The Land of Cockaigne and freebies
Молочные реки, кисельные берега — вымышленная земля в русских сказках. Польский аналог Kraj Kròla Goždzika, немецкий - Schlaraffenland, голландский — Luilekkerland, французский — Pays de Coquaigne, английский — The Land of Cockaigne.
Шлараффенланд, Шлараффия (нем. Schlaraffenland, нидерл. Luilekkerland) — вымышленная земля в немецких сказках, где живут лентяи, буквально страна ленивых обезьян, от (средневерхненем.) sluraff — лентяй, Affe — обезьяна и Land — земля.
Описывается как страна, где всего в избытке — земля с молочными реками и кисельными берегами, в которой звери бегают и летают жареными, дома сделаны из пряников, вместо камней повсюду лежит сыр. Наслаждения являются добродетелью обитателей страны, а упорная работа и прилежание — грехом. У кого старая жена, тот может послать её к колодцу омоложения и она вернется назад снова молодой.
Идея впервые появилась как пародия на рай в сатирической поэме Себастьяна Бранта «Корабль дураков», созданной в 1494 году, однако ещё в V веке до н. э. подобные идеи присутствовали у поэтов Телеклеида и Ферекрата.
 

The Land of Cockaigne and freebies
Молочные реки, кисельные берега — вымышленная земля в русских сказках. Польский аналог Kraj Kròla Goždzika, немецкий - Schlaraffenland, голландский — Luilekkerland, французский — Pays de Coquaigne, английский — The Land of Cockaigne.
Шлараффенланд, Шлараффия (нем. Schlaraffenland, нидерл. Luilekkerland) — вымышленная земля в немецких сказках, где живут лентяи, буквально страна ленивых обезьян, от (средневерхненем.) sluraff — лентяй, Affe — обезьяна и Land — земля.
Описывается как страна, где всего в избытке — земля с молочными реками и кисельными берегами, в которой звери бегают и летают жареными, дома сделаны из пряников, вместо камней повсюду лежит сыр. Наслаждения являются добродетелью обитателей страны, а упорная работа и прилежание — грехом. У кого старая жена, тот может послать её к колодцу омоложения и она вернется назад снова молодой.
Идея впервые появилась как пародия на рай в сатирической поэме Себастьяна Бранта «Корабль дураков», созданной в 1494 году, однако ещё в V веке до н. э. подобные идеи присутствовали у поэтов Телеклеида и Ферекрата.
 

You might have observed, lately, how Americans seem always to be talking past one another—how we’re failing one another even at the level of our vernacular. In the America of 2020, socialism could suggest “Sweden-style social safety net” or “looming threat to liberty.” Journalist could suggest “a person whose job is to report the news of the day” or “enemy of the people.” Cancel culture could mean … actually, I have no idea at all what cancel culture means at this point. Fox, on its own, did not create that confusion. But it exacerbated it, and exploited it. The network turned its translations of the world into a business model. Every day, the most watched shows of the most watched cable network in the country—a prime-time destination more popular than ESPN—take the familiar idioms of American democracy and wear away at their common meanings. The result is disorientation. The result is mass suspicion. Like a vengeful God bringing chaos to Babel, Fox has helped to create a nation of people who share everything but the ability to talk with one another.

"There is quite a lot of evidence that learning to read in English just takes longer because it's harder than other orthographies," says Karin Landerl, a professor of developmental psychology at the University of Graz, Austria.

Children who speak languages as diverse as Welsh, Spanish, Czech, Finnish and many others, all tend to learn to read more quickly than English-speakers.

Welsh children can read more words in Welsh than English children of the same age can in English. In Finland, most children can read within a few months of starting school, while it takes English-speaking children much longer. A study comparing children learning to read in English, Spanish and Czech found that reading skills in the latter two languages soared soon after the start of instruction, while the English-speaking children progressed more slowly.

As Russia was dropping missiles on Ukraine by the dozens in mid-December of last year, the Ukrainian parliament adopted a new Law on National Minorities, in order to comply with the EU's accession criteria of protecting national minorities. What this new law does, however, is exactly the opposite: Kyiv strips from its ethnic minorities rights which they had previously enjoyed.​​​ ​​

Ethnic minorities, for instance Poles, are not guaranteed under the new legislation to freely use their ethnic-national symbols, even though they are fighting on the front lines, and Poland provides the biggest possible support to Ukraine.​ ​​T​hey are provided less time to air Polish-language media content and can barely use their mother tongue in schools or outside their homes, even though they were free to do so since the independence of Ukraine.

https://www.newsweek.com/suppression-suppressed-ukraines-restrictions-minority-rights-opinion-1779946

The Dutch explain the habit by being open-minded, outspoken and averse to anything that involves indirect messages. The Dutch are proud of being straightforward.

The British are appalled by the Dutch ways because they are comfortable in the cognitive space space encircled by politeness constraints.

Which of these two modes of discourse is "right" is difficult to say. One must learn to communicate with both.

Decoding oldest known sentence written in first alphabet

20 FEBRUARY 2023|ARCHAEOLOGY

In a landmark discovery, a team of Israeli archaeologists have decoded the oldest known sentence in the ancient language of Canaanites. The inscription found on an ivory comb unearthed in Tel Lachish, the second most important city in the Biblical Kingdom of Judah, provides evidence for the use of the alphabet some 3,700 years ago.

The sentence throws light upon the struggle of early humans against lice:

May this tusk root out the lice of the hair and the beard.

Activists have poured yellow and blue paint on the road just outside the Russian embassy in London in a striking show of solidarity with Ukraine.

Led By Donkeys, a campaign group, recreated a giant Ukrainian flag on Bayswater Road, near Hyde Park, the day before the one-year annivers ary of the war.

The initial phrase - Lions led by the donkeys -i s a reference to stupid politicians who led brave soldiers into WWI .

Get - that's one of the most challenging English verbs. But when it is used with a preposition after it, it really is sometimes maddening to decode. 

English with Lucy may certainly be helpful:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jXK006PVir4

Even in our own mother tongue, we still learn a new word every two days

When we learn a new word, we continuously update our knowledge around that word until we have a firm grasp of it, Gaskell says. He gives the example of "breakfast", a word most of us use confidently. But when another, similar-sounding word comes along, it can renew our uncertainty around that existing word.

"At some point in the last five years or so, you would have learned the word 'Brexit' [referring to the UK's vote to leave the European Union], and that's a strong competitor to 'breakfast'," he says.

When the new word "Brexit" competed with the existing word "breakfast" in people's minds, mix-ups happened. A plethora of newsreaders and politicians came up with phrases like "Brexit means breakfast" and "ploughing ahead with a hard breakfast". To use the new word appropriately, and distinguish it from similar-sounding words, we need to link it to our existing knowledge, Gaskell says: "And in order to do that, you need to have some sleep."

https://www.bbc.com/future/article/20230213-how-people-dream-in-foreign-languages