Mike Jones's blog

The Reflux Phenomenon

There seems to be a trend in English which, for lack of any other name that I am aware of, I will call the "reflux phenomenon", namely, that word-pairs strong in one direction come to be accepted, to the horror of self-proclaimed purists, as being valid in the other direction as well. The word "affect" being increasingly accepted to mean "effect" is one instance of this. Another is the increasing acceptance of "infer" to mean "imply" - to the extent that, I hear tell, it is condoned by some dictionaries. My third and last example for now is "i.e." being used to also mean "e.g.". No less of a cultural maven than Marisha Pessl, author of Special Topics in Calamity Physics, uses "i.e." to mean "e.g." on p. 350 of that debut novel of hers.

What is Esperanto essentially, or, for that matter, what is English/Greek/French... essentially?

I just ran across some jokes about language, including Esperanto (of course) that I had never seen before. These jokes are all of the form "A is essentially B". Here is the link to the set of jokes about Esperanto, but from there you can easily navigate to similar jokes about English, Greek, etc.:

http://home.ccil.org/~cowan/essential.html#Esperanto

Happy reading!
Regards,
Mike Jones
26.Dec.2012
Fort Worth Texas

Carol for Another Christmas

I have noted before in this forum that oftentimes what someone says about a given topic seems like an advertisement for Esperanto. Here is the link to my original post on this:

http://www.esperanto-usa.org/en/content/they-could-be-talking-about-espe...

I've just run across another example of this that I want to share with you, a blockbuster-sized item where, "they could have been talking about Esperanto": the TV movie "Carol for Another Christmas".

I just saw this movie today, on Turner Classic Movies (TCM). The main theme was, "bloodshed starts when talking ends". Wow. You could hardly set the stage better for the introduction of Esperanto, because the talking that they were talking about was in an international context.

After watching the movie, I looked it up in Wikipedia, where they mentioned that it was shown only once: December 28, 1964, but Wikipedia also noted:

Will the emerging discipline of Microhistory buoy the Esperanto Movement?

The biggest bane of the Esperanto Movement is that it is routinely marginalized, either deliberately, or thoughtlessly. However, the emerging discipline of Microhistory is a trend in the direction opposite to marinalization, and therefore the Esperanto Movement might be lifted by it. Microhistory might be what sets the stage, perhaps unintentionally, for allowing Esperanto to finally get the hearing it deserves.

Enigmoj

Provu vian manon je ĉi tiuj enigmoj:

http://trovi-frazon-anglalingvan.weebly.com/submenuo32.html

Afable,
Mike Jones
16.nov.2012
Fort Worth Texas

La Efiko Wyatt Earp

En la novaĵoj hodiaŭ estas kozo pri persono kiu antaŭdiris, detale, la rezulton de la voĉdonado. Jen estas la ligo al la rakonto pri tio:

Election Prediction:
http://news.yahoo.com/called-now-silvers-pop-culture-star-193343931.html

Tio igis min demandi ĉu temas pri La Efiko Wyatt Earp. Jen ligo al mallonga skizo pri La Efiko Wyatt Earp:

http://voices.washingtonpost.com/ezra-klein/2009/06/the_problem_with_rea...

(la parto kiu komenciĝas per " This is sometimes referred to as the Wyatt Earp effect. Wyatt Earp was famous in part for surviving a large number of duels without ever being harmed. Quite improbable, no? ")

Mi decidis iom esplori pli pri La Efiko Wyatt Earp, kaj tio kondukis min al la Wikipedia-artikolo pri la Kondiĉa Probablo ("Conditional Probability"). Tie estas mencio pri artikolo fremdlingva (verŝajne en la germana) pri La Efiko Wyatt Earp. Jen la ligo pri tio:

Wyatt Earp Effect (in: Wikipedia article on Conditional Probability):

A Talking Elephant

Just now I saw a news story on Yahoo about a talking elephant. Here, fyi, is the link to the story:

talking elephant:
http://www.grindtv.com/outdoor/blog/39408/a+talking+elephant+mimics+kore...

Happy reading!

Regards,
Mike Jones
2.Nov.2012
Fort Worth Texas

Example sentences in various languages

So far as I know, no mention has yet been made in this forum about the website TATOEBA that gives examples sentences in various languages, including Esperanto, so I just wanted to give the link here to the Esperanto portal:

http://tatoeba.org/epo/home

Happy reading!

Regards,
Mike Jones
1.Nov.2012
Fort Worth Texas

Plia kozo de senintenca Esperanto

"Alfani"

Jen:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alfani

Afable,
Mike Jones
30.okt.2012
Fort Worth Texas

Trovi frazon anglalingvan

Jen:
http://trovi-frazon-anglalingvan.weebly.com/

Afable,
Mike Jones
26.okt.2012
Fort Worth Texas