If America were a village of 100 people, 82 would speak English as their first language, 10 would speak Spanish, 1 Chinese, 1 French & 1 person would speak German.
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–adverb
1. in the literal or strict sense: What does the word mean literally? 2. in a literal manner; word for word: to translate literally. 3. actually; without exaggeration or inaccuracy: The city was literally destroyed. 4. in effect; in substance; very nearly; virtually.
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Oooh! One step closer to translator microbes!
“Electronics giant NEC has reportedly developed a wearable optical device that interprets foreign languages and projects a real-time translation directly onto the retina, enabling the wearer to communicate with other language speakers without an interpreter.
The prototype device — called “Tele Scouter” — consists of a tiny retinal display and microphone mounted on an eyeglass frame. The microphone picks up the conversation and transmits it to a small computer worn on the waist, which converts the speech to text and translates it into the user’s native language.
The retinal display projects the text directly into the user’s peripheral vision, allowing them to maintain eye contact with their conversation partner while reading the translation. According to the developers, the Tele Scouter can be used for hours on end without eye strain, because the wearer does not have to focus their eye on the displayed text.”
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Who are the people that say paperknife?
I’d never heard the term until yesterday. My entire life, this so-called paperknife, has always been referred to as a letter opener. Am I the crazy one? Have people been running around calling them paperknives this entire time, and I’ve just completely missed it? Paperknife!?
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Government appeals ruling on FCC indecency rule
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Everyone knows that the symbol “&” means “and,” even if they don’t know that the real name of that symbol is ampersand. This symbol was invented by a Roman, Marius Tiro, in ancient times, along with about 5,000 other shorthand symbols. But of all his symbols, only the ampersand has survived. Tiro created the ampersand by joining together the Latin letters “e” and “t”, because in Latin et meant “and.” In later centuries, when a person recited the alphabet, he usually said “A per se A” for A, and “I per se I” for I, meaning “A by itself” and “I by itself,” to distinguish them as letters, rather than the words represented by those letters. Per se means “by itself” in Latin. So, the symbol & was recited as “and per se and.” And this phrase eventually became ampersand.
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Statue of Pier Gerlofs Donia, the last “King of all Frisians” known for his legendary strength and size
Bûter, brea, en griene tsiis; wa’t dat net sizze kin, is gjin oprjochte Fries (“Butter, rye bread and green cheese, who cannot say that is not a genuine Frisian”) was used by the Frisian Pier Gerlofs Donia during a Frisian rebellion war (1515–1523). Ships whose crew could not pronounce this properly were usually plundered and soldiers who could not were beheaded by Donia himself.
Greate Pier (by Davydutchy)
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The Language Fossils Buried in Every Cell of Your Body | Human Evolution | DISCOVER Magazine
A British family with a bizarre speech deficit has led linguists to FOXP2: a gene that begins to explain how our ancestors acquired language.
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