Bob's blog - the realm of threalm

ALDaily has again wormholed me into another world. So I have belatedly recently discovered the calque  and a breathtaking array of other fresh linguistic neologisms and concepts from the clashes, enjambments and entanglements of English living with other languages.  The source is an engaging article in European Review of Books called Beamer, Dressman, Bodybag  by Alexander Wells .  If you love words please read it. I fancy you too will enjoy it and be as enchanted as I. Unexpectedly, Wells turns out to be an Australian, which may be one of the reasons I immediately felt comfortable with his tone, self deprecatory yet probing, but his piece sings a many layered and complex song that rises above its locality, Berlin, and its subject, English and Deutsche.  It seems that the global conquest of English as a linqua franca has now moved well beyond the realm of "globish", the pidgeon in which business people who are non native English speakers from different nation...

Gender, Race and Climate. These are the big ideas that matter in the 21st century. So get with the Zeitgeist folks.  You gotta go woke. As I understand the current, constantly changing, received progressive position on these big 3 topics, here's what we're supposed to think and believe: Gender : A person can be whatever gender they want to be. Anyone who thinks or says otherwise commits a crime against humanity. Race : Only blacks, the indigenous and people of colour can have and express legitimate views on blacks, people of colour and indigenous issues. Any white person doing so is a racist, wrongly appropriating the exclusive privilege of disadvantaged victims. Accordingly it is wrong for a non-BIPOC person to believe or, worse, say that all races are equal and that we should never discriminate against any person on the basis of race. This is because a non-BIPOC person cannot understand racial prejudice because they have not experienced negative racial discrimination and beca...