June 27 2020 ‘The’ tops the league tables of most frequently used words in English, accounting for 5% of every 100 words used. “‘The’ really is miles above everything else,” says Jonathan Culpeper, professor of linguistics at Lancaster University. But why is this? The answer is two-fold, according to the BBC Radio 4 programme Word of Mouth. George Zipf, a 20th-Century US linguist and philologist, expounded the principle of least effort. He predicted that short and simple words would be the most frequent – and he was right. The second reason is that ‘the’ lies at the heart of English grammar, having a function rather than a meaning. Words are split into two categories: expressions with a semantic meaning and functional words like ‘the’, ‘to’, ‘for’, with a job to do. ‘The’ can function in multiple ways. https://www.bbc.com/culture/article/20200109-is-this-the-most-powerful-word-in-the-english-language

June 23, 2020 The state of Finland is not a very old construction; for centuries, what is now Finland was under the Swedish kingdom. While Swedish was the language of the upper class, Finnish came to be associated with the lower classes, the peasantry and the clergy. It was only in 1809 that Finland got autonomous status from Alexander I of Russia in the Finnish War and became the Grand Duchy of Finland, the modern predecessor to what is now Finland. This was when a strong Finnish identity began to be built, and Finnish language began to flourish.

Honesty aside, the nation’s alleged happiness certainly wasn’t obvious. To my eyes, Finns were helpful but not interfering, warm yet stoic, and clear but not extremely expressive. What was apparent, though, was their direct communication style, something Strellman attributes to their core values of honesty and straightforwardness.

“We are bad in small talk – always better to be silent than talk about something with no point,” she said. “There is a strong idea that you have to speak things as they are, not making empty promises, and not trying to polish up things. Finns appreciate bluntness over eloquence.”

http://www.bbc.com/travel/story/20200615-why-finnish-people-tell-the-truth?referer=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.bbc.com%2F

June 21, 2020 Eskimo Pie - a brand of ice-creams - is the latest victim of political correctness:

People in many parts of the Arctic consider Eskimo a derogatory term because it was widely used by racist, non-native colonizers. Many people also thought it meant eater of raw meat, which connoted barbarism and violence. Although the word's exact etymology is unclear, mid-century anthropologists suggested that the word came from the Latin word excommunicati, meaning the excommunicated ones, because the native people of the Canadian Arctic were not Christian.

But now there's a new theory. According to the Alaska Native Language Center at the University of Alaska Fairbanks, linguists believe the word Eskimo actually came from the French word esquimaux, meaning one who nets snowshoes. Netting snowshoes is the highly-precise way that Arctic peoples built winter footwear by tightly weaving, or netting, sinew from caribou or other animals across a wooden frame.

But the correction to the etymological record came too late to rehabilitate the word Eskimo. The word's racist history means most people in Canada and Greenland still prefer other terms. The most widespread is Inuit, which means simply, "people." The singular, which means "person," is Inuk.

https://www.npr.org/sections/goatsandsoda/2016/04/24/475129558/why-you-probably-shouldnt-say-eskimo

June 17, 2020 TASS, June 12. Queen Elizabeth II on Friday congratulated Russian people on the occasion of the national holiday - Russia Day.

"It gives me pleasure to send my warmest greetings on the occasion of your National Day, together with my best wishes for the people of Russia at this difficult time," the British Embassy in Russia quoted the Queen on Friday on their Telegram page. The innocent words of the Queen were given an absurd interpretation by conspiracy-mongers. Nothing strange: the day is absurd, its celebration is absurd, the interpretation of the Queen's congrats is absurd in the extreme!

https://weekend.rambler.ru/crazy-world/44350315-v-poslanii-elizavety-ii-rossiyanam-nashli-predskazanie-kraha-rf/?utm_source=weekend_media&utm_medium=main_now&utm_campaign=self_promo&utm_content=weekend_media&utm_term=pos_3

June 13, 2020 There are six official languages of the UN. These are Arabic, Chinese, English, French, Russian and Spanish. All of them are vehicular languages ,and imperial languages. A lingua franca (/ˌlɪŋɡwə ˈfræŋkə/  lit. 'Frankish tongue';  also known as a bridge language, common language, trade language, auxiliary language, vehicular language, or link language, is a language or dialect systematically used to make communication possible between groups of people who do not share a native language or dialect, particularly when it is a third language that is distinct from both of the speakers' native languages.

June 11, 2020 “Choon paan” loosely translates to “music bread” in Sinhala. During my childhood, the fresh-off-the-oven kimbula (“crocodile”) bun we bought from the choon paan man for evening tea gave me bliss. This beautifully fluffy, buttery, home-baked bun was sprinkled with sugar and twisted into a slender, crocodile-like shape. Half of it was for me, the other for my father.

For us growing up on the tropical island, Beethoven meant bread

For years, these small trucks all played the same, tinny recorded music. When I heard the faint hum of the breadman from a distance, I would run to the dusty path and call my father. Years later, during music classes in school, I realised that this familiar tune that we Sri Lankans just called “choon paan music” was actually Beethoven's 1810 classic Für Elise.

So, how did this classical composition written in Austria come to symbolise fresh-baked confections in Sri Lanka?

http://www.bbc.com/travel/story/20200610-sri-lankas-musical-choon-paan-bread-trucks?referer=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.bbc.com%2F

June 7, 2020 In Germany, as the famous expression goes, “Ordnung muss sein” (“there must be order”). In fact, this proverbial saying is so well-ingrained in the German psyche that it’s become a cultural cliché for Germans around the world, and a way of life for them at home.

http://www.bbc.com/travel/story/20200531-what-makes-germans-so-orderly?referer=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.bbc.com%2F

June 3, 2020 I wonder whether you know the idiom "way to go". way to go - молодец (восклицание в знак одобрения) Way to go, Mary! You've done a great job! — Молодец, Мэри! У тебя отлично получилось! way to go informal used to express pleasure, approval, or excitement way to go That's the stuff! Way to go! — Отлично! Так и надо!

June 1, 2020 The difference between "to pull oneself up" and "to do one's chin-ups" is the fundamental difference between neutral and informal way of arranging one's ideas in English. The informal is believed to be a native-like NATURALNESS pursued by all the learners of English as a foreign language.