Watching the Broadway musical Great Gatsby. It’s striking that the proportion of girls flaunting dresses notably surpasses the proportion of guys chaperoning girls. Got me thinking why. The explanation seems simple. If a girl wants to go to a musical and doesn’t have a boyfriend, she’ll bring at least one girlfriend, better yet two. Whereas a guy would rather not go at all than show up with a buddy. Well, with certain exceptions.
I wondered why turkey is called turkey here and what it’s called in Turkey. In Turkey, it’s called hindi – turkey! Decided to see what it’s called in India. Haha, in Hindi, it’s called Turkish (टर्की). Let’s see in other languages. Portuguese – Peru. That means, for them, it’s Peruvian. In Spanish – pavo, which refers to peacock 🙂 “pavone” in Italian – peacock. In French – dinde, because this bird came from the West Indies (America). Comes from poule d’Inde – “hen from India/West Indies”. Greek – “Γαλοπούλα” “French bird”.
Reading Nabokov, there “…with the dash of the Danube in his veins…”. Turns out, Danube is Дунай. But that’s okay, trivial stuff, the interesting thing is something else. That Don, Danube, Dniester, Dnieper, Donets, Dvina, and Disna essentially mean more or less the same thing – river. Apparently, the ancient people were not always rich in imagination when it came to toponymy. If you live by the water, you simply call it “River”. Over time, others came, heard this word, took it as a proper name, and altered it slightly to fit their accent. This way “River” (Danu) transformed into a dozen different names across the map of Europe.
The river Volga essentially is also just “river”. Okay, slightly different, “Volga” comes from the Proto-Slavic *Vòlga, which literally means “moisture” or “water”.
Also, it turned out that the Sahara desert is named so because Sahara (الصحراء) is desert. And the Gobi desert is called Gobi because Gobi in Mongolian is desert.
While googling, I stumbled upon another fun thing. There’s a place in England, Torpenhow Hill. The name is composed of four different linguistic layers: Tor — in Old English “hill”, Pen — in Cumbric “hill”, How — in Old Norse “hill”, Hill — in modern English “hill”. Result: “Hill-hill-hill-hill”. Likely, each new people arriving in this area didn’t understand that Tor, Pen, and How were already names for the hill, and added their variant of the word “hill”.
By the way, yesterday morning, while waiting at the gate for my flight to Miami, I quickly wrote a French language learning app using Gemini based on an idea I sketched out to a friend while driving to the airport, and then used this app during the flight.
The idea is that in an unfamiliar foreign language text, the user first marks unknown words and then sees their translations — but without the original text, and then returns to the text itself — but no longer seeing the translations. It’s as if the “dictionary was in the next room.” The hypothesis is that this method helps better memorize than when the translation is shown immediately upon clicking on a word, and when no effort is needed.
I am pleased that creating the app from scratch to the finished version took only about 35-40 minutes, and then I used it for some time during the flight, without the internet. Since all translations of all words/phrases were already made in advance.
I just deployed it on Render. It’s also nice that demonstrating the code in action was free and took another 10 minutes.
https://readandlearn.onrender.com/
Today Grok blew my mind. I say, teach me French. He says, ok, how do you say “book”? I say “le livre”. He says “wrong! la livra”. 😳The car drives itself anyway, decided to record the dialogue. He’s not convinced. At all, insists on his point. La livra and that’s it. I’m afraid Grok will teach the bad stuff in his Language Tutor mode.
I remembered a story from “Memoirs of Pushkin” by M. E. Yuzefovich, dating to 1829:
he had several books with him, including Shakespeare. One day in our tent, he translated some scenes to me and my brother. I had once studied English, but having not fully learned it, I subsequently forgot it. However, I still recognized its sounds. In Pushkin’s reading, the English pronunciation was so distorted that I suspected his knowledge and decided to test it. The next day, I invited his relative, Zakhar Chernyshev, who knew English as his native language, warned him what was going on, and called over Pushkin with Shakespeare. He willingly started translating for us. Chernyshev burst into laughter at the first words read by Pushkin: “First tell me, in which language are you reading?” Pushkin laughed in turn, explaining that he had taught himself English, and therefore he reads English letters like Latin ones. But the fact is that Chernyshev found the translation completely correct and the language understanding impeccable.”
Anna Derevenitskaya
Yesterday late, around 10-11pm, I was returning from Washington by metro. At the exit of Ashburn station, a relatively well-dressed guy approaches me and asks how to get to Route 7 from the station by bike. I start to answer, then he asks me if I happen to speak Russian. My accent gave me away (damn, how did he know exactly?)
I open the map on my phone, start explaining it to him, go right here, then left, then right, a 45-minute ride. It’s night outside. The dude’s on a bike. He doesn’t have a phone — something is broken or dead. But the most interesting thing, he doesn’t know the address where he needs to go. And Route 7, by the way, is 497 km long, but he obviously meant a segment about 30 km near the metro, but it was still not clear where he needed to go in that section.
In the conversation, it turned out that he knows how to get to the place where he stopped (friends?), from the local Russian-speaking Protestant church, called New Life. I feel I’m explaining to him, he’s overall ready to go alone in the dark without navigation, but from his feedback, I understand he didn’t get it, and at the first turn, he’d go wrong. And at that time, there was absolutely no one on the streets, it’s a neighborhood and data center area (the largest in the world, by the way), very safe, but absolutely deserted. I tell him — my car is parked at the metro, let me give you a lift if that’s the case, it’s no trouble for me.
