Shakespeare & Wormholes

Con la novedad de que el término científico “wormhole” (agujero de gusano en español), también conocido como “puente Einstein-Rosen” no nació de ningún ámbito científico, sino del siguiente texto en un poema del mismísimo W. Shakespeare (“The Rape of Lucrece”, 1594)

“To fill with worm-holes stately monuments, 
To feed oblivion with decay of things, 
To blot old books and alter their contents, 
To pluck the quills from ancient ravens’ wings.”

As science comes up with new concepts it also creates new terms to describe them. But sometimes, the term they’re looking for already exists. Here’s how Shakespeare came up with a term for a theoretical physics concept almost 350 years before it had been invented.

Wormhole may sound like a rather modern coining, but it actually dates back to 1594 when Shakespeare used it in a verse of his poem The Rape of Lucrece (h/t to commenter Guild_Navigator, who reminded us of the verse in the comments of this post, on a mathematician who created his own language)...

http://bit.ly/1hUPQKJ

Shakespeare & Wormholes

Slacktivism

El término Slacktivism aún no tiene un equivalente en español. Pero es uno de esas palabras  que toda persona debería agregar a su vocabulario (sobre todo los publicistas); más aún en estos días donde todas las marcas y empresas juegan a ser socialmente responsables apoyando causas -como se dice en méxico- sólo “de dientes para fuera”.
Y es que el problema no es que “jueguen”, si no que muchos se toman demasiado en serio ese juego…

It’s the laziest form of activism: Slacktivism. And if you’re not a slacktivist yourself, you definitely know one. We’re talking about that person who talks about going out and helping people in need, but never quite gets around to it.

Slacktivism (sometimes slactivism or slackervism) is a portmanteau of the words slacker and activism. The word is usually considered a pejorative term that describes “feel-good” measures, in support of an issue or social cause, that have little or no practical effect other than to make the person doing it take satisfaction from the feeling they have contributed. The acts tend to require minimal personal effort from the slacktivist. The underlying assumption being promoted by the term is that these low cost efforts substitute for more substantive actions rather than supplementing them, although this assumption has not been borne out by research…

http://bit.ly/I1j9Nt

Slacktivism

Una nueva letra

El inventor australiano Paul Mathis es una de esas personas que entienden el lenguaje como algo en constante evolución. Por ello, ha propuesto que el término “The” (si, el artículo) sea reemplazado por un solo símbolo que lo represente -tal y como sucede con el famoso ampersand “&”-, pues esta palabra es una de las mas utilizadas en el idioma inglés y el usar 3 letras en ello representa demasiado gasto. Así la iniciativa persigue fines, aparentemente, económicos…

Los principales “candidatos” para esta nueva letra son en su mayoría símbolos que ya existen, pero que poca gente conoce. Chéquenlos…

An Australian named Paul Mathis has scored some attention from designers and typographers of late by suggesting that “the”, as the most-used word in the English language, is too long to type, and should in fact be two characters shorter. To that end, he’s invested a significant amount of money and effort to invent and promote a new typographic glyph: “Ћ” is to “the” as “&” is to “and”. Usage of Ћ new character would look something like it does in this sentence:

The word ‘and’ is only the fifth-most used word in English and it has its own symbol – the ampersand. Isn’t it time we accorded the same respect to ‘the’? — Paul Mathis

If he’d done a bit of lexicographic and/or typographic research to begin with, he would have discovered that there are already at least two glyphs equivalent to the English digraph “th”, namely Θ and Þ (lowercase θ and þ). The first of these, the Greek theta, gets quite a workout in the math and science world, and it would probably be a bit overloaded if it meant “the” as well. The second glyph comes from Middle English — Icelandic is the only language that still uses it — and is called “thorn”. The character “þ” is pronounced like the “th” in “the” or “that”, but not “think” or “thanks”.

