

Every day editors of the Merriam-Webster dictionary spend hours reading books, magazines, newspapers, and online publications to find out how people are using the English language. Eventually, if a word is used enough, it gets added to the dictionary! This year, Merriam-Webster added 100 new words, including frenemy, ginormous, smackdown, sudoku, and speed dating. The dictionary publishers say the words are included because of their extensive use, but some of the new additions seem pretty obscure to me. I guess that's what ~~Google~~ a dictionary is for! See if you can match some of the more random words to their newly-printed official definitions!

Source: Flickr User mricon

Take the quiz

Gay-Married: A Term of Exuberance or Ignorance?

TresSugar — Tue, 07 Jul 2009 10:15:00 -0700

Some gay people may get married now, but do they get "gay-married"? Not so sure. The term is popular among a gaggle of campy gay (and straight) people to signify that they like something a lot. How much? They want to gay-marry it, like the Twitterer above who wants to do unmentionable things to a sandwich.

Good magazine cites our Do, Dump, or Gay-Marry Angelina Jolie post - and Pinko Magazine's more abrasive Gay Marry or Abort feature - as evidence that gettin' gay-married can be all in good fun. It's a new spin on the childhood taunt of "If you like it so much, why don't you marry it," and no different than 30 Rock's Tracy Jordan saying "I love it so much, I want to take it behind the middle school and get it pregnant."

Glib? Yes. Contemptuous? It depends. Some argue that it's insulting to gay people who want gay marriage to go mainstream; purveyor-of-the-bright-side Good thinks it entered our vernacular through the media and reflects society's comfort level with gay marriage. What do you think - is the use of "gay-marry" insulting to gays, or can it be a term expressing exuberance?

Origins of PC Abbreviation "Ms." Not So Feminist

TresSugar — Thu, 25 Jun 2009 13:00:00 -0700

Using Ms. instead of Miss or Mrs. has become the norm in business. I've always thought we use it not only because we don't know a woman's marriage status, but also because ultimately it doesn't matter. At some point, it becomes a little weird and maybe even insulting to call an adult woman "miss."

Lo and behold, it turns out that Ms. originated not just to prevent the awkwardness of assuming a woman is married, but also to prevent the egregious insult of addressing married women with the "inferior title Miss." Visual Thesaurus traced the term's origin back to 1901 when it made its debut in Massachusetts's Springfield Sunday Republican, which argued for its use with this logic:

There is a void in the English language, which with some diffidence, we undertake to fill. Every one has been put in an embarrassing position by ignorance of the status of some women. To call a maiden Mrs. is only a shade worse than to insult a matron with the inferior title Miss. . . . Now, clearly, what is needed is a more comprehensive term which does homage to the sex without expressing any views to their domestic situation and what could be simpler or more logical than the retention of what the two doubtful terms have in common.

Do You Find the Cougar Concept Offensive?

TresSugar — Thu, 11 Jun 2009 11:00:25 -0700

Unless you live under a rock, you know that "cougar" is a term for an older woman who likes to "prey" on younger men. While it can be used in a derogatory way, some older women are reclaiming the term as a way to express their virility.

On the show The Cougar, a seemingly empowered 40-year-old Stacy has her pick of the litter of men half her age, who are all competing for her attention. And on Newsweek's online magazine this week, one writer also embraces her cougar status when explaining why cougars love American Idol runner-up Adam Lambert. She writes:

I can't stop thinking about him. And neither can any of my cougar-aged friends. We love Adam, truly, madly, deeply, in a kind of weirdly Mrs. Robinson sexual way.

Since the article is about older women's lust for a younger man, I'm not that surprised the writer uses the term cougar. But I've definitely heard the word used to label older women expressing sexuality as aggressive, desperate, predators of men. And of course, I can't think of a term to describe older men who go after younger women - I believe we just call them. . . men.

Do you find the term cougar empowering, offensive, or just plain descriptive?

Source

Why You Should Trash the Term White Trash

TresSugar — Tue, 19 May 2009 14:00:00 -0700

Some people tire of more don'ts to add to the so-called politically correct list of things not to say. For me, I think it's important to be aware of what the language you use implies - what it means, who it might hurt, the power behind words. Political correctness (for lack of a better term) is just etiquette on a larger social scale.

Which brings me to the term "white trash." This has always bugged me, and many have weighed in on why it's an awful term.

On the most basic level, calling anyone trash is just plain cruel and dehumanizing. When you think of it from a racial perspective, there's the implication that it's such an unusual event for white people to be "trash" that there needs to be a special category. Political theorist bell hooks, in her book Black Looks, says that white trash is basically a code term meaning, "as low as black people." To hear more thoughts on the term white trash, read more.

Then there's the class discrimination involved. People considered white trash are almost always poor, or from poor backgrounds. I don't need to explain how messed up it is to trash people for being poor. That, I think, is classless.

White trash has become so casually tossed around, in spite of attempts by critics to call attention to it - even Heidi Klum and Seal had a white trash-themed wedding when they renewed their vows recently, and I bet they didn't intend it to be offensive.

Have you ever casually used the term white trash? Does it bother you when you hear it?

Source

Missing Words: Half of World's Languages to Die Out by 2100

LibertySugar — Wed, 21 Jan 2009 14:30:25 -0800

The chief of a Native American tribe died last year and with her an entire language. She was the last speaker of Eyak, a tribal tongue native to south central Alaska. Sound insignificant? Maybe it is, but with half of the world's 6,192 languages set to become extinct by the century's end, endangered languages are anything but scarce.

Proponents for letting dying languages go say the fewer languages the better - less confusion. But opponents maintain that language provides insight into individual cultures, and to let a language is die is to lose an entire knowledge base.

The documentary The Linguists, which PBS will air Feb. 26, follows two - surprise - linguists as they document four dying languages in Siberia, Bolivia, India, and Arizona and a movement to help indigenous groups reclaim their languages. Language revitalization has proved possible in cases where there's more than one speaker, at least a small group, and community and state support.

Good magazine interviewed the two linguists behind the documentary. To see what they had to say, read more.

Greg Harrison and David Anderson point out that language and identity are intertwined. Language encodes nearly everything people have ever thought and known throughout and about history. Harrison said, "We’re losing this vast knowledge base that might contain the secrets of how we’re supposed to survive and we don’t even know it."

Source

74 Percent of El Paso Households Are Spanish Speaking

CitizenSugar — Thu, 25 Sep 2008 00:00:30 -0700

According to new information released by the US Census Bureau, 74 percent of all households in El Paso, TX, speak Spanish as their primary language at home, even if they're fluent in English. That number is coupled with the fact that one out of every five residents of Texas, Arizona, California, and New Mexico speak Spanish at home too.

One home-Spanish-speaker says, "Spanish was my first language and it's the language that my parents speak, so I just use it when I'm there. I don't even think about it. And although I speak English, I sometimes feel more comfortable speaking Spanish. It's like going back home."

The high at-home use of the language prompts changes in the local culture and government. Most agencies and stores publish notices in both English and Spanish. One spokeswoman for the county of El Paso said it makes sense to write news releases and public notices in both languages. "Our goal is for our message to reach the intended audience as quickly as possible," she said. "If we were to send out notices in English only, the message will eventually get to Spanish-speaking families but it will take some time."

Source