His name is Edik. He wrecked his car a week ago because he liked to drive “with a breeze”. He regrets it because now he doesn’t understand what to buy a new one with. Lives in Baltimore, came to our area because there’s some Mongolian holiday tomorrow. What? I ask, what the hell is a Mongolian holiday. Turns out he’s from Mongolia, lived there before moving to the USA. Russian family, school at the Russian embassy. Speaks Russian without an accent, and fluent in Mongolian. Illegal. Apparently, he came to the USA on a tourist visa and stayed. Works in a store somewhere near Baltimore. Deep in debt. Apparently, a few adventures weren’t enough and he went to Virginia by bike mixed with metro and buses.
I hope he made it home from the church.
Forced to read a random book without translation in a foreign language
I step into Starbucks, and there’s a sign in the parking lot. Why rollerblades? After all, blade means ‘blade’? If it came down to it, rollerblades should be something like a circular saw. Started figuring it out. Turns out, roller skates were originally called inline skates, but then the commercial company Rollerblade appeared and eventually became a generic trademark, like Pampers, Xerox, marker pen, Thermos, Play-Doh, or escalator.
But actually, the term Inline Skates exists, and it means any skates, and the company Rollerblade still exists. Interesting, did it influence the fact that its name was on the sign?
And what about the Russian name “коньки”? Is it a diminutive of “horse”? Yes 🙂 According to one version, like little horses, they carry you across the ice: ancient skates were decorated with a horse’s head at the front. According to another version, the name comes from the fact that the first runners were usually made from animal bones, most often horses.
It seems you speak in Russian, and only when you contemplate do you realize that ‘horse’ and ‘skates’ are related words.
On Amazon, Clete Kushida offers books like “Sleep” for $1,895 and “Sleep for Dummies” for $22.99. It seems to me that it should be the other way around. He also has “Encyclopedia of Sleep and Circadian Rhythms” for $2,247.
If you search for all the books on Amazon and sort them from the most expensive to the cheapest, the top entries are books around $200. However, if you slightly hack the system by appending &low-price=…&high-price=… to the URL, sorting by descending price can reveal much more.
I decided to see what else is sold for big money on Amazon. For example, in the listing, Topps has a set of 1952 baseball cards “1952 Topps Baseball Almost Complete Set – Premier (Baseball Set) EX+” priced at $354,530. The single comment says “Damn I could take a picture and print those for free”.
Typically, such prices are seen for diamonds, Hermes bags, and pre-fabricated houses. It’s interesting to look into what’s in the books. Naturally, the top includes antiques, various mistakenly set prices, and jokes.
But among these, there are real books for some unreasonable money. For instance, the Encyclopedia of Quality of Life and Well-Being Research by Filomena Maggino is sold at Harvard Book Store for $5,999. Or the Global Encyclopedia of Public Administration, Public Policy, and Governance 2nd ed. 2022 Edition by Ali Farazmand for $7,999.99. It’s interesting whether selling for just under $8K is justifiable? On the Springer website, the electronic version of this book sells for $3500. And you can even rent it on Kindle for a couple of months for $2000.
Or there is also the Encyclopedia of Language and Linguistics in 14 volumes. On Amazon, this encyclopedia is priced just under $100K, yet it’s quite easy to find other sites online selling its electronic versions. What do you think, how much could the electronic version of this encyclopedia cost? The price is around $11,000 everywhere.
Among the rarities is RECOVERY: THE HOSPITAL DRAWINGS OF ALFONSO OSSORIO. Interestingly, this is just a book printed relatively recently, in 1995, in a limited run of 100 copies, each individually numbered. Now these books are selling for $4-5 thousand dollars. Well, that makes sense, it’s collectible.
Clete Kushida has books on Amazon like “Sleep” for $1,895 and “Sleep for Dummies” for $22.99. It seems to me it should be the other way around. He also has “Encyclopedia of Sleep and Circadian Rhythms” for $2,247.
Moreover, if you search for all books on Amazon and sort them from the most expensive to the least expensive, the top spots are occupied by books priced around $200. However, if you slightly hack the system and add to the URL &low-price=…&high-price=…., sorting by descending price, you can see quite a lot.
I decided to see what actually sells for significant amounts on Amazon. For example, Topps in the listing has a set of 1952 baseball cards “1952 Topps Baseball Almost Complete Set – Premier (Baseball Set) EX+” for $354,530. The only comment says, “Damn I could take a picture and print those for free”.
Items like diamonds, Hermes bags, and pre-fabricated houses often go for such amounts. It’s interesting to look at what books are going for. Naturally, the top includes antiques, wrongly set prices, and jokes.
But among these are real books priced unreasonably. For instance, Encyclopedia of Quality of Life and Well-Being Research By Filomena Maggino is sold in the Harvard Book Store for $5,999. Or look at Global Encyclopedia of Public Administration, Public Policy, and Governance 2nd ed. 2022 Edition by Ali Farazmand for $7,999.99. Interesting, does selling for just under $8K justify itself? On the site Springer, the electronic edition of this book is sold for $3,500. And it can also be rented on Kindle for a few months for $2,000.
Or there’s also the Encyclopedia of Language and Linguistics in 14 volumes. On Amazon, this encyclopedia is priced just under $100K, but it’s quite easy to find other sites online selling its electronic versions. What do you think, how much could the electronic version of this encyclopedia cost? The price is generally around $11,000.
Among rare books, there’s RECOVERY: THE HOSPITAL DRAWINGS OF ALFONSO OSSORIO. Interestingly, this is just a book, printed relatively recently in 1995, in a limited edition of 100 copies, each individually numbered. And now these books sell for $4-5 thousand dollars. Well, that’s understandable, as it’s collectible.
Hi, I'm Rauf Aliev. 