... many of the reasons that English spelling contains many silent letters and other complexities date from the 15th century, around the time of William Caxton's 1476 introduction the printing press in England:
"In spelling, the [English] language was assimilating the consequences of having a civil service of French scribes, who paid little attention to the traditions of English spelling that had developed in Anglo-Saxon times. Not only did French qu arrive, replacing Old English cw (as in queen), but ch replaced c (in words such as church--Old English cirice), sh and sch replaced sc (as in ship--Old English scip), and much more. Vowels were written in a great number of ways. Much of the irregularity of modern English spelling derives from the forcing together of Old English and French systems of spelling in the Middle Ages. People struggled to find the best way of writing English throughout the period. ... Even Caxton didn't help, at times. Some of his typesetters were Dutch, and they introduced some of their own spelling conventions into their work. That is where the gh in such words as ghost comes from.
"Any desire to standardize would also have been hindered by the ... Great English Vowel Shift, [which] took place in the early 1400s. Before the shift, a word like loud would have been pronounced 'lood'; name as 'nahm'; leaf as 'layf'; mice as 'mees'. ...
"The renewed interest in classical languages and cultures, which formed part of the ethos of the
Renaissance, had introduced a new perspective into spelling: etymology. Etymology is the study of the history of words, and there was a widespread view that words should show their history in the way they were spelled. These weren't classicists showing off. There was a genuine belief that it would help people if they could 'see' the original Latin in a Latin-derived English word. So someone added a b to the word typically spelled det, dett, or dette in Middle English, because the source in Latin was debitum, and it became debt, and caught on. Similarly, an o was added to peple, because it came from populum: we find both poeple and people, before the latter became
the norm. An s was added to ile and iland, because of Latin insula, so we now have island.
There are many more such cases. Some people nowadays find it hard to understand why there are so many 'silent letters' of this kind in English. It is because other people thought they were helping."
David Crystal, The Fight for English: How language pundits ate, shot, and left, Oxford, 2006, pp. 26-9.
http://delanceyplace.com/
2008-04-28
Can the Bicycle Save Civilization?
"What if someone invented a vehicle that had a long range and an average speed that matched cars in today's city streets, took up very little space for use and storage, operated in a variety of conditions both on-road and off, and provided phenomenal fuel efficiency?"http://www.raisethehammer.org/index.asp?id=368
"People of average fitness can achieve 20 km/h with an average power input of about 1/10 hp, or 75 watts. This level of exertion is minimal and can be kept up for hours.
Leg muscles are about 20 percent efficient, so a five kilometre ride consumes 80 kilocalories, or about one small apple. If you are wondering, this translates into a fuel efficiency of 595 km/l (1,400 mpg) of gasoline. Apples are renewable and clean; gasoline is neither."
Gwales - Welsh Books Council
" The Welsh Books Council is a national body, funded by the Welsh Assembly Government, which provides a focus for the publishing industry in Wales. It provides a number of specialist services (in the fields of editing, design, marketing and distribution) with a view to improving standards of book production and publication in both Welsh and English."http://www.gwales.com/
http://www.wbc.org.uk/
Dzongkha Linux (Bhutan)
"(June 25, 2006) Last November I commented on Microsoft's refusal to use the recognized name of Dzongkha, the national language of Bhutan, for fear of irritating China. According to this recent report, little has come of the US$523,000 paid to the UK-based Orient Foundation to provide support for Dzongkha in Microsoft Windows, originally expected in early 2003. As a result, the Government of Bhutan switched its attention to Linux. The Department of Information Technology recently announced the release of a version of Debian Linux localized for Dzongkha"http://itre.cis.upenn.edu/~myl/languagelog/archives/003287.html
"Free operating systems like Linux have several advantages for developing countries. Most software packages today are developed in the west and then sold in developing countries where the parameters of affordability are completely different. This problem does not arise with Linux because it is free.
The openness of Linux allows local linguistic groups to customise user interfaces in ways that are far more culturally sensitive than any centrally controlled approach. We therefore believe that Linux is a very attractive long-term solution to Bhutan's computing needs. We chose Linux over other free/open Operating System because of the popularity of the platform with developers."
http://dzongkha.sourceforge.net/
Filter Google Results by Date with a URL Trick
"Google can reorder search and news results from the last day, week, a few months, or entire year by adding a small string to the end of the search URL. Just add this string—&as_qdr=d—to the address bar and hit enter. You'll get a custom drop-down box that lets you re-order results based on date. It's great for getting past the same top results you've already looked through, as well as grabbing only the newest links related to gadgets, software, or whatever else you're searching. Sadly it doesn't work on Google Images, but let us know in the comments if it does work on other Google searches."http://lifehacker.com/384375/filter-google-results-by-date-with-a-url-trick
http://www.tech-recipes.com/rx/2860/google_how_to_access_filter_by_date_dropdown_box
Fare Compare : cheap flight finder and airfare comparison engine
"On FareCompare.com, you'll find cheap plane tickets, discount first class airfare, the easiest air travel planning tools, and expert travel advice. Airlines change airfares constantly, let FareCompare.com monitor airline ticket prices so you'll be first in line to pickup the best deal on your quest for a cheap flight."http://www.farecompare.com/
Cycle helmet debate
"Can you see anything here to suggest that helmets are preventing a meaningful number of injuries? It looks to me as if the trend for cyclist injuries is not noticeably different from the trend for the whole population - and surely we can't credit helmets for saving those who aren't wearing them? (Actually we can try, but we won't get very far)."http://www.chapmancentral.co.uk/wiki/Cycle_helmet_debate
"Cyclists' death and injury rates decrease with increasing prevalence of cycling. The UK death rate of 53 per hundred million passenger hours is on a base of an average 62km cycled per person per year. In Holland the death rate is 23 per hundred million on a base of 850km per person per year, and in Denmark the rate is even lower - 18 deaths per hundred million hours on a base of 1,050km per person per year.
These ratios have been reasonably consistent over time, and indicate that the very best way to improve road safety for cyclists is to encourage more people to cycle. The reasons are obvious: more drivers will also be cyclists, and therefore be aware of the existence and needs of bikes on the roads; and the more bikes there are, the more drivers will expect to see them.
There is also good evidence that cycle lanes at least 2m wide, advanced stop lines, cycle-only phases at traffic lights, and good junction and roundabout design, are effective in increasing safety. After all, the most survivable crash is the one that doesn't happen in the first place. Helmets, by contrast, are a "sticking plaster" solution which fails to address in any way the underlying causes of accidents."
Asian Classics Input Project (ACIP) Release 6
"This is our first major text release in five years. During this time, we have concentrated largely on accumulating new materials, much of which is slated to be released in the near future. The new material on this release includes more than 100,000 catalog entries of works held at the libraries in St. Petersburg; 35,000 catalog entries of works held in libraries in Mongolia; as well as some of the newly qualified and catalogued Tengyur works, listed by volume. Finally for the first time, this release includes English translations of some of the texts, for the benefit of our supporters who don't yet understand the Tibetan language. In future releases, we hope to expand this effort to include all of the languages into which our staff has translated this material."http://asianclassics.org/research_site/index.html
Announcement courtesy of the Tibetan Studies Blog
http://tibetan-studies-resources.blogspot.com/2008/04/asian-classics-input-project-acip.html
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