Monthly Archives: May 2012

Molly and Polly / Are two of a kind / They look both the same / When they’re seen from behind / But when they turn round / It’s easy to see / That it’s Molly with an M / And Polly with a P

Posted on 2012-05-30 by colin

That came back to me in a flash from more than thirty years ago earlier this week. What if television programming for small children included little songs about integration by substitution, the appendices to Kennedy’s Latin Primer, or the ribosomally-encoded … Continue reading →

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Glottalization and aspiration in Georgian: evidence from user interfaces

Posted on 2012-05-28 by colin

If you type into the search box on the Georgian-language Wikipedia, you may be surprised to see Mkhedruli, the modern Georgian alphabet, appearing instead of Roman. That means you can search for ??????? without having to copy and paste. What … Continue reading →

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Hidden degrees of economic freedom

Posted on 2012-05-27 by colin

Some people in the UK are very keen on the imperial system of weights and measures as a symbol of national identity, even though each of the units is pegged to the SI system and in fact affords the government … Continue reading →

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Where one part of the body stands for another part of the body

Posted on 2012-05-25 by colin

It’s an old sexist convention that you can sell your product with a picture of a woman with her mouth slightly open because having one’s mouth slightly open is reckoned to indicate sexual availability. Not by me, of course. Why … Continue reading →

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Ejective affinities

Posted on 2012-05-20 by colin

This title was prompted by having seen As You Like It in Georgian. Say ‘t’. Now make a glottal stop. Now do both at once. It’s a bit like pronouncing a word-final ‘t’ normally and enunciating it at the same … Continue reading →

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