To describe something tiny or insignificant compared with something vast, you might reach for phrases like a drop in the ocean or a drop in the bucket. In Mandarin, thereβs an equally picturesque phrase that translates as nine cows, one hair, δΉ η δΈ...
Enthusiastic book recommendations! Martha’s savoring the biography of Alexander von Humboldt, the 19th-century explorer, polymath, and naturalist who revolutionized our understanding of nature and predicted the effects of human activity on...
In Japanese, the word san (γγ) means βthreeβ and kyuu (γγ γ) means βnine.β Said together, the words sound like English βthank you,β so back in the 1990s, when pagers were all the rage among Japanese teens, typing 999 was a quick way to punningly...
You know that Yogi Berra quote about how Nobody ever comes here; it’s too crowded? Actually, the first person to use this was actress Suzanne Ridgeway, who appeared in several movies with The Three Stooges. A new book shows that many well...
If you start the phrase when in Rome… but don’t finish the sentence with do as the Romans do, or say birds of a feather… without adding flock together, you’re engaging in anapodoton, a term of rhetoric that refers to the...
The English language has been greatly enriched by borrowings from the languages of Asia. Barely scratching the surface, we have from Japan skosh, tycoon, tsunami, origami, yen, kimono, futon, and karaoke. From Chinese comes yen, kowtow, gung ho, and...