In fact, thorn already has a strong claim to the throne of “the”, which in Middle English was abbreviated “þᵉ”, with a superscript-e. It is this spelling, in fact, which leads to the modern-day construction “Ye Olde Whatever Shoppe”. Over time, the written thorn gradually lost its ascender, looking much like the wynn “ƿ” glyph. In the early days of English printing, typographic fonts often lacked the characters “þ” and “ƿ”, so typographers used the “y” as a substitute. Thus the abbreviation “þᵉ” became “ƿᵉ” and then “yᵉ” although it was — and is — still pronounced “the”. Still with me? Excellent…

http://bit.ly/1bO0fTL

Una nueva letra

Palabras que no existen

Va una curiosa lista de palabras que no existen en inglés, pero que deberían, puesto que representan conceptos bastante reconocibles.
Existe por ahí un psicoanalista llamado Miguel Bassols, al que una vez escuche decir: el lenguaje es infinito. Para mí esta es una prueba de que tiene razón…

Approximately 375 million people speak English as their first language, in fact it’s the 3rd most commonly spoken language in the world (after Mandarin Chinese and Spanish). Interestingly enough it’s the number 1 second language used worldwide – which is why the total number of people who speak English, outnumber those of any other.

But whilst it’s the most widely spoken language, there’s still a few areas it falls down on (strange and bizarre punctuation rules aside). We look at 25 words that simply don’t exist in the English langauge (and yet after reading this list, you’ll wish they did!)

1 Age-otori (Japanese): To look worse after a haircut

2 Arigata-meiwaku (Japanese): An act someone does for you that you didn’t want to have them do and tried to avoid having them do, but they went ahead anyway, determined to do you a favor, and then things went wrong and caused you a lot of trouble, yet in the end social conventions required you to express gratitude

3 Backpfeifengesicht (German): A face badly in need of a fist

4 Bakku-shan (Japanese): A beautiful girl… as long as she’s being viewed from behind

5 Desenrascanco (Portuguese): “to disentangle” yourself out of a bad situation (To MacGyver it)

6 Duende (Spanish): a climactic show of spirit in a performance or work of art, which might be fulfilled in flamenco dancing, or bull-fighting, etc.

7 Forelsket (Norwegian): The euphoria you experience when you are first falling in love

8 Gigil (pronounced Gheegle; Filipino): The urge to pinch or squeeze something that is unbearably cute

9 Guanxi (Mandarin): in traditional Chinese society, you would build up good guanxi by giving gifts to people, taking them to dinner, or doing them a favor, but you can also use up your gianxi by asking for a favor to be repaid

10 Ilunga (Tshiluba, Congo): A person who is ready to forgive any abuse for the first time, to tolerate it a second time, but never a third time

11 L’esprit de l’escalier (French): usually translated as “staircase wit,” is the act of thinking of a clever comeback when it is too late to deliver it

12 Litost (Czech): a state of torment created by the sudden sight of one’s own misery

13 Mamihlapinatapai (Yaghan): A look between two people that suggests an unspoken, shared desire

14 Manja (Malay): “to pamper”, it describes gooey, childlike and coquettish behavior by women designed to elicit sympathy or pampering by men. “His girlfriend is a damn manja. Hearing her speak can cause diabetes.”

15 Meraki (pronounced may-rah-kee; Greek): Doing something with soul, creativity, or love. It’s when you put something of yourself into what you’re doing

16 Nunchi (Korean): the subtle art of listening and gauging another’s mood. In Western culture, nunchi could be described as the concept of emotional intelligence. Knowing what to say or do, or what not to say or do, in a given situation. A socially clumsy person can be described as ‘nunchi eoptta’, meaning “absent of nunchi”

17 Pena ajena (Mexican Spanish): The embarrassment you feel watching someone else’s humiliation

18 Pochemuchka (Russian): a person who asks a lot of questions

19 Schadenfreude (German): the pleasure derived from someone else’s pain

20 Sgriob (Gaelic): The itchiness that overcomes the upper lip just before taking a sip of whisky

21 Taarradhin (Arabic): implies a happy solution for everyone, or “I win. You win.” It’s a way of reconciling without anyone losing face. Arabic has no word for “compromise,” in the sense of reaching an arrangement via struggle and disagreement

22 Tatemae and Honne (Japanese): What you pretend to believe and what you actually believe, respectively

23 Tingo (Pascuense language of Easter Island): to borrow objects one by one from a neighbor’s house until there is nothing left

24 Waldeinsamkeit (German): The feeling of being alone in the woods

25 Yoko meshi (Japanese): literally ‘a meal eaten sideways,’ referring to the peculiar stress induced by speaking a foreign language

http://bit.ly/Jj3UdA

Palabras que no existen